– Greg Hamilton came out to introduce a Finn Balor video, then a HHH video to start the show. Loud NXT chants.
– Team Sawft vs. Blake and Murphy
No girls as they are both wrestling later. Enzo and Cass get a big reaction. The crowd say his catchphrases along with him. Started with some fun as Enzo was dancing. He started dancing on the apron too. BAM weren’t happy with this. We want dancing chant. Enzo won with the splash off the top. Blake and Murphy were good here. Fun opener.
– Asuka vs. Alexa Bliss
Asuka’s gonna kill you chant early. She chased Alexa around the ring while Alexa screamed stop chasing me. Alexa got the heat by draping Asuka’s arm across the bottom rope. Asuka won after a missed standing moonsault then kicks. She got Bliss in the chicken wing. Good match. Bliss wasn’t bad.
– Tye Dillinger vs. Bull Dempsey
Comedy match. Big 10 chants when Tye came out. He has a laminated 10 card. Bull ran the types during his entrance and gassed. Then did it again. Bull fit and Bull is beautiful chants early. Bull got a cheer for taking his shirt off. Bull got 10 chants with a bad cartwheel. Bull got the win with a splash.
– Nia Jax vs. Carmella
Pretty quick squash. Carmella got some offense and did the moonwalk. Nia won with the spinebuster and leg drop. Nia is a good monster.
– Apollo Crews vs. Baron Corbin
Duelling chants early. Let’s go Corbin, Corbin sucks too. Long heat by Corbin. Basic match. Some hope spots then Crews got the win with the standing moonsault. Typical house show match I thought.
Intermission
– Jordan and Gable V Dash and Dawson for the NXT Tag Team Championship
Gable, Gable, Gable – Jordan, Jordan, Jordan chants throughout. They were over. Heat after Gable caught a Dash lariat outside the ring. Count out tease. Jordan’s hot tag is great. Dash and Dawson win after Gable is tripped attempting a suplex into the ring. Foot held for the 3. Jordan and Gable given the applause spot after. Hot match.
– Emma vs. Bayley for the NXT Women’s Championship
Dana Brooke out with Emma. First 5 minutes chants for Bayley. To the Hey Baby will you be my girl song. Emma tried walking off with the belt. Dana protects her then gets an elbow. Dana sent to the back. Bayley won with the Bayley to belly. Decent match.
Samoa Joe vs. Sami Zayn vs. Finn Balor for the NXT Championship
All 3 guys received well. Lots of Joe running early. Joe got a few cheap shots in. After a dropkick through the ropes Joe went to walk out. Stopped by both guts. Zayn and Finn put on each other’s jackets and started doing the other’s mannerisms. Funny spot. Joe got a pop for breaking this up. Zayn with a dive then blue thunder bomb for near fall. All guys out then Joe and Zayn got up and Finn did the Undertaker sit up and facial from Mania. Funny. They all landed kicks and this is awesome chants. Japanese elbow spot between Finn and Joe then the corner drop kick by Finn. Coup De Grace attempt then muscle buster attempt blocked. Joe with Kokina clutch on Zayn. Zayn is on top of Joe and Balor gives him the Coup De Grace which took out both. Finn pinned Sami for the win. Very good match.
Great show. Everyone seemed to be sent home happy.
We’ve all got our decorations up here in the UK, but that doesn’t mean things have shut down for Christmas! Here’s 5 things you need to know about British wrestling this week.
1) William Regal came home.
When Darren Matthews decided he wanted to become a professional wrestler in 1983, his path into the business was learning his craft in a “shooter’s” booth on Blackpool Pleasure Beach where he’d take on all-comers in one of the last remaining remnants of the earliest days of the worked game. This weekend, he got to come home and show off his baby when he brought NXT to the town for a sold-out show at the Winter Gardens Ballroom.
Also in tow was Robbie Brookside, working for NXT as a coach, and the two met up with Frankie Sloan, a fellow veteran who broke in with Brookside in Liverpool. While the Pleasure Beach is now home to Nickelodeon Land, the three posed for photos in front of “where it all started”. Aside from John Freemantle’s Premier Promotions holding on in Worthing, British wrestling is all but unrecognisable from those heady days – mostly for the better – but it’s nice to be able to recognise that history when the time comes around.
