justcoz

He's another example of someone who would have been the perfect heel manager if WWE still had traditional managers. He had a natural arrogance that made him easy to dislike, he could talk, interrupt matches and take bumps when needed. You could have been what Bobby Heenan was to the Brainbusters with Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas. He could've had a Heenan Family-like stable. And he could've still hosted DVD's or specials. I think the fact that we saw him in the same recycled heel assistant/stooge to the heel GM role so many times and the fact that Vince and Kevin Dunn were stupid enough to believe for one second that he was the answer to replace Jim Ross on play by play make people take what good he had for granted.

I think Kris Kloss could be WWE'ized

Also, they could add elements of Santino's MMA style into his current slimeball character. He can brag about being trained by a legit UFC/MMA fighter. Pay Alessio "Legionarivs" Sakara to do vignettes with him or claim to be his cousin or something. Do vignettes with him training with a Bruno Sammartino look-a-like or something. You know, piss off Bruno some more. Call Domenic Denucci and make it out like Santino learned these wicked MMA moves from Domenic Denucci. Mick Foley would get it.

Santino should be used similar to how they intended to use Roddy Piper when he first entered the WWF. He should have a talk show segment every week. Part Santino's Casa and part Piper's Pit. Maybe tape them at a studio with only an occassional live edition. They can be mostly comedy but can also be used to build or develop serious storylines and main event feuds. He can be the guy that causes tag team partners to doubt one another. For instance, next week, they could have Paul London confront Brian Kendrick with Santino being the antagonist and pushing Kendrick's abandonment. He can be the guy that points out the sexual tension between a wrestler and his female manager. The guy that tells John Cena that Batista is talking shit on him. Maybe he can manage a stable of wrestlers. I know... "Manager", "Stable" and "Wrestlers" are dirty words in sports entertainment but someone like Santino can be the mouth piece that could have helped someone like Chris Masters get over - you can imagine Santino standing next to Masters gloating and hamming it up during Masters' entrance, not letting him speak and being the in-ring commentator during the Master Lock Challenge. That's the type of role I see Santino being in. Piper eventually did get into WWF main events and was allowed to be viewed as serious despite the gimmick, the fact that he often chickened out and was the BUTT of the joke with people making fun of him for the kilt. Santino could be pushed seriously if they'd put him the right program, with the right worker and gave him the right amount of time to work. It's hard to see what he's capable of when he's jobbed relatively quickly each week to people like Jerry Lawler. I'd like to see him moved to Smackdown to get into the MVP/Matt Hardy feud or sent to ECW to feud with CM Punk or something. I think he'd benefit being taken away from Raw at this point. His character doesn't get nearly enough tv time on Raw. They may be thinking that's the way to prevent him from growing stale but I actually think it's hindering him from being more over than he could be. I think Santino is someone who could actually run with the ball if given the chance to have freedom with his character and be a very entertaining part of the program.

Obviously they want to hurt the pay sites because that's money and website hits that could be going to WWE. I really like this. Let's put it this way, I'm more likely now to check out wwe.com on a daily basis than I was yesterday. Just to see what industry news they are reporting. I imagine there are more people like me. I think they realized that there is an internet wrestling audience that doesn't give a rat's ass about their site and this is their way of addressing that. WWE, being the recognized leaders in the industry, should want the overall industry to be healthy. The last boom period for the industry was because everything in the business - WWF, WCW, ECW - were all doing well and all had their own fans. I'm not saying that WWE promoting TNA is a great idea but if TNA was doing a 2.5 on Spike, instead of low 1's, that's more leverage for WWE when doing network deals. Even though it's not one of their brands it shows cable execs that wrestling has an audience and if the second-rate promotion is drawing that, what ratings will the big dog bring? The business looks healthy when indies, TNA, ROH, MMA, UFC, etc. are all drawing, getting good ratings and interest on PPV. It will be interesting to see if they post TNA tv taping spoilers. That may actually help TNA's ratings more than hurt them. This could also help non-WWE talent get some recognition and leverage in trying to get a deal with WWE. My uncle and I were talking about this the other day. Back in the old territory days, with the Apter wrestling mags, you would read about stars from other territories and there was actually some anticipation of when they may show up in WWF. If you read the magazines, you knew who Randy Savage and Rick Rude were before they debuted in WWF. This could be the same type of deal. Where a person reads about Nigel McGuinness and knows their reputation when they debut in WWE. Now, they need to have some audio or video content targeted at the internet audience. It would be great if they had JR do an audio show, similar to the pay site hotline reports, where he and guests discuss the same things that he writes about in his blog, take live calls and occassionally get critical of the product.

