Hunter's Torn Quad

Goldust was let go right at the end of 2003, with the old 'creative have nothing for him' excuse, which basically means they didn't want to use him.

All I did was watch the match, and go,"that was good, but I didn't feel like it was a classic". Does that make me bad for not going into great detail over it ?

Speaking of RF and IWA:MS, I wonder what people think of IWA:MS having to do a deal with RF in order to get themselves out of their immediate financial problems.

Aside from WM XXI, every win Benoit had over Hunter, the sole top guy on Raw, was not clean at all, as there was always some interference involved. His big pin over Shawn on Raw was, once again, caused by interference. It amazes me, well it doesn't really, that people still can't grasp that a clean win doesn't always mean that the person getting the win is being put over. And nobody 'picks and chooses' the facts when making a credible and valid argument. It doesn't make you look real good when such an argument is made, and you still try and make it like it's picking and choosing when it isn't. As for SD's ratings, in the midst of Bradshaw's reign, they hit 2.5, the second lowest rating in the shows history, as well as hitting a couple of 2.6's. I do wish people who bring up the ratings as a defence would bother to take the time to actually check the ratings, to make sure they're not leaving themselves open.

When someone is getting the kind of push that Bradshaw is, with the lengthy title reign, lots of mic time, an entourage, etc, it’s a fair bet that Vince and co are putting the brand on his shoulders, and letting him carry things. They are building SD around Bradshaw. Therefore, it’s a valid argument the majority of the blame for SD business tanking belongs to Bradshaw’s push. He’s the one the SD brand is being built around when the SD buy rates and PPV attendance is falling, so who should we blame if not him ? There might be other factors involved, but they are minor at best. And trying to compare this with Benoit’s reign is silly, because they didn’t build Raw around Benoit when he was champion. They continued to build around Hunter, and, not coincidentally, things still didn’t turn around for them. If they had built Raw around Benoit, and business fell or tanked, then it would be a valid comparison to make, but they didn’t, so the argument isn’t valid. As for the heat Bradshaw is getting, go back to Armageddon and listen to the crowd. That main event had next to no heat at all until Eddie brought out the ladder. Yeah, that’s some great heat Bradshaw gets(!)

They were told if they ran Vince v Steph they'd get a fine. WWE's response was, "So who do we make the check out to ?"

The crowd went there with the sole intention of putting themselves over. If we're judging the WWE by that crowd then god help us all. Let's not forget the cheers Tripper got, or the fact the crowd sat on their hands for most of EDDIE~ vs. Angle and the opening six-man involving LONDON~. I still don't get the arguement that one person makes the WWE a draw anymore. Until there's another Rock or Austin coming along, the WWE name is what draws, not 'Crapshaw' (very original btw) or Orton, or Benoit or Trips. In fact, I hate the whole 'he's a draw, he's not' arguement itself...not because it's neccessarily wrong, but because there's so many factors you can ignore when you want to turn it against someone like Diesel, or so many you can suddenly remember when you want to make an IWC favourite look good. JBL entertains me. That's all that matters to me. I'm not worried about what PPV buyrate the WWE gets while I'm watching a show. Sure, there's better wrestlers and better people to hold the title. But JBL's not doing a BAD job as champ. No, they went there to be entertained, and when they weren’t being entertained with what was going on in the ring, they made their own entertainment. I love how people use this excuse as to why the fans at SummerSlam weren’t into the matches, because, of course, it couldn’t possibly be because they just weren’t entertained by what was going on in the ring. One person doesn’t necessarily make WWE a draw, but they can be a negative draw, if they’re getting a strong push and PPV attendance and buy rates sink, with no signs of turning around. So in other words, it’s a great argument, but only if it makes a point you agree with ? Shows how much you really care then, doesn’t it. If a promotion I like is doing steadily worse business with a certain champion on top, I’d be worried. Then I guess you’ve missed, or most likely ignored, the fact that with him as WWE Champion, buy rates and attendance for SD shows is sinking like a stone.

Hamilton will be running it, and he'll have Tim Horner as a trainer.

which lasted 8 days. And didnt he also lose the title to Christian on Smackdown on a match that they never showed? All that was shown was a clip of Christian leaving the ring holding the European belt, and that was on one of the weekend shows that almost nobody watched. Yes, that'll make a title seem important, when they, not only cut the match out of the national broadcast it was taped for. but don't even show the match at all; not even clips.

