The Macho Man Randy Savage Wrestling Memorial Thread

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Demolition Man

Demolition Man

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Savage died in a car accident today caused by an heart attack. My condolences to his family and friends on the passing.​
 
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google gives great gifs.

The Hero's Welcome
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Pumphandle Shoulder-Breaker
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Back Elbow+Enzeguiri Kick
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Foot Stomp+Tornado DDT
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Yoshi Tonic
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Missile Dropkick
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Spettacolare Arm Drag
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Cravate Neckbreaker
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Diving European Uppercut
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Kneebreaker+Backdrop
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Gutwrench Suplex
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Springboard Spinning Kick
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Pumphandle Bomb
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Alpamare Waterslide
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Ricola Bomb
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Stupendo Backbreaker
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Preemptively playing the role of Scorch will be neocisco.

It's "a", not "an", Demo.

Definitely agree with the topic. ROH Video Wire just doesn't cut it.
 
[quote name='neocisco']Crimson definitely has potential.[/QUOTE]
I like the "undefeated streak" thing they've got going with him right now, but I'm really hoping it doesn't just turn into a Goldberg 2.0 kind of thing.
 
I started watching the Alpha 1 show a few days ago. Production quality aside the first few matches weren't too bad with the second match actually being pretty solid. I'll have to get back and watch the rest of it later.
 
Quick question: who, exactly, is TNA's new 'Wrestling Matters' campaign designed to appeal to?

I've been thinking about it because, really, I'm not too sure. The slogan is obviously a direct result of WWE's decision to no longer use the word wrestling, which, uh, no one in the world is actually aware of. Really, if you put out a press release and no one reads it, does it truly exist?

Let's break this down. We (the IWC) are aware that WWE made a change, and are likely the only group that realizes this fact. So, is TNA's campaign for us? It's not as if we're a group of people who don't know about TNA and have likely made a decision on it long ago. We also are a group who has stuck with WWE long enough now that we realize that the 'wrestling' aspect flew away a while ago and that one press release isn't really going to change the same basic product we've been given for years now. Basically, TNA is selling something they don't really have (wrestling, or at least our idealized version of it) to a group that already knows they don't have it. Plus, even if we had some hope of change, we'd look at last night's PPV and realize that they're giving us things like Kurt Angle stuck in a storyline with a mid-carder, a non-wrestler, and a sideshow act that hasn't been active in close to a decade. Or put someone like AJ Styles in a match with Tommy Dreamer. Or, even, have a main event featuring two long-in-the-tooth performers and then make it clear that the focus of the match is Anderson's commentary. This is wrestling, indeed.

So, if not us, then it surely must be for the general public, right? The same general public that didn't care when TNA went to Monday nights. That didn't care when they went live. That didn't care when Hulk Hogan came in. This is the group that is going to be brought in by fancy graphics, colors, and a new tagline? Somehow, I'm doubting that. The argument, of course, could be made that maybe people had been confused by the name TNA. I'd lend some weight to that if, for at least 2 months, that same name didn't have Hulk Hogan plastered next to it on billboards. You know, because Hulk Hogan is famous for so many other things. PastaMania, brother!

TNA is trying to appeal to two different groups, both of which are seemingly indifferent to the product. Where my issue comes in is the incredibly ham-fisted way that they go about it. A lot of their comments, marketing, whatever grow out of one simple thing, which is the idea that people hate WWE. Except, in reality, they don't. Oh no, WWE is PG! Oh no, WWE isn't using the word wrestling anymore! WWE fans must be rioting in the streets!

Or they're not. Raw still does decent, if unspectacular, ratings. WM finally cracked one million buys again. They sell ungodly amounts of merchandise. Is the company as healthy as it was a decade ago? No, but it never will be. The late 90s are gone, and people need to accept that fact. Wrestling is back to being a niche product, and TNA seems to want nothing more than to point out how they aren't the MOST WELL-KNOWN AND PROFITABLE WRESTLING COMPANY IN THE USA.

