Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive returns today to talk all the breaking news of the day, ROH on Comet TV, the hideous Smackdown storyline involving the Wyatts and how it doesn’t lead into Survivor Series AT ALL, notes from Raw tonight, and tons more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Image: Insane Championship Wrestling
By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com
British wrestling is on the up, with some of the bigger promotions drawing huge crowds, some of the smaller ones doing very interesting things with pro-wrestling, and some of our homegrown stars making waves outside their home territory. Here are five things you need to know about the scene this week:
1) ICW drew the biggest British wrestling crowd in over thirty years on Sunday night, when they presented Fear & Loathing VIII at the SECC in Glasgow.
The promotion, formed in Glasgow in 2006 by Mark Dallas, have had a banner year, with two national tours, two documentaries on BBC TV, and a series of sell-out shows in ever bigger halls in their hometown. For Sunday’s show, they booked an almost entirely British crew, with only Rhyno – who is involved in storylines as a regular import – and the Sumerian Death Squad from Holland, flying in. Mick Foley was brought in as host, but it’s clear that the huge majority of the four thousand tickets were sold on ICW’s reputation for a great show. Before the show started, they announced that Fear & Loathing IX would be held at the Hydro, a thirteen thousand capacity venue across the city. It may be a step too far but few would bet against Dallas and his crew making it.
As for the show itself, Grado became the new ICW Heavyweight champion, defeating Drew Galloway after a typically-ICW series of run-ins and surprises, with the whole roster celebrating in the ring with him afterwards. Earlier in the show, Viper became the first ICW Women’s champion, and Davey Boy beat Stevie Boy in the battle of the Buckie Boys to win the ICW Zero G title. The show will be up on ICW On Demand by the time you read this, and is well worth a look.
2) It’s WAR!
Well, it’s not really, but there is a big clash coming up in January, when PROGRESS’ next ENDVR show goes head to head with Revolution Pro-Wrestling’s next TV taping, just three miles away. ENDVR is the middle of three tiers that PROGRESS operate at, and while it’s not the big shows that sell out the 750-seat Electric Ballroom every month, it does sell out the 300-seat Garage in Highbury Corner. RevPro’s tapings, at the perfect-for-TV-wrestling Cockpit theatre in Marylebone, are stacked with talent, and the promotion had advertised Zack Sabre Jr before he was booked by PWG, and have now booked Will Ospreay versus ACH. It will give the hardcore fans a tough choice, but with ENDVR tickets having been on sale a week before RevPro announced their date, PROGRESS have the upper hand. RevPro owner Andy Quildan has gone on record as saying he prefers to work with other promotions rather than against them and this seems to be a case of an unavoidable clash. But WAR makes for a better story…
3) British talent continues to turn heads in the U.S.
Will Ospreay, Marty Scurll, and Mark Andrews – who competed in PWG’s BOLA 2015 – are making a return trip to the Los Angeles promotion next month. While Andrews and Scurll might be known to some from their TNA connections, Ospreay is the real surprise package this year, and it’s been reported that AAA offered him a deal last month. Ospreay is only three years into his career, yet carries himself like a seasoned pro – there are few better babyfaces (“blue eyes” in old school British parlance) out there, with everything he does having meaning and impact. He’s just turned heel (or “villain”!) for IPW:UK and this reporter, for one, is interested to see how he pulls that off. American fans could do worse than get in on the ground floor – the Ospreay bandwagon starts here.
4) As well as our guys going over there, the Americans came here last week, with WWE touring the UK and Ireland (and bits of Europe, too).
While they were here they took a look at some of our talent, with try-outs being held before Raw in Manchester last Monday. Seen trying to impress WWE scouts were Scottish standout Nikki Storm, North East powerhouse Jason Prime, sometime luchadora Nina Samuels, Australian émigré Toni Storm, and the “Beast of Belfast” Big Damo. Damo’s had quite a year already, having faced Tomohiro Ishii, Shinsuke Nakamura, and Hiroshi Tanahashi for RevPro, and he’d certainly be comfortable in NXT.
5) While most of the UK’s attention was understandably focused on the ICW show, there were still a dozen shows on Friday and Saturday, up and down the UK.
