Dobbs 3K

Yeah, that'll make WWE worth watching. The matches will still be bland, the storylines will be dumb, but Randy Orton's abs in high definition? I'm there! <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, it would make the divas a lot more interesting to watch, I suppose.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiaki_Kawada Stumbled upon this on Wikipedia...um, it's...interesting, to say the least.

Yes, exactly. It started with "At the age of 15, he discovered he was gay" or something like that. It was really bizarre. Then the next time I clicked it, everything had been fixed. Guess someone was being a prankster or something.

You know he's married, right?

I don't think Vader is actually coming back to wrestle, or even make any appearances in WWE necessarily. He did sign a Legends deal though (as evidenced by the action figure of him coming out soon). I would mark up if he showed up to wrestle someone, though I'm not really interested in seeing him show up just to do a quick job to someone, since he did enough of that in WWF.

Didn't Bundy wrestle in Japan a little bit in the late '80s. I'd swear I remember seeing him on a tape wrestling Antonio Inoki or someone like that.

Did Herb just make crap up out of thin air? Meltzer is usually right about 90% of the time...it seems like about 90% of the stuff Herb said never came close to being true.

Brutus Beefcake: I don't know why, but he was my first "favorite" wrestler when I got into wrestling for the first time around 1989. I liked the Barber gimmick I guess, and thought his whole look and sleeper hold finisher were cool. Owen Hart: He was my favorite for a long time, up until he died. It's too bad he was never able to break into the upper echelon before he passed away. Bobby Eaton: I liked him even in his later years in WCW when he was used as a JTTS. Just something about this kind of everyday guy going out there and just trying to do his best that was appealing. Plus he can still work. Ron Reis/Studd: If you don't remember him, he was in WCW from about 1998 on, and had a stint in Raven's Flock. He always seemed like he was fairly talented for a big guy. He had a solid but short-lived tag team with John Tenta that was kind of fun to watch, too. Bart Gunn: I liked the New Midnight Express tag team, and always found Bart less annoying than Billy. I thought the WWF could have done a whole lot more with him after his win over Dr. Death in the "Brawl for All."

Yeah, same one from ECW and WCW. I never really saw him in either...we didn't get ECW around here at that time, and by the time he got to WCW I wasn't watching much because the booking was so terrible. But yeah, in that match against Richards, he looked pretty impressive...like Tyson Tomko, but with talent. He has a cool finisher (the implant DDT, ala Gangrel), and those crossface punches looked pretty brutal. I hope they give him more exposure.

I've followed Scott Keith a long time, ever since his old "Scott-Land" website when he was still posting as "Netcop" on RSPW...I've always thought his rants were pretty good. I never understood why some people hate him so much. If you don't agree with his opinions, don't read it. It's not rocket science... Anyway, it's been obvious over the last year or two that he doesn't enjoy recapping the shows anymore. I think it will be good for him not to put the effort into it, at least for a while. I probably won't bother reading his other rants though, since I've never really been that interested in reading someone's opinions on a DVD set, for example.

Yes...he's a hoss. A real blue-chipper.

One of my favorites was any time Undertaker would make his entrance and the lights would go out...Heenan would always make a funny line like "Who's touching me???" or "Where'd my wallet go?"

I'd rather see a new version of Team Angle right now then another version of the Four Horsemen that is going to be inferior to all the old groups anyway. I really doubt even Ric Flair wants to bring them back at this point.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree, the wrestlers sometimes really do not react to the crowds at all. If the fans are showing that they don't like how a match is going, the wrestlers should be professional enough to change the pace of the match.

Yeah, RAW's theme is horribly stale. It seems like such a hold over from the "Attitude Era", which they should be over with by now. I personally think Smackdown's it OK for right now (though it might not be bad to change it when they move to Fridays).

Yeah, I liked when WCW would use the raise entrance way on Clash of the Champions...it just makes the matches feel more important, having the wrestlers walk out straight to the ring. Plus, it was always cool seeing guys brawl or do high spots onto the entrance ramp.

Yeah, I know, I was being slightly ironic there. Lesnar would be over huge if he came back. I think, while Lesnar did get crammed down our throats upon his debut, he would have gotten over either way...I mean, it's not hard to get a reaction from the crowd when you can lift someone like Big Show on your shoulders, and wrestle like Kurt Angle at the same time...

Um, what?