2) WWE got a taste of the UK indy scene.
When WWE comes over for their twice-yearly tours, condescending to us with their telephone boxes and London taxis, there are always a few of the hardcore British fans that pop along, especially to Raw. But I’ve not seen such an enthusiasm for an imported tour as there was for NXT this week with barely a PROGRESS, ICW or PCW fan not hitting up at least one show, and most more than one. The fans took their usual chants to the shows, shocking the wrestlers and organisers with their passion, sheer loudness, and wacky chants. To the talent, these fans would have seemed like old friends, because a healthy proportion of the NXT roster spent some of their formative years on the UK indy scene, and the fans reacted to them accordingly.
Take Sami Zayn, who reminisced about his past visits (as el Generico, obviously) to the UK on Twitter, and Apollo Crews, who was PCW champion earlier this year as Uhaa Nation (and got the chants at the NXT shows to prove it). Finn Balor, of course, grew up on the UK scene, and Samoa Joe was no stranger to our shores as both men appeared for PROGRESS in the last couple of years in show-stealing matches. Further down the card, Scott Dawson tweeted a reminder that he’d toured the holiday camps earlier in his career, and at the Performance Center, the likes of Biff Busick, Rich Swann, Axel Tischer, and more have all done time in the clubs and halls of the UK. It just goes to show that you never know when that guy who locked up with your favourite Brit at your local show will make it to the big time…and it’s a fun ride following them.
3) The US indy scene got a taste of the UK.
The first Wrestling Road Diaries followed Colt Cabana – along with Bryan Danielson and Sal Rinauro – as he travelled around on the US indy scene, giving fans a glimpse of life on the road outside the big leagues. The second instalment – Wrestling Road Diaries Too – again trailed Cabana, but this time with Cliff Compton and Luke Gallows. For the third in the series, Cabana picked up Japanese indy star Kikutaro and somehow made the decision that having Grado along would be fun. Anyone who watched the second Insane Fight Club documentary, in which Grado and the other ICW stars toured the cities of the UK, promoting their upcoming tour, will already know that this isn’t the smartest of decisions, but it will make for great footage.
It’s been a banner year for Grado, with TNA’s British Bootcamp II elevating him to much-deserved stardom on both sides of the Atlantic, even if he is primarily known in the US as a TNA prelim guy (much like his fellow Bootcamp alumni, the criminally-underrated Mark Andrews). He ended 2015 as ICW champion, and has had crowds on their feet at PROGRESS, Rev-Pro, IPW:UK, and all over the UK. But he still divides opinion, and that’s fine, because if we all liked the same people, it would be dull, right? Well, we all like Will Ospreay (except that one guy), but you know what I mean. Speaking of Ospreay, he, Andrews, and Marty Scurll returned to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla this past weekend, and once again impressed. With on-demand services giving access to our shows for overseas fans, US indies are wising up to the talent – and drawing power – of our top guys. 2016 will be very interesting for some of the big UK names.
4) Tidal ends the year as Yorkshire’s number one promotion.
PROGRESS always make a point that they were told it was impossible to run professional wrestling in central London. While that may not have been strictly true (although doing it and making a profit, as they no doubt do, is another matter), it’s perfectly understandable why a London-based concert promoter might have looked elsewhere to start promoting wrestling shows. Just over two years ago, that’s what Tidal Concerts did, focusing on the north and north-east of England – with home bases in Leeds and Darlington – and they’ve built a tidy little operation since. A year ago, they were fighting over Leeds with True Grit Wrestling, although it was a friendly fight and they used much of the same talent, but the disappearance of TGW has left England’s fourth city wide open for Tidal, and they’ve cemented their place as the White Rose’s top operation.
Last weekend, they held their year-end spectacular at Leeds University’s Student Union, and brought in Tommy End to butt heads with Rampage Brown in a hard-hitting, show-stealing bout. At the top end of the card, Dara Diablo defended his TCW title in a three-way against Mexican Yorkshireman el Ligero and Liam Lazarus. Ligero came out with the gold, adding it to the PROGRESS tag team titles he won last month. With two Leeds show already scheduled for the first six weeks of the New Year, and a sensible booking policy based around a handy band of local regulars, Tidal should continue their growth, from a hidden gem to a solid player in an increasingly healthy scene.
