Random Wrestling Thoughts (Part 2)

I remember I was on camp with the Reserve Defence Force when I first heard the news. My sister called me to let me know Chris Benoit was dead and I was in total shock, but she didn't know he killed his family at the time so I didn't find out what he did until a little bit later.

I just remembered one of the greatest lines ever spoken in pro wrestling history (in my opinion)

It was Macho Man on the Arsenio Hall show back in the day talking about Hulk Hogan and their upcoming match at WM:

"He's like a grain of sand in the Sahara Desert.... it don't matter"

Brilliant.

In a world where Ian Riccaboni, Kevin Kelly, Tazz, Veda Scott and Excalibur exist, no he most certainly is not. If anything his over the top style might make him the most grating of the WWE commentators.

Deserved for the best commentator around.

He must love doing it because he doesn't need the money since he signed a $100 million podcast deal.

I quite like McAfee, I find him entertaining and think he brings a good energy to the booth and has helped boost Cole as well. Then again I like Mauro Ranallo and many didn't so what do I know.

I think Smackdown is pretty consistent but to each their own.

I am glad Kevin Nash and Sean Oliver are finally doing a podcast together they do have natural chemistry together.

Nash is a great story teller and Oliver work on Kayfabe Commentaries was incredible.

Was he under a mask against Brody or did he do that after ? And the word train is doing some heavy lifting in your post. Buzz sawyer took guys money and that was it.

He wore a mask against Brody, yes, going under the name Texas Red. Coincidentally, the man in his corner for this first match in World Class was one Percy Pringle III who, as a lot of ye would know, would go on to manage him full time as Paul Bearer in the WWF. Funny how small the wrestling world was or is.

Going the Undertaker's own recollections of this time, it's not exactly true that Sawyer simply took the money and ran. The account that the Undertaker gave was that he paid a couple of grand for training from Sawyer. He and some other guys who were also training showed up at Sawyer's house, where Sawyer put them through endless exercise drills, followed by putting the trainees in some shoot holds. It was the old style of wrestling training aimed at weeding out all but the most determined guys. A number of weeks went by, and each time the group of trainees showing up dwindled down until it was just the Undertaker and maybe one other guy, and it was at this point they discovered that Sawyer was not home and had in fact skipped town. He even left his dogs in the yard. The Undertaker was rightly miffed and took one of the dogs away with him to keep as a pet.

Anyway, this is all getting away from the original question. I'm finding conflicting claims that the Undertaker wrestled as The Commando for a brief period with Central Illinois Wrestling - some saying it was before his first 'real' pro match in Texas, and some saying it was shortly after.

Looking at Austin Theory's wikipedia page made me wonder why don't WWE look after the pages for their Superstars? I don't mean try and own them but make sure things are seen in the best light. Like Theory's photo isn't the best and there have been others that I've seen that aren't great and using really old photos. Looking at Roman's page, the photos look a lot better.

Especially since if people want to learn more about their wrestlers, a lot more would get the info from wikipedia than anywhere else so would expect they would try and control what they can.

Totally. Al Snow said the same about Meltzer many times.

To be fair to Meltzer it is almost worthy of an applause.

Re: Regal talking about Benoit.

Oddly enough I was watching a video on YouTube the other day about wrestlers who knew Benoit talking about what happened.

Stevie Ray said he never once saw Benoit raise his voice let alone get angry. Also said, if he did what Benoit did - others would say ah yeah that makes sense. As in, Stevie openly admits he's gotten angry and showed his temper at times. But with Benoit he was always the cool quiet level headed guy.

Video then shows Dean Malenko getting interviewed and Dean says he would have trusted Benoit with his kids.

Kevin Sullivan thought it was a gas leak at first. Shocked when Teddy Long called him and told him the full events. Tidbit: original plans was Benoit was to lose the WCW title to Nash down the line.

Wrestling is show business and the number one thing that every successful show business promoter is concerned with is getting people in the door. Whatever does that on a sustainable basis is good, even if it gets zero/negative stars from Meltzer.

That's why Al Snow is correct when he says that Hogan v. Andre was the best match on the WM3 card - because that was the match that sold the event, not Savage/Steamboat.

WWF PPVs would largely be sold on Hogan's involvement for the next 6 years or so, despite his matches lacking in technical complexity or even much variation in the storytelling. I'm sure that people did watch Savage/Steamboat and become interested in wrestling because of it, but I don't think they were anything like a majority, and not therefore something to base the business around. As with just about every big time wrestler, Randy Savage became popular because of his personality, rather than his technical skills. Steamboat - always very solid and respected, but never a tippy-top guy because he didn't have that extra something in the charisma stakes.

Half way through watching the Goldberg A&E biography, and man they did Bret dirty. When he talks about Goldberg, they play multiple audio clips of Bret to make him out to be a rambling deranged lunatic. Obviously he was never going to unbiased, but it's a bit over the top😂