Hunter's Torn Quad

You're back in.

If what I said to you was the greatest insult you've received in a "long long time", then I'll let you back in out of pity.

I'll let someone else do it, thanks.

You'll be let back in eventually.

I don't need to think about what my reaction would be if I was in that situation. I'd stop the show, no questions asked. And as I said earlier, stopping the show would have garnered less criticism than not stopping it did.

I think Chris Jericho's deal runs out in nine months. I might have the name wrong, but I remember reading that some major name's deal was set to expire this year.

If someone just fell from 75ft into one of my rings and was dying, I'd stop the show there and then out of human decency. As I said earlier, this is one time when humanity and decency should have overcome monetary worries.

So you didn't mind wrestlers having no time to deal with their grief and basically being forced to perform whether they wanted to or not ? If someone I've known for a long time dies, I'd want to deal with my grief in private and right away. I'd think that's the way most people would want to deal with it. 16,000 people were leaving that building no matter when they stopped the show, so having the decency to stop the show when Owen fell or when they got word he was dead wouldn't have been that big a problem to deal with.

They should have kept the show going after scrapping Owen up to keep kayfabe?

From Meltzer:

Which just happens to be when Stephanie became head writer.

Russo had his chance to show how good he really was when he took control of WCW and had total power. Where is WCW now, by the way ?

He still sent him to Duke University to go on a special diet to lose weight. Granted, Yoko lost no weight it seemed, but Vince still sent him home to diet.

This is what I said about Big Lazy at NMB: When asked for thoughts on several wrestlers, this is what I said about Nash: Kevin Nash: The lowest form of human life in professional wrestling of the last 25 years. A major factor in the death of WCW, and with it ending the ability of a lot of people to provide for their families. Undoubtedly possess one of the biggest ego's in wrestling. Someone who clearly has absolutely no passion for wrestling and has no desire at all to help anyone but himself. Probably the single biggest cancer in wrestling of the last 25 years, even above Vince Russo and Hulk Hogan (at least how it pertains to WCW), and someone who has absolutely zero redeeming features, either as it relates to wrestling or in being any kind of decent human being. Pledged $25,000 to the Brian Pillman Memorial Fund back in 2000/2001, but then backed out of it after the event, making up some totally bullshit excuse for doing so. Kevin Nash is human scum at its worse, and the day he dies I will personally hire a dozen college frat boys to get drunk and piss on his grave for a week. Kevin Nash, fuck you, and the horse you rode in on. And when told about the Nash Talk: I've said it once, but I'll say it again; Kevin Nash, fuck you, and the horse you rode in on, you cancerous sack of filthy human scum. I was considering getting an online-only sub to the Torch, but I'll pass if this is the kind of exclusive content I'd be getting. If I wanted to be confronted by a towering sack of shit in the morning, I'd look down before I flush. And: I got an e-mail from the Torch over the weekend, telling me about this Talk and practically begging me to take out some sort of subscription with them so I could read the Kevin Nash interview. I was considering replying to Wade, telling him that I was going to actually do that, but this Kevin Nash interview made me decide not to. Pay money to hear what Kevin Nash has to say ? I'd rather walk up to New Jack and tell him that D-Von Dudley owns his ass.

Translation: Hogan wanted to win, but Vince didn't agree. Last I heard Hassan was going to get involved with Austin and Piper, so chances are this is Hogan working his own angle, and bears no relation to current plans. I think this has more to do with Austin not wanting to work with Hogan, than it does Hogan wanting to go over. I doubt Hogan would have such a problem putting over Austin, he had no problem putting over guys during his last two runs in the fed. Besides, didn't Austin turn down a match with Hogan for X8? Which is why Rock got the program... Hogan would want to go over. He doesn't want to lose anymore. The major problem stopping him coming back is that Hogan wants to be the Hogan from the 80's who beats everyone with the legdrop, while Vince sees Hogan's role as one of putting guys over. Hogan had no problem putting some guys over during his last two runs, but the same problems arose of him wanting to beat guys that Vince didn't want him beating, which is why he left, at least the first time. True, Austin turned down a match with Hogan at WM X8, but that was down to Austin's dislike of Hogan's politicking, and they've since worked things out. I'm sure the two are cordial enough with each other, but that doesn't mean that either man is willing to lose to the other, and I guarantee that the only reason Hogan is claiming the match fell apart this time is because Hogan wanted to win and Austin and/or Vince disagreed. Hogan appearing at WM 21 is highly unlikely given that it's had zero build up. As for Piper's Pit with Austin, the only guy who is set to interrupt that, and who should be the only one, is Muhammed Hassan, Putting anyone else in there, especially Hogan, takes away from whatever angle is planned for it.

Get back to WM 21 talk.

Surely Hogan would have been the main event anyway? Who would Hogan have dropped the title to before WrestleMania VI - and when? Cheers. The Warrior v Hogan match was planned for WM 6 as far back as from before Warrior got the IC Title. Hogan v Zeus was never considered to headline it.

There was plan for a Hogan v Zeus singles match, but never for the main event of WM 6.

