JasonX

After HHH, knowing full well that he would fuck over Booker T and not drop the belt to him, went along with the idea of burying Booker by way of playing the racist card I would not put anything past him. ESPECIALLY since HHH has long been of the opinion that he deserves a long and successfull face run on par with the face runs of Austin and Rock. Note the fact that they are going to turn Flair face to go along with HHH. That is the first sign of them admitting that a face HHH will flop. Granted HHH COULD go to SD where he can have his cunt fiance's minions insert fake cheers for him and solve his little PR nightmare halfway but as it stands HHH is going to bomb miserably as a champion and basically HHH and the WWE itself are in utter and complete denial about it.

You are confusing things. Hogan's hiatuses: Hogan only takes hiatuses when he didn't have the belt and generally was being asked to step aside for the promotion of others. Hogan did these because 1. He usually had a project (No Holds Bared for instance) that appealed to his ego enough to do the right thing or 2. Because he was about to be exposed as a flop of a draw and needed to go away in order get the stink of failure off of him. As for not defending the belt despite being champ, it was during during his NWO run that he did that and in Hogan's defense he did appear on TV every week as opposed to running away and not doing anything.

They missed a TON of stuff in the 80s series: Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, revival of GI Joe in the series's trademark 3 1/4ths size, the launch of the NES, Metallica (why the fuck did they single out Rick fucking Ashley's Never Give You Up for the video spotlight in 1988 and not Metallica's "One"?) , Donald Trump, Bloom County, Garfield, Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, the first Batman film, Steel Magnolias (one of the first films that was outright and unashamedly marketed as being a chick flick), the Flowers in the Attic movie (which caused a big stir do to the incest theme of the books being chopped out of it), the Droids/Ewok cartoons, Transformers the Movie (which featured the controversial death of Optimus Prime, which traumatized thousands of kids), MTV reviving the Monkeys single-handedly, Risky Business, REM's "The One I Love" (VH1 shocked me that they picked the more popular and less mainstream consumed End of the World As We Know It for their REM spotlight and 87 video spotlight segment), and much, much, much more.....

Jackson got his dues in the 84 episode of ILT80s with them covering the phenomena surrounding Thriller.......

You have things mixed up. You are thinking about the show's fourth season premire two-parter, which was the imfamous ghost-mom episode which ended with a network suit coming out and everyone breaking character and stating that the whole thing was a ratings ploy and a bad one at that... The final episode was more or less one that focused on the whole relationship between Mr Floppy and the dad, as the dad decided to stop drinking and concentrate on his job in order to get the money needed for Tiffany to transfer to Harvard (a running subplot that is dismissed completely off-panel BTW). The result of this was that Mr. Floppy, the stuffed animal that the dad was talking to started dying because the dad stopped paying attention to him and basically became the top car salesman at the dealership he worked at. In the end he gets the money for Tiffany and decides to revert to his old ways when he realizes that Mr Floppy is his best friend and that his success at work can't replace the hole in his life created when he "killed" the stuffed rabbit by way of ignoring him. He starts drinking and Floppy comes back to life and the show ends with a happy ending...

While I won't argue with the writing credentials, Tina isn't exactly the most talented cast member when it comes to being on camera. Luckily she just does Weekend Update, which plays to her strengths and covers up her weaknesses as a sketch comedy person. On the other hand, Jimmy Fallon is a complete and utterly talentless hack who's entire SNL career has been based upon Fallon being a teeny-bopper/non-threatening version of Adam Sandler and brings down Weekend Update with his very pressence in the segment....

Season 2 was better than Season 1 because it's story was more real-to-life and had more believable shock twist and turns than the first season did...

Had to pay full retail price for it at my local mom and pop CD store but I got it a day early and all I have to say is two words: CAST COMMENTARY!!!!!!!!!!!!

I totally agree. When HHH finally does job, it will be a big moment because this has been building for some time. Same bullshit was said during his 2000 heel run. "HHH will job to Angle and turn face and we'll get a pay-off!!!! Or HHH will job to Rock and finally get a pay-off to their feud!" It never happens. HHH will NEVER, EVER deliver in the pay-off to his long-running heel runs. NEVER. He'll either turn face while still holding the belt or forfiet it...

