Wrestling

[The Unknown Poster]

He had 61 straight sell outs of MSG which is incredible. 

I started watching when he was the colour man for WWE and he had a memorable angle with Randy Savage.  After Savage had crushed Steamboats throat with the ring bell, he was being interviewed by Bruno and was bragging about it and Bruno lost it.  "You're filth!  You're slime!" and then grabbed Savage by the throat with both hands.

He was goaded into coming out of retirement mainly to team with his son David Sammartino but David never made it.  Bruno did do some matches with "modern" guys like Savage, HTM and others.  Hogan had a photo tweeted with them teaming together.

When we think of Hogan being on top in the 80's, Hogan had a 4 year reign.  Bruno nearly double that and 11 years over two reigns.  Really incredible.  The ethnic working class hero was a big deal.  Vince Sr went with Pedro after Bruno.  And then Bob Backlund.  When WWWF brought in Hogan the first time, the reason he was called Hogan was to appeal to Irish fans (named by Vince Sr).

And ofcourse, Bruno Mars was actually named after him!

[sweep the leg]

His prime wrestling days were before my time, so I remember him mostly as being a terrible colour guy. I do remember the fight with Macho Man though.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

Edited April 19, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[Brandon]

So no WFX revival then  

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-one-world-united-jeff-dyck-1.4626794?cmp=rss

I couldn't believe how blatant and how amateurish his scams were.  

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[The Unknown Poster]

12 hours ago, Brandon said:

So no WFX revival then  

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-one-world-united-jeff-dyck-1.4626794?cmp=rss

I couldn't believe how blatant and how amateurish his scams were.  

You're really failing at life when the judge agrees with your appeal that the original judge erred but not to your benefit and increases your fine.

I remember in...must have been 2004, my former partner (and Dyck's then-partner) came to me and asked for an investment in their wrestling company because Dyck was having trouble coming up with his half.  I politely declined.  It was always smoke and mirrors.  By the time Dyck had real money to invest in wrestling, it was other people's money.  House of cards.

When it began to come crashing down the...oh the 2nd or 3rd time (before he was busted), my former partner had a falling out with Dyck.  I had a friend who worked for Dyck in one of his other businesses and encouraged Dyck to stay in wrestling which Dyck wanted to but he was tunnel visioned on the idea that my former partner was the only one who could produce wrestling events.  This mutual friend convinced him I'd do a better job so Dyck said, well, send me a six month outline for a wrestling TV show.  So I did and it was really good (featured guys being Omega, AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Joey Mercury etc).  And the best part was, I budgeted the six months to essentially be similar to one or two of the shows Dyck had previously financed (because they were badly over-paid).

He took one look at the plan and had zero interest because it didnt feature "big enough stars".  Oh well (dodged a bullet).

[Goalie]

⬆

Thats a bit 2 much Dyck for my liking

[The Unknown Poster]

WWE will be airing a Bruno documentary on the Network following RAW. 

[Brandon]

So the guy was a massive mark then?

The AWE show I went to which was I think at the U of M was well attended and the show went over decently.

The WFX shows however were ridiculous,  did you ever attend any of the shows TUP?    They had at times 20 or so import talent and the crowds were maybe 150 if that.   I saw more packed cards with Ringmasters with the HTM as the only name...  the guy must of been really bad at marketing or something because ticket prices were decent and the venue was the best I've been to locally.

[The Unknown Poster]

1 hour ago, Brandon said:

So the guy was a massive mark then?

The AWE show I went to which was I think at the U of M was well attended and the show went over decently.

The WFX shows however were ridiculous,  did you ever attend any of the shows TUP?    They had at times 20 or so import talent and the crowds were maybe 150 if that.   I saw more packed cards with Ringmasters with the HTM as the only name...  the guy must of been really bad at marketing or something because ticket prices were decent and the venue was the best I've been to locally.

Was that venue IGAC? Or Marlborough?

