Diamonddust

Good Lord... Umaga would become the BIGGEST FACE EVER if he came down and just destroyed everything involved with this segment.

It's best to look at the camera, Barack.

That was horrendous.

It looks pretty clear to me that Punk is going to win this, which is kind of overkill since he already won Money in the Bank. Why not put another guy over? Still... I am holding out hope for His Majesty, King Regal.

I can totally live with a Regal/Punk or Regal/Jericho finals, although they could have easily had guys like Shelton or Kofi in this besides freaking Khali and Hornswaggle.

You've got to be kidding me

For some reason, I'm feeling a Punk/Umaga finals... Scratch that! All hail King Regal!!! PLEASE GIVE US A REGAL/FINLAY SEMI-FINALS MATCH!

Come on Finlay... please... for the love of all that's holy...

Punk vs. Jericho in the semis...

Wow... Who do you job out here?

Cactus Jack vs. HHH at the 2000 Royal Rumble. The angle of Mankind coming down to the ring on Smackdown, saying he won't be able to participate in the match, Hunter looking all smug, Foley then saying he has a replacement, and bam... taking the mask and shirt off to turn into Cactus Jack is one of my all time favorite angles. HHH's facial expression once Cactus is revealed is priceless. Putting the Cactus Jack character into the street fight made the match that much more important, and it did wonders for HHH's credibility.

A little snippet from the Wrestling Observer: -- Jim Cornette is writing a book documenting the Midnight Express. The book will feature tons of inside information on the last days of Jim Crockett Promotions before it was bought out by Ted Turner, the first years of WCW, attendance figures for 60% of the shows the Midnight Express were on in the late 80s, newspaper clippings, original booking plans, and more. The book will be released later this year. Needless to say, I'll be all over this one. His initial shoot interview touched on a lot of stuff that would go into this, but I can't wait to read some of the other details. I know he has kept the notebooks of all the attendance figures and finishes from their matches so it'll be great to see that.

Same here. I remember being so into Raw that next time, especially the Austin/Kane rematch. I'll never forget Paul Bearer's facial reactions as Austin beat Kane that night.

Shamrock's '98 win got TOTALLY overshadowed by the Hell in the Cell match. I had forgotten about it as well.

King of the Ring '96 should be a leading example of why 100% scripted promos can stunt the growth and development of your talent. You sometimes have to let them come up with their own stuff like the "Austin 3:16" line. Also, from a completely economic standpoint, without Austin winning King of the Ring '96... you lose all the merchandise sold from that one promo: The Austin 3:16 shirts and everything else.

That's awesome... I wish I could have heard that.

Some observations of mine: -I wish the restaurant I was watching this at had the volume up louder. I would have loved to have heard the crowd crapping all over Starnes. I just wish Quarry would have gone in for the kill at some point and finished him off. What was Quarry's Rocky IV line? -Bocek's face looked like pure hell by the end of the fight with Danzig. It made for a great visual. -I'm real glad Bisping beat the tar out of McCarthy after the early match taunting. I would have loved to have heard the "Knock Him Out" chant by the crowd. -I expected Serra to lose tonight, but I also expected him to put up at least some offense. Serra looked gassed very early, while GSP looked like a million bucks.

On top of Austin's win in '96, if I remember correctly... didn't he have to get stitched up before the match with Mero? Or did he get busted open in that one, and have to get stitched up before the match with Roberts?

With it being in South Carolina like Jim Ross mentions in his latest blog, it'd be nice to Shelton win it and add a new dimension to "The Gold Standard".

The Headhunters were one and done. I don't think they ever appeared again after the time Cornette brought them out. On one of Cornette's shoots, he recalls how Davey and Owen made them look completely inept.

Agreed about the local promos. I remember watching Worldwide one day, and they were hyping Nitro that was coming to Birmingham in August of 1997. Low and behold, Arn Anderson popped up for a promo, and he had been off television for months due to his career ending surgery. I about flipped out of my chair when I saw him. His retirement speech would come weeks later. Youtube is usually good for some of the house show promos they used to run - I love how the old NWA shows would have the blue background for the faces and the red one for the heels.

In the past (Talking early to mid 90's before the Bischoff era happened), they would announce when they were having a TV Taping. Jim Ross would call it a "National Television Taping", and they would announce it would be at the Center Stage studio. If a show came on Saturdays at 5 or 6 now, I'd definitely watch it. It would be a nice nod to history since that used to be the day (Morning and Evening) for wrestling on television.

Nice that they gave Joey a goodbye at the beginning of the show...

I believe Matt Hardy talks about how him and Jeff had to go to wrestler's court for something that they did... I forget what it was. I do know that Taker was the judge, and Bradshaw was the "prosecuting attorney".

Interesting list... Hard to pick a winner now, but I'd like to see it be Big Show, MVP, or Umaga.