cabbageboy

Here is one overwhelming problem with putting the belt on Vampiro: The dude simply wasn't very good. For all the talk about Vampiro being misused by WCW and all that, I can't think of a single good match he ever had. In fact one match I WAS looking forward to (Awesome/Vampiro from HH 2000) ended up being a negative star fiasco. One could forgive the goofy graveyard matches or the Human Torch match if Vampiro was lighting it up in his standard matches, but he wasn't. The other "young guy" options were guys who in my opinion have never been great talents. Is Jeff Jarrett really the guy you want carrying your company? I even like Jarrett and have at times excused his narcissistic TNA run, but he's never been world championship material. He's never been over enough for it, never had good enough matches for it, never been good enough on the mic for it. How about Booker T.? I know Booker has won basically every belt known to man, and certainly has shown more charisma than JJ, but in the ring Booker has never really been a great talent. He's adequate, but can anyone seriously tell me a good Harlem Heat match? I suppose he had the wildly overrated Best of 7 (or 8) series with Benoit, but most of those were typical TV matches that aren't especially memorable. Honestly the best guy they could have put the belt on if they didn't want to go back to Goldberg was what they did when it was too late: Give it to Steiner and let him beat the crap out of people.

I still wish they could come to some sort of compromise on this thing. As I said, why not just tell Rodgers to chill for 1 more year, bring back Favre to start, and if you're Thompson make it 100% clear that this is the last time the Packers are going to mess with this situation. This is such a bizarre situation. I've heard comparisons to Young/Montana in SF, but the thing is there Montana was hurt for most of the 1991 and 92 seasons so Young was firmly the starter (and wasn't he the MVP in 1992?). There's also the Dan Marino situation in Miami where Dave Wannstedt told him he'd have to compete for the starting job, Marino said the hell with it and retired. But here? We have a QB who led his team to a 13-3 record and is injury free. Yes, he's becoming bothersome with the retirement crap, but is replacing him with an injury proned guy with zero career starts exactly the answer?

Eh, I don't think that many people slam the WWF during the 1998-99 era for not having much wrestling. I guess some do but it's more like that one big flaw in an otherwise very entertaining time period for the company. By 2000 I'd say the WWF was a much more wrestling centered promotion, since they actually had some workers. As far as Russo goes, I've said it before and I'll say it again. His runs were counterproductive and lost all sorts of money in WCW, but at least unlike the horrible trash before him and the Sullivan trash that followed his run his booking wasn't boring by any means. Believe me, WCW in mid 1999 would have almost been torture to watch if not for it being so car wreck bad that I kept watching just to see how bad it would get (the hummer angle, the No Limit crap). I still remember that first Russo Nitro in Oct. 1999 and how truly bizarre and different it seemed from the horribly boring dreck of the previous few months. It was like a 3 hour car wreck of breakneck speed, angles galore, run ins, chaos, etc. There wasn't much to it from a wrestling standpoint, but it certainly commanded attention. The ultimate sad irony of WCW is that by the time they did have people booking who wanted to push some different people and create some long term planning the company was basically on its last legs. I am speaking of the late 2000, early 2001 booking of Bill Banks and Co. I think even Bob Mould from Husker Du was helping in creative.

The problem with the nWo being as big as WCW is that at the end of the day it's a heel faction, and as all heel factions do it simply ran its course. WCW never realized this and never simply moved on and tried out another concept, but instead kept rehashing the tired nWo concept until no one cared. Sure, if Bret hadn't been hurt they could have kept this group intact, but so what if they had? Maybe they would draw a .35 buyrate on PPV instead of the .10 buyrates they did draw. Maybe they lose 30 million dollars in 2000 instead of the 60 million they did lose. At the end of the day AOL/Time Warner would have still pulled the plug, unless Bischoff's group of money men were content to buy a company that was losing a ton of money, but not a historic ton of money.

Couldn't WCW have somehow worked around Goldberg's schedule though? They had a storyline set up, though I guess Hogan's injury at Spring Stampede would have thrown that storyline out the window anyway.

Yeah I am baffled by this tourney. Why they didn't just, I dunno, show us a bracket with the dudes on it I have no idea.

The 2000 nWo had no real potential. The whole concept of the group itself was so dead in the water by 2000 that there was no way to gather interest in it. WCW in early 2000 is one of my favorite eras of wrestling to discuss (but not to watch, oh lord no). Imagine a company where everything goes wrong, everyone gets hurt at once, and the men in charge have zero concept of how to deal with any of it and make the worst decisions at every turn. I saw a bit of a Nash shoot interview where he discussed things like WCW in 2000 and also his own booking run. He hinted at something that I've often wondered about the Fingerpoke, that it was an angle leading to Goldberg taking out Hall, Nash himself, and finally getting to Hogan to regain the title. Nash makes an error in saying that Goldberg tore up his arm with the car window and the angle was nixed (this happened almost a year later). My question is this: What exactly DID happen to Goldberg in 1999? I recall he did beat Hall, then Nash at Spring Stampede, but after a nothing match with Sting at Slamboree I don't really know where Goldberg went.

