Since I am going to be at Detroit Red Wings vs Columbus Bluejackets game tonight, we decided to give you a little sneak peek into planning at Stunt Granny HQ.
Kevin:So, are you with me that we could preview UT/Brock, the Divas and Shield vs The Old Guys?
Jeremy: Divas and shield vs old guys for sure. They need to do something with Brock next week. If not, this build up is absolutely terrible. I would pause on recording that one.
Kevin:That’s fine. Just so we can knock some of them out of the way this week.
Jeremy: Right. The tag match has to change. I can’t imagine it is just that lackluster garbage
Kevin:Do you mean the 6 man match or what crap sandwich the Usos are left with?
Jeremy:Usos. Just thrown together.
Kevin:What is their match? They taking on the Real Americans? With 3 baby faces in the match, a heel and a heel manager?
Jeremy:Rybaxel. Yup……Rybaxel.Just to make sure you understand. Rybaxel.
Kevin:Good gravy. I just don’t understand building up the division then tearing it down a month later.
Jeremy:It is going to get changed. Rybaxel got bitched right after.
Kevin:I must not have been paying attention. Who do you think should be in the tag match to spice it up? I’d stick with the Real Americans simply because you’ll be featured more in a match than a 20-30 man schmooze.
Jeremy: Yeah Real Americans are a no brainer really. They have nothing going on. The inevitable breakup storyline seems to be cooled just like The Shield’s.
Kevin: Are the Usos or Rybaxel in the Battle Royal now?
Jeremy: No, they pulled out. They need to make the Battle Royal worth something.
Kevin:You get an Andre the Giant statue. How dare you insinuate that they need something more!
Jeremy:Sigh, last time they had that was WM 4 and Bret hart smashed the winners trophy.
Kevin:Everyone gets a trophy in sports today! Wrestling isn’t for children. What happened to the gold old days when a battle royal meant challenging for the IC Title.
Jeremy: Not a bad idea really.
Kevin:It has struck me as odd that the Big E Langston, the IC Champ, is one of the center pieces of that match. It’s a perfect 4 way match in the making if Cesaro had split off the Real Americans and maybe Roman Reigns had the Shield parted ways. Granted, I was expecting a three way match out of them before their present story popped up.
Jeremy:Yes it felt like Shield was going triple threat route fo the US title. The battle royal is just a way to get everyone on the shwo but tis time it sounds more important
Kevin:Complete brain fart that I didn’t think that match would be for the US Title.
Jeremy:They focused on his lack of defenses and then Ambrose and Reigns getting in to a pissing match about who was better. It seemed obvious.
Kevin: “The Architect of the Shield” Seth Rollins kept trying to keep them together. I got a bit of a kick when Mitchell Cool said that the powers to be should schedule more matches for Ambrose.
Jeremy:Convenient excuses for their forgetful booking which is really what this Battle Royal is.
The card for WrestleMania III featured a surprising number of non-clods considering it was pro wrestling in the mid-1980s, leading to several matches far more watchable than the previous two WrestleManias. The gimme here was Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage for the Intercontinental Title, a match that probably still ranks top five in the opinions of most experts (and nerds). The second-place winner in this very scientific poll doubles as possibly the most significant match in pro wrestling history, Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. While not a textbook classic, it is a match of mythical proportions, including the ability to draw 93,000 people to one venue. Hard to argue with money.
We’re counting down the days until WrestleMania 29 by selecting the 56 best matches in WrestleMania history! (Wow, that sounds ridiculous now that I type it out. Our methodology is also completely unfair, selecting the best two matches from every WM when we know full well that the entire WM17 card was better than the entire WM2 card. Nonetheless…) Today, it’s WrestleMania 2, with 12 contenders. And two pretty logical winners. I mean, Moolah vs. McIntyre is the stuff wrestling textbooks are made of. Let us know what you think and vote now! Results tomorrow!
On a mostly lackluster card – including squash matches with the Executioner, Matt Borne and Special Delivery Jones – it’s no surprise that the top two vote-getters for WrestleMania 1 include the top talent on the card at that time (wait, you couldn’t have trotted out skinny Bret Hart for one match?). Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff and Roddy Piper could pull the weight of an entire roster if need be, including a barely-trained Mr. T. Add to that the question of an aging Andre the Giant being able to bodyslam a 6’10”, 380-lb. Big John Studd, and you have enough star power to carry this card. Put these matches on top at WrestleMania 29, and you might get a riot. But for 1985, this is the best of what we got!
