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I'm not talking about buyrates, I'm talking about stupid booking habits that ended up being a factor in the death of the company. I know that WCW was more popular for a period of time, but that doesn't take away from the fact that many of their decisions were just atrocious. If WWE booked a NON-TITLE match for the main event of WrestleMania, when one of the men in the match was World or WWE Champion (not talking about main events where neither man was champ), fans would shit all over it in droves, and you know it. But somehow, WCW rode that wave of mediocrity and shittiness for a couple of years before fans realized it sucked.

WCW bashing is so much fun though, there was so much to bash! Political crap went on from the day that Hogan stepped foot in the promotion until it's dying day. There was just a short period of a couple of years that the politicking actually resulted in a couple of good storylines. The wrestlers that were worth a damn were never treated as anything other than curtain jerkers. Remember, a NON-TITLE MATCH between two over-the-hill wrestlers who were lucky to pull a DUD match out of their asses (Hogan and Piper) was the main event of WCW's biggest show of the year - Starrcade '96. It was the only way that Hogan would agree to lose to Piper, I'm sure . . . Tell me WCW wasn't a joke . . . .

"WWE is considering Calgary Stadium as a potential site for Wrestlemania 22 in Spring 2006. The stadium holds around 45,000, but more notably, is close to where Bret Hart grew up and could lead to speculation of his involvement in the event or a Hall of Fame proceeding. Credit: Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter " Take this for what it's worth, folks - just saw it a couple of minutes ago on wrestling.insidepulse.com. Calgary? I don't know, just seems a little contrived - this "Bret Hart will be at WrestleMania" thing pops up at least a couple of times a year. I've got this odd feeling that WrestleMania may end up being somewhere like Charlotte, NC next year - new arena, huge market, I could definitely see it happening. I personally think Vince is done with doing WM's at domed stadiums until business starts to pick up again, so a new high-profile arena like Charlotte, in an area that's never had a WrestleMania, could definitely be in the cards . . . . Any thoughts on this rumor and/or where you think it might be?

WWE is nowhere near tanking. Anyone who took the time to listen to the conference call yesterday can tell you that it's a tightly run business, and it still sees a profit virtually every quarter. It would take years of large money losses to tank the company, and there's too good of a business infrastructure in place for the company to just aimlessly lose money or go bankrupt. If it happens, it won't be in Vince or Linda's lifetime, if ever. You can't equate bad storylines and smaller attendance figures to a company tanking . . . they survived the mid '90's running small venues with terrible storylines, and are nowhere near that point now. Hell, the storylines sucked just as bad back in '98-'02 (the Corporate Ministry? Mae Young and Mark Henry?), there were just more mega-stars to cling to then. WCW is NOT a good example of what happens when a wrestling company goes under . . . . it wasn't profitable for a good 10-15 years, and was never more than just a little piece of the huge Turner/Time Warner puzzle. If WCW had ever been important to either Turner or Time Warner, it would've been taken care of and managed to a better capacity. WCW was never more than a joke, honestly - it was just a lucky joke for about three years in the late '90's. Even in their prime, beating WWE in ratings and PPV buys, WCW still seemed like the minor-league promotion to me.

Agreed there . . . as much as I hate that he's injured, it may be the best thing that's ever happened to his career - he can come back with renewed energy, and if they build up his comeback ala HHH back in Jan. '02, the fans should respond well. I could see him winning the title next year at WrestleMania after winning the Royal Rumble to get the main event spot.

ummm, wrestlemania in siberia would sell out in a heartbeat... its all about exposure. ummm . . . . . I was just trying to make a point, assclown.

Well, they are the three largest cities in the US... I realize that, but that doesn't mean they deserve to get almost one out of every two WrestleManias!! WrestleMania at the new arena in Charlotte would kick all sorts of ass, and would sell out in a heartbeat, but NOOOOO, Vince has to go back to Chicago for a 3rd time. I can only hope they get WM13 all over again, without the goodness of Bret/Austin. You know what would rock, as a throwback to Starrcade? WM at the Greensboro Coliseum. It'll never happen, because it would involve recognizing the success that NWA/WCW had there, but for nostalgia purposes, it would be kinda cool . . .

Chicago can suck my balls. When are they gonna bring a WrestleMania somewhere in the southeastern US? I'm talking somewhere like Charlotte, Atlanta, DC, even Miami or Orlando . . . NYC, Chicago, and LA/Anaheim have combined for a total of 10 WrestleManias (including next year's show if that's the case, and ALL F'N THREE OF THEM in one night for WM2). I guess I can always dream . . . . or at least keep entering these fuckin' WrestleMania ticket contests that are always going on WWE.com this tiime of year. Fuck a bunch'a Chicago.

"Genuine" and "Heartfelt" are two words that have never, should never, and probably will never be used to describe WWE. You should know that by now. And of course they want to make money off of it . . . . the last time I heard, they're in business to make money. I think you can be sincere in something and still be able to use it to further your business. I don't see anything wrong with it, personally.

