The Wrestling Discussion Thread

Ah, all those layoffs make sense now. They had to make room on their roster for MMA fighters.

RIP

So apparently you can embed tweets now!

Hahahaha that reveal was the drizzling shits.

Oh TNA

Ok now I'm glad I found out on here then having to waste watching a reveal of Tito Ortiz.

TNA is gonna die a slow painful death isn't it?

When I woke up this morning to find out about Tito vs Rampage I had mild interest. TNA has killed that.

Jesus Christ TNA, you really outdid yourself tonight.

so Tito Ortiz is Mike Tyson & Matt Morgan is Bret?

Just so people know, apparently both Rampage and Tito are being paid mostly by Viacom, who are pushing the hell out of Bellator for some reason and are using one of the only decent "action" shows Spike has to do it.

I don't think it somehow makes bringing Tito in any better but hey at least the guy was a ref for a match back in 05.

Hell maybe James Storm will hit Tito with a beer bottle to pay him back for the last time they met.

... Wait a fucking second, with 2 MMA guys active in TNA and King Mo hiding somewhere, maybe this is all just a set up to bring back MMA Jeff Jarrett!

Damn, I'm gonna have to start watching WWE again. I watched Raw a few weeks ago, and even though it was really good(It was the episode where RVD returned and had that fucking awesome match with Jericho), not having cable, it can be kind of a pain to find decent quality vids.

I usually just fill the void by watching Jim Cornette's YouShoot videos over and over. That man has some tales to tell, lol.

Man I knew it was going to be Tito. For people who are unfamiliar with Tito, he is absolutely atrocious on the mic. Go find some of his commentary from Affliction MMA shows and see how terrible he is, he is super awkward and he thinks he is the greatest showman on earth (even go watch the season of celebrity apprentice, where he was an absolute joke). I mean I kind of get why they would want Rampage to be involved with pro wrestling, he is just a better fit, but Tito is a walking train wreck. I am actually super excited to see what dumb shit they do with Tito and how totally embarrassing and terrible Tito will be.

I'll also give you guys some context to this whole Viacom pushing MMA business. Viacom president's new pet project is to push the shit out of MMA. He believes that he made UFC to what it is today through the years it was on Spike TV, and has some serious beef with Dana White. Bellator while being a solid MMA promotion who have a great eye for talent and have a good idea about the general business side of booking (finding cheap venues and building a promotion organically etc.) are terrible at promoting fights. It also does not help them that most hardcore MMA fan could not give a shit about Bellator and their whole "this is where championships are earned" philosophy. For the longest time their plan for their first PPV was to have Michael Chandler (current LW champion of Bellator and an outstanding talent and one of the best LWs in the world) rematch Eddie Alverez for the title (their first fight was legitimately one of the best MMA fights ever) as it would be the biggest fight they have ever promoted and more importantly a legit fight that MMA fans would want to see. Eddie is currently in a bitter contract dispute with Bellator, he wants to go to UFC where he will get paid way more based on sponsorship and bonuses, but the whole ordeal has been dragged to the courts and public opinion is strongly against Bellator at this point. Bellator has been doing terrible ratings on Spike TV, specifically when it comes to the 18-40 male demographic which they are after. Their reaelity tv show Fight Master, which is a ripoff of the Voice and Ultimate Fighter is doing absolutely terrible in the ratings and the best fighter on the show is probably War Machine (ex pronstar and convict who is an anarchist and a walking PR disaster, lucky for them no one gives a shit about Bellator). Also there are close to zero big time free agency in MMA as established top tier fighters have little to no reason to sign with Bellator over UFC (expect in a few situation like King Mo). So Viacom great big plan for PPV now is to sign Rampage and Titto (who are like 1-9 in their last 10 fights or something like that) and somehow try to get something out of Rampage and Tito. Sad part is this whole thing is even a joke to MMA fans, I have no idea why they want to push it through Pro Wrestling and already water down a show that is in serious need of retooling in TNA.

Furthermore Bellator is facing the inevitably of their top fighters and champions eventually growing too big for their organization and dealing with a bunch contract disputes with UFC being more than happy at throwing huge amount of cash at their fighters to either try to sign them or drive up their salary to fuck over Bellator and Viacom.

New thread, new attitude. FUCK ALL Y'ALL!

For real though. RIP old thread.

I just realized that Bellator and TNA are exactly the same.

TNA hires old WWE talent to be their main event

Bellator hires old UFC talent to headline their PPV's.

Honestly, I don't know why anybody would find it appealing to watch two way-past-their-prime guys fighting each other.

Also, Tito Ortiz in TNA (along with Rampage Jackson) puts approx. zero new butts in the seats for TNA.

EDIT: Oh, they're making the show at Norfolk into a PPV-kinda event? I might as well go now...

