Tag: review

NXT Takeover Brooklyn II

NXT Takeover Brooklyn II
August 20, 2016
Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn, New York

Austin Aries vs. No Way Jose
– Jose’s tee is “No Way -Jose”. That friggin’ hyphen. Does Jose say “No Way” a lot? 😛 I’m not a fan of his dance spot, it’s real house show gimmick and he got Aries to do it (at the Dublin house show anyway)
– nothing notable; crowd initially like Jose but get solidly behind the far more talented veteran. Aries hits a sunset flip powerbomb (no chance of Aloha’ing there) and Last Chancery for the submission.
– Itami hits the ring and out of nowhere hits the GTS! Wow I can’t believe they gave it away so quickly. Looking forward to their match in 2 months.

Ember Moon vs Billy Kay
– Australia’s Billy Kay looks like the alternate costume version of Eva Marie.
– Enjoyed Ember’s Milena mouth veil and gothic entrance; then she starts bouncing up and down as she’s excited, odd mix!
– NXT is this weird place where you have 10+ year veterans and developmental talent on the same card. This match is between two new signees having a highly scripted match. Couple of awkward exchanges and dodgy punches, the two didn’t gel well.
– Loved Ember’s top rope RKO/Stunner. Looked awesome, popped the crowd.
– Not high hopes for either wrestler.

Bobby Roode vs. Andrade Almas
– amazing entrance by Roode. He tried very hard not to mark out, basking in the love of the NXT crowd singing his entrance theme (already!!). Ya gotta love when WWE do things solely for it’s very hardcore fans and they reciprocate in kind.
– match got Andrade’s gimmick/personality over a bit (eg countering thrown to the outside by tangling himself in the ropes) but was more just a coming-out party for Roode
– match had nothing huge going on, Roode won clean with his pump-handle slam (minus the bumming)

– OCC (not OOC) reveal the CWC trophy, which is a metallic, bulbous penis.

The Revival (c) vs. Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa
– Revival are great at being old school rasslin’ heels (eg pulling someone off the apron) and Gargano/Ciampa warmed up to an exciting finish, tons of near falls that the crowd were really into; right team won I felt, Revival win with an inverted figure 4 and can face TM61 next probably.
– The match was WAY better than expected! Very impressive. Crowd gave the challengers a standing ovation afterwards.
– For a couple of seconds they tease a Ciampa heel turn but they didn’t. Good stuff.

– Jolly Rancher’s new slogan is “keep on sucking”. ha ha ha!

Asuka (c) vs. Bayley
– fantastic storyline match: Bayley was clearly in over her head vs Asuka. The champ enjoyed being in front, smiling as she controlled Bayley – which is almost a heel thing.
– Bayley would fight back, despite changing tactics, hulking up, and escaping the Asuka lock, she’d get repeatedly beaten down
– In the end, Bayley’s never-say-die attitude was kicked in the head (literally) and she went down for the 3.
– AWESOME storytelling, the loss gets Bayley over more (as a sympathetic underdog) and Asuka looks like a fucking killer.
– Great shot of Bayley’s mates Becky & Sasha heartbroken afterwards.
– Small point but Charlotte was not sitting near the babyfaces – awesome kayfabe.
– I expect Bayley to be called up any day now (she bloody worked Battleground last month wtf!) and since she was thoroughly outclassed there’s no need for a round 3/getting that 2nd women’s title reign – it’s been 3.5 years!

Samoa Joe (c) vs. Shinsuke Nakamura
– Shinsuke’s entrance was very cool, had the violinist play a little piece beforehand and along with the main theme.
– Joe’s street-Godzilla theme is also cool
– started off with Joe dominating with well, rest holds, more of a showcase transitioning into various submission holds. It’s pretty awesome to see how large his repertoire is.
– after 10 minutes or so it built up into big moves trying to score the win
– both men kicked out of each other’s finishes (Joe selling a broken jaw is great)
– Nakamura hit a top rope knee to the back of the head then a Kinshasa for the win and the NXT title, place goes nuts.

Overall: Very good Takeover special (they’re always great) but it’s getting harder for them to live up to the unmatchable high standards/expectations set by previous attempts; especially losing a lot of wrestlers to the ‘big leagues’. It really is a TNA 2013 show with Aries, Roode and Joe in singles matches! With Sami doing nothing on the main roster maybe he could pop down for the next TakeOver. A very easy 2hr35m watch, but not unmissable.

