Eddie Guerrero - Happy Birthday 'Viva La Raza'

Today would of been the 44th birthday of Eddie who passed away on November 13th 2005. Many rate Eddie as one of the all-time greats and he was just that. The world of wrestling really did lose a great when Eddie passed. Eddie had so many classic matches, not just in the WWE but back in WCW and before that AAA, Japan & ECW. Those who have not seen much of Eddies work should check it out be it on DVD or YouTube, he really was a great worker.

Miss you Eddie

We Got Two Words For Ya: BYE-BYE with Azan Saigol

This past week on Monday Night Raw, we saw the aftermath from the Hell in a cell ppv. We saw Santino return, a 12 man tag match, but most importantly we saw Triple H the COO get a no vote of confidence. . Laurinaitis reminds HHH that he punched him last night during all of the chaos. Laurinaitis says the locker room is in an uproar and Triple H needs to ask them how they think he's doing his job. Laurinaitis asks if Triple H can look the talents in the eye and hear their answers. Laurinaitis asks if Triple H is scared. Triple H grabs him by his tie and tells him to get everyone in the ring, and to make sure he's there too. Now we head down to the ring, Raw and Smack Down heels & faces, divas and referees, all head down to the ring. We then see the COO walk down to the ring. He reminds everyone how he is doing everything for the fans. What I liked here was how Barret was the first one to speak up just to have The Game shut him up by telling him that a year ago he tried to take down the WWE. I loved seeing the referees speaking up. Mike Chioda speaking and really showing some sincerity was a nice touch. They really try to hide referees most of the time, but they are employees. It was different and added another dimension to how much this "seemed real." Jerry Lawler’s speech was excellent, because he reminded everyone of CM punk’s argument to the fact that someone doesn’t like HHH running the show. This leads us to think that someone was the same person who let Truth/Miz into the building and lowered the cell. They showed the cameramen walk off, the announcers, the referees and all of the superstars. The thing that made it seem real was the fact they showed the cameramen put their cameras down and walk off. Last but not least they had Jim Ross walk off. This showed how JR was brought back by HHH walked out as well.

Now with this all taking place the question that comes to mind is what will happen next week?

3 questions come to mind

1. Will the superstars refuse to perform?
2. Will HHH resign
3. Do we see the return of Vince?

Now this is what I am looking forward to next week on Monday night. This article was basically to show you what I felt off this past Monday. I loved it and I am excited for next week.

If you have any comments or suggestion to what will happen next week, get back to me on my twitter @azansaigol

WLH PPV Prediction League Phase 2: A Great Prize To Be Won

This is the prize for the second half of the 2011 WLH PPV Prediction League as long as we have 20 plus taking part.
It is a WWE R1 (NTSC) Backlash 2006 DVD signed by Shawn Michaels, John Cena, Edge, Triple H, Kane, Big Show, RVD & Trish Stratus. It comes with the COA (Certificate Of Authenticity)Picture at the bottom of this post.

So for those who don't know, what you have to do from now until the last PPV of the year in the WWE or TNA you have to predict the winners of each match, 2 points for a correct prediction. A table will be created and posted on the right side of the site, the new one is there so you can see what I mean. This is open to ANYONE, ANYWHERE in the world. All predictions MUST be submitted to me by 22:00 hrs GMT on the night of the PPV via email wlhstu@aol.co.uk. Good Luck guys.

Here is the line-up

1. Kurt Angle (c) vs. Bobby Roode Singles match for the TNA World Heavyweight Championship
2. Sting vs. Hulk Hogan No Disqualification Match for control of TNA
3. Winter (c) vs. Velvet Sky vs. Mickie James vs. Madison Rayne Four-Way match for the TNA Women's Knockout Championship
4. Rob Van Dam vs. Jerry Lynn Full Metal Mayhem match
5. Mr. Anderson vs. Bully Ray Falls Count Anywhere Philadelphia Street Fight
6. Austin Aries (c) vs. Brian Kendrick Singles match for the TNA X Division Championship
7. Mexican America (Hernandez and Anarquia) (c) vs. Ink Inc. (Jesse Neal and Shannon Moore) Tag Team match for the TNA World Tag Team Championship
8. AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels

I Have A Question. By Jimi James

On October 15th, Awesome Wrestling Entertainment is having a Pay Per View. The Main Event of this Pay Per View is the Rock 'n Roll Express vs. a "fired" WWE superstar and a mystery partner. That "fired" WWE superstar is, Kevin Nash.

