cabbageboy

The ironic thing about saying RVD had been jobbed out too much is that I don't think it really affects him as much as someone like Jericho. I'd say RVD has a lot more credibility than Jericho does at this point, at least he hasn't cleaned up dog shit. Or tried to rape Booker T.'s wife (like Angle). It amazes me as to how pig headed some are about RVD. I mean what, can you seriously say that rookies like Orton, Cena, etc. should have been pushed over Van Dam? It's as if they used RVD being over to get other guys over, but the problem is that RVD isn't at the point where should be putting over younger talent...he should be getting the push himself. I'd just like to see RVD get a serious shot at maining when he returns. Some sort of run with the title. If he doesn't draw or excite the fans, then depush him.

Eh, I'm trying to think of a reason to care about a guy coming clean about doing an offensive terrorist Arab gimmick. That's the problem with doing these sorts of gimmicks, it limits what you can do in the future that people will accept.

I agree, considering that Juvi has used the 450 for years and Paul London probably watched a lot of his matches to study the move. Is 2 Cold Scorpio pissed at Juvi for stealing his move too? I do see the point here however. If someone has a certain move as a finisher, people shouldn't be using it as a transition move earlier in the show.

Yeah Scott Hall wasn't at all bad as Razor or the early NWO days. In fact he's the man. Nash however is a guilty pleasure of mine, no matter how much he screwed up WCW I can't help but like the guy. How about Max Moon? Most would probably think he sucked but I always dug him.

I dunno, I don't think anything I've said is as out there as "Yeah Bulldog sucked in that match, he got progressively worse throughout...but it's one of my favorite matches ever." This is one match that I will remain a total mark while discussing. I still remember being the first person to rent SS 92 at the local Blockbuster, even got the free WWF frisbee that came with it. And does anyone have the Bulldog/Owen match? I'll trade for it.

Someone above posted a joking post saying that they wanted cheesy foreign heel gimmicks like the evil Iranian, or evil Russian, evil Nazi, Jap, etc. These were goofy gimmicks but they always worked and got the redneck crowds in a furor to see them get their asses kicked. Hassan constantly blathering about being an American only to me puts the spotlight on him NOT being Arab! I mean seriously, when I saw Hassan I just thought "This guy isn't an Arab at all." Though oddly enough I didn't realize for a while that he was Mark Magnus, whom I had seen maybe once on OVW in person (he was forgettable). Wrestling is above all else escapist fare. Lots of people don't feel comfortable with a so called Arab American ranting about how he is mistreated. Most people don't want to hear it, and those that don't mind feel uncomfortable. Hell, I'd rather have The Shockmaster come back rather than listen to Hassan's phony Arab bullshit...at least that would be amusing.

I dunno if it is as much censorship as self policing on UPN's part. They do have the right to say what they want and don't want on their network and if they feel having Arab terrorists attack UT is not something they want on their network, Vince really has to concede on it. Though frankly if WWE was committed to Hassan (which I doubt) they'd just defy UPN since this is the last year on the network anyway. If Smackdown was on cable no one could really be upset about it, but broadcast TV has a different set of FCC rules due to spectrum scarcity.

I don't think the McMahon fighting stuff really should be on here. Did it get tiresome after a point? Of course. But it also drew money and ratings at the time. It certainly shouldn't go up with heel Slaughter or Katie Vick.

They have to trade him back to Raw at this point. I'd just do Hassan for RVD since I don't particularly think RVD should have been traded to Raw in the first place. If anything this only adds to his rants about being discriminated against. And thankfully will likely prevent us from seeing him dick around in the SS main event.

My thoughts on SS 92 are thus: The Bulldog/Bret match won all sorts of MOTY awards for 1992 and is considered a ***** classic by most everyone. Did Davey Boy get a bit nervous? Maybe so. I remember reading an interview (not sure if it was a work or not) where he said wrestling at WM 3 didn't bother him, but wrestling in his homeland in front of 80,000 really scared him. I'm of the opinion someone can be carried to a watchable or decent match, but not a ***** match. Yeah there were some times when they took it to the mat and did headlocks and such, but it seemed like Bulldog pulled it together a few mins. in. You guys REALLY overanalyze shit. Can't Bret/Bulldog just be one of my favorite matches of all time and leave it at that? Anyone got the Bulldog/Owen match on tape? I've never seen it all the way through.