How do you accidentally throw out a remote ?

If Johnson hasn't worked out the answer to that one by now, then he needs to change jobs.

Yes, because it's perfectly fine to put the World title on a guy the fans don't buy in that position. And the end result as been a World title that the fans don't care about much, if at all. Go back to the reactions in WWE Title matches this year with Eddie or Brock as champion, and then see the matches with JBL as champion. The heat and noise from the crowds isn't there anymore. At Armageddon, nobody gave a shit about the match until Eddie brought a ladder out, and that was 5 months into his reign. The heat for WWE Title matches has gotten progressively worse as JBL's reign has gone on. Not to mention that PPV attendance and buy rates are sinking like stones. You can try and blame it all on the SD product as a whole being bad all you wan't, but the fact is that with JBL getting the big push, the revenue stream that really matters, PPV, is down, and if that doesn't convince you that JBL needs to be replaced, if nothing else but to stop the slide, then you're a hopeless case.

--WWE will be doing what I believe is the first ever double taping on 1/31 in San Jose. They will tape Raw live at 6 p.m., and then at 8:30 p.m., tape Smackdown for the next Thursday. Tickets go on sale on 1/8. Credit - WO.com Apart from anything, this is really going to emphasis just how horrid SD is when compared to Raw.

The problem with a move like the CD, is that, as spectacular as it is, it's one of those moves that you just cannot suspend your disbelief on. And without that suspension of disbelief, you're just watching an exhibition of moves, and the match in question then loses meaning. The way you word that you are saying that Pro Wrestling is a sport. When was the last time it was considered a sport, 1940's? The current product that is on tv is nothing but the exhibition of the spectacular! That is why so many wrestlers have personalities from simple redneck to the outragous ridiculous stereotypes. So the suspension of belief arguement is not valid in pro wrestling since it has not been pushed as a real sport in many years. A wrestling match does not lose it meaning because of a spectacular finish. The match loses its meaning when the wrestlers get sloppy and forget to sell certain injuries or screw up on their speciality moves. Or when a wrestler gets lazy and does the same moves in the same pattern in every match that it get repeative and never changes, now that would be boring. The Canadian Destroyer is more credible than the basic senton that Jeff Hardy does. How ? The suspension of disbelief is at the heart of wrestling, because, while we may know it’s not real, if we can suspend our disbelief, and get caught up in it, then we feel like what happens in the ring truly matters. Take out that ability to suspend your disbelief, and what happens in the ring doesn’t seem so important anymore. I never said anything about considering it a sport. I’m talking about being able to suspend your disbelief, which is hard to do with a contrived move like the CD. That’s probably a big reason business is in the crapper right now. Remember the truckload of money that WM X-7 and WM XVIII made ? That wasn’t done with anything spectacular, but with simple issues (Austin v Rock was about Austin’s quest for the WWF Title, and Rock v Hogan was about New v Old) that let the people suspend their disbelief and get into things so much that they paid out money to see them unfold. Personalities are fine, but they don’t really do much if they’re so outrageous that the people can’t identify with them or believe in the person behind the personality. The personalities that get over the best, and draw the most, are the ones people identify with, and they can’t identify with something stupid and outlandish. So you’re saying that the suspension of disbelief doesn’t matter ? Ok. Again, this is something that I never said. What I actually said was that if it’s something that doesn’t allow you to suspend your disbelief, that is something so over-the-top that it’s absurd, then you get taken out of being emotionally invested in the match. And when that happens, the match doesn’t really matter anymore. You mean when something happens that lessens your ability suspend your disbelief. Which is what I’m saying. At least when setting up the Swanton, the guy taking it would be worn down enough to where it seems credible that he’d be too worn down to move out of the way. With the CD, the guy taking the move basically has to backflip himself, while supposedly being too worn out to fight the move off. Yeah, that’s credible.

I must have missed it where it was confirmed he was on steroids. Noble got an ass infection, I never read that it was directly related to taking them. In Edge's book, he tells of the time he got an infection in his buttock by landing wrong on a missed legdrop off the top. So it could have been something like that. It was why he got fired from WWE. When he tried to claim on his medical cover over the infection, he put down that it was from a steroid shot, and because steroids are illegal unless under a doctor's supervision, which this wasn't, and it was in records that a WWE guy was taking them, they had to let him go.

