A LESSON IN WRESTLING MATH

How good was the NXT Revolution .?...yeah, yeah, I know I took my time, but i had to watch it a time or six, just to confirm that it was as good as it looked

Its fairly safe to say that the BEST wrestling talent in the WWE currently is going to Full Sail Uni...sure they have all worked elsewhere all over the world , but for most of the WWE Universe this is the first time they have seen the future of the company before ....unlike us lucky people who have been watching a goodly percentage of the event participants for many a year.

To be fair WWE have been producing talent from NXT for a while now ...like The Shield for instance, weve all see Ambrose and Rollins in their other secret identities at other promotions,  even Punk and Bryan were in "developmental" their for a bit....cause they had to "learn" the WWE way, what ever that is, I still havent figured out what that is, if I had to guess, its probably something about projecting to a bigger crowd 

A mate tweeted me when the talent started showing up on NXT and said something along the lines of .."this is just like Vince in the days before WM1 going cherry picking the various territorys"...and I can see his point, it is like it in some resepects.

All the hot talent on NXT (apart from Charlotte and Baron Corbin) have come from the indies, not that I have a problem with that, HELL, everybody had to start somewhere, right?

Just some of the  feds they have come from are ROH/PWG, Dragon Gate, Shimmer, New Japan and even NSW Australias own PWA , with the signing of Emma to the NXT roster.

Compare and contrast, if you will, the recent shows NXT Takeover Revolution and WWE Tables, Ladders, Chairs & Stairs...

.judging by what I saw and mates I talked to, you cant compare them, TLC had two great matches, one of which was totally f**ked up by a ridiculous exploding plasma monitor, while NXT was top heavy with brilliance, even those goofs in the Assencion pulled a great match out of themselves, of course that might of had something to do with their opponents..one Hideo Itami and Fin Balor ( Kenta and Prince Devitt for those who dont know)

The workrate and story telling on NXT is astounding, an unusual thing to say in the WWE nowadays, I'm no expert, but RAW and Smackdown have become tedious, its like everyone is decided to cruise since they cant do anything shocking due to the PG rating, well, except for Ziggler, he seems to have decided to grab the brass ring, shine it up real nice and stick that sumbitch up Vinny Macs buttocks

 NXT has got a few of the gang up to the main roster, The Shield, Big E Langston and the currently amazing Damien "Mizdow" Sandow ...Bo Dallas has had a couple of spots but I cant say his done too much for me, The Wyatts have made a bit of a splash, why they broke them up, or the Sheild for that matter,..eludes me.....surely they could of held off for a another couple of months ....although, I can see all six of the boys getting a guernsey at Wrestlemania 31, who it will be against is up to the soapy writers at Titan Towers....Oh and then there is Adam Rose, who started wrestling in South Africa in 1995 as a 16 year old...I liked the Leo Kruger gimmick...but his Russell Brand like Adam Rose is more suited to him...it will be interesting to see where it goes, at the moment, it seems they are using Rose to reform "The Age of the Fall" from ROH...;)

I must say, when Paige showed up on NXT , then WWE tv, I was happy that AJ finally had someone to work with other than Mrs Cena or Mrs Bryan...and maybe Mrs Uso too...Paige is from a long line of well trained wrestlers, her mum and dad are still going in the UK...so, to see where they go with her over the long run will be interesting.

Speaking of Divas ( I hate that name by the way) how good is Charlotte, the Nature Girl, for she is Ric Flairs daughter,  is an excellent talent, who knew, I think she has a long term future, once again as long as the writers dont f*8k it up.

I have to admit that Tyler Breeze shits me, the selfie taking numbnut, THEN, I realised his doing exactly what he is supposed to do...job well done, his come a long way from his early days in the Canadian indies as Mathias Wld

Then there is Baron Corbin, who is a bit of a flashback, he comes to NXT with nil pro wrestling experience, his a football player learning his craft, sort of like Wahoo and Ernie Ladd did back in the day....His is the current King of the Squash match, which I thoiught were a thing of the past, he has run roughshod over everyone, and looked pretty good doing it...and no one has mentioned the word streak once...how refreshing.

The only thing I'm concerned about is when the current group  on NXT get "promoted" and the half arsed excuse for creative f**k htem up with rickoculous (thanks Jericho) gimmicks or strory lines...BUT...I guess we will just have to wait and see

FINGERS CROSSED

HEAT...a lost art form...sort of

I'm fairly certain we have all heard of the term  used in wrestling called "HEAT" ...a term that a good majority of modern"creative" have no clue about (or at least very little) 

Now, you would have to agree with the theory that the bigger wrestling companies (WWE, TNA) are hog tied into a PG mode by advertisers....I mean the closest I ve seen to heat on  RAW or Smackdown is Rusev waiving his russian flag, which is stupid, cause i didnt know the cold war was still on, or Seth Rollins curb stomping all and assundry, the biggest potential heat magnet on RAW is Bray Wyatt, his potential for white hot heat is unmeasurable, but sadly, the writers that the WWE hired from daytime soap land have no f**king idea about heat.

