iggymcfly

OK, I'll make what's actually a likely card for Summerslam: World Title: Batista © vs. Muhammad Hassan Summerslam's in Washington DC, and Hassan's got a #1 contenders match at GAB. Putting two and two together, I think this is where the WWE's going with the main event at Summerslam. Hulk Hogan vs. Shawn Michaels This is the match they're apparently trying to sell the PPV with and I almost guarantee that it will go on after the WWE title match. As long as it ends with HBK destroying HHH Sr., I'll be happy. WWE Title: John Cena © vs. Chris Jericho I think they recognize that both Y2J and Cena have their strengths on the mic and that's why this match is getting such a long buildup. Basically, HHH and Angle aren't ready, so Jericho's keeping Cena busy while they reintroduce him to the Raw audience. Last Man Standing: Rey Mysterio vs. Eddie Guerrero It looks like this storyline is going to keep going for a while. Maybe Eddie tries to get Rey to lay down at GAB, and then when he refuses, Eddie reveals his "secret" the following Thursday. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that Summerslam will see one last stipulation match between the two of them. Randy Orton vs. Undertaker This should be Orton taking a cheap win over Taker leading into his natural rematch with Batista at No Mercy. Inferno match: Edge vs. Kane You just know that this feud is going to keep going into a goofy stipulation match. Hopefully they manage to do something a little different this time, and they actually light Edge's tights on fire or something. An ideal finish would see Matt give a Twist of Fate to both men before taking a match to Edge's crotch, teasing a hug with Lita, and then giving her a Twist of Fate as well. JBL vs. Chris Benoit Both men need to be on the card considering how heavily they've been pushed over the past year and a half, but if this match is for the US Title, then someone needs to get fired. #1 Contender's match: Triple H vs. Kurt Angle Two more men who can't be left off the card here, and who are likely to be challenging Cena down the road. As long as they have (on-screen) heat anyway, they might as well just fight explicitly for the title shot. Intercontinental Title: Carlito Caribbean Cool © vs. Rob Van Dam This will be the curtain jerker, but hopefully it at least leads to a productive "fighting champion" type reign for RVD that results in a lot of fresh interesting matches on Raw.

For the record, Shawn put Benoit over twice as well. As far as Jericho goes, jobbing to HBK was the least of his problems. The problem is that when he's facing mid to low card guys at random PPVs, he still doesn't win. How are we supposed to take Jericho seriously as a threat to Cena's title, when he couldn't even beat Cena in an unannounced match where Cena made his PPV debut. Shit, Jericho even lost to Flair on PPV. His problem is more a general decision by the booking committee to use him exclusively as a JTTS then it is a matter of one person not "putting him over."

Replace Hassan with Christy Hemme and I'll agree with you. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Get rid of Big Show, replace worst with best, and then I'll agree with you. Seriously, "Sexy Boy" is one of my favorite wrestling themes of all time, and Hemme's is damn catchy as well. I always start to get happy for a couple seconds when it hits, and then I remember that it signals the onslaught of another endless boring diva segment.

This image is what puts it over the top. Name me one celebrity on earth other than Cena or Will Smith that has ever made that face.

OK, "mildly over" was relative. Sure, he was more over than anyone at the time, and he was probably more over than anyone you'll find on Raw right now. The point is that with just the character, he was a big fish in a small pond. The WWF audience loved him, but he wasn't growing the business, he wasn't bringing in fresh viewers, and he wasn't a big worldwide star. A good comparison would be with Cena on Smackdown. Sure, he was getting bigger pops than anyone in the industry, but the average non-fan didn't know who he was, and the stars of WCW (see Raw with Cena) were still the ones that people paid most attention to. It was only after the Austin/McMahon storyline that the average schmo walking down the street started to give a shit, and that Austin became the most over star in wrestling history. When I said Austin was mildly over in 1997 and 1998, I really meant to say 1996 and 1997. And the measure by which he was "mildly over" during those years was compared tot he thunderous unmatched popularity that the received in 1998 and 1999. That one storyline singlehandedly brought Raw from dreaming of 4.0s to cracking 7.0 on a regular basis. Sure, Austin was the star at the time, but with Russo's writing, Rock or Taker or even HHH could have been the guy nearly as efficiently. Yes, McMahon and Austin fulfilled their roles like hardly anyone had before them, but Russo was the key person that brought Raw to levels that id had never dreamed of reaching previously.

