cabbageboy

Nah, The Rock was pimped as the Future from the get go, so I don't think there's any way he would have been left out in the cold. It was the best thing for the company really, Shawn was so incredibly passe at that point that there was no way the company could rebound with him. He was perhaps too closely identified with the shitty mid 90s era WWF that was getting stomped by WCW. Any Michaels defenders wanna counter this: Michaels won the WWF title in April of 1996. Within two months WCW took the ratings lead and dominated the WWF the entire time Michaels was headlining. Austin finally beats Shawn and sends him packing, then within a month the WWF starts beating WCW again in the ratings. Further, from the 1998-2001 period the WWF was incredibly dominant and popular, then Michaels returns in 2002 and the promotion goes down the tubes again. Some of this may be coincidence, but what does this really illustrate about Michaels, his drawing ability, his acceptance among the casual fans, and his effect on the company?

Well I think it was mainly that Survivor Series was the last really big show of the year so it was the only logical place for Bret to drop the title. Yeah he could have dropped it on Raw in the weeks after it, but why give him all that leeway? I mean yeah Bret had another month left on his contract but that's like saying Taz could have wrestled in ECW after N2R 99 since he had another month left. As I said, Bret seriously overestimated doing 1 job. Yes the Bulldog job to Michaels would hurt Davey Boy's main event potential in England, but that's due to it not really being his last match in the company. If Bret simply jobbed to Michaels at S. Series and showed up on Nitro a few weeks later, would anyone care about the meaningless loss? Would that seriously damage his drawing ability in Canada? I doubt it.

It would help if the Browns were any good though. Oh and Slayer what I meant is that playing 2-3 times a year makes it a little bit watered down compared to a 1 and done rivalry game where you don't get that rematch for a year. The weirdest thing about the U of L and UK deal is that quite a few people in Jefferson County like both teams. Not so much in the rest of the state, though U of L has a few more fans in the sticks since Pitino came to U of L. But here in Louisville? It's likely about 65-35, and I'd dare say 10 years ago UK might have had a 50/50 split.

I always wondered more if Bonnie Bernstein wasn't banging some major TV execs. How else can it be explained that she wasn't a terribly notable ESPN chick reporter and then suddenly ended up with CBS doing fairly major stuff?

It was over for Shawn by 1998. He 100% had to job at WM, there was no issue. And frankly there really wasn't much left for him at that point. I personally think he would have had a quick rematch with Austin and jobbed again, then HHH would snap and toss him out of DX, they would feud, Shawn could put his buddy over, and finally Shawn would have been sent packing to WCW (with a fat contract of course) and he could at least dick around with Bret some more.

I can see both sides of this situation. Do I think Bret should have just jobbed in Montreal? Sure. He was leaving and no one would have given one single bit of shit about it, particularly if he went on Nitro and did an interview saying he basically had an offer from WCW and could have cared less about the match. As far as him jobbing in Canada, hell Bulldog jobbed to Michaels in England while dedicating the match to his dying sister (I trashed Michaels in an Old School thread about this disgrace)....and this wasn't even Bulldog's last night or anything. I believe Bret was mostly disgusted with the idea of jobbing to Shawn, so really Vince could have just done a deal like SS 99 and added a 3rd guy in (UT, Patriot, Shamrock, whoever) and had that guy win. Then you could just job the guy the next night on Raw to Shawn, or hold off till the DX PPV in Dec (which was Michaels/Shamrock anyway). It still would lead to the same Michaels/Austin WM main event, but it wouldn't make Vince the evil heel Austin needed. So thus: Vince HAD to screw Bret over, or at least make it appear that way. It was shocking, it created interest in the fed, and it made Vince the most evil bastard in wrestling. In fact a part of me down deep wonders if it was an angle since most everyone came out of it good: --Bret got a huge deal with WCW making 3 million a year. --Vince created huge interest in his shows, got Shawn over more as a heel in the short term, and himself over as a heel in the long term.

Well it's a really bizarre and tasteless angle because it involves something that in real life would be a very serious situation. I mean it's not like Nash and Goldberg feuding over Scott Hall's contract, something that could be handled within the company. Feuding over custody of a guy's son is something that in no way could ever be settled by having a wrestling match. I mean what, is Eddie winning a match supposed to somehow impress this Mrs. Crabtree into letting him have custody of Dominick? "Oh gee Dominick, your biological dad isn't as much of a jobber as I had anticipated...you can go live with him now."

