zappafrank

...except that Magnum for certain wasn't doing anything stupid.

I agree completely. I also don't wish him any ill will, but he's always come across as a smarmy punk. I'm not at all surprised as I've learned the available details of the accident.

Watching the July '97 RAW has made me realize how many important and classic WWF things have happened here in Pittsburgh, and how important Pittsburgh in general is to wrestling. - HBK/Razor ladder match for the IC Title, # 2 (Summerslam 1995) - Bret made the infamous "enema" comment (RAW 1997) - Patriot pinned Bret (RAW 1997) - KotR 1998 (Foley/Taker HiaC, Kane wins WWF Title from Austin) - Radicalz debuted (RAW 2000) - Angle won the WCW Title from Booker T (SD 2001) - Angle won the WWF Title from Austin (Unforgiven 2001) - Edge issued the challenge to Angle for the "hair vs hair match" at Judgment Day 2002 (SD) - HHH/Benoit Iron Man match (RAW 2004) - Eddie won his last ever title here (tag titles with Rey at NWO 2005) - Edge won the World Title (SD 2007) Also, while I knew that Pittsburgh has had a great pedigree of wrestlers, I didn't realize how many people came from in or around here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_peopl...burgh#Wrestling (although I have no idea why people like Brock and Conway are listed). And Sandman mentioned the owner/promoter of the well-known Pittsburgh indy fed International Wrestling Cartel (Norm Connors) on ECW a while back, and some of the talent regularly appear in WWE in some capacity (most notably Sterling James Keenan and John McChesny). Yay Pittsburgh!

RE: The 8/17/07 SD, does anyone know if the backstage vignette with Vince, Coach, Yang, and Funaki was edited in some markets? As I was watching it, I noticed a flash, as if there had been a splice of some kind. No reviews I read of the show mentioned it, but one review summed up the bit like this: Jimmy Wang Yang: Hey Vince, I'm your boy! McMahon: You're not my boy, Coach is my boy. *Awkward look* Funaki: My mamma love you long time! Kane: LOL! DAD! Michael Cole: So Vince spent some time in Japan. JBL: No wonder Funaki's been here so long. I specifically did not have Vince's line about Coach being his boy in what I saw, which leads me to believe that at least in my market, it was censored. Does anyone know?

I wanted to differentiate the wrestler from the character. IMO, John Morrison is lame, but only in the gimmick sense. I have no problem with what he does when he wrestles. Honestly, right now, I don't see much potential in the Morrison gimmick without some overhaul; that's why I used his real last name to indicate I didn't have a problem with him, per se.

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Sean Waltman: If he can get his head on straight, he'd be quite the asset on any of the 3 brands, in any incarnation (Sean Waltman, X-Pac, or Syxx). I do think, however, that he will have to return as a face. Otherwise, the fans who do remember him may be inclined to give him "go-away" heat. But he was mega-over from 98 through 99 as a face, and still had decent heel heat for much of 2000. He really only started to decline in 2001 with the formation of X-Factor. Though sporadic and unreliable, he always did well in TNA. He'd work well with Punk, Burke, Kennedy, MVP, the Hardys, Carlito...

Don't you want him to get over, though?!

I hate to say it, but I think "DAMN!" may be close to jumping the shark. The rhymes felt WAY too forced last night. If they want to save the "integrity," so to speak, of the gimmick (which they should do, since it's been a great little part of RAW for months and months now), they need to back off of it a bit.

Does anyone know who this "Umanga" is of whom Regal speaks?

Does anyone know who this "Umanga" is of whom Regal speaks?

Even though the face turn technically happened the night before due to Austin's actions, the night after the InVasion PPV, when the Alliance was in the ring, Angle's music hit and the crowd went NUTS. You knew that when he was attacked by Austin the night before, it was an instant feud, and Angle's 1st foray into face territory. The look of anger and just being PISSED OFF on his face was tremendous, and the crowd just was behind him 100%. It was one of those goosebump moments, IMO. Also, Kidman turning face on the Flock at Fall Brawl '98 was fun. He went up to the top rope while the Flock was beating the crap out of Saturn (who was wrestling for the freedom of the Flock)...and proceeded to dropkick Raven. The crowd went ballistic, especially as the Flock turned around and Kidman did this "COME AND GET ME!!!" motion to them, and then took off to the back, with the entire Flock in chase. Saturn went on to pin Raven after a sweet DVD through a table, freeing the Flock to a thunderous applause. At the moment I can't think of any outright heel turns that stood out to me (Hogan aside), but I always tend to fascinated by face turns, anyway, especially when it's a heel doing something to establish himself as a face (a la Kidman, and Batista when he decided to challenge HHH at WM 21), as opposed to either a heel turning b/c of the actions of another heel (a la Angle/Austin, or the extrmemely botched Orton face run in '04) or b/c of the saving actions of a face (Savage turning face at WM VII b/c of Elizabeth helping him against Sherri).

