Yeah, Michaels is always good as a ref; if he could milk as much drama out of this as he did HHH vs. Taker, we could have a match of the year on our hands. Of course, I doubt he'll get that much drama out of this one.
edited 10th Oct '13 5:33:24 PM by KesagakeBoy
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .HBK's all right, but I can't help but mourn the lost entertainment value in having crazy Bob Backlund as the ref.
Yeah, I was sorta bummed that didn't happen. I can't say I was surprised HBK got picked though.
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .http://www.kayfabenews.com/hogan-seeks-work-at-chikara/
I of course know that Kayfabe News is a satire site. But the ending line about Chikara being defunct... I'm highly confused. Apparently the promotion was closed by an in-character bureaucrat? And the remaining events which were cancelled that year were never actually scheduled
? Anyone heard any developments on this?
Yeah, I remember when it happened. It's very weird.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniversario:_Never_Compromise
I read a post by the guy who actually wound up breaking the door in the aftermath, and he said something to the effect that he was getting swept up in the emotion like everybody else and slammed himself into the door just thinking it would made a loud noise and not break. Pretty embarrassing for him, as well as legally problematic.
Anyway, everybody following the promotion expected there to be some sort of explanation for all of this soon afterwards. What happened instead was that on the official site, all future events on the calendar were cancelled.
The various wrestlers have gone on to perform in the "Wrestling Is..." promotions, (e.g., Wrestling Is Fun, Wrestling Is Art, etc.), and my understanding is that those promotions were sort of subsidiaries of Chikara and still are. As a matter of fact, on the Chikara character page on This Very Wiki, a recent edit reported that an old villain who had been kayfabe crippled and retired by Quack actually came back good as new along with some old accomplices and together they somehow destroyed one of the Wrestling Is promotions in a single night.
Speculation's run rampant over what's going on, since there were rumours that Chikara had been in the red prior to that iPPV. Some people think that it's completely a work and that Quack has stopped running shows to convince everybody that the promotion's really dead, only to pick up the story when the new season starts and say in-character that Chikara has survived an attempt to kill it or something. Others think that they actually really weren't making enough money to sustain the promotion any more, and that the final show was a way of writing the final chapter and giving a storyline reason for everything getting cancelled. And still others think that maybe it's a mix of the two, that circumstances forced them to cancel all of those shows but that Quack is doing a Real Life Writes the Plot thing where he says "Okay, fine, we can't run shows now, so I'll make up a kayfabe reason where Wink shuts everything down because he and the mysterious corporation his father runs don't want Chikara to exist if they can't control it—or something, I can worry about how much sense it all makes later. But I'm confident we can get things up and running given a year or so, and when we do and Chikara comes back then everybody will call me a genius for working them like I did."
(You may have gotten the impression that I don't think much of Mike Quackenbush from that last part, and while he's a great performer, no, I don't think too highly of him as a person. But the reasons for that would require a whole new post to go into.)
edited 11th Oct '13 3:55:41 PM by KilgoreTrout
IWC Aftershock #28
covers the aftermath of Friday Night Fights and has some clips of performers for the October 19th Retro Reunion
match. Unfortunately, the wife and I can't attend that one, nor can we attend Combat at Clearfield
on November 9th.
I found another fellow reviewing IWC matches
. Based on the timing, and the detail involved, I suspect that he writes his reviews based on the DV Ds. He and I disagree on the impressiveness of various matches, but it is kind of neat to get another perspective on it.
Also of potential interest for those in the Pittsburgh/West Virgina area, this review of Black Diamond Wrestling's Grave Consequences
. He also did another two reviews regarding their last show on the same site. One of the things I enjoyed about reading the reviews is that, like me, he's a newcomer to a promotion, so there was a lot of "I have no idea why these two guys are fighting each other, but I'm told it's personal" mixed in with gushing over bits of the match or psychology that worked.
I do not speak any Japanese and am not adept at Spanish so at times I would not understand anything going on in a promotion even if I had watched it for awhile. Going back to WWE again after I had initially swore it off was weird too. "Hmm, at this point I am guessing brands no longer exist".
