Poster Fandom

For the longest time, I was a big fan of wrestling pay per view posters, using many of them for my wallpapers at work and home. So much so that the No Mercy Booker T poster hangs in my home office, thanks to the Mayhem guys.

But, for the longest time, there seemed to be a horrid lack in poster quality. Both TNA and WWE seemed to have lesser offerings. But, this month in particular, I was amazed by what's come out from WWE and TNA.

First, I was surprised by the group shot they're using for Final Resolution of the Main Event Mafia.




First off, think what you may, but every one of those guys in that picture have some sort of memory that has shaped my wrestling experience in the last 10 to 15 years. Sting crossing to the darkside against the NWO. Angle with countless memories, including Lesner at WrestleMania, winning the title in Pittsburgh, and even singing with Stone Cold. And all of them, dapper as hell in those kick ass suits and shades (though Kevin Nash hates sunglasses, it seems). That's just "New Horseman" inducing imagery there.


WWE has had a good run of posters lately. The pictures are so unreal. I'm pretty sure this is a digital mock up. Pretty sure. Jericho in his recently-trademark suit. That devious look only he could do, and the unreal nature of the button press. They harken back to a couple other favorites....


And I guess at this point, we start to notice that No Mercy seems to be the creative peak of the WWE Graphics Department for the year. sigh The art of pro wrestling...

Wrestling Mayhem Show 101: CJ Sensation in studio

The Mayhem comes in force with Silent Ninja and IWC's CJ Sensation in the studio!

Part 1 CJ Sensation shares stories of an indy wrestler and how he broke his neck in the ring and came back to action!

Part 2 We have an almost hour long talk with the "Man of Action" himself, IWC ring announcer Chuck Roberts.

This is Episode 102 for Tuesday, February 5, 2008. You can get the episode here on Talkshoe, subscribe, and as always, stay tuned to www.Wrestling Mayhem Show.com for the latest! The Wrestling Mayhem Show is recorded live and can be heard/viewed from 8 PM to 10 PM Eastern on Talkshoe.com and BlogTV.com.

Sorg's Take: This Year in Wrestling

Why not, it's the in thing to do. I hope to do maybe a couple more of these, but the easiest thing to start with is the year in wrestling and what stuck out to me. Here's some things that I've seen publicly and personally in the wrestling world...

The year of the injury: Not that it is anything new, but much of this year was dictated by injuries int he WWE. And lets face it, that's what we all watch. Just look at the list.

A Degeneration X/Rated RKO feud was stopped bidstream when Triple H blew another quad in January, not to return until SummerSlam in August.


Edge's reign as rightful champion on Smackdown started thanks to an injury by Undertaker, and ended due to his own injury just a few short months later.

Pittsburgh is wrestling town: Part 1 - How indy took over my life Late last year, I was introduced to IWC officially by heading out to see a show. This year, I hit every show I was physically able to. On one hand, you get to see some classic TNA and indy workers: Sandman, Samoa Joe, Claudio, Chris Hero, AJ Styles, Abyss, etc. But then you find the match of the year candidates come from talent from the local and indy circuits. Delerious, Babyface Fire, the Gambinos, Ray Rowe, Sexual Harassment, Davey Richards, John McChesney, Larry Sweeney. And IWC has kept storylines interesting and compelling as it can be, given its month to month shows. And big shows like the latest A Call to Arms, Night of Legends, Super Indy and Basebrawl just brought some big show feel to the norm.

Pittsburgh is wrestling town: Part 2 - Because it wreaks of awesomenss. Oh yeah, and Edge won the World title in Pittsburgh this year. Twice.

The Mayhem Brought it. This was a landmark year for our little corner of internet podcasting. We had two out of town/country visitors in the form of our fans Vimal (via London), and Mad Mike (via NYC). That we've been that enjoyable that people want to pack on the miles to visit us. I just hope they're not disappointed when they see the "studio".

