cabbageboy

I think one important thing needs to be said: These smark crowds are NOT the traditional crowds. These crowds go more in line with the fringe ECW type crowds, those that will not be told who to cheer for, who to boo, etc. Cena got booed by a very fringe Chicago crowd...would the reaction have been the same in St. Louis (which actually is a very traditional wrestling crowd)? I doubt it. Traditional crowds are those that grasp simple concepts like heel and face and react accordingly. Cena has mostly gotten booed by vicious crowds in the northeast or the northern midwest areas like Chicago. He got a positive reaction in the south, and I would bet anyone he gets a very good response from the Rupp Arena crowd at Backlash.

I've commented on this in the past, but on SD Cena had the US title and was going against guys who had no credibility. I mean let's face it, Kenzo Suzuki? Rene Dupree? Carlito when he debuted? Orlando Jordan? Hell, his most credible opponent was a heatless Booker T. The one time they tried something a bit different was that brief time when RVD was toying around in the US division. Anyone remember the interaction where RVD did a pseudo heel turn and nailed Cena with a stiff kick, laying him out? It was very odd, the crowd had no idea how to react to it, so it was dropped right after. Even JBL in the world title feud...the guy had no credibility. No one would cheer him over Cena. The biggest mistake was trading Cena over to Raw. He actually has to go against guys with actual fanbases, like Jericho, Angle, HHH, etc. The one thing that hasn't happened to Cena yet is there hasn't been a time when another face was clearly outpopping him in a match. All of these situations have been a certain heel who has a fanbase getting the crowd on his side, while Cena gets booed. I wonder what would happen if Cena was in a match with another face (like RVD)? How would they react to Van Dam being clearly more popular?

I don't really see how on earth HHH could break Sammartino's record, since he only held it twice. And there's no way HHH would get the title for about 8 years. It really makes no sense for RVD to job at that PPV. I mean good grief they have Vengeance right there 2 weeks later if they just want to give him a token title win...SummerSlam is also fairly close if Vengeance is already booked. HHH already sorta eliminated RVD from the Rumble (it was him and Rey) as well as beating him in the WM tourney finals. If he's not willing to put the guy over in front of the ECW crowd--in a match that does him no harm since he'd likely get it back--then he truly is a piece of dogshit. Seriously, this would draw the wrong kind of heat. Big time. As in "I never want to watch WWE ever again" kind of heat.

Well, the one thing that makes me feel relatively good about ONS is that Heyman is booking this again, with Vince just doing a token overseer job. If I recall Vince had basically no input in the first show. Somehow I just can't see Heyman booking Van Dam to job to HHH/Cena/Edge at that PPV. I'd think Vince would know that going in. They almost have to send that crowd home happy, I think they would riot if Van Dam jobbed. Not to mention if RVD jobs there it basically kills any future ECW PPVs, future DVDs, and his career. They have to bite the bullet and give him the title there, even if it's just a 2 month title reign till SummerSlam. Keller and Meltzer are at odds when it comes to Cena and HHH and their respective roles. Meltzer says it is now Vince's goal for Cena to be a face, while Keller says they want to turn him heel and may use the ECW PPV as a catalyst. Personally I'd go with Cena/RVD. With HHH involved you just KNOW he'd try to get out of jobbing at the ECW PPV, even though it's 100% the right thing to do and Van Dam has put him over numerous times. I don't think there would be the kind of politics involved with Cena, and his reaction from the ECW crowd would be priceless.

I don't get RVD's placement here. I mean he actually beat Shelton in the MITB match and Benoit jobbed at WM....how is he below either of those guys? And no, being IC champ doesn't entitle Shelton to shit. Hell, RVD was #9 a few weeks ago after he jobbed in that IC match to Shelton.

I wonder, do you think this is a legit changing of the guard in the SEC? Florida has all the tools necessary to repeat next year and as long as Donovan stays there he can build on this and keep going. The last serious threat to UK in the SEC was Arkansas under Nolan Richardson, but he was already on the downtick of his career once the whole Williamson/Thurman group left.

What I meant was Orton is like Nickolai Volkoff or someone, just a bizarre HOF choice that really had no place being there if it was a REAL Hall of Fame (he was likely inducted due to his boy getting pushed). In baseball terms Bob Orton was pretty much a career .250 hitter. Competent journeyman who was a toady, but not someone people would pay to see. Davey Boy Smith? In one of the best tag teams of the 1980s with Dynamite Kid. Former IC champ, first European champ, had another brilliant run with Owen in 1996/97, not to mention the Hart Foundation of 1997. Oh, and he drew the biggest crowd in WWF history (80,000 for SummerSlam 1992, if you believe WM 3 only drew 78,000 legit).