Modified Ura-nage, Torture Rack
Yeah, I long for the days of brand separation; it seemed like it was easier for mid and low-carders to shine back then. Maybe I'm just wishing for something that never really was though, I dunno.
No, it was easier for wrestlers to get airtime when there were multiple brands-look at Zack Ryder, Tyson Kid, Yoshi Tatsu or even Kofi Kingston then as opposed to now. On the other hand, when there were separate brands there were constant calls to do away with specifically because "inferior" wrestlers were taking too much airtime from more interesting ones. I disagree with that sentiment but another that I cannot really argue against was the suggestion WWE's writers were not good enough to handle two-three separate "continuities" at once.
There were also a lot of elements to the brand extension that were, quite simply, bad for business as WWE runs it. One of my favorite things about it was that Raw and Smackdown had separate pay per views alternating monthly. This generally meant more quality television as less time was spent hyping up the next pay per view event and more high quality matches were shown for "free". The separate brand pay per views did not sell as well though so the concept was scrapped. (To me, this had the effect of cheapening the Royal Rumble, Wresltemania and Summer Slam, as they were special because Raw and Smackdown wrestlers were on them together)
Now some of the brand pay per views simply failed because they were badly booked (ECW December to dismember) but you could say they had subtly been phasing out the brand extension ever since then. The unified brand crossing tag team championship made sense not because if only because of how the WWE traditionally treats tag teams. Ideally you would want enough dedicated teams to fill both shows but at the time that was a laughable idea. (ironically they now do have enough tag teams and factions for two brands, as if they just suddenly realized people like interesting teams and tag matches). The unified diva belt made less sense (they had a decent roster of workers for two brands, at the time) so that should have been a warning sign.
Then there was the thing with flagship Smackdown's falling ratings do it being repeatedly Screwed by the Network. (Raw was nominally the flagship but the brand extension existed because Smackdown consistently kicked its ass in ratings until recently) In hindsight I should have seen it coming but it still took me by surprise. I thought there would have been some big announcement or outcry.
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackHm. I suppose you've got it down right. Now I'm just wondering what happened to Yoshi at all; last time I remember seeing him was as one of the reindeer last Christmas. Does he at least still show up on Superstars, or has he been future endeavored?
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .I would not know. My channel provider does not even show super stars and I do not watch it on the WWE website because they only show 2 minutes of any given match (occassionally I will hear news about a wrestler I like and try and find a super stars match on youtube but WWE has a tendency to remove them. It is as if they do not want me to watch the wrestlers they don't put on Raw or Smackdown)
Then again I do not watch main event either despite having the channel but that is just because I do not like it. The episodes I saw spent too much time on build up considering they only showed one match.
edited 18th Oct '13 1:23:12 PM by Cider
Modified Ura-nage, Torture RackI'm pretty sure Superstars is an online-only show now. Also, I like Main Event, if only because it's the only place I get to see Justin Gabriel consistently, although they do spend too much time on recaps from the other shows.
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .Since I've got this in the clipboard I might as well put it here. One of my favorite matches ever, and I can't really say why.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1iogl_mike-awesome-vs-spike-dudley-ecw-ti_news
I think the mutants just loved ECW that much, and to be fair, the name is still synonymous with Garbage Wrestling and all. Or maybe they're just stupid, don't ask me.
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .I find Cornette to be highly overrated; sure he's a smart guy, but a lot of people treat his opinion as the only one that matters, and that's just annoying.
edited 19th Oct '13 7:41:09 AM by KesagakeBoy
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .
Yeah, he's not infallible when it comes to booking. An egregious example I can think of was the ROH world title match between Roderick Strong and Tyler Black, before Black left to eventually become Seth Rollins of The Shield.
This was a heel vs. heel match, since Black was doing the whole "I'm gonna leave with the title" thing and Strong was already a heel. So things already started with fans being confused about who they were supposed to cheer for.