And the interviews opened up. We had Marshal Gambino, Jimmy Demarco, and Michael Facade in the studio this year. IWC promoter Norm Conners, Sweet N Sour Larry Sweeney, Eric Young from TNA, Brent Albright (formley WWE's Gunner Scott), and nationwide columnist, Professor Wrestling himself.

The fans became even more of an integral part of the show. Reacting the the chatroom and to the webcam we've setup. Fantastic calls to our voicemail, and some directly to the show, that entertain us as much as our audience. The fans have become characters themselves...

RWF is here. Another year of Sorgstocks, Sauce Storm, and other random appearances by our rag tag band of merry backyard wrestlers are bringing us further along and gaining some respect amongst our underground peers. This year we introduced the Mexican Border Matches, invaded others, put together the first anthology DVD, and pushed the envelope for each one of us this year.

But lets just face it. This shit is just fun to do...


Matches of the year

Gambinos vs BFF: Steel Cage: A Call to Arms Controlled Chaos
It still stole the show on a night where every match made the crowd pop. Fantastic work

Any 4 team scramble in IWC this year
Always entertaining and full of mayhem

Samoa Joe vs Ray Rowe (Summer Sizzler )
Dream match for IWC fans. Two tough guys going at it. (yet to see the rematch)

Money in the Bank (WrestleMania 23)
Always the show steeler, and even better with Punk, Kennedy, Edge, and both Hardys in the fray.
Triple H's series of three matches against Randy Orton and Umaga (No Mercy)
In the wake of Cena's injury, we didn't know what would happen. And we didn't know who would have the title until the final bell of the night. That's how you get us interested...

Kaz vs Christian Cage Ladder Match (some PPV)
A great ladder match in a company that overuses its gimmicks. Go figure.

Shawn Michael vs John Cena (on RAW)
The match in England that went almost an hour and proved that you can still have matches like this today and not be named Ric Flair.

Oh, and fuck Taker/Batista named as match of the year in WWE Magazine. That's bullshit...


I'm sure there's much I missed. but that's what stuck out for me this year. Hit me with your best of lists!

Best Indy...Ever...

This past Saturday night, I was able to attend Night 2 of IWC's A Call To Arms 4. This was the 100th IWC show celebration under Norm Conners. Of course I missed night one (which included the likes of AJ Styles, Christopher Danials, Homicide, Eric Young, Motor City Machine Guns, etc) due to my company's Christmas party, and I heard nothing but good things.

But I did get to night two. The place has a new lighting system, leading to a more "boxing" event sort of feel with he house lights turning off and a lighting setup onl above the ring. I was told there were around 850 people there, and there wasn't a dull match all night. The crowds typically get rather low energied at times during the IWC shows, maybe during a massively submission based match or with people the newer fans may not know. But on this night, there was noise the majority of the night.

We started off with a return match of Ricky Reyes and Davey Richards. Reyes has always been a hard hitting submission machine, and Richards is a newer guy in IWC and does some amazing flying moves. Reyes won with a quick submission via arm bar to an injured Richards.

Then we got Dennis Gregory coming out, and being completely shut down by "Man of Action" Chuck Roberts. This was feedback from Gregory bashing Chuck's throat with a chair a few months ago. But this was our introduction to 2 Cold Scorpio in IWC. Remember that guy? No? You should. He was sadly known as "Flash Funk" in WWF, but is also known for his work in WCW and ECW in the past. And he made it official that he "signed a contract" and is going to be around the company for a few months at least. Excellent.

We got Brent Albright (WWE's former Gunner Scott) had a great match with Claudio Castagnoli, one of the Kings of Wrestling. Always entertaining, but somehow, not as fun as the first time I'd seen him against Gregory. Albright gets the nod after knocking out Claudio with knees to the head.

Then a tag between Southern Comfort (Chris Hamrick and Tracy Smothers) against Sexual Harassment. Just a fun match with dancing and lots of comedy spots. The stuff that makes indy and house shows.

Then Glenn Spectre (formerly "Wonderman") refereed the "IWC characters match" between Delerious and TNA's Eric Young, fresh off headlining this week's PPV. Another awesome comedy match.

