Calling Spots Issue 2
After months of hard work, we are proud to bring you Calling Spots Issue 2. As you are probably aware, here at Wrestling Rambles we are striving to be a whole new breed of wrestling journalists who want to bring you the total package. Unfortunately, Lex Luger was not available so instead we opted to bring you fresh online content each day, podcast interviews with wrestling personalities, social media interaction and now our very own magazine. Yes….Wrestling Rambles have made a printed, hold in your hands, actual, physical magazine….just like mam used to buy us when we were just little.
It’s called Calling Spots. It costs just £2 (plus P&P) from CallingSpots.com and is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT TO ANYTHING YOU WILL HAVE SEEN BEFORE.
Calling Spots Issue 2
A UK REVOLUTION OR JUST ANOTHER INDY SHOW?
I am not sure what this article is. It is sort of a hybrid mishmash of a show review, a DVD review and a load of rambling about a trip to London with my mate. I’m not sure anyone has written in this style, probably because it is ridiculous. Hopefully it works mind and gives you the “full package” so to speak. Anyway….
It was billed as the biggest show in Britain for over 7 years, and one that would revolutionise the British Wrestling scene. Standout UK promotion IPW:UK had agreed a deal with European powerhouse NWE to run a one off show on April 28th 2012, in the prestigious Troxy venue in East-London, called “Revolution”. IPW:UK have built up a solid reputation since their debut in 2004, back in the days of “the wrestling channel”, and boast a roster of top UK names such as Marty Scurll, Noam Dar, Sha Samuels, PAC, Zack Sabre Jr, Rockstar Spud and many more. NWE (Nu Wrestling Evolution) are an Italian company, renowned for running large shows across Europe, including ‘that’ show in Madrid, Spain, that featured the return of The Ultimate Warrior. With the phenomenal roster of IPW:UK at hand, the money of NWE to add production value and some top foreign imports to a show being ran in a fantastic London venue, this was set to genuinely be a supershow. But did it work out that way?
Calling Spots: A Pro Wrestling Fanzine
So, 5 days after the release of the debut issue of Calling Spots, I am delighted that half our stock is gone already. It’s amazing to me that after 7 weeks of me having a blast, making a fan magazine about something I love, people WANT to read it and see it. Having shipped copies to America and Canada, the ‘zine is already going global.
This is Progress
This is progress – A catchy marketing slogan or genuine ethos of brand-spanking new London-based wrestling group Progress Wrestling? Progress have made quite the impact on the British wrestling scene already in 2012 and it is hard to believe they have, to date, only ran one show. Much like ourselves, Progress have already put heavy emphasis on doing things a little bit differently, in the name of having fun. The company is ran by professional comedian and self confessed “professional idiot” Jim Smallman as well as comedy promoter Jon Briley. The fact that both men have a wealth of experience in their field, and by their own admission very little knowledge of running a wrestling promotion, is a refreshing change to the British wrestling scene, and something that comes across prominently in their product. That’s not to say that progress wrestling feels like a comedy show, as that would be an inaccurate and unfair summary. What Jim and Jon have done is create, in a very short space of time, an atmosphere in which wrestling fans can immerse themselves and just have fun. This comes across even in their DVD, Chapter 1, which we will be reviewing later in this article.
Wrestling Rambles Global – England Edition
“God save the Queen,
She ain’t no human being.
There is no future,
In England’s dreaming.”
It’s called the land of hope and glory. A lot of people reading this will have a ridiculous stereotype in their heads of bad teeth, cups of tea and the queen. This…..This is England. I call it home. So do these men:
Sub Culture: A Wrestling A-Z
A – Albert…Prince Albert. Surely the only wrestler to ever be named after a cock piercing, yet for some reason old Vinnie decided to rebrand him as Lord Tensai.
B – Bourne to Fly. He got that right like. Most people reading this would do anything just to work for the WWE. This idiot if following in the footsteps of Paul London and throwing it all away. Shame, I liked Matt Sydal.
C – CallingSpots. Ridiculous that I am only 3 words in and got to a cheap plug already. But seriously though, the single mintest twitter account ever!
D – Dolph’s selling. This guy! Talk about selling sand to the Arabs, Dolph sells for FUN! Clearly the young lad has no problem with destroying his spine, and will happily bump all over the place just to be able to have his own range of pink merch.
E – Eighteen Seconds. The amount of time that one of the greatest wrestlers in recent memory gets to wrestle on a wrestling show called WRESTLEmania. Read more 
A Canadian Vampire in Mexico
To most American, Canadian and European wrestling fans Vampiro first arrived on the wrestling scene in the late 90’s via WCW. Other than a high profile feud with Sting, Vampiro spent far too much of his time in WCW floating aimlessly around the midcard in angles with the likes of The Insane Clown Posse, The Misfits and “The Kiss Demon”. Needless to say this poor booking never did justice to a worker that, unbeknownst to most fans of American Wrestling, was a legend throughout Mexico during the late 80’s and 90’s.
Wrestlemania Preview: The Undercard
With the rambling road to Wrestlemania almost at its climax, and after my colleagues have written some top class articles featuring in depth previews of the Wrestlemania main events, I am today tasked with discussing the Wrestlemania undercard. Apart from my use of the word “climax”, I feel this is a relatively underwhelming opening to one of my articles. Sitting here musing on why this may be and I keep coming to the same conclusion – The Wrestlemania undercard in itself is very underwhelming. So aside from the “big four” what do we have in store?