I have watched this match again for the first time since it aired live, and I made some notes: The first boos come at just shy of seven minutes into the math. Lawler told too many jokes. While a supposedly serious wrestling match was going on, this little pervert was cracking jokes about Stu, Helen and Bret Hart Bret played subtle heel through the match, tending to hit Shawn right at the break, while Shawn played total babyface. Lawler would kill moves dead. When Shawn headscissored Bret through the ropes to the floor where Bret landed in a heap, Lawler totally blew the move off, saying it didn’t hurt Bret at all, and it only frustrated him. Even when they replayed the move, Lawler tried his best to kill the move, not only saying it didn’t hurt Bret at all, but that all of these “high flying” moves don’t really hurt much anyway. Shawn worked on Bret’s left shoulder during the middle portion of the match, and at one point you can hear him ask Bret, “stay on the arm ?”, and what did it lead to ? Nothing. Oh, wait, I take that back. It led to Shawn putting a cross armbreaker on the wrong arm, which he immediately let go of, before applying the move to the arm he actually had been working on. There was a lot of work done on arms and limbs during the match that led nowhere. There were a few “Let’s go Bret”, chants here and there, but no such chants for Shawn. There was a ref bump half way through, but it didn’t lead to anything and served no purpose whatsoever. Around this time, Bret hits a piledriver on Shawn, which Lawler naturally pushes like hell as a fall winner, but Shawn kicks out, which is when the booing gets really loud. For a 60 minute Iron Man match, there were very few pinfall or submission attempts made. The whole match was wrestled like a standard match that was going to a 60 minute draw, rather than in Iron Man match that was going 60 minutes, and it showed glaringly. Neither man really went for any pinfalls or submissions nor did they show anything in terms of struggling when it came to fighting for decisions. Both men were guilty of some really sloppy work, where they would hit a big move, and instead of going for a pin, where the other guy was flat on his back, they’d instead go to a rest hold or go right into the next high spot. Shawn took a really big bump over the top rope, like his one against Jeff Jarrett at IYH 2, and Bret spent a long portion of the match working over both the back and Shawn’s legs as well. This was all well done stuff actually. All of which Shawn promptly no-sold when it came time to make his comeback. No limping, no grimacing, not even a squeal of pain. It was as if the last 15 minutes had never happened. About the 45 minute mark it really started to drag, which wasn’t helped by the aforementioned fact that the match wasn’t wrestled with any real intensity or fire, and both men seemed to be going through the motions of wrestling for 60 minutes as if it was an exhibition. You never got the impression that these two men were fighting over any issue of importance, but rather they were just going out there and doing an exhibition of moves and holds with none of it really meaning anything. All in all, the work itself was ****, but the structure of the match, and the fact that none of the work really led to anything, drags the match as a whole down to **1/2

Vince still has his limits when it comes to Big Show. Remember, he got sent down to OVW in 2000 for being out of shape. Granted, he was still too big when they brought him back up, but the precedent is there if they feel Show is too big. See above. Big Show obviously has some leeway when it comes to his weight and the shape he keeps himself in, but he can't let himself go too much, or it's right back down to OVW he goes. Of course I don't want 5* matches out of him. Yes, his being in short matches doesn't mean he has to have great conditioning, but the fact remains that his smoking still makes him blow up faster than he would otherwise, and while that may only mean an extra 60 seconds before he gasses out, I'd still rather he be able to go for that extra 60 seconds.

I think they wanted Austin to win the belt at WM 14 and needed to do something to get him more over and keep him visible so they had Owen roll him up at Canadian Stampede and put Austin in a feud with Owen who was the IC champ. Austin/Bret had been done to death and Austin/Shawn wasn't really possible becaues Shawn had quit at the time and was unreliable to say the least anyway. Owen just made the most sense for him. It was a slight step down the card for Austin but he was over enough that he was bringing everything up to his level. That's my theory. I'd be that HTQ could shed more light on it. That's pretty much correct. The long term plan was for Austin to win the WWF Title at WM 14, and they couldn't start building towards it at that point, because Undertaker was still champion. As SG said, Austin v HBK wasn't possible, both because Shawn was a headache to deal with when it came to elevating people and they probably even then had plans for Shawn to feud with Undertaker, even though Shawn was gone at the time; Vince knew Shawn would return at some point, willingly or not, because Shawn was locked into a long term contract and wasn't able to leave. Austin v Owen made sense coming off of Owen pinning Austin at Canadian Stampede, and it also played into the Austin v Bret feud, because they could use Austin's IC Title win to, eventually, segue back into his feud with Bret, and climax it with his winning the WWF Title at Wrestlemania 14.

More ridiculous than the NWA Champion using the title as a vanity belt ? Samoa Joe's ROH Title reign did more for the ROH Title within ROH than Jarrett's NWA Title reign did for the NWA Title within TNA, or the NWA for that matter. Historically, yes, the NWA Title means more than that ROH Title, but credibility wise, in the here and now, the ROH Title is far above the NWA Title, because it's been handled in a far better manner.

When you're 500lbs and your cardio isn't that great to begin with, smoking can make all the difference. Sure, his style doesn't require him to go more than 15 minutes very often, but at his, size smoking makes more difference that in would a normal wrestler, so he has even more reason not to do it. He doesn't need to do anything else to hamper his ability, when he's already got his weight and laziness doing that for him.

It doesn't have to be five minutes, but Batista v Hunter has to be short and explosive, with Batista doing as little selling as possible. Batista v Triple H needs to be Hulk Hogan v Iron Sheik.

Wight was a smoker at the time, not sure if he still is, and at that point was notoriously lazy, so they made it part of his on-screen character.