Papacita

I'm fairly sure that Joanie came out and said that wasn't true...or at least not totally true. Last I checked (as late as the beginning of May) they were still together.

I wouldn't say that. Orton's over, but the belt still doesn't mean shit. He's had the belt since December and its only been in the last month or so that they've been putting any real focus on the title. I think he's a good choice for champion and I like where they're headed with the Benjamin program, but right now I wouldn't place his reign above RVD's or Eddie's in 02. As for Orton vs. Batista...I probably prefer Batista when it comes down to it (Orton bores me most of the time...I couldn't even get into the Foley match), but I agree that Orton does have a better grasp of the basics.

WTF? Didn't the Undertaker slam the cage door into Bret Hart's head? I could have sworn Sid won by going over the top. I'll see if I can find the tape a little later on just to make sure, but yeah I'm almost positive he went over the top.

Absolutely 100% positive that Bryte and Tina will be on for next week.

How about... Bischoff: Damn it [insert wrestler here], you've pissed me off! As punishment, you're gonna face KANE! They had a similar thing going on with Big Show a few years back...and he'd ALWAYS lose.

I remember a lot of people complaining about that at the time. It was a little silly. Another dumb one was Kurt and Shane McMahon leading into KOTR, fighting because Shane interrupted Kurt's Olympic reenactment. I don't think they even tried to explain why Shane would interrupt it in the first place.

HHH wasn't really a heel at that point though.

On the heels getting arrested thing, Vince had Taker arrested back in 99 during the Ministry angle. They haven't done this in a while to my knowledge, but lord knows I was sick of hearing the heel respond to a face challenger by saying "I'll face you anytime or anywhere...BUT NOT TONIGHT!" They did that like every other week for a while. Another thing I noticed last night...why is it that during every pull apart brawl, the face has to leap over the top rope and take out the heel and the wrestlers that are trying to separate them?

I'm playing season mode for Benoit on Raw. Over on Smackdown, at Armageddon, there was a HIAC between Jericho (WWE Champ), Taker, Angle, Rey, RVD, and Ultimo Dragon (who has like 12 SP, so why the game chose him...). Anyway, I decided to jump in and play as RVD to see if I could get the belt on him. So about a minute in, Rey and I fight to the roof of the sell. I tried to knock him off, but did RVD's spin kick/leg sweep thing and ended up going off the cell with him. All of a sudden, Ultimo, of all people, runs out of the cell and rolls me up with la magistral and GETS THE THREE! So Ultimo's the new WWE Champ.

HHH won that match, actually.

Maybe it's Benoit.

Um....what the fuck?!

That whole segment was just plain stupid. Matt and Lita want to be alone, so they tell the announcer to leave...but the camera crew can stay...?

I didn't mind his matches with Rhyno from a couple of months back. Nothing special, but they were alright. I seem to remember him having a pretty good match against Taker around WM12 (was this the same match that Mankind debuted?). I haven't watched it in years though, so my memory may be a little clouded.

You can see it, but it's a little tough to see. Maybe you can put a red outline or something around it to make it stand out.

That's tight. I like it.

The newer one is the better belt model, but I kinda prefer the original for the OAOAST logos, plus it's more colorful.

I'll probably do Bryte/Tina this week...or not. I dunno.

Damn. I had no clue Chris was that old. How old is Eddie?

English major, CJ minor.

SummerSlam 94, HBK's accidental Superkick cost him the I-C title to Razor. A couple of months later in the Clique tag, HBK caught him with another accidental superkick and KO'd him again. Finally, at the Survivor Series, HBK caught Diesel with one last superkick. He got sick of Shawn and chased him out of the arena. They were tag champs at the time, and their split led to them vacating the titles. Not totally sure. I don't recall seeing him prior to March 95, and the last time I can recall seeing him was at a house show here in Philly on Super Bowl Sunday in 96. I'll go out on a limb and say from February 95 to February 96, though I could be wrong. Diesel and Shawn had been friends up until a house show at MSG prior to WM12. The ME (I assume) was a tag match between HBK/Diesel and Taker/Bret. It ended in DQ when Diesel attacked Bret and Taker with a chair. Shawn tried to calm him down and Diesel ended up laying him out as well, officially turning heel. While he was getting carried out, Shawn promised to kick Diesel's "7-foot ass", and it was on like neckbone.

Great show this week. I didn't see Hoff's turn coming it all. I was completely shocked. The backstage segment with Hoff, Crystal and Sly early on made it that much more of a surprise. Great job on that one, and props on the hot ass stable name. As for the rest of the show, all of the matches were great, as was the segment with Gunner...I thought it was funny when the fans saw him and started chanting for Rhyno. As for the Bryte/Tina stuff...obviously, I had been building to a Bryte/Tina 1-on-1 match for School's Out, but after reading through the boxing match and the post-match attack, would anyone buy Tina recovering in time to make it to the PPV? I'm tempted to hold the match off and allow Tina to sell the injury a little more.

Not at all. The period from about Survivor Series 01 to about Vengeance 02 was so fucked up it wasn't even funny. There weren't even that many strong matches to redeem this period. The product was just all around terrible...I'd say that creatively, this was THE lowest point I've seen for WWF (and yes, I was watching in 95). The end of 2003 had its low points (too much McMahon involvement and Austin's b.s. on Raw), but it was nowhere near as bad. Raw actually began to shape up once they got the title off of HHH, as they began making much better use of their roster. Smackdown, while not at the same quality as it was in the end of 02, still managed to put on great matches damn near every other week with programs like Tajiri/Rey, Benoit/Brock, Benoit/Cena, Los Guerreros/WGTT, and Cena/Angle (despite how ridiculous the feud may have been handled); again, the product wasn't at it best overall, but it was much better than the bull that was being thrown out early on in 02.

I've been meaning to start this topic for a while, but when reading through the answers to the survey in the WWE folder, one thing that surprised me was that a lot of posters listed 2003 as the worst year ever for WWE. Granted, 2003 had its problems, but I honestly can't understand how people can list it as being worse than 2002. I mean...the shampoo matches, people feuding over t-shirts, dogs and all that crap. I dunno...maybe you all saw it differently, but I can't remember seeing a wrestling product as bad as WWE 2002. And for all its problems, overall, I wouldn't even say 2003 WWE was all that bad. So what do you think?

So Kenzo Suzuki's basically doing the "Hirohito" gimmick anyway, but on Smackdown?