Target Wrestling ran both Carlisle and Workington, and drew decent crowds with Grado and Rockstar Spud along for the ride, while NGW left their usual east coast base to run Lancashire’s west coast in Ormskirk, where Nathan Cruz defended his NGW Heavyweight title against CJ Banks. One of the more interesting shows took place in Northwich, where Great Bear Wrestling – sister promotion to RAWlternative standouts (and Chikara-Pro King of Trios entrants) Attack Pro-Wrestling – promoted Teach Me How To Dance With You, featuring teenage phenom Tyler Bate, and a Great Bear Heavyweight title match between Axel Dieter Jr and Jack Gallagher. Also on the card was Chris Brookes, continuing his brilliant heel run of defeating women, this time taking down Alexis Rose. Nixon Newell looms large in his future, I’m sure…
After two fairly quiet weeks – if you count almost 4000 people flocking to an indy show a quiet week! – next weekend hots up, with a TON of shows on offer. Join me again next week for a rundown of the movers, shakers, and headline makers!
On Monday, Ring of Honor announced a TV deal, but not with a provider you may immediately be familiar with.
Starting Wednesday, December 2nd, ROH’s flagship show will air at midnight on Comet TV, a 24/7 science fiction network that is owned by Sinclair Broadcasting Group, ROH’s parent company. The press release sent touts that the network is available in over 60% of the country and in over 65 million homes as of October 31st.
Essentially, the deal is an extension of the current Sinclair deal, with many of the Sinclair stations now adding a Wednesday night at midnight replay, as well adding distribution in a number of new markets, most notably New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia San Francisco and Houston, where ROH doesn’t have distribution.
The key new stations will be KDOC-TV 32 in Los Angeles, KCNS-39 in San Francisco, WZME-42 in the Bridgeport, CT, market, WCCT-20 in Hartford, CT, KIKU-19 in Honolulu, WOCH-49 in Chicago, WTTV-48 in Indianapolis, WMFP-18 in Lawrence, MA, KVMY-2 in Las Vegas, and KUBE-41 in Houston.
ROH’s 26-week deal with Destination America expires in December, and their final episode on D.A. will be on Wednesday, November 25th. The removal of ROH from the 8 PM EST primetime slot as a lead-in to TNA Impact several months ago was not considered a good sign.
Reports dating back to August were that is was unlikely ROH would be renewed. Jane Latman, who took over from Marc Etkind as the General Manager of the station about six weeks ago, had said she was going to be reviewing all programming, and as of a few weeks ago, that was the information the company had received.
It’s the Sunday edition of the Bryan & Vinny Show and we’ve got so much to talk about including a review of a Smackdown so infuriating that it’s time to boycott the show for a bit, an AWESOME ROH on Sinclair TV show, and two of the top matches, including the main event, of the Tenryu retirement show. A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back to talk the biggest news of the weekend including Ronda Rousey’s epic loss to Holly Holm, the death of Nick Bockwinkel and tons more!
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We’re looking for your thoughts on UFC 193 and also the Tenryu retirement show, so you can leave a thumbs up, thumbs down or thumbs in the middle along with a best and worst match to Dave Meltzer
We’re also looking for reports on the WWE show yesterday in Minehead, England and NXT shows in Winter Haven, Orlando and Sebring, Florida, and today’s Lucha Underground taping in Boyle Heights and ICW show in Glasgow to Dave Meltzer
Raw will be live Monday night from Greenville, SC. The show will feature the quarterfinals of the WWE championship tournament. The quarterfinals have Roman Reigns vs. Cesaro Alberto Del Rio vs. Kalisto, Kevin Owens vs. Neville and Dean Ambrose vs. Dolph Ziggler. I believe all four bouts will be on the show Monday but it’s possible they may hold one of them off until Smackdown. Undertaker and Kane will be back on Raw this week to build Survivor Series.
Smackdown tapings are Tuesday night in Knoxville.
Figure Four Weekly:
Figure Four Weekly (10/2/15): WWE 2K16 Review
2K Sports and Yuke’s turnaround WWE video game series with a reinvigorated title boasting huge roster.
Wrestling Observer Newsletter:
Exclusive news on WrestleMania, how SummerSlam has changed due to the Seth Rollins injury, updates on Rollins, notes on the WWE title tournament and what key stars besides Rollins and Randy Orton are now unlikely to wrestle at WrestleMania is the lead story in the new issue of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
We also look at the different potential finishes of the WWE title tournament, how it looks to be progressing, a look at the Royce Gracie vs. Ken Shamrock fight and look back 20 years to their two previous fights, lots of notes on the fight, and the back story.
