Wrestling fans are familiar with the epic battles between Randy “Macho Man” Savage and Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat. Many consider the match between the two at Wrestlemania 3 to be one of the best matches of all time.
But have you heard of Randy “The Dragon” Savage?
Skyrim is a first-person action adventure game that was recently released on multiple gaming platforms, including the PC. The PC version has a very supportive mod community, and they also have a lot of time on their hands. Sometime after creating better textures for the female characters (they have their priorities), somebody modified the model and textures of a dragon to look like the reincarnation of Randy “Macho Man” Savage.
Check out the video below, and make sure you turn up the sound while you “Snap into a Slim Jim”.
TruTV, the network that has fully embraced “white trash” reality programs, has a TV series called “All Worked Up” that follows repo men, tow truck drivers, bail bondsmen, and other folks that get yelled at and spit at on a daily basis. I happened to catch part of this show for the first time a couple of weekends ago and I’m finally getting around to mentioning it. It just happened to be episode 104 that included a segment on a security guard (Zach Yeager) for Ring Of Honor (ROH) wrestling.
A couple of loudmouth fans were a little upset at a guy by the name of Austin Aries (heard of him?). They waited around for him outside of the building, and at the risk of giving away the “punch” line, one of them gets tagged hard enough to hit the pavement. And they’re Canadian, for all you Canada haters out there.
The full episode is currently available at the TruTV website, or you can take a look at the YouTube clip of the Aries segment below.
I kind of hate to link to the YouTube clip because it looks like it was posted by one of the clueless jabronies that was involved in the whole scuffle, but it’s easier than shuttling through the full episode. Plus you can leave some nasty comments for them there if you like.
For all you “Where’s Waldo” fans, see if you can spot Colt Cabana.
I wrote a couple of months ago (TNA Towel: 2, Believability: 0) about the TNA Bloody Towel ™ making another appearance on the Thursday night TNA Impact! program. Well, good ole’ “BT” was seen again on the broadcast last week after Mr. Anderson got Black Hole Slammed on a big pile of (candy) glass.
See the TNA Bloody Towel ™ in all its glory at about the 2:08 mark:
Since the towel has now gotten more air time than TNA president Dixie Carter, I figure TNA should just add the thing to their official roster.
Think of the marketing potential for this. Since they just signed with Jakks Pacific to have a line of action figures made, now is the perfect time to add it. And I don’t mean as just a wrestler accessory, I mean as a thing a kid could play around with.
I’d stand in a fairly short line to buy one.
If the action figure route doesn’t pan out, they could always hire the ShamWow guy hawk it on late night TV.
“Look’it the way this thing soaks up the fake blood.“
Last Monday night on TNA Impact, we got to see the TNA BloodyTowel ™ used again on a broadcast. Nearly two years ago was the first time I remember TNA using the towel. Christian was powerbombed through a “glass” table. While laying on his back, the medical team came into the ring with a couple of white towels. Well, they were white on one side at least. The handheld camera happened to catch the fact that at least one of the towels was already bloody (or had some kind of pouch of blood) before they even made contact with Christian. Maybe they need to hire an out-of-work magician’s assistant next time to pull that off.
You can see it in this video from 2008, around the 2:20 mark.
On last Monday’s show, the towel got used again in a match where RVD got hit over the head with a beer bottle. This time one of the towels was firmly planted to RVD’s forehead, but I was watching closely to see if it would accidentally fall off and reveal that there was no cut.
Come on TNA, either do it all the way or don’t do it at all. I get why you (thought you) had to do in in Christian’s case with it being his back, but why with RVD? Does he have a “no blood” clause in his contract? If you would have reordered the matches to have Rob Terry go first, you could have soaked that towel with some of the real stuff from the gusher on the top of his head. I’d feel a little better about that.
The worst part is that now I have to add another clause to the footnote of my answer of one of the most often asked question by casual or non-wrestling fans: Is the blood real?
I got asked this a month ago by the daughter of a friend of mine. I told her it was real. She said her dad told her it wasn’t real. I said, “Your dad told you that so that you wouldn’t get upset. ”
So is the blood in wrestling real? Yes*
*Except for the cases where the wrestler is bleeding from the mouth AND it’s part of the storyline, OR when it happens before the cameras are rolling like a backstage interview segment where the guy is already face down, OR if they are using the TNA BloodyTowel ™.
There’s a video circulating around of a recent WWE house show in Greenville, SC, where a fan rushes the ring to attack Chris Jericho. You can see it here (Chris Jericho Fan Incident -better mute the audio if you value your hearing), with another angle after the fact here (Fan Tries to Attack Chris Jericho).
Some of you may be surprised that the first one to take action and wrestle the fan to the mat was not Jericho, or a backstage worker, or security. It was referee Charles Robinson. This didn’t surprise me at all.
Just a random search of “fan attacks wrestler” pulled up a YouTube video of a match between Eddie Guerrero and Rob Van Dam, where a fan runs in the ring. Who’s the first one to bring him down? Yep, the referee.
Pro wrestling referees usually go through the same type of training as the wrestlers. They learn to take bumps, take punches, and kicks. They may be smaller in size than the workers in the ring, but they can be just as tough.
Several times on the local scene I’ve seen a fan rush into the ring during a match. The first one to take the guy down was the ref. Usually put him in a front facelock (like in the Jericho video) and drove him down to the mat on his stomach and held him there until “security” showed up (a.k.a. the guys who were told to put shirts on that said “security”). They would toss the guy out of the building while his girlfriend chewed him out.
