NGWA in Canton, GA 9-29-2012

Been meaning to take a look at this card for weeks now.  I guess better late than never as they always say...

The North Georgia Wrestling Alliance returns to Canton, GA tonight with another solid card.

Let's have a look...

• Main Event: "WildChild" Joey Kidman takes on CJ Awesome's hired assassin, Jake Slater
• Legends Match: The Jail House Rocker vs Ex Convict Blade w/ Danny Dees in his corner
• "The Urban Legend" Murder 1 & Jason Blackman face Chris "Time Bomb" Nelms & Alex Brock
• Last but certainly not least, Former NWA and All Japan Star, "The Outlaw" Joel Deaton will be making an appearance.

As usual, it certainly seems to be shaping up to be a solid card with quality PROFESSIONAL wrestling.  I, for one, am excited about seeing "The Outlaw" Joel Deaton in person.  Watched him on Joe Pedicino's syndicated wrestling block, but never asked Dad to take me to a show.

Also slated to appear are Zane "Epic" Stevens,  Justin Overstreet, Thomas Shock and "Hardluck" Eddie Wilson.

It's a great value and good time, bring the kids and watch some quality wrestling featuring true professionals. 

As always, check out the NGWA Fans page on Facebook for more information about this promotion.

Randy Orton: A SAW favorite that the IWC does not like

A couple of threads on Wrestling Classics and A1 have made me think about this topic. 

Who are the wrestlers that you like that it seems like most in the IWC don't care for at all? 

Number one on my list is "The Apex Predator" Randy Orton.  It seems like 90% or more of the comments or threads I see about him are about how they "don't see what makes him so popular" or call him "boring" or even refer to him as "Randy BOREton."*

Is Orton charismatic like the Rock or Cena?  Certainly not, but I think he does a good job of conveying a calm, cool demeanor that is effective as a face and even more so as a heel. 

As for ring work, I think his is on par with the WWE style.  I like some of his signature offense such as The Punt (which he rarely if ever uses as a face), the Orton Stomp, the RKO and the DDT from the middle rope.

The other complaint I have seen is that he's a top guy who  "doesn't draw."  Honestly, in this day and age I'm not sure what drawing means anymore.  The industry is so different to the old days that I really think the WWE is the draw for the most part and it's hard to determine which talents are really moving the meter.  What I do know is that it seems like he moves a good bit of merchandise and live crowds are really into him. 

Ultimately even I prefer Orton as a heel and have long called for a Sheamus/Orton feud for the World Heavyweight Title instigated by Randy turning on Sheamus.  I have no real issue with face Orton, however, and don't see why he gets so much negative attention from the IWC.

Just for the Randy Orton fans out there, here is the Randy Orton RKO List he Tweeted out a while back.

Beyond that, I would love to hear from some of you about guys you like that put you in the minority.

*I swear I've seen that at least once and I think probably more than once.

A1's Jake "The Snake" Roberts appreciation thread

It all started the admiration of a specific Jake promo on A1. It has now become a full-blown appreciation thread. Behold!

A1: Man, this Jake the Snake promo

If you are a fan of Jake "The Snake" Roberts, then you must check this thread out.  Several quality promos have already been posted.  Hopefully more will be posted soon.  Plus you get the typical A1 response to these posts and they are interesting to say the least.

In case you missed it previously, here is SAW's appreciation thread for "The Snake."

FreebirdSTF's Number 2 All-Time: Jake "The Snake" Roberts

WWE.com: Classic factions reborn

Jason Mann (@Wrestlespective) Tweeted the following the other day.

WWE.com is fantasy booking now. No good can come from this. :P

This included a link to the article, Classic factions reborn.  I guess it's because I grew up on the Four Horsemen, but I am a huge sucker for a quality faction so I was glad he shared this particular article.  It only got cooler when I saw the following picture.

