Hunter's Torn Quad

Starnes wanted to screw over the UFC on his way out? At least that's the story his camp are putting out. As for UFC 83, it was a fine show. Not the greatest, but very enjoyable, and with a fantastic atmosphere. Quarry vs. Starnes was terrible, but the last fifteen seconds was tremendous. Quarry should get a bonus for his mockery of Starnes. I was a little worried when GSP and Serra were standing, but it was all GSP on the ground and he dominated Serra to regain his title and all was right with the world. With Dana trying to work out Hughes vs Serra, it might potentially set up GSP vs. Serra III for the UFC's NY debut. And I just found this, which is great: http://mmamania.com/2008/04/21/mma-referee...n-of-the-night/

I quite liked the build to Cena vs. Michaels last year. For a one-hour show, the build to Damaja vs. Doug Basham in the Loser Leaves OVW match can't be beat.

Hogan getting his win back. Other than that, they didn't really give a whole lot of thought into what to do with Warrior. Once Hogan beat Warrior, they didn't know what to do with him, and let him stay home for the remainder of his contract. Amazingly, Warrior got a raise and contract extension before the Hogan match, and walked away with a few million dollars. Not bad for two months work.

The NWA World Heavyweight title: This one begins in November of 1989 right after Ric Flair beats Terry Funk in the I Quit match to end their feud. During the November tv, Flair talks up his victory over Funk, and says that he needs to move on to new challengers for his title, and that there are many contenders that deserve a shot at his title, but he doesn't know who should get the break of a lifetime. At this point, Flair should still be a babyface, but retain that cocky sense of self-confidence. Flair should be Flair, and the fans can cheer or boo him as they see fit. At the end of the month, the interviewer, Gordon Solie, can tell Flair that there is someone out there calling the NWA and demanding to confront Flair over the World Title. Flair asks who it is, but Solie tells him that the person is disguising their voice, so they don't know who it is. As December rolls on, Flair gets more irate at this person, who is still unnamed, and calls him out. In the meantime, Flair defends the NWA title against the Great Muta at Starrcade which is set up thusly: After Muta attacks Flair at the end of Clash IX, Flair rips into Muta in a promo, and tells Muta that if he thinks he can attack Flair from behind and get away with it, then he is mistaken. Flair tells Muta to step up to the plate and see if he can do that kind of damage by attacking Flair face on, and Flair says he'll sweeten the deal, and put the NWA World Title on the line. The next week, Muta, via Gary Hart, accepts the challenge, and the match is set for the main event of Starrcade. During the hype, much is made of Muta being unbeaten in the NWA, and that Muta already has the TV Title and will look forward to adding the World Title to his collection. Various angles will take place to hype the match up, with the final tv before Starrcade seeing Muta 'mist' Flair with the black mist, and the announcers will go crazy putting it over, citing the black mist as the most dangerous mist, and that Flair is now the firm underdog going into Starrcade. Flair comes out for the match with his eyes red and bloodshot, selling the misting from Muta. The match is mostly Muta in control with brawling and his usual spots, with Flair fighting back with chops and punches, and Muta going for the eyes to regain control. It goes about 17-minutes and is really heated, with the fans getting into Flair's comebacks. The finish sees Flair go for the figure-four on Muta, Gary Hart try to interfere only to get decked by Flair, and when Muta goes for Flair, Flair hits a lowblow with his heel that the crowd pop for and he slips on the figure-four on Muta who fights for all he can, but finally submits as Gary Hart tries to pull himself up to help Muta. Back to the mystery wrestler calling up the NWA and wanting to confront Flair, and the week before Clash of the Champions X in January, Solie tells Flair that the mystery person will confront Flair live in the middle of the ring. Clash X rolls around and Flair storms to the ring looking angry and irate; Flair goes off on the person who has been calling the NWA, and tells whoever it is to get his ass to the ring, and settle things like a real man. Cue Pomp and Circumstance-like music, and the crowd go insane as Randy Savage walks out. Flair is shocked, and looks like he is about throw a fit. Savage gets in the ring, grabs the mic from Flair, and tells Flair that if anyone knows about being a man, it's him (Savage). Savage then talks about how he has been around wrestling all of his life, and that he's done with performing in a three-ring circus and he's come to where the real wrestlers fight it out, and that he is challenging Ric Flair to a match for the World Title at WrestleWar the following month. Before Flair can answer him, Sid Vicious hits the ring and goes after Flair, and Savage just looks on for a minute, before pulling Sid off of Flair and throwing him to the floor. Before Sid can return to the ring, Roddy Piper comes out and pulls Sid to the back, telling him to wait his time for now. Savage looks at Flair before making belt motions around his waist, and hopping over the top rope to the floor, and walking off, locking eyes with Sid briefly as he does so, before he and Flair engage in a staredown, with the announcers wondering if Flair will accept the challenge of Randy Savage, and if Sid will go after Savage as well now, due to Savage preventing his attack on Flair. (The Sid-Piper team will be explained later on) The Flair-Savage series begins at WrestleWar. Flair wins at Wrestle War in a hard fought match, but to keep the program going Savage attacks Flair afterwards and piledrives Flair on a steel chair to lay Flair out. In 1990, something like this is still a major angle, so it gets a ton of heat and Savage still looks strong because Flair gets stretchered out and Savage gets to brag