Hunter's Torn Quad

Do you even think before you type or do you just bash the keys in some random order and hope for the best?

Hogan's WCW deal had him earn something like $40,000 each TV Taping IIRC, and he got a PPV bonus and many other perks Hogan's initial deal was $300,000 per Clash or PPV appearance, plus 25% of the PPV revenue if it went over a certain amount.

MMA Snark.com It was linked to on Zach Arnold's site, and I was interested in what kind of argument was being made.

WM 17 got the bigger buy rate, but WM 21 grossed a lot more money, thanks to WM 17 being $39.95 and WM 21 being $49.95.

WM 17 is the only WM to do a million buys domestically. WM 21 might have done that, but that would only have been from including overseas buys. Domestically, WM 21 did about 650,000.

"I can't vouch for the list, but of the guys I know, the numbers all look accurate." From DM

The video at the start was very good. I liked the opener, but I was surprised that Lethal was beaten clean after they give him a big win last month. I skimmed the next few matches, and skipped the Team Canada vs. Naturals match. The eight-man tag was my MOTN. It started out hot and it would have been a great match but they went about 5-6 minutes too long and it cooled down. I can understand the logic, and somewhat agree, with Jarrett getting the pin, but it still feels like the continuation of a push that should have long since ended. I would have had Killings or Rhino pin one of AMW and set up a fresh program over the tag titles, which the tag division badly needs. The Ultimate X match was ok, but only ok. It felt like it was just getting hot when they had to go home early, and in hindsight it looks clear when it happened. I hope they do have a rematch because I'd like to see all these big spots they had planned. I skipped to the finish of the main event because I didn't really feel like watching Christian against Monty Brown again, and I also knew the real top star of the promotion would have his big angle taking place and I wanted to get that over and done with. The angle at the end with Borden and Steiner got great heat live, and it was a good angle in itself, but the problem is that it's the same thing that helped cool off Goldberg in WCW; he won the World title, but the former champion is still pushed as the main star of the promotion, while the hot new champion was reduced to second tier status.

Is there anyone surprised that Jarrett's issues remain the top program in the company and Christian is already a secondary character?

If he said that, he's lying.

“Mark”, “smark”, and “smart” are three of the most prevalent labels given to groups of fans that gather online to talk about wrestling. We’ve seen them for years, we’ve all used them at one time or another and I hate all of them and every label like them. To me, the only label a wrestling fan should be given is “fan”. There’s no such thing as a “mark”, “smark”, or “smart” fan. There is either a good fan or bad fan. A good fan either knows what he’s talking about, or admits to not knowing much about the subject at hand and accepting that there are people who know about some things better then he does. A bad fan doesn’t know what he’s talking about and cannot or will not admit to this and refuses to accept that their knowledge of the subject at hand is limited. A good fan will be open to different points of view and will listen to disparate opinions and respond with a well thought out and reasoned response that intelligently puts across their point of view and, hopefully, intelligent discussion is the result. A bad fan will get very angry and irritated at having their faults pointed out. They’ll get defensive, will probably start insulting people, and drag the discussion down in a vain attempt to maintain the illusion, if only in their own mind, that they really do know what they’re talking about. You can keep making comparisons between good fans and bad fans, and the differences between the two should be obvious, but there is a better reason to stop labeling people as a “mark”, “smark”, or “smart” fan than the fact that any such label is inaccurate. The moment you label a person or a group of people with a tag like “mark”, it instantly becomes easier to dismiss their opinion or point of view out of hand because you’ve distanced yourself from the fact that the person with that opinion is a person with a mind and could have the intelligence to bring a reasonable point of view and instead have grouped them in with a segment of people that, to you, don’t have an opinion that matters as much as other people, and that’s a dangerous thing to do when you want an intelligent discussion. Dismiss people for being bad fans if you want, because bad fans are just that, bad. But don’t dismiss someone because you think they’re a “mark”, “smark”, or “smart”. You never know what you could be missing out on.

I think the highlight of Luger's run with the Wolfpack was when he won the US belt from Bret Hart for three days in late 1998.

Is that more stale than Hunter's superpush that has gone on for almost seven years straight?

I don't think "smarks", and I hate labels like that, would deny the Wolfpack made money and say it "wasn't worth a damn". I think he's just pointing out that Luger's part in the Wolfpack was minimal at best. The big players when it came to the nWo becoming as big as it did were Nash, Hall, Hogan and, to a slightly lesser extent, Sting. Luger's part in all of that was secondary at best. His only major part came in the unmasking of Rey Mysterio angle, and that happened long after the Wolfpack had peaked. Other than that, Luger was primarily window dressing, while Nash and co were the ones given the main angles.