Okay, someone do me a favor. The next time you see Eddie or Angle or Austin ask them "Hey dude, did you carry RVD whenever you wrestled?" You might hear Angle say that "RVD was a bit rough and busted me open," but I doubt you'd hear "Yeah that guy sucks and I had to carry him." I recall RVD carrying X-Pac to a pretty fun match in the 2002 KOTR tourney, though I'm not sure Pac qualifies as total crap. At that point however he was pretty much unmotivated. I'd also say RVD got some pretty solid matches out of Brock when he first debuted (not counting KOTR 2002), when Brock was green as grass. What would help RVD is to have a contract like Raven did in WCW saying he could do violent stuff and not be DQed. "RVD rules" so to speak. Thus he could bust out the chairs and what not, and get in his main moves.

By the way, does anyone have the Bulldog/Owen European title match on tape? I missed that match initially when we got flooded out in 97 and only saw some of it on the Shotgun Sat. morning show. If so just PM me and we'll work out a trade.

What does that even mean? RVD's stuff from 1998 or so is still wildly entertaining. It didn't matter if it was against Lynn or a jobber like Big Vito or Mike Lozansky....Van Dam brought it and the match was entertaining. His persona and promo work was also edgy and cool....hell, the real RVD makes Cena look like Pat Boone. I have to wonder what RVD is going to do on Raw however. His recent shoot type promos point in the direction of a bitter character, maybe a heel turn. Thing is, Raw is so short on guys that the fans actually LIKE that they might keep this toned down and keep RVD firmly on the face side for now. It's weird that I've been sorta trashing Shelton in all this since I actually think he'll become a major star. Thing is, he has yet to really have consistently good matches or draw enough consistent heat to really make all these proclaimations on how great he is. Yeah he got some nice spots in during the Money in the Bank match, he had a solid match with Jericho, had a good TV match with Michaels. That's like 3 good matches really, and he's not terribly over with the crowd or especially notable on the mic. I do like Shelton and think he's got future potential once he learns how to work the crowd, but for now let's not put him up with Eddie, Benoit, and Angle.

Not sure why HHH facing Ray Lewis or HBK at WM 17 would mean he wouldn't tear his quad. He did that a couple of months later in a tag match with Benoit and Jericho. The question would be this however: Would HHH have put over Ray Lewis? I tend to doubt it.

Well sure, but frankly post 97 Bret was done too in my book. In his whole WCW stint he never seemed like he gave a shit, unless he was facing Benoit in something like the Owen match. Bret mainly stopped caring....Bulldog tore up his knee trying to break up the whole Bret/Vince melee in Montreal (didn't Shane jump on Davey's back?), then he lost a lot of muscle while on the shelf, then got truly fucked up via the idiotic trap door at Fall Brawl 98, as if there aren't enough reasons to hate that show. Last night I was watching an old Prime Time episode from 86 on the WWE 24/7. Main event was Davy Boy vs. Greg Valentine. Would you believe Davey Boy busted out a sharpshooter? In 1986! A good 5 years before Bret used it, and a solid 3 of so before Sting used the Scorpion Deathlock. Oddly enough, Valentine no sold it since it wasn't an established finisher, neither was the running powerslam. The Hammer ended up winning with a lame axe handle off the top rope.

I will agree that RVD has been boring and repetitive on SMDN before getting hurt, but look at who he was wrestling! Would YOU be ultra thrilled dicking around with Kenzo Suzuki and Rene Dupree? Oddly enough I was digging his tag stuff with Rey, at least they were doing some nice tandem moves. Kahran, the SS 02 match vs. Benoit was a bizarre slight misfire during a hot streak for both guys, but I'd hardly say Benoit embarrassed him...most people said it was a **** match instead of the ***** classic that was expected. When has Angle "wrestled circles" around RVD? I recall Eddie schooling him in that IC title win but that was the storyline of the match itself. In the rematches there's no way Eddie wrestled circles around him. As far as Shelton goes, if he did a Van Terminator it would only make him look like a copycat, so I'd advise against it. The main guy who really did make RVD look bad, and went out of his way to do so, was HHH. Virtually all of the RVD/HHH matches are lousy because they are booked totally wrong: HHH does his boring offense on RVD, who isn't exactly the best at long term selling. Seriously, who wants to see HHH work RVD's leg for 15 mins? I suppose in theory it makes sense (take away the legs of a guy who would do a lot of kicking moves on you) but in practice it does just that...it takes away most of RVD's offense and puts him in the near impossible situation of having to sell a leg while attempting to do his stuff. It's funny how people forget stuff. I mean RVD during the 2001-2002 period was perhaps the most over guy on the roster and consistently had the best matches on Raw...but no, the guy can't work at all.

