Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

JUNE 2020 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


Recommended Posts

13 hours ago, Elsalvajeloco said:

I like how Native Hawaiians are so underrepresented in pro wrestling that people take a look at their names and instantly go "hmmm...".

LOOOOOL

I was literally in Hawaii in October of 2000 reading about Kea's name change in a PWI.  I checked a white pages (remember them?) and was gobsmacked by the sheer number of Mossmans in there.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was reading an ESPN article on the fall of the XFL and it got me wondering, do we know if Vince has ever considered buying the Harlem Globetrotters or any of the "On Ice" type stuff? I'd think that would fit their traditional business model and logistics better than football. Same arenas, same trucks/lighting, etc. 

Edited by For Great Justice
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, For Great Justice said:

I was reading an ESPN article on the fall of the XFL and it got me wondering, do we know if Vince has ever considered buying the Harlem Globetrotters or any of the "On Ice" type stuff? I'd think that would fit their traditional business model and logistics better than football. Same arenas, same trucks/lighting, etc. 

I read a really great story recently on prowrestlingstories about Vince promoting a failed Evel Kinevel jump, but I think that's the closest he's come (unless he did anything when he owned that building in Maine when Sr. was still alive, but I don't really know enough about that time period)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, LoneWolf&Subs said:

Is it true?

 

We literally talked about this last week when all of the #speakingout stuff started and before that, months ago, we talked about it in the AEW threads. We, uh, don't know for sure. I thought someone also found a review from Coach Tony K about a Cody match in WWE, but my memory on that is fuzzy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, For Great Justice said:

“If anything goes wrong, Tony Khan will be my Constant”

Yo shout out to the Lost thread on this board!!! After airings, this was my second stop after the Doc Jensen EW articles. Really wish my account was approved back then but glad to have made it eventually. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I caught some of it on TV too and it was a trip seeing all the people that were still around. Punk, Big Vis, Umaga, Kennedy (ugh), Batista, Michaels. Totally different company. 

The Cena pop was Road Warrior as hell. It ran through the whole rest of the match.

EbPdZrAXYAAiobv?format=jpg&name=small

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BurningBeard said:

Talking about under-representation, is Cesaro the one and only Swiss wrestler? Did he develop in a vacuum before being spotted by Chris Hero?

As maybe the only Swiss person on this board, I might be of help: The only other one with somewhat the same kind of international success was probably Rene Lasartesse, who was a fairly big deal in Europe and also fought in Japan and the USA, back in the 50s and up until the 80s. 

Cesaros former tag team partner in Swiss Money Holding, Ares, came to the States with him as well and fought for a while in Chikara and other indies. He's retired now and married to Allison Danger, I think. 

Oliver Carter, who's signed to NXT UK, is also Swiss with Ghanian roots. 

But yeah, the Swiss wrestling scene was never that much of a big deal. There have always been one or two small promotions around, at the moment I can think of Swiss Wrestling Entertainment and the Wrestling Academy Rorbas. I think Cesaro got his start in the Swiss Wrestling Federation, which folded 2005. 

  • Like 5
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, BurningBeard said:

Talking about under-representation, is Cesaro the one and only Swiss wrestler? Did he develop in a vacuum before being spotted by Chris Hero?

There was (and still is) a very small Swiss scene, that started about in 99. At first, there was a small local group that did shows in front of friends and family. In 2000, the expanded a bit, which is also when Claudio joined. At that point, they started to run about 10 shows a year in the German speaking parts of Switzerland. In 2004, that promotion tried to run a big show with lots of international guests (they got DDP, AJ Styles, Abyss, Disco Inferno and Sonny Siaki; Jeff Jarrett was booked for the show as well but no-showed as his wife got diagnosed with cancer - the contact to US talent went, I assume via Joe E. Legend to Scott D'Amore, who was also at the show). That show bombed spectacularly and the promotion shut down. Later on, some people tried to promote on a less regular basis, though also booking the occasional US talent (I was at a show in 05 that had Austin Aries defend his ROH Title and Honky Tonk Man was working the main event).

Most of the people either were just not interested in working internationally, i.e. more than once or twice a months or were just not that talented. The most prominent wrestler besides Cesaro is Cesaro's former tag team Ares, who was main eventing wXw for some time and moved to the US, where he wrestled for Chikara a bit. Don't quote me on that, but I think he is married to Allison Danger (which is why he moved to the US). A couple of other guys worked semi-regularly in Germany and Italy.

The Swiss shows when I attended them semi-regularly in the early 2000s usually were about 3/4 local Swiss talent and 1/4 German and Austrian wrestlers.

And of course, if you want to go further back in history, there is René Lasartesse, a long time star of the German Catch scene. He died a year and a half ago at the age of 90. He attended one or two of those shows mentioned above in the early 2000s, an apparently told the people there that he tried to run shows himself in Switzerland in the 70s or so and failed. His conclusion was that wrestling as a business does not work in Swiss culture.

  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Tromatagon said:

What about Siggy the Swiss Tank?

Yes, he's definitely been a central figure in the Swiss wrestling scene and has always been trying to keep it alive. I think he was the founder and promoter of the SWF as well as the SCW that came after. He was also probably one of Cesaros first coaches. As far as an in-ring-performer: He's been around Europe, mostly Germany. The last couple of years he's mostly been a referee. I think he got kicked out the wXw Hall of Fame a couple of weeks ago. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sigi was not a founder of SWF, the SWS was founded by a group in Oberglatt (who trained and wrestled amongst themselves; I think Danny Michaels was the first president of the group), though Sigi joined at some point in 2000 and was at least promoting some shows (I guess if the show took place in St. Gallen or Thurgau, they were promoted by him). After the Oberglatt group mostly withdrew, a non-wrestler called Fabio Sessa became the head. He was the brain of the whole US invasion thing with booking lots of big named US talent (which caused the end of the promotion).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh, and there's also this: The Swiss national sport is called "Schwingen", where you have to grab your opponent by some special pair of pants and you have to try to wrestle him to the ground or out of the circle. So there's this TV show on Swiss television called "Jobtausch", where Swiss people switch jobs with people from abroad in a somewhat similiar field. They took two Schwinger and put them in a match at the Empire Wrestling Federation in California, while Andy Brown and Scorpio Sky came to Switzerland to, uh, "Schwing". I think that's the most coverage wrestling has gotten in the Swiss mainstream for the last couple of years.

 

Edited by rahrahrachstainr
Link to comment
Share on other sites

30 minutes ago, Andy in Kansas said:

AEW performers as well, including QT Marshall. 

QT Marshall didn't test positive (yet). He had contact with someone who was positive and was told to go home and get tested.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, regarding WWE, that multiple people tested positive isn't remotely shocking. They've been doing the bullshit temperature check if they were even doing that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...