This week has seen a lot of history made in the wrestling business, not the least of which was the return of Bret Hart to WWE television after a more than 12 year absense. During his stint as guest host on Raw, Bret shared a moment with Shawn Michaels in the ring, with the spectre of 1997's Survivor Series floating heavy above them. Bret has said in the past that he had no interest in forgiving the Heartbreak Kid for his role in the Hitman's ouster from the then-WWF, but has softened on that resolve in recent years. Monday, he did a full 180 and made amends.
It was an emotional moment indeed. For two fans who were really coming into their own personal understanding of the wrestling business around that time, the Monteal Screwjob was one of those seminal moments that detailed the seedy underbelly of professional wrestling. It drove a wedge in between the fans, and Canada has been backward ever since. Seeing Bret and Shawn, two legends in the business and aguably the greatest wrestlers in their respective generations, in the ring at the same time, speaking, shaking hands, and exchanging a brotherly hug was nothing short of the destruction of the Berlin Wall in the WWE Universe.
In the spirit of recent events and of the new year, here's a few other legendary wrestling-related feuds we'd like to see resolved in 2010.
Bret Hart and Vince McMahon
This, of course, could have been settled on Monday night, and seemed to be for a while, until Vince kicked Bret in the stomach and walked out of the ring, sneering as the show faded to black. We can't say who's really responsible for most of the animosity between the two, but it certainly seemed that we were making progress just with Bret showing up at Raw at all. Getting these two on the same page could mean a lot of good for WWE fans. Maybe we could finally get all the dirt on Montreal, or maybe Stu could get his due for the impact he's made on the wrestling business. This needs to be ironed out soon.
Bret Hart and Ric Flair
You might say this feud is more vitriolic than Shawn and Bret. Neither Michaels nor Hart ever spoke poorly of the other one's talent, and while they had personal issues, they were quick to say the other had a positive impact on the art of wrestling.
But Ric and Bret are a different story. Flair claimed that the Hitman exploited his brother Owen's death and was never a serious money-maker outside of Canada; Hart has called Flair a routine wrestler and a shady businessman. The two plain don't like each other, and for two performers that land in the Top 5 of most anyone's All-Time list, that's just sad. Not that we're looking for some sort of "dream match," because we'd really rather neither of them wrestle again, but a panel discussion would be nice at some point. Or maybe an autograph signing in Biloxi.
Bret Hart and Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, and Kevin Nash
While this isn't necessarily a full-fledged feud, Hart has more than once criticised the way he was used in WCW, and has had varying degrees of criticism for Easy E and the former NWO. With all three having influence over in TNA now, it would be a huge coup for the nation's second promotion to bring over the Hitman for a little reunion (that is what they're doing over there these days, right?) TNA got their butt kicked in the ratings for the recent one-day-only Monday Night War, but could they put themselves over the top with Bret on the show? One is only left to wonder unless these guys can get on the same page.
Bret Hart and Bret Hart's ex-wives
Even though this is not strictly a wrestling feud, it is still related in that Bret Hart is involved and his family could have a major impact on wrestling were they a cohesive unit. Hart has been married twice and divorced just as often. He has four kids from the first marriage, and coming from a lineage of wrestlers, who's to say that any of these kids couldn't go on to be the next big thing. But with professional wrestling (and Bret's constant adultery) effectively destroying his relationship with his wife, there's not much incentive to pursue that lifestyle. Come on, Bret. Kiss and make up for the rest of us!
Bret Hart and Bret Hart's brain
They haven't really talked much since Bret's stroke eight years ago, and things aren't looking too good. Even though the Hitman and the left side of his body were able to work together again, he's still having some emotional issues and has no real chance at getting back in the ring for anything meaningful.
In a related note, Hart may want to make sure he's patching things up with his bicycle before going out for another ride any time soon.
