News

Wrestling News: Vince Wants MORE Cinematic Matches!

MORE cinematic matches to come?!

Published

4 years ago

April 24, 2020

Steven Mitchell

Vince McMahon wants MORE!

The Boneyard Match. The Firefly Fun House Match. #OneLastBeat. And in a few weeks, the combined Money in the Bank matches that will take place in Titan Towers. These are the “cinematic” matches WWE has produced in these stressful days of the COVID pandemic, the resulting stay-at-home measures, and the subsequent “Empty Arena Era” we find ourselves in. But these may not be the only ones the WWE produces. As reported on THE ProWrestlingSheet by Ryan Satin, and based on a WWE Q1 investors conference call, Vince McMahon is apparently planning for the WWE to continue its cinematic adventures.

The investor call Thursday, 4/23/2020, was about those first quarter earnings (which are apparently up, by the way), but it began with Mr. McMahon addressing the company’s standing during the pandemic. He touched upon WWE’s continued running of shows from the Performance Center, and confirmed there are plans to produce even more of the special cinematic matches. ProWrestlingSheet provides the full transcript of what Mr. McMahon said during this call.

“It’s interesting to look at what happened once we went to, in essence, our studio which is our Performance Center. There really wasn’t, especially on SmackDown, there really wasn’t that much difference in terms of where we were and in terms of where we are now. It’s a challenging environment, obviously. But nonetheless, you’ve got to take advantage of that challenging environment and somehow make it, obviously, as good as it can. But make it special. So we’ve done certain things we’re gonna do more of. For instance, getting out of that environment and doing, in essence, mini-movies. Like we did at WrestleMania. And many other personality profiles that we can do a whole lot better and will.”

While we have yet to see how this year’s Money in the Bank will go with its special “corporate ladder” match, many feel The Boneyard and Firefly Fun House hit it out of the park, and that even #OneLastBeat did great for NXT. Surely that level of attention to detail will be put into the MITB’s most unique match yet.

However, there is also concern that Vince McMahon will overdo these, as he often does with many things in the WWE. The post-Mania episode of WWE Backstage spoke to the fact that in order to make these cinematic matches feel special, they need to be rare. These matches need to be used sparingly and for the right stories. But as the transcription shows, Vince McMahon is speaking specifically to how they’ve taken advantage of this “challenging environment.” Once the threat of COVID has died down and the stay-at-home orders are lifted, it is likely Vince settles back into his old ways of just disappointing us with live weekly storytelling. Only time will tell, but feel free to tell us which side of this you are on. Is it great that another major storyline (or two) will have a powerful pre-taped payoff? Or are you skeptical of Vince’s handling of this future endeavor?

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

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AEW Coverage

Mitchell’s AEW Continental Classic Update! (11/27/23)

What a start to the tournament!

Published

5 months ago

November 27, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Did your picks win points?

The AEW Continental Classic is underway, with almost everyone competing. Check in here if you haven’t seen the winners and losers of week 1!

Here are your Gold League standings!

Jon Moxley: 1-0, 3 points
Swerve Strickland: 1-0, 3 points
Jay White: 1-0, 3 points
Rush: 0-1, 0 points
Mark Briscoe: 0-1, 0 points.
Jay Lethal: 0-1, 0 points

Here are your Blue League standings!

Brody King: 1-0, 3 points
Claudio Castagnoli: 1-0, 3 points
Daniel Garcia: 0-1, 0 points
Eddie Kingston: 0-1, 0 points
Bryan Danielson: Yet to Compete
Andrade El Idolo: Yet to Compete

My Thoughts:

Nothing too crazy, nothing too wild, this tournament only just got started. The only disappointing point is that they could not get Bryan “cleared to compete” Saturday night. Not sure how much of that is shoot given the bad eye, but this was kinda the problem of wanting him in the tournament over tons of other choices. Bryan wants to face Okada for WrestleKingdom 18, how is Bryan supposed to do that at his best if he’s also gonna be in a round robin, doing five top level matches in about as many weeks? And it takes away from Andrade being able to do something. Also a little surprised we didn’t even hear from Andrade on Saturday.

Now as we heard on Saturday, round two’s matches are set. Gold League will see Mark Briscoe VS Rush, White VS Swerve, and of course, Moxley VS Lethal. Nice variety there, a couple 0-1 guys facing off, as well as two 1-0 guys, and then 1-0 VS 0-1. No offense to Lethal, but he feels like an 0-2 going up against Moxley. Hard to call the other ones but that’s the fun of it. Meanwhile, Blue League sees Brody VS Claudio in a showdown to be 2-0, then Bryan and Andrade finally jump in, Bryan against Eddie and Andrade against Garcia. Sadly, feels like Eddie and Garcia are going 0-2, no way Tony Khan is booking Bryan and Andrade to lose their first shots.

In fact, that could be half the reason they did wait on those two, that’s almost too good for just a first round opener. But I still would’ve done it, same as NJPW does stuff like that for round robins, which this is all modeled after anyway.

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

AEW Coverage

AEW announces Continental Classic entrants

The C2 is set!

Published

6 months ago

November 22, 2023

Steven Mitchell

Tony Khan Reveals the Blue and Gold “Leagues!”

Originally livestreamed, Tony Khan and Tony Schiavone officially announced the twelve total entrants and divided them into the two round robin blocks known as the “Blue League” and “Gold League.” If you don’t feel like sifting through the almost 30 minute video, the groups are:

Blue League

Bryan Danielson
Andrade El Idolo
Brody King
Claudio Castagnoli
Daniel Garcia
Eddie Kingston

Gold League

Jon Moxley
Swerve Strickland
Rush
Mark Briscoe
Jay Lethal
Jay White

Tony Khan also explains the rules for the Continental Classic:

Every match has a 20 minute time limit
The winner of each match earns 3 points, losers earn 0, 1 point for a draw
EVERYONE ELSE is banned from ringside for true 1v1 action

Eddie Kingston also joined the selection special as his “life’s work” is on the line in this tournament, both the ROH World Championship and NJPW Strong Openweight Championship on the line as part of the modern day North American Triple Crown Eddie, Tony Khan, AEW, ROH and NJPW are looking to create together. Gold League competes tonight on Dynamite while Blue League will have their start this Saturday on Collision. Look for more articles like this one to keep up with the Continental Classic standings over the next six weeks of tournament action!

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