Still, if the idea is to get the belt off Tyler before he leaves and for some reason Strong was the only guy you could name as number one contender, it still would have been acceptable...
...but, Cornette decided that he needed to bring Terry Funk into this.
What would Terry do? Why, he would serve as a special enforcer for the world title match! He would make sure there was no outside interference.
But here's the problem. ROH and Cornette would want Strong to win the match, right? Since he'd be staying with the company? So it stands to reason that they wouldn't want to do anything which would give Tyler any kind of advantage.
Well, by making Funk the ringside enforcer, Cornette was helping Tyler's chances of retaining. See, Roderick Strong was part of the House Of Truth stable at that time (along with Christian Able and Josh Raymond), and they'd interfere in one another's matches along with manager Truth Martini. Tyler Black, on the other hand, wasn't running with anybody.
Sure enough, in the middle of the match everybody in the House Of Truth rushed the ring and tried to beat up Tyler. But here comes Terry Funk to save the day! Terry Funk lays out Josh Raymond! Terry Funk lays out Christian Able! Now, okay, I know that neither of those guys had great success in ROH, but having them both get beaten up by a man who was 66 years old at the time couldn't have helped their credibility.
For some reason, Cornette thought this was all fine. If you can bring in a legend like Terry Funk, okay, fine, that's good for business, it'll make people interested who might otherwise not be interested. But they could have used him some other way that actually made sense and didn't make any of their young talent look bad.
edited 19th Oct '13 5:17:19 PM by KilgoreTrout
Wait, then what did he do to get fired? I'm not an avid follower of ROH since they don't show it in my area.
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .
Somebody else could probably tell you more than I can about that. Wikipedia says that it's because of an angry outburst backstage in 2012 (although he didn't slap anybody during this one, apparently). To be fair, Steve Corino got legit injured at that show and Cornette was pissed off because nobody was getting him medical attention and he was in pain for hours.
That said, he seemed to have run out of good ideas.
Austin Aries derisively called ROH "Smokey Mountain of Honor" after his departure from the company, the idea being that Cornette's booking style was dated and should have been left behind in the days of his Smokey Mountain Wrestling promotion.
Another guy who criticized Cornette's booking was Davey Richards. Now, Richards is a dick as those who follow wrestling news have learned, but it's hard to argue with the points he made. Namely that it was a mistake to break up the American Wolves with him off doing his thing and Eddie Edwards off doing something else, when the Wolves were a great tag team. Cornette booked a feud between the two former partners which stemmed from something pretty silly. Eddie Edwards had been training with Dan Severn, formerly of the UFC and WWE in The '90s. Davey was supposedly angry about this, because he had said to Eddie that he was planning to train with Severn after he got done with a tour of Japan, and that Eddie hired Severn as a trainer before Davey could so Eddie would have an edge in their world title match.
It should be noted that during Cornette's time as booker, he pushed Davey Richards to the moon, and seemed to want the ROH wrestlers to imitate MMA fighters like Richards was. Usually if you're trying to imitate something that's more popular, it doesn't work out too well.
So they brought in this ex-MMA guy to be in Eddie's corner for the match. Oh yeah, and guess what happened during that match? Roderick Strong and Michael Elgin of the House Of Truth tried to interfere (with Strong being a former world champion now and Elgin being a future star for the promotion and a guy who was consistently booked like a beast, which was something Cornette did right), but even the two of them together were no match for the mighty Dan Severn! Then Severn picked up Truth Martini and carried him backstage with him struggling and screaming, which was just...WTF?
I'm not saying that Cornette is a shitty booker. Some of his ideas have been good. The Kevin Steen/El Generico feud was a masterpiece. Steen's subsequent feud with Davey Richards was good as well. But not everything he comes up with is a home run, or even a base hit.
. . . Listening to you talk makes me feel like a real mark.
Well in 1941 a happy father had a son . . .

Concerning this week's Raw's results, it will be interesting to see Michaels as ref for the Bryan v. Orton match at HIAC.
"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."