Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's match features John Cena's WWE debut against Kurt Angle. This is quite a way to start out. He loses the match but makes an impressive showing.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's PiW match is John Cena vs CW Anderson from back in his pre-WWE days. In those days he worked for Ultimate Pro Wrestling as the Prototype.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Profiles in Wrestling Match - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

Today's PiW match is from an old episode of Velocity. It's not a match John Cena is famous for, but one that I think we'd all like to see again. On this episode of Velocity he worked with Bryan Danielson, AKA Daniel Bryan of NXT. This match was short, but fun, and utilized John Cena's old finisher, the Proto-bomb. He still uses this finisher, but only as one of his signature moves of doom.

Brawl O' the Day - Danielson & Aoki vs Ishimori & Kanemaru

Bryan Danielson AKA NXT's Daniel Bryan and Atsushi Aoki take on Taiji Ishimori and Kanemaru in today's Brawl. It's an exciting match from Pro-Wrestling NOAH in Japan. A great example of puro tag matches. That finisher at the end is wicked too.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Lady of the Week - Angelina Love

Lady of the Week is dedicated to finding talented female wrestlers and exposing their efforts. These women are both strong and beautiful and are fully capable wrestlers.



Angelina Love, AKA Lauren Williams, is this weeks lady of the week. She has gained infamy all over the indie circuit, including a stint with form WWE developmental group Deep South Wrestling, but is best known for her work with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling. Once at TNA she took off with Velvet Sky (AKA Talia Madison) as The Beautiful People, a heel group that sought to "purify" the world by destroying one ugly person at a time. The Beautiful People dominated the Knockout's division until an overdue passport struck (did I mention she's Canadian?). Avoiding jail time and prolonged retention within her country, she returned to TNA after only a few months, this time to feud with the new lineup of Beautiful People (who were led by Love's old partner, Velvet Sky). Working with TNA only three years, she has held the TNA Knockout's Championship three times, and was ranked #2 on Pro-Wrestling Illustrated's 50 best female singles competitors of 2009.

Profiles in Wrestling - John Cena

Profiles in Wrestling is a week long column with the goal of introducing you to both well-known and emerging talent, delivering quality coverage and notable matches. So sit back, relax, and smark out.

John Cena is a very controversial wrestler. He has a ton of fans, and probably just as many haters. He has shown great technical skills and charisma, but does not always use them. Because of his great achievements within kayfabe, he has been chosen for this weeks Profiles in Wrestling and one of his matches will be featured on the main page once every night. I hope you enjoy this weeks profile as much as I enjoy reaping the search engine results from having John Cena's name on my page.

In Wrestling:
John Cena's Career started out at the Ultimate University, a wrestling school operated by California-based Ultimate Pro Wrestling. Here he learned the moves and took on a cyborg character known as the Prototype (also called Mr P). Soon after, WWE to picked him up and rushed him through developmental.

In the WWE John Cena wasted no time, barely losing to Kurt Angle in his debut match. He would go on to feud with Chris Jericho, followed by an extremely short program with Billy Kidman. It was shortly after this that he would debut his rapper character. In February 2003, Cena would move to RAW to feud with Brock Lesnar. It was this feud that led to the unveiling of his new finisher, the “FU”, a play on Lesnar's own “F-5.” After Lesnar, Cena turned face and swiftly returned Smackdown.

As a face, he would win the United States Chamionship from the Big Show at Wrestlemania XX. As is Cena's way, be stripped of the title, lose it to Carlito, shoot a movie, and get it back only to lose it again to Orlando Jordan during his feud against JBL and his Cabinet. This feud led to Cena winning JBL's WWE Championship belt, the first of Cena's nine world championship reigns, seven with this WWE championship. This is when Cena debuted the spinner belt.

Cena was then drafted to RAW and began feuding with, then RAW GM, Eric Bischoff. Bischoff would champion Chris Jericho as Cena's opponent. This feud was the first time that a large portion of the crowd booed Cena in favor of his heel opponent, it would not be the last. The program with Jericho ended in a “You're Fired” match, and Kurt Angle would take over his part for the rest of the feud with Bischoff. The fans continued booing of Cena became so apparent that the announce team acknowledged the booing and called Cena the “controversial champion.” In spite of his detractors, Cena would hold onto the belt and even debut a new finisher, the STFU. The feud would end when Bischoff was fired by McMahon and promptly thrown into a garbage truck by John Cena.

