On Thursday, I took in Wrestling Night at the Florence Freedom baseball game. It was a pretty simple setup: the wrestlers would throw out first pitches together, do some goofy stuff in the early innings and then sign autographs in the third inning, followed by a Q&A session after the game. Since traffic was a complete nightmare, I missed the first pitches and some of the shenanigans, though I did catch the end of Billy Gunn losing a dance contest. As a bonus, the plate music all night long was nothing but WWE theme songs, so at least they were trying a little extra.

There were four wrestlers present: Brian Pillman Jr. (remember that this is about 15 minutes south of Cincinnati), Billy Gunn, Jim Cornette and Jim Ross. Marty Jannetty had to cancel due to a family emergency.

The ballpark is rather small so there wasn’t much to be seen. I was walking around a bit before the game and saw Gunn and Pillman walking towards an office. A kid asked Gunn for his autograph and he said you can get them during the third inning. Then he took a step, turned around and signed the kid’s ball. That was a nice touch, as my previous interaction with Gunn hadn’t been the best in the world.

The line for the autographs was rather long, though they kept things moving fairly well. You could get any item signed so I grabbed a Freedom baseball and mini bat while in the line (smart move to sell them there) so Gunn/Pillman could sign the ball and Cornette could sign the bat (Cornette with an item that can be used to beat people senselessly seemed appropriate).

As you can see, I got JR to sign a bottle of his chipolte ketchup (signature on top, WWE HOF on the bottom), which is rather tasty. The annoying part there though was the Freedom attendant started talking to JR about barbecue sauce while I was just left standing there as he signed. Kind of defeats the purpose no?

All four were rather nice with Gunn being more approachable than I was expecting. Cornette was his usual chatty self and was telling stories in between fans coming up. Pillman was incredibly nice and asked every fan’s name. I mentioned meeting him before at WrestleCon and he looked straight at me and was clearly listening while I talked. You don’t get that a lot of the time.

JR was the big one here as I’ve never gotten to meet him before. He was appreciative that I said I liked his AEW performance and that he was the first voice I remember in wrestling (Clash of the Champions XII when Sting was confronted by the REAL Black Scorpion). That got a smile out of him and he told me to keep listening.

The Q&A went well with the four sitting on top of a dugout in some chairs. Pillman wasn’t asked much and looked a bit bored (completely understandable) though he did get asked why he didn’t change his name to avoid the pressure of his dad’s legacy. He gave a very nice response about following your gut and figuring out what he wanted to do because that’s what mattered most. It earned a nice round of applause from the fans and sounded very genuine.

Other highlights included JR explaining the territory system to a young fan, Billy Gunn demonstrating the Rockabilly dance, some funny New Age Outlaw stories, Cornette on why WWE won the war (hint: it has to do with WCW being stupid), Gunn and Cornette (politely) going at it over the Double Or Nothing battle royal and Cornette offering Gunn money to beat up Joey Ryan during their upcoming match.

The best of all though was a question Cornette got about whether he would save Joey Ryan or Vince Russo if they were both drowning and he only had one life preserver.

Cornette: “I’d wear both of them myself, stand on their heads and make sure they drowned. Then I’d give Russo mouth to mouth so he could come back to life and I could do it again.”

All in all, a rather fun night for $70 total. I had a good time and got to meet some stars, one of which I’ve been trying to meet for years.

To me actually.  Ten years ago to the day, I posted my first ever review.  Now it’s about 5200 later, meaning I put up about ten reviews a week.  I know I’ve slowed down a lot over the years, but egads how did that happen?  Thank you for being around with me this long and I’ll try to be around for a long time.  I mean, I’m destined for carpal tunnel but I can get someone to take dictation right?

My grandmother has been diagnosed with cancer for the fourth time and likely won’t be making it until February.  I’ll be at the hospital more often than not and while I’ll have my laptop, I won’t be able to do much.  I might check out a show just to get my mind off things for a bit but I have no idea how things are going to go for the time being.

