Hunter's Torn Quad

Benoit is a former WCW champ. The two WWF reigns I was refering to were when he beat the Rock by DQ (the stip was that the belt could change ona DQ) and Foley continued the match and they did a similar thing during a 4 way at a later PPV. The names of both shows escape me right now. Fully Loaded 2000 was the first show. Dunno about the second. Unforgiven 2000, which was just two months after Fully Loaded.

GZ was overbooked into the ground. Most of the match took place before the bell even rang. and then you had about six ref bumps, a screw job finish, and almost no action in the ring. BB is grossly overrated. The first half of it is just a squash match, and the second half is a slow brawl to build up to Shawn taking the bump off the cage. Add to that his blade job, and you've got a match that is nowhere near his supposed classic that people pimp it as.

Actually you seemed to misunderstand. How was I using 'lack of facts' to prove that point of view wrong? Thier is no proving that wrong because it's opinion based. When your talking about promos you can't prove someone else's opinion wrong all you can do is give your own opinion. I said that going by my personal opinion and everything I had heard over the last 10 years from other fans I had never gotten the impression that Shawn was bad on the mic. I wasn't stating it as a fact or even using it disprove how he feels about Shawn as a promo man because that's impossible. Well, this kind of hints that you don't think their views have merit: So what was that meant to do, if not knock their viewpoint ?

If Shawn was good at selling a match maybe he wouldn't have been one of the worst drawing Champions of all time. He didn't do so bad as a heel, did he? Heat wise, he was great as a heel. Drawing wise, not that hot. The three December 1997 to February 1998 PPV's with him on top (while he didn't actually wrestle at the Feb PPV, nobody knew he wasn't going to show up until the last minute, so he can be credited/blamed for his part in the buy rate) all trailed what WCW did for their PPV's in those respective months.

No idea. Best guess is a program with Hunter over DX. You think he would have accepted being pushed to the mid card? I figured that they would have run Austin/HBK for a couple more months. Actually that might be the biggest What If? in WWF history. If Shawn hadn't been hurt would Rock, HHH, and/or Foley been moved into the spots they got with Shawn blocking the way? I think he'd have made sure it was given at least co-main event billing. Given Shawn's nature at the time, he would have made the Austin-McMahon program less special, because you have to think that Shawn would be doing his best to either leech off it in some way or bring it down. With how Vince felt about Austin, and Shawn's instability at the time, I think it likely that at some point Vince and Shawn would BUTT heads over something, and Vince would have sent Shawn home. At the very least, I think Shawn would have wound up walking out again.

True. Shawn, up until literally just before the match, was making noises about not wanting to do the job to Austin. Undertaker came up to the gorilla position and taped his fists up, and told Shawn point blank that if he didn't do the job in the ring, he'd be doing the job for real when he returned to the back. It's stuff like this that makes me waonder about HBK's sanity. What the fuck was he going to do? Give up the title again so he could retire due to the injury? What was Vince's reaction to Shawn not wanting to job despite being badly injured, at the time they though he would be 9 months if I recall? I can't imagine that Vinec wouldn't force him to do the job on the most important show in WWF history (if that show tanked then WWF never would have taken off like it did). And while I'm asking questions, what were the plans, if any for Shawn after WM 14 had he not been injured? I'm sure he would have loved to have done that. He'd done it so often in the past when it came time to drop a title, that, in some ways, it was almost like a drug. Not getting his fix would have really driven him nuts. Vince was well aware of Shawn's problems with doing jobs. One of the reasons that Vince never forced the issue of Shawn putting over Owen Hart for the European Title was that he wanted to try to keep Shawn placated so that when it did come time to have Shawn do the job to Austin that Shawn wouldn't put up as much fuss as he normally would. After Montreal, Shawn did do a couple of jobs on house shows to Undertaker, but that was done purely as a way to show the rest of the locker room that Shawn would do jobs, when in reality, when it came to jobs that mattered, he was still unwilling. No idea. Best guess is a program with Hunter over DX.

I like how he says promo's are opinion based, and then promptly cites an alleged lack of 'facts' supporting the anti-Shawn promo argument as somehow proof that that point of view is wrong.

True. Shawn, up until literally just before the match, was making noises about not wanting to do the job to Austin. Undertaker came up to the gorilla position and taped his fists up, and told Shawn point blank that if he didn't do the job in the ring, he'd be doing the job for real when he returned to the back.

