cabbageboy

Isn't Crush kind of a bland every day sort of thing to copyright though? And yeah I know but think of how much cooler Crush and Wrath sounds rather than the boring Bryan Adams and Bryan Clarke. Couldn't he be called SOMETHING similar? Like Death, or Maim, whatever.

Ok stop and think of that. Bischoff overturns a bad call and HELPS Nash win the title and then the next month for no discernable reason drives a Hummer and attempts to kill him? What possible sense does that make? Say what you want about Russo but at least I put in some of those 2000 and at least I can tell when people are doing heel turns, who is on whose side, etc (aside from the Nash/Goldberg/Steiner insanity described above). I put on some of those 1999 tapes and honestly I have no idea what the fuck is happening half the time. There was some match on Spring Stampede 99 with Benoit/Malenko vs. Raven/Saturn....then by GAB Saturn and Benoit were somehow teaming, Raven was nowhere to be found, the Triad had formed, and I have no idea what Malenko thought of any of it (though I think he did turn heel on Benoit at the next PPV). I mean in 1999 it seemed like Kevin Nash started as a tweener leaning towards face in the Wolfpac, then turned heel with the Fingerpoke, then turned face again with DDP (which was never fully explained as to how either man was the heel or face), then turned heel again when Hogan came back in the red and yellow, retired after losing to Hogan, then came back with Hall as the Outsiders, but they were now faces. What the fuck kind of character consistency is this? Nash was booking and he made himself do all this stuff?

I actually disagree on his assertion that everyone is out there doing pointless highspots. If anything I'd LIKE to see some guys bust shit out rather than this boring as all fuck OVW style that half these rookies use. A crappy match with some wild spots is at least entertaining...the average Carlito or Orlando Jordan match has nothing.

Eh, I have no idea why they would want to do that though. While I'm hardly a Brock mark (in fact those who have followed my posts know I'm quite the opposite) there might be a dozen or so people who wouldn't appreciate that phony story.

I think Theisman comes across as all the more annoying due to McGuire being there. Much like my dislike of Skip Bayless/Steven A. Smith segments, you have two annoying guys at once. At least with Michaels there can be a bit of a contrast, whereas with Theisman and McGuire it was annoying and even more annoying.

Well it didn't say when exactly he was coming back. The Angle/Brock/Big Show 3 way was as good as it was going to get...for those guys involved. Neither Brock or Show really rocks my world to begin with and if I recall Show spent half the match laid out after crashing through an announce table. It's been a while since I saw it though, and I'd had a few at the time. The Angle/Rock/UT 3 way was easily better, though it doesn't really have that utter markout quality that the WM XX match does, what with Benoit making HHH tap out and all.

Idea: Have HHH do something else. If he is at WM going against Cena, he 100% has to job. It might sound goofy but doing this same dreary angle every year is going to get played (HHH as heel champ, jobs at WM to _____, gets constant rematches). There's only so many times you can do it.

Idea: Have HHH do something else. If he is at WM going against Cena, he 100% has to job. It might sound goofy but doing this same dreary angle every year is going to get played (HHH as heel champ, jobs at WM to _____, gets constant rematches). There's only so many times you can do it.

What decent wrestler would do such a gimmick? As far as Leno goes, it was much like the Rodman and Malone stuff, just a silly little one time deal with no harm done. Not like they put the world title on him. It's funny but as much crap as he booked I can't find it in me to hate Nash. He's just one of those guys that is so inherently likable that if he told me to go out and job to the Kiss Demon I'd probably do it with a smile. A born used car salesman.

In a bizarre way I almost hope they stun everyone and have Jericho win the title via some devious means. Cena can get the title back with no long term harm done and it'd do wonders towards re-establishing Jericho as a serious threat.

Well, one big problem is that a round robin tourney hasn't ever drawn the few times in the US it's been done. The previously mentioned AWA series helped kill the promotion, though they were basically finished by that point anyway. From what I have read the AWA team challenge thing was so convoluted and hard to follow that nobody cared who won. Starrcade 89 was the NWA/WCW show that had those round robin singles and tag tourneys. That show tanked big time and led to the ouster of Flair and Ross from the booking committee. The biggest problem with round robin tourneys is one major question: What is really on the line here? I mean the Road Warriors edged the Steiners by 5 pts. in that Starrcade 89 tourney, while Doom had ZERO points. By 1990 Doom held the world tag titles, so there was really no significance to their horrible showing. I don't even remember who won the singles tourney, probably Sting. It isn't a terrible idea, but there'd need to be something tangible at stake (singles winner gets world title shot, tag team winner gets tag shot). Also the rules and point system needs to be clearly understood by the audience.