EDIT2: Boy, that Tito reveal lasted about 2 minutes of the camera just going back and forth between Tito and everybody else, that was really cringeworthy

Boy, I've never seen a show derail so quickly. Killing the crowd with a really shitty finish to Aries/Styles match and then having the big reveal be Tito Ortiz, that is some grad A heat sinking

Man, Bray Wyatt's NXT farewell promo was crazy awesome.

Remember when no one cared about Tito being in TNA like 8 years ago?

Oh man, I completely forgot about that finish. What the hell happened? There was a flurry that ended in a Pele kick (from out of nowhere!), both guys fall, Aries' arm goes over AJ, and AJ's arm kind of awkwardly chicken wings under Aries' armpit?

The ref checks AJ's arm for some reason even though it was clearly not over Aries so I guess it was suppose to be a double pin, despite the fact that the ref didn't do the horrible thing where you count with both hands.

Then at 2 and a half Aries raises his shoulder even though AJ wasn't really pinning him but maybe he was suppose to? Man that was sloppy.

Well, here's to the awesome promos I'm sure Tito will have with TNA...

I love NXT so much. I even enjoy Bo Dallas because the stick the crowd gives him is just hilarious. I pretty much agree with all that's been said; Tyler Breeze, The Wyatt's farewell, The Shield, Charlotte's chops.. it's all just brilliant. (Let's ignore the part where Mason Ryan 'dances')

But seriously, it was like Wyatt was actually preaching to a room full of followers. It was so awesome and I'm jealous of anybody who got to see that shit live.

Edit: I'm so hyped for the Cesaro/Zayn 2 out of 3 falls match that's coming soon.

@papercut: I cant wait to see the fails!

@doesitoffendyou_yeah: NXT is pretty great. I hope Vince recognizes the talent work more often and also HHH`s work there.

@papercut: the worst part of it was that as soon as they hit the ground, Aries had to grab Styles' arm and place it on top of himself so that there was some semblance of a cover made. It was a bad finish and it was executed really poorly, which is a shame because up until that point, it was pretty amazing

This has gone from sad to downright tragic: Kurt Angle was arrested for DWI for a third time as a member of the TNA roster. His two previous arrests were in March 2011 in South Dakota and September 2011 in Virginia (although both DWI/DUI charges were later dropped to reckless driving.)

Source: http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish/TNA/article10032680.shtml

don't forget the part where the ref almost counts three but stops then counts three as aries gets his shoulder up. Weird ending to what looked like a great match (on the YouTube version anyway).

Also, Tito Ortiz huh? I'll say I didn't see that coming but knowing that he and Rampage were about to fight made all the more dirtier. Using TNA as a way to romote your shitty MMA promotion, okay Spike TV.

Suicide has been a character in TNA on and off since the game came out. For some reason its always been popular and a variety of people have been under the mask. Just recently they changed the character to Manik after Austin Aries stole the outfit for a week to win the X division title. Its convoluted and dumb, just like TNA in general.

@drx25: Christ. Ya know I really wanna be proud of Kurt since he is a Pittsburgh local and such a fantastic althlete. My god man his alcohol dependency is really tarnishing what otherwise is one of thr best careers anyone has ever had in professional wrestling. I think his divorce with Karen is what really sent him over the edge. Which is sad to see. Ugh.

@demoskinos: I was listening to him on the Steve Austin podcast and he was mumbling and didn't make alot of sense when he was talking. Its sad too see Kurt this way.

So I don't normally care about MMA stuff, is it true that the Tito stuff is essentially to promote Bellator's PPV? Why would you promote someone else's PPV when you can barely promote your own? Fuck, last time I cared about TNA I still couldn't buy one of their PPVs legally in the UK, you know the one fucking country where TNA was actually beating the WWE for TV ratings.ugh just thinking about TNA makes my head hurt.

Anyway, NXT was great. I can't believe I'm going to say this but I'm looking forward to the dance contest between Emma and Summer Rae.

Are there any good sites for streaming Raw/Smackdown? I just moved and can't get cable here, but after hearing all the praise (and the promise of an Alex wrestling podcast) I want to start watching WWE again.

Also, shame about TNA. They were doing pretty okay in the mid/late 2000s.

@ajamafalous: I'm not sure that I can post them in public here without getting in trouble, but I know where I normally stream PPVs if you want to know about it (PM me).

What about satellite there? DirecTV has become my favorite "cable" company!

For Smackdown you can usually find it on Dailymotion, before it even airs in the US sometimes.

Look out Kurt Angle

As an update to the Kurt Angle story, he announced on Twitter that he's entering rehab pretty much ASAP.

Dave tweeted out these illustrations of wrestlers a couple days ago but I just came across them. They are suuuuper rad.

