Hunter's Torn Quad

It's in the UFC section, so I'll also C&P this part into the MMA folder. Tito Ortiz's current UFC contract includes a stipulation where, after his third fight, he gets a three three-minute round boxing match with Dana White.

Great disappointment. Jericho could and should have been made a main event player off of that angle, but instead had his legs cut off from under him and was buried in less than two hours.

--TNA did a 1.1 on Thursday, which has to be considered very strong for a show that followed a repeat of Ultimate Fighter. Da Meltz

--The UFC special on Saturday night did a 2.0 rating, but also set the company's all-time viewership record with an average of 2.8 million viewers over the three hours. The Kendall Grove vs. Ed Herman match also squeaked ahead of the Forrest Griffin vs. Stephan Bonnar match from last year as the most-watched live UFC match in history.

And because it belongs here too: --Yes, that was the Imposter Kane blow-off last night. If you ever were believing that things were planned out long-term in WWE, just check the results from Vengeance the night before. I'm sure it must have happened, but off the top of my head, I can't ever recall someone put over a major superstar clean in the middle, who was dropped one night later so fast they didn't even bother with him losing a match on the way out. Anyway, this one goes down in history right next to the Gobbledy Gooker, Linda McMahon's divorce from Vince and taking half the company after seeing him with Torrie Wilson on Raw, Linda McMahon's heel turn years later, DDP with the shining teeth, DDP as the Stalker, DDP as the homeless guy, DDP as the lottery winner, a bunch of DDP gimmicks I've forgotten, Oz, Richard & Rod Johnson, The Ding Dongs and the last episode of Seinfeld, the desperation XFL radio and TV ads where they brought up how bad the ratings and gimmicks were, Stephanie McMahon as the owner of ECW, Eric Bischoff's insane "shoot" promos as WCW was collapsing in 1999, David Arquette, Ed Ferrara and Vince Russo holding title gold and The Mullets in all-time gimmick hell. That Charlotte crowd will now go down in forgotten history for killing a character, although this one was really stillborn. It won't go down like the Tacoma crowd, which killed an entire several years worth of plans in one night. Funny, for the first four months of this year when just about every TV crowd was treating John Cena like he was the living incarnation of a Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell match, they decided that they know better than the crowd what the crowd will pay to see. And in that case, he was probably right.

---Yes, that was the Imposter Kane blow-off last night. If you ever were believing that things were planned out long-term in WWE, just check the results from Vengeance the night before. I'm sure it must have happened, but off the top of my head, I can't ever recall someone put over a major superstar clean in the middle, who was dropped one night later so fast they didn't even bother with him losing a match on the way out. Anyway, this one goes down in history right next to the Gobbledy Gooker, Linda McMahon's divorce from Vince and taking half the company after seeing him with Torrie Wilson on Raw, Linda McMahon's heel turn years later, DDP with the shining teeth, DDP as the Stalker, DDP as the homeless guy, DDP as the lottery winner, a bunch of DDP gimmicks I've forgotten, Oz, Richard & Rod Johnson, The Ding Dongs and the last episode of Seinfeld, the desperation XFL radio and TV ads where they brought up how bad the ratings and gimmicks were, Stephanie McMahon as the owner of ECW, Eric Bischoff's insane "shoot" promos as WCW was collapsing in 1999, David Arquette, Ed Ferrara and Vince Russo holding title gold and The Mullets in all-time gimmick hell. That Charlotte crowd will now go down in forgotten history for killing a character, although this one was really stillborn. It won't go down like the Tacoma crowd, which killed an entire several years worth of plans in one night. Funny, for the first four months of this year when just about every TV crowd was treating John Cena like he was the living incarnation of a Booker T vs. Buff Bagwell match, they decided that they know better than the crowd what the crowd will pay to see. And in that case, he was probably right. Da Meltz

JR and Lawler keep going on about how bad it is that an ECW guy has the WWE Title. Apart from them, nobody else seems to care. And if nobody else cares, why should we, especially when the whole point of the storyline is that an outsider has the WWE Title?

In light of others continuing the tradition, and because I've been bored, I figured I should bring the original back to life. Only nominate people in wrestling.

WWE also change their minds all the time.

This thread would be a whole lot better if more people tried, even half-heatedly, to back up what they're saying. Most people are saying stuff just to be contrary, and I doubt they mean half of it.

Give Batista a few weeks back on TV and he'll be super over again.

Ron Simmons got the belt because Watts thought he could make money with him.