It's about 5:30 and no rant. My guess is that Scooter is still trying to phrase the rant in the most banal, wishy-washy possible with plenty of masturbational whacking for his favorite Chris Benoit while still not saying ANYTHING bad about HHH so as to stay on the cunt Steph's good side when he submits his monthly application to be a WWE writer. Which makes me ask you guys, on a scale of 1 to 10, how shitty of a rant will it be?

Probably after JR and Austin finish taking turns symbollicly anally raping him in the ring.

Austin has been completely and utterly useless sack of shit ever since 2001's WM. The heel turn utterly killed his career DOA and his little temper tantrum that completely and utterly derailed Guerrerro and Benoit's pushes sealed his fate as being an utterly useless cancer upon the face of the WWE.

For SK, he only bitches about the minor things that don't matter in the greater scheme of things while the stuff he really needs to bitch about, he dismisses with shitty and highly unfunny hair jokes or "That HHH, what a guy..." comments that are extremely cowardly...

My bet is that either GB had his creative clause revoked on him or he's getting snowballed by HHH and Vince into jobbing at ss with the plan of him getting the title and his win back at the next PPV being taken away from him and them driving him away, which they would then use to justify keeping HHH on top because he's a "team player" unlike GB....

Personally I wouldn't put it past HHH to be constantly be trying to get Vince to bring back Warrior so he could get his return job from him.

I don't get this. HHH is supposed the love the business and has said that he never wants to be away from it. If this is true, why is his non-acting ass attempting to get work in Hollywood? Whatever keeps him away from the ring, I guess I'm all for it. It's been rumored that HHH has had the acting bug for ages but that the reason why he's not done any acting outside of "evil goon" on Pacific Blue is do to the fact that Vince had decided that Rock is the WWE's one and only "cross-over" darling and that as a result concentrated solely on Rock getting movie deals like Scorpian King/ Mummy 2 and such instead of HHH.

his face seems like he's getting fucked in the ass. Or it's the sigth of him calling up Wes at 4 in the morning, begging him to come back to the band......

How this COULD possibly work. First, Pinhead is the face and Myers is the heel. The catalyst for the meeting can be Pinhead being summoned to Earth by a guy who ends up getting offed by Myers right before he gets pulled into Pinhead's dimension. Pinhead and dead guy's girlfriend make an alliance where she'll catch Myers and give him to Pinhead in exchange for him resurrecting her boyfriend. For the pressence of a shit-disturber (and link to Hellraiser), hire Dean Winters (who was in the last Hellraiser flick) as a renegade Cebonite who is out to use Myers to kill Pinhead and generally be Myer's mouthpiece for when Pinhead starts talking about all of the evil things he's going to do to Myers. As for the Halloween connection, have the female who's lover is killed by Michael can be the ditzy asian chick from Halloween 5 who's now all grown up....

I can't wait either to flop. But 4 million souls will buy the stinker. It won't be an instant flop but will be a flop. It will have a good but not great first week's sales, landing in the Top 5 at the very least before then slowly but surely dropping like a stone saleswise and chartwise. MTV will overplay the video for the first single and blowjob Durst before dropping him like a stone and not airing any of the album's other videos. See Korn's flop "Untouchable" for an example of this type of bomb plan.....

