cabbageboy

Hell why not? This show was roughy 10x better than the drizzling shit of Raw the other night. When I saw the terrorist dudes attack UT I couldn't help but think of one thing: Yokozuna casket match, 1994 Royal Rumble. Maybe UT will get Chuck Norris to keep the terrorists away from ringside? Did anyone else get the "Due to the London attack today.." parental advisory thing on UPN? Smackdown is going to be fine I think. Unlike Raw there is no Diva search crap to waste all sorts of time, there's more concentration on actual wrestling, etc.

How about some sort of wireless mics? How much do you think those would be?

Well I have a hunch Shelton is drifting into either tweener or heel territory so I was hesitant to count him on the face side. If the obvious RVD feud materializes then Shelton would undoubtedly drift into a heel. Essentially someone needs to turn face on Raw, but I have no idea who it would be. HHH would suck as a face and no one would buy it at this point. Angle will be a tough sell after all the shit he's done this year...the guy is basically a sex offender! Edge is loathed by everyone pretty much. I suppose they could turn Jericho back to face after this Cena feud. Jericho is screwed either way, he'd be a 3rd tier heel or a 2nd tier face.

Hey at least the wrestling world is rid of Kenzo Suzuki. I'm sorry but you can't convince me a guy who does a claw hold as a finisher is ever going to get over. Still, it's at least a finisher...which is more than what Carlito has. I bow down to the brilliance of Mark Henry. The guy has been getting paid for jack shit since 1996. That said, after next year he should be sooooo fucking released. I'm not upset about any of this. Every 5 years or so promotions need to refresh and bring in new people, fire stale jobbers, etc. If there was still a WCW no one would care since half these guys would show up on Nitro next week. By the way, allow me to shine some light on OVW: Hardly anyone is any good on there. It's not like there's some magic suck pill they take when they come to WWE. The Carlito with no moveset you see now is the same guy I saw on OVW who had no in ring skills. Heidenreich sucked on there, ditto Morgan, ditto Hassan/Magnus, ditto Bashams. Hell, the best two matches I've ever seen on OVW were Al Snow vs. Nick Dinsmore (which shouldn't count as OVW since Snow is an actual wrestler) and a wild hardcore brawl with Trailer Park Trash vs. Flash Flannagan. There are a few guys who have improved since their OVW days like Shelton, Batista, etc. But for the most part, these guys suck.

I think it is safe to say that TE was a total flop now that pretty much everyone who was on that show is now released. I'm bewildered at the Dudleys being released. Spike I can kinda see, but why Bubba and D'Von? As bad as the tag division is on both shows can they really afford to fire tag teams left and right? Also, with Balls and Axl getting a tryout soon they really had to keep the Dudleys around to feud with those guys....who else could wrestle them? That said, I've yet to hear a truly bizarre, jaw dropping release yet. As in releasing Shelton or someone, which would be extremely stupid.

Bayless is possibly the most annoying man on TV, he HAS to have someone like Woody around to balance out his boorish act. It's funny watching Cold Pizza/1st and 10 this week with Jay Crawford on vacation and poor Dana Jacobson having to mediate those two. She seems to get pissy easier and Bayless knows it, so he fucks with her a lot. There seems to be legit hostility there, haha.

I would definitely wait till WM to do a Brock/Batista matchup. It is easy enough to have Brock mess with some others and do what he SHOULD have done in 2002. Which is namely pay some dues and go through the midcard before getting a title shot. Given the obvious story on Brock/Batista it should be easy to do (both entered WWE at the same time, Brock had everything handed to him, Big Dave worked through a shit Deacon gimmick and finally got his chance). I am possibly the biggest Brock hater on this board and even I think this feud could draw money. Am I the only one who thinks SMDN is still in relatively good shape compared to Raw? People act like Raw got all these guys but take a look at SMDN if you add Brock to the mix. You have Batista as champ and a good array of heels he can go against (JBL, Eddie, Orton, Brock when he gets back, etc.). On Raw the sides are so wildly unbalanced between heels and faces it's not even funny. You currently have Cena and lesser guys like Big Show and Kane as faces (two of which aren't even effective faces) and on the heel side you have a freshly turned Michaels, HHH, Edge, Carlito, Jericho, and so on. When RVD gets back that would give Raw one more face. Anyway, I think we all knew Brock would be back eventually once his football dreams vanished.