Well one of the matches will be at the top of the 2nd hour, while the other closes the show. I'd say odds are 50/50. I'll be stunned if the Hunter and Vince Show doesn't close Raw.

According to the latest WO.com update, it'll be DX versus Vince and Shane tonight. No guesses as to whether the WWE Title match will be in the main event slot.

Sting Sid Scott Norton Ultimate Warrior

If they're taking the belt off Van Dam and putting it back on Cena then I think they'll go the obvious route and have Edge cost Van Dam the belt and then they'll use that as a reason to keep Edge in the title picture.

Goldberg Brock Lesnar

I always thought Steiner should have ended the streak. Steiner had been an mid-carder for about a year and was getting pretty good heat in his feud with Page and Rick Steiner. Steiner was a credible enough name to beat Goldberg but wasn't a "star" just yet but putting him over Goldberg (I would have done it at SuperBrawl instead of 1998 Starrcade) would have put him there. Steiner was a loose cannon but he was a heat machine that actually worked well with Goldberg when he was older in 2000, so I'd imagine Steiner/Goldberg in 1999 would have just as good if not better. If they had spent 1999 having Goldberg going through the top heels and Steiner going through the to babyfaces, and I mean all clean wins, then by the time Starrcade 1999 rolled around you would have, with smart booking, been able to have a main event that people would have both wanted to see and not been sure what the result would be, because both men had been pushed so strong for a whole year.

Kevin Nash ending Goldberg’s streak was beyond terrible. Why should it have to have been a big name to end the streak? The big name is already big, so what does he gain from ending the streak? When it came time for the streak to end, it should have been a guy who was just on the edge of being a main event player because being the first one to beat Goldberg would have made him for life. The way it was ended made Goldberg look like every other incompetent babyface who gets outsmarted by interference he should have seen coming a mile away. What they did at the Georgia Dome Nitro was a new level of brainless insanity, but it does not make what happened at Starrcade any less idiotic than it already was.