He held on to his belt until January, when Edge cashed in his Money in the Bank contract after John Cena had endured a grueling Elimination Chamber contest. Similar to his back and forth relationship with the United States Chamionship, Cena would proceed to win back and lose the WWE Championship twice before his feud with Edge complete. After his program with Edge he would feud with Booker T, Big Show, Umaga, celebrity guest Kevin Federline, and finally the Great Khali in fairly forgettable feuds. The exception being his Wrestlemania feud with Shawn Michaels, which led to two of his all time best matches. After Khali, he would feud with Randy Orton until he tore his pectoral muscle in a match with Mr Kennedy (hip toss, go figure). In kayfabe, however, the honor or breaking Cena belongs to Orton.

He would return in 2008 as the surprise final entrant in the Royal Rumble, winning the match and a title shot at Wrestlemania. He impatiently cashed it in against Orton at No Way Out, where he lost, but was still be placed in a triple threat at Wrestlemania alongside Triple H and Orton. He lost the match and went on to feud with JBL again. After losing the feud in a Parking Lot Brawl, he would go on to win the World Tag Team Championship with Batista. They quickly lost them, and then he lost to Batista after a momentary feud at Summerslam. Shortly after he was sidelined with a herniated disc in his neck.

He returned at Survivor Series against Jericho to acquire his first World Heavyweight Championship, Cena would then lose the belt to Edge at No Way Out in an Elimination Chamber match. He'd then win the belt back at Wrestlemania XXV, but only until Backlash, when he dropped it back to Edge in a Last Man Standing bout when the Big Show chokeslammed Cena through a spotlight. Cena then began a short feud with the Big Show before moving on to Orton. The feud with Orton led to him winning an I Quit match for his fourth WWE Championship. In true Cena fashion, he lost, regained, lost, regained, and once again lost the title, this time to Batista. During the ensuing feud with Batista, he would recapture the title (making seven WWE championships), eventually ending the feud at Over the Limit.

Outside of Wrestling:
He is married to Elizabeth Huberdeau. John Cena earned a degree in exercise physiology at Springfield College, where he was a Football Division III All-American Center. To further the WWE cause, John Cena has been involved in a handful of TV guest spots and even starred in two movies (The Marine and 12 Rounds). He is left-handed, is apparently an anime fan, and loves mostly Boston/new England teams with the exception being the Tampa Bay Rays. He also collects muscle cars and has more than twenty.


TNA announces business deal with Jakks Pacific

TNA announced a new partnership with Jakks Pacific at a press conference this afternoon, unveiling a new line of six action figures. The figures are AJ Styles, Suicide, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle, Sting, and Jeff Jarrett. Jakks Pacific has long made toys for TNA rival WWE. While I do not have any pictures of the figures yet, or a date for their release, Samoa Joe did mention that he "might not have the prettiest action figure, but was sure his could beat AJ's figure up."

Yoshiko Tamura vs MsChif

Brawl O' the Day is your daily fix from the world of wrestling. Featuring tremendous matches from all across wrestling, Brawl O' the Day will wow you with big names and educate you with lesser known stars of the indie circuit.

Today's Brawl is a nice little match between Yoshiko Tamura and MsChif. Tamura is a decent representative from the Joshi Puro scene in Japan and if you don't know MsChif then you haven't watched any women's indie. This match is honestly a bit spot heavy in my opinion, but it's a good introduction to the duo's movesets. MsChif is interesting to me because not only is she beautiful and talented, she is also a monster character. Very few women seem to pull this off well in my opinion.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Brawl O' the Day - Ted Dibiase Jr vs KENTA

Brawl O' the Day is your daily fix from the world of wrestling. Featuring tremendous matches from all across wrestling, Brawl O' the Day will wow you with big names and educate you with lesser known stars of the indie circuit.


Today's match is between Ted Dibiase Jr (now famous in the WWE) vs puro legend KENTA. This is a great demonstration of KENTA's puroresu style, a stiff Japanese form of professional wrestling that is often billed next to MMA bouts. Dibiase is notably American, but blends well with the puro style, showing that a good wrestler will adapt to his environment. A good match, though a bit longer that my other uploads. Enjoy!

Note: If it is not obvious by now, this match comes in two parts. So watch the first video and the the second for maximum effect.



Friday, June 11, 2010

WWE NXT's "Daniel Bryan" aka Bryan Danielson Released

This just in from WWE.com:

"WWE has come to terms on the release of NXT first season rookie Daniel Bryan (Bryan Danielson) as of today June 11, 2010. We wish Daniel Bryan the best in all future endeavors."

A bit surprising considering the massive pop the NXT Invasion got, especially with management. I'm kind of glad he can go back to the indie leagues and have real matches though. Be expecting more NXT releases, they'll probably start stacking up.