Interview found at http://www.nzpwi.co.nz/interviews/2003/scott.keith/ SK leaked the interivew out on CRZ's board a week ago but hasn't mentioned it in his recent Rants like he does his other interviews. Posted in two parts ------------------------ Scott Keith Internet writer and notorious "smark" Scott Keith (a.k.a "Netcop") possesses a reputation that is nearly unmatched amongst the Internet Wrestling Community. Love him or hate him, there are very few Internet writers with the skill - or balls - that Keith possesses. A veteran of the trade, Keith provides 411wrestling.com with weekly recaps for RAW, SmackDown! and, recently, NWA/TNA. These reports, known almost universally as his "Rants" have made him arguably the most influential, prolific and recognised Internet wrestling columnist ever, producing thousands of words of copy weekly that are viewed by tens of thousands of readers. However, his style (viewed by many as being unfairly harsh or overly critical) has earned him enemies as well as fans. In addition to his online work, he has produced two books to date that cover the often-strange world of "sports entertainment" - 'The Buzz on Professional Wrestling' and his latest book 'Tonight in This Very Ring: A Fan's History of Professional Wrestling' (available from Amazon here). Another book is planned for release. In this first part of a lengthy interview with the native of Canada, James Cardno covers Keith's personal history, how he broke into the Internet Wrestling Community, and how he polished his near-patented style of recapping. Part two will be released next week, and will focus on his thoughts regarding the current situation of the WWE, his books, and some hard questions from his detractors about his work. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James Cardno: Scott, tell me a bit about yourself and your background. Keith's home town of Edmonton Scott Keith: Well, I'm your basic 28-year old wrestling writer who lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada - home of the Oilers and winters that are colder than sleeping in a freezer. I studied at the University of Alberta for a little over two years, technically majoring in math but more interested in Computing Science and eventually just screwing around with whatever caught my fancy before dropping out in 1994. I lived in various small towns around Vancouver, British Columbia for most of my life before moving to Edmonton in 1989 and enjoying it so much that I've stayed here ever since. I have a huge (some would say obsessive) DVD collection and my goal in life is to make enough money to fund a true home theatre for myself, and have a soda fountain of my own. JC: When did your interest in wrestling really start, and how did it develop? SK: It started more by osmosis than anything - my dad was a big fan when I was little, and he watched a lot of NWA and Stampede Wrestling, although I couldn't stand the stuff. But since he controlled the TV, that's what I watched. Finally it had subconsciously soaked in so much that when my mom rented Wrestlemania 2 for my 12th birthday party, something clicked and I just became a fan. Specifically, the angle where Paul Orndorff turned on Hulk Hogan hooked me for good. I started reading Pro Wrestling Illustrated in 1987 and realized that people could make a career out of writing about wrestling, and things followed from there. JC: At what age did you first get into writing in a formalized sense? Writing, say, for an audience, with the purpose of imparting thoughts, emotions and opinions? SK: Well, I won several young authors' contests in the early stages of my life (Grades 1-3) and I've always been primarily focused on writing in terms of my means of expressing myself. There was a long time - until I was in high school - when the idea of being a writer strictly meant, to me, (doing) fiction and short stories. Unfortunately, I have the attention span of Vince Russo when it comes to sitting down and writing stuff out of thin air, so fiction was never my forte. However, once I got into high school, I discovered that I had a real gift for essays, specifically bullshitting my way through what were supposed to be researched essays. I would simply spend so much time giving my opinion on the work that the teachers would overlook my total lack of commitment to the goals of the assignment. Some might say that particular foible has carried over even today. This talent served me well in English 101 in University, where I essentially audited the course, attended maybe 1/3 of the classes, and turned in fluff pieces that were so eloquently written that I ended up with the highest score in the class regardless. I think that's where I truly realized that I could use my powers for good rather than evil. My style has always been pretty self-contained - although my natural cynicism and dry wit forms the basis for my most of my humour, the rest is kind of cribbed from a variety of sources ranging from Douglas Adams to John Petrie. Other than that, I just started writing and let the work shape itself from there. JC: What's your particular interest in the Internet as a medium? SK: I enjoy the instant gratification of the feedback, both giving and receiving, positive and negative. I can watch a show, have my thoughts immediately imparted to other fans and the promotion, receive in turn love/hate mail from those same fans and/or promotion, and use it to further shape my writing. I used to enjoy the community aspect, but corporate meddling and too many idiots have sucked that dry and I pretty much keep to myself now outside of a few close friends on my instant messaging list. It's also a great way to garner free publicity for my books. JC: Your first steps as an Internet critic per se were with RSPW. Could you tell us a bit about what it was, for those who are unaware, and what part you played in that? SK: I started with RSPW - the Usenet newsgroup rec.sport.pro-wrestling - back in 1992 while attending university and getting increasingly bored during programming sessions that stretched too long into the night. This was back before the Internet was a