Hunter's Torn Quad

I don't think anything long-term will end up happening out of this whole mess. For a while, there might be a lot of talk about steroids and their dangers, but I think that despite the magnitude of what happened the fact that it involves wrestling will see people very quickly not care enough to keep up the pressure and things will eventually wind up as before, with all the attention on 'real sports' and wrestling going back under the radar.

From TMZ:

ABC news article

Edge's tribute was really powerful stuff.

The decision to go through with the angle was in response to pressure from both the USA network and Bonnie Hummer to return to the 'glory days' of shocking angles and soap opera. The idea itself of killing the Mr McMahon character was first put forward more than a year ago, but was just thrown around as a joke with nobody taking it seriously at all. The actual idea to kill someone off via an exploding car goes back two years, but at the time the idea was very quickly dropped. The plan to 'kill Vince off' was finalized about one month ago. The idea of doing a murder angle was that of Dave Lagana, and was suggested in February of 2005, with the idea being that Carlito was going to use underworld connections to make Teddy Long's life miserable, with the storyline concluding with Carlito's people putting a bomb in Long's car, and an edition of Smackdown ending with Long opening his car door and the car exploding. One of the Hollywood writers that Stephanie had brought in at the time, and wasn't around long, approved the idea. The main person who shot the idea down at the time was Brian Gewirtz, who, ironically, is the current head writer for the show the angle took place on; he said it was too far-fetched to work on a wrestling show. He, jokingly, said he'd go along with it if it was Paul Heyman who was getting killed off (this was when Heyman had just been kicked off the writing team, and Heyman and Gewirtz have long-standing heat). Stephanie ended up agreeing with him, and the idea was shelved, even before it got to Vince The current plan is to reveal a culprit for the bombing at some point in the next month, with the revealing being built to either spike a rating for Raw or the buy rate for the Bash PPV on 7/22.

Vince showed class by doing the right thing and opening the show. It was very surreal watching Raw open and seeing an empty arena and Vince standing in the ring on his own.

Raw live event canceled; people sent home

Has anyone seen any news places report on this yet? This seems like something that would get some kind of news mention. That sounds like poisoning of some kind. If it was, it must have been something really bad to affect Benoit so quickly.

This is insane news.

Whoever came up with the finish to Edge/Batista deserves a pat on the back with a claw hammer. If they were going to keep the belt on Edge, they should have just bitten the bullet and had Edge cheat to get a pinfall, even if it was a flash pin. Compounding one screwjob finish with another was mind boggling and killed the crowd; they didn't need the women's match to take the crowd down before the main event after that one. If they want to do the Night of Champions concept again, they should think about making it a 3 hour Raw special rather than a PPV. At least then, they won't piss people off when all the matches are rushed and the booking takes things down even further. And the dark match was Super Crazy pinning Carlito.

Caudle was an announcer who I've never felt got his due from people. He and Jim Ross were a tremendously underrated announcing team.

Hughes might have only been out for seconds, but he was still out. Whether he recovered quickly or not, I don't think he should have been declared the winner because he was just as out of it as Newton was and if Newton didn't win then Hughes shouldn't have been given the win simply because he recovered faster. If you're out of it like Hughes was, whether you recover quickly or not, you lose because you can't defend yourself. If the other guy is out of it too, then the fight should be called a No Contest. One guy shouldn't get a win just because he recovered faster.

PWI

That Maynard/Emerson NC was some crazy shit. Maynard was really hot at not being given the win, but there's no doubt he was out of it after the slam. Whether he should have won because Emerson tapped out before it was noticed Maynard was out is open to question, and there is a precedent for this; the first Matt Hughes win over Carlos Newton, where Hughes KO'd Newton with the powerbomb off of the triangle choke but was himself out of it from the choke yet was still declared the winner. I expected Penn to win the main event, but I was still holding out hope for Pulver to pull out the upset. A great night of action, and the rating should be interesting, especially how the main event grew.

-PWInsider

It makes the fight even more remarkable, and it was great already. I hope we see a rematch when both men aren't so banged up going in.

That was Vince's fault, not his legal department. Vince was the one who decided to ignore the legally binding deal he made with the World Wildlife Fund.

What's Gonzaga's conditioning like? According to his record, Gonzaga's never gone past the third round, so that could be where Randy needs to extend the fight to have the best chance to win

Dark Match: *Shantelle Taylor, wearing a green mask, defeated Jillian Hall. Smackdown: *The entire Smackdown roster assembled for a ten bell salute to Mr. McMahon. The live crowd booed the entire proceedings. *WWE Tag Team champions Deuce & Domino defeated Paul London & Brian Kendrick. *Announced for later tonight: WWE United States champion MVP vs. Batista and WWE World champion Edge vs. Ric Flair. *Matt Hardy pinned William Regal. *Batista defeated WWE United States champion MVP in a non-title match. *Ric Flair defeated WWE World champion Edge, DQ when MVP got involved. Batista hit the ring for the save but was taken down by Edge.

If Eddie-Taker was the plan they would have decided upon, chances are Undertaker would have shot it down, as it was an idea of Heyman and Undertaker isn't a fan of his. The title change to JBL was done purely because Eddie was cracking under the pressure of being champion, and had nothing to do with how he was performing as champion or what business was doing with him on top. No.