cabbageboy

Lesnar always seemed like Bob Backlund on steroids. Batista is the guy who initially seemed like he could rip someone's head off. I quite liked Lashley, but he should have never been on ECW at all. He was hitting a nice stride on SD feuding with Booker, Finlay, and Regal and then they pushed him too hard, too fast in ECW and it caused a backlash.

I was with most of that until the RVD bit. RVD being in the hardcore division was by design, since it showcased all of his wild stuff and got him over. Post Invasion he slipped into the IC division easily enough in time for WM.

One could argue that even at its peak MTV showed a lot of crappy videos along with good ones. But consider where the station used to be circa 1993-95, when they at least tried to focus on more obscure stuff along with the hit videos. It wasn't just the new focus on non music video programming, it was the music that they did have when they bothered showing videos. As someone who likes primarily rock music I had no interest a lot of what they were selling (girly pop, boy groups, rappers, and rap/rock). AMC however is the biggest offender here. From 1991-95 AMC was seriously the best network ever. Great studio hosts like Bob Dorian and Nick Clooney, classic films along with oddball obscure stuff, and they would repeat movies in case you missed something good. However, as the 1990s went on two things really hurt AMC: 1. TCM. Turner now had his own network for old Warner Bros., MGM, and RKO stuff. This hurt AMC mostly due to not having as much RKO, since they never really showed much MGM or Warners. 2. Fox Movie Channel. Once Fox had their own channel for their entire library, AMC was largely shut out there too. At that point it was tough to keep a network going with only old Paramount, Universal, and Columbia. So they started putting ad breaks in the movies. And then it slowly became what it is now, and it's sad to see.

To comment further on the Invasion....no, I don't think that having Hall, Nash, Hogan, etc. in 2001 would have made a bit of difference. Once again, these guys weren't drawing a dime in WCW post 1999, so why would they suddenly draw? Goldberg vs. The Rock did a good buyrate at Backlash 2003, a 1.1. The irony of it is that Goldberg by that point wasn't sabotaged by being involved with the tainted WCW brand name, so he was free to simply be on the WWE roster. Oh, and the WM in 2002 that did have Hogan, Hall, Nash, and Flair involved did a 1.60 buyrate, considerably down from the 2.18 in 2001. The point of all this is that no one wanted to see anything WCW related by 2001-02. Vince quickly realized that people had no use for an NWO Hogan, so he turned him back into his old WWF persona and drew more money with him over the 2002-06 period on and off. It didn't matter who the WCW side had on their roster for the Invasion, because at the end of the day the company was out of business and Vince wasn't remotely going to let a bankrupt company beat his WWF juggernaut. Why would he? Much like Crockett should have done with the UWF, I think Vince should have just let WCW crash and burn. Once they had no TV no one would bother buying them and Vince could buy the library for peanuts, then pick and choose who he wanted from the WCW roster without worrying.

They are hilariously anal about overdubbing these themes. It would be like Rob Halford analyzing these old AWA shows on ESPN Classic and saying "Eureka! The Midnight Rockers were using Living After Midnight so now I need to sue ESPN or Vince McMahon!" It would be interesting to see a court ruling on wrestling promotions using songs. As in when does it go past mere ring entrance music and into actually using the song to draw money. For instance, Chris Candido using Back in Black as his ring entrance in ECW isn't a biggie. But Vince using Highway to Hell for a great video package to sell SummerSlam 98? Different story.

I'm torn on that feud idea. On one hand the previous Sting/Angle match was quite good and this one could be as well if both guys are healthy. On the other hand it's still two old guys fighting each other and doesn't help to get any of the Frontline over at all. But then at this point I've largely given up on the Frontline guys being anything but jobbers, so what the hell.

