iggymcfly

GOD DAMN IT! I can just tell that I would have loved this show. Surprise Angle win + surprise HHH win over Goldberg would have made my fucking night. I would have marked out like a mother for both of those and the rest of the show looked pretty good too. Why did I have to miss this show?!

$1000 on Goldberg $1000 on the Dudley Boyz $300 on Chris Benoit

Going off to college is all well and good, but why can't Pullman have UPN in their cable package? Or at least show Smackdown on Fox or WB or something? Also, I don't think there are any sports bars showing PPVs in the area so I'm probably screwed on that count too. I guess Raw's gonna be the extent of my wrestling experience for a while.

I know it's just a minor point but we certainly don't see much of HHH on TV anymore. He appears on the show maybe 5 minutes a week if he's lucky. I think that for the last three months at least, he's been the least used World Champion since the days when Raw was an hour long show fraught with jobber matches and the champion would show up once a month. Shit, even the S.H.I.T. gets more TV time than Triple H lately.

Umm, it was the 21st century last time I checked.

You just don't understand what I'm saying. You only care who wins a match the first time you watch it, because after that you already know. The matches are still fun to watch over again, but you watch them in a different way. The reason HBK/HHH worked so well was that they worked the crowd into believing the storyline just like back in the kayfabe days. The fans completely suspended their disbelief of what was going on. When HBK kipped up, people weren't saying "That's bullshit, how did he kip up." "They were saying, "That's awesome, HBK's making a comeback." I just don't buy this whole thing about HBK's shitty selling. It was more like he was getting a second wind and fighting through the pain than no-selling HHH's offense. Obviously, if you've just been freshly attacked, and haven't exercised an injured body part, it's going to be stiff as hell when you wrestle for the first time in years. But as you exercise it, you're going to start to loosen it up, and feel the damage less. HBK continued to sell the pain throughout the match. He was just showing that he wasn't a cripple, and still had the ability to "go."

It's pretty simple what they need. They need better, more well thought out storylines. Embarrassing stuff like Cena dreaming about slapping Stephanie's ass needs to go, and storylines with a little bit of focus like Kane's need to get tightened up a little. The right people being pushed is not an excuse, as you've got Angle, Brock, and Guerrero getting the lion's share of the airtime on Smackdown and its still nowhere near as good as a typical show from '99.

I mean watching a match where you get into the storyline, and actually care who wins. Not just looking back at the match you've seen a bunch of times to see how good the workrate was. Don't get me wrong, I watch old matches too sometimes, but you're not really watching them as a fan when you do so.

I give it ***** myself. It's probably the best match I've ever seen. I think you have to be a pretty hardened smark to not enjoy that match. I could see giving it ****1/2 or maybe even ****, but saying it doesn't break ***? That's bullshit. If you didn't like that match, you'll never be able to enjoy wrestling as a fan instead of just as a critic.

Definitely the Invasion. It just went on forever. Remember how well the Rock/Jericho feud got over when they started it? It's because people were thrilled that there was actually an angle that didn't have to do with the Alliance vs. the WWE. Of course they killed the heat on that feud three weeks after No Mercy by having Rock and Jericho do the same backstage skit every week, but that's another story. Oh, and the problem with the angle wasn't that the WWF guys wouldn't job, it was that there weren't any stars in WCW that people wanted to see. The only real "star" coming out of WCW was Booker, and it took the fans about five minutes to see that he sucked.

Summerslam: Street fight vs. HHH Something tells me you already knew that though.

Thats not true. It might have come out of its housing, but it broke too. There were a couple different moves that went into the glass. Oh, and if you've never seen it before, you'll be shocked at how cool it is. It's definitely the coolest gimmick match in the WWE.

Just looking through what you said there, I agree completely on HHH and Jericho. HHH has been underrated by a lot of people because he's gotten stuck with a bunch of shitty workers. If he was facing Angle, Benoit, and Guerrero instead of Steiner, Booker, and Nash, he'd be putting on **** matches on a regular basis. Noble's also a good worker, and I considered including him on my list, but since I haven't seen him in a real match in 6 months, I figured that I'd take Benjamin instead who's put on a lot of good matches in the last few months. Venis isn't bad, but I can't remember seeing him do anything above *** or ***1/2 even when he got his little mini-push as a serious wrestler. Tajiri, on the other hand isn't underrated. He's basically RVD lite. Kick, kick, flip, tarantula, kick, kick, flip, handspring. His weaknesses just haven't been exposed because he hasn't had as many big matches as RVD has. HBK's comeback, on the other hand, doesn't really expose the business that I can see. He only does it in really big matches and when he does, he gets the crowd into the match enough first that they don't even question it. I think the fact that he has arguably put on the MOTY two years in a row despite working a part-time schedule on the wasteland that is Raw is a testament to his skill. Even the Flair match which was a disappointment could have been **** if they had given it enough time and a clean finish.

I was judging the workers mainly on skill, not on how much work they're able to put out. That's why Edge and HBK were able to make the list and Austin would have too if he was really gonna come back to wrestle anywhere near full time. And HBK wrestles about two or three times a month; it's not like he doesn't do enough to be judged.

The week before had nothing but matches and skits to set up the Brock turn. There wasn't another vignette or promo or interview the whole night. That bores a lot of people after a while and they tune out. I actually liked Smackdown a lot better this week than last.

As far as the moveset goes, you could say the same thing about Jericho, only Jericho doesn't have anywhere near the pacing or selling that HBK does, plus he blows a lot of spots. (I know you're gonna bitch about the kipping up, but HBK can make 20,000 people believe that he's DYING in the ring, and then get them completely into the comeback. I've never seen Jericho do anything like that.)