We here at Stunt Granny are suckers for nostalgia, so when we think of Survivor Series, we don’t think of some queefy triple threat match with John Cena, CM Punk and Ryback. We hearken back to the days when teams of five (or four) strive to survive! You know, hence the name of the event. At its inception, the Survivor Series pay-per-view was composed of elimination matches, with the goal of survival at the expense of the entire opposing team. Then they started fucking with the format, and now it’s a bunch of singles matches, with the token bone thrown at us older fans of one, maybe two elimination matches.
Well screw you, WWE, we’ve compiled a list of the top 10 Survivor Series elimination matches of all time! We’ve scoured YouTube for copyright infringers (them, not us) and found most of these matches for your viewing pleasure. If you find one that we couldn’t, leave the link in a comment and we’ll post it. (Don’t rip it and upload yourself; remember, we’re not the ones breaking the law 🙂 )
Side note: How was the 1989 event so damn good?? The worst match featured the top draw and two of the best workers of all time!
1988 Powers of Pain & Rockers & Hart Foundation & British Bulldogs & Young Stallions
vs.
Demolition & Brain Busters & Bolsheviks & Fabulous Rougeaus & Conquistadors
1989 Ultimate Warrior & Jim Neidhart & Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty
vs.
Andre the Giant & Arn Anderson & Haku & Bobby “The Brain” Heenan
Macho King Randy Savage & Earthquake & Dino Bravo & Greg Valentine
vs.
Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Bret Hart & Ronnie Garvin & Hercules
Dusty Rhodes & Brutus Beefcake & Red Rooster & Tito Santana
vs.
Big Boss Man, Bad News Brown, Rick Martel and Honky Tonk Man
Rick Rude & Mr. Perfect & Fabulous Rougeaus
vs.
Roddy Piper & Jimmy Snuka & Bushwhackers
1991 Ric Flair, The Mountie, Ted DiBiase, & Warlord
vs.
Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Virgil, & Davey Boy Smith
In honor of Rent-a-Center’s earth-shattering sweepstakes to meet Hulk Hogan and Troy Aikman, we thought we’d compile a list of the top 10 TV commercials starring professional wrestlers that weren’t for a professional wrestling product. These larger-than-life figures explode onto the TV screen with such abandon and fervor, such charisma and passion, that how could you *not* buy a pizza from them?
Let’s stick with the Hulkster, who hawked Right Guard in 1991 with the savoir faire of Robert Goulet and the acting chops of Mr. Belvedere. Starting this list off with anything less would be uncivilized!
Wrestlers seem to end up in commercials for food quite often. What was I saying about pizza and gargling copious amount of pills? Oh yeah, here’s Kurt Angle, following his 1996 Olympic gold medal win, ready to chow down on some Pizza Outlet:
Wow, wrestlers and pizza go together like, um, wrestling fans and bigger pizzas. Pizza Inn cashed in on the popularity of the Von Erichs in Texas in the early 1980s, but really, who in the hell is going to believe that 170-pound Mike Von Erich taught his brothers, ripped-ass Kevin and blown-up Kerry, anything about eating?
Keeping in the realm of food, I don’t have five minutes nor two scoops of Kellogg’s Eat Shit & Die for Mick Foley, but I do remember this Chef Boyardee commercial starring The Rock, pre-Hollywood but well into his puffy Nation of Domination days. Hell of a shirt, Rock; don’t date yourself too much or you might get chaffed:
Honorable mention: And because superstars’ shuckin’ and jivin’ doesn’t stop at the front door of Titan Tower, here’s Booker T and his big fat momma, eatin’ up all tha food:
I swear to sonny Jesus, this commercial with Andre the Giant made me want to try Honey Comb, and thus allowed me to become a fat shit for the first 28 years of my life:
John Cena, the face of WWE and hero to millions of children everywhere, can’t resist that double meat? Tell me he didn’t just say that!
