cabbageboy

Okay so Edge loses to HHH and is out of the title scene so KHALI of all people can get another main event push???? I think we know that the Raw title match is going to main event SummerSlam now.

I have no clue who owns the rights to Memphis footage. No idea about post 1989 USWA either. I've seen some of that head shaving angle on youtube.com and it did in fact rule.

I'll go with Finlay as well. He just makes more sense vs. Henry right now, while Matt can feud with Miz/Morrison for a while until they are ready to do something else. I'd have Finlay get the belt.

Haha, yeah. The RVD/Lynn series has a certain amount of psychology as well, it's just that quite a few people don't pick up on it or think about it. Stuff like moves working one match, then not working in the next, etc. Psychology can be more than just "I'll work this guy's leg or something."

It would be amusing if Rouka got called up. To think of the people in Mike Kruel's Team America Kozlov and Rouka could get called up while Kruel himself still languishes in developmental. I'm thinking all of this will lead to a Raw EC match at Summerslam and that flat out needs to be the place where Punk proves he's no fluke and goes over.

Backing up to what Lushus said at the top of the page, I could see perverts showing up to jerk off to Gillian Anderson if she was still hot. But she's nearly 40 now, and from seeing her in the trailer isn't nearly as hot as she once was. Regarding The Mummy, I'm not saying it will be a mega smash hit. But it's opening weekend should be able to beat TDK. But can Brendan Fraser draw the money without Arnold Vosloo? I guess Jet Li is there to carry him this time.

Yeah, stuff like Punk vs. JBL at SS just has beneath zero heat. It was already done on Raw to boot, so that has to be out. I should think it's obvious that the Elimination Chamber is where this is heading. There are a bunch of guys who want the belt and no obvious #1 contender. JBL vs. Cena has been done to death. Batista/Kane would suck. A 3 way with Punk involved would be okay but unspectacular. It has to be the EC, but I'm not sure of the 6th man. Punk, Kane, Batista, Cena, JBL, and maybe Jericho? Regardless of that Raw has been really good since the draft. It's certainly a lot better than SD is at the moment.

Let me toss out a few numbers for those who doubt the drawing power of The Mummy: The Mummy (1999) opening weekend: 43 million. What does that translate too now? The Mummy Returns (2001) opening weekend: 68 million. Thing is, those movies both had the drawing power of Imhotep and Egypt. I wonder if the new movie looks way too different too be as successful. But really by Aug. 1-3 The Dark Knight will likely be down to about 40 million, and if this Mummy can simply do what the 99 film did it would win the week.

I probably need to find a Watchmen trade/graphic novel (whichever) and check it out before the movie comes out next year. I have to admit though, the trailer didn't really amaze. It hyped the fact that it was based on the series and all, but it didn't really explain much about what it is. Maybe there will be another trailer that is clearer nearing the time of release?

Thing is, have these B grade PPVs gone up in buyrates enough to justify this? WWE has thrown all these title matches on all these PPVs and I don't think there's really been a huge return on that investment. They don't have to put the same exact guys on every PPV, the same title matches, etc. Maybe have a tag match main event from one brand while the other has a title match. Feature one secondardy belt one month, then the next month the other belt, etc.

I wouldn't bother introducing Azrael into a potential Knightfall movie. They do in fact need to redo Bane in the worst way though. Just have Batman chase down all the goons from Arkham, then Bane breaks his back, then we get a powerful plotline of Batman coming back from the near fatal injury to take out Bane.

Oh I'm not saying DDP didn't deserve the US belt, cause he did. In fact I don't think Hennig/Flair needed a title at all. I kept trying to think about what Flair was doing at Starrcade but I couldn't recall anything. He was back to face Bret at Souled Out though. It blows my mind that at WCW's biggest PPV ever that Flair didn't even wrestle and Nash no showed the event.

Well, I said in another thread this past week that SD got a bunch of guys from Raw that are largely jobbed out and have no real heat (Kennedy, Carlito, Umaga). Then there's someone like Jeff Hardy who they don't trust enough to push. Ironically enough all of the guys who were on ECW that made the move to other shows now seem to have some success, like Punk, Kofi, and now Shelton.

Yeah but what are the chances of HHH actually trying to elevate anyone new? When has he ever done that with someone who wasn't one of his boys? I maintain that the whole Edge/Alicia thing would have been better off being a ruse that Edge had leaked to HHH. Cause I fail to see where any of this can lead to decent things for Edge. If he's not in the title scene, who exactly IS he going to feud with? Taker? What I mean is if you do this whole situation the fans will hate Edge, hate Vickie, not care about the black chick, and no one gets over.

Regardless of domestic there's utterly no way Dark Knight can match Titanic's 1.8 billion worldwide box office. I took a look at the late 1997, early 1998 box office returns and Titanic's run was quite interesting. In its first week it barely even beat out the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies (28 to 25 million) and in fact I recall some experts thinking Bond might actually win the weekend. Consider though, Titanic once it beat out Bond had almost NO competition worth a crap for months on end. Maybe Good Will Hunting, but that was a slower roll out type deal designed for long term business, bunch of 10 million type weekends. Titanic narrowly beat out some stuff like US Marshals and another DiCaprio flick Man in the Iron Mask by less than 1 million. That said, there was lukewarm competition for Titanic and then it made more over Christmas, then if it lagged there was the MLK holiday, then came Valentine's Day, and eventually Oscar nominations came out and it had a huge amount of those. But now? Dark Knight will hang around at #1 for a little while, and then The Mummy or whatever will come out in a few weeks and be #1.