An #NXTTakeOver debut worthy of only one word…
Excited to see the future of @REALBobbyRoode in @WWENXT. pic.twitter.com/mq8V0X1O26

— Triple H (@TripleH) August 21, 2016

Not too hard to see who Roode modeled himself on!

SummerSlam 2016 video review coming next week! More info: OSW Update for August

August 21, 2016
CWC CruiserWeight Classic Ep1

On June 22nd, WWE announced a WWE Network-exclusive new show, Cruiserweight Classic (CWC) that’ll air for 10 weeks every Wednesday after NXT, culminating with a live 2-hour special on September 14. A quick 3 weeks later, let’s see how their innoggeral episode went down!

Format & Setup:
32 man single-elimination tournament. This week was 4 random 1st round matches. Filmed at Full Sail University (i.e. perfect crowd for indy stars). Colour scheme is silver on purple. Graphics are *sploosh* Street Fighter style, making note of their nationality (awesome). Quick 10-second vignettes for each fighter to introduce themselves; otherwise they’re getting over by reputation but mostly it’s all in-ring. ROH-style, combatants are asked to shake hands beforehand. Replays are only shown after the bout, before the winner’s hand is raised. The hand-shaking had a storyline! 1st match) Shake hands 2nd) Don’t shake 3rd) Shake & pull in to trash talk 4th) Shake hands!

Commentary:
WWE gained serious brownie points with Mauro Renallo & Daniel Bryan. It’s a joy to hear them fully engaged in informing why you should care, and getting the talent over. They work off each other extremely well, only ever stumbling over each other twice, and will only get better. My favourite part was both marking out simultaneously to Alejandro Saez doing a shooting star press from the apron.

Matches:
Gran Metalik (Mexico) vs Alejandro Saez (Chile): Metalik is a luchador and the match showcased his highspots – which he executed perfectly and impressively. Saez got his shooting star press but this was all about Metalik. Good stuff!
Hoho Lun (China) vs Ariya Daivari (Iran; younger brother to WWE’s Shawn Daivari): So it’s WWE’s new market (‘babyface’ China) vs Terrorist! Yech! Lun is really green, he looked a bit terrified. Daivari played Daivari. I expect Lun to go farther than he should thanks to WWE breaking out into China.
Cedric Alexander (USA) vs Clement Petiot (France): ROH’s Cedric was showcased as a big babyface to get behind, crowd enjoyed him. Petiot is ripped and bulkier than other cruiserweights. He had some nice bigger-man offense in. They got over him being trained by Lance Storm, but I didn’t see any rat tail. Hmm… Cedric won his with Lumbar Check (Belly to back suplex into double knee backbreaker, lovely!)
Kota Ibushi (Japan) vs Sean Maluta (American Samoa): Ibushi is actually signed with WWE (having left DDT & NJPW earlier this year) so…yeah! Purple Kenta (as we call him due to his kicks, and purple jocks back in the day) is the favourite; crazy over and DB especially marked for his vicious kicks; Mauro loved his triangle moonsault (jump to the outside middle rope and moonsault). As Maulta is the nephew of Headshrinker Afa, they pushed the Reigns/Usos/Rock relation hard. Tons of impressive attacks like his standing moonsault splash and Pele kick to a top-roped opponent. Massive potential for him. Maluta was in a death spot (paired with Ibushi in his first WWE match) his big spot over the top rope was a little wibbley but his superkick ‘maybe I’ll get an upset’ near fall was good! Poor Cedric, he’s facing Ibushi in the last 16 – would’ve loved to see him progress farther.

Other points to note:
I’m very impressed how WWE have created an alternative for themselves, by themselves. This is a fantastic mix of familiar but different. WWE’s production values but new graphics, commentators and wrestlers. Almost everyone here has never been seen in a WWE ring (I’m gathering Tajiri and Brian Kendrick might be for older fans).
Only negative is that this is pretty completely in-ring-based (i.e. no real characters or storylines) so it’d be difficult to get invested in most of the talent (as half of them will be gone after one match). As a positive it makes you feel like a talent scout!

Overall: SO MUCH fan service for hardcore fans – indy wrestlers, commentary, Street Fighter graphics! If watching indy stars in WWE interests you, go watch it! Go watch it anyway, just to see something completely different from WWE. Mauro & D-Bry are magic together, have tremendous credibility, natural chemistry and enthusiasm. They should be calling RAW. 52 minutes. Who do you think will win the tournament?

