tobin

He was much better off on Smackdown/ECW rather than Raw. For some reason, they seem to gimmick the hell out of him whenever he is on that show. The booking of the Kane vs. Rey feud was just garbage, and totally overshadowed some legitimately good matches they had together (particularly No Mercy).

Shawn was just great in that segment - though it won't happen, I'm kind of rooting for him to break the streak.

Randy Savage vs. Rick Steiner at the Tokyo Dome in January 2000, which as far as I know is Savage's last ever singles match. Wacky entrance attire on Savage - it looks like he's wearing the Gobbledygooker on his shoulders.

I haven't been paying attention to any WWE DVD release schedules for 2009 - is there a Survivor Series Anthology coming out this year?

The who would Hogan face? Because things were all about him. Now in reality, he was off pretending to run for president so the fingerpoke of doom could take place, which I still insist could have been great if done properly. Sting-Goldberg and Hogan-Hart could have been a tremendous double main event for Starrcade 1998. In an ideal world that would have been the end of Hollywood Hogan as a full-time act, and then we could have just had occasional nostalgia appearances and matches from red and yellow Hulk Hogan.

When was Roddy Piper's last appearance in WCW? I know he was around briefly during that whole Starrcade 1999 screwjob mess, so basically I just want to know if he made any appearances in 2000.

I vaguely remember hearing about Savage working under a mask as Mr. Madness. When did this happen exactly?

I love these threads because they prove that every WWE wrestler has a fan.

I've always heard that Big Bossman's WWF Title feud and match with Big Show in late 1999 was a reward from Vince for his loyalty over the years. I never understood this, because Bossman worked WCW from 1993 to 1997. Anyone have a better understanding on why Vince felt so indebted to Bossman?

That was really random and horrible. I think Kane was set to take time off for surgery after Wrestlemania 23, so they had Khali squash him, but then he stuck around so they needed a quick feud to re-establish him. I remember at the time trying to think of a less appealing match than Kane vs. David Taylor.

What is there to do on RAW for a Manu/Snuka tag team exactly? There's not much to work with - Miz & Morrison, Cryme Tyme, and possibly Kofi & Partner of the Month. They really don't appear to have the charisma or flashiness to be faces, so that limits them even further since RAW is overloaded with heels right now. Seems like a blatant cry for attention by Eric, since the Hardys are pretty hot at the moment. Looking over Matt's blog though, he does come across as kind of douchy with all the "life's so great!" stuff.

I agree with you, and it was probably the kiss of death for him when you consider they were just looking for reasons for newcomers from WCW to fail. On a side note, the fact that both DDP and Randy Savage were known for their meticulous match planning probably explains why their 1997 WCW series was so good, at a time when Savage had become really broken down.

Followed by DDP jobbing to Sara Horseface. Dave Meltzer tells a funny story in the latest Observer about how during this time period DDP wrote out a move-by-move match plan (as he was known to do) for a match with Undertaker. He then faxed it to Taker who promptly threw it away without looking at it. I'm guessing that whole deal was a contributing factor on why DDP was so quickly written off as not knowing how to work.

There weren't really any viable top heel opponents ready for Orton to work with during that time, which made the face turn even more ill-advised. Kane was out filming See No Evil and that feud would have sucked anyway, Christian was firmly a midcard act and he'd already feuded with Edge during the summer.

I didn't like the face run at all. I thought it was terribly forced and that he was so much more effective as the cocky heel character. However, you can't deny he was building major fan support throughout the summer, and if they hadn't made his character such a geek then maybe he could have sustained that support and become a long-term top babyface. I personally wanted him to stay heel and eventually take over Evolution and oust Triple H, who would then be the babyface challenger heading into Wrestlemania. Of course then we likely wouldn't have seen the ascension of Batista, so one positive did come from the failed turn.