Just John

Something else about Helms... I wish they would just announce him as the longest reigning champ in WWE, not "sports entertainment." Danielson, Aires, Strong, and Akiyama have all had longer reigns, but maybe they work for "wrestling" promotions, so they're excluded on that technicality.

Totally agree on Matt Hardy's punches. I noticed this when I was re-watching his Summer Slam 05 unsanctioned match with Edge. I think he might be getting a push soon, because he's looked a lot more motivated in the ring the past couple weeks, having good matches with Kennedy and Helms.

Good episode of SD again. Rey/Chavo interview was bad, but it was first and only took about 5 minutes. Hardy/Helms was good. Not as good as the Bash, but it's free tv. Still had some good action and a clean finish. Without a finisher! I'm glad I liked the Miz before it was popular. Go me, being ahead of the trend. His match with Tatanka was good heel stuff. I liked how they started hyping him as babyface, then he started acting like an ass and turned everyone against him. I don't particularly like the Tatanka vs. Refs feud, but at least it gives him something to do. And I must say, Tatanka's been decent in the ring lately. What's with that? The US 3-way was good, although it slowed down a lot in the middle and definitely needed a better finish. I liked Finlay as champ, but I can't complain about Kennedy getting the belt. He needs it more than Finlay anyway. I'm not sure why Vito is being pushed, but JBL's commentary is always great during his matches. I like the tag team 3-way feud going on. I'd say the SD midcard missed Kash and Noble quite a bit over the summer. The ME promo was kind of silly, but I suppose that was its goal. I actually liked the 2 spinebusters into the table. The spot looked a lot more brutal by having to slam Booker on it twice to break the table. Maybe I don't get it, but when I see tables break on impact, I fail to see how that's worse than just landing in the ring.

If Carlito's really pissed, he should come out next week and rip off The Rock in every way possible. He should do the eyebrow, use all his catchphrases, and use the Rock Bottom and/or People's Elbow if he has a match.

I really don't see what's so bad about the Miz... I mean, yeah, he's annoying, but isn't that what his character is supposed to be? Last week's promo where he kept cutting off Layla and talking about himself shows me that they're going to officially make him a heel soon. So, who does he fight this week? Scotty? Funaki? Local jobber?

Sounds like WWE's hyping the non-wrestling segments pretty heavily, but hopefully we'll get a 10-minute Finlay or L/K match. I haven't done this with WWE much over the past few years, but I trust they can do a good show tomorrow.

God forbid the announcers use an accurately descriptive noun like "belt." I wonder what hapens when someone gets hit with it now... Do the announcers have to say "He just got nailed with the championship!" That sounds really awkward and gay.

That reminds me of the WGTT calling in sick when Angle returned to SmackDown. Wrestlers calling in sick = fun idea. Or when Commisioner Foley caught Christian faking sick to get out of a title defense against the Hardyz. God I hate that 'z' The best one when E/C were plotting an excuse to get out of a title defense against the APA, and decided on claiming they had genital warts. Except Foley was eavesdropping on their entire convo and made them fight anyway. "Think about it, no one's going to want to check us to see if we're telling the truth." "Yeah... Genital warts rule!" Foley: And genital warts do not rule. They're painful and humiliating. Or, so I've heard.

Awesome. A ppv close to home. Hopefully they do the EC again. KC has had plenty of shows since the Owen accident. We got Backlash 02, and we usually get a Raw/SD episode each year. The 3/31 SD (ME'd by Angle vs. Rey befre Mania) this year was in KC.

Another #1 contender's match for the IC belt? And Orton and Jeff Hardy are in it? I feel like I've gone back to 2003. Then agian, Raw in 2003 is much better than Raw in 2006.

How can they drag this Michaels/McMahon thing out any further? Haven't they already had 2 separate blowoff matches? Sadly, I expect a lame time-killer match at Unforgiven, then for Shawn to "screw" HHH at Survivor Series and align with Vince.

Shawn did a good put over for Angle at WM 21. You could argue that Angle didn't need it and was already a main eventer, but he seldom got clean wins and getting Shawn to tap clean was arguably his most credible victory since beating Lesnar at Summer Slam 03. Of course the bookers capitalized on Angle's momentum by: 1. Running the "gutterslut" program with Booker and Sharmell 2. Sending him to Raw to feud with Eugene 3. Jobbing him to Cena repeatedly And of course, Shawn got his job back somewhere in there.

Wow... The part about the implanting chips in wrestlers is one of the most ridiculous pieces of insider "info" I've ever read.

You know, if that article is accurate, I wouldn't be surprised if Kurt did tear his quad the morning of the day he made fun of HHH for it. The guy is crazy. I really hope that article is more truth than wwe.com fluff and Kurt does realize what he needs to do to get his life and health back in order.

