Professional Wrestling

In other news:

• The Bullet Club's newest member, Gino Gambino, responded to a private facebook message of mine!
• The full team OGBC is so underrated. Yujiro's "Tokyo Pimp" persona (and shirt) are brilliant, and Chase Owens and Yujiro both play really well off of the rest of the Club. Of course all the Tongan members are super fun, I especially liked the video of Loa swearing. And Pieter... has a fantastic image and that's as much as I'll say without starting to sound thirsty.
• New Day are coming to a convention near me later this month. This will probably be the first convention I'll ever buy VIP passes for. I've gotten to meet several of my favorite WWE stars lately but this is what I've been hoping for most.
• Apropos of nothing, I hope Jay Lethal has a great year this year.
• It seems likely the full Broken Brilliance (I swear I'll make the page eventually) is coming to WWE. I really hope so. They/Matt now own the IP and have access to all the principal influences except for Decay.

Yeah, I think that's pretty much all the important stuff re: wrestlers and events. As far as fans go... uh.... I'm converting some friends into wrestling fans. Also I'm still single if any smart, fun, cute and single female wrestlers/wrestling fans care for a date?

Well...

Jeff Jarret and The Honky Tonk Man are stepping back and letting Braun Strauman own that one, because that was, without a doubt, the biggest guitar hit I've ever seen.

Even if it's mostly empty, that still had to have hurt a lot.

I wanna talk about El Santo.

I just don't know where to start. Maybe... what are the conditions to make this sort of legend? Have there been other attempts to extend Kayfabe into non-live works, comics, cinema? If not, why not? If yes, why aren't they more successful? Superman was based off Charles Atlas, Spider Mann off the Blue Demon. Why aren't comicbook characters wrestling in the ring? Why aren't wrestler characters appearing in comics?

Marvel had a storyline in the Mid-80s involving the fictional Universal Class Wrestling Federation, which included The Thing wrestling in it for a time.

AJ confirming everything positive I said about Jinder.

It's a month ago, but if you're still reading, The Handle, yes, there have been other attempts to create Luchadors like El Santo. Most notably, Mil Mascaras, specifically created when someone couldn't get a hold of Santo himself for a movie roll. A real luchador then took up the gimmick and became one of the most famous luchadors of all time.

Also, Black Man, El Santo's stunt double, another one of the most famous luchadors of all time, albeit as part of Los Tres Fantasticos rather than as a lone act.

And uh, that guy Fray Tormenta, whose story was so inspiring it inspired not only a comic books starring him, but coming books based off of those comic books starring him, one of which, Tiger Mask, was so popular in it's own right it lead to six (officially four) wrestlers using Tiger Mask as their gimmick and in turn inspired New Japan to turn Jushin Liger into a wrestler. Místico is another luchador in the the Fray Tormenta who got his on ongoing comic book.

Mistico's contemporary Dark Angel had at least one comic book too, Aja Kong has had roles in quite a few films as Aja Kong, Shinya Hashimoto had movie based on him as a wrestler and as a promoter.

My guesses as to why it doesn't happen more often are two. One, a lot of movie producers and to a lesser extent, comic book writers, don't know what to do with wrestlers. Have you seen Ready to Rumble, it's got some decent wrestling matches in it, but otherwise simply isn't very good. Santo's films are basically bathos filled B movies. The reason people like El Santos films is because of the novelty of a great wrestle beating up undead monstrosities and creating time machines, not necessarily because they're into the genre of films in of themselves. And when was the last time any promotion had anyone as popular as Shinya Hashimoto? I suppose Mistico could have gotten there, what with his music videos and what not, if you know, Sin Cara hadn't have happened.

Otherwise, if a wrestler appears in something it's usually as (sigh) "A Marine" that sits in a chair staring off into space while his friends try and integrate him back into society(that'll make people want to see Cena wrestle, really, and make all the wrestling fans want to go to theaters for sure), a roller derby extra(I'm not sure I could book Mickie James on my budget even if she hadn't committed to country music and a clothing line, you had her on a discount and decided to have her corpse fall out of a locker for shock value!), "a CQC specialist" in another Battle Royale ripoff(just watch the scene where Stone Cold fights Nathan Jones and skip the rest of the movie) or a tooth fairy(actually not that bad of a movie. And you know what, the concept of The Scorpion King wasn't that bad either, but seriously, it's The Rock! If he's not laying the Smackdown you're doing it wrong!)

I think See No Evil had the right idea(except for the part about it expecting anyone to root for a bunch of people we don't know over Kane), but then the resulting angle where Kane "becomes" Jake Goodnight...I'm sorry for even bringing it up. But since we're on the topic of Mil Mascaras, CMLL has been doing tributes to him on their shows. Here's a match.

edited 17th Mar '18 10:24:12 PM by IndirectActiveTransport

Wow. Brock is destroying Roman here. Some people are even booing (Brock, not Roman) though there are still naturally a lot of cheers.

