Hunter's Torn Quad

He said that the fact WWE publically fired Angle shows you how bad Angle is doing, given that they would normally go out of there way to avoid having to let him go. He also said that if we knew how bad Kurt was hurt, it would "absolutely stun you", and Meltzer thinks Kurt is done. Meltzer did, however, say, that he thought the same of Muto and Kobashi were done and they came back and had some big years, especially with Kobashi. Meltzer is going under the assumption that Kurt will never be the same and probably shouldn't wrestle again. Meltzer also points out that Angle's biggest problem could be that, in Angle's mind, he's been proving people wrong all his career, like with his neck, and with something like this it could cause major problems. Meltzer said he hopes Angle wrestles again, but not after a long time and dealing with his problems, but from his tone I don't think Meltzer realistically sees that happening. And if you want to see some major denial of how bad Kurt is, go to the ROH boards.

--The Sabu vs. Paul Heyman main event tonight on ECW was a change made yesterday by Vince McMahon. The original show was thrown out yesterday by McMahon on the guise they needed something stronger for ratings tonight. The feeling was last night's Raw, because it was on Sci-Fi and not USA, was going to do 25% less viewers, so ECW would have less people being directed to watch Sci-Fi and thus needed a more enticing then usual match.

Why wouldn't Foley let Flair say I quit? I don't understand that at all Foley respects Flair a great deal. He'd never want Flair to have to lose like that.

It's a YTMND, but I don't care because it's awesome. http://hollywoodloompa.ytmnd.com/

Meltzer didn't say those things. Someone else did.

A Tammy Sytch replica crack pipe?

Impact did a 0.8

--There is an AP story on Kurt Angle, which is him going public with the story that he asked to leave after suffering injuries on 8/13 because he no longer wants to take pain medication to continue to wrestle. It's the public story for him to save face in case other media investigates further and finds out he was actually let go, as opposed to him making the call to leave. This will likely be in many newspapers in the morning.

The desperate need to clear a decade long case that has haunted your office can make people do crazy things like ignore the need for real proof.

Straight from the Observer site: I really don't know where to begin. Granted, it wasn't as wild as their first fight, mainly due to Griffin being so much better than Bonnar and so there was a disparity in talent levels this time around, but I don't in what universe the fight could be called boring.

Randy can distract Jeff with drugs and hit the RKO.

Shane and Tully's '60:00' match springs to mind.

Since the Hughes vs. Gracie numbers came out, WWE haven't released any numbers from their PPV's, so you know they're not happy.

Goldberg was champion, but who was still in the main events and in the most pushed programs? That's what some people really forget.

Current estimates have Ortiz vs. Shamrock II as having drawn 775,000 buys. Hughes vs. Gracie did 600,000 buys. On those numbers, Ortiz vs. Shamrock would have grossed almost $31 million on PPV alone, growing to almost $35.3 million when you add the gate and the money from closed circuit locations. As a comparison, domestically, Wrestlemania would have $28.2 million. Historically, when compared with pro wrestling on a worldwide basis, it would be #8 on the all-time list, trailing only seven Wrestlemanias’ (17, 21, 22, 20, 18, 16, 15). Domestically, it looks set to beat 20, 21 and 22, so it would move up to #5 when based on North American buys. If the Countdown to UFC 60 TV special did a 0.8, around 720,000 viewers, then almost all of them wound up buying the PPV. A typical Raw gets around 3.5 million viewers and few of those viewers wind up wanting to buy the PPV its promoting. Dave says it proves that a great fallacy of this year is that ratings equal popularity and are a direct correlation to income, which they only are if you get the money from ad sales based on ratings. Says that from a television standpoint, in fighter terms, Raw “takes a guy down, holds him down the entire fight, wins a decision and can’t understand why he’s not getting paid the money that fighters with a lesser win-loss record but who also sells tickets make. UFC has become the opposite”. The Liddell vs. Silva deal is dead. Apparently, PRIDE worked UFC into believing PRIDE was going down and they were giving UFC Silva because of that, when the reality was PRIDE wanted to get exposure for Silva on what it felt was going to be UFC's biggest show of the year before PRIDE made their US debut.

