Hunter's Torn Quad

It's late because it obviously took a while to type up.

He has 'brownie points' for putting Jeff over.

That's how Meltzer sees it, and he also points out that Nash, and Scott Hall, had reps of agreeing to lose to guys and then did it in a way where they looked strong and the other guy came out worse.

According to Meltzer, Gabe had two reasons for making the match so short. He felt that the fans were there for the wild main event, and so wouldn't be into the usual long Dragon title match, and might even turn on it. The other reason is that he wanted to educate fans into believing that a title match can end at any time. All Japan had a problem with long main events, as no matter how good they'd be, the fans wouldn't react for the first 20:00 because they 'knew' the matches were always going long.

The number going around for WM is 700,000, which may or may not be just the domestic numbers. JBL is set to beat Mysterio for the World title at Judgment Day. He got word before the tapings in St Louis, which is why he guaranteed victory. No word on what will happen to the US Title. Kurt Angle's neck and spine are inflamed and he lacks feeling in one of his hands. The second hour of Raw on 4/10 with the Edge vs. Cena and HHH main event drew 840,000 teenage viewers. Stacey Keibler earned $245,000 for her eight weeks on Dancing with the Stars. As of right now, there are no plans for Flair to get a title shot on a major show. The Foley comments last week on his blog were legit, and not the start of an angle. There is talk of reforming DX, with it possibly being like Evolution, with Hunter and Michaels bringing in one or two guys and giving them the rub. There are no plans to bring Eric Bischoff back before his contract expires. There are plans to buy the Stampede Wrestling tape library. Colt Cabana is using the name Chris Guy because they used the Cabana name for Carlito's Cabana. When Shawn came off the lader onto Vince at WM, Vince knew it was coming because the referee shook his leg to give a signal. Vince had been trying to get himself over by claiming he didn't know when it would be coming, and so wouldn't have been able to ready for it. There are no plans to book MSG until Summerslam next year. WWE are charging $10,000 for a two-hour autograph session with John Cena.

The decision to change the TV format to less matches and focusing on on the main guys has hurt the morale of the undercard guys. A lot of full-timers were told they weren't needed for television and that Dixie Carter was under orders to cut the budget, and while people were unhappy, some understood the reasoning, but that changed when they saw the likes of Christy Hemme, Lex Luger, et al brought in, and morale sank. Things were made worse when the fans made it clear they didn't really care for the old guys, because if they had, the people unhappy would at least seen it was a decision that made some sort of sense. A few people thought they had been lied to and talked about wanting to go to WWE. People were surprised that Low Ki was put over Christopher Daniels and then not put on TV for three weeks, but there is a plan in place to do a slow introduction for him on TV. Homicide hasn't been happy over a lot of things, such as not being booked for TV and getting whipped on the PPV and not getting any comeback. He's also not happy about not getting a good singles opponent which, combined with being given no indication of what TNA are going to do with him next, make him think TNA don't know what to do with him. Juventued Guerrera been trying to get in but there has been zero interest, mainly over his injuring Jerry Lynn a few years ago, which he still has not apologised for. Dawn Marie has expressed an interest in coming in. A series of taped interviews with Kevn Nash will air in the coming weeks. A few months ago, Nash told friends of an idea he had about the X-Division where he'd come in, rip on the division, destroy a bunch of them, but put AJ Styles over in the end. The first promo was, apparently, going to be something along the lines of Nash of saying that nobody pays to see you guys flip around the ring and that his living room cost more than these guys make. "You guys can fly. Fly all you want. People pay to see 7-footers". The word is the interview is incredibly arrogant, and indirectly buries everyone. The direction they were going in with Joe is a singles match with Steiner. Joe vs. Sabu at Lockdown was meant to go much longer, but Sabu told Joe he was hurting, so Joe, knowing Sabu never lets on he's hurt, knew it must have been bad, so they went home early. Ratings for Lockdown: World X-Cup Six-Man: ***1/4 Sen She vs. Christopher Daniels: ***3/4 Six-Way Cage match: ***1/2 Samoa Joe vs. Sabu: **1/2 Team 3D vs. Team Canada: *3/4 Christian Cage vs. Abyss: ***3/4 Main Event: ***1/2