I agree with a lot of what you said, but I'll add a few of my own: - Make a "trade" where Jim Ross goes to Smackdown and Michael Cole goes to RAW. Granted, would probably never happen, but would freshen both shows a lot. I really think a JR/Tazz combo would be effective, though. - Re-do RAW's set...it's basically been the same since 1999 or so...yeah, it's been changed a little here and there, but it's basically the same stale set. I'd get rid of the entrance ramp, like theInsane suggested. Keep the Titantron, move the announcers back down to ringside. Maybe change the lighting setup or something. - Run-ins need to be more realistic...no more having a guy's music and video come up when they run in during a match. - No more (or very limited) backstage segments. Everything should happen in front of the crowd. Do interview segments at ringside. All angles should happen in the arena in front of the crowd. No more locker room angles that don't make any sense since (for instance) a camera man would have no reason to tape Teddy Long talking on his cell phone, etc. - I don't think the tag titles should be unified, since both shows realistically need to still have tag matches to fill up shows...however, I would start packaging together midcarders who aren't doing much into teams. They are starting this with the apparent Viscera/Val Venis team, but there are a lot of other guys not doing much who would benefit from this. The New LOD on Smackdown is fine right now, since they have some credibility as two tough guys who have a reason to be together, but there should be a bunch of teams other than MNM trying to take the belts off them. Hurricane and Rosey have been booked so badly lately that they should lose the belts ASAP. I would band together two upper-midcard heels to get the belts off them (maybe Tomko and Conway, as hass been suggested), and then start having face teams come after them. - Bring back King of the Ring...when booked properly, it can do a lot to elevate a midcarder into the upper card. Look back at what it did for guys like Kurt Angle, Owen Hart, and Triple H. Have it be a one night 8 man tournament like in the old days (qualifiers would still be on the tv shows). - Get rid of having GMs, commisioners, presidents, etc. This is just a huge booking crutch that the writers need to get away from. Bischoff should either be promoted to "WWE President" or demoted to a manager position by Vince. Making him president (as has been suggested previously on this board), would limit his screen time a lot, and he could make appearances only to announce big title matches, render decisions, etc. Make him more impartial (like he was when he started as RAW's GM...making matches with the most appeal to benefit the show). No more GMs trying to screw over the faces just for the sake of being assholes...this isn't 1998 anymore. Teddy Long I think could stay as Smackdown GM for a while, but I still think WWE needs to get away from the whole figurehead driving the show mentality. - Make title matches mean something. I like the idea of the boxing style announcements for title matches...they toyed around with this around 2001, doing it with Benoit vs Austin on RAW once. I think it would add a lot of importance to title matches, something that has been lost quite a bit. - Bring back managers, valets. Guys like Tyson Tomko would have been instantly packaged with a heel mouth-piece back in the day. There aren't too many good managers out there anymore, but maybe they could start creating some in OVW and bringing them up slowly. Turn some of the "divas" into valets (and that doesn't mean they have to be dating the guy in the storyline or something). - Give every guy on the show some kind of storyline or motivation. This was one thing Vince Russo was good at, despite his faults. Everyone from Steve Austin down to Gillberg had some kind of angle, feud, or storyline going. - Bring stables/gangs back. Since Evolution is gone on RAW, there aren't any real groups going right now. The Cabinet is basically nothing on Smackdown at this point. I think we need to see one of the upper heels on one of the shows (Kurt Angle would be perfect, since they are moving him back into the main event picture) get together with two or three mid card heels and really establish themselves as a threat to the show. You could have the group dominate for a while, then finally have a group of faces band together, and have a big blowoff in a gimmick match (Wargames would be perfect if they can bring it back). And it would draw money, too. - Give the fans what they want. Push guys who the crowd likes. There's no reason someone like RVD shouldn't be in the main event by now, based on the crowd reactions he gets. WWE tries to force feed guys to the fans, and it usually backfires on them. Guys like Austin and Rock got over because the crowd liked their natural personalities and started giving them massive pops, not because the announcers told us every five seconds that they were the "next big thing". - Bring back Brock Lesnar. Accept the fact that he made a mistake and put WWE in a bad position when he left. I'm sorry, but WWE needs a big name to come in right now and spark things a bit, and Lesnar would be perfect...he has huge credibility, and is still young and can work. Opportunities like that don't come around too often. Whew...that's about all I can think of right now. Essentially, and this ties into pretty much all my suggestions...WWE needs to re-invent itself again. They need to get out of the "1998 Monday Night Wars" mentality and into a "2005, we're the biggest wrestling promotion on the planet and we need to act like it" mentality.

You guys are forgetting some: - High Voltage - Well Dunn - Techno Team 2000 - The Oddities - The Bushwhackers - The New Breed - DOA - The Colossal Kongs - The American Males No tournament can be complete with those teams.

Um...would having a video game made actually cost TNA anything? If a company is interested, they would pay a licensing fee to TNA, I would assume...and then TNA would get a cut of all profits made by the video game. I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I don't think it's going to be a scenario where TNA is paying some company money to make the game. There's got to be plenty of video game companies looking for new licenses to make games with...

The problem is RAW doesn't have a big babyface star on top right now. There is no Rock or Austin. John Cena is the closest thing to that right now, but he's nowhere close to their league in terms of mainstream crossover popularity.

One other thing to add about Malenko winning...I don't believe Austin had yet been WWF Champion at that point...he had the IC title run, but that wasn't that huge or anything. Malenko had about four title runs that year, IIRC...US, Cruiserweight, I think he held the TV title...Bret Hart and Hulk Hogan had both been sporadic in their defenses, so I believe that was one of the other main reasons Malenko won that year...he had the most accomplishments and most defenses in a US ring.

ICP sucks...apparently they run their own wrestling shows pretty well, but I'm not interested in seeing them in TNA or anywhere else. Ultimo Dragon would be cool...I was a mark for him when he made his run in WCW...it's too bad WWE wasted him so much. I think it would be a good time now for TNA to bring him in though, since it would add some more legitimacy to their X Division by having a recognizable name who's not primarily known from ROH or other US indys.

Jarrett will always find work in wrestling...he's a former WCW and NWA World Champion...there will always be someone who wants to bring him in, thinking he'll be a draw. I agree with the comments that he has too much of a late-era WCW guy about him to be any kind of real draw, though. I think Vince learned his lesson with him, and won't ever bring him back to WWE, though.