2011 Year of CM Punk

This past year one performer clearly dominated the landscape of professional wrestling. CM Punk has always been a great performer and in 2011 it seems that the rest of the world caught on.

Despite taking over the Nexus and having a good series of matches with Randy Orton in the early part of the year, Punk's 2011 really kicked into high gear in June. It was revealed to the world that Punk's contract was coming to an end and he had not resigned with the WWF. This reported to not just be a story line but that the straight edged superstar was actually in contract negotiations for a long term deal.


During this stretch Punk kicked off some major wins against Alberto Del Rio and John Cena. After beating Rey Mysterio in a match that made him the number 1 contender for Cena's WWF title at Money In The Bank PPV. While he was on this stretch Punk kicked off some very well received promos. He was speaking on the state of the company and was echoing a lot sentiments that fans had expressing online. There was one promo at the end of Raw that had a lot fans wondering if WWF actually allowed him to do it. The speculation was that it was a shoot(real).

The Promo That Started It All

After the promo began the speculation that CM Punk may beat John Cena and leave the WWF with the title. Punk was successful in his quest and left his hometown of Chicago as the WWF Champion that was not signed.
While on his hiatus from actively competing in the WWF, Punk showed up at various events with the WWF title. Capped off by his epic appearance at the WWF Comic Con presentation.

CM Punk shows up at Comic Con

CM Punk returned to the WWF after they crowned a new champion. There was a tournament held that was won by Rey Mysterio whom then lost the belt the same night to John Cena. With Punk back on the scene there had to be a match to determine who was the real WWF Champion.

Summer Slam Contract Signing

After the Summer Slam match with Cena a feud was kicked off with CM Punk and COO Triple H. It involved Triple H and his best friend Kevin Nash. This feud shortly too Punk out of the title picture but kept him very relevant in the landscape of the WWF.

After going through the motions with Triple H that ended in a brutal last man standing match at Night of Champions, Punk set his sights back on the WWF title. Which he was able to regain from Alberto Del Rio.

The Straight Edged Superstar was able to maintain the belt for the remainder of 2011. His cutting edge promos throughout the year stayed on the pulse of the WWF Universe. He is able to do it by the simple that he is a wrestling fan himself. If you listen to his references he can quickly recap any moment of wrestling history. As we roll into 2012 we hope to see CM Punk to keep doing what he is doing.

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Hero Needs The Villian

While watching the a match between The Undertaker vs Hulk Hogan for the WWF title at Survivor Series 1991 it came to me that the most important element to creating a hero is a strong villain to oppose him. This concept not only applies to wrestling. In movies, comic books and video games there is no great hero without great opposition. Today's pro wrestling heros don't get over as much because there is not enough build up on the villains.

After watching Hogan in this match against Taker I realized how important they were too each other. The Undertaker needed a major hero to face off against and Hogan needed a larger than life villain that could possibly beat the unbeatable hero. This match was a big building block for the mystique of The Undertaker that helped kick his Hall of Fame career into high gear.

Hulk Hogan's career is largely based on the hero vs villain concept. For the early part of his career playing the conquering hero who did everything right against the forces of evil. From the inception of his push he was the strong American vs an Iranian bad guy in the Iron Sheik. From there he went on to face the largest athletes the WWF could provide such as Big John Stud and King Kong Bundy to put even a man big as Hogan in peril.

There were no enemies bigger than Andre The Giant the 8th Wonder of the world. He was facing a much larger athlete who was backed by the most cerebral manager in the world. This dynamic helped because it gave Hogan the usual impossible odds to face. Now for the most part of his career Andre was a face but to get over as a heel he brought in Bobby The Brain Heenan the most notorious heel manager of our time. Heenan was a constant thorn in Hogan's side through out his career and led many men in the ring to face him. The feuds where not as much about the wrestlers as it was the contempt Hogan and Heenan had for each other.

The Disgruntled Employee vs The Tyrant Boss

When it came to big time feuds in the history of professional wrestling is Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Vince McMahon. The hard working employee who is getting the screws stuck to him by his overbearing corporate boss. This is once again the easy concept to buy into. Most people in America are workers and have bosses at some level. We have all at one point have wanted to stick it to our boss is some way shape or form.

Fans tend to relate better to concepts that they easily understand. Since we were children the good fighting the bad has always worked. Since most of us identify ourselves as good we relate to cause of the hero. Even those of us who relate to the villain need to be able to find ourselves in that character.