Due to my stable bias, the John Cena in nWo colors excited me more than it should have.  Anyhow, here is the list of stables they covered:

• The Million Dollar Corporation (ADR works, some of the others don't)
• The Ministry of Darkness (thankfully not The Corporate Ministry)
• The Dangerous Alliance (weak stable and not just compared to the original)
• Dudes with Attitudes (horrible name of course, vanilla stable here)
• The Flock (fits Punk, not terribly different than the SES)
• nWo (like the idea of Cena and Orton together and that was about it)
• The Four Horsemen (Cody Rhodes is perfect, Bryan doesn't fit the image)

It's worth a look if you want to see the full membership of each fantasy stable.  It reminds me of all the fun I have with each new version of the WWE games.  I spend an inordinate amount of time creating stables.  I spend so much time doing it that I actually create a spreadsheet (!) to keep track of the stables and the character alignment of my roster.  

It's Friday! features R-A-S-S-L-I-N

Yep, that song is a real thing and it is amazing.  Speaking of amazing, I hope that is how my weekend turns out.  Going to watch some college football and relax with the family.  I certainly hope each and every one of you is able to enjoy this weekend as well.

Upload Credit: dbvve

BSW: A couple of choice shirts

Unfortunately, I have not been able to actually pick up one of these brilliant BarberShopWindow shirts, but I always enjoy checking out their offerings.

None of the newest entries grabbed me, but I looked through Past Shirts to see what I missed and these two were my favorite ones of the recent t-shirts.

I would be proud to rock either of those bad boys.  BSW continues to do quality work.

What I want...(Wrestling Edition)

I've been busy at work and outside of it lately so I have not been able to post as much as I would like here. 

So all that being said, I was thinking about what I wish the wrestling landscape looked like right now.  The premise here is to have a light, fun look at what I want as a wrestling fan.  Here we go.

I want...

• the return of WCW.
• a WWE tag team division that matters.
• secondary titles (Intercontinental and United States) to matter.
• TNA to become a true number two promotion.
• to forget about the trainwreck "Nature Boy" Ric Flair has become.
• the chaos and excitement of the Monday Night Wars.
• a packed house for the NGWA show in September.
• a legitimate push for Jack Swagger.
• the return of squash matches.
• a true midcard that matters.

There will be more to come, but that is a brief look at what I want as a wrestling fan.

If you have some things you would like to share with South Atlanta Wrestling, email me at FreebirdSTF@hotmail.com.

Hometown Heat

CM Punk is the Best in the World in large part due to the small things he does right.  Seriously, he does all the little things right and it really pays off for him.  Last night at WWE Night of Champions is no exception as he wore ring attire that was clearly inspired by the New York Yankees...in Boston.

That is absolutely quality trolling/heeling there.

While on the subject of "hometown attire" choices, Kofi Kingston (who is a "Boston guy") wore tights that seem to be inspired by the NHL's Boston Bruins. 

That is the kind of nice little tip of the cap to your home town that is really cool to see.

Boston guy, John Cena also deserves a mention because his Doctor of Thuganomics gimmick allowed him to take advantage of this type of hometown heat.  It was simple, but clever really.  If he's a heel, he wears throwbacks of the city's rival.  If he's a face, he wears throwbacks of the city's teams. 

It's not Earth-shattering, but it is simple and effective. 

Sting's TNA Hall of Fame inductor

Sting is the perfect individual to be TNA's first Hall of Fame inductee. I had not given much thought to who would be the one to induct him, but TNA made an excellent choice according to this DOT NET article.

None other than "The Total Package" Lex Luger will induct his old friend, Sting into the TNA Hall of Fame.  To me, this is the perfect choice.  The only other one that would be debatable would be "Nature Boy" Ric Flair.  Given his current relationship with TNA or lack thereof, I think Luger became the best choice.  

It's Friday featuring the 2012 A1 Tag Cup Champions

This is one of my favorite WCW themes of all time. Harlem Heat is an extremely underrated tag team in my opinion. They were in WCW when teams like Sting/Luger, Road Warriors and Steiners were all around and they did not feel out of place as top contenders or champions one little bit.

