iggymcfly

First of all, WCW is beyond dead and buried. There is no way that it can be reformed as any sort of positive entity at this point. Ignoring the rumors, I'd say Benoit should last until very late in the Rumble only to have Angle pull the "friends but not really friends" trick on him and eliminate him from the Rumble. Then, Benoit will snap on him, unleashing multiple chairshots, allowing Angle to get eliminated from the Rumble. Meanwhile, Goldberg should win the Rumble, only to reveal that he has become a member of Smackdown. As for the upper card of Raw, I really can't figure it out. Since Foley/Orton and Kane/Taker are basically givens, you've got four major faces that need matches, (Austin, Rock, Jericho, HBK) and only one major heel (Triple H). I'm having a really hard time seeing how you resolve this.

Randy Orton's not so bad. He's got a good basic cocky heel persona, he's got mic skills, and he's slightly below average at worst in the ring. Sure, he may be a little rough around the edges, but he gets decent heat and he's entertaining more often than not. If you're looking for all-around most heatless, I think Cade and Jindrak have it locked up. It doesn't matter if they get wins over the Dudley Boyz or Evolution or what. They just make you want to sleep through everything.

I was thinking if they do go Kane/Booker T, wouldn't it have made more sense for them to let Booker win the IC strap first so that they at least had something to fight over.

That's why the best way to do it would be for Goldberg to win the Royal Rumble and announce that he's already won the World Title on Raw and to really validate his career, he wants to see if he can win the WWE Title by beating Brock. Then, if they really want to go all out to make WM XX seem important, HHH can challenge Goldberg at No Way Out, putting his title against Goldberg's shot at Mania. Then Goldberg and Brock could fight title vs. title in a match to see who the real best wrestler in the WWE is. However, even if someone else wins the Rumble, Goldberg wouldn't look weak by jumping to Smackdown. He could just say that he beat HHH twice and he doesn't have anything to prove to the Raw roster. He wants a chance to hold the real WWE Title. And as for what Anglesault said, Goldberg and Brock aren't going to draw buyrates on their own against weak competition, but if they have a good feud built between them, their match would have an epic feel that would be missing with the other competitors on the Smackdon roster.

They've pretty much got three options for the WWE Title at WM: 1) Go title vs. title with the World Title from Raw: It might be tough to do storyline-wise with the winner of the Rumble needing to be in the main event and all, but they could always have the winner of the Rumble say he's going over to the other brand, only to be challenged by the champion of the current brand at No Way Out. For example, Goldberg could win the Rumble, and put his Mania shot at Brock on the line against HHH's title at No Way Out. This seems to be the best way to give Mania a big event feel, but will cause storyline troubles down the road if they really do unify the two titles. 2) Simply have Goldberg go to Smackdown: Face it, either way Goldberg/Brock has an epic big match feel that makes it worthy of WM main event status. It might not be ideal in terms of ring work, but it will draw buyrate, and help the fans realize that this is more than just another PPV. 3) Have the WWE Title match go on as the third or fourth last match on the card: Out of the current people on Smackdown, (Benoit, Cena, Angle, Edge), there just isn't any standout match that can have the epic feel required for a WM XX match. It would have to go behind not just an Austin/Goldberg or HHH/HBK or Austin/Hogan or HHH/Rock main event, but also lower matches such as Foley/Orton. Out of these options, I think that the first is the best. They've already used up their major stars and the matches between them. The only ace they have up their sleeve, that they can use to promote the "biggest PPV of all time" is a title vs. title match between the champions of their two brands. Otherwise, they're gonna have to count on Austin/Goldberg or the pure matchup of Brock/Goldberg to sell the PPV. Failing any of these, they're going to end up with a Mania weaker than last year's show, and the "biggest Wrestlemania of all time" is gonna be remembered as the biggest failure of all time, drawing at about the level of an average Summerslam or Survivor Series.

I just have to say if Benoit/Brock actually was the main event of the "biggest PPV of all time," that would be pretty damn sad. What they're doing is for the second year in a row, making a very poor attempt to recreate their most successful storyline of all time. (Austin getting screwed out of the title in '98.) "Authority figure promises to never give title shot to face challenger, but is foiled when he wins the Royal Rumble" is just absolutely PLAYED.

Yeah, Foley's definitely toward the top. I'd say that Austin, Rock, HBK, and HHH are the only ones capable of matching his level of emotion. However, while all of those guys have gotten to that level on occasion, none of them can do it as consistently as Foley did in his prime. And I don't own any wrestling DVDs, but I know if I saw the hype tape for HBK and HHH at SS 2002, it would give me crazy goosebumps in a second.

Well to be honest, my absolute favorite thing about Scott Keith that makes me more anxious to read his reviews than anyone else's is that he almost always gets them out within half an hour of the end of the show. That way, I can read his opinions while I still care about what happened. I'll only go back later to read the Dames' review on something like this where there was a really monumental match or angle.

Of course the Rock hasn't jobbed clean to someone with less heat than Orton, because he NEVER JOBS CLEAN. Here's a complete list of wrestlers the Rock has jobbed cleanly to in the last four and a half years: Goldberg Brock Lesnar No. There's no more. That's the complete list. Maybe Hurricane if you really want to count it, but other than that, he hasn't lost.

The ref bumps right now definitely break kayfabe, and the way I see it, there are two things they need to do to make them believable again: 1. Lessen the frequency. This is kind of an obvious one. A ref bump should be a big surprise; not a matter of course. 2. Perhaps more importantly, make the heels facilitate the ref bump. If they line up with the face between them and the ref before "accidentally" missing and clocking the ref, it would make a lot more sense. Once again, the important quote to remember is "all things in moderation." The reason that HBK getting his title win reversed got so much legitimate heat compared to say RVD getting his title win reversed is that while we've seen a lot of matches get reversed due to feet on the ropes, we had never ever seen a match result getting reversed due to shoulders being down. The surprise makes all the difference.

First of all, you've got too many jobber matches. They might not even put all the belts on the show, and if they do there will probably be quite a few multi-man matches in order to fit people on the card. Also, I'd almost guarantee that Austin will be wrestling at the show they're trying to build as the biggest WM ever; especially given how anticlimactic his final match with Rock was last year. He's probably going to wrestle either Goldberg or Hogan, seeing as how both those matches would draw a lot of buys. Also, there's no way that Orton/HHH is going to happen for the title. Orton's not strong enough to main event on his own yet, and HHH is still too over as a heel. Oron will almost definitely take on Foley at Wrestlemania since they've been building it off and on since around Summerslam. As for HHH, I see him facing that other guy he can have good matches with, The Rock. As far as your Angle cunundrum goes, if Benoit's not facing Lesnar at Mania, he'll likely get another match with Angle, and if he is facing Lesnar, then Angle will take on Edge. Booker T could easily get left off the card altogether, but it's more likely he'll be in either a multi-man IC match or a thrown together six-man with all the other names that are just a little too big to leave off the show like Steiner and Batista.

Well, I'm a mark for Shawn too, but I don't think that he and HHH have varied enough movesets to even be able to do a ****3/4 match without some kind of gimmick match setup. Sure, they had a great exciting match, but that sense of deja vu came from the fact that they used pretty much every move they had in their repertoires to fill up that 30 minutes. Don't get me wrong. Outside of Jericho, HHH and HBK are probably the only workers on Raw even capable of being in a **** match with no weapons involved. They just don't have the variety of an Angle or a Benoit or even an Edge or Brock Lesnar that can make a straight match fresh time after time. I gave HHH and HBK's SS 2002 match ***** and I'll stand by that, but without anything to jump off or smash people into or smash against people, they sort of fall into a routine of the same things over and over. Sure, they varied it a little bit with the worked shoot injuries, (separated shoulder into abdominal stretch and fake quad tear into figure four), but I think they hit their ceiling with a **** effort.

Kane DID show gains in ratings back last summer, when he'd just taken a new and exciting character turn. Now that he's lost all of his heat, Shawn would draw way better with HHH. In fact, if they'd kept with the "fired" thing for a little while, I think a HHH/HBK rematch would have been strong enough to build toward a WM XX main event.