I heard this news the week before Hell in a Cell. At that time I had angry thoughts of Nash and Triple H capitalizing on the great "Summer of Punk" idea to further their storyline and bury Punk. But as time went by and I thought about it, my anger turned to curiosity.

I wanted to wait to write this piece until after Hell in a Cell and the following nights Raw. I wanted to see how this would all play out to set up Survivor Series. Only thing is, Nash was not present at either.

My prediction for Hell in a Cell was that Nash would interfere in the WWE title
Cell match. Maybe come up through the ring ala the Undertaker. Instead, Nash was not present for either broadcast. Nor was his name even mentioned by commentary. Now, I realize Nash was "fired", but Punk lost to Del Rio at Summerslam somehow, so why wouldn't he be mentioned at least once. Also, Miz and R-Truth were "fired", but they have still shown up on TV.

So is Nash really fired? From a business standpoint, I can't understand why WWE
would let one of their talent work another company's Pay Per View. Especially since that talent was not cleared medically to work a WWE PPV event. Daniel Bryan worked indy events while he was "fired" last year, but not Pay Per Views.

Another thing that stood out to me was who runs Awesome Wrestling Entertainment. AWE is run by Marvin Ward, who is a former pro wrestler and is the listed promoter for the October 15th event. The other person, more importantly, involved with AWE is Dave Hebner. Hebner is a former WWE referee and twin brother of current TNA referee, Earl Hebner. Hebner left WWE on bad terms. Which is why I question Nash working this event if he is a contracted WWE talent.

In researching AWE, I found out that Kevin Nash has ties to the organization. He knows both Hebner's from WWE and TNA. AWE has a roster of legends who all should have prior dealings with Nash. AWE's website hinted that Nash's mystery partner might be Diamond Dallas Page. Also while researching, I found video that shows that Nash helps AWE by tutoring students at the AWE school.

I thought maybe Kevin Nash working this event would be to prove that he is healthy enough to work a match for Survivor Series. But, why would WWE want Nash to work an advertised Pay Per View instead of working him out at FCW or even in the seclusion of Titan Towers in Stamford?

In my opinion, Nash coming back for an appearance at Survivor Series is not that
big a deal. For example, if Nash is a part of an event that features John Cena teaming with the Rock, will anyone be talking about Nash on Monday? Unless they set him on fire, I highly doubt it.

I might be making a bigger deal out of this than it might actually be. Whether Nash returns to WWE or not, it won't phase me or really make a difference in how this whole storyline turns out. But I find it funny that when Nash came back at Summer Slam, I actually thought he would be the Anonymous Raw General Manager. Instead he was never named as the GM, but he might suffer the same fate as the GM, to be forgotten about and never be mentioned again. So of all the questions being asked in WWE these days, I stumbled upon one more. I just hope we start getting answers soon.

