Promoter

After all he did name their biggest show in history and it's the silver anniversary. There still hasn't been any better ring announcer with the exception of Michael Buffer.

This is a reason why I don't like the storyline unless they do something where Jericho calls out the content as being uninformed. Sort of like Dr. Schultz 25 years ago attacking the reporter who was trying to expose wrestling. Let's say they do get mainstream buzz(I doubt they will get that much unless Rourke wins an Oscar for the movie) it could end up backfiring on the wwe when WrestleMania is done. Jericho jobbing(and all history shows that he most likely will) will hurt the character and also the wwe universe. Their universe would be shattered by a non-athlete who was an actor getting a WIN OVER the last reigning world heavyweight champion before John Cena. The argument some would then make is that we know the matches are predetermined and the babyface story is Rourke coming in(we still don't know if it's as Randy The Ram) and showing Jericho that he could hang with the real world of professional wrestling. The whole match and storyline is a paradox. Mayweather/Big Show was not the same as it was still boxer vs. wrestler and there is a history going back into the kayfabe heavy pro wrestling era on matches of these sort. I didn't really like Donald Trump being in WrestleMania either, but at least it wasn't a match(he threw horrible punches on Vince a la his son). Mike Tyson was used perfectly to get both Austin and DX over. Bam Bam vs. LT pretty much ruined Bam Bam Bigelow in the wwf. Mr. T was used perfectly too in the original Mania. This idea? Not so sure, but I'll watch it play out to see how it is executed.

Yep! RAW IS LAME. I can't even bother write why this show just killed my interest for Mania so quickly.

"As Daniel reported earlier, "The Wrestler" star Mickey Rourke was at tonight's Screen Actors Guild Awards in Hollywood and spoke about a possible appearance at WrestleMania 25. We now have confirmation that Rourke will in fact be in Houston on April 5th. PWTorch.com reports that Rourke is "officially signed" to appear at WWE's showcase event. This evening, Rourke spoe to Access Hollywood on the red carpet and said, “The nicest thing has been the whole wrestling community embracing us. The movie was about their world.” He continued, “The boys from the WWE called me and asked me to do it. I said, ‘I want to.’ I’m talking with [WWE legend] Rowdy Roddy Piper about it.” Just as he did on the E! channel's pre-show, Mickey Rourke cut another promo on Chris Jericho. "Chris Jericho, you better get in shape," Rourke said. "Because I'm coming after your ass." http://www.rajah.com/base/node/14916 I think it would be better to make it a tag match. An actor getting a win over a wrestler is a no no imo. Do a tribute match to the original Mania if they insist on having Rourke in a match. HBK/Rourke vs. JBL/Jericho

Yeah, I fear Taker/Show at Mania too. Also, are we going to get two family turncoat storylines at the same time? That's bad timing. Mcmahon family war and Hardy family war?

That's not a bad idea, but they may be thinking about Million Dollar Man's son as the one to break the streak. They had some interaction tonight. Plus, JR pretty much wanted to kill rumors of Austin having a match. I don't think he would be saying that as any rumor of Austin fighting at Mania would increase the buy-rate. They probably don't want to get people's hopes up. The same thing with Hogan. I'm sure they got e-mails from fans wanting to see the match at Mania and is probably the reason for him coming out and denying the match's possibility. I think Hardy vs. Hardy makes the storyline make more sense with Jeff giving up the title shot. However, it seems pretty much a lock HHH will have to win the contender's match to properly push the wwe title match.

I'm 50/50 on this Rumble. I think Orton had to win after what happened on raw too. It could have been HHH too.

Rouke should induct Roberts into the HOF. That would be something. That would be risky. Who knows if Jake would even show up or what kind of altered state of mind he would be in. Sounds like great television They shoud do it.

In his defense HHH hasn't won the title at the event in a few years.

It would be a sick joke if they had Rourke against Jake The Snake

http://sports.espn.go.com/videogames/news/story?id=3855511 The uber push continues! He's going after that 5% Coach was talking about :lol:or 95% of the wrestling audience won't read it

Jonathan Coachman "In the last 18 months when I was at MSG and asked (by WWE) to do a few things a legit sports guy wouldn't do, I questioned that a little bit. But I also found quite a bit of our (WWE) audience -- 95 percent -- doesn't watch real sports. I never received any backlash whenever I did something a little off-color." http://www.sescoops.com/wwe/Jonathan_Coach...rn_To_WWE.shtml Is he correct? I think he's way off-base and if the wwe is in this mindset it may explain a lot(although them hiring guys like Lesnar, Angle, Benjamin seems to say otherwise). They do also use a lot of guys from sports such as Mayweather.

Why did you not want us to know it was Rick Scaia? I wasn't sure how some would respond to the comments without any bias towards the writer positive or negative. You know like how some don't care at all for Meltzer's opinons or comments?

