zappafrank

I've heard rumblings that Solie is pretty much in since the show is in FL. It's a bit ironic, though, given that apparently Solie was none too happy that Big John Studd was inducted into the WCW HoF back in 1995 b/c Studd wasn't an NWA/WCW person.

Yeah, I noticed it, too. Maybe they moved it b/c they figured they wouldn't always have to get such a wide angle in order to get the Barber's Pole into the shot, since the hard camera would be coming in from stage right, the same side the pole used to be on.

Is it just me or did they have the arm wrestling table set up 90 degrees off? Aren't your elbows supposed to go in the circles, and your gripping hand is outstretched rather than tucked in? I also noticed that when they showed the WWE title on the table earlier, the center piece was not centered. It's the return of the Spinner belt, I guess.

I'm missing the Muraco/Backlund match, as well as the RAW 1/2 of MNW. Furthermore, the HoF episode is in "The Big Ones," while the Ladder Match parts 3 and 4 are in Legends (not sure if the last one is a mistake). I have Fuji Vice and what appears to be a tag match w/Muraco and partner vs. Hogan and Partner. Is it supposed to be 1 on 1?

Don Muraco HoF and Pillman are repeats, right? If the Muraco HoF is a repeat, I wonder if the individual matches are repeated, as well.

My friends and I joked that Cena returning was a shoot in the sense that HHH didn't know a damn thing about it. After Cena came out, we joked that a ref would get HHH's attention to tell him something, and that HHH would then throw a fit since he had been booked to win. And did anyone else find it odd that Cena immediately squared off with HHH insetad of Kennedy? HHH and Cena haven't done anything with each since early 2006, and even though Orton took Cena out on the announce table, it was Kennedy who last was in the ring with Cena. We knew #30 was going to be someone meaningful, but we were thinking it would be Big Show. And I want to see if they acknowledge that Hornswaggle never was eliminated (Finlay, too, possibly). As a match, how do you think this Rumble will be remembered (since the surprise only can happen once)? I'd say it's in the middle somewhere. It's not on the level of '99, but it's also not on the level of '92.

They really should have had the spot from ECW mini-Rumble occur in the match itself (Shelton goes over and holds on...while he's holding the ropes down simply by hanging there someone in the ring eliminates the one or two people who threw Shelton out and who happen to still be standing there...then as Benjamin attempts to skins the cat he takes the guy who just did the elimination over with a headscissors, and then gets back in for real). It was totally wasted on free TV, and had it been on the PPV itself. it would have gone down as one of the most memorable Rumble moments ever.

I posted this in the 24/7 troubleshooting thread, but I haven't gotten any replies, so... Is the Faarooq debut actually in Shorties? I know it was listed at the start of this thread, but I don't have it, and it seems like a rather random item not to get uploaded (esp. considering that Comcast in Pittsburgh hasn't had any missing content for a while).

54. Lashley never had a t-shirt with a cool saying like "Big Bubba, No Trouble" 55. Lashley would probably drop his nightstick if he tried to twirl it. 56. Lashley never used a knock off-name in another company...yet [The Boss (Man is he Big)] 57. Lashley doesn't have one wide eye and one squinty eye.

I saw Faarooq's debut (Shorties) listed in the Jan 24/7 thread, but it's the one thing that hasn't shown up for me in quite some time. Is it really supposed to be there? It seems like such a random thing to go missing.

"D-Von, get the muffins!"

I don't know if it counts on the same level, but Cena turning heel in 2002 came from out of nowhere in the sense that he had been on TV for a few months as a face and recently had been teaming with Kidman on Velocity only to get pissed at him. Kidman lost their match or something and Cena didn't like it, and he cut some promo where he said, "Do you want me to say that again?" and he made "backwards talking" sounds, which I thought was awesome. He simply started acting heelish, maybe even actually turning on Kidman. Eventually he showed up at the Halloween party dressed an Vanilla Ice and the rest is history. Some people say HBK turning on Hogan in 2005 came from out of the blue, but I was actually expecting it the 1st week they teamed together. So when HBK actually did turn on Hogan the next week, I was all primed for it. I thought it was a good heel turn, but it was like The Rock in late 98 and 2003 where he was a such an entertaining jerk that you wanted to cheer him (thanks largely to the awesome Larry King spoof). The heat he got in Montreal was unreal. JBL's turn (by ditching Faarooq in order to keep his job) in 2004 seemed spur of the moment but he went on to become one of my favorite characters.

I was there live and actually missed it. For some reason my attention my attention was drawn elsewhere and then all of a sudden I heard this huge pop from the crowd and when I refocused my attention Taker was standing outside the ring while Maven was jumping around inside.

I agree completely, exactly for the reasons you've listed. The thing about this match is that it was awesome both from an in-ring perspective and a storyline perspective. And another thing that was great was when Haas and Benjamin realized they were there together and busted out the "Broken Eagle" (I think that's the name...the move where Haas has a guy face down, throat across the middle or top rop and Benjamin springs off the other side and leapfrogs over Haas onto the guy's back). The crowd went nuts for it. I also liked that they had the GM's come down to ringside to cheer their men on. It gave it a real sense of importance. It's the only Rumble match I can think of where I knew it was going to be one of the better matches as I watched it. Usually I have to go back and watch a Rumble match again to appreciate it, but this one was on all cylinders from the get-go. I enjoyed it more than the 2004 Rumble, which so many members of the IWC have deemed the best ever simply b/c Benoit won (not that Benoit wasn't my favorite wrestler). And planned or not, the ending worked well, IMO. It wasn't just a rehash of 1994 b/c Vince came out right away to make sure there was a clear winner, and it was handled well. 2002 will always be up there for me b/c I saw it live.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't actually the colors as it was just an Alliance shirt: WCW or ECW. Wasn't Tazz just wearing one of his own shirts? No, I seem to remember Austin spefically saying "the colors of the Alliance." It stuck with me b/c right after Austin said it, I immediately thought, "Wait, the Alliance doesn't have colors!"