Yeah, when I mentioned 1995 I meant in terms of how ponderous I found it at the time. 2007 was of course worse due to the Benoit aspect, but the overall shows in 2007 were nowhere near as dreary and awful as 1995. I'll put it this way. I went to a house show at Louisville Gardens in Nov. 1994 headlined by UT vs. Yokozuna in a casket match. The building was sold out for a house show. The next show I went to was a Raw taping in July 1995 and the building wasn't sold out at all.

This whole Rourke/Jericho deal is puzzling. Is Rourke really going to be at WM or not, or is he feigning not being involved until after the Oscars and then he'll do it? To me, once he even mentioned wrestling at WM any shot he had of winning Best Actor went out the window, so he might as well wrestle Jericho. At least they are likely blowing off JBL/HBK at No Way Out instead of at WM. So hopefully we'll get UT vs. Shawn at WM, since right now they really need something decent for the big PPV.

It depends on what you had exposure to on TV. To me 1995 was the most bored I've ever been with wrestling, especially since I didn't get ECW yet. Didn't really know much about Japan stuff either. So it was mostly watching WWF and WCW, and for the most part both promotions were utterly horrible and boring for that entire year.

One wonders with Hogan however....would the AWA have been big enough to sustain his ego? Or would he have eventually left for NYC and the big time anyway?

This has to be Justin Credible. He should have never gotten the title and there was no remote chance he could have drawn money. Diesel could have potentially drawn had it been booked a different way (namely he rolls through the Rumble in 1995 and beats Backlund at WM in a more feasible match). Warrior? He was over enough circa 1989-90 to have been world champ. He had to follow The Guy however and it never quite worked. And all of those WCW guys weren't even champion long enough to qualify as The Guy. But Justin? Heyman tried for 6 months to get this guy over and it was a major factor in wrecking ECW. During his run ECW lost its national TV deal and it was blatantly clear Rob Van Dam should have been the champion.

U of L vs. UConn should be a great game tomorrow. Unlike the Pitt game where I was reasonably certain of a win, this one won't be easy (not that the Pitt game was easy). But the Cardinals need this game to keep up with Marquette. Incidentally, I can't believe how easy of a time Marquette has had in the Big East thus far. Mostly mediocre teams and the somewhat decent teams have all been at home (WVU, Nova, G'Town). Their next 5 have the likes of DePaul, USF, Seton Hall, and St. John's. They better run it to 12-1 or so in conf. because the last 5 is much tougher: at G'Town, UConn, at U of L, at Pitt, Syracuse. Marquette seems like a good team but their schedule has been very favorable thus far.

This was a great game but how can they not even review that last "fumble" with 5 seconds left? It only was the final play of the Super Bowl that mattered. Not like it was important. Even if it simply confirmed the call they needed to take a look. I dunno. On one hand I like the Steelers overall, but I've disliked Roethisberger for years. It was nauseating to hear all these analysts waxing poetic about him for getting a game winning drive against the worst defense ever to grace a Super Bowl. Compare the two QBs in this game...Warner made all sorts of tough throws tonight, going into multiple defenders, etc. Meanwhile the Cardinals left Holmes ridiculously open all night and never thought to double him? Ward was hurting and not especially effective, and the Steelers did nothing on the ground. Has a team ever had as easy of a run to a Super Bowl though in terms of matchups? The Steelers got the Chargers instead of the Colts (a team that beat them). They got the Ravens instead of going on the road to Tennessee (a team that beat them). And in the Super Bowl they got a 9-7 Arizona team instead of either the Giants or Eagles (both teams that beat them).

