Blog Archives
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 3/7/17: Vices By Vipers
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 3/7/17)
Vices By Vipers
– The opening video recapped the last month, aka Randy Orton’s “master plan” to sacrifice himself into The Wyatt Family to get a shot at the WWE Championship, which ultimately culminated with arson. Definitely one of the more darker angles in recent years, with the image of Orton’s pose with a fiery background probably something that’ll follow his career in the years to come. It’s still hard to determine ideologically that Wyatt wasn’t turned babyface by Orton’s actions judging by his sympathetic “Oh my god, my house is burning down” reaction. We guess this new episode will help out with that.
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 2/28/17: A Flaming Invocation
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 2/28/17)
A Flaming Invocation
– As plenty of past episodes have, we opened with a close-up of a monitor backstage that aired last week’s “controversial ending” of the Battle Royale to determine the challenger for WWE Champion Bray Wyatt at WrestleMania 33. In reality, something appeared botched because it looked like Luke Harper had thrown AJ Styles to the floor first, even though they were supposed to land at the same time. To cover that up, of course, they only showed us the hard camera angle. which had both guys falling out of view. In the room with said monitor was Commissioner Shane McMahon, General Manager Daniel Bryan and Styles himself. In chickenshit heel fashion, Styles tried to get by without wrestling on the show. Bryan shuts that down quickly and proclaimed Styles was lucky to even get this chance. We went for a funny as they had Styles badmouth Harper for not showering or discovering Dove, but Harper crept on him from behind. It’s like all those teen dramas. Or that time Stone Cold Steve Austin did it to Stephanie McMahon. Things ended as Styles walked away in disgust, as Harper cautiously got in the “friendly” Authority’s faces and… thanked them. Well, we guess he’s supposed to be a babyface trying to right his past wrongs, so this fits that. Either way, a good start.
Review – Ron Snyder – Wrestling’s New Golden Age
Photo courtesy of Amazon.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) was once signified as the “Be All, End All” of professional wrestling.
By now, that statement has been detracted with talent like The Young Bucks, Colt Cabana and Kenny Omega, all of whom have achieved financial efficiency and without any WWE stints (or pushes in Cabana’s case) to boot.
Ron Snyder’s “Wrestling’s New Golden Age: How Independent Promotions Have Revolutionized One Of America’s Favorite Sports,” released by Sports Publishing, succeeds in its goal to inform and explore just how independent wrestling came to be from its eerie territorial beginnings.
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 2/21/17: Feel The Blow
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 2/21/17)
Feel The Blow
– The opening video recapped last week as new WWE Champion Bray Wyatt had to defend against John Cena and AJ Styles. Also shown was Luke Harper’s attack on Wyatt as revenge, which only created another obstacle for the Champ. Sure enough, he battled through and actually pinned Cena to keep his belt. Autocorrect turned that into “belly.” Do with that what you will. Anyways, The “Era Of Wyatt” was set to continue and his influence was so great that even Royal Rumble Winner Randy Orton refused to face him for the belt come WrestleMania 33. What a loyal disciple. In turn, SmackDown Live General Manager Daniel Bryan determined that a 10-Man Battle Royale would take place to determine who would face Wyatt at Mania. Simple enough and we’ve got a huge main event on our hands.
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 2/14/17: The Era Of Wyatt
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 2/14/17)
The Era Of Wyatt
– The opening video brought us back to the Elimination Chamber Pay-Per-View, with highlights of all the matches headed in and the big finishes. The most progressive developments were obviously Luke Harper proving himself in the ring with Randy Orton, Naomi taking home the WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship and Bray Wyatt finally being WWE Champion.
Review – AJ Mendez Brooks – Crazy Is My Superpower
Photo courtesy of Amazon.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
With the Mae Young Classic Tournament here, it’s evidently the effect that women’s wrestling has now had on World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in recent years.
