Some Guy

I can't see Orton ever being half as good as the Rock. When Rocky still really, really sucked, he was only as high as the Intercontinental Title. Orton is a lot better than Rock was then, but Rock was consistently a hell of a lot more entertaining by the time he'd won his first WWF Title than Orton had been. Whether or not you agree with it, you're trying to use Rock as the one exception while ignoring all the other failures. However, the reason Orton's career resembles Rock's so much is that they *deliberately* tried to follow the same course as Rock, thinking that it was their own brilliant booking that got Rock over, and excepted that same accident to occur again. No, I used the Rock as an example because he go this job in WWF the same way as you claim Orton did. I think Orton may have even trained outside of WWF territory for a while before, which the Rock really didn't (besides some workouts with his dad) before getting signed and shipped to Memphis. I know that they used the same mold to book Orton and it has worked to the extent that it can with someone who doesn't have Rock's charisma, which is absolutely out of this world. Orton is in roughly the same spot on the card as Rock was at this point in there careers, I outlined that in my previous post, which went up at the same time as your's. EDIT: By "the look" I meant that he has a body that stands out from the rest of the pack and is a good looking kid, as evidenced by him banging Stacy Kiebler. Being white has nothing to do with it. I think he should probably wear long tights as that might make him look a little thicker and not as lanky. He has a similar body to Rick Rude, minus about 15 lbs of roided on muscle, which is not to say that orton himself isn't on the juice. He probably is.

Sometimes I don't realize how mush I type and get on a roll, so paragraphs breaks don't always happen. Rock was an ok worker before 2000, but not great. Orton is a better worker now than Rock was at the same stage of his WWE career. Once again, I am not saying that Orton will be anywhere close to as successful as Rock. It's just a comparsion of 3rd generation wrestlers who got strong pushes right out of the gate. What was Rock doing at that point? If he was in the Nation he was already more entertaining than Orton was. Orton's problem is that he's incredibly bland and vanilla, the most he can really get from me is apathy. The only time he was really intersting was when he was massacaring Foley, and Foley can make almost anyone interesting. I think Orton debuted in june of 2002 so that's 2 years and 9 month ago. Rock debuted in Nov 96, two years and 9 months later would August 98 so Rock was feuding with HHH and having the Ladder Match at Summerslam 98, the second most over guy in the company and 2 months away from his first WWF title. I'd say that Orton is a better worker now than Rock was then, the very good ladder match notwithstanding. I never said that Orton was more entertaining than the Rock, just that he was a better worker up the same point in their respective careers. Now that I think of it Orton, actually did have a similar career path, in that he debuted as a bouncing babyface rookie, didn't get over, got hurt and came back as a heel in the biggest heel group in the company and got over to the point he didn't need the group anymore, with the main difference being that Rock was allowed to continue to get over by beating the former leader of the group and taking over to become the top heel in the WWF, while Orton was prematurely turned face and beaten by the leader of the group he was in, thus ensuring that the fans realized that HHH is in fact soley responible for Orton's rise and was capable at any time of causing his fall. Had Orton been kept heel and taken over Evolution and beaten HHH, he'd be the most over guy in the company right now, but HHH knew that and made sure it didn't happen. I even used paragraphs, in this post. See, I'm learning.

No idea. Best guess is a program with Hunter over DX. You think he would have accepted being pushed to the mid card? I figured that they would have run Austin/HBK for a couple more months. Actually that might be the biggest What If? in WWF history. If Shawn hadn't been hurt would Rock, HHH, and/or Foley been moved into the spots they got with Shawn blocking the way?

True. Shawn, up until literally just before the match, was making noises about not wanting to do the job to Austin. Undertaker came up to the gorilla position and taped his fists up, and told Shawn point blank that if he didn't do the job in the ring, he'd be doing the job for real when he returned to the back. It's stuff like this that makes me waonder about HBK's sanity. What the fuck was he going to do? Give up the title again so he could retire due to the injury? What was Vince's reaction to Shawn not wanting to job despite being badly injured, at the time they though he would be 9 months if I recall? I can't imagine that Vinec wouldn't force him to do the job on the most important show in WWF history (if that show tanked then WWF never would have taken off like it did). And while I'm asking questions, what were the plans, if any for Shawn after WM 14 had he not been injured?

Benoit is a former WCW champ. The two WWF reigns I was refering to were when he beat the Rock by DQ (the stip was that the belt could change ona DQ) and Foley continued the match and they did a similar thing during a 4 way at a later PPV. The names of both shows escape me right now. The HHH/Y2J thing is the same as the Hogan/Bockwinkle stuff. All those reigns count. That's why Flair went from being a 14 times champ to a 16 times champ during his current WWE run. They realized that he had these two wins.