Yeah but as a U of L grad I gotta side with Alro. UNC/Duke is just so much wanking, it's like watching hours of HHH vs. Shawn Michaels. Yeah the games are good but at the end it's still one team I mildly dislike (UNC) vs. a team I pretty much hate (Duke). Let me put it this way. This past year I feel that UK basically raped, fucked over, whored U of L to the max. They gooned Juan Palacios and managed a rally in the 2nd half and I've had to live with that shit this entire year. There was no rematch in a couple weeks, and then a 3rd in the conf. tourney. I nearly tore up the livingroom and beat the shit out of an annoying mailman (don't ask) after that game I was so pissed off. If Duke/UNC can bring out that much bitterness, that's cool. But I tend to think them playing 2-3 times a year waters it down.

Well, pushing Benoit takes considerable effort. I mean last year he won the Rumble, made HHH tap at WM, made Michaels tap in Montreal, and even then was still getting only decent reactions on a consistent basis. Great wrestler, just lacks a certain charisma. But Raven? How did they screw that one up? The guy could have good matches in either a regular match or a hardcore brawl. He could work the mic, had charisma. Hell he had his own ready made heel faction in The Flock. I'm not saying him jobbing the US to Goldberg was a bad idea but considering Raven got more offense on Berg than anyone till DDP, it should have been played up more.

Rrrsh, yeah but this stuff isn't factual....it was a bunch of guys doing a hack job on Bret Hart, at least if you believe this Hogan quote. The stupid aspect of this is that who would buy a Bret DVD? Obviously big Hart fans. Would those people really want to hear hours of trashing and burying of the guy? The entire point of a DVD retrospective is to praise the guy's career, which makes the Warrior DVD odd as well. What's even more bizarre is that WCW came off looking VERY good in the Monday Night War DVD (so did mid 90s WWF but I expected that). They had hours of legit footage to illustrate WCW's downfall but didn't really mention it, not even the Fingerpoke directly. It was just sorta like "Yeah the WWF got their act together, WCW started to struggle, and thus Vince bought em." If they were willing to make WCW look better than they really were, why would they go to such lengths to bury Bret?

Well, Eli I think could have won the Heisman had Mississippi beaten LSU that year, but the kicker was shitty and missed a couple FGs and they didn't. In regards to Peyton Manning, I think him losing it to Charles Woodson in 1997 is the first time I ever thought "Man, this award is a total joke." Woodson's entire campaign consisted of maybe 5 or 6 Sportscenter moments. Bear in mind that year in the west coast region of the balloting Manning finished behind Ryan Fucking Leaf as well.

I can't stand Adrien Brody, though sadly he actually looks the most like The Joker. That said, Tim Roth would be awesome. Hell, his evil bastard in Rob Roy is the greatest villain I've ever seen. He made me want to beat his ass if I ever saw him on the street.

Well the only guy I can think of is Bret Hart, roughly around the time of his chest plate angle in Toronto. That match if it had been done earlier would have drawn money and people would have believed Bret could win. Benoit wasn't perceived as a serious threat until very late in his WCW run and even then they were going to put the title on him just to appease him. As far as Raven goes, he'd already lost the US title to Goldberg even with all the Flock running in, so I don't think he was a serious threat. I think WCW really missed the boat on Raven, he could have been a really major heel if they had used him right. In fact I remember people in my gym class at U of L buzzing about wanting to see that Goldberg/Raven match on Nitro the day it happened. Hell, on the miserable Fall Brawl 98 PPV the only good match and angle on it was the Raven/Saturn deal. "Break Riggs' fingers, Perry!" "No!" "Okay, you either break his fingers, or I'll break yours." Then Raven and the Flock proceed to crush Saturn's hand and break his fingers. Truly sick shit.

Well in this case it doesn't seem like it's just Vince. It was Rey who apparently thought up this angle and wanted his son involved. Am I the only one who thinks it's a mistake to let Rey reveal his personality in an angle? Think about it, when he's at his most over it's usually when he's just getting in and wrestling. Bischoff also had the idea of taking his mask off to make him more marketable, but that resulted in Rey's most irritating work ever (No Limit anyone?). Now he's showing more personality but also accidentally coming off like a dick, he's become the live action Roadrunner to Eddie's Coyote. His whole spiel making fun of Eddie for not beating him only makes me want to side with Eddie in the end.