about putting the NWA champion in the hospital. This happens in February and with the next PPV, Capitol Combat, in May, we’ve got three months of promos and angles to build to the rematch with Flair vowing revenge against one of the few men to ever put Flair out of action. To really spice things up, the rematch will be in a cage, a gimmick which hasn’t quite been prostituted into oblivion and still means something. Flair versus Savage at Capitol Combat in a cage needs to be violent, so it’s going to be a complete brawl with both guys bleeding tons. We’ll have the big Thunderdome cage so that both guys can brawl around the ring and we can get camera shots of the blood spattered all over the ring mats. Flair goes over here, but I want a finish that keeps Savage strong. I want it memorable, so we’re going to have Savage miss an elbow off of the top of the cage and Flair cradling Savage for the win. For the time, Savage’s move will be a huge spot and it’ll get over big because it’s going to be replayed and talked about constantly on TV the next week. Flair goes over clean, but Savage loses nothing because he literally put it all on the line for the NWA title, a fact Flair will play up in post-CC promos so as to put over the spot, Savage, and, of course, the NWA title (because Savage was willing to risk his health to win it) With WrestleWar out of the way, and successful defense against Muta at Clash XI, it’s time to focus on the Great American Bash in July, which will be headlined by Flair defending the NWA title against Ted DiBiase. Ted DiBiase gains the number one contendership by way of a feud with Terry Funk which will be explained later. It’s a wild feud, with some memorable matches and angles, so people are primed for Flair versus DiBiase at the Bash. Flair versus DiBiase at the Bash is an old-school masterpiece, going over twenty minutes, with lots of great action. DiBiase wins when Flair has the match won and goes for a figure-four, but DiBiase kicks him off and the ref gets knocked down, but not out. Flair goes to pick the referee up, but DiBiase reaches into his trunks for knuckles and KO's Flair when he turns around. The knuckles go back into his trunks, the referee gets up, sees the cover, counts the pin, and DiBiase is the new NWA World Heavyweight Champion The next major even is Clash XII, which is in September and it’s going to be headlined by Ted DiBiase defending the NWA title against Ricky Steamboat, who won’t be forced out the year before and ends up in a feud with Bret Hart (to be detailed later) which culminates at the Bash. Clash XII in September sees DiBiase defend against Steamboat and they go to a 30:00 draw. DiBiase is going to try and play it straight, but he’s going to get more heelish as the match goes on and Steamboat gets closer to victory. The final five minutes see lots of two counts, with DiBiase desperately trying to fend off Steamboat until the time limit expires, which it eventually does. A rematch must be had, and it’ll take place as the main event of Halloween Havoc with a one-hour time limit. Steamboat’s going to play on DiBiase’s pride in the build to this and claim that DiBiase knows he can’t beat him clean. The idea being that Steamboat knows he can outwrestle DiBiase, so he’s going to goad DiBiase into playing into his hands and keep things straight. The rematch goes around 40:00 and the shocker is that DiBiase actually does play fair because his ego demands he prove Steamboat wrong and that he can win without cheating, which he does, by rolling through a crossbody from Steamboat and hooking the leg for the win. Clash XIII is in November and DiBiase headlines this in a tag match as he teams with US Champion Stan Hansen to take on Sting and TV Champion Terry Funk. You’ll see later why Sting and Hansen are in these spots, as well as how Hansen and Funk got their respective belts. It’s a transition show, so we’re going to have a non-finish as DiBiase and Funk brawl away at one end of the arena while Sting and Hansen brawl away at the other end and both teams get counted out. This brings us to Starrcade where the main event is DiBiase defending the NWA title against Terry Funk in a cage match. Funk parlays his TV title reign into a title shot as a means to try and gain revenge on DiBiase over winning their feud earlier in the year. While that aspect gets played up, the big lure on the Starrcade main event is Terry Funk gunning after ‘one last’ NWA title run. We’ll run video pieces on the Funk history in wrestling as well highlights of Terry winning the NWA Title from Jack Briscoe. The match itself, in a regular cage, is another war, with lots of bleeding and brawling. The finish sees a turnbuckle get exposed and, in an act of desperation, DiBiase hotshots Funk head first into the metal, knocking him out and getting the win. Summary: Flair, and the title, get over with two great matches with Savage and two clean finishes. The screwjob loss of Flair to DiBiase protects Flair but gets over DiBiase as a cheating heel. It also doesn’t, or shouldn’t, get a groan because it’s the only screwjob in an NWA title match all year and they can get something over huge if done sparingly, which they will be. DiBiase also shows he’s a great wrestler who doesn’t need to cheat, which means the heat he gets is even bigger because of that fact, because he holds his own and even cleanly defeats Ricky Steamboat, who spent most of 1989 establishing with the fanbase that he’s one of the premier wrestlers in the world. DiBiase gets over as a heel with the Funk feud in the early part of the year, and it culminates in the Starrcade win because he crushes the dream of Funk for that one, last NWA title reign. Where it goes from here into 1991 is a little up in the air, but my ideal plan would be for DiBiase to hold the belt until the Bash where he’d drop the title to Sting. Sting would have ready made challengers in the form of DiBiase, Curt Hennig (explained later), Luger, and maybe some Clash defenses against Arn, Tully, either of the Steiners and others. That’s the NWA World title done with. Next time, I’ll cover the US Title.

