Wrestling 2021/2022: All Thread Everything

[letsgobrian]

Picture from Young Rock TV show, showing the WWF roster in 1996. I can work out who four of them could be. Any ideas on the rest?

I'm guessing Bob Backlund, Undertaker, A Smoking Gunn, ???, a time travelling Iron Sheik?, Hunter Hearst Helmsley, Mankind, ???, a Bodydonna.

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

It is the Iron Sheik, he managed the Sultan when Rocky faced him, no?

Those Mankind and Undertakers are rake thin

[gmoney]

The guy in green is apparently supposed to be Ringmaster era Steve Austin!

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

oh god. That Triple H is fucking shit too. Austin, Mankind and Triple H, that's The Rock's 3 most important opponents and they're all terrible

[Magnum Valentino]

Wasn't Austin was Stone Cold by the time Mankind debuted?

[Spode]

(L-R) Alainis Morisette, Tolcaster United's Paul 'Grazza' Grazier, Pugwall, Crimewatch Rav, Terry Tibbs, Adam Ant if he did his homework and got his head down in school, Tracey Barlow, AC Slater, Your Dad - not missing your mum but still bringing his washing round. 

[petril]

why is Damon Hill in it(rightmost)?

[Stone Cold Steve Austin]

Wasn't Austin was Stone Cold by the time Mankind debuted?

there was a very brief window, possibly only days long, where Foley was working dark matches before The Ringmaster was dropped for Stone Cold and I think The Rock may have also worked his first WWF dark matches on those tapings, but there's a photo of Mantaur from this episode too so it's just whatever illustrates the dork pre-Attitude WWF

[Magnum Valentino]

I ended up watching an April 96 Raw as background noise last night and yeah, Mankind was on the roster but Stone Cold was in that transition period where he's being called Stone Cold but he's still managed by DiBiase.

[Moribunderast]

Still have to catch up on Rampage but watched the Stardom PPV on the weekend. It'll be up on Stardom World soon. Syuri/Himeka was a great match! Better than I expected, for sure. The High Speed Title match between AZM and Mei Suruga also a banger.

[up_the_hampipe]

Every clip I've seen of Young Rock has been total hamfisted shit.

[Gurke and Hare]

Stu Grayson's AEW contract has expired and they've not been able to agree terms on a new one according to Meltzer. That's a shame if true.

[Ja'moke]

Stu Grayson's AEW contract has expired and they've not been able to agree terms on a new one according to Meltzer. That's a shame if true.

Yeah, disappointing. I really like Stu. But I can't blame him for wanting to explore his options, as Dark Order has been stagnating for a while now. Plus, Silver & Reynolds kind of took over Uno & Grayson as the group's number one tag team.

Grayson is a really good wrestler and could probably have a great singles run on the indies and/or in Impact, which might help increase his name value a bit.

[Gurke and Hare]

There's a jobber on AEW Dark called Terry Yaki, magnificent.

[gmoney]

Well worth your time to watch this William Regal video.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1521844597445386241?s=20&t=BIBgYx9ec6Rept4JXg8new

[Magnum Valentino]

Well worth your time to watch this William Regal video.

https://twitter.com/AEW/status/1521844597445386241?s=20&t=BIBgYx9ec6Rept4JXg8new

Also a Youtube link for those without Twitter -

[BeardFaceMan]

Excellent video, complete waste just putting it online though, that's the kind of thing they need to be putting on their tv show.

[Ja'moke]

Excellent video, complete waste just putting it online though, that's the kind of thing they need to be putting on their tv show.

Apparently videos are a sure-fire ratings killer, sadly, as people tend to treat them as commercials.

Great video though, even if that bit about the stabbing at the end makes no sense. I don't think I'd forget about being stabbed after six months... and I'm pretty sure it would also leave a scar. Come on, Regal!

[Gurke and Hare]

The weekly Road To videos are always great.

Angelico vs Yuya Uemura from last night's Dark is well worth catching up with if you've got a spare 10 minutes.

[Gurke and Hare]

Regal: I love to see fellers getting tossed around by big men.

[BeardFaceMan]

Loved Hangman's promo, especially the stuff about mastabatory Bret Hart tributes. I hope they're not turning him heel just to keep Punk a face. And I really, really hope they're not putting the title on Punk, that would be very shit.

[kitsofan34]

I wanted to talk about this recently, after Hangman's promo's it now seems like I'm jumping on a bandwagon.

The Bret Hart tribute spots are so annoying. We get it, you think Bret Hart's great, but it completely breaks the entire premise of the match, i.e you're having a fight. Hitting a beat for beat sequence of chain wrestling from 20 years ago makes no contextual sense.