Dave talks about TNA having faced many crossroads during its lifetime, and notes the similarities between TNA’s last two years and ECW. They both had huge losses, though ECW never lost money at anything like the rate TNA did, and they both had the proverbial carrot dangled in front of them; getting TV, getting a better network, etc. Dave talked about TNA going through the same stages, such as getting on FSN and moving to Orlando with a more professional atmosphere, but with a bad timeslot. Then came the chance to be on prime time as part of the Best Damn Sports Show Period, but that fell apart due to disappointing ratings, and even with good ratings for the network and the slot they were in, FSN were never going to keep them unless TNA kept paying for their slot. Dave talked about TNA negotiating with WGN and Spike and that even though WGN offered them a prime time slot, it was on a poor network and that didn’t aggressively promote nationally, and that the deal falling apart at the last minute ended up being for the best. Dave talked about how today’s audience is limited to wrestling fans, with casual people not interested in wrestling at all. TNA can get as many as 2 million viewers a week for it’s free TV, but hasn’t been able to produce a product that can get any of those new viewers to into the habit of paying for the PPV’s. Dave said that without WWE leaving Spike, TNA might not be around today, and for sure would be losing money all over the place; the deal FSN wanted would have cost TNA around $1m a month. Impact is drawing the best ratings in TNA’s history, even better than Spike’s predictions, but when the move was made, if you told TNA they’d be getting mainly 1.0’s, they’d be disappointed. After steady growth in the early PPV’s, which peaked with the return of Sting, and which was counted on as the revenue stream to carry TNA, it’s going down. Dave said there are many factors involved. TNA events have gone from spectacular due to having great matches to ‘just’ good. Even though ECW is just WWE, the public see it as a new type of different brand, and that TNA has gone from being the alternative to being the ‘C’ company. The company’s fourth anniversary show was stuck between two big WWE PPV’s, both of which are likely to do an above average number of buys. A minor factor is WWE raising the price of its PPV’s, as people who are already feeling like they are paying too much for PPV’s are less likely to sample an alternative, and with even more PPV’s coming where even WWE can’t keep it’s numbers up, there isn’t much opportunity for growth for TNA. Dave says TNA can look elsewhere, such as overseas, but they lack that “big even” feel due to taping in what is a “glorified TV studio”, but even overseas they’ll be considered a secondary group with no big stars. Dave says that TNA can run shows in smaller venues, and with good pricing they can do good financially. Right now, there is now ‘carrot’ to dangle in front of TNA and it is just at a certain level, with no sign of decline, but no apparent chance for any real growth, either. There are no big personalities or ideas, and no special angles because everyone has seen everything, and nothing is taken seriously. Dave says that TNA needs to commit to a developmental system, saying that even though WWE doesn’t do so well with it’s developmental system, at least they have people that you can hope can be players somewhere down the road. Dave says there are some things that TNA could/should do: Move PPV’s to different arenas that are well lit, to give them a new look. They need to tape TV outside of Orlando from time to time; if an arena event looks like it’ll draw big and have a hot crowd, turn it into a taping. Dave thinks that, to keep expenses down, they should do that sort of thing every few tapings, and aim for major markets. TNA hosting TV’s or PPV’s from those markets, with hometown touches added, such as tie-ins with local sports stars , will give television a different feel, and can give the impression of a growing and successful company, which is important in a business where the perception can mean more than the reality. By running fewer events, TNA are able to hit markets harder than they normally would. Things like this won’t turn things around, and the difference to the bigger picture would be minor, but it will give the image of a company that has fans everywhere, rather than the image of “amusement park wrestling”. It’s not a new idea for TNA to hold a PPV outside of Orlando, as it has been seriously talked about, with Detroit a possible venue for Bound For Glory, after the first TNA show there drew 3,170 paid. Slammiversary: Drew 900 with more than 600 turned away. The crowd was good, but also tired; they like the wrestlers but have just seen too much. Dave notes that the “This is awesome” chant has become a cliché and that it no longer means the match actually is awesome. It was the usual good matches, with nothing off-the-charts, the big spots getting huge reactions, and a huge reaction for the title change at the end. Dave said there wasn’t a lot of negative to say about the show, apart from Earl Hebner becoming a heel referee, which Dave called lame and outdated. Says WWE has an excuse for redoing Montreal, because certain people there have an obsession about it that will seemingly never die, but TNA doing it just makes them look Indy-level, and the fans hate it anyway. Jim Cornette will be the babyface spokesperson to feud with Jarrett over power. The core fans hate the idea of Jeff Jarrett as champion again. Christian was not a success as champion. If Jarrett’s role is to be the guy people really hate with Joe, who the people really like and believe in, being the chasing babyface, then it could be a good thing, but they don’t need to rush that program. However, if it’s just to set up Jarrett vs. Sting for the rest of the year without Joe being put in the top spot, then this whole thing will get TNA nowhere. Called Styles/Daniels vs. AMW the showstealer, and said the current plan is for Styles and Daniels to be the perennial babyface championship tag team. Christian was meant to hold the NWA belt until at least December. Questioned where to go with Sting, as he’s not the special star he needs to be, and he’s now the big star in the small promotion, and TNA draws about the same with him as they would without him. Noted that his deal is up at the end of the year, and that big decisions have to be made by all concerned if Sting is to come back when the deal expires. Dave says that losing Sting will be a problem for the company from a perception