RE: Lashley and his 1st ECW title win, I remember that part of the reason Sabu was taken out of the match was that Vince decided there were too many faces in the match, and wanted to force people to cheer for Lashley once RVD was eliminated. It didn't work. And RE: Tazz/Austin...I remember Austin cut promo promo against Tazz asking Tazz why he wasn't wearing the "colors of the Alliance." The Alliance never had colors!!!

Wasn't Savage's face turn driven more by the fact that he finally started standing up for Elizabeth against the Honky Tonk Man, and Hogan giving his seal of approval simly sealed the deal?

Any made-up, Russo-written reason anyone had for joining Lance Storm and Team Canada in WCW. Duggan's a heel so he cuts his hair? Elix Skipper played in the CFL and has a Gray Cup ring?

- My friends and I were on the edge of our seats when it looked like Goldberg was going to tear through HHH at the EC at Summerslam '03. We were so pissed when HHH won. My friend summed it up perfectly the next month after Unforgiven when he said, "During Summerslam, we were all cheering Goldberg to win the belt from HHH and just tear him apart. When he did win the belt, we weren't even really paying attention and were like 'Hey, Goldberg just won the belt.'" - Although I can look back now and see that it probably made more sense in the long run, HHH's victory over Jericho at the Backlash HiaC was the thing that made me absolutely despise HHH for a long, long time. I still don't ever want him to be a heel (since when he shows ass as a face it doesn't seem as contrived), but I really wanted Jericho to win that match (I cheered for him over the Rock at Rumble '02, the people around me thought I was nuts), and I felt so let down when HHH won. - I also hate the "HBK wins the big PPV match and his opponent wins the meaningless TV re-match" formula (specifically HBK-Jericho and more recently HBK-Kennedy). I really think both guys should have gone over on the PPV. The opposite pattern holds true for HBK-Cena, and although Cena won the main event at WM, which match do you think people remember more? Yep, the RAW one which HBK won. - I also felt Orton's IC title reign didn't end well. I love Edge now, but there was a period there after returning from neck surgery where Edge really had to find his groove again. So, not only do I think Orton's IC title reign ended too soon (although I realize it was to set up his World Title win at Summerslam), I also think it could have been to someone more on a roll (Shelton Benjamin, maybe? Although his title win at Taboo Tuesday that year was pretty good, IMO). I feel like Orton actually brought some prestige back to the IC title, having a long reign and performing at a pretty good level while champ, and it's a shame that the end of one of the longest IC title reigns in recent history was just kind of an afterthought.

Is the Stone Cold RAW debut the debut of him on RAW period, or the 1st time as Stone Cold? I don't know when he dropped "The Ringmaster" but he had it for certain at the Rumble that year ('96). Also, I missed Santino's debut in the Shorties. Given that he is the host this month, was his intro to his own debut anything particularly good?

Where exactly did this RAW PYBO come from? I remember the poll for Dec (Starrcade '92, IYH: DX, Armageddon '04), and I know there currently is a poll for 3 different Rumbles, but I don't recall any poll which included the Dec '03 RAW.

I'm sort of curious as to why the WCCW DVD doesn't have Kerry's NWA title win on it. Even though there already is the Star Wars match that kicked off the feud with the Freebirds, his match at the Parade of Champions is pretty important, and a nice little match, to boot.

I have to agree with you on that. Maybe they could add some of those 1 hour AWA matches he had with Nick Bockwinkel that I've heard so much praise about. How about the full "Loser Leaves WWE" (or is it just RAW?) match from after Rumble '03? I've never seen the match and actually have been turned off from buying the RAW set since it's edited on there. It would make even more sense to have the full version on Hennig's DVD since he won the match.

I love being able to tell this story. I attended the '02 Rumble in Atlanta that year, and Mr. Perfect got a HUGE pop when he came out. When he hits the Perfectplex, the place went nuts. The really cool thing, though, is this: After Mr. Perfect is eliminated, keep watching for a bit. All of a sudden you will hear a massive pop in the arena that comes from out of nowhere, and really doesn't make sense given that nothing out of the ordinary is going on in the ring. What that pop is is the crowd giving Perfect a standing ovation as off camera he makes his way to the back. I've had friends who've seen the PPV tell me they always wondered what the hell the "mystery pop" was for. Well, that's what it was, and deservedly so.

Wait, how in the world is that legal? Wouldn't that be the equivalent of scalping? The cable company buys up the content, and then resells it to the public. Only this time, you have to pay a cover charge to see what all is being scalped! I really don't think WWE would look favorably upon a cable company making pure profit off their copyrighted material via the added charge. And why would the amount of content influence the decision, anyway? The cable company gets the same cut of the subscription charge regardless of how much content is provided. The HHH shortie did end up being charged (it was actually $3.99; the display on my TV screen is kinda of funky), but the person with whom I spoke dropped the charge since I'm surbscribed to 24/7. Last I checked, the shortie now reads "free with subscription," but it also looks like it will expire later than the others, since I guess it was (re)loaded at a later point with the correction.