5) Shows, shows, we got shows.
While Mark Dallas and the ICW top boys were enjoying the hospitality of NXT at the Hydro in Glasgow, Scottish wrestling continued to take the grappling to the masses with big shows in Inverness and Ayr, and a double shot from Scottish Wrestling Entertainment in Dundee. In Inverness, Grado headlined Rock N Wrestle’s Winterslam at the Ironworks, beating Liam Thomson in the main event of a card that also featured James Storm, Drew Galloway, and Davey (Boy) Blaze. Galloway also turned out for Pro-Wrestling Elite, at their Jingle All The Galloway show in his hometown of Ayr. Well, with a show called that you’d hope so! He took on Dave Mastiff – and lost – in the standout match on a card that also had Storm, Grado, Big Damo, Noam Dar, and just about everyone who is anyone in Scottish wrestling.
In the Midlands, AMP ran their monthly show at the Alan Higgs Centre in Coventry, while Leicester Championship Wrestling presented Christmas Cracker in, erm, Leicester, which was headlined by a title change as Joseph Conners – stablemate of Jimmy Havoc in Southside – downed Alex Gracie, on a show that also featured The Hunter Brothers, Xander Cooper, and the veteran Stixx, who trained both men in the title match. In the wrestling hotspot that is Bristol, Pro-Evolution promoted their Xmas show on Friday (and followed it with another in Worcester the next day), bringing in the tattooed brawler T-Bone to face Ricky Diamond. Pro-Evo have one of the hottest tips for 2016 in Justin Sysum, and he worked both shows, beating out Tiger Ali (not Singh) in Bristol, and downing T-Bone in Worcester.
And that’s all you need to know about this week’s BritWres. Next weekend sees shows by Attack-Pro, Lucha Britannia, IPW:UK, ICW, and HOP & HOP:E going head-to-head in Nottingham! Join me then for the down low!
The latest stop on NXT’s UK tour was in Blackpool, England tonight, for a sold out show at the 2,000 capacity Empress Ballroom, a beautiful building set up wonderfully with WWE’s usual production and lighting. It was a fantastic show, with several very good matches, an incredible atmosphere throughout and quite clearly, the performers were having an absolute ball in front of such a hot crowd.
It felt like a special show, rather than just another stop on the tour. Part of that was due to the ornate ballroom they were running (rather than a regular arena like other stops on the tour), and part of it was due to the obvious factor of it being William Regal’s (and Robby Brookside’s too) return to the place they largely first made their names in wrestling some 30+ years ago. Both spoke about this in separate promos later on.
NXT Tag Champions Dash & Dawson def. Enzo Amore & Big Cass to retain
Enzo & Cass were predictably over huge, with everyone singing along to their opening catchphrases. They had a really good 20 minute match with the champs going over. Amore sold most of the way and they built to Cass getting the hot tag.
Asuka def. Alexa Bliss
Another really fun match. Both very over. Asuka made Bliss submit in 10 minutes.
Bull Dempsey def. Tye Dillinger
This was tons and tons more entertaining than you could possibly imagine and was one of my favourite matches of the night. Mostly comedy but really funny comedy, with the heel (Dillinger) being infuriated by the crowd’s antics. Firstly, fans were chanting ‘Bull is gorgeous’. They liked doing the ‘Ten, Ten’ thing with their hands like Dillinger, but when Dillinger went for a test of strength with one hand, fans were chanting ‘Five, Five’. Then when he pointed angrily with one finger, fans were chanting ‘One, One’. Each time, Dillinger flipped his lid. You probably had to be there, but the crowd had an absolute ball with this match. Dempsey won with a sit down splash off the top rope.
– Jordan & Gable def. Blake & Murphy
This was the match of the night. The crowd reaction for Gable & Jordan was OFF THE CHARTS. I’ve being going to wrestling for 25 years, have been to 5 Wrestlemanias and lots of post-WM Raws, as well as tons of wild UK indy crowds, but the duelling chants for Jordan and Gable at the start of this match was nuts, up there with the very best reactions I’ve witnessed in person. They literally didn’t lock up for the first 5 minutes because the crowd were singing, jumping up and down, going crazy. Blake & Murphy were great too, sold being pissed off, stormed off, came back, and the chants would start again. I noticed Canyon Ceman come out at the side of the entrance area during this craziness and he was visibly getting a kick out of it, taping the reactions on his phone. And then the match was excellent. Gable was phenomenal; how this guy (and Jordan for that matter) are not already on the main roster is travesty.
