Hunter's Torn Quad

Angle works on the fly a lot. The main reason you can tell is because his spot calling is probably the loudest of anyone beside Shawn Michaels, and you can pick it up in nearly every one of his matches.

I heard it first from Meltzer, but I'm sure I saw it talked about on the SSS boards too at some point, and Stu never shot it down, so I'd say it was safe to assume it was true.

In case anyone is wondering, it was the old person-who-has-the-sleeper-on-has-his-shoulders-down finish. While I can see how it looks like it shows MMA won't get you everything, I would have preferred it, even though it would have never happened, if Sasaki had just squashed Fujita, with Fujita getting in almost nothing. At least that way, the guy winning the match would have actually be doing something offensive to get the win. As for where the belt goes from here, I'm guessing to Tenzan as well, but I wouldn't rule out Nishimura getting it somewhere down the line, seeing as he was meant to get the belt from Sapp in the first place.

I didn't say "main event mix", I said "top star". HHH had to share the main event with Austin and Rock and Taker in those days. Now, even when HHH doesn't have the belt, he is still the focus of the show. And as long as that is happening, they're fucked. It's a serious issue, and it'll be dismissed as Typical HHHate by a lot of people, but the man needs to go. There is no alternative. He needs to be gone and gone for a very, very, very long time. Like Shawn Michaels long time. Like, "he's gone and never coming back so lets not make any plans regarding him and not worry about protecting him" long time. I was just pointing the 1999 thing out to show how long he's been a top guy. Regardless of whether he was the 'top star' since then, he's still been a main event player for five years, and as such, 3H is beyond stale on top, and there is nothing fresh to do with him. That's why it would be great if 3H was gone for, as you said, an HBK amount of time. They could, not that they necessarily would, elevate a bunch of talent, and, after 3H has been gone for a few years, he could be brought back, and he'd be fresh again. Sadly, this is never going to happen, for all the obvious reasons.

Even if HHH did get taken out of wrestling for good by injury, we'd just see thing revolved around Orton and Michaels, with everyone else being support for them for the next few years. And RRR, HHH has been in the main event mix since June-July of 1999, excluding his time off for injury.

Because they went from making/grossing around $450m in 2000, to about a third of that for 2003/4. Yes, they are making money, and probably always will, but when their profits/gross fall by 60% or so in three years, something is really wrong. They might always be around, but so will someone in a PVS unless someone pulls the plug on them.

I remember seeing at least one Midnights v R 'n' R match on Mid-South TV. The crowd were great, as usual. Memphis was always fun for chaotica in front of a studio audience. Terry Funk going nuts and attacking everyone in sight was great stuff. It would be amusing, and very interesting, to see what a WWE program would be like in a Memphis style studio setting.

I think the interest in books like this, covering the WWE from an partial insiders perspective, stems from wanting to see things from the point of view of someone who was closer to the situation than the reader, and thus would be privy to information the reader isn't. The only problem with that is that people who would know about SK would know most, if not all, of the information he has, so the only lure of the book then would be hearing about things from the view of someone who is/was following things more closely, and maybe seeing things differently. As for books of this type, I think the one that would have most appeal to people like us, or any fan in general, would be a book that is mostly written by someone like Meltzer or Alvarez, who follow wrestling closely from the inside, but with input from an intelligent and well informed 'insider' fan, who would give the perspective of someone looking at wrestling from the outside. That way, you'd be getting a balance of both worlds; someone in wrestling who is a fan, and someone outside of wrestling, but who is also a fan. I think that would be the best way to write any book about wrestling, when at all possible.

The UK never got the PPV's for free. They not only had to have a subscription to SKY, they also had to pay for the package that carried the wrestling. They still payed for the PPV's.

People aren't stupid enough to think Race et all might show up.

You're probably right, and few people might be thinking that a Rock v HHH match is the works, but I wouldn't have said anything about Rock at all if he's not coming back. I just don't believe in hinting, even subtlely, at a match isn't going to happen.