Cool Stuff on The Internet 2

The Current WWF Champions

Circulating around the great web on Monday was a photo of the current WWF Champions. Through the magic of twitter by notably Kofi Kingston and CM Punk. Its a nice photo hopefully symbolic of the company's commitment to the future.

Classic Match - Doom vs Horsemen

A wild match between some wrestling legends. The team of Doom (Butch Reed and Ron Simmons) vs The Horsemen ( Ric Flair and Arn Anderson). Check it out...

The Latest Episode of The Cold Slither Podcast

Creative Has Nothing For You

The weekly series features Colt Cabana and Marty DeRosa as Colt attempts to talk to Creative (Marty) about new ways to help get his character over... Funny stuff

Ring Time Pro Wrestling - Recap of WWF TLC PPV

Weekly DVD Suggestion - Wrestling With Shadows

This weeks suggestion an oldie but goodie. Hitman Hart Wrestling With Shadows chronicles the last year of Bret Hart with the WWF. The video walks you through a behind the scenes in the wrestling business. See as Bret Hart talks about his relationship with Vince McMahon and his emotions as he prepares to go to WCW. This video can be found on streaming Netflix and sometimes is air on A&E if you can catch it. Searching youtube or ordering a hard copy from Amazon.com

Montreal Screwjob

One thing that this DVD chronicles is the lead up to one of wrestlings biggest controversies. We actually get to see the behind the scenes events where Bret and Vince discuss how the match is supposed to end.

Clip from The Movie

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Old School Profile - Ole Anderson

When we talk about the 4 Horsemen and where it all started we have to give credit to Ole Anderson. The elder statesman of wrestling's premier faction.

Anderson actually was big part of adding credibility to the group before it was officially a faction. After watching a young Marty Lunde wrestle Ole thought the young man resembled him a little and would make a good Anderson. So the young Lunde was transformed into the man we all now know as The Enforcer Arn Anderson. When they wanted to help get a young man over in the Carolinas named Ric Flair he was billed a cousin of the Andersons.

The Minnesota native began his wrestling career in 1967 in Verne Gagne's AWA as Rock Rogowski. His birth name is Alan Robert Rogowski. He was trained by the legendary Gagne. During his time in the AWA he held AWA Midwest Heavyweight and the AWA Midwest Tag Team Titles.

Ole and Gene Anderson

After going to NWA territories like Jim Crockett and Georgia Championship Wrestling, Rogowski became an Anderson. He replaced Lars Anderson in the legendary Minnesota Wrecking Crew.

The team of Ole and Gene dominated tag team wrestling in the south in the late 60's and the 1970's. They had feuds with stars like Mr. Wrestling and Mr. Wrestling II, Wahoo McDaniel and The Briscoes.

Also during this time Ole started working behind the scenes as a booker. He booked for both Jim Crockett and Georgia Championship Wrestling. There was a time where he booked both promotions at the same time. During this time he would put together supercards with stars from both promotions. He then went on to take the job full time with GCW until The Briscoes sold their stake in the promotion to Vince McMahon.

Enter Arn Anderson

During April of 1985 Mid Atlantic Wrestling (Jim Crockett Promotions) and Championship Wrestling from Georgia essentially merged and Anderson was tagging with Thunderbolt Patterson. The enter a young man from Rome, GA named Marty Lunde. The story is that Ole took a liking to young wrestler and the rest is history and Marty became Arn Anderson.

As the newest incarnation of the Minnesota Wrecking Crew they had big shoes to fill. By most accounts Arn was just a capable replacement for Gene but helped take the legacy of the team to new heights. In 1986 The Andersons joined up with Ric Flair and Tully Blanchard to form the 4 Horsemen.

The most dominant and famous faction in the history of the sport. Ole's first run with the group lasted into 1987 when he was kicked out in favor of Lex Luger. Around that time he was retiring and taking time to watch is son Brian wrestle.

Ole came back to the business with World Championship Wrestling(WCW) in 1989 to reform the Four Horsemen with Flair, Arn and Sting. Sting was kicked out of the group after he would not relinquish a title shot again Flair that he earned. He then retired again to manage the Horsemen, that now included Barry Windham and Sid Vicious..

By 1990 Anderson had became head booker for WCW as they were transitioning away from the NWA. He came up with a few creative ideas during that time, the most notable being The Black Scorpion. Voiced by Anderson and performed by Flair he was a nemesis of then Heavyweight Champion Sting. Around 1991 when Bill Watts took control over WCW Anderson became a referee. In 1993 the company was taken over by Eric Bischoff whom released Anderson's son and then later fired Ole after there was some animosity between the two.

