Michrome

Yeah it will, but you don't hoenstly think Raven vs. Sinister Minister will draw shit do you?

More problems with Eddy-Rey: * The work over Mysterio's back was very spotty, and he only selectively sold it. The lack of selling of his back that the impact of the big rana at the end would surely have hurts it. * There is a blown spot in the middle that Eddy hides fairly well. Go back and watch, Mysterio tries his cartwheel rana but he is 2 feet off to the side so Guerrero just catches him and suplexes him down. * The backflip DDT looked horribly contrived, as Eddy just stood there waiting for it like a doofus. * If you think this was deeper than Flair-Windham from the crockett cup, I think you're insane. In fact, I'd bet you've only seen the clipped version. The depth in the Eddy-Rey match was nearly non-existant, outside of underdog vs. power guy. The back work was shrugged off, Eddy, despite wrestling with Mysterio for years, fell right into the obvious Splash Mountain trap at the end. One other thing, Eddy-Rey's depth compared to Owen-Bret is like comparing my sink to the ocean. In one, there is a brother who does not want to fight his younger brother, but also cannot afford to lose because it would destroy his ego. The other brother has been waiting his whole life to get his shot at stepping out of the shadow of Bret, who takes this match far too casually and ends up losing because of his cockiness on the victory roll. * I'm not really sure how to deal with your comments on Flair-Steamboat other than, "Huh?" Wrestlewar and Clash were both definitely better than Chi Town, and they definitely kick it up past neutral at the highpoints of both.

Nobody's saying to write him off, but did you really think this week was good? I honestly thought it was the worst show I've seen since the Nitros inbetween the first and second Russo era.

Somehow I doubt Sting would have agreed to it.

Dude, don't you know that Styles is small and the average fan doesn't even know who the hell he is? The real solution to the buyrate problems is Sting vs. Dusty. By the way, Sting vs. Styles would do just as well buyrate-wise as Sting-Jarrett would do. AND it might accomplish something.

The NWA Title legacy has meant nothing since Flair showed up with the title on WWF tv in the early 90s. They might as well stop paying for the NWA name and just call themselves TNA.

Same argument that is in every thread. I am looking forward to Jarrett-Sting and the tournament next week, but why must we sit through weeks of dogshit to get a good show? Dutch Mantell is clearly a memphis style booker, which can be good, but when you're stuck building your promotion around Jimmy Hart and Jeff Jarrett in the main event, your hands are kinda tied. At least the shows have been coherent storyline wise since he came, even if they are bad ones.\ If this show was on free TV, it would be acceptable build to a big show. But it's not. So it's not.

If it's a tournament to determine a contender for Shane and he's not involved, I may buy the show.

Yes, it was horrible dogshit, but it could have been dinosaur shit, so be happy.

I was alluding to that with regards to no-selling, but yes, Hogan just got up from the move that was billed as one of the most dangerous in the world.

I know he doesn't sell, and that's why he made Vader look like an assclown. After Hogan beats Jarrett, I bet his next match will be against a strongly pushed Abyss, so he can kill off a giant. And I bet he won't sell there, either. Anyways, this is all besides the main point, which is that TNA with Hogan influence blows chunks.

The Vader no-selling of the hulkup was a planned thing to build up the Uncensored match as a big blowoff, but during both of those matches Hogan made Vader look like a total jobber by never selling a goddam thing. Somehow, I really doubt *that* was planned.

Rick Steiner was pretty good in his prime. Duggan actually has some hidden gems if you go back a LONG ways, but he pretty much sucked.

By not selling for him at all and basically humiliating him during every encounter. Check out the Superbrawl 95 match where the crowd just totally turns on Hogan, who no-sells Vader's offense like a prick. Prior to Hogan coming to WCW, Vader got clean big wins over top babyfaces all the time, he was a true fucking monster, and he also had great matches.

I don't see how you figure they were on a decline. They had a bunch of good shows in a row, during late Summer and September.

