Gorman

He's a big wrestling fan who posts a lot on Twitter and blocks people with reckless abandon.

I am stoked that Bix included the Samoa Joe-Low Ki match that I called at the first Glory By Honor.

Thoughts on In Your House 22: Fully Loaded Val Venis is the quintessential Attitude Era wrestler. Once the era ended, he was on borrowed time. Even though Edge was still "lurking in the crowd" at this time, Edge was able to win 10 world titles because he wasn't pigeonholed into a raunchy gimmick like poor Val. Not sure why D-Lo Brown didn't put the European title on the line against X-Pac, when D-Lo ended up winning the match. Of course, the perfect reason for D-Lo or any heel champion would be, "We're not in Europe." Bradshaw was angry with his partner, Terry Funk, for announcing his next semi-retirement before the match. Bradshaw was also facing his future partner, Faarooq, while still wearing his old Blackjacks trunks. Paul Ellering was interfering liberally on DOA's behalf against the Road Warriors, even though he usually stands there holding the Wall Street Journal. His outfit touted himself as "Wizard of the Web" and "Mr. Dot Com." Did Ellering even have a website? Sable was the No. 2 star of the show, as her bikini contest was in the co-main event, and Jerry Lawler was salivating over her all night. Dustin Runnells said a prayer for all of the lost souls before the bikini contest, even though he was wearing a "WWF Attitude" shirt. Mankind deserved to walk into the main event with a title belt after the unearthly amount of punishment he took at King of the Ring. Owen Hart is the MVP for inviting a UFC Superfight champion to his house and beating him in a submission match. Owen did a great job using his familiarity with his own basement to his advantage. The match was worked as realistically as possible, but then it hilariously went into "sports entertainment" mode with a screwjob finish after a ref bump (even though the ref was Dan "The Beast" Severn, another UFC Superfight champion). I love Double Double F.

I am announcing on Saturday night for Cleveland Knights Championship Wrestling. Bell time is 7:05 at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Parma, OH (1900 Carlton Road). Shane Douglas was set to challenge J-Rocc for the title in an extreme rules match. J-Rocc has had some medical issues, so I'm not sure what's going to happen there. Taya from Lucha Underground will be there to challenge Vanilla Vargas for the CKCW women's title. We also have Kongo Kong and Laredo Kid from Impact Wrestling, as well as Ricky Reyes. I think there will be a "Puerto Rico vs. Mexico" theme going on. Come on out, Cleveland peeps!

JR tweeted a photo of the US title bracket in the days before the show, and he said he was doing research.

No pun intended

Thoughts on King of the Ring 98 When I walked into the arena in Pittsburgh and saw the gas cans on the announcers' table, I knew something big was going to happen. I had no idea. Ken Shamrock put Jeff Jarrett in the anklelock, and he tapped out immediately. That's how you sell an MMA submission hold. The announcers were looking forward to a Shamrock-Severn final, so they must not have seen their fight at UFC 9. Check out my UFC History Project to learn how unfathomably bad that fight was. When Severn lost to the Rock due to a top-rope splash by a chest-protector-clad D-Lo Brown, he must have thought, "I never had to worry about that in the UFC." I'm glad I got to see the first match featuring an inanimate object as a participant. It seemed like Al Snow was in a handicap match against Too Much, but when he tagged in Head, he had a weapon that he could use legally. Owen Hart and X-Pac started their match with the same spot from their King of the Ring bout four years earlier. This time, it was X-Pac delivering the baseball slide dropkick before the opening bell. A match between the WWF and NWA tag team champions would have been mind-blowing 10 years earlier. Chyna proved to be a better equalizer than Jim Cornette, whose tennis-racket smash did not lead the Midnight Express to victory. Ken Shamrock won King of the Ring by continuing his dominance of the Rock, which somehow didn't result in winning the IC title from him. Rock and HHH got into a scuffle to kick off their feud. Mankind is the obvious MVP, as he cemented his legendary status with his falls off and through the Hell in a Cell. Nobody expected the match to continue after the fall off the cell. When it did, the match moved into a category all its own. The Violence Meter was broken, and we were in uncharted territory. After Stone Cold Steve Austin lost the WWF title to Kane, the fans silently filed out of the building as if the Steelers had just lost on a last-second field goal.

