DAMN!

Hello all

As I watched wrestling this week, I was pleasantly surprised at what I saw on Raw. I have to say it was a very good episode. It reminded me of the glory days of wrestling (you know, back in the days of the Monday Night Wars, when you would watch one show the entire way through. You would not turn away). I watched the entire time, and could not turn away, it was that riveting.

Anyway, as I watched wresting, I saw that the next person to be elected into the WWE Hall of Fame was Ron Simmons. Simmons is one of the most influential men in wrestling history. Why, you ask? Simmons was the 1st black man to ever win the World Heavyweight Championship, for a major company. When I saw this, I thought to myself that I should write a blog about him. But I thought that I already wrote one about him. But I luckily for all of us, I had not.

Ron Simmons was born in Perry Ga. Simmons was a football player growing up. He attended Warner Robbins high school, where he played tight end and linebacker. After high school, Simmons went to Florida State University. At FSU, Simmons was an all-American. He was one of the greatest college football players of his era; he led the team to straight trips to the Orange Bowl. Simmons later went on to be the 1st FSU player to have his jersey number retired. After college, Simmons went on to play pro football for a few years. Then when he was done with football, he took up the sport of professional wrestling.

Simmons joined WCW, and became a part of a tag team with Butch Reed, called “Doom”. When Doom 1st started out they wore dark black masks. So you could not see their faces, you just saw these 2 big dudes, who at the time, were managed by a very tiny lady named, Woman. Having achieved minimal success with Woman, and after losing a match to the Steiner Brothers, where they had to lose their masks, they decided to go a different route as far as management. They hired Theodore R. Long as their manager.

Under new management and with a new look, Doom set their sights on becoming the best tag team in the world. They challenged the Steiner Brothers for the Tag Team titles and won them in May of 1990. They would go on to have a great nine month title reign, defeating some of the biggest teams of that time in WCW. They defeated the likes of the Steiner Brothers, Rock and Roll Express, and the Four Horsemen. Early in 1991 Doom lost their World Tag Titles, and Reed turned on Simmons which made Simmons a singles competitor. Simmons would defeat Reed, and begin his singles career.

After the feud with Reed, Simmons would have good matches with some of the other up and coming guys in WCW at that time. He would wrestle and defeat Hall and Nash, as their former personas, the Diamond Stud, and Oz. Then at Halloween Havoc 1991, he challenged the WCW World Heavyweight Champion Lex Luger, though he was not successful. After that Simmons went back down the ladder in WCW as far as the world title race.

Then in 1992 Simmons fortune would change. The WCW world champion at this time was Big Van Vader. Vader had been involved with a long battle with Sting over that title. They would battle most of 1992, and 1993 for the title. One night in August, Vader had a title defense against Sting, but Sting could not wrestle that night, so there was a raffle held to see who would face Vader for the title, Simmons won the raffle. Then later that night Ron Simmons powerslamed Vader, and pinned him to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.

Simmons held the title for five months. He defeated some of the guys who may not have been big names at that time, but would go on to become the bigger names in the business, like Rick Rude, and Mick Foley(Cactus Jack). In December of 92, Simmons would lose that would title back to Vader. Though he was a very good and fighting champion, Simmons was never a major player in the World title picture again.

In 1994 Simmons left WCW. He went to ECW, where he spent a year. But again he was not a major player. So in 1996 he went to WWE. In his beginning in the WWE, he was known as Faarooq. In WWE, Faarooq formed a faction called the “Nation of Domination”. The Nation was a group that started the careers of most of the members of the group. The main group members have all gone on and done great things after they left the group, including the 2 guys who went on to become world champions, The Rock, and Mark Henry. After being kicked out of the group, Faarooq went on to team with another future champion, JBL (simply known as Bradshaw at the time), to become a team known then as the Acolytes, later known as the APA. With Bradshaw, Faarooq would go on to win the World tag team titles, on 3 different occasions. That group would stay together for years, until they were broken up during the Brand Extension when the Raw and SmackDown rosters became exclusive.

Ron Simmons is one of the most influential men in this business. Think about it. Even now in 2012, there have only been 5 black world champions. He is not the most electrifying man in sports entertainment, he is not a 5 (I guess now, 6 time world champ), he is not the world’s strongest man, and he is not a rapper, but someone had to be the 1st. Someone had to be the one to show the world that someone other than Sting, Vader, Flair, Hogan, Race, Funk, and anyone else who was on top at the time could be champion. That they could look outside of the box at that time, and show that the world was ready for a little bit of color, in the world title.

He's the man called Sting!