Just because I know you guys will love it so much, here's my list of the ten best workers in the WWE today. 1. Kurt Angle 2. Shawn Michaels 3. Chris Benoit 4. Eddie Guerrero 5. Edge 6. Rey Mysterio 7. Chris Jericho 8. Triple H 9. Brock Lesnar 10. Shelton Benjamin

I don't think the Elimination Chamber would work as well with Smackdown wrestlers. Raw's all about the larger than life characters that are good at big brawls. The EC suits that perfectly. Smackdown on the other hand is all about people who look like legitimate athletes and are good at technical wrestling. That's why they work better in normal one-on-one contests. I will admit though that Orton brings down the prestige of the chamber a lot. Everyone else is gonna look like an intimidating force in one of the chambers and Orton will just look like a piece of shit. You know what would have been sweet is if they had The Rock replace Orton in the match. I guarantee you that would get an extra half million buys, because not only would The Rock draw buys by being on the card; he'd make the Chamber match look way more important. Oh, and the Chamber's definitely going last. It's not even in doubt.

HBK is 100 times the worker that RVD is. Sure, HBK has aerial moves, but he mixes them into the flow of a match, and he's perfectly capable of working a great technical match. His pacing is perfect, and while he may not have a huge moveset, it's diverse enough to not be hampered when a body part is targeted. RVD's somewhat of a novelty act. All of his matches are pretty much the same. That's why they really should have given RVD the title back in 1999 when he was fresh in the WWE, because once you get used to his moveset, he's just an average worker with average mic skills.

Wow, bravesfan's predictions looked so impressive I feel embarrassed to put mine up. It's like we're all indy feds and his were the WWE for production values. Anyway: Dudleyz vs. La Resistance- *1/2: The crowd heat should carry this one to something watchable as long as they give the Dudz the title and blow this crappy feud off now. Gowen vs. Hardy- 3/4*: Zach Gowen's offense always looks like shit, and unless he's getting squashed, he's pretty much useless. I'm sure Matt will try, but there's not much he can do. Shane vs. Bischoff- *1/2: Could be good if they make it quick, but I have a feeling that it's gonna be a lot of stalling and interference. Undertaker vs. A-Train- **1/4: Taker tends to come to play on PPV, and A-Train can work pretty well with a good opponent. It's not gonna be anything fantastic, but I think it might surprise some people. RVD vs. Kane- ***: I assume that they've been planning out a sweet bump for a while now, and RVD can do pretty good in matches that don't involve complex psychology. When all he has to do is take sweet bumps, act dead, and make comebacks, he's pretty good. Eddie Guerrero vs. Chris Benoit vs. Tajiri vs. Rhyno: ***3/4 I have a feeling that Rhyno and Tajiri are gonna make this match kind of messy and keep it out of great territory. Should be entertaining though. HHH vs. Goldberg vs. Chris Jericho vs. Kevin Nash vs. HBK vs. Randy Orton: ***3/4 I think they'll learn from last year's chamber where they had everyone break up pinfalls at random, and Patterson should be able to set up a good match. Jericho will carry the bulk of the match, and the workers like Goldberg and Nash will be protected enough to look good. Kurt Angle vs. Brock Lesnar: ****1/4 Sure, the WM main event wasn't that great, but can you imagine how good the Vengeance main event would have been without Big Show. I think Brock and Angle will put on a good match here, but there will be a screwjob finish, and Brock and Angle won't put on a real MOTY until No Mercy.

Scott Keith isn't "my god." A lot of the time he's full of shit. I just used him and Bret Hart as a couple of people who supported my opinion that the Angle/Lesnar match was good. I even said that I could see taking Brock/Angle off the list, as it was just barely **** and could easily be considered ***1/2 or ***3/4. I certainly don't hold Scott Keith as the ultimate standard for how good a match is.

He also jobbed to Taker at KOR. In fact, Jericho was the only person he beat on PPV from when he won the Royal Rumble until when he beat RVD for the World Title 6 months later.

He certainly hasn't gone Kliq. They team him and HHH on TV sometimes because they're both over heels, but there's still a lot of bad blood between them. I think it's just that he's done such a good job in the ring and on the mic that they have to push him to some degree. At the end of the day, Vince wants to put on entertaining segments that draw ratings.

Hey, the Shane/Bischoff match has a good backstory, it will be short, and it will be fun. What we don't need on the PPV is Mr. "I have one leg and everyone needs to pity me". If Matt Hardy jobs to that piece of shit without a complete screwjob finish, I will shit a brick. I might even have to boycott Smackdown.

I think it definitely goes to Goldberg at Summerslam and then to Kane at Survivor Series, but from there it's kind of sketchy. I think that if anyone from Raw wins the RR, it will be HHH and he'll go on to face Kane. However, if someone from Smackdown wins the Rumble, then Goldberg will probably get the title back from Kane and face Austin for it at Wrestlemania. Then either Austin or Goldberg will probably lose it back to HHH. They might even give it to Jericho for a while before having HHH win it back at Summerslam. Of course, they could always make another trade between Raw and Smackdown too. I'd actually like to see HHH on Smackdown right now, as he's a really good technical wrestler when he's got a decent opponent to work with and I think he could put on some good stuff with Angle, Benoit, Guerrero, and Edge. I could easily see a straight up HHH for Brock trade after WM XX. Therefore, my actual prediction is that HHH never does get the World Title back, leaving for Smackdown after facing The Rock at Wrestlemania.