Perhaps but I don't think the Rodman, Malone stuff really had any long term negative effects on the promotion. And in retrospect, the No Limit feud was at least carried by Hennig's awesomeness and the whole Rap is Crap music video (the No Limit side of things did suck however). I can't defend the Arquette thing though, haha.

My point is that Eddie is going nowhere fast courtesy of this feud. What is he going to do after it? What is Rey going to after it? It's easy enough for Rey to slip into the US division or the cruiser division again, but Eddie is going to come out of this having jobbed umpteen times and have zero momentum. I'm assuming Eddie will just win at SS and that'll be it, but where's Eddie go from there? Dick around with Benoit some more in meaningless (albeit good) matches? Job to Orlando Jordan?

Anyone who wants to defend JBL should try and counter this argument: Would Smackdown have been a lot better had Eddie simply retained against JBL and continued his title run? The answer, unequivocably, would be yes. Besides, if they were going to push some veteran bum out of nowhere, why not push Bob Holly instead? Holly had at least gotten a PPV title match against Lesnar (and was reasonably over in that feud), and he's a better wrestler anyway. I know Holly is a complete cock backstage but does get some sort of reaction from the crowd. The only interesting feud with JBL at this point would be if they brought back Ron Simmons, now bitter that he was fired and his loser partner went on to the title. The matches would suck of course, but at least the feud on paper might be interesting.

Well, I don't get why they did this at this particular point. If all Eddie was going to do was reveal it anyway shouldn't he have done this AT THE PPV??? You know, the show where people had to pay to see Eddie reveal the secret. If they weren't going to have it revealed at GAB, they should have just held off and had Eddie reveal the secret at SS. Giving the secret away on a free SMDN is silly when people bought a PPV to find out the secret and felt cheated when it wasn't revealed.

I refused to watch No Way Out, so what was all that about RVD chants during the cage match? My annoyance at the JBL/UT finish is that it's literally the same exact thing they just did with Orton when he was drafted. Literally the same finish. They couldn't have Orton just come out and attack UT against anyone else or come up with some other way of having Orton piss Taker off? I don't even like the prospects of an Orton/UT rematch anyway...this crap with "He who jobs at WM gets the job back later" stuff needs to stop. They literally traded Angle to Raw so he could job out to Shawn, that is literally the ONLY reason he was traded (evidenced by Angle now dicking around with Eugene). If they do all these Orton run ins just to have him beat UT, what sense does it really make? In theory costing a guy matches repeatedly leads to that guy getting revenge in the blowoff match, but if they want to do Orton/Batista after that he'd have to go over UT in some fashion.

Oh God. What was with Russo's hard on for Tank Abbott? He got relieved the first time for wanting to put the title on Tank, and he wanted him to main Starrcade? Surely that wasn't the title match, but just part of Goldberg's new streak. WCW 2000 stuff is actually kind of interesting in a car wreck sort of way, I'd recommend any of it over the truly dismal 1999 output (aside from Spring Stampede). Say what you want about Russo but at least his stuff is never boring. Shows like that New Blood Rising PPV are jaw dropping even now, the whole crazed "shoot" nature of it being way ahead of its time (does that stuff even HAVE a time?).

Of course I watched ECW, but the whole Raven/Sandman angle wasn't that similar to Eddie/Rey now. See, Raven did a brainwash on Sandman's wife and son and they proclaimed their great love for Raven, while Sandman was devastated. He was never Tyler's real dad or anything. Batista/Hassan and Batista/JBL II are both horrible main events. I think I'd rather just have Batista/UT than either. That baffling thing is that WWE seems completely unable to admit something being a bad idea anymore. I mean yeah they had Mabel win KOTR and get a title shot but at least they merely jobbed him to Diesel and forgot about him soon after.

That said, at least at SS the end is near for the JBL push of doom. He's got to job out severely on that show, there is literally no other option. Seriously, do they not even realize they just did that SAME finish with UT/JBL? For what point, to push fucking Randy Orton again despite his career being for all intents and purposes in the toilet? Seriously, since Orton has been hurt has there been one person on here who has said "Gee, I can't wait for Orton to come back, I really want him to get another push." If they want to do something truly Russo inspired, have Dominic turn on Rey at SS and go off with his "real dad" Eddie.