Thoughts on In Your House 22: Over the Edge Droz helped the Road Warriors beat DOA in the opener, but he looked out of place as their understudy. Face paint would have helped. Dick Togo looked fantastic in Kaientai's win over the "odd couple" of Bradshaw and Taka Michinoku. Marvelous Marc Mero is the MVP thanks to his swerve that knocked Sable out of the WWF "forever." This really should have made Mero a big star. He could have bragged for months about Sable being gone and gotten huge heat. Of course, Sable was so valuable that they couldn't keep her away too long. Faarooq wins the rare Least Valuable Player award. First, he piledrove The Rock, almost costing himself a shot at the IC title later in the show. When Rock was forced to wrestle anyway, and with the Nation banned from ringside, Faarooq still couldn't beat him. Jerry Lawler's segment with Crusher and Mad Dog Vachon went on way too long. The use of Vachon's artificial leg would have been much more effective if we hadn't seen it two years earlier in the Shawn-Diesel match. The WWF dropped the ball twice with Vader. First, they should have put him over Shawn Michaels at SummerSlam 96. Here, he was over huge as a babyface, but he lost his mask and cursed at himself after the match. Owen Hart got a big win in the DX-Nation match after hitting the Pedigree on HHH onto the European title belt. Owen also pinned Austin in the 10-man tag at Canadian Stampede one year earlier. So in a multi-man match, Owen could beat anybody. Austin's win over Dude Love was the perfect encapsulation of his feud with Vince McMahon. In this match, Vince was the Donkey Kong to Austin's Mario, throwing a nearly endless supply of obstacles at him. At King of the Ring, Vince would finally succeed at getting the belt away from Austin.

Thoughts on In Your House 21: Unforgiven Faarooq, Steve Blackman and Ken Shamrock may be the baddest six-man tag team of all time. They marched down to the ring and threw up the Nation fist, even though they were fighting the Nation. Who's going to argue with them? Sgt. Slaughter went to ridiculous lengths to keep Chyna from interfering in the HHH-Owen match by suspending her above ringside in a shark cage .... and she still escaped! She bent the bars like Superman and Road Dogg snuck into the control area and lowered her cage. Because he's a roadie, remember? Tennessee Lee was fantastic as Jeff Jarrett's Southern-fried hype man. Somehow, Jarrett became even more obnoxious when Tennessee was doing the bragging for him. This was a huge upgrade from Jarrett's affiliation with the NWA squad. Luna beat Sable very easily in the evening gown match. One year later, Sable would the lose the WWF women's title by winning an evening gown match over Debra. Let's not even try to figure that one out. The WWF hilariously presented the crowd in Greensboro with an NWA tag team title match between the Rock & Roll Express and the Midnight Express. Bob Holly and Bart Gunn comprised the Midnight Express (with "ME" on their tights). The Rock & Rolls still had "NWA" on their tights, even though they had broken away from Jim Cornette's faction. The inferno match looked great, even though someone was obviously pressing the "FLAMES~!" button on every spot. Vince McMahon is the MVP. His presence led to a shadow of a chance that Austin would lose the title after just one month. Plus, Vince got waffled with a chairshot to set up the "stacked deck" main event of the next pay-per-view.

Thoughts on WrestleMania XIV Marvelous Marc Mero must have marked out because boxing legend Marvelous Marvin Hagler was in attendance. Hagler legally changed his name to "Marvelous." The Road Warriors made a strong re-debut with cool new outfits and Sunny as their manager. This was a much-needed facelift and finally rescued Sunny from "guest ring announcer" duties. Chyna continued to emerge as a star. She managed to help HHH beat Owen Hart to retain the European title despite being handcuffed to Sgt. Slaughter. Sable's strong performance lifted the mixed tag match to "hidden gem" status and helped make WM 14 a surprisingly great show. Ken Shamrock again failed to win the IC title despite beating The Rock cleanly. This time, Shamrock's lengthy post-match attack resulted in a reverse decision. I would have rather seen Shamrock and the Road Warriors booked as dominant babyface champions rather than guys who constantly get screwed out of winning a title. Kane also helped WM 14 to become a better show than expected. Since he was a heel, nobody expected him to attack Pete Rose, who was heeling on the Boston fans. Kane gave Undertaker a tremendous fight, living up to the six-month buildup of the feud. Shawn Michaels is the MVP of the show, even though it served as Steve Austin's coronation. Halfway through the match, Michaels' back was in excruciating pain. He didn't cut the match short, but he gave the fans a full-length WrestleMania main event. HBK even got punched out by Mike Tyson after the match. He took more than four years off after leaving everything in the ring on this night.