I'm just annoyed that he needed to wait until Roman was handcuffed. Brock doesn't really need that considering what a monster heel he's been played as.

Watched Nature Boy, that ESPN documentary on Ric Flair. It was pretty candid. I never thought Hulk Hogan could be humble but there he was saying that Flair was a much better wrestler than he was.

Wow.

That is something.

I've heard humility out of Hogan at least once before, mainly when he stated up front that he knew he wasn't a sympathetic victim regarding the Gawker lawsuit. And wrestlers as good (Harley Race?) or better (Barry Windham?) than Flair weren't/aren't particularly numerous. It probably isn't nearly as damaging to his ego.

Come to think of it, did Flair ever have a program with Hogan's predecessor Bob Baklund? Obviously insane Backlund who emerged in Hogan's wake would have been the more interesting opponent but I'd still like to see that, if it happened.

Backlund and Flair had a one-off match in 1982, cant find any video of it though.

They fought once 35 years ago?

Really? Only one time?

Trying to find that, a title unification match between the WWF and NWA(of course it was a non finish not followed up on, being one year before Vince Jr's successful attempt to knock over the territories) in Georgia, I also found they had a match for Maple Leaf Wrestling in Ontario which Backlund won(only WWF title on the line). Given that was 1979, am even less likely to find video of it, much less a video on youtube I can embed.

Still, those are two more matches for me to keep an eye out for, whether I can put them up here or not.

edited 1st Apr '18 3:15:17 AM by IndirectActiveTransport

So Takeover was good again.

The Ladder Match, the Triple tag match, Heavyweight match and unsanctioned match were all great.

The other matches were good.

Has there even been a bad Takeover yet?

As it stands, WWE is lucky they are under the same brand.

Edit: Watching Wrestlemania now.

...The streak has been broken. I'm shocked.

Edit II: More Wrestlemania. I don't think it's been bad, in fact, it's been pretty good I'd say. But Takeover, as always has been better.

I will say I'm disappointed that Asuka lost. It was going to have to happen at some point, but it feels like they just didn't want an asian as their women's champion. We'll see how that is if Shinsuke also falls short.

Edit III: And now Shinsuke lost. Wow, what the hell WWE? What the hell?

More Edit: Wait, they might have just saved that ending.

edited 8th Apr '18 8:14:07 PM by HandsomeRob

Yeah, the end of Asuka vs. Charlotte was a bad call. anything other than a submission would've made more sense. As was the order of the card. Either the womens, or tag team, or both matches should've had Smackdown go on second for more time and energy.

That ladder match. DAMN.

Agreed.

It's been quite a Raw though.

The Return of Bobby Lashley, Samoa Joe is back, Authors of Pain and Ember Moon move to the main roster....And No-Way Jose shows up.

Wonder who else they got in store.

Well...

Paige officially retires, Matt Hardy and Bray are a tag team on their own Expedition of Gold, Jeff returns, matches are set for Backlash and Greatest Rumble...

What are you're thoughts on AJ beating Shinsuke? I thought for sure the latter would take that. I mean, I had a relative that argued that if Asuka had to lose to anyone, it needed to be Charlotte, because she was the only one left (high level female wrestler, and one of the few people Asuka had never wrestled yet), but I truly believe Shinsuke should have beaten AJ...in the match, though I have no problems with him doing it afterwards.

The story afterwards was good, but the match was not. And it's especially grating that both Royal Rumble winners not only had bad places on the match card, because "fuck Smackdown", apparently (the Tag match also got screwed), but apparently them Japanese can't beat good old Muricans! Take that payback for Pearl Harbor! I mean I ''like" Charlotte, especially since she dropped the "genetically superior" bit, but the overall play of it didn't sit well. Nakamura as a heel should be good. Maybe he'll actually care more, and be allowed to do more. I'm so ready for the belt to be off AJ though. At least Jinder won the US title. (also, Jinder was more entertaining as World Champ than anyone since AJ's first run.

So...

Billie Kay and Peyton Royce make their smackdown debut (as the Iconics instead of the Iconic Duo), and Paige is the new GM of smackdown. Not quite as many new people as Raw though...or and Carmella cashed in Money in the Bank finally.

Have you guys seen Rusev's tweet on his match with Undertaker at the "Greatest Royal Rumble"?

No. What did he say?

Let me guess: something about it being Rusev day?

Meanwhile Rusev vs. Undertaker has been cancelled and replaced by Chris Jericho at Greatest Royal Rumble. Boy does Rusev got the bad rub to the WWE Excecs of direspecting the Deadman via TMZ Interview

Wait... what happened in this interview?

Here's and interesting article on an issue of Spider-Man that was co written by Raven.

×2

He didn't say anything that bad though and he was clearly in character. Plus calling Taker an old man isn't much of an insult.

×3

Nope, just him poking fun at the fact that Undertaker would have been the obvious winner in that casket match.

edited 12th Apr '18 10:37:46 PM by Cortez