As mentioned in the post title Harlem Heat won the 2012 A1 Tag Cup over at A1-Wrestling.com. As usual it was a fun tournament with heated debate and interesting matchups. I was very pleased to see a WCW team like this come out on top of the usual suspects.

Upload Credit: OutsidersBookerT

TWB: Jake "The Snake" Roberts' DDT

TH over at The Wrestling Blog has been doing this nice little series for a while now where he covers "The Best Moves Ever."  While TH and I often fall on opposite sides of wrestling debates, I enjoy it when our interests intersect.  They certainly did today as he profiled Jake "The Snake" Roberts' DDT.

The Best Moves Ever: Jake "The Snake" Roberts' DDT

If you weren't reading SAW back then Jake is actually my second favorite wrestler of all-time right behind "Nature Boy" Ric Flair.  TH's entry includes a two minute video of Jake administering the DDT.

It doesn't get much better than that folks.  I will never forget my Dad trying to figure out how to make his own "DDT: Cruel But Fair" shirt during Joe Pedicino's "Superstars of Wrestling" block on syndication.  This was before Jake showed up in WWE and he was still wearing the "karate pants."

I even have a vague recollection of him doing a commercial or segment of sorts with Terry Taylor where Jake threw a t-shirt at the camera.  Anyone recall anything like that?

Anyhow, check out The Wrestling Blog for this and many other wrestling thoughts, clips, hype and analysis. 

Nick Hogan's thoughts on Jerry Lawler

Yeah, that says "Nick" not "Hulk", but thanks to TMZ we know Nick Hogan's thoughts on the Jerry Lawler situation last night.

Nick Hogan: Jerry Lawler should quit wrestling after heart attack

While I respect his heart is in the right place and he very well may be right, it irks me that Nick Hogan's opinion matters to even TMZ.

His parting words are definitely correct though, "Our prayers are with you, Jerry. Glad to hear you're alright."  I certainly don't take any issue with that.

Thoughts and prayers with Jerry "The King" Lawler

If you are reading this then I am quite sure this is not news to you, but I did want to send out some well-wishes to Jerry "The King" Lawler after the horrible incident last night during RAW. Here is WWE's latest update on Lawler's condition: 

LATEST UPDATE: 9/11/12, 12:20 p.m.

As of this morning, Jerry "The King" Lawler is in a cardiac care unit and all his vital signs are stable. WWE will provide additional information as it becomes available. We continue to wish Jerry all the best for a full recovery.

South Atlanta Wrestling would also like to wish "The King of Memphis Wrestling" a full and speedy recovery.  It was clearly a scary time for Jerry, his co-worker's, the fans and his loved ones.  Thoughts and prayers are also with his family and friends as they deal with this health scare.

Impact Wrestling at The Tabernacle

Checked out the Impact Wrestling house show at The Tabernacle in Atlanta Friday.  I went with my cousin, Big Mac (we will call him for now), and we had an absolute blast.

Purchased the floor seats which came out to $41 after fees etc.  That put us in Row E so we were close to the ring.  Due to the "intimate" nature of the venue there probably wasn't a bad seat in the whole place to be honest.  The venue itself was really cool and I am ashamed to say I had never been there before.  I had heard nothing but good things about seeing shows there and this was no different.  They had risers on both sides of the ring where you could sit above the action which looked like would give you an interesting vantage point.  There are two balconies there as well and again, it looked like you would be able to see the action very well from there.  If enjoying "adult beverages" is your thing, you had a wide selection of beer and liquor.  As a matter of fact, you had to get a band on the way in that showed you were over 21.  Enough about the venue though, let's get to the action.