Next week’s matchups:
Tajiri (Tadgers! Japan) vs Damien Slater (Australia)
TJ Perkins (TNA’s Manik; Philippines) vs Da Mack (Germany)
Mustafa Ali (Pakistan) vs Lince Dorado (Puerto Rico)
Akira Tozawa (Japan) vs Kenneth Johnson (USA)

Shoutout to superbrah in the OSW shart! WHAT BARRRRRRRR is Cedric Alexander?

New OSW episode coming next week! More info: NoggerU.OSWreview.com

July 16, 2016
NXT Dublin Review Part 2!

Click here for Part 1!

• Bobby Roode v Shinsuke Nakamura
Kinda devastated, we missed both of their entrances, we were out getting drinks and in the smoking area. But we met fans ther which was way better! After the show one of our brahs showed us his video of the entrance and you couldn’t see anything amonst the sea of marking out, lol. We switched seats on the way back in, thank God! Crowd LOVE Bobby Roode (Fuck TNA chants), Nakamura’s reaction was maybe louder than Finn’s reaction. He’s a superstar. Massive treat getting to see the two. OOC marked out seeing Roode, one of his favourite wrestlers. Unique chant, “Shinsuke’s on fire, Bobby Roode is terrified!”. Too busy marking out, but Nakamura won with the Kinshasa. He did his entrance deal for us and left to a sea of cheers. Awesome.

• Alexa Bliss & Nia Jax v Bayley & Carmella
Alexa Bliss, wow she is gorgeous. Plays “Row Z can see I’m a heel” well. Nia Jax has no physical charisma/presence, she looks awkward and unsure of herself (well, she is new!) Amazing chant of “your cousin sucks!”). Carmella was pretty over and enjoyed that, and Bayley was super popular (third behind Finn & Nakamura). She looked so happily embarrassed stopping to let us get our chants in. She also did her entrance mostly towards us which I appreciate! Alexa still has her Iron Man style outfit and had a nice blind tag. Bayley did her guillotine spots on Nia, did a Perfect 10 corner move/cartwheel spot, and won with a Bayley-to-Bayley suplex on Jax (who was very kind to jump).

• NXT Champion Samoa Joe vs. Finn Balor
There was an extra bit of build-up music for Finn’s theme, which had a Balor Worldwide and Irish flag, crowd went mental for him. He is super-ripped, he mustn’t have had a carb in 6 years! You can see the individual muscles in his quads. People were into Samoa Joe but as soon as it started, the crowd stood up and clapped and cheered for Finn whilst he was in wear-down spots (“Stand Up, If you love Ba-lor”!) it was crazy awesome. They’re very smooth together, blocking each other’s finishers; in the end Finn missed the Coup de Grace and Joe rolled him up for the win. Crowd were really disappointed, got Joe back into the ring so Finn could do his finish and his theme played.

Other notes:
• The ring announcer intonated just like Lillian Garcia but is some woman I’ve never seen before. Looked a bit like Eden Styles and Nia Jax put together.
• When she had signed photos in her hand, the guy behind me shouted “BUT WHERE CAN WE GET THESE SIGNED PHOTOS?!” as she shilled the merch stand. Hilarious.
• A couple of knobs started chanting “we are awesome” and was IMMEDIATELY SHUT DOWN by the crowd. Ha!
• There were adults wearing *child-sized* replica belts which I find SO FUNNY! On grown-ups they almost look like massive watches.

Met @OSWreview again at #NXTDublin !!! pic.twitter.com/NCtYgeM3A2

— NathanTheCampionOfTheWorld (@campion95) June 14, 2016

Meeting you guys!
Before the event, during the intermission and afterwards we got to meet maybe 2 dozen fans which was so awesome. They’re so lovely and funny dudes. I just know there was a good few more that we didn’t get to say hi to! Also was able to give away all of my Virgil Dollars. Also think taking a picture and wearing a waistcoat helped finding us. So I started accosting people I saw wearing OSW shirts! We found a group of fans and went for pints in the first place we could find.

Overall: Lots of house show/”needs work” wrestlers clogging up the first half but was fantastic seeing Aries, Nakamura/Roode, Balor/Joe and Asuka/Bayley. Crowd were WAY up for it which was great, and getting to meet you guys was brilliant! Sláinte!

If u went to the show or any NXT event on the tour, lemme know what you thought/if it differed from NXT Dublin! Tweet me any pics you have of the event!