Interesting to see that Vince's match gets the first video package of the opening. Carlito vs. Masters was better than a lot of people probably thought it would be. Masters messing up a two-count appeared to be down to him thinking it was the finish, as Carlito's cover for the actual pin was the same, but for the finish he used the ropes, and it looked like Masters got confused. Umaga vs. Flair was a virtual squash match. Funny line from Ross asking how often Flair has been beaten this decisively. If the idea is for Flair to headline Vengeance, he needs a lot of rebuilding, because novelty stuff doesn't draw well if it lacks any kind of value in the first place, and Flair losing like this can only damage whatever novelty value his 'last run' at the WWE title has. James vs. Stratus was short and nowhere as good as their match last month. The finish was strange, but it probably had a purpose. Shelton vs. RVD was very good and I'd like to see a PPV rematch down the line. With RVD getting the IC Title, I can see him winning the WWE Title at One Night Stand, something being done to take the WWE Title away, but then RVD keeping the IC Title and somehow that becomes part of the ECW Title. Kane vs. Big Show wasn't very good, and the angle with the lights and the voice was terrible. This is a storyline, due to the movie tie-in, that is meant to draw money, but angles where you cannot suspend your disbelief, even in the slightest, never draw. And this was an angle that you couldn't even begin to lose yourself in. Just terrible overall. Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon vs. Shawn Michaels and 'GOD'. The pre-match was terrible comedy that only someone living in their own little world could come up with and think would mean anything. Making the match No Holds Barred was a great way to steal heat from the main event, the match that IS meant to draw, because it allowed this match to do crazy shit to make the crazy shit in the main event less special. Then again, this company is now solely the vehicle for the ego of two people, one of whom owns it, and the other person being someone who will own it. The match itself, when not hampered by the terrible 'God' comedy, was decent garbage fare until the nonsensical ending, and, unfortunately, it looks like this crap has still got a way to go before it ends. The main event was a classic example of the guy getting put over the most not the guy winning the match. Cena may have won the match but it was, as usual, Hunter getting put over strong, both with the blade job and by leaving everyone, including the referee, laying. As is standard for Cena matches, the reactions were mixed and very strong, and the idea that some people have that Cena is only getting 'X-Pac heat' was proven to be laughable. Overall, Backlash was a decent PPV, but not worth the $34.95 that some would have paid for it, and with how the main event got devalued as the event drew closer, I don't see Backlash getting anywhere near the buy rate that you know WWE will expect it to get.

I liked the PPV. MOTN for me was Christopher Daniels vs. Low-Ki/Sen She, with the NWA Title match and main event coming in close. Joe vs. Sabu was disappointing considering who was in it, but with Sabu having a broken arm it was probably as good as you were going to get. The opener was really good, I skimmed the arm wrestling and skipped over the Anthem match entirely. The six-way elimination cage match was acceptable, but wasn't anything you'll remember next week, outside of the shooting star press off the top of the cage by Chase Stevens.

Well, I'm shocked that Meltzer is advocating Flair fighting for the title at Vengeance -- not just fighting for the belt but WINNING it. I don't care if the PPV is in Charlotte. Flair wrestling for the title and winning it in the Main Event is counterproductive and senseless. The exact wording for that part is: "I'd think Vengeance would be best served headlined by Flair challenging for the title" Meltzer isn't advocating Flair winning the title, just that it's possible because it's easy booking due to the win giving the PPV a happy ending. As for Flair getting a WWE Title shot in the main event, it's fine for a B show like Vengeance, because you're not giving away a major match and the story of Flair getting that one last shot at the title is something best used on a B show rather than a major one like Summerslam.

WWE cannot do anything to OVW apart from stop dealing with them. They don't own OVW in any way,

From this weeks Observer:

Domestically, it's way ahead of the Rumble. The gross was $19.4 million.