What a dumb idea, it kind of makes me glad that they wasteed all that time interviewing the CLinton impersonater. Fact or Myth: HBk was wavering on whether or no to do the job for Austin at WM 14, but Taker taped his fists and threatened to beat the shit out of him if he didn't.

I thought Shawn's DX promos helped sell any match he was in if for no other reason then you wanted someone to kill the guy fo being such a fucking jerk. The back and forth semi-shoot stuff that he Bret did throughout 97 helped sell the Survivor Series match.

Who in their right mind would book Yoko to go that long? That is absolutely crazy. The longest match he ever worked was probably 15 minutes and most that would have been nerve holds.

But recognizing it now, more than 20 years later, most likely in the hopes that WWE will mention it when they induct Hogan into the HoF is a little stupid. As I said if every Dusty Finish were recoginized as a title change then the number of world champions would double and the number reigns for some guy would multiply considerably. I kind of hope WWE goes back recognizes all of the ones Flair was invloved in just so HHH has to drp the strap and win it back on every Raw and PPV for the next 3 years to break the record. It would be amusing to me.

Big Show? A future Hall of Famer? Why not? If Piper's lackey gets in then a multiple time WWE champion who will have been with the company at least ten years before he's done probably deserves to get in. He probably deserves it more than a lot of the guys in there now. I have a new found respect for Show after going back and watching his matches with Brock. The bumps he took for the guy were ones that no one Show's size should be taking, he really went above and beyond to try to get Brock over.

Sometimes I don't realize how mush I type and get on a roll, so paragraphs breaks don't always happen. Rock was an ok worker before 2000, but not great. Orton is a better worker now than Rock was at the same stage of his WWE career. Once again, I am not saying that Orton will be anywhere close to as successful as Rock. It's just a comparsion of 3rd generation wrestlers who got strong pushes right out of the gate.

I thought that happened on RAW the week before Hell in a Cell. From Cawthon: This would be the match you were thinking of: I can see the confusion considering that HHH took the Tombstone out of the ring in both cases.

Do you hate The Rock too? He quite leterally went to Pat Patterson and did the same thing that you claim Orton did. Both guys won the world title 2 years after they debuted in the company. I suppose the main difference between the two was that Orton got over and then got shit on by the fans, Rock got shit on and then got over. I'm not at all saying that Orton is anywhere close to the level of Rock's talents or charisma, but Rock was was not a very good worker until 2000 or so, 4 years after he debuted and 2 years after he first won the title. Give Orton a chance, he'll get better. The guy is 24 years old, that's a baby in wrestling, he's probably not even a 5 year pro yet, it took HHH 6 years to become a good worker and that was working with top talent. Orton has had two feuds with good workers (Benoit and HHH) and had good matches with them. He's a better worker and interview 4 or 5 years into the business than HHH, Rock, Foley, and several other top talents were at that stage in their careers. And certainly better than Batista in both departments and better than Cena and JBL in the ring. He's probably in the top ten in WWE in terms of overall skills (look, workrate, and promos). Orton still has a lot of work to do to get better but he is already in a position where he can succeed and putting him over Taker will be another big step to him becoming a superstar. If it doen't work out, then what has been lost? Taker's winning streak at WM? Who gives a shit, wrestling is a fucking work and Taker is 42 yeras old he doesn't need the streak to get a pop, he's had 15 years of burying people, tons of TV time, and the best gimmick in the history of wrestling to ensure that he gets that. Losing at WM will do nothing to hurt Taker and will a hell of a lot to help Orton. I don't see what the problem is. HHH got over by being pushed to the moon for an entire year and beating true legends in the business (Austin, Rock, and Foley) and getting to marry Vince's daughter. It worked. Orton got over by beating midcarders like RVD and one legend (Foley). Give Orton half the HHH push and he'll be just as big a star as HHH. He has already proven that it takes less of a push to more more heel heat than "The Game".

Goldberg's first feud was with Mongo as a heel (first he hung out with him a then turned on him, I think) but his first match he Jackhammered Bill DeMott and looked at the camera and said "That's one!" I don't know if it was Goldberg doing it on his own or hif they actually planned the winning streak from the beginning but given the way it played out and Goldberg saying that after his first win, I'd say that the day he debuted the streak started and was even acknowledged by Bill.

A bit? If this had the rest of 98, 99, and 2000 and was a reasonable price I'd get it. Just for all the Hall promos and the Hogan/Warrior match that I've yet to see and desparately want to.