Oh yeah, I agree that WCW's handling was poor but that would be the stuff from Fall Brawl onward (and of course not clearing it with Arn). I actually think that Hennig betraying the Horsemen after Arn's retirement is a powerful and terrific angle if it had been done RIGHT. Of course WCW had a lukewarm Flair/Hennig feud for a while and then it was dropped and the actual payoff for Hennig's misdeeds was jobbing to DDP at Starrcade.

I'm actually sorta glad that JBL got a relatively clean win. If they want to keep this feud going, then JBL needs to get some kind of heat on Cena. Though I must say Cena's recent booking makes him look like the biggest bitch on earth. He gets suckered by JBL and then JBL tries to run him over with his car, then at the PPV he has every opportunity in the match to simply pin the guy or take him out, yet he's out there playing to the crowd and doing 5 knuckle shuffles like a douche. I did notice the blood stoppage in the Michaels/Jericho match was similar to MMA. Not sure I especially LIKE it really, but it's similar. Personally I detest all blood stoppage finishes in wrestling since guys do blade jobs all the time and matches aren't stopped, so it's so random. I hope the rumor of a SS blindfold match aren't true, but this angle leads to it. Why would Jericho even agree to such a stip anyway, given that he could beat HBK in almost any other match right now? The main event was okay but the booking was disappointing. I figured HHH would retain after the JBL win, but I don't get any of this booking. Why did Alicia Fox even show up? What is her point even being around after the wedding took place? Edge doesn't really give a shit about her or anything, and I have a feeling that this entire thing is only going to bury Edge and kill his heat, kill all of the massive heel heat Vickie has, and keep HHH entrenched as a dull face champ. Raw's world title scene is actually vastly more entertaining. Punk/Batista was a pretty good match tonight before the obvious Kane silliness, and even then I enjoy seeing psycho Kane attack everyone including the cameraman.

I don't get why Bischoff feels the need to apologize for the Horsemen spoof. Given the horrible, tastless trash WWE has done in the past 6 years or so I can't see what is so bad about that segment. It at least serves a purpose of the NWO making fun of Arn and the Horsemen in order to draw money for a PPV. Besides, it's not like the WWF didn't rip this sort of thing off a year later with DX making fun of The Nation. I think in WCW it was played more for outrage and wasn't meant to be all that funny, whereas the WWF played it totally for laughs.

Consider that Mamma Mia doesn't really have the same audience that Batman would have, so I can see it doing decent. I thought it might do between 25-30. And boy wasn't that decision to release Hellboy 2 last week really idiotic? That ghastly 71% drop is very much due to The Dark Knight taking away business. Hancock at least had Will Smith's star power to weather the Batman storm. And by the way, no The Dark Knight has zero shot at breaking Titanic's record. That made 600 million in the US and 1.8 billion worldwide. It would be something if Dark Knight beat the first Spider-Man movie amongst comic films though.

I was actually a little puzzled by a few things:

I do concur with the notion that WWE has title matches on way too many PPVs. Let's face it, not every belt needs to be defended on every PPV. How about one month you have the World title on Raw defended as the main event while the SD champ works a tag match on the undercard? Then do it vice versa the next month. WWE simply burns through feuds instead of pacing themselves a bit.

See, the difference is how absurd and unrealistic it is. The Undertaker going out and doing a satanic mass with human sacrifice...that's not exactly something that you see every day. So the viewer can thus suspend realistic expectations and go with it and have some silly enjoyment. Stuff like Cena/Bradshaw from this past Raw? It's very possible in real life for a guy to kick the shit out of another guy and try to run him over with his car, and if you do this with a video camera taping it you will obviously be caught and do serious prison time.

I really do hope Norman pulls this off tomorrow. The poor guy needs something to cap his career that goes beyond the notorious 1996 Masters fiasco. Maybe if he wins this tomorrow he can take the trophy, Chris Evert, and ride off into the sunset.

Just wondering but often times I hear this stuff about how the "money is in the chase" with the face chasing the heel forever. When exactly has this worked all that well at a main event level though? I can see the chase being from roughly the Rumble to WM, but anything beyond that and I seriously stop caring. A lot of other people likely feel the same, given the way angles like Luger/Yoko and HHH/Orton (2004-05) played out. To me the money isn't in a face chasing a heel for the belt, it's in the face winning the belt and having a successful title reign.

Jingus, you hit the nail on the head with that post. One of my biggest problems with Cena's incessant push is that there really is no reason as to why he wins all these matches, other than he's simply booked to do so. There's nothing really in his skills or moveset. HHH doesn't face quite that problem as a heel, when he can adapt ruthless tactics (run ins, sledgehammer, etc.) to justfiy winning. But in terms of being cerebral in the ring, I dunno, I never really found him to be exactly Bret Hart in terms of targeting weaknesses, focusing on a body part, etc. This is something that critics of RVD and Sabu don't quite understand. Not every match has to be some psychologically sound snoozer with leg work and weardown holds. Frankly if you ask me which style of match I'd prefer to watch between I'd probably go with the crazed spotfest. Anyway, the Matter of Respect match isn't the Stretcher match, that one happened a bit later. Matter of Respect is another crazed spotfest brawl, with a finish involving RVD giving Sabu a fisherman's buster from the top rope, targeting the bad neck. The ECW Arena crowd was in utter shock. This would in turn set up the even more bizarre rematch with them fighting in a broken ring (Hardcore Heaven 96) and STILL trying crazed highspots, with both guys being so beaten up they both have to be carried out on stretchers. That would of course set up the Stretcher Match blowoff.