Hunter's Torn Quad

You're only now just working that out?

Only two things worry me about this scenario. One, Steiner getting enough color to make the stoppage credible, and two, TNA having Steiner cause Joe to lose before they wrestle again.

Kane vs. Kane II: This sounded interesting enough that I made the time to watch a clip of it. It was well executed, in that it played out exactly like Kane’s debut; Kane was on the verge of victory when Kane II came out, and Kane looked at Kane II not knowing what was going on. The one thing I take issue with is that the scenario as it played out made Shelton Benjamin and the IC title come off as secondary. Shelton pulled a David Copperfield when the angle started, vanishing from sight and was never seen again. If they were going to have Kane II debut in the same manner as the original, they could have at least had Benjamin drape an arm over Kane to get a win. That way, Kane II would, not only have attacked Kane and laid him out, but would also have cost him the IC Title. It would have given them more an issue to fight over, and would have done something to make the IC Title more important, because Kane would have, theoretically, been angered over being cheated out of the belt. Kurt Angle joins ECW: Kurt Angle was vociferously anti-ECW last year, and got choked out by Tazz, so why would he join ECW and not seem to care? Would it not have made sense for him to attack Heyman on Raw or do something to show how unhappy he was with being drafted to ECW? For all intents and purposes he seemed quite fine with being drafted and was more than happy to attack Mick Foley, a staunchly pro-WWE person, someone who Kurt should have sided with? I’m guessing, or more accurately hoping, that this gets explained in some fashion, but I won’t hold my breath. Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio for the World Heavyweight title at One Night Stand: It doesn’t make sense on the surface for Sabu to get a World title shot at One Night Stand. After all, from a storyline standpoint he’s done nothing to earn a title match, and Sabu isn’t winning the belt which means he’s very likely losing, and given that Sabu is meant to help ECW draw on the road beating him clean, one assumes, on his first match back as part of the reformed ECW seems totally illogical. However, from an ECW standpoint, it makes sense. It will be the first ever match between a guy who helped make ECW what it was and is an ECW legend, and a revolutionary high flyer who ECW fans loved and took to their hearts. For ECW fans it won’t be the result that matters, as long as Sabu looks competitive against Rey before getting beaten. What matters to them is that they are getting to see a historic match and as long as the match isn’t terrible, I think ECW fans will be happy enough with seeing history being made, rather than unhappy with Sabu losing. ECW’s summer tour schedule: WWE announced a 28-date ECW for the summer, from June 20th to August 15th. In the fifteen days from July 15th to July 30th, there will be ten dates, with two runs of four dates in a row. As anybody who worked the ECW style can tell you, working that style more than twice a week takes its toll, not only on the body but on the quality of work. If this ECW is, from a style and presentation standpoint, going to anything close to how the original ECW was, then the guys on the roster are going to hurting a hell of a lot when the summer tour ends. ECW was more than just crazy brawling and weapon shots mixed in with insane spots. It was also a work ethic that made the wrestlers give everything they had for the fans, night in and night out, and, for better or for worse, that isn’t something a wrestler can do for four nights a week and expect to have prolonged career. And that’s just for the ‘safe’ WWE style. Imagine what’s going to happen if the new ECW style is even half as punishing as the old ECW style, and you’ve got wrestlers working that style four nights a week, combined with the oft-forgotten work ethic that prevailed in ECW? We could see a lot of battered and broken people come August 15th, and if you think the Smackdown roster was decimated in recent weeks, you might have only seen the beginning. Smackdown’s depleted roster: Smackdown has had the heart of its roster taken out in the last two weeks. They’ve lost Kurt Angle, JBL and Chris Benoit, with Angle having been drafted to ECW and JBL and Benoit out with injuries, and neither man coming back any time soon. Without those three, the top pushed talent on Smackdown is Rey Mysterio, Mark Henry, and The Great Khali. Mysterio has been so badly booked the last three months that his value is nowhere near what it could or should be. Henry, despite what the bandwagon fans think, is below average at best. And despite the awe some people have for Khali, he is not someone you can build around or really push in the main event scene; he’s just far too terrible and limited in the ring. What can Smackdown do? Well, Batista is coming back in about six weeks, which is good for Smackdown, but carries a lot of risk. Batista is coming back around two to three months sooner than his doctors advised him to just after his surgery, which, combined with his fragility, means that building around him, which seems a forgone conclusions, is an incredibly risky thing to do. When it comes to elevating people, the most likely candidate seems to be Mr Kennedy, who is a favorite of Vince’s. Kennedy is good enough in the ring that he could be carried to something decent, has a great presence and is very good on the mic, which are two factors that WWE favor over ring skills, so he has a great shot at getting pushed enough to the point that, eventually, he’ll catch on as being credible in the main event scene. Apart from Batista and Kennedy, and Batista won’t be returning for over a month, who else is there for them to elevated on Smackdown? Booker T? He’s a good hand, and makes for fine midcard comedy, but he doesn’t have the talent or credibility to play any more than a passing role in the main event. Matt Hughes destroys Royce Gracie: I gave Gracie far too much credit when I thought he’d last at least a round or two with Hughes. Matt just took Gracie apart and it was clear from watching the PPV, and the reaction on various MMA boards and sites, that a lot of people were genuinely shocked and stunned that Hughes, not only beat Gracie, but did so in such a decisive and dominating manner. As much of a legend as Gracie is, it was clear before he even stepped into the octagon last Saturday that time has passed him by and he is no longer this great fighter who can beat just about anyone. Times change and standards improve, and Gracie, while a great fighter for his time, just doesn’t have the all-round skills to hang with top fighters like Matt Hughes. Gracie is great at Gracie Ju-Jitsu, but just being great at one discipline, even Gracie Ju-Jitsu, isn’t going to cut it today, and Royce showed that his time has long since gone.