standpoint if Joe isn’t established as the top guy in the promotion when Sting leaves, and it that perception problem won’t be helped if they can’t bring in Goldberg to fill the ‘star power’ void if Sting leaves. Said Victory Road will be “more of the same”, with the matches set for it being; A four-way with the winner meeting Jarrett in the main event, Styles/Daniels and their mystery woman, who may be called Xenya, in something of a Chyna-like female monster role, taking on AMW and Gail Kim, where the tag titles might be on the line, Team 3D and Brother Runt vs. The James Gang and Abyss, and Raven vs. Larry Zbyszko in a hair vs.’ hair match. Team 3D vs. The James Gang: ***1/4. Ray cannot say “Devon, get the tables”, because of legal threats from WWE who consider it their intellectual property. Rhino vs. Bobby Roode and Scott D’Amore: **1/4. Dave joked that after Rhino ran the ropes so well for a guy his size, that he had to run so slow so as not to catch D’Amore when he went after him. The Six-Way X-Division rankings match: ***1/4. Dave commented on that it appears that Joe, Daniels and Styles have been moved on from the X-Division. Kevin Nash vs. Chris Sabin: **. Dave said that Nash did the right kind of match, and with Nash going over, he did all he could to make the match work. Said it was a killer visually, and that Sabin does not have the superstar credibility to overcome that. The idea is for the program to end with Nash putting Sabin over . AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels vs. AMW: ***3/4. Cornette being introduced: Said Cornette did a good promo and got a good reaction, but it paled after seeing him in ROH, where he’s treated like a legend and his promo’s are better. Said the TNA fans knew him and treated him like a star, but the reaction wasn’t at the level it usually is for a new superstar. Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner: ***1/4. Dave doesn’t think they wanted Steiner to tap to the choke, and Steiner wasn’t comfortable, due to his injuries, in taking the muscle buster. Steiner had no problems putting Joe over. King of the Mountain: ***. Dave called the match long and unfocused, and while people knew the rules, they couldn’t follow them. Dave said the crowd wasn’t as hot as you’d hope for them to be for a main event, which Dave said was a combination of the crowd being drained from waiting so long in the sun to get in and because they were deep into a show and Joe vs. Steiner was the real main event. They went off the air unsure what was happening about the title but the impression was Jarrett was the new champion. Dave said it was better reading about the match than watching it because it was overbooked. Dave said it’s easy to make Hebner a heel, but the remake of Survivor Series comes across as “dated, overdone and pathetic”. Dave said the effort was there, but he can only “view it as the wrong kind of taste as the final emotion after a good show. Other news: A big fourth anniversary part was held be Jeff Jarrett after the taping on 6/19, with almost everyone there. They were watching Raw and Cornette cut a promo about the mentality of getting wrestling over by showing male ass. Cornette was said to be enthusiastic about being there. This past weekend, the wrestlers were tested for HIV and Hepatitis. In the wording when announcing the test, in big bolded letters, it said: THIS IS NOT A DRUG TEST. The testing was done because TNA does a lot of blood, and they may be going into states where testing is required. Terry Taylor, presumably on orders from above, has been trying to talk the wrestlers into signing new deals. Ron Killings has signed one. Sen She and Homicide are questioning TNA handling their Indy bookings. Both have made their own schedules for so long that they are not wanting to give that up. Homicide is trying to get a deal where he’ll list the promoters he won’t work for due to prior bad experiences. There is heat amongst the wrestlers over the booking team putting Jamie D, the mystery woman, with Styles and Daniels, with the feeling being that they are already having great matches and having the Jamie will only drag them down. Dave said the big negative right off the bat is that she comes across too much like Chyna. Jamie D won TNA’s Gut Check in 2004, which is their version of Tough Enough, and is a trainee of Scott D’Amore so it’s another D’Amore deal. TNA made a shirt for Alex Shelly to wear, and after he refused to wear it because he didn’t like it, Dutch Mantell and then Jeff Jarrett told him he had to wear it anyway. Brian Lee and Missy Hyatt were at the tapings. Lee was looking for work, while Hyatt was describe as thin, not her usual self, and acting like she didn’t want to be seen. Homicide will get a big singles match against Ron Killings at the next set of tapings, as his showcase match to show TNA what he can do. Stars from the Beverly Hillbillies-type show that will be lead-in for Impact shortly were in the front row of the tapings. Spike brought them to the taping as a means to use Impact to get the new show going. Kid Romeo was also looking for work. Because he’s now an exterminator in real life, he was pitching that to be his gimmick. He was pitching it to Jeff Jarrett in front of the wrestlers, and it appeared that Jarrett was getting Romeo all wound up to amuse the wrestlers, by giving ideas like Romeo could call the different X-Division wrestlers insects and he’d wear his uniform as his gimmick saying he was going to exterminate them. Mark Johnson was told by Dutch Mantell that Dixie Carter wanted him out of the shorts, but then Jeff Jarrett, who is friends with Johnson, told him they were ok. He wasn’t wearing them at the PPV but was wearing them at TV. Johnson’s idea was to do a soccer referee gimmick, where he’d give people yellow cards and red cards, and also do instant replay calls for controversial decisions. When that got turned down, he began pushing to become a manager. Elix Skipper and David Young were told they likely won’t be used again until the end of summer. The Naturals will be doing a series of boot camp vignettes with Shane Douglas, and will be getting a new look, including haircuts, and will be pushed as heels, and hopefully will be able to work with Styles and Daniels down the line. In recapping the TV tapings, Dave said it appeared like the Cornette/Jarrett deal is an attempt to recreated Austin/McMahon, but with the promotion and Cornette being the babyfaces. Sonjay Dutt was working injured during the three-way where Joe lost the X-Division title, but was added so that Joe didn’t have to do a job.

