• Old School Midget Wrestler Would Have Celebrated His Birthday
Today would have been the 89th birthday of Old School Midget Wrestling Veteran Lord Littlebrook (Real name: Eric Henry Edward Tovey).
During his career, he worked for pretty much all big promotions in the United States, including the AWA, World Championship Wrestling & the World Wrestling Federation.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY & R.I.P.
January 3, 1929 – September 9, 2016
• Big Title Change Expected Before Royal Rumble 2018
As seen on this week’s episode of Raw, the undefeated Asuka defeated the Raw Women’s Champion Alexa Bliss in a non-title match via submission. Michael Cole then noted that Asuka might have earned herself a Raw Women’s Title match.
According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer, Asuka is expected to win the Raw Women’s Title before Royal Rumble 2018 and then Alexa would get her rematch at the PPV.
This would mean that Asuka won’t compete in the first ever Women’s Royal Rumble 2018 match. We’ll keep you updated regarding this.
• Taz Says Chris Jericho vs. Kenny Omega Feud Feels Old School, Says Announcers Should Act Dumb In Some Situations
During a recent edition of “The Taz Show” podcast, former ECW World Heavyweight Champion Taz had the following to say regarding the Chris Jericho – Kenny Omega feud:
“What happened here, you shut the lights in the building and then you put the tron on and everyone is looking at the tron. So no one is looking at the ring, no one is looking at Kenny. Focus is all on Jericho. So the lights come up and they go to a wide shot. So they have a hard camera, the hard camera is like a main camera that shoots, that’s on a tripod, that’s your main one camera.
Now I didn’t see the whole show that aired. So I can’t speak on everything else. I don’t normally watch New Japan to be honest. I worked for them, wrestled for them many years ago, several tours and trips but I have not watched the New Japan shows regularly.
Now this hard camera is facing the entrance way which faces the tron. So Kenny Omega obviously is facing the entrance way. He’s facing the tron. The lights come up and because Kenny is still looking at the tron, Kenny’s back is to the hard camera. There’s someone else’s back facing the hard camera.
So when they come up full, as we call it in a TV business, you see Kenny with his back to us and you see someone else’s back. I didn’t know who it was initially. Now, I knew because I read about the angle, but if I’m watching I’m trying to get sucked in into the show, I don’t know who it is.
I don’t know if he was directed this way or not, Kevin Kelly and the color commentators started screaming – “It’s Jericho. Oh my god it’s Jericho”. I can understand them getting hung up in the emotion there in the building. I just disagree with the way this was handled. I just don’t agree with it because I can’t see who it is.
Number one rule for announcers, at least what I was taught for many years by some pretty high-end guys, you gotta look at your monitor and what the monitor sees is what the fan at home sees or vice versa. So I don’t agree with them saying. You have to play dumb. You have to do the job until you can see him.
I know New Japan and Japanese wrestling companies are great at kayfabe and and not spoiling stuff, sometimes not letting the boys know or not letting people know who’s gonna be a surprise. Quite honestly with this bit here I don’t know what happened backstage, but it seemed to me that the announcers knew he was going to be there especially because the color commentator Callis got in the ring.
So they obviously knew I would think and I could hear the commentary that the announcers knew that Chris was gonna be there. It’s not hard to keep a secret and New Japan has been great at that in the past for many years.
That beat down was excellent and Chris’s intensity was off the chain. Kenny, his selling was awesome. Kenny got a lot of blood. And you know what? It felt so Old School. The whole angle that was in Japan and that felt great. That Old School feel was bad a$$ and Chris is the perfect guy to pull this off because he gets it.
He’s been to Japan so many times. He’s been in the industry for decades and he understands it. He knows the kind of heat and the feel you want for this angle. I tip my cap to New Japan for getting this angle done. This is a match that most are really gonna want to see. It’s gonna do really good numbers.
What I didn’t like about it was I didn’t like once Chris got out of the ring and security and all these guys got him out of the ring and Kenny was able to sell and he’s down. During the tail end of the beatdown you heard Kevin Kelly saying that “Don’t go in the ring. Don’t help him”, that type thing.
I’m like oh boy that means he’s gonna go in the ring and sure enough he did to check on Kenny and then Chris came back to the ring, got in the ring and beat up Don. In my professional opinion I don’t think that was needed.
I felt like it was anticlimatic. I don’t think it was needed. Don is not a star there. I think most of the people in the audience hardly knew who he was because they didn’t care.
While Chris was beating Kenny up and all that stuff, Kenny started to come back with a plethora of right hands, I believe it was punches and man the people started getting with Kenny. And Chris cut them off at the right time. Just as the people starting to come Chris cut them off. Boom! I just smiled watching it. That’s a tough art to know when to cut that babyface off. That’s a pro right there. Chris, good job my friend. That was done perfectly that I could tell you.
And then they did the thing later on where Jericho was in the conference and they were asking him about the attack or the match and Chris was just about to talk about it, well out of nowhere Kenny Omega flew in and just jumped on Jericho and started to beat him up behind the conference desk. It was great intensity by Kenny. It was really, really good stuff to see.
Chris got pi$$ed. He threw the table. It looked and felt real. And what really helped the press conference guys, it was zero commentating. There was no voiceovers. It was cold and dry and it felt real. I’ve been part of this type of stuff many years ago in Japan and the media doesn’t know it’s gonna happen which is awesome. I guarantee you they were kayfabed. I guarantee you.
The Japanese wrestling promotions no matter which one is that they are really good at that. So I think that they probably had no clue that was gonna happen.
I enjoyed the press conference deal. My only thing I would have done a little bit different just to nitpick a little bit. I think that Chris going back on the microphone after he got attacked by Kenny, Chris again showed real great intensity on microphone, he was pi$$ed off about what just happened, but I wouldn’t have done that.
I wouldn’t have had Chris go back on the mic. I would have kind of rather seen Chris do his promo on the mic and get intense to the media and then have Kenny attack him and then leave with the physicality or that Kenny got his redemption a little bit.”
