Hunter's Torn Quad

Kurt Angle was on the Danny Bonaduce Show and apparently said the main event of Lockdown will be Team Angle vs. Team Jarrett. The question now is which nonsensical turn, Sting or Foley, sets this up.

I thought this might need a thread all its own

That really stuck out for me during the Legacy beatdown of Triple H on Raw this past Monday. Their ring gear looked identical, with the same basic shape, same basic color, etc. Their physiques all looked similar too. It was like watching four clones, at varying stages of development.

You never know in this business. While you do 'never know', this is one you can put money on. And I'm glad to see this played out as well as it read; the whole angle played masterfully.

Russo didn't get on the writing team until February of 1997, by which time Austin had been 'Stone Cold' for almost a year, and Russo was made head writer around the time Austin won the WWF title. It's more than a stretch to claim Russo 'built' Austin; Austin was already there. Foley's career making feud with The Undertaker was in 1996, before Russo was put on the writing team. If Russo created stars in the WWF, the fact he failed miserably trying to do the same in WCW shows who deserves the real credit. Most of this happened either before Russo was even on the writing team or before he was head writer. Which is why Gewirtz has had such great success in recent years? But was killing PPV buys, which is where the money is made.

Kreski provided great continuity and product of good-to-great quality that holds up today. Vince had to sign off on it all, but he did the same with every head writer yet the results are quite different. Russo got high ratings, but product quality wasn't all that great and a lot of his stuff doesn't age well at all. Stephanie hasn't shown either high ratings or consistent product quality. Of those three head writers, I'd take Kreski over Russo or Stephanie any day. Yes, Kreski had a boatload of talented names to work with. So did Russo and Stephanie, with Russo having Austin at his peak and Stephanie having him for his big return. Kreski had Austin to work with for about a month before Austin was sidelined and Kreski was gone when Austin returned. Whose work holds up better? Whose work is of an overall higher standard? You can question who Kreski built up, but WWE has, for some time, shown that they'll rarely build anyone up unless they have to. Even if you take the position that Kreski didn't build anyone up, WWE hasn't exactly been forward thinking in that department since he left, either. Cena's only around because Stephanie happened to catch his rap act on a tour bus. If not for that, Cena was set to be let go. Vince has never seen tag teams as main event players, so you can't blame that one on Kreski. Aren't you downplaying Kreski's contribution for doing exactly the same thing? What killed it is that Russo is strictly an ideas man; when having to actually book, he's consistently shown to be totally clueless.

Was it the beyond horrible screwjob in the Mankind/Rock title match? That finish killed the crowd so dead they were silent for Austin's match that followed, and an Austin match with no heat simply didn't happen then.

I think I'll vote for the guy whose stuff holds up today.

It starts with Kane essentially breaking kayfabe by admitting he was playing a character, to let us know the Kane character is fake, but then returns as an even weird character the he wants us to believe is really him? And then he goes back into kayfabe by referring to the Undertaker as his brother? And the idea presented for Undertaker's farewell? Thankfully, this will stay a fantasy. Unless Russo reads the boards, because this thing would appeal to him greatly.

So great but also so sad.

Two words: storyline continuity. Which reminds of the time they actually did bring in a continuity editor a year or two later, who promptly quit after a few weeks because there was such a total lack of continuity.

Glad to see someone wanted to give a shit about Juvi. Seriously, Juvi is right up there in terms of people who have squandered their talents with a horrible attitude.

Safety? I've never understood that complaint about Taz. Who did he ever actually hurt? Considering the number of rough matches Taz worked with Sabu, it's ironic that Benoit was the one who broke Sabu's neck. His stuff just looks dangerous, and I imagine the Undertakers and HHHs of the world taking one look at his suplexes and going "fuck that, I ain't going up for that shit". As you said, his stuff looks dangerous and that's all that really matters. Remember the scene from Beyond the Mat, when Mike Modest hits, ironically, Finlay's Celtic Cross, and Vince thinks he botched the move?

