Support NeoGAF

[Data West]

With Real Americans as the faces because it's WWE crowds, yall

 

[strobogo]

It bothers me every time. Why do gays have to make a proud stand and announce their orientation to the world? I never hear somebody saying "Hey guys, you know, I'm a natural! Being natural is so good, I'm very happy! Suck it!". Isn't it something that only matters to you and not intended to be public? Sometimes I'm happy I live in a country of so-called non-progressive world.

 

[nappy]

He was asked a question and he answered it, nappy.

Well, that's a ridiculous question, then.

 

[bean breath]

It just seems odd that he would announce it like this. Do those TMZ guys honestly ask a lot of wrestlers and mma fighters that question?

I'm thinking:

There's another round of cuts coming and he's on the list and doesn't care anymore.

They're splitting up PTP and pushing Titus but not Darren Young.

 

[strobogo]

Well, that's a ridiculous question, then.

I think it is probably good you are posting such things in Wrasslegaf and not in threads where moderators give a shit about things. Especially as a junior. You're coming off dangerously close to "eww, gay people are yucky, why can't they just keep to themselves?!".

 

[Aiii]

For one, they don't pre-announce future endeavors, you're getting a call on the day you're fired and that's it.

Secondly, I highly doubt this wasn't known in WWE already, it's probably not news to them.

 

[sonikokaruto]

He just saved his ass from being future endeavoured

 

[Data West]

It just seems odd that he would announce it like this. Do those TMZ guys honestly ask a lot of wrestlers and mma fighters that question?

There's a lot of advancements being made right now in the acceptance of homosexuality in the United States. It's not really surprising at all that TMZ asks about it.

 

[nappy]

I think it is probably good you are posting such things in Wrasslegaf and not in threads where moderators give a shit about things. Especially as a junior. You're coming off dangerously close to "eww, gay people are yucky, why can't they just keep to themselves?!".

Just want to say, I have nothing against gay people or whatsoever. I just think it's a personal thing, that's all. I don't get why this topic generates so much buzz in a modern world.

 

[bean breath]

There's a lot of advancements being made right now in the acceptance of homosexuality in the United States. It's not really surprising at all that TMZ asks about it.

I was thinking the interviewer thought D.Young might be gay and wanted to ask him in a roundabout way.

It's just my mark-mind going off when I was watching the video, thinking it might be staged.

 

[KissVibes]

Being openly gay in sports is huge right now. Nobody has really asked wrestlers their take, so now he have that chance and Darren outed himself AND put over the company.

Just want to say, I have nothing against gay people or whatsoever. I just think it's a personal thing, that's all. I don't get why this topic generates so much buzz in a modern world.

Because people are still close-minded pieces of shit and a stigma still exists for people to be openly gay. Especially POC, in my estimation.

The more "normal" people that come out who have fame, the more people stop being so shitty to those in their personal lives.

 

[Dark Ninja]

Just want to say, I have nothing against gay people or whatsoever. I just think it's a personal thing, that's all. I don't get why this topic generates so much buzz in a modern world.

Well due to Darren Young being the only gay wrestler in the current roster that is out. In the world of wrestling this will create lots of buzz. DAVE MELTZER WILL HAVE A FIELD DAY

 

[Aiii]

So guys, who is the next wrestler to come out?

Layla? Zack Ryder?

 

[Data West]

Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi. Together.

...They probably have and I just didn't notice.

 

[strobogo]

WHAT IF:

Daniel Bryan is actually gay and the whole corporate make over angle isn't about his beard, but about his beard?

 

[Aiii]

WHAT IF:

Daniel Bryan is actually gay and the whole corporate make over angle isn't about his beard, but about his beard?

Does this mean The Bellas are Transexuals?

It all makes sense now.

 

[mechashiva]

Awesome for Darren Young. You shouldn't have to hide who you are. I'm sure they'll handle this with dignity and respect.

Or add him to Total Divas.

 

[Dark Ninja]

WHAT IF:

Daniel Bryan is actually gay and the whole corporate make over angle isn't about his beard, but about his beard?

