It is with great sadness that we report on the passing of Joanie Laurer, best known to wrestling fans as “Chyna”. She was just 45 years old. With brief runs in TNA and New Japan following, Chyna was undoubtedly famous for her time in the WWE between 1997 and 2001, where she debuted as a manager for Shawn Michaels and Triple H in D-Generation X, before making the transition to the ring and becoming the first female Intercontinental champion. After wrestling, she had a career in the adult movie business, and had also been an English teacher in Japan. Our…
Month: April 2016
We’re going back into the Demand-Progress.com catalogue for another show from the company’s past, with July 2014’s brilliantly-titled Thunderbastard.
As the new week started, news started to leak out of TNA’s potential sale – and although (at time of writing) nothing has been finalised, the details coming out seemed to indicate that the company destined for a warehouse was veering into yet another PR crisis.
Well, if I’m going to Brixton in September, I really ought to get up to speed with what PROGRESS is doing, right? And since I’m signed up to Demand-Progress.com, it’s probably time to start doing more than scanning through some shows.
Television can be a very useful tool for a professional wrestling promotion. Back in the day, it was one of the main vehicles that companies had to sell tickets to live events. As wrestling evolved, television shows became a tool to increase awareness and sell pay-per-views as well. With success comes ratings, and the inevitable addition of extra coverage, which leads us to the conundrum that we face today.
Spoilers have been part and parcel of wrestling for its entire life. Especially when matches didn’t air live on TV, there has always been a group of fans looking to be ahead of the curve and figure out what’s happened before it’s broadcast to the masses. (Friendly tip: there’s none included in this article!)
Earlier this week, we posted a vote over on our Twitter page, @BigBackBodyDrop, asking for your opinions on how we should rate matches.
With WrestleMania in the books, it time to go back to basics as we continue our search on the world wide web for the freely available gems of matches as WWE enters it’s annual downward post-WrestleMania spiral. This week, we return to the world of Memphis studio wrestling, and enter the Pacific North West scene for the first time!