Yes, it's nuts, but there you go. The Luger match went just under 15 minutes, and was originally given 24 minutes, which meant the match was set for about 20 minutes, so we 'lost' about five minutes of classic action. The Bret match went about 10 minutes, which meant it was probably cut short by around 4-5 minutes.

Be thankful for time constraints; both of his matches at WM X were originally set to last a total of about 40 minutes.

Technically, Hall showing up on Nitro was a return. Chris Jericho's debut in the WWF was tremendous. I liked Goldberg's debut in WWE as well.

I think the whole board can agree with that. That would allowed Matt Hardy to compete in the 6 man Ladder match. That idea got screwed when Lita did. That's really why? Matt and Edge couldn't put aside personal grudges, and competed in a match with each other? I don't believe Hardy was going to be a part of the Ladder match anyway, but even if he was, it would be insane to put him and Edge in the ring together right now.

Without question they would, if only because right now, both TNA and WWE are dominated by heel champions who manage to overcome the odds at every turn. TNA should be headlining with something that is totally different, not a bad copy.

To their live events, yes, but PPV buys would plummet, because it's almost exclusively 'smart' fans who buy TNA shows.

I think the whole board can agree with that. I don't know. The match would be bad, but short, and Orton being freed up would allow us to ditch the dead weight in the ladder match, ie. Christian. Who seriously believes that Christian has a chance in hell in that match? All the others you could see winning (some more than others), and with Orton in there you really would have no clue who would win. He would benefit a lot better from a win there too, than he would against Taker. The Tag Match From Hell would be given at least 15 minutes, which is 14 minutes too much. And Orton in the Ladder match might have made the result less predictable, but I think taking Christian out and putting Orton in would have dragged down the quality of the match. Christian's style and size allows for more and better bumps than Orton, and the bumps are what is going to hold the match together.

I think the whole board can agree with that. That would allowed Matt Hardy to compete in the 6 man Ladder match. That idea got screwed when Lita did.

There is one undeniable bright spot to Orton v Undertaker at WM XXI; we're not getting Kane and Taker v Snitsky and Heidenreich.

Chances are that something really great will happen on Smackdown now.

In more ways than one.

Just checked, and Jarrett and Steiner had no matches during any of the WWA PPV's. Just seen that they went to a No Contest on Nitro on January 8th, 2001. Don't know how good the match was. I'm checking now to see what Meltzer said about it. Says they stalled forever, not wanting to lock up. Flair came out and basically forced them to wrestle. Said to be decent until the multiple run-in finish. April 17th 2000, with a DQ win for Jarrett. Ended in 3:28, wasn't very good, and fans hated the finish. Part of a three-way with Hugh Morrus on May 1st 2000, with Morrus winning in less than three minutes when Jarrett hit Steiner with a guitar. June 19th 2000, Jarrett pinned Steiner, with Mike Awesome as ref. Finish saw Steiner have Awesome in the Recliner, and Jarrett used the guitar. Said to be good. Lasted just over 9 minutes. June 26th 2000, as part of a four-way also featuring Nash and Goldberg. July 10th 2000, another four-way, with Goldberg and Kanyon this time. October 20th 2000, Jarrett and Booker T beat Steiner and Sting.

We meant Scott Steiner, not Scott Hall. -=Mike In that case, outside of maybe being part of a triangle or 4-way match in the WWA, I don't think they ever had a meaningful match.

I understand that, but who is the last guy that Taker put over like that? I can't think of a single one. Very, very few guys get over like you decribed. Both participants generally have to be great workers (like Bret and Austin) and Orton and Taker are not great workers by any strech. I don't think Taker is capable of doing it. John Cena at Vengeance 2003. I thought he put him over fine. Except he treated him like crap, picked him up on a two count, kicked out of a chain shot and Cena's finsher, and then promptly pinned him clean.

A stretcher came into play, so they did a bunch of spots from the Razor v Shawn Ladder matches using the stretcher in place of the ladder. The finish saw Ricky Steamboat trying to stop Hall using a chair and Jarrett sneaking up from behind and giving Hall the Stroke onto the chair. Neither man really benefited from the match, because it was overbooked into oblivion. The story seemed to be that Jarrett outsmarted Steamboat, as Steamboat was there to prevent foul play, but when Steamboat went to stop it, Jarrtett outsmarted him. Steamboat was the face, by the way.

Jeff wrestled Scott on the July 31st 2002 PPV. And it was the same outside the ring-into the back brawling, complete with run-ins and ref bumps and a screwjob finish match that Jarrett has today.

Since when did it become a pre-requisite of being 'smark' to not want a hoss to be a superstar ?