Dave called Monday’s Raw “funny as hell” and that the return was just as over, with HHH and Shawn, as DX, refreshed, but Dave also questions how long it can last. Dave brings up a point he’s mentioned a number of times before, that when he first saw the DX entrance on Raw he knew WCW were in trouble. The internal reaction to the show was that it was a success, but there is a lot of skepticism as to how far it can go, with the general feeling that revivals like this work for the first few weeks but then it fades fast. Dave mentioned it brings a reminder of redoing the Freebirds in 1990 which was a big introduction and some funny interviews, but after that was just a midcard act. One reaction, though, was consistent; with HHH turning 38 next month and Shawn turning 41 (he’ll have turned 41 by the time you read this), by all logic they are too old for the roles they are playing. Dave says they need a hot program, which would likely build to a match with the McMahon’s at Summerslam and then move on after that. One insider said that Shawn isn’t comfortable with his new role, as he feels people will see it as a contradiction of what he’s been preaching the past few years. That was played into when HHH brought out cheerleaders to take their tops off, but first put a blindfold on Shawn. The show was written specifically for HHH to get all the funny lines and Shawn just to react to them. Dave said that the Raw was close to the type of Raw that put it on the map as something other than Monday Night Wrestling. Dave felt it was great TV for numbers, which he wrote before getting the rating. Dave said what killed this type of television was advertisers pulling out, which isn’t going to happen today, as WWE doesn’t have the enemies it used to. Dave also thinks they went through so much material in one night that they may burn out. Talking about the return to MSG, Dave says WWE can’t make the profit they can running at MSG than they can at either Nassau Coliseum or the Continental Airlines Arena, and he thinks it was the fact they have a live Raw on that date as the reason they wanted to run Manhattan. Vince was furious about the negative reaction to the debut ECW show. During the agents meeting, Vince’s reaction over the first TV show was that he didn’t realize that the ECW brand was ‘tainted’, and that the Hammerstein crowds weren’t an indication of where the overall popularity of ECW really stood. Vince now feels that they can’t build from that base crowd and now have to build using the WWE audience. Paul Heyman pushed for more creative control on the second show, and because of the reaction to the first show, they mostly went with his script. He booked the long tag main event of RVD/Angle vs. Edge/Orton to carry the show, and he put Mike Hettinga (Mike Knox) on the show to get him a role quickly, as Heyman is a big a fan of his. The idea is for Knox to get a big rub right away from having the super hot girlfriend. From the meeting, its felt Vince as already written off the original audience coming back to be built on. Sabu’s attitude, which caused some initial worry, has been considered excellent since coming in. It is possible he realizes that this is his last chance to make good money so he’s changes his attitude. The original idea was for him to get an early push because he was an ECW name with nothing planned long-term. His work with Cena has been much better than anticipated, and Sabu has also clicked with the main talent that is willing to work with him and treat him as main event wrestler. Sabu is also considered the top new player. Dave says it’s amazing that, when looking back, the two guys who caused Jim Cornette to go ballistic and then get fired, Kevin Fertig and John Carelli, both get their careers saved by Heyman. Shelly Martinez was originally going to be Paul Burchill’s valet but that idea got scrapped. Her tarot card reader gimmick is a concession to Sci-Fi. At one point, Tim Arson (The Zombie) was also going to be The Cook, as spoof on The Food Network, as a character for Sandman to come out and cane. The 7/4 taping at the old ECW Arena was moved to the Wachovia Center, which hosts a four-hour plus Raw/Smackdown taping the night before. The ECW show will have one hour of dark matches and then a live one-hour show. The only vague reason given was that it would cost too much to upgrade the ECW Arena to do a good quality taping, and it would save money to move to the Wachovia Center. Dave thinks they will load up the Raw show and shoot a big angle as well, but questions how much walk-up business they’ll do the next night when they come back to the same building. Dave thinks they could do enough to turn people away at the ECW Arena, which they could trumpet on TV, but that same crowd at the Wachovia Center won’t look good on TV. Dave speculates it could be that with the Raw guys working ECW, they don’t want to make them look ‘cheap’ by working in an “Indy looking building”. More on the firings of Dustin Runnels and Mikey Batts; Dustin missed the 6/12 Raw due to a court appearance to do with his ex. At that show, it was decided to fire him, as it was assumed he missed the date for the same reason almost everyone else misses shows. Runnels said he attempted to call the office ahead of time, and when they found out why he really missed the show the heat was then for not telling them ahead of time. Runnels was desperate to keep his job, to the point where he even said he would work for free for a month, but Vince made the call to fire him. With Batts, it’s stranger. The official reason was that he wasn’t improving enough, wasn’t dedicated and his size. However, the whispers are that it has do to with other things. When then newest Venus Swimwear models (one of whom debuted on ECW) were brought into OVW, talent relations gave word that nobody was to mess with them. Nobody could figure that one out, given that every woman who shows up in wrestling hooks up with someone, and nothing was said about the other women who have come to OVW. The problem came when at least two guys hooked up with the new women, and on 6/10 word came down that somebody was going to be made an example of. Then Batts was let go. That isn’t the official reason, but people are putting the timing down to it being the real reason. Why that sort of thing gets heat for one person but not for another is the idea that if you are a star then it’s expected for you to get a hot girlfriend, but if you’re not a star then it’s frowned upon, more so if it’s felt you’re flaunting it. Instead of WWE getting preempted for the US open this year, Raw will air from 2300 to 0100 on 8/28 and probably the next week as well. The Miz will host the Diva Search this year, Dave liked JBL commentating on Smackdown, but thinks he talks too much and can get repetitive. Dave also thinks his ant-foreigner and anti-gay tirades will get old fast, and brings up that JBL was anti-foreigner with Sylvan, who is Canadian but JBL called him French, but wasn’t anti-foreigner with Regal or Finlay. Dave said he hopes JBL is not a one-trick pony, but for the first time out JBL was great. Dave thinks Regal and Finlay should be the tag champions, and that they could be the best tag team in the company in a long time. Said you could tell that JBL’s commentary on Matt Hardy was managements opinion of Hardy, and that it was 14:00 of non-stop “he cried on the internet about losing his girl”. Dave also said that Hardy is not getting a push no matter how much the crowd pops for him and that management just won’t push him. Vito is now wearing his dress at the airport and on planes. There was talk of Justin Credible forming a new Impact Players tag team with a new partner, but it was first mentioned a few weeks ago and hasn’t been mentioned again since.

