Hunter's Torn Quad

Hall gets way too much credit for that one. People think he did this great thing for Jericho, when all he did was a Kevin Nash special.

Exactly. They took everything that made Goldberg get over and took it away, purely to prove that Goldberg wasn't all that good. Whether Goldberg was a good worker or not doesn't matter, because he got over huge before falling victim to politics.

The finish was going to be Austin accidentally costing Rock the match, but not turning heel. The idea, before Austin went down, was for Austin to get the belt back at the Rumble before turning heel going into a WM 2000 main event against Rock.

The gun angle was the idea of Jake Roberts. The Bret Hart heel turn was McMahon's idea, with Bret coming up with the pro-Canada part of the storyline. Russo came onto the writing team proper the week after the Raw from Europe that held the European title match with Owen and Davey Boy. And you can ignore Russo's 'shoot' interview. The guy is in work mode from start to finish.

Some people in the debate over Rock/Dwayne leaving wrestling have displayed an incredible level of selfishness and shown that all they care about is what someone can do for them. How dare Dwayne do what is best for himself, his career and his family. How dare he take working 250 days a year, taking bumps every night, being on the road every night, being away from his family every night, risking serious injury every night and trade it in for earning more money for himself and his family for less risk and less time away from the people he loves. Man, he is one selfish bastard for putting himself and his family first. More on the heat between Rock and Shawn: Early in the Rock’s run in 1997, Bret was booked to beat Rock clean via submission. The finish was heavily pushed for by Shawn and Hunter, because Hunter and Rock were vying for the same spot and they wanted to take Rock down a peg, and were also bad mouthing him to everyone. Bret knew why they pushed for the finish but he also saw Rock as the future and he felt there was no reason to beat him clean so he changed the finish to a DQ or something. Rock never forgot this and it’s a big reason why Bret is one of the people that he’ll speak very highly of.

Cable show, most certainly Raw would be the most episodic TV show on Cable history and if it isn't #2 period on all of TV it's damn close (with 60 minutes ahead). You also can't count soap opera. It's probably just for primetime programing. As for things like SportsCenter, I think that has to fall in line with regular news programing. Saturday Night did far more than Raw ever has, being that it's lineage stretched back so many years. The line is the official one, but it's not even close to being true. They used to keep redefining the criteria for trying to make Raw sound like it had done far more than it really had, but I guess they're stopping that and flat out lying. I think King was overzerolus there... He's spouting the official company li(n)e.

Not even close to being a fact.

Hunter was never going to end it, either.

The closest the streak has come to ending was when Orton faced Undertaker last year, but even then it wasn't a strongly pushed idea. It's never been seriously considered at any point that the streak end.

He didn't. But he also couldn't be the top pushed guy on Raw with Lesnar around so.....

Malenko and Kidman did know the rules. Malenko simply forgot the rules of the match for a moment, but that's all it took.

It's a true story.

Kane was never going to end the streak.

Because you'd never do something like that yourself..... Orton is relatively safe, in that he's unlikely to get shoved down the card below a certain level, because the powers that be view him as someone they can push in a strong program. However, because of his behavior, Orton is also unlikely, unless circumstances allow for no other option, to get the tip-top push that he has been set for in the past. Orton will keep his job unless he goes too crazy, but if he becomes a liability, then he can still be fired, and if WWE will fire Kurt Angle, then they'll certainly fire Orton if they feel they have to.

Dave's stuff is copyrighted. He prints that part in every newsletter. It might not be in the HoF issue, though it probably is, but the HoF issue is copyrighted material. As for why WON is not meant to be copied and pasted or scanned, a previous instance of it happening wound up with Dave contacting Admin over it and the post in question deleted, hence the rule being put into effect.

