dorianb

I promise that I'm not being confrontational at all when I ask this. My wife asked me the same thing the other day when I was watching RAW.... What could WWE do right now that would surprise you in a good way? I can start another thread if need be, but I saw Enigma's reply to the spoilers and it made me think to ask. The answer I gave her was so different from what WWE is giving right now, I'm just interested in what things others would like to see.

I demand a fancy graphic for the TSM Tournament final, Hypocrates.

Amazing how a bunch of fatties have girlfriends hotter than models. forums.thesmartmarks.com brings out the best in personality, I suppose.

No. On a wrestling board, everyone's girlfriend really is hotter than a model. The Somali man looks like he's playing peekaboo.

I think part of that reason is that we don't come into ECW with the same high expectations as Raw & Smackdown. It's much easier to like what they give us. The other shows at one time gave us much more than they do now.

good point, I changed my guess around a few times and forgot to make sure they worked. I barely catch smackdown any more so I didn't know edge wasn't in it. I'll change those.

1. Who will win the 2009 Royal Rumble? Randy Orton 2. Who will be the runner-up? HBK 3. Who will be the iron-man? HBK 4. Who will have the shortest time? Santino 5. Who will have the most eliminated opponents? Koslov 6. Who will draw #1 and #2 (3 pts each, 3 bonus for accurately naming both) HHH (1) Shawn Michaels (2) 7. Who will draw the most successful entry # of 27? Santino 8. Who will draw the #30 spot? JBL 9. What will be the eventual winning #? 19 10. Will there be any surprise/unannounced entrants as of 1/25? (no point value), If yes, who will they be? Yes (unannounced) Goldust and Boogeyman. 11. Will the endurance record of 62:12 held by Mysterio be broken? (no point value) If yes, who breaks it? No 12. Who will be the final six men in the ring? (3 pts each, 10 pts for accurately naming all) JBL, Orton, HHH, Big Show, Koslov, HBK 13. How many instances of interference by non-competitors will we see? (2 pts) 2 14. Will anyone bleed? (no point value), if yes, who? (3 pts) No 15. If Charlie Haas is a participant, who does he imitate? (3 pts) Shawn Michaels

I just found out the JAPW anniversary show is tonight and Dan Maff is advertised to be there. I remember few years back, Maff and Homicide had a big time falling out and Maff was basically blackballed from wrestling. Does anyone know for sure what the incident was that caused the falling out? I have the RF video "Get in the Ring" Homicide video/shoot and he talks about it somewhat, but he doesn't ever say anything about what it was that Maff did.

I don't have concrete evidence on the matter, but I think it's possible that Bret and Taker have probably vetoed other losses. Just because it wasn't reported doesn't mean it didn't happen. People care if they win or lose when they are top guys, it's as simple as that.

Wow, thanks for the info, I always thought that was going to be a mystery of mine forever.

With Cantwell, I could see being hyped about the break when all the adrenaline is pumping seconds after a fight, but I heard he was even doing it at the post fight press conference, that's messed up. There's such a fine line for me as a fan when it comes to fighting. Like Kos' KO was very visually appealing, but when Yoshida went down extra stiff, and stayed down all the way through the commercial and also during Kos' interview, I was very concerned. Al-Hassan's arm breaking (or popping, as I just read) was hard to watch period, but I've seen guys get out of tight looking armbars before, so I didn't turn away lol, sorry I didn't though. I'm surprised so many guys were able to still throw leg kicks after Hill's injury. I thought that some may have had second thoughts, but they didn't. Killa B's fight should have been stopped long before it was. Wolff was turning his back and the ref didn't even get closer to the action. He took a beating for so long and that ref really should have paid better attention in my opinion.

Yeah, that night of fights was not very good for the sport in terms of brutality, but that's mainly because it was a fund raiser for troops with brain injuries from fighting for us and the show was full of guys getting badly injured and high chances of brain damage of their own. I hadn't seen the Corey Hill fight the night of the show, but I was intrigued by Joe Rogan's comments at the end of the show about how after seeing those videos of the injured soldiers, the fights seem trivial and stupid. I thought that was very strong comments, but after all the injuries that were aired and seeing the Hill injury, I completely understand why he said what he said. But Koscheck's knockout looked straight out of Rocky 3, when Clubber knocked Rocky out lol. It was sick.

Mask-less Kane.

