Wrestling

Internet Pre-Show: Cody Rhodes vs. The Miz Two name-brand guys with nothing to do for a pay-per-view (PPV) get it on for our free viewing pleasure on the Pre-Show streams - live on WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, Google+, Pinterest, Samsung SMART TVs and Xbox 360 this Sunday, May 19, at 7:30 ET/4:30 PT. The Road to Extreme Rules Both men have long and impressive championship résumés. Miz was just recently Intercontinental champion (for a day at least). He was WWE champ, and even successfully defended that belt at WrestleMania. He has also held the United States, Tag Team and WWE titles. Cody has been an Intercontinental champ and held the tag team straps on several occasions. Despite similar tenures in the company, the Awesome and Dashing ones do not have much history with one another. This bout exists because the matchmakers thought it would be an entertaining one. Cody has been on an impressive run lately. Even in defeat, he has been putting on impressive performances against competitors ranging from young guns, like former Miz protégé Alex Riley, to established veterans like his former mentor, Randy Orton. On the other hand, the former reality television star has been off making movies. Tonight will tell us if a week back is enough time to shake off the ring rust and get back in the hunt to add to his championship credentials. What's at stake? A match that WWE decision makers and fans world-wide will have their eyes on is a prime opportunity for these superstars to establish themselves for bigger things. While no stipulation has been announced for this match, the consequences of victory or defeat could be "extreme" for Rhodes or Mizanin. Be sure to catch the free stream right here at Cageside Seats! Then stick around for all the results and fallout from a full night of action at Extreme Rules!

Pro Wrestling Syndicate lineup for tonight in Queens: Sat May 18th - St Sebastian Parish Center on 39-50 67th Street in Woodside NY (Queens). 5pm Autograph Signing Meet & Greet . 7pm bell time. PWS CHAMPIONSHIP MATCH "The Notorious 187" Homicide vs Kevin Matthews (c) TWO FORMER WWE STARS RETURN TO PWS Davey Boy Smith Jr vs "Big Poppa Pump" Scott Steiner WRESTLING LEGENDS RETURN TO PWS TO COLLIDE Flash Funk vs "The Rocker" Marty Jannetty SINGLES ACTION Bonesaw vs Necro Butcher TORNADO TAG TEAM MATCH Starman & The Drunken Swashbuckler vs Reality Check's Devon Moore & Kyle Reynolds SINGLES ACTION "The Boricua Beast " Dan Maff vs Trent Barreta TAG TEAM TITLES #1 CONTENDERS MATCH South Side Playaz Club with Shelly Martinez vs Heavenly Bodies with GMC SUICIDAL SIX WAY Anthony Vigilante vs Brian XL vs Craven Varro vs Facade vs The Lifeguard vs Pat Buck SINGLES ACTION Fallah vs "Big Deal" Craig Steele Tickets on sale at the door - $20 --- BUS TRIP - leaving from The Rahway Rec Center on 275 East Milton Ave in Rahway NJ at 5pm and returning to Rahway after the event in Queens is over. Cost is $40 for round trip trans on the PWS chartered bus (air conditioning, tv's, dvd players, sanitized rest rooms, reclining seats). www.ProWrestlingSyndicate.com

Dwayne Johnson did an interview at http://youtu.be/SNzlo5AHTvE with Chris Van Vliet where his last run in wrestling was brought up, in particular his thoughts on whether WrestleMania 29 was his last match as well as an update on his injury and training, his breakthrough interviews and locker room reaction. In particular, he praised The Shield and Fandango as new characters who he thinks are going to make it big.

- WWE announced that there will be a 30-minute Extreme Rules post-show on Sunday night in addition to the pre-show. The post-show and pre-show will be available on the WWE website, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, XBox 360, and the official WWE App. Here is an excerpt from their announcement: “This Sunday’s Extreme Rules event just got even bigger: In addition to the previously announced Pre-Show featuring The Miz vs. Cody Rhodes, the WWE Universe will also have the opportunity to watch a free, live-streamed 30-minute Post-Show immediately following the pay-per-view. To catch all the action of WWE’s most out-of-control event of the year, tune in for the interactive Pre-Show starting at 7:30 p.m. ET/4:30 p.m. PT. Both the Pre-Show and Post-Show will be available for viewing on WWE.com, the WWE App, YouTube, Yahoo!, Facebook, Twitter, Samsung SMART TVs and Xbox 360.” Big WWE Title Feud Planned Later This Year, Hot New Maryse Pics, More…

Booger Red! Booger Red! Booger Red!Photo Credit: WWE.comIt's Twitter Request Line time, everyone! I take to Twitter to get questions about issues in wrestling, past and present, and answer them on here because 140 characters can't restrain me, fool! If you don't know already, follow me @tholzerman, especially around Friday night after Smackdown, and wait for the call. Or don't wait for it actually. I'll try to get everything for this feature no matter when in the week you shoot me the Tweet. Anyway, here we go.First up, Scott T. Holland of Irresistible vs. Immovable asks what my favorite May pay-per-view moment was, for any company.Let's go back to Judgment Day 2000. The Rock defended his WWF Championship against Triple H in an Iron Man Match. He lost said match, but that's not what was important here. You know who came back at this event? THE GODDAMN UNDERTAKER, THAT'S WHO! And he redebuted on a motorcycle too! Bikertaker has a mixed reputation among fans, and I wasn't the hugest fan of "Booger Red," but it was a cool moment, if just for the look of pants-shitting horror on Trips' face as Taker made his way back down the aisle and into the mind of the soon-to-become-again Champion.@LegKickTKO asks only THE DAZZLER.@Enrico_Palazzo_ wants to hear some more Loggins, bro.I played some in Vol. 26. But a request's a request...@GayWrestlingFan has a theory that Triple H isn't a bad character in small doses, but the reason he's so insufferable is because he wants to be known as the best ever, and wants to know my theory on it.I've actually had this theory for a long time. Triple H was an Undertaker who thought he was a Ric Flair. See, Undertaker is one of the all-time greats not because he ever had a run on top as the only guy, but because he's been a strong member of an ensemble cast. Trips could have been that, but instead, he rammed home the idea that he was THE MAN like a square peg through a round hole until the edges got sheared off anyway. A lot of ego there. A LOT.But I do feel like if he hadn't been forced down our throats as THE guy, maybe he wouldn't have engendered the hate he did. Well, I can't use the Royal We here and speak for everyone. I know my personal opinion would reflect that statement.Setting aside Ryback, @jtidwell808 asks whom I think has the best chance to become the next first-time WWE Champion.If we're being technical and only going with the title whose lineage traces back to Buddy Rogers, then my pick is Daniel Bryan. The guy is undeniably becoming one of the company's most popular babyfaces, and who better to win the title from The Ryback than the man who knows his weakness? If we're talking either of the big two titles, then it'll be Antonio Cesaro, who is going to win the Smackdown briefcase and cash in on whoever is holding the Big Gold Belt.@CandymanSossic wants to know the top three concerts/festivals I've ever been to.1. Iron Maiden/Motorhead/Dio in summer 2003 - My cousin and I went to this show at the Susquehanna Bank Center and watched from the lawn. We were able to see all of the pyro for Iron Maiden's set, which ruled. I came out of that concert a far bigger Maiden fan than when I went in. I feel bad now because we spent a lot of the time on Dio's set making fun of him, and we both turned out to like his music later on in our lives. Thus is life.2. Metallica in January 2009 - Wells Fargo Center, the night before I had to take a plane ride to Houston (also the night before the Eagles most recent NFC Championship Game defeat). It was well worth the decibels and the late night to bed. The best part of the show? The pyro during "One." Second best? They played ZERO songs from St. Anger.3. Genesis in September 2007 - Unlike any concert I've ever gone to. No opener, no one was on their feet. It was a show to take in the music, and there was a lot of virtuosity going on. They played a whole bunch of pre-popularity songs as well, which I appreciated immensely.@Jessico09 wants a comparison between curre

