cabbageboy

I think that Foley/Sting match from Beach Blast 1992 was actually on the Gulf Coast in Mississippi. In Foley's book he joked the actual venue was nowhere near the beach. Anyway it was curious that they put the belt on him tonight, ending what may well have been Sting's best run ever with a world title (it's either that or the aforementioned 1992 run). This was a decent show tonight but after some stellar build over the past few weeks on TV I expected something a bit more. The crowd was strangely dead for the most part, especially for a Philly crowd. They came to life for certain spots and matches, but it's like the wrestlers had to try anything to get them to pop. Anyway, after this PPV I'd expect Foley to keep the title until the KOTM match. Can't imagine him winning that one.

I voted for Hogan. It's hard to compare but quite honestly how much of Austin's run found him as THE unquestioned #1 guy on top? Hogan was the man from 1984 to 1991 with some forays into Savage and Warrior tossed in. But Austin? He had the overarching feud with Vince and during that the feuds with guys more or less on his level (UT, Foley in various gimmicks, HHH, etc.). To me, Austin's time as the top draw was basically from WM 14 through SummerSlam 1999. Not exactly a real lengthy run on top compared to Hogan.

Here are some predictions: East: Cleveland over Detroit in 5. Pistons can get 1 game at home but let's quickly get rid of the Pistons and move the Cavs on to something bigger. Boston over Chicago in 6. Even without KG I think the Celtics win this series. The Bulls are just....mediocre. Lots of mediocre teams in the East after the top 3. Orlando over Philadelphia in 5. I like the Magic quite a bit, though not sure this will be a mega breakout year. Miami over Atlanta in 7. The Hawks are probably a better overall team but not by much. Not enough to counter Wade in a decisive game 7 if it comes to it. West: LA Lakers over Utah in 5. This series is getting an amusing amount of analysis on here. But why would anyone think the Jazz could WIN this series? That 6 game loss last year to the Lakers when they were actually a better team with a higher seed? Lakers will take the first 2 in LA, split in Utah, finish it back in LA. Next. Denver over New Orleans in 7. I've never been a big Chris Paul fan going back to his days of hitting Julius Hodge in the nuts. This is a close series so when in doubt go with the home team to win it in game 7. San Antonio over Dallas in 6. The Spurs are without Ginobili but the Mavs just don't seem to have it this year. If Dallas actually beat the Spurs in the first round I'd be surprised. Not shocked, but a bit surprised. Portland over Houston in 7. Home court is key to this series since the Blazers are excellent at home and it's hard to imagine the Rockets taking one there. The Rockets never get past the 1st round these days.

That was one of the better TNA shows on Spike TV last night. They did a very good job building up several matches (the Wargames style match, Sting/Foley, Dudleys/Beer Money). The Daniels return was really good stuff that allowed Angle to get a cheap win and his team the advantage without doing any damage to Daniels.

The WWF has never really been a good place for Japanese wrestlers who can't speak English on the mic. It was the case of wrong place, wrong time. If he had ventured into WCW a year later he would have gotten over.

Yeah I remember it initially because Rob Van Dam turned 33, so there was a thread up saying "OMG, he's now 33...he's out of his prime!" Anyway for a serious answer there is no real prime years. Ric Flair was at his peak as NWA champ in his mid to late 30s, and his best year came when he was 40. Bret Hart didn't even get the WWF title until he was 35.

Yeah, WGN not being in HD is frustrating. I have Insight cable, but here WGN is not on the current HD package. It is in some other Insight markets though (Columbus) as channel 940, but here there's a space between TBS at 939 and FX at 941. The show was decent enough. Finlay/Christian was a very good match but the other 2 had such silly finishes that it's not worth going out of your way to see. They had a debut show with a countout and DQ, though in both matches those finishes made some sense I suppose.

Yeah I don't recall Matt screwing over Jeff back then at all. I do recall their botched 2001 feud however. Matt is a decent goofy heel but he just doesn't have enough on the mic to get over as a serious minded heel.

Am I the only one who doesn't think Lil is all that horrid? Simon's trashing is hilarious and she isn't great by any means, but I haven't found her intolerable.

Hold up, why would Ziggler beat MVP and then be drafted to SD? Shouldn't he stay on Raw to now feud with MVP since Porter was drafted to that show? I would assume they are finishing off the current set of storylines going through Backlash and then after that show the two rosters will drift back into separate shows.

Hmm...are you sure? In Foley's book he mentioned that Dusty was still technically the booker in WCW circa 1992 but that Watts was basically running everything. I don't remember a mention of Ross on the creative end.

Yeah, for a show rumored to be depleted by the draft SD turned out pretty well all things considered. They don't have a world champ right now though, but something tells me that will change at Backlash. Either Edge will win the belt from Cena in the LMS or Punk will cash in the MITB against the battered winner. Perhaps he'll screw Edge over again?

Considering he had to call a PPV like this one, can you really blame Heenan though?

I think Flair was still in "retirement" at that point so he might not have been on TV much. He showed up in drag at the next PPV, Uncensored. This PPV is worse than that Uncensored, which is at least hilariously bad. Roma basically went against the booking of the match. He was supposed to be there to make Wright look good, put him over, etc. Instead he dominated the match, humiliated Wright, and the ref actually counts 3 even though Roma might have kicked out.

