strummer

I'll add another question to the discusion, if Vince didn't have the media connections he did in 1984, would the WWF been as successful in the long run? Could he have done it on his own? With no Ebersol, NBC, MTV, Lauper, etc.

I got sick of Austin/McMahon around WM 15, but crowd reactions at the time were saying that the fans still wanted to see the program

I never understood the booking at Summerslam 89 as Hogan beat Zeus clean in the middle. How would have this led to a singles match as Hogan had already defeated the monster challenger clean? After the PPV, they sort of pretended the pinfall didn't happen as Zeus was back to being the "Human Wrecking Machine". Very weird booking (especially for the time frame) as I thought for sure Savage was taking the pinfall in the tag match.

Backlash is a Raw PPV.

The big deal about the Austin push in 98 was that there were supposedly no credible heels to feud with him after he won the belt. When it was obvious Vince was going to be the top heel, A LOT of the people on the net thought the WWF was doomed because you couldn't have a wrestler feud with a non-wrestler and make it credible. There were tons of people on the net that thought Austin/McMahon would not work.

From PWI RIP Mr. Senerca

at the NHB PPV, Vince kept saying "wouldn't it be great to see Hogan and Zeus in the ring at WrestleMania" So it was definitely in the works, but even Vince knew that Zeus was so bad it would have been a disaster.

Bigelow/Andre aired on Prime Time in the summer of 88 and the announcers were not so subtely burying Bam Bam during the match, now I know why

The fact that Hogan's induction is being televised should be an ANGLE ALERT. Throw in the fact that Hogan cut a promo on Hassan on a radio show last week and you know something is going on. I say Hassan interrupts Piper's Pit and either works Hogan or Austin at Backlash

update from LOP: Despite there definitely being rumors of Rochelle Loewen's departure from WWE, at this point, it seems the diva is not going to leave the company. Both the Wrestling-Observer Newsletter and PWInsider have been credited with supporting rumors of Loewen leaving, but at this point, such a resignation seems highly unlikely. Loewen had complained about issues associated with Randy Orton several weeks ago; such issues have reportedly not led her to quit.

found this at LOP: According to the Wrestling-Observer Newsletter, there is a rumor going around that WWE Diva Rochelle Loewen has handed in her notice to management. She was one of the former Playboy Playmates signed to the SmackDown! roster and participated in the "Rookie Diva Of The Year" segments at No Way Out. Loewen is reportedly blaming her decision to leave on Randy Orton. She had well-documented problems with Orton in the past, so the likelihood of Orton being the stimulus is very good. Orton was also a major factor in Amy Weber's decision to leave WWE.

in regards to Mania this year, a lot of the casual fans I know, some who are on the net and some who are not not, the thing they are talking about the most is Austin on Piper's Pit.

While ECW was probably putting on better matches in 2000 than they had in the 95-97 glory years, the storylines were non-existent. Heyman had hit a serious creative drought and his solution was to give every match 20 minutes and to blatantly kiss up to the smark crowd. For people who loved the 95-97 years, like myself, 2000 doesn't measure up, because the storylines were SO stale and uninspiring (at least compared to 95-97)

Meltzer made a post at the WC board where he said that while waiting in line in Anaheim to get into the show, everybody was talking about the return of the Warrior and no one was mentioning Bret or Shawn at all. It was definitely an Entertainment first/wrestling second crowd that night.

I always saw it as a form of punishment for Gunn, but I don't know if that was the case, since he was getting the uber push by June

from PWI: Russ Roman sent word that WWE.com is now reporting that Chris Jericho (not Steve Austin) will be inducting Roddy Piper into the WWE Hall of Fame on Saturday 4/2 in Los Angeles, California. The final hour of the ceremonies, featuring Hulk Hogan's induction, will be broadcast on Spike TV at 11 PM Eastern.

What are some movies where big time actors look out of place William H. Macy in Down Periscope (This was on today and what inspired me to start the thread) Sharon Stone in Police Academy 4 Danny Devito in Terms of Endearment Colin Firth in What a Girl Wants

yeah, Sherri has managed some great workers in her day (Savage, DiBiase, Shawn, Flair, one half of Harlem Heat, and even Summers and Rose were a pretty good team) On the flip side, I've always thought that Bobby Heenan has gotten somewhat of a bad rap because he's managed so many bad wrestlers (Studd, Bundy, Barbarian, Andre when he was immobile, Missing Link, Hercules,etc) When you are associated with good wrestling, people look back at you in more of a positive light. I think Sherri has benefited from that.

My friends and I called jobbers "loser guys". One of my brother's friends was obsessed with jobbers (or "loser guys" if you will), he just didn't understand why they kept getting matches when they never won. I also thought the NWA was "minor league" wrestling, since they weren't on national TV like the WWF. In fact since we didn't have TBS, I thought the AWA was higher up on the totem pole, since at least they had the ESPN deal.

Why wasn't Jake Roberts at Summerslam 89? I can't remember if it was some sort of angle or he just didn't have a program.

I'm pretty sure I read that Shannon Moore's wife came from money, so it's not a stretch that he can afford a hummer.

This might help a little: http://www.pwtorch.com/artman/publish/article_12467.shtml

yes, I remember the Francine turn for her stripping down to her underwear, probably one of the most unique heel turns in history to say the least.