Hawk, sounds like a good angle to me. Anything to get Albright back to being himself. As far as Dalip Singh goes, I'm not even going to bother trashing him. I doubt he'll last all that long, just show up for his hideously bad UT feud and then job, then he'll be gone. The only guy who has ever feuded with UT in one of these freakshow feuds and NOT gotten released was Kane. At least this UT/Henry/Singh stuff might produce some hilarious wrestlecrap moments. I remember a match I saw on WWE 24/7 with Bob Orton vs. Tito Santana, from Prime Time in 1986. It went to a 30 min. draw. Orton spent half the match putting a chinlock on Tito. So if you wanna know where Randy got it from....

Well let's face it, last night wasn't a real good show to judge Rey's reactions. Going against Orton he was obviously going to be cheered, though I did see about 10 goofs in the 4th row or so that were cheering Orton. Much like with Kevin Nash in 1995, they'll put Rey in matches where he can't help but be cheered. Who would cheer for Mark Henry?

Hell, if they push Harry at least that's one rookie push I'd like to see. Davey Boy was always one of my favorite wrestlers and I would have liked to have seen him get that elusive world title. Unlike Orton, at least Harry's dad actually was a legit HOF level guy, not just some toady for Race, Piper, Adonis. I'm glad to hear he got signed though. Would you believe my dad has been asking me about Harry Smith ever since they did the Confidential piece when Bulldog died?

I have no idea why Brent Albright is now Gunner Scott. Such an out of nowhere jobber sounding name, which sucks since I think he could get over. He's doing solid work in OVW now with their title, feuding with CM Punk and carrying his grandpa's belt to beat people. God I am so glad Orton is being suspended. I don't think I can take much more of this guy's boring as fuck matches. The guy has regressed so much as a worker that he actually seems to believe using a headlock for 3/4 of a match constitutes actual offense. The strange aspect of the WM match was people saying the match was way too short. If anything the shorter time gave Orton no time to screw around with his boring headlocks, and it made for a better match. When I see Orton nowdays I can't help but think of something in Foley's book about his ECW tenure. When Foley was feuding with Dreamer he did an angle where he'd forsake hardcore wrestling and did nothing 10 minutes of headlocks. He was flat out TRYING to suck by doing this, bear in mind. Orton is doing this same stuff and is trying to be taken seriously, without a hint of irony.

Considering Rey is on SD how do we really know what his reactions are like? They can easily pump in the canned crowd heat on the taped show. The better way to know is to read the spoilers and house show reports and if several mention "Rey is getting booed" then it's very likely that is the case.

The thing is though, the whole Austin/Bret double turn wasn't so much due to the crowd...it was due to the booking. I don't think Chicago hates all faces and cheers for heels. The fans only boo the faces that they don't have much respect for. You know, like Greg Gagne or Cena.

Oh God, Dawber would be priceless as Drew Rosenhaus. People on here act like it's a bad thing to be a spot wrestler. I ask you, which will get a guy more over with a crowd: Doing a plancha into the 5th row or doing a pro wrestling imitation of amateur mat wrestling? Ironically, that's the main thing Shelton has going for him that Haas doesn't. The ability to bust out that big money spot. Haas is like watching Val Venis or someone...competent but no real standout moves. Someone like RVD can do more than the spots, it's just when he has 5 mins. for a match with Trevor Murdoch there isn't time for much beyond "Rolling Thunder, split leg moonsault, 5 Star Frogsplash." Just take a look at some of the Lynn ECW matches, with all the intricate chains of moves and counters. There's actually psychology there from match to match, but since it's not the "Oww, you worked over my leg!" type of psychology it flies over people's heads.

How can you not know Lance Russell? (But then I'm from Louisville, which is old school Memphis territory)

I think The Terminator was in fact a film done by Hemdale, which I don't guess is considered a major studio. It's hard to exactly know what is an indie film. I seem to recall Sideways being some branch of Fox...is this really indie? I thought Lost in Translation was some branch of Universal?

Rey isn't getting Cena type reactions at the moment, but he really needs to move away from this Eddie exploitation before it does start to get bad. With Eddie's death I had in mind something like Benoit winning the title at WM and dedicating it to Eddie. Something more low key and believable than Rey's incessant Eddie pimping, Orton's antics, and the like. Also, Benoit is simply viewed as a more credible threat than Rey. The longer Rey holds the belt and does a James Bond act to retain, and says stuff like Eddie is helping him win....the worse it's going to get.

Here's one: RVD vs. Jerry Lynn at the ECW Arena, TV title match. It was on a TNN show. This would be one where Lynn's ribs were injured, he feigns leaving for a bit, then comes back. Great match and the crowd was in a frenzy.

