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They're going to need some talent, especially if they get on TV: The guys with some name value TNA should grab are: - RVD: Too obvious. Carried ECW. Loyal fanbase, good worker, a draw. Would be the opening salvo in a promotional war. Gives TNA main event scene credibility - DDP: Former WCW champ, not a bad worker, willing to do jobs and put guys over. Gives TNA more cred. - Sean O'Haire: Was pushed by WCW as the next big thing... not really hurt by WWE stint. Great look and some cool moves for a man his size. Obviously, Kanyon, Spanky, and any indy guy who can go in the ring are no-brainers.

Did you forget when WCW and WWF both ran a PPV a month? They did pretty well. ECW even did fairly well on PPV.

Vince a lot of times books stuff for his own amusement instead of what's best for business. This may be another one if the vignettes are as bad as they could be. It sounds like it's going okay at the House Shows, but he's just doing a random zany guy there. I assume it will be much much worse on Raw.

I can't believe this?? Is it so important that Patterson's Sex Toy has someone to carry his no-talent dead weight ass around that they can't team Conway and Dinsmore? Better yet, why not get Conway/Dinsmore and the Bashams on the same show so they can have **** matches like they did in OVW? Oh, I forgot, WWE is overflowing with so many quality tag teams that they don't need any more.

You nailed it, it's grounded in reality and he's dialing up his philosophy and beliefs up on the dial as part of it. It's not just a corporate character, it's a guy who sold out from being a common man to a corporate jerk. Not just any corporate jerk, but an opportunist who will lie to you and screw you over if it means he'll make an extra buck. The country boy selling out to the city is also a big piece of it. He had a great justification, he wasn't getting ahead by being a nice guy and having fun. It was a plausible extension of the Bradshaw character that made it a lot deeper and more interesting, and that's why it works. It wasn't just them giving Bradshaw an Iraqi flag, there's multiple reasons to hate him, both in reality and in the kayfabe world. It doesn't hurt that he's got Bush's smirk down, either. His character toes a fine enough line to remind Democrats of Bush (and thereby getting heel heat), while seeming to parody Bush (getting heat from Republicans).

- The "Austin gets Fired as GM" package was great. I *love* the stock music in that (They used it for the WM's greatest matches special for the beginning of Bret v.s. HBK) - WM 12 Ironman promos - Summerslam 2000 replay promo with the highlights of the first TLC + the huge Shane bump + Kane getting unmasked + Angle kissing Steph. Awesome highlights. - Any ECW "November Rain" package - WWE History "Lonely Road of Faith" package ----------------------- Net Videos: Puroresu Tribute to "Dream On" by Aerosmith Nick Mondo tribute video Both those rival any WWE video packages.

Those are pretty good numbers... Brock needs to get his 40 time down but everything else is money. I'm pretty sure Brock was listed at 6-4 as a wrestler at Minnesota, so he's not much shorter than that. Anyone who says Brock isn't big enough to be a NFL DE is smoking something... he'd have to drop about 20 lbs at least to get to linebacker weight, probably 30. He's certainly strong enough to be a DE and he knows how to take people down. If I were him and serious about it, if he gets cut he could get on in the CFL or Arena leagues for a year, and then retry in another year.

Gotta be Dreamer, IMHO... remember, he's training guys in OVW right now and would have the time to write out something like this... most of the other guys don't with the travel schedule. This was sent on Sunday Night/Monday Morning I doubt anyone's going to be sitting backstage getting ready for Raw typing this up. Or on the plane next to someone... or in a room (and many of these guys probably share rooms).

The only guys in OVW who are really ready are Nick Dinsmore, Nova, and Johnny Jeter. Out of that group, I'd only project Jeter as the one with a chance to get above the midcard. They've milked OVW dry by bringing up people too early and it'll be a year or so before the next crop of guys is ready. Most of the rest of the roster has been buried beyond repair, and now Taker will be back to squash everyone on Smackdown.

Raw: Main Eventers HHH (going to do movies, gets injured like crazy because of the roids) Michaels (has bad back) Benoit (has bad neck, buried by HHH) Jericho: (could main event; HHH unsuccessful at completely burying him) Kane (stopgap main eventer) Part-time Wonders: Foley/Rock (once-a-year guys at best) Steve Austin (one more match?) Leaving: Goldberg (not resigned) --- Upper Midcard Orton (not a draw yet, finally getting somewhat over... might get over if he's cut away from HHH?) Booker T (buried, retiring soon) RVD (buried, contract up in July) Batista (poor worker, steroid monster) Christian (buried more or less) Flair (bad neck may force retirement, hurt, buried as a legit threat) --- Buried Matt Hardy, Storm, Venis, Dudleys, etc. (a huge dropoff, in other words) Smackdown: Main Eventers: Eddy Guerrero John Cena Angle (bad neck, may need time off) Taker (old, should retire soon) Edge (bad neck) Big Slow (bad knees) Leaving: Lesnar --- Upper Midcard Rey Misterio (too small to main event regularly, bad knees) Chavo Guerrero Bob Holly (lol) A-Train (half-buried) Rhyno (buried, but has a prayer) --- Buried Bradshaw (another big dropoff), Rikishi What's scarier than the main eventer/upper midcarder people is how much of a disaster the rest of the midcard is... a total wasteland.

Has to be Eddie by a landslide. He's moved up from lower midcarder to a drawing, long-term main eventer. Benoit's went from upper midcarder to a short-term main eventer.

I thought that was Mark Henry, or did they do that shit twice? Both Henry and Show got sent to OVW to lose weight. Some folks on the net used to call it a "Fat Farm" for a while after that.

I would run an ECW TV taping every three weeks or so, and have these guys on the Raw/Smackdown tour. Some of this group of talent would also still would work Heat/Velocity to fill out the gaps. From Raw: Al Snow (wrestles some and does commentary with either Heyman or Joey Styles) Buh-Buh Dudley D-Von Dudley Lance Storm Rico RVD (flagship star) Spike Dudley Stevie Richards Tommy Dreamer Val Venis Random Diva From Smackdown: Akio Dawn Marie Jamie Noble Matt Morgan (the new 911) Nunzio Paul Heyman Paul London Rhyno Shannon Moore Tajiri Ultimo Dragon From OVW: Carlos Colon Nick Dinsmore Nova Johnny Jeter (future star here) Alexis Laree Joey Matthews That's a pretty decent roster. I'd bring in a few indy guys to polish things off, like Low-Ki, Ted Hart, Sabu, Jerry Lynn, Juvy. OVW guys would be brought up to fill out the lost Raw/Smackdown roster spots. I'd move the CW title to ECW, then move Hurricane back over to Smackdown to give another smallish guy for Rey/Chavo to work with. I'd have ECW be sort of a freelancer promotion that had a "talent exchange" deal with both Raw/Smackdown (which is why the ECW guys can work Heat/Velocity), so Benoit/Jericho/Eddy/Rey could occasionally work an ECW taping in return and have good matches to put some guys over. I'd have Foley work the first ECW PPV to add some drawing power.

Then you're taping it in front of a crowd of 100 people in Louisville and you're going to have people messing with Cornette's booking, no thanks. The reason OVW works is that people who aren't ready to be on national TV get match time, and that the guys train in one location without having to fly/drive around.

This link will take you to the Dalnet #wwe chatroom where we're providing a live audio feed of the Royal Rumble and Play by Play of all the action. We'll start with Heat at 7 PM EST. You can also get here by downloading mIRC at www.mirc.com and /server mesra.dal.net and /j #wwe. Here's the link Audio and Rumble PBP Make sure to click on "Grant This Session", enter your nickname, and enjoy the PBP!

Yes, I get their Weekly TV (I live around Louisville). It's been great lately. The wrestling isn't awesome all-around or anything, but there are some good matches and Cornette's booking is really amazing. It's smart and treats the fans with intelligence (i.e., no magic cameras that the wrestlers don't see backstage, etc.) There's some great angles going on too. Cornette is the best in the business announcing the matches now, IMHO (now that JR is a self-parody).

IMHO, OVW is the best it has ever been. - Nick Dinsmore is an unbelievable worker - Johnny Jeter is getting insanely good and is going to be a big star. - Mark Magnus has great charisma and his wrestling is coming around - Nova is great - Chris Cage is good with the potential to be great - Tank Toland is good - Seth Skyfire is really good for being a newbie - Mike Mondo is really good for being a newbie - Carlos Colon is pretty good - TE 3 kids are getting pretty good - "Inspector Impact" is a big hoss-type guy with fantastic mic skills, but he hasn't wrestled yet. - Alexis Laree is great and Nikita is a good diva There's no hosses to stink up the joint anymore. Vince just needs to face the facts that Hosses aren't the future of wrestling anymore.

I'd *LOVE* to see... #2 Angle That would make the opening minutes of the Rumble decidedly not boring. Flair #2 would own too, or in the unlikely event HBK isn't fighting HHH at the Rumble, that would be a good choice as well. Not a hoss, but a great worker will get #2.

They can't book buildings around the country because they don't have TV! ROH can pull it off because they sell DVDs of every show and have a lot cheaper budget than TNA would. TNA could probably only draw 1000 people doing a house show and with transportation costs, etc would be losing money. They would probably be able to make money in Philly maybe, but that's about it. The point of going on National TV is increasing your PPV buys and giving you an opportunity to have House Shows which will bring in revenue. Back to the timeslot, another strength of the rumored 10 am timeslot is: It won't be preempted for Sports (WGN shows the Cubs, White Sox, and Bulls, along with a bit of College Hoop), nor WB programming in the Chicago Area (WGN is a broadcast station in Chicago as a WB affiliate).

I'm assuming they're keeping all their ad money from this, so they're going to make a bit of that $50,000 back (i.e., it's like a paid program). WGN may also run an insane amount of ads for the show. If the ratings are good (and they will be, by WGN standards for sure, and likely by Cable standards), I would bet the two would restructure things. If they can double their average buys with this, it's worth it. Of course, they're going to have to get their PPV product back up to the level it was before the 1-cent show first to have a shot at consistantly doing that. It's a great move and they could turn into a Flagship show for WGN. It would cost a lot more to get on any other national network, and they've also kept their flexibility to "move up".

"Jeff Jarrett told the wrestlers backstage today that the "Bound for Glory" PPV that was originally scheduled for February will be moved to May or June. Hulk Hogan once again would not commit to any dates, and his knee legitimately is in bad shape right now. While nobody said anything about this publicly, TNA officials had been expecting this to happen for at least a week. On the television show tonight, Mike Tenay announced that Hogan's knee has not responded to treatment and that he is not taking any foreign or domestic dates. He is also off the 1/4 show at the Tokyo Dome." Well, looks like Hogan wants the WM XX payday, reading between the lines. WrestlingObserver.com

WGN is the best option for any wrestling fed wanting to get a cable deal. They're available nearly nationwide and have hardly any original programming at all anymore.

Screw Flair/Taker. The rest is a good start. Flair's got enough material for at least 2 more 3-disc DVDs. Off the top of my head, Flair/Benoit from WCW, Flair v.s. Bret from WWF (if they've got an Ironman match in the vault somewhere, great, if not they have one with "Real World's CHamp" Flair v.s. IC Champ Bret), Flair v.s. HBK from this year, Flair/HBK v.s. Bret/Savage. Also Flair/Hogan from Nitro when Flair finally pins Hogan just for kicks. You have to have the Flair return to Nitro in Greensboro on the next set as well. Also a lot more vintage 4 Horsemen stuff.... throw a Wargames match on there. That's not even counting all the tag matches, older footage, etc. The well is really far from being run dry when you're talking about Ric Flair.