household word, and back before the World Wide Web even existed. I discovered RN (the primitive Unix newsreader) and on a whim, did a search for "wrestling", which provided me with my first glimpse at RSPW. Back then, it used to be quite civilized and filled with intelligent discussion from people who actually had something to say. People like Dave Scherer of 1wrestling.com were a part of it back then. Fellow RSPW user Dave Scherer I lurked for quite a while before making a few posts (as was the tradition back then) and didn't really become a 'character' until 1996. By that time, I had become interested in the process of creating subgroups, and spearheaded the creation of two such groups - rec.sport.pro-wrestling.fantasy (for discussion of so-called 'e-feds' and fantasy wrestling) and rec.sport.pro-wrestling.info (for news-only postings). In fact, I'm not sure that the people who now post to the fantasy group even know that I'm the one who wrote the charter and gained much of my early 'fame' on RSPW by getting that group going. By 1998, however, my love/hate relationship with RSPW was skewing far more towards 'hate' and I was far less active in posting outside of my reviews. You see, in 1994, the 'AOL Invasion' hit the Internet in general, as that was the first time that AOL allowed its members general access to the net. Before then, RSPW would experience some general stupidity during the summer when teenagers were home from school, but go back to normal in the fall. With the advent of AOL and similar services, the idiot patrol was there 24/7 and the group started to become a cool hangout for trolls instead of a place to talk about wrestling. Once I joined up with the Wrestlemaniacs.com crew as a sort of project of Mike Samuda, I suddenly had a larger audience who were far more intelligent readers, and my antagonistic relationship with RSPW led to a famous farewell posting on my part in 1998 (I think) where I essentially told the entire newsgroup to fuck off and die. They didn't take that too well and many from that era still hold a grudge against me for that to this day. They are, of course, the only ones on the planet who care. I was a little too late to be considered part of the 'golden age' of RSPW (although I'm often counted as a part of it by those who came later), and my run there lasted from 1992-1998, and was so completely eclipsed by the stuff I did on the web later that I'm rarely even associated with the group anymore. Although they're still obsessed with me. As a sidenote, in late 1998 I was so desperately sick of the situation on the newsgroup and willing to do anything to try to contribute something positive back that I rewrote the years-out-of-date FAQ for the group, increasing it in size from 10 pages to nearly 200. It became a pretty defining achievement for me and a work I was very proud of, which is partly why I use "RSPWFAQ" as a username much of the time. JC: You earned the moniker Netcop quite early in your career. What's the story behind that? SK: That was during a rather small phase of my career on RSPW that ended up being the most famous. It was 1996, and general stupidity on the group was running rampant, to the point where I decided to seek inspiration from better-behaved groups (i.e., the comic-book groups) and start pro-actively defining rules of conduct for the newsgroup for those who were ignorant of how normal human beings should treat each other on a Usenet group. I wrote the "Guide to Posting to RSPW" as a gentle reminder of netiquette and the like (although phrased in very smart-ass manner, which was becoming my trademark), and then to partly vent my frustration and partly make examples out of people, I would reply to a post that was breaking netiquette and declare "Freeze, dirt bag! This is a Netcop bust!" Netcop was a common term on Usenet for people who would "police" newsgroups, and wasn't a very nice term either. People took my usage of the word to mean that *I* was called 'Netcop', and it gained a double-use with me - some called me that as an insult, some called me that because they thought it was a nickname. I chose to keep the name in order to take away the power of the insult, although after a few months it was little more than a silly gimmick to draw attention to my reviews and was dropped completely, except in tribute when I would title things "The Netcop Rant". JC: Tell us a bit about your style of recapping - what inspired the "Rant" style? One of Keith's online Rants SK: In addition to RSPW, I also frequented the comic book newsgroups, and one big name in 1996 was Dave Van Domelyn, who would post capsule reviews of the latest comics, which he called Rants. It was basically short-form, stream of consciousness reviews, and I loved the idea so much I thought I'd apply it to wrestling. By my current standards, they were terrible (they were kind of like Dave Scherer's rhetorical questions in form and style) but it was enough to get the ball rolling on developing my own style, and soon I started reviewing the occasional TV show and PPV. In 1997, I completely revamped my writing style, basing it on John Petrie's early RAW and Nitro reviews, until I had a basic syntax and form for my reviews. To test it out, I started reviewing slightly older shows (my first was either Slamboree 94 or Spring Stampede 94, I can never remember) and the idea caught fire. JC: When you write, how much of what you do would you call a gimmick? Which is to say, how much of it is 100% you, and how much is a "character" per se, or at least a style that is expected of you? SK: As people who have sat in a car with me and listened to me go off for 10 minutes at a time about road construction on the first day of summer can attest to, 99% of what's in the rants is just good old me. I don't tend to be as openly conceited and brash in real life, if only because you get punched in the mouth in the real world whereas the internet only gets you a nasty e-mail, but my friends tend to hear much of the same material (and bad jokes) while watching shows with me as readers do later on while reading me. I define the style, not vice-versa.

