DrVenkman PhD

More Survivor Series: I believe things like this are why Meltzer and the old-school Observer readers hated Gorilla so much.

I recall the first Raw advertised Woody Allen vs. Mia Farrow in a steel cage match as happening the next week. Also, while I never really got the "Young Santino Marella" vibe from the John Crystal vs. HHH match they aired last January, he really does look like a young Santino on this show. Highly unlikely, but wow.

I forget everything he said now, but as I recall his first pop culture drop was comparing Mabel (who actually looks way smaller on this Raw than he did as Big Daddy V) to Barney. This segues into talking about Marlon Brando on Larry King which seems to have Vince all riled up, so he demands Mabel rap about that. "NOW YOU'RE GONNA HEAR MABEL RAP ABOUT LARRY KING! TELL IT TO US MABEL!". Of course he says nothing of the sort. I think he then spent the entire Owen Hart match talking about Jack Tunney appearing on Letterman to sing a duet with Barry Manilow (I thought he was acting a bit odd with the Larry King thing, but I figured it was just Vince doing his anti-Turner thing - the Tunney on Letterman thing is where I thought he went nuts, especially since he called CBS 'another network' with disdain reserved for Turner owned television networks), Roseanne being fat and Yokozuna playing her in a movie, and then Macho Man threw in something about Princess Di (by the context of what was being said, I guess there were some unwanted exposure pictures back in 1994?). By the time Vince mentioned Undertaker was a guest at the Grand Ol Opry or some show on The Nashville Network (ha!), I thought he was telling another joke. I guess that was serious though. Picturing Taker and Paul Bearer on The Nashville Network is hilarious.

Prime Time notes: - Monsoon notes that Bam Bam was a big star in 1977 (but then corrects himself). - I laugh every time Monsoon mentions Miss Betty ("I thought Miss Betty knew all about fruits"). - Mean Gene REPEATEDLY says "Rumble Royal". - Ron Bass keeps saying it's a 30 man match, but Monsoon indeed confirms it's only a 20 man field when explaining the rules to Heenan. Was it originally going to be 30 until they realized the time constraints involved with being on free TV, or was The Outlaw a fortune teller? - There is, no joke, a match between Iron Mike Sharpe vs. S.D. Jones. Heenan has a funny bit in the studio after this clash of the men who never win. - Heenan twice causes Monsoon to completely break at the end of the show by making fun of Bruno's commentary.

I changed the sub-title to the less debatable "4th oldest PPV" noting at the very least, that fact about the Rumble can't be debated, but then realized people can still argue The Rumble predates SummerSlam (which is true, but not on PPV). The Observer lists Cryme Tyme and Dolph as announced entrants. No idea where Meltzer saw that announced (especially considering all 3 were in the rejected participants bit last week) but it's not unlikely. We'll hold off until WWE.com says something though.

Ok, let's replace Bridges and Bonaduce with Lesnar and Lashley.

I expect the unannounced 9 to consist of the following: 1. Fake Kane 2. The Rock 3. Steve Austin 4. Hulk Hogan 5. Todd Bridges 6. Danny Bonaduce 7. Dustin Diamond 8. Shane McMahon 9. Macho Man Randy Savage

Things to look for: - The chatter about The New Blood and David Flair were made into separate General threads. - Sometime soon, expect a Finisher Thread in General and TSM Talks Big Or Goes Home: The Big Show thread in the WWE Folder.

EliteXC, despite going under, built cards and presented shows that got buzz and people were interested in. Of course, they had that HUGE misstep which cost them fans, credibility, and eventually their own business, so yes, they deserved to be voted for, but TNA just continually went out of their way to alienate any potential new audience. I guess it's the same as Gabe being runner-up for Best Booker despite the fact he booked himself right out of a job.

Reverend Theory's appearance on Raw has been postponed.

That was nice of him. Thankfully it is listed on WWE.com since I don't think "well some random US cable company says so..." would be the best answer (plus it's off Sunflower's page now as it's just 1-21-09 and beyond). Edit: Not going to do a new post but they've been pretty helpful - beats their old way of getting mad at me for not calling them to speak with an operator who won't have a clue.

