Hunter's Torn Quad

RVD isn't losing, because doing that would kill this version of ECW, and that isn't happening while Vince considers it a pet project. However. they also don't want RVD beating Cena, so that would leave a disputed finish as the most likely outcome, with the real question being what kind of disputed finish do we get.

I think a lot of that mindset, that Austin was great in 2001, comes from Austin working as hard as he did. Austin was coming off of a very serious neck injury and I think that because he worked as hard as he did, where a lot of people would have played it safe and coasted by, it caused a lot pf people to overrate how good Austin really was. Austin worked incredibly hard in 2001, but he wasn't great, and I think people got the two confused. As for his match with Rock at WM X-7, at the time I thought it was excellent stuff and I had at ****1/2-***** range, but watching it last year it was clear that, like with a lot of matches touted as great, that it loses something as time goes by. Austin and Rock work hard, they don't blow anything badly, if at all, and the crowd are going pretty crazy, but without that emotion of watching the match after the weeks of build, the match doesn't come off as great as it once did. I think their WM X5 match, while not as good, ages better.

Joey Styles' promo on Raw was all his own work, and he was even told by Vince to "go for the jugular". WWE are attempting to position ECW as the small group that hates WWE, and are trying to create an atmosphere where ECW fans would come back to wrestling and watch the different product. WWE.com showed the promo, but took out all the negative things said about Vince, possibly to give the impression that it really was a shoot, or it could also be that they didn't like what he said. Vince wants to turn ECW into a third touring brand, with a different product. Some people involved are very excited, while others think that if the idea as it is currently structured will start off hot because of the name but cool off fast. ECW as a brand will be launched on thge 6/7 live special on USA. WWE isn't confident ECW on its own can draw a rating, but thinks top names from Raw and Smackdown appearing together, along with ECW, will make it special enough to draw a good number. The only two matches apparently decided upon are Cena vs. Van Dam for the title, and Dean Malenko vs. Chris Benoit as a tribute to Eddie Guerrero. Both asked for the match, and as of now they will not be part of ECW. It's thought likely that a few major names from Raw and/or SD will be part of ONS, that have no ECW background. The first house show will be on 6/24 at the old ECW Arena. one of five in that building in the month of June, with follow up events being set up in other arenas ECW used to hold events in, as well as a return house show at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The idea is for a relatively full-time house show schedule in July. ECW Television will be taped prior to Smackdown, with Joey Styles the lead announcer. Tazz may be part of the ECW brand, either as color guy or as a "MMA Trainer" type character to get over a new wrestler who would be doing a shootfighter gimmick, which could be a role played by John Carelli, who is doing the gimmick in OVW, or, as a longshot, Daniel Puder. There is no movement to bring Carelli in, as Heyman is the only one who likes him, and Puder is someone the company won't even talk about bringing in, as he is felt to have priced himself too high. The show will air in the international timeslots Velocity had, but there will be no domestic TV show at first, though they will air on the ECW site, and maybe the WWE site as well, but that won't help from a authenticity standpoint, though that has never been a main WWE concern. WWE are hoping to get the ECW show in the AM Raw timeslot, but put forward a few hours. USA are strong on the idea, but it's not been approved, and it won't happen until mid-July at least. A lot of people are still pushing for the show to be taped on a third day, with many people pushing for a schedule of taping every other week. Even though Vince has always shot down the idea of a third day of taping, it's felt he'll have to make the call eventually, because ECW and Smackdown can't get over by being different when they have to be taped together. Vince is gung-ho about making this work as it's a pet project. The plan is for ECW to tour Europe, where it would air in the old Velocity slot, as well as the Northeastern cities it used to tour in. There is talk of adding a few agents to the ECW brand, but that could be a problem given that the typical agents WWE hire, good traditional workers, would be fishes out of water. All ECW talent would be subject to the same drug testing policy and procedure as WWE talent, though the procedure might not all that good considering it appears nobody was sent to rehab for pain pill issues after the first test, and there has been no second test. Apart from Van Dam, virtually the entire roster is being signed to basic one-year, $75,000 downside contracts, with WWE being able to extend them by one or two years, or cancel them at any time with 90 day cycles. Sabu was only offered the same $75,000 deal as everyone else, which TNA almost matched. Danny Doring has been offered a deal, but Dreamer has pitched him as a utility man or referee. Masato Tanaka has been offered a full-time contract. Heyman is interested in bringing in Ikuto Hidak and Minoru Fujita coming in as a team, with Steve Corino being the liason with Zero-One. Mike Awesome hasn't been talked about, and isn't on the PPV, due to injuries. Roadkill might not be part of it, as he and Kasey James were teamed up in ECW specifically to be a team on Smackdown. Most of the aforementioned talent will be used for authenticity though not major players. Nothing has been finalized about future faces of the company, other than Heyman is high on CM Punk and Kevin Fertig, Some think the roster is good enough to open with, while others think the roster, as it is now, would "be a disaster". Heyman and Dreamer have