Heat, ideally, the heel has to be thoroughly convincing that he is doing what his doing for all the right reasons ( in his mind anyway)....I heard Bill Dundee say about heat once, "kids today dont about heat, they have never had their tyres slashed or sugar in the petrol tanks, hell, I've been cut 2 or 3 times cause I had them white hot"

Like I said, I been watching wrestling a looong time..just coming up to 46 years actually....and, as I may have mentioned before, I had the great fortune to be around and going to shows in the midst of what I still consider to be the greatest angle in wrestling history, well, Australian wrestling history anyway...THE WAR.

Probably around 1972, Mark Lewin got the book in Australia and constructed the angle that was the one that got me hooked into wrestling.....Luckily, he had the ideal heel, one, William Goodman,who donned the chrome germanic helmet and became the General of the Army BIG BAD JOHN...His army of heels included Abdullah the Butcher, Waldo von Erich, Bulldog Brower, Mr Fuji, Hiro and Hito Tojo, Don Fargo, Blackjack Slade and Tiger Jeet Singh....John was one of the greatest promos I ever heard, because he was thoroughly convincing that he started the war because he was sick of Mark Lewin and his mates "taking all the gravy" out of Australia and not sharing it....a fine example of making the people believe what his character believed.

One of the best heat getters have been the "turn" to the darkside, now, these dont always work, but when they do its brilliant, unless your the Road Warriors spiking Dusty in the eye, they were getting cheered....Hell, even Mario  Milano joined up with Gary Hart in Australia, I tell you, that stunned more people than the bombing on Number 96.

MODERN HEAT [or the resemblence there of]

Like I said modern wrestlers in the "bigger" companies, for the most part have been hog tied by PG rating forced upon them by advertisers or tv channels...for instance, Imagine if Bray Wyatt had the PG rating removed, he could become the next Kevin Steen, who I will get to shortly, because the character of Bray Wyatt appears to firmly believe in what he says in his promos, can you imagine if he had cart blance to go for it...I think he would be off the charts.

Imagine if Bray was around when Randy Orton was punting people left and right  BUT Wyatt was doing it instead of Orton, fans would still be talking about it (in my humble opinion}

Recently, ROH had a crack at some heat by getting Adam Cole to cut a promo on Papa Brisco, then kick him in the skull, this led to a Fight Without Honor at Final Battle 2014, some would say that was cheap heat, but in the modern era, it was as well done as any other piece of business.

Did someone mention Kevin Steen...NOW, Im s Steen fan without question, got the shirt and the dvds...and even me after all this time was stunned when he turned on Generico, a thoughjt of "what a prick" even crossed my mind....Steen along with Corino, Cabana and Generico snuck this brilliant piece of business under the noses of the booking team at ROH and it has since become one of the greatest angles in ROH history...

Can you tell me what else was happening in ROH at the time withoiut checking dvds?...I cant, but I can tell you about chain matches and run ins etc relating to the angle....All of Steens promos including the letter he posted on the ROH website was brilliantly constructed, can you imagine if he did that during the 70s, he would need a bodyguard to get to his hotel.....this led to the SCUM angle where Steen goaded Cornette into getting his job back after losing to Generico AND getting a title match against Davey Richards, where he won the title and raised nine kinds of hell until his turn where he further increased his popularity with wrestling fans.

Both Steen and Generico or Owens and Zayn, if you like have signed with WWE and are in the NXT section of the company...someone in NXT creative has been watching ROH because when Zayn won the NXT title the first guy in the ring to hug the new champ was his best friend Kevin Owens...who as soon as the ring cleared came back down and powerbombed the new champ on the edge of the ring...AND ITS OFF TO THE RACES WE GO...again.

Speaking of modern heat getters...I recently discovered a wrestling company in the U.K called PROGRESS and two of their heels stood out in particular, the first was Michael Gilbert, who recently adopted a "no gimmicks" state of mind, he used to look like a cross between Dee Snider and Raven, but not now and like all good heels, he believes his way is the right way, for him anyway....and then their is the current champion, bloke named Jimmy Havoc quite possibly is one of the best heels I've ever seen...

.there was a 4 team tag at the Chapter 13 show, one of the teams The Swords of Essex split up mid match and at the end of the match, The London Riots and Jimmy Havoc duct taped Will Osperay to a chair and Jimmy said to Will, and I paraphrase, " Will, this has got nothing to do with you, its all the promoters fault your in this situation" then he whipped out a switchblade...and threatend to torture the kid, until the promotion stopped booking him in crazy matches trying to make him lose the title, then there was mass run in by the good guys...apparently Jimmy feels hard done by by the powers that be and seems certainly determined to hang onto his title by fair means or foul...probably more foul.

Will we ever go back to those days of white hot heat...definately not, we are way past the point of even considering it...thank the wrestling gods for DVD'S and blogs huh?