Randy Orton vs Kane
Cody Rhodes vs The Big Show
A cigarette/Coffee break
Team Jonny vs Team Teddy
(David Otunga, Mark Henry, Drew McIntyre, The Miz, Jack Swagger, and Dolph Ziggler vs Santino Marella, Kofi Kingston, R-Truth, The Great Khali, Zack Ryder, and Booker T)
So, where do we start? First of all let me state that in my opinion Wrestlemania will be an enjoyable show, albeit one that is heavily relying in four marquee matches. Read more
Rambling Road To WrestleMania: Week 5
Top 10 Most Anticipated Wrestlemania Matches Part 2
By Richard
With the Rambling Road to Wrestlemania in full force I thought I would share with the world my Top 10 Wrestlemania matches. Now I know what you are thinking, every wrestling website worth their salt posts on of these around this time of year. That’s why I have an added twist to mine – CallingSpot’s Top 10 most anticipated Wrestlemania matches revisited. I am going to be discussing the matches that I was marking out the most for, since I started watching at Wrestlemania 14, looking at why I anticipated them so, the match themselves an revisiting them today. Some exceeded expectation, some disappointed. But first, who made the list? In part two we are going to look at numbers five to one of the most anticipated matches on a Wrestlemania card.
5 – Brock Lesnar vs Goldberg at Wrestlemania XX
Yes, you have read that right, we are kick starting the top 5 most anticipated Wrestlemaina matches of all time with a somewhat controversial nomination. Growing up on WCW in the late 90’s I was a huge mark for the original ‘streak’ and, despite his somewhat limited ring work, Bill Goldberg himself. Read more
Rambling Road To WrestleMania: Week 3
Top 10 Wrestlemania Matches Part 1
With the Rambling Road to Wrestlemania in full force I thought I would share with the world my Top 10 Wrestlemania matches. Now I know what you are thinking, every wrestling website worth their salt posts on of these around this time of year. That’s why I have an added twist to mine – CallingSpot’s Top 10 most anticipated Wrestlemania matches revisited. I am going to be discussing the matches that I was marking out the most for, since I started watching at Wrestlemania 14, looking at why I anticipated them so, the match themselves an revisiting them today. Some exceeded expectation, some disappointed. But first, who made the list? In part one we are going to look at numbers ten to six.
10 – Triple H vs Randy Orton at Wrestlemania 25 for the WWE Championship.
On paper this may not have seemed a dream match, but the build up to this was at times so gripping that it left you counting down the hours until the 25th anniversary of Wrestlemania. Randy Orton was as bad a bad guy as there has been in recent memory, if not ever. At this point in his career Orton had accomplished as a heel what he seemingly couldn’t as a 24 your old baby face – became a credible main even talent that was believable in the role. I truly believe that at this point in time, Randy Orton was producing the best work of his career as a psychotic heel. From his subtle, ice cold mannerisms to his full blown nasty bastard attitude, Orton was the complete package. His methodical in ring work, picking apart his opponent limb by limb, suited working as a heel more so than the babyface Randy Orton of 2012. Read more
Evolution of the Cage Match
The elimination chamber – a psychedelic ideology that is a distant relative of pro wrestling’s first ever gimmick match – the cage match. It is difficult to pinpoint the exact origin of the cage match, but a multitude of wrestling historians have agreed on the date June 25th 1937. On this date, in Atlanta, Georgia, Jack Bloomfield and Count Petro Rossi brawled in a match that was billed as potentially being so out of control that the only way to ensure that the two men kept it in the ring was to surround the ring with chicken wire and lock them both in. Although there was not a repeat of the gimmick for another 5 years, on this night, the fans in attendance had witnessed the world’s first recorded (and somewhat primitive) cage match.
Now at this point I want to make clear that I am not going to try and give you a history lesson, but more look at selected key events in the evolution of the cage match and discussing some views on the psychology of the match. With the original chicken wire match, it seems the concept was put together because both wrestlers had been back and forth in a very lengthy feud with no clear cut winner. As the animosity had grown beyond that of any other feud at the time, the promoter billed the match as being the only way the two men could possibly settle such a war once and for all. Other theories suggest that the chicken wire match was actually put together because the heel was a coward (chicken) that kept running away from his superior opponent, stopping the baby face from coming out victorious. Therefore the only logical resolution to this plight was to lock the chicken up, like any other chicken, via chicken Read more
Who’s your Daddy and what does he do?
To say that is general consensus amongst the internet wrestling community is against the current PG friendly product that WWE is producing is an understatement. Whether it be the physiotherapist cleaning up the slightest bit of blood or the Hanna Montana style “comedy”, internet fans will take to Twitter, Facebook or their blog (ahem) in droves to express their displeasure at the current product. Regardless of this fact, they will keep watching WWE, because they love it and can find enjoyment even through times were they feel frustrated as fans. The same, however, cannot be said for the casual fan – the fans that will watch while channel hopping. How often have we read reports of a certain segment of WWE Raw resulting in sever hundred thousand views tuning out? Several, hundred, thousand. That is a lot of viewership to throw away. And the numbers do not lie – In September 1999 the (then) WWF had its most watched Raw of all time with a Nielsen rating of 8.4 compared to its lowest rating of 2.39 this January. What this means is that during the much fabled ‘attitude era’, WWE at one point had 8.4% of American households watching compared to 2.39% of them in the very recent ‘PG era’ months. So, with all this in mind I want to stress that I too feel that WWE has got it wrong with their PG product, but not because of any of the above. My reason is that I am worried about the future of the business.
There are 2 common explanations to why the WWE has switched to a PG-friendly product.
- The Chris Benoit incident and the fallout of this.
- Aiming the product at children will bring in more money as they are more likely to buy merchandise, toys and games.