Humongous, they can't remotely release Van Dam. Are you kidding? I don't care what he says in interviews (that I doubt WWE even reads or listens to), he and Cena are basically going to have to carry that entire face side of Raw. Raw has an insanely stacked heel side: HHH, Angle, Michaels now, Jericho, Carlito, Edge, etc. On the face side? Cena and not much else...maybe Kane and The Big Show, neither of whom are really all that effective as faces at the moment. I'm not counting Hogan since he's probably just back for a brief period.

I don't think Vince deliberately botched all of those angles. It's hard to say that when half of them were supposed to be the BIG new angle that brought in business. The NWO angle was mostly screwy due to WM 18 where the crowd cheered Hogan so much that they had to turn him face. From there no one needed or cared much about the NWO, though it didn't help matters when Flair kept booking the NWO vs. Austin/Bradshaw for about 3 weeks on Raw. Also, it didn't help that Nash was so injury prone that he wasn't effective...during that period of time he had a shoulder operation and then the big leg injury. As far as Steiner goes, is it REALLY Vince's fault that the guy was also broken down and horrible? I hardly think Vince told Steiner to go out and drop HHH when attempting basic slams and suplexes. The crowd turned on Steiner so much that there was no fixing his push. Of these things I do agree that Goldberg was horribly botched and misused. It also didn't help matters that Austin was out of the picture in ring wise by that point so they couldn't do the main feud that Goldberg should have been signed for. Basically I think it's all been a series of dubious decisions that were meant to help business but mostly just ended up backfiring.

How about the sound quality though? Does the camera's mic do a good job of picking up voices, or are boom mics and such needed? Oh and I keep reading this stuff about Firewire. Is that basically the same thing as a capture card?

Yeah I am getting a feeling that will happen a lot to me too. Stuff like people not showing up on time, etc. After all, there's really no money in it and it's a lot of work. Just wondering but what all accessories do you need to film something that looks decent?

For what it's worth I just got the new Observer and Meltzer said that cable insiders pegged the ECW PPV as doing 390,000-430,000 buys. Not an official buyrate I don't guess but a larger figure than what is being mentioned here.

I took a look and another forum said it was shot on Canon XL1. I've been wanting to at least check that one out but I can't FIND it anywhere. Everywhere on the net just says "This camera is no longer available" and directs me to the XL2, which is a lot of money.

I have no idea. Chavo's new gimmick would be fun on SMDN where he could feud with the MexiCools or even Eddie, who would say that Chavo turned his back on his familia and his raza, etc. I guess on Raw there is Carlito but he's never been pushed in that sort of way. He's Puerto Rican and not Mexican anyway.

I can't really recall how exactly RVD jobbed to Brock at the 2002 KOTR but if there was a Heyman run in it wasn't exactly a big deal. In fact in their own weird way I think they tried to protect Van Dam against Brock, and it really hurt both guys in a way. RVD was jobbed out in the 1 important match and it hurt him in the end, and yet Brock didn't really even WIN the feud itself since RVD beat him by DQ every other time. That didn't exactly help Brock get over as an unbeatable monster. I guess my point with Brock is this: Why bother pushing him so hard so fast? The guy had been there all of 4 months and they just put the world title on him. He wasn't over in any appreciable way, hell at SS it was mostly the crowd again turning on The Rock more than it was them liking Brock. And he never really became a seriously notable draw or brought in new fans, so why job out your most over guy to him? All it did was give him too much too soon and nowhere else to go once he jobbed the title a few times. Look at it this way and tell me it doesn't make more sense. Let's say RVD had beaten Brock at KOTR 02, even with a small package or whatever. RVD is the #1 contender, goes on to face either UT (payback for the Dusty Finish title match on Raw where RVD had the title won) or maybe the Rock if they wanted to do that match instead (no problem, crowd would have booed Rock anyway and he'd have played heel). At some point in between you could have Brock get a Heyman run in type IC title win over RVD and you build him from there as well. He could kill everyone for a good 6 months in the IC division and get over as an invincible monster without really sacrificing anyone THAT important. It'd be like Goldberg with the US title...got over as a monster, no one of note aside from maybe Raven was sacrificed. Then after he's paid some dues and gotten over, you push him hard for the world title if he's over to that degree. RVD would of course go on to win the title and you could go in several directions from there, whether it be him defecting to SMDN the way Brock did or stay on Raw. Seriously, doesn't this sound a lot more feasible than what they ended up doing?