Shotgun was on Fox here in Boston. I rememer they did a show in a subway in NYC adn Taker tombstoned HHH at the top of an escalater and HHH went down the whoel thing on his back. I also remember thinking that it would suck for him if his hair got stuck in the thing. Terry Funk called Vince a "Yankee bastard" and JR an "Oklahoma asshole" on the show before RR 97 and wrestled Austin on that show.

Huh? I can unerstand the Austin/Piper thing because they're on WM. But JR inducting Volkoff? WTF? I'm not sure that JR has even called a Volkoff match. I think his last WWF run might have coincided with one JR's firings. They should have brought Hacksaw or DiBiase in, at least they had something to do with him during his career.

RVD and Tommy Dreamer, just for being part of one of the best Raw moments ever. Mike Awesome powerbombing Rhyno on a ladder and winning the HC title at MSG was cool. They did most of the debuts of the WCW/ECW guys well, it was just the rest of it that sucked. I too, marked hard for Tazz in his debut and thought the match was fun. Flair's comeback to WWF was great as was his intial debut in 91.

Without question they would, if only because right now, both TNA and WWE are dominated by heel champions who manage to overcome the odds at every turn. TNA should be headlining with something that is totally different, not a bad copy. This I agree with. But it won't happen. JJ is NWA champ for life or more acurately until TNA goes under. To get this thread even further off topic: Why don't they run some house shows in the south? They could probably draw 800-1000 in a some places and make a little money. They have the ratings and the demographics information and could easily figure out which cities are their strongest and start running them. This is one thing that I think ECW did right, they ran weekend house shows. I think TNA would be better off if they were able to expose more people to seeing guys like AJ and Daniels live.

I think the whole board can agree with that. I don't know. The match would be bad, but short, and Orton being freed up would allow us to ditch the dead weight in the ladder match, ie. Christian. Who seriously believes that Christian has a chance in hell in that match? All the others you could see winning (some more than others), and with Orton in there you really would have no clue who would win. He would benefit a lot better from a win there too, than he would against Taker. The Tag Match From Hell would be given at least 15 minutes, which is 14 minutes too much. And Orton in the Ladder match might have made the result less predictable, but I think taking Christian out and putting Orton in would have dragged down the quality of the match. Christian's style and size allows for more and better bumps than Orton, and the bumps are what is going to hold the match together. Christian never really did much that I can remember as far as big bumps in Ladder matches. He and Edge, who did the least were pretty much the just the winners in the Jeff and Bubba shows that were the first three TLC matches. Christian has had some good ladder matches and a really bad one (with Edge) but he tends to go with more sane bumps. I think that Shelton will be the big bump guy in the match as he is the only one one who hasn't had spinal fusion, isn't 6'8", and Christian and Jericho aren't really sick big bump takers. I don't see what Orton would gain out of a win if he were in that match. He's already beaten everybody involved, it would be a lateral movement for him, just like it would be for everybody except Shelton or Christian (and I really hope that Shelton gets the win now that Batista has beaten Kane). Shelton has the most to gain in that match.

Eddy, HBK, and Rey are all more charismatic than Batista as well as Cena, JBL, Angle, HHH, and Booker T. And that Ric Flair guy has a little charisma too.

I think the whole board can agree with that.

Rulon Gardner was on WOL pimping it but I didn't pay any attention. I'd bet it will fail. If shoot wrestling made money WWE wouldn't exist today.

And TNA's IS? TNA's fanbase is people walking around Universal Studios. Forgive me if I don't buy them as the sharpest knives in the drawer. Hell, few people are more markish than "smarks". See ECW for an example. No, I think that the crowd is mostly the same TNA smarks over and over witha few people who are at the park. He didn't in the WWE or WCW. -=Mike I'm not saying that JJ would be a good draw or ever has been and I don't think that HHH is or ever has been either. HHH was a good foil for Rock in 2000 and that was the only uber-successful year that he was on top. Once the show fell on him it dropped significantly. If JJ were pushed into the position that HHH is in he would be getting a similar reaction to HHH. Anyone who has been pushed that hard for that long and put over that many guys (people who actually drew money and matter in wrestling, not Ron Killings or AJ Styles) will get a certain amount of heat. If HHH were in front of the TNA audience he'd probably get even worse "go away" heat tha Jarrett because HHH is doing it to the only viable wrestling company in the country. TNA get .4 ratings on a good week, JJ isn't ruining something that people care about, WWE gets 4.0s or so, HHH is bringing down, or at the very least not helping a company with millions of fans.

Isn't Taker basically an upper-midcarder at this point? Why not have Orton win to at least cement his spot as an upper-midcard heel?