Not sure it's been posted already, but the latest estimate on buys for Couture vs. Liddell III is 400,000.

When it says: and that it: It seems like it has to be the drug policy.

From the Observer thread: From the wording, it sounds like Orton violated the drug policy. If that's the case, then he probably smoked or snorted something out on the open.

The one major problem that could make building to Angle vs. Batista at WM 23 difficult is that Batista has been shown to be physically fragile, not to mention he'll be coming back far too early which means even more risk of him getting injured, and Angle himself is on borrowed time. At least with Angle vs. Lashley getting built to you've got a better chance of one half of the proposed main event not falling apart at any moment.

On WOL over the weekend, Meltzer mentioned that one of the ideas for a top Wrestlemania match next year is Kurt Angle vs. Bobby Lashley.

Scherer put out a sheet called The Wrestling Lariat, though it was often referred to as 'ECW Weekly' due to it's heavy focus on ECW. He's not very credible, and used to be part of the spyware-fest that was 1Wrestling.com before starting up his own spyware ridden website.

A more complete version of the Orton news in the Observer: From the way the bolded part is written, it sounds like Orton violated the company drug policy.

I'd go with Edge vs. Foley too. I tried watching Angle/Taker from No Way Out after reading all this praise it got, but I fell asleep half way into the match. And ignore JoeJoe.

“Would somebody stop the damn match! Enough's enough” JR was also on the top of his game calling Ron Simmon's WCW Title win over Vader and Benoit's Wrestlemania World title win.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Every top heel in the NWA. The height of Dusty's ego was in 1986-7 when he was part of almost every angle involving a top heel in the NWA. Dusty just had to show his face non-stop. Hunter vs. Shawn. This was an incredibly overrated program that was kept going and going for all the reasons that have helped turn WWE into a personal vehicle for two people. The only good match Hunter and Shawn ever had was at Summerslam in 2002, but it doesn’t stand the test of time and it’s not like the match was a decade ago. And don’t think we’ve seen the last of it; you know both men are going to want to have a Wrestlemania match together so this feud that will never die but should have died will come back to haunt us once again.

The problem with that idea is that you're forced into having a draw or some other non-finish. Danielson, as ROH Champion, isn't about to lose on a PPV, and Daniels isn't about to lose a non-title match to someone who isn't sticking around. And even if Danielson did come in to TNA for a while, he isn't going to do jobs while still ROH Champion. I'm completely aware of that, I'm just saying Dragon would be the closest realistic name to matching Liger to the market they were looking to attract. You know, my scenario assumes Daniels is X-Division Champion going into the PPV. If he isn't, and he very well might not be, then they could have Daniels vs. Danielson and build to a rematch if Danielson is able to come into TNA for a run. The alternate scenario assumes that Joe would be champion defending against Sabu... it ain't happening. They've talked about Joe vs. Sabu as Joe's first match 'outside the X-Division', so one would think that if Joe is X-Division Champion going into the match with Sabu that it would be non-title. Not that it matters if the match is for the X-Division belt or not, because I don't see Sabu winning anyway.

The problem with that idea is that you're forced into having a draw or some other non-finish. Danielson, as ROH Champion, isn't about to lose on a PPV, and Daniels isn't about to lose a non-title match to someone who isn't sticking around. And even if Danielson did come in to TNA for a while, he isn't going to do jobs while still ROH Champion. I'm completely aware of that, I'm just saying Dragon would be the closest realistic name to matching Liger to the market they were looking to attract. You know, my scenario assumes Daniels is X-Division Champion going into the PPV. If he isn't, and he very well might not be, then they could have Daniels vs. Danielson and build to a rematch if Danielson is able to come into TNA for a run.

The problem with that idea is that you're forced into having a draw or some other non-finish. Danielson, as ROH Champion, isn't about to lose on a PPV, and Daniels isn't about to lose a non-title match to someone who isn't sticking around. And even if Danielson did come in to TNA for a while, he isn't going to do jobs while still ROH Champion.