Promoter

So, how come no one has brought up the possibility of HHH and Stephanie overtaking from the old brood of Vince and Linda? Shane will probably be sent to smackdown or something.

I'm leaning towards ending this brand split myself and I was for it big time initially. However, if it's a haphazard sloppy plan they might as well keep the brands separate. What's we'll likely see is Invasion part million with Shane taking over with Jim Ross and Heyman or some kind of crap. Now, all I can think of is what direction this company plans on taking. I see a few scenarios and most don't look pleasing. Anyways.... #1) End the brand split eventually or tweak it somehow. The Mcmahons don't even show up on smackdown. I can see Shane Mcmahon not being apart of this new unity and probably being sent to smackdown. Stephanie and HHH take over RAW and overthrow Linda and Vince. #2)Mcmahonmania runs wild where we get Hogan coming back and its the basis for Hogan/Austin. Dumb, but they had to include themselves in another dream scenario with the wwe vs. ecw. wcw storyline. #3) They fire Bischoff and Long and they return with Jim Ross and ECW or some other convoluted story. #4) Shane and Stephanie finally take over both brands and destory the old guard. #5) Nothing changes and the Mcmahons just hog the spotlight for ego purposes.

I remember when smackdown's foucs was on......what was smackdown's original focus?

Maybe RAW and Smackdown is the beginning of th end. You know like that Survivor Series stuff in 2001?

I agree with those about wanting to see this flop of a brand split come to an end. It hasn't worked. The arguments have always been about guys like Benoit and Eddie getting a chance? Where the hell are they now? The wwe blew both of their title winning stories within a month and were jobbing out by SummerSlam of last year. Then you got guys lame as hell getting pushed that they got no business getting. The only problem is what Black Lushus brought up and it is a big problem. One question. If Friday is so horrible of a night, why did it house Hogan vs. Andre 2 on NBC and a monster rating? Yes, I know that's a big difference from an ordinary Batista/JBL strap match, but if it good they will come is my argument.

Some of that interview seemed political to me. The burial of Copani. Yeah, he sucked so much that rumours were flying he was going to dethrone Batista. I'm sure that feud would have been better than that crappy JBL feud. JBL sucks and we all knew that. Batista ripping on him for HHH is possible. HHH was taking pothsots at him since earlier this year. The reason I'm saying all this is that his love for HHH is blinding. Of course, he has sucked as champion ever since HIAC so I understand. I just can't understand a guy ripping on other co-workers about passion and laziness when hardly has any charisma and skill himself. I'm saying this and I like Batista, but the truth is the truth(I mean look at smackdown's numbers for crying out loud and Cena's reign seems more legit as champion imo). He probably wants Brock because Brock was smackdown. It might be a trainwreck, but I wouldn't be surprised if fans started to back Lesnar especially if he got to his ring level of the Benoit feud. Maybe Eddie can help him become entertaining again.

I'm glad Bret actually worked on this. The DVD stuff is the only high quality stuff this company puts out on a regular. However, Bret leaving out certain things actually is telling and not so much about disagreeing with him. For instance, there is no HBK stuff and that is one of the biggest rivalries in the history of wrestling. I would tend to think it might have to do with what Bret felt about Shawn being apart of the finish of the Slam 98 match(HBK stealing his glory and probably trying to give the impression that HBK's chapter of his career wasn't that big*downplay it*)). Anyways, the main feature will probably touch on things we can't see off reading the list.

Yeah, like NBC wants stuff that can potentially be more embarassing than the XFL games on their network. If anything Vince should realize why the big 3 won't touch his product. That doesn't even make him smarten up. I guess he likes being number one on UPN and other inferior channels. We'll just get Mcmahon vs. Mcmahon on SNME. Let my memories of SNME remain as they are.

