cabbageboy

WCW in early 2000 was the worst crap in the history of the known universe. Know how I have ranted and raved on these threads about WCW in mid 1999 during the Hummer Angle? That stuff is at least NOTABLE, it at least did matter. And truth be told the West Texas Rednecks were pretty fun in retrospect. But early 2000 was like watching a promotion drag to its demise. Sullivan was completely the wrong guy to replace Russo, given that several guys flat out left the company rather than work for him and most of the other younger guys hated him. --Anyway as far as some other goofy things from this period, how about The Maestro? Seems like he was in WCW at this point and of course he was horrible. That goes without saying. --The Dog was awesome. I mostly remember Knobs with him, not so much Finlay. I do remember Finlay training Knobs by making him run miles through the woods and all that crap. --I can't really badmouth NWO 2000 that much because the faction never really got off the ground. Bret had his career ended in Jan. and he was the leader. So then you had Jarrett, Hall, Nash, etc. and JJ is the only one who gave a flying fuck. --The thing I'm puzzled about is why Sullivan even bothered pushing Hogan. His red and yellow act was dead in the water by 2000, so why not elevate someone, ANYONE else? He mained against Flair in the Yappapi strap match but wasn't even on TV during that buildup since his contracted dates had been met or something. You're telling me Sullivan couldn't have started to push Booker as a major star instead of having him feud with Ahmed Johnson over his T? To be honest I am drawing much more of a blank about this stuff, it's a bit like that Aug/Sept. 1999 period when things were going off the rails and Bischoff was fired. At least the Summer of 1999 was insanely awful and memorable, as was Russo's chaotic first run, as was Russo's even more insane 2nd run in 2000. But this stuff? It just sucked ass. No good matches, no notably hilarious and bad angles, terrible roster. It was about like watching latter day AWA shows. WCW in early 2000 can't be fully described in words....I can't do it justice as to how awful it was. You had to be there. But why would you want to be?

I would assume that somehow Raw gets a world title in the near future. Thing is I don't know how Edge or HHH would agree to face anyone on Raw at this point, they have no reason to do so. I hope they don't just hotshot a lame title change on Raw, when they should have done it tonight. Maybe they do Edge vs. HHH in a unification match, then Raw has a tourney for their own new champion. I have to admit it would be amusing to see these guys go through 3 matches in 1 night and then Punk cashes in against an exhausted winner.

Yeah but that show had that goofy Machine/DDP match with Machine literally jumping from the top rope to the middle of the ring to crotch himself. That was hilarious. So that can't be the worst Thunder ever. Neither can anything involving The Dog in early 2000.

Well and wouldn't a kiddie cartoon movie like Wall-E also be expected to do more business on the weekend than on a Friday? I know Pixar appeals more to adults than other cartoons, but I'd think the main audience is still kids. Wanted did shockingly well. I think it looks pretty good but it isn't something I'm rushing to see at the moment.

You know, some people find angles like the James Gang stupid, but I always enjoy a silly angle with guys who are barely disguising themselves. The Midnight Rider, James Gang, etc.

Yeah Flair was gone for a long time in 1998 and didn't resurface until Sept. or so. From watching the AWA shows on ESPN Classic I'll be damned if those are as bad as Thunder. No way. Mind you, the 1987 output from the AWA is really dull stuff (no Scott Hall, no Midnight Rockers, few Lawler appearances...but it DID have a very young Jeff Jarrett at times). But the 1986 shows were pretty good stuff and the 1988 shows are quite good. It was after the disaster known as SuperClash III that the AWA completely tanked and wasn't afraid to suck hard. Thunder proved that it's simply impossible to book 7 hours of first run wrestling a week. WCW somehow managed to do it with Nitro and Saturday Night and both stayed strong, but Thunder started severely watering the product down. They had 3 hours of bad Nitro, 2 hours of bad Thunder, and 2 hours of mundane Sat. Night.

Jed, I joked before the last PPV that it was so obvious Sonjay was doing the heel turn that they shouldn't even really do it at that point. I thought that Val would ditch Machismo, Sonjay would be bewildered, and she would run off with the American Idol dude or something. Then Lethal and Dutt can say the hell with her and start teaming or whatever.

I'm not the biggest Obama supporter in the world, but I'll vote for him in the fall. But for the McCain supporters out there I have to ask: Why vote for him? Just hate Democrats in general? Refuse to vote for the black guy? Seriously think McCain is going to do any sort of decent job if he's elected? McCain being elected would be a fiasco for this country. Regardless of what he does the Democrats are going to squash the Republicans in the House and Senate races, so McCain would be facing the most hostile Congress in history and all the Democrats would view him as a joke and would refuse to work with him. There is zero chance of McCain being a decent president, even if he somehow stole this thing he'd just be a 4 year lame duck until Hillary squashed him in 2012. So why bother?

I quite liked the glass table spot but should have saved it for a PPV where it could have drawn money. One thing about Sonjay is that it is obvious So Cal Val will do a heel turn on Lethal and side with Dutt in this. Having seen over a decade of Russo booking, I know a future cheesy heel turn when I see it.

If they show more Thunders I want them to show some really horrible ones from mid 1999. This one was almost too decent.

Here's something else I pondered: Karen Angle said she was just wanting to show up and go to work in TNA. Doing WHAT exactly? I mean she isn't a Knockout wrestler in that division. She isn't really managing anyone. So what exactly does she do in TNA to justify being under any sort of contract? Maybe if she started managing Styles or something it might make sense, but right now it seems like she's literally under contract to air her marital woes on national TV.

