Downhome

That's true, but he was also the executive producer for Men in Black II, Jurassic Park III, Casper, The Flintstones, We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story, *batteries not included, and other "questionable" flicks as well, so it doesn't really mean all that much. I hope to God that you guys aren't expecting much from this flick. You should go into it with the lowest expectations possible, so if it's horrible (like it very well could be) you wont really give a shit, and if it's awesome you'll like it that much more since you weren't expecting much in the first place.

Here's another report from PWInsider:

From PWInsider:

When was the last time that there was a main event level feud between two black wrestlers anywhere?

Reminds me of something from WCW...

Oh yeah!

They could play it up where Mick goes crazy and starts to believe that Mr. Socko turned on him...

If Edge isn't going to win the title and have a multi-month reign, then I don't think he should win it at all right now. He won the title once, and dropped it less than a month later. He was almost "Orton'd", but he was able to come out of all of that just as strong as he was before the loss. I'm not so sure things would go as smoothly for him if they do the exact same thing to him again. I don't think it'd kill his career or anything stupid like that because I think he has a strong character at this point that is really over, but it sure as hell wouldn't help things. The next time Edge wins the title, I want to see him actaully have a run with the strap that actually means something in the long run.

Or to really fuck things up, Edge is ECW champ and RVD is WWE champ.

I just looked on IMDB and noticed that John Cena's character is "John Titan". Ugh.

I even enjoy the "entertainment" parts of SD more than anything on RAW. To me, it's just not as forced aa RAW. I actually did enjoy the DX segment on this past RAW, but come on, that was way too forced, just like DX used to be. EDIT: Here's the picture from above:

Well if you give a shit about wrestling, then you should start watching it. There are times when SD has more in ring action (and better action) on a single episode that RAW does for about an entire month. Not to mention that SD is home of the best angle in WWE right now (King Booker's Court vs. Bobby Lashley).

Are you watching the same Smackdown show that we are?

I'd be willing to bet that all of us here on the boards put more thought into the Kane/Kane storyline than anyone in WWE creative.

From WWE.com: I know that it doesn't really matter since they never did anything with the guy, but this is just another example of the WWE bullshit that I just don't understand. I always liked this guy, and I just don't see how creative can't think of something to do with someone like this.

From the latest PWInsider audio: -From what the guys have been told, the Kane angle is 100% over, at least for now. It's yet another case of thinking that a young talent that they've pushed in a prominent role, then after they start with the angle they then decide that the young guy needs more training, the same thing that recently happened with Gunner Scott. With how WWE books, never really doing anything long terms, they think it's possible that they'll change their mind, but as of right now, the angle is dead and done. No matter what you thought of the Kane/Kane angle, this is absolute bullshit to me. The angle has been building for about two months now. After so many teases, the "Kane" debuted, and made life a living hell for Kane, getting the upper hand pretty much every time. Then, on PPV, they have "Kane" beat Kane in a very convincing way. Then on RAW, for seemingly end the angle with Kane just chokeslamming "Kane" a few times, then removing the mask and tossing him out the back door of the arena. It's just bullshit, and I hate when they just end angles like this.

At the start of all of this, reports said that Vince and WWE were going to allow ECW to be the old ECW for a while, in order to hook in all of those old ECW fans and all of the current ROH, TNA, and indie fans. Then, from there, they were planning on slowly backing off from the traditional ECW elements, and eventually ending up as a third WWE brand, only with the ECW name. Now while that still would have disappointed me, it sure as hell sounds like a smarter way to go about all of this. The only reason I can think of that they decided against that is that they don't want those ECW fans in the first place, and instead they are just going to try to expand the already present WWE fan base.

Well, it started off with Vince, then to Heyman, then back to Vince. So far, that's how it's going. Like someone mentioned in the last ECW on SciFi thread, they are more than likely changing their minds on all of this shit daily, so you shouldn't take any of this as 100%, written in stone, fact.

Well, the rating is in. From PWInsider:

One of the main things that I don't understand is why Vince just wont let Paul Heyman book the ECW shows. ECW was fucking great in terms of quality, most of the time, back in the day. The action was solid, most storylines were well thought out and interesting, and so on. Now that Vince is there to totally finance the company, they wouldn't have to worry about Paul Heyman fucking things up in terms of money. Yes, I know that it's Vince's money and he doesn't just want to up and give control over something he owns, but still, it just doesn't make sense to me. Vince and WWE creative have no clue as to what ECW is all about, and all the while they have the brain powers of the old days working for them but aren't allowing them to reinvent for today what worked back then. A new ECW, with a few former stars but with a lot of new young and original talent would work today, I really do believe that. It could never be EXACTLY what it used to be, simply because so much time has gone by, but it could be a new version of what it used to be. The same type of action, the original and interesting storylines.