<I have a feeling that when HHH starts running things (and, lets face facts, he probably will) there will be a lot of revisionist history going on: First off, Rock is given the "you're not welcome here" treatment. Talk about him is greatly reduced.> Rock will be given the "Hogan Treatment" in that he's treated like persona non grata when he's not with the company but if he's with the company, expect his accomplishments to be acknowledged. <When people talk about the Foley vs. HHH matches of 2000, they will say Mankind was "passing the torch".> Agreed. <The fans naturally pushed for HHH to be a big star, rather than pushing him to the moon in 1999 (that's already a company line).> Agreed and that's part of the WWE bullshit machine that makes me pretty sick in that they can say this yet totally refuse to admit that about Jericho, that fans saw him as a big star and wanted him pushed as such in the same breath <Things got bad in 2001 because all the WCW talent were bringing down the WWF. Steph was nowhere to be seen at the time.> NO, NO, NO, NO...... The total failures of 2001 will totally be blamed on Austin, including the total and complete blame for the failure of the Invasion. Austin demanded to go heel and leeched off of HHH's heel heat to make sure he was booed. Furthermore he couldn't even play a heel and started trying to get face pops for his "WHAT?" BS and that he demanded to be made had of the WCW and ECW factions so as to use both sides to fuel his ego and make sure none of the WCW and ECW talent got over. Secondary blame will go to Rock, for bailing on the company to make movies and third will go to Jericho, who will be totally to blame for injuring HHH and leaving the company to Austin's evil clutches to ruin as he saw fit <And finally, Bret Hart was the sole, undeniable reason that WCW failed. Him and Hogan, depending on whether Hulk and the WWE are on good terms.> Depends on if Hart and Vince reconcile and if HHH doesn't immeadiately turn against the Clique once he becomes management. If that happens, expect HHH to blame WCW's death on Hall, Nash, and Hogan, depending on whether or not Hogan and the WWE are on good terms. HHH will be retconned into staying with the WWE rather than fleein south with his friends and HBK (depending on his own status within the company) will be seen either as a loyal component of the WWE machine or a backstabbing conniver who ended up staying with the WWE only because he was stuck in an iron-cladded contract. Other WWE Revisions that will happen under HHH: Austin will be portrayed as the Anti-Christ and not the Messiah of the WWE and that he will be totally buried for trying to hold down talent, most notably HHH. Jericho was a flop when he came into the WWE and only got reaction when he started his imfamous program with Chyna The Love Triangle Storyline ended with HHH and Steph triumpthing over the attempts of Angle to break up their union "because it was what the fans wanted to see" DX never existed before April1998 and that HHH was always the leader of DX Rock was a total and complete flop who only got over by way of Vince ramrodding him down the fans throats nonstop to the point that he got the World Title handed to him in 1998 just to get him over Kurt Angle was a flash-in-the-pan who never got over with the fans and was buried not by HHH but by Austin (who was NOT acting as HHH's proxy, no matter what the internet says )