John Heidenreich is seriously *really* bad... as bad as Nathan Jones. As far as OVW guys being vanilla, that's the function of the gimmicks WWE gives them. A lot of the OVW guys had great gimmicks playing to their strengths and WWE just pitches them. - Batista: In OVW unstoppable "Demon of the Deep" Leviathan (bald, wore lifts in his boots, chains around his neck, destroyed everyone)... brought in as D-Von's "sidekick", jobbed out. Retooled as part of Evolution and finally sees success once he's allowed to act like his "Leviathan" gimmick in the past couple weeks. #1 heel in OVW and later #1 face just before leaving. - John Cena: OVW cocky heel ala Jericho (was Rico's "sidekick" for a bit). Brought in as vanilla face on Smackdown and took months to turn heel. Finally caught on by making the most of freestyle rap gimmick once he got promo time. #1 heel in OVW. Part of Bolin Services - The Bashams: 2 out of the original OVW 4 wrestlers trained by Danny Davis. Doug was the main man in pre-WWE OVW and then left for a couple years to work in the real world, I believe. Damaja (Danny Basham) was one of the main guys alongside Conway and Dinsmore and did sort of a poor man's Steve Austin gimmick (loner, rebel, etc). Finally, some random jobber wrestlers come and try and take out first Dinsmore, then later Conway and Damaja. About two or three of them formed a stable and eventually a masked man appeared out of the shadows (The Machine) to lead the stable and he explained he put a bounty on all those guys. These guys formed a stable called "The Revolution", Machine (who had superstar wrestling ability and mic skills) took the OVW Title and held it for a few months until he was unmasked as Doug Basham (who also happens to be OVW Owner Danny Davis's nephew). His gimmick was that he was super-bitter about guys like Dinsmore and Conway getting WWE developmental deals and OVW being successful without him around. Around this point, Damaja turned heel and the two and some others ran roughshod over OVW, eventually adding Kanyon, Jackie Gayda, "Queen" Victoria. It just basically ruled the school and was a 4 Horseman-like stable. Since none of the above are doing anything at this point, it would be easy to reform the group in WWE as a "triad" to rule the Smackdown tag scene, but nooooo. In WWE, they have barely gotten mic time despite having good mic skills and were put over as being "dumb" and "not quite right" instead of legit title threats. Finally being booked a bit better now. - Kanyon: Member of "The Revolution" in OVW, ex-Velocity job boy - Jackie Gayda: Total Tammy Sytch gimmick with the Revolution. Reduced to a useless and heatless role in WWE with Rico. - Shaniqua: Okay, her gimmick in WWE is pretty decent, but she can't wrestle women on Smackdown. - Rico: Serious wrestler, acted like Chris Jericho (called himself "Your Role Model", even). In WWE he is a "gay stylist" first, then does a poor man's Adrian Street gimmick to no reaction. Would be a *perfect* Jericho sidekick in WWE. #1 heel in OVW. Part of Bolin Services. - Rene Dupree: Teamed with Lance Cade and wrestled singles as part of Bolin Services (Kenny Bolin is their manager, think of a fat, redneck Bobby Heenan). No anti-american stuff, had a butler Morris (he was the APA's butler on Smackdown for a couple weeks for no reason), came out to "Fame" by David Bowie I think and generally got over himself. No Sylvian anywhere to be found. - Sylvian G.: Came on OVW TV for a bit while teaming with Dupree on WWE TV. Again, no anti-American stuff, both guys used Dupree's gimmick. - Rob Conway: One of the OVW original four wrestlers trained by Danny Davis. Good all-around worker, mic skills, good look. Brought in for job duty on Velocity for a bit. In OVW, he was "Ironman" Rob Conway and he teamed with "Mr. Wrestling" Nick Dinsmore as the "Lords of the Ring", a fantastic tag team. Later turned heel and joined the "Revolution" with Doug Basham and Damaja... took over the reigns once the Bashams got called up for a month or two. Had a gimmick where his valet Nikita was messing around with Johnny Ace to get the Damaja in trouble. - Nick Dinsmore: One of the original OVW four. Used as a job boy for Velocity, brought in as Doink. Arguably the best worker in OVW. Still not called up full-time, which is a complete crime. - Randy Orton: Orton never got too far in OVW before being called up, but always put in good work. He was seemingly one of the first guys to get called up. Anyway, he was the underdog face in OVW and got some traction, unlike in his first WWE run before the "RNN news updates, etc etc" Wrestlers WWE has used better: - Brock Lesnar: One half of the face "Minnesota Stretching Crew" with Shelton Benjamin. Great team, both guys complimented each other really well. Never used as a monster heel due to injuries and getting called up a bit too early. - Team Angle: These guys were introduced *really* well in WWE. Benjamin, as mentioned above, teamed with Lesnar in an awesome tag team, and later with Redd Dogg (Rodney Mack) in a much less-awesome team. Haas was a product of HWA and never got much of a chance to work on OVW TV before being called up along with Benjamin. - Victoria: This one is very debatable, but since Victoria actually had women to wrestle against in WWE, I give WWE the edge. She was a valet for the "Revolution" who would get involved in the men's matches in OVW and did the job extremely well. - Sean O'Haire: Was "WCW's Sean O'Haire" in OVW and got a cup of coffee as part of Bolin Services, where all the hosses go in OVW. Had cool vignettes in WWE but didn't get over because he wasn't allowed to do highspots anymore. Lost causes: - Rodney Mack: JYD's protege in OVW, Redd Dogg. Said crap like "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT!" Not very good. - Mark Henry: Developed new heel persona in OVW.. part of Kenny Bolin's stable. - John Heind.: "Big Bad John", a hired gun of Kenny Bolin's in OVW. He sucked. - Lance Cade: Generic Bradshaw-style Texan... yawn... hired gun of Kenny Bolin. - Mark Jindrak: What a hoss... again, generic Bolin Services member. Too Early to Tell: - Matt Morgan: Unstoppable monster face in OVW. Didn't see in OVW: Orlando Jordan

Morgan used the Chokeslam in OVW as a finisher (he drops down to one knee while he does it, but I'm sure they won't let him use Taker/Slow's move)... he's got a decent array of power moves so they'll probably pick something from that. As I've said, he's got great charisma and cuts a good promo too. We'll see how he does in WWE but he's got major potential... I saw him do a 3 on 1 handicap match in person at an OVW show and he was really impressive squashing the jobbers. He's been one of the top guys in OVW for a while which bodes well for him making a quick transition if he's booked correctly.