Going into Starrcade in 1993, WCW was horrible. It was god-awful. The angles were embarrasing, and the promotion was rapidly going to hell in a handbasket. However, in an incident that turned the company around, Sid Vicious attacked Arn Anderson with a scissors, earning himself a bright pink slip. WCW, now without their top babyface to face Vader at Starrcade was in a true bind, and it looked like disaster loomed. Who did they turn to? Ric Flair. Then, at Starrcade, Flair and Vader one of the most amazing, emotional main events in WCW history. Flair had done it, he saved WCW. From there onwards, WCW was surprisingly great. People like Cactus Jack and Steve Austin were getting pushed, main events were great, Steamboat was back having great matches, etc. It all ended at Clash 27, at the belt Unification match between Flair and Sting (***3/4), as Hulk Hogan had joined the company. All of the goodwill WCW had built up with the fans over the few months in the beginning of 94 was gone, Hogan was in. They rushed a Flair heel turn in order to do Hogan-Flair at Bash At The Beach, where Hogan treated Flair like a total jobber (just like Halloween Havoc), and from this point on, until the NWO, WCW *sucked*. Immediately following the big buyrate for Hogan-Flair, the buyrates plummeted. Hogan brought in all of his shitty friends, the matches sucked, the great workers were buried, Cactus and Austin were phased out, and Flair became a parody of himself. Hogan went on to destroy Vader's credibility as a monster forever (in a shitty match), and eventually, the fans turned on Hulk Hogan. Oh yes, there was another *way* over babyface in all of this that was just left behind, and completely forgotten. His name was Sting. Sting and AJ Styles, two people I never thought I'd compare. I caught the second hour of tonight's TNA show at a friend's house when I heard he had ordered it. I wanted to see if they would finally turn Punk heel, and maybe bring in Terry Funk to face Jarrett. Instead, as I feared, it ended up being Jim Duggan. All of Hogan's friends are coming, and they're destroying everything good about TNA. And those that love(d) the TNA product are happy about it, cheering this on, because it will spark a good buyrate. I agree, it will spark *A* good buyrate. But after that, what's next? Some will point to the WCW turnaround in 96 and huge boom in business as proof that Hogan can do it again. Well, unless Mantell has defectors from WWE and a huge angle planned soon that will reinvent Hulk Hogan again, I can't see it happening. Next week it's Jarrett vs. Sting, which should do well buyrate-wise when it comes to weekly buys, but really, where is this going? Welcome to WCW 1994, where all that is good is gone, and all that is shit is king. Except this time, it's worse: Hogan-Jarrett isn't nearly as big of a draw as Hogan-Flair was, and Jarrett can't hold 1994 Ric Flair's jockstrap. After the surprise being Duggan tonight, even you diehard TNA defenders have to see the writing on the wall.

Tonight is the night for CM Punk to turn heel, I can just feel it. Turn him already!

Wrestlemania: *** Summerslam: **1/2 Ironman: **3/4 I'm just not a huge fan of these matches, I think they still have their best match yet to come. I'm not much of a Lesnar fan, though. The Benoit-Lesnar match, if it ever happens, will blow these out of the water.

I hate the 3-way finish, and none of the first round matches really do anything for me. However, Jacobs-Shelly, BBoy-Styles, and Hero-Dutt in the second round could all be real good. Final will be: Chris Hero vs. Cabana vs. Styles, and it should be pretty good, but not as good as Styles-Hero would be.

Rey-Eddy the best match ever on U.S. soil? Off the top of my head, matches that are far better: Flair-Steamboat (Chi Town) Flair-Steamboat (Wrestlewar) Flair-Steamboat (Clash) Flair vs. Funk Mahnum T.A. vs. Tully Wargames 1 (GAB 87) Wargames (Wrestlewar 92) Bret-Flair (Ironman) Bret-Owen (Wrestlemania X) Flair-Vader (Starcade 93) Sting-Vader (Bash) Bret-Austin (Survivor Series) Bret-Austin (Wrestlemania) Steiners vs. Sting/Luger Steiners vs. Hart Foundation Benoit vs. Regal Benoit vs. Hart Benoit vs. Malenko Flair vs. Whindam (Crocket Cup) Flair vs. Windham (Worldwide) Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics (Clash 1) Bryan Danielson vs. Paul London (4/12/03) Rey-Eddy was a really great match, but I think U.S. fans overrate it because they haven't seen a lot of great lucha. It's pretty much all spots, and they turn the spots into a nice story, but the cliched ending and spotty nature of it keeps it from being any higher than ****1/4 for me.

Choice lineup, Styles-Hayashi could be really swank if Hayashi brings the working boots. Methinks that we're gonna see Bryan Danielson vs. Samoa Joe for the title as well, which would be great. Should be an incredible show.

The 4-way ironman was my #3 MoTY in Ring Of Honor next to London-AmDrag from Night of The Butcher in 2002 and Styles-Danielson from ASE. If you get it, get the DVD, as it has a swank Guerrero-Low Ki match on it. I thought the ironman was ****1/4, besting anything WWE did in 2002 for me. The Guerrero-Ki match was like ***1/2 or so.

It's a great combination of stuff. A good scramble, even though I hate scrambles, a fantastic 6-man, an amazing singles match, and a red hot Zero-1 match

A lot of that stuff didn't belong. Funk vs. Flair, HBK-Razor, Austin-Rock have no place on there, just to start.

It was UCW, and I think I'm going to rewatch it later tonight. It's one of my favorite matches.