differing ideas about the project, with Dreamer wanting to relive ECW as it was, while Heyman feels the nostalgia act will have too short a shelf-life, pointing to TNA as an example of failing to build brand loyalty by using retreads on top (Jeff Jarrett, Christian, Dudley's, Nash, Steiner and Sting) and doing nothing in four years to differentiate themselves from being just a secondary wrestling promotion, as well as missing the boat by not putting Samoa Joe, AJ Styles and Abyss as the top three stars. All of they key players in TNA are under multi-year deals, except Rhino, who could get himself a good deal out of playing both sides against each other. Heyman knows who is and isn't good in ROH, and with nobody under contract there, anybody there is open to being taken. Austin Aries and Roderick Strong have limited time left on their TNA deals, so may be possibilities, but not strong ones, as Aries was considered too small, and Strong wasn't considered at all. Dave feels ECW will be competition to TNA as the "non-WWE" competition on television, if it gets on television, and will be direct competition to ROH due to running in similar markets in similar sized buildings. Backlash notes: Kentucky has a blood ban, and if someone bleeds accidentially then you have to go straight to the finish. There were many letters back and forth between the Kentucky Boxing and Wrestling Authority and a lead WWE attorney, Rich Hering, including specifically asking if it was ok to not go to the finish due to bleeding as it was a live PPV, with the request being turned down. Three sources close to the situation say the commission will be filing claims of violation of state law over the main event and the Shawn Michaels match, due to the blood involved. The commission was said to be furious over this, as they had already gone over the issue with WWE, and there is a paper trail of WWE being told exactly what they could and could not do. WWE has contacted the commssion over this, and feels the commission as no right to cite them for violations. The claims are believed to be requesting fines of around $20,000 or more. Violating the blood law means a $5,000 fine if the match is not ended right away, and is grounds for revoking the licence of the promoter. One source said all the participants, that being Cena, HHH, Edge, Shawn, Shane and Vince, would all be fined, and two other sources say the commision would file a claim to ban WWE from promoting in Kentucky. One source, speaking on anonymity, said WWE brings in so much tax money they might not end up banned, but the commission would then be put in a position of having to explain that. A third source said that, because of the paper trail, any lack of significant ruling by the commission would make them look terrible when this all comes out. The PPV drew 14,000 fans. Dave called Big Show vs. Kane "one of the year's worst matches, featuring a finish that was beyond any storyline logic". Shawn Michaels suffered a broken nose, and HHH bladed so deep he was expected to need stitches. Mickie James suffered a minor elbow injury, but the big injury was to Trish Stratus, who dislocated her elbow, and it meant her match had to go home right away. Carlito vs. Masters: *** Umaga vs. Flair: *1/4 Stratus vs. James: *1/2 Van Dam vs. Benjamin: ***3/4 Kane vs. Big Show: -* Vince and Shane vs. Shawn: ***1/4 Cena vs. Edge vs. Hunter: ****1/4 Rest of the news: Jim Ross is considered as having more power than he has had in a long time. Coachman has been removed from commentary, and will be a heel manager, possibly of Benjamin and Masters in the end, but more likely just Benjamin for now. Tod Gordon's claim of ownership of the early years of ECW tapes was thrown out. Michael Cole is the new managing editor of the WWE website. The previous guy, Chris Chambers, was replaced after getting into trouble for, amongst other things, putting up that Hunter and Stephanie were expecting (seemingly because the company don't think fans know they are married), as well as not having an understanding of knowing what and what not to put up, such as showing 'injured' wrestlers being all ok, or wrestlers out of character. Cole got the nod because it's felt he'll have a better understanding of what to put up and what not to put up. The site will have more worked storyline news up. Great Khali was pulled from matches on the European tour. He had one match against Matt Hardy, where Hardy bounced around for him, but was immediately pulled from wrestling, and was instead limited to run-ins, where he destroyed cruiserweights. Khali being pulled is telling, as it shows WWE were afraid of putting him in front of what would have been easy audiences. Deep South may be shut down in July, but no official decision has been made.

The logic behind beating a guy before he gets the world title is to set up future title matches with the people who beat him. The problem with that logic is that it doesn't work in every situation. With Jericho, all it did was make him seem even more of a joke and nobody took his world title reign seriously. The logic makes even less sense with Rey, because he's not somebody you can, or should, beat so often in such a short space of time. Dave Meltzer has said that the mindset behind Rey's treatment is that they didn't even want him to have the belt at all and he only got it because it made a good story, but beyond that they're not going treat him like a real world champion because that isn't what they wanted.

I believe Benoit got several falls over Triple H via pinfall or submission on their RAW Iron Man match back in 2004. The final fall wasn't clean IIRC but the ones before I think were. Benoit won final fall thanks to Eugene. The focus of that ended up on Eugene for costing Hunter the match, not on Benoit beating Hunter.

Most praise seems to go to Benoit vs. Sasuke in the first Super Jr Cup final. As for the legendary Misawa vs. Kawada match, I've never rated as the all time classic most label it as. It's a very good match that I liked a great deal, but I would have a hard time calling it the greatest match of all time.

