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I'm watching some old NXT on Hulu Plus. Whatever happened to Leo Kruger? He seemed to be a pretty decent brawler.
He's now portraying Adam Rose on the main roster.
My question is regarding Lance Storm. During his tenure w WWE, many people called him "boring", and still to this day I cannot get over the fact that Stone Cold would cut a promo like that and bury such an amazing athlete and wrestler. Why didn't they allow Lance Storm to be more in the WWE? His run in WCW w changing the U.S. Championship to the Canadian Title was fabulous, and his line of "if I could be serious for a minute" always brought out a chuckle. To be, he was a better athlete than Bret the Hitman Hart, and could have been a tremendous main event player had they let him be the ultimate Canadian antagonist as he was in WCW. Can you imagine feuds with him and Kurt Angle at the top with a lot of ring time?
I am with you on how great Storm was in the ring but unfortunately for him, he came in during a time there was a huge surge of new talents from WCW and ECW in WWE and during a time where WWE creative was also trying to right itself after Chris Kreski departed the company. I think it's obvious that he never really got his just due there and that if he was there today, WWE would be thrilled to have someone of his calibre in the ring.
That said, there are a lot of guys from that era that you can point to and wonder why WWE didn't do more with them because they were good workers like Taz, who walked in and was super over and they just completely killed off that momentum over time as well or a guy like Mike Awesome who was incredibly versatile for his size. They just had too many talents and not enough people fighting for them as creative changed over to a larger mix of writers, plus there were the usual political games of "these are WCW/ECW guys and they can't look good against WWE guys" that was going on in the locker room as well, forgetting that they were ALL WWE GUYS now.
That said, I do think Storm had a nice run and had good matches but I would agree he never had the chance to be a star like he did in ECW and WCW. That said, the other aspect you have to take in effect is that at that point in WWE, characters were still far more important than the in-ring wrestling was and Storm never really had a character beyond being this dry, clean-cut athlete. That worked in WCW and ECW but in WWE, they hope for something more "larger than life" that pops out as a colorful personality than Storm was ever truly comfortable with. That said, awesome worker.
The closer the date to TNA's tv contract with Spike TV looms, the more I think Spike TV wants nothing to do with TNA anymore. The consistently terrible creative direction and limited action in the ring has put the nail in TNA's coffin. I see the shows in Pennsylvania are improved and read the NYC shows are very well done. But, is it too little, too late for TNA on Spike TV?
It may be. Only Spike knows for sure and thus far, they aren't speaking to anyone about TNA's status come October when the current TV contracts are up. The longer this plays out, the scarier it looks on the surface for TNA but we have heard that the two sides are talking. Time will tell.
I feel like this Emma situation is way over blown. I used to be a loss prevention officer for Wal-mart a while back and when someome stole something under $25 they were given a warning and banned for from that store for a year yet emma gets arrested, mug shot and a big deal is made. Not saying that what she did wasn't wrong, but it comes off that because she is a WWE talent that she is getting a harsher penalty for something small. Do you agree?
I don't think Wal-Mart was going to call the police and have her arrested unless they had video evidence to back up their claims. If that footage does exist and eventually leaks, she will look really bad. That said, I do agree that WWE releasing her made them look bad as well considering how many talents in the last decade were arrested for DUIs in Florida and were never fired, but since they changed their mind, they take that heat off themselves. The bottom line is that Emma is going to have to really work if she wants the company to trust her and not just release her down the line when the story is forgotten. She's put a target on her back for anyone who isn't a fan of hers to use against her for a long, long time.
Where did ECW used to film all the old vignettes on the ECW TV show? I am watching the shows from 1993 and 1994 on the WWE Network and was curious because they don't look like staged backgrounds like WWE and WCW.
ECW filmed wherever they were - they had NO budget! In the time period you mention, ECW shot a lot of backstage vignettes at the ECW Arena back in the day. Public Enemy's vignettes were shot all over South Philly. The stuff in Tod Gordon's office was legitimately in Tod's office at Carver W. Reed, his business. They also filmed a ton of promos at the old TravelLodge in South Philly. They filmed Joey Styles' wrap-arounds in the basement of Producer Ron Buffone's parents' home, where Buffone maintained his production studio at the time. But, wherever they were, ECW filmed. It was very much guerrilla-filmaking. There was no budget and there were no sets. it was "what do we have to work with?" and then they worked with it. That DIY feel was part of the charm of the shows at the time.
Is New Jack really insane?
He's actually very intelligent, but if you want to ask him if he's insane, feel free to ask him yourself!
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