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But, that cruiser could have been someone like Shannon Moore, who is too small to be taken seriously against many of the bigger competitors. It probably wasn't someone like Kidman or Chavo.

This could be the break TNA is looking for. TNA has a flawed business plan, the weekly ppvs just don't work. People are not going to pay to see a simple show every week, it just doesn't work. They have lost money on this idea since day one. My idea is a little out there but its the only real chance I think they have, as they are being killed slowly now as opposed to trying something radical to make or break the company. First thing TNA should do is move the company to Chicago. Chicago is without question the best wrestling city in the US. On top of that they have no major promotion (WWE or the Philly indies) running there. Before you debut on WGN have the station begin hyping the promotion, building up the debut in Chicago. Plus, this eliminates the southern rasslin stigma from TNA. From this point on run only 1 ppv a month, or less, and make the cable show your main focus. After a few weeks on air push WGN for a "one time special", if the ratings are good for the morning show they will agree. Use the sports programming to cross promote the show, if its during baseball season have someone sing the 7th inning stretch during a baseball game or have them interviewed on a Bulls telecast. You really need to go all out for this special, this is what will make or break your company. If, and that is a big if, the special draws a respectable rating WGN will likely give you a better timeslot, something in the evening. Lets face it if WGN wasn't ultimatly interested in a full time wrestling program they wouldn't give TNA a shot, as the stigma of carrying wrestling outweighs the licensing fee. From there begin touring your company around the mid-west, an area that actually still draws for wrestling. Chicagoans are very good sports fans, if you can make them feel the promotion is their own they will support you. Plus the ability to appear during the 7th inning stretch is a priceless amount of publicity.

How about instead of worrying about cross promotion with playboy they worry about putting out a great product. If they put out a great product companies will come to them. By the way the girls who will not pose now our intelligent in a business sense. Posing when business is down means less people will buy the magazine as there are less fans. If your issue sells low it means you will make less money on the next deal you strike. Maybe these girls have a personal belief against playboy but I doubt it. Did any of you see trish posing with that chick who looked just like her, they were basically nude. Also, anyone who will strip down to a thong and crawl around the ring, barking like a dog, probably isn't a prude.

Fuck it. If this is true no mania for me. Seriously, fuck WWE. hhh/orton goldberg/brock Those main events suck. I hope mania draws a o.o buyrate. Everyone on this god damn board knows that chris will not get the title at summerslam. They will find a reason not to give it to him. On top of that god forbid he would reinjure his neck. Vince you are a god damn cocksucking, rim job giving, mother fucking piece of shit. I hope your stupid punk ass gets cancer and suffers for years and then you die a painful death.

"We're all supposed to suffer for our crimes. If we're not suffering, maybe it wasn't a crime in the first place. One thing I've found out is there is no room for guilt or innocence in the world of wrestling. I found out in pro wrestling it's a long cruel money trench, a plastic hallway filled with pimps and thieves, and a place where good men die like dogs." -Bret Hart on the April 27 1998 edition of Nitro The absolute best quote of all time. There is no other quote that even comes close. End of discussion.

"You sit there and whine and cry about being screwed. Well, I ain't bringing a condom to ring I am bringing one hell of a can of whoop-ass."

Rolling stone also praises Spears and Christina, so they can go fuck themselves.

Lets see I have one major final to study for and a paper due tomorrow evening. Fuck it, I am going to watch raw instead and do the studying and paper in the wee hours of the morning. What is the worst that could happen?

Out of all the promotions, we get stuck with this crap. Hell, I am a fan of T&A but give me a break, most of those girls aren't even remotely good looking, much less hot. The wrestling seems to be a joke. I would rather see XPW get a television deal, and I hate XPW.

I thought Judgment Day was the worst PPV this year. I didn't see this ppv even though I have a black box. That is how much I felt this show would suck.

I have nothing to add other than: isn't baseball great. The season is over and this thread has more pages then most of the current sports do. It warms my heart to see such love for the greatest game in the world.

So HHH wants to be a movie star, goes out to Hollywood and cannot get any gigs. HHH comes home cries to Steph and then all of a sudden, despite the fact that the music label was a flop, wwe starts a film division. The first 2 films they produce star HHH. Well, no wonder the promotion is going to shit.

If you don't believe me I can write out the keller article which uses actual facts.

Actually HBK was the most successful champ until Austin in the 1990s. Keller did a piece on it in his 1996 yearbook. House shows were up, buyrates were up and he stablized the roster. Not to mention he headlined Mania 14. Of course some of you never let facts get in the way of a stupid opinion. Just because people were more successful after him it does not mean HBK did not draw.

I hope its a dark match.

That sounds absolutly horrible. The only way I would go see that movie is if in the middle Trish and Victoria did a lesbian scene in a giant pot of honey. Even then I would wait till it went to the cheap theaters.

Lord knows it is career suicide when you piss off Ted Danson. My respect for Bill just went up, you must admit it takes balls to make fun of people right to their faces. I guess their goes bills guest shot on Becker.

So who has 4 months in the death pool for this "company"? If no one else has claimed it I just did.

You know whats odd. Apparantly WWE doesn't have the right to a lot of WCW wrestlers music. During the Rey dvd during his entrance against Jericho they edited out his music, replacing it with extra crowd noise. In the Flair dvd during Stings interview they edited out, "A man called Sting".

Are you sure? Everywhere I have ever been WGN was available.

