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JR's Blog: New, JR's Blog, WWE Clash of Champions Feedback, Dangerous Trends in Pro Wrestling, Toronto/RINGSIDE Tkts on sale Wednesday

Posted: Sep 27th 2016 By: Jim Ross

Greetings to all and thanks for stopping by our site. Visit often and check out the blogs that we post regularly and the updated Q&A's that we feature as well. Another big week as we bring you an installment of the Knockout Night at the D boxing series from Las Vegas Friday night at 11 PM ET/8 PM PT live from downtown Vegas. Our live broadcat airs on the CBS Sports Network.

Talking with both John Pollock of the Toronto based Fight Network and JJ Dillon tonight during my regular Monday night The Ross Report Podcast production session. John and I will review WWE's Clash of Champions among many topics that are in the news. It's always great to catch up with HOFer JJ Dillon who is a wealth of info and is one of the most knowledgeable and trusted men in the pro wresting biz.

The updated schedule of guests for The Ross Report is listed on the homepage of this site. We've got some good one's coming up!

Tickets for our Toronto, Survivor Series Sunday RINGSIDE Show at The Second City go on sale THIS WEDNESDAY MORNING at 10 am ET via www.livenation.com and www.ticketmaster.ca. Seating is limited so I suggest that you get your tickets early and join us before going to WWE's sold out Survivor Series which is only about a 10 minute walk from venue to venue.

Got home from a fun weekend in Baltimore for Dan McDevitt's MCW Wrestling in time to watch WWE's Clash of the Champions broadcast on the WWE Network. Thought the show was a solid presentation that wasn't overwhelming IMO but instead I thought was a solid presentation that I'm happy that I watched.

The timing of the show worked for me as it provided every match with adequate time to be able to tell a compelling story. With that said it also exposed some talents as perhaps needing more work or strategizing better before they embark on longer than normal, TV wrestling matches.

None of the matches were remotely "bad" IMO and some delivered, as one would expect, better than others. I gave the show a B+ which is a good grade in today's mat world.

As I tweeted, @JRsBBQ, Sunday night, there were such an abundance of wrestlers kicking our of their opponent's finishing maneuvers that by the time that the Owens-Rollins main event came along that particular dramatic element had been massively overplayed and the main event was unable to incorporate it successfully in their match.

I do not understand the fascination of kicking out of other's finishers to the degree that we often see on a variety of pro wrestling broadcasts these days. The same basic emotion can be created using other match elements that are NOT established finishers that is if 'established finishers' is even a relevant term these days in the genre.

It's another undesirable trend in the business to go along with a lack of timely and believable selling, logically exploiting a body part, and villains working to garner crowd 'pops' instead of earning antagonist 'heat.'

Is it obvious that some fans are merely booing Roman Reigns because they think that it is the 'thing to do' based on what they hear on TV? In the heartland of America in Indianapolis, Indiana an American (Reigns) wrestling for the United States Title versus a Bulgarian, I.E. a non American, is booed by the vocal, defiant, mostly young male demo which reeks of overt, attention seekers.

Rusev is developing into a main event level talent without fail and his match with Reigns had a marked intensity especially coming down the stretch into the conclusion of the bout.

Enjoyed the physicality of the Sheamus vs Cesaro Best of Seven finale that ended up not being the finale after all. I assume that this series will get another shot at being blown off and, if so, hopefully these two won't kick our of each other's finishers to the degree that they did Sunday night. Both are too skilled to need to do that as it has been overdone so much in recent times that it has lost much of it's luster.

Cesaro took an unnecessary chance/risk with the suicide tope, head first dive through the ropes, to only end up spiking himself on the floor which could have broken his neck. Apparently, Cesaro dodged a massive bullet in this exchange that had zero bearing on the narrative of the bout.

If men and women in the business continue to take unnecessary risks, we can all but guarantee that someone is going to sustain a serious injury sooner than later due to the volume of these unneeded, high risk/small reward bumps.

I often times wonder how a particular match would be perceived if there were no outside interference used to help the offend wrestler 'save face' of 'have an out.' In today's world of pro wrestling presentation, how much does that specific action actually resonate with most fans?

These 'trends' are not a WWE exclusive issue by a long shot at they are things that I see watching a litany of product on weekly TV broadcasts.

Boomer Sooner!

J.R. @JRsBBQ