Wednesday, May 24, 2017

My thoughts on WWE signing too many joshi wrestlers

With WWE recently signing Io Shirai and Kairi Hojo, and now possibly looking at signing Sareee and Hiroyo Matsumoto as well, I wanted to comment.

WWE's already got Asuka, Io and Hojo. They do not need any more joshi wrestlers and those three are already enough, yet alone grabbing Hiroyo and Sareee as well.

Having too much of anything in wrestling is never good. Big Show was never really that special because they had Kane and then had Khali. 1 tall guy was special, 3 aren't. It's the same with the various guys WWE have signed lately. Itami was special...then they signed Nakamura. Getting Tozawa and Dar was cool, then they got Spanky and Mascara Dorada. It's too much.

All of the joshi girls are mostly similar. Their main thing is in ring work, not promos or characters. It limits and kind of makes it hard to do some things with them. They can learn English and learn to talk, but that's going to take a while and who knows if that'll ever come to fruition.

There's also only one champion. Everyone can't be the ace of the promotion or there is no ace. Someone's gonna have to job for someone else, and if you are an outside of WWE signing, that's the last thing you want to do.

Moderation is also really key. Most wrestlers get stale after a few years. There's only so much you can do with them - try booking someone 52 times a year and tell me you still have ideas after. They don't have to get all of these girls now. They aren't going anywhere most likely and with WWE money/fame, they can coerce them to come back.

WWE also has to be careful because the joshi scene is not healthy. There's a limited amount of girls and way too many promotions. They are going to be hit hard by all these signings and they just don't have the girls to replace them. And why would they? Who wants a job where you get hurt, don't get benefits and don't make that much money, especially as a Japanese girl who usually favors kids/marriage over work? They take everyone now and their might not be anyone left to take next time around. See the WWF in the early 1990's for how that turned out.

I really hope WWE thinks twice about signing everyone they can, because the only worse thing than having no talent is having too much talent.

Thursday, May 4, 2017

AWA 1/24/1986 - Sgt. Slaughter, Jerry Blackwell and Curt Hennig vs The Mongolian Stomper, Boris Zhukov and Nord the Barbarian

AWA 1/24/1986 - Sgt. Slaughter, Jerry Blackwell and Curt Hennig vs The Mongolian Stomper, Boris Zhukov and Nord the Barbarian




















The faces got the win via DQ after Shiek Adnan Al-Kassie got on the apron and they pulled him in. Not 100% sure how they got to that point as if the ref was watching, he would have seen Blackwell pull Kassie in, but that's 80's wrestling for you. This was 10 minutes long and not bad. Nothing special but the crowd was really into the USA thing and cheered the faces on. This needed another 10 minutes and the best parts of the match were Stomper's selling after getting splashed by Blackwell and Blackwell's comeback. Also did like seeing Sarge get thrown into the post, not the turnbuckle. This was fine.

WWF MSG 10/28/1991 - IC Title - Bret Hart vs The Berzerker

WWF MSG 10/28/1991 - IC Title - Bret Hart vs The Berzerker

I haven't seen much of the Berzerker. He came in around that later 1991 into 1992 and I just haven't seen much WWF yet from that time. I have liked what I saw of him in the AWA and to be frank, I LOVE gimmicks. I don't have much memory of him as a kid aside from having his figure. I really only remember him fighting the Undertaker. The WWF run seemed like his last major run as he didn't do a lot else after.




"That's a sissy color isn't it?" - Heenan | "Pink? I kinda like pink." - Gorilla





"Don't count your Fuji's before they're hatched." - Heenan





"Wow, right into the breadbasket." - Gorilla | "That was an exceptionally good move for The Berzerker." - Lord Alfred
"It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop." - Heenan
"I don't know what those muttlocks are. I guess you can't find those in K-Mart." - Gorilla Monsoon | "They're Hair Jordan's." - Heenan










"Going to the second floor." - Heenan


The finish
Bret Hart beat The Berzerker with a crucifix pin. Man this was good. The Berzerker was just great. He bumped big and he went 100 MPH at all times. There's not a lot of other sprinty bumping big dudes but he really pulls it off here. I got a ton of laughs out of watching him and this was one of the more fun matches I've watched in a while. Bret was as good as always here. He sold for everything and slowed it down enough to get you invested. He sold really well too. They got a bunch of time too. The story of the match was Bret knocking the Berzerker out of the ring multiple times early and then the Berzerker slowing it down with various holds until Bret made his big comeback at the end. Really fun pro wrestling and this will make you want to see more Berzerker. Also wanted to point out that the commentary was really fun with Heenan having some great lines here. Rating:***1/2