No. It was planned to be Hogan/Warrior for a long time, probably back to when the decision was made to have Warrior squash HTM for the IC title. Which makes you wonder how much Shawn really has changed.

There are many reasons. As mentioned, Hogan was still around and was still presented as the real star of the show; Warrior was never really pushed as the promotional figurehead. He also didn't have any strong heels to face. His main house show foes were Mr Perfect and Rick Rude, two heels who nobody took seriously as WWF title contenders as it is, plus Warrior had already vanquished Rude the year before, so nobody expected him to win anyway. After those two were done with, Warrior was put in six-man tags with LOD against Demolition, which didn't help. Ironically, it was only in the last few months of his run, when the decision would already have been made to take the belt off of him, that Warrior got a real 'name' house show opponent in the form of Randy Savage. But that didn't work too well for Warrior, as Savage beat him a bunch of times, albeit by count out. It also didn't help that Warrior was all ring entrance and nothing else. Hogan wasn't great in the ring, but he was charismatic enough and smart enough to still engage the people and cover up his limitations. Warrior lacked the intelligence to cover his flaws and his charisma didn't do it either, probably because he just too terrible in the ring that even his charisma couldn't cover for it.

$1000 or so a week is not funding ECW. The idea Vince 'funded' ECW is way overblown.

Strong ratings and a product that holds up today, at least from a quality stand point? Yeah, I'd say that's at least a better than average run... Key point; he was head writer under Vince, so anything Vince or the family were involved, they would have been in charge in. Not to mention the fact that Vince was the one to sign off on everything so ultimately, as it always is, the blame or credit goes to Vince. That one you probably can blame on Vince. Even if you disregard the fact that it's the type of humor he gets off on, they were trying to run Mark Henry off with that Mae Young stuff. It wasn't like the Henry/Young stuff was written with the idea it would make good TV or anything, even if Vince might have thought otherwise; it was written so as to get Henry to quit. The problem with this is: they didn't want Tazz suplexing people on their heads, the top guys weren't going to take his suplexes anyway, and what they did with Tazz as the plucky underdog is the role Vince wanted him to play. Regardless of what they 'could' have done with Tazz, those three factors, the last one especially, made it unlikely that anything other than what ended up happening was going to happen. Benoit was only a few inches taller, that is true. But Benoit was also far superior to Tazz in the ring and had a great reputation in terms of ability, safety, etc. You can't really compare Benoit and Tazz, because in the minds of Vince and those would have to work with them, they could do more with Benoit and were willing to do more anyway. It was Vince's pet project and he was hands on and was able to put it on air regardless of what anyone said. Company owner and all.

Looking dangerously close to attractive:

Kreski left in the middle of September 2000. WWF was still on USA when he left. He was gone before they even started Foley's investigation about who ran Austin over. I think Unforgiven was Kreski's last show. After that, Stephanie took over. She was at the helm when Rikishi was revealed as the driver and the one who let the love triangle die with no resolution. HHH probably persuaded her to kill it because he admittedly doesn't like being a babyface. Unforgiven was Stephanie's first show as head writer. I hate talking about the love triangle storyline because the ending really pissed me off. It was an awesome storyline that slow built over almost a year and was right on the cusp of being one of the best of the modern era. And then it gets squandered because of ego. I think this one turned off a lot people, at least in terms of getting emotionally invested in angles, because they'd spent nine or ten months on this one only to get the one ending they absolutely did not want instead of the one that virtually everybody was dying for.

It sounded to me like they were chanting for Cena near the end. As for Matt 'admitting' to setting Jeff's house on fire, etc, in the original interview he did admit to it all but, as usual, they changed direction from the taping of the show to it's airing and edited that part out. I think they realized that even that was a little too much for wrestling.

When Lawler challenged Jericho, did he at least explain why he just stood there and watched Jericho beat up Flair?

