The Swamp

Sabo wrote:I'm watching Raw on DVR and have only caught the first 75 minutes or so, but this has been the best stretch of Raw in ages.

Raw was great last night, but we all know it's only a matter of time until the fuck the storylines up.

For any of you who might be interested in this sort of thing, Chris Jericho's most recent podcast episode (#137) is an edited version of the "Monday Night Wars" debate between Eric Bischoff and Bruce Pritchard from before the Royal Rumble a couple months ago.

Feel free to skip over the beginning part (30 minutes, maybe longer) which is Chris and a friend talking about their trip to the Rock 'N Roll Hall of Fame induction.

http://pitchfork.com/news/59426-billy-c ... wrestling/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Billy Corgan joins TNA creative team. I'll get the lowdown on this next time I talk to Mike.

[media]https://pbs.twimg.com/tweet_video/CFfbeGRVAAAq5p6.mp4[/media]

Ouch.

Now THAT'S a strong man!

Wasn't sure to put this in the podcasts or wrestling thread, but decided it might be more interesting to wrestling people, but SI did a surprisingly long feature on Mike Tenay's history with pro wrestling and his sports betting podcast.

I had to buy this T-shirt. Only available today.

brian wrote:I had to buy this T-shirt. Only available today.

I've seen that shirt for sale many times. Always wanted to buy one, so I might as well get it today.

Thanks for the link.

This one's for Ryan. A Piper's Pit with "Iron" Mike Sharpe.

ETA: I wasn't aware of this when I posted the video, but "Iron" Mike Sharpe passed away this weekend.

Axl Rotten found dead today at age 44.

Anyone else watching Wrestlemania tonight?

This guy:

Sounds like getting into the stadium is a clusterfuck. I can't understand how a place that hosts 8 NFL games a year, who knows how many concerts, plus at this point every other big sporting event there is can fuck something like that up.

And no, not watching.

rass wrote:Sounds like getting into the stadium is a clusterfuck. I can't understand how a place that hosts 8 NFL games a year, who knows how many concerts, plus at this point every other big sporting event there is can fuck something like that up.

And no, not watching.

I read a report that the WiFi system that controlled the electronic ticket devices was down, so they weren't letting anyone in. For the first match on the pre-show, there were less than 10,000 people inside the stadium. It was kinda fun to watch a match in an almost empty cave.

I'm watching on a totally legal stream.

Who the fuck is Fifth Harmony?

Edit:

The other night I watched Theo Von's stand up special from Netflix. Tonight I get to see The Miz. Real World alums that made it! Yea!

Oh man. This is gunna be so good.

Edit

No idea how you survive a damn fall like that without breaking your body. Fucking nuts.

Best booking of the night!

Remember this guy?



Well, he attended the Wrestlemania Axxess fan event and got a pretty awesome picture with the Undertaker:

Sabo wrote:This one's for Ryan. A Piper's Pit with "Iron" Mike Sharpe.

ETA: I wasn't aware of this when I posted the video, but "Iron" Mike Sharpe passed away this weekend.

I missed this. Thanks, and aw.

Johnnie wrote:The other night I watched Theo Von's stand up special from Netflix. Tonight I get to see The Miz. Real World alums that made it! Yea!

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┻┳| •.•) Theo was from Road Rules
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Ah, shit. Mary Ellis Bunim is turning in her grave with my mistake.

And how did you do that ladder thing? That's weird.

I haven't watched pro wrestling since I was in my teens, but from the highlights I'm seeing, everything that happened last night was basically a syringe full of nostalgia to me, Pulp Fiction style. The Rock? Foley? Austin? Shane M, for some reason?

Johnnie wrote:And how did you do that ladder thing? That's weird.

It's a brick wall, and it's one of the few twitter memes that never gets old to me. So I copied and pasted one.

BSF21 wrote:I haven't watched pro wrestling since I was in my teens, but from the highlights I'm seeing, everything that happened last night was basically a syringe full of nostalgia to me, Pulp Fiction style. The Rock? Foley? Austin? Shane M, for some reason?

It's a fundamental problem the WWE has right now. All of the wrestlers who made the promotion a ton of money are either retired, injured or no longer with the company. So every time there's a big event, they bring back the nostalgia to remind you of how great things used to be.

Now, they have some existing talent who could make them a lot of money but they're afraid to pull the trigger on them for some reason. Dean Ambrose could be the second coming of Razor Ramon (minus the drugs and alcohol), but he always comes up short in the big matches. Why? Who knows. Instead, they push a guy (Roman Reigns) as the hero for the masses, and he gets booed every time he's out there. He's booed because the fans know he's been anointed by McMahon to be the next John Cena, so they do all they can to make him look good. The fans resent that. The fans made an impact two years ago when Daniel Bryan won the title at Wrestlemania 30 almost exclusively because of how popular he became without the WWE pushing him. I guess Vince feels the fans had their say once and now he's going to do what he wants.

Wrestlemania is often a springboard for younger talents to jump into the main event stage. They didn't do any of that last night except for letting Baron Corbin win the battle royal. It makes no sense to have Chris Jericho win since he's not a full-time WWE wrestler any more. It makes no sense to have Brock Lesnar win over Ambrose as completely as he did since Lesnar is a part-time attraction.

The WWE has some GREAT talent, especially in NXT (essentially their farm system). The best match of the weekend was Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura, which was on the NXT card Friday night. This was Nakamura's first match in the WWE (he's was a huge star in Japan, wrestling for New Japan Pro Wrestling), and their match probably won the match of the year. The match between Bayley and Asuka for the NXT women's title was damn near as good. There is good wrestling in the WWE these days, but the company doesn't showcase it on their biggest TV programs because they don't want to take a chance on them yet. I guess they're happy with all the merch sold by Cena and New Day and they don't want to mess with that steady income.

Don't try this at home.



Aside from a severe concussion, that guy (Enzo Amore, who's been on the WWE main roster for about a month) is fine.

Unfortunately, Bobby Heenan might be the next big wrestling name to go. He's been battling cancer and a variety of ailments for awhile and isn't doing so well.

Andre the Giant is the best.

This is probably the most acrobatic wrestling match I've ever seen. It's fantastic.

http://njpwworld.com/p/s_series_00392_6_08

One of the Twitter accounts I follow is creating Magic: The Gathering cards for various pro wrestlers and they're flat-out awesome:

Those are fucking awesome.

I just nerdgasm'd hard.

He's done cards for wrestlers from Japanese and English promotions, too. If any others catch my eye, I'll post them.

The Twitter account is @SenorLARIATO if anyone is interested.

Sabo wrote:He's done cards for wrestlers from Japanese and English promotions, too. If any others catch my eye, I'll post them.

The Twitter account is @SenorLARIATO if anyone is interested.

This might be of interest only to SL22, but rumors are going around that the Headbangers are going back to the WWE.

I find it interesting that three Swampers have ties to someone who works (or worked) in the pro wrestling industry. It's not exactly the easiest business to advance to the higher levels like the WWE or TNA.

And for those that don't know, here are the connections:

- DSafetyGuy went to college with Brian Gewirtz, who was a lead writer for the WWE for almost a decade.

- Brian is friends with Mike Tenay, who's been a wrestling announcer for AAA (a Mexican lucha libre organization), WCW and TNA.

- SL22 used to play kickball with Headbanger Mosh.