LOL. "Multiple sources" probably = HTM. The Torch is the kind of place that will take an obscure hint from anybody that probably isn't true and then report it as coming from "a source" (which is just barely technically true.) This is why, if you read the Torch, WM20 booking changed about three dozen times in the year before the show. To be fair, the booking for WM XX probably did change three dozen times, at least, in the year running up to it, but that's only because WWE doesn't plan long term anymore. That said, Keller is a tad Daffy Ducked in the head when it comes to news a lot of the time. As a wise man once said, if you want to know the news get The Observer, if you want to know Wade Keller's opinion, get the Torch, because that's what you get with the Torch, but that's about all you get.

I don't think those theories need any support from the likes of SK. I'd heard the talk about RVD and Kane getting their title wins vetoed by Triple H ages ago, around the time of their apparent wins getting nixed. The one about Vince and the panda was first reported by Meltzer when he wrote up about a UK PPV. I have no doubt that it's true, simply because Vince is just that petty to want to do something like that.

In the past, it used to be all about showing the wrestler that WWE had the power, and making them job in their hometown was their way of making sure the wrestlers knew who was boss. That said, that was the practice for house shows, which is bad enough as it is, but to make a hometown guy lose on tv is worse. As you said, it doesn't get good heat, and it makes no sense to kill off local draws. If they wanted to put the US title on CCC, they could have at least kept it on Booker, and used CCC's title win over Booker as a way to engineer his face turn, rather than damage a hometown draw in Cena. I guess the good thing about this, and it is a good thing even if it is a bit of a double edged sword, is that they're pushing a new wrestler the right way, by giving him an immediate big win over an established star. Of course, it would help if the new wrestler was ready for prime time, but that's another story.

The Torch has said that multiple sources have said that there is truth to the report. Renegotiations aren't going well, and, while things have not yet gotten as bad as Kane giving his notice, he isn't happy with the way things are going.

Since when has Raw been a family show ?

I believe Meltzer, in an Observer, briefly mentioned that there was thought being given to bringing in Scott Vick as a relative of Katie, but he never said that it was anything definite.

I don't think they were trying to hint at a match. It was most likely a jab at Rock and nothing more. I don't see the problem with it, because even if it is a personal thing between those two, it's at least consistent with storylines, since HHH was probably Rock's biggest rival back in the day. No need to over-analyze this and make it a bigger deal than it really is. They might not have intended to hint at a Rock v HHH match, but by refering to Rock, HHH will have gotten some fans interested in a potential match between the two; they would have assumed that Rock wouldn't have been mentioned unless something is going to happen between he and HHH. And such a match is not set to happen, now or at any time in the near future. It might be consistant with past storylines, of 4 years ago when they last wrestled a program, but in the here and now, why mention something that will undoubtedly lead some people, probably a fair few, to want to see a match that is highly unlikely to ever happen ? It might be over analyzing, but I'd say over analyzing things is better than not analyzing them at all, especially when it comes to teasing stuff that you are not going to deliver.

Even if he was going for heel heat, and it wasn't a legit jab, where is the logic in hinting at a match that will almost certainly never happen ? It would have made more sense to take a jab at someone who is actually around full-time, so they could at least make an angle out of it.

Even if that was true, what sense does it make to insult a babyface who is almost never around, and when he does appear, it's almost always last minute ? Insulting a babyface who doesn't do something about it just makes that face look weak for not doing something in return. In any event, I think it most likely that it was a legit dig at Rock, borne out of jealousy and insecurity.

I believe you're refering to when, during the Steph v Vince feud from last year, Vince talked about using a teen Stephanie to seal business deals, and how he felt like he had taken her virginity himself.

If anyone should see HIAC as their match, it's Undertaker, seeing as how his matches with Shawn and Mankind put the match over in the first place. I don't see any logical reason why HHH should see HIAC as 'his' match, at least back in late 2002, when he had only had two of them at that point in time, and nobody really remembers either of them.

That is the most physically grotesque looking woman I've ever seen. Even Chyna, jaw not withstanding, didn't look that bad.

DDP was a really good worker. He could sell, bump, and had some good moves. His only problem, and to be honest it was one he should have worked on, was that he always wanted to lay his matches out move for move beforehand. Apart from that, he was a real good worker, and I don't think his skills were ever overestimated.

Card: Super J Cup '94 for Japan, and WM X7 for America. Match: Kenta Kobashi v Mitsuharu Misawa from March 2003 for Japan, and Chris Benoit versus those other two at WM XX for America.