Papacita

I'm sorry, was that supposed to be funny?

I swore that was Mo from MOM for a second.

Meanie.

I'll give you a nickel for it.

Ok, I've heard a bunch of people on this forum say that Carlito's got the potential to be a breakout star in WWE, and although I can't say I've seen a lot of his Smackdown work, at this point I'm not seeing what's so special about him. First off, his look makes it a little hard for me to take him seriously as a wrestler, and to top it off he's pretty bland in the ring. Most of the praise I've seen is for his charisma, mic work and what not, but to be honest I'm not seeing that either, as something about his promo delivery just turns me off (sounds too fake to me). Now I'm not trying to knock him, because he did give me one of my few mark out moments of this year with his Cabana segment with RVD ("You're injured...and Carlito likes it that way...*wham* ), but other than that, I'm just not seeing what other people are seeing in him. So what's your take on him? Why is/isn't Carlito great?

Didn't his first falling out with Vince (since returning in 02) happen because he refused to allow Brock to go over in a rematch?

I liked Max Moon too. I thought he was cool because he reminded me of Mega Man. Plus I remember him having a pretty good match against HBK on one of the first Raw.

Ahmed Johnson was my man back in the day. Same with Tatanka, although I'm not sure how many people would say he sucked. And I was a big fan of X-Pac's before all the stuff with Chyna went down. If the Masterlock was ANYTHING other than a basic full nelson, I'd be a fan of Chris Masters. I actually like the way the hold is being built up and I'd love to see him go over a big name with it before it finally gets broken by another up-and-comer (to basically elevate two guys in one shot). And I do like Hassan a lot.

^ that one

Fuck that. I still like Al Wilson. And other than it taking too much time on TV, I wouldn't call the McMahon Family stuff that appalling.

This "feud" has been going on longer than just a few weeks in reality, thus I dont see the problem with setting it up as at least an initial match, be it even a match that ends up a huge mess of a double DQ at the end, to lead to future matches. If they hold off until freaking Survivor Series, I can almost guarantee by that time WWE will drop the ball and the interest will be all but lost. This feud has little legs as I think we will find out once the intial luster of the Matt Hardy run-ins from the crowd dies down. In any regard, I think a hot brawl even leading to a DQ at SummerSlam will actually keep the feud hot, and then they could probably keep it going until Survivor Series. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yeah WWE probably would drop the ball, but I still think holding off on the match would be the most effective thing to do. Building to a SummerSlam match would more or less require Matt to be on TV every week for it really be successful, and the more he's on TV right now, the quicker his appeal is gonna run out. By holding out for a while and relying on strategically timed Hardy attacks as opposed to just sending him out there every show, you'd be better able to maintain that aura of realism that the feud has and at the same time you'd be better able to get the angle over with people who may not be familiar with the real situation. It'd also give them time build Edge up a little more if they wanted to--which again would increase the likelihood of this getting over. I just think they could get so much more out of this if they waited a bit.

On the Hardy/Edge stuff, while it'd be idiotic to just throw them into a tag match like that, I agree with those who say that it's a mistake to have them fight at SummerSlam. You can say that people will lose interest if they don't pull the trigger now, which is certainly possible, but at the same time, doing it at SummerSlam would take a lot of the lustre away from the program, as that's nowhere near enough time to build the kind of emotional response an angle as big as this should have. IMO, they shouldn't meet in the ring until Survivor Series at the earliest, and in the meantime they should keep the build in slow burn.

Any better?

I think I may change the font here, but how's this for the HI-YAH World belt?

Might as well toss the Illuminators in there. I had planned to turn them face and have them come to the ring to "Apache" by the Sugarhill Gang (with the dance and everything), but just never got around to it.

So how's this supposed to work? Like, do you actually plan on doing OAOVW shows, or is it gonna be just like HI-YAH?

Austin's heel turn at WMX7 and even more so his joining the Alliance at Invasion. Although the timing surprised me a bit, I'll co-sign on the HBK turn from Monday because the fact that they've been teaming so much had me thinking that it'd only be a matter of time before Shawn turned on him...to the point that I was even looking for the Superkick when Hogan hit off the ropes for the leg drop. About 95% of the World Title changes since 2000.

No prob. Might as well add the Women's belt to the list too. I'll try and get all these knocked out sometime in the near future.

You know, while this thread is up, would anyone be interested in a new World Title belt. I've been considering making one for a while since I've been unable to find a full-sized, working pic of it for the last couple of months.

You know, I haven't read through this whole thread, so if this has been addressed already, I apologize, but those of you spouting that "it wasn't a terrorist act" bullshit need to stop. Whether they were called terrorists in name is irrelevent; anybody with half a mind could see that this was set up in order for the viewers to be able to make that the connection between Hassan and terrorism. If that wasn't the case, then there would've been no reason for UPN to run that disclaimer across the screen about five or six times before it aired. I mean, it's one thing to say you're not offended by it (which I wasn't, for the record), but to even suggest that the parallels don't exist is just plain stupid.

"Bizitch"?! Any good points he had in this commentary were negated by that one line. Anyway, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of his return based on this. The quoted line alone kinda sounds like he's hinting at some kinda comeback.

I'm pretty sure that the Higher Power show was live. The week after Raw is Owen was used to set up the unveiling for the following week. For surprises that weren't spoiled by the net...HBK's return in 02 came out of left field, and I don't remember there being even a hint of speculation about him prior to the show.

You mean before doing the clean job on his way out of the promotion as fodder for the guy they were pushing to the moon as their champion? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> If he was fodder, why elevate him back up to face the champ? He could have faced a top-level guy who wasn't the champ, a la Vader-Razor the month before. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Not to mention Deisel was built very well, and marks who did not know he was leaving really did not know if HBK could overcome the 7 foot monster. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Different situations in that Shawn/Diesel headlined an In Your House and not a major show like SummerSlam, so they weren't really looking to bring in that big a buyrate. Also, I don't think people saw Diesel as too much of a threat going into that show since--aside from it really being a minor PPV--Shawn had JUST won the belt at Mania, and how many champions drop the belt in their first major defense? And the loss to Taker didn't help matters at all. As for the current situation, I like Edge, but I agree they'd be better off going with Jericho. While I don't think the loss to Kane is that big a deal considering the Money in the Bank stip (which, on a side note, I think could be a good way to move him over to Smackdown if they wanted to, since the contract was for a World Title shot and not necessarily a WWE Title shot), to me he really hasn't looked like a title contender in the past couple of months and could stand to be built up a little stronger. And while I really have a hard time seeing Jericho as a believable contender anymore, I like the current storyline they're running with him and Cena, which could turn into something nice if given the right time to develop. Neither of them are ideal choices to headline a SummerSlam IMO, but if I had to choose, I'd go with Jericho.

If that match put anyone over, it was Orton.

Current: Colt Cabana CM Punk Samoa Joe Homicide Shelton Benjamin I'll give Muhammad Hassan an HM here, since for a time I was marking like hell for him. All-time: HBK Eddie Guerrero Mr. Perfect Chyna Taz(z) Brian Pillman Heel Austin Sting