DrVenkman PhD

In Thailand with some friends from high school. A high school, anyway. "My heart has made some bad decisions... Jan, Ryan"

They had me at "No you don't, Oprah". Honourable mention for last week: "In the grand tradition of Patch Adams". On Earl, was that a legit TV send off for Darnell and Joy?

That Goldman video really buries Hawkins and Ryder. Miz and Morrison don't even recognize them as guys they lost their belts to! That newsbit also appears nowhere in the Observer.

Roddy Hogan is the man.

--WWE will have a feature on the movie "The Wrestler" on Smackdown on Friday night. Apparently even if Vince didn't like it, now that Mickey Rourke won the Golden Globe, they are more apt to attach themselves to it in some form.

Yeah the Hogan injury part interested me the most. It obviously wasn't bad since he was at Tuesday in Texas, but there was a big fear there.

Vince thinks it's going to hit them hard with Obama in charge.

What exactly did Bam Bam do that was "whatamanuver!" in his match with Luger? It looks like a badly whiffed dropkick or an attempted 'rana where he just falls backwards, but apparently it was impressive enough to get a replay. The best I came up with was he was 'clapping' his feet together on Lex's head.

They keep running promos for his return to SmackDown (and if he's cleared to go, the Rumble seems as good a place as any to have him come back and toss some people) but nothing has been announced officially.

Yeah, it was nice when worked and shoot matches got separate MOTY categories. Like I said, I hope "Major Show" is the next award split.

Looking forward to see how this develops as he obviously did quit after SuperBrawl II. IIRC, the length of his contract is why he had to work for the WBF and didn't debut as a wrestler for the Fed until 1993.

EliteXC, possibly better known as "The Company Gina Carano and/or Kimbo Slice Fought For". I pretty much watched the CBS shows just to see Gina fight as I'm not a fan of MMA.

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: **

I'm just going to do the winner and runner-up for now. No MMA or Box Office here (since MMA won that with Brock Lesnar). Wrestler of the Year: Chris Jericho (1,198 points) Runner-up: Edge (1,168 points) Most Outstanding: Bryan Danielson (2,042) Runner-up: Shawn Michaels (1,406) Feud of the Year: Chris Jericho vs. Shawn Michaels (2,647 - a whopping 443 1st place votes) Runner-up: Edge vs. Undertaker (1,195 points, and by comparison, only 56 1st place votes). Tag-team of the Year: Miz and Morrison (2,130) Runner-up: Kevin Steen & El Generico (1,099). Most Improved: The Miz (1,578) Runner-up: Tyler Black (1,244) Best on Interviews: Chris Jericho (1,979) Runner-up: Santino Marella (1,309) Most Charismatic: John Cena (1,586) Runner-up: Brock Lesnar (856) Best Technical Wrestler: Bryan Danielson (3,231) Runner-up: Nigel McGuinness (1,192) Brody Memorial (Best Brawler): Necro Butcher (1,386) Runner-up: Samoa Joe (1,133) Best Flyer: Evan Bourne (2,188) Runner-up: Kota Ibushi (1,746) Most Overrated (over-pushed): Vladimir Koslov (1,022) Runner-up: HHH (953) Most Underrated (under-pushed): MVP (840) Runner-up: Scotty Goldman (567) Promotion of the Year: UFC (3,340) Runner-up: WWE (1,329) Best Weekly TV: The Ultimate Fighter (1,616) Runner-up: Raw (1,467) Match of the Year: Shawn Michaels vs. Chris Jericho - No Mercy Ladder Match (1,146) Runner-up: Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair - WrestleMania XXIV (933) Rookie of the Year: KAI (966) Runner-up: Amasis (925) Non-Wrestler of the Year: Larry Sweeney (2,208) Runner-up: Vickie Guerrero (2,039) Best Announcer: Matt Striker (1,950) Runner-up: Jim Ross (1,906) Worst Announcer: Mike Adamle (1,623) Runner-up: Don West (1,364) Best Major Show: WrestleMania XXIV (1,683) - First time a WWE show has won this award since 2002 and only the 2nd WrestleMania (after X-7) to ever win. Go E! Runner-up: UFC 91 (1,677) Point of annoyance: The award is called "Best Major Wrestling Show" but MMA is still eligible? They need to split this for 2009... Class B Awards: Worst Major Show: Survivor Series 2008 (116) Runner-up: TNA Sacrifice Best Move: Bourne's SSP (259) Runner-up: Tyler Black's "God's Last Gift" (46) Most Disgusting Tactic: The (alleged) teased overdose of Jeff Hardy to get website hits (241) Runner-up (aka what ACTUALLY should have won): TNA using Jill Jarrett's death in the Angle/Jarrett storyline (165) Worst TV Show: Impact (520) Runner-up: Hogan's Celebrity Wrestling (43) (Bullshit, and I was glad to see it actually had some "Best TV Show" votes.) Worst Match: HHH vs. Kozlov vs. Edge - Survivor Series 2008 (118) Runner-up: Paulo Filho vs. Chael Sonnen (34) Worst Feud: Rey Mysterio vs. Kane (215) Runner-up: Jay Lethal vs. Sonjay Dutt (101) Worst Promotion: TNA (404) Runner-up: EliteXC (232) Best Booker: Joe Silva (383) Runner-up: Gabe Sapolsky (229) Promoter of the Year: Dana White (699) Runner-up: Vince McMahon (60) Best Gimmick: Santino Marella (338) Runner-up: The Beautiful People (62) Worst Gimmick: Khali Kiss Cam (62) Runner-up: Whiny World Champion Samoa Joe (59) Best Book: Gorgeous George (192) Runner-up: Ring of Lies (75) Best DVD: Ric Flair Definitive Collection (216) Runner-up: Ric Flair Highspots Shoot (83)