Carlito was at his most over when he was just doing the Cabana on a weekly basis and didn't wrestle. There's a reason for that, he sucks mega dick in the ring. I said it on another thread, but how can a guy get pushed when he cannot A) do scientific wrestling B) aerial wrestling C) brawl or D) work the crowd in a match. Tell me how anyone can get pushed without doing any of this. Cena can't wrestle for shit but at least he can do C and D. Then again the only guy I can think of currently who can do all 4 is maybe Eddie.

Bulldog was the man. And frankly I am sick of hearing this crap about how Bret carried him move for move at SS 92. This is just Bret talking trying to badmouth Davey Boy, and obviously it's not like DBS can give a counter argument. Hell, I found his series against the Warlord better than most people...it at least had some psychology building to Warlord's full nelson. Plus it's always fun to see Davey Boy bounce around these big lugs that are 300+ lbs. The thing is, aside from those guys mentioned, how many really high profile matches did Bulldog have? I mean when put in against a 7 foot guy he was expected to do the bleh power match, but when in against a smaller guy like Bret, Owen, or Shawn he could more than keep up.

It hasn't been a hugely debated topic or anything, but as I said I had someone PM me a while back out of the blue trashing me for even SUGGESTING RVD could keep up with Shelton. Also Eric S. at insidepulse.com said he hoped the match would take place so Shelton could expose RVD so bad it would kill his heat for good. Seriously, does anyone on here think that Shelton would humiliate Van Dam so bad that it would kill his career? I personally think it could be a great match that would make both guys look good.

Too late now. Michaels did the unprovoked attack, that's a heel turn to most fans. They can't retroactively go back now and set up his motivation. He can perhaps whine about it now but in a heelish way. Whether Hogan held Shawn down is up for debate anyway. Hogan left in 93, and I'd hardly think Michaels was in any position to main event at that point. He was really kind of a joke IC champ at that point.

I'm starting to think Shelton is getting overrated. Have you seen Shelton bust out a Van Terminator? Or you know, ANY of RVD's moves really? Until he does, then it's hard to say that he can do anything RVD does and better. In fact I'm really wanting to see this match so people will shut up about this "Shelton is way better than RVD and would make him look bad" bullshit. That said, I do agree that RVD should stay away from the whiny promos unless he is planning to turn heel. And given that everyone on Raw is a heel that isn't a real good idea.

The best Rude match was the SS 89 match. SS 90 was nothing and WM 5 had the single worst finish to be repeated ad nauseum to this very day (Heenan holding Warrior's foot on the old suplex into the ring spot). I loathe that spot.

I am gonna go out on a limb here and say that the crowd would drift more towards RVD than Cena. On SMDN they wrestled a few times but the crowd was mostly confused on who to cheer (RVD kicked Cena in the face, was almost acting heelish for a while). Let's face it, fans turned on the Rock at various points and Cena isn't anywhere near The Rock's level, so it's just a matter of time before the fans turn on him too.

Haha, Matt Hardy driving the ambulance with Edge in the back...that would be really funny actually. It's more like Austin/Bret stuff than UT though. "Stone Cold" Matt Hardy?

I'm fairly sure he'll come back to cost Carlito the IC title, then hopefully do a quick squash of Carly en route to either facing Shelton for the IC title in a fun series or hopefully moving up to WWE title contention. They might as well push RVD, not like there's anyone doing anything of note on Raw right now. RVD will easily be the #2 face on Raw, and I dare say if he's on his game he very well could surpass Cena in popularity. Hypothetically speaking, what if they did a face/face RVD and Cena match or feud. Who would the crowd go for?