Summerslam Poll Results Thumbs Up: 131 (32.7%) Thumbs Down: 149 (37.2%) Thumbs in the Middle: 121 (30.2%) Best Match Poll John Cena vs. Edge: 224 Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley: 91 Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: 27 DX vs. McMahon’s: 23 Worst Match Poll Batista vs. Booker T: 183 Big Show vs. Sabu: 84 Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: 49 DX vs. McMahon’s: 34 Rey Mysterio vs. Chavo Guerrero: 33 The “biggest party of the summer” ended up being just another monthly PPV. Despite having so much star power, the show fell flat. With seven apparently big matches it came across as a transitional show rather than an event where issues ended. Dave said there is nothing wrong with inconclusive finishes to build, but that this show had them for no real reason other than to have them. Even worse, four of the seven matches had the same finish of a woman interfering, and it went from ridiculous to beyond ridiculous. In the case of Vickie Guerrero it was a step in the storyline, which Dave calls as nauseating a storyline as the company as ever done. Dave says as bad as it looks, he can understand the company’s mentality. In there eyes, they are helping Vickie out by making her a heel manager because it gives her a better income than she could otherwise get and feel they are honoring Eddie. The problem is that only the biggest WWE apologist would see it as not exploiting Eddie, and the crowd showed that by turning on the match, and the fans have shown that over the past few weeks by not caring about the feud at all. The company goes back and forth on crowd reactions by either listening to them or pushing back even harder, and in this case the company will be pushing back and are determined to see this angle through. Dave understood the Melina finish in the I Quit match and thought it was clever as part of the storyline. Said Foley was never going to let Flair say “I Quit”, and that it would take something beyond physical punishment to get Foley to say it without violating his entire character. Said that with them having those two finishes, which is one too many, the Sharmell interference finish in the Batista vs. Booker T match was a bad idea. Also said it was telling of them having no ideas because there were numerous other DQ finishes they could have done, seeing as it wasn’t going to lead to anything as it was just a way to get out of beating Batista or changing the title. Said the finish to the main event, with Lita interfering, would have been fine except for what happened on the undercard and the match stipulation and said it ended a damn good main event by rubbing in how bad the overall booking of the show was. Said the match quality was ok and apart from the ECW and World title matches nothing was bad as far as the wrestling goes. Called it a mix bag, with a show that should have had memories having nothing you’d really remember except for a lot of blood in the I Quit match and the Hogan comeback. Said the Cena vs. Edge match was the best match, but no better than most WWE PPV main events and calling it the same good match they’ve been having at house shows since the start of the year. Called Foley vs. Flair a bloodbath of major proportions and said that if it was 20 years ago it would have been considered a gruesome classic but that it wasn’t long enough or diverse enough to be labeled a classic. Dave said that it felt like the blood and barbed was done just for the sake of it, but that it wound up telling the only real story in a match of the whole night. Said the live crowd considered Hogan the biggest thing on the show, and said he treated Orton as a stooge for his routine as opposed to a serious opponent, but it worked as well as anything on the show and it led to some funny insider stuff… Hogan did the crotch chop to Orton as a buzz to Shawn Michaels as the two haven’t any interaction since the year before where Michaels spent hours trying to get to beat Hogan to no avail due to Hogan having creative control. Later on at Summerslam, Hunter did Hogan’s ear cupping deal to get a reaction and got less than half the reaction Hogan did earlier and you could tell Hunter was bothered by that. However, at Raw the next night, when Vince and Kevin Dunn were telling people how much of a success the show was and how the DX vs. McMahon’s angle was the hottest in the company, they specifically said that DX outdid Hogan and that is now the official company line as to what happened at the show. While Hogan had the sympathy in-built from the knee injury and it could have made the match famous with Hogan battling valiantly but losing in the end because of the knee, Hogan didn’t see it that way and won instead in a match that was forgotten the next day. Said given how the booking committee works, you can’t blame Hogan or Foley for doing what they were able to do with creative control, and that it also showed the difference between the two. Hogan is all for his own legacy, which Dave said is fine because it’s a business where selfishness is a virtue, at least for your own career. Foley was for creating a story where he could lose but in doing so elevate Melina, who he is friends with and wanted to give the main event rub to. The show drew a sellout of 16,168, with about 13,500 paid. The gate is likely to be around $800,000. Chavo Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio: **1/4. JBL got heat for his comment about Eddie falling off the wagon, and for something he said later in the show about Batista crying like a bitch when he had to give up the title. Big Show vs. Sabu: *1/2. Called it a garbage style match and not even a good one. Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton: **1/4. Ric Flair vs. Mick Foley: ***1/2. Said that the fans chanting “we want fire” during the heavy bloodshed gave it a sense of them viewing it a geek show performance rather than a dramatic wrestling match. Batista vs. Booker T: ½*. Almost everyone Dave spoke with internally were pretty open regarding Batista’s work. Said Batista was slow and tentative, with none of the explosiveness he used to have, and with his age, losing some size and his injuries said all he has going for him now is the star power he got from playing off of Hunter and Flair. DX vs. Vince and Shane: ***1/4. Edge vs. John Cena: ***3/4. Said the story once again was Cena getting booed, and how heavily he was booed depended on where in the building you were, with reports of the crowd being anywhere from 40%-75% pro-Cena. Other News WWE and Sci-Fi are close to signing a new deal for ECW. On the 8/15 ECW show, the Foley beatdown by Knox and Test was meant to lead to Sandman, Dreamer and Foley vs. Test, Knox and someone else the following week. When Foley decided the blowoff to his angle would the match with Flair and combined with the angle the next night, it made the idea redundant. Foley didn’t nix the beatdown, but because the match it was to have led to got scrapped, the beatdown made no sense. The 12/3 ECW PPV will be held at the Richmond County Civic Center in Augusta, GA, and will be called the December to Dismember. Matt Striker and Hardcore Holly were moved to the ECW brand this week. Kurt Angle was being examined over his groin injury on 8/21, and there is now fear that he has a new injury. The Angle/ECW deal has gotten worse in the last few weeks, with people having apparently gone to Vince and John Laurinitis to get Angle taken out of ECW after Angle supposedly said he didn’t’ want to be in ECW unless he got a main event title push. Angle’s biggest issues are non-wrestling. Angle’s family relies on him for financial and emotional support and his wife, who is pregnant with his first son, is leaving him again. Dave mentioned that that would throw anyone for a loop, but combine that with Angle’s breaking down, and his denial of it, and it could see some major issues down the line. The 2007 PPV schedule looks like this: New Year’s Revolution on 1/7 in Kansas City at the Kemper Arena, Royal Rumble on 1/28 at the SBC Center in San Antonio, No Way Out on 2/18 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Wrestlemania on 1/ 4 at Ford Field in Detroit, Backlash on 4/29 at the Philips Arena in Atlanta, Judgment Day on 5/20 at Savvis Center in St. Louis, and One Night Stand on 6/10 at the Hammerstein Ballroom. While Vince was snapping at people on Raw, he was also snapping at people in real life backstage as he was in a foul mood. There is apparently a list of words that announces are no longer allowed to say on-air, including the terms “belt” and “strap”. They are banned from WWE, OVW and DSW, because Vince thinks they are linked to old-time wrestling.