No, but the TNA booking committee, headed by Jarrett, have shown themselves to be marks for anyone with perceived name value, so I wouldn't totally rule out the possibility of a Steiner win.

In ring skills matter to those who have watched wrestling for quite a while. Of course Mic skills are important, but wrestling is still wrestling, the quality of the matches are what are important. It was Cena's skills, or lack of them, that helped turn people against him. When the people saw him beating people who were clearly far more talented in the ring it made hating him easier, because they felt him undeserving and felt Cena was being pushed down their throats. If Cena was capable of looking even half way as talented as the likes of Jericho, Angle or Michaels, it might not have been so bad, but they could see Cena was nowhere as talented in the ring, and they reacted accordingly. Ring skills might not matter as much as they used to, but when you're facing guys who the fans see as very talented workers, and you're always beating them, you better be at least talented enough to hang with them, or the fans will turn on you in a heartbeat.

--Raw on Monday did a 3.7 rating. Da Meltz.

'God' was their idea, thus automatically making it a good one. I can see at least one possible Sci-Fi storyline ECW can do, that won't seem stupid. They can have a babyface wrestler who is a big Sci-Fi fan. He'll get mocked by some heels for a while for being a geek, loser, etc, and the heels can say he's just like every Sci-Fi fan. The babyface can fight back, and, in the end, beat the heels and prove that Sci-Fi fans can kick ass too. It probably won't satisfy the people who are pressing for a Sci-Fi orientated storyline, but I think it's a good compromise.

I was busy copying and pasting the Bible to post to see if God would sue me. This thread is gone so far off topic it's not worth keeping open.

I prefer that too. As I said, it's just that this week it was written in such a manner that I was going to write just as much if I paraphrased, and I decided to copy it all. If I post the WWE news next week, I'll go back to paraphrasing.