In between stints where AWE and WFX were hated rivals I helped out on one event at IGAC (which sucked)  and one at the Marlborough (which was good)

i think their last few events were at an old church studio off McGillivray but I never attended. We were pretty fierce competitors then. 

[Brandon]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Was that venue IGAC? Or Marlborough?

In between stints where AWE and WFX were hated rivals I helped out on one event at IGAC (which sucked)  and one at the Marlborough (which was good)

i think their last few events were at an old church studio off McGillivray but I never attended. We were pretty fierce competitors then. 

For AWE I saw the one at IGAC...  Lex Luger was on the mic and was terrible,   Kidman didn't wrestle until 3 hours in the show... Kenny Omega had a "MMA" match with Dan Severn which was super lame.  The show did have a good crowd though. 

The church studio on McGillivary is where I saw all of the WFX shows.  Went to almost each one and the first had a crowd of around 300 but lots of the casual family fans were annoyed becase the show ran late and they kept piping a commercial to buy a one world united credit card which people had zero interest in doing so.     The shows themselves were paced nicely and the talent was great for the most part.    But as each show went on they had less of a crowd.  It felt like a mark was wasting money to watch his old favorites in the ring.     The credit card thing was ridiculous, I saw maybe only a hand ful of people dumb enough to sign up for one ,  most of the people simply wanted to get autographs and see some of the wrestlers.   

The idea of meeting the wrestlers and getting an experience was nice but I didn't understand why they didn't do what CWE does and have a convention instead with a wrestling show as only a small part of it.    Also I would assume at most conventions the wrestlers you do meet are not coked or pilled up and can actually carry a conversation without making themselves look bad.  Just weird business all around.   

[The Unknown Poster]

On 4/20/2018 at 6:17 PM, Brandon said:

For AWE I saw the one at IGAC...  Lex Luger was on the mic and was terrible,   Kidman didn't wrestle until 3 hours in the show... Kenny Omega had a "MMA" match with Dan Severn which was super lame.  The show did have a good crowd though. 

The church studio on McGillivary is where I saw all of the WFX shows.  Went to almost each one and the first had a crowd of around 300 but lots of the casual family fans were annoyed becase the show ran late and they kept piping a commercial to buy a one world united credit card which people had zero interest in doing so.     The shows themselves were paced nicely and the talent was great for the most part.    But as each show went on they had less of a crowd.  It felt like a mark was wasting money to watch his old favorites in the ring.     The credit card thing was ridiculous, I saw maybe only a hand ful of people dumb enough to sign up for one ,  most of the people simply wanted to get autographs and see some of the wrestlers.   

The idea of meeting the wrestlers and getting an experience was nice but I didn't understand why they didn't do what CWE does and have a convention instead with a wrestling show as only a small part of it.    Also I would assume at most conventions the wrestlers you do meet are not coked or pilled up and can actually carry a conversation without making themselves look bad.  Just weird business all around.   

A little local history:

AWE's first show was November 19th 2003 at Coyotes Nightclub featuring Buff Bagwell & Shane Madison vs Adam Knight & Chi Chi Cruz in the main event.  They also had an "MMA Exhibition" between Dan Severn and Donny Dicaprio.  What's funny is, a rival promoter, Ernie Todd of the Canadian Wrestling Federation (which was a local affiliate of the NWA), apparently reported the Severn/Dicaprio match to the Boxing Commission and wanted people arrested illegally promoting a prize fight.

That show was promoted by my former partner Mike and while Jeff Dyck might have been involved I do not believe he was involved financially.  I think his initial relationship with Mike was providing promotion through his magazine "Heat".