I swear, I don't think anyone in the history of wrestling actually *debuted* with "go-away" heat (he actually acquired it during the Tough Enough challenge)!

I frickin' HATE the way Brisco acts on the MNW DVD. He's go goddamn smug and self-riteous (esp the lines about "livelihood" and "kicking your butts"). If ever there was a case to be made that the best characters are those based on real-life personalities, then "Brisco the VKM Stooge" wins, hands down.

Don't discount the impact that that initial match of Booker T vs Buff Bagwell had on Vince's perception of how well WCW would do. Bagwell went out there and stunk up the joint, dooming WCW's chances from the outset. As an aside, I always found it humorous that Bagwell can legitmately claim to be a former WWF main eventer, b/c as far as I know, the few matches he had in WWF (what, all 2 or 3 of them?) were the main event.

Does anyone realize what this means? It means that she's at least not married!!! WOO HOO!!!! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMILFY!!!

While I don't doubt that the Alundra Blaze incident was on Vince's mind, I think it might have had more to do with the fact that for whatever reason, Bischoff legally was allowed to announce Bret's signing the night after SurSer, and Vince was afraid that Bischoff would go on national TV and announce that he had signed his competition's world champion. Don't forget that Nitro opened up with the nWo signing the Canadian national anthem (whether they would have done that regardless of whether Montreal had happened, or rather did it in response to it is a matter of conjecture, but nevertheless the obviously made reference to Bret being an acquisition). EDIT: I just saw the post above mine, and I could have sworn that in Meltzer's big report on the situation, there was something about the timelines being such that after SurSer, Bischoff was free to use Bret however he wanted, or at least start promoting him.

There are Livejournal groups dedicated to how hot the Miz is and how much the girls wet their panties thinking about him, much like there are ones about the Hardyz, Shannon Moore, Randy Orton, Batista, and John Cena. Women love the Miz. This is a known fact. Your blind jealously of him doesn't change that fact. I can't see how any woman can find Jeff Hardy attractive, but I don't complain about it and whine that I can't get some because of it. WOW. Someone is projecting his own feelings on to me. You might want to look into that, sparky. Never once did I base my criticism of the Miz on his "chicks dig me" gimmick. I've long felt he looked kinda pig-ish, going well back to his days during the TE challenge. In fact, his pig-ishness is part of what made him so aversive to me, along with his stupid exagerrated walking and his stupid "HOO-RAH!!!" It was only when they started the "EE loves him" stuff that his pig-ishness came back to the forefront. Wow...just wow.

Um, why? Isn't it an antiquated aspect of the MNW? And why does ECW have one, for that matter?

I'm. pretty. sure. that. the. over-run. existed. before. Aug. 2007. and. will. continue. to. do. so. once. the. month. is. over.

I didn't realize that most women were attracted to men whose upturned noses and wide eyes made them look like pig-men.

Did anyone notice that the former "World" champ (assuming they actually did mean Test) debuted a week later than they originally said? I don't necessarily have a problem with Test, but during the entire segment, I kept asking myself, "Why exactly is Test helping Sting and Abyss? He and Christian used to be running buddies!"

More often than not I notice when shows are really good as opposed to really bad, but man, all throughout RAW last night, I couldn't help but notice how crappy it was. The IRS cameo and (surprisingly) the Dating Game were fun, though. I was hoping for the IRS cameo as soon as Vince said "IRS," so when the camera panned to IRS reading the Financial Times, I marked. And although I thought the original Vince death angle was lame, I liked the nod to it at the end, especially the bit with Paul London.

OK, "dislike" might be too strong a word, so if you like, subsitute "wrestlers you dislike" with "wrestlers who rub you the wrong way or who are off putting." You-know-who need not be mentioned, aside from this mentioning. Um, yeah. And yes, this can be based simply on interviews or internet reports. Sometimes that's all we have to go on. Kurt Angle just rubs me the wrong way. I met him when his book came out, and he was fine then, but my friends who've met him mutliple times in recent years, say he's just creepy. I don't know what it is about him that gets to me, but just the way he's conducted himself in interviews seems disingenuous for some reason.

On the DVD's where Tenay and West have to use "Matt Bentley" where "Michael Shane," originally was used during the initial broadcas, there doesn't seem to be any detectable edit in the commentary. So, are the production guys really slick, or do Tenay and West actually go back and re-do the commentary completely? And if so, do they simply re-read a transcript of what they said the 1st time, or do they do a completely new commentary on the fly (maybe with pointers to bring up stuff that was brought up in the original commentary that advanced the then-current angles)?