Lesnar is a big time roid user there's no doubt about that, he even got arrested once b/c he had steroids and HGH with him. Actually, they turned out to be vitamins or something, and not steroids or HGH.

He was meant to be in IWA:MS last night, to wrestle Matt Sydal, but didn't appear. I think he was taken off due to the money situation down there.

Does anyone remember why they created the WWE US Title in the first place ?

They should have used the US belt circa 1991-1995. Now that was a belt that looked like a championship belt.

The problem with that is a wrestling match isn't meant to be an athletic exhibition. It's meant to be two guys beating each other up to win a match. The moment it gets turned into an exhibition, people stop caring.

I'd say for sure Norton and Batista are on the juice. Batista has most of the signs, as well as the fact that he kept tearing his triceps muscle a while ago. Guerrero's on something too. I'd say Benoit might be, or if not, he's just changed something. If you see how he looked in 1994, he looked more puffed up than anything else, and he got more streamlined as time went on. Snitksy is also on the gas.

The problem with a move like the CD, is that, as spectacular as it is, it's one of those moves that you just cannot suspend your disbelief on. And without that suspension of disbelief, you're just watching an exhibition of moves, and the match in question then loses meaning.

The deal over Angle getting involved in getting the finish in his SummerSlam match with Eddie was first reported in the Observer. And Eddie tapping out clean was the wrong finish for three reasons: 1: The story behind the match was Eddie coming for revenge on Angle for twice costing him the WWE Championship. When a babyface comes for revenge, and gets beaten clean, by submission no less, it does a lot of damage to him. After all, why should the fans get behind a babyface who quits in the middle of the ring when he’s going after revenge on the heel who cost him the World title ? It’s a basic of precept of good booking that you don’t make the face look like a failure, because it turns the fans off of getting behind him. And Eddie did look like a failure here, not only because he failed to get any revenge on the heel, but also because he tapped out clean in the middle. 2: The clean finish this early in the program, and this one was spotless, takes major steam off of the feud. If it was Eddie getting the clean win, then at least they could keep the feud going by having Angle attack Eddie after the bell and lay him out. That would have given them a reason to keep it going, as well as doing a good job of keeping it hot. With the heel getting the clean win, with no controversy at all, then it takes all the steam out of the feud, because he’s proven himself the better man. If Angle was going over, they should have done some major interference or cheating behind it, so at least Eddie would have been justified in wanting a rematch, and it would have been in a way that the fans would have been able to get behind Eddie, as the babyface who got robbed. As it is, he didn’t get robbed, got beaten clean, and the fans have no real reason to get behind his demand for a rematch. 3: Eddie just lost the WWE Title the month before, and he absolutely should not be losing on the very next PPV, much less losing cleanly. As the babyface who got robbed of the WWE Title, twice, he should have come out of SummerSlam with a ton of momentum, preferably from winning a high profile match. As it is, he lost on two PPV’s in a row, with the first loss only having a minor amount of controversy behind it, and the second loss being clean as a sheet. Tell me how any babyface looks good after that, especially a main event one.

If you were a wrestler, would you: Prefer to be given only finish and call everything else in the ring ? Lay the entire match out beforehand ? Like to have your promo's scripted ? Or just be given a couple of bullet points, and wing the rest ? Blade often ? Only on occasion ? Would you rather never blade at all ? What style would you like to wrestle ? Why would you prefer to employ that particular style over others ? Refuse to take certain moves ? Only take them when working with certain wrestlers ? Are there any match types you'd like to wrestle in a lot ? Some match types you'd rather never have to work in ? What style of normal match would you like to do the most ? Would you prefer to sell or to dominate ? Would you like to do long matches ? Would you like to have a manager or valet to work spots with, or would you rather just do it all yourself ? Are there some types of angles that you would refuse to do ? Some types of angles that you'd love to do ? What promotion would you like to work for the most ? What promotion would you hate to work for ? Any wrestlers today that you'd like to work against ? Any you would avoid working against at all costs ? What wrestlers from the past would you like to work against ? What wrestlers from the past would you not want to work against ?

Angle played politics by convincing WWE to have the finish to his match with Eddie at Summerslam be Eddie tapping out clean.