Then 2 Cold Scorpio took on Samoa Joe, also off the past weekend's PPV, in a great match, unfortunately sullied by a run in by Gregory. I look forward to that Gregory/Scorpio feud.

Then the 10 man "Past, Present, and Future" tag match with Jimmy Demarco, Sebastion Dark, CJ Sensation, Teddy Fine, and the returning Jimmy Vegas against Troy Lords, Michael Facade, Shirley Doe, Super Hentai, and the returning Dean Radford. Fantastic lineup, and a crazy, spotfilled match that everyone agrees brought the house down. Amazing.

Then Shane Douglas came out, did a shoot on why he will never return to the ring, was honored by the entire IWC roster coming to ringside, and proceeded to tell us why IWC was the place to be, relating it to the early days of ECW. Very emotional and very good speech.

Then we prepared for three cage matches. First, Larry Sweeney losing to Fabulous John McChesney for the Super Indy belt. McChesney retains, but a great cage match.

Then Ray Rowe beat the crap out of Dennis Gregory for the IWC Championship, only to be screwed by Gregory's War Machine, grabbing him climbing out the cage and throwing him back in the door, then by his own partner, J-Rocc, who slammed the door in his face.

But the was made up by Norm announcing there was still an open contract for the night, and Sandman came out to claim it. After the greatest entrance in wrestling, and spraying beer on all four sides of the ring's fans, Sandman had a great, quick match to gain the IWC Championship. That's right. Sandman is our champion. And was then promptly attacked by Davairi. Not Sabu, Davairi. And assisted by 2 Cold Scorpio. The future of IWC is looking really bright.

Finally, our main event was the Gambino Brothers (Mickey and Marshall) defending the Tag belts against Babyface Fire (Jason Gory and Shiima Xion). Amazing match. As expected, I feared for Xion and Gory's lives as they dived off the top of the cage multiple times and everyone hit a tack filled ring. Amazing.

Why am I going back to this show? Because Shane Douglas hit some chords with his speech. That this is a great fed, and in just the year we've been attending shows at this gym in Elizebeth, PA, to see people grow int he ring and the faces that swing by from TNA and ROH, something great is happening here. We've always been lucky to be in such a big wrestling town, but even though there's great choice, there's not always great quality in the products. We are very lucky to have something that's head by someone like Norm, who's been in the biz for so long and appears to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. He's had a formula that's worked since working with WWE and ECW guys in the 90's, (one fact I didn't know until we talked to him on the Mayhem Show last week (30 minutes in)) Shane preached about how Vince McMahon and Dixie Carter (heads of WWE and TNA, respectively) don't care about the wrestlers, and to support this instead of their product, and we've agreed about the work ethic of these places. It's good for some, but not all of its wrestlers. And people have died due to choices related to the hectic work schedule of these companies. Overseas tours, 4-5 day travel work weeks, maybe gone for weeks at a time, all factors that make bad decisions easier.

While Shane calls for us to dump these companies, I can't ask anyone to do that. It's like asking people to stop using gasoline because their upset over the middle east, the environment, or just the insane cost. People just aren't going to do it. WWE, especially has that nostalgia factor that will keep drawing us in. But you can pull back. Not buy the PPVs, but go out to the places that carry them and support your local bar instead.

But either way, give your local indy that chance. You might be pleasantly surprised.

J.East Interview/WMS Episode 93: 2Guys1Mayhem

Doc Remedy and Sorg bring you the Mayhem!

Part 1: We discuss a lot of non wrestling, including the Steelers and Heroes, then get back in the habit with Jericho, Flair, and more!

Part 2: Lunchbox joins us on the phone, then we dive into a pile of fanmail. And is Doc Remedy creepy?

New Videos! We also have some new videos from the BlogTV off air!

Doc Remedy watching 2 girls1cup.com
Sorg and Doc Remedy getting groovy!!

And scope out my latest interview with local rapper, J. East on the WPAJ Interview.