And in the locally sold booze category: If I were you, Chicago Lake Liquors, I’d give Mad Dog Vachon a coffee break:
Of course, this wouldn’t be a discussion about great commercials with wrestlers if we didn’t include spots for Slim Jim! Here’s one with Macho Man Randy Savage and some teenagers, blowing things up Beavis and Butthead style:
And one with Ultimate Warrior and some more explosions (never let it be said that Slim Jim doesn’t understand its market; I still nice “Niiiice, antique!” every time I see a plastic chair):
More drinks: Man, the NWA/WCW got the short end of the advertising stick back in the day; while Hogan, Warrior and Savage were running wild, Rick Steiner was crawling around like a jackass with Roos on his hands:
And if you can’t land Mountain Dew like the WWF, get your first fattest babyface to drink the second-best thing!
Geez, I guess wrestlers and soda go together like wrestling fans and pizza and soda. Now here’s an idea I can get behind: Sting + population control, thanks to Sprite:
And now TNA is making deals with shitty auto insurance companies, because who better to hawk insurance you can finally pay for than wrestlers who only make $300 a week:
And finally, because we all go to our grandpa for weightlifting advice (“Back in my day, we punched a potato sack until our knuckles bled like stuck pigs! We put our polio-crippled brother on a rope and we dragged him 2 miles!”), here’s Ric Flair’s latest venture into advertising, for Fuel in a Bottle:
Oh, wait, we can’t talk about Ric Flair and TV commercials without posting Bruce Mitchell’s two favorite things in the whole world, wooin’ like Ric Flair and scratchin’ them lottery tickets:
Wow, 15 greats plus an honorable mention. Did we miss anything? Post them in a comment below!
This is a very very special edition of Stunt Granny Audio because The Man is back. Dusty and Kevin join up to talk about Psycho Sid’s return and just how it rates in the lexicon of all time great moments in pro wrestling history. They talk about how good it must be to be Heath Slater right now, how pathetic Ric Flair is now, how weird those old Ultimate Warrior vs Andre the Giant matches were, Brock Lesnar’s sudden transformation into David Copperfield, John Cena *finally* getting a well deserved title match, and much much more. The best part is it’s only going to take about 40 minutes of your precious time away from you, so you really have no excuse not to listen immediately, fucko.
Today marks 25 years since the monumental professional wrestling event that was WWF WrestleMania III. The event that would purport to break the world’s indoor attendance record, the event headlined by three-year champion Hulk Hogan vs. former best friend and “undefeated” Andre the Giant, the event that encapsulates the incredible boom period of the 1980s somewhere between the petulant innocence of rock-n-wrestling and the glitz and glamour of global dominance.
With 25 years gone by, let’s take a look at 25 fun facts about this canonical event.
1) Sorry to start on a down note, but known deceased wrestlers, managers and wrestling personalities from that card include Gorilla Monsoon, Lord Alfred Hayes, Joey Marella, Hercules, Little Beaver, Little Tokyo, Fabulous Moolah, Junkyard Dog, Dino Bravo, Adrian Adonis, Davey Boy Smith, Randy Savage, Miss Elizabeth and Andre the Giant.
2) Attendance for this show has been disputed for the whole of its 25-year history. Vince McMahon and WWE claim 93,173, which would have broken Pope John Paul’s attendance number at the time. Since then, Wikipedia cites 93,682 in attendance for the Pope’s visit. Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer frequently cite a faxed report from a Silverdome worker stating 78,000. And Hulk Hogan constantly increases the figure to the point where he may have slammed a 900-pound Andre the Giant in front of 17 million screaming Hulkamaniacs.
"Anybody want a peanut? YOU! You, Hogan! You want a peanut!"
3) The announced total combined weight of the two main-event participants – Hulk Hogan at an announced 302 pounds and Andre the Giant at 525 pounds – is the most of any singles WrestleMania main event.
4) WrestleMania III marks what some consider the furthest WrestleMania-to-WrestleMania dive down the card for one wrestler: King Kong Bundy, who headlined WM2 against Hulk Hogan in a steel cage for the WWF Title and then teamed with two midgets to wrestle Hillbilly Jim and two more midgets in the third match of 12. The match’s saving grace: Bob Uecker, who likened Little Beaver after a 450-pound Bundy elbow drop to “marinated mushrooms.”
