Wrestling

[SpeedFlex27]

15 minutes ago, Goalie said:

For sure. But it sounds like their personalities were the problem. Plus stupidity. 

Vince McMahon has brought other guys back who have done worse so I expect we'll see Big Cass again at some point in the future. 

[Goalie]

29 minutes ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Vince McMahon has brought other guys back who have done worse so I expect we'll see Big Cass again at some point in the future. 

I dunno. It depends what he does moving forward . But sounds like he was a huge pain in the ass. He brought guys back because money.. Cass hasnt drawn ****. 

Edited June 21, 2018 by Goalie

[SpeedFlex27]

28 minutes ago, Goalie said:

I dunno. It depends what he does moving forward . But sounds like he was a huge pain in the ass. He brought guys back because money.. Cass hasnt drawn ****. 

Being with Enzo killed Cass. Then the injury & subsequent bad attitude. Vince loves his big men so if he makes a name for himself elsewhere like Drew McIntyre did why not? 

[Goalie]

7 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Being with Enzo killed Cass. Then the injury & subsequent bad attitude. Vince loves his big men so if he makes a name for himself elsewhere like Drew McIntyre did why not? 

Cuz hes not Drew Galloway.. He doesn't have the drive. Enzo was over AF.. Cass was just there. Without Enzo, Cass is just a tall guy with no personality. Enzo is a POS but he was a massively over POS. 

[The Unknown Poster]

13 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Seems to me a lot of these young wrestlers like Big Cass & Enzo are given things too much too soon compared to wrestlers of 25-30 years ago. How old is Big Cass? Twenty four?? He should still be honing his craft in the Indies & not the WWE. Used to be that a wrestler could learn the business & his skills wrestling in an independent circuit like in Memphis, the NWA or AWA for many years. Now, they impress on NXT & get bumped up to the main roster. That's why I never get excited about the talent coming up from NXT & they aren't ready. 

Cass was with WWE for 7 years and worked in NXT under Hunter, Regal etc.  I think if anything will prepare you for WWE's expectations, its going through NXT.  Definitely, the "indies" and ROH/New Japan talent that go to WWE are far better than anyone recruited directly through the performance centre though.  There isnt much of a replacement for just working all over and learning as many styles as possible. 

12 hours ago, Goalie said:

BTW, only marks get offended when someone calls them a mark. Like a Star Wars geek who cant get over the fact that the New Star Wars isn't catered to them. 

This doesn't make much sense.  If you use a word (even if you use it wrong) as an insult towards someone, you can't then pretend it wasnt an insult.  If you call someone an ******* you cant say only an ******* would be offended at being called an *******.  lol  That is illogical.  "Mark" has a generic meaning but when it's thrown around, its usually meant as an insult.  In the way you used it, you either dont know what it means (or how to use it) or you simply tried to diminish the opinion of the preeminent journalist in the industry.  Either way, dont get offended.  😉

10 hours ago, Goalie said:

For sure. But it sounds like their personalities were the problem. Plus stupidity. 

It was their personalities specifically, yeah.  Enzo especially which is why he was given no favours when the rape allegations surfaced.  Cass was actually a favourite of Vinces (of course) but the series of incidents soured him.  The bus door thing, ignoring a directive from Vince himself on how to work a segment with the little person, blowing off a promo rehearsal and then doing a bad promo.  They werent happy with his work with Bryan and if you cant work with Bryan, there isnt much hope for you

10 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Vince McMahon has brought other guys back who have done worse so I expect we'll see Big Cass again at some point in the future. 

Absolutely possible.  Usually guys in one of two ways.  They either feel like WWE was the only place to be and now they're gone so its time to move on to something else in life or they get excited about re-inventing themselves and finding the love they used to have for wrestling.  Cass is still young and has decent name value so he can work indies if he wants.  I'd suspect ROH and Impact would be interested.  Im not sure if he has any friends that would get him into the "All In", New Japan circuit but its possible.

9 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

Being with Enzo killed Cass. Then the injury & subsequent bad attitude. Vince loves his big men so if he makes a name for himself elsewhere like Drew McIntyre did why not? 

Keep in mind, Cass was a Hunter guy and was fired by Vince.  In fact, both were.  I like Cass and the split with Enzo wasn't a positive for him.  If it was me, I'd have kept them together for awhile as a top team.  But they wanted to use Enzo to help get 205live over, which he was doing until he got fired.  Cass would have benefited from being kept with Carmella but Hunter felt she'd be a bigger star on her own than being a valet for the team.  Obviously he was right.