LOL, this won't stop JBL's bullying. It's a nice victory for Styles, but it won't suddenly make Bradshaw scared to mess with a new guy. If he did, he knows he would be looked at as a bitch. A little off topic since Styles isn't new, but I never understood getting stiffed or ridiculously ribbed for being NEW. Like anyone can help being new lol. If I could help not being new, I wouldn't be new, but there's no way around it. I had a guy stiff me with a punch in my very first match ever, busting my nose, only for him to puss out every time he thought I might retaliate. It makes no sense to do it, especially if you're a bitch about it afterwards, that means you know it's stupid and wrong.

I honestly believe that if Tenay and West weren't commentating, I could enjoy TNA so much more. They're just too loud and uninteresting to me. Now West has come a long way since TNA began, but I just don't like hearing him. I wish TNA would go to a heel/face commentating team but not by keeping West face and turning Tenay. Heel Tenay makes me cringe lol.

I know it's a storyline and all and not much is off limits in wrestling, but how long is Jarrett going to use his family's tragedy to get sympathy cheers for him? No one really cares about Jarrett and he can't hold his end of the feud up on his own so they book Angle to constantly talk about his daughter not having mommy anymore and soon losing daddy too. Yes, it makes Angle look like the sick, out of control guy, but why not let Angle be that way by bringing up something else instead of his kids having no parents. I could see if Jarrett's wife got taken out in a storyline or something, but she's really dead. I felt the same way about all the "Eddie Guerrero's in hell" stuff they did in WWE. Why take it that far to get a feud over?

Over the past few years, I just saw her as the female Val Venis of the company. What I mean by that is, there is probably no chance that she will get pushed heavily anymore, but she is a solid wrestler that they can match up with others to help them look good. Plus I'm under the belief that when wrestlers say that they could care less about wins or losses, it's usually B.S. People keep up with wins and losses to some extent. I mean John Cena may lose every now and then, but he'd never be confused with Santino. Chances are, if you're a top guy, you aren't losing on a regular basis. If HHH had Val Venis' win/loss record, people wouldn't take him very seriously.

I'm trying to imagine Styles reaching up to pop JBL in the eye. Did JBL have a shiner on Raw? I didn't see his segment.

They're having a buy 3 get 2 free DVD sale (Shimmer and outside promotions don't count). But one thing about the show, after seeing last night's show in St. Louis. Their style has definitely changed from what I was used to. Of course it's up to you to decide whether you like the new style or not, but there is definitely a different working style in ROH now. Still an enjoyable show though, just different.

I actually liked the show. I thought it was a throwback to when I was a kid and just watched and didn't try to analyze everything. I liked all the elimination matches, I thought they had a nice flow. I especially loved the finish to the Michaels/JBL team match. I had to analyze the woman's match because a lot of them have gotten better but with Maryse pre-bumping all of Mickie's clotheslines, Maria's lack of in ring talent, and Candice still trying to be Trish Stratus but failing repeatedly and is looking like Ahmed Johnson when it comes to injuries, I had to scoff at it somewhat. I had no real problem with HHH/Koslov. I never expected them to work a bunch of spots. Koslov isn't a technical marvel, and it was smart to slow the match down. Plus it's his style, someone obviously has a Fedor Emilienko fetish with him and wants him to be a methodical, Sambo fighter, who's cool under pressure. I thought Hardy was going to be the one to appear later once I heard about the "injury," and was a bit disappointed when they brought Edge back in that capacity. What was the point of changing Hardy's attitiude and fighting his way into the title match, only to CM Punk him a few days later? I fully expected Stephanie McMahon to cost Cena the match against Jericho after their conversation on Raw, but I guess I was wrong. I think that between Batista and Cena, one of them should turn heel to freshen one of them up a bit,but that won't happen anytime soon. They sell way too much merchandise and it would risk alienating the kid viewers that they want. I have come to realize that the only way I can enjoy wrestling again is to leave my brain out of it and just watch it. I tend to miss the days when I could just watch and have no idea who is booking or if a spot was blown or care how often a title changes hands. Watching WWE is too much of a habit for me to just stop, I've been watching it for over 20 years now, but I could never enjoy it now if I don't just look at it for what it is, not what I think it should be. If I want it my way, I should just stop watching because obviously it isn't going to happen anytime soon. It's not written for my age group anymore. Now I see how older fans felt in the early-mid '90s. I used to never understand why my older family members stopped watching, I thought it was great lol.