I liked this show for all the comments made on here Haven't seen it in a few years in completion though.

The following is an article by one of the more respected online writers from the internet's glory days. What do you guys think about his comments? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- I wouldn't get all melodramatic about me "being fed up" with wrestling or anything else. Truthfully, there's nothing about the business or its overall entertainment value that's much different from when it kinda down-turned in 2004. That's stuff I'm willing to put up, something I'm kind of prepared to deal with, a turd I'm ready to polish. There's not as much unbridled joy and enthusiasm as there used to be in the Long Ago, but I'm good, dammit; I'm damned good. I can turn ANYthing into a fairly amusing anecdote, and there's still plenty of quality material, inspired by the current product, that occurs to me in any given week. What's changed for me in the last little while is a realization not about the wrestling itself... but about wrestling-on-the-internet. This whole big "revolution" that started in earnest about 12-13 years ago, served to "smarten up" a whole new legion of mainstream viewers, and which may or may not have directly caused ECW to become as influential as it was.. it is now officially dead. I realized that where once WWE's online presence was laughable to any "serious" wrestling fan, the truth is that they are now OWNING that demographic. People who legitimately care enough about wrestling to get online and search for more of it are finding exactly what they want on WWE.com... not from Keller or Scherer or me. "Serious" fans aren't joiniing me in mocking WWE for asking me to give a shit about "The Dirt Sheet" when they can't even bother to put together 5 strong hours of REAL TV per week... "serious fans," more often than not, are just lining up in droves so that they can talk to each other about how much they want to jock Johnny Nitro for being able to display at least 70% of a marketable personality when he's doing it in Virtual Form. This other insider/expert/analyst thing -- the thing that the internets used to be good for when it came to wrestling -- is now the purview of lapsed fans, or fans who are in some way less connected to the product than these other "serious" fans. It makes for a convoluted mess when you're me, and you have to figure out how to frame things or figure out how (ir)relevant you are. It's not that I don't still have every confidence that I can spin a damned fine yarn... it's just that I've become concerned over whether it matters or not anymore. I've never aspired to be Meltzer or Keller (and thank god, because they truly are awful; alternating between acting like serious "journalists"/self-important-twats and then coming off as the biggest dorktastic weenies in the world any time they attempt a rare display of personality, wit, or wordsmithery)... but I always thought I knew my place pretty clearly. Now, with WWE's audience contracted to the point that it is, I have a style of analysis and criticism that plays best to a pretty-hardcore audience of people who are still there in the trenches with me watching these shows 3-4 times per week... an audience that's no longer there, maybe. WWE's condensed audience of existing superfans would rather visit the WWE Universe to see shitty video blogs than read about how Randy Orton is, objectively and mathematically, Ratings Death. Those are your new "hardcore" fans. And WWE's figured out how to own them. Good for them, I guess. But tough for me to get traction for my ideas and witticisms if I'm not entirely sure if I'm playing to "hardcore" fans who think I'm out of touch if I dare to still think Orton is utterly average and has NOT paid nearly enough pennance yet to deserve anything resembling praise... or if I need to tweak things in terms of my Righteous Indignation because I have mostly lapsed/casual viewers checking in on my columns because they're even more annoyed with WWE than I am, and yet ironically, less familiar with the subject matter and thus less capable of being as SPECIFICALLY annoyed as I am.... or if there's something else entirely I should be focused on. Honestly, I think about it, and it's like what I consider to be the "smart fan" (intelligent, critical, comprehending of how the business works but still able to enjoy the shows) is now defined by limited patience and attention to the product, or what we used to call a "casual viewer." And then, what I think of as "clueless lemming-like marks" are now such an extremely enthusiastic group that they're dead-ringers for what we used to call "hardcore." It's fucked up and upside down and all that. My columns tend to be pretty spontaenous and stream-of-consciousness once I get started, but it's hard to get the foothold to just start writing one if you don't have a good feel for how you want things to be framed in the "big picture." Thus: maybe a bit less output from me in this particular medium until I can wrap my brain around what's happening. Anyway, if you want a explanation/excuse: there's kind of a few random and possibly nonsensical thoughts. Seeing how pitiably insular and irrelevant much of the once-noble "IWC" has become (note: yes, there's sarcasm there, but for as stupid as I thought it was to call the thing a "community," I still recognize it served its purpose for a pretty long time) has just had me thinking lately. Mostly about how WWE has stepped in and claimed the medium as their own, and how the original online revolution is officially dead. Maybe somebody should think about writing up a big fancy feature about the "Rise and Fall of the Online Wrestling Reporter"? I want no part of writing something like that my own self, but if somebody else does, I insist on being interviewed for my voluminous thoughts! Also: I'm back on the horse again for the Rumble. If not for the recap itself, then for a column right afterwards. Haven't you noticed the trend since SummerSlam? Come hell or high water, The Rick simply does not miss PPVs! Or perhaps I'm just getting in touch with my Inner Hogan: I only work the big towns, brother.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------- I left his name annonymous on purpose.