Tonight at 7, I will be announcing for Cleveland Knights Championship Wrestling at Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Parma, OH (1900 Carlton Road). Shane Douglas, Robbie E and Krimson are on the show. Come on out!

No, not Sean Mooney.

Hey, that's me ring announcing. You can't see me because we didn't have a wireless microphone for that show.

Thoughts on In Your House 20: No Way Out of Texas The WWF added "of Texas" to the title, to avoid legal trouble with WCW over the "N.W.O." initials. Marvelous Marc Mero and Goldust lost to the Headbangers, and all four men were overshadowed by the fight between Sable and Luna. The fans really caught on to Sable's getting active rather than just cheering for her man at ringside. Pantera looked fantastic against Taka Michinoku, busting out a lot of high-flying offense. Too bad we didn't see more of him, like the situation when Taka stole the spotlight from Great Sasuke on his debut. I didn't remember that The Quebecers returned to the WWF to join the pile of midcard tag teams. They lost to the Godwinns, so they weren't getting close to another shot at the belts. Jeff Jarrett's NWA backup crew of Barry Windham, Jim Cornette and the Rock & Roll Express was trying to come off as old school, but they really just seemed old. It's almost as if the WWF allowed Cornette to run with this idea as a rib on him. Ken Shamrock continued to dominate his feud with The Rock by making him tap out in the eight-man War of Attrition match. Kane wins the MVP award for pinning Vader with the tombstone and clobbering him in the face with a wrench. He kept rolling toward his WrestleMania showdown with The Undertaker. The absence of Shawn Michaels created a very weird dynamic for the main event. DX said that nobody could fill Shawn's shoes, but the WWF forced them to accept Savio Vega as a substitute partner. This made sense because Los Boricuas helped out DX during the casket match at the Royal Rumble. Austin pinned Road Dogg and then got a huge pop for hitting the Stunner on Chyna to close the show.

Thoughts on Royal Rumble 1998 The Artist Formerly Known As Goldust had a fun opener with Vader. Luna riding on Vader’s back during the Vader Bomb looked great at the finish. Sunny was relegated to refereeing a six-man mini-luchador match, while Sable’s star was starting to rise. The Rock lost to Ken Shamrock but retained the IC title by planting a set of brass knuckles on him for a reverse decision disqualification. They would do a similar finish at WrestleMania, in which Shamrock clearly won the match but didn’t walk away with the title. The New Age Outlaws also hung onto the tag team belts by getting disqualified against the Road Warriors. Despite this chicanery, the Outlaws really looked strong in this feud by calling Hawk & Animal old and keeping the belts away from them. Stone Cold Steve Austin is the MVP for winning the Royal Rumble despite “everyone gunning for him.” The announcers hyped “Austin v. Everyone” all night, even more than the main event. The Rumble field was very weak, as Mick Foley was used three times, and there was even a “blank spot” teasing that Austin had been attacked backstage. I had forgotten about Undertaker’s mini-reunion with Kane before the Rumble. Kane saved Taker from the same fate that befell him against Yokozuna four years earlier. Alas, Kane then turned on Taker, gift-wrapping another win for Shawn Michaels. Kane setting the casket on fire was crazy and probably scared a lot of children.

In fact, he was hit with a Great Ball of Fire.

"The Curse of Greatness"

He worked the Pittsburgh indies, because I called some of his matches for IWC. I don't know where else he's wrestled, so that would be a good starting point.

I think the Hardys will be added to the Raw tag title match --- it is a ladder match -- and will win the belts, causing 70K fans to chant "DELETE"

Ambrose knows that US/IC title defenses involve a lot of paperwork.

Bate wrestled Oney Lorcan on the NXT TV episode that was taped before the San Antonio Takeover.

I expect The New Day to show up because Feb. 29, 2017 is a new day on the calendar.

The RAW tag title match on the preshow between The Bullet Club and Sheamus & Cesaro is going to have two referees.

Last year, Roman Reigns was the champ and he was forced to enter at No. 1 and defend the belt throughout the entire Rumble.

Yes -- I announced that match for IWC at "Accept No Limitations" on 11-13-2004. It was for Joe's ROH title as well.