Toxxic

"He tapped out to Jericho in a boring fuckass match when he should have let the younger man go over clean at the far superior meeting at Mania 19" is how that sentence SHOULD read. The rest of it is pretty true.

Randy Orton above MATT FUCKING HARDY!? What the hell is going on here!? [Not an Orton hater - I think he's bearable. But Matt Hardy is God compared to Mr. Green]

You don't think that sticking the Cruisers all on one show wouldn't make the gulf between them and the people Vince sees as "real" wrestlers even bigger than it is now? Yeah the show might be fun but what you'd basically be saying is "you can't draw money or compete with the big boys - have your own pint-sized playground and leave the real storylines (read: Sable dancing) for the real wrestlers". I'd watch it, but I can't help but think that it would forever remove even the slightest possibility that a cruiser could go on to be world champion some day, or even be taken remotely seriously as a title threat.

Until Lance turned into a dancing face, he was a Bad Canadian. I still remember the fits of laughter I was in during Christian/Storm vs Hogan/Edge for the tag titles, where Ross slagged off Xian and Storm for their non-American attitude, whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that Edge was Canadian. I think that after a barrage of abuse on the Canadians he actually remembered and said something like "of course Edge is Canadian too - but he's not like them!". Even more sickening was Lawler's analysis of American foreign policy during that match. I think it went something along the lines of "all these other nations - do they respect our American values? No. Do they like handouts and our American dollars? Yes!" Well done Jerry. Tits and xenophobia, what a wonderful commentating ability you possess.

But doesn't Riding Hood, you know...win in the end? Ummm...no. She gets eaten. No, that's the Grandma. Little Red Riding Hood gets saved by the woodcutter (Randy Orton), who kills the wolf and pulls Grandma (Chyna) out. OK, I'm getting weird now.

What gets me is that JR used to know what the Unprettier was. Now he thinks it's Christian's reverse DDT. And just once I'd like to grab him by his lapels, shake him vigorously and shout "Shane McMahon is NOT going 'Coast to Coast', he's doing the fucking Van Terminator! Which RVD, a current member of the Raw roster invented!" Idiot.

Yeah but by then Steph will look more like Chyna than Chyna.

I have to say, this wasn't a swerve. As Dames said, it was a bait-and-switch. And by all accounts it sucked, but I'll have to wait until friday to see. What's the betting that with Foley giving up his GM-powers they pull another bait-and-switch with Bischoff cancelling Michael's title match with Trips?

Actually, having the IC champ as the number one contender always seems kind of bad idea to me. Because then if you follow it through you either have the IC champ go over, which could hurt the World Champ and unifies the belts which ruins the point of there BEING an IC title (i.e. to give to a guy you want to push/test fan reaction for without giving him the world strap), or it's Title v Title which would mean they're unified even if the World champ wins and which hurts the IC guy by proving that he's NOT on the World title level and now he doesn't have a belt either - or you have the IC title not on the line and the World champ goes over, which means the IC champ still has his belt but is not on world title level, making the entire thing a waste of time. The only workable scenario that I can see is the last one, and that's just to see if the IC champ could draw and hold interest in a main-event program - but even if you find out he can, if you don't put him over at the end you've accomplished nothing and taken the IC belt out of the equation for everyone else in the meantime. And if his drawing power does lead to him going over, you face one of the problems i mentioned above. Personally I'd always view the IC title as a different division. Have it so a wrestler can compete on an either/or basis - if they want to go for the world title, sure, but they'll stand a better chance of winning the IC belt. The other thing i wish they'd play up more is the increased salary of a champion. Why should anyone who doesn't care what the fans think (i.e. most heels) care about a title? if they KNOW they're the best, why bother proving it? If it's widely known that an IC champ gets more money than many other wrestlers then there's a reward there for even the most self-centred individual - in fact particularly for them. The last time I remember this being referred to was Michael Cole's comment on Noble not wanting to lose the Cruiser title to Kidman at SurvivorSeries '02 because the increased paycheck had allowed him to buy a new mobile home.

Personally I find it amazing that most people on here don't find Lita attractive. But then I think Molly's pretty darn unattractive, which seems to disagree with some people. And don't even get me started on Sable - she looks like pipe cleaners with a couple of lumps of putty stuck on the front... EAT A FUCKING BURGER!