Brawl O' the Day - Takayuki Mori vs King Shisa

Brawl O' the Day is your daily fix from the world of wrestling. Featuring tremendous matches from all across wrestling, Brawl O' the Day will wow you with big names and educate you with lesser known stars of the indie circuit.

A very good mat based contest between Takayuki Mori and King Shisa at Dragon Gate's Wrestlejam a few years back. While the match is much slower than most American and even Japanese contests (especially Dragon's Gate's usual lucha-libre), this is still a very interesting match. It is fought in a lucha influenced folkstyle with Lancashire influences. On a side note, if anybody knows exactly who the technical announcer is (I want to say Mike Quackenbush but I could be way off), he is one of the best indie announcers I have ever heard. Generally, indie announcers don't know a headscissors from a frankensteiner (there is a difference), but this guy is really sharp, especially with the ground stuff.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Daily Roundup - 6/10/2010

The Daily Roundup! For all the stuff that just didn't fit anywhere else. . .

Unlike his Undertaker character, who is in a vegetative state after a mysterious attack, Mark Callaway is doing fine. He had surgery on his fractured orbital bone (the bone with your eye sockets and nose if I remember correctly) and will need eight to twelve weeks for recovery. He injured the bone in a match with Rey Mysterio and the coma story was WWE's way of writing him out for a few weeks.

TNA Knockout Daffney is set to return to the ring for the next round of TNA tapings.

TNA's Dixie Carter tweeted about a surprise happening at Slammiversary.Anyone who didn't expect a surprise has clearly not been paying attention to TNA recently, as surprises seem to be their bread and butter. Speculation on a possible entry for Shelton Benjamin, Mickie James, or Gregory Helms has been popping up, but I'm not sure if their non-competes have ended yet.

A nifty little interview with TNA's Frankie Kazarian can be found here.

Brawl O' the Day - Ultimo Dragon vs Rey Mysterio Jr on WWE Smackdown

Brawl O' the Day is your daily fix from the world of wrestling. Featuring tremendous matches from all across wrestling, Brawl O' the Day will wow you with big names and educate you with lesser known stars of the indie circuit.

 Today's brawl is between WWE favorite Rey Mysterio Jr and, world renowned wrestler, Ultimo Dragon. This contest follows along the theme of yesterday's match: A short match with a lot of pop. This match is about four minutes, long, but the frenetic lucha libre action makes up for the short schedule. These two workers put on a great show and, if you pay attention to the commentary, builds a feud. The context was Taijiri (on commentary) and Mysterio over the title, and Dragon being a free agent in the whole conflict. In four minutes, they made fans happy with a solid match, and built an interesting feud. Perhaps the new WWE could learn something from this one. . ?

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Daily Roundup - 6/9/2010

The Daily Roundup! For all the stuff that just didn't fit anywhere else. . .

Rob Zombie will be the guest host of RAW on June 28, 2010.

WWE has also announced that it will bring back the Survivor Series PPV on November 19th. The event was tragically missing last year due to low buy rates the previous year.

WWE and TNA will once again be going head to head on June 17th. WGN America will air a baseball game during WWE Superstars, moving the show back to 10 O'clock. It will air against TNA Impact. Considering the low draws of Superstars and likely confusion over the shifting schedule, this could be one ratings war that TNA could win.

TNA's Matt Morgan was out doing work with Make-A-Wish Foundation. Not big news but I like to recognize people when they help out. Find out more about Make-A-Wish Foundation at their website.

Preview of WWE:Smackdown vs RAW 2011

Here's a preview of SVR 2011 I found. This video is also from Gamespot, just like the earlier video. The physics look cool if not a bit cartoony. As with my earlier post on WWE Allstars, this post is for the gamers.

Sneak Peek of WWE Allstars Video Game

Here's an interesting little interview from Gamespot about the upcoming video game WWE Allstars. It appears to be a faster, more frenetic, more over the top version of Smackdown Vs RAW with some fighting game elements thrown in for good measure. Definitely something for fans of WWE games to watch out for.


Brawl O' The Day - Roderick Strong vs Davey Richards

Brawl O' the Day is your daily fix from the world of wrestling. Featuring tremendous matches from all across wrestling, Brawl O' the Day will wow you with big names and educate you with lesser known stars of the indie circuit.