I've said it before, but Orton is the definition of a guy who would have gotten released 10 years ago (might have even wanted his release). The way he got buried in early 2005 was similar to Kevin Nash in early 1996, but the thing is Nash was leaving for WCW. For all of the Orton talk, he really only had a brief period where he was ever even slightly over. And that was with Foley killing himself to get Orton over and Benoit jobbing clean to him. People talk about HHH and UT burying Orton, but what exactly was the alternative in either case? Orton's initial title reign was lousy, his face turn ill conceived, so they jobbed him to HHH. I don't see how Orton's title reign would have worked in any case, unless HHH had agreed to turn face himself and let Orton lead Evolution (as if that would happen). Orton though? At this point he just needs to be released. There's nowhere you can really go with the guy. He has now jobbed twice to Rey in clean fashion, jobbed to UT a bunch of times, he'll likely get waxed by Angle next week. Hell, Benoit even beat his ass a few times around the Rumble. Also, since his return around SS time last year Orton has gotten much worse in the ring. It's almost like he's too afraid of getting hurt again, so he just does nothing but boring headlock spots for 10 mins. Let's say they reinsert him into the main event once he returns from the suspension. Why? There's no interest in it. He's been jobbed out too much.

I watched the WM 3 way, and yes Rey got booed noticeably. Angle got cheered, Rey got booed, and Orton got his usual jack shit reaction. This isn't shocking. History has shown that whenever Rey gets pushed beyond what he is capable of people turn on him. It happened in WCW circa 1999 when he beat guys like Bigelow and Nash and did the whole idiotic Master P angle. And to be honest, there's something that's quite frankly smarmy about Rey. Let's face it, in the past year he's used his son in a wrestling angle, used the death of his best friend to get himself over, etc. Add this to him being 165 lbs. and 5 ft. 3 and it's not hard to see why a backlash is inevitable.

I actually think Cena will simply retain here. As I've said, they cannot even dare to job RVD out at One Night Stand for a variety of reasons, so he has to get some kind of run with the title. In fact there might be a very ugly situation with Heyman and the other ECW guys if they were going to job RVD there. I am calling Cena beating Edge, but not HHH. That way you can keep the HHH/Cena feud going to Vengeance for a HIAC match, RVD could defend vs. Edge or Shelton (maybe both?). Then at SS you can go in a variety of directions.

Why are they so hell bent on pushing Orton? This latest infraction only adds to the reasons not to push Orton. That column is getting bigger and bigger. What's on the other side? I rewatched the SD 3 way from WM and Orton literally had no heat. Think about that. Of all the major matches at WM virtually all the participants had some sort of heat (even Matt Hardy got a slight "Hardy" chant). Orton literally draws no reaction. I guess the point is, he's seriously not over, for the most part his matches are snoozers full of restholds, he has no charisma, no mic skills, and add to it he's suspended for being some manner of dumbass. So why push him?

Honestly I don't know what you do with Cena. There's no need turning him heel...most crowds have done that for them. It'd almost seem forced now if he DID just do an ill explained heel turn. What's he going to do that'll get him more booed that he already is? Attack HHH with a sledgehammer? Hit Lita? He's feuding with 2 heels/tweeners, thus it's not like he can attack a true blue face and turn heel. As far as RVD goes, Cucaracha the wheels are in motion now and cannot be stopped. As it is now he's really by default the most over face on Raw. Have some of his matches been bleh since he's returned? Of course. You try getting a **** match out of Gene Snitsky or Trevor Murdoch. That said, in addition to the MITB RVD has also had the following good matches: Carlito in the tourney, the tourney finals vs. HHH and Big Show, the Shelton/Flair/RVD 3 way. I'd like to hear what good matches HHH, Edge, and Cena have been in from the Rumble-Mania period. In terms of the promo last night, it did a good job of doing what it needed to do. It alluded to Van Dam cashing in the MITB in an "extreme" manner, which of course means the ONS PPV. It made me really want to see him cash it in and win, and judging by the crowd's pop for the "extreme" bit I think they know where it's headed too.

Rondo going pro would be such a joke. The guy has zero jump shot, shoots about 50% at the line, and half the time is quite turnover prone. I'm baffled as to how he could be any sort of lottery pick. I think UK can get another big time coach, unlike IU's strange hiring of Kelvin Sampson. At this point though they'd be better off just hiring a midmajor coach rather than keeping Tubby much longer. UK is just flat out stale and the longer they keep Tubby, the more irrelevant they become. If Tubby simply left on his own accord and went to the NBA there wouldn't be an alarming backlash from other coaches like with the IU situation (Knight firing, Mike Davis never being accepted, etc).

Edge isn't going to win the title at Backlash. If anything he seems like the blatant guy they'll put in a 3 way to job out in order not to job the guys they want to protect. I actually think Cena will retain at that show by beating Edge, thus they can keep a HHH/Cena feud going with the obligatory HIAC match at Vengeance. I'm telling you, at ONS II they have to give Van Dam the title. It makes no sense not to, since if he jobs there it'd kill his career, it'd kill ECW as a brand name for future DVDs and PPVs. And yes, I know WWE has always cut RVD's legs out, but this is the one time where it'd actually hurt them business wise to do it.