I couldn’t find the real deal so I borrowed from TMZ permanently.
According to TMZ, Amy Weber has released nude photos because her lap top was stolen. They were from a Playboy shoot that never made it into the sticky pages under my mattress. You might remember her from her role in JBL’s Cabinet. I had to look it up on Wikipedia to make sure one of my Sippy Time Beers hadn’t dislodged a memory of an average WWE Diva.
According to Derrick Bateman’s Twitter (by way of Prowrestling.net) he is out for an undisclosed amount of time because of another knee surgery. I bring him up because he was signed away from then Pro Wrestling Ohio about five years ago. I haven’t seen him much so I won’t critique his work but isn’t five years enough to know if a guy will cut it or not in the WWE? I know it takes a while to learn the ropes but the time frame seems like plenty. If only the WWE had enough TV time to find a spot for him when he got healthy.
Master thief Joel Luke pleaded guilty to fifth degree theft for swiping the TNA Title and thus bringing great shame to the state of Iowa. He will get two years of probation. If only he could have waited for TNA’s next trip through the state for such an opportunity. He could have stolen the new Jeff Hardy Belt and done all wrestling fans around the country a favor. Yes, even those fans that clearly spend money only on Munchos and Cheez Whiz with backpacks full of Faygo but still have enough government assistance left over to drive to Orlando from Michigan just to see that garbage company.
For those of you concerned about your Friday viewing habits because of NBC’s coverage of a Superstorm Sandy benefit concert, don’t worry, be happy. As of now, you can watch replays of one third of Raw and an hour of Smackdown starting at it’s regularly scheduled 8 PM time slot. -Kevin
“Ass, gas or grass, sweetheart, nobody rides for free! WHOOOO!”
YES! I knew it! I knew he was going to be inducted! </heenan> According to a press release, Ric Flair is one of the 2013 class of inductees into the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame at the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo, Iowa. (Before I post the press release, let me just say that I recommended “Cowboy” Bill Watts for nomination last year. Totally not taking credit for anything, of course.) Here are more details.
WATERLOO, Iowa—The National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum selected the Class of 2013 for the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. Ric Flair, “Cowboy” Bill Watts, and Chris Taylor have been chosen by the selection committee.
The George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame weekend will take place July 12-13 in Waterloo, Iowa.
Criteria for induction into the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame include substantial impact on professional wrestling, general respect within the profession, and a strong amateur wrestling background. The selection committee includes all living hall of fame members as well as a select group of wrestling historians.
Flair has one of the longest and most distinguished careers in professional wrestling. He was a 16-time world champion with titles in the NWA, WCW, and WWE. Watts was a successful wrestler and promoter. He was ranked in the top ten worldwide for over 25 years.
Taylor was an NCAA champion for Iowa State in 1972 and 1973, and a bronze medalist at the 1972 Olympics. He had a three-year career with the AWA beginning in 1974. Taylor died at the age of 29 in 1979.
Winners of the Frank Gotch Award, Lou Thesz Award, George Tragos Award, and Jim Melby Award will be released on November 12. A full schedule of events will be released at a later date.
Also, make sure you bring lots and lots and lots of money for autographs, 8x10s and pictures with a replica title belt, because Ric Flair needs and loves money. He may even sell you his HOF plaque. Dead serious, though: I’m excited for hall of fame weekend every year, but this one might just complete my life. No offense to Carly or our new puppy. WHOOOOO! -Eric
We had a great time in Des Moines Iowa this past weekend. If you didn’t pay attention to @difrango11 (or my Instagram), @GrannyMaes (or his Instagram) or @Stuntgranny, you missed out on the proceedings. There are too many to mention but one place certainly deserves it, Fong’s Pizza. The four out of staters at the wedding decided to start drinking at 2:00 PM on Friday. After two great pizzas (I suggest the Thai Chicken) and four drinks each, we walked to Pappajohn Sculpture Park. This is our homage to Eric’s proposal spot to Carly. Congrats to the newlyweds who are chilling in Jamaica and not watching Raw. That’s what I get to do now. Whooppee. Let’s roll.