The only thing that I didn't like about end angle was the use of the sledgehammer, but I hate the sledgehammer anyway. Other than that, the Orton/HHH/Stephanie angle was gold. It put a ton of heat on Orton and almost single handedly salvaged the storyline. The Jericho beatdown of Flair was great, although Lawler looked bad just standing there and complaining about it without stepping in; if he was going to get physically involved anyway, by challenging Jericho, why not get involved earlier instead of just watching Flair get the shit kicked out of him for five minutes.

Do you know the difference between 'expect' and 'prefer'? I don't think anybody expects Big Show to win. I'd put his odds at about 5%, with Edge having 45% and Cena 50%. Nobody expects Show to walk out as champion which means he's got a good shot of doing so. Stephanie needs to get punted into the stratosphere. The build up to WM has been very underwhelming this year, with the Orton/HHH build being particularly haphazard.

TNA spoilers for this Thursday 3/19 from Orlando, Florida: *The Main Event Mafia come out to the ring. Kurt Angle said that everything he predicted for Destination X came true and that it was the biggest screwjob since Montreal. Yes, since Montreal. Sting tells Angle that he has been loyal to the Mafia but it's Angle he has a problem with. Nash sides with Sting and says that he owed Angle nothing. Nash says that he does owe the rest of them something since the last two PPVs, Sting has had his hands raised by Mick Foley. Sting asks Nash what does he want him to do. Angle says he wants Sting to be his partner tonight against Mick Foley and Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett comes out and reminds Angle that he is just a wrestler, not a member of management and he doesn't make the matches. Angle says Jarrett is just trying to protect Sting, that Sting is a liar and Foley is on the inactive list. Foley comes out and asks Sting if he is the decider and that he never ever said he's wrestled his last match. Foley says he's in for the main event. Angle tells Jarrett to "Man Up" (Briscoes, represent yo). Jarrett accepts and said it all ends tonight. *Scott Steiner wore a hoodie over his face to mask whatever Samoa Joe "did to him" at the PPV. Team No Limit defeated The Motor City Machineguns. Beer Money attacks No Limit and lays them out. Robert Roode takes the mic and says they want to apologize to Team 3D for how they acted last night at the PPV. He says that he knows Team 3D is going to ask for a rematch at Lockdown and that's what they want, a rematch in Philadelphia inside the Six Sides of Steel. He said that when they beat 3D in Philly, they will finally get the respect they deserve. Brother Ray comes out and offers to put the IWGP Tag Team belts against the TNA Tag belts in a battle for true dominance. Ray said when they win, they'll be 22 time tag team champions. Storm says it won't be an off the wagon challenge because they want 3D around to know that they used to be the best, but now its Beer Money. All four have a staredown. *Taylor Wilde & ODB defeated Raisha Saied & TNA Knockouts champ Awesome Kong when Wilde pinned Kong. Kong attacked ODB afterwards and was beating her when Cody Deaner came from the crowd for the save. *Jim Cornette interviewed TNA Legends champion AJ Styles. He congratulates Styles for winning the belt and said that after all the Main Event Mafia has done, Styles got a piece back for the Frontline. Booker T comes out and says that if Styles is going to defend the belt against anyone, it's him. He calls Styles a paper champion. Styles tells Booker that he's not going to do anything. Sharmell claims that AJ stole the title and Booker will get it back on his own time. *The Governor defeated Madison Rayne. The Beautiful People attacked the Governor and Rayne cut some of her hair. *Jeff Jarrett and Mick Foley defeated TNA champion Sting & Kurt Angle. Jeff Jarrett was going to hit Angle with his guitar but Sting grabbed it. Foley nailed Sting with a chair and pinned him. *Sting grabs the mic and said he he wanted back in the ring, he should have said it. Sting said he saw Foley say two weeks ago that Sting made his career on "Hardcore History" , but now Sting is going to end it. He challenges Foley to a match at Lockdown.

TNA talent had been available for one-shot appearances, but that's gone now. No more TNA talent in ROH.