Hunter's Torn Quad

Eddie still is one of the best heels. But as someone said earlier, he's just too good, and nobody wants to really boo him because of that.

More from the Observer site:

I know I'd get into a storyline better if I knew it had some purpose behind rather than being done just to give the wrestlers involved something to do.

Off the top of my head, Dibiase made him pass out to the Million $ Dream to win the tag belts. It's not a pin but, IMO, a submission is even better. Not sure if it was televised on Prime Time or not but Yokozuna pinned him shortly before Quake left the company. Not sure if this is what you're thinking of, but when Earthquake walked out in 1994, they aired clips from a house show of Yokozuna sitting on Earthquake after the Banzai Drop, and talked about it to give the impression that Yokozuna had run Earthquake out of the WWF.

Is wrestling supposed to be something more than creating interesting stories? It does help for things to have a meaning behind them, like maybe it's being done to try and elevate Guerrero back up the card and out of the tag team picture.

Anytime they were in Flair Country, he'd get booed by a good percentage of the crowd. Generally speaking, when they were in typical WCW markets, he'd get a mixed reaction with it leaning towards booing. The funniest part of this was on a Nitro in late 1995 when he was teaming with Sting against Flair and AA in, I think, North Carolina, and they did the spot where Hogan made the tag behind the referee's back, and when Hogan played up to the crowd to get them to tell the referee he had tagged in, the entire front row stood up, waving their hands and shaking their heads to tell the referee that he hadn't made the tag.

Probably had something to do with the revolving door of bookers (that is the guys who put together anything not involving Hogan et al). One booker might have wanted to push him, the next one might not have, and another might not have just because the first one wanted it. The idea never got far enough along to where storyline ideas to get it going would be thought up.

Not sure what Wright was doing there, but there were plans to push Renegade, Gomez and Powers as a pretty boy trio.

If people think the HIAC match was terrible, that's their opinion. The thread is meant to be about facts that people don't remember correctly.

From Meltzer's latest update:

so your saying that TNA should be pulling amazing ratings even though they are on a crappy network. doesn't make sense. I understand that they should be getting better ratings than most of the shows, but saying they are getting horrible ratings is wrong if you take into account the network average. That would make no sense if that was what I saying. Quite how you managed to interpret what I said that way, I don't know. Getting good ratings on FSN is akin to being the finest ice hockey player in all of Ecuador. It look good on the surface, but take any real look and you see that it's really not that big of a deal.

As I've already said, and it seems like I've got to say again, it's one thing to officially maintain that a worked shoot angle is legit while unofficially admitting it's a work, but to keep the pretence up that a worked shoot angle is legit, for the length of time it would need to get over, would cause more distrust and stress among the wrestlers, who already don't believe much of what management tell them anyway. To keep the pretence up that a worked shoot angle is legit, for the length of time it would need to get over, would cause more distrust and stress among the wrestlers, who already don't believe much of what management tell them anyway. Go back to WCW when Eric, Russo, Nash et al were constantly running worked shoot angles on the locker room, and see what it did to locker room morale. Would you seriously want to risk doing that just to try and fool a minute percentage of the audience. It sure worked wonders for WCW. Like I said earlier, officially keeping up the illusion while unofficially admitting it's a work is fine. But to keep up the pretence to the point that you lie to wrestlers for any length of time is just not worth that extra distrust and stress that it would undoubtedly cause. Matt re-signing with WWE wouldn't turn off his fan base if he explained to them that things had been worked out, and it was all in the past. If you don't know what the difference between things working out naturally and things being a work is , then I don't know what else to say, other to once again point out what a mess it would create in regards to distrust and paranoia in the locker room. To try and brush off their concerns as, "Well, if they cared about the business they'd just shut up", is to be woefully ignorant of what such actions would do, for all the reasons I’ve kept trying to point out to you. If anyone still thinks Montreal was a work, then they really need to take a look in the mirror. The only people who think Montreal was a work are those working themselves, so they can convince themselves they've not been fooled and turned into a mark, because god knows a smart fan must never be fooled.

I've never said HBK was never a draw in "“in any way, shape, or form." He's far from the negative draw that his harshest critics say he is, but he's also not big draw that fanboys say he is either. There are worse than Shawn, but plenty better too.

Suck x 3 is still Suck x 3. It doesn't make it any less sucky because there is more of it to go around.

I'd not long ago watched Candido's match in IWA MS at last year's Autumn Armageddon against Danny Daniels, and it was one of the funniest matches of all time. Not for the ring work, which was ok, but for the crazy antics of Candido, Jim Fannin, and everyone else involved. Candido was absolutely hysterical, and was working everyone into a frenzy, and that was without doing anything. For all of his past demons, which he had overcome, Candido was still a great talent, and long before his tragic death, he had never yet reached the heights his ability demanded

When Gibson, and Rikishi, were released, they were both told they'd be re-hired again eventually, provided they didn't work for TNA.

If we're talking about officially maintaining that a worked shoot is a work, while acknowledging off the record that it’s all a work, that’s one thing. But as I've already mentioned, trying to fool the smart fans into thinking a worked shoot angle is legit, which is what true working would be, unless the definition of the word has changed, would create even more stress among the locker room, and that just isn't needed. One of the main arguments against this is that such an angle would undoubtedly piss off Hardy's huge internet fanbase, and Matt isn't considered someone who would do that just for an angle meant to try and fool a small percentage of fans. Montreal was not a work.

The best part about this match is the announcers going quiet when Flair got the pin because they thought the referee had made a mistake, when he hadn't, and it was just that nobody had told them that Flair was winning.

Except that Hardy might really return one day.

While some people may get their rocks off on doing something to try and work smart fans, in order to keep the illusion going, it would require more deception and lying than wrestlers normally put up with, in order to keep the circle of people who know the angle they’re doing is a work so it doesn’t get out that it is a work, that the levels of mistrust and paranoia would get even higher. It’s just not worth the stress it would create among the workers just to try and fool a minute percentage of the audience.

Whether the writers write good television or terrible television doesn't really matter, if Vince likes it then that's what takes place. The writers could come up with the single greatest angle of all time, but if Vince hates it, it won't happen. While there is indeed blame that can shared by all invovled in the creative process, the final blame, or credit, for what makes it to air, lies with Vince.

At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if they hire Shakespeare to write TV, because all the writers do is write what Vince tells them to, regardless of any input they may give.

While Shawn's return did mostly give house show business a boost, he was a negative draw for TV ratings, and his PPV numbers weren't that hot either. Shawn's run on top saw one of the lowest MSG houses of the modern era, the lowest rated Raw in history, and his March to September PPV numbers were all down on the PPV's held during the same months the previous year.

Try not to fall down a hole and snap your neck while on your break Brian.

The fall through the cage. It was planned.