JR's Rant on wwe website: "It’s just hard to believe that someone can spend 30-plus years of their life, endure sickness and death, and continue to persevere, the way the company showed me the door would be such a humiliating and embarrassing situation. I believe that there are many, many more issues to deal with other than who the announcers are. How many Bra and Panties Matches can you see? How different can they get? They’re all going to have big breasts. They’re all going to have a pair of bra and panties on. The only difference is what color they’ll be. We have to get back to wrestling. We have to get back to aggressive physicality. We have some guys in this business right now that don’t have a clue of why they’re there. Then we have a little bit of wonderful talent that needs to be emphasis of rebuilding this company and getting it rolling. It’s going to be built by physicality, aggression, suspense and drama. It’s not going to be built by becoming the action adventure show that empowers the audience to enjoy the humor and the sexuality. There are very few things in life worse than a wrestler trying to be an actor. It gets to be humiliating and embarrassing. I think wrestlers should wrestle. If they have a personality, then you exploit it. If they don’t have a personality they’re encouraged to find one or find another vocation. I’ve endured wrestlers having sex with corpses, 80-year-old women giving birth to hands, and that is what we perceive to be entertaining." "I have several options in mind. It’s probably going to surprise some people. I have a lot of friends in the media that are interested in me. I have some radio opportunities, some football opportunities, some political opportunities. I’ll do a lot of exploration of things and move on. I’ll probably write a book. And the book will be the truth. I’ve been taking meticulous notes for 30 years. I have box after box of material for a book. It will not only be authentic, but it will be eye-opening. There’s a great side of our business that I love, truly. There are great friends I’ve made that I will have forever. To say that the wrestling business doesn’t have an ugly underbelly, though, would be a lie. If we don’t get back to doing more sports than entertainment, then we’re going to continue to be in the same rut we’re in now. I’m hoping one of these great young studs we have on the roster will demand the ball. Not just request it, but demand the opportunity to lead this company back to prominence like it was during the Stone Cold and Rock years. I feel very good about my track record. I hired Austin, I hired The Rock, I hired Mick Foley, I hired Kurt Angle. I think I’ve carried my share of the load. I have nothing to look back on and regret other than being utterly humiliated the last time I was on television. That’s the last memory. It won’t be a WrestleMania moment. It won’t be the first voice you hear at WrestleMania, it wont’ be the last voice you hear on Nitro, it won’t be calling a classic Austin moment. It will be me holding my testicles, lying in the ring with the McMahons celebrating. That will be my lasting memory and I don’t believe that to be fair. It will take some time to get over it, but I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. Maybe they’ll get a nice fresh-faced pretty boy that doesn’t know a wristwatch from a wristlock. WWE’s reputation for finding star announcing talent over recent years hasn’t been exactly sterling. Maybe there’s somebody else that wants me in the wrestling business. And if they do, I’ll talk to them. I don’t see myself coming back to WWE unless cooler heads prevail. The Osbournes are certainly closer to the Cleavers than they are to the McMahons. Some day they’ll get what they deserve. I believe in karma. The Good Lord has a way of evening things out." ------Now I don't know how many have read this, but I just had to put it here because I think the wwe is now just mocking us. If JR can spit this stuff work or not it really is obvious this damn company is just stubborn and they deserve the apathy of the fans and losing of viewers. They know WHY people have stopped watching, but still trot out crap. If they were smart, ah never mind they won't do what I think they should do. They never do. My first real exposure to wrestling was the Orndorff heel turn on Hogan just like someone else posted although I did see bits and pieces of it, but can't recall in my kiddie years. Anyways, I did watch in 1989, 1993, and 1995. Yes, those years were dark days for sure, but most of the stuff still made SENSE. A lot of what they do know just does not make SENSE. This whole JR thing just doesn't make sense. I didn't even watch RAW for a few weeks until the homecoming show and stuff really didn't make sense. HHH baiscally kills Ric Flair and no one tries to help him, yet this week on raw the locker room acts all disturbed? The writing is horrendous. I think the wwe in its kayfabe heavy years tried to make sense even in the cartoon era which I believe really was just 1989-1993. That is the time period all the goofy characters really started to come out like The Genius and Texas Tornado. Before that they had nicknames like "Leaping" Lanny Poffo and whatnot. Anyways, the wwe did something right in late 1995 by trying to move toward a more mature product. It worked for the most part until they lost Nash and Hall and wcw used them properly for the nWo angle. The wwe caught up with attitude and made sense up until Royal Rumble 1999 imo. They got away with crap in the following years because they were hot, but now all the junk they did fans aren't putting up with. The wwe stopped making sense since Vince won the Rumble. It had some sparks with getting talented guys like the Radicalz and having the Mcmahon/Helmsley Era(which didn't make sense). However, REALLY look at everything and see if what they have done in the picture makes any sense or doesn't embarass fans for watching the show. It's too much to count. The wwe and the Mcmahons have to get their heads out of their asses and stop believing their own hype as being wrestling saviours. The company really started to get STUPID when Austin turned heel without any real backstory. It's just that the show is STUPID for the most part and the wrestling as someone stated more times than not is pointless. At least in those dark days stuff seemed to have a point such as Bret's feud with Owen or HBK collapsing on RAW. Fans are eventually going to stop caring. All you have to do is look at the craze that was on the net in 1996-1998 compared to 1999-present. It just becomes annoying waiting for things to get better and it doesn't. Fans have waited since 2000 for Austin's face return to make a difference, his heel turn, the invasion, The Rock's return from hollywood, the nWo, ecw, Brock Lesnar as the new man, the brand split, Eric Bischoff bringing back wcw, WM 20 to jumpstart a new era, homecoming, etc. Enough is enough as Owen use to say. Just rehaul the whole damn company. Get rid of the brand split. Unite the world titles. If you must have Hogan/Austin(yes, Vince botched this even more than Hogan/Flair), let the two battle out at WM 22 and just put an end to that last two decades that these two men represented and put this company back together. If you must let people go to TNA then let them go and mature as talent. DO SOMETHING. Put Shane in charge for real and put a fresh young face as the company man. I mean if they want to change JR why not old man Vince. The FANS HAVE GIVEN UP and watch out of habit or for mockery. It's bottomed out.