We had some traffic issues so we didn't get to head up to Atlanta until there was only about 45 minutes until the show started.  Luckily we rolled up at 7:28 which was just as the wrestling action was scheduled to start.  By the time we got in the first match or what we believe was the first match had started.  Here is a rundown of the matches (in no particular order) with some commentary on each:

• Eric Young vs Douglas Williams--Nice action and every though I do not care for EY's shtick, he worked the crowd up nicely.  Got a good reaction when he won with the elbow drop.
• Knockouts Action with Tess defending against Mickie James--It was what it was.  The ATL crowd seemed to enjoy both women and their work.  Tess defeated Mickie who apparently had a concert at the Hard Rock later in the night.
• Zema Ion successfully defended his X Division title against Sonjay Dutt.  Again, Ion gets "go away heat" from me when I watch Impact, but they put on a nice match.  This match had a couple spots in it that got tiresome by the end of the night, but I will touch on that separately.
• Kurt Angle made an appearance.  Allegedly he suffered a leg injury in Dalton, GA the night before and would be unable to compete.  Impact management tried to send him home, but he had to come back to Atlanta where he won his gold medal (cheap pop!).  Well it got interesting as a member of Aces and Eights clipped Angle's "injured" leg from behind and ran off.  I honestly don't recall if someone came to Kurt's aid.
• AJ Styles vs Crimson--AJ got a nice hometown pop and this was an entertaining match.  I don't know if it was just the hometown thing or what, but the crowd really seemed to be into everything AJ did.  One of the guys behind us said about Crimson, "Is this dude a Ryback knockoff?  I mean, is he an even lower level Goldberg imitator?" which was amusing.
• "Cowboy" James Storm took on Mr. Anderson....Anderson--
• Main Event: Christopher Daniels (tag champ) vs Austin Aries (TNA World Champion)--Aries and Daniels both worked the crowd well.  Daniels got good heel heat and his new gimmick is fairly entertaining.  Aries got the crowd solidly behind him and got a laugh out of us with some borderline corny material such as saying Daniels smelled like "feet wrapped in ass."  Corny, but effective.  The champ won clean.  The same member of Aces and Eights that clipped Kurt Angle showed up on the risers.  Security tried to stop him, but Aries said to let him in the ring.  They mixed it up until "Armbreaker" showed up and attacked the champ.  He got the better of the champion until Kurt Angle showed up and delivered an Angle Slam.  As the two tried to unmask the invaders, Aces and Eights hopped the guard rail, followed by security and ran out of the building.

All-in-all there was some solid in-ring action in a really cool venue.  One really minor issue which I alluded to before was how much a particular spot was overused.  It was a headlock spot of all things and I think three different matches used it.  They did the old "I get out of the headlock just to have the headlock slapped back on" thing.  I have no issue with that spot especially when you get the crowd going with it, but three times in one night came off as a bit excessive.  That was a really minor complaint though.  Like I said on SAW's Facebook page, "If you get a chance to see a wrestling show at The Tabernacle, take it."

It's Friday featuring The Total Package

Inspired by the interview recap I posted the other day, here is Lex Luger's Nitro-era WCW theme.  I kind of always enjoyed those public domain theme songs that WCW used.  This one was a solid one.  I have heard it in a few commercials over the years on the radio.




Anyhow, I have the Impact Wrestling house show at The Tabernacle in Atlanta tonight.  My cousin is coming into town and we will check that out.  I hope everyone has a great Friday and even better weekend.  Go watch some football this weekend, you deserve it.

Upload Credit: hitmanfan24

Lex Luger speaks with Wrestling Reaction Radio

SAW loves these DOT NET interview recaps and the Lex Luger one has some interesting content.  "The Total Package" sat down with Wrestling Reaction Radio and discussed several things such as:

• The details behind leaving WWE and showing up on the first Nitro
• WWE's PG programming
• Kevin Nash's controversial Benoit/Guerrero comments
• Whether Vince McMahon promised him the WWE Title
• Did he name the Kliq?
• The Narcissist gimmick

As usual I would like to share a few of these here.  Let's start with his thoughts on the Nash/Benoit/Guerrero controversy.