Sorry for the ranting, but this kneejerk marketing that TNA has just annoys me to no end. It's about as subtle as sledgehammer, and that bugs the shit out of me. We get it, TNA, you aren't WWE.

You really, really aren't.


Edit - Ok, I'm an asshole, it's 'Wrestling Matters', not 'This is Wrestling'. Got the chant confused with the actual new slogan. Same shit applies, though. Sidenote: Any chant of 'This is (insert whatever here)!' can fuck off and die.
 
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You know how TNA could do really well? Just put that redhead that's always in the front row in commercials with the tagline "She's there every week" and people will start to tune in. Maybe give her a bikini or something.

Well, from the view of a casual observer as opposed to the fan that you all seem to be, the problem is that it's the same damn people I saw 10-20 years ago when I was more of a fan. When I flipped through the options and saw that wrestling was on I tuned just to see if they were still doing cool crazy stuff and to see if they had hot chicks that could pull off more than two moves. I find Hulk Hogan who was tired and old with the NWO and is still there a decade later. Looking even more tired and old. I honestly though Ric Flair was dead, yet there he is. There's the Hardy brothers, but seemingly not doing anything anymore. There's Kurt Angle, still making me change the channel when he's on because he's just boring. At least Jeff Jarret isn't carrying around a guitar anymore... Tessmacher and Winter are stupid hot, but neither one of them will pull of the crazy shit that Lita used to do.

The product and the presentation just aren't there anymore. So what was the death of really cool wrestling?
 
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[quote name='neocisco']Preemptively playing the role of Scorch will be neocisco.

It's "a", not "an", Demo.[/QUOTE]

How dare you!
 
[quote name='007']Quick question: who, exactly, is TNA's new 'This is Wrestling' campaign designed to appeal to?[/QUOTE]

I don't think it's so insidious. It's poor planning and management. They recognized a change needed to be made - their company name. They put together a change in the look and layout to correspond with that, indicating a "paradigm shift" in their business, so to speak.

But they didn't plan adequately.

1) The sheer amount of confusion and mixed messages coming out of TNImpact shows that they, as a company, don't know what they're doing. The shift from WWF to WWE was easier, but also far more organized and complete. It was WWF one week, then never again.

*sigh* Just thinking about how the Attitude Era is fucking ruined because of video edits.

Now, as for TNImpact, not a single person in the company knows what "Impact Wrestling" is. The show? The promotion? Jeff Jarrett's new dog "Impact"? What? They rolled out a change before it was fully realized. The message coming out of the company is "we have no fuckin' IDEA what we're doing here."

2) There's no shift in the product. One-dimensional characters who make little to no sense and match booking and a television program that emphasizes talkie-talk-talk, wanking guitars entrance music, and putrid, insulting storylines (or none at all as Chris Harris is concerned), and 15-second-to-3-minute matches, replete with screwjobs, run-ins, and incompetent referees. The problem here is that the marketing shift came out too early. TNImpact's televised product is the same as it ever was - ADD-riddled spastic horseshit masquerading as "wrestling." So when that's the visual realization of "Wrestling Matters," you don't have to possess a whole lot of cynicism to think "these are the people respecting wrestling? you aren't fooling me."

It's the wrestling equivalent of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner. Or if his press team put out a slogan that said "Habeas Corpus Matters." Well, those are words. There they are. Yep.

tl'dr? Like the band D.O.A.'s slogan was: Talk - Action = 0.
 
[quote name='nasum']
The product and the presentation just aren't there anymore. So what was the death of really cool wrestling?[/QUOTE]

It really depends on who you are and what you want out of wrestling and even that can be hard to define for an individual.