Before I even begin, I just want to say that I am not trying to disrespect Samoa Joe at all in this topic, I've had the honor to have wrestled him and he is a class act guy without a doubt. I read an excerpt on a website recently (can't remember which site) of an interview with Terry Funk. In the interview, Funk called TNA a "graveyard" for guys that have come there. It got me to thinking about Samoa Joe and how he's seemed to lose some of the steam he once had in wrestling. What I mean by that is, a few years ago when Joe came into TNA, it was quickly viewed as a shot in the arm for the company. People expected great things from Joe with his style in the ring and he delivered. Then after a while, they got Rhino, Christian, Angle and other guys and they began to put him on the back burner. Joe was pretty much made to look like a killer at first. The Chris Daniels/AJ Styles feud was awesome, with Joe beating Daniels to a bloody pulp and carrying the towel with Daniels' blood on it. Joe was an aggressive monster. Once Angle came in, one blood producing headbutt seemed to shift the aggressive tag right over to Angle. They made Joe more traditional, and Joe just isn't a traditional wrestler in any way shape or form. They had him cut regular long-winded TV promos instead of the short and sweet promos they had him cut when he was being pushed as his normal aggressive self. The night he won the title, I felt (and it's only my opinion) like Joe was made to look a little weak in the match, probably not on purpose or anything, but with Angle coming out in his MMA gear and working a more stiff/legitimate MMA looking style as opposed to Joe still working like it's a wrestling match, hurt Joe more than helped when he won. His title reign was weird because they put him in a traditional spot again. Long-winded promos with him chasing Sting, randomly cursing out Nash without ever just slapping him around like he could. They made him look weak and sometime clueless, like he never had any killer instinct or never came into battle alone and anyone that's paid attention to him knows he has that and doesn't necessarily need any guidance. To me, the way he's been handled seems to be taking a toll on him. He doesn't seem as crisp as he once was. That could be because of the matters I stated before or the fact that he doesn't work nearly the amount of fast pace matches like he did when he could work ROH much more frequently. He's having to work guys like Nash and Sting instead of guys like AJ Styles or Chris Daniels. On the Impact where he wrestled in the 3 man gauntlet Nash set up for him, he was more winded in the end than I had ever seem him before and I've watched him go a long time in the ring. My question to everyone else is: Do you see the same change? If so, why do you think he's changed? What do you think they should be doing with Joe right now? And of course anything else you want to add. I just was curious as to what everyone else thinks about him.

Are you new or something? Lol, not to life, but this board? Yes. If you're talking about what I wrote, I'm saying that I hate it when guys who really have no reason to dress up for promos, dress up for them. If you're a Horseman or Evolution or a rich guy, or a McMahon or there's just a special segment, it makes sense. But if you're gimmick is that you are a unstable olympic gold metalist, wearing a suit does nothing for you. What's wrong with wearing your gear or a t-shirt? Everybody wears suits, so it has no meaning anymore. Now, when Angle was GM of Smackdown and when he had the group with Reigns and Jindrak (which came off as a fake SD version of Evolution), the suits were fine. With MEM, it's fine because that's a style that they all have in the group, it makes sense. Dressing up used to add a prominence to a wrestler, and because it was rare, it added personality. It's like bleeding in a match; it used to add so much to the matches, now it's done so much, it isn't that special. If I'm not making sense lol, sorry. I wish there was a way to speak on here, it's easier.

At least with MEM, Angle has a real reason to wear a suit to the ring all the time. I hate when guys wear dressy clothes to the ring for no reason in relation to their gimmick. At least now, all MEM members wear suits so it makes sense to me.

Lol, I forgot about "Making a change" Fatu. I remember now, that gimmick was hilarious, he went from a headshrinker to a street smart neighborhood changer. Damn, I also forgot about Rosey and Jamal together when they were 2 minute warning. And I guess you can count Yokozuna too. But even after all those examples, I still think they would give him a savage gimmick. Although, I would like to be surprised.

The only way that I think you will see Joe in WWE is if you find a copy of Metal/jakked that he was on years ago. I just can't see Joe going to WWE and being anything other than the traditional Samoan wrestlers that WWE has always had. If anything, Manu already has the distinction of being maybe the first non-savage Samoan in the company (unless you count the Rock), and that always could change. The savage Samoan gimmick was apparently the reason he left the Zero-1 promotion (read it in an interview a year or so ago, I don't have a link). They wanted him to do the gimmick and he left. But as always, money talks, especially right now. He could be U-Manga's cousin this time next year lol.