cabbageboy

I haven't seen 1990 in so long that I can't recall it. 1991 is a very underrated Rumble with Martel nearly going the distance. And no, 2004 is not anywhere close to 1992. Even if Benoit hadn't done what he did the match still isn't as good because the booking doesn't work on multiple levels like 1992 did. The 2004 Rumble is just kinda...there for the most part. It has a really hot finish with Big Show dominating everyone until Benoit somehow tosses him, but for quite a bit of the match Benoit didn't command much attention. He was #1 going in but it's not like everyone went after him or the match overall told much of a story. It was just "#1 guy in the Rumble goes the distance" paint by numbers booking. It's like a better version of 2006.

For what it's worth this was the first Raw since March 1997 that I didn't see due to the power outages here that are just now getting straightened out. Combine Hurricane Ike and its after effects that left other areas without power along with the game drawing record cable ratings and it's no shock that this show did a lousy rating.

I have no idea why they debuted guys like Cabana and Braddock on SD. Let's face it, more than any other show Smackdown is a complete dead end. There's almost no chance of ever being elevated to the main event, so that clogs the US title division. Thus a lot of undercard guys can't even get to the US level. These guys should have debuted on ECW. In fact I'm still puzzled as to why they didn't debut Colt when Punk was still on ECW to team them for a while and give him a rub.

As long as he was only drunk I doubt WWE will really do much about this. Just wondering though Papacita, why would an angle involving Jeff being fired over his 3rd offense draw any money?

Yeah cause Sting IS a guy who knows how to be a world champion? I can't think of one single decent run with a title he's ever had. Closest thing is maybe his 1992 run where he beat Luger and later lost to Vader.

This was a pretty fun show tonight. I've said for a long time that Jeff Jarrett has been miscast for nearly 15 years as a heel. He's far too soft spoken and generally likable to have been in such a role. I don't want to see him main eventing or winning titles at this point, but I'd quite enjoy seeing him in a face authority figure role.

Early Games (1:15pm EDT) KC @ ATL: Oh man what a truly hideous game. This could be worth seeing for how bad it will be. I'll take the Falcons by 10. OAK @ BUF: Wow, who would have thought the Bills could be 3-0? Buffalo by 11. CIN @ NYG: You want another Giants beatdown? Here it is vs. the hopeless Bengals. NYG by 17. MIA @ NE: Man, the Pats don't seem to play anyone. Let's see them against someone decent to see what Cassel can actually do. NE by 7. HOU @ TEN: Curious game, no idea what to make of the Texans right now. I'll go with the Titans by 6. TB @ CHI: Griese going back to Chicago....I'll take the Bears by 3, but it is a total tossup. ARI @ WAS: Another interesting tossup game, but for whatever reason I think the Cardinals are pretty solid. Zona by 4. CAR @ MIN: Could it be the magic of Gus Frerotte that leads the Vikings to a win? This is a must win, so I'll take the Vikings by 2. Late Afternoon Games (4:15pm EDT) NO @ DEN: Denver is doing well so far and conveniently have this one at home. Should be a fun and exciting game. Denver 38-35. DET @ SF: I have no idea about this one since both teams are crap. Since it's at SF, I'll take the Niners by 6. STL @ SEA: Seahawks are 0-2 but they almost have to win this one since the Rams are one of the worst teams in the league. Seattle by 8. PIT @ PHI: Great game here. Can't see the Eagles having much in the tank after Monday, so I think the Steelers sneak in and steal this one. Steelers by 1. CLE @ BAL: I don't really buy the Ravens and the Browns really need a win. I'll take the Browns by 7. JAX @ IND: A must win for the Jags, but will they? Uh...no. Colts in another brawl 17-14. Sunday Night Football (8:15pm EDT on NBC) Dallas Cowboys @ Green Bay Packers: I think the Packers might have beaten Dallas last year if Rodgers had played the entire game, we'll see if he can do it now at home. GB by 4, since Dallas (much like Philly) will be a bit out of it after the crazy MNF game. Monday Night Football (8:30 EDT on ESPN) New York Jets @ San Diego Chargers: Chargers absolutely must win this one. Sorry Brett, can't see this one happening. SD by 7.