It’s surprising it doesn’t happen more often on a local level, since there are no barricades and not much if any real security. I guess maybe the local fans at the smaller shows “get it” and know they’re being entertained so they shouldn’t get too worked up about it.
I put up a post over a year ago (I’m With the Show) that touched a little bit on how important a referee is to a wrestling match. I guess one thing I left out is how they could save your butt if a liquored-up redneck tries to blindside you when you’ve got your back turned.
Good to see “the wrestler formerly known as” Victoria back on TV. Hopefully in TNA she’ll have more impact, instead of getting jobbed out every week and “retiring” with no previous build up or fanfare (like in the WWE).
One thing I noticed in her debut on the 5/28/09 TNA Impact program was that Victoria and Angelina Love were trading some good punches. That’s a refreshing change from the weak forearms that the female wrestlers normally use. The forearms just don’t look as good- there’s no real connection there. When you throw in a pile of hair it just looks like it’s totally missing. I wonder if that’s a WWE rule (don’t break the merchandise). I’m trying to remember if TNA Knockouts punch a lot. Punching “like a girl” never looked so good.
On the 5/28/09 episode of TNA Impact on SpikeTV, we got to see the re- re- re-debut of Raven and “The Franchise” Shane Douglas. Great. I can’t think of two guys I care about less. Wait a minute… nope, can’t come up with anyone.
But hey, at least I knew who Raven was when I saw him. When Shane Douglas came down to the ring at the end of the Styles/Daniels match (below), I thought it was some reject from the Food Network. Who’s the fat guy dressed like a chef? I was going to upload his picture to enter the Guy Fieri look-alike contest. Looks like Shane’s been hitting a few too many Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.
Hey TNA suits- nice work, boys (and girl). Now go give yourselves a bonus for “changing the face of professional wrestling.”
“The Dummy” was sort of like a mannequin, except that it wasn’t the hard plastic kind you would normally see in an unnatural pose in a store window. This one had some kind of a wire-frame skeleton that was covered in padding and wrapped in a skin of fabric. Not quite burlap, but something close. I’m not sure what the official name of this contraption would be, but it looked like it was something that fabric could be pinned to. An oversize pincushion in human form. It had a torso, a head, and some skinny arms and legs that were sort of posable.
The Dummy was ranked just below “the rookie” on the seniority scale of the trainees. If someone was working on perfecting a new move, they might work it into match with one of the “veterans”. If it was the first time trying the move out, the veteran could tell them NO (possibly running the risk of being called a pussy). If that happened, then the move would instead be tried on a rookie. The rookie already got to do fun things like setting up the ring before the shows and tearing it down after (and of course doing the same at the wrestling camp if the camp ring was being used at the show). Why not inflict more punishment to make them “pay their dues” for the privilege of someday also being able to say NO (and also possibly being called a pussy).
However, there was some fine print and a hidden clause in the unwritten rules of the wrestling camp. If the move was potentially too dangerous even for the lowly rookie, the move would be attempted instead on The Dummy.
When wrestling The Dummy, the only person at risk for getting injured was yourself, which was acceptable since you were the one trying to do this crazy thing in the first place. The Dummy could take a punch, although he wasn’t the best at selling. He never refused a beating, probably because he didn’t have a mouth or the ability to do hand gestures.
Some of the better guys, like Austin Aries, could have a pretty entertaining match with The Dummy. It always reminded me of a quote that people had said about Ric Flair 15 or 20 years ago: “Ric Flair could have a great match with a chair.”
The Dummy couldn’t refuse, but that also meant that he couldn’t tell you how much it hurt. That part seemed to be the job of Terry Fox. If you tried a move with The Dummy and it looked like it was really stiff, Terry would shout out, “You kiiiiilled him!“.
Nobody wanted the reputation of working stiff. You wanted to work “snug”. There is a big difference. If you ended up “kiiilling” him, good luck finding someone to take that move in a match. Now would be a good time to look around and see who didn’t show up to camp that day. Maybe they would be willing if you told them, “I worked on it in camp- the guy didn’t complain“.
After forming what wrestling critics were calling “The Tag Team of the ’90s”, and what wrestling fans across the world were comparing to the “classic” tag teams of the Orient Express, The Dynamic Dudes, and the Ding Dongs, the team of Double Penetration (pictured below) split apart when “Playboy” Pete HUGE decided he would be more successful on his own.
The breakup lead to a singles match between the two for the St. Paul Championship Wrestling (SPCW) promotion in the West St. Paul, MN armory on March 25th of 2000. The nine year anniversary of this historic event will be commemorated next week by a three bell salute on WWE Monday Night Raw, just before they go to air.
Tag Team of the 90's
Notice that even in the video Davis is clinging to the tag team picture that he had just ordered 500 copies of.
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The video is in two parts since I couldn’t bear to trim out enough to make it under the YouTube 10 minute limit. Enjoy.
*Video, commentary, and photograph credit: Tim Larson
Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of February 2009, with a special highlight at the end.
Okay, now for the “special highlight”. Let me start by saying that although I like a good comedy spot now and again, I really like the kind of match that makes me “believe”, regardless of the fact that I was actually in the business and know better.
However, I found the clip of the match below from the CHIKARA promotion very entertaining. Forget that it blows the “suspension of disbelief” clear out the window and into the next county, and just enjoy.
This was the Wrestling Video of the Week #3 at Project126 (they also have another video like it in their post), and what they mentioned there I’ll say again: the video itself has not been slowed down. It will take you a few seconds to realize this, but when you do you should get a kick out of it.
As I run across things, I’m also going to be adding them to my Delicious bookmarks page (http://delicious.com/drdarindavis). You can also find the last 10 of them on the right side of the page towards the bottom.