From PWI Impact: *Impact opens with TNA champion Samoa Joe dedicating his title win and reign to the fans. Scott Steiner comes out and awards Petey Williams his X-Division title shot, then starts ripping on Joe about Sacrifice. Kurt Angle comes out and announces that he is going to use his rematch clause on next week's Impact. *In a backstage segment, Rhino and Christian Cage arrive at the Impact Zone. Team 3D show up and try to plant the seed in Rhino's head that he can't trust Cage. It ends up with Team 3D, James Storm and Robert Roode all attacking them and laying them out. *TNA X-Division champion Jay Lethal pinned Johnny Devine. Petey Williams attacked Lethal and nailed a tornado DDT onto the title shot briefcase. Williams opened the briefcase and slammed Lethal's head inside it. He announces he is taking his title shot now, nails the Canadian Destroyer and pins Lethal for the belt. New X-Division champion. *Matt Morgan comes to the ring and cuts a promo on the sacrifices he made for Jim Cornette, only to be dismissed as part of TNA management. Morgan promised to be a "Blueprint" (his OVW nickname) for giants in professional wrestling. *Kaz and Super Eric capture the TNA Tag Team championships, defeated AJ Styles & Tomko and LAX in a Three-Way bout when Eric pinned Styles *Backstage, AJ Style protested to Jim Cornette that Super Eric and Eric Young are two different people (as they were supposed to defend against Eric Young, NOT Super Eric..anyone else have a Midnight Rider sized headache, yet?). AJ demands Cornette ask Young if he knows Super Eric and if he doesn't, then they deserve the titles back. Cornette agrees just to get them out of the office. *Rhino and Christian defeated Team 3D. Rhino accidentally gored Cage but then Devon accidentally clotheslined Ray and Rhino scored the pin. Afterwards, 3D got into it with each other and security separated them. *Jim Cornette, AJ Styles and Tomko come to the ring to resolve the Tag Team championship issue. Kaz and Super Eric come out and Super Eric acts as if he doesn't know who Eric Young is. Jim Cornette strips them of the tag titles, but won't give the belts back to Styles and Tomko. He says he will make an official decision next week. *TNA Knockout champ Awesome Kong defeated Roxxi. *Booker T & Sting & BG James defeated Robert Roode & James Storm & Kip James after Matt Morgan interfered. Booker gets upset Morgan got involved and has words with him and Sting. **** Note from Mike: If we are understanding the tag title situation correctly, Eric Young just gave up the World Tag Team titles because he wouldn't unmask when there was NO reason for him not to unmask? REALLY?! Wow. That is BEYOND LAME. Why wouldn't Kaz just tear the mask off his partner? Why would wrestling purist Cornette even partake in such shenanigans? You know the conspiracy theorists will be hoping Cornette was shooting on the mic. This doesn't sound good at all.