I'm thinking that if this ends up getting Jeff fired he'll do a mega squash to Kozlov on SD next week and that will be the end of him. Then Kozlov goes on to the PPV to face HHH.

Good win last night for U of L against a fairly decent Kansas St. team. I saw about half of the game since due to the wind storm I didn't have any cable, net, or phone for 4 days. The part I did see was by going down the road to a Chinese restaurant, and they closed at 10. The rest I had to listen to on the radio.

RVD is the one guy out there that could really help TNA, though it would take some time. As in no hotshot booking of him vs. Joe the first month he's there. TNA's big problem is that they can't get any attention because they never seem to have a long term idea of what they are building to. If they sign RVD tomorrow and said "Okay, at next year's BFG show our main event is going to be Samoa Joe vs. RVD" they could build to that match. Make it seem important. I think a Russo/Heyman booking team would actually work quite well. Say what you want about Russo, but he can in fact get the undercard guys involved in storylines. His problem is the lack of focus for the big picture and a tendency to toss out stipulation matches for no reason. Heyman can bring them that long term focus of what major matches they should build to. Heyman tried it in ECW but circumstances always intervened to prevent him from cashing in (Taz signed with the WWF, nixing the epic Taz/RVD match, RVD got hurt and Awesome left for WCW, etc.).

I think WCW could have thrived and ended up where WWE is today. If Hogan had stayed in the WWF past 1993 and hogged the main event scene a lot of younger guys would have really gotten frustrated and bolted for WCW.

Regarding that Pillman/Sullivan angle...what was that all about? I know it was to establish the whole Loose Cannon character, but I have no idea what possible money something like this could draw. It mostly just looked like Pillman refused to wrestle and then Arn and Flair tried to salvage it. Did they know the whole booking going in?

Let's be honest, Flair's real title reign count is more like 21 or so if you include some matches that usually aren't recognized. So even if HHH gets to 16 he would have a lot more work to do. Good grief if he wants it that bad just lose the belt to Jeff and regain, lose to MVP and regain, etc. I don't think that anyone should end the Taker's streak at this point. If it is an established guy it would be credible but what is the point? If it's a young guy the fans wouldn't buy it for a minute and it might cause a mega backlash against the young guy instead of getting him over.

Wrestling on Heat circa 2007 is the equivalent of "If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, does it make a sound?" Believe me, we were all spared a great deal of agony when Dan Rodimer was released. Anyone who saw his OVW work knows what I mean.

Bear in mind this was a green Leon White and not Vader, so I wasn't really expecting anything all that great. Watching old AWA leads me to think Bockwinkel is wildly underrated. I wonder if it is due to the negative feelings people have over Hogan never quite beating him for the belt? But just think about it, the guy was out there having a 60 minute classic with Curt Hennig when he was like 50 years old. Can anyone imagine Flair doing a 60 minute classic circa 1999 WCW?

I have a vague memory of the doctored pics now that you mention it. Now that I think about it wasn't it revealed that these pics were actually of Savage and Liz by the pool and all that, with Flair superimposed? I think that is a bit silly since the Flair pics looked quite real. They probably just had both Flair and Savage there for a photo shoot and did the same exact poses with Elizabeth, haha.

I recall Gorilla Monsoon being the main one who used to refer to Hogan as the "World Heavyweight Champion" a lot. But by the 1990s I never recall them referring to the WWF title as being the world title, just as the "WWF title." I think what Noah refers to is the whole PWI deal with recognitions of world titles, as in when the WWWF was an NWA member then the belt was a regional title secondary to the NWA World title. I could open up Pandora's Box and say that the current World title in WWE is the same as the WCW World title. Keep in mind that for a very brief time The Rock held the WCW title and it was renamed the World title after the Invasion ended. Jericho unified the WWF and World titles in Dec. 2001 and the belts were unified until Lesnar left for Smackdown in Aug. 2002 and was thus only recognized as the WWE champion, thus splitting the belts. HHH as top contender was named World champion since Lesnar had no plans to defend against him. There's really no other logical way to look at it, since the current WWE title on SD isn't the unified title.

