Ricky Steamboat enters to face “Macho Man” Randy Savage at WrestleMania III in “30 Years of WrestleMania” mode
2K Games has posted the entire list of 45 matches in the new “30 Years of WrestleMania” mode for WWE 2K14 on their website. The full list is below, but be sure to check out the listing on 2K’s site for screenshots of each match!
This is day seven of WrestleMania week! We’ll conclude tomorrow afternoon with a review of WrestleMania XXVII and a special pre-game edition of BWF Radio, but for right now, we’re heading to Glendale, Arizona for a look back at WrestleMania XXVI. A bit of disclosure. I’m actually reviewing this immediately after hitting the “schedule” button on the WrestleMania 22 review that you saw on Tuesday. The main reason is because I’m borrowing this BluRay and I’m supposed to be bringing it back to my friend tomorrow morning, so this will probably be my last chance to cover this without having to get it some other way. Anyways, let’s go!
Day three of WrestleMania week, and we’re rolling on here at BoredWrestlingFan.com! Throughout this week I will relive the past 7 WrestleMania events, starting with WrestleManias XX (which was posted Sunday) and continuing through WrestleMania XXVII (which will be posted this coming Sunday). So we’re heading to the Allstate Arena in Chicago, Illinois, heading to the Big Time for WrestleMania 22!
I’m going to go on record and say that at the time of this writing, I have not watched the April 11, 2011 episode of WWE RAW. Every Monday night I try to avoid the temptation of reading about what happened on the WWE’s flagship show when I was commuting to work prior to being able to watch the show. Tonight I made the mistake of going on Twitter and seeing a ton of tweets regarding Adam “Edge” Copeland. When I called home, as I usually do when I get to work, my fiancee made it a point to tell me that Edge is retiring. No matter how hard I try, news about Edge does not slip past my RADAR, and with good reason – Edge is one of my favorite wrestlers of all time.
Edge had everything you could want in a professional wrestler. He had great mic skills, he was amazing to watch in the ring, and he managed to evolve along with the business he lived his life for over the past fourteen years. For all fourteen of those, I’ve been an Edgehead. How could you not be? He always had the coolest entrance in the business, whether it was coming in through the crowd at the beginning of his WWE career, rising up through a ring of fire with The Brood, or emerging through a cloud of smoke to the heavy metal laden sounds of Rob Zombie’s “Never Gonna Stop” or Alter Bridge’s “Metallingus.” And that’s just to get you pumped up for the spectacle you’d be about to witness.
Shawn Michaels – my absolute favorite wrestler of all time, for what it’s worth – defined the Ladder Match with Scott Hall. Edge, along with Christian, The Hardys, and The Dudleys, redefined it. Throw in some tables and chairs, and it becomes his match, the TLC Match. Edge innovated in Hardcore matches with Mick Foley at WrestleMania 22 and ECW One Night Stand 2, showing that he’d have been a huge star in the original ECW if he’d opted to ply his trade there. Edge defined the Money In The Bank Ladder Match, and earned the nickname “The Ultimate Opportunist,” and that’s just his resume in stipulation matches. He’s also, for what it’s worth, undefeated in Last Man Standing matches.
Even without weapons, Edge was a deadly foe in the ring. He could beat you any way he wanted to. Edgecution. Edgeucator. Edge-o-matic. And of course, his weapon of choice toward the end of his career, the Spear. A Ten-Time World Champion. That’s not something that just any bum off the streets can pull off – that’s an indication that you are one of the best in the world at this profession. To retire as Champion is unheard of – there goes Adam Copeland innovating this business again.
My hat goes off to Edge for knowing that his body cannot continue to take the abuse that he puts it through night in and night out on the road for the WWE. Thank you, Adam “Edge” Copeland, for entertaining me week in and week out for the last fourteen years. We’ll miss you!
A smark is defined according to Wikipedia as “a phrase coined by Internet wrestling fans to describe a fan who enjoys pro wrestling despite or because they know that it is scripted, as well as generally knowing the “ins-and-outs” of the company and knowing many things about the industry or wrestlers collected by sources and are posted online. “Smarks” are generally looked down on by wrestlers as well as other wrestling fans for supposed inability to suspend their disbelief. Smarks may also be criticized for believing they know more than they do in reality about the workings of the wrestling industry.”
First of all, my confession. I am a smark. I know wrestling is predetermined. I also have been a subscriber of www.pwinsider.com for well over 10 years. (Well, going back to their days at 1Wrestling) I’ve read books by Mick Foley, Terry Funk & Jerry Lawler. I know some insider terms but just what has leaked to the world via the Internet. I know some wrestlers’ real names, but that only comes from being a fan for a long time. Yes, I know that wrestling is predetermined. This may not be an exact quote, but I believe Lance Storm once said “Predetermined does not necessarily mean fake.” This should not be a newsflash for anybody. Yet I still go, and I still respect it for the art form that it can be. Contrary to popular belief, I do not live in mother’s basement. I have a beautiful wife and daughter.