We also look at WrestleMania tickets, the Wayne Rooney angle, Dwayne Johnson and Dave Bautista update, More on Alberto Del Rio’s outside business and his angle in Puerto Rico, Undertaker week, WWE make more network predictions, notes from the next Madison Square Garden show, notes on Raw this week, Ronda Rousey talks WWE Divas division, what WWE star is ready to return from surgery, plus notes on all the WWE & NXT arena events of the past week and business note.
We also have our monthly business rundown of WWE and TNA, to see how both groups are doing as compared to the same period last year, as well as a breakdown on how every different WWE main event is drawing over the past month.
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The latest Wrestling Observer: November 16, 2015 Wrestling Observer Newsletter: Seth Rollins injury, Wrestlekingdom 10 matches
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SUNDAY DAILY UPDATE
WWE
UFC
MISCELLANEOUS
ON THIS DAY IN PRO WRESTLING HISTORY INTERNATIONAL (thanks to Graeme Cameron)
1947 – Bert Assirati beat The French Angel in London to win the European version of the world heavyweight title
1967 – Al Hayes (Lord Alfred Hayes) beat Bruno Elrington in a tournament in London to win the Southern Area heavyweight title
1996 – Emilio Charles Jr. & Rey Bucanero beat Hector Garza & Mr. Niebla in Mexico City to win the CMLL Gran Alternative tournament
2001 – Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita beat Rie Tamada & Gami in Chicago to win the UWA womens’ tag tiltes.
Photo: Getty Images
If there’s one thing that appeals to us, it’s a comeback story. As much as we like to tear down fame and accomplishment in some bizarre effort to cover up our own inadequacies, we love when someone that’s knocked down gets back up and rages against the dying of the light.
On this Sunday, there’s no better case for The Great American Comeback Story than with former UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey.
Let’s hang on that word: former. We now live in a world where the unthinkable is now reality: Rousey has a loss and a bad one at that. In front of a record 56,214 in Melbourne, Australia, what was hailed as the world’s most dangerous woman got her comeuppance against a woman in Holly Holm that is six years her elder and much less her level of fame. As crisp as Holm looked, Rousey looked as stale. While everything during fight week appeared as normal (even with that odd forced/farced pull-apart at the weigh-ins) something or someone put sugar in the machine’s gas tank.
In retrospect, we should have expected this at some point. With Rousey’s increased level of celebrity in 2015 came more opportunities for the outside world to creep in through the cracks of what was previously an impenetrable exterior.
Just look at the level of distraction this year alone: a) a book release, b) appearances in several movies, c) a whole lot of ESPN attention and awards, d) being asked about fighting Floyd Mayweather 10,000 times, e) getting cited by mainstream female stars like Beyonce, f) an appearance on Ellen and other mainstream talk shows, g) her head coach filed for bankruptcy, h) her mother did interviews ripping said coach where she mentioned running over him with a car, i) her relationship with Travis Browne went public, j) she had to defend her name against domestic violence from a past relationship and k) the bulk of the promotional load for three main event PPVs. Looking at all of that, it’s clear that it became too much to bear.
The Rousey that was knocked silly Saturday wasn’t the Rousey that started off 2015 and, as a result, she is now without a giant piece of metal and leather. Just as she was about to nearly fully escape the MMA bubble most of us exist in, the cold hand of reality grabbed her ankle and pulled her back down with the rest of us. She’s still a professional fighter — even if her agents and PR people are likely hoping for otherwise.
So, now what?
The prevailing thought is Rousey disappears for months and we get an early springtime announcement of a rematch with Holm at July’s UFC 200. While she will have shed off many of the fringe fans who like their stars perfect and without tarnish, the thought of Rousey coming back with something to prove has got to be tantalizing for Dana White & crew.
Depending on where we’re at when/if that fight gets announced, she should be favored. However, while we can expect that Rousey will be as motivated to get her title back as we think she should be, eight months is a long time away. A second loss would be devastating and a major setback to any Hollywood hopes. Her handlers have no doubt done a risk assessment, and perhaps they are saying, “Enough’s enough. If we’re going to do this movie thing, now’s the time.” They also might suggest that a big win in a Holm rematch would make her an even bigger star.
That’s the risk with athletes who want to go outside their lane and be known for more than what brought them to the dance to begin with. Dwight Howard famously wanted to go to the L.A. Lakers so he could branch into movies and entertainment. One less-than-thrilling season later, he found himself in Houston far away from the bright lights. It’s tough to be truly great at one thing, much less two. Look at today’s top tier athletes and compare their level of focus for their primary sport and what else they could be doing. There’s a big difference between building a brand vs. being a champion, and doing both extremely well.
