cabbageboy

Basically Steamboat kept that gimmick for the rest of his career in some form. Hell, take a look at the box for Spring Stampede 94, it's him in his goofy Dragon gear. I never opposed the fire breathing and all that, what I hated was them trying to forget he was Ricky Steamboat. It's really a shame they misused him so bad in 91 since he would have been brilliant in the coming years there. He could feud with Flair again in the WWF this time, there were title matches with Bret he could have had, Savage was still around, he could have schooled the up and coming Shawn. It really blows the mind how bad they fucked that one up.

The size of the ring is unimportant. If anything having a large ring is a BAD thing in that it makes the action look so much slower because there is that extra couple feet to run the ropes or whatever. Note how much crisper cruiser action looked in a smaller WCW ring than in the bigger sized WWE ring. That said, the 6 sided ring is just.....lame. I watched some of those FSN shows and thought "What the hell are they thinking having a ring like that?" Pro wrestling = the SQUARED CIRCLE. The ring in my view will ultimately hold back their potential to grow, it's too fringe and strange.

Bischoff wasn't even around half the time by 1999, he was off with his daughter in Europe, or Japan, or dicking around in Hollywood. I think by the time Russo was there nobody really gave a shit anymore, so no one would have attacked him. I think some were likely pissed at Nash during his booking run, but no one ever did much or said much because 1. Nash is fucking huge and 2. The guy is a charmer. How can anyone hate Nash? Hell, I know all the shitty backstabbing things he did while booking and I still like the guy. That takes talent.

Yeah I recall on Summerslam 91 Piper and Gorilla mainly referred to him as Steamboat. It was one of the weirdest repackaging ideas I've ever seen: Repackaging the guy without actually REPACKAGING him. I mean, he had been The Dragon for a long time anyway, it's like they just dropped his name and called him the nickname. That worked wonders for WCW in 2000 (The Franchise, The Total Package). What's wild is that I had actually seen that Smash match before! I think it was on some odd Coliseum tape back in the day. I remembered the match to this day due to Smash getting the sleeper on Steamboat, the ref raises his hand 3 times, Steamboat is OUT, yet he got a 4th arm raise (???!!!) and held it up that time. What in the hell was that?

I have always wondered why WWE never wanted to sign Norman Smiley. The guy was over, had a fun gimmick with the Wiggle, and could wrestle as well. Surely they could have done something with him.

What's funny is that they had guys like JR trashing those crazed, awesome Warrior promos. Meanwhile guys like Jericho, Edge, and Christian thought they were bizarre and yet cool....and I found myself agreeing with them. Once Warrior got away from the ultra weird early characterization he became quite effective on the mic.

I found a lot of stuff said on this DVD to be a load of bullshit. It was truly hilarious to see guys like JR badmouth the Warrior's in ring ability considering they have matches now with two big lugs like Warrior and Herc out there stinking it up and then praise these rookies to the hilt. The Warrior got leagues better from 1988 to 91, he really did. Take a look at his early promos where he ranted and raved incoherently about spaceships and all that crazy shit. Then look at his more coherent interviews when talking about Macho and DiBiase. The sad aspect is seeing how much this Warrior stuff doesn't hold up nowdays. He's very much of his time period, if you see him you'd have little doubt he was around in the late 80s/early 90s. He's certainly not as timeless as Hogan, Savage, etc. Overall I didn't really like the DVD. Yeah he might be a goof but when I was a kid he was still one of my favorites and I didn't really care for him being trashed on this DVD.

In a way Vince is right. I mean of course there was the whole UPN debacle and the terrorists in ski masks, but if Hassan had any real talent they wouldn't have just said fuck it and released him. The character was never going to work because Copani wasn't any good in the ring. The Iron Shiek got over for the reasons Hassan never could: He was authentic, had the (alleged) amateur background, and for the time period backed it up in the ring.