Intermisson
After intermission, William Regal came out to a heroes’ welcome in his adopted home town. He came out to his normal theme, then after a few bars, it stopped. Instead they then played old-style Blackpool ballroom organ music, which he may have entered the ring to 30+ years ago. Regal engaged in some comedic banter with some overly rowdy ringside fans, and mentioned how, even though he originally wrestled many times in Blackpool in the early 1980s, this was his first time in this ballroom. He mentioned his former mentor Bobby Barron, and paid tribute to all the fans in attendance. This was all great.
– Nia Jaxx def. Carmella
Quick match. Jax was over as a heel. Crowd liked Carmella and were chanting ‘How ya’ doing?’ at her.
– Samoa Joe def. Apollo Crews
Another very good match. Both worked really hard. They were a few ‘Uhaa Nation’ chants for Crews at the start of the match, as Crews wrestled numerous times in this region for Preston City Wrestling over the past few years prior to his WWE signing and was very popular. The fans then got into singing the Apollo Crews name. I thought it was really interesting seeing how Crews has adapted his wrestling style to WWE style, slowing down but making things mean more. Joe won with the muscle buster. Crowd cheered Joe too and didn’t really boo him at all.
– NXT Women’s Champion Bayley def. Emma (w/Dana Brooke) to retain
Crowd heavily cheered Bayley as expected. Another good match. Emma had a spot where she picked up Bayley’s belt and tried to run to the back with it, and the crowd sung ‘Same old Emma, always stealing!’ Ouch. Dana was thrown out by the referee for interfering prior to the finish.
– NXT Champion Finn Balor def. Baron Corbin & Sami Zayn to retain
Zayn was heavily cheered,more than Balor. Corbin was hated, but wasn’t resented like I thought he might be. There were some comedic spots where Zayn and Balor put on each other’s jackets and imitated each other. There was a frequent spot in the show where the crowd were chanting ‘<Wrestler X> give us a wave’, mainly directed at babyfaces. They sung ‘Corbin – give us a wave’ to mock him. Rather than ignore it like a heel, he sarcastically waved, which led to ‘Thank you Corbin’ chants. Finish saw Balor do a double foot stomp off the top on to Corbin for the win. Besides the comedy spots, all three worked very hard, much harder than a usual WWE main roster house show main event.
Afterwards, Balor and Zayn remained in the ring. Zayn took the mic and said it was great to be back, and paid tribute to Regal for bringing him into WWE and making him want to be a wrestler. He then praised Robby Brookside and asked him to come out. Brookside came out to a huge ovation, with a ‘God Save The Queen’ Sex Pistols-type theme music used. Brookside gave a similar speech to Regal earlier, putting over their former mentor Bobby Baron and also paid tribute to the crowd, to end the show.
Notes & Observations:
– All in all, a fantastic show. With the hot crowd and unique setting, I’m kind of surprised they didn’t hold the Takeover event here. I get why they picked London, but Blackpool would have looked great on tv. Maybe in the future.
– Crowd booed any mentions of the WWE TLC ppv (an advert played on the big screen), and during several matches, chanted ‘Better than Raw’.
– The NXT crew was very visible around the town during the day, as most were clad in black NXT-branded tracksuits. A lot of the NXT crew including Matt Bloom had an afternoon meal at the Harry Ramsden’s Fish & Chips restaurant.
– There were very few kids in the audience, the show drawing mostly young adults.
– There was an interesting rumour going around (unconfirmed, but take this for what its’ worth) that the WWE Raw & Smackdown tv tapings next November will be held in Glasgow, Scotland for the first time, at the Hydro Arena. This, if true, would be a fascinating move, as they would likely be taking place 2 weeks before ICW runs the Hydro Arena for the biggest show in their history. I guess another business rival has been identified.
Arena was nearly full for what was put on sale as it was cut at the half way point with the top tier curtained off.
Ring announcer Brown Shoes welcomes us.