KB

It’s time to go see the in-laws again so I’ll be down for a bit.  The time situation won’t let me do any live shows while I’m gone but I’ll be doing them ASAP as I’ll have some down time over there.  I already have all the columns and 2004 shows written in advance so they’ll be up as usual.  I’ll try to throw out some old school stuff to fill in some of the gaps.

KB

An e-book (Or a paperback book.  Or both.) about wrestling.  Say by someone who watches a lot of it.  Even if it’s late, it’s the thought that counts.

I’ve got nearly thirty different subjects to pick from so there must be something you’ll like.

What changes should I make?

So the other night, someone left me a comment (politely) saying that my older reviews were better/more entertaining than the current ones. I tend to agree with this, but I’m not entirely sure how to fix it. I know I used to get more annoyed and angry at a lot of the stuff back in the day but that’s not something I can just turn back on. My life is a lot better than it used to be but more importantly, so much of wrestling today feels more bland than stupid and anger inducing.

On top of that, I now do live coverage for almost every show, which takes away the amount of time I have to really go into detail and such (notice that in the reviews of older shows, the details/annoyances are at a bit of a higher pace). At the end of the day, the live coverage style is what has me paying my bills and actually doing this for a living so I can’t change much of that.

Now all that being said, the last thing I want to be is boring/dull. Therefore, I thought I’d ask my loyal readers (who I certainly appreciate and whose opinions matter more than most anyone else as you’re the ones who stick with me) what they think I should change/what they want to see more/less of. I’m not saying I’ll make the changes (some stuff I have to do for the sake of finances) but I can always use input like this.

So what would make things more entertaining for you here? More of a certain kind of show? Less of something? More opinion stuff? More anger/annoyances? More analytical style? Anything really. I’m typically just going off what I’ve done in the past so I’d like to know what you would like to see. Like I said, I can’t guarantee that I’ll do/not do some of them but I can always go for some (hopefully constructive) criticism.

Go for it.

KB

Before we get to these new ones, a quick update: I’ve lowered the prices on all of the books. I was looking at them the other day and the prices were just too high. I probably wouldn’t pay that much for them and I have no idea why anyone else should be expected to either. Each one has been lowered by at least a dollar and some far more than that. The British prices have been lowered as well.

You can check them out, with the new prices, by clicking on any of the following:

History of Wrestlemania, the Royal Rumble, Survivor Series and Summerslam.

NXT Volume I and Volume II

And now, for something new.

If you’re a wrestling fan, odds are you’re familiar with these two series. They’re some of the most important wrestling shows in history and for vastly different reasons. While Saturday Night’s Main Event offered a chance for the masses to see the WWF on a major TV network, Clash of the Champions went the other way and offered pay per view caliber matches on TBS.

In these books I’ve gone back and looked at every episode of both series to see why each one worked (and didn’t work) in their own ways. There were thirty five Clash of the Champions specials and thirty six Saturday Night’s Main Events, though I’ve thrown in the five Main Event specials as a bonus. Each show is broken down match by match and segment by segment with context, play by play and analysis.

Both are ready to go from Amazon in full paperback form. They’re both priced at $9.99 each and are available worldwide (only in English) from any country’s Amazon page. Here are the links for the US and UK versions.

Saturday Night’s Main Event – US, UK

Clash of the Champions – US, UK

Or just search “KB Saturday Night” or “KB Clash” on Amazon.

All of my e-books (24 different topics) are available here:

https://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Hall/e/B00E6282W6

I hope you like these and please shoot me any questions you may have.

KB

I’ll never top this as a wrestling fan.  Ever.

Signed 30 years to the day.

Taken while a Hart Foundation match with Jimmy managing was playing on a TV just over my left shoulder.  He seemed rather excited.

So in case I forgot to mention it, I’m back at Wrestlemania this year but since the wife is visiting family, I can go to WAY more stuff than I did last year.  On the schedule this year:

Minimum of 3 signings (might be four depending on time)

Two indy shows

Axxess

Wrestlecon

Takeover

Wrestlemania

Raw

Smackdown

Therefore, as you might expect, the regular shows will be a bit late.  Smackdown will be up tomorrow, assuming I don’t go to the Orlando Magic game.  I’ll have my live reports up as soon as I can as well.

KB

And they still make my head spin.