My golden-years, I love wrestling more than anything, I want to watch wrestling in all my spare time, era was from about 1996 until 2001. I had been a fan for as long as I can remember, but in 96 I was 17 and accidentally discovered ECW on cable access, in the middle of the night, in my parents basement. Sabu broke someone through a table, Raven and Dreamer were in a feud that I thought was real, and the crowd was chanting curse words at Shane Douglas. I was fucking floored.

As the years went on ECW remained my favorite, but the WWE started doing some awesome stuff with Austin, Rock, Foley, and my former favorite, The Undertaker. Well, maybe the UT stuff got a little corny but whatever. WCW was fun to watch on their late night replay if I decided to stay up, or I'd tape it and watch most of it the next day. The catch was that every Nitro seemed to end with some bullshit shenanigans that quickly grated on my nerves. I can't honestly say that WWE/ECW didn't do the same thing on occasion, and I have no numbers about how many run-in finishes occurred but I noticed them more with WCW.

Anyhow, as the years went on, several things occurred that sort of killed wrestling for me (at least as far as being my primary hobby/interest goes).

First, WCW went under. Make no mistake, the last ~18 months of that company's existence was god-awful, pants-shitting terrible. I watched very little of post 1999 WCW and what I saw made me grateful for that.

Next (and no, this isn't chronological), ECW died. This was heartbreaking to a much greater degree. I went through a phase where I wanted to be a wrestler, where I went to wrestling school, and all that was driven primarily by ECW. My muse was gone. Yeah, to a certain degree, the departure of guys like Taz, Shane Douglas, the Dudleys, and Raven had tarnished the brand for me, but it was still my vision of the best wrestling promotion ever.

Finally, success was reinforced to the point that it was no longer successful. Austin's war with McMahon was enormously entertaining... at first. By about year 2, I was clamoring for a more significant feud with Austin that didn't involve the McMahon's at all. Maybe one did occur that I'm forgetting about but goddamn did I ever get sick of seeing Austin punch McMahon.

All that aside, good wrestling absolutely still exists. My current favorite promotion is probably PWG although I haven't watched any of their stuff in a couple months. I loved the two HBK/UT matches from the past years. R-Truth's current heel run has been a blast to watch. AJ Styles remains absolutely amazing in the ring against a variety of opponents although again, I haven't seen much of TNA in the past year so I can't comment for sure on what he's done super-recently that has been awesome. I could go on for a bit, it isn't the wasteland that some people seem to think it is, but it does remain a case of not living up to potential. Looking at just the big 2, there's arguably more talent there than there was in, I dunno, 1998, but like you mentioned, it's the same guys that were there 12 years ago, and now they're not as good as they were.
 
[quote name='Mr. Beef']I like the "undefeated streak" thing they've got going with him right now, but I'm really hoping it doesn't just turn into a Goldberg 2.0 kind of thing.[/QUOTE]

That's exactly what they are thinking down to the goofy bug eyed snarling (Gunner does it also)
 
[quote name='Halo05']All that aside, good wrestling absolutely still exists.[/QUOTE]

It all comes down to one idea: "Put your money where your mouth is."

If you like PWG, ROH, etc., then buy their merchandise and shows. The problem is the 'cheap motherfucker' mentality. A lot of people who say they love good wrestling and the Independents don't buy shows or merchandise.

It's okay to steal from WWE, and even TNA, as their product is so awful that they should offer it at a heavily discounted price, but stealing from the Independents is primarily why, ahem: Independents stay independents, you fucks! (I mean that in a general manner.)

We have all seen the power of the Internet. So put your money where your mouth is. All it takes is a simple request, like "Hey, Bob. I know you once liked WWE, in the late 1990s. There's this pro wrestling promotion called Ring of Honor, and I think you'd like it."

And, who knows, maybe one day the "IWC" will move like a school of fish, and actually do some good.
 
[quote name='diddy310']That's exactly what they are thinking down to the goofy bug eyed snarling (Gunner does it also)[/QUOTE]
The thing about Crimson that I see is that he could still keep the undefeated streak, but they could switch up his personality a bit. Hell, give him Samoa Joe's old personality. Lord knows he's not going to be using it anymore.