Showing posts with label nWo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nWo. Show all posts
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
W.W.W. featuring Mrs. Undertaker's Stalker and Scott Hall vs. Chris Jericho
On Wednesdays, we here at LOL, Wresslin' like to really pull out the stops and offer up a double shot of righteously killer content. Why Wednesday? Well, we could impress you with market research, work habit studies, and human psychology tendencies to show you there's a scientific reason the middle of the week is the best time to bring your A-game. However, truth be told, we don't have any of that stuff and settled on Wednesday because that was the only day that didn't have any content scheduled.
So, here you have "Watch Wresslin' Wednesdays." Please feel free to suggest a better title, because we are woefully uncreative when it comes to naming stuff.
Better at naming stuff then us
The idea of W.W.W. is we each send the other a video that is related to wrestling (a match, promo, interview, guest starring spot, etc.). The only restriction is that it cannot be user-created, so your montage of photoshopped nude Diva photos ain't gonna fly here, pal. Neither of us know what kind of video we're going to get that day.
After viewing, we each write a response. This could be anything we choose: a straight commentary, a philosophical enlightenment, or classless ridicule. Just as we don't know what kind of video the other will select, neither do we know what the other will write or how they will write it. What you end up with is a mash-up of styles, which in our book equates to two-blogs-in-one, and we can take the rest of the day off.
Adam's video to Matt - Undertaker's wife's stalker revealed
Matt's response...
I'll save you the suspense (and obviously so will the video preview) - it was DDP.
It's a LOL, Wresslin' pictogram!
That's right, Diamond Dallas Page was stalking the Undertaker's wife, presumably because he had nothing better to do.
Actually, Page provides a reason for committing this crime; he's coming after the Undertaker. See, this was right after the WWF purchased WCW, and Page was in a little need of work. So what do you do? You show up at your new job and go after the best guy that's already working there. It's a prison mentality, I believe.
DDP shows up and says he wants to take on Undertaker because he wants Taker to make him famous. Apparently he's been doing a pretty poor job of it on his own. So how did that work out?
Well, Wikipedia's description of Diamond Dallas Page's run in the WWE is only two paragraphs long, so that should tell you something.
*Not the WWE Championship
I'm sure all of you are wondering what happened at the King of the Ring in question. Page did what he said he would and bought a ticket to the event to sit in the front row. It seems strange that Vince McMahon would let him ride down to the ring on a motorcycle, cut a five minute promo on someone, and then make him buy a ticket to get to an event. What an odd business.
So the Deadman showed up, after taunting Page all night with hidden video of DDP getting to the arena and stuff like that. They tussle a bit, and Page runs away.
Did that make him famous? Not long after, he changed to his "Positively Page" gimmick and then left the company. Then he wrestled some independent shows, went to TNA (which I guess you could call a step up, but I'm not sure) and lost a championship match to Jeff Jarrett. But it was 2004, so everyone lost to Jarrett - don't feel bad, DDP.
After that, he and his smoking hot wife divorced, and now he's a motivational speaker. Next, I expect him to be a TV pitch-man, selling the newest kitchen utensil, the Diamond Cutter!
Not better than him, though.
So what exactly was the price of the Undertaker making you famous, Diamond? Your health declined, you don't wrestle anymore, you wasted money on PPV tickets, your wife is gone, and now you can only serve to motivate others by saying how crappy things were for you.
But that's not a bad thing, it's a GOOD thing.
What an mixed-up world wrestling is, as well. As far as I can tell, Page stalked someone (criminal harassment), committed voyeurism (invasion of privacy), and stole private property. Yet when he rides to the ring on his pilfered motorcycle and admits to all of this, he gets a huge pop. At the very least he should be reprimanded and given a less-than-hospital welcome at the arena.
I can understand law enforcement being slow to respond though. He did, like the Diamond Cutter, appear out of nowhere.
Matt's video to Adam- WCW Scott Hall vs. Chris Jericho
What's this? A video involving Scott Hall? After last week's video about Jake Roberts? Me thinks Matt is trying to tell me something. Seriously, what's up with these slow ones over the plate? You think I'm not funny enough, Matt? I'm not good enough? Well I'll show you! I'll eat a pint of ice cream and then get a make over, which mostly consists of me dying my hair and getting it get really short.