Coyotes sort of became a battle ground in 2003.  A long-time promoter named Bobby Jay (he appeared on WWE TV a few times in the "jobber" role when they ran locally), had closed down his promotion, TRCW.  This was basically the end of the war of '02 between TRCW and our promotion.  My partner Mike used to be booker for TRCW and thats how we met.  Mike got fired and he and I joined forces to start our own thing.  When TRCW closed down, Bobby came and worked for us.  In 2003 he came to use and said Coyotes was interested in running a big show with imports and Bobby wanted to do it, but would do it friendly using our talent. It was delicate because our main venue was the LID which was a competitor of Coyotes.

So we agreed.  But as it turns out, Bobby was actually talking to Coyotes about running weekly shows and wanting to "get back" at us.  He went to our roster members to gauge interest in screwing us.  One of them tipped us off.  So Bobby decided it wasnt worth the hassle.  But since Coyotes was interested and everyone knew it, everyone wanted to get in there.

the aforementioned CWF, owned by Ernie Todd, actually got in there on a weekly deal paying a very strong fee per show.  But the CWF sucked at the time.  That was October 2003, I believe.  In August, my partner Mike had quit our promotion in somewhat of a powerplay (basically we were not going to continue as partners and one of us had to go - Mike quit, assuming most of the roster would quit with him, and thus, I'd be forced out, which didnt happen).

Mike then pursued the Coyotes deal but since they had a contract with CWF, there was nothing they could do other then go down to the bar every week and point out all the flaws in the CWF.  So after about three weeks, Coyotes kicks CWF out (there was a threat of a lawsuit) and AWE was born.  But Coyotes was burned on the idea of paying for wrestling.  AWE ran their November debut off the gate (ie. they financed it themselves and sold tickets to recoup costs).  Coyotes provided advertising.

That first show was fairly busy but lost money.  Money was borrowed to meet payroll.  Coyotes was happy with their end though and offered AWE to run weekly, but off the gate.  AWE didn't want any part of losing money and declined.

By January, Mike and the AWE crew were all back in my promotion (Mike and I had been co-defendants in a wrestling-related lawsuit and thats what got us friendly again).   We worked together for all of 2004.  Mike had been vocal to me about his desire to run more AWE shows and now Dyck was involved as a partner.  Mike explained their plan as running quarterly big shows with big import talent and he'd want to use some of my talent roster and that it would all be friendly and win-win.

They planned their second show for Nov 2004 featuring Sid Vicious among others.  But it didnt come together in time.  This plan was to tape the show and air it as a Pay Per View (on delay).  In January 2005, Mike called me asking if I'd consider investing.  He said Dyck did not have his half of the seed money.  I declined.  The plan presented was that the show would cost X amount (like $20,000-$30,000) but only about $5000 up front (airfare, deposits etc).  So they only needed $5000 and would hope the show was so successful, it covered the expenses on the back end.  I wanted no part of that (we ran a show in 2002 in a similar way and it was idiotic and a disaster).

According to Mike, he had his half of the $5000 (I believe he said his gf lent it to him) but Dyck didnt have his, but was considering borrowing it from "bikers". 

However he got it, Dyck ended up with his half and they planned the big event for March (no Sid this time).  Throughout the process, Mike had included me on group emails to talent.  But in December, he sent a group email to his key people but *not* me.  Unfortunately for him, he accidentally added the wrong person (same first name and similar last night) and that person anonymously sent it to me.

It detailed the plan for AWE to pretend we were all working together but to screw us with talent jumping ship and them securing a weekly show deal with Canad Inns (which never happened).  When I confronted Mike, he denied it.  I then read him the email...and he was silent. 

So AWE did go forward in March 2005 at the IGAC (and we were competitors until spring 2006 when AWE went on hiatus).  Their March event had Jamie Noble, Rikishi, Billy Gunn & Jim Duggan.  As I recall, they drew really well, like probably in the 1200 range (Unless Im confusing that with a WFX show).  But they were back there in October and I see a result online listing 298 fans.  And that was at IGAC so it would have looked horrendous.  That had Bagwell, Rikishi, Gunn, Brian Christopher, Dan Severn (vs Omega in a "shoot fight") & Lex Luger.