With all of this bad news, I still want to make clear that I loved the opening and ending of the last show. Out of one hour of wrestling programing, I flat out loved 50% of it. That's a hell of a lot more than I can say about most episodes of RAW, ya know? If we keep having a hot opening with a solid main event, I'll be tuning in week after week.

I'll post this here also, since most of it has to do with ECW. From PWInsider: -On the topic of Orlando Jordan, the guy in the pictures is indeed the guy that got OJ fired and it's still rumored (more than a rumor really), that the guy with OJ was/is indeed underage, and THAT'S why they fired him, along with him not telling anyone that he was bringing him backstage and all of that, not just because he's gay. -There was a meeting between Vince, Dunn, and Heyman about ECW and changes being made. The decision has been made to move away from ALL of the old ECW concepts, characters, fans, and everything else and instead to simply 100% form ECW as just another brand for WWE, simply with the ECW name. In Vince's eyes, the old ECW fan base is dead and largely gone and he's going to go forward with things with that in mind. -This week Heyman put the show together, but when they actually got to the show Vince and the rest of WWE creative tore apart Heyman's ideas, and as a result we got the show that we saw. Heyman did book the Sabu segment, as well as the RVD/Angle segment, but the rest of the show (you know, the entire middle part that everyone hated) was because of Vince and the rest of creative. -Paul Heyman was not at the gorilla position last night, and Vince was the guy running around running things. Paul kept mainly to himself over on the sidelines, and when someone would come up to him and ask him for feedback or whatever he was open and gave his opinion, but other than that it was more obvious than ever that he is no longer the "mad genius behind ECW". -They spoke to a lot of people, just people who work for RAW and SD, and they are like "It's not ECW, it's just a continuation of RAW and SD. This isn't good for the ECW wrestlers, and it's not good for the fans." Even people that were not involved in ECW back in the day are ticked that this is what ECW has become now, because they were also hoping for a more old school ECW style of program, in hopes that it would have flooded over and then have allowed workers on RAW and SD to finally go outside of the box more often with their style. -Another question they've asked people in WWECW was about what happens to guys that have been "Paul Heyman projects", like Mike Knox and CM Punk. The response to that was that they still want Heyman to try and develop characters, but he has been told to change his style to go more along with the WWE style of character creation/development. -Another thing asked as about if Paul Heyman loses power if Dreamer has anything to gain, and that's not the case. Tommy Dreamer no longer has any control over anything at all and he's now just another wrestler, just like he's always been on TV in WWE. It's been said that the reality has set in for Tommy now, and part of his passion that he had for ECW coming back has now died out a bit. It has hurt him a great deal. -There was a lot of former ECW people who were not at the show last night. Pretty much the people you saw on TV last night who were former ECW people is the ECW people who were actually at the show. They don't know if this means anything other than they didn't have anything to use them for on TV this week. -The view right now by many in power in WWE is "why do we need a Danny Doring, Justin Credible, Steven DeAngelis, the refs, etc... when we have fifty workers in OVW, DSW, etc...?" -The reason for all of this is because when this project first started up, Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer had a ton of power, and the plan was for them to really be the main creative bookers and they planned to used all of the former ECW guys in big ways. Now that Paul Heyman is really nothing more than a symbolic head writer (since Vince and WWE creative go through his work and destroy most of it) and Tommy Dreamer has no power at all anymore, creative just doesn't see the need for most of the former ECW guys. -Already, most of the ECW refs are on the way out. -Kurt Angle will be taking time off very soon. As of late, Kurt Angle has been walking around like "the walking dead". People say that he's hurting all over all the time, but being injured isn't what he's taking time off for, and instead it's because of some sort of personal issue. -Kurt Angle stayed totally to himself at the last ECW show Tuesday night and hasn't been sociable at all with anyone in ECW. He also showed up very late for the ECW show at the ECW Arena. They speculate that Kurt Angle is now looking at everything like this just isn't worth his time anymore (being in ECW that is). -They talked to a number of people in the company about the "male stripper". As reported before, he is a member of creative, and he's one of the most hated guys in the company. People backstage were actually cheering Sandman doing that, and were actually wishing that he was a lot stiffer on the guy. Many people who weren't Sandman fans before last night, are now. -When the SD guys showed up for the house show Saturday night, guys were pulled to the side for drug tests, the first time it's happened at a house show. It really shocked a bunch of the workers. -Gunner Scott has been told that he's not working out right now, and he'll be going back to OVW for now. He'll more than likely be brought back, but for now he's being demoted.

