cabbageboy

DiBiase wasn't exactly a face going into that Flair match though, the events in the match itself with Murdoch screwing him were the catalyst for the face turn. Kennedy just sorta showed up and we're now expected to cheer him because he's good now or something. Regardless of the main event, which had the correct ending for what it was, this Regal shit is already way out of hand. Having him be somewhat favorable to Burchill or bringing out Mike Adamle is kinda funny, but the constant match stoppage and going dark is highly counterproductive. For instance, what if I'm on the fence about whether I want to see Judgment Day? Main event is HHH vs. Orton in a cage, yet with these goofy "going dark" finishes how am I supposed to be certain they won't do that sort of garbage in a PPV main event? It's a terrible precedent to set. It doesn't help that the various guys in these matches don't know how to react to it. HHH was pissed about it, yet Orton seemed okay with the decision to go dark last week. Um...why? HHH at least simply retained his belt due to the bizarre ending, but Orton was basically screwed out of a chance to regain the title.

Oh and I failed to mention it but Steiner's interview in the back was truly gold, with him ranting about his % chance of winning, Joe's chance of winning, and dismissing Angle since "he won't even try anyway."

Oh sure, the 8-9 hour was some filler during that era before Raw came on. But then WCW would at times do the crazy stuff like have the entire first hour contain zero matches and just a bunch of weird skits.

Yeah but there was always kind of the opinion that the Steiners/MVC matches were a bit of a slight letdown, so maybe it wasn't included for that reason. People forget this but Dustin Rhodes was a really solid worker during his early 90s WCW run (1991-94). The sad aspect of his career is that his peak as a worker and his peak as a performer on the mic with charisma didn't coincide. By the time he was Goldust he had added the sizzle to the steak as far as a gimmick and mic work goes, but he had put on weight and wasn't as good in the ring. Of course the Goldust gimmick itself didn't lend itself to good matches either.

The 3 hour Nitros never seemed to drag? Maybe not at first, but once WCW started sucking those shows were excruciating. I used to tape the last 2 hours of Nitro and watch those shows the next day (this was circa 1999).

Just wondering but what was the Vader/Dustin match from? I don't know if I've seen it. I think the best Vader match I've seen is vs. Sting from Starrcade 1992, King of Cable finals. As far as Wargames goes, most of the pre Bischoff era ones are really cool but there is one problem that every one of them has, namely that the finish always is mediocre. There are too many guys in the two rings to fully put over one guy submitting and most of the time it is hard to tell when a submission occurs.

This is something I hadn't seen posted on the site, but felt was interesting enough to warrant a mention. I got this off www.valiantentertainment.com:

I thought about a potential Hector heel turn but that makes literally no sense on ANY possible level. I could see it perhaps if Hector had approached LAX first and was like "Hey I can get you guys to the next level!" and then betrays them. But they went to him, so in other words he had no current connection to these events. I'm hoping they don't overbook this tag tourney and just let LAX use the Guerrerro knowledge to win the belts. They also should just pair Kong with BG James and let the Road Dog take the pin, that solves a world of problems. It gets Kong out of the tourney without her burying a man on the roster, and keeps her strong in the Knockouts division. I have to say that Cheerleader Melissa is the most intriguing thing about TNA right now. I wonder...how many fans know that she is also Raesha Saeed? What would be really wild is if they somehow set up a Kong vs. Melissa feud in the future, and given that they have basically jobbed Gail and ODB to Kong a bunch of times and no one else is really over enough to beat Kong, putting Melissa against Kong might be the best idea. The angle could be truly wild as Melissa could be dressed as Saeed and attack Kong, as though she beat up the real Saeed and left her laying and donned the outfit (while in reality being the REAL Saeed, but in theory few know this). At this point you have the Saeed character offscreen for a while and either write her out, or later bring in someone else as her sister or something. Then you do Kong vs. Melissa.

While I think the Celtics have been embarrassing in this series on the road, they should squash the Hawks in Game 7. I'd like it to be close though, just to see how Boston reacts. This isn't the same as the Mavs/Warriors from last year, where the Warriors had the Mavs' former coach and beat them 3 out of 4 in the reg. season.

It's so odd to hear people say that Hall didn't have main event level charisma or in ring work. Good grief, they put the world title on Nash for a YEAR in 1995. Hall is obviously the better in ring worker of the two, and with Nash doing an ill suited babyface form of Diesel I'd say Hall was better on the mic. Diesel vs. Mabel in a world title match, or HBK vs. Razor Ramon in a WWF title ladder match? So really, it was mainly Hall's personal problems that kept him from ever being a main event guy.

The past two shows have been hilarious goodness. Back to standard AWA territory, but cult favorite Dennis Stamp was on one show twice from the other night, jobbing in a tag match against two guys I'd never heard of, and also jobbing in singles action later in the show vs. Soldad Ustinov. But the wild gem in the show from last night? They had a jobber on there named Samoan Joe! Lawler squashed him.

Of those I would rank X-Men 2 and Batman Begins as the best. I'm sorry but after Spider-Man 3 I can't help but think the previous movies have almost been hurt by the revisions in the storyline. As far as Superman, hell I don't think the first one is even as good as Superman II.

I agree that the Lethal Lottery could make for a fun 3 hour Raw, but as a PPV it's too hard of a sell. It's too tough to hype a show when you can't really advertise the matches.