Hello all

As I was watching wrestling this week, I was trying not to write about the main company. Though I saw some very intriguing things happening this week. I feel like I always write about them, and I do not want to make this my personal blog to them. This is about pro wrestling, all of it (at least everything I see on TV), so I would love to talk about something more than them.

Anyway, as I was watching TNA, I saw someone who has been in wrestling for years. Someone who is a living legend. Someone who I don’t think gets his due as far as what he has done for this business that we all love so much. He may be the biggest star in the modern era (the era of wrestling with a few big companies, and not a number of small territories) to have never worked in WWE, and still be a big star. They call him the icon in TNA; yes I am talking about Sting.

Sting started wrestling in 1985 in the Continental Wrestling Association. He was in a tag team with the Ultimate Warrior. They were not in that promotion for long, until they moved to the Universal Wrestling Federation. They wrestled under the tag team name the “Blade Runners”. Soon after they got there the Warrior left to go to the WWE, leaving Sting alone in UWF. Sting did find another tag team partner, and would win the UWF tag team titles. In 1987, the UWF was in the process of being bought out by the NWA. So Sting was moving to the big stage of Jim Crockett Promotions, later known as WCW.

In WCW (I know it was still the NWA at the time, but since it is the one company Sting was with the most, I didn’t see a reason not to just do it that way) Sting became a big star right away. At the very first “Clash of the Champions” (the Clash was pretty much a Pay per View style of show that came on once a month on TBS), Sting was in the main event for the World Heavyweight Championship against Ric Flair. Though Sting did not win the match, it ended in a 45 minute draw(which was just what Flair did back then; he was the king of the time limit draw), Sting had earned the respect of the fans and more importantly the other wrestlers, including Flair.

In 1989 Sting tasted his 1st piece of championship gold. He defeated Mike Rotunda (IRS) in March of that year to win the World TV title. He had a pretty decent run with the title, before losing it to the Great Muta. Later that same year Sting would come to the aid of his former rival, Ric Flair. The 2 men formed a tag team to fight Terry Funk and Muta at Halloween Havoc ’89. After they were successful at that event, Sting was officially asked to join the 4 horsemen.

In Starrcade of ’89 there was an Iron Man tournament held. In the finals of that tournament Sting defeated Flair, making him the #1 contender. At the “Clash? In Feb of 1990, Sting was asked by the horsemen to give up his shot at the title. Sting refused, and was beat up by, and kicked out of the horsemen’s faction. Sting suffered a knee injury during (or shortly after) this attack, and was forced to sit out while his friend Lex Luger challenged Flair for the World title. At the next 2 pay per views, Flair and Luger were in the main event, and at the end of both, Flair was still the champ.

After Sting was finally healed from his knee injury, he came back and had his match verse Flair, and at the “Great American Bash” ’90 Sting pinned Flair to win his 1st World Heavyweight Title. His 1st title reign lasted about 6 months, with Sting defending his title verse any and all comers. But in Jan. of ’91, he lost the title to Flair in their return match. In ‘91 Sting went on to win the US title and the 1st ever “Battlebowl”. Sting would go on to win the World title again, and he would enter into a feud with one of his biggest competitors, Big Van Vader.

Vader and Sting would go back and forth with the World Title for much of 1993. Sting lost the title to Vader in July after months of successful defenses. In a European tour, Sting defeated Vade for the title in London, only to lose it back to Vader 6 days later in Dublin. At this point Ric Flair had returned to WCW, and he and Sting renewed their rivalry. They would fight for the world title with Sting just coming up short. At this time, Hulk Hogan had joined WCW, with the Macho Man soon to come. So for the next 2 years Sting was pretty much being over looked for all of the new influx of talent. Also this was the beginning of WCW Monday Nitro. Then Kevin Nash and Scott Hall joined the company, and with the help of Hogan formed the NWO. As the NWO got bigger and more and more wrestlers were jumping ship from WCW to join NWO. At this time Luger, Flair, Arn Anderson and a number of WCW guys were wondering where Sting’s loyalty lied. This upset Sting so much that he left the WCW and did not wrestler for more than a year.

As the NWO was running wild in the WCW, Sting would appear in the rafters at WCW event. He had a new persona. He did not have the blond spiked haired and multi colored face paint. He was dressed like the lead character in the movie “The Crow”. He let his hair grow really long, and he stopped dying it, and he painted his face white and black (similar to the NWO). He would not say anything, and he would not wrestle. Sting would not be in the ring again until December of 1997 at Starrcade. Sting would defeat Hogan, and win the WCW title, a big victory for WCW.