Future me
Anyway, on to the task at hand. Mr. Hall comes out of the locker room with some very small belt on. I don't know what belt it is, since no graphic nor announcer felt the need to tell me. Still, it's almost comically tiny. Sort of the anti-Jack Swagger.
Kinda like that.
Still, this is standard Scott Hall. He comes into the ring, gives a little "Hey yo" and goes into the nWo survey shtick. Surprisingly enough though, the nWo are actually heels this time. That's because we're live from Charlotte, North Carolina! Flair country! Wooo! Woo! Woooo!
I mentioned this the last time Matt sent me an nWo video, but the director of this show is terrible. He always cuts to the exact opposite of what should be seen. Case in point, WCW is being cheered during the survey, and he gets to this:
And this:
Now, I honestly want to know what the nWo needs this survey data for. Is it to sell more of their tee shirt brands, as Mr. McMahon would say? Or do they want to have an empirical way to rank the super hunks of the New World Order? Maybe the political leanings and mean age/income of an nWo supporter for future pledge drives? Or is the far more likely answer of "ego." Unfortunately, it seem that most of the nWo is now billed from "Parts Unknown" so this will have to remain a mystery.
And how does Hall end the segment? "One more for the good guys!" I understand the heat he would get by misinterpreting a crowd reaction, but Scott Hall has billed himself as "The Bad Guy." So which is it, Razor? Are the nWo ironic good guys or heelish bad guys? Santa has an answer!
A grown man made a sign about what a make believe man thinks of a make believe organization.
As for the match itself.... pretty good actually. I know I should be all like, "Scott Hall's a drunk LOLZ!" but the whole reason we make fun of Scott is because of his epic failure. The failure wouldn't be epic if he wasn't once successful. This was part of the good days. Seriously, for match this short it told a nice story and got everyone over. Jericho had some good offense and got a couple of near falls, and the announcers do a good job of putting him over, citing his eventual loss due to a "lack of experience." Hall sold pretty well for Jericho, got in a few good spots, and showed some real personality out there. Like his reaction to the pro-WCW survey response:
And his mocking of the Giant after using the Giant's signature choke slam:
So all and all, Scott Hall did good in my book on this night. Of course, here's what happened backstage with the boys after the match:
So, here you have "Watch Wresslin' Wednesdays." Please feel free to suggest a better title, because we are woefully uncreative when it comes to naming stuff.
Better at naming stuff then us
The idea of W.W.W. is we each send the other a video that is related to wrestling (a match, promo, interview, guest starring spot, etc.). The only restriction is that it cannot be user-created, so your montage of photoshopped nude Diva photos ain't gonna fly here, pal. Neither of us know what kind of video we're going to get that day.
After viewing, we each write a response. This could be anything we choose: a straight commentary, a philosophical enlightenment, or classless ridicule. Just as we don't know what kind of video the other will select, neither do we know what the other will write or how they will write it. What you end up with is a mash-up of styles, which in our book equates to two-blogs-in-one, and we can take the rest of the day off.
Adam's video to Matt - Undertaker's wife's stalker revealed
Matt's response...
I'll save you the suspense (and obviously so will the video preview) - it was DDP.
It's a LOL, Wresslin' pictogram!That's right, Diamond Dallas Page was stalking the Undertaker's wife, presumably because he had nothing better to do.
Actually, Page provides a reason for committing this crime; he's coming after the Undertaker. See, this was right after the WWF purchased WCW, and Page was in a little need of work. So what do you do? You show up at your new job and go after the best guy that's already working there. It's a prison mentality, I believe.
DDP shows up and says he wants to take on Undertaker because he wants Taker to make him famous. Apparently he's been doing a pretty poor job of it on his own. So how did that work out?
Well, Wikipedia's description of Diamond Dallas Page's run in the WWE is only two paragraphs long, so that should tell you something.