June 15, 2016
WWE Roadblock Review

WWE Roadblock
March 12th, 2016
Ricoh Coliseum, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Isn’t it great to have a WWE live event on a Saturday? WWE decided to televise the Toronto house show, as they’re looking to increase their live content on the Network (and more reasons to subscribe) as they continue to move away from traditional PPV. It also serves as a stop-gap in storylines between No Way Out (sorry, Faaaaaaaastlane!) and WrestleMania; as it was built on what looks like alternative booking plans for WrestleMania – Triple H vs Dean Ambrose, and Bray Wyatt vs Brock Lesnar. Notable by his absence is Roman Reigns – who’s been gone since t-shirt-and-jeans babyface Triple H gave him a decisive beating, kayfabe putting him on the shelf for a few weeks so Reigns could actually get nose surgery for a deviated septum. Time’s ticking as Mania’s in 3 weeks and he isn’t being missed, and right now, the ‘real’ main event is Shane McMahon vs The Undertaker. The show ran just short of 2.5 hours, and with the small entrance way and no pyro, it definitely felt like a house show. That’s a good thing though – it didn’t look like RAW or Smackdown, and was more wrestling-centred, making it an easy watch. Sadly it was the RAW commentary team of Michael Cole, JBL and Byron Saxton; so no Mauro Ranallo, who is doing a great job on smackdown, who brings much-needed credibility to the announce team.

Dark Matches: Mark Henry def. Local wrestler Randy Sharp (aka Randy Reign) and Goldust went over Viktor.

The New Day vs Sheamus & Wade Barrett

New Day pushed their Booty-Os cereal box, which is a legit box you can buy that contains their new t-shirt. Amazing — that’s some really clever, inventive WWE creativity in merch that we rarely see. Also, shout-out to their WWE-championship kids sneakers! They pushed it hard and went a bit overboard with the trombone New Day Rocks chants (3 in ~5 minutes)
It’s sad to see 4-time WWE/World Champion Sheamus, and equally-talented Wade Barrett being presented as comedy jobbers in the failed League of Nations faction. Originally the heels were built around WWE World Champion Sheamus, which fell apart within weeks as Reigns won the title. As they’re much less entertaining and cemented as a faction than New Day, they’re actually lower on the totem pole. And it showed here – they were outsmarted by 3-Man New day, as Big E delivered the Big Ending to Barrett, getting the win in 9:49. Most notable moment was Kofi doing a flying nothing off the top rope and awkwardly bowling over Sheamus!

Chris Jericho vs Jack Swagger

Yep, Jack Swagger! CAPTAIN…Jack Swagger. He’s still employed. Jericho cut a real house-show heel promo (“Canada smells, Toronto is the anus, I moved away from Canada”) cheap heat but hey, it got the desired crowd reaction. He worked in that Swagger beat him for the World title (remember that?) and Swagger’s name got booed, the opposite of his intention. After slagging the “We The People” catchphrase, Swagger comes out. It must be a house show, ha! So the Pro-American who sucks is babyface vs the heel Canadian in Canada. WHAAAT?! I think Kalisto, Neville, Zayn, even Ziggler would’ve been a better choice (they’re saving AJ for WrestleMania). Swagger’s main negative is that he’s known for injuring people, which means WWE won’t want to risk their bigger stars working programs with him (which is why he’s on Superstars/Main Event, amongst being a poor promo!). It annoys me that his world title reign precludes him from being a boy. Swagger comes out with a black t-shirt and training shorts over his attire, he looks like such a jobber! And job he does. Jericho has some nice heel touches like pulling the ref’s leg to get to the ropes. He applies a Boston Crab to Swagger (there’s absolutely no elevation to call it a Walls of Jericho) and gets the tap out win in 7:54.

Enzo & Big Cass vs The Revival (c) for the NXT tag championships

Very jarring to see an NXT match on a WWE house show, a televised first of it’s kind. Enzo & Big Cass are jersey-shore guidos that have a New Age Outlaws-esque intro that the crowd can sing-along to, and they aren’t great wrestlers (esp. Big Cass). They’ve been tagging for almost 3 years now and have never gotten the tag titles. The Revival (previously called ‘The Mechanics’) are said to be a throwback to the olden days, like Tully & Arn, which is a massive (and inaccurate!) complement, they’re grand in the ring but have “lack of flash” i.e. they’re charisma vacuuums – which make them a perfect contrast to Enzo & Cass. They do have some nice old-school tactics (eg pulling a guy out of the ring/distraction) which I do like. Big Cass used Wade Barrett’s bossman slam from earlier, dammit D’lo! Oddly Cass spent a lot of time in the ring, hoofing Enzo out into their opponents. I really like The Revival’s super-codebreaker called the Shatter machine (retaining in 10:17). Like most of the matches on the card, it was decent but unmemorable. There’s an NXT special Mania weekend, I imagine The American Alphas will get a shot in the biggest NXT show of the year.