At one point endlessly endeavored as the “Bathroom Break Segment” where fans would evacuate their seats in drones for the concession stands, female talent (branded “Divas”) in the billion dollar company were more accentuated for their looks than wrestling abilities. That known, matches would last about four minutes to the most.
Even though some female pioneers like Trish Stratus and Lita served as an athletic alternative to the rampant eye candy, WWE still treated the majority of women as an undercard attraction, if at all. Valets in bras and panties. Nothing more.
Just before the “Women’s Revolution” graced us with its presence on NXT with the likes of Sasha Banks, Charlotte, Becky Lynch and Bayley, we had Paige, Kaitlyn and AJ Lee. Somewhere between the “PG Era” (shorter matches and irrelevant hosting gigs) and the “Revolution,” Paige/Kaitlyn/Lee also came up through developmental and scratched and clawed to steal the show.
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 2/7/17: The Latest Chapter
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 2/7/17)
The Latest Chapter
– Announced last week, this was a notable occurrence where the Royal Rumble winner would challenge the current WWE World Heavyweight Champion, nine days removed from said Rumble event. Now, enter Randy Orton and Champion John Cena into these roles and you might have a different reaction to that in 2017. Of course, we’ve all seen their past 34,000 encounters between 2006-2011, so this wasn’t any new territory, but the opening video accomplished an almost-impossible task – it made it feel like important history. We guess all that nostalgic footage also helped out. That was the nature of it all and surely, there was lots of footage at the old video library to rummage through for this piece. Give that Production Employee a cookie, dammit.
Review – Daniel Bryan/Craig Tello – YES: My Improbable Journey To The Main Event Of WrestleMania
Photo courtesy of Amazon.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
If anybody from World Wrestling Entertainment has had an up-and-down career in and out of the ring, it’s Daniel Bryan.
Elevated from “Indie Wrestler Comes To WWE” status in 2010 to an actual main event player in 2014, he went though a journey like none other.
His own “Cinderella Story” occurred between 2013 and WrestleMania XXX where he emerged an Undisputed Champion and married five days later to Brie Bella. It’s literally as perfect as one professional wrestler could dream of, especially one who didn’t fit the “corporate style” of what WWE traditionally spotlights.
How would this all translate in a book? With some help by WWE.com’s Craig Tello, we’d finally get that tell-all where Bryan describes his joyous upbringings and subsequent dream chase, with all the little things in-between.
Notes In Observance – WWE SmackDown Live 1/31/17: Chamber Music
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
“Notes In Observance” features random thoughts and analysis on recent television shows. Quick results can be found at the bottom of the post.
(Aired 1/31/17)
Chamber Music
– Given that the Royal Rumble was won by a SmackDown guy (that’s Randy Orton, The Wyatt Family-Friendly version in case you didn’t know), the opening video gladly reminded us of all that jazz. WWE took it upon themselves to quote various media outlets with the most generic sentences on planet Earth. We’ll give an example. “That was a Rumble!” – Forbes. No kidding. You’d also be crazy if they didn’t sprinkle in footage of the epic rematch between WWE World Heavyweight Champion John Cena and AJ Styles where history was made and such. However, the Rumble madness is over and thanks to WWE’s killer Pay-Per-View schedule, we’ve got Elimination Chamber in a mere two weeks.
WWE Royal Rumble 2017 Reaction
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.
By Nicholas Jason Lopez
While January begins with a countdown from ten to one, wrestling fans most associate the month with the same countdown towards another festivity – the Royal Rumble.
Given the “Big Four” treatment, equivalent in 2017 to a NXT TakeOver event the day before, a two-hour pre-show and a five-and-a-half-hour Pay-Per-View, it was treated as a huge deal.
It probably also helped that it emanated from San Antonio’s Alamodome, with a house count of 52,020. It was practically WrestleMania without being it.
Given the Rumble’s star power of Brock Lesnar, Braun Strowman, The Big Show, Goldberg and The Undertaker, there was an unpredictability headed in that severely lacked the previous few years.