I personally don't believe that people are coming to see Cena at house shows. Do you happen to have the numbers at hand to show it? As for TV ratings, they went up when Cena lost the belt (to Edge), and I think that sends a powerful message. The rating for the first Raw after Cena dropped the belt were up from the week before, but Raw’s rating usually spikes the day after PPV’s anyway. The next week the rating was the same, so Cena dropping the title did not appear to bring in enough viewers to make any difference. The rating went up the following week, but the day after Cena got the belt back the overall rating was the same, and stayed at that level for the next week as well. Cena getting the belt back did not turn off a significant level of fans. The next week was a Thursday special Raw, so the rating for that, a 3.3, does not really count either way. Raw was back to 4’s the week after that. When the Cena-Edge program was going on, even when Cena was the champion again, it spiked the ratings. It was a ratings draw to the point that a tag match involving Maria and Lita as their respective partners, and after Cena got the belt back, gained 638,000 viewers. Cena dropping the title did not bring people back like you think it did, and Cena being the champion again did not turn people off either. Cena is WWE’s top merchandise seller as well, so he brings in the dollars in that department too. As for house shows, a lot of merchandise sales come from them, and if people are going to buy a wrestler’s merchandise at house shows, then they’re also likely going to pay to see him wrestle at house shows as well.

Lex Luger Buff Bagwell Rick Steiner Jerry Lynn

For me, TNA's greatest match is the Joe/Styles/Daniels three-way from Unbreakable. I gave it ***** on first watching it. I thought it might not be warranted after a while, thinking it might have just been one of those spotfests that are thrilling the first time around but don't stand up to repeat viewings, but a second viewing only confirmed the ***** I gave it. I didn't find the match to be a typical spotfest, and labelling it one might even do it a disservice. Every big spot hit perfectly, anything that might have been blown was covered up in such a way that, at that pace, has to be applauded, and, to me, everything all three men did told a story. What makes it even better is that they had to call the last five minutes in the ring, and with a match of that style and pace, to do that and not have anything look out of place or bad, is a further testament to how great the match is and how much poise all three have.

John Cena only 'failed' in so far as not getting over in the babyface manner the promotion wanted, but he got over and is over, which is the important thing. People who say Cena isn't over either don't understand or aren't looking at the numbers. Cena draws at house shows, which is where business first turn arounds. Your most devoted customers are going to go to house shows, and at house shows the people are coming for Cena. He might not get a total babyface reaction, but he gets a reaction. It's not 'X-Pac heat', either, and labelling it as such is laughable; X-Pac heat is not the passionate hatred/love reaction that Cena undeniably gets. In the last few months, when it comes to announcing people not being there, Cena is the only name that I can recall reading about that, when he's announced as not coming, gets any kind of real reaction. As far as television numbers go, I don't have them at hand right now, but I'd be willing to bet that Cena doesn't turn people off to any great degree, again making any description of his heat as X-Pac heat laughable, and I'd bet that his segments draw a consistent level of growth. Someone who can do that is over.