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Cook’s Wrestlers To Be Thankful For 2019 (10-6)

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Steve Cook has amassed a list of 10 wrestlers to be thankful for. Here are #6-10!

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Shazza McKenzie

Just in time for Thanksgiving, Steve Cook has amassed a list of 10 wrestlers to be thankful for. Here are #6-10!

There’s no doubt that wrestling fans have a lot to be thankful for in 2019.

WWE has ruled the roost for so long and it’s tough to deny it. 2019 seems to be the year that opposite forces have made a stand. I don’t want to offend the WWE fanboys, so I will point out that WWE still has so many more viewers through USA, Fox & the WWE Network. Your company is still doing well, and we appreciate them for that. There are also other companies doing well, which is also good for the business no matter how much Phil O’Dowd wants to tell you otherwise.

There is a lot to be thankful for this year for wrestling fans. That’s why I’ve increased it to two columns. I’ve found so many wrestlers to be thankful for that we need two parts. Honestly, I could probably spread it to three or four, but I need to get all this done before the holiday. Here are some of the wrestlers I’ve been thankful for here in 2019.

10. The Rock N’ Roll Express

If you’re seriously going to talk about the greatest tag team of all time and you don’t have the RnRs in the conversation, you’re out of your mind. Go back to the 1980s when they were at their peak, and Ricky Morton was the absolute best at getting a crowd worked up while he was getting beat up, and ready for that tag to Robert Gibson. They kept it going in the 1990s in Smoky Mountain Wrestling. They made some appearances here and there and I kind of figured that would be it. But all of a sudden in 2019, here come Ricky & Robert again! They out here doing things in the NWA & AEW, which is perfect because NWA Powerrr gets a lot of their viewers on YouTube from people also watching AEW Dark.

It’s called cross-promotion. Some people get it and some people don’t. If you’re the folks behind the NWA and seeing how AEW fans are helping your views, you’re practically orgasmic and are all about Ricky & Robert going to AEW shows and doing some spots and getting over. You might not be happy about Jim Cornette burying all the people that might actually like AEW on his podcasts. You might be looking for an excuse to let him go, and you might let yourself get exhausted instead of editing his racist rants out of a show. I don’t know, I just write on the Internet. All I know for sure is that Ricky & Robert have been feuding with that Cornette guy for ages and they won’t get affected by his nonsense. And I’m thankful for that.

9. Darby Allin

I first saw Darby on Vice’s series “The Wrestlers” and he seemed like a really interesting guy. He was shown discussing a match with Ethan Page, and Page was all like “The people have been hyped up so much at this point that we can do less” and Allin wasn’t having any of it. He was going completely insane and Page was probably tearing his hair out as a result. But I appreciate a man that’s willing to lay it all out on the line in every match.

Allin isn’t a big guy, but the people don’t care about that. AEW fans have already figured out that the guy is willing to go further than most, and they appreciate him for it. Wrestlers often tease spots that seem completely insane with no intention of doing them. If Darby Allin’s involved, it just might happen. He might not have a long career, but let’s be thankful for it while it lasts.

8. Shazza McKenzie

Twitter has been imploring All Elite Wrestling to #SignShazza for the past couple of weeks now, and I certainly concur with that sentiment. Any friend of Massive Q’s is a friend of 411mania.com-affiliated people like myself. Her desire for the Hot 100 to come back made me feel really good, as sometimes I’m not sure whether or not people remember anything that I’ve written over the past fifteen years. It’s good to know that somebody’s noticed.

Especially when they look like Shazza. Come on now, you know what I’m saying? Gotta be thankful for that.

7. Nick Aldis

One of the highlights of NWA Powerrr has been their champion acting like a classic NWA Champion. Aldis has been perfect in the role. He puts over all of his competition without argument, he puts the brand over without argument. He wears different suits on every show even though it was like 15 shows in two days. The man pays attention to detail.

I’ve been impressed. I wasn’t impressed with Aldis during his TNA run, and wasn’t sold on him when the NWA started building around him. As it turns out, that was the right decision. They’ve made some other bad decisions that took awhile to correct, but their main decision being to build around Nick Aldis wasn’t bad.

