Hunter's Torn Quad

The payoff's for each fighter, excluding bonuses and sponsorship money; Georges St. Pierre ($58,000) Matt Hughes ($75,000) Tim Sylvia ($120,000) Jeff Monson ($13,000) Brandon Vera ($40,000) Frank Mir ($30,000) Drew McFedries ($8,000) Alessio Sakara ($10,000) Joe Stevenson ($24,000) Dokonjonosuke Mishima ($8,000) James Irvin ($10,000) Hector Ramirez ($3,000) Antoni Hardonk ($6,000) Sherman Pendergarst ($4,000) Nick Diaz ($24,000) Gleison Tibau ($3,000) Jake O'rien ($12,000) Josh Shockman ($3,000)

According to Meltzer, estimates on the buys for UFC 63 and 64 are 500,000-700,000. I assume the higher number is for 63.

And if they did want Angle to end the streak, at least let Joe win the first match and make it look like Angle had to fight to do so. As it is, he did it in less than 15 minutes.

Exactly. People seem unable, or unwilling, to look at the bigger picture. How much more over would Joe and TNA have gotten if Joe had beaten Kurt Angle clean? As mentioned, Angle can't get any more over, so what does him winning do? TNA, on the other hand, can get more over and desperately needs to, and it would have made TNA, and Joe, look like a big deal if someone as highly touted as Kurt Angle is unable to beat Joe. Angle has also already made the current TNA Heavyweight Champion tap out... Which makes you wonder why people should care about Angle ever challenging Abyss. Abyss tapped out clean three days before his title victory and he only won the NWA Title because the champion got DQ'd. I don't think they could have made Abyss look any weaker as a world champion if they tried, and who cares about anyone facing such a weak champion? If Angle beats him again, it's no big deal, but if Angle loses to Abyss, he lost to a joke of a champion.

How about anybody. How about the guy who dresses like a shark. Beating Joe should have meant something. It should have been used to elevate someone new, who hadn't been elevated before. They had Joe lose to Kurt Angle instead, who's already established ten times over. Bad booking. This is why TNA is still a glorified indy fed. Angle didn't need to beat Joe. He's already over huge, the people already think he's the best wrestler ever and he's already seen as super tough. Why did he need to win when Joe winning would have meant so much more and would have been a benefit to TNA? Bad booking. This is why TNA is still a glorified indy fed. This is the one problem TNA have never been able to correct. They have the talent, and almost always have had the talent. It's the booking that is their problem, but they don't seem able or willing to do anything about it.

The latest Figure Four Weekly says the current plan is for Brown to be pushed as a top star on Raw, and the Serengeti stuff won't be used in his interviews.

A couple of notes from the latest issue of Figure Four Weekly: At Genesis when the crowd shit all over LAX being stripped of the tag titles, Vince Russo was beind the curtain watching and was visibly frustrated over the reaction. The wrestlers are said to be totally frustrated with the current booking.

The rating was another 3.7. Have they offered any kind of explanation for the TV audience of all the angles and storylines started on WWE.com?

ROH

If you missed out on the first part of Dave's WCW story, you can get both parts e-mailed to you right away as part of a special: http://www.wrestlingobserver.com/wo/news/h...t.asp?aID=17959

WO.com

For all WWE could do to make ECW v.2 more like the original version, the one thing they can't do is recreate the atmosphere of the original, and that more than anything is what made ECW ECW. A million groups have tried to recreate ECW and they've all failed, not because of what they did or did not do, but of what they could not do. That atmosphere can't be recreated, and that alone means any attempt to bring back ECW will always fail.

Sylvia fights to not lose rather than to win. It might help him not lose but it makes for boring fights. I was dying for Monson to tap out that big tree.

Figure Four Weekly

WO.com I'd have to agree with that. The wrestling was good to great and the heat was always there, but some of the skits, especially the stuff with Nash, were terrible. It was the kind of stupid 'comedy' that you'd see on Raw, and the last thing TNA needs to do is anything that looks like something stolen from Raw. The formatting also needed work, because too often a match would end and before you could blink they'd be right into a bumper for a commercial. This really hurt something like The Naturals win over Team 3D, where they went over very strong, not only laying them out with their own finisher and also beating them in their own specialty match, but before you could even take it in they were off into the next commercial break. The least they could have done was have Tenay and West looking shocked and talking about how they have never seen Team 3D dominated like that. And I hated the post-main event where they kept switching from the ring to the back then back to the ring to show the two different angles. The PPV is being sold entirely on Joe vs. Angle, so they should have picked that angle and just stayed on that. Something like this makes me wonder why TNA still don't go to a split screen. That is something they really need to start doing. All in all, the prime time special was classic TNA in that the wrestling and heat was spot on, but the production and presentation had some serious flaws.

The Heavyweight title fight was just flat out crap. Sylvia might be a decent fighter, but I still hate him. He always bitches and complains, and he did it again in the post-show press conference, and the sooner someone, anyone, takes the Heavyweight title the better. The main event was great. I thought GSP had it won right at the end of the first round. It really was The GSP Show and Hughes seemed almost like Rich Franklin last month in that he seemed beat before the fight even started.

It started out as a work but became a shoot when Russo cut his promo against Hogan. It was one of those angles Russo loves to run that only the fans on the internet understand and the other 99% of fans don't understand what's going on and are just confused. The idea was to play off of Hogan having creative control. It was played up leading into the PPV that Hogan was unwilling to lose to Jarrett and had played his creative control card and was demanding to win the title. This was done strictly backstage and, maybe, online, so nobody watching on TV had any clue this was going on. The fake angle, as it was played out in front of people backstage, is that Hogan would beat Jarrett by DQ when Scott Steiner would interfere, I assume ‘against the script’. Somehow, Jarrett would end up defending the WCW Title against Booker T with Booker winning. Hogan would come back later in the year to face Booker. The worked shoot part, which Hogan, Russo and Jarrett were the only ones in on, is that Jarrett would lay down for Hogan in their match. Hogan would ‘reluctantly’ pin him, win the WCW Title and then cut his promo against Russo and quit. Jarrett would then defend the WCW Title against Booker T later in the PPV, Booker would win, and when Hogan returned later in the year he would face Booker in a Champion vs. Champion match. Where it became a total shoot, at least on Hogan, is when Russo cut his promo against Hogan and vowed Hogan would never be seen in WCW again. Hogan wound up filing a lawsuit against WCW/Turner which I believe is still ongoing.

Pop-ups.com says the rating was a 1.04.

Yes.

Other PPV provider are still carrying the PPV live.

WrestlingObserver.com Of the three options given, the most likely is some sort of working agreement that sees them working together against a common enemy, the UFC. No matter what happens between the two, I don't see it lasting long if it even ever gets off the ground.

WrestlingObserver.com Of the three options given, the most likely is some sort of working agreement that sees them working together against a common enemy, the UFC. No matter what happens between the two, I don't see it lasting long if it even ever gets off the ground.

Wrestlemag

They can have Angle bleeding like crazy while Joe has him in the choke. The referee calls for the bell declaring Joe the winner. Joe is happy, until it's announced the referee has deemed Kurt Angle too blooded up to continue and Joe has won on a blood stoppage and not from the choke. Joe snaps, puts Kurt back in the choke and it ends up with the decision being reversed and Angle wins via DQ.