I find it weird that I'm genuinely interested in Crimson not only after watching a TNA PPV, but after watching a TNA PPV where his match involved fuckin' Abyss.

Also:

30vyflk.jpg
 
I can't be the only one that think Crimson blows. He's got a great look, and all, but his moves have no impact. He's far too green.
[quote name='diddy310']That's exactly what they are thinking down to the goofy bug eyed snarling (Gunner does it also)[/QUOTE]
I don't think Gunner is channeling Goldberg.
 
The product and the presentation just aren't there anymore. So what was the death of really cool wrestling?
Click to expand...

The presentation has been stepped up but the product is way down because nothing is allowed to develop. One of the big reasons is not being able to get new talent.

WCW were the first to start immediately pushing guys right out of their training camp. Natural Born Thrillers, Shannon Moore, Jimmy Yang, etc. all had unbelievably poor matches because all they knew how to do was pull off spots they saw on the indy scene.

WWE started doing this the next year in 2002 and it was worse because they weren't on the verge of closing. For a good two years, WWE had absolutely no idea how to integrate new people, but they were trying to really push them. Randy Orton and Carlito both got injured shortly after their debuts from their own finishers. Brock Lesnar went over damn near everyone and his program with Angle brought down WWE's buyrates and ratings. Every single new wrestler they brought in would have one of two finishers. Batista was the biggest lump in the world until Orton's face turn tanked. John Cena gets trashed a lot for being really vanilla and heavily mainstream/unoriginal but I have to give him credit for atleast knowing how to wrestle *and* connect with a crowd.
 
[quote name='Halo05']All that aside, good wrestling absolutely still exists.[/QUOTE]

It all comes down to one idea: "Put your money where your mouth is."

If you like PWG, ROH, etc., then buy their merchandise and shows. The problem is the 'cheap motherfucker' mentality. A lot of people who say they love good wrestling and the Independents don't buy shows or merchandise.

It's okay to steal from WWE, and even TNA, as their product is so awful that they should offer it at a heavily discounted price, but stealing from the Independents is primarily why, ahem: Independents stay independents, you fucks! (I mean that in a general manner.)

We have all seen the power of the Internet. So put your money where your mouth is. All it takes is a simple request, like "Hey, Bob. I know you once liked WWE, in the late 1990s. There's this pro wrestling promotion called Ring of Honor, and I think you'd like it."

And, who knows, maybe one day the "IWC" will move like a school of fish, and actually do some good.
 
So...Pope posted this on Twitter a few days ago..

"My time has come, It's time to move on. I've served well. Hope none has been disappointed; hope my hard work has been Applauded&Appreciated."

I'm thinking he might be retiring from wrestling or at least leaving TNA. He finished his Criminal Justice degree a few days ago as well so maybe he's got something else lined up.

Doing an interview tonight that will be streamed here at 11 EST

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pwr
 
If he's retiring, then good for him. I hope he goes out and does something with his education. As a pro wrestler, Elijah Burke had a lot more potential than his employers allowed him to show.
 
[quote name='Mr. Beef']The thing about Crimson that I see is that he could still keep the undefeated streak, but they could switch up his personality a bit. Hell, give him Samoa Joe's old personality. Lord knows he's not going to be using it anymore.

I find it weird that I'm genuinely interested in Crimson not only after watching a TNA PPV, but after watching a TNA PPV where his match involved fuckin' Abyss.

Also:

30vyflk.jpg
[/QUOTE]

The one in the middle of the bottom row - he's on Tough Enough right now, right? I think his name's Andy?
 
[quote name='Brak']I can't be the only one that think Crimson blows. He's got a great look, and all, but his moves have no impact. He's far too green.[/QUOTE]

I don't disagree that there's not a lot of room for improvement. He has a lot of potential, it's just a matter of seeing what he does with it.