I think this make the reveal 10xs better.

@professork: 10x better than shit is still shit

Any Canadian duders in here? I used to watch SmackDown on the ScoreTV website, but since they changed to Sportsnet 360 it seems to be gone. Is the WWE programming still on their site somewhere and I'm just not seeing it? Being able to selectively watch a high quality stream of the show without any commercials was pretty awesome

@mildmolasses: Hm I'm not sure but I'm not seeing any WWE on The Score's video site. I used to use it occasionally to catch up on things I missed but haven't in a while.

I had one of their Smackdown videos bookmarked from a while back and it looks like it has been removed... if they've done away with the online streaming that would suck really bad, but it kinda seems that way.

I have to say, I love TNA for how atrocious it is. Not ironically because I'm not an idiot, but genuinely; I delight in it's awkward debuts for nobodies and the terrible match endings.

@rabid619: Fuckers! That's really too bad because it was really convenient, and the lack of constant ad interruptions (I'm looking at you, Daily Motion) made it my preferred way of watching the programs. I'm really not sure how Rogers was able to scam the CRTC into being allowed to own almost all of the sports channels in the country, but they did, and we're the worse off for it

Is it bad that I enjoyed Alex Riley on Smackdown?

Orton's attacker was charged and he plead guilty to the charge. Apparently the price you pay for hitting Orton in the balls is only $50.

@doesitoffendyou_yeah: He really wasn't bad. I liked his enthusiasm and he's surprisingly well spoken. I was also a huge fan of the RVD/Christian/Orton match, and the finish to the CM Punk/Fandango match was pretty damned awesome.

@mildmolasses: @rabid619: Is the URL TheScore.com? Because that is no longer affiliated with the former The Score TV channel (which then got the URL TheScoreTV.ca) and, if you needed yet another reason to hate Rogers, Sportsnet has yet to offer on demand versions of Smackdown, Raw and Vintage Collection.

Also, Smackdown continues to be awesome.

Basically the same company that owns TNA also owns Bellator. So they are using TNA to build the first Bellator PPV of Tito/Rampage.

But yes it is stupid

once again they over value randy orton

You do realize that multiple "old" "TNA guys" are in WWE as we speak right?

Shit I forget, people like to just blindly hate on TNA without using logic, carry on then.

Honestly, I don't know why anybody would find it appealing to watch two way-past-their-prime guys fighting each other.

I've wondered that for years now regarding the Undertaker and his mania matches, at least put someone younger in to carry him. Punk was a nice change up at least.

@amikron: Yeah, but the only TNA guys in the company were in the WWE first. RVD and Christian are WWE guys first and foremost (though I will admit that Christian had a nice run in TNA when he was there).

Also, I don't count CM Punk as a TNA guy at all if that's what you're getting at.

the "past their prime" comment was about the MMA fight, but it applies to wrestling as well I guess.

@turboman: See but that is the problem, everyone has to start somewhere, not everyone stays in one place. I don't consider Sting a "wcw reject", I don't think anyone expects wrestlers to just quit wrestling outright when they leave or get fired from the WWE so we should really just cut that crap out. There are legitimate issues with TNA but they have little to do with using former WWE employees.

I do agree that we have quite a few old guys running around in both WWE and TNA, but some are capable of putting on a decent match, like the guys or not but Sting and Angle can put on really great matches, well, Angle could if he would stop getting in trouble. Wonder if he was wearing the USA sunglasses when they pulled him over...

@amikron: you can't deny that TNA has a terrible history of bringing in WWE rejects and putting then over on their own talent.

No one is talking Christian or Hardy or even Angle, but how about Hogan? Flair? The Steiners?

Nothing wrong with using those guys, but when your major storylines revolve around old men arguing with each other while the guys who have been with you since the beginning are getting squashed in the undercard, there is something pretty rotten happening.

@rick_fingers: Hogan is certainly a reject, can't really pin that on any specific fed though, guy has been everywhere. But you suggesting that the Steiners are rejects? Well fuck you buddy! STEINER IS THE BEST PROFESSOR IN THE WORLD:

I haven't seen the last great match Sting put on. You mentioned the Undertaker, what the difference is WWE keeps Undertaker special. Sting is on TV every week basically, Undertaker is showing up on TV 5-6 times a year.

Angle has too much baggage and just seems too banged up to me. I would love to Angle work a Brock Lesnar like schedule that only has him doing 3-4 matches a year.

It isn't about them being rejects, it is when TNA seems to treat anybody that was in WWE no matter how high or low they were on the card better than their homegrown talent.

They run into the WCW problem that instead of building, they get caught up in looking for that next surprise.

If Scott Steiner showed back up, I would totally change my mind

:O

Oh shit, Big Show's actually looking pretty good for once. This kind of excites me for his return.