6. The Blanchard Family

What can one say about Tessa Blanchard at this point that hasn’t already been said? She’s been the backbone of Impact Wrestling & Women Of Wrestling during this year, doing completely different things in each promotion and still managing to be the highlight of each show. Talk about a performer having range, that’s Tessa Blanchard. WWE completely missed the boat on her, and that’s to the benefit of us that watch other wrestling shows too.

Then there’s Tully, who for way too long was one of the forgotten Horsemen. Chris Hyatte wrote an incredible column about remembering Tully Blanchard that was lost to the Internet. Tully was the perfect heel in the 1980s, then disappeared. He’s back now in AEW, and quite honestly he needs more people to manage along with Shawn Spears. The man needs to build a stable. Maybe at some point his daughter can be part of it. Tully has always been perfect at being hated, and that’s his best quality.

Numbers 5-1 coming soon!

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Opinion

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS: WWE Bash In Berlin Immediate Reactions

Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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Join DJ and Tunney for their immediate reactions to WWE Bash in Berlin. For the latest, greatest and up to datest, ALWAYS #UseYourHead and visit THECHAIRSHOT.COM

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prowrestlingtees.com/TheChairshot – TONS of Great designs…MAKES A GREAT GIFT!

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Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

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Opinion

AJ’s Top 3 Favorite SummerSlams

AJ is back with his annual opinion article, and this time the SummerSlam buzz got him wondering about his personal Top 3.

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It’s been a while since I have done any form of writing and SummerSlam is this Saturday. Of all the SummerSlams I’ve seen over the years; which ones are my favorites? While it’s not a revolutionary idea, I figured everyone loves to debate favorites of well, anything. Don’t worry though because this isn’t just going to be pure recency bias. I’ve watched the majority of them so with the ones I put on the list, it hit me more in some way shape or form whether it was story, a really good match or it just felt like a solid event.

At least this proves WWE is trending in a good direction for me, when it gets the ol’ brain juices flowing just because a show is around the corner!

#3: 2022 (Ol’ Brock Lesnar Has A Farm)

r/Wrasslin - when did Brock lesner begin his farmer and cowboy gimmick and when did he stop doing the gimmick ? is it worth watching I believe it was 2021 but not sure when he stopped the gimmick
Starting off the show, we get Bianca looking for a rematch against Becky from last years SummerSlam and it was better than the 21 second affair that everyone claims was a squash. This time Bianca holds her own and beats the Man in a fairly decent match, good way to get the event started. Next up is the heat seeking missile, Logan Paul against the former heat seeking missile because, well he wasn’t cut out for it and wasn’t a guy in everyone’s eyes, The Miz. After they had their blow off at Mania with Logan coming out on top which… isn’t awful, I just don’t like Logan Paul because he has that dude bro aura and swagger to make him more hateable than any other person on the card. Which I suppose is his gimmick…so…kudos?

First Championship match is for the US Championship and it’s as expected that in Theory, he should never beat someone to the caliber of Bobby Lashley which is no surprise. Dominik and Rey still back when Dom wanted the good fight against the Judgement Day before joining them later. The former Colts players, which they hammered it dahn in this match up showed that the canal swimming, trash talkin’, podcastin’, current RAW Color Commentatin’ goofball we all love, Pat McAfee came out on top again Bum Ass Corbin.

Usos putting the Street Profits on lockdown in the penitentiary since I believe this was peak Bloodline with the belt collecting and running all of WWE. Liv beat Ronda Rousey which isn’t astonishing but it’s not something people had on their bingo cards for anything with WWE so it was a nice little shock factor. The most memorable part of the night is obviously the Main Event, Lesnar brings the tractor, Roman catching the Microphone and Brock stands on top of the vehicle. Damn good match that showed off what they do in the ring since Roman caught his stride as the main bad guy and Brock… liked people after all of this? That is still a weird statement in my head. Brock being a good guy people person. If Liv wasn’t on bingo cards for wrestling, that is not on bingo cards in any aspect of life really.