They ran again in December at IGAC with the Steiner Bros etc.

They ran several shows in small towns but they werent big and didnt draw well.  If I recall correctly, Dyck's business at the time was a bottled water company (I think they sued him over their money being misappropriated to fund wrestling).

I recall another show at IGAC that I was backstage at but cant find any results.  It featured Beefcake, Sunny among others and I remember it didnt draw well and Sunny was unhappy because they didnt have the right music.

AWE then folded (the word was, they owed a lot of money so went bankrupt).  And in 2007, WFX began.  Their first show was at the Convention Centre and drew flies.  I was backstage (Mike and I were friendly again).  Show featured Ultimo Dragon, Joey Mercury, Brian Christopher, Buff Bagwell, Angel Williams, Orlando Jordan, Jon Heidenreich, and Rikishi.  Oh and Kishi's cousin....I cant remember which Samoan, Tonga Kid maybe?  Doing a Umaga impersonation.

The height of WFX success was their next show, at Marlborough Hotel with Jerry Lawler, Billy Gunn, Ultimo Dragon vs Kenny Omega, Chris Masters, Virgil etc.  It was super packed.  I was backstage producing segments and running Gorilla for the Rumble main event. 

Funny stories from that show: The ring announcer almost walked off half way through the show because Mike yelled at him too much.  And since the ball room is on an upper floor, you need to get the ring up there.  It was too large for the service elevator so these poor kids carried the ring up the stairs.  Only one problem, Marlborough is so old, the stair case actually gets narrower as you rise.  Half way up, the ring posts became wedged between the floor and the ceiling.  Mike looks at the situation and orders the crew to smash a hole in the ceiling!  (I believe there was a lawsuit over that).  In the end, I think the posts had to be cut and then welded back together.

By the following month, Dyck had bought the Church and thats where they taped the rest of their shows.

I dont remember when their last show was, but it was a weird ECW thing with Shane Douglas.  I remember because we had a show the same night at Dylan's and we out drew them.

One of the many problems with the vision was them taping TV at these events, so they'd have 6 half hour episodes to tape which means fans saw the same guys over and over and over again.  And they were TV matches (not balls to the walls, short time limits).  I recall a story where the boys perceived the show as not being very good so in the main event Johnny Devine decided to have a really good match.  Can't recall his opponent, might have been local by Shawn Houston.  Anyway, he disregards the 10 minute time limit and goes like 30 minutes, feeling they can edit it down later but he wants to give the local fans in attendance a good match.  Mike is radio'ing the ref to tell them to end it and they disregard.  Devine walks backstage and Mike is ready to kill him.  They stepped into a private office and "settled" it (with contrasting outcomes depending who tells the story).

Dyck ended up leaving town and going to Vegas.  He and Mike had a falling out.

And that's the story of AWE/WFX.

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[Brandon]

I remember the Luger / Bagwell /  Kidman show at IGAC.   I went because I was a huge fan of Billy Kidman (no idea why just was) and this was the first time I went to a bigger local show and was pretty pumped to see a lot of guys who were still relatively close to being in top shape.       I think that show may have been closer to 1000 in the crowd because two sides of the ring had at least 20 rows with people in them.    Regardless I was soured after watching the local guys over and over again... I think I watched guys like Chevy and Sanchez four times before Kidman had his first match.   

WFX at the Church had a max 300 people attend if that even.     It was bizarre considering they had a lot of interesting talent on the show.  

 

[Brandon]

I do have one question... I was working at a place way back in the day and my manager was involved in local wrestling (possibly a wrestler) and flyered the hell out of our store and our customers for Eddie Guerrero show.    Was this AWE or PCW?   I can't remember?   His name was Doug S**** and was a bigger guy probably would say his body and face looked mostly like Bam Bam Bigelow (minus the tattoos)  was that your company?