[BeardFaceMan]

Yep, AEW has been too smarky for me of late, I hope its not a direction they continue to go in.

[Ja'moke]

Loved Hangman's promo, especially the stuff about mastabatory Bret Hart tributes. I hope they're not turning him heel just to keep Punk a face. And I really, really hope they're not putting the title on Punk, that would be very shit.

Oh Punk is almost definitely winning the title. And he should. Hopefully with a heel turn during it for Summer of Punk '22... and I'd love Eddie Kingston to be the one to beat him for it down the line. Or if he stays face, MJF will likely win it off him.

A good Dynamite, but not as top-to-bottom strong as last week. I'm not sure main eventing with Deonna and Mercedes was the best idea, the crowd didn't seem interested, which is a shame. Also, the HOB/Julia bit was weird.

The Wardlow stuff continues to be fantastic. Fenix v Dante was as nuts as expected. Jericho and Santana had a fun match, but that story needs to advance next week (I'm expecting Eddie to bring in Homicide & Hernandez to even up the numbers).

[Deanjam]

I certainly hope Punk wins the title. Page just doesn't do anything for me. A heel Punk champion (it's definitely gonna be him turning, not Page) will be a lot of fun. Don't see Eddie Kingston winning the world title, unless they do a mini run a la Mick Foley in 1998, before they go to the long term title change down the road, most likely MJF or Wardlow.

[Ja'moke]

I certainly hope Punk wins the title. Page just doesn't do anything for me. A heel Punk champion (it's definitely gonna be him turning, not Page) will be a lot of fun. Don't see Eddie Kingston winning the world title, unless they do a mini run a la Mick Foley in 1998, before they go to the long term title change down the road, most likely MJF or Wardlow.

I'm a big Hangman fan and I think all his title defenses have been fantastic (and varied in style). But not every World title reign needs to be a year long, and it just makes sense to put the title on the company's biggest name and most over star in Punk. So I'm ready for it.

And yeah, if Eddie was to win the title, I don't think it'd be a long reign. Mick Foley was exactly who I was thinking of. A surprise, feel good win, maybe on a Grand Slam in Eddie's home town of New York. Then he holds it for a couple months before a despicable heel crushes his dreams.

[Deanjam]

Forbidden Door completely sold out its presales. So much for New Japan not appealing to fans.

[Ja'moke]

Forbidden Door completely sold out its presales. So much for New Japan not appealing to fans.

That Alfred dude on Twitter, who is a complete WWE shill, was saying a couple of weeks ago that they'd struggle to fill the United Center because NJPW only appeals to a small niche within a niche.

You think after a while these people would get bored of being wrong about AEW. First it was, an indie show would never sell out a 10k arena, then it was AEW won't get a good TV deal, then it was they won't get more than 500k viewers, then it was the TV deal won't last... and so on and so on.

AEW knows its audience and caters to it and in return that audience buys in.

[gmoney]

Loved Hangman's promo, especially the stuff about mastabatory Bret Hart tributes. I hope they're not turning him heel just to keep Punk a face. And I really, really hope they're not putting the title on Punk, that would be very shit.

I actually found Hangman referencing the tributes in his promo much worse than them doing it. You can happily watch those matches and never know anything was happening, only the most hardcore are going to recognise a spot from King of the Ring 93 or whatever. Mentioning it in a promo brings it pointlessly into the light. 

I agree all the matches Page has had have been good, even with Lance Archer, but he doesn't have "it" for me. I'd much rather CM Punk have the title for a good while then drop it to MJF, Miro or someone.

[Ja'moke]

WWE's Q1 earnings call is happening right now. So should we expect more releases tomorrow? For "budget cut" reasons, obviously.

Revenue was $333.4 million, an increase of 27% and a quarterly record; Operating Income was $92.4 million, an increase of 42%; and Adjusted OIBDA1 was $111.7 million, an increase of 33% and a quarterly record.



    WrestleMania was held at AT&T Stadium in Dallas over two consecutive nights in front of a combined 156,352 fans. WrestleMania was WWE's highest-grossing and most-attended event in company history

    WrestleMania was the most viewed WWE premium live event of all time. Global unique viewership increased 54% and domestic unique viewership increased 61% year-over-year

    WrestleMania was the second most viewed event on Peacock to date, behind only Super Bowl LVI

    WrestleMania generated 2.2 billion social media impressions, more than the 1.8 billion impressions generated by Super Bowl LVI

    WrestleMania viewership in India was a record 56.1 million, a 29% increase year-over-year