chaosrage

What would you rather play? A sport or fighting game or mario, zelda, metroid, etc?

Mark Henry was gone that entire time. He suffered an injury right before Series 96 (which is why he wasn't there) and didn't come back until very late 97 / early 98 when he turned on Shamrock to join the Nation. They hardly tried to get Tiger over. He won the Kuwati Cup but didn't appear on a regular basis. The mid-card wasn't so bad when you take into consideration Triple H, Ken Shamrock, Owen, Davey, Foley in all his incarnations, Goldust, etc. Though I agree there were some stinkers. With all do respect Cawthon Shamrock was pretty bad for most of 97 as he was honing his craft as a wrestler, and trying to learn not to be so stiff (Although he had been a pro wrestler off and on for nearly a decade) HHH was rather dull and had 0 heat for the most part.... It wasn't til Chyna Showed up in Feb, of 97 that HHH finally had a heat magnet Owen/Davey/Foley I'll grant you, but the rest was REAL Thin (Jesse James, Sultan,Rockabilly etc) I have many of the RAWs from that time....it ain't pretty HHH had good matches with Rock and Foley. In 97, there was Bret, Shawn, Austin, Undertaker, Owen, Mankind, Vader, Bulldog, Goldust, HHH, and Rocky. That's a huge roster. And you could probably throw in Great Sasuke, Taka, Scorpio, Furnas & Lafon, and Mero. Great year.

Is it still on? I'm too lazy to click.

The thing is in 2002 and 2003 everyone knew no one had a chance of beating him. He never came close to losing and when ever he finally did, he would just came back and bury them in a few weeks anyway. That's why it was boring. Compare that to 2000 where people could buy Rock, Foley, Jericho, even Taka and Holly beating HHH. I wouldn't call Holly or Taka strong faces, but somehow HHH turned them into stars for one night and made people care about them. I don't know the numbers, but according to Meltzer, 2000 was the best year for business in the history of wrestling.

The ratings only fell from a 5.7 to a 5.4 when they moved to TNN. It stayed there for 3 weeks and fell to a 4.8 while the Rock was still champion. Most fans found TNN, so I don't think you can blame the switch for the ratings drop. If you brush off the 7s because they were post-PPV shows, you have to figure out why didn't Rock's post-ppv shows get 7s. The day after KOTR got a 6.4. 6.2 after Fully Loaded. I forgot about the US Open, but post-Open numbers in 99 stayed about the same. The week before it was a 5.9, the week after was a 6. They did go down in 97 and 98, but it went right back up. 96 stayed the same. Anyway, for whatever reason, the decline in ratings started in August with the Rock as champ. HHH beating Foley on three PPVs and winning the two big matches against the Rock had no affect on ratings, unless it was positive. Like you said, they were still doing 6's in July, so fans didn't just leave because they were pissed that he pinned Vince instead of HHH. They stayed around for a month or two and then decided to stop watching. Well that's another argument for why he shouldn't have got the belt. 2000 had a lot more faces than heels. And when the Rock got the title in June, he didn't have anyone to fight. So we ended up having matches every week with him against Bossman or T & A. But even with strong heels, it's a lot harder to make it interesting if the heels are the ones chasing for the belt. Seeing someone sucessfully defend the title doesn't have anything on seeing them win it.. especially if they're putting an end to an unstoppable monster heel at the same time. It wouldn't really matter if they didn't win it because there would always be someone else there to try to take it. Rock wouldn't lose anything because he didn't get beat clean. I was kinda pissed when he lost it because I thought he'd face Jericho for the title at Fully Loaded. Then go on to drop it to Angle at SS. Makes more sense than how they did it.

Who said he wasn't the most over? Most over and the top guy are two different things.

Were you watching in 2000?

3 is revised too? I wouldn't worry about it if it's anything like 1. I read it a couple of weeks ago and he hardly changed anything. Except for a couple lines, most of it's the same, word for word.

Rock ended up with the title and he won their last match at Summerslam. Not clean, but none of them were clean. King of the Ring got a 1.19. Fully Loaded got a 1.04. http://www.steveswrestling.com/info/wwebuyrates.html As for the ratings, they went from 6s and 7s when HHH was champ to 4s and 5s in August and September. Pretty big difference. The last 6 Raw ever did was the first week of August 00. Then maybe the Rock never had a year. Just a couple of months.

No, 1999 was the year of the Rock, 2000 was the HHH show. Hell, even when Rock had the belt, the main storylines still revoved around HHH. Biggest draw? He obviously wasn't the biggest draw because the ratings and buyrates went down as soon as Triple H lost the title. HHH won by DQ at JD. Before that, they were tied. Triple H never got a decisive victory over him either. So how does he look weaker?