Check out this site, guys . . . I posted this in the N.W.O. thread, but figured most of you would be interested in this, regardless. No Way Out screencaps, plus screencaps from a bunch of other events and such. Just found this site a little while ago searching for screencaps myself, and I was pleasantly surprised. Even has them zipped together into matches so you can download a whole match worth of screencaps. Cool stuff . . .

Anyone looking for screencaps of No Way Out . . . there's a kickass site from the UK that does literally thousands of screencaps for each show. Here's a link to the No Way Out caps, scroll down through the page to see sections with each match. They've also got caps from a lot of previous shows as well . . . . just check it out, I was pretty damned impressed.

Actually . . . . . It's a common misnomer that the belt used was the Western States belt. It was actually the PWF title from Dusty Rhodes' fed in Florida Here's a link to a pic of Luger with said belt, also holding the US belt (before he officially gave it up). The Western States belt had a picture of, well, the Western States on it. The belt used as the "new" WCW belt for a short time has a globe on the front, and it's actually Dusty's PWF strap from a couple of years before. And here's the belt that was made as the permanent one shortly after Flair left: The WCW title from August '91 through July '94 OK, I'll shut up now and quit correcting people. No one likes a busybody.

Yeah, God help us if idiots like that end up pro-creating and bringing more roof-diving jackasses into this world. I don't at all wish death on the moron, but an injury prohibiting him from ever having children would've been a blessing to the human race.

It looks a lot like a white leathered version of the Stampede North American title from Canada. His first ever title was the Canadian Hvywt. Title for a company called Rocky Mountain Wrestling (Jan 29, 1993 - From Biff Wellington, Calgary, AB, Canada), so I wouldn't be surprised if that's what it was. Just a guess . . .

It's good, even if you don't care for Hogan a whole lot. Again, if you're an old-school mark like me, it's got some good stuff on it, like an early MSG match vs. a face Ted DiBiase, the "Puerto Rican Rainstorm" match vs. John Studd, and his first WCW title victory over Flair, which was actually a pretty good match. The feature portion (talking about all of his past opponents, his "bio" in the sport, so to speak) is pretty much eschewed with Hogan's own opinion, but it's still kinda interesting to hear him give opinions about working with Orndorff, Piper, Savage, and Bundy (whom he says damned near killed him every time he worked with him, but still loved their matches together). It's pretty good, I'd pick it up, especially if it's cheap. I've seen it as cheap as $6 or $7 on places like half.com and ebay and such.

Definitely skip the main feature on Rey's DVD and head straight for the matches. Benoit's, Eddie's, and Foley's are all good stuff. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I liked the Hall of Fame DVD's, but I'm a fan of old-school and loved some of the matches, especially the Slaughter/Patterson boot-camp match. The minute that DDD gets the Bloodbath DVD back in, you NEED that one! It's one of my favorite in my collection, only a couple of bad matches, everything else it top-notch stuff. Amazon is THE worst place to buy DVD's (especially WWE) - you get a much better deal going through DeepDiscountDVD. Overstock.com is pretty good too, as an alternative. When Wal-Mart has them in, they've usually got pretty good prices. But they're sporadic - I bought SummerSlam '04 from there once they got a shipment in that didn't have the sound flaw. But then they didn't carry another one here until Armageddon. I'm gonna wait and see if they have Royal Rumble before I order it, just so I don't have to wait for it.

Yeah, I'll have to agree with the Bret/HBK Ironman Match. Watching WM12 live, I thought it was a helluva match. Watching it again a few weeks ago on ths From the Vault: Shawn Michaels DVD, I was bored for a good portion of it. It just doesn't hold up with time, I personally think that the Rock/HHH and the Lesnar/Angle Ironman matches were much better. From hating it to loving it? I just can't think of anything. Usually, if I hate a match, it's for good reason, and I don't change my mind even after multiple viewings (or uses of the FF button). I "may" be able to say Brock/UT from Unforgiven '02 - didn't like it when I watched it live, but after re-watching the PPV a while back, it was a lot better match than I gave it credit for.

As usual, I'm torn on the whole thing. One one hand, Brock brought a lot to the business. Unless he was just having an off night, you could expect him to give you a good match, and he was a great champ. I saw so much more for him in his future - in fact, I'm sure that Brock/HHH would've headlined a WrestleMania sometime in the near future, maybe even this year, had he not left. Brock/HHH, Brock/Benoit, Brock/Jericho, Brock/HBK, Brock/Orton, Brock/Cena . . there was just so much left for him to do, that I'd love to see him come back and give us some more great matches. On the other hand, fuck Brock Lesnar. While you can't blame someone at all for following a dream (after all, aren't all the wrestlers pretty much doing the same damn thing??), it seems like he's not very appreciative of the opportunity he did have, and seems hell-bent on just stirring up shit with lawsuits, ridiculous demands, and such. And could Vince trust him not to pull the same shit again if he did give him his job back? Vince has to run a company based on guys that will give their heart and soul to making the product work (even if the storylines are shitty sometimes), and who knows if Brock even gives two shits about it anymore. It's just a paycheck for him, I'm not sure that he would come back and actually care about the business, he just cares about himself. We all know that most of the guys have worked for years with little to no pay or fanfare to get where they are. Brock didn't have to do that, he was pretty much handed this on a silver platter. To say "Fuck Ya'll", leave, and then want his job back because he found out he sucks at football? Fuck him. I say take him back, and the first time he even mentions leaving again, have Big Show stick a spiked dildo up his ass while Benoit gives him about an hour worth of knife-edge chops and German suplexes. That should fix him.