WWE SmackDown hit the SyFy airwaves last night (May 17, 2013) from Detroit, Michigan, with a taped show featuring the go home show to the Extreme Rules pay-per-view (PPV) set for this Sunday night in St. Louis. It was the last thing fans would see before the big event, so you would think the company would put its best foot forward. And you would be wrong. If you missed the show, or just want to go back and read the live blog again, click here. That's enough with the potatoes, let's get to the meat: Here's my problem with SmackDown in general, because let's just get to the point already: WWE doesn't seem to give two shits about this show. There's nothing so wrong with the booking, necessarily. It's actually not all that bad. It's just that I'm sick and tired of being able to book the show myself before I ever see anything happen. It's so stock, like they have a book somewhere that they bring down in situations like this where it says something along the lines of: Promo segment, near brawl, tag team match set up for main event by ridiculous dude in power, stock tag team main event. And that's fine on a normal show but this wasn't a normal show. This was the go home show to a PPV that's supposed to matter. It doesn't feel like it does. Seriously, can someone just take Teddy Long out behind the woodshed? That character is beyond stale. We're talking left out on the counter during the family vacation stale. You ain't touching that when you get home, it doesn't matter how hungry you are. The Miz is still grating, Randy Orton still doesn't have a single interesting thing to say, and Big Show is still bogged down by the fact that he's a good performer with the wrong look in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sheamus is still lame and Mark Henry is still outstanding. Jack Swagger is still hardly useful and Alberto Del Rio still can't get over no matter how many times he wildly waves his arms around when he's really pumped up and/or trying to get the crowd to react. Speaking of which ... Let's knock it off with the heat machine. The piped in crowd noise is understandable but pick your spots. Kaitlyn isn't getting big babyface reactions on Raw, don't bother trying to give her one on SmackDown when you can control the pitch. And if you're going to try to convince me everyone is booing and all up in arms over a heel, don't pan to the crowd where I can clearly see everyone sitting on their hands with blank expressions on their faces. Never liked the Spear as a finisher because no one ever made it look as good as Goldberg and he didn't even use it as his finisher, but Roman Reigns rocks that move. I don't ever want to see Kofi Kingston run off The Shield again. Ever. I don't care if it was done to set up something later, or to create unpredictability for a match, or for a cheap pop on a TV show. Just never again. I really want to see "The Damien Sandow Show." But instead we get MizTV and, to add insult to injury, they book Miz to go over Sandow despite the fact that Cody Rhodes was ringside to help out. I get that Miz is supposed to look strong in his return to TV and he's a valuable commodity to the company and all this other nonsense but at some point there needs to be a realization that a guy like Miz is not going to change the business. He's not going to be the next thing to take pro wrestling to a new level. Maybe a guy like Sandow or Rhodes would be but they never get the push a guy like Miz does. The real issue is it's not just that they don't get that kind of push but that they're actively sacrificed to a guy like Miz, an established star. You can't make a wrestler look like shit over an extended period of time and expect fans to forget about it later. That's fine for Heath Slater, who was never going to be WWE champion but for guys who could actually change things, that's not okay. The rant above also applies to Antonio Cesaro. In trying to understand or explain why he's so great to those who may not understand,

Back in October 2002, Kane was the Intercontinental Champion and apparently boning down with dead chicks. He would go on to lose the title to Triple H, then World Heavyweight Champion, and the belts were unified. Six months later, WWE realized, "Hey, we need something for guys not named Triple H and Brock Lesnar to feud over!" So they brought the IC strap back. On this date in 2003, at Judgment Day, a battle royal was held to crown a new champion and in the ten years since, it's slowly regained the prominence it held during its heyday of Rick Rude, Mr. Perfect, Ultimate Warrior and Shawn Michaels. Oh, who am I kidding? Sometimes, I wonder if the WWE writing staff forgets the belt even exists. "What's that thing Cody Rhodes, The Miz, Wade Barrett always wear around?" "Beats me. Let's have him lose this week again." Check out the match up next... Judgment Day 2003 Battle Royal by legendkiller619 This article was originally written and posted by Sergio Hernandez for Cageside Seats on May 15, 2012. We thank him for his contributions. Additionally, we had the following tidbits occur today as well in history... 1928 - The true King of Memphis, "The Southern Legend" Jackie Fargo is born Henry Faggart in Concord, NC. Jackie Fargo vs Jimmy Hart (Lumberjack Match, 11-8-82) CWA Memphis Wrestling (via ChannelExtreme) Titles held by Fargo included: NWA Mid-America Heavyweight Champion NWA Southern Junior Heavyweight ChampionNWA World (Chicago & Mid-America) Southern (Mid-America & Gulf Coast) & Mid-America Tag Team Champion NWA World (Mid-America) Six Man Tag Team ChampionAWA Southern Tag Team Champion 1932 - NWA & AWA legend Billy Red Lyons (d. 6.22.09) is born William Snip in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Lyons was the brother-in-law of AWA & NWA legend "The Destroyer" Dick Beyer. For Image Click Here Titles held by Lyons include: AWA British Empire Heavyweight Champion JWA All-Asia Tag Team Champion NWA American & Texas Heavyweight Champion NWA World (Detroit), United States (Tri-State), International (Toronto), Canadian Open, American & Texas Tag Team Champion 1941- Canadian & WWWF legend Gino Brito/Louis Cerdan is born Louis Gino Acocella in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. For Image Click Here Titles held by Brito-Cerdan include: ESA (Nova Scotia) IW North American Heavyweight Champion Lutte Internationale (Montreal) Canadian International Tag Team Champion WWWF International Heavyweight Champion WWWF World Tag Team Champion Grand Prix Tag Team Champion (Montreal) 1943 - NWA & WWF legend and WWE Hall of Famer, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka is born James William Reiher in Fiji. Snuka is the father of former WWE Superstar Deuce/Sim Snuka (James William Reiher, Jr.) and WWE Diva Tamina (Sarona Reiher). Paul Orndorff & Jimmy Snuka vs Ric Flair & Greg Valentine (rematch) (via maskedsuperstarfan) Titles held by Snuka include: CWA (Memphis) International Tag Team Champion NWA United States (Mid-Atlantic), Pacific Northwest, Texas & ECW Heavyweight Champion NWA ECW Television Champion NWA World (Mid-Atlantic), National, Pacific Northwest, Canadian (Vancouver) & Texas Tag Team Champion WWWA (Ohio) Heavyweight Champion WWWA (Ohio) Tag Team Champion And now, from the desk of our CSS Senior Editor; for your viewing pleasure we have freshly dusted off our old archived posts from the CSS Archives -- ENJOY! ____________________________________ 18 - MAY CSS ARCHIVES 18 May 2012 Do not trust the Big Show: A history of his duplicitous acts by Jason Mann May 18, 2012 5:00 PM CDT - 21 comments Video: WWE Over the Limit 2012 preview for John Cena vs John Laurinaitis by Geno Mrosko May 18, 2012 3:00 PM CDT - 11 comments On This Date in WWE History: The Intercontinetal Championship is reinstated and won by Christian by Sergio Hernandez May 18, 2012 9:11 AM CDT - 4 comments Cageside Quote: Daniel Bryan is petitioning for a match with Brock Lesnar by Geno Mrosko May 18,