Hard Justice poll Thumbs Up: 82 (75.9%) Thumbs Down: 1 (0.9%) Thumbs in the Middle: 25 (22.9%) Best Match Joe vs. Rhino vs. Brown: 87 Styles and Daniels vs. LAX: 15 Worst Match Gail Kim vs. Sirelda: 72 Jarrett vs. Sting: 14 While Monty Brown was doing his long promo outside, the idea was for Joe and Rhino to attack him to start the FCA match but that idea was dropped when they got word they were ready to return inside. The FCA match came close to not happening. The original finish was Joe pinning Rhino, but with Rhino getting over so big with his recent promos it was changed to Joe pinning Brown. When Brown arrived and found out he quit on the spot, and had to be heavily talked into doing the job by Joe and Terry Taylor. Dave said that Brown wound up delivering the performance of his year if not his whole career, and said that, for the first time since his matches with Jarrett, Brown looked like the performer the promotion wanted him to be. The next day at TV, Brown and Ron Killings asked Terry Taylor for their release. Taylor has been trying to talk them into staying, but right now nothing is decided, though Brown is free to go anyway soon as his deal runs out. When Killings spoke to Taylor and Taylor mentioned that Brown had just asked for his release as well earlier, Killings noted that the two of them have something in common. The big angle was Christian turning on Sting, allowing Jarrett to retain the title which is set to build to a Title vs. Career match at Bound for Glory on 10/22. There is tremendous heat (and Dave calls that an understatement) on Kevin Nash, to the point that even people who supported his cause even though they could see him burying Sabin, and even those who never have anything bad to say about Nash, were burying Nash. Nash claimed an injury that would prevent him from wrestling, coincidentally when he was set to put Sabin over clean, and also coincidentally the day of the PPV was the last day of his contract, and a lot of people are admitting that he played the company and got away with it. The original idea of Nash putting over Sabin clean earlier was changed to Nash beating Sabin, Sabin beating Shelly in a tag and then Sabin finally beating Nash in the end. Most everyone conceded that the idea backfired, in regards to getting Sabin over, and Nash was only getting himself over. It was acknowledged by the booking committee that Shelly was also getting over, and that Sabin was going to beat Nash, for whatever that was worth, in the end, to build to a title shot against Sen Shi on 9/24. Except for Sting, Nash, at $5,000 a shot, is the highest paid guy in the promotion, and with his track record of injuries springing up the day before a PPV where he is scheduled to lose, nobody is believing his injury story, even if it is real. With his contract done, he’s not coming back to the job, and the strong feeling internally is to never book him to wrestle again. The only set matches for No Surrender on 9/24 are the main event, which will be LAX vs. Styles and Daniels in an Ultimate X match, and Sen Shi vs. Sabin. Also set are Christian vs. Rhino, and Raven vs. Abyss vs. Runt in some kind of garbage match. Eric Young vs. Johnny Devine: **1/2 Chris Sabin vs. Alex Shelly: **1/2 Abyss vs. Runt: *** Samoa Joe vs. Rhino vs. Monty Brown: ****1/4 Dave said all three gave blow-away performances Sen Shi vs. Petey Williams vs. Jay Lethal: **1/2 Dave said he doesn’t know what the point of Lethal almost beating Jarrett if they weren’t going to do anything with him after. Styles and Daniels vs. LAX: ***3/4 Jarrett vs. Sting: **1/4 Other News: Spike and TNA are negotiating for a new two-hour show. Day, time and start date are not decided on yet, but Monday night is not looking likely. The reason for taping three weeks of TV on 8/14 and 9/4 was purely a costing cutting measure. Goldberg signed a 90-day holding deal with Spike, and naturally the idea is coming up of Spike paying some of the money to sign Goldberg for TNA like they did with Sting. TNA attempted to get things with Hector Garza worked out as Dixie Carter finally made the call to go after the Latin market, but Garza is still banned from the US for nine more years, over the steroid deal a few years ago, so it’s not something considered doable right now. Sen Shi has a new contract but he has new heat from the PPV; in the match Jay Lethal missed a spot and Sen Shi responded by roughing Lethal up to where Lethal was either knocked out or nearly knocked out. Konnan and Homicide had been pushing for Shi to be put into LAX, but were told that after what happened were told that Shi isn’t going to be rewarded by being part of the hot group. Shi does still have a program set leading into Bound For Glory, presumably involving Sabin, so he’s still going to get pushed. The same isn’t so with Monty Brown, as his deal expires in less than a month, and he’s figured to have less then a 50/50 chance of staying and isn’t involved in any long-term plans. The frustration with Brown is that everyone sees him as a nice guy and great athlete, but he doesn’t have the drive to improve. The gist is that Brown makes enough money outside wrestling, that he doesn’t feel it’s worth it to wrestle on weekends to get ring time; he almost never works the Michigan indy shows that are only a few hours drive from his home. There is a plan to build a Konnan vs. Jim Cornette feud, nothing at all physical, but with verbal duels. Hernandez signed a deal this week, and wasn’t going to get the tag titles until he was signed. At the taping on 8/14 after the Dutt, Lethal and Sabin vs. Shelly Devin and Williams tag match, there was major heat on Shelly and Sabin, Shelly in particular, over their not selling for their opponents, with Shelly apparently not wanting to sell Dutt’s punches. Says the split-up of AMW is a back and forth problem, in that Storm and Harris want to break up as they are tired of teaming, but it’s also recognized that they may mean far more as a team than singles. Joe may have suffered a busted ear drum at the taping from a punch from Ron Killings.

