Hunter's Torn Quad

How the PPV actually turns out depends on who wins out between Kevin Dunn and Paul Heyman. According to Meltzer, Dunn is making the same pitch that he did to kill the Invasion angle, that being that "These aren't our guys, so why should we make them look good ?"

Mankind dropped the belt to Hunter the next night because they wanted Hunter to have belt at Summerslam, but had to put it off, but they didn't want to put it off for long, so they did the title change the next night. In WWF's defence, they only knew that Austin wouldn't be at SurSer about a week or so before. Sure, they could have done more once they did know he wouldn't be able to wrestle, but for most of the build up, everyone thought he would be there.

If Austin had genuinely not wanted to put over Hunter, it would have come out long ago, if only when everyone and their mother was looking to make Austin out to be the devil for hitting Debra. And Austin at one point didn't want to do anything with Hogan, but they long ago cleared things up, and he's fine with it.

At least we didn't get the Mankind proposing to Rock thing. I dread to think what that would have done, and would have been claimed off of it.

The points remain that Austin NEVER refused to do the job, and HBK still isn't in a position to have a go at anyone for refusing to job.

Where did I say it was a good segment? Where did I say you did ? And I don't think anyone with a brain said it got a high rating because it was good.

Mankind was put in the mix because Austin was banged up, and it was felt that that would mean he and Hunter would be unable to have the ****+ match that was expected. HBK's comments got him both heat and derision, because it was felt he was the last person who should have a go at anyone for not wanting to do a job.

For the record, Austin never refused to put Hunter over at Summerslam in 1999.

You're probably one of the few people who think that the TIYL number wasn't a train wreck deal.

He can speak limited English.

The TIYL was the highest rated non-match segment on Raw. I believe it was 8.25, or something like that. TIYL was a train wreck deal. It just never stopped, and people were drawn to it like flies to shit.

Most 'smarks' refer to 2000 as 'the Good ol days', because when they sit down and pay attention to what happened in 1999, it's realised that most of it really wasn't that good.

When they were in WCW, if the jobbers they were facing messed up, they tended to rough the jobbers up for it. Rick also shot on Big Vito, Lash LaRoux and Konnan during the dying days of WCW. He also stiffed Perry Saturn one time during a match they had on Nitro.

I've just seen the fight. It looked like Golota was way too slow, and seemingly unprepared for how fast Brewster was going to be. I got the impression that Golota was almost literally stunned by how fast Brewster was punching at him.

A lot of the 1999 TV was terrible looking back on it. 2 minute matches, inane angles, and so much crap thrown out that almost none of it stuck. Yes, it got them high ratings, but that didn't always translate into money. You seem to have a anti-hard on for Benoit for some reason. If it came down to putting on Benoit, or any great wrestler in the ring for 20 minutes, and putting a fat black guy out there for 20 minutes in a cheesy as heck segment, I'll go with what's realistically most likely to build to something that could draw money.

Or it could just be the train wreck effect. The highest rated Raw segment, not match, was the terrible This Is Your Life segment with Mankind and Rock, and that wound up meaning nothing. Call it a hunch, but I don't think Viscera drawing ratings will translate into Viscera drawing money.

I have never been impressed by any of their matches. Their Raw match is tremendously overrated, and their Three Stages Of Hell and HIAC matches were excruciatingly dull and monotonously boring. Shawn v Eddie would rock, though.

The problem with that is if Shawn really is out for around 8 months, that puts his return near the Royal Rumble, and you know that Hunter is going to want to headline a WM with what, in his mind, is the modern day version of Flair v Steamboat. In any event, they will feud again at some point.

Realistically, the entire drop can't be attributed or blamed on Triple H. There are undoubtedly some who people tune in or out over Triple H not being there, but a drop of this level cannot credibly be attributed to any one single factor.

He should have been wearing a yellow jacket instead. That would have really made it funny.

Obviously, last week was so high because people thought Triple H would show up. This week, it started low because people thought Triple H wouldn't be there, but when the Flair-Batista deal started, it picked up because people realised Triple H would be there. At least, that's how I'm guessing it will be explained internally.

You can like Kurt and still not be able to take him seriously. Everything about him absolutely has relevance to how he is seen now, because it all builds up over time, and paints a complete picture. Looking out of a narrow window might get you a nice view, but it doesn't show you the whole picture.

The main thing that stopped Kurt Angle being able to be taken as a serious threat to anyone was that the goofy Kurt persona he had in 2000 was kept on him long after it served its purpose. He was portrayed as a goof for so long that it became impossible to take him that seriously, because Kurt being a dork was so ingrained in people’s heads. It also didn’t help that certain parties wanted to keep it that way so as to ensure that Kurt wouldn’t be taken seriously as a threat to the top spot. On one Raw around the time the love triangle storyline was about to reach it’s disastrous peak, Triple H opened with a 15 minute speech/angle that pretty well stripped Kurt Angle of his testicles. He buried Kurt as a total pussy, and they aired the video of Kurt crying at the 1996 Olympics, and it was portrayed as Kurt being a total wimp for doing so. Kurt comes out to interrupt, and all the crowd can do is laugh at the guy, but that isn’t the worst part. Fast forward to the main event where Kurt is involved, and he comes out to total silence. Not one person made a noise when he came out. Kurt had been getting great reactions week after week, but in one fell swoop they not only managed to make an entire arena not give one rat’s ass about Kurt, but they successfully buried him as a total wimp, and nobody that should be taken seriously. They tried to salvage things, but the damage was done. Then the next year, they almost had it, with Kurt shown going nuts on people, including an angle where he ‘broke’ Scotty 2 Hotty’s ankle. Instead, he wound up playing a fucking cowboy in those inane skits with Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. Some might have found them funny, but they once again made it totally and utterly impossible to take Kurt seriously, and reduced him to a midcard joke. So when they turned Kurt face to go against Steve Austin during the Invasion angle, people actually wondered why Kurt wasn’t caching on, especially after 9/11, when they did the whole hometown hero angle with him winning the WWF Title. It didn’t work because he’d been portrayed as a dork and joke for so long that this sudden change into a badass tough guy who kicked ass was totally unbelievable, even though Kurt had a long list of amateur credentials and was one of the best wrestlers on the roster. Nobody could get behind a guy who went from being a cowboy hat wearing dork one week to a tough guy badass the next. JBL didn’t get over for months because of the same thing; he did the clean job to Rikishi in the second match on Smackdown one week, and the very next week was put in the top program on Smackdown. Nobody bought him in the main event scene because he didn’t have his credibility built up after being a perpetual lower card fixture. The only difference between Kurt and JBL is that Vince stuck with JBL as a top guy for so long that he wound up gaining some measure of credibility as a top guy.

I think he was wrestling Christian, and his knee went out and they had to end things early. It's serious enough that he was taken off the house show the next night and he was in serious pain. I don't know for sure how long he'll be out, but I have heard that there is a real chance he is going to need surgery, and that could put him out for anything up to eight months, depending on how bad things are. They've written him out by attributing his injury to a concussion he got from getting hit in the head by Edge's case.

Nice to see someone give that pussy Rick Steiner a taste of his own medicine. This isn't the first time Rick's tried to take advantage of people when they're open, and it's about time the coward got put in his place.