[The Unknown Poster]

1 hour ago, Brandon said:

I do have one question... I was working at a place way back in the day and my manager was involved in local wrestling (possibly a wrestler) and flyered the hell out of our store and our customers for Eddie Guerrero show.    Was this AWE or PCW?   I can't remember?   His name was Doug S**** and was a bigger guy probably would say his body and face looked mostly like Bam Bam Bigelow (minus the tattoos)  was that your company?

We (PCW) brought in Eddie yes. March 2002. That name doesn’t sound familiar though off the top of my head.  I was new back then though so I may have known his stage name and that’s it. 

Edited April 24, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[The Unknown Poster]

13 hours ago, Brandon said:

I remember the Luger / Bagwell /  Kidman show at IGAC.   I went because I was a huge fan of Billy Kidman (no idea why just was) and this was the first time I went to a bigger local show and was pretty pumped to see a lot of guys who were still relatively close to being in top shape.       I think that show may have been closer to 1000 in the crowd because two sides of the ring had at least 20 rows with people in them.    Regardless I was soured after watching the local guys over and over again... I think I watched guys like Chevy and Sanchez four times before Kidman had his first match.   

WFX at the Church had a max 300 people attend if that even.     It was bizarre considering they had a lot of interesting talent on the show.  

 

Their concept really made it hard for them.  Today, Impact gets criticised when it does six days of tapings.  AWE/WFX was doing six days of tapings in one night.  Its a really negative experience for fans.  They really needed to script the shows a lot better for the live crowd rather then simply taping the episodes more or less in order.

There also just isnt a market to draw 1000+ on a regular basis.  My former partner and I always differed on this.  He was much more of an 80's & 90's wrestling fan then me and thought that the market would react to seeing old names the same way he would. 

We had a major argument in summer 2002 when we still worked together.  We were planning our event at Shaw Park (which was one disaster after another).  So we have this 7500 seat building to fill.  And Im always the negative voice in the room.  "How are we going to fill that?"  "It will look empty".  "There will be no crowd heat."  "What if it rains."  We went through several plans for headline talent.  Originally was wanted Sid Vicious and had the Goldeyes interested in letting him throw out the first pitch the night before etc.  Sid loved the idea but I think the Goldeyes were on the road.  And Sid's agent said "well, if he isnt playing softball, he'll be there."  So no Sid.

LOD were booked and then de-booked (Animal was furious).  We spoke to Randy Savage's agent who quoted $30,000 ("Randy doesnt want to take indy bookings but if someone will pay that price, he'll do it").  Finally, it was Bret Hart and Roddy Piper.  And the plan was the give Piper the key to the city and make it a really big deal.  Of course, me being the bearer of bad (but logical) news says "neither guy wrestles.  We're going to have this big crowd to see two guys and a show full of locals."  So we added Jim Neidhart.

Then Piper backed out due to some engagement with his son.   And Bret had his stroke.  But Bret's people kept his condition very secretive for weeks and kept telling us he would make his commitments (and we had a contract so we couldnt cancel, plus if we cancelled a guy due to a stroke we'd look like assholes).  Finally Bret does cancel and we're scrambling.

So the big debate is, a headline talent.  Of available guys, my partner is pushing King Kong Bundy, Jim Duggan or Bam Bam Bigelow.  Im pushing Jeff Jarrett.  So finally, Mike (my partner) ushers me and our business consultant (glorified babysitter assigned by the money guy) into a board room.  Oh yeah, funny story, so Mike was also suggesting we circle back to Sid, which I would have been on board with but you could tell Sid just didnt care.  So Mike says "Sid Vicious, we have to get Sid Vicious."  And our business consultant Hank, who's about 60, says "Ummmm, MIke, I hate to break it to you but I believe Sid Vicious is dead."

Mike and I just stare at each other before Mike finally says "No Hank, not THAT Sid Vicious."

