HumanChessgame

The discussion in the Sabu thread made me want to ask this without derailing: what are your favorite cup of coffee runs a guy or team had in a promotion or territory?

Has anyone else had such a lengthy and well-regarded career despite rarely if ever cutting a promo or doing interviews?

Like others here I first heard about Sabu in the magazines for quite some time before ever seeing him actually wrestle. I can't remember if my first time seeing him in motion was a tape of ECW's weekly show on a random sports channel or his short lived WCW run. One of my wrestling Mandela Effects is thinking Sabu wrestled a young Devon Storm on Worldwide (Cagematch tells me it was Chris Kanyon) and getting disqualified doing one of his table spots. Through the years I got deeper into his back catalogue of insane matches and could always respect his willingness to completely disregard his own well-being in order to entertain. No matter your opinion of wrestling, he was one of those few who just had "it" that made you believe just for a little while. He had a remarkable career that went far longer than one would expect given what he put his body through. I have to wonder if he felt the end was near and managed to marshal the strength for one last go in his retirement match.

Fuego Del Sol came back to GCW this weekend, turned heel, and announced he's working under his real name (KJ Orso) from now on.

I wonder if Marina and Roddy are a package deal. Speaking of wrestling spouses, Dolan/Kelly is married to Zachary Wentz who is under TNA contract so I'd think that could be an in for her, unless TNA is that far under the same umbrella as WWE.

If they do bring Shayna in as a Marina replacement, just have Shayna come out, ether Marina, and just proclaim to the rest of the Deathriders that she works for them now.

Or if they gave him a lucrative contract while including Zelina in the latest round of cuts.

I'd almost liken them to the ECW arena fans back in the day on account of how for years NXT was taped at the same place every month and was basically a regional indy in terms of their live event schedule. It lead to a lot of the regulars being so keen to chant shit and feeling like a part of the show. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that's a fun experience, but at the same time it lead to a fanbase that liked chanting shit for the sake of chanting shit.

Isn't Shayna another of those who have seemingly been released and re-hired multiple times or did she just have nothing to do for long periods of time?

I think Razor Ramon was the first heel I really got into. He was just so much cooler than everyone else. Also, and this is really random because pre-teen me always liked the odd characters in the WWE mid card in the early-mid 90s, I always thought Adam Bomb was cool as hell too. On the flip side, who was the first face you really couldn't stand? Liking Razor Ramon made me realize I could never stand Shawn Michaels when he became a face.

The opening match was basically the match they'd have on the last night of BOLA featuring all the people who lost in the first round.

Normally I'd have nothing even remotely resembling interest in a Cena/Orton program, but the switch of the face/heel dynamic is interesting enough to keep me from shutting it off. The bell will have to ring at some point, but we all knew this would be part of Cena's retirement tour and it's something to do before pivoting back to Cody regaining the title. I'm glad to see Black back but unenthused about a potential Miz feud. Hopefully it segues into a program with Melo instead which could definitely work. The TLC match was left of Mania because it would have showed up most of what was on the actual card.

Heyman was a promoter at Studio 54 back in the 80s. I could see he and Andrew Dice Clay being friends.

I assumed Bayley was just another wrestler who was legit injured going into WM and they booked around it (seems like they speed ran Becky turning). Maybe Becky/Isla is a placeholder feud for Bayley to come back and feud with her? Either way this is a lot of speculation about someone's potential attitude towards their position at their job based on a few questionable booking decisions.

This was the best post-Mania Raw I can think of in a long time, probably because it fell on Rusev Day.

Well, that was better than night 1 at any rate. As tired as I am of excessive 3/4 way matches and the No DQ stip that goes overboard, the Women's title match was great and had a fantastic finishing sequence. The right person definitely went over. The rest of the card was what it was. I'm assuming Cody is winning the belt back by Summerslam.

Just finished Spring Break and I thought this has been the best show I've seen this weekend so far. People have commented on some of the other matches, but I thought Mance Warner/Gabe Kidd deserves mention for how stiff it was. This was the first time I'd heard of or seen Bozilla and I thought she was an impressive specimen for being relatively new to wrestling.

I watched the opener while cooking dinner and had the sinking feeling Gunther was going to lose, but the finish had it look like Big Daddy Walter is All Elite. Proof that to get over nowadays, just make sure fans like to chant shit. After that I had other things occupying my interest and tuned back in to watch a few other bits. Chad Gable is a generational talent not just due to his in-ring skills but also his ability to make any bullshit angle work. Also good for the Lucha Brothers for both getting Mania spots in different matches. This has to be a special moment for all involved. Charlotte/Stratton was spidermanpointingatspiderman.jpg. They even had similar colored gear. Is Charlotte one of the biggest cases of being top of the card to most go away heat in recent memory? Part of it might be her being gone for a while and not having once she once did, but she seems to have lost quite a bit of good will from the crowd. The main event was definitely a thing that happened.

I watched on a delay so I could skip around to what actually interested me and thought the tag title match was the best part of the show. While the multiperson matches weren't bad, I thought it was less interesting than any one on one matchups might have been.

If Lesnar wasn't blacklisted, I'd expect Heyman to swerve everyone by slipping back into Advocate Mode to have him come out and wreck shop.

ZSJ/Gresham and Dunne/Thatcher really didn't understand the assignment

I was always a big fan of when two JTTS guys got together and made an underdog run of it. When the 123 Kid had those brief runs with both Bob Holly and Marty Jannetty I was all for the underdogs getting a quick shine. They actually beat The Headshrinkers by DQ on a Coliseum Video collection and I remember marking big for that. This made me decide to look up the actual match history Waltman had in both of those teams and I see a series of Kid/Holly vs Heavenly Bodies matches on a house show run that I bet were actually really good. Val Venis and Bob Holly were another one of those super short lived teams that I dug. With all the titles floating around nowadays it's also crazy to think there were only two back then and the world title NEVER got defended on tv. Even the IC title was treated like a big deal and something you weren't going to see that often.

I watched Mania and most other ppvs live since I've worked weekends for the past 11 years (for background noise while working more than anything) but now that I'm not I actually don't see myself going out of my way to watch it until the day after should I find something more interesting to do. Some of the matches are fine on paper (Rey vs. Totally Not Gable) and I kind of want to see how the angles play out in the two main events, but the rest of the card is tepid at best.

At the recent ICW NHB show Atticus said he was retiring from doing deathmatches. After seeing him announced for that show I wondered if he was trying to pull a John Moxley or Joe Gacy, which I can't see him doing. I'd always thought Izzy was some Make a Wish kid or had a mental handicap but I guess she's a normal human and trying to make a go of wrestling? A lot of the collective and other assorted indy shows look more interesting than Mania tbh.

There's also the fact it's been about 2 years since Aldis last wrestled and over 10 since Pearce had a match. I'm assuming Owens' injury is a work until proven otherwise.