5) The double countout ending to the Billy Jack Haynes vs. Hercules “full nelson challenge” would be the second of its kind in WrestleMania history – the first being Paul Orndorff vs. Magnificent Muraco at WM2 – and would not be the last – Brutus Beefcake vs. Ted DiBiase and Hacksaw Duggan vs. Bad News Brown at WM5, Roddy Piper vs. Bad News Brown at WM6, Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs. Vader & Mankind at WM13, and the first finish of Miz vs. John Cena at WM27.
6) The epic Ricky Steamboat vs. Randy Savage match was, at that point, the longest match in WrestleMania history at 14:35, topping Hogan & Mr. T vs. Piper & Orndorff (13:13), David Sammartino vs. Brutus Beefcake (an excruciating 12:43), Piper vs. Mr. T (a laborious 13:14) and the British Bulldogs vs. the Dream Team (13:03).
"Alice who-per?"
7) Accompanying Jake “The Snake” Roberts to the ring for his match against the Honky Tonk Man was shock-rock icon Alice Cooper. (No More) Mr. Nice Guy would be the fourth recording artist to accompany a wrestler at WrestleMania, the others being Cyndi Lauper (in the corner of Wendi Richter at WrestleMania 1), Ozzy Osbourne (seconding the British Bulldogs at WrestleMania 2) and of course Jimmy Hart (who performed with the Gentrys and managed many WWF superstars of the day).
WWE has announced yet another induction in to the fictional WWE Hall of Fame. The final inductee is Yokozuna. This is pretty good news because Yokozuna was fantastic. Sure he got a little to heavy at the end of his career but at the onset he was great. He may not have been Japanese but as a joyful tween it didn’t matter nor was it noticeable. Damn you dirt sheets for ruining it for me and planting subtle seeds of racism in my tender mind.
On a down note; Yokozuna is yet another wrestler no longer on this earthly palate that WWE has inducted. They are near perfect with inducting one dead wrestler a year since The Hall of Fame’s inception. Don’t believe me? Well here is a list.
1993 Andre The Giant
1994 “Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers
1995 Antonino Rocca
1996 Vincent J. McMahon
2004 Big John Studd
2004 Junkyard Dog
2005 none
2006 Eddie Guerrero
2007 Mr. Perfect” Curt Hennig
2008 “High Chief” Peter Maivia
2008 Eddie Graham
2009 The Von Erichs (Fritz,Kerry,David,Mike,Chris)
2010 Gorgeous George
2010 Stu Hart
2011 Road Warrior Hawk
2012 Yokozuna
There is only one year that a dead wrestler avoided induction and that was the stellar class of 2005. Now if Hogan, according to his book, had pulled the trigger you would have an after the fact dead guy in the Hall of fame but as it stands he is slowly killing himself working in Orlando. So, shouldn’t be too much longer really.
So congratulations to the family of Yokozuna. -Jeremy
In case you missed it last night, ESPN is offering up the Scott Hall’s “The Wrestler” segment from E:60 online. The segment was incredibly short and really shows how bad off Scott Hall is now. What it doesn’t do is explore anything in great detail. Sure, it gives probable cause for his addictions and shows what he goes through now, but there is no deep investigation. Some of this is the pratfall of committing only 15 minutes or so to the actual story.
The piece features a bunch of other wrestlers, friends, family or wrestling execs commenting on Scott Hall, but the way the short documentary was packaged it came across like they are distancing themselves from his ailments rather than explaining. These are just my initial thoughts on the program. I reserve the right to reverse course after more viewings, so go screw.
Kevin Nash comes off as a jokester instead of a concerned friend. His line about driving a stake through Hall’s chest as the only means of killing him may be funny but it is sad all the same. It was never explored past that. It was a one-off comment that added little. Sure, it is meant to explain the copious amount abuse Hall has done to his body, but it came off as aloof instead of poignant.
One aspect that should have been explored to same detail was the fact that X-Pac/Sean Waltman was in a similar position and came out of it and thus his pain at seeing Scott continually failing would have been stronger. Waltman taking issue with promoter Steve Ricard is spot on, but then listening to Hall try and explain his situation afterwards lessened the blow. He says that a combo of medications messed his head up so bad that, “Brother, I didn’t even know what country I was in. I don’t even remember being there.” It is hard to feel sympathy for someone who appears to be reveling in it as he smiles and nearly laughs while explaining it all.
Stunt Granny - Pro wrestling, Movies, Television, Sports and Music opinion and analysis from a bunch of jerks 