Hunter's Torn Quad

??? I'm just as confused. Who's hat did Muta shit in to job out in 2 minutes to Flair? That's what you get when you try to fit so many matches into one PPV. Given how long the other matches went, I would have taken 4 minutes off Steiners v Doom, 1 minute off Roadies v Doom, 1 minute off SST v Doom, 3 minutes off Steiners v SST, and 2 minutes off Muta v Luger, and put those 11 minutes onto Flair v Muta.

It was a desperate attempt to get publicity. The idea being that the media would get so outraged by the angle, that they would attack WWE, and thus, give them lots of free press. Sadly, or thankfully, the media that would have covered WWE, had either moved on to something else, or were feeling burnt after the whole Billy and Chuck debacle, and the angle got almost no press at all. About the only person to write about it was Phil Muchnick.

As crazy as it sounds for the NWA/WCW of that time, maybe they were not wanting to give away matches that could have been used to draw on PPV. They were already giving away too many PPV caliber matches in one night as it is, so it is possible, however unlikely, that they didn't want to give away any more than they felt they had to. Except it was a PPV and thus the point should have been to put on as many PPV quality matches as possible, especially in the age where there were only five or six PPVs a year. I always assumed the Samoans were the only team they could get on short notice...and if that's not the case, let me believe that, dammit! My point was that maybe they didn't want to give away too many PPV caliber matches in one night. Even with only 5 or 6 PPV's a year, it still wouldn't have made sense to give away so many PPV level matches in one night, so it could have been a reason they didn't use The Midnights. As for why they didn't use The Midnights, another reason could be that Jim Herd simply didn't want to use them at all, due to the noted tension between Herd and Cornette.

While you both make good points as to why Austin aligning with Vince makes sense from a storyline standpoint, for me, it was just too much of a change from the Stone Cold persona. I would say that applied to a lot of people too, because the Stone Cold heel turn was a disaster, that pretty much everyone in WWE, and even Stone Cold himself, accepts. Maybe if they had made the change over the course of a month or so, it would have worked better, but I doubt that.

Not true. WWE fans in general have become accustomed to a certain level of workrate in the main event, and, while the casuals might not obsess over workrate as much as the 'smart fans' do, they still expect a certain level of quality in the top matches.

As crazy as it sounds for the NWA/WCW of that time, maybe they were not wanting to give away matches that could have been used to draw on PPV. They were already giving away too many PPV caliber matches in one night as it is, so it is possible, however unlikely, that they didn't want to give away any more than they felt they had to.

I can't believe anyone is actually buying this crap. One day, probably around the time TNA get really desperate, Russo will suddenly be called back to wrestling. And it won't the Jesus Christ making the call. It'll be Jeff Leonard Jarrett, and while he may consider himself The God Of TNA, he can't pull off the kind of miracle it will take for TNA to survive in the long run.

And it's that very run-in which made it very anti-climactic at the end for me. As you said, if they had taken out the run-in, the drama of the near falls would have been more than enough the make the match dramatic, and the repeated chairshots alone would have made Austin seem that much more psychotic; less is more. Adding Vince was overkill, and made no sense, for the very reason that UseTheSledgehammerUh said. With Austin being the prototypical rebel, why would he rely on Vince, or anyone else, for help ? Surely it would make more sense for the rebel to do it himself ? A rebel isn't much of a rebel of he has to use someone else's help to beat his enemy.

Vince and co don't think wrestling should be taken seriously, so they probably think that continuity doesn't matter either. And nobody who wants to keep their job is going to speak up, and tell Vince that he's a fucking idiot for having that mindset.

Most likely No Mercy 2002, their best match IMO. I need to watch that again sometime, but I never labeled the tape, so it would take me forever to find it. God I hate myself sometimes... I don't have it on tape but just remember being really impressed with Jericho here. I vividly remember their NM 2001 match, because it was at **** 1/2 for me, and if Rock had tapped out clean to the Walls when he got caught going for the People's Elbow, then I would have given it *****, because it would have been the perfect finish, and would have made Chris Jericho a superstar. Of course, that got pissed away when Hootie McBoobie did a run-in. I hated that finish, and not in a good way.

"Tickets To Raw: $40 Drinks and Food: $15 Watching The Audience Crap All Over One Of Vince's Big Ideas: Priceless" "Randy Wrestles For Suck 'n' Cum" "Christy Gave Me The Clap"

I'd also add in their World Title match on Nitro in April/May of '99, where Sting won the belt for about an hour. That match was pretty damn good, and really pissed all over the notion that Page couldn't work. Page established that he could work in bouts with Benoit and the same bout above with Sting. The thing that bothered me is that they ended the match I'm referring to and the match you're referring to the same way. That makes sense when talking about a face Page the first time and then a heel Page the second, I think. Being a heel either makes you really smart or incredibly dumb. I know Page could work, which he showed with some really good matches over the years. I was just referring to the reason he got buried during the Invasion; that he 'didn't know how to work'. And I noticed the same finish for both matches as well. It was the first thing that came to mind when they did the finishing sequence in the second match. It seems a weird thing to do, but I guess Page felt nobody would remember the first match, or at least the manner it ended,

Or someone has a different opinion to you. As for: For me, it decreased hugely when Vince showed up. Until that point, I was totally sucked into the drama of Austin and Rock fighting tooth and nail to get that winning pinfall. When Vince showed up, for me, it turned things into 'just another' match, with a gimmicked finish, and it killed that suspense. Sure, it made the storyline more dramatic, but I felt it killed the drama of the match, because the match itself become secondary to the storyline.

I much prefer Bret over Flair. As JMA said in his post, Bret was more realistic than Flair; with Bret, you felt like you were watching an intense wrestling match, whereas with Flair it was more of a show, with him doing all his posing and showmanship stuff. That's all well and good, but, for me, I don't want to watch wrestling and have it made obvious that it's all a show. I like my matches to, you know, feel like actual matches, like the guys in the ring are giving it their all, and for all the praise that I can give to Flair, I rarely got that out of his matches. About the only matches of Flair's that I felt like I was watching a wrestling contest rather than a show were his bouts with Ron Garvin and Barry Windham. And while Flair did indeed carry some bad workers to good matches, in all of those cases it's obvious that Flair is making them look good, at the expense of making the match seem like a contest, and that is a turn off for me. With Bret, whenever he wrestled, he always made it seem like you were watching a wrestling match, and not watching a show, and that is what I want out of a wrestler. It's the same with their interviews. While Flair was clearly more charismatic on the mic, and more entertaining, Hart's interviews appealed to me a lot more, because they were sports-style interviews, and treated his matches as serious athletic contests. Flair's interviews were too heavy on the showmanship most of the time for my liking, and, while they were entertaining, it's not how I prefer my wrestling.

I'd also add in their World Title match on Nitro in April/May of '99, where Sting won the belt for about an hour. That match was pretty damn good, and really pissed all over the notion that Page couldn't work.

Im with ya. Its a great paced match, but the predictablity of the formula makes it very un-unique. Plus its finish was very anti-climatic and shitty all in all. Ugh, you can dislike it all you want, but to argue the Mania 17 finish was anti-climactic is just wrong. The finish had arguably some of the best near falls WWE's ever done. The crowd certainly didn't think it was anti-climactic. How is it wrong ? For one, it's his opinion, and second he has a point, because pretty much everyone knew what the finish was going to be. Yeah, the match had some tremendous near falls, but any drama that created was killed dead when Vince showed up, and things went into SE mode. And while the crowd might have got into the drama of the finish, that is down purely to Austin and Rock, and not with them wondering who was going to win. I knew who was going to win, and how, and I still got into the drama of the last few minutes. Doesn't mean it wasn't anti-climactic.

He looks like this guy: Only all grown up, and having been fed nothing but steroids.

He left wrestling at the end of 1999. I heard he has wrestled on occasion since then, but it has been rare. Suffice to say, working in WCW killed his passion for wrestling. And my top matches would be: Blitzkreig v Rey Mysterio Jr v Juventud Guerrera v Psicosis - Nitro, April of '99 Dean Malenko v Rey Mysterio Jr - HH '96 Rey Mysterio Jr v Eddie Guerrero - HH '97 Bret Hart v Chris Benoit - Owen Hart Tribute Juventud Guerrera - SprSta '99

It was rape, pure and simple. Lita did not give her free and willing consent; she only gave consent under duress. That is rape. Go look it up.

For drama, the WM XX main event For actual wrestling, Benoit v Angle at the 2003 Rumble

I never said it was meant to draw, but it's clearly meant to build Snitsky up so it at least means something when Kane obliterates him. It also appears to be designed to turn Kane face. Both of these objectives are a little hard to accomplish if nobody takes the angle seriously, and they aren't.

It's all very well to say that we shouldn't take this stuff seriously, but that's a big reason that nothing draws. If nobody took Austin v Rock at WM X-7 seriously, it wouldn't have done anywhere near the numbers it did. Comedy and other stuff you shouldn't take seriously is fine for the midcard, but it absolutely is not fine for angles that are meant to draw and/or meant to build people up.

Being a regular on a 'B' show is yet one more reason that nobody can accept JBL has a true World Champion. As long as the weekend shows are clearly 'B' shows, and are treated as such, anyone on their regularly is going to be seen as 'B' level talent. One or two apperances every so often isn't that bad, but being on either show regularly is.

Forgetting the Owen remark for one minute, I find it more offensive that they're making a babyface out of a rapist. Heck, they haven't even mention that tiny fact, that Kane raped Lita, since the angle began.

This finish stuck out, because the card was televised, and in his first shoot with RF Honky said he had an agreement with Vince that he wouldn't do jobs on TV. As for the Studd over Hogan result, cawthon777 is correct in that it was the standard booking pattern for the WWF Champion, even going back to Sammartino and Backlund. I would just add that it didn't happen with every heel challenger, just the ones that were over enough to warrant a three-match program with Hogan. With weaker challengers, Hogan et all would win the first match decisively, and then go on to the next contender. The typical three-match program would see the heel or the champion win the first match by count-out, the champion win the second by a stoppage or maybe a DQ, before the champion got the clean pinfall win in the blowoff. The only exceptions to the clean pinfall ending of the final match that I recall offhand, were with The Sheik and Mil Mascaras, which were for obvious reasons.