So finally we agree to get the opinion of a third party.  We call down for Will Damon (one of our top guys at the time) to come up.  He walks in and we simply say, who's the best guy to bring in, Bundy, Jarrett, Duggan?  No delay, he says Jarrett.  Mike is irate.  But that settles it.  We leave the board room and by the next day, Bagwell was booked.  And I was told never to mention Jarrett again lol.  (We did end up adding LOD back to the show).

The record for indy wrestling here is 1750-ish.  That was us, with Eddie Guerrero, HTM & Beefcake.  Almost 1000 of those tickets was sold by our roster.  And we had CRAZY advertising.  Because it was our first event, we had "deals" with HOT 103 to be the presenter, POWER 97, WPG Sun, etc.  Probably $7500 cost but $15,000 value in advertising.  We were literally all over HOT 103.  So that 700+ people that bought tickets based on our marketing.

For the LOD/Bagwell event in July, we did about 1200 (and it looked terrible in Shaw Park).  The big difference?  The roster sold less tickets.  You simply cant get all your friends, family, co-workers etc to come every show.  Because its like a social, you're getting people that WANT to go, people that will go, couple times a year, people who are going for novelty, people who go just to support you and have no other interest etc. 

So thats what happened with AWE/WFX.  You can't keep going to the well.  Especially when there was unfriendly competition in the city and you have a roster that is basically split in half between AWE and PCW (the PCW guys, obviously, not selling AWE tickets or marketing their show).

Then when you go to a show and its super long with the same matches and locals over and over again.  And they are taping TV quality matches (shorter matches where guys are holding back because they have to work 6 times that night). 

So, this isnt meant to crap on them.  They had a big concept but even in a perfect world, its a really difficult execution.  And they weren't executing perfectly at the best of times.  At the Church, they started bringing in Reality TV stars which helped get sponsors and after parties but turned off the wrestling fans who didnt care about Big Brother or Survivor.

And I really think they sort of mis-judged the direction wrestling was going as far as seeing hot athletic stars vs the older WCW guys.  This last time, last fall, when they tried to bring WFX back, it was the same older stars and they literally sold, like 40 tickets or something before cancelling.  Two weeks beforehand they came to me and said they'd do anything if I could get Omega to do the show.  Wasn't happening.

Wrestling is booming in so many ways, but being a national promotion isnt one of them.

[Brandon]

The thing is that WFX would have a mix of current and older guys.    My memory is fuzzy but I'm pretty sure they had guys like the Daivari's ,  Chris Daniels,  Jimmy Jacobs and some other TNA guys who at that time were current.    I would only assume the reason they could not draw was because wrestling isn't popular anymore and also because most casual people who do go to shows are going out for a night of drinks and the wrestling is merely a side attraction for their night.       At the church they didn't have booze or anything and the shows ran late so it wasn't exactly kid friendly either.

[The Unknown Poster]

45 minutes ago, Brandon said:

The thing is that WFX would have a mix of current and older guys.    My memory is fuzzy but I'm pretty sure they had guys like the Daivari's ,  Chris Daniels,  Jimmy Jacobs and some other TNA guys who at that time were current.    I would only assume the reason they could not draw was because wrestling isn't popular anymore and also because most casual people who do go to shows are going out for a night of drinks and the wrestling is merely a side attraction for their night.       At the church they didn't have booze or anything and the shows ran late so it wasn't exactly kid friendly either.

Wrestling as an attraction is definitely the draw.  Like even at bars, for the most part, its not a "party" crowd.  Not always though.  When I broke in, it was because I worked at the LID (called the palladium at the time) and TRCW began running shows.  It was a new thing to have local wrestling at a cool bar, especially in the south end.  So for a few months it *was* the cool thing to do on Thursday nights.  As soon as that cool crowd got bored with it, it was done.

And then we started and basically scooped TRCW (took most of their talent, their ring and their venue) and we had a core group that was sort of that cool University party crowd but it was very up and down.  When my partner quit, it was partially because we were doing lousy business (not directly, but it caused strife in our partnership).  And we really built things back up on the basis of presenting wrestling to wrestling fans, not trying to present a "cooler" version to people who arent wrestling fans.

What I mean by cooler version, for example, when Mike started AWE and tried to get Coyotes, CWF was running there with guys like Kerry Brown, Brian Jewel, Rob Stardom, TJ Bratt.  None of those guys look like people you want to spend time with on a Saturday night at a cool bar.  And since CWF wasn't very good quality-wise either, you werent appealing to anyone.  Mike had his guys down there all the time talking to employees saying "no one wants to go the bar and see guys who arent in shape, dont have tans, dont have expensive gear, dont have cool hair etc".

So when they finally got Coyotes, the idea was good looking guys with good physiques, nice hair, deep tans etc.  Because it's "cool".  But the wrestling fans wont just take cool without quality.  And the fans that want cool who dont care about quality wont stick around long because there is always something cooler.

There are shows at family venues that draw.  I prefer doing adult shows but not just because of booze sales.

And while they did have some good workers (all the credit in the world to WFX for bringing in Ultimo Dragon who was a friggen legend), Chris Daniels might be the biggest draw of those guys (Kidman too).  Daivari's not a name.  Jacobs wasnt a name.  Noble was good but not a name.  Joey Merc, same thing.  In fact I was going to book Joey Merc based off of WFX because I knew he'd do well for us but our measure of success was way different.  I didnt need Merc to draw 1000 people to break even.

And once you have Steiner, Gunn, Kishi, Luger, your budget is so out of whack.  The fans that would be turned on by Daniels and Jacobs arent going to be fans of your product anyway because they get a 12 minute Kidman match against someone that maybe can't really hang with him and it's an after-thought because the real stars are the WCW guys that no one cared about anyway.

Whats crazy is, the way the business is now, with the production values of WFX (which were tremendous) but a different thought process as far as talent, there is enough guys to draw big.  I could draw 1000 people tomorrow with Omega and the Bucks.  Maybe just Omega to be honest. 

The other issue with WFX was, they only used guys that they could market TV around.  So anyone with a TV deal already had restrictions, including TNA guys I believe (or some of them).  And in a similar vein, some guys cant use their established name and music.  Locally, you'd be advertising Billy Gunn, but at the show he's The G-Man with generic music.  They actually got sent a cease & desist for using names and even the word "Superstars".

[SpeedFlex27]

Bludgeon Brothers, ugh.  Two losers getting a push. Luke Harper could do well on his own. Rowan is just bad.  Harper is the one who makes Rowan look good. 

[The Unknown Poster]

3 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Bludgeon Brothers, ugh.  Two losers getting a push. Luke Harper could do well on his own. Rowan is just bad.  Harper is the one who makes Rowan look good. 

Agreed. Harper is really good. Rowan is nkt. 

[Atomic]

I like the Bludgeon bros!  I was never a Rowan fan but I think he's better now than he used to be.

[Taynted_Fayth]

I just wish their entrance was about 4x quicker

[Taynted_Fayth]

The other night I was watching all sorts of interviews between Mean Gene and The Macho Man with my buddy, holy **** hilarious. I guess it's been a while since I watched any macho man footage but the guy was gold on the stick.  If the guy wasn't on some crazy drugs  at the time thenthey should have handed him an Oscar... or Emmy since it was on tv

[The Unknown Poster]

3 hours ago, Taynted_Fayth said:

The other night I was watching all sorts of interviews between Mean Gene and The Macho Man with my buddy, holy **** hilarious. I guess it's been a while since I watched any macho man footage but the guy was gold on the stick.  If the guy wasn't on some crazy drugs  at the time thenthey should have handed him an Oscar... or Emmy since it was on tv

My favourite was his “Cream of the Crop” promo where he seemed to have an endless supply of creamers. Macho was incredible.