WWE Extreme Rules Post-Show WWE has officially announced that there will be a 30-minute Extreme Rules post-show on Sunday night in addition to the usual preview. The post-show and preview will be available on the WWE website, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, XBox 360, and the official WWE App. WWE.com has more information. Bateman Accepting Bookings Derrick Bateman,real name Michael Hutter, can be reached for bookings at MichaelHutter10@gmail.com. He was recently cut by the WWE on Friday.

Are you ready to get extreme? Then don't miss John Cena, Ryback, Alberto Del Rio, The Shield and all your favorite WWE Superstars in the one night a year when extreme times call for Extreme Rules. The action starts Sunday, May 19, at 8PM ET/5PM PT. For all the ways to watch this annual event, which features most of the scheduled bouts contested with a hardcore stipulation, check with WWE.com here. The show features HHH and Brock Lesnar will break the 1 - 1 tie of their epic series. The former UFC champ put the COO on the shelf at SummerSlam. The Game survived a war with his career on the line at WrestleMania 29. They'll settle their differences in a steel cage at the ScottTrade Center in St. Louis, MO. The co-main event It hasn't been smooth sailing for WWE Champion John Cena after finally vanquishing The Rock. Former ally Ryback is proving to be dangerous and hungry, and a bum ankle hardly allows the leader of the Cenation to stand on his own two feet. He'll need every ounce of hustle, loyalty and respect to come out of a last man standing match with a challenger who places by his own rules...#RybackRules. In other action The hottest faction to hit WWE is, well, forever gets their first shot at gold when Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins face tag team champions Team Hell No (Daniel Bryan & Kane) in a tornado tag match, while Dean Ambrose shoots for Kofi Kingston's United States championship. Big names and bigger bodies collide when Mark Henry and Sheamus duel in a strap match, and Randy Orton and The Big Show brawl under truly extreme rules. Even the build-up to Alberto Del Rio and Jack Swagger's spot on the card was extreme - it put World Heavyweight Champion Jack Swagger on the shelf with a concussion, and turned the latest face-off between these bitter rivals into an "I Quit" match for the #1 contendership. Plus, Chris Jericho and Fandango dance again. Cody Rhodes and Miz will try to outdo one another and get the WWE Universe ready to rumble on the free pre-show. In this StoryStream, we'll have previews of each and every match on the card. Stay tuned! Click the links on each match below for the preview, as they are published: HHH vs. Brock Lesnar John Cena vs. Ryback The Shield (Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins) vs. Team Hell No (Daniel Bryan & Kane) Alberto Del Rio vs. Jack Swagger Dean Ambrose vs. Kofi Kingston Randy Orton vs. The Big Show Sheamus vs. Mark Henry Chris Jericho vs. Fandango Cody Rhodes vs. The Miz

Breaking down the entire "Extreme Rules" match card with complete previews for every advertised match on the card. The show will feature Ryback vs. John Cena, Triple H vs. Brock Lesnar, The Shield vs. Team Hell No and more! In this StoryStream, we'll have previews of each and every match on the card. Stay tuned! Click the links on each match below for the preview, as they are published: HHH vs. Brock Lesnar John Cena vs. Ryback The Shield (Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins) vs. Team Hell No (Daniel Bryan & Kane) Alberto Del Rio vs. Jack Swagger Dean Ambrose vs. Kofi Kingston Randy Orton vs. The Big Show Sheamus vs. Mark Henry Chris Jericho vs. Fandango Cody Rhodes vs. The Miz