Didn't you want Justin Gabriel to come out a couple of weeks ago and have it be part of his character. WWE READS WRESTLEGAF

 

[Jamie OD]

It just seems odd that he would announce it like this. Do those TMZ guys honestly ask a lot of wrestlers and mma fighters that question?

I'm thinking:

There's another round of cuts coming and he's on the list and doesn't care anymore.

They're splitting up PTP and pushing Titus but not Darren Young.

It probably was set up. TMZ and WWE have worked together to leak stuff in the past. Triple H's haircut for example.

 

[strobogo]

Didn't you want Justin Gabriel to come out a couple of weeks ago and have it be part of his character. WWE READS WRESTLEGAF

Yes. Justin Gabriel could be a gay icon. I wonder if WWE will ever have a character that is gay, but the wrestler being straight? And not a SWERVE like Billy and Chuck or whatever Goldust was.

 

[Dark Ninja]

Yes. Justin Gabriel could be a gay icon. I wonder if WWE will ever have a character that is gay, but the wrestler being straight? And not a SWERVE like Billy and Chuck or whatever Goldust was.

Darren Young playing mind games with his opponent

 

[Rafa=FedKilla]

What is the Diva formerly known as Kelly Kelly up to?

 

[Aiii]

What is the Diva formerly known as Kelly Kelly up to?

Being as far away from professional wrestling as humanly possible I hope.

 

[British Monsoon]

Watching the GLOW 100th episode special. Lol, Bundy;

Kenny Omega and Kota Ibushi. Together.

...They probably have and I just didn't notice.

Well, they are called the Golden Lovers...

 

[Serpentine]

What is the Diva formerly known as Kelly Kelly up to?

I dunno, Jitters hasn't posted here in a while

Yes. Justin Gabriel could be a gay icon. I wonder if WWE will ever have a character that is gay, but the wrestler being straight? And not a SWERVE like Billy and Chuck or whatever Goldust was.

Darren and Justin can be the new Billy & Chuck, but twice the heat cuz they're interracial

 

[Data West]

tell you what former diva Serena is doing

being so fine

 

[Jeff Albertson]

It bothers me every time. Why do gays have to make a proud stand and announce their orientation to the world? I never hear somebody saying "Hey guys, you know, I'm a natural! Being natural is so good, I'm very happy! Suck it!". Isn't it something that only matters to you and not intended to be public? Sometimes I'm happy I live in a country of so-called non-progressive world.

What's a natural?

I can't believe you would be bothered by this, he didn't make a big deal of it at all he was very nonchalant about the whole thing which IMO is the nice thing about it he just doesn't think it's a big deal

 

[Aiii]

At least Eve is still hanging out with wrestlers (and sick kids):

 

[Ondore]

I can see Vince rehiring Vladimir Kozlov just to put Darren Young over. TOPICALITY~!

 

[strobogo]

I dunno, Jitters hasn't posted here in a while



Darren and Justin can be the new Billy & Chuck, but twice the heat cuz they're interracial

I'd like to see skits where Titus gives quizzical looks when Justin talks about knowing how it is to be an African American.

 

[Aiii]

I'd like to see skits where Titus gives quizzical looks when Justin talks about knowing how it is to be an African American.

But Justin is an actual African.

It works on so many levels!

 

[strobogo]

But Justin is an actual African.

It works on so many levels!

thatsthejoke.gif

 

[Aiii]

thatsthejoke.gif

He's legit American?

I thought he was still South African if I'm really honest. Who knew.

 

[British Monsoon]

tell you what former diva Serena is doing

being so fine

She's also the new Women's Champion for Tajiri's promotion WNC;

 

[strobogo]

He's from South Africa, but lives and works in America. So he can claim to be an African American, which would make Titus blow the whistle every time. It'd be great.

 

[Serpentine]

I actually really want that now, I didn't even imagine the possibilities

 

[Data West]

 

[Aiii]

Strobogo stole his idea from WWE?

Terrible! Terrible I say!

 

[strobogo]

Lol, holy shit. Can't believe WWE already did my idea.