No he wasn't! He was a face/tweener everywhere, but in the US.

I was thinking the same thing about the Demos match. I loved that match back in the day and the interview before it with "two hearts pumping as one" or something. I guess it could have been worse for real, but I think a big reason why a DVD like Flair's sold so well was that it had stuff that a ton of people just didn't see air originally. Bret should have put the phantom title change on there. That's a marketing tool to sell the DVD. I wonder if Flair made a DVD with his 100% input he wouldn't show himself dethroning Bret as champ. Bret could have been egotistical in that fashion, but the whole match was left out. Canadian Stampede is kind of glaring since the match did happen in Calgary with his family ringside. I would have chosen the SNME Bulldogs/Harts match myself, but any match with them was good. I thought for sure he would have tried to get a match with him against Dynamite on there. The Strike Force match from the night Hogan got dethroned would have been a nice touch. How come no one has noticed Bret leaving out his whole heel run upon return in 97?

What those last two posts said

Mr. WHO? The guy's on tv for a month and they want to mega push him? Even Orton I understood because of his family tree(look how that turned out just like all the ohter flops since 2001). Who knows maybe he'll turn out to be Vince's illegitimate son. Kennedy against HHH at Mania. That's the ticket. Battle of the Mcmahons.

Talk about rolling a guy under a bus. Geez. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Like the poor guy hasn't gone through enough after Vince giving him that character.

I tend to agree with this statement, however Warrior was out of line with the Heenan and Droz comments. I guess he just felt that was his best way to really insult and hurt others in the business. I mean, Vince did ask for this. If he claimed Warrior was such a loose cannon, why take the chance by doing this? He must have read about Warrior's lectures causing riots. Now, Warrior can go "work" this new DVD to his advantage. I think the wwe would have been better off getting an agreement to have Warrior do the DVD like Bret did. I bet the masses won't buy the wwe story with their past history with hatchet jobs on former employees from Hogan(remember Huckster) to Hart(Bret screwed Bret). I haven't seen the DVD and some say it isn't even that bad as it's made out to be, but I'm sure fans of Warrior will be asking for Warrior's side to the story on the DVD.

In some twisted way maybe the wwe feels the same way and that's why they canned the Dudleys. It makes sense in their minds to now do the match with guys who can't pull it off. WWE logic 101!!!

Those 3 matches actually COULD have potential, but with the way they have screwed up in the last year with things I'm not holding out hope. This is what I mean......JBL's long lasting reign ending in the fashion it did at Mania and crowning Cena with the belt didn't come off as it should have. They screwed that up and tried to make up for it in the following ppv, but it just didn't feel right. Batista ending Evolution, but somehow it turned into the Triple H show anyways with his leave of absence. I think they have only NOW been doing Batista's character of cool, calm, and collected with Guerrero on smackdown. They killed off why people were liking him in the first place. They screwed up the heat Orton had from last year summer time obviously with the nonsense storyline that led to him winning the title and turning face. I can understand them wanting the mother of all matches at Mania with Hogan/Austin and it CAN be built that way, but it won't. I'm sure a lot of fans out there have just given up with the wwe just not being consistent in delivering the goods. Hogan/Austin will suck in the ring too obviously. They don't have the storytelling of the attitude era to make the match be what it really is which is the biggest clash between the biggest stars of the WrestleMania era. It will be lame. They got away with the crappy stuff with Hogan/Rock because it was Hogan's return. I know a way they can do the angle to make the match seem like Hogan/Andre, but I'm positive they won't do it. They just need to follow Hogan/Andre's storyline and tweak it and I'll leave it at that, but it will be some nonsense like Hogan/Rock in 2002. Cena should just run with the damn belt and have Triple H put him over the way JBL's monster reign was suppose to end to usher in Cena. However, I have my doubts seeing Triple H lose at 3 Mania shows in a row. He's most likely setting himself up to dethrone Cena at Mania which I just can't get excited over. Batista/Orton can actually be an extension of the Evolution story, but they'll do something completely opposite and make people not care. Look how quick the heat died for Orton and Taker since Mania 21. Even HBK/Angle they've messed up. They did the re-match out of nowhere when they could have done much better because there was anticipation to see a rematch between the two, but they rushed it for a minor ppv. Hell, HBK as a tweener was pretty entertaining when he was up against Hogan, but he's back to his boring HBK again because of his ego of not wanting to get any boos. Cena against heel HBK would be great to see right after this Angle feud.