It was Brian Christopher who was stripped, tied up and stuck in the shower. An understandable reaction if you've spent more than five minutes with the guy.

TNA found a way to officially fuck up the Knockouts division. It gets worse.

PWI: WrestleZone: ProWrestling.net: This could get very messy for TNA.

Because it is on Raw and not PPV, it does leave open the possibility of a winner that you wouldn't normally expect; you can use a bunch of different screwjobs and non-finishes to eliminate the top names, and not worry about pissing off any paying customers over a lack of clean finishes. I'd expect whoever wins to get a short term push and, unless it takes, be used as a stop-gap challenger to the champion of whichever brand he's on.

It's worth noting that the Raw rating is usually a .3 or so off the real number, because a decent amount of people don't watch Raw live, and so their viewership doesn't make it into that rating; case in point being that the 2/25 Raw did a 3.47 live rating but when you added in the number of people who watched it within a week via DVR the rating was a 3.79. But this all comes from websites and newsletters, and they can never be trusted, so take all this with a grain of salt.

The Billy Silverman one springs to mind, which resulted in him quitting the company. His crime was upgrading his plane ticket to first class, and his punishment was being forced to serve drinks to everyone later on another trip. There was another one involving the Dicks (John Toland and Chad Wicks) that might have been called because Wick was complaining about getting ribbed. The end result saw the two get into a fight over it a short time later during a tour of Mexico, and they were soon let go.

I thought the main event was really good. My only criticism of it, and it's mild, is that I'd have preferred it if they had kept the match submission based and not done any pinfalls. I think it took away from the kind of aura they were going for, and had achieved, when they started going for covers. I think if they had kept it reminiscent of the Vader vs. Shamrock match from 1997 it would have been excellent. It's also a shame that crowd didn't appreciate the match more, because for what they were trying to do, both guys worked hard and I thought it was easily the best match of the night. MOTY? No, not even close. But still very good, and one of the better TNA PPV main events in a while. And Frank Trigg was excellent on commentary, and if TNA are going to stay with the serious nature of their PPV main events, they should bring Trigg in to commentate on them. Lethal Lockdown was ok, but it was lacking any real intensity or emotion, and it featured some puzzling booking in parts. The X-Divsion cage match was good, but they seemed to be rushing things in order to fit in the pointless multi-woman match later on. James vs. James was unexciting, and who didn't see the turn of Kip James coming? Apparently, via Alvarez, Russo was smiling/grinning from ear-to-ear when the turn happened, presumably because he thought people were surprised over the turn.

Again from the Observer: The live attendance announced as 74,635 sounds legitimate based on what Meltzer was told going in, that it would be in that range. They were heavily papering during the final few days, and was the first WM since IX not to sell out in advance. The paid attendance, based on the gate, appears to be in the 64,000 range.