I agree. Vickie has become such a loathed, detested heel character that Edge ditching her in any way, shape, or form would get him cheered. Or it might just end up with both still being hated but just not together. From day one I said the only logical way any of this can end is for Vickie to finally get fired as GM, then Edge cuts the heel promo of all time dumping her and saying he only slept with her to further his own career. The entire angle has to be leading to that one promo.

I agree with the Packers not wanting to release Favre. Why the hell would they do that? They would get nothing for him and he could wind up with a division rival to boot. I've been with Favre on this for the most part until this development. Packers should now just trade him to some AFC team that doesn't have a decent QB.

2Gold, I think you and I are the only ones that thought Spider-Man 2 was bleh. I still think the first Spidey is the best in the series, since it isn't as horribly whiny and emo as the sequels. I shuttered when that crap was praised in Spider-Man 2 since I knew we'd be in for even more of it in the third. I'll probably see Hellboy 2 sometime this weekend.

In some ways I don't get TNA's house show bookings. Trying to break in to the NY market is pointless right now since there's no way they can compete with WWE in that area. Why not run a loop similar to the old USWA loop, except more on a monthly level than a weekly level. Get a core dozen cities or so that you run regularly, then expand to new markets.

I think they overplayed their hand with the finish of this show. I agree that this all needed to be a swerve to screw HHH out of the title, but now HHH should be ready for the shennanigans at the PPV. That said, it's interesting how little HHH has been used since coming over to SD. Edge is by far the more important draw on the show, with HHH being featured in maybe 1 segment. Not sure when they will do the wedding this time around (is it next week?). Gotta figure HHH will have a tape of Edge banging the wedding planner, or propositioning her.

Larry Nelson seems trashed out of his mind on these 1987 shows. Look at his eyes and how drowsy he looks, haha. At this point I almost wish ESPN Classic would start showing some Global. You know you want Barry "The Winner" Horowitz.

I wasn't oblivious to the CM Punk stuff, but I'm still waiting to hear why I was so wrong. I can see the logic behind Punk doing a job to Jericho, since he is now on Raw and that could be a title feud. The way the Edge storyline played out, Punk's jobbing to him on SD is justified. But doing a clean job to the Miz? Or Regal? Or Matt Hardy on a random SD?

Ha! Horowitz beat The Kid for a title in Global. That makes him even more the man. I remember his gimmick there was Barry "The Winner" Horowitz, and yes it was meant to be sorta ironic.

I actually kinda like the Valiant/Jones feud, but it could have gotten over big if Paul Jones didn't suck horribly as a manager. He is bad in a way that makes you want to change the channel, not boo a guy. You have Valiant fighting an army of monster heel jobbers, going against tremendous odds, his friends stab him in the back....some of this is good stuff. If you had a good manager like Heenan, Hart, etc. instead of Jones it would have worked better.

I have to admit I'm lost with this Batura guy being mentioned. From what I recall that RVD/Jericho match from KOTR 02 was a very good match, but not a classic like Jericho insisted. The Unforgiven 2001 match....that one is a forgotten classic.

I must say that something on this new show shocked me. Barry Horowitz actually won a match vs. Lanny Poffo! I had no idea he won any WWF matches until 1995. That said I do recall his Global run in 1992 where he won some sort of belt.

Eh, to me these 1987 shows are pretty dire stuff. In 1986 they at least had a young Scott Hall, the Midnight Rockers were cool, guys like Hansen and Brody had stints, etc. In 1988 they at least put the belt on Lawler and did the fascinating (but ill fated) crossovers with Memphis and World Class. But 1987? These shows really suck. Hennig is quite literally the only bright spot.

Glad I'm not the only one who noticed that Jillian looked really scrawny on Raw this week. She looked a bit closer to the Jillian I saw down in OVW in 2004, rather than the brickhouse we've seen on Raw for the past year.

Yeah, RVD actually beat Jericho in the semis of the tourney (PPV opener) and the other semi was the epic Lesnar/Test matchup.

I almost don't want the Edge/Vicki stuff to end. Cause I have a feeling once they have Edge start nailing Victoria Crawford his heat and career are going to go straight to hell. Anyone else feel the same way?

You know when Harris said his name was Braden Walker I couldn't help but think he was doing a Texas Ranger gimmick. Maybe he should? It's at least SOMETHING, rather than looking like Curt Hennig's jobber nephew in that singlet. I wonder if Armando is being used as a litmus test? As in hey if a new guy can get something watchable out of Armando, then this guy has to be good. Tony Atlas as Henry's manager might be pretty funny stuff.

Keep in mind that HHH was really banged up for that KOTR 02 match and it really had zero heat or anticipation. Also Lesnar killed the crowd beyond dead with the KOTR win. That HHH/UT match did suck though, but not as bad as Austin/UT from Backlash 02. That one might be the worst match of either man's career.

The difference now is that in early 2006 WWE was already locked in to doing HHH vs. Cena at WM and lord knows they have to keep HHH happy (even if he jobbed in that match). And of course they were still incessant about pushing Cena. Edge's MITB win was mostly to get that off the books, then it got over so well they had no choice but to push him later in the year. Right now? Why not give Punk a run with the belt? If they wanted to put the belt on Batista, guess what guys...he could have just won it at Night of Champions and brought it to Raw.