Yes. In the run up to Raven's debut, Steven Richards parodied Raven's previous gimmicks, and when Raven finally debuted, Joey Styles made reference to them on commentary.

For all the time Chris Benoit spent in the main event picture, which was only to play third wheel in the Hunter/Shawn or Hunter/Eugene feuds, Benoit was no more World Champion than Sgt Slaughter, Kane or, more recently, Chris Jericho. Benoit, like those three, got the belt not to have any kind of real run but to drop it someone else. Chris Benoit might have been given the world title, but he wasn't made world champion.

He's a UFC fighter, and is their welterweight champion.

The decision might not have been made, at least at USA, to give the AM Raw slot to ECW, but this is clearly laying the groundwork for that slot to go to ECW. If USA haven't yet decided on giving the slot to the ECW show, then this could be USA's way of testing the waters, by putting something in that slot that is a little riskier than is usually there.

Cornette booked OVW as it's own promotion, heavily influenced by what Cornette watched while growing up, and this led to a lot of stress, based on what WWE would then do with the talent that Cornette had spent so much time and effort on building up. Heyman books OVW WWE-style, both because it will get the talent used to working in a WWE-like environment, and because it'll avoid the stress of spending time and effort on talent that will end up wasted when WWE comes along and screws everything up.

WWE and USA, but WWE moreso, wouldn't be happy with ECW-level production values, which is about what you'd get at house shows. WWE want that super slick look to all their programming.

All three are very bad/good choices. I think people want the tournament back more than anything, but WWE has consistently shown they cannot book a tournament the right way if their lives depended on it.

When that happens, clearing your cache will fix it.

--The latest fake news item credited to me is WWE signing Mark Henry to a new contract. I don't know that they haven't, but having checked around, nobody there seems to know anything about it and I haven't reported it. From Da Meltz.

The number going around for WM is 700,000, which may or may not be just the domestic numbers. JBL is set to beat Mysterio for the World title at Judgment Day. He got word before the tapings in St Louis, which is why he guaranteed victory. No word on what will happen to the US Title. Kurt Angle's neck and spine are inflamed and he lacks feeling in one of his hands. The second hour of Raw on 4/10 with the Edge vs. Cena and HHH main event drew 840,000 teenage viewers. Stacey Keibler earned $245,000 for her eight weeks on Dancing with the Stars. As of right now, there are no plans for Flair to get a title shot on a major show. The Foley comments last week on his blog were legit, and not the start of an angle. There is talk of reforming DX, with it possibly being like Evolution, with Hunter and Michaels bringing in one or two guys and giving them the rub. There are no plans to bring Eric Bischoff back before his contract expires. There are plans to buy the Stampede Wrestling tape library. Colt Cabana is using the name Chris Guy because they used the Cabana name for Carlito's Cabana. When Shawn came off the lader onto Vince at WM, Vince knew it was coming because the referee shook his leg to give a signal. Vince had been trying to get himself over by claiming he didn't know when it would be coming, and so wouldn't have been able to ready for it. There are no plans to book MSG until Summerslam next year. WWE are charging $10,000 for a two-hour autograph session with John Cena.

I just can't see him pulling off a heel turn going against Edge. Edge is WWE's biggest and best full blown heel. It probably isn't going to be Edge that Foley is going heel against. I think they could be setting up a deal where Edge is beating Foley down, someone runs in to make the save, and then Foley turns on that person and sides with Edge, possibly doing some sort of 'passing the torch' deal where Foley declares Edge the new 'King of Hardcore Wrestling'.

On WOL tonight, Dave said that the plan was always for John Cena vs. Rob Van Dam, and while it's possible it could change, he doesn't think it likely. Also, Van Dam was never originally planned to go over. Dave says that WWE don't want Van Dam beating Cena, and he thinks the only way they can go is with some sort of disputed finish as a way to begin the revival of ECW.

On WOL, Da Meltz said that Mick Foley is turning heel very soon, maybe as early as tomorrow.

I would assume he means "successful", in which case the winner has to be Austin vs. McMahon, as the nWo angle, for all the positive things it did for WCW, ultimately helped hurry along its demise.

If it was 30% of all tickets, the line would have said Ticketmaster has a third of all tickets. Use of the percentage indicates a price cut.

For all the good the nWo angle did for WCW, the way it was handled played a large part in the destruction of WCW; WCW were portrayed as so out-of-touch and totally incompetent that they were killed dead as babyfaces, and when you add to that the fact that WCW never good the big blowoff win, it made the whole promotion look like a joke and the promotion was living on borrowed time. While Austin vs. McMahon went on a little too long, and wound up having a lot of it's luster taken away by the nonsensical Austin heel turn, it never played a part in the killing of a promotion.

From the wording, that's all tickets being sold for 30% off. "Draw that well" is pretty relative. True, but while the number on its own will probably be very good, it does seem like it will fall well below what you know UFC will have been hoping for.