John Cena vs. Eminem would have worked years ago when I first proposed it here. Back before Cena became a children's wrestler and actually had decent raps and a fresh character.

What's sad is since the move to High Definition WWE tv is probably visually the best looking thing on television. The new set and the colors look awesome and the camera work and production seems top notch. But they will never escape the "low-rent" programming tag because of the fan base that Vince and creative cater to. How many of us have feel shame when a girlfriend or friend walk into the room and there is Vince McMahon on our television - with his bare ass - demanding that a midget leprechaun kiss his ass. It's difficult to admit to watching and impossible to justify. How can you market THAT to a network? "Yeah, this woman is the widow of one of our deceased wrestlers, obviously not the one that killed his wife and child, we have her in this storyline where she's aligned with our top bad guy and the little guy in the mask is concerned about his dead friend's estate - isn't that great!" Maybe if they treated this thing like a real television show. Hired real writers from established shows under the NBC/Universal umbrella to produce storylines and create characters. They don't have to target the lowest demo. If something like American Gladiators can make an impact on NBC so can WWE - if it wasn't the bullshit product we have right now. If Dick Ebersol had more control perhaps. But Vince would probably rather go on MyNetworkTV than listen to someone tell him what to do with his product. The WWE guys got nice pops at the last UFC PPV. People, whether they are current wrestling fans or not, will always be enamored by the characters and have shown that they will watch if there are personalities that come along like Hogan, Piper, Flair, Rock, Austin, etc. But the structure of WWE, the badly scripted promos, the stopped pushes, etc. keep any new stars from catching on. Or they catch on and their legs are cut underneath of them because SOMEONE is threatened or an agent doesn't like their attitude. I know - I'm not saying anything new. I just hate how wrestling is perceived by tv types and how there is this attitude that the entire fan base are stupid hillbillies - not NASCAR hillbillies even - but rather people who don't have money for cars, electronic gadgets, beer, etc. I think a lot of the wrestling audience buys stuff that isn't zit creme, drug store body spray, Starbursts and video games.

Friday Night Smackdown and Friday Night Lights on NBC! Nah, FNL will get canned and there is little chance NBC will put wrestling on prime time. I think Saturday Night's Main Event would work if they made it "Live From New York" from Hammerstein Ballroom or some intimate venue, giving it a different feel and energy, but to Vince that's making his huge production look small. This will be interesting. They could just end the brand all together. Move talent over to Raw to extend the show to three hours like the network supposedly wanted them to do a few months ago. Have the hour on Sci-Fi - maybe scrap ECW and Smackdown - make it Tuesday Night Titans or something and then do the seasonal SNME on NBC late night in the live format. Sci-Fi could end up having to take on Smackdown, which could mean the end of ECW too. I don't think they'd want three hours of wrestling on Sci-Fi - they don't even want one hour. Could this be an excuse to put the final nail in the coffin of the brand extension? They already have joint PPV's. What's the point?

Are you sure about this? I know Dave wrote for Friends but the PWInsider guys are always referring to him as an ECW Arena alumni. I remember reading - back when he was teamed with Heyman during the ECW relaunch - that he was a regular at ECW shows. Brian Gerwitz has attended ROH shows I think. Apparently he hasn't learned anything.

I loved that Dr. D segment! I remember me and my cousin, both around nine or ten, feeling sorry for his wife and kids and it's funny to watch now, 24 years later, and see that neither the kids or the woman could keep a straight face most of the time. I wonder where Dr. D. could have gone in the WWF. Him against Hogan had potential. Even Shultz and Piper. Had the guy not got into the altercation backstage with Mr. T, which did him in more than slapping Stossel, he could have been Stone Cold twelve years earlier for all we know.