Who have thought when Cass, Enzo & Carmella were called up that Carmella would be the biggest star and most successful of the three? lol

Edited June 21, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[The Unknown Poster]

Some notes from Dave Meltzer's Vader bio (I wont post the entire thing because its a pay site):

Quote

 

 

Leon White, who was the best and most versatile 400-pound pro wrestler in history, passed away on 6/18 at the age of 63.

Best known as Vader, or Big Van Vader, White was a college football star, a powerhouse who could bench press nearly 600 pounds, and shocked people in the early 1990s when he started doing moonsaults in his biggest matches. He worked very physical, but he was a major star in companies all over the world, a major drawing card on multiple continents and one of the major figures worldwide during the decade of the 90s.

White himself was most proud of the fact that he was the only wrestler to have held the most recognized world championships in as many major markets, being a top drawing superstar in the U.S., Japan, Mexico and in Europe.

During his career he held All Japan’s Triple Crown twice, at the time when it was still a major promotion and selling out Budokan Hall on a regular basis.

He held the CWA world heavyweight title in Europe three times and is generally remembered as the greatest rival of that area’s legend, Otto Wanz, which is where he got his first superstar break.

He held the IWGP heavyweight title three times, the most of any non-Japanese wrestler in history(the title Kenny Omega currently holds)

He held the UWA world heavyweight championship once, which at the time was the leading heavyweight title in Mexico.

He held the UWFI world heavyweight title once, in a shoot style organization, and once sold out Jingu Stadium in Tokyo with 46,148 fans for a match with Nobuhiko Takada.

He held the WCW world title three times.

He was also scheduled to win the WWF championship in 1996 and do a program with Shawn Michaels, but Michaels nixed the program and that program instead went to Sycho Sid

White came into pro wrestling when he wasn’t able to overcome knee injuries that plagued him during an NFL career with the Los Angeles Rams.

At 6-foot-3 and 260 pounds, he was a third round draft choice of the Los Angeles Rams. He suffered a knee injury in training camp and was on injured reserve for the 1978 and 1979 seasons. Although the 1979 team only went 9-7, they won the Western Division of the NFC and went all the way to the 1980 Super Bowl, where they lost 31-19 to the Pittsburgh Steelers. White was technically on an NFC championship winning and Super Bowl team, but actually never played a down in an NFL regular season game.

Trained in the AWA and debuted as "Baby Bull" White
 

New japan created the Big Van Vader gimmick with the big helmet that shot smoke and was originally intended for the Ultimate Warrior.  Warrior got the WWE gig and backed out.  Sid Vicious was also considered before White was chosen.

Big Van Vader's debut was a squash against Masa Saito who almost never lost at the time.  The idea was to make an instant new super top guy in Vader but the fans rioted and badly damaged the building.

When Vader defeated Canek in November, 1989, before a sold out crowd of 18,000 fans at El Toreo in Naucalpan, he became the first pro wrestler to hold major world titles (IWGP, CWA and UWA) simultaneously on three different continents at the same time.

Perhaps Vader’s most famous match was on February 10, 1990, when he faced Stan Hansen at a sold out Tokyo Dome.

The match was brutally stiff, with Vader suffering a broken nose, and then, with punches exchanged, it was believed that Hansen accidentally thumbed Vader in his eye which caused his eye to pop out of its socket. Vader unmasked himself and pushed his eye back in its socket and tried to hold it in place with his eyelid.

Vader’s biggest U.S. program came at that time with Sting, battling over the WCW title.

While Sting, like almost everyone, had great matches with Ric Flair, he was never able to consistently reach that match level after Flair left the promotion. Vader was a completely different style of opponent, but Vader, after all the years working with top guys in Japan, had turned into the best worker for his size of anyone in pro wrestling history. He and Sting meshed well and this would generally be remembered alongside the Flair matches as the best of Sting’s career.

Vader’s style hurt Sting. He broke some of Sting’s ribs and fractured his spleen early in their 1992 program.

He broke the back of Joe Thurman with a stiff power bomb.

Mick Foley suffered a concussion from a sick power bomb on the floor from Vader which led to the infamous Mick Foley amnesia angle, which was one of the worst angles of its time. Foley also suffered a broken nose and bled heavily in a television match that ended up heavily edited before it aired due to the amount of blood.

Vader also debuted his moonsault during this period.

Vader, whose weight probably ranged from 350 to 430, practiced the move in his swimming pool. At first it was used when he was going to lose, with the idea he’d miss a moonsault and then lose, but that nobody would be talking about his loss, and everyone would be talking about the idea that he did a moonsault,

Was forced to drop "Big Van" from his name and worked in Japan as Super Vader.

Had the memorable Retirement vs Championship match with Ric Flair at Starrcade 93. Originally scheduled to be Sid vs Vader with Sid going over to become the new face of the company, Sid and Arn Anderson got into a wild hotel brawl where Sid stabbed Anderson almost to death and got fired.  WCW scrambled and came up with the Flair plan which was much better.

the natural match-up was Hogan vs. Vader, a match between two of the biggest worldwide stairs of the era that had never taken place.

Hogan wasn’t going to put Vader over

The Hogan vs. Vader feud did big PPV numbers by WCW standards, along the lines of what Hogan vs. Flair did. In the first meeting, which Vader lost via DQ due to interference by Flair (who had lost a retirement match to Hogan a few months earlier), Vader kicked out of the leg drop at one. Then, in a strap match, Hogan won, but he was declared the winner by dragging Flair, who was dressed up in drag, around all four corners. The idea was Hogan still hadn’t beaten Vader. Finally this led to a cage match at the Bash at the Beach show in Los Angeles, which Hogan won by escaping the cage.

However, Vader was always mad because Hogan insisted on popping up and no selling his power bomb

There was always the feeling that Hogan should have put Vader over at one point, and also that Vader should have put Hogan over via pinfall after that.

Vader ended up being fired from his lucrative WCW contract after a backstage brawl with Paul Orndorff, acting as an agent

Orndorff told Vader to come in to do an interview, and Vader ignored him. The two started yelling it started getting physical. Orndorff dropped Vader with a punch and started kicking him with his feet, wearing sandals.

While Vader was largely respected for his ability to have great matches and his agility for a man his size, he had a mixed reputation. He drank a lot. He was often looking for sympathy or a sympathetic ear to the point some labeled him as a big baby.

1996 was the right time to go to WWF, which was in a business slump.

The plan was for him to go through a newly-turned face Yokozuna, form a tag team with Foley and then split up, and build to a WWF title program with Shawn Michaels.

But Michaels wanted out of the program quickly, and Vader’s run was not a success. In WWF, he was labeled as a crybaby, knocked for having smelly ring gear and with the mentality by some in the company that WWF was the big leagues and nothing else counted, and that he was both washed up and overrated.

e was battling depression at the time due to his lack of success and once on television referred to himself as a fat piece of ****. After the Kane loss, in an interview he did, whether scripted or not, he buried himself further saying, “Maybe Vader time is over. I’m a fat piece of ****. A big fat piece of ****.”

He was clearly wrestling’s comeback story of 1999, beating Akira Taue for the Triple Crown, winning the Champion Carnival tournament with a win over Kobashi, trading the title with Misawa before losing to Kobashi.

From December 1998 to February 2000, Vader headlined five sold out Budokan Hall shows with the tag team tournament finals and singles matches with Misawa and Kobashi twice and one with Taue. He also headlined the Tokyo Dome on May 2, 1989, with Misawa, on a show that drew 50,000 fans and $5 million.

He had a major altercation with the Yakuza while in Japan as well where he was stabbed all over his body

He had a number of health problems stemming from injuries from such a hard bumping style, years of heavy drinking, being so heavy and usage of steroids. He was divorced in 2007, had both knees replaced and was bedridden for six months after an infection from surgery. Later he was in a coma for 33 days. He was in a terrible auto accident in 2016 which left his face badly contorted although it went back to its usual shape.

In 2016, he got into a Twitter war when he knocked a match with Will Ospreay vs. Ricochet from Tokyo, saying it wasn’t wrestling. Revolution Pro tried to turn that into an angle, and the August 12, 2016, match at York Hall in London between Vader and Ospreay had unreal heat. However, when Vader got to London, he reneged on his agreement to put Ospreay over. For the good of the show, Ospreay put him over, but it left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.

In November of 2016, he was told by his doctors that he had congenital heart failure and that he probably was only going to live about two more years.

In a match on April 20, 2017, at Korakuen Hall, with Fujinami & Riki Choshu & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Vader & Muto & AKIRA, Vader collapsed right after the match ended.

He wrestled the next two nights of his tour.

His final career match was three days later in Osaka, teaming with Fujinami & Choshu to beat Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Koshinaka & Takuma Sano.

He had been really hopeful of being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this year. Foley in particular had both publicly and privately pushed for it.

 

[Brandon]

He definitely was a victim of the Shawn Micheals power trip back in the day....   he should of reigned over the WWE as the champion but they completely squashed his push.   A big mistake IMO.

[SpeedFlex27]

Sad story really... Michaels was a POS to a lot of people in the business. 

[The Unknown Poster]

The Nak vs Hardy scheduled for SD didn’t happen because Nak was bitten by a police dog on Monday. 

[SpeedFlex27]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

The Nak vs Hardy scheduled for SD didn’t happen because Nak was bitten by a police dog on Monday. 

What?

[The Unknown Poster]

8 hours ago, SpeedFlex27 said:

What?

Police were doing a routine bomb sweep of the arena and they entered a room Nak was in. Somehow, he ended up attacked by the dog. Bad enough that he went to hospital and was pulled from SD. 

[The Unknown Poster]

A few years ago I thought to myself, 'Im going to buy some WWE stock".  I thought...$10,000 sounds about right.  But Im not a stock guy and figured that would be a long term investment.  I kicked myself when it went from $7 a share to $40+.   Well, it's over $70 now.  A lot of craziness though as the company is trading at 169 times earnings (Disney trades at 14 times earnings).  This stems from WWE announcing their new TV deals which kick in next year which will make them insanely profitable for the foreseeable future.

The FOX deal for Smackdown is with Fox Sports (rather then Fox Entertainment) so Fox Sports will be in charge of the show (from the Network perspective).  It will air on Fox Network but under the Fox Sports banner.

WWE worth well over $5 billion right now.  Considering what UFC got in a sale, what could WWE get?

PS: I dont feel so bad about missing the stock gravy train.  Vince sold over 3 million shares in December, making $95 million.  Had he waited til today, he'd have made almost a quarter of a billion.

Edited June 28, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[Goalie]

Anyone see KO on stage with Shania in Montreal? Pretty good stuff. 

[The Unknown Poster]

 

[Goalie]

Sad story there. Was great on Tough Enough... Damn Brain Cancer tho. 

[The Unknown Poster]

Made CNN

 

[The Unknown Poster]

Apparently hurt fairly significantly which is why he’s off raw and off shows.  Was released from hospital though. 

Edited July 4, 2018 by The Unknown Poster

[Goalie]

Anyone see the brutal bump from new japan? Dude likely has a bad neck issue... Was just bad. Dumb move. Dumb spot. Dumb idea. 

[The Unknown Poster]

2 hours ago, Goalie said:

Anyone see the brutal bump from new japan? Dude likely has a bad neck issue... Was just bad. Dumb move. Dumb spot. Dumb idea. 

Yup. Bad idea.   Broken neck for Takahashi (who finished the match)  He’s a talent  hopefully he recovers fully  

 

[Goalie]

Hell of a match but the crowd died after that spot. 

[The Unknown Poster]

Impact announced they signed Tessa Blanchard to a "long term deal" (that can mean something different for them).  She's a great one for them.  She's really really good and everything WWE want(minus a supposed attitude).  Third generation wrestler with the right name and a link to the Horsemen (and besides being a third generation Blanchard, her step-father is Magnum T.A.)

In unrelated news, I was just contacted about a new project that is pretty exciting.  If it works out (my part of it I mean), it will be pretty cool personally.  More to come eventually (I hope!)

[ediger]

1 hour ago, The Unknown Poster said:

Impact announced they signed Tessa Blanchard to a "long term deal" (that can mean something different for them).  She's a great one for them.  She's really really good and everything WWE want(minus a supposed attitude).  Third generation wrestler with the right name and a link to the Horsemen (and besides being a third generation Blanchard, her step-father is Magnum T.A.)

In unrelated news, I was just contacted about a new project that is pretty exciting.  If it works out (my part of it I mean), it will be pretty cool personally.  More to come eventually (I hope!)

PCW Cruise?!?

[The Unknown Poster]

3 minutes ago, ediger said:

PCW Cruise?!?

Hahaha no.  

 

[The Unknown Poster]

Raw did record low ratings. 

[The Unknown Poster]

There are reports out that WWE plans to have two Wrestlemania's per year starting in 2020.  Its being compared to "Royal Rumble" and "Greatest Royal Rumble" where the second Wrestlemania would air from Europe, Australia or the Middle East and take place in fall.

It sounds like they think SD on FOX is going to be a thing.  What they really need are stars.  They have a lot of talent but they do a very good job of making everyone feel the same.