Retro Observer Survivor Series 91 notes: SURVIVOR SERIES Thumbs up 35 (09.9 percent) Thumbs down 312 (87.9 percent) In the middle 8 (02.3 percent) BEST MATCH POLL Rockers & Bushwhackers vs. Nasty's & Beverly's 128 Flair's team vs. Piper's team 33 Hulk Hogan vs. Undertaker 13 WORST MATCH POLL Hulk Hogan vs. Undertaker 143 Slaughter's team vs. Mustafa's team 59 Rockers & Bushwhackers vs. Nasty's & Beverly's 12 LOD & Bossman vs. Disasters & IRS 10 Team Flair vs. Team Piper: **1/2 ("Action was very good but finish takes it down a full star as it was one of the worst finishes in recent history"). Team Duggan vs. Team Mustafa: 3/4* Hogan vs. Undertaker: 1/2* ("match itself was negative stars but finish and post-match brought it out of the red") Beverly Bros/Nasty Boys vs. Rockers/Bushwhackers: ***1/2 LOD/Bossman vs. IRS/Disasters: **

The Starrcade DVD set has a not-seen-on-24/7 documentary. It's only 45 minutes but it's a nice bit of history (though a lot of it seemed culled together from previous interviews). I do think it marks one of the only times you'll see an officially released WWE DVD paint WWE as bad guys though (they bring up the Survivor Series 1987 deal and how cable companies were bullied into choosing that show in order to get Mania IV).

Vince: Cousin Sieone looks to me the more 'Barbaric' of the group. Savage: What do you mean by that comment? Vince: Well, look at him. Savage: Good point. Vince with the meta-humour.

Tell us what you really think. On the subject of the new Priceless music: Knowing that I usually end up liking changed music I initially hate (I think Jeff Hardy's theme is great now), I tried to listen for aspects of it I would grow to like in the future... some exist, but I still miss the one they were using. The first version lacked energy, but this had a thumping "dunna-dunna dunna-dunna dunna-dunna PRICELESS" beat to it when it started that I now miss.

What the HELL is up with Vince's pop-culture laced commentary on the "Royal Raw" from 1994? It's borderline insane.

My system is finally back to normal after giving me half of today's update last week. The missing pieces ("Royal Raw", NWA, Unforgiven) showed up today with nothing else from the future. Still missing KOTR 96 though.

I thought Evan Bourne might make a surprise return at the Rumble, but it sounds like he still needs the boot on until February.

Woah woah 229 posts, you're not supposed to know about this stuff.

Props to Jack Zio's sarcastic comment about how even in victory TSM was playing the Punk burial card. Scroby: He won the ECW title more than a year ago (September 2007), but he held it until January 22, 2008 so in terms of holding gold, yes, at four different points in the past 365 days Punk held a different title.

Comparing the ECW title to the European and CW title sounds about right, so hooray Grand Slam Winner CM Punk. If you ignore the fact there's two midcard, two tag, and two world titles now, Jericho had them all beat once WCW's CW title lineage overtook the LHW title lineage, making him the only guy to hold all 5 titles. These long overruns are killing me - I gotta catch the bus to work! I shut the TV off and left just as Orton was coming out so I missed the whole thing. I'll set the DVR to record the end of the Raw replay tomorrow afternoon. The JBL/HBK angle is very good, so that was enjoyable, and Punk/Regal was fun stuff too. They obviously cut all other match times down to Sub-Impact times in an effort to try and fit the Vince thing in, and even then it didn't fit, but overall not a bad show (which I'm sure I would have enjoyed a lot more had I actually seen the ending). That was also nice of WWE to put the Obama thing in the MLK opening considering a lot of the economic panic within WWE is based on the fact Vince feels things are going to get worse since the Republicans didn't win. DCH: Do you want to try toning it down a bit?

Poor Owen Hart (in regards to the 40 man on Prime Time). He's on his way to the ring and in the order of the names, he gets announced as Dwayne Gill. The Velocity match is very good, specifically at the point it's down to 3 guys, then even better when it's just two.

I'll go: Ok, got that joke out of the way. Carry on.

Gordy Howe. And to answer tod's question, no, I don't believe he does.

Well, sadly, that won't happen very often.