I don't get how Kevin Nash could be considered main event material and Scott Hall wasn't, taking out the obvious alcoholism and what not. Nash honestly rewrote the way he is viewed in WCW, because I can assure you there were very few people who thought Diesel was a serious world title contender before he won the belt, and his title run was never over at all. Razor Ramon would have drawn a ton more money as world champion in 1995.

How much do you think his personal problems have affected his career? A ton. Hall was basically washed up and out of wrestling by early 2000. He wasn't all THAT old either. His problems have basically curtailed any comeback attempts over the years. Do you think Hall was ever main event material? Definitely. Hall had the look, was a better wrestler than someone like Nash, oozed charisma (and machismo). Hell after watching some of this old AWA stuff I am baffled as to how Gagne didn't main event him circa 1986. What effect has his membership in The Kliq had on his career and his legacy? I don't really know. I mean, Hall has never struck me as quite the politician that Nash is and thus I don't think he's as tainted by it. I always imagined Nash would be discussing the booking while Hall was passed out drunk in the corner. What were some of Hall's best matches? Both ladder matches with HBK, maybe some stuff with Bret as well, his IC matches with Diesel are pretty good. Ironically the NWO was his biggest period of success but I can't think of any real good matches he had. Maybe the Goldberg ladder match. Some of the most memorable angles he was involved in? Oh gee, a little thing called the Outsiders and the NWO perhaps. Also his first big WWF angle was fun, teaming with Flair vs. Macho and Perfect. The Kid angle. Feuding with Michaels and Diesel. The disturbing Goldust feud. What was his better run; in WCW with the nWo or in WWF as Razor Ramon? It depends. If you want his actual peak years wrestling it was obviously Ramon. If you want his biggest years as a star who was a draw, then it's WCW. Providing that he's sober, do you think Hall could still serve a purpose for WWE or TNA, be it in a wrestling or non-wrestling capacity? No. He is far too unreliable to bother with at this point. We don't even 100% know why he no showed that TNA PPV. Do you think Hall has had a lasting impact on the business? Tough one really. I think a lot of fans look back fondly on Hall's career, at least the good stuff. But how many people really emulate Hall's style? I don't think there are really all that many.

Oh I didn't include Orton/HHH in that since Orton lost in a 4 way and thus I can see his valid reasons for wanting a 1 on 1 match with HHH. In fact there really hasn't been a 1 on 1 Orton/HHH match from Oct. until this week on Raw.

If you were being jobbed out to Carlito and Chris Masters wouldn't you find it hard to give a shit too? That stuff was during the late summer of 2005, the peak of Raw's lame duck time on Spike TV before they left for USA. Anyway, regarding these SD spoilers. Does anyone wish SD (and ECW too I guess) would just END some feuds already? Edge jobbed to UT clean at WM. He jobbed clean at Backlash. So end the feud, it's over. We know Edge can't beat UT, even with run ins. Same thing with Chavo and Kane, we know Chavo has no shot, yet on ECW they keep this dreary feud going. I would say this is a byproduct of Hayes being suspended but SD has done this stuff for a while now, like last year with Batista getting shot after shot at Edge and jobbing constantly.

I pondered the lack of 90s week earlier in the season, but then came to this realization. Most of the pop stuff from the 90s is basically the same as the 80s (instead of 80s Whitney, someone does The Bodyguard songs), or someone sings Mariah Carey or Celine Dion. The genres that were unique to the 1990s, that defined the era were things like grunge/alt rock and gangsta rap. And I can't see Idol contestants doing much of that. David Archuleta does Nothin But a G Thang...next time on 90s week!

I was there for that match (at Rupp Arena) and it was quite good, but it did point out some problems Shelton had, or even still has, as a worker. He's great at athletic spots but when he was doing the "heel in control" portion of the match he didn't seem to know what to do at times.

SD has a dearth of main eventers right now but who is really viable to step up right now? I know people say MVP, but if he got the title right now he would almost certainly tank. This is a guy coming off multiple ass beatings from Matt Hardy, who would buy him beating The Undertaker?

I was perplexed by reading the show report because I have no idea what they hope to accomplish by such an angle. At least with the Regal shutting the show down angle at the end of Raw I can see where they might do something with it (even if it ruined that particular show).

This sucks. The problem is there is really no one on SD right now who can be world champ aside from UT or Edge. I guess maybe Big Show if they could decide if he's actually a SD guy or not. Mind you, I actually do think UT's submission move is kind of a choke and thus could be considered illegal, but shouldn't he be warned about this prior to being stripped of the belt? In other words, Raw goes off the air during the main, Adamle walks away from ECW during the main, and Vicki strips UT of the belt. Are they trying to drive fans to drink?

Lushus, why do you think Syesha is toast? I mean I guess she could be, but this almost HAS to be Jason Castro's time to get the hell out. It just makes sense that way, since it would narrow it down to 2 guys, 2 girls for the Final 4.

Does anyone know what the deal is with the Adamle thing? Was that a scripted thing or did he actually just freak out and walk away? I didn't watch the show so I didn't see exactly what happened.

Battlebowl never really works because it comes off one of two ways: 1. Teams are completely random and the matches have little heat as a result. 2. Teams are meant to be random but are blatantly NOT random, such as the mismatched Steiners/Harlem Heat match or Flair/Macho being on either the same or opposite sides, etc. Also, it would have helped if there was a real incentive to win the thing. Sting ended up with a title shot at Luger, but was his Battlebowl win in 1991 exactly #1 contender? Muta won in 1992 but only got a nice ring and jack shit otherwise. Vader was already champ in 1993. There needed to be some reason for it to happen, like the winner gets a world title shot.