That is more of the event that had solid matches and story going for it. No weird double count out, multiple people involved, 5 tag matches on the card. Things made sense and weren’t convoluted, had shocking moments that were great to see like Liv actually getting a title defense and there were the results we all expected at the time like Theory losing in 4 minutes to Bobby Lashley.

#2: 2009 (Are You Ready for The Return?)

10 Greatest Summerslam Entrances in WWE History - GameSpot
This event wasn’t that strong. It was strong with the star power involved in 2009 with guys like Rey Mysterio as Intercontinental Champion, Orton and Cena for the WWE Championship as it was becoming as stale as month old chips and CM Punk was facing Jeff Hardy before he ultimately returned to TNA at the beginning of 2010 after this PPV. For me, it’s not so much of the show itself, it was more of the memories because the Balai as our friends Chris Platt and Rey Cash like to call my brother and I, we were just coming back into wrestling and we were TNA Fans. We didn’t watch WWE that much really, it was just what came on after another channel had old ROH shows before they moved to three hours and swallowed the 8pm Eastern Slot. No, the reason why this has so many memories for me is three main reasons. First, Orton and Cena. They have had their rivalry since the beginning it seems, being each others foils like Hogan and Piper before them and there had to be a stipulation where if Randy was Counted Out or DQ’d, he’d lose the championship regardless. This was prime Viper Randy and the obvious joke we had of Super Cena where he very rarely lost, unless it was SummerSlam surprisingly enough.

Number two reason was CM Punk and Jeff Hardy. Hardys known for the Ladder and TLC matches in the past and this being the penultimate match for this feud and it was a banger of a match. If you didn’t know Punk before, it was a great introduction to his wrestling. I used to like Punk a lot because of this match because he could talk, wrestle… and not insanely personal with things in wrestling. In all seriousness, this was a great match. Ultimate risks, high reward for Punk grabbing the World Heavyweight Championship and he was given his next feud because of the final boss of SmackDown at that time. Thanks, Teddy Long.

The main and final reason though why this match gave me the memories flowing back is more of the fact that one of my closest and longest termed friends of 23 years, also loves wrestling. Back when we were younger, he’d do MoCap videos on YouTube with his figures. We’d have friends come over for parties at his house and we’d do the one thing WWE always told us not to do and that was try it at home. He was always stronger than me, I was always more charismatic. He had the power aspect and did things with brute force, I could talk my way out of trouble with parents if we did something wrong. There was always one thing that our respective mother’s always called us though… it’s on the tip of my tongue… oh right, ‘Degenerates’.

As soon as we were called that, we kind of parodied the DX line. I was limber enough to do the HBK pose and do a Superkick before it became the new DDT and he would just Spinebuster people and knew how to do the water spit. So what do you think was the main reason we even ordered this PPV for his 13th Birthday? I think the two guys we were pretending to be were set to return on a tank and toss out some glow sticks. The return of DX, Shawn Michaels coming back after Mania with Triple H to deal with the Legacy problem was an amazing return for them and made everything so much fun.

So we have the solid card and this one has a personal story… what’s my number one SummerSlam? Is it personal? Well yes but not going into that. Is it a good card? To me, it was a phenomenal card! Is it memorable? Seeing how wrestling fans still mention at least three matches to this day.

#1: 2005 (Octopus in the Washer, Lover’s Quarrel and Where the F%#$ is Vickie?)

Vickie Guerrero on Rey vs. Dominik Mysterio: 'I wish I was part of it' -  Cageside Seats
Quite possibly some of the best matches I’ve seen and one that was just the most hilarious moments of overselling in wrestling history, I know why I love this SummerSlam but it’s also a really good card at the same time. Redacted beats Orlando Jordan in 25 seconds for the US Title and they made jokes about it like, he can make a coffee faster than he beat Orlando and stuff like that, it’s pretty funny. Angle getting sick of Eugene’s antics for his Gold Medal was also a great bit they had play up, the Year long feud of Randy Orton and Undertaker was still going on where Orton comes out on top this time around to get the win back from Mania, Jericho returning for the match with Cena in a whole promotional thing for each other’s groups, Fozzy for Jericho and the Chain Gang doing Bad, Bad Man for Cena leading up to a match for the WWE Championship. JBL won a 20 man battle royal on SmackDown to win the Championship…… Opportunity to face the newest member of SmackDown, Batista but the three main matches that a lot of people talk about to this day; Edge vs Matt Hardy, Rey vs Eddie for Dominik and Hogan vs HBK in the Main Event.