From PWInsider: -On the topic of Orlando Jordan, the guy in the pictures is indeed the guy that got OJ fired and it's still rumored (more than a rumor really), that the guy with OJ was/is indeed underage, and THAT'S why they fired him, along with him not telling anyone that he was bringing him backstage and all of that, not just because he's gay. -There was a meeting between Vince, Dunn, and Heyman about ECW and changes being made. The decision has been made to move away from ALL of the old ECW concepts, characters, fans, and everything else and instead to simply 100% form ECW as just another brand for WWE, simply with the ECW name. In Vince's eyes, the old ECW fan base is dead and largely gone and he's going to go forward with things with that in mind. -This week Heyman put the show together, but when they actually got to the show Vince and the rest of WWE creative tore apart Heyman's ideas, and as a result we got the show that we saw. Heyman did book the Sabu segment, as well as the RVD/Angle segment, but the rest of the show (you know, the entire middle part that everyone hated) was because of Vince and the rest of creative. -Paul Heyman was not at the gorilla position last night, and Vince was the guy running around running things. Paul kept mainly to himself over on the sidelines, and when someone would come up to him and ask him for feedback or whatever he was open and gave his opinion, but other than that it was more obvious than ever that he is no longer the "mad genius behind ECW". -They spoke to a lot of people, just people who work for RAW and SD, and they are like "It's not ECW, it's just a continuation of RAW and SD. This isn't good for the ECW wrestlers, and it's not good for the fans." Even people that were not involved in ECW back in the day are ticked that this is what ECW has become now, because they were also hoping for a more old school ECW style of program, in hopes that it would have flooded over and then have allowed workers on RAW and SD to finally go outside of the box more often with their style. -Another question they've asked people in WWECW was about what happens to guys that have been "Paul Heyman projects", like Mike Knox and CM Punk. The response to that was that they still want Heyman to try and develop characters, but he has been told to change his style to go more along with the WWE style of character creation/development. -Another thing asked as about if Paul Heyman loses power if Dreamer has anything to gain, and that's not the case. Tommy Dreamer no longer has any control over anything at all and he's now just another wrestler, just like he's always been on TV in WWE. It's been said that the reality has set in for Tommy now, and part of his passion that he had for ECW coming back has now died out a bit. It has hurt him a great deal. -There was a lot of former ECW people who were not at the show last night. Pretty much the people you saw on TV last night who were former ECW people is the ECW people who were actually at the show. They don't know if this means anything other than they didn't have anything to use them for on TV this week. -The view right now by many in power in WWE is "why do we need a Danny Doring, Justin Credible, Steven DeAngelis, the refs, etc... when we have fifty workers in OVW, DSW, etc...?" -The reason for all of this is because when this project first started up, Paul Heyman and Tommy Dreamer had a ton of power, and the plan was for them to really be the main creative bookers and they planned to used all of the former ECW guys in big ways. Now that Paul Heyman is really nothing more than a symbolic head writer (since Vince and WWE creative go through his work and destroy most of it) and Tommy Dreamer has no power at all anymore, creative just doesn't see the need for most of the former ECW guys. -Already, most of the ECW refs are on the way out. -Kurt Angle will be taking time off very soon. As of late, Kurt Angle has been walking around like "the walking dead". People say that he's hurting all over all the time, but being injured isn't what he's taking time off for, and instead it's because of some sort of personal issue. -Kurt Angle stayed totally to himself at the last ECW show Tuesday night and hasn't been sociable at all with anyone in ECW. He also showed up very late for the ECW show at the ECW Arena. They speculate that Kurt Angle is now looking at everything like this just isn't worth his time anymore (being in ECW that is). -They talked to a number of people in the company about the "male stripper". As reported before, he is a member of creative, and he's one of the most hated guys in the company. People backstage were actually cheering Sandman doing that, and were actually wishing that he was a lot stiffer on the guy. Many people who weren't Sandman fans before last night, are now. -When the SD guys showed up for the house show Saturday night, guys were pulled to the side for drug tests, the first time it's happened at a house show. It really shocked a bunch of the workers. -Gunner Scott has been told that he's not working out right now, and he'll be going back to OVW for now. He'll more than likely be brought back, but for now he's being demoted.

I'm listening to the audio right now, I'll post bits soon.

Ok, that's my new avatar EDIT: Here's one for you to use just as an avatar: