Danville_Wrestling

This has to one of the most messed up shows booking wise in recent memory. I can't remember the last time a show was thrown into such disarray except for IYH: International Incident in 1996 when they had to substitute Henry Godwinn in the place of the no showing Jake Roberts and then replace the Ultimate Warrior with Sid before the pay-per-view. However, that PALES in comparison to this. I look forward to Regal-Finlay and Mysterio-Booker like the next guy but even those matches have me questioning shelling out $40 to see this show. I'll probably just follow the OAO on the board tomorrow night.

Nice 1-4-2 double play by the Cubs in the 1st inning of their game today against the Nationals to keep their 2-0 lead. Soriano didn't even slide into home plate.

I forgot to mention this last week but I thought the plugging of the "inaurgural" edition of WWE Magazine was hilarious considering that the magazine has been around forever until they did the ridiculous Smackdown! Magazine and RAW Magazine split. I guess it didn't generate effective revenues so they are going back to one magazine, eh? I remember I was pissed when they told me my subscription for WWE Magazine would be changed years ago to Smackdown! Magazine so I cancelled it and haven't bought a WWE mag since. Then again, those magazines went downhill after Vince Russo left the staff so I didn't shed many tears over it. Just thought it was funny that my prediction that they would lose money on the split magazine endeavor was justified.

Good one.

This really sucks for Lashley and is another big blow to the Smackdown! roster but one positive we get out of it is Finlay vs. Regal at the GAB. I swear, if I were on the WWE roster I'd be begging not to go to Smackdown! since it seems have an injury or death curse going for it right now. Then again, I hate the "brands" system and when injuries pile up like they have over the last year or so it shows how vulnerable a show can become when its restricted to "x" amount of wrestlers.

I loved the Survivor Series 1996 match between Owen Hart, Bulldog & The New Rockers vs. LaFon, Furnas, and the Godwinns (I think it was the Godwinns). I remember the great offense LaFon and Furnas pulled out in that match, especially on Owen, and thought they were going to be a presence in the tag division for some time to come but they only lasted till WM 13 and made a jobber-type appearance in the USA vs. Canada match at Survivor Series 1997. What happened there? On a side note, I was watching Paul Bearer's Hits from the Crypt and it has the RAW tag title switch between the Quebecers and the Headshrinkers. The crowd heat for that match is tremendous and somewhat makes you yearn for the days when tag teams could main event RAW or actually be considered worth a damn. Plus, the match is pretty awesome to boot with the Quebecers doing all their cool offense.

I think its a testament to Dusty Rhodes talent that he was able to get himself over with such a ridiculous gimmick (polka dots?!?) in his WWF run. The "American Dream" theme music didn't hurt either and if the GM position ever returns to RAW I'd mark out big time if I heard it blast over the speakers. I'd do the same for DiBiase b/c I think a Million Dollar Man GM would kick serious ass.

Yea I was hesitant about the trade too when it first happened but it's starting to look better and better. One thing that works for the Reds is the they have Freel who can play several different positions and is one of the underrated utility players right now in the major leagues so replacing Kearns wasn't too much of a blow. Also, it was nice to see the Reds finish off a game in the top of the 9th with three consecutive outs. Usually I have to sweat it out in those situations even with a three run lead so I appreciated the 1-2-3 last night at the end.

I remember someone posting last year that Shawn should have agreed to this booking and then in the cage match at Unforgiven suddenly bolt out of the door as Hogan was climbing out and thus "screw" Hogan and win the match. I would have loved to have seen that happen just to see Hogan's reaction on live pay-per-view.

I loved Estrada's "card subject to change" line in a smart ass voice at the end of his Spanish news desk segment this week when he ran down the July 28th "Kentuckos Kingdom" card.

If it wasn't for Estrada Umaga would probably be a boring character for me. However, I'm a mark for Estrada so bring on more Umaga. To improve the tag division they should bring in two other Samoans and let Estrada manage them too.

Yea, two trillion over 30 years is a drop in the bucket considering how the federal budget today stands at around three trillion a year, at least according to the newest issue of the Economist magazine.

Yea I agree with that. It's sort of like Ricky Steamboat syndrome where he'd be in a 15 minute WWF TV match (vs. Rick Rude @ Royal Rumble 1988 on USA is a good example) but work the arm for about six or seven minutes in armdrags/armbars when he wasn't going to be having a 40 minute plus "classic." The match with Skyfire was the first match I have gotten to see out of Punk as I don't get OVW at college and didn't watch it when I returned home in May until last week. He'd be a welcome addition to the WWE roster right now so I don't know why he's still in OVW when guys like Chris Masters are fast tracked onto the main roster ASAP.

If this is "extreme rules" I think it could be very entertaining. It all depends on how motivated Big Show and the Undertaker are going to be but I'm willing to give it a chance since Big Show-Flair proved me wrong last week. I wonder if CM Punk will wrestle tonight or just have another vignette. If he does wrestle I want to see if any of his wrestling style gets toned down from OVW. My bet is on the debut of Shannon Moore, though, instead but I'm willing to give that a chance too.

And people told me on page one of this thread that Umaga had no potential.

Yea Gaspard has the look to get a decent shot in WWE. He needs a little more polishing but is better than Hoodie who I am not impressed with at all. I think the best part of the video was Gaspard robbing that coffee store or whatever with his OVW Southern Tag Team Championship belt around his waist. I think Cody Runnels has some potential and enjoyed his match more this week than last week. Overall, I like OVW more than RAW, Smackdown!, and ECW combined and they do a really good job booking a solid one hour show. I had my doubts about Greg Gagne booking the product but he has done a really good job so far in my eyes.