In the 4 remaining years of WCW, Sting would go on to win the world title 3 more times. Then after WCW closed Sting would wrestle for the World Wrestling All-Stars for a little while, even winning their world title, before that company went out of business. Finally in 2003 Sting Joined TNA. It took Sting a long time to work his way up the ranks in TNA. He spent most of his first few years feuding with Jeff Jarrett, and trying to find his way in the company, until in 2006 when he captured the TNA title. Since then he has been a fixture atop the TNA ladder, winning their title 4 other times, as recently as July of 2011. Sting’s character now is the boss of the everyday operations of TNA.

Sting is one of the biggest stars to ever wrestle. He is a man who has been at the top of the world of pro wrestling for the last 23 years, minus the year he spent becoming the crow. Not bad for a man in his 50s. I know there are plenty of guys who would say this, but Sting has been a big influence on all of us fans who grew up in the 80s, watched in the beginning of the 90s, and became addicts during the “Monday Night Wars”. Although I would love to see what his career would be like (and how famous he would be) if he had ever gone to the WWE. Vince McMahon has a way of making stars (i.e.: Steve Austin, Mick Foley), and keeping stars shining bright (i.e.: Ric Flair), but Sting has made it his way, and there is nothing bad about that.

Rumble Review

Hello all

Today I am going to do something a little different. I am going to do a Rumble Review. This was requested by one of our loyal followers. He asked for a review of the events of last week’s rumble, which will be leading us into the “Elimination Chamber” Pay per View, and of course the “Grand Daddy of them all” WrestleMania.

Some important things that we need to know about the events from last week. Daniel Bryan is still the World Heavyweight Champion. This is big news because, I am going to be honest with you, I have no idea why he is still champion. Sometimes the WWE puts a title on someone, they realize immediately that they made a mistake by putting the belt on him, and they take the belt off of him. But Bryan has kept the belt for two months. I don’t see what they have to prove by keeping the belt on him any longer. But I also do not see them putting the belt on anyone else. The people in the match are the same guys who have been on top of SmackDown for the last year and two men who he just survived a cage match with. If the Big Show and Mark Henry could not beat him in a cage match, why do I think they can beat him in the Chamber? So I say all of that to say that I believe that Bryan will be the World Heavyweight Champion going into Mania.

Next was the WWE Championship. CM Punk successfully defended the title vs. Dolph Ziggler. Now, I think Ziggler is the future of this business, and I thought this would be a perfect opportunity for them to put the title on him and start his career as a champion. But Punk is still pretty hot because of the things he said and the WWE fans will be in love with him for a long time because of that. And so going into the Chamber PPV, Punk is the favorite to retain his title. Again just like the SmackDown match, the RAW one will contain all of the guys who have been on top of Raw for the past year, except John Cena. They have Cena involved in a feud with Kane, and they won’t put him in the Chamber because of that. But I think that with all of the same guys in the Raw main event, you will see Punk walk out of the Chamber with the WWE title in tow.

This leads us to the winner of the Rumble. Shamus won the 30 man-over-the-top-rope Royal Rumble match. This is somewhat strange to me. Shamus has been doing a lot in the past year and a half. He has won the US title, the “King of the Ring”, and since being drafted to SmackDown, he has become one of the top guys on that show. But, the reason why it is weird to me is because Shamus is already a two time WWE champ. There is no reason to have him win the Rumble to get him to the main event at Mania, to get him over. Normally the Rumble winner is a guy who is finally going to get over with the fans, to get ready for the new World Champion i.e.: Batista ’05, Rey Mysterio ’06 or even Stone Cold ’98. Also it can be for guys who are just coming back from injury and need to be brought back into the minds of the WWE fans, i.e.: Edge ’10, Randy Orton ’09, John Cena ’08. But Shamus is already over with the fans. He could have won the World Championship, and been in the same spot as Daniel Bryan, and no one would have thought twice about it. Also he is not coming back from injury. Shamus has been working for more than a year straight. One last thing about this, I guess the thing that is bothering me the most is the fact that I can’t remember a great match that Shamus has had. As you all know, I watch a lot of WWE, and a lot of their old matches. Every match that I have seen with Shamus was good, but not great, and any time I have thought that he was in a great match, it was his opponent who I thought was great, not Shamus.

The Rumble this year is over, and now we are on our way to WrestleMania. I have thoughts about what I have seen going on after the Rumble. I could be wrong, but this is what I see happening. I bet you are wondering who I think Shamus will face at Mania? Well I think the Daniel Bryan is not much a champion. I think that will be the person everyone wants to see lose his title. So that is my prediction.