Again, dropping the ball on the Invasion would imply there was a ball to drop. I personally don't think there was. People need to realize this was not 1996-98 era WCW here. It was horrible, devalued, can't draw a dime 2001 era WCW. The promotion and its wrestlers were anti draws by that point to the point where no TV network wanted any part of a WCW show. So what if they had in fact brought in Hogan, Hall, Nash, Goldberg, and Steiner earlier than before? They still wouldn't have done much aside from Hogan. Steiner would have still sucked, Goldberg would have still sulked and walked after a year, Nash wouldn't have been healthy, and Hall would have been fired for being drunk anyway. Most of those top WCW stars had been in the WWF anyway, hell the entire basis of the NWO angle was that it was the WWF attacking WCW. There were no "WCW brand names" aside from maybe Goldberg, DDP, and Booker. The distinct WCW brand died off around the time Hogan first came to WCW and made it a rehash of 1980s WWF. The biggest missed opportunity of the Invasion era is something people often overlook. Take a look at all the guys the WWF got from WCW in the buyout. Then take a look at how many are still left on the roster now. They took every young guy and buried them all or released them, then look back now and see there's no fresh talent in the pipeline.

Ironically Styles' first night in WWE he called the HHH/Flair cage match and put that one over quite well in terms of the action and storyline. Styles is one of those "you either love him or hate him" announcers. His style was certainly unique though and worked in ECW. Take him out of that milieu and it's an annoying bunch of ranting.

Yeah this was one hilarious show to watch, so much so that I disliked them going back to normal for the last half hour. Steiner's ring intros were priceless, with his usual array of white trash and redneck remarks. Chet Lemon and Black Snow on commentary, haha. That Angle win over LAX though.....just wow. One of the most baffling pieces of booking I've seen in quite some time.

I have to wonder if this Rourke deal is a way for him to cover his bases and still try for the Oscar. Once the Oscars are over then they'll probably pick this up again. If Rourke wins the award then he can go to WM and Vince can hype his show around having an Oscar winner wrestling on his show. That said, it's a bad use of Jericho. He's likely jobbing in the match and like it or not but people do remember a loss to an actor.

I don't get why they would put Kozlov in the EC match. He has yet to be pinned so why have his first loss be one of many guys being eliminated from the Chamber?

From reading this the SD EC match for the PPV looks way more interesting than Raw's version. Does anyone give Rey or Kingston a shot in that match? On SD at least they have HHH, Big Show, Taker along with Edge.

If that stuff is what Torre said I don't see anything especially inflammatory about it. Let's see, in this "3rd person" piece A-Rod is a phony, Brian Cashman screwed him over in contract talks, and Torre feels that the Yankees lost their way after 2001? If Torre does feel this way....so what? He's in L.A. now and obviously has no plans to go back to NY.

Wow. That last segment was truly baffling. Shane should never be actively involved with onscreen feuds since he always ends up killing the heat of anyone he goes against. I'm certainly no Orton fan, but the way that entire end segment was done made him look like a joke (as well as Legacy). It always seems like whenever they get to the cusp of something with Orton they always do something goofy that undermines him. And Steph? Who knows what she is doing in all of this. I can see why she would want to play ball with Orton for the time being due to his threats, but why the hell would she care if two nobody guys like Rhodes and DiBiase walked? Those two guys could fall off the face of the earth tomorrow and 99% of the fans could care less. This angle almost needs to end with Orton playing Bret Hart and they simply screw him at WM and then release him due to his legal threats.

Definitely. I have HD Net as well so this will be a treat. I've been wanting to check out more ROH but wanted them to simply have a TV show rather than just DVDs.

Eh, I don't know if Jackson was being protected as much as he was in the role of the journeyman job guy who was there to have a solid match but end up losing a tough decision. His match with Flair on a recent show was also a good one.

Okay Notre Dame, don't lose 2 in a row at home. Help U of L out a bit and take down Marquette, giving the Cardinals 1st place all alone. Duke/Wake should be a great game this week. If Wake wins would they simply go back to being #1 again, or would UConn become the new #1?

It depends. I was 13 when Raw first started so I wasn't really worried at that point about staying up until 10 (or 11). But even during the old PTW days on Monday nights I could stay up until 11 watching that show. After all, I was in grade school then and that starts an hour later. This wasn't necessarily every night, but I don't think my parents cared about me staying up a little later one night a week.