True. Very true and the fans have spoken by not watching in droves as well. A crappy nitro against RAW is actually better for the industry than what we have now. Who would have thought that 5 years ago when everyone was ripping on wcw?

I just wished the wwe would have this type of competition every week to help them come out of this mediocrity they have been in since WM 21. Spike should always have some UFC/TNA stuff to keep the wwe on point.

WOW!!! Warrior got so much response for his DVD at this place. The wwe showing their ass by admitting he had crappy matches will only make people notice what junk they are giving us now. It's funny Chrisitian is on the thing making jokes about Warrior when he was 100 times more over at his peak than he ever was. Until HBK in '92 the majority of people had Warrior pegged as the superstar of the 90's. HBK kind of proved his hype by WM X. Warrior just had crappy feuds in 1990 and 1991 just as the wwe has for the most part nowadays. Besides, he was coming off post Hulkamania of the 80's. That wasn't exactly the best position to be in. I mean look at today's wwe in the post Austin/Rock era failing(I mean they have gone back to Hulk Hogan for crying out loud). If the wwe wants to do a burial dvd that would make people laugh I say bring on WCW with the likes of The Shark and other wrestle-crap stuff It also wwe caught feelings with Warrior dissing them by not doing the DVD and this is why they are going to such lengths to hype it without him helping. I mean an open invitation to ByteThis? That's just lame and if Warrior responds it's even more lame. It's sad Vince has to blackmail his former employees without doing them justice for the services they gave him. I mean for what its worth Vince had his balls up against the wall in 1996 and begged Warrior to return because he lost Hall and Nash. He couldn't have been that horrible in the big scheme of things. His wcw run on the other hand???

I wonder how much Chappelle would cost? He isn't exactly cheap. They'll probably get Michael Jackson for WrestleMania with the way Vince operates.

Hogan did kind of steal the spotlight from Rock here in Toronto, but honestly most of the damn crowd was for Hogan. We never seen Hogan in YEARS prior to that. The wwe was just dumb in not understanding that Hogan would get pops like he did. He also lost his other "passing the torch" match in Toronto at the same event. Lucky for them they did what they did to make the match memorable. As for Warrior's reign, I think the match happened a year too early. The fans were sick of Hogan a year later in 1991. If they had waited who knows maybe they would have got the monster crowd for the LA Coliseum. Warrior's problem as champ was that he seemed like a poor man's Hulk Hogan doing the Hulk up using his legs. That was just lame. Not to mention he was doing the same damn feud with Rick Rude exactly a year later. Warrior went on to face guys like Dibase who Hogan already conquered. They did Warrior's reign too soon. He should have gone over Hogan in 1991 and do NEW feuds with guys like Taker who Hogan didn't crush as champion in his hey day.

Well of course he likes racism. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Shelton has enough mic problems as it is I think this character will go to Coach. He makes an ass of himself now as it is

I saw this question asked elsewhere on the net and it's a good one. It was asked because of all the heat HHH gets from fans on the net. The question asked if HHH did what Rock did and Rock stayed with the wwe how would things look today. Would the wwe be better off or does HHH really add to the company and fans don't give him enough respect? These things were taken into account: Would Ric Flair have a prominent role? Would Batista ever reached world champion status? What about Orton? What would have happened to the players in Evolution? Would the Rock be the one getting the heat HHH gets now with multiple title reigns? Remember in 2002, Rock was getting boos from fans who were getting tired of him. Would people here actually want HHH to return now. Take into account that he would have people praising him for his 2000 run and expect him to do it again in the year 2005.

Isn't a house show a live event? If it's a live event then doesn't that mean they sell merchandise at the stands? Doesn't that also help them guage how over certain wrestlers and matches are in certain regions of the world? That can't be translated simply from studying a televised event. Most of the times(like this week in Montreal) the fans are there to be on tv themselves. If the wwe are thinking the way you are saying(and all signs do point to it as I remember Trish telling Vince this in a rumour) they are losing money in an aspect that would help boost their revenue. In 1986, Hogan and Orndorff were doing gangbusters at the box office and television. That basically tells them the fans are demanding to see that match. If attendance is reaching 1200(as I've seen rumoured for some of JBL's title defenses)then that tells them right there they are not connecting with the audience. Instead they probably turn around and blame a damn "cycle" or even worse blame the fans for not "getting with it".