Click here for part 2!

March 13, 2016
WWE Roadblock Part 2

Click here for Part 1!

Natalya vs Charlotte (c) for the Diva’s Championship
A rematch of Charlotte’s first main roster bout! I expected Nattie (whom I love) to complement Charlotte well but it was a pretty nothing match. Loved Nattie’s New Gen Bret & Owen shirt. Annoyed with Nattie absolutely no-selling a figure four, robotically shouting “no” at Charlotte. John Cena/Cinder block levels of no-selling! Something I did love was Charlotte keeping the F4 on whilst going out of the ring, which is reminiscent of what Bret used to do in the corner on the outside. Nattie hit a nice powerbomb for a 2 and applied a perfect surfboard. Nattie looked like a real idiot from the finish – releasing the Sharpshooter of her own accord to jaw-jack with Naitch, and got rolled-up for her troubles in 13:37. Fine but disappointing.

Brock Lesnar vs Bray Wyatt
A huge fuck you to the audience, Bray got Luke Harper added to the match, and then did not wrestle himself (so it was like a substitution). He fobbed it off as “making a deal with the devil”, and Lesnar allowed it, battering Harper with little resistance (winning in 4:03) and walking after Bray, who went to the back. Fuuuuuuuuuuck you Ontario! I’ve no idea why they’re saving Brock/Wyatt (especially after advertising it) as Brock is facing Ambrose at Mania. Odd. Shit.
Worth noting that Harper is actually a very underrated wrestler – he was in ROH and Dragon Gate before WWE. He hit a nice whirlwind clotheline and suicide dive to Brock.
Earlier in the night Heyman cut a babyface promo about Suplex City. It’s so weird that characters don’t change their personas and change between heel and face (as with Lesnar here). You could say they’re 3 dimensional complex characters, or more accurately, it’s just a bit of a mess and WWE can coast because he’s a star.

Sami Zayn vs Stardust
Happy to see Sami Zayn, wrestling in front of his countrymen. I haven’t mentioned it but I love Stardust’s theme. It’s one of the best wrestling themes WWE have produced in years. It’s definitely Goldust’s brother, but his own character. Anyway, the crowd died for some reason (probably seeing Stardust!) and we got CM Punk chants. The disinterested crowd really does hurt things (but it is up to WWE to get you to care!). Zayn hit the Helluva kick and got the 3 in 12:33.

Main Event: Triple H (c ) vs Dean Ambrose
Shocked to see Aitch come out first, I assumed it was to cut a promo but no, he let Ambrose come out last (as H is the champ, he should always come out last). I find it odd that Triple H has reduced his on-air time since becoming champion – he’d cut 20-minute opening RAW promos beforehand, but now he’s both staying away from the Vince/Shane storyline, and is appearing much less on TV (it’s the opposite of how it usually works being champion!). Perhaps he has an ego that had to be filled with TV time, but now doesn’t need it as he’s got the belt. It’s good to see him actually defend his belt once before dropping it to Reigns, solidify his 14th championship reign.
The crowd was somewhat split between the two (Aitch will be roundly cheered at WrestleMania against Reigns) but got behind Ambrose. It was refreshing to see an in-ring contest between H and Ambrose (as opposed to brawling on the outside, using weapons etc) and Ambrose got a lot of offense. Hilariously JBL and Cole made a point about Ambrose having a gameplan (to attack Triple H’s knee) but Saxton hadn’t a clue and was talking about Ambrose having weeks-long gameplan to get himself this match. Aitch applied the Cripper Crossface (even trapping the free arm) but no Benoit chants, but we got more CM Punk chants.
As a televised house show you expect no titles to change hands (well, not the world title under a month out from Mania anyway); there was a holy shit false finish, where Ambrose hit the Dirty Deeds DDT and got the three count. The ref immediately waved it off as Ambrose’s foot was under the rope (which isn’t true, dick ref!). It took everyone by surprise and after Ambrose missed an elbow drop to Aitch through the table, he got pedigreed upon re-entry to the ring and Aitch retained in 24:43 in a very good match.

Overall, an easy watch, but inconsequential to WrestleMania. Biggest fuck you was not getting Bray vs Lesnar, and it’s great to see Ambrose be the main event babyface, in a refreshingly straight-forward title match with a huge talking point.

