Subject: Professional Wrestling

• AC/DC to Piledrive Wrestlemania

  Daniel KramerDo people still watch professional wrestling? We stopped watching when the Rock left to make awful mummy movies and Stone Cold Steve Austin started fighting women instead of other dudes in black Speedos. That, and we graduated high school. Nonetheless, World Wrestling Entertainment's Wrestlemania XXV is hitting Reliant Stadium April 25, and AC/DC will be the musical guest. WWE CEO Linda McMahon announced at a press conference last week that the classic rockers would be

  January 26, 2009

• Oh Noes!! Mickey Rourke Drops Out Of Wrestlemania!! (Danny Bonaduce Still Available, Though)

  Houston, you have had a tough few months.Ike hit. The Texans missed the playoffs. And now -- most crushingly of all -- comes news that Mickey Rourke won't be coming to Wrestlemania after all.Of course, this being professional wrestling, things may change a half-dozen times before the event. Still, a Rourke spokesman managed to keep a straight face when she announced that the star of The Wrestler "is focusing entirely on his acting career." (Such as it is.)The charm of Wrestlemania has long elude

  January 29, 2009

• Sputnik at Colonus

  May 23, 1996

• Roots Rasslin'

  May 23, 1996

• WrestleMania In A Dispute Over A Charity Event; No Chairs Hurled (Yet)

  Logo courtesy WWEIn the world of professional wrestling, there appears to be a smackdown going on outside the ring.Hair Balls was alerted to this controversy after reading an article in Professional Wrestling Insider -- one of our favorite sources of news about big sweaty thespians pretending to beat each other senseless with folding chairs -- accusing World Wrestling Entertainment of poaching talent from local wrestling legend Booker T's charity event, slated for the same weekend as WrestleMani

  March 4, 2009

• NIGHT & DAY1998 DECEMBER 3-9

  December 3, 1998

• Dependable. Reliable. Ken Hoffman.

  May 6, 1999

• Are You Ready to Rumble?

  May 27, 1999

• WrestleMania: A Beginner's Guide

  Gonna be upfront here: I don't get the whole pro-wrestling thing. Never did.I grew up in New Jersey, where every pizzeria had a glossy shot of Bruno Sammartino on the walls, but it just never took.With that in mind, here is my analysis of the matches in the upcoming WrestleMania 25, which is the single biggest event to happen in Houston since ever.All info is taken from the official website, so you know it's good.Photos courtesy WWE Triple H vs. Randy Orton: Contrary to what I initially believe

  April 2, 2009

• Wrestlers, Art, A Library & Bill White: The Madness Arrives

  Cameras flashed, the crowd oohed and ahhed, and WWE superstar Jeff Hardy carefully painted a nose onto an oversized white canvas. The WWE onslaught that culminates with Sunday's Wrestlemania XXV eased its way into Houston this evening in an unusually genteel (and slightly unsettling) fashion -- a charity auction called WrestlemaniArt. Waiters in bow ties carried around trays of hors' doeuvres, and some of professional wrestling's more outrageous characters -- Jerry "The King" Lawler, Santi

  April 2, 2009

• The Best Wrestler Theme Songs of All Time

  With Wrestlemania in town for its 25th anniversary, Rocks Off thought we could take a little stroll down memory lane and relive some of the WWE's best wrestling theme songs. Nowadays, the WWE can afford to purchase the rights to slick, well-produced songs by popular music acts such as Saliva, Our Lady Peace, Rob Zombie and plenty of others. It wasn't always this way, though. In the earlier days, wrestlers had to come up with a way to incorporate older, public-domain music as their themes, a

  April 2, 2009

• WrestleMania: The Fans. Let's Not Forget The Fans

  Last Sunday's WrestleMania promised to bring the faithful to Houston, and in that regard at least, it didn't disappoint (unless by "faithful" you were expecting personages of some religious significance, in which case you'd certainly be a little disappointed). Let's take a look back at some of the more colorful rasslin' aficionados that descended upon Reliant Stadium.5. Smiles, Everyone...Smiles! This was taken right before Triple H's climactic entrance, but for the life of me I can't figure o

  April 8, 2009

• The Big Show

  WrestleMania XXV brings out 72,000 fans and Mickey Rourke.

  April 9, 2009

• Reality Bites, Slams and Spears

  The WWE floods Houston with Bad Blood

  June 12, 2003

• Doomsday VIII: The Pink Menace

  Gulf Coast All-Star Wrestling is on the lookout for Precious Jewels

  January 10, 2008

• Christmas Chaos 2

  Pro Wrestling Alliance star Booker T takes on RVD

  December 27, 2007

• Our top DVD picks scheduled for release this week:

  December 27, 2007

• Wars, Penguins and Gays: Oh, My!

  The year in review

  December 22, 2005

• The Condemned

  Stone Cold is hot, but The Condemned's hypocrisy is not

  April 26, 2007

• Our top DVD picks for the week of December 28

  December 28, 2006

• Fellowship of The Ringer

  Johnny Knoxville's still an ass, but his co-stars are something special

  December 22, 2005

• Montrose Mayhem

  The fighting is real (fun) at Doomsday Wrestling

  July 7, 2005

• Dance, Dance, Revolution

  Hip-hop, clowns and war dances meet on the street in Rize

  June 23, 2005

• We Want the Funk

  An '80s wrestling star relives his days of chain saws and headlocks in More than Just Hardcore

  May 5, 2005

• Beach Balls

  Kick it soccer-style at Galveston's Fiesta de Agua

  March 24, 2005

• Triple H-town

  Toyota Center gets "Raw" when WWE rumbles into town

  December 30, 2004

• A Tall Order

  The Rock tries on Joe Don Baker's shoes for size, and they don't quite fit

  April 1, 2004

• This Week's Day-by-Day Picks

  November 13, 2003

• Late-Night Access

  Packrat thinks Leno is after its stash

  September 5, 2002

• Wham, Bam, Thank You, McMahon

  Wrestlemania X-Seven enters the ring

  March 29, 2001

• Mass (Murder) Media

  The satirical Series 7 exposes the black heart of reality TV

  March 22, 2001

• Truck-Stop Italian

  Big Humphrey's serves up all the comforts of home - assuming home is a double-wide

  July 27, 2000

• The Young and the Restless

  August 13, 2009

• Midweek Match-Up: U2 Vs. Wrestlemania In The Battle Of The Spectacles

  As you well know if you've been reading our sister blog Rocks Off (and Lord knows you should be), U2 is in town tonight.The new tour requires something like 90 huge trucks to cart around the massive stage they use so as not to detract from the quiet beauty of their ballads. Or to keep the people in the cheap seats entertained, we're not sure.At any rate, it's the biggest show at Reliant Stadium since Wrestlemania 25 came to town, unless you count the Texans' implosion against Jacksonville.Wrestl

  October 14, 2009

• Game Time: Road Trip Edition, The Middle And The End

  ​(Cue cheesy announcer voice:) "When we last left our our venerable 1560 The Game crew of Pendergast, Nuno and Ramzanali, they were checking into the Norman, Oklahoma Days Inn at 2:30 in the morning, readying themselves for three days of free continental breakfast and lumpy mattresses. To read about the trip up to Norman, click here. We press on..."FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13: As I mentioned in the blog post about our trip up to Norman, this trip was one of those combination business-pleasure type tr

  November 16, 2009