 

[Forkball]

PTP should've had the tag belts a while ago. When Hell No first started, there was a random push of tag teams. Hell No, Rhodes Scholars, Usos, Cara/Mysterio, PTP, Gabriel/Kidd etc. They should have flopped the belt every month. It wouldn't have hurt Hell No at all since they were super popular already and could've given a push to people who needed it. They could have done so many different types of matchups with all the different teams, it would have been really fresh and unpredictable. But no, they just kept it on Hell No for way too long and the other tag teams broke up or were cast aside.

 

[Serpentine]

hahaha, wow that's good. they should really build up the midcard on Raw more often.

PTP should've had the tag belts a while ago. When Hell No first started, there was a random push of tag teams. Hell No, Rhodes Scholars, Usos, Cara/Mysterio, PTP, Gabriel/Kidd etc. They should have flopped the belt every month. It wouldn't have hurt Hell No at all since they were super popular already and could've given a push to people who needed it. They could have done so many different types of matchups with all the different teams, it would have been really fresh and unpredictable. But no, they just kept it on Hell No for way too long and the other tag teams broke up or were cast aside.

Yeah, definitely. PTP became Hell No's weekly jobbers, RS became their monthly jobbers, and then Rey and Kidd got injured. And Ryder/Santino and Primo/Epico were never gonna be contenders. I forget that they were even the champions sometimes.

I hope Kidd & Gabriel team up again when Kidd recovers. I liked their tag team.

 

[British Monsoon]

Observer stuff;

Three names we’ve heard confirmed for the WWE tryout camp at the end of the month are Prince Mustafa Ali, a Midwest independent wrestler, as well as both Eddie Edwards and Davey Richards. It’s the same weekend as Pro Wrestling Guerrilla’s Battle of Los Angeles weekend, and Richards just pulled out of the tournament, while Edwards was not booked and he’s on almost every PWG show.

Most likely this match [Masato Tanaka (c) vs Tetsuya Naito] will take place on 9/28 in Kobe, which is New Japan’s next major PPV show. Naito would be putting up his top contender title against Tanaka’s title. There is also talk that Naito will defend his top contender position, which may also by that time be the Never title as well, against Kota Ibushi after that.

Ishii, due to his off the charts match with Shibata and almost-as-great match with Tanahashi, got the company bonus for being the best wrestler during G-1 week. Ishii was the sentimental favorite for the award, since he’s usually a prelim guy, but beat Tanahashi and Shibata in the tournament. Tanahashi really should have won that bonus, but his match quality is expected and almost taken for granted. During the event, he had **** or better matches with Kojima, Ishii, Smith Jr., Devitt, Okada, Shibata and Naito. His matches with Ishii, Okada and Naito were match of the year candidates.

The AJPW 2013 Open championship tournament, which takes place from 9/11 at Korakuen Hall and finishes up on 9/23 in Nagoya, announced eight first round matches. The original plan was for 20 wrestlers to appear in a single elimination tournament, but thus far they’ve only announced 16. On 9/11 at Korakuen Hall, they’ve got first round matches with Jun Akiyama vs. Akebono, Go Shiozaki vs. Kotaro Suzuki, Joe Doering vs. Sushi and Low Ki vs. Dark Cuervo. So Low Ki and All Japan ended up agreeing on a price after all. On 9/14 in Yokohama, the other first round matches have Suwama vs. Kento Miyahara, who I believe is no longer affiliated with the Kensuke Office, plus Takao Omori vs. Atsushi Aoki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. D-Lo Brown (who had worked for All Japan many years back as a regular tag team with Bull Buchanan as the Voodoo Murderers) and Kenso vs. Bambikiller.

The gimmick for the upcoming Masahiro Chono & Joe Doering vs. Kenso & owner Nobuo Shiraishi bout is that head referee Kyohei Wada refused to referee it saying he feels it’s a joke having Shiraishi wrestle, so the bout will be held during intermission.

The preliminary estimate is that Hirooki Goto will be out three months with the broken jaw that he suffered in the match with Hiroshi Tanahashi.