Kamala, I thought more about this Cena thing today and here is what I came up with: Cena is someone who won't ever really have that cred with the serious wrestling fan. This is for a variety of reasons, be it his initial rapper gimmick, his pretty boy looks, his appeal to women and kids, whatever. So if he's not meant to appeal to the serious wrestling fan, then he better be a big mainstream star. But the attempts to turn him into such have mostly failed. Cena doesn't have that Bret/Shawn type wrestling credibility with fans, and he's not anywhere near the Hogan/Austin/Rock level in the mainstream. So he ends up not really working either way. Obviously Rock/Cena would be a much better match than Hogan/Austin. That isn't the point.

I think Wright's problem was that the gimmick that made him entertaining (Eurotrash pretty boy dancer) is something that a guy can't really main event while doing. Berlyn was the attempt to get him away from that image, and it could have worked had he not been killed out of the gate by the 1-2 punch of Bagwell and Duggan at Fall Brawl 99.

I don't have any real order for Pixar, but I immensely enjoyed Ratatouille. Monsters Inc. was pretty decent. Incredibles was quite good but slightly overrated. Toy Story movies are good. But Finding Nemo...I thought that was utter crap. As far as Wall-E goes, I'll probably wait for the DVD. It looks fun and sweet though. Anyone else think it looks like Short Circuit though?

That Alex Wright techno music isn't his real music? It seems very much like it is. Fits his gimmick and everything. From watching these old Nitros and the Thunder on 24/7 right now, I have a whole new enjoyment of Alex Wright. The guy was hysterical.

Good. Please drop the goofy SD women's title. The answer to making SD's women relevant is to have a moving women's belt, not add another belt and devalue the real one. Anyway, this is the lamest of lame duck PPVs. We know one belt has to end up on Raw and the other on SD, and since Batista has roughly zero heat to win a title right now I think it's pretty obvious Cena gets another title win. I've toyed with wanting to see this PPV, but just reading this card makes it sound just....ugh. Henry/Show/Kane sounds like crap. I don't want to see Hornswoggle near any sort of belt at all. I don't want to see rookies like Ted Jr. simply show up and win belts without doing shit to earn them. I DO want to see more of this Jericho/Michaels angle, but since Jericho has no announced opponent I don't know what to think. Matt vs. Chavo is an okay match but not worth ordering a PPV to see. Hell, I might be interested in Mickie James vs. Katie Lea had they done anything at all to hype Katie as a serious threat to the title. I've said it repeatedly but they need to job out Mickie and build the women's division around Katie Lea vs. Beth Phoenix. Maybe they will later on.

I don't why exactly Cena vs. Rock is some mega dream match. Some have said they have no interest in seeing two washed up old guys like Austin and Hogan, but personally I have zero interest whatsoever in seeing The Rock come back just to job to Cena in WWE's neverending attempt to make people buy into Cena as a mainstream star.

I don't know but I have to say I enjoyed the hell out of that ODB/Moose match. Women's hardcore stuff is a style of wrestling that hasn't been explored much in mainstream promotions. It also fit ODB very well, kind of like it's what she should have been doing all along but I hadn't exactly thought about it. You know, given how AJ Styles keeps getting his ass kicked over Karen every week I would at least hope she isn't telling the truth and is at least banging the guy. What incentive would AJ have to bother feuding with Angle and half the roster otherwise?

1. This might sound like a copout, but the man who should win the match is whoever is willing to stay around and wrestle past WM (or whatever PPV). If neither Hogan or Austin is going to be around after this match, it's not really worth doing. If neither stays around, I'd put Austin over at this point in time. With Hogan's recent public problems he's not in that great of a position to refuse to job. 2. It would still be a money match, but it wouldn't be any good at all. That said I dunno if it would draw as much as Hogan/Rock. 3. Does the "Main Event" have to be the last match? It would probably be in the Hogan/Rock spot on the card where it wasn't last but it would be the most important match. 4. It's somewhat interesting but mostly for the notion of seeing who would win or lose. As far as the match work itself, forget it. 5. You know, I probably would get a PPV just for this. Hell, I got SummerSlam 2005 mostly for Hogan/HBK, since there was little else on the show that seemed like a must see. 6. Hogan might, Austin not so much. If Hogan has to pay the Graziano family a bunch of money and his wife truly divorces him, then he might be cash strapped.

I still think that UT ends up on Raw when all is said and done. I'm not totally sure how that will happen but I can't really see UT and HHH on the same show.

I don't see how Maguire is so needed that he can dictate demands. Let's face it, the Spidey character wears a mask. That is what will draw people in. For the past 2 movies I've been largely bored with the Peter Parker segments of the films and just wanted Spidey in action.

It's becoming a running gag that Sting gets the title shot at BFG. He'll job there of course. As far as Nash/Joe goes, while I appreciate the slow burn is the end result here really going to be any good? Wouldn't it just be Joe beating Nash is a mundane match?

I'd never considered this, but I think you're right about Luger. By mid 1994 his whole All American face run was dead in the water anyway, while I still think Tatanka had something left as a face (certainly more than as a heel). Luger should have sold out to Dibiase and cut a promo saying he was sick of being screwed over by refs, the WWF, fans, etc. It actually would have made total sense given his frustrating inability to win the WWF title.

Well with ECW and Raw soon to be taping on the same night people are assuming they will do the cross promoting deal. What sense would it make for SD guys to show up on ECW in that scenario?

The thing is Batista has just flat out zero heat to win the title at this PPV. He's such a blatant lame duck challenger it's not even funny. I would expect Edge to either have 5 guys running in to help him win or it'll just be a DQ. Cena pretty much has to win the title from HHH. It keeps the title on Raw, while Edge retaining keeps that belt on SD.