I do recall Piper simply calling him Steamboat during the 6 man tag from Summerslam 1991. Piper was refreshingly honest on commentary at times, like when he was supposed to call a Saba Simba match and he simply said "Ha, that's not Saba Simba...that's Tony Atlas."

It had the one tag team elimination match but otherwise it was there to blow off a lot of feuds that had been going throughout 1992. Nailz/Bossman, Bret/Shawn, UT/Kamala, Martel/Tatanka. I enjoyed this PPV quite a bit, even the silly gimmick matches are kept short and are amusing, like the Coffin match or the Nightstick match. The original card of this show was WAY different than what we actually got. I recall getting a Survivor Series preview magazine and the announced card was something like this: Macho/Warrior vs. Razor/Flair (Hennig replaced Warrior, Flair was supposed to have title still) Bulldog vs. Mountie for IC (Bulldog was canned, lost IC to Shawn) HBK vs. Bret in a whatever match, no belt at stake. Mr. Perfect's face turn is one of the best "Oh crap we gotta do something else!" pieces of booking I've ever seen. In one single segment on PTW they had him believably go from Flair stooge to Macho's partner.

That angle was especially rewarding for long time viewers who knew the Flair/Macho/Liz backstory from the WWF. Keep in mind that Flair always said he banged Liz at some point before she and Savage got married and there really was never any evidence that I recall to counter it. The beauty of it is that the pics they showed on WWF TV were all feasible, just stuff like Flair and Liz hanging out around the pool. Nothing too intimate, so you could infer either way.

Thing is, WWE already has World in it so if you said "This match is for the World Wrestling Entertainment World Heavyweight Championship" then it sounds really goofy. That's probably why World isn't mentioned much, it's already inferred.

Yeah that Primo/Carlito teaming was puzzling to say the least, I think they just hit the reboot button with Primo and ignored his couple of Raw appearances. This was a pretty decent show tonight. I know it's always fashionable to badmouth HHH, but I actually like SD better when the focus is on him with the belt rather than the soap opera crap with Vickie. What was up with the Kozlov run in at the end though? I have a feeling he might sneak into the No Mercy title match and make it a 3 way so he can job (and thus protect Jeff).

Awesome game tonight. I had no idea who was going to win it going in and it was back and forth throughout. USF looks like a solid pick at this point to win an otherwise mediocre Big East.

The simple truth about Hassan is that the guy sucked. Let's say WWE is in fact right and he successfully does this gimmick where he critiques America as an Arab-American. What does it really do? Trying to make him a face in that scenario wasn't going to happen, and it's the sort of heel schtick where he might be right but it makes fans uncomfortable and doesn't draw the right kind of heat. Even if it worked better than it did I fail to see why any of it would make fans want to see the guy get his ass kicked. The irony about the whole terrorist angle that deep sixed the character is that the angle did work on that level....after seeing that I definitely wanted Taker to crush this dude. The 2005 Rumble bit wasn't really racist, I always took it more as an idea that everyone on the roster disagreed with Hassan's views and kicked his ass. But at the end of the day, the reality is that Mark Copani wasn't very good. He was a bland, boring OVW style wrestler with no decent moves and his promos were long winded and tiresome. For instance, WHY was the guy supposed to be that great other than getting a blatant push? There was nothing in his wrestling skill, size, whatever.

I sorta disagree with that. WCW had a direction in early 1996 with Flair feuding with Savage and the whole Liz turn where she was banging Flair and it was driving Macho insane. See, the reason I loved that angle and don't get stuff like AJ/Kurt/Karen in TNA is that Savage always deep down wanted Liz back and hated her being with Flair. I'd also say the Luger/Sting interaction was interesting even if it ultimately went nowhere.