Summerslam Poll Results Thumbs Up: 131 (32.7%) Thumbs Down: 149 (37.2%) Thumbs in the Middle: 121 (30.2%) Best Match Poll John Cena vs. Edge: 224 Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley: 91 Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: 27 DX vs. McMahon’s: 23 Worst Match Poll Batista vs. Booker T: 183 Big Show vs. Sabu: 84 Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: 49 DX vs. McMahon’s: 34 Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero: 33 The “biggest party of the summer” ended up being just another monthly PPV. Despite having so much star power, the show fell flat. With seven apparently big matches it came across as a transitional show rather than an event where issues ended. Dave said there is nothing wrong with inconclusive finishes to build, but that this show had them for no real reason other than to have them. Even worse, four of the seven matches had the same finish of a woman interfering, and it went from ridiculous to beyond ridiculous. In the case of Vickie Guerrero it was a step in the storyline, which Dave calls as nauseating a storyline as the company as ever done. Dave says as bad as it looks, he can understand the company’s mentality. In there eyes, they are helping Vickie out by making her a heel manager because it gives her a better income than she could otherwise get and feel they are honoring Eddie. The problem is that only the biggest WWE apologist would see it as not exploiting Eddie, and the crowd showed that by turning on the match, and the fans have shown that over the past few weeks by not caring about the feud at all. The company goes back and forth on crowd reactions by either listening to them or pushing back even harder, and in this case the company will be pushing back and are determined to see this angle through. Dave understood the Melina finish in the I Quit match and thought it was clever as part of the storyline. Said Foley was never going to let Flair say “I Quit”, and that it would take something beyond physical punishment to get Foley to say it without violating his entire character. Said that with them having those two finishes, which is one too many, the Sharmell interference finish in the Batista vs. Booker T match was a bad idea. Also said it was telling of them having no ideas because there were numerous other DQ finishes they could have done, seeing as it wasn’t going to lead to anything as it was just a way to get out of beating Batista or changing the title. Said the finish to the main event, with Lita interfering, would have been fine except for what happened on the undercard and the match stipulation and said it ended a damn good main event by rubbing in how bad the overall booking of the show was. Said the match quality was ok and apart from the ECW and World title matches nothing was bad as far as the wrestling goes. Called it a mix bag, with a show that should have had memories having nothing you’d really remember except for a lot of blood in the I Quit match and the Hogan comeback. Said the Cena vs. Edge match was the best match, but no better than most WWE PPV main events and calling it the same good match they’ve been having at house shows since the start of the year. Called Foley vs. Flair a bloodbath of major proportions and said that if it was 20 years ago it would have been considered a gruesome classic but that it wasn’t long enough or diverse enough to be labeled a classic. Dave said that it felt like the blood and barbed was done just for the sake of it, but that it wound up telling the only real story in a match of the whole night. Said the live crowd considered Hogan the biggest thing on the show, and said he treated Orton as a stooge for his routine as opposed to a serious opponent, but it worked as well as anything on the show and it led to some funny insider stuff… Hogan did the crotch chop to Orton as a buzz to Shawn Michaels as the two haven’t any interaction since the year before where Michaels spent hours trying to get to beat Hogan to no avail due to Hogan having creative control. Later on at Summerslam, Hunter did Hogan’s ear cupping deal to get a reaction and got less than half the reaction Hogan did earlier and you could tell Hunter was bothered by that. However, at Raw the next night, when Vince and Kevin Dunn were telling people how much of a success the show was and how the DX vs. McMahon’s angle was the hottest in the company, they specifically said that DX outdid Hogan and that is now the official company line as to what happened at the show. While Hogan had the sympathy in-built from the knee injury and it could have made the match famous with Hogan battling valiantly but losing in the end because of the knee, Hogan didn’t see it that way and won instead in a match that was forgotten the next day. Said given how the booking committee works, you can’t blame Hogan or Foley for doing what they were able to do with creative control, and that it also showed the difference between the two. Hogan is all for his own legacy, which Dave said is fine because it’s a business where selfishness is a virtue, at least for your own career. Foley was for creating a story where he could lose but in doing so elevate Melina, who he is friends with and wanted to give the main event rub to. The show drew a sellout of 16,168, with about 13,500 paid. The gate is likely to be around $800,000. Chavo Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio: **1/4. JBL got heat for his comment about Eddie falling off the wagon, and for something he said later in the show about Batista crying like a bitch when he had to give up the title. Big Show vs. Sabu: *1/2. Called it a garbage style match and not even a good one. Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: **1/4. Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley: ***1/2. Said that the fans chanting “we want fire” during the heavy bloodshed gave it a sense of them viewing it a geek show performance rather than a dramatic wrestling match. Batista vs. Booker T: ½*. Almost everyone Dave spoke with internally were pretty open regarding Batista’s work. Said Batista was slow and tentative, with none of the explosiveness he used to have, and with his age, losing some size and his injuries said all he has going for him now is the star power he got from playing off of Hunter and Flair. DX vs. Vince and Shane: ***1/4. Edge vs. John Cena: ***3/4. Said the story once again was Cena getting booed, and how heavily he was booed depended on where in the building you were, with reports of the crowd being anywhere from 40%-75% pro-Cena. Other News WWE and Sci-Fi are close to signing a new deal for ECW. On the 8/15 ECW show, the Foley beatdown by Knox and Test was meant to lead to Sandman, Dreamer and Foley vs. Test, Knox and someone else the following week. When Foley decided the blowoff to his angle would the match with Flair and combined with the angle the next night, it made the idea redundant. Foley didn’t nix the beatdown, but because the match it was to have led to got scrapped, the beatdown made no sense. The 12/3 ECW PPV will be held at the Richmond County Civic Center in Augusta, GA, and will be called the December to Dismember. Matt Striker and Hardcore Holly were moved to the ECW brand this week. Kurt Angle was being examined over his groin injury on 8/21, and there is now fear that he has a new injury. The Angle/ECW deal has gotten worse in the last few weeks, with people having apparently gone to Vince and John Laurinitis to get Angle taken out of ECW after Angle supposedly said he didn’t’ want to be in ECW unless he got a main event title push. Angle’s biggest issues are non-wrestling. Angle’s family relies on him for financial and emotional support and his wife, who is pregnant with his first son, is leaving him again. Dave mentioned that that would throw anyone for a loop, but combine that with Angle’s breaking down, and his denial of it, and it could see some major issues down the line. The 2007 PPV schedule looks like this: New Year’s Revolution on 1/7 in Kansas City at the Kemper Arena, Royal Rumble on 1/28 at the SBC Center in San Antonio, No Way Out on 2/18 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Wrestlemania on 1/ 4 at Ford Field in Detroit, Backlash on 4/29 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Judgment Day on 5/20 at Savvis Center in St. Louis, and One Night Stand on 6/10 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. While Vince was snapping at people on Raw, he was also snapping at people in real life backstage as he was in a foul mood. There is apparently a list of words that announces are no longer allowed to say on-air, including the terms “belt” and “strap”. They are banned from WWE, OVW and DSW, because Vince thinks they are linked to old-time wrestling.