Match 1 Enzo and Cass beat Blake and Murphy. Crowd were massively into all the catchphrases of the faces.
Match 2 Bull Dempsey over Tye Dillinger with a top rope sit down splash.Crowd got into the perfect ten gimmick.
Match 3 Samoa Joe defeated Apollo Crews with a musclebuster. Good match.Lots of Uhaa chants for Crews.
Match 4 Bayley beat Emma with Baylay to Bayley.
Match 5 Dawson and Dash beat Jordan and Gable. Match of the night a very good old school tag team match. Half way through some idiot jumped the rail and got in the ring. Security got him quick however. Jordan and Gable are just brilliant and were very popular with the audience.
Match 6 Asuka over Carmella via submission.
Match 7 Finn Balor beat Sami Zayn and Baron Corbin in a three way dance. Zayn got huge ole chants prior to his entrance. As Corbin was pinning Zayn,Balor came off the top with a coup de grace on him for the win.
Decent night of action, only downside was the trouble getting into the arena, queue was massive in the rotten UK winter cold and they were confiscating items including my pregnant wife’s handbag and even fans umbrellas. I understand why with the heightened security issues but it was taken too far tonight.
WWE announced Saturday that there will be an NXT TakeOver special on April 1st at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center* in Dallas, TX, with tickets going on-sale December 19th.
The show is the Friday night before WrestleMania, making it the fourth WWE event in the market announced for that week with the Hall of Fame on Saturday, Wrestlemania on Sunday, and RAW on Monday. It seems likely the show will sell out quickly with so many people coming into Dallas that weekend.
Plans for the show’s card are likely close to being finalized already, or will be in a few weeks as they are taping television well ahead of time. Most all the television leading to this show will have been taped by the end of January.
NXT is currently on a tour in the United Kingdom, headlined by NXT Champion Finn Balor vs. the returning Sami Zayn. The tour is building up to the next TakeOver special on the WWE Network, set for Wednesday night in London, England.
*We originally reported the American Airlines Arena, and apologize for the error.
Huge reaction for Enzo and Cass – their shtick is very over. Enzo does most of the work in this one, with all 5 people playing to the crowd frequently. Blake and Murphy get their rest spots in, and regularly cut Enzo off as he inches towards a hot tag. Once Cass eventually gets in, he clears house, before tagging Enzo in for the rocket launcher splash for a clean pinball victory.
Tye Dillinger v Bull Dempsey
Dillinger’s ’10’ chant is over for the rest of the night. It’s made clear from the offset that this is strictly a comedy match. Bull does jumping jacks for a good few minutes, and gets Tye to join in against his will. Tye gets defensive over his laminated ’10’ sign, and flips out once Bull accidentally makes him stand on it. Then a match breaks out, with Tye getting most of the offence in before Bull hulks up and hits a flying headbutt for the pin.
Alexa Bliss v Asuka
Asuka is super over with the crowd. After the early flurry from Asuka, Bliss targets the arm and gets in some moves before getting in some rest spots. Asuka then turns the tables, and makes Bliss submit to the Asuka lock. A basic match, but the crowd enjoyed it.
Some promos for TLC aired in the arena, which the crowd didn’t really appreciate, and they amped up the NXT chants.
Baron Corbin v Neville
The crowd were surprised and happy to see Neville on the tour. This was possibly the longest match of the night, in a show that ran about 45 minutes longer than advertised. Corbin grounds Neville for large chunks of this with the usual big man v little man dynamic. Neville got some hope spots in, but Corbin would hit some big moves to ground Neville. After a few 2 counts, Neville comes back into it with some strikes that send Corbin outside, allowing for an asai moonsault to the floor. Back in the ring, Neville reverses an End Of Days, and after a couple of teases and attempted reversals, Neville hits the Red Arrow for the very popular win.
Jordan and Gable v Dash & Dawson for the NXT Tag Titles
Huge ovation for Jordan and Gable, with a lot of creative chants for them. A chant set to 1993 dance hit ‘No Limit’ by 2 Unlimited was the highlight, as was ‘Save the Gable’ to the New Day chant. Gable starts this one, but unlike Enzo earlier, gets mostly offence in against the champs. Jordan gets a couple of spots before Dawson manages to ground Gable. Quick tags between the champs weaken Gable, before he is able to turn the tide and eventually tag in Jordan. Jordan gets some drop kicks and a belly-to-belly in, and makes the tag to Gable to set up for the Grand Amplitude before Dawson sweeps Jordan out the ring, and Dash rolls up Gable, holding the tights to get the 3 count. Great match, and the crowd showed their appreciation for the challengers post match.