I have reasons to enjoy the Hardy/Edge match but it looked like a real fight, it really made us believe that Matt Hardy was going to kill Edge because real names were dropped during this tirade from Hardy. It wasn’t Edge and Lita, it was Adam and Amy. Matt was so dead set on beating the hell out of Edge that they made a situation into gold and it was a great moment for this match to happen, I believe it was also an Unsanctioned Match too which added the intensity until matt got concussed and knocked senseless that it looked like he couldn’t fight for anything but the build up was what made it seem like a marque match. It made it feel real, it made it feel awesome and it made it feel personal.

Eddie kept tormenting Rey Mysterio about Dominik not being Rey’s but Eddie’s for the summer. That’s all you heard from Eddie being the weasel he was is hanging out with Dominik, making the world believe it’s his son and what not (Let’s not do a fast forward to today where he has the mullet, mustache and everything like Eddie) but they settle this in a Ladder Match where the top of it is a document for the custody of Dominik and my god, this match is better than it should have been. I expect nothing else from Eddie because the man hated having a bad match, Dom got involved and stopped Eddie, Vickie was late and stopped Eddie. The whole match was good it was just very weird with the premise but was a great match. I wonder if Rey regrets his decision to win the match now…

Octopus in a Washing Machine… those five words have resonated with Shawn Michaels’ performance in this match, forever. It was supposed to be an amazing match up between Hogan and Michaels, Icon vs Icon it said and suddenly Hogan’s back gives out, can’t do a trilogy of matches so we can only do the one and then pull out of everything after. This match was set up to be a classic and instead turned into the most unbelievable sell fest ever. A Hogan big boot caused Shawn to tumble 3 or 4 times, getting crotched on the ropes had HBK bouncing higher than he should have, being tossed out of the ring made it look like Shawn never broke his back in 1998 from how much he flopped and flipped around like crazy. It’s bad… or maybe even good that a lot of current wrestlers watched this match that went, “I can sell like that, I want to be a wrestler” and did. So good or bad, I don’t know but for some reason this PPV has always had a place in my heart for how memorable it was.

Those are my top three SummerSlams so far but who knows, 2024 has potential to maybe bump something or at least get me to consider a shift. Should be fun to see how the show plays out! What are some of your favorite SummerSlams?

About Chairshot Radio Network

Launched in 2017, the Chairshot Radio Network presents you with the best in sports, entertainment, and sports entertainment. Wrestling and wrestling crossover podcasts + the most interesting content + the most engaging hosts = the most entertaining podcasts you’ll find!

 MONDAY - Bandwagon Nerds (entertainment & popular culture)

TUESDAY - Musical Chairs (music) / Hockey Talk (NHL)

WEDNESDAY - The Greg DeMarco Show (wrestling) 

THURSDAY - Keeping the news ridiculous... The Oddity / Chairshot NFL (NFL)

FRIDAY - DWI Podcast (Drunk Wrestling Intellect)

SATURDAY - The Mindless Wrestling Podcast

SUNDAY - The Front and Center Sports Podcast 

CHAIRSHOT RADIO NETWORK PODCAST SPECIALS

Attitude Of Aggression Podcast & The Big Five Project (chronologically exploring WWE's PPV/PLE history)

TheChairshot.com PRESENTS...IMMEDIATE POST WWE PLE REACTIONS w/ DJ(Mindless), Tunney(DWI) & Friends

Patrick O'Dowd's 5X5

Classic POD is WAR


Chairshot Radio Network Your home for the hardest hitting podcasts... Sports, Entertainment and Sports Entertainment!

All Shows On Demand


Powered by RedCircle


Let us know what you think on social media @ChairshotMedia and always remember to use the hashtag #UseYourHead!
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