Jim Ross is in Oklahoma City. I can’t wait for Vince McMahon to “embarrass” him segment. They can drag it out even longer than normal now that they have three hours of programming. I typed that even before Mitchell Cool mentioned that it was JR Appreciation Night. CM Punk gets to overuse disrespect. The fans actually are booing. The turn might be working. Paul Heyman unintentionally gets interrupted by AJ Lee‘s music. Again, the board would have to be as dumb as a box of rocks to appoint Heyman as GM. Vickie Guerrero (& Dolph Ziggler) get to make her case for GM. Ziggles gets to grab the mic and suggests Heyman & Vickie as co-GMs. AJ finally gets to come out. Why do Dolph & AJ have the same shoes? Oh, this is going to be so funny that Daniel Bryan is her executive coach. (Please know that dose of sarcasm is as large as Eric’s mistake.) Kane gets to make this a real three ring circus. We’ve got our tag team “main event” at one of the hour breaks. I expected the therapist to be named as her counselor.
Sin Cara & Rey Mysterio are taking on Primo & Epico with the fine Rosa Mendes. There is not a chance in hell I’m going to watch Ion TV to watch Main Event. This three hour slab is more than enough. The Prime Time Players come out to signal the commercial break. Jim Ross defending Michael Cole on his blog is pure JR at this point. He tries to stay balanced but you’d love to know his real opinion. I’m glad Cole is organized and I understand he may have more plugs to get out but he’s still terrible at the rest of the job. Rey gets the pin with the dropping of the dime.
Antonio Cesaro is not getting over with speaking five languages. He’s taking on the quickly fading Brodus Clay, who is also stuck in a dated gimmick. I may have loved it at first but he needed to advance. Holy cow. Neutralizer by Cesaro for a very quick win. He looked better than barely beating Santino on Smackdown. AJ‘s life coach is different than Kane & Bryan’s. They have more people on the roster who they’re not putting on TV. Jumpin’ Jimminy. AJ asks Kaitlyn’s boobs for forgiveness then laughs at her and takes it back. Um, OK. Another great use of time. Ha, Sheamus vs CM Punk is supposed to hook me for Ion. Go fuck yourselves.
Pictured above: a gentleman who paid way more than $400 for his belt.
From Jason Powell, by way of KCCI.com:
TNA has arrested two Iowa men and charged them with stealing the TNA Title belt and a replica version of the strap. Joel Luke, 33, was charged with second-degree theft. Forrest Jamison, 39, was charged as an accessory.
This was really supposed to be Eric’s story, but he’s neck deep in dirty dirty whores, so here I go reporting on the continuing saga of white trash methheads vs. civilized society. According to Powell, the TNA Title championship belt was valued at $6,000 and the replica version at $400. Mama mia, that’s a lot of dangerous illegal drugs! And they would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids! And that dog!
Also of note here is that this somehow makes TNA seem even more low rent than they already do. You just get the feeling this kind of thing would *never* happen to WWE, no matter how erratic Vince McMahon is behind the scenes. We here at Stunt Granny will follow this beat for you, the loyal reader, no matter what twists and turns this sordid tale takes. That’s carny for “We will forget this story tomorrow.” – Dusty
According to reports all over the Internet, including this one at The Wrestling Blog and this one from Angry Marks as well as this Wrestling Blog follow-up, well, a whole bunch of shit went down at a few independent wrestling shows in Iowa this past weekend thanks to Davey Richards, Tony Kozina, Kyle O’Reilly and a host of others. Here’s the synopsis, as best we can tell.
Friday night in Des Moines, Iowa, the 3XW promotion held its 7th anniversary show and featured Ring of Honor and indy stars Davey Richards, Tony Kozina and Kyle O’Reilly (Team Ambition) on its card. According to an account by an unnamed source who “works for” 3XW, the trio, plus a trainee they brought along, were all “totally professional.” The 3XW crew also helped these three and their buddy get booked on a couple other cards in Iowa that weekend to make their Iowa trip as worthwhile as possible. Good times all around.
Saturday night in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Magnum Pro Wrestling ran a show with the same threesome of Richards, Kozina and O’Reilly on the card. Kozina, who is known in certain circles as a bit of a hot head (which seems appropriate since he has no neck or shin bones and kinda looks like Ram Man from He-Man), was booked to wrestle 16-year-old Ryan Kidd, who probably made a fundamental mistake in posting to his Twitter account that he is the “fakest fake wrestler.” You know, some guys who make their living in pro wrestling take umbrage with that. Well, Kozina was one of those guys, and as you can see in this video, he took it out of Kidd’s hide, first verbally and then physically. (Same video as above.)
