Topic: Wrestling?

According to the draft, Smackdown has as always drawn the short straw. As it is shown on television here, I am basically forced to watch it anyway. The only relevant really new guy on SD is Cena.

And no Heath Slater?

Not gonna lie there are way more of the guys on raw that I thought they would just push to smackdown.

Though I am surpisd they moved there champ at the time to the smaller roster, probably cause there counting on his and Cena's star power to bring attentio to it.

The only thing Cena will manage with me is that I look for the remote to skip his promos.^^

I am a little tired of Dolph Ziggler and the last guys I wanted to see on Smackdown are also there with Cena and AdR, but I hoped for Randy Orton and Zack Ryder. Bray Wyatt is also someone I could have lived on without, the same with Rowan and the Miz. And no Cesaro, Owens or Seth Rollins for me.

They want to avoid what happened last time in 2002-2004, when Smackdown had all the best talents and beat Raw in the ratings.

Sure, Smackdown has guys that can benefit from it, like American Alpha, and the women, but you also have a lot of guys that WWE either doesn't trust or doesn't want anymore as headlining the flagship show, like Orton, Ziggler, Cena, Kane, and Wyatt.

Sure, they have AJ Styles and Dean Ambrose, both popular newer main eventers who are put on Smackdown because they can carry the brand, but that is also because they don't want or trust either one of them to carry Raw.

Granted, Raw has Sheamus and Big Show, but they'll probably just be used to build up the likes of Owens and Cesaro and Reigns and Rollins.

Basically, Shane "New Era" McMahon just dumped Smackdown with a bunch of "retired by 2020" people, new people, and irrelevant people that can put over the new people, while Raw got most of the people we actually want to see.

At least, thats first impressions anyway.

So Smackdown is probably having Cena, Styles and Ambrose in the main event right now, with AdR and Wyatt as buildup guys. Orton either goes for the Intercontinental belt or is dropping in and out of the main event, leaving us with the Miz against Crews, Ryder and maybe Rowan fighting for the IC belt.

In general, I agree with Tai here. But honest question, who beside Kane do you think is gonna be retired in 2020? Zigler and AdR are always on the brink of retirement I guess if you see how they always tease it.^^

I thought Smackdown won the draft by a significant amount, personally.

They DID get the Axe Man, after all.

Looks like Curt Hawkins and Rhyno are coming back to Smackdown according to dirtsheets. Although I can very, very quickly pass on Rhyno, I would be satisfied with Hawkins. I always liked him in the ring and with his cane. Sadly no Tyler Reks for you, Tatyina.^^

What did Rhyno ever do to you? Guys a solid hand who can still go in the ring and be a solid mid-carder.

I mean, he and Baron Corbin actually had good matches and made a good, if short lived, tag team. Plus, Rhyno is a former world champion.

What has Curt Hawkins ever done?

I am not against Rhyno having a good job with WWE, I am just not a fan. Maybe it was indeed a bit drastic formulated.

I found Curt Hawkins to be entertaining in the old NXT and I like his wrestling style.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2016/7/22/12207412/the-rise-and-fall-of-all-japan-pro-wrestling


For any fans of Puroresu, this is a great read.

We all know that New Japan Pro Wrestling has been king of Japan since roughly 2008, after taking a couple years to rebuild after finally kicking company founder Antonio "Oh but I'm a real MMA fighter!" Inoki out the damn door.

We also know that Pro Wrestling NOAH, formed in 2000 when 26 of All Japans then 30 man roster left the company in an exodus to join the new company formed by the late Mitsuharu Misawa, ruled Japan from basically 2000-2007, until business went down, their top wrestlers got old, retired, or in Misawa's case, died, and their other, younger, top talents either left the company (KENTA), retired (Takeshi Morishima) or just got over exposed and nobody cared anymore.

But a lot of today's wrestling fans don't remember the glory of All Japan pro wrestling, which ruled Japan in the 80's with the likes of Giant Baba, Jumbo Tsuruta, The Road Warriors, Terry Funk and Stan Hansen, before becoming HUGE in the 90's, thanks to the likes of foreign talent like Hansen, Big Van Vader, Dr. Death Steve Williams, and Terry Gordy, and the rise of the incredible "Four Pillars of All Japan" (Misawa, Kobashi, Akira Taue, and Kawada), as well as plenty of talented undercard wrestlers.

Then Giant Baba died in 1999, his wife got 85 percent of the shares (with Nippon TV getting 15 percent) and Misawa became president...then they hated each other and Misawa left and took the roster with him, and Nippon TV said "Hey, know how we've been partners and you get prime time tv slots for 30 years? Fuck you, you get no more TV from us, and since we own part of your company, you get no TV ANYWHERE! MWAHAHAHA!"

So yeah. That sucked.

The Great Muta ended up joining and becoming president, and did his whole "Puroresu Love" era, which basically just did a bunch of cross overs with other promotions and pushed new people and added some WWE style storytelling, which in a lot of ways went against what founder Giant Baba would have wanted done...but also kept the company alive for a good ten years.

Then in 2012, Muta sold his shares to IT company Speed Partners, for a cool 2 million US, and stepped down as president for reasons mentioned in the article, they installed one of THEIR guys as president, despite him having no idea how to run a wrestling show, pissing off Muta and making him leave to form his own promotion, Wrestle-1, taking some of the roster with him.

Turns out having a guy that knows nothing of wrestling running your wrestling company is a terrible idea, and All-Japan lost nearly half its roster and its tv and nearly died before 2014, where they did a corporate shuffle to put new people in place (though the three belts they had to make up their main belt, the Triple Crown Championship, that they've had since founded? Baba's wife, still majority owner, demanded that back, leaving them to make a new single belt and taking away the last influence of Giant Baba's All Japan.)

Now they've lost more of the roster in the last year, because they can only afford to keep people on a "pay per appearance" schedule, and they've run only 40 shows so far this year.

So yeah. All-Japan, one time biggest company in Japan, is probably gonna be dead by 2020.