Yeah Anoop is likely gone next week unless he wows everyone. I can't help but think Scott could have had more of a career 30 years ago when white bread singers like Christopher Cross were on the charts. He's total late 70s/early 80s soft rock.

Oh, I'm not even badmouthing Hogan's 1994-95 work. His feud with Flair is very good stuff and some matches in the Vader feud were adequate (and also drew fairly well for that time). My problem with Hogan's initial run was that he brought a bunch of washed up WWF cronies from the 80s with him, and it really hurt WCW's undercard. By the time Nitro started in Sept. 1995 they signed a bunch of different guys and the midcard improved a ton. Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, etc.

1994 was the tale of two years for WCW. The first half that was pre Hogan was solid stuff, with the SuperBrawl, Spring Stampede, and Slamboree PPVs. Once Hogan got there though I really lost all interest in WCW, especially after Halloween Havoc when Flair lost the retirement match. It went from a legit different promotion to a goofy revival of 1980s WWF.

Oh lord. I bought an old rental tape of this some years ago from a store that was going out of business. The main event being somewhat decent saves it from those "Worst PPVs ever" lists. Otherwise seeing Roma deep six his own career is the most notable thing on this show.

Yeah, Cena bashing is outdated. At this point I don't care about him either way. Though I wonder if enjoying seeing Cena get his ass kicked means he's doing something right. As in you're not supposed to want to see a babyface get his ass kicked.

This show is basically a lame duck show before the draft on Monday, so it doesn't really matter that guys are all over the other show.

Yeah I enjoyed most of the show tonight, especially the fun 10 man tag. Who knows how long this Steamboat comeback will last, maybe he'll face Jericho at Backlash and then go back into retirement on a relative up note. This might sound silly but why is Vickie making all of these pro Orton stips? Besides the typical "Oh, she's a heel GM" crap. On SD she was mostly impartial on non Edge/La Familia matters, so why does she care about HHH or Orton? When I heard her say the title is on the line in that 6 man tag I had bad flashbacks to KOTR 2000, where HHH lost the title to The Rock after Vince lost the match. After all the incessant Rock/HHH feuding in 1999-2000 their last blowoff was in a goofy 6 man tag.

What exactly is this rematch clause that Orton has? Since when would a challenger even have a rematch clause? Last night I gave the main event some slack because I was just relieved they didn't put the belt on Orton. But what I don't get is why some people would think this match would be good. HHH and Orton have had matches ad nauseum over the past 4-5 years and there's been exactly one above average singles match (the LMS where Orton won the title in 2007). Think about that.

I actually enjoyed the PPV more than I was expecting given the build. I'm sure Orton will show up tomorrow night on Raw and cut a tedious promo on how HHH used the sledgehammer on him and thus should have been disqualified and per the bogus rules of the match Orton would be the new champ. It's not going to work or anything, but it's the only way to go with it. MITB was far better than I thought it would be, with Kofi in particular having a star making performance tonight. We'll see if they follow through with a push for him, or if he ends up like Shelton (the athletic black guy there to do crazy spots in MITB every year). But wow, the booking here surprised me in a good way. I didn't think there was any way Punk was winning again, though I guess his loss to JBL now makes sense (he lost the IC to get a bigger push). Kid Rock's crap lasted far too long and I wonder if he went over in time and thus the tag match was bumped from the show. He should have been there to do the one song to introduce the women and that's it. Santina was hilarious however, but I wish they had hyped the returning divas more since I didn't know some were even IN the match until the were gone. Jericho vs. Everyone was fun for what it was, with Steamboat popping the crowd with his segment in particular. Jericho winning actually surprised me a bit since I assumed he would beat 2 and lose to Steamboat, but in reality he shouldn't have any problem with the old dudes. Rourke decked him afterwards, but who cares? When JBL was making his "historic win" pronouncements I figured he would end up jobbing out in near record time. Only booking that made sense and it was hilarious. Now he can go back to the booth to replace Taz. HBK/UT was the real main event of the PPV, no real shock there. Everyone I watched with thought for sure that Taker was totally out of it after that crazy dive to the cameraman spot. Just a great match here, a few odd spots here and there, but easily the most dramatic match of the night. Cena/Big Show/Edge was just...bleh. I suppose given the build Cena winning makes the most sense, with him being the only guy who was focused on winning the title. Match was no good though, and really given Show's involvement it had no chance to be decent. There's nowhere especially good to go with Cena as champ, and really there was no resolution to the whole Vickie angle either. HHH/Orton was a very, very odd match. You went in expecting Russo style overbooking with Dibiase and Rhodes, Vince, Shane, Steph and whoever else. And what we got was a fairly straight ahead match with maybe 1 ref bump. Probably a little better than the other title match, but not anything worth writing home about. Still, with a mostly clean finish and HHH getting a rare WM win (first since 2003) it was a bit better than I thought it would be.

Windham never quite had that big run as a top guy so no he's not really an all time great. He was very good for a few years in the 1980s but then he had that bizarre, aborted WWF run in 1989. And truth be told once he got hurt in 1993 he never was really the same. He's a solid US title guy or a tag champ, but never quite has the charisma on the mic to be world champ.

Just wondering but what exactly is Samoa Joe trying to be right now? Is he seriously supposed to be a top face, going around with a tribal knife kidnapping and torturing people? Is he a brooding anti hero? Honestly what is the viewer supposed to think of this guy?