No word on Hiroyoshi Tenzan’s broken ribs but they are hopeful he’ll be back by October.

New Japan chairman Takaaki Kidani said that New Japan revenue increased 40.4% this past year from $11.4 million to $16.0 million. That tells you in the big picture just how far behind WWE and UFC New Japan really is. Kidani has said his goal was to get New Japan to being the biggest sports entertainment group in the world. Kidani claimed that he was not satisfied with this year’s increase, and that over the past year the biggest gains in popularity have been an increase in children and women fans at the shows. A lot of that increase would be in the Internet PPV business that debuted in the fall. When New Japan was at its high point in the 90s, their revenue topped $50 million, which tells you just how far things have fallen given the product is as good as it’s ever been. Back in the heyday, because the wrestlers had profit sharing, when the company was on fire, at the end of the year everyone got bonuses based on seniority. There were some of the older guys, who at the time were working mostly in prelims, who got $300,000 bonuses, which was more than their annual salary. That’s one of the reasons why in the magazines in those days you’d see all the New Japan guys with their expensive cars.

James Raideen, a 22-year-old bodybuilder type, won Zero-One’s annual Fire Festival tournament, which was also for their vacant world title. It’s been pushed that he’s the youngest champion in the history of that title. Raideen scored the upset over Masato Tanaka in the finals on 8/4 at Korakuen Hall with a last ride power bomb.

Diamond Ring announced an 8/31 date at Korakuen Hall featuring Kota Ibushi teaming with Katsuhiko Nakajima for the first time in five years, to face All Japan’s Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki. Ibushi & Nakajima teamed together in the 2008 G+ jr. tag team tournament for NOAH. The main event will be Kensuke Sasaki & Jun Akiyama & Go Shiozaki vs. Kento Miyahara & Suwama & Takao Omori, so it looks like the Kensuke Office is opening up a stronger business relationship with All Japan.

Necro Butcher suffered a compound fracture of his right leg at the 8/11 Juggalo Championship Wrestling Bloodymania show at Cave-in-Rock, IL. Necro took a bump off the apron through a chair and messed up his leg. His bone was actually sticking out through the skin.

B.J. Whitmer didn’t get good news regarding his MRI of his neck injury from taking the piledriver on the ring apron in the Mike Bennett match on 8/3. Whitmer on his Twitter page said that he didn’t like what he was told and would be getting a second opinion, but didn’t specify what it was he was told. He later in an interview with Bryan Alvarez said that he suffered a bruised C-3 and C-4 vertebrae, which will heal, but he’s also suffering from spinal stenosis, which is what ended the careers of Steve Austin and Edge. He said he’s going for a second opinion to see what they will say, and if he can work, he will stay in wrestling until he’s 40 (he’s now 35). But he is going back to school to get a nursing degree to prepare for his post-wrestling days.

One of the main features of the WWE 2K 14 video game will be the 30 years of WrestleMania mode. The idea had been talked about for a long time and the actual deal to do it was made in 2012 when THQ still had the license. The big question was that to do a WrestleMania concept game, the key guy really is Hulk Hogan. Even though he’s with TNA and is kind of the face (well, the weathered face) of the brand, WWE didn’t have any issue with using him. The big aspect of making the deal with Hogan, which was a 2K Sports deal and not a WWE deal, is that Hogan didn’t have an exclusive for pro wrestling merchandising deal with TNA, which is amazing when you think about it. More than 45 matches are featured in the game, with the company making the decision to build it around three matches, the 1987 Hogan vs. Andre match, the 2002 Hogan vs. Rock match and the 2012 Rock vs. Cena match.

The ratings success of Total Divas has led to E! ordering six more episodes for a second season. The current season ends on 9/15. A second season, in the same 10 p.m. Sunday time slot, will run from 11/17 to 12/22.

Sheamus had shoulder surgery on 8/13. He wrote that six anchors were inserted into his left labrum and he starts rehab this week.

The Wyatts are HHH’s major project right now. In a sense, they’re being groomed for The Shield’s spot. We’ll see, but there is a lot of talk of The Shield being moved down, since they hurt Undertaker and Orton.

