Every film reference you might have missed in the Seth Rollins Wrestlemania trailer

This is a script for a YouTube video on my channel that you can find here: https://youtu.be/81ZjWW3ORbQ

As we get closer to Wrestlemania 39 going Hollywood we already know that we are going to see parodies of famous movies just like we saw the last time Wrestlemania went Hollywood back in 2005. That time the parodies were straight up remakes of famous movie scenes, but it seems like we are going to get more nuanced trailers this time, as the first one released during Elimination Chamber had more references to other films than we had back in today. If I miss a reference please let me know in the comments but here are all the ones I spotted.

From the start a cover version of Rock and Roll part 2 by Gary Glitter plays with a Seth Rollins inspired chorus. Gary Glitter is a very controversial person in music given that he served prison time for things you can look up on google. This was of course also controversial when the song was used in the film Joker. Also in the context of wrestling was used by Larry Sweeney, a manager/wrestler who was gone way before him time, who Seth would have likely shared locker rooms with back in his indie days. He likely used the song also for heat.

At the 21 second mark we see facepaint on Seth reminiscent of the 1994 film the Crow, starring Brandon Lee. The Crow was also an inspiration for Sting whose later half of his career was influenced by the look, but also has a history with Seth Rollins as Sting's last WWE match was with him, and the ill fated buckle bomb made us think Sting might never wrestle again, but he has done several times in AEW.

We then get to the famous Joker scene where Seth is dancing on the stairs. Seth is wearing a bright yellow suit which made me think of the Mask starring Jim Carrey, which also came out in 1994, and also features the leading man dancing down stairs. In the Joker film Joaquin Phoenix is wearing the more traditional Purple Joker suit when he does the dance down the stairs, making me think we are supposed to notice the canary yellow suit Rollins is wearing as more of a reference to Carrey's iconic role.

Rollins then pulls a lollypop out out his mouth quite noticeably, and I can't decide if this is a reference to Joker smoking a cigarette, or another movie reference I have missed, please let me know in the comments below.

One thing that I noticed is that both jump into a puddle of water despite it not raining. I expect this is a reference to the original film but perhaps also a nod to the classic scene in Singing in the Rain, that Joker was originally drawing inspiration from.

From here we outright leave the Joker completely, as Becky Lynch appears doing her best Christian Bale Batman voice. I also feel like the big glasses Becky puts on might be a reference to something, but you tell me what in the comments.

So there we go, all the films references I could find in the first Wrestlemania 39 trailer. Did I miss any, please let me know in the comments. Thank you for watching and if you enjoyed this please consider leaving a like or subscribing.

The story of Mick Foley wrestling 18 days after his brutal Randy Orton match.

This is a script for a video on my YouTube channel. You can find the video here: https://youtu.be/IKn2giVOOxw

On April 18th 2004, Mick Foley would wrestle one of his most famous matches, a brutal hardcore brawl with Randy Orton. This match is famous not only for Foley being hell bent on avenging himself for his performance at Wrestlemania 20, but also for making fans see Randy Orton in a new light. This was a a match unlike any he'd had before.

After such a violent affair you might think Foley would go away for a while and heal his woulds, being after all in the twilight of his career, well, one of a few twilights if we're being honest. As it turns out, Foleys next match would take place just 18 days later in Japan, for a promotion known as HUSTLE. This was no preliminary match either, it was the semi-main event for the Triple Crown title against Toshiaki Kawada.

I won't pretend to be an expert on Kawada, but here is his legend in brief. He is known as one of the four pillars of Heaven, four men who raised All Japan pro wrestling to new heights throughout the 1990's. Misuhara Misawa, Kenta Kobashi, Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada all had epic battles against each other that in some cases broke the scale. Long before Kenny Omega and Kazuchika Okada broke Dave Meltzers famous 5 star scale, back in 1994 Dave awarded a match between Kawada and Misawa 6 stars. Kawada would be part of 21 5 star or higher matches, which puts him at in joint 3rd place for the most ever, with Kenny Omega. It's also worth noting that this might have been even harder to do in the 90's with how more difficult it was to access these classic matches.

So before I get into the match, how did it come about? Foley was booked at fairly short notice and for money he didn't feel he could turn down, despite still suffering from a bad knee from the Orton match. Foley was still signed to WWE at the time, but with HUSTLE being in Japan, and them not having any on screen plans for him for now, WWE didn't seem to mind him doing a match or two outside the US. The company that promoted HUSTLE as well as MMA promotion Pride were known as Dream Stage Entertainment, and they had began to draw suspicion after signing not just Foley, but Scott Hall, Kevin Nash and Goldberg all to big money deals, at least 75 thousand each according to the Wrestling Observer. They were also apparently in negotiations with Stone Cold Steve Austin, but that never went anywhere. The promotion was a sort of experiment, an attempt to make American style Sports Entertainment work in Japan, which is well known for its more serious style, usually.

The HUSTLE 3 card where the match took place had many other American top level talents too. Steve Corino and Dusty Rhodes had a 6 minute match where both men managed to bleed. Sabu and Mike Awesome were on opposite sides of a tag match, both having competed for years in Japan for various promotions, mainly FMW. Also in the main event, Hall and Nash teamed up in what was said to be a terrible match. This would be one of the final matches Hall and Nash would wrestle as a team, with their final one being in TNA in 2010. Clearly a lot of money was being put into this promotion, but where it was coming from was a mystery that would later be solved. In mid 2006 it would be found that Dream Stage Entertainment may have had some links to the Japanese Mafia, leading to Pride which had become one of the biggest MMA promotions in the world, being sold to their main competitor UFC, and Hustle not. making it past 2009.

For the big match Foley would don the leopard print boots again, going under his Cactus Jack persona. This would have been how most fans in Japan knew him after the tours he did in the 90's. Before even the opening bell the camera catches a shot of the scratches all over his arms from going into barbed wire at Backlash. As you can probably imagine this match wasn't going to be easy for Foley, the very first thing that happens in the match is Kawada kicking him to test Foleys bad knee that he hurt on the Orton match, immediately putting him on the back foot. The early match is fairly slow and is just Foley and Kawada trading punches but also includes a rare Foley attempt at chain wrestling.

Once the action spills to the outside with Kawada throwing Foley over the top it starts to get interesting. Somehow Foley finds a barbed wire baseball bat, and begins throwing chairs into the ring. Foley tries all of his trademark moves, the piledriver, the elbow off the apron, even the corner punches into the running knee, and then ends with a double arm DDT, but none of these are even close to keeping Kawada down. Someone at ringside manages to get Foley's bat to him, but Kawada blocks its use for now. When all else fails, Foley pulls out Socko San, but Kawada reacts by kicking him in the head repeatedly. It's now time for one of Kawadas trademarks, a modified Dragon Sleeper which Foley won't give up from. Foley gets his mandible claw with Socko on, but this only seems to enrage Kawada, who kicks him in the head, and wins the match by pinfall. This was never going to be one of Kawada's five star classics, it was however impressive when you consider everything that Foley went through less than three weeks ago.