DrVenkman PhD

It started with the Goldust skit on Monday - it was Vickie's present to Edge. Then, like other said, it was brought up on SmackDown.

Cotton candy? Cabbage.

I know I recently saw the "I'm not an athlete?!" deal where Faarooq talks about college football and Shamrock the UFC. I think it was with the Christmas 97 Raw.

Is this about Taiga Star?

A February that ISN'T Valentine's Day themed! Nothing else announced yet.

Probably just the fact that the wings protrude so prominently. I can't remember too many other title belts with that feature. Plus the "Spread Eagle" title just sounds wrong.

You know, it's one thing for me to SAY that, to actually have no content by this time Friday night... a bit of a piss off. It's giving me extra time to marathon Royal Rumbles on DVD, I guess.

A reminder to Canadian SmackDown fans (if any) that it's delayed until 9pm tonight.

Watching the 88 Rumble this morning, the Women's Tag Titles caught my eye as a classy looking 80s title. I wouldn't suggest that look today, but for the 80s, good stuff. I've always been a big fan of the pre-Attitude IC title belt. The ECW tag titles that used that design were great too. The classic world tag title design is also very nice, I'm glad the current WWE Tag Titles use that design. I re-read an old column I wrote from 2002 or early 2003 that referred to the current World tag titles as "refurbished European titles", and I still think that could be true. I've never really been a big fan of the pre-Mania IV ("Winged Eagle") WWE title - to me, it kind of looks like the WCW TV title. Speaking of WCW, I thought their last US title belt looked pretty good. Funny enough, searching for a picture of it brought this link: http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showtopic=86365 Please don't tell me only me and Jericholic82 love the Million Dollar Title...

I'm still not sure if today's Kane is the 1997 Kane, or if the 2006 Fake Kane was supposed to be the real Kane that was actually burned, thus explaining why he still wore a bodysuit and mask. Taker seems pretty sure that current Kane is his brother, so let's pretend that 2006 angle never happened. Maybe they can retcon it to say Festus was dressing up as Kane because he's unstable.

Main Event Tag Match: The Hardys vs. Big Show and Edge.

May sounds like SMW.

I don't follow.

Was that 2004 dispute when there was a crawl at the bottom of the screen during some shows (like Raw) explaining the situation and urging people to complain to whoever the appropriate person to complain to? Also, just a quick note - if anyone is still interested in voting for the year end wrestling awards, it's up in Center Stage and still open until sometime next week.

Just a quick note - if anyone is still interested in voting for the year end wrestling awards, it's up in Center Stage and still open until sometime next week.

I loved this show when I was 13 and rented it on more than one occasion. I remembered really enjoying the undercard and finding all 3 title matches to be good and even thinking the Rumble was fun with it's faster pace (but I was glad it never happened again). I re-watched it for the first time in forever last year (though I think I watched the Rumble match on WWE.com's Legacy / 24/7 / Jukebox not to long before) with the Rumble Anthology and wow, the Rumble match was actually quite dull. That said, I'm a sucker for Rumble matches even when they are dull and I still thought Jarrett / Razor was good, as was Hart / Diesel (very overbooked though, and not close to Survivor Series 95 good) though the tag title match wasn't as good as I remembered as a kid, but still enjoyable. Overall, I think this is a good show that suffers the "Bad Rumble Effect" to the worst degree. The 1992 and 2004 Royal Rumble's benefit greatly from the "Good Rumble Effect" and get called good shows despite having lackluster undercard matches. New Foundation vs. Orient Express is a good tag match and Piper winning the IC title is a fun moment, but the last two tag matches are bad and if I did star ratings, Bushwackers vs. Bevelry Brothers would be in the negative range. The 2004 show had 3 really short matches followed by a BOB HOLLY WWE title match, and Shawn/HHH was probably one of the worst in their series until the June Hell in a Cell match (it probably didn't help that it came off the best match in their series). Both of those shows were totally saved by an awesome Rumble. In 1995, you have a good IC title match, a good world title match, a good tag title match, the set-up to the LT Mania match - so far so good in having a good show, with Taker / IRS being a dull match but not offensively bad. Then you get a 30 minute Rumble full of "stars" that never really amounts to anything good outside of the Shawn / Bulldog in-match storyline - if the Rumble match is bad, then that must mean the show is bad. I just think it's a bit unfair in this instance, especially since in the "Good Rumble Effect" scenarios, you had a 1 hour (or longer) match carrying a 2 hour, 40 minute show. This was a 30 minute match, which if I look it up might actually be shorter than the world title match. Now 1993, THAT's a boring Royal Rumble show.

Tommy Dreamer has got to be up there, outside of a win over Colin Delany.

I eagerly anticipate the New Year's that some outside celebration wakes me up at midnight, prompting me to start doing my taxes.

What's the Dan Maff Clique? (who is it, what is it, why they're called that, etc.) It's a group of Ring of Honor fans that were upset about Homicide blackballing Dan Maff from the indy circuit due to alleged going-ons with Maff and Homicide's kid sister.

Yeah, I believe it was very similar to how they do SmackDown today.

Wasn't it last year that HHH lost the rights to be in the Rumble, but then won a last chance battle royal or something and all of the sudden he was back in it, making the whole task of getting there a waste of time? I hope that doesn't happen again this year. I still think Orton is going to win the Rumble and HHH will win the No Way Out of The Chamber match.

Either way I'm glad I fixed "remotely", it had been wrong for months.

Yeah, I recall seeing ol Dick at a NYE bash a two years ago and thinking he shouldn't have even been on the air.

I'm sure you'll manage to have lots of great sex and make sure that TSM knows about it though!

Keep digging, watson. The Frog Ending would be the ending in Chrono Trigger related to the character "Frog". I guess it's hard to get and CronoT (I think? Maybe it was Inuyasha or someone else of that ilk) was bragging about it. At least that's how I understand it, I missed the actual event that led to it becoming a TSMeme.