*Not the WWE ChampionshipI'm sure all of you are wondering what happened at the King of the Ring in question. Page did what he said he would and bought a ticket to the event to sit in the front row. It seems strange that Vince McMahon would let him ride down to the ring on a motorcycle, cut a five minute promo on someone, and then make him buy a ticket to get to an event. What an odd business.
So the Deadman showed up, after taunting Page all night with hidden video of DDP getting to the arena and stuff like that. They tussle a bit, and Page runs away.
Did that make him famous? Not long after, he changed to his "Positively Page" gimmick and then left the company. Then he wrestled some independent shows, went to TNA (which I guess you could call a step up, but I'm not sure) and lost a championship match to Jeff Jarrett. But it was 2004, so everyone lost to Jarrett - don't feel bad, DDP.
After that, he and his smoking hot wife divorced, and now he's a motivational speaker. Next, I expect him to be a TV pitch-man, selling the newest kitchen utensil, the Diamond Cutter!
Not better than him, though.So what exactly was the price of the Undertaker making you famous, Diamond? Your health declined, you don't wrestle anymore, you wasted money on PPV tickets, your wife is gone, and now you can only serve to motivate others by saying how crappy things were for you.
But that's not a bad thing, it's a GOOD thing.
What an mixed-up world wrestling is, as well. As far as I can tell, Page stalked someone (criminal harassment), committed voyeurism (invasion of privacy), and stole private property. Yet when he rides to the ring on his pilfered motorcycle and admits to all of this, he gets a huge pop. At the very least he should be reprimanded and given a less-than-hospital welcome at the arena.
I can understand law enforcement being slow to respond though. He did, like the Diamond Cutter, appear out of nowhere.
Matt's video to Adam- WCW Scott Hall vs. Chris Jericho
What's this? A video involving Scott Hall? After last week's video about Jake Roberts? Me thinks Matt is trying to tell me something. Seriously, what's up with these slow ones over the plate? You think I'm not funny enough, Matt? I'm not good enough? Well I'll show you! I'll eat a pint of ice cream and then get a make over, which mostly consists of me dying my hair and getting it get really short.
Future me
Kinda like that.Still, this is standard Scott Hall. He comes into the ring, gives a little "Hey yo" and goes into the nWo survey shtick. Surprisingly enough though, the nWo are actually heels this time. That's because we're live from Charlotte, North Carolina! Flair country! Wooo! Woo! Woooo!
I mentioned this the last time Matt sent me an nWo video, but the director of this show is terrible. He always cuts to the exact opposite of what should be seen. Case in point, WCW is being cheered during the survey, and he gets to this:
And this:
Now, I honestly want to know what the nWo needs this survey data for. Is it to sell more of their tee shirt brands, as Mr. McMahon would say? Or do they want to have an empirical way to rank the super hunks of the New World Order? Maybe the political leanings and mean age/income of an nWo supporter for future pledge drives? Or is the far more likely answer of "ego." Unfortunately, it seem that most of the nWo is now billed from "Parts Unknown" so this will have to remain a mystery.
And how does Hall end the segment? "One more for the good guys!" I understand the heat he would get by misinterpreting a crowd reaction, but Scott Hall has billed himself as "The Bad Guy." So which is it, Razor? Are the nWo ironic good guys or heelish bad guys? Santa has an answer!
A grown man made a sign about what a make believe man thinks of a make believe organization.As for the match itself.... pretty good actually. I know I should be all like, "Scott Hall's a drunk LOLZ!" but the whole reason we make fun of Scott is because of his epic failure. The failure wouldn't be epic if he wasn't once successful. This was part of the good days. Seriously, for match this short it told a nice story and got everyone over. Jericho had some good offense and got a couple of near falls, and the announcers do a good job of putting him over, citing his eventual loss due to a "lack of experience." Hall sold pretty well for Jericho, got in a few good spots, and showed some real personality out there. Like his reaction to the pro-WCW survey response:
And his mocking of the Giant after using the Giant's signature choke slam:
So all and all, Scott Hall did good in my book on this night. Of course, here's what happened backstage with the boys after the match:
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