2002 was a truly horrible year for wrestling, it really was. Not totally worthless type bad like WCW 1999-2000 but really bizarro world level bad. I mean the company did the roster split, lost its name, hired GMs, pushed guys from nowhere, jobbed out very over guys, brought back hasbeens to boost business, had necrophilia. It was a mess. Humongous, thank you for setting the record clear on RVD/Brock. The idea that RVD was midcard deadweight in 2002 is fucking retarded. Jesus, he was the most over guy in the fed back then. In fact of all the things the WWF/E did badly in 2002 the one thing that constantly sticks in my mind is them jobbing RVD to Brock. The 2002 KOTR was a disaster of a PPV, hell it KILLED the KOTR PPV!! All they had to do was give RVD that little boost and he'd have been a solid main eventer. He could have gone against the Rock in a fun match, taken the title, and the whole direction of the company would have been much different. Instead Vince tried to push a vanilla, charisma free rookie in Lesnar in some pathetic, desperate attempt to create The Next Big Thing. Given the way Lesnar flaked out, and how little actual money he drew as champion, I don't see how anyone can defend this stupid as fuck booking decision. Lesnar was gone from the promotion 2 years later, and it sent Van Dam on a downward spiral that he's never really recovered from. Stuff like Flair/McMahon I'd honestly forgotten about and frankly it never bothered me because it was clearly something they felt panicked into doing due to Austin leaving. I also never worried about the ramifications of Nash being injured since that match with HHH would have sucked anyway. But that Lesnar/RVD match at KOTR? Single stupidest 1 match booking decision of the post Invasion era.

Raven, I am trying to decide what sort of camera to buy for my movie. I've basically narrowed it down to either the Canon XL2 or the Panasonic AG-DVX100 listed above. The Panasonic is cheaper and is said to be the closest DV camera to actual film, but the Canon has a truer 16:9 ratio. I've seen some Sony HD cameras but it doesn't seem like any are 24fps.

Yeah, the heel turn saved what had been a truly horrific, mindboggling bad Raw. It was headed towards worst ever status....I just went out and watched fireworks during the Diva garbage. I refuse to watch it, I don't care, fuck it. Even if tits fell out, it's not worth it...there's actual porn for that stuff. I think what made the Michaels heel turn so stunning was that in no way did I expect it to happen tonight of all times. On a blatantly filler Raw that will get no ratings due to the 4th. In fact it probably would have been better to do it next week when more people are watching. Maybe they can bring back Brutus Beefcake to be Hogan's buddy again so Shawn can superkick him through the barbershop window? By the way, Jericho desperately should have been traded to Smackdown. I cannot endure TWO pointless talk show segments with both him and Carlito. They need to have Jericho and Carlito feud over who gets to keep the interview segment and the other has to drop his.

Piazza being the starting catcher is the biggest example this year of people saying "Oh, I know this guy" when filling out the ballot. I've never really had a huge problem with fan voting though, most of the lesser known guys having good years will make the team as a reserve anyway.

I really didn't know anyone like Napoleon Dynamite in HS. He tries to be a bit too hip for a total dork. I do remember some Beavis and Butthead types, but I think it was mostly people emulating B & B freshman year.

Nah, gotta save Shelton for the inevitable RVD mega spotfest of our time, probably a ladder match or something for the IC. Incidentally someone PMed me a while back saying "Shelton would make RVD look like shit" and Eric S. from Inside Pulse also responded to an email saying "Shelton would own Van Dam so bad it'd kill RVD's rep for good." Where does this notion come from? I mean Shelton is good and all but do you honestly think RVD wouldn't be motivated for that one? With a motivated Van Dam that match would be fucking awesome. Of course now that I saw this watch them job out RVD to Carlito in a move that would basically kill Van Dam's career. Pretty sure RVD is due back by SS. You know, maybe I'm the eternal optimist when it comes to Van Dam but I think things look decent for him on Raw. After Cena has his heat inevitably killed by HHH is there anyone else to plug into a main event face spot but RVD?

I'm surprised no one else has noticed that sizable plot hole. I mean Lita says she's divorcing Kane and then all of 3 weeks later she tries to marry Edge? I don't think it's even possible to get a divorce in that short amount of time, not even in Reno or somewhere (I believe it's 6 weeks there).

I'm thinking Cena/Edge is the way to go. This Edge/Kane crap can't go on forever and when it dies down Edge won't have much to do and he'll already have his money in the bank shot. That said, they almost have to have Edge win the title or else the long running money in the bank title shot is sorta pointless. He can just job it back at Survivor Series or whatever.

This is why I don't really buy this 270,000 figure. There's too much anecdotal evidence that the PPV did better than the avg. PPV. Stuff like sports bars being packed, people buying the PPV that usually don't, the DVD selling very well.

There was some really funny shit though, I liked Napoleon constantly talking about his lack of skills and all that. I've actually heard conversations like that, haha.