I'm really, really pissed that I missed that. I got worn down during the Venis/Dupree segment, and thinking that we were just going to get another formula Hogan match, I forgot to turn back during the main event. By the time I actually switched the channel, HBK was just standing over an unconscious Hogan. Considering I'm an HBK mark that's gotten bored to death with his face schtick and that I absolutely hate Hogan, I just know that I would have loved this. WHY, WHY, WHY.... did they have to bore me to death so bad that I didn't get back for the main event.

The diva search couldn't make me do it, but Rene Dupree finally helped me change the channel. Honestly, is there anything more boring than the generic loud foreign heel?

For all the blame that HHH gets, I don't think his segments ever last half as long as this diva crap.

I want to change the channel right now. Honestly, I do. I just.....cant.

That would be awesome actually. I think Edge is ready to headline a PPV by himself, and HHH/Angle is probably the match I'd most like to see following the draft. If that's the Raw side of the card, I'll actually make an effort to get work off, whereas if HHH faces Cena, I'll have a really hard time caring about the PPV at all.

If Vince Russo had never been born, Austin would never have been a bigger star than Shawn Michaels. Hogan at least came up with most of his ridiculously stupid character by himself. 90% of what made Austin so "cool" came directly from the brain of Vince Russo. (Yes, I know that Austin did the basic outline of his character himself, and got mildly over with it in 1997 and 1998. The reason he got nuclear heat to the point of being the biggest ratings draw in history however, was completely due to the Austin/McMahon storyline.)

I don't consider myself anywhere near enough of an authority on MMA to go up and down the list and decide who should be in and who shouldn't, but really, I don't see how can you justify putting Couture in right now. It seems to me like the whole purpose of a hall of fame is to grow as more people accomplish things in a given sport, so that you can recognize the people who were the best. If you induct guys now that are still at their peak, who are you going to be inducting five to ten years down the road?

I agree. I mean, would it really that big of a deal if some fan that doesn't watch a baseball game the entire month of June has to go online to vote? I'm not saying they need to wait until the entire first half's over to start voting, but opening the voting exactly a month before the All-Star game would be a lot fairer method of determining the starters, and would still give everyone plenty of time to get their votes in. With that said, however, I thought the fans did a lot better job this year than they have previously. The only starters that are bad enough to be truly undeserving are Beltran and Rolen. If you had Barry Bonds, Ken Griffey Jr., and Alfonso Soriano starting, then you might have a better argument that the baseball fans just aren't knowledgable.

The business goes in cycles. Every ten years or so, you get some huge star like Vince Russo that comes in and fixes everything and takes the business to levels it's never seen before. However, no one actually knows when the next Vince Russo will be hired. In the meantime, we just have to put up with what we've got.

Yeah, they definitely don't want to be too predictable with this. Since Rey and Eddie were supposed to be all close, it wouldn't really make much sense for Eddie to be the father. Eddie should just reveal that Tajiri's the father or something. I mean in WWE world, Mexicans and Asians all look the same anyway, so it would make perfect sense.

In all honesty, it seems like it's gotta be Orton. They've got build-up that goes back months, and he's the only heel on Smackdown with the credibility to be a champion right now. We all know how hard they want to get Orton over as a strong heel considering he is their "future" and all, and they'd be stupid not to give him at least a short reign. The only way I see this changing is if they have Lesnar absolutely locked in to return, and they really want him to to give Batista a year long run to build up the eventual clash between the two of them. Still though, if Smackdown's going to Fridays in September, I can't see them putting in that kind of effort to get their biggest money program on that show. They'd be better off having Brock come out on Raw and say that he was better than Cena before, and he's still better than him now for an instant feud over the WWE Title.