Battle Royal: * JBL vs. Finlay: **1/4 MitB: ***1/4 Batista vs. Umaga: *1/4 Kane vs. Chavo: n/a Michaels vs. Flair: ***1/2 Women's match: 1/4* Three-Way: ***1/2 Mayweather vs. Show: *** Undertaker vs. Edge: ****1/4

They already ruined that part of the deal anyway; he showed up a couple of weeks ago, despite vowing never to do so until he won the world title. If Joe simply said he was taking a break from wrestling to train for the match at Lockdown, and then Kurt challenged him to show up, that would have been fine because then you wouldn't have had your top babyface making a vow and then breaking it two weeks later. Who books their top babyface to make a vow and then has him break it two weeks later? It's not just TNA's disregard for stipulations that has people thinking Kurt might win. It's also the fact that TNA PPV main events, with few exceptions, are all based around run-ins and screwjobs. It's never about if one guy is better than his opponent; it's always about whether a third party is going to go screw someone over. Yes, with the build up to Joe vs. Angle at Lockdown, they've seemed to make it clear that it's just about Joe and Angle. But TNA have been doing pointless swerves and screwjobs in their main events for almost two years straight. It's going to take a lot more than a few weeks of hype for people to stop worrying that a PPV main event is going to end up with some kind of run-in, pointless swerve or screwjob.

What makes anyone think Karen Angle isn't going to get involved with something at Lockdown?

From the Observer: The numerous traffic violations he's racked up might help with making it stand. So might him being arrested last year just after leaving TNA and being charged with a misdemeanor DUI with property damage or personal injury. That ended up with him getting a fined and having his license suspended.

In a similar vein, I'd like to have seen Joe face Shinya Hashimoto or Toshiaki Kawada in their respective primes.

The latest Observer has the viewing figures for the 4/3 Impact, and the notable numbers are the MCMG and LAX vs. Hoyt, Rave, Rellik and Reign losing 338,000 viewers, and the Sting vs James Storm main event losing 12,000 viewers. I think that first number is the biggest drop ever in viewership for a match or segment on Impact.

For the main event, I'll pick Joe to win after Karen Angle interferes. She won't necessarily be helping Joe as much as hurting Kurt. It won't make any sense, it won't add anything to match, and it will end up hurting the match, but things like that don't seem to matter to TNA. As for the Lethal Lockdown match, with the babyfaces coming out on top so much on TV leading up to the PPV, that would suggest the heels are winning. So, while I will pick the heels to win, I'll add the TNA trademark of the pointless swerve, and say that we'll see a heel turn to set up Team Tomko's win. Who'll turn heel? Nash or Morgan. Or maybe both.

A real gem:

The one thing I still remember from Lockdown in 2005 is the inexplicable decision for Waltman to pin Monty Brown. Brown was still red hot; even though he turned heel, which was just as inexplicable, a month or two before, he was still massively over with the fans. And then he gets pinned clean by Waltman. Why? Why not beat Jarrett to set up an NWA Title match? Why not beat Kip James who doesn't need protecting? As for Lockdown this year, I'm sufficiently interested in the main event that I'll avoid spoilers until I'm able to download it. The rest of the card, even the Lethal Lockdown match, does nothing for me.

Did you like how his "retirement" was handled? It was very well done, and even though it was nice to see him back for one last match at Wrestlemania, I'd have preferred it if his match at No Way Out was the last one of his full-time run. How'd you like his run as commissioner? It was fun for a while, but it lost a lot of steam near the end. Did you like his short run with Randy Orton in 2004? Yes. The 3-on-2 match at Wrestlemania was ok, but the match at Backlash was really good, and the promo he did in the lead up to it where he was holding the barbed wire baseball bat, was incredible. Did you enjoy his 2006 work? The stuff with Flair was great, but the ECW stuff did nothing for me. Would you be interested in a more serious Foley if he wanted to come back ever full-time or close to it? No. He has nothing left to offer, no 'rub' to give. His time is over, and he needs to stay home.