Meltzer.

Plenty of people want to give Miz a break. Just not the kind you're thinking of. Funny Miz story from a recent Observer. Jonny Fairplay runs a poker game at his house every week, and Miz sometimes takes part. When people are calling up to see who is going to be there, they'll ask of Miz is going to be there and if he is they'll skip the game. And these are people who can tolerate being around Jonny Fairplay every week.

The trouble with that is if they don't see you as a top player then it doesn't matter because they won't let you get above the level they've already slotted you in. The only way around that is if you fluke into proving yourself in the ratings, like Edge did.

If the non-US audience really is 40% of the number of buys, then, domestically, JD did 138,600 and Vengeance did 187,800 approximately, and that means the ECW PPV, which was a free special in the UK, outdrew both the WWE PPV's domestically, and by a huge margin.

Current estimates have Ortiz vs. Shamrock II as having drawn 775,000 buys. Hughes vs. Gracie did 600,000 buys. On those numbers, Ortiz vs. Shamrock would have grossed almost $31 million on PPV alone, growing to almost $35.3 million when you add the gate and the money from closed circuit locations. As a comparison, domestically, Wrestlemania would have $28.2 million. Historically, when compared with pro wrestling on a worldwide basis, it would be #8 on the all-time list, trailing only seven Wrestlemanias’ (17, 21, 22, 20, 18, 16, 15). Domestically, it looks set to beat 20, 21 and 22, so it would move up to #5 when based on North American buys. If the Countdown to UFC 60 TV special did a 0.8, around 720,000 viewers, then almost all of them wound up buying the PPV. A typical Raw gets around 3.5 million viewers and few of those viewers wind up wanting to buy the PPV its promoting. Dave says it proves that a great fallacy of this year is that ratings equal popularity and are a direct correlation to income, which they only are if you get the money from ad sales based on ratings. Says that from a television standpoint, in fighter terms, Raw “takes a guy down, holds him down the entire fight, wins a decision and can’t understand why he’s not getting paid the money that fighters with a lesser win-loss record but who also sells tickets make. UFC has become the opposite”. The Liddell vs. Silva deal is dead. Apparently, PRIDE worked UFC into believing PRIDE was going down and they were giving UFC Silva because of that, when the reality was PRIDE wanted to get exposure for Silva on what it felt was going to be UFC's biggest show of the year before PRIDE made their US debut.

TNA’s Best of the X-Division Volume 2 four-hour DVD comes out in October. From F4W.