That and despite being Vince's "pet project", Vince purposely groomed Rock to be the mainstream media darling for the WWE rather than HHH. I think HHH also resents the fact that like with Austin, Vince passed him over in favor of Rock in the fall of 1998 when a new top program was needed in order to delay the inevitable Rock/Austin match at WM 99. Which makes everything HHH does from 1999 onward in terms of burying everyone who was a threat to him make sense. By 1999, HHH was determined to destroy everyone who could steal his spot that he felt he was owed. Which goes back to the concept of HHH being a VERY bitter and very selfish jerk who honestly believes that he's entitled to being the biggest name in wrestling despite having blown every chance he's had to carry the torch when passed to him and that all of the successes he's had have come by way of him fucking the right people either verbally (Vince) or literally (Steph).

Bingo. What was the backstage reason for HHH siding with Austin instead of fighting with him over the summer with a hot program that could have been big bucks? The storyline was supposed to have been that HHH would fall in stock in Vince's eyes and Austin would be the new Big Bad Vince would work with who was recruited behind HHH's back. Eventually around the May PPV, HHH would get tired of being in Austin's shadow and turn on Austin and set up a KOTR match where HHH would get the belt and the two feuding until the fall, when Austin would get the belt back and go on to blow off his heel turn with a feud with the returning Rock. HHH hated this and didn't want to be pushed into the background and made to look like he was inferior to Austin or endure a very public losing of his spot storylinewise to Austin (sidenote: a common theme in HHH's psychological profile seems to be a TON of build-up resentment for his treatment after the MSG incident and the fact that Austin was given his push and ended up becoming the WWE's Messiah that saved them from death at the hands of Turner and WCW). ESPECIALLY since he knew Vince would ultimately drop him once Rock came back so that he could do Rock/Austin 3. So he "suggested" that they do an angle where HHH and Austin becomes "The 2 Man Power Trip" with Austin playing second-string to HHH. This way Austin would stay under his thumb and HHH would stay in the spotlight. They would have stayed a team until late summer as HHH would be the one who would ultimately stand up to the evil Austin after the squash everyone and beat him at Summerslam, so that he would steal the Rock's thunder when he came back that fall by being the one who slayed the Austin beast and giving Rock a castrated and beaten Austin to work with. But a ton of stuff fucked up this little plan. Austin's heel turn was a complete and total flop and the decision to go with Kane and Undertaker as Austin's first face opponents made things worse. Paul Heyman, who was petitioning Vince to push Jericho and Benoit as Austin's opponents eventually got his way but this quickly blew up in Paul's face do to the fact that CJ and CB didn't miraculously raise the ratings overnight. Yet fate would then step in and ruin HHH's carefully crafted scheme when HHH had his imfamous quad injury during the tag match against Benoit and Jericho. Angle was then given HHH's spot and with the timing of 911, briefly ended the reign of terror that was Austin's abortion of a title run. Though HHH did have the last laugh though as he used his downtime to crawl into Austin's ear and used him as a proxy to bury everyone. Jericho got buried and only managed to stay afloat do to his friendship with the Rock, who was willing to do a program with him that ran side by side with the Invasion farce and Austin did everything in his power to make Angle look like a pussy, more so than anyone else in the company during Angle's tenure in the company. As for Austin joining the Alliance, more or less that was a ultra desperate move by Vince who refused to pull the plug on the great Austin heel turn failure. Without HHH, Vince rushed the Invasion angle out long before it was ready and Austin was put in it to give them a mega-heel leader who just made things worse.

Of course the cosmic irony is that HHH blew his last, best shot at becoming a monster babyface in order to try and sabatoge Austin's heel run which was a complete and total failure from day one...

I recall it being stated that HHH has entitlement issues going on in terms of his obsession with being a babyface. HHH seems to honestly think that he deserves to be a BIG babyface and make millions on merchandising and have marks cheer his name in blind hero worship and that this is linked to his resentment of the Rock and Austin, both of which started out as monster heels only to turn into monster babyfaces.