My dog barks a lot. This statement is true. However, the truth of the statement does not detract from how annoying it is.

How could anyone compare Matt Hardy to Bret Hart? Hardy's not even half the whiny little bitch that Bret was. If Matt starts dating some new hotter chick, and then five years from now, he's still complaining about how Edge is a terrible person that ruined his life every time he gets interviewed, maybe he'll start to climb into Bret's league.

Anime is super gay, but Kotzenjunge is still OK.

Yeah, I'm back, and since I won't get screwed over by not being there the first few weeks this year, I should be going all the way. However, I would like to switch teams this year. (Fuck Bowling Green.) If it's possible, I'll move to the Big Atlantic conference and represent Georgia Tech.

The key word in this sentence is "was." With the HHHate and all the rest of it, people completely forget how much better HHH was before the quad tear. Back in the period from 1999-2001, HHH would have never worked a lazy plodding match like the HIAC at Vengeance. Back then, HHH was busting his ass every night, going full speed to put as good of a match n as possible, he had a much wider moveset, and he was probably the best all-around wrestler in the WWF. Of course, immediately after the quad tear, Austin caught fire, and had far and away his best year in the ring, whereas Triple H has only had a couple truly great matches since and has regressed significantly in terms of in-ring skill, relying on selling for 90% of the match, and reducing his moveset to something along the lines of, punches, kneelift, foreign object, pedigree. While I'd still put Austin's 2001 ahead of any year that HHH had in the WWE and Rock's had some great matches as well, saying Triple H "was" better than Rock and Austin is wholly accurate if you're talking about his two and a half year prime.

Angle doesn't really work because he just had a mini-feud with Cena on Smackdown, and creating new matchups was sort of the whole point of the draft. Jericho was just involved in a three-way with him on a minor PPV and there's no way that match is going to main event Summerslam. Edge still has the MITB shot, but he just lost to Kane, and even worse, appears to still be feuding with him. Basically, I'm trying to think of some main event for Summerslam besides Cena vs. the guy who just lost to Batista three times, but I really can't do it. Can someone help me out here?

If it's all about the T&A, then why don't segments with Trish skyrocket the ratings? She's much more entertaining that the wannabes are, and she's hotter too. I'm going with the theory that people tuned in to watch Angle/Flair, stayed after the match because they were so enthralled, and then when they saw how bad the diva shit was, they changed the channel until the main event started. They just waited until the actual segment was over, because once it started, they were curious if Viscera was going to really do anything to the wannabe divas. Oh, and crowd booing is enthralling as well. If a segment is so bad that the crowd is outright booing it, I usually stay tuned just for the reactions.

HHH did a lot for Benoit, but he still didn't put him over anywhere near as well as he did Batista. I mean he's done pretty much everything he could possibly do to put the guy over. Let's recap. Feud between the two of them starts when Batista realizes that HHH is trying to set him up, turns on him, and Batista bombs him in the middle of the ring. At Wrestlemania, Batista pins him clean in the middle of the ring. At Backlash, Batista pins HHH again. At Vengeance, Batista faces HHH in his match, Hell in a Cell, kicks out of a Pedigree, kicks out of a sledgehammer shot, and then doesn't even need to use a weapon as he pins HHH clean with his finisher to end the feud. Basically, Batista has buried HHH with this feud. I challenge anyone on this board to find an instance in the last ten years of an established star putting over a new talent so thoroughly.

I see it is your first 106th post on TSM. Generally, the moderators and posters prefer that you scan at least the first page to see if there is already a thread that you could post your thoughts in before creating a new thread. This keeps multiple threads down, and allows for easier discussion of a topic. I'm just letting you know and not trying to be rude. It will save you from hearing a lot of negative reactions. You might want to check out the TSM posting guidelines, as well as each folder's guidelines, if applicable.