I am the sole writer of said news site, and at no point have I ever copied and pasted a block of thousands of words of text from anyone's newsletter. Maybe two times ever have I ever printed two or three paragraphs from a newsletter word for word, which you see all the time in books and newspapers. You are a smart guy, you know the difference between using an excerpt and an actually taking the time to physically convert a hard copy of a newsletter to digital format so that people can read it without paying for it. I am sure you simply a nice guy trying to spread the wealth, I don't think you mean any harm. This is all. So, did you get permission then?

Something else to consider for ONS. It's a free special over in the UK, which means the buy rate is going to be down 30-50,000 from what it could be.

It was only ever going to be what Vince McMahon wanted it to be. What the fans wanted isn't even a consideration.

There are only three acceptable finishes to Joe vs. Steiner, and, in order, they are: Joe wins via choke out Joe wins via pinfall An out of control and wild double DQ, which leads to a rematch with either of the first two finishes. Anything else is going to get over like a whore in church, and Steiner winning is absolutely not an option, in any way, shape or form.

I'm guessing the match was put together with the idea that the ECW fans would lap up the first ever meeting between Sabu and Rey, and that they'll forget about Sabu getting beaten in the haze of witnessing a historic match. If Sabu is going to lose, and it doesn't seem like we'll get any other result, he has to look competitive and go toe-to-toe with Rey, so at least he gains something in defeat, that being at least looking on an equal level to the official World Champion.

What stands out for me is how badly the domestic PPV audience has fallen. With Backlash only getting in the 130,000 range for domestic buys, it seems like we're getting closer to the sub-100,000 level, and that's not something you can really put a positive spin on.

So, has anybody got something to say about the actual news or can I close this?

Sabu isn't winning the belt, and it's likely that he's getting beaten clean. That part doesn't make sense, given that he's meant to be helping the new ECW get over and his first match in will see, one thinks, a clean loss.

If it's that big of a deal, I'll go back to paraphrasing the WWE news from the Observer. The main reason I did a full scan/transcription this week is that news was such that I’d have written just as much whatever I did, and I decided to just go all out and scan/transcribe it all. I notice that the news site that Haas of Pain promotes in his sig, and I think he writes for it as well, has transcripts and excerpts of copyrighted material as part of its content. Can I assume that permission was obtained from Ring of Honor, Pro Wrestling Torch, etc, before this material was used?

When he left wrestling, people started underrating him. Maybe the thread starter could back up some of the opinions he apparently has as well.

While "guys like" Sabin, Lethal a Dutt might not be contenders for the top spot in the heavyweight picture, they very well could be top guys in the X-Division, which is meant to be one of the cornerstones of TNA and is something they try and promote as something to differentiate themselves from WWE. I don’t know how degrading and making a joke out of a division that you trumpet as your calling card and something that makes you the better alternative to WWE is a good thing, but evidently some people think it’s great business, so more power to them. It's given them television time, but there are a million better ways to use that time than make the whole division seem like a joke.

Sometimes, the mail van comes on Saturday. I think somebody on here, maybe Dangerous A, sometimes gets theirs on Wednesday or Thursday somehow, possibly because they live right near to Dave.

On WOL last night, Meltzer said it wasn't a sellout and there was a fair bit of papering as well. The commentary was very good, and I'd like the three-man team of Goldberg, Rogan and Couture to do at least the Ultimate Fight Nights, if not all their PPV's from now on. The main event, while not technically a great fight, was pure magic from a spectacle and emotion standpoint. It was surreal watching Hughes twist Gracie's arm to where it Gracie had to be in tremendous pain and yet Gracie didn't show it.

A little from column A, a little from column B.

--TNA set its all-time ratings record again this past week, hitting the 1.2 level. Da Meltz.

On The Law last night, Melter said that Randy Orton was very close to being fired, and that they aren't very happy about having to bring him back at all, but are doing so because Smackdown is so thin on the ground when it comes to heels. Meltzer thinks that if Orton doesn't change his attitude, they'll likely fire him.