Yeah but that is where it gets really weird. I mean that actually was Torrie's dad in that whole tasteless angle, right? I mean separating truth from fiction is easy enough in situations like the UT and Kane storyline where it is so crazy and sci fi that no one takes it seriously. I doubt many people truly think they are related or that Paul Bearer is Kane's dad or whatever. But the Big Show's dad? Different issue. The Big Show actually IS Paul Wight, it's been mentioned on TV that he's Paul Wight, and it's perfectly plausible that his dad could die of cancer. I never had a huge problem with this angle mainly because the Bossman was portrayed in a highly negative light and Big Show kicked his ass eventually. The times where these angles really are embarrassing is when someone does something bad and is then trumpeted as doing the right thing. Like Viscera squashing Trish because she refused to have sex with him...and then being booked as a FACE?

I wondered why they didn't do this last week actually. I'm glad they just flat out went ahead and mentioned USA on the air because they really needed to. Sure, most people already knew but there might be a segment of the audience that didn't. Besides, who gives a shit what Spike thinks?

I've heard Lashley talk on OVW before and didn't really hear a Michael Jackson voice. Then again he mostly just said brief things like "Doane, you're a pussy" and all that. He's getting over on OVW much like Batista with HHH: He's the power behind the throne, a powerful henchman who has credibility with the audience, although most times Ken Doane doesn't really appease Lashley like HHH did with Batista. I think Lashley can get over, though I haven't seen nearly enough in the ring from him yet to say how good or bad he is. If they push him right I think he could be a solid match for Batista down the road.

I think I read that back in 1993 Raw did a 3.3 on average to WCW Saturday Night's 2.8. Something like that. In other words, they are about the same right now. And yes, I should think anyone would realize that last night's show was a blatant lame duck. It's fairly well known that the USA move is coming and even then they hyped the Homecoming show, giving the vibe that this week was nothing but filler. It was like that lame duck Nitro with Hogan and The Wall feuding before Bischoff and Russo came back.

It's interesting that more people don't really care about the curse aspect of the White Sox. You hear it about the Red Sox and the Cubs, but I never hear anyone ever say "Gee I wish the White Sox could reverse the curse and win the World Series." Could it be the 1919 World Series? Does that still leave a sour taste? I have to admit I don't feel real sorry for them considering if they are cursed it might well be justified. The Red Sox made a foolish business move in selling Ruth, and the Cubs have some goofy goat curse...but the White Sox threw the World Series. Not exactly sympathetic. As far as the Angels' past failures in 1979, 82, 86, and 95....truthfully I don't think many people would care even if they did mention that. The Angels were perceived as a franchise who could occasionally make the playoffs but not much else. In 95 they flat out choked a lead away to Seattle, so it's hard to feel sorry (didn't help the Mariners lost in the ALCS anyway). In 86 all people care about was the Red Sox trying to reverse the curse, so nobody would care about history lessons on the Angels blowing a series lead. And are the 79 and 82 Angels runs even notable really? Correct me on this but wasn't the 79 one Angels/Orioles and 82 Angels/Brewers? I don't think even if Fox had pimped the Angels hard it would have mattered....it's hard to care about a Brewers/Angels series from 20+ years ago.

No offense Porter but did anyone really give two shits about the last non Yanks/Sox ALCS? Wasn't it the Twins vs. the Angels? I'd like to see a ratings comparison between that series and the past two Yankees/Sox series. I think the best series are those that involve the entire country, like the Yankees/Diamondbacks World Series.

The theory is silly because Samuel Jackson is better known than Dave Chappelle. Jackson has been in several movies that have grossed over 100 million at the box office...Chappelle had a cult TV show before flaming out. The case can be made that Chappelle did get Rick James some modern notoriety, but not Samuel.

