DrVenkman PhD

Do you mean the Pillman DVD? I don't think Bret's DVD has this match. I also thought Pillman's DVD had the intros but maybe it doesn't.

The original Mario Kart is severely mis-represented in classic levels. I enjoy the new Bowser's Castle and Rainbow Road and agree with anyone who said Coconut Mall was an amazing track.

The schedule on the first post is now updated to reflect the next 4 weeks of programming. Not the best month, but I'm looking forward to aspects of it. Can't go wrong with 10 Eddie matches and while it's no Bret Hart HOF month, I'm a big Tito Santana fan so that has me interested as well. I'm also interested in finally seeing the Eddie/JBL bloodbath from Judgment Day and I haven't seen Clash 35 in almost 11 years and I am interested in that card.

Yeah, give me some time as I've been busy with work but the page one story is about a steroid bust.

I tried using a bike in the SNES Ghost House level (old levels rule!) but kept falling off the edge, heh.

THey just love their cliffhangers don't they. Sounds like Robin ends up living with Ted again by the time he's 31. Good episode though, Barney always brings the good stuff.

Where did Orton get the powder from to throw in H's eyes to get out of the hold? (Yes, I realize that's just a typo and should probably say "powered out", but hey, I'm sure they can take it since they love dishing it out). That was quite the bizarre show - the matches were all lame duck while the show built to the main event and then it had Regal going crazy. One on hand that's very WCW but I was laughing at the TV when it happened and thought Regal was being fairly awesome through the whole thing. I also enjoyed Trevor Murdoch singing a song about true friendship and how his heel alliance with Cade should continue. The Highlight Reel was also tremendous entertainment. I said it before but Kennedy's remix is quite catchy - it's not like his original song is any good so what's wrong with a tempo and beat you can tap your toes to? Nothing, that's what. I figured JD would be a cage match based on the prison setting of the poster.

WWE.com?

The return of Nailz!

Aren't you concerned a Cole / Adamle team would bury CM Punk?

It wasn't JHawk, it was JHawk's account.

Poor JHawk.

Yeah, I originally assumed this thread was about that gimmick, not Dandy's immitation (which oddly enough he chose to blow the gimmick off to do a roundtable, then resume doing it in the Backlash thread with the roundtable). Come on, bro.

I always saw that interview clip and never knew where it was from until I watched (and didn't care for) this show the other day. Since Raw is all about the Austin / Hart Foundation feud, seeing Austin come out to do a promo with Pillman and Owen was a bit bizarre. By default I expected Austin to come out and kick Brian's ass.

Some classic Observer Notes, this time reviewing Canadian Stampede, often called one of the Fed's best PPV efforts. Canadian Stampede Poll Results: Tumbs Up: 151 (100%) Thumbs Down: 0 Thumbs in the Middle: 0 Best Match: 10-Man Tag Match: 121 Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku: 22 Worst Match: Godwinns vs. Blackjacks: 57 Undertaker vs. Vader: 23 Show Analysis / Notes: * Due to weak hype, a change in the world title match and coming at the end of a holiday weekend, the show was looking to be the one of the least anticipated WWF PPVs in history but ended up being one of the best shows ever: The crowd atmosphere equaled or exceeded nearly any show in history and every match was good, with two being excellent. * The show was not originally planned to be a 4 bout card (5 with the Free For All) but a series of injuries to a roster that already has a depth problem caused the show to be booked the way it was. * The show's attendance was 12,151 (10,974 paid) with a gate of $229,598 and another $65,000 in merchandise, with both dollar amounts setting a Calgary record. It was the 3rd largest paid crowd in Calgary history - the largest crowd was 12,304 for a show headlined by Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy and the 2nd largest was 11,153 for a 1991 show featuring Undertaker vs. Ultimate Warrior and Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter. * Local media coverage for this show (and the next night's Raw) were unprecedented with front page stories in newspapers covering the shows. There were numerous autograph sessions and one sessions featuring Owen and Bulldog drew 8,000 people. * Both shows were extremely unique in presentation - the people being portrayed as the company's top heels were on a worldwide PPV being treated as heroes by both the fans and announcers, something that is quite unusual and perhaps quite strange for the non-Canadian viewing audience. Pesky little Owen Hart saving the day? Brian Pillman not giving Stu Hart a cheapshot clothesline? He's a loose cannon! "In the WWF's quest to overdo things and explain to the rest of the world why the locals were behaving this way and cheering the wrong guys, they probably succeeded in a sense of having an awful lot of fans wondering why they were the ones rooting against the real babyfaces. Those Canadian fans, who in the clips hardly came off as brain surgeons, still seemed in their less than infinite wisdom to be on the right side. The WWF trying to make sense of the aftermath and move things back to as they were is going to be intriguing. It's almost like you had this dream you saw one of the best wrestling PPV shows ever, but then you wake up the next morning, and it was almost like it never happened". A. The Godwinns vs. The New Blackjacks: The Free-For-All match, it went 5:32 and ended with Phineas pinning Windham with an inside cradle after Henry kicked in Windham's leg when he was trying to suplex Phineas. "Pretty bad" - DUD. (Of note, this is when Meltzer always used people's real names in PPV reviews - Bradshaw is referred to as "John Hawk"). 1. Mankind vs. Triple H: Ended in a double count out at 13:14 (which continued as a brawl into the next match). "A very good match marred only by interference from Chyna". Meltzer also notes that Chyna is looking more muscular than ever and she perhaps attended the Pitbulls "going out of business" sale (in reference to another story in this issue - more on that later). The psychology or Hunter working on Mankind's knee was appreciated, but Meltzer also thought they should have maybe done something different since that was the story of the main event between Austin and Owen as well. Jim Ross had the unintentionally funny line that Mankind is "287 lbs to be exact, and that's an estimate". *** 2. Great Sasuke vs. Taka Michinoku: Sasuke pinned Taka in 10:00 with a Fire Thunder Bomb followed by a Tiger Suplex (the combo was used in reverse the next night on Raw). Excellent match, but not the level of the six-man tag at ECW's Barely Legal from April. Taka was more over than Sasuke and was the most impressive wrestler on the show. Fans started off bored but one great spot after another, all with perfect timing, really got them to get into it. Vince and Lawler were "out to lunch" in terms of trying to call the match and JR was nowhere close to Joey Styles in understanding the match. An impressive spot was Sasuke using the "Rider kick" - a one-footed dropkick from the top rope to the floor that can't be executed safely because the opponent cannot protect your fall. **** 3. Undertaker vs. Vader for the WWF Title: Undertaker retained with the Tombstone in a "good but not great" match in 12:39. Around the 8:00 mark, the building was "rocking" to a level you didn't often see for Undertaker's comeback. ***1/4 4. Bret Hart, Owen Hart, The British Bulldog, Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart, and Brian Pillman vs. Steve Austin, The Legion of Doom, Goldust, and Ken Shamrock: Owen pinned Austin in an excellent 24:31 match. When the babyface / heel / whatever team came out, there was no sense this would be anything special. LOD got some cheers and Austin had "unusually strong". But when Pillman was introduced first for the Hart Foundation, the crowd blew the roof off and the tone for an extremely hot match was set. For the first 14:50, it was among the best North American matches of the year. A super heel performance by Austin when he was handcuffed and escorted out after the match and an incredible spectacle overall. Meltzer could only compare the whole post match excitement with the entire family coming into the ring and the crowd going nuts for it to Kerry Von Erich beating Ric Flair for the NWA title at the Texas Stadium in 1984. ****1/4. More notes to come later. There are also Raw and Nitro notes from this issue over in the 24/7 section (as this is about where they are in the Monday Night War run).