Yeah...assuming there are still morons in the crowd who believe that Hogan really did "lose" as opposed to laying down for them. Kayfabe is dead, and Hogan doing the job to a younger dude might help for say...the 2 days the fans will remember it... You make it sound like jobs don't matter anymore simply because kayfabe is dead. Hogan doing a job in the right circumstances and with the right presentation could literally make a career. I don't know if those circumstances are ever likely to happen, simply because the business is so down right now that by the time they do happen Hogan may be a cripple or dead, but if they do occur it would be a nice for Hogan to do what's right for business. I'd like to think that Terry Funk and Mick Foley aren't the only HoF wrestlers willing to give back to the business that made them. Then again, wrestling is a business that rewards selfishness and tends so shit on those who put the business ahead of their own interests.

Kurt must be way gone to walk away from a $1 million per year deal rather than get treatment.

Or maybe he's waiting to confirm what he's been told already.

--The WWE web site ran a story on Kurt Angle's being let go. Angle called it a mutually agreed parting of the ways because he needs to heal up, needs a break and that Kurt has concluded that unless he can get in the ring without pain medication that he shouldn't be wrestling. He noted that not only did he pull his groin, but also tore his abdominal muscle on 8/13, all before he tore his hamstring. He said he has no idea when he'll be able to return. Obviously the great unanswered question is, Angle had a $1 million per year guaranteed contract with a company that always pays wrestlers while healing up, and even if they need rehab for drug dependances, or in the case of Shawn Michaels, for many years while having what was thought to be a career ending injury without missing a big paycheck because that's the nature of a guaranteed contract. Why this story is so incomplete is that why would someone with so many major financial obligations, leave a contract paying him that much money even if he's not sure if he can wrestle again and needs help? If someone has all those injuries and is relying on pain medication, of course it is for the best he gets out of the ring. But wrestlers get hurt every day, many go to rehab and come out of it, and aren't either being fired or asking to quit, or in this case both, for any of those reasons. Meltzer.

Sounds like Jeff Hardy, and we all know they made sure Jeff had got his act together before bringing him back. It's only been a week I know but there hasn't been anything at all saying Hardy is causing trouble. Why is it so hard for this board to give someone another chance? Jeff couldn't even handle the TNA schedule without screwing up to the point that Jeff Jarrett gave up trying to save his job. WWE didn't give Eddie Guerrero or William Regal another chance until they proved themselves, especially in the case of Eddie. I'm all for Jeff being given a second chance but he should have proved it like Eddie, William and others have. The fact WWE hired Jeff back without him doing anything to prove himself, added to the fact that Jeff flaked out working the easier TNA schedule, shows that it's very likely Kurt just has to wait around and he'll get hired back with no questions asked.

Sounds like Jeff Hardy, and we all know they made sure Jeff had got his act together before bringing him back.

Kurt Angle has to want to get better. Getting his release might wake Angle up, but with his mindset, Angle is just as likely to find somewhere else he can wrestle as he is to get better. This release by no means guarantee Angle sorting himself out.

As Mod of the apparent problem forum, I've had one PM in the last six months making any kind of complaint, and it wasn't even regarding something in the WWE forum.

If Hogan is physically capable of truly putting someone over, and the right wrestler comes along, he should do it. It's called doing what's right for business.