PPV: What are we paying for? By Shaun Nichols

In 2008 WWE Summerslam attracted over 300,000 Domestic buys (North America) and three years later they failed to secure 175,000 PPV buys which is less than 60% in the same markets than a mere three years earlier. Why as PPV business fallen so quickly? An easy answer would be to blame the economy, people all over the world simply don't have the same amount of disposable income. This is undoubtedly true but it is also true to say that if you promote a big event and portray it as something special then people will find a way. If a 5 or 6 friends chip in to pay for the event then they are basically paying about $10 each so there as to be something else.
If we look back at Summerslam in 2008 and the card that the WWE offered, in the main event we had the Undertaker defeating Edge in a HITC match. This worked as a draw due to the fact that they had been feuding over a number of months that year and this would be the final blow off. HITC could still theoretically work as a PPV attraction if there is a match that warrants it. Putting two matches into the cage with hardly any build and just because its that time of year won't. Which is why the HITC PPV from 2010 and 2011 will be seen as big disappointments due to the fact that the structure alone will not draw, you have to put wrestlers in the cage that have been feuding over several months and book the HITC match as the final chapter not a mere calling point along the way.
Also on the show was the first John Cena vs Batista PPV singles match and so had a little bit of mystique of it. The WWE were giving the fans something they had not seen before on PPV at the 'biggest event of the summer' and it worked. On top of this we had two decidedly average world title matches pitting Triple H vs Great Khali and CM Punk vs JBL. Whle those matches weren't anything to be excited about, Triple H has been a PPV draw for several years so he doesn't hurt the card but he's kept away from the top two matches. The fans are given reasons to go out and buy this show and they did.
Fast forward three years and these simple rules have all been ignored. This year's Summerslam followed a mere 4 weeks after the MITB PPV where CM Punk had left the arena with the WWE Title, in the following two weeks Summerslam was hardly mentioned at all. We did get Rey winning the vacant title but losing it shockingly to John Cena later on in the show and we also saw Triple H becoming the COO and replacing Vince as the on-screen boss. CM Punk returns 13 days after the MITB PPV to pose with Cena to end the show. What this means is that we are less than 2 weeks away from Summerslam and we know nothing of an event that evidently the company would like us to pay for.
In the last two weeks the WWE do finally get around to promoting the show, the main event of Cena vs Punk is probably made less important when they decide to add Triple H as a special referee. We also get Christian vs Randy Orton for the 5th time, and although they do have good matches it's difficult to see why this match would make one person order the show that wasn't already doing so. Yes Edge made an appearance, but he wasn't advertised and so the WWE didn't see him make any difference at all.
We have seen the Miz & R-Truth given plenty of TV time but we were not told specifically that they would be on the show. They were in an opener which featured four other men including one of the biggest babyfaces in company history in Rey Mysterio and also Alberto Del Rio who won the Raw MITB briefcase on the last show and would leave the event as WWE champion. After the final Raw before Summerslam did we know we would see Kofi, Rey & John Morrison vs Miz, Truth & Del Rio? No we didn't, but we certainly should have done. The WWE cannot expect all their fans to go to their website to get full details of the card on the day of the show, they should use their TV shows to clearly tell their viewers what matches they will be showing.
Did you know that on the Summerslam card was Daniel Bryan vs Wade Barrett? Do you know the storyline behind that match? Of course not. And that's the problem the card only featured 6 matches if you don't count Del Rio cashing in the case at the end. So you would think that all matches would mean something, have storylines that the fans are aware of and can relate to. I think Sheamus vs Mark Henry had a bit of a build to it and the Diva's matches count for very little.
Two days before the HITC PPV, Stu put up a post for the prediction league which featured five matches but didn't include Air Boom vs Dolph & Swagger or Cody Rhodes defending the I-C title against John Morrison. That's not his fault but it is the fault of the WWE who seemingly fail to grasp how to promote a PPV with the exceptions of the Royal Rumble and Wrestlemania.
TNA are hardly any better and often get to the final week of TV before announcing anything like a full PPV card. And surely that plays a role in why they often fail to attract 10,000 PPV buys. Instead we know that PPV is not quite the dying business that some people would have you believe, the recent Floyd Mayweather boxing match against Victor Ortiz earned well over a million buys. That despite the fact Ortiz had previously meant very little on PPV but the likes of Mayweather and Pacquiao do mean giant buyrates to the cable companies. UFC although not having its best year knows the importance of advertising and using countdown specials to convince potential viewers to make the call. And when they have a really big fight they are rarely disappointed when the numbers come in.
WWE especially will continue to struggle on PPV if they continue to neglect the need to build up strong storylines and tell the fans what matches they will be seeing on the next PPV because at the moment it seems that they have forgot what the TV shows are actually for and it's costing them big time.

The Indy Corner (2/10/11)

Nearly every week I record a segment on the Total Wrestling Show (link on right of page) called The Indy Corner, I do a brief outline of what I am going to talk about and this is below, it gets covered to an extent but never in full so here it is for your reading pleasure.

As you will know, I was at Fight Club: Pro 'Project Mayhem' last week so I didn't record The Indy Corner but I just want to say, the two shows I went to out the three were friggin' amazing! You heard my call last week I hope where I said I had seen one of the best matches of the year in my opinion and to see it live was great, that was of course Adam Cole who was representing CZW but is also part of the ROH team Future Shock with Kyle O’Riley and he was facing UK worker MK McKinnan (match pictured above & below). MK went over to the US earlier in September to work for CZW and CHIKARA and at the show, someone I was standing with said he’s not sure if MK is a bit over-rated because he wasn’t that good in his CHIKARA match but after that match last weekend he has changed his opinion. I told MK himself, I hope there are big things for him in the future as he is an outstanding talent.