Well, first off I want to say it was an excellent match. The worked shoot injuries and hometown crowd were nice touches that really added a lot. I'd even go so far as to say it was far and away the best match on Raw this year. However, I'd probably only give it a **** rating and I was surprised as anyone that Keith gave it that much higher.

I don't believe in any of these shitty matches the internet is suggesting for Wrestlemania. HHH isn't facing Edge. Rock and Foley aren't being wasted in a tag match. And Austin will be in a major main-event quality matchup. If I were gonna guess, I'd say Wrestlemania will look something like: Austin/Goldberg HHH/Rock Orton/Foley Jericho/Benoit HBK/Brock Kane/Taker Angle/Edge TWGTT/Los Guerreros Trish/Jazz

I thought Nash was already gone. I don't remember seeing him since right after Summerslam.

I know it really has nothing to do with this, but I can't help noticing how gross Molly's face looks in the bottom right picture in Waters' sig. She looks like a fucking drag queen.

No show should get bonus points for starting the title reign of Goldberg. That man's made Raw borderline unwatchable for me for the last two months. I think even Vince had a more intriguing run with the belt than Goldberg did.

Actually, Brock's currently enjoying his third reign. The problem with Benoit is that his character is just too weak right now to justify being world champion. Characterwise, he was a hell of a lot better when he was the vicious heel feuding with The Rock. Benoit just doesn't have the mic skills to be an elite face. Come to think of it, heel Benoit would be perfect to feud with Goldberg right now. He could get screwed out of the title on Smackdown next week and get one "last shot ever" at the Rumble which of course he would lose. Then he could "snap" on everyone, mainly faces, but also Heyman. Then he'd be released or traded to Raw where he'd wreak havoc as a heel. Of course, upon starting his money feud with Goldberg, he'd probably get kicked and the head and knocked senseless, but what can you do?

Well, I'm not 100% convinced that Brock/Goldberg's taking place at Wrestlemania anyway, but if it does, and they don't make it title vs. title, they should get the belt off Goldberg way before they get off Brock. Goldberg's current run just bores me to tears. Now I don't want to get crucified or anything, but if I were booking, I'd probably go with Austin/Goldberg for the Raw main event at WM, and let Brock/Edge be the Smackdown main event. Benoit and Cena both seem a little played, and if Edge won the RR as a surprise entrant, he'd be crazy over.

Actually, "wigger" was basically John Cena's original gimmick. It wasn't until a few months ago that he was supposed to be cool.

Well, I'm going to school in UPN-less Pullman WA, so this is the first Smackdown I've seen since last summer, but I really liked it. Face Cena is working better than I thought it might. And even though there was a bait and switch, I felt a lot more satisfied that something of main event importance happened at the end of the show then I do on a typical Raw. The way I see it, Raw does the little things better, making a solid effort to get their midcarders over, and writing good side storylines (see Jericho/Trish). However, the main event storyline is woefully boring. Goldberg just fights someone at the PPV every month w/no real reason behind it, and has tag and handicap matches with the heels in between to fill time. Meanwhile on Smackdown, the midcard stuff is kind of embarrassing and dumb. (Torrie dancing w/Cat and Nidia distracting Noble because she's blind) Yet they still have an interesting title chase, as Benoit, Cena, Guerrero, and even the Team Lesnar crew are all well-built and look like they could wear championship gold soon.

I was just gonna say that the initial connection, (the battle royal thing) is pretty weak. That's a common finish for them. They did the exact same thing about a year and a half ago with HHH and Hogan going after Taker instead of Cena and Benoit going after Brock.

Well, the Jericho/Trish relationship is a little bit outside the box. And I've been watching Raw less lately, but I think that Orton loses more overness from getting continually squashed by Goldberg than he gains with his periodic PPV wins over HBK. Whenever I see him out there, I think midcard. He seems less important than Batista now.

Um, yeah. I don't exactly think Jericho's a 35 yr. old virgin.