Remember when you were 16 years old, and some old meat head would start spouting off and turning beet red in your vicinity? It was a little scary, right? Imagine if his anger was directed at you. Now imagine if you were there because you were being paid to showcase your wrestling talents against a veteran of your chosen sport, and all he wanted to do was roll into town and legit kick your ass? If I were Kidd, I would have sacrificed my $10 tights and shit my pants in the middle of one of these holds.
Sentiment on the Internet is split right down the middle, if “right down the middle” means one guy no one’s ever heard of has come to Kozina’s defense, while everyone else in Creation has turned Kidd into the Gregory Iron of 2012. Says Toks Fale (I don’t know, either):
Toks Fale @KingFale
some wrestlers make a joke of wrestling. Just watched @TTKozina1 shoot on one of them. Make a mockery of this business you’ll be delt with!
And says TJ Perkins, the Young Bucks, Adam Pearce, Bob Shields, Scott Lost…
Reading tweets on this T.Kozina/@kiddkillscali BS. Ppl trying to justify shoot choking out a 16yo whos working is idiotic. #RingRingItsAWork
I’m not here to pass judgment, only to pass on the passing of judgment. So there’s that. Oh, but the weekend isn’t over yet!
So Sunday rolls around, and Adrenaline Pro Wrestling puts on its show in Milo, Iowa, with these same three known wrestlers and their buddy booked on the card. I’ll give you the short version of the story, but click here (https://www.facebook.com/notes/adrenaline-pro-wrestling/jeremy-jacobs-tells-his-side-of-the-story/453334748030943) for the long version, as told by the promoter. O’Reilly was claiming he was “sore” from yesterday’s workout and was hoping the promoter could shift the card around from three singles matches to an eight-man tag including their trainee. The promoter essentially said “no” at first, as he had planned to pay them a certain amount of money for certain matches to take place. He then offered to shift the card around and accommodate for the eight-man tag, but the wrestlers would need to take less money. Richards would have none of this, and he and the promoter texted back and forth, all the way up until showtime.
Team Ambition still hadn’t showed up nearly an hour into the card, so the promoter texted them to tell them not to even bother showing up. Or, as O’Reilly explains it:
After several back and forth attempts of an agreement, he simply told us we were then cancelled off his show. “You can’t just cancel us like this” Tony replied, “I just did” was his response. Let me remind you we are in the middle of a cornfield laden highway in friggen Iowa and we’re being told that we no longer have a booking for today and to just go home.
HEY, we’re not just friggen Iowa, asshole! (You can read his whole explanation here.) Oh, anyway, Richards informed the promoter that they were 20 minutes away, and when they arrived, they threatened to beat up the promoter, then demanded $375 up front, and then just before their match, Richards “realized” he “forgot” his “tape,” then high-tailed it out the door into a getaway car with Kozina at the wheel.
Since then, members of Team Ambition have Tweeted using the hashtag #TeamBandit, which of course have all been taken down, because, as O’Reilly said, there are #nocleanslates.
@JaysinStrife I think anyone robbing anyone is a piece of shit. In or out of wrestling.
Apparently Jaysin Strife of the Iowa independent wrestling scene agrees. Here he is, shooting on Team Ambition, following his match against Derek Cornell, a match that was supposed to be, after much shuffling, a tag team match with Strife & Cornell vs. Richards & O’Reilly.
Good lord, what is the deal with these guys when they get into Iowa? Bret Hart snaps on a poor writer, Andre the Giant beats up a cameraman, the legendary MMA-trained highly respected veteran Tony Kozina beats up a 16-year-old… I thought our slogan was that we make people smile?? Anyway, I would advise everyone to click each of these links and read up on all of the happenings, as my one post doesn’t do the whole thing justice. Needless to say, though, I wouldn’t buy a bright blue Cadillac from Team Ambition. Not even a used one. -Eric
Truth be told – shock of shockers – we don’t say a lot of nice things about Kurt Angle here at Stunt Granny. Of course, our MO here is to poke fun and the poke funnable, and we’re too big of assholes to stop doing that any time soon. As I like to say, we’re all adults, and we’re all making adult decisions, it’s just that some of us are superheroes doing so in the public eye. So if you want to drink moonshine all night and speed back to your Virginia Motel 6, have a ball. And if you want to no-show a hall of fame induction, so be it. Hey, we weren’t the only ones making light of the situation (I’m looking at you, Arda Ocal and Jerry Brisco).