Despite what some people have said, it was monumentally stupid and idiotic, if expected, for Hunter to bury Cena on Raw. You NEVER highlight the legitimate weaknesses of a babyface, especially your top babyface. A heel should never say something that the people can agree with. Hunter did just that, in spades, on Monday, and in one fell swoop cut the legs off of John Cena before their Wrestlemania main event. Yes, this segment, where the heel exposed the weaknesses of the babyface, was meant to draw buys for Wrestlemania. Quite how making your main babyface look like shit is meant to draw, I don’t know, but I don’t think that matters with Hunter. Maintaining his death grip as the top star of the whole company as always taken precedence over building stars for the future. And no, Batista doesn’t count, because he is zero threat to Hunter’s spot. The chances of Hunter doing what he did for Batista with Cena or anyone who could be long-term star are nonexistent. The new WWE Talent Wellness Program is a step in the right direction, but it’s ultimately just pissing in the wind as long as the real problems, such as the hard road schedule and Vince wanting the kind of look out of his top guys that can only come out of a syringe or bottle of pills, are ignored and brushed under the carpet. Until those issues are tackled, the program, for all its good meaning, won’t do any real good in the long-term. The Spirit Squad is a half-decent opening match comedy gimmick, but it should not include guys like Johnny Jeter or Ken Doane, who actually have the ability to be solid and possible top line members of the roster. The Spirit Squad gimmick is a modernized version of The Red Rooster, in that if it has any length of time, whoever gets saddled with it can never be taken seriously again, no matter how talented he is. Terry Taylor was still a good worker post-Red Rooster, but the gimmick killed his career because was never taken seriously again. The Vince McMahon Kiss My Ass Club segment to end Raw was just stupid, pathetic and was yet another example of Vince booking Raw for ego and kicks. Nobody gives a flying fuck about Vince’s ass, his talentless son (it doesn’t take talent to fall onto airbags), or this stupid angle that should have stayed dead. Instead of something that might have helped build real interest, we’re going to be stuck with Shane doing his stupid routine of shitty dancing, over-contrived bumps, and no-selling. And he’s going to be facing a guy who already has that covered. Yes, Shane is wrestling Shawn Michaels at the first return broadcast of Saturday Nights Main Event. The only highlight of this train wreck will be who can do the most nonsensical bumps and who can sell the least. Shawn’s performance here is likely to be similar to his show, and I emphasize the word show, against Hulk Hogan at Summerslam, just turned down a notch or two. Vince might have been fine with Shawn’s business exposing antics against Hogan, but he’ll not stand for that against Shane.

What's so bad about his attitude? It's beyond terrible. When he was on that WWA tour thing a few years ago, he lasted all of a day before people almost literally had to be held back from going after guy. Nobody wanted to be around him, nobody wanted anything to do with him, and the only reason he was kept around was Sting was also there. Then there's the fact when he had the WWA title he refused to lose it to Sting, who was his best friend at the time, so they had to add Malice to the match to make it a three-way so Sting could beat him instead. I don't think anybody in wrestling has anything truly positive to say about the guy.

It's not the drug use that earned Luger his bad rep. It's his attitude. Luger is right up there with Buff Bagwell when it comes to near universal dislike. Even if Luger did have "5 star matches", he'd still be disliked because of how he has acted and continues to act.

It was at Wrestlerave '03. And Styles defended the X Division title in ROH too, at Crowning a Champion, against Adam Jacobs and David Young.

From his shoot, Russo said it was the 4/14/97 show, which Cornette had a lot to do with, with matches taped from Johannesburg, South Africa and Muncie, IN. I asked Meltzer about this a while ago, and he said it was the week after the Europe show because Vince McMahon felt he he had to shake things up after the WWF Title match got destroyed in the ratings.

Love, Sex, and Dating: Czech's Mate

I've changed a couple for fun, but they'll probably be changed again a few times by the time new ones are finally decided upon. We had some good name suggested the last time we asked for them, so let's see if that happens again.

He did appear as NWA Champion, and only three days after getting the belt. This lead to a minor booking change, as he faced Paul London for the Number One Contender's Trophy, and London was meant to win, but Styles couldn't get beaten anymore. They did a draw instead, and London was awarded the trophy with the reason being he was higher in the Top 5 rankings at the time.

I asked Da Meltz about this, and he pretty much shot it down. He said when Bret was first asked to come back in November, it was to referee Vince vs. Shawn. Shane vs. Shawn was not, and never was, on the table as the first plan.

Russo came on the writing team after the Raw from Europe, when the Sid vs. Mankind match got tripled in the ratings. He didn't become head writer until early 1998. Jim Cornette was never head booker/writer. He was just part of the writing team. Russo was terrible because he had no concept or clue about the boundries of good taste or logic. Give him an editor, and you had a chance of filtering his crap into something with a marginal amount of meaning. Give him free reign, and you were left with nothing but crap.

Which is why any promo he cuts would probably be done backstage. Why not take advantage of the heat though? I mean for once in a looooooooong while, Triple H would actually come off looking like a real heel, not some wise-cracking smart-ass that half the crowd likes. Which is why it won't likely happen.