Hunter's Torn Quad

The Bret/Shawn brawl was the night after KotR. I don't think they had any firm idea. He was going to drop the belt, not sure when, to one of four people. Bret, Savage, Warrior and someone else. Warrior leaving required them to create a new main event level babyface, so they went with Bret.

That was not the original booking. The original plan was, as mentioned before, for Michaels to cost Hunter the match, leading the Shawn v Hunter at Backlash. The actual stipulations were that Bret had to beat Shawn in 10 minutes or less, or he would have to leave America.

The Nash v Hunter deal was meant to see them wrestle at SummerSlam, but that got changed when Nash tore his quad by walking.

Tunney stepped down just before Summerslam 1995, and Monsoon was named interim President. After Monsoon got attacked by Vader, Roddy Piper was brought in as his replacement. I think he disappeared after WM XII, and I think the President/Commissionership slot stayed vacant until Sgt was introduced the night after SummerSlam 1997.

I think this was already dealt with. Basically, New Jack bladed a kid who was underage, but had lied and said he was of age, and accidentally cut too widely, and the kid, Eric Kulas, bled a shitload. It wound up in civil court, and while the kid had a good case, and would have certainly won, he killed his chances by lying non-stop on the stand.

Regardless of how Joe v Punk III turns out, I don't see the next champion being a transitional one. I think whoever the next champion is is going to be the guy who has the most potential challengers lined up. Gabe didn't build the RoH Title up with a near 2-year reign for Joe, only to chip away a big chunk of that prestige with a short-term title reign for someone. Whoever holds the RoH Title next is almost certainly going to hold it for at least close to a year.

They are well on their way to becoming WCW-like. Just not the way the pipe dreamers would like.

The Inchworm.

Undi was always going over in that one. It was a brilliant move for Hunter, because he does a clean job on the biggest PPV of all time up until that point, but he does it to someone already on his level, and so nobody got elevated. Yes. Michaels was putting up a lot of fuss over having to job to Austin, and was openly talking about not doing it. Undi was in the gorilla position, taping his fists up, and flat out told Michaels he was either doing the job in the ring, or he'd be doing one for real once he got backstage. Hunter's argument was that if he was going to drop the Raw Title to Goldberg at Bad Blood, which was the original plan, then a short term title change to Booker would take the shine off of Goldberg's big win. Austin was to face Jericho at KotR and Hunter was to face Benoit there. I don't think anything beyond KotR was really planned for them, because they pretty much stopped thinking more than a month ahead at that point. That happened at either the last or second to last Raw before WM X-7. Shawn was meant to do an angle with Hunter, and it would eventually lead to Shawn costiing Hunter is match with Undi at WM X-7, which would then lead to Hunter v Shawn at Backlash.This was to happen on the Raw in question, but the segment got bumped due to timing, and Shawn threw a fit. The next day at SD, when they were going to shoot the angle there, Shawn showed up out of his skull on something, and they sent him home.

The thing that really irked me about Raw, apart from the Triple H Ego Show aspect of it, which has already been discussed, is the fact they gave away Benoit v Edge in a cage, not only on free tv, but with only five minutes of hype. It's bad enough putting a PPV caliber match on Raw, but to literally give it away, with no hype to speak of, is just stupid. If they were going to put such a big match on Raw, the least they could have done was announce it at the very beginning of Raw, so they would have the whole show to push it. Instead, it got treated in a throwaway manner, further establishing that neither man is that important, because their match didn't get any push.

Credit to WO.com Yes, that makes it all better(!)

Sonny Blaze trained Mikey. A few years later, ECW needed a ring, so they got one from Sonny Blaze. While dropping the ring off, Blaze asked Tazz and Saturn, who were running the ECW Wrestling school, with help from Mikey, for a refresher course, because he wanted to get back into wrestling. Tazz said sure, and that Mikey would help train him. Sonny was not amused, and quickly left, never to return.

Ask him to tell you the Sonny Blaze story.

But he's been proven to be a heat magnet if booked right. Just watch the Heat match against Funaki from JD this year, he got a LOT of negative reaction from the crowd. Mark was also cheered over Bob Holly at my last SD house show. You'd be hard pressed to find a first match of the night not get good heat. The fans are happy to finally see action after waiting for it. Jindrak is in no way, shape or form the future of WWE, unless the future is bland, boring, and lacking in flavor.

Not to mention some semblance of talent and ability. Some charisma would be nice too.

Yes, they were meant to be serious characters. Well, as serious as anything could be in WCW in that time. The gimmick was they brought these bells to the ring, cowbells of some kind I think, and whenever they got in trouble, they'd ring the bell, and that would somehow spur them on to make their comeback.

"If I gotta go someplace where I can wrestle, then goddamnit you can all kiss my ass"

Why not rip of the WWE? At least THEY haven't gone out of business? -=Mike Because if people want a WWE style product, they'll watch WWE, not a low rent version of WWE. But, using that same logic, if people wanted WCW --- they would have watched that when it was around, not an exceptionally low-rent version of it. -=Mike It wasn't that people didn't want to watch WCW, as much as they didn't want to watch the version of WCW that was being put out. There was, and still is, an audience for quality wrestling, that is supported by good promos and angles. They key is to using wrestlers in key positions that people will not only tune in to see, but pay to see also. The only way to compete with Vince is to do something totally different to WWE. Whether that means a strong wrestling with some angles and promos, or pure wrestling, or MMA, or Lucha, it doesn't really matter. It just has to be different to Vince, and something that he isn't offering. You can't out-Vince Vince, and anyone who tries is an idiot. That's what made Russo look stupid on the Nitro restart, when he said his goal was to beat Vince McMahon at his own game, because you can't do it.

Why not rip of the WWE? At least THEY haven't gone out of business? -=Mike Because if people want a WWE style product, they'll watch WWE, not a low rent version of WWE.

Cena should keep the thug persona, but get rid of the rap aspect. Make him like Public Enemy, but with talent and ability.

--The Rise and Fall of ECW is now rated on amazon.com as the No. 1 selling sports video. No other WWE or UFC video cracked the top 40. From the latest WO.com update. Add to that, numerous reports of it being sold out in stores all over the place.

They get ratings, in theory. Plus, it gives McMahon and Kevin Dunn another excuse to do stupid shit that they get off on, and think people want to see. I don't think they realise, or care, that by using the rejects, it'll make people less likely to vote, because when they see the people who get voted out hired anyway, it makes the whole thing pointless.

Orton won't be the future of anything until he stops doing that stupid pose, or at least only does it once or twice a match. At the moment, he does it so often, and at the wrong times, that he looks like a complete idiot, and people don't get behind idiots as top stars. Cena really needs to be a heel, because he's flat as a babyface.

Dave Scherer is an absolute joke, who is barely above Bob Ryder in the food chain. Around the time of the Invasion, 1pop-ups.con had a front page headline, stating that Bret Hart had signed with the WWF to lead the Invasion. A few hours later, however, the headlined had been changed slightly, to make it appear like they were asking if Bret had signed, rather than stating it as fact. When questioned on this, Scherer and co flat out denied that the original headline was ever there, despite numerous people seeing it and reporting on it. To this day, I don't think Scherer, Ryder, or anyone with 1W have admitted to the mistake. Scherer's own site, Pro Wrestling Insider, is just 1pop-ups, but with a different color scheme.

For a one-night deal, SS 1998 was compelling storytelling for it's time. But if you back and watch it now, you see that it actually was a pretty bad event, and it doesn't stand the test of time.