Emma v Bayley for the NXT Woman’s Title
Dana Brooke accompanies Emma. Bayley gets the biggest reaction of the night so far, and there was enough in the budget to bring the whacky inflatable arm-flailing tube men. Many creative chants for Bayley, set to soccer songs and Christmas songs (eg 12 days of Bayley). Bayley plays to the crowd a lot before Emma starts getting in some offence. After a rest spot and an Emmamite sandwich to the corner, Bayley starts to make a comeback, but Brooke grabs her foot from the outside, to which the referee ejects her. Bayley then hits the Bayley-to-belly for the very popular 3 count. Nia Jax makes a brief appearance, but instead of entering the ring, just gives her a warning ahead of their Takeover London match.
Apollo Crews v Samoa Joe
Decent reaction for Crews, but Joe is the over one in this match. I think he has too much respect to be treated as the heel here. A very fun back and forth match, with Joe playing to the crowd throughout. A lot of families left around us, with tired and cranky kids, obviously realising the show was overrunning. Joe the takes control and hits a Muscle Buster for a surprisingly clean 3 count.
Finn Bálor v Sami Zayn for the NXT Title
Huge reaction for both stars. Bálor comes out first, and there was a very brief delay for the ‘ole’ chants – the crowd knows who the challenger is. Zayn is very over with the Glasgow crowd, and is met with huge ‘Welcome Back’ chants. This match was very equal throughout, with Bálor appearing to take the roll as the more heelish of the two. The match kicked into high gear with an insane tope to the outside by Zayn. Zayn then got a close 2-count from a sit-out power bomb. Bálor then got a 2 from a Pele kick. Zayn set up for a Helluva Kick in the corner, but this was reversed before Bálor hit the kick into the corner before hitting the Coup de Grace for the big 3 in an excellent match.
The Bryan & Vinny Show — WITH DAN! — is back today with special guest host Dan Masters who generously donated $250 to Whale Scout for the chance to, yes, TALK ABOUT MONDAY NIGHT RAW WITH VINNY. Hardcore fellow, and a classy fellow as he’s from the UK! We’ve also got our NXT review, Granny’s weekly appearance and so much more! A fun show as always so check it out~!
Wrestling Observer Live with Bryan Alvarez and Mike Sempervive is back today with tons of things to get into, including notes on Breaking Ground and the new season of Lucha Underground, Dave Meltzer’s preview of the weekend UFC main events, plus Blue Pants Leva Bates joins us to talk SHINE this weekend! A fun show as always so check it out~!
One of pro wrestling’s all time greatest pitchmen and the force behind SBIbookings.com Bill Behrens joins the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling show. Covering topics like how WWE / NXT signs in coming talent, and all of the inner workings of the promotions for which he was a part (WWE, WCW, TNA and more), Behrens gives John and Chad an in depth look at how his television background and unique skill set helped him to penetrate a crazy business. We also learn about how exactly he became “pro wrestling’s super agent” to stars like AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Matt Sydal, James Storm, and many more. Excerpts and download links below…
Excerpts from the interview…
– What type of pro wrestlers does he choose to represent:
Unlike some other folk my tendency is to focus on more of what could be the “younger talent” to people in their “prime” than I do the people that have been past their prime and are the legends of years ago. My roster really features very few of the guys from the 80s for example. Even though I am a big fan of those guys and certainly my wrestling watching began in the 60s so those are my favorites and my greatest stories come from that. Much of my list is like AJ Styles who is my top guy down, which is opposed to AJ being the young boy and going up. But then there are the exception to those rules with the somewhat older guys like the Kevin Nash’s or Scott Hall’s who I’ve been helping off and on and Tommy Dreamer who is surprisingly young yet thought of as an older guy.