"I don't know what context that was in...it's definitely an outrageous quote. I do think size was emphasized more in our era and fans got used to that, but I think there's been a huge transition...I understand Kevin. He likes to stay controversial. He's a very sharp guy, marketing-wise, and I know Kevin will make those statements, but I remember, back when I worked with Kevin, he put Rey Mysterio over in the middle of the ring...to me, the diversity now of high-flyers, big guys, little guys, in-between guys, guys that still have the muscled physiques with height, guys who don't, different body types, getting away from that reputation of WWE being all drug-enhanced. I love what they're doing now."

Luger nails this one in my opinion. I believe Nash himself basically suggested that he took shots at Benoit/Guerrero and by proxy Daniel Bryan/CM Punk because it would garner some attention. Is that true? I don't know. That could very well be a spin that allows Nash to backpedal from his comments. Considering how sharp Kevin Nash is it would not surprise me at all if he did it to help "put himself over" though.

[In spite of some of the rumors I've heard through the years, I was never promised a world title from Vince McMahon...I think they just decided to head in a different direction...]

The DOT NET recap had more of this answer so I paraphrased it above, but in a nutshell Lex said that there is no validity to the idea that he was "promised" a world title. It is reasonable to believe that it was in the cards though, but ultimately for business reasons Vince McMahon and WWE simply went another direction.

Lastly, we all pretty much know the story but let's see what Lex himself has to say about his WWE/WCW jump and appearing on the first Monday Nitro.

"Money was definitely a factor but the contract I was offered at the time by WCW, for my career earnings, was not really a big inducement. Eric Bischoff was not a big fan of Lex Luger personally and really wanted me to prove myself a little bit...Eric took wonderful care of me after that...but at the time, it wasn't really a large contract offer by some of the other standards in the industry. But in WWE at the time, my contract had run out..and this is unprecedented, some people don't grasp this..but I had no contract. Vince and I went on just a handshake, a temporary agreement, for over five months...and I had talked with Sting, a few weeks before the initial Nitro show, and just out of casual conversation with Sting, I mentioned I wasn't under contract with WWE...Sting was blown away by that, so he went to Eric Bischoff..and that's how the whole thing started.."

Again, nothing surprising there as we have heard this story from Eric Bischoff. This is the first time I recall Luger saying anything about it though and I thought it was interesting that he corroborates Eric Bischoff's account. Thanks again to ProWrestling.net (DOT NET) for the recap. Also here is the blurb they posted at the bottom of their article about the Wrestling Reaction Radio show.

Lex Luger talks about a lot more of his career, the product of today, his future plans and much more in this 40-minute interview. Check it out at WrestleReaction.net and be sure to tune in live every Tuesday night from 7-8 EST!

As my gift to you, I have posted my favorite Lex Luger interview of all-time below.

Enjoy!



Upload Credit: thestudly1

Paul Heyman's RAW cameo

To be perfectly honest, RAW lost me to the Virginia Tech/Georgia Tech game at some point last night. As I was flipping between my two Twitter feeds (@mckinneydg and @s_atl_wrestling) I caught wind of what sounded like a major storyline brewing.

While I have no idea where this is going, the Punk/Heyman pairing sounds like a winner.  Given the verbal talents of this duo I would think that there will be constant entertainment on the mic.  Paul Heyman is the perfect "agitator" for lack of a better term of the McMahon Dynasty and his inclusion in the Punk/Cena angle will only make it feel more personal and important. 

Upload Credit: WWE's Official YouTube channel

[nWo] New World Order on Facebook

I recently found a fan page for the nWo on Facebook.  They have a ton of photos from the group's genesis to their time in WWE.  It is an interesting page if you were a fan of WCW/nWo during the Monday Night Wars.  One thing I like about it is that they have done a really good job organizing their albums.

Here are some album titles for example:

• nWo (Original)
• nWo Wolfpac
• nWo in Japan
• nWo Hollywood
• nWo 2000
• The Outsiders
• Ted Dibiase and Vincent

They have an album for just about every nWo member or pairing.  For a huge WCW fan like myself it was a fun trip down memory lane.

Here is a link to the [nWo] New World Order Facebook page if you are interested.

Photo Credit: FanPop.com