Speaking of completely off the wall Russo era booking, I actually had the sick desire to watch New Blood Rising tonight. This was the height of Russo's bizarro "shoot" style WCW booking where the announcers constantly waved the format sheet to the camera to insist "This isn't on here, it's real!" There was a goofy Ms. Hancock/Major Gunns mud wrestling match where poor Stacy had a "miscarriage" and they sold it as something real. And of course there was the truly insane Nash/Goldberg/Steiner match where they talked in terms of each man going against the scripted booking of the match! I shit you not: Nash: "I may not be professional out there tonight, I'm going OVER!" Scott Hudson during match: "Goldberg hates Kevin Nash, right before Starrcade 98 Nash got himself on the booking committee and got to end the streak." Midway through Goldberg gets uncooperative with Nash during the powerbomb spot and just walks away, tells Russo to fuck off, and the announcers are like "Oh God, Goldberg is going against the booking of the match, that was the planned finish! Now Nash and Steiner are going to have to improvise a new finish!" It was kinda entertaining in a truly wild carwreck way but can you imagine anyone actually doing something like this?

My friend Chris has this thing for Jillian. I think she has had all sorts of work done though, because I saw her about a year ago at an OVW taping and she wasn't really all that hot. No mole though. I think since then she's gotten implants, either gotten lipo or gotten in excellent shape, etc. By the way, the match I saw was the one with Jillian vs. Linda Miles, the one that got Miles fired. Do they not realize they just DID that same stupid Orton run in finish to a previous JBL/UT match? And further, if Orton thinks UT is going to job to him at this point he's sadly mistaken. No way in hell is UT going to job twice to JBL via Orton's run in and then turn around and job again to Orton.

Say what you want about WCW but at least they didn't try and prove a point with DDP and keep the title on him for nearly a year, despite him not having any semblance of heat. Sound familiar?

Eh, I think they always had something in mind with Batista. They were just forced into pushing him because Orton's heat died a quick death once he was tossed from Evolution. If you note Batista finished 4th in the 2003 Royal Rumble for no discernable reason. Eddie was someone who got pushed because he was flat out 10x better than anything else on the show. I mean so glaringly brilliant that anyone with a brain had to notice.

Well here's one thing I have to keep wondering about with Edge/Lita/Matt/Kane. Why does Edge bother? I mean seriously, isn't Lita just some pussy on the side for him? Why go through this shit with a pissed off ex husband and now a pissed off ex boyfriend constantly wanting to kick your ass? Just dump the bitch. Also, why does Kane give a shit? What is his goal here, to get Lita back somehow? To just keep tormenting both of them? Dude, it ain't worth it. Just find that Tori chick again if she's not too busy spending the holidays with X-Pac. Now, Matt. We don't know storywise yet why he gives a shit about any of this, this is where the whole work/shoot nature almost hurts things. The entire basis of this storyline is that Lita is someone so incredible, such a beautiful and great woman that everyone wants to be with her and is mad when they aren't. The problem is that Lita isn't worth the trouble, Matt, Kane, or Edge could go to the mall or a coffee house and find chicks more worthwhile. Edge outta just say fuck it and dump Lita, then he, Matt, and Kane can all go have a beer at a local saloon and play poker.

Shawn, Diesel, the Kliq, whatever....all were shoved down the audience's throat in 1995. Oddly I don't recall anyone I knew really badmouthing Diesel all that much. Maybe no one cared either way about him? That's pretty much how I felt. If you listen to Bret Hart he'll explain what Shawn did. Bret explained how he tried his best to get Diesel over and not usurp his heat, whereas Shawn tried his best to make himself popular (which wasn't the intended idea of WM 11). Is it really shocking that Shawn got more popular than Bret in 1995? Shawn was getting about as big of a push as possible shy of winning the world title, while Bret was dicking around with Bob Backlund, Hakushi, Dr. Isaac Yankem, and Jean Pierre Lafitte. Glad someone mentioned the Bulldog 92 match, since that's the match that forever made me hate Shawn Michaels. I was a big time Bulldog fan and was overjoyed when he won the IC title from Bret at Wembley. When Michaels beat him I of course wasn't privvy to DBS' steroid firing or WCW deal, so it really broke my heart. In fact this is the only match where I ever felt like crying. Well that and Macho/Warrior from WM 7, but for totally different reasons. I'm such a bitch.