I liked the Rumble numbers promo last night. I was wondering about the footage with Hogan and company in there. Just a question. If the wwe is going to be doing silver anniversary promos that lead to the past stars coming back for the show is it possible they will fill up the Rumble with the guys in that promo last night? Anyone think that is a good idea just for a novelty reason? Also, suppose it's STEVE AUSTIN in the Rumble on Sunday and he WINS it to main event Mania against someone like Cena? Not saying this is possible, but just for discussion sake would this help make WM feel bigger and special as the 25th anniversary?

You know you might have something there about Shane being involved in this angle too. Shane Mcmahon brought up the point about Stephanie sleeping with wrestlers a while back when he was on raw. Vince Mcmahon's mic work also hinted at Vince talking about what he did for the business with Orton's dad. We could see Stephanie/Shane Legacy vs. Vince's old guard ideas and Shane being his seed. HHH vs. Shane? Not a bad idea actually.

Dana White wasn't the owner of UFC then, and the UFC of today has nothing to do with the UFC of the mid-90s. Vince did allow Spike to air The Ultimate Fighter, which did help UFC reach its current popularity. I thought they also mentioned Brock and the UFC on WWE.com prior to his debut there. These things are some of the problems in ever seeing UFC and wwe working together. Then again who thought we would see wwe stars on wcw's nitro? Not the same thing I know being different type of products, but it's why it is in the dream scenario

for what reason? He has a chance for a title shot by winning the rumble. If this was in the summer, maybe. Maybe this leads to Austin/Orton. That's what I was thinking too. However, that HHH/Orton match idea isn't bad either if they have Orton out the first family. However, Orton/Austin may have more juice if I think they are going to do LEGACY with Stephanie behind it. This is good, they got my interest and it's open on where it could go.

WWE vs. UFC I know, but that would be surprising. LESNAR VS. ???? It would make a ton of money imo. I remember them doing that Lion Den's match with Owen and Shamrock at SummerSlam 98. Of course, the outcome may be pitiful like the Brawl for it all(which I liked because it was something off the wall). IMO, this is the closest thing they have to the days of people having dream bouts of the likes of Inoki vs. Ali in the 70's or Tyson vs. Hogan in the 80's. Boxing's heavyweight division is more boring and stagnant than the wwe's.

Seriously, you can't read from the top of the page? I didn't see anything about Flair at the top of the page being the guy who will induct Austin through a suggestion by Stone Cold did you?

Just that little detail to attention made a difference in Austin's character. When people talk about the attitude era those are the things I loved most and not that stuff in 1999 that was out there. I did get a bit scared when Austin first shouted "Hell Yeah" too and I think it was the night he faced Ahmed Johnson in MSG or something before his official return for Surivor Series 97 or the ppv after. It's kind of hazy too me off the top of my head. It worked out well though. I think they stopped doing the heel in storylines fully when he helped Stephanie from Undertaker because it was the right thing to do.

A portion of the crowd boos him out of the building. So we got a guy who can make a company a LOT of money by having: A section of the audience that wants/and will pay to see him win AND A section of the audience that wants/and will pay to see him lose And people still wonder why Cena is on top? Yeah, Cena has some strange love/hate amongst fans. I actually think the guy is doing good although I liked his character more when everyone on the net hated him(even this place hated the guy). The reason probably had to deal with Cena's character being out of the norm of a babyface. I think Smackdown Cena was actually better character wise, but he puts on better matches now. His storylines also remind me of the stuff that made me like the attitude era. Example would be the original JBL feud although the climax absolutely sucked and I think it did because they were going for the Warrior/HTM impact. I don't think either were more popular or skilled to pull it off. His match with Umaga was good and so was his match with HHH at Mania. I think training with Steamboat has helped him a lot. A heel turn may freshen him, but I don't think it's need right now. They just need him to get his edge back. Sort of like what they did with Hogan in 1988 when he lost his mind after losing his title and Hogan was being more like a heel, but it was justified because he got over the edge after being robbed. Right now I don't even know what Cena is suppose to be about. It's like he's just some guy in jean shorts and Reebok pumps who comes to fight and wears a belt. His current feud with JBL is not even about him, but about JBL and HBK.

You know I completely forgot about that. Good point. I also liked how they kept Austin as a heel in storylines even though he was face to the fans around that time too.

Well, pwinsider.com is saying Austin has asked the wwe to have Flair induct him. They are likely to allow it, but are concerned about Flair getting "free advertisement". wwe is acting like Flair is an up and coming wrestler we have never heard about it.