As a Brit, may i just say - I'm happy to pay more tax if it means that I will AUTOMATICALLY be given treatment for whatever illness or injury I may be suffering from, no matter what insurance I may or may not have. And if Bradshaw was to come and have an accident in the UK, I bet he'd like it too.

Big green dangerous hoss is Heidenreich. Batista's injuries suggest that he is more of a danger to himself than others. But there are some important differences between Batista and Orton: Finishers: Batista's is a sit-out powerbomb. It's a crap, generic move, but Batista is big enough to give it some impact and make it look nasty. Orton's finisher is a running Diamond Cutter, which is a better move but he executes it horribly every... single... time. Mic work: Orton is laboured and slurred (maybe he's been hanging around Trips too much). Batista's mic work is far above Orton and in my book is better than Triple H - he seems perfectly natural, as if he's speaking his own thoughts rather than trying to get across what creative have told him to. He's not on the big-money level of Rock, Jericho, Flair or anyone like that, but can more than hold his own. Orton can't. In-ring work: Batista is unoriginal but does his limited moveset relatively well. Orton's is a little more varied with things like what i believe is Mike Sander's 3.0 in there, but isn't great. However, both men are acceptable without being worthy of main-even status. But Orton's big problem is... TIMING: He sucks. Not in the timing of his moves as such, although the RKO looks so bad it makes me wince every time, but Orton in the ring DOES NOT KNOW WHAT HE IS DOING. He doesn't know where he's meant to be, or when he's meant to be there. Even a worker as limited as Bubba Dudley or the fucking Big Show knows that - in many matches Orton staggers around for too long before ending up in the right place, or just moves there for no reason other than he needs to be there because of the next spot. Watch him in tag matches. When Evolution are being beaten up he'll realise he's being groggy on the wrong side of the ring and just wander aimlessly across in order for RVD to kick him over the rope, or whatever. I've never noticed Batista fall down on this, at least not more than anyone else. Basically, in my view Batista could be moulded into a solid upper-midcard powerhouse. He has the mic skills and the look to carry it, and his matches are generally acceptable if nothing more due to the fact that he does what he does relatively well, and generally knows his way around. Orton is young, true, but his moveset and mic skills are blow those of a perennial mid-carder like Goldust, and his ring-sense compares unfavourably to people like Maven. Terms like "suck-bag" are too harsh for him, and he has a place in the WWE - but not the one he has.

Think about it - one world title? WWE have too many people at the top, or people they want to push there, to only have one world title. Suppose Trips has even half the swing over the unified title as he's had over the Raw title, and you have it as his for half the year. Then Taker's going to be in the mix at some point... and Lesnar since he's the only big workhorse in the company... and Angle if he's fit... Goldberg, assuming his contract is extended, not to mention Kne is being pushed world title-wards now. You can only have about half a dozen guys at most in the title hunt before some of them just spend too long away. It's difficult enough to fit in Benoit, Jericho, eddy, Booker, Cena etc at the moment when there's two titles - condense it to one again and things will just get far too cluttered.

Well now - that changes it completely. For some reason I was thinking it was Sky being greedy (Murdoch? Greedy? Never!) rather than WWE being greedy (McMahon? Insane? NEVER!). Big up to Sky for not making everyone pay for the other 8 PPVs then.

EVOLUTION MAKE ME FEEL UNCLEAN~! OK, the guy who said you can get TNA for free on the web - where?

I'd like to point out that the only reason your armies might not have ever lost a war is that you've only been around for a pathetic couple of hundred years. When you've been a nation for getting on for a millenium, THEN you start boasting. Oh, and incidently, a lot of you came from us and I'm pretty sure your militaries are, have been or should be trained by ours. Ours is the most highly-trained in the world by the way, and easily the best. So what if there's only four of them, they're rock 'ard. [i'd like to point out that this post, seeing as it is a Brit being patriotic, should not be taken seriously. We're NEVER patriotic except during international sporting events - and only then because we think everyone else will shout us down if we cheer for the team that's actually going to win]. GO BRAZIL!

Well they show football sometimes. Admittedly it's Johnathan Pearce commentating, but you take the rough with the smooth. But if I was Channel 5 I'd leap at the chance to show WWE.