– The current landscape of pro wrestling, indy vs. television product:
The overall atmosphere of professional wrestling right now is as vibrant and active than any time that I’ve been involved in it and I’ve been involved in it since the late 80s – early 90s, the tail end of the territory era and when TV or larger companies consolidating the TV became the norm and the Indy companies were struggling. There are more people now putting on good shows that draw hundreds than there were back in the end of the 1990s when there were just a few. My Music City Wrestling (promotion) which became NWA Worldwide in Nashville that I did with Bert Prentice was one of the few that was actually drawing numbers and had a local TV show. There has been a big transition. More people are bellying up that have a chance of actually paying people. Lucha Underground which is a television company almost exclusively right now is still providing good money to their top people, I’m privy to their contracts. Ring of Honor is now really stepping up and providing good money. New Japan partnering with Ring of Honor has now built Ring of Honor and New Japan simultaneously into this much more International entity with footprints outside of their backyards. Whether Global Force Wrestling becomes that is unknown because they don’t have much to announce but then there is the Paragon’s of the world who are buying there way onto television with a roster that is underwhelming at best. You have to look at it as, are they doing it as a step forward in the wrestling business or because they just wanted to be on TV?
– TNA being similar to how ECW operated:
TNA was doing very well and they made the same mistake in some ways like ECW made years ago of not realizing when you’ve gotten to a point where you have been as big as you could be and trying to get bigger before they had the resources or audience that would support it. ECW did that when they moved to The Nashville Network. They blamed it of course on The Nashville Network and the editing of the show but the reality was they tried to get too far without a base that was there to embrace them beyond their core base. TNA always had their base of one or two million people and all of a sudden they decided “we want to go head to head live with WWE and we will bring in Bischoff, we will bring in Hogan and by bringing in these people we will become bigger” but the reality is that isn’t what grows the companies.
– WWE signing Samoa Joe, how they evaluated his contract offer and how they maintain the outlaw feel:
Samoa Joe was working with me as he went to them and for example the deals that NXT did prior to him for Prince Devitt and El Generico and for the other people they were taking from Ring of Honor or from overseas, the thought process of when they signed those people changed dramatically (to) when they then evaluated Samoa Joe. When they did Joe, Joe had three or four deals change over a two to three week period as they continued to evaluate what are we really trying to do here and what’s our goals for NXT. How do we get people to pay attention to the product and be big enough that we don’t piss Vince off but stay small enough where we could be the rebel or outcast league but still present the big screen, the lights, the music playing but a little bit more of an intimate environment in terms of presentation. In essence, that’s a Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Guerrilla a more “Indy” feel. NXT started from we are going to be like those guys and yet not be offensive to the WWE product yet still be the cool kid.
Please subscribe to the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling on iTunes and via YouTube by searching the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling or visit the OFFICIAL Website of the Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling: www.tmptofwrestling.com &twitter.com/twomanpowertrip and also now a part of the TopRopePress.com Radio Network.
On Thursday, WWE COO Triple H did his usual conference call before big NXT events, this time hyping up the Wednesday, December 16th WWE Network event from London, England.
Here’s some highlights and the audio itself which ran just under 40 minutes:
– He ran down the card and teased some impending announcements.
– He was asked about pushing emotion on the NXT brand as opposed to a lack of that in promos on the major brand. He made a reference to ‘some like chocolate, some like vanilla’ as he’s done before and said when it comes to NXT, he picks the flavor.
– He was asked about three-hour shows. He said the company has to be more creative, come up with a better format, and that they hear people’s frustrations. “It’s fixing it, trying to fix it, and it is what it is. We’ll get there…trust me.”
– He was asked about Finn Balor not being called up to the main roster despite there being an injury crisis. He essentially said that while he has experience in Japan, he’s still learning some things at NXT like promos, etc. He doesn’t want to call guys up to be Band-Aids when there are injury issues. He wants people to have a long-term plan in place for when they come up.
– He was asked about relationships with groups like Evolve and the possibility of opening up relationships with emerging UK groups (ones that our Alan Boon talks about weekly!) to find new talent.
– He was asked about implementing some of the ideas that begin in NXT making their way to WWE. He said that slowly, you see some things bubbling their way up but again referenced the chocolate/vanilla comparison. As far as things he’d like to see change, he mentioned how the women are characterized, but that things take time to change.
*****
Listen by clicking below or right clicking to save:
