Hunter's Torn Quad

Those are all good to great fighters, but none of them have Couture's drawing power. Yes, UFC have enough quality fighters for a heavyweight division, but none of them are going to attract the interest of the casual fan, and those are the people that spell the difference between a PPV getting 400,00 buys and 700,000 buys. No use having great fighters if not a lot of people want to pay to see them fight.

Not to turn this into yet another MMA vs. Wrestling debate, but making blanket statements about MMA is pretty ignorant. MMA can be boring, but so can wrestling. They can also both be very exciting, but in different ways.

Then let's hear your definition.

by Adam Clarke and Ian Hamilton Notes: They're allowing signs into the arena tonight, after Raw was devoid of them thanks to some overzealous arena staff. WWE's interviewing kids around the building, probably for a video package at some point, and we'll be going live with dark matches and ECW in 25 minutes or so. The arena's half full as we go through the usual videos... Dark Match: Tommy Dreamer beat Carl Ouelette with a DDT. ECW ECW opens with John Morrison coming out, wanting fans to vote for him at the PPV. They show a replay of Punk v Morrison from last week. Out comes Miz, who gets the fans to vote for him... then out comes Big Daddy V and Matt Striker. It's the same "I want that title shot" angle we've seen a billion times. Out comes CM Punk who says he doesn't care who his opponent is at the PPV... and his mystery partner tonight is Kane! That match starts off the show; Punk still has the taped ribs and is really over. Everyone works over Punk's ribs as the crowd chants "who are ya?" to the Miz. Punk gets a hot tag to Kane, who gets into a staredown with Big Daddy V. Miz gets a blind tag and is promptly chokeslammed for as Kane gets the win. "Match wasn't bad - quite long for ECW" Cyber Sunday run-down now. Long period of downtime follows, causing the crowd to ger restless. Miz and John Morrison argue backstage, and Miz cheapshots Morrison, leading to our main event... because they didn't fly out the full ECW roster, I presume! Balls Mahoney is interviewed about how he likes Kelly Kelly. KK asks Balls out... and their date is TONIGHT~! They have an announcement about the talent merger, and our next match is Jesse & Festus vs Elijah Burke & Nunzio. Jesse pinned Nunzio with a flying cross body off the top in a quick match. Burke walked out after the match, and our main event is next! Miz v Morrison ends in a no-contest as Big Daddy V comes out and squashes both men, then poses, and that's the end of ECW!

Would that be the match were Undertaker pulled Cena up at two, kicked out of his finisher and then pinned him clean? That's not putting someone over.

Someone asked that question in PWI's Q&A section, and their response was that they don't comment on personal situations and to "take that as you want to".

by Adam Clark and Ian Hamilton Courtesy Adam Clarke/ringsidelive.info (live in the arena, forwarded by myself) Raw Looks like they're having Carlito's Cabana on the show... they're doing some stuff about "best signs", but of course a lot of them got confiscated at the door, so the crowd is booing like mad. Raw opens with a backstage promo with Randy Orton complaning to William Regal about Cyber Sunday. We have the opening pyro then Regal appears on the stage, and it looks like Orton's facing all three Cyber Sunday opponents NOW in singles matches. Jeff v Orton is up first... Hardy/Orton goes through a commercial break. Jeff dominates early, and Orton dropkicks Jeff from apron to floor to take us into the break (most likely). LOTS OF HEADLOCKS. Hardy makes a comeback with a neckbreaker and a Whisper in the Wind, only for Ken Kennedy to interfere and push Hardy off the top rope. RKO and Orton wins. Santino comes out with Maria; insults Birmingham, England and the Condemned. That leads to Santino vs Val Venis; squash match with Santino winning by using the ropes. Santino comes out with Maria; insults Birmingham, England and the Condemned. That leads to Santino vs Val Venis; squash match with Santino winning by using the ropes. Now there's a Diva Search promo... and we return with Coachman and Carlito backstage. More Hornswoggle stuff here, with Coachman chasing Hornswoggle... Vince is backstage with Regal, and Vince insults the Queen and so on. Next match is Ken Kennedy vs Orton. Ken Kennedy is a massive babyface in Birmingham and gets a reaction to suit that. Orton v Kennedy is "quite boring" (surprise!), and the crowd aren't into it at all. Kennedy hits his wacky Green Bay Plunge (don't know whether it was on the mat or off the top rope), but Jeff Hardy attacks Kennedy for the DQ, hitting a swanton. Shawn Michaels appears on screen and gets the loudest pop of the night. They played the Timbaland music video with all the Divas in... Andy Simmonz (British guy) is in the ring, and Vince comes out to a huge pop. They announce HHH vs Umaga for Cyber Sunday, with the first choice being a street fight, . Out comes Umaga, who destroys Simmonz in a street fight. They announce choice #2: a first blood match. Umaga gives Simmonz a few Samoan spikes, and Umaga wins the first blood match between the pair. The final choice is a cage match: we now have Umaga v Simmonz in a cage. Vince spent the series of matches calling Simmonz "HHH" (only the noses are similar). Simmonz took a lot of sick bumps to the head in the cage match - it'd be surprising if he didn't have some sort of concussion after this. Umaga won, obviously. Maria out for the kiss-cam as they change the canvas (I think there must have been lot of blood from Simmonz)... There's a skit with Coachman chasing Hornswoggle on bikes. Enter Ron Simmons, you know the rest. Jillian Hall insults Lilian Garcia and sings the Spice Girls' "Wannabe". They plug Lilian's CD, and Jillian v Candice is next. Candice wins with the Unprettier in three moves. Backstage now with Cody Rhodes. Hardcore Holly walks up to him, and Cody says he just wants respect. Holly slaps Cody, and that match is on next. Out come Highlanders to insult England... Cande and Murdoch come out for commentary as we have Brian Kendrick vs Rory McAllister. Rory wins with a slingshot suplex - dead crowd for a poor match. No Mercy recap now, followed by Rhodes v Holly (they must have aired the "UP NEXT" pre-tape a little early). But first, another series of distractions. Shawn Michaels promo saying he'll kick Randy Orton's teeth down his throat as he encourages people to vote for him at the PPV. Another Hornswoggle promo, this time in the diva's locker room, followed by "a long save_us.222 promo". Hornswoggle reaches the ring, chased by Coachman who has a box of TNT, which doesn't work. Hornswoggle goes under the ring, followed by Coachman. Hornswoggle "blows" the TNT... it was as bad as it sounded. Regal annnounces (off camera) that the post show dark match is going to be HHH vs Umaga in a street fight... Hardcore Holly beats Cody Rhodes with the Alabama Slam. Crowd was largely dead for that. Regal annnounces (off camera) that the post show dark match is going to be HHH vs Umaga in a street fight... Hardcore Holly beats Cody Rhodes with the Alabama Slam. Crowd was largely dead for that. Main event is up next: HBK vs Orton. Shawn doesn't look comfortable at all with his knees. Shawn wins in DQ after 5 mins - he hits an elbow off the top, but Kennedy runs in for the interference. Jeff Hardy comes out, and Raw ends with Shawn hitting sweet chin music.

Bret got Eric's approval to stay with WWE through to 12/8, which was the Raw after the December PPV, when Bret would have given his farewell speech. That was when the plan, as Bret knew it, was for Montreal to end in a DQ, leading the four-way at the December PPV where Shawn would get the belt.

I don't think it's Shawn's ego that made him come back too early. I think it's simply being addicted to the crowd reactions. It's a hell of a drug.

Presumably, Orton.

His knees are still in bad shape. He's at least a month from being ready to wrestle again, but they've rushed him back.

A wrestler being great doesn't mean they'd be a good trainer, and a good trainer sometimes isn't someone that would be considered 'great'. Brad Rheingans didn't do a whole lot in his career, and wasn't considered that great, but he helped train Vader, JBL, Jerry Lynn and others. Ed Sharkey probably wouldn't register on too many radar's outside of the AWA territory, but he helped train a few notable names, like the Road Warriors, Rick Rude, Sean Waltman, and both Steiner Brothers. Danny Davis might not have done anything of note, but that has no bearing on his actual ability as a wrestler or his ability as a trainer. Jim Cornette managed Davis and Ken Wayne as a tag team, and Cornette called them the best team he ever managed that wasn't the Midnight Express, so obviously Davis was doing something right, considering Cornette's managed some pretty talented teams, including the two SMW versions of the Heavenly Bodies and Owen Hart and Davey Boy Smith. Just because a guy only reached the midcard, that doesn't mean he can't be a good trainer. Val Venis or Stevie Richards are midcarder's for life, but I'd bet they'd make good trainers when it comes time to hang up the boots.

As far as Teddy Hart goes, Bryan Alvarez on WOL said that he'd been told that Hart had problems with having his matches laid out and not wanting to have anyone tell him what to do. Hart would be told not to do certain things in his match and then he'd go out and do them anyway.

I think the referee somehow costs Undertaker the match, and, depending on who the referee is, find some way to use that to keep Undertaker away from the title until he wins it at the Rumble.

The World Heavyweight title match is now Batista defending against Undertaker, with fans picking the referee, with the choices being Foley, Austin or JBL. World Heavyweight title match confirmation from WWE.com

And how exactly would Vince make this big money, that would outweigh the money he'd get from USA or another network?

So, did 83% of the posters in this thread stop reading the original post before this part of the story? I think the discussion is revolving along the lines of what happens when USA come back to renew the deal in 2008 and offer Vince far below what he's prepared to take, he takes his ball and leaves (or tries to), rather than an out-and-out cancelling. I suggested two ways (Wrestling Network, Internet only) as ways Vince could combat USA lowballing him and having no other network to go to. Both of which would kill the company. A wrestling only network would bring way more exposure than 2 hours on USA/CW and 1 hour on Sci Fi so I dont see how it would kill the WWF. Do tell us more about this part.

An incident I remember is when Teri wore an orange dress, Tazz asked her not to wear orange in the future because it was his color. That one had people shaking their heads.

I just copied the report.