Second of all, this part is for the smarks. Wrestling has given us a lot. Remember Kurt Angle-HBK at Wrestlemania 22? Stone Cold-Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13? Savage-Steamboat at Wrestlemania 3? What about “The Night the Line Was Crossed” in ECW? Eddie Guerrero-Rey Misterio Jr. at Halloween Havoc ’97? All the TLC matches? Sabu-Terry Funk in the barb wire match at Hard Wired? The cage match in TNA where Elix Skipper ran off the top of the cage? Or the first Ultimate X match? Or the Low Ki-Danielson-Daniels 3-way match at the first Ring of Honor show?
And those are just the matches. Think of the wrestlers. Eddie Guerrero, AJ Styles, Curt Hennig, Dean Malenko, Terry Funk, Ricky Steamboat, Edge, Christian, Pre-drug Jeff Hardy, Pre-Hostess Twinkies Matt Hardy, The Dudley Boys, Sabu, Taz, Tommy Dreamer, Sandman, 2 Cold Scorpio, Low Ki, Homicide, Paul London, Brian Kendrick, Samoa Joe, Nigel McGuiness, Doug Williams,Tyler Black, CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Kings of Wrestling, Beer Money, Motor City Machine Guns, Mike Awesome, Masato Tanaka, the nation of Japan.
And we’ve had our villains. Anybody with the last name of McMahon, WWE Creative, Kevin Dunn, Triple-H, Chyna, X-Pac, Billy Gunn, Test, Katie Vick, the Dusty finish, Eric Bischoff, the contents of Baby Doll’s envelope, the driver of the Hummer, Robocop, Hulk Hogan, David Arquette, the Great Khali (even though I still love him), John Cena, Mark Madden and our ultimate anti-Christ-Vince Russo.
These people here have given everything for us (except for maybe Mark Madden). We owe them everything. When you go to a local independent wrestling show, you should see it as an opportunity to give back. The Bible says “To whom much is given, much will be expected.” Remember, just because you go to a local indy show, you’re not going to see Flair-Steamboat every time. What you are going to watch are two guys who are getting to do the thing they love before a group of people. You’ll see some good matches, and you might see some “works-in-progress” (my nice way of saying sucky matches). Some of you sit there with your arms crossed waiting for somebody to do Teddy Hart moonsaults off the top of the building onto shards of glass in a vat of alcohol. (I’m sure we’d all like to see Teddy Hart do that, btw.)
When you go a wrestling show, you need to get into it. You know who the faces and the heels are. Cheer them. Boo them. (An exception is the “Heel Section.” Those guys crack me up, and they get the fans more into it.) Heckle the heels. When the referee asks you if the guy cheated, tell them. Buy a t-shirt. Get your polaroid taken at the intermission. This is your chance to go out and stimulate the economy.
You can still be a “smart” fan. I tried the El Generico “Ole!” chant for my local luchador. The fans never joined me. I’ll also heckle my local wrestlers. Like, Local Wrestler #1 says they don’t have a match tonight. I’ll cheer. Don’t get in the way of the match. It’s disrespectful and not funny. Don’t call a wrestler by their real name. I know some outside of my local promotion, and when I see them live at the show, I always repeat to myself “His name is [name]. His name is [name].”
Let’s face it. Some of you are jealous. Some of you would love to step in the ring, but either don’t have the size or the courage. You’ll never be happy with what goes on in the ring because you wish you could be in it. You think you’re the cat’s whacker because you know who Kenta Kobashi is. There were a group of fans at a local indy that got in the way of the show because they wanted a job. If you truly love wrestling, you want to make it succeed. Your attitude creates whether you will enjoy it or not.
I, of course, wanted to be involved in the wrestling industry. I went so far as to call a few schools about information about being things like a referee/manager. But I had a lot of different roads to travel, and as much as I wish wrestling was on my road, it wasn’t. But I still like to help in the business. My way of doing that now is to pay, be an unofficial crowd plant and then to give my opinion afterwards.
It doesn’t mean you can’t have an opinion. A lot of you have a lot of experience as wrestling fans. You know what you enjoy and what you don’t. Just remember that the wrestlers are people with feelings and emotions and families. I write a review for my local promotion. While I was terrified at first, they seemed to appreciate it. I also don’t rip them a new one because they don’t do a 1260 splash off a 3rd story building onto a bed of thumbtacks. I just go into it knowing that I’m not a wrestler, and I just have one opinion.
We have been given so much, and it’s time we give back.
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This article is part 4 of a series on WWE Pay Per View events. See also: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. At the time of this writing, the event in question is still titled WWE One Night Stand, though rumor has it that the name will change this year to WWE Extreme Rules.
Welcome back to my series on WWE Pay Per Views and why there are way too damned many of them. This is especially true in the month of June, where there are two of them – WWE One Night Stand and WWE Night of Champions. This week, I take a look at One Night Stand.
I present my arguments against WWE One Night Stand, after the jump! (more…)