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing, heh. They've made Punk look good all week so it is a shame he's not officially on the Backlash card.

I didn't realize Backlash was tomorrow, but Cole said this is Backlash eve... Also, good match.

But it wasn't personally about me. Anyway, grammar lesson learned, though technically I do kind of care if Sting vs. Flair is on the DVD so it's possible I could care less... but yeah, "couldn't" is what I was going for. I really hope "new matches, new antics" means new in the sense that this is a direct sequel (as opposed to an "updated / re-vamped re-release" type deal that Hogan, Austin, Rey and others get) to the Ultimate Ric Flair Collection and not that it's covering his 2002-2008 career. The naming convention ("Ultimate -> Definitive") seems to imply the former, which is good.

Some Nitro notes from the WON: * The 7/7/97 Nitro drew 7,799 fans (7,230 paid) for a gate of $114,705. It was just shy of a sell out and actually drew a few hundred less than their previous show in Memphis, but higher ticket prices resulted in the largest gate ever for a Memphis wrestling show. * Dave believes based on TV, Page's partner on PPV will be Hennig or Zbyszko. * Called Juvi and Hector Garza vs. Villanos a great TV match, noting Juvi nailed every spot "on the money". The heels looked unspectacular, but their steadiness made the faces shine. Both teams got a standing ovation after the match. * Called the DDParka deal an "excellent angle" (no argument here). "Page's work and timing was incredible, right down to doing the Parka strut ealry". * Not even Psycosis and Silver King vs. Miller and Glacier bothered him as he felt it was great TV with the three team brawl post match. "Lots of people are down on the arcade game wrestlers gimmick, but Mortis has potential to be a great worker". * "For anyone who has seen ECW in the last six months, the thing with Richards going in the time machine back 18 months would have been really lame". * For the 6/30/97 Nitro, Rey Mysterio was supposed to get a fluke win over Nash by hitting him with a roll of coins then get destroyed post-match. Plans were changed between Saturday and Monday, which is "just as well as nobody would have bought that finish".

All right! Candidate promo replays!

So let's take a look at some inside notes about these recent Raw shows via the WON: * Sabu vs. Flash Funk is indeed the end of the WWF/ECW relationship. Lawler (or Sabu) and RVD vs. Dreamer and Sandman was in the works for SummerSlam but is now off the table. Federation officials were not pleased with RVD and Sabu's attitude towards their planned match finishes on the 6/23 Raw. More on this to come in General Wrestling. * The 7/7/97 Raw drew 9,500 people (7,108 paid) to take in a $135,270 gate. This was the highest gate ever for a Raw taping, but because of the exchange rate, it was actually about $99,000 US, lower than the previous record of $115,271 from March 10th in Worcester, MA. * I've never really noticed this, but Meltzer noted that Bret takes his bump before Austin hit him with the chair because he noticed Bulldog and Owen go down. * Dave feels Taka / Sasuke was the best match of the night between Raw and Nitro, but the Villanos match on Nitro was close. * Believes the 'Cain' angle is currently a lemon and not working and that Bearer's interview on the show was also a lemon. *Off TV, Brian Christopher and Sunny left arm-in-arm. * Sid is off TV due to a sciatic nerve problem but they hope he's back by SummerSlam (I bring this up because I believe he appears on the next Raw, then never again).

Punk interrupting Edge came off better on TV than it did in spoilers. They never made it clear the point was for CM Punk to say "I might have a match at Backlash".

Might be about Big Daddy V being sent home to lose weight (he's not actually sick as was reported) but that was already mentioned a few issues ago.

Hi! Why is critical thinking "negative"? I don't think I said anything overly negative here (I'm ordering the damn show) and people that know me would almost find it laughable that I would be accused of not having positive feelings towards the E.

Don't feel bad for Coach yet, he might end up replacing Adamle (but not likely).