I really don't understand why they haven't gone the comical route of making Hornswoggle a mini Vince with a suit, dyed black hair and the McMahon strut. I really thought the leprochaun thing would have been killed off by now.

I agree but at the same time what did WWE expect by putting them out there and if you can have producers in the headsets of freakin Jim Ross and Joey Styles, why not these guys? I'm just saying that it was obvious that they wanted them to duel with each other on commentary or else just one of them would have been out there. And no offense to Noble/Punk because the match picked up at the end but a good bit of that match was Noble with a chinlock, armbar or some other rest hold on Punk. I think they both said that CM Punk was a great champion at different points but there wasn't necessarily a lot of action for them to call at some points. In the end, I think the comapny probably learned something too from the improvisation and Miz being able to think on his feet better than Morrison. I also thought some of their bickering was funny but it's like nobody is supposed to have unscripted fun in WWE any more.

And my comment was blown out of proportion. Various sources, ranging from Meltzer to Keller to the PWinsider guys, reported that Stephanie had derogatory comments about Punk being the King of Indies and was in no hurry to call him up to the main roster from OVW. He didn't get his chance until Heyman was put in a position of power. This was around the same time that she was high on Daniel Rodimer being the future of WWE. HBK and HHH did report back unfavorably of Punk in OVW. I read that too. Within the past year we had the Arn Anderson stuff and reports that some agents didn't see anything special in Punk and felt the only reason he was over was because Heyman protected him in the original ECW booking. I'm not even that much of a CM Punk fan so I'm not some smark sitting around thinking HHH and HBK are out to get Punk. I never even insinuated that. I just thought it would be funny to read that they are high on him. I wouldn't have thought JBL would ever call a meeting complaining about people not protecting Punk. If I'm reading too much into what I've read from legitimate wrestling insiders - I apologize. I forgot that in smark land you only believe information that you want to believe and everything else is just a bunch of pimply faced geeks on the net making stuff up.

You're reading too much into what I posted. I don't find it strange. I find it funny. I don't have any evidence that HHH, HBK or Stephanie have a grudge against Punk, I'm not f'n Dave Meltzer, I'm some dude typing at a computer in Pittsburgh. My point was they did at one point have known grudges against him and it's ironic that he's come full circle and is in the position he's in right now with the company. It wasn't that long ago that he was jobbed out to Bob Holly because "he wasn't that good and was nothing more than a Paul Heyman pet project". Lagana didn't even see him as the star of ECW, instead choosing to have a boner for John Morrison and seeing Punk as a temporary champion while Morrison was suspended. Now we have him retaining the role of champion, "company men" like JBL backing him and even the Tony Atlas/OVW thing didn't see any fingers pointed at Punk. I'm just waiting to read something about HHH or HBK being into Punk as a future star of the company, a student of the game, etc. That's all.

pwinsider? $4.95 a month will get rid of those pop ups and their audio commentaries are always good. Not trying to be a dick or tell you how to spend your money but I like my subscription to that site and trust those guys more than other net insiders. I have mixed feelings about this. I do think Morrison and Miz's commentary took away from the Punk/Noble's match but I also feel that we need more improvised unscripted exchanges on WWE television. For instance, in this case, Morrison, who is Lagana's pet project, looked inferior to Miz who was sharper and quicker than Morrison, who had difficulty keeping up with Miz verbally. I'll have to watch the Smackdown match to see exactly what Miz and Morrison did in the tag match. JBL isn't an agent though so I can see where Morrison was coming from although he'll probably be given the shit treatment since he crossed backstage politics. Also, why didn't JBL invite Jamie Noble who also deserved an apology since main eventing ECW was his biggest WWE moment since his return? I do find it interesting how CM Punk is apparently in favor with the company right now. I mean, JBL is backing him, what's next HBK and HHH? Who would have ever thought Steph's King of the Indies would have such luck?