Both blocks in full: A BLOCK - Keiji Muto (2002, 2004 & 2007 Winner) - Taiyo Kea (2006 Winner) - Satoshi Kojima (2003 Winner) - Toshiaki Kawada (1994 & 1997 Winner) - Hiroshi Tanahashi B BLOCK - Kensuke Sasaki (2005 Winner) - Suwama - Osamu Nishimura - Joe Doering - Minoru Suzuki Block A is very crowded, with all five wrestlers being viable candidates to make it to the final stage. I think it'll end up with a 1-2 of Muto and Tanahashi, but the order will depend on the final they want. Block B will almost assuredly by won by Sasaki, and I'd be surprised with anyone else winning that block. This would give us a final of either Muto or Tananashi vs. Sasaki. If that happens, then either Muto beats Sasaki to set up a Triple Crown title match or Sasaki beats Tananashi to show that All Japan's best is superior to New Japan's brightest star. And via the Shining Road site: Match order was finally decided for the first four days. Interestingly enough, the finals won't be airing in any live form, on any of All Japan's regular network coverage... and is actually set to air at the end of May. AJPW, 4/5/08 (GAORA TV) Tokyo Korakuen Hall 1. Kaz Hayashi, Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai vs. Seiya Sanada, KAI & Hiroshi Yamato 2. Ryuji Hijikata, Katsuhiko Nakajima & T28 vs. TARU, Shuji Kondo & Silver King 3. Suwama & Manabu Soya vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Tetsuya Naito 4. Champion Carnival - Block B: Joe Doering vs. Minoru Suzuki 5. Champion Carnival - Block B: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Osamu Nishimura 6. Champion Carnival - Block A: Keiji Muto vs. Taiyo Kea 7. Champion Carnival - Block A: Satoshi Kojima vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW, 4/6/08 (GAORA TV) Tokyo Korakuen Hall 1. Ryuji Hijikata, KAI & Hiroshi Yamato vs. T28, Seiya Sanada & Manabu Soya 2. Kaz Hayashi, Nobukazu Hirai & Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. TARU, Shuji Kondo & Silver King 3. Toshiaki Kawada & Nobutaka Araya vs. Minoru Suzuki & TAKEMURA 4. Champion Carnival - Block B: Osamu Nishimura vs. Joe Doering 5. Champion Carnival - Block A: Taiyo Kea vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 6. Champion Carnival - Block B: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Suwama 7. Champion Carnival - Block A: Keiji Muto vs. Satoshi Kojima AJPW, 4/7/08 (GAORA TV) Tokyo Korakuen Hall 1. Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai vs. Ryuji Hijikata & Katsuhiko Nakajima 2. Kaz Hayashi & Hajime Suruga vs. KAI & Hiroshi Yamato 3. Osamu Nishimura, T28, Seiya Sanada & Manabu Soya vs. Satoshi Kojima, TARU, Shuji Kondo & Silver King 4. Champion Carnival - Block B: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Joe Doering 5. Champion Carnival - Block A: Taiyo Kea vs. Toshiaki Kawada 6. Champion Carnival - Block B: Suwama vs. Minoru Suzuki 7. Champion Carnival - Block A: Keiji Muto vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi AJPW, 4/8/08 (GAORA TV) Tokyo Korakuen Hall 1. Nobukazu Hirai & Hajime Suruga vs. Ryuji Hijikata & Katsuhiko Nakajima 2. Joe Doering, Kaz Hayashi & Seiya Sanada vs. Nobutaka Araya, T28 & Manabu Soya 3. Keiji Muto, KAI & Hiroshi Yamato vs. TARU, Shuji Kondo & Silver King 4. Champion Carnival - Block B: Suwama vs. Osamu Nishimura 5. Champion Carnival - Block A: Satoshi Kojima vs. Taiyo Kea 6. Champion Carnival - Block A: Toshiaki Kawada vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi 7. Champion Carnival - Block B: Kensuke Sasaki vs. Minoru Suzuki (The posting of 4/8 on the Shining Road site had the wrestlers in the wrong blocks, which I assume is an error, so I've corrected it) And the final day: AJPW, 4/9/08 (GAORA TV) Tokyo Korakuen Hall - Taiyo Kea, Kaz Hayashi & T28 vs. Kensuke Sasaki, Katsuhiko Nakajima & Ryuji Yamaguchi - Champion Carnival - Block A: Keiji Muto vs. Toshiaki Kawada - Champion Carnival - Block A: Satoshi Kojima vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi - Champion Carnival - Block B: Suwama vs. Joe Doering - Champion Carnival - Block B: Osamu Nishimura vs. Minoru Suzuki - Champion Carnival - Final: Winner of Block A vs. Winner of Block B

Brian Kendrick battle raps with John Cena This was from 2003. I think it shows Kendrick can deliver on the mic when given the chance, and be very funny.