Naw man, bring back the teal. I used to like the teal...hell it made more sense than wearing all that black on the jersey in Miami.

I dunno about that really. I think the guy who ended the streak needed to have some kind of prior credibility. Let's say Booker had beaten Goldberg circa 1998-99 and ended the streak....I don't think he would have been really accepted as being someone who could beat Goldberg. Maybe Steiner could have done it? He was sorta starting to get over in late 98 and could have used that win to propel himself. Ironically Steiner DID get a big win over GB in 2000. Note that Goldberg's heat diminished more and more as he jobbed to people, thus showing that he was mostly about the streak and didn't have much beyond that to keep people interested.

I agree on the announcing and will go one further. The announcers make no pretense of certain things being remotely decent or interesting. I mean go back and watch say SS 88...when Ted DiBiase has a typical chinlock on Hogan Gorilla Monsoon speculates that it might be a choke, and thus the audience has a feeling of outrage about it (instead of it just being a boring resthold it takes on some significance and furthers DiBiase's heel persona). Also, people like Gorilla would give insight on a particular move and what damage it is doing to a particular body part. This sort of commentary can aid a rather dull match with basic stuff in it, rather than just doing ho hum commentary and just saying Carlito is doing a headlock instead of explaining WHY he would do the headlock.

I actually wondered if something like this would happen. I mean now for the rest of his life people are going to tease Dominic about this whole thing and think Eddie is his real dad. I wonder if Rey thought about all this stuff and the long term repercussions it would have?

If they were going to do a real tribute DVD to Bret then I'd be more inclined to buy this. But this DVD? It sounds really lame, and I am amazed Bret would even be a part of something that sounds like it's trying to bury him. Burying him and making money off his name, what a business. This almost has to be some sort of angle, not sure how but what other reason could there be?

I'm from Louisville so I just got through watching the show. The Ken Doane angle was ok I guess but man the show ended with a really stunning turn of events with Johnny Jeter flipping out and nailing Cappotelli, who then bled EVERYWHERE. The entire lockerroom emptied, and the show ended with Dean Hill ranting on how sick Jeter was...with blood on his hands.

Who the hell would beat Goldberg if not Nash though? At that point he was really the only guy who had any real credibility, and that was before he became the booker. Everyone else was either already sacrificed to Goldberg or were guys like Booker T. who weren't big enough stars. I think maybe Bret could have ended the streak too, right around the time he did the chest plate angle.

But that's retarded...who in the hell would cheer for a fat fuck like Yoko over a swell guy like Bulldog? Even the dumbest mark isn't that damn dumb. Neither guy was really believable in those roles...Yoko for obvious reasons sucked as a face and Bulldog was simply too likable a guy to be a vicious heel. The 24/7 thing has a Monday Night War series on there where they show a Raw and Nitro per episode to see what each did during a week. Since I've watched it's been early 1996 stuff circa the In Your House from Feb. 96 (which was in Louisville) and Superbrawl 96 for WCW. It should be noted that I thought WCW Sat. Night was still considered the main WCW show circa 1996. As time went on they treated it more like a filler show however.

The Patriot was always a solid, underrated wrestler. I did remember him being on WCW for a little bit of time but didn't remember him with Bagwell. I remember him more on Global back in 1992 or so when he won the title on there (hell Global had a better roster than Raw does, haha). And of course I recall his notable feud with Bret Hart during Bret's anti US days. Anyone wonder what would have happened with The Patriot had he not gotten hurt in late 97 and stayed in the WWF? Would his act have remotely transitioned into the Attitude era, or would he have been repackaged?

Yeah I agree. See, Goldberg losing the streak to Nash is okay in my book, but what happened AFTER that is what was truly awful. He should have simply defeated Nash at the rematch instead of the Fingerpoke taking place. Thus the streak is off his back and he's still 99% dominant. Now, Nash knowing he can't beat Goldberg fairly goes back to Hogan and they reform the NWO and go after Goldberg. Doesn't that make a hell of a lot more sense than what happened?

Eh, it was ok. I'm kinda down on the whole 1995-96 WWF stuff to begin with, but at this point both shows were fairly even. Nitro would have been easily better had they managed a clean pin here and there, haha. Benoit/Macho could be good but it ended in a DQ. Now, by the Summer of 1996? Nitro was kicking the shit out of Raw.