Update on the next OSW! Clicky here: OSWreview.com/update-2016-march

March 13, 2016
Owen Hart: Hart of Gold review

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Format: Much in the same vein as recent WWE Home Video releases (Attitude Era, nWo etc), this release is replete with a montage of talking heads with short snippets saying generic compliments “He was always a good guy”, “just a great wrestler” etc.

Running Time: Even though Owen’s entire career was 13 years, this documentary clocks in at 1hr 7m, like the recent Macho Man: The Randy Savage Story, is just a superficial look at the wrestler’s most notable milestones.

Production: There’s heavy use of Nitro stills (panning still photographs) throughout, making the documentary feel rather cheap and quickly put together. (Q3 had Home DVDs as 1.8% of WWE’s revenue, as opposed to WWE Network’s 24.6% i.e. put money into Network docus and fuck Home Videos). Anecdotes are displayed picture-in-picture like they’re avoiding YouTube copyright, STATE of it! Part of the cheap production is WWE’s fault (they could’ve spent much more time on his WWF career) but it’s also Owen’s widow Martha Hart’s doing, as Bret told The LAW’s John Pollock back in September:

“I’m looking forward to [the DVD] but I’m not really optimistic that it’s going to be a great job. Martha handcuffed them so much. I don’t know if they’re even allowed to use any pictures from the past. It’s a poorly done DVD because of all the restraints and the limitations that Martha put on it. […] Even the interviews, the questions that they did with me were so bullshit. The whole thing was so bullshit that sure, there’s an Owen Hart DVD, but it’s the shits.”

Archival Footage: It’s great to see previously unseen footage of Owen behind the scenes. It’s mostly from when WWF are on tour (eg him playing volleyball with WWF superstars). We do get one ‘candid’ (kayfabe) interview from 1996, which looks to be before a WWF dinner, like a Slammys or press event. It’s mostly WWF footage and stills, very little Stampede and WCW (and they didn’t pay for NJPW). Between the milestones are anecdotes about Owen which are hit and miss. Given the frequency of them it feels like padding of a very short docu.

Interviewees: Most of Owen’s extended family are interviewed – brothers, sisters, and past and present wrestlers (Hart Dynasty, Canadian wrestlers). Glaringly notable by her absence is Martha Hart (who didn’t approve of the home video and has blocked WWE celebrating Owen’s career via previous attempts at an Owen docu, and also a Hall of Fame induction). Worth noting she has her own Owen docu called “The Owen Hart Foundation: A Look Back”.

Timeline thoughts/Anecdotes:
Growing up: Owen used to book his stuffed monkey and the cat to wrestle. Hilariously WWE remake B-roll to re-enact these matches. Also laughed showing animals in the Hart house as people would say that there were many animals in the house and it reeked of piss!

Stampede: Footage showing Owen doing lots of smooth high-flying moves and transitions, way ahead of what you’d expect in North America. Bret noted that on the road in the WWF, he never got to see Owen but rather just heard how great he was going. Always cool to hear wrestlers talk as fans, with Edge and especially Jericho, as we see a drawing he did of his dream to be tag champions with Owen in Stampede.

1st WWF Run as the Blue Blazer: Great bit of trivia, he actually wrestled as The British Bulldog and then as “Rodeo” Owen Hart before the Blue Blazer! I can’t find any evidence of either, though. Bret mentions being under a mask was an idea he had for himself, in case the Hart Foundation tag team bombed. His workrate style completely bombed in the steroid-infused Hulkamania big man era. Daniel Bryan’s contribution is being a huge smark (!) saying he saw him wrestle in other places so he was disappointed in this run. WWE splice a great clip of Alfred kayfabe explaining why Blazer was a jobber “he deals with quick moves with little damage and tries to out wrestle as opposed to beat them down”.

Independent Circuit: They lump pre-WWF japan in here (no footage) saying he was rebuilding his name here and Mexico after his failure in the WWF. Worth noting he returned to Stampede in 89 but it closed in December. They don’t mention that Vince bought Stampede, then stalled by delaying payment saying he couldn’t afford it (thereby killing the company during the downtime) and offered it back to them after the damage was done. Bastard.

WCW: Yes, Owen spent a cup of coffee there! JR insults WCW for not knowing what to do with Owen, moments after the docu shows WWF didn’t know what do with Owen.

Clicky here for Part 2!

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December 10, 2015