However, Angle’s pre-taped acceptance speech has hit YouTube, and you know what? It’s pretty nice! Angle tells a short story about both Dan Gable (the museum’s namesake) and Lou Thesz (after whom the hall of fame was named), and you can tell he’s very appreciative of his award. And very tired. Man, take another nap in a median, will ya? Shopping for bridal gowns and flower girl baskets shouldn’t wear you out that much! -Eric
What a great cap to a fun hall of fame weekend: John Bradshaw Layfield took to his YouTube channel yesterday to discuss his award, appearance and great time at the George Tragos/Lou Thesz Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame in Waterloo, Iowa. A number of his jokes come straight from his Lou Thesz Award acceptance speech, but they’re classic nonetheless. JBL is clearly a student of the game, calling Waterloo “the NWA hometown,” and he’s assuredly a fan of the sport, as he rattles off fact after fact about the legends and his peers. JBL says he felt like “a big fat kid at a chocolate factory” all weekend, and his emotion is clear here. -Eric
It’s a three-man booth this week, with Dusty, Eric and Kevin discussing all sorts of relevant and pertinent and important professional wrestling topics. This week’s Top Five at Five includes John Cena wrestling CM Punk at Raw 1000, Daniel Bryan marrying AJ on the same show, Dolph Ziggler winning a Money in the Bank match and helping turn a stagnant Chris Jericho turn babyface, the rumors of who comprises TNA’s Aces & 8s stable (and why they probably aren’t calling themselves Dead Man’s Hand), and Kurt Angle no-showing the hall of fame inductions in Waterloo, Iowa. The boys also play a round of Match Game, plus they discuss what designs should go on the Mount Rushmore of pro wrestling T-shirts. All this and maybe a little bit more, if you’d just click the link below!
I’m glad Jeremy brought this to my attention, because it resurrected an old post that I never published:
For the first time in a quarter-century, the NWA Championship will be defended in Des Moines, Iowa, as 3XWrestling brings “Scrap Iron” Adam Pearce back to town to defend his belt against “The Rebel” Jeremy Wyatt at Baratta’s Forte Ballroom. Tickets are $15 at the door, and the show begins at 7:30 p.m. I would have posted this news earlier, but even though I’m one of the biggest wrestling fans in this town, I didn’t even know about the show until right this instant. Bring the kids! -Eric
That was, like, three weeks ago. This time, it took Jeremy, who lives in Greenville, S.C., to alert me to (according to Gerweck.net) Perry Saturn wrestling in my hometown. Saturn lives within about 150 miles of here – I’m thinking Mason City, Ia., or Albert Lea, Minn., but don’t care enough to Google it – and has wrestled in Iowa within the past eight years – whenever he wasn’t missing, homeless, dead or playing the third Ultimate Warrior. I’m not shocked to see him – and I’m excited as hell that his opponent is my boy Gage Octane – but I will be shocked when I see the 3XW TV commercial running on the lower-rung digital cable channel at 3 a.m. while I’m trying to enjoy “House Hunters” reruns. -Eric
Eric & Jeremy bring on another Asshole Edition of the Stunt Granny Audio. You won’t believe who they make fun of the whole show to prove that they are indeed assholes. Speaking of that orifice, they start the show off talking about Mr. Anderson and the rest of TNA. What did Kevin say TNA did right this past week? Did Eric & Jeremy agree with him? What did they think happened right this week? Is Bobby Roode getting the proper build up for his title shot? Is James Storm still outshining Roode? And just how funny was Kurt Angle talking to Jeff Hardy? Eric & Jeremy eventually move on to Raw talk. Was it a good idea to have Alberto Del Rio on the head sets along with CM Punk? Are the Super Shows helping or hurting people? Is it a two way street between the shows? Is Jeremy caving on his long term faith in the WWE’s writing skills with the recent posting of the video footage on WWE.com of the Miz & R Truth? Find out that and Eric’s Twitter address by clicking on the link below!Stunt Granny Audio Show #158