This week, before SummerSlam, Michael Cole & John Layfield will be attempting to climb Middle Palisade, a 14,018 foot mountain in California, in the Sierra Nevada range not far from Fresno. It’s considered a good beginners climb since Cole I don’t think has ever climbed a mountain of that size before.

As noted last week, Show was cleared to return on 7/29, which is several weeks later than they had hoped for. He actually underwent hip surgery during the period he was out of action.

I know that nobody ever thinks about Primo & Epico, but with hindsight, boy did Mendes messing up on the European tour and having to go to rehab screw them over royally. It’s like they’ve been put in the Witness Protection program or something with how invisible they’ve become.

Eva Marie from Total Divas is doing a Maxim photo shoot that the company is scheduled to heavily promote when it comes out. I think it’s pretty much a lock they are going to try and keep her as a television character in some form once the Total Divas segment ends.

The company reached out to Pink, Piers Morgan, Kelly Osborne, Omar Epps, Katie Couric and David Hasselhoff as celebrity tweeters during SummerSlam.

A story to watch for SummerSlam is if the Reddit guy does picks right before the show starts. There is also the question of how the odds shift in the final days. The odds in the Punk vs. Lesnar match shifted from Punk as a major favorite to Lesnar as a minor favorite after Raw, but that’s because Punk got the better of the angle, and people have been taught to think whoever on TV looks like they will in during the final angle is a swerve and the other will win. In other words, they’ve tried so hard to be unpredictable that people predict exactly the opposite of what the TV leads them to think. But the big telling shifts come the final day or two after the meetings where the finishes are decided. Any changes now are pure speculation. As noted before, after all the publicity coming out of the Money in the Bank show, where odds shifts and the Reddit guy picking Sandow and Orton to win, as well as correctly picking every result, and it was an embarrassment to the company. Someone who claimed he was the Reddit guy actually contacted someone that I know who is actually well known in the underground of another sport and said he wouldn’t post winners and pretty much revealed his identity. If nobody posts, there’s a very good chance, based on the story, that the guy was legit. If he does post and gets them all right, then obviously the guy who claimed to be the guy was a fraud.

Clayton Jack, the former Oregon State heavyweight who was a major recruiting project of Gerald Brisco, has been given the ring name Cal Bishop in the tradition of guys born with great pro wrestling names and having them go by far worse monikers. Jack, who trained extensively with Chael Sonnen while in college, placed fourth in the 2012 NCAA tournament as a heavyweight from Oregon State, after winning the Pac-12 meet in both 2011 and 2012 and qualifying four times nationally. He comes from Vacaville, CA, where he was a great high school athlete, being named the Sacramento Bee’s male athlete of the year in 2007, when he won the California state high school championship as a heavyweight and was third-team All-State in football as a lineman. In high school, he had placed fifth in the state meet as junior and eighth as a sophomore, which in California, is very impressive. The newly recruited ref is Jason Ayres, who came from Dragon Gate USA.

Henry over the weekend did a demonstration of strength in Texas pulling a semi.

Shawn Michaels and Booker T will be part of the pre-show for SummerSlam. They also announced Natalya for the pre-show but then gave her a match on the show.

 

[Vee_One]

Hey Strobogo

Just got home from work and my girlfriend was super excited to show me this video she found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5czUMb8HlE

 

[Data West]

I feel bad for Whitmer

but at the same time, if I was his doctor, I wonder how many times I would have called him a moron for the stupid shit he does to his body.

 

[Data West]

2K is doing a WWE 2k14 livestream tomorrow for those of you who care

edit: Roster reveal is Saturday

 

[Aiii]

Lol, I've never realised this before, but Virgil's table...

...Sometimes says Ted Dibaise instead of Ted Dibiase.

Is it to avoid lawsuits?

 

[Kaladin]

2k14 cover winners......

 

[Data West]

LOL EUROPE GOT FUCKED

dat based NA alternate cover

 

[Dr Duncan Steel]

I might have to buy this game now.

 

[Entropia]

2k14 cover winners......

Dat NA Cover...