Ole has has stayed away from the business, but wrote a book on it called Inside Out. He is very critical of the abilities of his former follow Horseman Ric Flair by criticizing that Flair has wrestled the same match for years.

Ole Anderson Shoot Interview

Title History
AWA Midwest Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
AWA Midwest Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Ox Baker (1), and The Claw (1)
NWA Florida Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Ron Garvin
NWA Florida Television Championship (1 time)
NWA Columbus Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA Georgia Tag Team Championship (17 times) – with Gene Anderson (7), Ivan Koloff (5), Lars Anderson (2), Rene Goulet (1), Ernie Ladd (1), and Jerry Brisco (1)
NWA Georgia Television Championship (2 times)
NWA Macon Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA Macon Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Gene Anderson
NWA National Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Thunderbolt Patterson (1)
NWA Southeastern Tag Team Championship (Georgia version) (1 time) – with Gene Anderson
Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling / Jim Crockett Promotions / World Championship Wrestling
NWA Atlantic Coast Tag Team Championship (4 times) – with Gene Anderson
NWA Eastern States Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Gene Anderson
NWA National Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Arn Anderson
NWA World Tag Team Championship (Mid-Atlantic version) (8 times) – with Gene Anderson (7), and Stan Hansen (1)
WCW Hall of Fame (Class of 1994)

Special Edition TLC Preview 12/15 by Ringtimeprowrestling | Blog Talk Radio

Special Edition TLC Preview 12/15 by Ringtimeprowrestling | Blog Talk Radio

As we continue our tradition PPV previews we breakdown the upcoming WWF TLC event. We will go match by match with predictions.

There will also be a breakdown on the history of the Tables, Ladders and Chairs concept.

Call In @ (323) 443-7451

Daniel Bryan Is Back

In a previous post I speculated that the WWF could possibly not acknowledge the Money In The Bank win of Daniel Bryan. For a series of weeks the story line pounded Bryan into the ground again and again. Then almost taking him off the main television programs all together.

In recent weeks the WWF creative team has rediscovered the talents of one Daniel Bryan. The Money In The Bank briefcase has revived and we now can feel that he will actually successfully cash it in. Not sure where this is going but glad to see him being used in a good way. Bryan is one of the best wrestlers in the world and is definitely over with the fans of the WWF Universe. Let's just hope they keep this going.

Daniel Bryan vs Mark Henry for WWF Title

Things That Ring Time Likes

This week the Ring Time Crew has been busy on the internet. While out there we found some things that we wanted to share all of you.

Hey We got A Facebook Page
Link to Facebook Fan Page

Episode 1 of The Mid Card Mafia

In the spirit Z True Long Island Stories some more wrestlers have taken charge over their gimmicks and are increasing their cyber presence. WWF Superstars Tyler Reks, Curt Hawkins, Drew McIntyre and Tyson Kidd have created a youtube and twitter following that is starting to grow.


The Cold Slither Podcast Episode 9 - Piledriver

A special 3-HOUR edition of the Cold Slither Podcast!! We go back to the 1980s WWF, the Rock N Wrestling era, and discuss favorite pro wrestlers, favorite tag teams, favorite entrance themes, overrated and underrated pro wrestlers and the worst characters/gimmicks ever in pro wrestling.

Vince McMahon - Stand Back

Weekly DVD Suggestion - The Rise and Fall of ECW

During the late 1990s the world of professional wrestling was experiencing a revolution. We were in the middle of the Monday Night Wars and there was a 3rd company on the horizon making waves. Extreme Championship Wrestling better known as ECW put themselves on the national wrestling radar when 2 companies had dominated for so long.

The biggest impact that still can be felt by ECW is that they brought edge to the wrestling business. Before ECW the business strictly catered to the under 18 year old audience. The Philadelphia based promotion introduced the wrestling world to the young adult male audience who liked a little violence and sex appeal. We get to learn about the vision of long time wrestling veteran Paul Heyman. This DVD gives a great account of the story from beginning to the end of this promotion. You learn why Paul is considered to be a creative genius in the business.

The video also gives you some background on the performers and find out what they did behind the scenes to make this promotion spark. ECW was the first place that guys like to Chris Jericho and Lance Storm got to showcase their skills on a national level in the United State. We also get to see where guys like Mick Foley and Steve Austin sharpened their mic skills before jumping to the WWF.
The DVD gives you a look at ECW stars that you may not be too familiar with like Sabu, Stevie Richards and New Jack. Take some time and check it out.

A Sample from The Rise and Fall of ECW

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