Slickster

He had a WWE Tag Title reign with Rene Dupree during the fall of 2004.

Exactly. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked if all the Roman stuff was taped at the same time last February.

So can we all agree that HBK will leave Albany as WWE Champion?

X-Pac vs. Chris Jericho on September 25, 2000.

Yeah, couldn't they have just had Trish wet her hair or something? Geez.

WTF? What are you talking about? The infamous Memphis shoot promo that got Doug Gilbert blackballed.

http://www.100megsfree4.com/wiawrestling/p...tnaxplosion.htm Every Xplosion result EVER.

I second the love for the Undertaker "Adrenaline" video. Just a great video chronicling the Deadman's entire career until that point. I should also mention the WWE Desire video set to "Weathered" by Creed that they aired in summer of 2002. It focused on the hard life on the road, showing wrestlers traveling, the ring crew, etc. I thought it was pretty cool too.

Again?

a) If you want the first 14 WrestleManias in DVD quality b) If you want 21 3-hour PPVs for an average of ~$10 each then yes, get this boxset.

Well, they've held Starrcade every year since 2001. It looks like they have more of a claim on Starrcade than WWE does right now (especially since WWE cancelled all their trademarks on the name).

A minor edit: on WrestleMania X-Seven, they now mute the part where Paul Heyman botches the date of the event ("Sunday, April 1, 2000,...) and leave in the part where they tell him he got it wrong ("Did I say 2000? I'm sorry, I'm excited!")

All original commentary is intact on all WrestleManias. A note: Michael Cole now does the voiceover for the WMXII Iron Man video package (though he didn't work with the company until September '97). I presume their rights to the original VO guy ran out.

Yeah, I just thought his gimmick was that he was a generic 'really tough guy.'

How is this Melina angle any different from the Diana Hart-HBK angle in 1996?

I personally suspect that the Orient Express theme was changed at WMVI and WMVII out of sheer embarassment due to its overt racism. Note that Kitao and Tenryu now get a good generic, face-ish rock song at WMVII instead of the 'Generic Asian Stereotype #3' theme they actuallly entered to.

Quoted from Usenet posts from December 93/January 94. Does anyone know anything about this venture?

Well, I'm pretty sure some stuff on there (the Limp Bizkit catalog, Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust," Aretha Franklin, etc.) could have significantly increased the cost of the boxset.

Continuing the list of edits: WM13 - WM14 - Taka Michinoku WM15 - All performance clips from the WrestleMania Rage Party WM16 - T+A, Hardcore and Crash Holly WM17 - "My Way" replaced with generic theme WM18 - nWo, Undertaker, Edge WM19 - Hulk Hogan, Victoria WM20 - Dudleyz WM21 - "Bigtime" and "Behind Those Eyes" replaced with generic themes

If you look elsewhere on WWE.com, some 24/7 Online writeups call the belt 'the restored WCW Championship,' so that throws the 'WWE.com is the authority' theory right out the window. The WWE doesn't even keep their own story straight on the title's lineage, having supported both the 'WCW Title' and 'new world title' theories about equally.

I have long thought that WWE should do a contest where the winner gets SmackDown! taped at or near their house. It would be great publicity for the company and could liven up one of those doldrum weeks between Judgment Day and The Great American Bash.

That's a straw man argument, Bob, and you know it is. I had hoped you were above using that garbage. Yes, people accept wrestling is predetermined and have done so for decades. However, you don't need to rub it in people's faces the way WWE does. You need to maintain that suspension of disbelief or why would people cheer for characters or care about them? This isn't a TV show where we know it's actors just playing roles. Wrestlers can't just completely drop their gimmicks outside of the ring. This is one of the basic tenets of the business and I'm sad to see it fall by the wayside.

I'm pretty sure people stopped believing it was real c. 1940s when results stopped being printed in newspapers. However, I don't remember Flair talking about "Steamboat and I, we REALLY hit each other, though." Perhaps you could refresh my memory. Shut up. The WWE reguarly recognizes that their program is 'booked' when out of the context of their actual shows. Back in the day, when a wrestler appeared on a show, he'd be appearing as his character. Nowadays, it's the actual person, and breaking kayfabe comes with that territory. On the Eddie Guerrero MSNBC show JBL happily recognized that he was booked to loose to Chavo that night. OMG IT'S OKAY FOR JBL TO EXPOSE THE BUSINESS!!!! No, it really isn't OK for anyone to expose the business. Kayfabe is necessary to maintain suspension of disbelief. Without suspension of disbelief, who would watch? We know it's predetermined and we've been fans for years, yes, but what about all the young people who are just starting to become WWE fans? Without kayfabe, you kill the mystique of professional wrestling and make it into just another TV show.

It might be cost-prohibitive to hire the extra cops and reroute traffic for the day.