I haven't watched SNL in years so what is the 12:30 Maya rule?

Tonight Foley brings in Austin as Commish. but to counter that Eric brings in regal as co-commissioner. However interim president of talent relations Shane McMahon comes out and tells all four of them that they all must answer to the new director of wrestling actions Steffie McMahon. However, at the end of the show the CEO Vince comes out and says the boss is back and they all must answer to him. However, Linda interrupts on the Titantron and tells Vince she has a surprise, she is pregnant with Erics baby from when he raped her a couple of months ago. And since a clause in a contract that was in one of Foleys envelopes from a couple of years ago stipulates that if Vince fails as a genetic jackhammer and someone else inpregnates her they gain all the power over the company it means Bischoff is in charge. But everyone on the board of directors including: Hot rod, JJ Dillion, Hogan, Flair and Harvey Schiller had a meeting and decided to give Vince a match against Bischoff in order to determine who controls the company, with Paul E as special ref and ted turner as guest ring announcer.

Did you read what I wrote or are you just stupid? I said I will not judge whether or not I feel sorry for him until the cause of death comes out. I am merely saying that I am not going to change my opinion of his work because he is dead. Don't put words in my mouth.

Notice I said Russo had created the characters, he never tied them all together and wrote the shows. Vince has always been the editor who has done that. That is why Russo failed so miserably in WCW. He was too focused on simple sound bites and skits used a foreward a character that nothing was used to tie the whole show together, selling the ppv.

For future reference Russo sat in on booking meetings begining in late 1996. This developed into him becoming an on air character, "The Wrestling Journalist Vic Venom". All of this came to a halt when he gave away the finish to the 1997 Royal Rumble on an edition of Livewire. He got in trouble over this not because this wasn't planned, as he was the writer who planned it, with managements okay. However, during this time their were two factions going against each other in the titan offices. The above scenerio is an example of the worked-shoot, something Russo loved to spring on the audience. Russo told everyone something that most assumed as true, Bret winning, and made it part of the worked show. However, old loyalties die hard with Vince and soon there after the WWF stopped doing the worked-shoot angles such as Austin-Pillman gun and the Rumble guarantee in favor of a more cookie cutter approach. That is until the night after the Royal Rumble when the WWF drew a 2.2 rating against Nitro. Vince knew something needed to change but he didn't know what to do. He did the unthinkable, from then on raw would be 2 hours live every monday, to kick it off they would show the entire 1997 royal rumble match for free on raw, this did not happen due to the ppv companies. Not only was the time slot of the show going to be different but the angles changed, the realism angles were back. On the raw after the royal rumble the lines between babyface and heel were blurred as Bret quit in a whiney fashion and austin became even more of a badass, getting quite the positive response. Instead of taping multiple episodes of raw at one spot starting with the 2/3 edition of raw from the skydome, which was taped because they couldn't change the schedule fast enough as this was done on the fly, raw would be 2 hours live. Despite the change in appearance many of the angles on raw were still stale, stuff straight out of the 70's. (Rocky Miavia, the monsters Vader and Mankind, the blackjacks etc...) McMahon began to find out a change in the time slot and appearance of the show was not enough. He noticed the reaction that the Russo reality stuff was getting, the austin-hart storyline, and asked the creative team why they couldn't write whole shows like that. Their reasons didn't appease VinMan and the week before wrestlemania the WWF completely changed, Bret began his heel turn and the WWF introduced swearing into the broadcast. All of this was planned out by Russo begining in late 1996, his brainchild was to slowly develop the WWF into a more reality based hardcore program. The forces against him in the WWF (Cornette, Ross and Patterson) did not realize that having Vader blade and then austin blade on consecutive ppvs, followed by the "one time outburst" by bret, was all part of a slow design in order to make the WWF's change-over to hardcore less noticeable. In other words you would lull the viewers into the change. The night after Mania another step was taken when Bret used his real life frustrations with the business and turned them into the biggest WWF angle of 1997, the Hart Foundation. In one show the WWF dropped the passe feuding tag team partners storyline and developed the revolutionary Canada/USA storyline. Again this reality based storyline was something Russo was pushing stongly for. Russo then got permission to take over the undercard. His first brainchild, eliminate the stupid gimmicks and show the world the wrestlers real personalities. His first project: Goldust. In an interview on raw goldust appeared as Dustin Rhodes, no makeup, and revealed his troubled relationship with his father and also talked about his wife and daughter. However, Russo has never been one to like bland characters therefore when Rhodes wrestled he continued as Goldust blurring the lines between work and shoot. During this time the HBK/Hart feud changed as they began airing their real life problems with each other on air, something Bret was not comfortable with despite his later proclamations that the Canada idea was his. As the Canada/US wars were heating up Russo took on his next project: Mankind. Instead of being a monster with a silly backstory Russo blurred the lines between truth and reality again. Showing off Mick's real life insecurities and adding in Mankinds demented take on them. By the time the summer was over Russo was officially the head of the writing team. But the title was a mere formality as he had already created most of the "characters" on raw. Cornette and Ross tried to fight it but they had no ammunition left, the shows were without question better. As a side Cornette and Ross still hate Russo to this day and vice versa. Once ross got sick after his mom died Russo pushed for a new commentator to be brought in permenantly, Cornette view was so passe that he was eventually "asked" to become an on air performer and leave the booking team gracefully.