Poor buyrates I believe - Rumble is due to be dropped as well. Hopefully they'll keep the ones on Sky Sports 1 even if they drop the ones they've been putting on Box Office. Give the Rumble back to Channel 4! Or even channel Five, hell, they put on WCW in it's dying days (complete with Batman-esque "Whack!" balloons over chairshots), surely they'd take WWE PPVs?

I'd go with Spanky, to be honest, although neither Rey Rey or Knowble are far behind. The problem with Rey's offence is that it's all a bit "bouncy" - hurricanranas and West Coast Pops etc look really good, but when you think about it they don't actually look like they do much damage (unless you're Matt Hardy getting a concussion from a WCP). Spanky on the other hand does do some bouncy stuff but his offence seems to pack more of a punch (i.e. he'll run up your leg and kick you in the head). Rey's offence rarely seems believeable against anyone except cruiserweights, whereas if he was actually allowed to get some offence in then Spanky's would look far more convincing.

The fact that Yang wrestled a Heat match against Tommy Dreamer a couple of months back is what amuses me. HE'S BEEN ON YOUR PROGRAMMING! RECENTLY! UNDER HIS FORMER NAME! It's not like he was even under a mask or anything - anyone with half a brain who'd never watched any WCW or TNA and had never heard of him could have seen that match, then watched "Akio" emerge on SmackDown a few weeks later. Ludicrous. Anyway, I thought someone said that Yang's of Korean descent? Mind you, we have French-Canadians pretending to be French and I'm pretty sure Korea=Japan in the WWE's eyes.

Whoah - I know Hogan played politics, but that's awful. Not even a ONE count? I know Hogan kicked out of the Rock Bottom before two against Rock, but it added to the match and he at least jobbed.

Wasn't it around that time he was heelish on Raw, but a face on Smackdown? Keeping in mind that this is when the WWE Champ could still go to either show. I remember it was around that time when he wrestled still-babyface-Orton for the WWE Title (oh God no...). Taker was a heel as far as i was aware, but started off respecting the people and the town, then respected Orton and his family, showed him respect in the ring and shook his hand first without playing any dirty tricks, then beat him and I believe shook his hand afterwards. The week after I think he was back in heel mode. Completely bizarre.

Now THAT'S an idea! If you're going to call Edge a "silent assassin" you may as well give him some sort of vaguely manga/anime-type feel to him. Not comicy cartoony or even openly manga, but something sinister nonetheless. Kind of like Spike, the bounty hunter from Cowboy Bebop, only heelish? Ah, I know what I mean but I can't word it properly. I still reckon that Edge debuting to attack a face Jericho would be a bad move if it focused on his neck injury. Sure he'd get over heel huge for beating on Trish, but that'd be the problem - the heat would come from him attacking Trish, not Jericho. All he'd be doing by attacking Jericho would be getting revenge on the man who severely injured his neck and put him out for several months. And it wouldn't even be an "accidental" injury (I mean, no-one's really suggesting that Lesnar MEANT to break Holly's neck, are they, even in kayfabe land?), but a pre-meditated attack with one intention - to remove Edge from the match he was going to compete in. I say again, in wrestling-land seeking revenge for a pre-meditated assault is face territory, not heel territory (see Austin, Steve vs Helmsley, Hunter Hearst and Phatu, Rikishi, Angle, Kurt vs Austin, Steve following the piledriver on concrete, Undertaker vs Show, Big, etc).

I thought bringing a recently rehabbed wrestler back as a heel reeked of suckness? Completely ruining any pop they could get from the whole "I've worked my way back!" routine? Not to mention, if Edge comes back as a heel and then beats the shit out of Jericho, who attacked and injured Edge when he was a face and Y2J was a heel... well I don't know about you, but I'd consider Edge to be justified in that attack, and not heelish at all.

WWE needs to do SOMETHING with midcarders. i mean, I catch Heat ever three or four weeks? And you know what the main event has been on all but one episode I've seen over the alst few months? Rico vs Val Venis. NO advancement. NO reason, except that apparently Venis wants Miss Jackie in a movie and Rico doesn't. Velocity at least has ongoing storylines of sorts with the FBI trying to avenge previous losses or embarrassments etc, and the main event actually changes, but there's jack-all going on with the characters of anyone below Main Event level.