Now, when I called into the show last week someone said in the chat room that CZW was ‘trash wrestling’ and I know Steve defended CZW in every way he could but I just want to have my two pence worth. CZW, for years has been based around a lot of the death match style of wrestling, they started in 1999 I believe and I got into them in 2001 and was a big fan for a number of years. They had the death match stuff back then too but also had some good wrestling so it was a mixture of the two styles. CZW is where the Briscoes of ROH fame cut their teeth so to speak in the business. As Steve pointed out, CZW is now under the ownership of DJ Hyde who was at the FCP shows I was at and he hasn’t left the death match stuff behind but he does want to have good actual wrestling on his shows and with the likes of Cole, Jonathan Gresham, Philly Most Wanted & more he has some good workers on his books. In closing, don’t dismiss CZW because of the death match stuff they do, they have some great wrestlers and deserve a chance.


One final note on Fight Club: Pro – October 21st has a show with El Generico booked and he is also booked for PWG in a ladder match for Kevin Steen’s PWG title, El Generico himself confirmed to me via twitter he is working both shows so we’ll have to see what occurs.

So my final topic this week is about a proposed show booked for the UK on Jan 1st 2012, yes, that's right, NEW YEARS DAY by a company called New Scene Wrestling. The show is scheduled to take place right here in my own city of Birmingham but January 1st is a bit much. For me to go to a show even that local on new years day it would have to be special so who has this little known company booked? Well none other than current ROH world champion Davey Richards! After missing out on seeing Davey last time when he was over here for Fight Club: Pro as I had to leave the show early I really should be attending this show and then I find out who his opponent is and it's none other than the man he took the title off, fellow American Wolf Eddie Edwards, I will talk more about that shortly. I'm not sure who else if anyone else with a name is coming in for the show but be sure enough, when I know, you'll know. Now back to Davey vs Eddie, I read a comment which I thought was great and that was do we really need to see those two face off against each other because we've had that match on the last but one ROH iPPV ( which if you haven't seen yet you NEED to) and on the old ROH TV show when it was on HDNet. As said by that person and someone who was at the FCP show on Sunday last week, these 2 big named Indy guys should be facing British guys to give them the rub, Davey did this when he was over last time, he wrestled 3 different guys from the British scene. I'd be interested to see what other people's thoughts on this are.

Picture credits to John Searle.

This weeks Indy Corner was the last in the pre-show on a Sunday because as of Wednesday October 12th The Indy Corner will have it's own show LIVE at 20:30 GMT over at http://totalwrestlingshow.com as myself and Steve Grieve will be bringing you all the indy news you need - The pre-show for that will start at 20:00. Please come and join us and you can interact with us and other fans of independent wrestling in the chat room

The Indy Scene, Can it be saved by Honor? by James Caine

Truthfully, I've never cared for the Indy Wrestling Scene. It's like watching a High School football game. To me the people who talk about the Indy wrestlers like they are so much better than WWE, or Impact Wrestling stars are idiots who probably support 'underground' music. To me, there is no such thing as 'Mainstream'. Mainstream is just a cop-out way to say that people have sold their talent for money. But isn't that what everyone wants to do? Nobody wants to work their ass off for free.
So we move forward to the point of Independent wrestling federations. What makes them so special that all those Smarks out there talk so big about them? The answer, absolutely nothing. The only difference between them and 'mainstream' wrestlers are a few zeros on their paychecks, well that and a few more ounces of drugs, but that's besides the point.
So what does Ring of Honor have to do with any of this? Recently Ring of Honor has been pushing for a major television time slot. Will this make Indy wrestling more popular? Will ROH become the Premier Indy Wrestling company? Well if Music and history have taught us anything, the answer to all these is a resounding no fucking way. In fact quite the contrary, Now you will have all those imbecilic smarks out there who used to cheer and promote ROH as the best Wrestling company in the world, calling ROH a bunch of sellouts, mainstream losers, and the like.
Why do people do that? Most people don't know the answer as to why people turn on something they once cheered, (Like John Cena and Hulk Hogan), but I do. The reason people turn so easily, is related to a book I once read. That book was called the 'Wizards First Rule', within the book is (Obviously) the Wizards first rule which states quite clearly, "People Are Stupid. People can be made to believe any lie because they want to believe it is true, or because they are afraid that it is true."
So what in the name of JR's great barbeque sauce does a fantasy book have to do with Independent Wrestling? People are stupid and will believe that ROH is now 'mainstream' because it has a primetime television slot. So just because your Independent wrestling company is on Network television and your roster of once awesome stars receives a bigger paycheck... the world now hates you for selling out, and everyone on that roster now magically sucks overnight.
In closing, nothing can save Independent Wrestling because it doesn't need to be saved. People just need to grow up, grow out, and grow some fucking brains. There is no difference between the mainstream wrestling and the independent wrestling circuits.