I completely agree with you here. While wrestling's not as big as it was in '98-'01, it's definitely not reached the lows of '93-'96, in fact, it's nowhere close. Once Vince starts having RAW and SmackDown at the Mid-Hudson Civic Center or in Lowell, MA again every week, then we may have something to be concerned with. But for now, even with attendance down, the numbers aren't that bad at all. WWE is still a profitable company, and they'll do what they have to in order to stay that way. And though it looks like PPV buyrates are down pretty badly, if you'll add up the total # of PPV buys in a year, it's probably pretty close to "normal range" for any given year. There's just more PPV's to choose from and people can be more selective in what they order. Will there be another boom? I think that's really hard to say. It's gonna take another breakout star, and a change in philosophy - Vince has gone back to a somewhat more "traditional" approach - slower matches, not as much high-risk athleticism, etc. I think the same thing could've been asked back in '94 or so, and look at how big of a boom we experienced just a couple of years later. And to agree with a couple of previous posts, Austin Aries is definitely star-quality material. I haven't seen much ROH, but from what I have seen, Aries is the man. Quality promos, great matches, very charismatic, he's definitely got a ton of potential.

Good for him. Unlike a lot of the people on this (and a lot of other) boards, I kinda like JBL. His promos have definitely grown on me, and while I realize he'll never be in 5-star matches, he's still an entertaining character that I've started to really enjoy. It's gotten to where I actually look forward to JBL's appearances on SmackDown. Congrats JBL on the marriage. I'm sure I'll be the only congrats in this thread, as the haters will abound en masse . . who knows, maybe I'll be surprised.

Yep, no way Hogan has that much money. I'm sure he probably is worth a fortune, but I'm thinking more in the $30-$40 million range than hundreds of millions. In his heyday, Hogan probably made a couple of mil a year or more, and with movies and such, I'm sure he's done quite well.

If Hogan hadn't gone to WWF in '84, I could definitely see Kerry as a WWF champ back in the mid-late '80's, but I don't know if you would've ever gotten him away from World Class then. I don't know that a more lucrative contract would've even done it, the Von Erich brothers were pretty much set on making WCCW a success, and they succeeded for a while. Even in '90, he was pretty entertaining as IC champ, but they pretty much buried him once he lost the strap back to Perfect.

Yeah, I bought a 2-disc copy of Starrcade '83 recorded from 24/7 back in December from someone on another message board. Needless to say, I was astounded - it was practically as good as buying a store-bought DVD for sound and video quality. If we ever do get 24/7 in this area, I'll definitely be investing in a stand-alone DVD recorder. That stuff is just too good not to have recorded.

He did wrestle in Japan but his match was taped for Heat. I forget who he wrestled, though. As for Ahmed as WWF champ, everybody's salivating for Monty Brown over on TNA to become NWA champ. Isn't he basically the same thing as Ahmed? I don't think so . . . Monty's matches are at least entertaining, and as far as I know, Monty isn't known for stiffing ever guy he steps in the ring with. And, let's be honest, there's a difference in becoming champ of TNA and becoming WWE champ . . . while the NWA belt is well-respected, it's just not the same as the days of Flair/Race/Funk/Thesz, etc. I just can't view it as a World title anymore, even though it deserves so much more. TNA is good, even great at times, but will probably never hold a candle to WWE in terms of financial gain and worldwide acceptance. But, you never know . . . I'm rooting for them, we need some competition. Eventually, though, Panda Energy is gonna want to see some return on their investment, and as long as TNA keeps losing money, it's gonna get harder and harder to dig out of that hole. It's pretty obvious that TNA keeps running the Universal Studios tapings/PPV's instead of branching to new arenas and territories because they can't afford to do much more. It's actually a smart move to keep it the way it is, it at least minimizes the expense of running the shows. And no, Ahmed shouldn't be NWA champ either, or Major League Wrestling champ, or Southern States Wrestling champ, or champ of the backyard league that runs about a mile from my house. Seriously, the guy just can't be considered as someone who could've ever been a legitimate World champ, no matter what part of his career you're looking at.

Pre-injury, post-injury, doesn't matter. He was semi-over in a 1995/1996 WWF where the whole company was in the shitter. No WWF title for him, thank goodness. You talk about some bad promos and even worse matches. Errch, I don't know if I'll even sleep tonight, nightmares may abound from this revelation of Ahmed as WWF champ. My hands just went into convulsions typing that. Thanks, Ahmed, you just made a grown man cry. Any time you think Ahmed should've been WWF champ, just remember this: