QuestionMan

It was the original.

Can someone remind me if I'm watching a wrestling show? Because I could swear this isn't.

Ha, that site is as slow as Christmas now.

Paul Heyman should have never been removed from the SD! GM spot in the first place.

I still don't think I've ever seen a wrestler worse than Nathan Jones. Although Tyson Tomko and Jon Heidenreich are 2nd-place candidates, with Kenzo Suzuki coming in 3rd.

Guess the thread can be closed now.

Ble'dat!

Meltzer's always said that he's a great talker and was dumbfounded that he doesn't get the microphone more.

"As I reported yesterday on my Elite Hotline, the current creative plan for the top Raw match at Summerslam is for WWE World champion Chris Benoit to defend the belt against Randy Orton. According to well placed sources, the working plan right now is for Orton to take the belt at the PPV. Where does this leave Triple H at Summerslam, you say? Triple H is scheduled to face Eugene at the PPV." Credit: PWInsider So there you go. Chris Benoit vs. Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Title with Orton winning the title and Triple H vs. Eugene, according to PWInsider.

I really enjoyed J.J. Dillion in his WCW authority role as well.

Well, Shane McMahon was playing a GM-type role on the Japan tour. So...

Well, last year at SummerSlam, they went with a 7-match card, and one of those matches was Bischoff vs. Shane. So you never know with this wacky company.

So, if Hunter wins the title and faces Edge at SummerSlam, would it be a unification match, since Edge is the IC Champ?

I've got a $400 deluxe replica of the classic I-C Title. It's one of the most beautiful things I own.

This HBK DVD is a re-release of a VHS from 1997 and will only cost about $9.

Unforgiven 2002 was the time to make RVD's overness explode. And instead, they let it fizzle. Ditto for Booker T. at WrestleMania XIX.

Say what you will about Vince Russo, but he always tried to make the mid-carders and the low-carders look just as important to the fans as the main-eventers. Shit, DX was one of the hottest angles ever in wrestling in 1998 and part of 1999, and all of them were mid-carders (at the time). Basically, that sums up my view on why I liked 1998-1999 compared to now. Sure, the actual wrestling mostly blew ass, but WWE isn't a wrestling company anymore really; they make their bank on entertainment. In the Attitude Era, there was a lot less fodder on the shows and barely any throw-away stuff compared to now. Every person had their part on the show and their characters, who they were, and what they were about were clearly distinguished, no matter how goofy it may have been. At least it was there.

What may be huge good news for the company would be if the Great American Bash numbers come in as tracking. We heard preliminary estimates for the show at 250,000 to 275,000 buys, which would be a rare buy rate that shocked the hell out of me, as I was expecting more like 185,000. WWE will be releasing the number over the next week. If they can hit 250,000 buys on Vengeance as well, it almost guarantees them pushing more PPV shows in 2005. JBL would be thrilled as well, since he'd have gone way up for a rematch, and on WWE PPV shows, usually the rematch, unless it's got a heavy stipulation, goes down from the first one. Hulk Hogan was clearly angling for another comeback on "Best Damn Sports Show Period" on 7/9. The subject of Vince McMahon came up and Hogan played perfectly to Vince's ego, talking about how Vince was both a good business man and a legit tough street fighter (sometimes I really admire how clever Hogan is at this game because that's the perfect thing to say and who else would have thought of it?). He told a story about being at some convention and Vince beat somebody up. How perfect. The hosts were ripping on Vince as being disrespectful to Hogan by not bringing him back and Hogan said he'd consider coming back. Hogan claimed he had never been contacted about being in the Hall of Fame. Well, I doubt they'll get to work on that until February. He talked about being interested in one last comeback, and then, as Hogan would do, said maybe he'd do it with Ted Turner. Not sure if Vince would fall for that one since he didn’t bite when Hogan played the Jarrett card, and Jarrett at least had a company going, and it would be impossible for Turner to even start getting serious about even thinking about wrestling without Vince knowing. Nothing is impossible, but at Turner's age, but when he discussed with his closest confidant in wrestling getting into wrestling maybe two years back, it never got past the first day of discussion because of the start-up costs involved. Turner was interested, but was told it would cost him $50 million just to get something off the ground that could be competitive, and with Turner's personal wealth down with the AOL Time Warner disastrous money losses and stock decline, he decided against it at the time. In addition, when Jeff Jarrett had a meeting at Turner with Bill Shaw to get funding for TNA, they at that point also turned down the idea of getting back into wrestling. The Rock was in the audience (or possibly, they showed a tape of Rock waving to give the illusion he was in the audience, since BDSSP tapes guys when they appear doing the wave and splices them in to do this from time to time). Hogan cut a wrestling promo on him, saying he beat up Rock, ran him over with a semi, and beat up Rock's father (did they ever wrestle?), but then said that he and Rock were tight. He brought out daughter Brooke and said that Playboy was interested in her. He also talked about running for the Presidency in 1998 (another of those fake retirements to play off Ventura winning the Governor's election in Minnesota) and claimed there was a poll that showed he'd beat Clinton, but said he was talked out of it by his son, saying his son was afraid he'd be shot. He looked smaller than before, but he's got no reason to be big right now, still physically looked in shape and muscular, but his face looked older than ever. He did his poses and got a big reaction, and they talked about him being the most recognizable figure in wrestling history. Hogan is also trying to offer himself as a guest to other major talk shows to parlay it into an opportunity for his daughter (most of his current focus is geared toward making her the next Britney Spears) to sing on those shows. I believe he's got Jay Leno and Regis booked soon. VH-1 is doing a special called "Inside Out" on the two of them, which is set to debut on 7/29. Hogan and Bill Goldberg were both at the big autograph signing put together by XTRA on 7/11 at the Anaheim Pond. The show itself was something of a bomb, as they had all those celebrities from Donald Trump to Steve Garvey to Magic Johnson, and drew less than 6,000, and that was with a lot of late comps. Hogan's daughter sang the national anthem and her single. Hogan first talked about the value of staying in school, and introduced both Mr. T and Goldberg. He called Goldberg the man who will dominate wrestling for the next ten years. That was funny. Steve Austin was supposed to be there, but didn’t show up, which adds to the stories from several who know him that he's broken contact with almost everyone. Even Goldberg, who was his closest friend just a few weeks back, hasn’t heard from him in weeks. Everyone there praised Hogan, Goldberg, and Mr. T. Pete Rose was there, and let's just say people didn’t leave with a good impression of him. The current U.S. title plan is that they will somehow crown a new champion over the next few weeks. Then John Cena will show up with his own U.S. belt, claiming to be the real champion, setting up a match, probably at SummerSlam to unify the belts, a classic replication of the angle that set up the legendary ladder match between Shawn Michaels and Razor Ramon at WM10. Mick Foley ended up getting knee surgery after all on 7/7. The surgery went well and he did a public appearance on 7/10 at a Class A minor league baseball game near Poughkeepsie, on crutches, where he threw out the first pitch. The story that Foley hasn’t talked with anyone in the company of late because of the Flair book isn’t the case, as he's had contact with the company this past week. Gail Kim is out of action because she needs one of her relatively new implants repaired because it was leaking, which I believe was an injury from a match last week. A lot of wrestling women, and I can recall Chyna, Sable, Tammy Sytch, and Missy Hyatt off the top of my head who have had problems with implants puncturing or leaking. Several people have noted to us that Tivo users can pad extra time after the show ends so seeing all of Raw isn’t a problem. The TV schedule, which Tivo uses, has Raw ending at 11:05 p.m., and usually it ends three minutes later, but you can schedule it for 20 minutes later and it all works out. Bobbi Billard, the former model in developmental who caused a lot of controversy, is looking at getting neck surgery from her injuries in OVW, possibly having two vertebrae fused and she says she has two fingers numb and one of her triceps is totally dead from neck problems. Ric Flair was all over the place this past week plugging the book. He was on Fox & Friends, and when the question of steroids was brought up, he said he did them to enhance his appearance, and not to enhance his ring performance. He also said they do make you more prone to injuries. Kevin Fertig, since dropping the Mordecai gimmick, has been told to change his look. He now has short spiked hair. Kurt Angle was the subject of a full page article in the 7/8 Melbourne (Australia) Herald Sun. The story was about the deaths of his older sister, his father, and David Schultz. He said he was injecting Novocain directly into his neck in 1996 during the U.S. Olympic trials. On his decision to join the WWF, he said, "The reaction I got from coaches, peers and the fans was very negative. I was considered a leader, an ambassador...I was the best wrestler in my weight class in the world and the best in America, period." Angle said he believed he's done more for amateur wrestling being in the WWE than from winning the Olympics because of the far greater weekly television exposure. He said his goal is to be like The Rock and become an actor, but that he loved pro wrestling and wouldn't want to leave it. He said he wants to keep WWE as his prime focus. Just when I thought TNA got the award on 7/7 for the most unintentionally hilarious line of" the year, the PPV line where Larry Zbyszko talked about how he supports Vince Russo because Russo stands up for wrestling tradition, came an even better line the next day in an AP story on the Diva Search. "It's easy to go lowbrow," said Kevin Dunn. "That's not where we're going with our product in general or this search. We'll be fighting our image for 50 years, because there's 50 years (of tradition) before us, and we understand that." Yep, there’s nothing lowbrow about the current product. There’s nothing lowbrow about what they're looking for, even though the contestants with experience posing nude seemed to have the best chance to make it. Nothing lowbrow about whatever it is they are doing with the special this week involving Fabulous Moolah and Mae Young. Among those in the final 28 are 1998 Playboy Playmate of the year Karen McDougall, who admitting having no interest in wrestling; 2004 Playmate of the year Carmella DeCesare, Julia & Chandra Costello, the "juggy dancers" from "The Man Show, Amy Weber, a model for guys magazines and Yesenia "Jessie" Camacho from "Survivor: Africa." There were a few others with acting credentials. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but Dunn's quote is priceless considering they picked several strippers and nude magazine models. The 10/3 No Mercy Raw brand PPV will be at the MCI Center in Washington, DC. The 10/19 special Tuesday night Raw PPV will be from the Bradley Center in Milwaukee. The HHH fitness and bodybuilding book will be written by Robert Caprio. Mark Madden was pushing to get that slot. The OVW 6/18 show at Six Flags headlined by Kane vs. Matt Morgan drew 1,250 fans, which was the best of their three shows this year, meaning Kane as top attraction outdrew Chris Benoit and Mick Foley. Akio & Sakoda were demoted to OVW, but nobody knows it because they haven’t been around much, and probably won't be. Sakoda has been nursing a bad back injury, but WWE still uses him when needed. Jimmy Yang just hasn’t been around at all even though he's supposed to be, and he lives in Cincinnati, which isn’t that far from Louisville. He finally appeared on the 6/30 show, but then no-showed on 7/7, claiming the airlines lost his gear (although the fact he was in Cincinnati and not Louisville made that one tough). Remember the story from a few weeks ago about the well respected soap opera writer who was interviewed regarding being added to the writing team and being in charge of continuity of the stories among other things, who knew nothing about wrestling? Well, as could only be predicted, his name is Tom Childress, and he was offered the job. They wanted him to move to Stamford and he has a family, so as of mid-week, he had not accepted the offer. One of the things he noted is that the previous people in the position haven’t had a lot of longevity. One of them was Paul Guay, who was a lifelong wrestling fan and is best known for being one of the writers of the movie, "Liar, Liar," with Jim Carrey. The WWE's Canadian phobia is even more perplexing after the coverage the two shows last week in Winnipeg got. While a Raw or Smackdown taping can often get one preview story in a local newspaper, but usually nothing in the top five markets in the U.S., and in a smaller market, maybe even a follow-up story, the same show in any Canadian city is treated like a major media event. The WWE took the Edmonton home town from Chris Benoit, then sent him back, and the Backlash PPV, due to Benoit, got more local publicity than any PPV, including Mania in New York, will get this year. Due to Chris Jericho, which WWE took his Edmonton home town away from, Winnipeg got probably triple the amount of local coverage as any city that Raw and/or Smackdown have run in this year. The Winnipeg Sun ran page two story on the two shows as well as a second story on the Smackdown tapings, both with photos. The other local paper, the Winnipeg Free Press, had a columnist cover Smackdown on Wednesday. The Free Press on Tuesday had a front page story on Jericho, including a huge photo of him with his son when he was awarded, and a huge story covering Raw blow-by-blow. The Sun on Tuesday had nearly the entire front page be a large photo of Jericho, plus all of page two was devoted to a Jericho story, and the lead story on the front page of the sports section was on Raw with a huge banner headline that read "Jericho falls short" and a nearly half page color photo on the front page of the sports section with Jericho giving Orton an enzuigiri. There was even a debate started in the paper (by Don Callis, who wrote one of the many preview stories) over whether Jericho was the most famous world-wide entertainer from Winnipeg (the other candidates would be "Let's Make a Deal" host Monty Hall and Vegas magician Burton Cummings. Test saw Dr. Lloyd Youngblood this past week and it was recommended he get neck fusion surgery, so he'll be out for a year plus. Test can consider himself lucky, because he was on the verge of being fired, and WWE won’t fire anyone who’s injured. Spike TV is No. 21 right now in the prime time cable ratings, with a 0.75 average rating as of last week. That means Velocity in prime time is doing way below the station average, and Heat is only doing the station average. If you take Raw out of the mix, the station average would only be 0.44, so you can see why they would be so strong on wanting to renew. TNT, Nickelodeon, and USA are the big three. Edge was doing promotional work for Vengeance in England on 7/8 and was on the talkSPORT Jim Whale show. Edge said all the injuries have forced the company to go away from the previous "more is better" attitude. When asked about problems with painkillers due to the injuries, Edge said the current wrestlers weren't going to follow in the direction of the previous generation. He said he would never do another TLC match because his neck couldn't handle it. He admitted Christian wasn’t his brother, but said it was possible they may team up again at some point. He said his favorite wrestlers growing up were Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, and Bret Hart, and the guys he most likes wrestling now are Christian, RVD, Randy Orton, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit. He said his career highlights were his first IC title win, which wasn't planned until the day of the show, at a house show in Toronto at Skydome, his first tag title win with Christian, his 2001 King of the Ring win, and his matches with Kurt Angle. When asked if he could wrestle any one person, past or present, he said he'd like to do a one hour match with Bret Hart. When asked about working as a heel in Manchester, he said he had to do it because Ric Flair was cheered so much, and said it was easier to be a bad guy. He called Flair the "Babe Ruth" of wrestling. When asked if web sites giving away Smackdown spoilers was right, he said that the industry has changed and people who were big enough fans to read spoilers are likely watching the show anyway. He said from a style standpoint, he's doing less flying, and said you shouldn't come off the top rope without a good reason. When asked if any wrestlers were smelly, he answered Vader. He said his autobiography was coming out in November, and hinted at a future program with HHH. When asked about the planned program that fell through with Benoit, he said that would be great. He said his best matches were his bouts with Angle, a no DQ match with Guerrero, his TLC matches, and tag matches with Rey Mysterio vs. Benoit & Angle. He was asked about his surgery under Dr. Lloyd Youngblood as compared to Angle's under Dr. Hae-Dong Jho. He said at first he felt screwed having to be out for a year while Angle was back in two months. He said that he was told the surgery Angle had isn't advisable for people who land on their heads for a living, and now he thinks he took the right surgery, saying he's fine while Angle has had continued neck problems. In The Sun, he said he was bothered because to set up his injury last year, he was attacked by a mystery guy. When he came back, it was never acknowledged. He said Vince told him, "Let's just move on ad forget about it, because there have been so many guys out with injuries who've come back to get their attacker that it's been overdone." He disagreed saying it made no sense to do it that way and leave a hole in the storyline. He said that McMahon didn’t even want it to be acknowledged when he returned on television that he had even been injured. He thought the original storyline was that Benoit was meant to have been the mystery guy who laid out both he and Rhyno. He thinks his return could have helped Smackdown more than Raw, because he could have headlined with Guerrero and said without a doubt Raw is the stronger brand. He said Vince and the writers (read that HHH telling Stephanie) made the decision to send him to Raw. He said he can’t take anymore pile drivers, and is careful with DDT's and chair shots to the head. He said any move that compresses the spine is a no-no for him. He said he thought Val Venis, because he has neck problems, may be the next to need fusion surgery. When asked about the decision to have the babyfaces no longer announced from Canada, he said he personally thought it was silly and his happy he's still announced from Toronto. He said in the match in Dublin, when he wrestled Flair, the agents told them if the crowd goes for Flair, to turn heel and change the finish to Flair winning. He said Flair fought it tooth-and-nail. He said Flair was supposed to kick out of the spear and he was afraid Flair wasn't going to kick out. On Hulk Hogan, he said, "You hear horror stories, but Hulk Hogan lived up to all my expectations. He was a super guy and accepted me as his peer. He put the ball in my hands, trusted me to do it, and even called me his son!" He said they bump into teach other (since both live in Tampa and are hockey fans) fairly often and he introduces him to people as "my son Edge." He said his childhood goals were to team with Hogan, which he's done (and can even brag that he’s the only guy Hogan ever held a tag title with), and wrestle Flair, Hart (which he did at Hart's house), and Michaels (which he hasn’t done). He said he sometimes regrets he even did the TLC matches because they changed the industry, and not in a good way, and thinks in the long run they set the business back. He said he'd book a TLC as a once a year blow-off to a great feud, but not more than that, and one should never be put on free TV. Chuck Palumbo has had another make over, although it's not resulting in a push. He was on a Heat match this week with his hair back bleached blond like in the Billy & Chuck days (and boy has his career turfed since that gimmick ended), wearing khaki pants and a wifebeater). He then lost to Val Venis. They also revealed it was Steven Richards in drag that had been helping Victoria. The 6/13 PPV in Columbus, OH was originally booked in Louisville. What happened is that the new Governor insisted on upholding the letter of a 20-year-old law in regard to boxing and wrestling that had been waived routinely by the commission for years regarding taxes of a major event. The law gives the state the right to tax all revenue from any event held in Kentucky. That means, all PPV money, as well as television rights fees, garnered everywhere, is subject to 5% Kentucky state tax. WWE will still run house shows in Kentucky, but wont book any TV events or PPV events there until the law is officially repealed. The commission had waived the law for big shows forever, but the new governor refused to waive it any longer. There will be a bill introduced in the legislature, but it's doubtful it would pass anytime this year, to not tax TV revenue and PPV revenue from pro wrestling events. Kurt Angle actually broke ranks in a recent interview on Jeff Marek's mainstream radio show in Toronto. Angle talked about the writing not being up to par, and actually said, “How much can you see of HHH?” He came to the studio on crutches and basically said not to ask about why he's doing the crutches bit, which is of course, the office trying to have him keep with his storyline. Smackdown August house shows include JBL vs. Undertaker no DQ matches for the title, which means Undertaker will be doing house show jobs leading to SummerSlam. Billy Kidman & Paul London will be defending against Dudleys and the cruiserweight title will be in four-ways with Rey Mysterio, Chavo Guerrero, Jamie Noble, and Spike Dudley. The Dudleys were scolded by agents this past weekend for spending too much time yelling at the crowd as heels. They went back to a lot of the ECW stuff that they could get away with (obviously with cleaner language). Company policy is usually to not allow talent to work independents, but they did allow Rosey to work for Afa (well, it's family, and Afa is practically family to Vince) on 7/9 for a show in Allentown. Batista was also working the show, but was limited to doing a babyface run-in to end the show. Batista was originally trained by Afa. Actual paid for 6/28 Raw TV in Richmond was 5,000 and for 6/29 Smackdown TV in Fayetteville was 3,700, ironically, the same figures as our estimates. It was another terrible weekend for the house show business, actually even worse than last weekend, which was the worst weekend I can ever remember for the company. 7/10 Raw in Worcester drew 1,300 and $44,000. 7/10 Smackdown in Hampton Beach, NH drew 1,200 (about 200 shy of capacity) and $43,000 for the first show in that city since 1995. 7/11 Smackdown in Cohasset, MA drew 1,100 and $32,000. 7/12 Raw TV tapings in Manchester, NH drew an estimated 6,000. 7/12 Smackdown in Cape Cod drew an estimated 2,500, and it was either a sellout or very close. 7/13 Smackdown TV tapings in Providence drew an estimated 3,000, which is horrible for a Northeastern TV taping with a main event cage match that had been plugged for the past three weeks.

WWE VENGEANCE POLL RESULTS Thumbs up ------------------------- 153 votes (60.7%) Thumbs down ---------------------- 12 votes (4.8%) In the middle ----------------------- 87 votes (34.5%) Best Match Poll Randy Orton vs. Edge ------------------- 164 votes Chris Benoit vs. HHH --------------------- 73 votes Worst Match Poll Chris Jericho vs. Batista ----------------- 79 votes Molly Holly vs. Victoria ------------------- 53 votes Tajiri & Rhyno vs. Cade & Coachman - 52 votes Matt Hardy vs. Kane --------------------- 13 votes The final show of the WWE experiment of three PPV events in six weeks, the 7/11 Vengeance show from the Hartford Civic Center, was a two match show built around Chris Benoit vs. HHH for the World title, with Eugene in the middle, and Randy Orton vs. Edge for the IC title. Both matches were more than 25:00, and were strong bouts. Early indications are a lower than usual buy rate, most fans either happy or so-so with the event, and another disappointing live gate. The show drew about 7,000 fans, which was 6,000 paying $370,000, with much of the arena tarped off, and this was for a PPV event in the company's Northeastern home base, featuring its strong crew. The storyline made it evident that the world title would be decided upon by Eugene, who was being manipulated by HHH, as well as talked with by Benoit. The clear thing from the show is with Evolution dominating everything, combined with a babyface crew that either lacks cool charisma (Benoit and Edge) or has been positioned as not being tippy- top guys (Jericho and far more Matt Hardy), that Evolution is becoming the big babyfaces in the brand. It was evident when probably the biggest face reactions on the show were to Ric Flair and Orton, although Flair was put in a babyface position. It was a mixed night, largely with Evolution's losers winning and winners losing. HHH lost to Benoit when Eugene accidentally hit him with a chair Eugene was struggling with Benoit over in 29:04. Apparently HHH is now getting off on the idea of long matches, because the next night on television, it was pushed how he dominated Benoit for 28:00 before Eugene's screwing up cost him the match. It was a good main event, but between an over booked finish and too much Eugene, it was, if anything, a slight disappointment. Because Eugene got over so big the first time Rock did the angle with him, they've fooled themselves into thinking he's super over. But his response in recent weeks has been lukewarm, and he and HHH have become the focal point for the entire brand on television, even though he's a prelim act on the road. With HHH portrayed as the guy running the show, with the plan, who outsmarts the babyface at every turn, even though it didn’t work this time, he's about to become the most popular star on the brand. His rival is Orton, because Orton always cheats to win. Orton and Edge had an interesting mix, as the crowd was split, but vociferous for their favorites. Orton seemed to have the support of the guys, as the Edge cheers were distinctly feminine. The two worked an excellent match, with the crowd gradually shifting to Edge, and great near falls in the closing minutes, before Edge ended Orton's IC title reign that dated back to December 14, 2003, beating Rob Van Dam. The seven-month reign has been talked about as the longest run in seven years, although it really would be not quite that long. The last long reign was Rock, the guy they are grooming Orton to be the new version of, who was given the belt on December 8, 1997, when in reality, Steve Austin refused to do the job in the ring for him. Rock held it until August 30, 1998, when he lost the ladder match in Madison Square Garden to HHH, which was the night where it became obvious Rock was going to be a gigantic deal. In building Orton, who, like Rock on the night he lost the title, was heavily cheered, it's been both because Evolution are the coolest guys, but also because Orton has always foiled the babyface hope. The idea is to get him credibility with win after win since they are grooming him for a major program with HHH, probably at Wrestlemania. And as talked about many times, the fans don’t buy into Edge's current character at the level he's being pushed. Again, he's also being groomed for HHH, which is why characters on Raw, like Chris Benoit, get the more focused build-up instead of the "give up in a few weeks when it doesn’t click immediately" that has become a company trademark. The rest of the show was just filler, although Batista didn't help himself any, looking really green in his win over Chris Jericho. He looked like a guy who had no business at this level, but seemed to redeem himself the next night on Raw against Edge. A. Tyson Tomko (Travis Tomko) pinned Val Venis (Sean Morley) in 2:52 after a high kick. Nidia came out with Venis to counteract Trish Stratus. Tomko looked bad. So bad that Jim Ross actually pointed out after he'd blown some spots that he was a powerhouse, but that his wrestling was raw. After he delivered the high kick, he stopped, and seemed to be about to do another move when it hit him this was the finish. That was weird. After the match, he was stalking Nidia, but Maven came out and made the save. 1. Tajiri (Yoshihiro Tajiri) & Rhyno (Terry Gerin) beat Jonathan Coachman & Garrison Cade (Lance Cade) in 7:30 when Tajiri pinned Coachman after a high kick. Everyone looked fine in this match except Coachman, but he had more personality out there than the other three combined. Tajiri blew the mist at Cade. Rhyno went to gore Coachman, but he moved, allowing Cade to take it. Tajiri looked good and made the match. * 1/2 The HHH-Eugene show long storyline saw Eugene disappear. When HHH found him, he was talking to Benoit. Benoit was telling him HHH was using him. 2. Batista (David Bautista) pinned Chris Jericho (Chris Irvine) in 12:19 after a power bomb, even though Jericho got a foot on the ropes. Batista looked the worst he's looked in a long time. He was even worse than Tomko. Much of it was Batista dominating with power working off a full nelson. Jericho made a brief comeback late in the match. * 3. La Resistance retained the tag titles, beating Ric Flair (Richard Fleihr) & Eugene (Nick Dinsmore) via DQ in 12:30. Not much for wrestling, but it had its moments of campy entertainment. Flair & Eugene worked as babyfaces. Even though they had teased that they wouldn't get along, there were no signs of it during the match other than Flair being pissed because Eugene did all of his spots, including the face first flop. Flair came in, and was probably the most popular wrestler on the show, as he got a far bigger reaction than Eugene. He did a few trademark spots, and then sold a lot. They did the Au Revoir on Flair, but Eugene came in and went berserk, and threw down ref Mike Chioda for the DQ. He then gave a stunner to Grenier and a rock bottom to Conway, and then did the people's elbow to Conway. *3/4 The crowd heavily booed the promotional package of the Hardy-Kane-Lita soap opera. 4. Matt Hardy pinned Kane (Glen Jacobs) in 10:34. Hardy had to win, because nobody believed in him a lick. They worked how they should have, but considering how much time has been spent on this angle, it had little heat. Hardy hit Kane with the ring bell, and then hit a twist of fate, but Kane kicked out and sat up. Kane did a sloppy choke slam and then went to get the ring steps. Lita ran in to protect Hardy. Kane came into the ring with the steps but Hardy clocked the steps with a chair and Kane fell backwards and was pinned. **1/4 5. Edge (Adam Copeland) pinned Randy Orton to win the IC title in 26:36. A mixed reaction early, with lots of "Lets Go Orton" chants, which saw "Lets Go Edge" chants follow up from his fans. I thought this was an excellent match, with Orton showing the most poise and star charisma I’ve ever seen from him. Orton worked over Edge's neck for a long time. He did a long cranking chin lock. To some, it was a never ending rest hold, but to others it was working the neck using a unique angle. The timing in the spots was perfect. They got up and did one near fall after another, playing off all of Orton's previous cheating wins, and the crowd heat at the finish was excellent. At one point they traded hard elbow and forearm shots like they were in NOAH. Orton rolled through on a cross body for a near fall. Orton undid the turnbuckle padding. Edge used an implant DDT for a near fall. Orton dropped Edge on the exposed metal and used the ropes for a near fall. Place was popping huge for the near falls. Orton ended up being whipped into the exposed metal and was hit with a spear for the pin and title win. ****1/4 6. Victoria (Lisa-Marie Varon) pinned Molly Holly (Nora Greenwald) in 6:20 in a match where the winner would be next in line for a title shot at the injured Trish Stratus, possibly at SummerSlam. They had no chance whatsoever because of the previous match and just being in that spot on the card. They probably couldn't have done much better, as Holly always works well and Victoria looked great. She did a moonsault block and a plancha. She took a weird bump on the ring steps which made her selling her shoulder so believable. Holly worked on the shoulder. Because of this, Victoria couldn’t do her widow's peak, but still won with a super kick. **1/2 7. Chris Benoit pinned HHH (Paul Levesque) in 29:04 to keep the World title. Most of the match saw HHH work over Benoit's upper chest. They acted as if Benoit suffered a sternum injury by running fast chest first into the turnbuckles. HHH delivered what started as a vertical suplex, but kept dropping Benoit forward on his chest. As HHH was using an abdominal stretch, with the usual Wilbur Snyder reference, Jim Ross mentioned he didn't know if Benoit had ever submitted (wasn't that Kurt Angle match at Rumble just about the best company match of 2003?). Benoit blocked a pedigree into a sharpshooter, and held it a long time before HHH made the ropes. Benoit hit the three German suplex combinations and even did a tope. They had a ref bump here. HHH did a DDT. HHH told Eugene to come out. He did, but Benoit got the crossface and there was no ref. Benoit told Eugene to get the ref, but Eugene refused to do so. HHH was tapping of course. The ref stayed down forever, to the point to where it was stupid. Benoit decked Eugene as he tried to get into the ring. Crowd booed that. HHH used a low blow and pedigree, and Eugene then got the ref. Benoit kicked out. HHH told Eugene to get a chair. Eugene gave HHH a chair, but then stopped him from using it. HHH shoved Eugene off the apron to the floor. Eugene then got the chair and teased he was going to hit Benoit. He then stopped and teased he was going to hit HHH. He stopped again. Benoit and Eugene then struggled over the chair, until Benoit let go and Eugene pulled the chair away and accidentally hit HHH with it. Eugene started crying about screwing up and Benoit scored the pin with a schoolboy. ***3/4