Considering how concerned Vince is about his workers getting hurt and banning/eliminating tons of moves creating the "WWE style" it seems that there are more injuries these days than in the past. Are guys just working stiffer or what?

I just don't understand why you put Umaga over every week only to have him get squashed by the Marine wannabe John Cena. I don't dispute the fact that a lot of people don't care for him because he has beaten a shell of Ric Flair at Unforgiven, tons of jobbers, Hacksaw Jim Duggan, and Eugene but give the guy at least one decent profile program before throwing him to the wolves. I'm surprised they haven't gotten another Umaga-type character and created Headshrinkers 3.0 but it's WWE so we can't have more than two tag teams on one show. In fact, when was the last time the RAW tag belts were defended?

What do people think of the Neighborhoodie & Shad Gaspard training video? I laughed my ass off a good five minutes after seeing it. I didn't like the Deuce & Domino finishing move. Something is too individualistic about it for me to consider it a tag team finisher. Looked devastating, though.

Well even if Umaga gets beaten they need to do more with Estrada. He's much more funny in OVW than in the WWE with his "Spanish news desk" bits.

Looks like a tough week for my Reds. The Mets are always a tough series and the Brewers have been giving us problems all year. We've got to keep those bats swinging to be effective and keep Griffey healthy at all costs if we want to be anywhere near the Wild Card by the end of August.

I'm not disagreeing with this but people say that the Lebanese government has the armed forces to make Hezbollah disarm. However, the Lebanese government hasn't taken those steps and as a result Hezbollah is launching rockets into Israel which Israel is pissed off about. The one good thing about this is that while the world is divided over Israel's response, they are in joint agreement that Hezbollah is causing the violence. Hell, even SAUDI ARABIA came out at the Arab League recently and said the same thing which disrupted the process of the Middle East standing together to oppose Israel. If the clerics of Iran think this is a valuable way to achieve their objectives they are dead wrong. As far as sending Carter and Clinton its pretty laughable. Carter won't be able to broker much and Clinton already did his best with Israeli cooperation at Camp David and STILL the Palestinians rejected a settlement. The reason Israel doesn't pursue diplomatic options anymore is because they acted in good faith before and the Palestinians refused to work with them and now they don't have a good faith partner to negotiate with. So diplomacy to resolve all of this is utterly inconceivable.

I actually thought about this randomly yesterday. I don't necessarily believe it because its too conspiratorial but you never know with WWE. You know wrestling is bad right now when the BEST programming I get to see every week comes out of OVW. This past week they had a great main event in CM Punk vs. Seth Skyfire (it was a good Skyfire-Brent Albright match last week), Cody Runnels is being developed well as a talent, Maria appears every so often, they have hilarious video promos/packages, and Armando Alejandro Estrada does better work there than he does on RAW. Maybe OVW is helped by the fact that the matches last over five minutes without much commercial interruption and the booking of GREG FREAKIN' GAGNE actually makes some sense. I feel like its a chore to watch RAW and Smackdown! (when I go to college) right now. Hell, I can barely make it through the first 45 minutes anymore and people can say all they want about Vince Russo but when he was writing this stuff the show FLEW by, you were captivated for nearly the entire show, and you couldn't wait for next week. Now I dread the next week to see how much more of Vince's ass or the balding DX I'm going to have to put up with. ECW is more tolerable since its only an hour but we still have worthless stuff like the Kelly Kelly stripteases. ECW really needs to learn from TNA and even OVW how to book a one hour show. I also try to get into TNA but something about Jeff Jarrett doesn't scream main event player to me so that keeps me away even though I do like a lot of the other stuff they have going on. I'm not too thrilled with that six sided ring either but I know it makes them unique. Overall, I just DO NOT for the life of me understand WWE management right now. The company is like a sinking ship and does not listen to their fans and is incapable of coming up with new ideas other than nostalgia crap. For all the "pull" HHH has backstage you have to know that even he knows the company is falling apart. Hell, even Randy Orton comes out and says the bad things going on in management right now. One last thing, I REALLY hope Paul Heyman gets in McMahon's face right before his contract expires so he can actually go somewhere where he's appreciated. WWE has just used him to make a mockery of what was once his and I feel bad for him.

I agree with this entirely. That spinner belt looks like shit and I don't care about merchandise and other garbage, give it to Cena when he's the champion but let the other guys get the regular WWE title back. It looks ridiculous when RVD and Edge have to carry it around and be all cute in spinning the WWE logo in it and reinforces the view that Cena will get it back quickly. In fact, I bet we don't see the return of the WWE Title belt in original form until HHH gets to play Harley Race or whatever old school legend is fashionable and crushes Cena at Survivor Series because you sure as hell know he won't be wearing some piece of crap like that around. I also agree with people's irritation in Cena refusing to sell basically anything now including trademark manuevers and this made worse by the fact that he does NOTHING to set up the STFU not to mention that the move is total crap to begin with. I have little interest in the Edge-Cena program because Cena CONSTANTLY gets the better of Edge and while I like Edge b/c its something new and different I know Cena will probably be going over at SummerSlam. For example, at SNME would it have KILLED them to actually have Edge walk out with Lita after he speared Cena? I guess so for WWE creative or Vince or whoever else was running the show as Edge had to have his ass handed to him some more by getting put through a table courtesy of the FU. How sweet.

Wasn't NBC already mad that they were not promoting SNME enough on their shows? If that's the case then NBC has easy ground to tell Vince that he had his two opportunities and blew them so no more SNME.