If Rousey truly wants to be known as an all-time great fighter, she’s got to focus on doing just that and reclaim all that was lost in Australia. UFC legend Georges St. Pierre provided the blueprint as he won 12 straight over six years with nine title defenses to close out his career (we think) after being embarrassed in a TKO loss to Matt Serra in 2007. But GSP didn’t have machinations at being a pop culture icon as he was doing it. He simply wanted to win fights, and to be the best. Does Rousey still want that?
Especially in Hollywood, there’s nothing better than a comeback story. Rousey can literally write her’s in the blood of her opponents, but only if she truly is motivated to pick up the pen.
By Alan Boon for WrestlingObserver.com
One of the more fascinating aspects of WWE’s new reality show Breaking Ground is the appearance of the trainers: seasoned grapplers performing in front of the cameras in a whole new way. One of the WWE Performance Center’s faculty who may be unfamiliar to some American viewers is Robbie Brookside, a long-time face on the British wrestling scene, who spanned the transition from the old ITV television days of Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks to the current, thriving scene.
Here are five things about Robbie Brookside that you may not know:
1) He could have been professional soccer player.
Brookside’s father played as a goalkeeper for Preston North End, a former powerhouse of the English game. He encouraged his son to follow in his footsteps and the younger Brookside was a prodigious talent, catching the eye of scouts on his native Merseyside. But wrestling got under his skin after a trip to Liverpool Stadium, a famous old boxing venue in the city, and he began training in secret at the Liverpool Olympic Wrestling Club. He was sent to Blackpool to begin his career, where he met a young grappler by the name of Regal.
2) He and William Regal have worked together before.
Brookside formed a tag-team with Regal – then known as Steve Regal – called the Golden Boys, working for British mainstay Brian Dixon’s All-Star Wrestling. Their most infamous bout came in the dying days of British wrestling on ITV, when they faced the legendary Kendo Nagasaki and “Rock & Roll Express” Blondie Barrett. Yes, a man named after a tag-team. During the match, Brookside unmasked Nagasaki, who then fixed his gaze upon the young grappler, hypnotising him into attacking Regal, his own partner. It would be Nagasaki’s last appearance on TV and the show itself was cancelled two months later.
3) Breaking Ground isn’t his US TV debut.
After his tag-team with Regal ended, Brookside teamed up with Ian “Doc” Dean as the Liverpool Lads. In the mid-1990s, Regal invited the pair over to WCW where they spent six months as enhancement talent, racking up a dozen appearances on WCW Saturday Night, WCW Main Event, and a solitary appearance on WCW Nitro, where Brookside lost a WCW Cruiserweight title match to Dean Malenko. The hook-up even extended to a short stay in New Japan Pro Wrestling, where they took part on the 1997 Best Of The Super Juniors tournament.
4) Breaking Ground isn’t even his first reality TV show.
In 1993, Brookside was invited to record a video diary for a BBC2 series imaginatively-titled Video Diaries. The hour-long show revealed British wrestling in one of its down periods, and a visit to Regal in Florida – made before he got Brookside into WCW – reveals the stark difference between wrestling life in the two countries. Brookside also detailed his love for heavy metal music and showed him on tour in Germany, a popular destination for British wrestlers during that time. The show is available on YouTube.
5) He’s been training wrestlers for a while now.
Brookside opened his own training school in the UK — Wrestleicester — in 2006. Among his graduates, who were taught a style which was based in the British hold-and-reversal catch wrestling style, are Becky Lynch and his own daughter, Xia, who has recently moved over to Orlando to further her nascent career. In addition, Brookside worked as a talent scout for WWE in Europe before moving to the Performance Center in 2013.
*****
Brookside should become something of a cult figure on Breaking Ground with his no-nonsense approach to life. If ever a man were going to call a spade a spade, it’s Brookside, only he’d probably do it in a more sweary, British-accented way. The talent that graduates from NXT will do so with a healthy respect for the professional wrestling business, instilled in them by one of the last of the old school of the British wrestlers, even if – and I know from bitter, personal experience – he doesn’t put much stock in the “wrestler’s handshake”!
Wrestling Observer Radio returns tonight with Dave Meltzer’s memories of the late, great Nick Bockwinkel.