WWE released former intercontinental champion and 2-time tag team champion Rikishi yesterday. Rikishi had been out of action with an ankle injury and there were those in the company that felt he wasn’t exactly hurrying to return as quickly as he could have due to the fact that he had a high downside guarantee and thus made just as much money not working as he would have working. There was also a recent incident where he appeared on an independent show, which I was told was not cleared with the office beforehand. I also know that the company had wanted him to lose some weight so that they could possibly change his gimmick, but he hadn’t done so. Talk of him being released as soon as he was cleared to wrestle, which he was about a week ago, has been going on for a while now. It has finally happened. credit: PWInsider

Remember how in ECW, Rob Van Dam used to point at himself and taunt after EVERY move he did? I think that's what happened here. I don't think the agents were telling the Dudleys to stop yelling at fans altogether, but the Duds were probably focused more here on getting heat than working the match.

Busted implant.

I've never actually seen him do that with PPV results before. First time for everything I guess or SD added it. He used to do it then quit. I just thought I'd add it since he used to do it and I personally liked it. But yeah, I goofed on Irwin--Irvine.

If they signed Jamal, they'll sign any reject.

Oh yeah, they'll also get "I don't want to be Buff anymore" Marcus Alexander Bagwell, an angle that was promptly followed up with absolutely nothing as he was never seen again.