[quote name='diddy310']So...Pope posted this on Twitter a few days ago..

"My time has come, It's time to move on. I've served well. Hope none has been disappointed; hope my hard work has been Applauded&Appreciated."

I'm thinking he might be retiring from wrestling or at least leaving TNA. He finished his Criminal Justice degree a few days ago as well so maybe he's got something else lined up.

Doing an interview tonight that will be streamed here at 11 EST

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pwr[/QUOTE]

I'd be ready to quit too if a big point of my last feud was torturing a fake Kato.

That Joe/Pope feud should have been so much better than it was.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']Look who resurfaced in All Japan last night:

230015_10150249985411098_189144446097_8932339_7596737_n.jpg


Huzzah. That's Muta, by the way. Not Rellik. Which stands for...oh, you know.[/QUOTE]


That outfit is AMAZING. Honestly though for 2 seconds I was scared that it might be a PETA endorsed Japanese version of Boogeyman.

My thoughts on Pope: Loved everything about him as a wrestler EXCEPT his finisher. HATED the running double knees to the back, I wished I could explain why but it is what it is.
 
[quote name='mykevermin']


It's the wrestling equivalent of President Bush's "Mission Accomplished" banner. Or if his press team put out a slogan that said "Habeas Corpus Matters." Well, those are words. There they are. Yep.

[/QUOTE]


"Habeas Corpus Matters" may be the quote of the year. Is W booking TNA? That might explain some things.
 
Via NoDQ on Twitter...
Smackdown broke last week's record low rating of 2011 with a 1.69 and 2.6 million viewers.
Click to expand...
Just. End. The. Brand. Extension. Already.

---

Muta's attire is absolutely awesome.
 
[quote name='BlueSwim']Via NoDQ on Twitter...[/QUOTE]

Clearly they made the right decision in taking a dump on Christian before giving him a chance. Fans line up to see the viper by the dozens, it seems.

Edit: here's the rub: since they've involved Christian in the main event feud still, he'll still be the fall guy for the ratings bust. WWE: self-fulfilling prophecy indeed.
 
224340_10150251356450600_563170599_9225833_4551286_n.jpg
First shots of the new TNImpact Zone.

$50 sez they start off Thursday's show with a long, soulless promo from someone (Foley?) about how important wrestling is, complete with insincere platitudes towards TNImpact and thinly veiled shots towards WWE...

...and the show will end with a ref bump and/or run-in clusterfuck during the main event with no clear (or clean) finish.

Really, though, as long as they get a new theme song, I'm happy. I can't count the number of times I've found myself thinking, without provocation, that "emotional chaos...CHAOS!" is among the worst written and yet funniest lyrics of all fuckin' time.
 
There was a new IW/TNA
X-Division champion
crowned during the IW taping today; it's
Abyss.
Same old TNA... Impact Wrestling truly is Malibu Stacy with a new hat.
 
[quote name='BlueSwim']There was a new IW/TNA
X-Division champion
crowned during the IW taping today; it's
Abyss.
Same old TNA... Impact Wrestling truly is Malibu Stacy with a new hat.[/QUOTE]

Admittedly, I don't follow IW as closely as I'd like to, but I'm pretty sure that actually makes negative sense.

There's not an episode of Raw or Smackdown that goes by that I'm not mesmerized by the entrance area that's a metal grate that somehow plays video.

Pan right...Cena sucks sign, pan left, pan left!
 
Probably another piece to the completely irrelevant in 2011 "X-Division guys are too small to matter" storyline.
 
[quote name='ShinSolidus']Did I miss anything? I was busy and missed the first segment[/QUOTE]

Cena said Miz plays with My Little Ponies and has no testicles. Miz names a match for Cena later.
 
[quote name='Survivalism']Cena said Miz plays with My Little Ponies and has no testicles. Miz names a match for Cena later.[/QUOTE]

So, yeah. Same old same old.

Kofi vs Punk!!!
 
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