He wasn't, but as I said I think it's just because he got stale. Remember, it's not too long after that that he was getting booed and had to turn heel. I think the fact that the fans loved him when he changed his character shows that it wasn't all just because he was making movies. The reason is people were getting sick of him cutting the exact same promos almost word for word since April 99. Fans wanted him to win just like they wanted Foley to win, but when a face chasing after the belt finally catches it, what else is there for them to do? Not a whole lot. If a Rock fan was watching every week to see him beat HHH and become the champ, he'll be happy at first, but after a couple of months of the same thing he's probably stop watching. Because he's already got what he wanted and his favorite guy is at the top. It's like having a movie where the good guy kills the bad guys and saves the day, then it keeps going on for another hour. Austin got around that in 98 by the Austin/McMahon feud and the corporation, usually though the shows are more entertaining and business is better when faces are chasing after the belt. Foley trying and failing to take it didn't hurt the ratings. They were still going up until the KOTR. After Judgment Day, I would have just moved HHH on to Angle and Jericho. Not much would even be different. Jericho/HHH was the focal point going into Fully Loaded, and Angle/HHH was the main thing going into Summerslam. Yeah, that sucked, I don't think it makes a whole lot of difference though. For me at least, the shows after KOTR were more boring than the ones with HHH as champ, it didn't have anything to do with Rock pinning Vince. It just wasn't as fun to watch. Actually I think a lot of why Rock/Austin 2 was as strong as it is was because he HADN'T won the big one yet. This was going to be it, the match where Rock gets the torch. But no, he went off to make movies, and the passing of the torch match happened the year later. In the same way, that win over Hogan wouldn't have meant nearly as much if he had beaten Austin and HHH at other WMs.

I doubt Austin/Bret would have been the main event. Bret wasn't even main eventing the PPVs he was around for in late 97. Fans were losing interest in him and USA vs Canada was starting to get old. It'd have been company suicide to keep the title on him for another 4 months. Or he would have to turn face. Then what would be the point of him still being champ? Fake edit: The thing I loved the most about Stone Cold as a heel was he was too much of a badass to cheat or get help. He was always winning matches by himself.

Nah, by the time the McMahon-Helmsley Era got underway, Trips was over. The two wins over Foley solidified his ME status, so he could've easily drawn against the Rock without Vince's involvement. I never really had that much of a problem with the heel going over, but considering the way they built towards the match, and that they put the title on Rock only a couple of weeks later, they would've been better off allowing Rock to go over at the PPV. I mean, he was the biggest star in the company. Why waste his title win on one of the bullshit PPVs when they could've done it at Mania? Because if they fight a million times, you have to give Rock one win, or else fans would stop caring. So they let him win a meaningless match and gave him the belt for a month. HHH won the two big matches, WM and ironman. That's the only way it should have gone, since 2000 was the year of HHH and was on such a huge roll. I think the problem is when Rock won it back at KOTR. That's when the ratings started to turn around. HHH's reign was a breath of fresh air for the WWF (When was the last monster heel title run in WWF before that? Yokozuna?), and Rock was completely stale at that point. The belt should have went straight to Angle at Summerslam.

It was after the Euro finals. The Euro tournament was before WM. I definitely agree it was the best angle ever. Even the little things that people don't pay attention to or seem to remember was great, like Austin turning on Pillman because he made the mistake of calling Bret by his catchphrase. See, he was Austin's best friend, but he still had some respect for the Hitman since he got trained in the dungeon. That's why him joining the Hart Foundation made perfect sense. And not only did Austin break Pillman's ankle but he went to his house to finish him off. That's how much he hated bret. Before they even met or fought once and 5 months before the double turn.

Ironman, of course.

So they have different prices on them but they're really $4.99? My CC didn't have anything anyway.

Both I think. It's been awhile. Any idea when it's coming out?

Yeah, they're good. The best part is that the GB mega mans are way harder than the ones on NES. Except for part 2. Did you get to MM3 yet?

See, that's another great thing about the early Mega Mans. Bosses had more than one weakness so you pick your own path. Wood Man is weak against the metal blade too so I always went to heat man last. Here's how I always did it. Bubble Man Flash Man Quick Man Metal Man Wood Man Air Man Crash Man Heat Man although bubbles work the best for Heat Man so it's not a complete loop. original mega mans 2, 3, 1, 4, 5, 8, 6, 7 mega man x's X2, X1, X3, X4 (didn't play x5-x7)

You can kill Metal Man himself with just one blade. I guess that's probably it. I haven't played it in about 12 years but I remember it just not being as fun as the rest. All the weapons were pretty useless most of the time after MM4 gave us the Mega Blaster.

Uh, to read? So nobody can just read posts anymore? Would you really want to force posters like IB to post instead of lurk? And what if they just post on HD? Dumbest idea in awhile.

The other Bret/Owen. I like the cage match a lot better than the wm one.

(4) Bret Hart vs Steve Austin, WrestleMania 13 (2) Bret Hart vs Steve Austin, Survivor Series 1996 No way in hell Rey/Eddie is better than Bret/Austin. It shouldn't have made it past Bret/Owen.

Yep, and 2 on normal.

Oh, the rock monster. Why aren't you playing the games in order? When you get to 2 and 3, you'll see why people hate 6.