I'd say the Rock/HHH Ironman is the best I've seen but then again I was at that PPV live. Rude/Steamboat was solid but a couple of things: 1. going 30 isn't as impressive as going 60 and 2. for some idiotic reason the US title wasn't on the line. (Gotta love the Watts era WCW....on a PPV they had great matches with Sting/Cactus and Rude/Steamboat and the titles weren't even on the line)

Nah, we aren't seeing Flair/Cena in a tag match since Cena is preoccupied with Bischoff in that foolishness. Actually I think the tag match will be Flair/HHH vs. Carlito/Masters with HHH doing the "heel" turn and setting that feud up.

That Colts/Browns game was really weird earlier. I mean Manning was on his game for the most part, didn't miss a pass the 2nd half. Dilfer was solid, I bet he only missed 5 passes the whole game. Yet it was 13-6? It could have been a lot worse for the Browns though...the Colts had to kick 2 FGs in the red zone and also just knelt down instead of scoring at the end. It could have been more like 28-6.

Kennedy was a riot on OVW last night, twirling with Dean Hill's goofy mustache and calling Al Snow "Avatar." I think Smackdown is benefitting from some better callups from OVW. They've gotten Ken Kennedy and now Bobby Lashley and Raw has gotten...Carlito and Masters.

GAB is the only one of those that was truly horrid. Both SS and Unforgiven have some decent matches that I'd recommend checking out. GAB is one of the worst WWE shows ever.

No way Boise should have gotten a BCS bid over U of L last year. I mean yeah I know they were 11-0 till the bowl game but U of L beat them in the Liberty Bowl. But Cal? Yeah they got dicked.

The Big East needs a big win, I'm talking WVU over VA Tech level big. I doubt seriously that it'll happen but it would help the conf.'s image. Or USF over Miami, though frankly I think we all know USF got their weird fluke upset win tonight. That said, the answer is not to strip someone of their BCS bid. The last thing college football needs is less power in the hands of less teams. Tonight was just a devastating, program crushing loss for U of L. I mean dear god around here we had all sorts of crazy, ludicrous expectations. Stuff like going 11-0, major bowl bid, and the like. Days like today are why the state of Kentucky will never fully embrace football. UK gets trashed by Florida (no shocker), and then to top that off U of L gets truly disgraced by South Florida. Hell, at least UK got squashed by a GOOD Florida team.

Oh my God. I am so incredibly embarrassed right now. I'm not even mad...moreso just in a state of utter disbelief. How could U of L go from squashing Oregon St. last week to getting destroyed 45-14 by....South Florida???? This was so unbelievably bad. Words can't even describe it. Bear in mind we were picked by 23 of 24 writers to cruise to the Big East title this year, and are now being killed by a scrub like South Florida. The saddest aspect of this debacle tonight is that it's not like USF is going to do anything. Next week Miami will beat the shit out of them 42-3 or something and it's going to make the Big East look like even more of a farce. Another awful aspect is that Louisville isn't really THAT into football to begin with. Hell, it took destroying people by 40 pts. a game last year to get people interested in the team so I can only imagine what sort of damage was done tonight. This was "plane crashing into the mountain" level bad tonight. U of L got exposed horribly and even if we rebound and still win the conf. people will laugh and say the Big East sucks and needs to lose the BCS bid. South Florida really isn't any good particularly and will go on to lose several times...or if they actually DO keep this up the Big East will have the laughing stock of fucking SOUTH FLORIDA in a BCS game. And people will laugh and say the conf. should lose its BCS bid. Hey, LSU...Auburn...you guys still want Bobby Petrino now?

Bonds hasn't failed a test as of yet, and for the most part has been lurking in the shadows this year rehabbing and all that. If he actually failed a steroid test it'd be 10x worse than the backlash on Palmeiro. All they really have on Bonds is this vague cream and clear stuff, which sounds like glorified muscle rub to most people. When people think steroids they think of a guy sticking a needle in his ass or taking pills, etc.

Orlando Jordan has NO reason to be on a PPV title match at this point. I'd put Ken Kennedy in that spot right now. He's at least been stirring the shit with Booker/Sharmell/Benoit.