Today's brawl features Roderick Strong vs Davey Richards at a PWG event. Forgive the sub par camera work, these two really know how to put on a show even if PWG doesn't know how to tape it. For those of you who are used to WWE, this is a very different product, and a very exciting one at that. This match is also only a couple of minutes long. Many people excuse poor televised wrestling by pointing to short match times. I believe matches like this prove that a quality product can be put out in a short time. Not nearly as short as a match between Jimmy Yang and the Amazing Red that I'll be posting next week, but that's a different story for next week. Until then, enjoy Roderick Strong vs Davey Richards in a top notch match-up.

Jeff Hardy Drug Drama Continues

Two days ago, this site reported that 3 out of the 4 drug charges that Jeff Hardy faced were dropped. As it turns out the report, based on North Carolina court records, was false. None of the charges were dropped and the District Attorney claims that a new charge has since been added. No word on what that charge is or how the court's records were false. More news as it comes.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Daily Roundup - 6/8/2010

The Daily Roundup! For all the stuff that just didn't fit anywhere else. . .

Last night, TNA X Division Champion Amazing Red attended Raw Live in Miami. He Must have uploaded an out of context tweet every thirteen seconds he was there. He also announced that he would be attending Fatal Four-Way on the 20th.

Jim "JR" Ross stated on his blog that the NXT Invasion angle featured at the end of last nights RAW was the most exciting ending to a RAW in years.

Chris Jericho tweeted that he was on a rooftop in LA, presumably shooting for his new gameshow "Downfall."

Season Two of WWE NXT begins tonight. Early coverage will be posted tomorrow morning with an in depth review this weekend.

Eric Young successfully proposed to longtime girlfriend Sarah yesterday. He proposed on the beach in Miami, where everything in the world happened yesterday (I call it, the RAW effect).

Last nights three-hour Raw, starring actors from the A-Team movie, scored a Nielsen rating of 3.1, down from their average 3.3.

Chris Jericho's Downfall

“On the six-episode series, contestants try to answer questions while on the roof of a Los Angeles high-rise. Meanwhile, "the largest conveyor belt ever seen on TV" will send potential winnings (cash and prizes), the player's personal possessions and even friends and family over the side of the building.”
-The Hollywood Reporter

That is the synopsis for upcoming ABC game show “Downfall,” hosted by our very own Ayatollah of Rocknrolla, Chris Jericho. The show will premiere on June 22, 2012, right after hit game show “Wipeout.” It sounds like a pretty strange half hour of television, but so did Wipeout, so who knows. It's going to be interesting to see if he reverts back to his Y2J persona or stays in kayfabe for the show. It's something that Jeroicholics are going to want to tune in for.

Jeff Hardy Drug Charges Dropped

Well, most of them. Back in September, shortly after leaving the WWE, Jeff Hardy was arrested and charged with felony possession of cocaine, felony drug trafficking, felony maintaining a dwelling for drug distribution, and conspiracy to traffic opium, and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia. At the time of this posting, the North Carolina Court System only list only conspiracy to traffic opium. The rest of the charges have been dropped. This charge is interesting because it was added to the list in January. After brief research, I cannot say definitively if this is a lesser or greater charge, but I speculate that one charge is less than the other three.
All that said, I seriously doubt the charge will stick. He was never caught in any sort of transaction and I've never heard of any conspirators. Considering Hardy's well known history of drug abuse, it's my opinion that he was just stocking up so he didn't have to leave his trailer until his non-compete ran out. He'll probably get some sort of slap on the list, but I doubt they'll get a hard conviction.

Daily Editorial: Finishing on the Edge

After almost twenty years in the game, Adam Copeland is going to call it quits. Sometime. In a year or two. “I may have two more years. With each injury, it's harder and harder to come back.” Stated Adam “Edge” Copeland in the prestigious Asheville Citizen-Times. I'm honestly a bit disappointed. My first decent feud was Edge vs Cena in 2006 (yes, that makes me a baby to wrestling, but, as you can tell, I've made up ground fast). Edge was probably the best heel WWE had for a two or three year stretch (until the Age of Orton really sunk in, but even still, Orton's matches are hardly consistent). Edge kept the crowd angry and could still wrestle a good match. His ladder matches with the Hardys defined the stipulation. He was my favorite for quite a while.
Now, don't assume I actually believe Edge is leaving next year. He's a wrestler, he'll be doing WWE or indies until he's sixty, or so the trend goes. In all honesty though, I kind of hope he's telling the truth. In a time where Flair, Hogan, and every friend they made in the retirement home are coming back to flop around the ring and juice one more time, I kind of like the idea of Edge retiring at age forty, and STAYING retired.
Edge, you've had a good run. You're still in good shape and you'll have a great last two years. Leave it at that. Do us all a favor and depart as a legend, not bumping and bleeding for one last fix.