Enigma

PWInsider is saying that Angle's heading back to Smackdown and his match against HBK on Raw will be his last Raw appearance.

Do you seriously think Taker losing in a casket match to a worthless greenhorn and his semi-crippled father is gonna draw buy-rates? Look at the lousy finnish dude, those buy-rates are down to Orton alone. Last time I checked, fans didn't know exact finishes before PPVs air.

But I thought spoilers were detrimental to Smackdown's ratings, right Linda McMahon?

The Undertaker has not proven to be as big of a draw over the years, despite his popularity. Just look to No Mercy for proof of who was to thank over the buyrate on this one. That one had UT vs. Orton and it barely broke 200,000.

If Matt quits, then he can't go to TNA until his contract would have expired, which would probably be July 2008 if he signed the standard 3-year deal. If he's fired, then he only has to wait 90 days. I remember Edge was upset with WWE in the middle of 2005 and wanted to quit to go to TNA, but wouldn't have been able to go for a while because of his current deal.

The early estimates are in for last month's Armageddon PPV and the show did its best buyrate since 2002. They early number for the show is around 290,000, which is great for a Smackdown PPV and not that far behind the 375,000 early estimate that Survivor Series did. CREDIT: PWInsider Armageddon 2005 was pretty much a one-match show, banking on The Undertaker vs. Randy Orton in Hell in a Cell to pull in the buys and it succeeded. Armageddon 2002 was before the brand-exclusive PPV era, headlined by World Champion Shawn Michaels defending against Triple H in a 3 Stages of Hell match (Street Fight, Cage, Ladder) and WWE Champion The Big Show defending against Kurt Angle.

I think it's time to ignore my first person in my near 3-year span on TSM. Congrats, Rudo.

Heh, they have a big "FIRED" circle over Jamal.

He looks like Brian Peppers in that yearbook photo.

I always thought she was paid her contract in full at the time of her release, since there was no stink about it at the time.

Edge debuted on TV before SummerSlam '98 on RAW in either June or July. It was quite the dubious debut since he almost seriously injured Jesus Castillo's neck of Los Baricuas with a somersault suicide dive. I remember it was so serious that Steve Austin even came out to check on him. It turned out to just be a stinger though.

Numerous sources have told us that Vince McMahon is not happy with the job that Joey Styles has been doing of late on Raw. Sources have told me that McMahon gave Styles a long talking to at last week's Raw on 01/02, telling him what he thinks Styles is doing wrong (from a WWE perspective) and what he expects from the lead announcer of Raw. From what I have been told, Styles will have to realize that he is no longer "calling ECW matches for the internet fans" if he wants to stay on Raw long-term. It should also be noted that when Styles first interviewed with WWE, after ECW went out of business in 2001, WWE had the same concerns about him. It's not a knock against Styles either, but rather a further indication of how WWE sees their way of doing business as the right and only way. They see it as they make movies and tell stories. They don't "call wrestling". credit: PWInsider Elite Also, in the recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer says that it took Joey Styles 6 hours to do the voice-over work for the Raw in Afghanistan, which was only about 1 hour and 40 minutes without commercials. They reportedly had to do a ton of re-dos. Paul Heyman recently contacted WWE and claimed that he had to do a lot of "producing" to make Joey sound as good as he did in ECW.

So naturally, WWE turned him heel against Cena.

Matt Hardy said all this stuff before he decided to piss off The Undertaker by refusing to take a chokeslam at Survivor Series. You can forget about anything that he would have been doing at this point when he said that 6 months ago.

Works fine for me in Firefox. Sometimes I have to hit the stop button and hit the play button and it works.

PWInsider is reporting that Kash's arm is in fact broken, and not a deep bruise as was hoped.

If Eddie hadn't have died, Batista would have lost his title long ago.

Someone on the DVD boards suggested that Flair would win the WWE Title on RAW in 2 weeks in Charlotte and then job it to HHH at WM22.

I marked out huge when Edge won the title. I haven't marked out for anything on wrestling since Benoit beat HHH at WM20.

Edge cashed in MitB and ended the reign of terror. Details? After Cena won the Chamber, Cena's music played for about 10 seconds and then Vince's music hit and he came out. He told everyone not to move and the show's not over until he says its over. He sarcastically congratulated Cena for winning the Chamber, and informed everyone that there was one more match left for New Year's Revolution. Cena would be defending the WWE Championship against Edge, who was officially cashing in his Money In The Bank contract that he earned at WrestleMania 21. Edge & Lita came out and Edge handed the briefcase to Vince. Edge came to the ring for the match and it was a total squash. Cena got in zero offense. After Edge stomped him and got near falls constantly, he went to the Spear and got a 2-count that was screwed up and actually counted as 3. But the ref said it was 2. Edge hit another spear and got the 3-count to become the new WWE Champion.

Mickie's music sucks.

It's funny. I finally watched the Bret Hart DVD today and it got me so turned on to wrestling that it's making me want to order New Year's Revolution. God bless you, Bret.

I totally forgot there was a PPV today until a minute ago.

I hope this kid grows up absolutely hating wrestling like Lex Luger's son does.

Jannetty's return earlier in the year was awesome. I was at the event live in "Atlanta" (it was really in Duluth, but WWE says Atlanta). I had no idea Jannetty was going to be there. Not only did I get the awesome visual of Michaels & Jannetty on-screen together again, they actually did a Rockers reunion. That was easily the highlight of the year for me.