Also have to take into account that Vince McMahon did not believe in tag teams being any kind of draw at the top of the card. Vince believed tag teams were strictly midcard, therefore the Rockers were never put in a position to draw. In the NWA, tag teams were put on top and in a position to draw. Also, the Rockers had to work with inferior opponents, such as POP, Twin Towers, etc.

here's some more partial spoilers from gamefaqs: (edit, full spoilers up) "allright heres what i can remember last night. show opened with joey matthews and johnny nitro beating two jobbers. next was paul london against spike dudley, london won with the 450 splash josh matthews and some other dude, didn't catch the name came out for velocity tapings. mark jindrak beat one of the basham bros., ref banned one from ring side during the match. heidenriech beat a memphis guy with ease kidman & akio beat nunzio & funaki, think kidman did the shooting star press on funaki, cant remember tazz and cole walked out to the ring for smackdown tapings tony chimmel then told us to be ready with signs after the pyro goes off for the tapings tazz is in the ring and big show walks out. they talk about his upcoming match with akibono and show a tape of akibono in action. luther reigns interupts the precedings by driving some kind of jeep out. he tells show that the jeep is like a lot of akibonos and he is much stronger then him and says he'll show him by pushing it over. he tries but can't do it and the crowd laughs. he then runs to the ring and show chokeslams him. as show is leaving, he looks at the jeep and the crowd urges him to push it over. he then does and fails 3 times. he then just smashes the window and walks out. i think they'll edit this out. we wait for a few minutes and then show comes back out to try again. this time a guy runs in with a jack and jacks it up. show finally gets it pushed over and does some sumo stances. a video plays of chavo talking to eddie about him and rey, dont remember much of it. beer does that. Out next is a United States Championship match, or at least it was supposed to be. JBL accompanies Orlando Jordan and he is to face Scotty 2 Hotty. JBL is making fun of his size and Scotty superkicks both of them then hits JBL with the Worm. JBL is mad and he tells them he's wrestling. He proceeds to whoop Scotty. Next up, at least I think this was the next part, Teddy Long comes out and says that smackdown isn't just wrestling but to entertain. Out walks Carlito in Elvis getup with a guitar. He doesn't like it and Long has him sing an Elvis song. Of course he does horrible and the crowd lets him know it. He gets mad and walks off. Eddie finds Rey in the back and tells him he wants to have a match against him at Wrestlemania. Rey is kinda upset and he takes off for the ring because their match is up NEXT! Tag Team Championship match is next and it's Rey and Eddie vs. Hardcore Holly and Charlie Hass. Hass and Holly are walking to the ring when The Undertaker appears on the screen. He tells everyone that Orton made him mad last week when he slapped him and tonight there will be a sacrifice. He disappears and the intro for Holly and Hass continues on. Then Rey and Eddie come out. Rey and Eddie end up winning when Eddie hits the frog splash. Rey then gets on the mic and accepts Eddie's offer for the match. Oh yeah one other thing, during that match, Undertaker played some mind games by having the lights go off and the Screen start getting fuzzy. Next is my favorite part of the night. Shawn Michaels music hits but instead of HBK its Kurt Angle dressed up in HBK's attire. He does the whole entrance and with him is none other then Sensational Sherri. He gets on the mic and tells everyone that he's also an entertainer and he was going to prove it. He and Sherri then sing HBK's song with differnt lyrics that I didn't get cause I was laughing to hard. HBK interupts on the screen and let's Angle know he has a video showing his accomplishments too. It shows differnt parts of HBK's career. Afterwards, Sherri is crying because she is touched by it and Angle gets mad. He puts her in the Anklelock then ref's run out and break it up. Next we have a Cat fight between Dawn Marie and Michelle McCool. Dawn Marie wins. The screen shows us Carlito walking off wen smackdowns NUMBER ONE ANNOUNCA approaches him. He asks where he is going. Something is said and Carlito shoves the Elvis glasses in Funaki's chest and walks off. Funaki puts them on and starts to sing some Elvis when CCC walks up behind and Jeff Jarretts him with the guitar. He's knocked out and Carlito tells him that Carlito has left the building then spits apple on him. Michelle walks by and checks on him. I yell out for her to give him mouth to mouth which got some laughs since nothing else was going on. Oh again during the cat fight Undertaker did same thing he did during Tag team match with the lights and screen. Next I decided to leave for the concessions. It was Booker T vs. Rene Dupree. Didn't start because Undertaker's music started and he appeared behind him. From what I was told, Booker ran off and Rene became the sacrifice. Taker tombstoned him on the ringsteps. That was about it. He did the stretcher job thingy. Your main event is going to be........a debate between Cena and JBL. JBL keeps telling Cena he can't touch him or no shot at Wrestlemania. Cena never does instead he messes up JBL's limo, cuts his tie off and puts it on himself when JBL says he'd look better with a suit and tie. Then poors some water into JBL's hat. Cena is doing all this to try to get JBL to hit him but he never does. Think this is where it will end with Cena walking off and JBL mad. Our main event was Cena vs. JBL and it was actually pretty good. Cena wins with the FU. Tony says thanks and we leave. I could never get anyone to chant with me. I tried to start a Paul London, Funaki, Nunzio, and one of the jobber's chants but no one would. They only chanted for the big stars. Biggest pop was Cena, then Taker, Eddie, and Big Show JBL got the most heat, then Angle, Luther, and Carlito Fun show." GOOD GOD, only 2 matches! (3 if Dawn/Michelle is an actual "match") That is a hell of a lot of talking. This has to be a record for the least amount of wrestling on a show, maybe matching a Raw from 99. ---