For as much as we can find fault with a lot of WWE booking, you really have to hand it to 'em for what they do with SD. Everyone on the show has a role and is made to seem important in some capacity. Even the midcarders with no programs have something going for them. I think it all stems from the longer matches. Letting a match like Kennedy and Hardy go for nearly 10 minutes helps both guys connect with the fans and establish their position. Although, even short matches with typical WWE finishes seem to work on SD. This week, the London/James matchup was a great way to start re-building the tag team division. No team looked bad despite the overbooked finish. Other than the Rey/Eddie saga (which seems to be SD's answer to DX/McMahons), it's all passable to good. Even downright stupid gimmicks like Vito and his dress don't hurt the show thanks to the commentary. JBL is probably the best announcer in all of wrestling right now. Other gimmicks that are ridiculous and dated, though not necessarily bad (like the King's Court), are also helped by the commentary and the quality of the wrestlers involved. With Noble, Kash, Yang (whose gimmick looks very interesting), and Benoit coming back, SD will be on the rise again. It also just hit me how great it was not to see Khali this week.

Throw me in the "This is good for Angle" pile. I wasn't really enjoying him in ECW, but it'll still be weird not having him in WWE. I hope Kurt doesn't run to TNA just to wrestle. That would be the worst thing for him. And off topic (not that it'll matter since this post will be buried under 10 pages before tonight), but Angle still won't help TNA long term. It only adds to the already established idea that TNA can't make its own stars and has to steal them from WWE.

And anything Helms might have gained from it was killed when he jobbed to HHH in under 3 minutes a month later. The Rock was actually pretty generous and made Helms look decent throughout the match, despite the unclean loss.

Haha. Poor Gomez.

UT could put over someone huge if he wanted to, but he obviously doesn't. The biggest chance was with Orton last year, but that went nowhere. Actually, with the way WWE books, any top guy giving up a clean job could be huge. If someone went over Cena or Batista clean, that could really elevate them. When was the last time Batista got pinned in a one on one match, anyway?

As a serious response to this thread, I have a question, albeit kind of a stupid one. Why is Pluto demoted as a planet for crossing Neptune's orbit, but Neptune isn't demoted for crossing Pluto's orbit? Is there like a seniority rule in effect?

I hope none of you guys advocating the headstand DDT sell bash the Canadian Destroyer.

Hahaha. That is awesome.

Well, I watched ECW2 for the first time in over a month last night. I guess overall, it seemed like it had gotten better, but still wasn't that great. ECW Originals and Torrie vs. Team Generic was alright, I guess. Typical tv filler kind of stuff. The sad part is that the Knox/Sandman feud hasn't progressed one bit since I last watched. Maybe they really are trying to recreate the Test/Steiner feud from 03 with this one. And Test is still involved somehow. I don't like the "One Extreme Rules match per night" thing. It seemed like a lame ROH ripoff of "This is your title match of the evening." Seriously... "This is your extreme rules match of the evening." Could one sentence possibly sum up everything wrong with ECW2 any better? Perhaps, but not one on this show. Anyway, I did like Kevin Thorn. I do occasionally find enjoyment in the over-the-top late 80's style gimmicks. This guy seemed like a mix of Gangrel and Wrath. Ariel is hot even with the fangs and excessive makeup. Thorn had a cool entrance theme and had a decent finisher. That's enough for me. I'm not exactly sure why everyone is praising the CW/CM match. Came across as typical disjointed, rushed tv filler to me. Still good to see CM Punk on tv. RVD/Doring was total filler. Only there to get Holly "over." At least he's not on SD anymore. ME was fine for what it was supposed to do. Make both guys look credible in their niche. Not a great match, but storyline wise, it did its job. Show looked to have some nasty hardway blood coming from the top of his head.

I'm pretty sure DX/McMahons will last up to Survivor Series, where we'll probably get a Montreal re-enactment of some sort. I thought they might end it after DX's decisive beating of the McMahons at Summer Slam, but then I thought about how there was no logical program for DX afterwards. Then I remembered how Shawn killed Vince at Wrestlemania, only to have the feud pick up the next night. The reasons this feud continues are as weak and uninspired as the angle itself. But I'm sure they won't bother to explain why she's just trading one loser for another. The McMahons lost at SS too, and have been embarrassed for the vast majority of the DX feud. Kayfabe wise, I'm not sure how they can pull off that logic. I guess they could just blatantly insult everyone's intelligence and have Melina call Vince a "winner," which wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Not a bad show, but hardly any build up for Summer Slam. Granted, SD only has two matches, but still. Rey and Chavo weren't even there and Booker and Batista only had a 30 second scuffle. After tonight's proceedings how could they not add at least a US or Tag title match? Is something on Summer Slam going to a 60-minute draw? I'm not sure how I feel about Terkay using the Muscle Buster. On one hand, I hate the blatant ripping off of Samoa Joe, but on the other hand it looks a hell of a lot better than his resthold submission. Finlay/Lashley was good again, minus Lashley doing the one arm vertical with the injured arm. That chair throw made up for it, though. Eat your heart out Sabu. Oh, and I loved how Rey's "Eddie tribute" package completely ignored his last kayfabe interaction with him. That would be the "Rey has weak sperm and Dominick is Eddie's bastard child" storyline if you forgot.