cabbageboy

This show tonight wasn't as good as the 15th anniversary show, but I didn't expect it to be. There was some good stuff on it like Jericho/Jeff, with Jericho getting his 8th IC title or so (how sad is that?). That said there were too many non match segments, stuff like Finlay/Kennedy and the whole silly Jillian thing interrupting US Express vs. Sheik/Volkoff. I paid attention tonight to Cena's crowd reaction based on what some have said on here. Man, he's really not over at all at this point. It's gotten to the point where what used to be a 50/50 reaction with women and kids cheering with the 18+ males booing has become 50% boos, 20% cheers, and 30% apathy.

It's utterly depressing at how much talent they got from WCW and flat out buried or released. The main problem is that while these guys were young talent, they weren't WWE's young talent. So they were all buried or fired unless they were related to someone (Chavo), too important to release (Booker), or found a lucky gimmick that got over (Hurricane). There were guys like Kid Romeo that impressed me late in WCW, yet the guy was buried in development hell for a while and released. Jason Jett (EZ Money) was another guy that I thought was pretty good late in WCW, but I don't recall him even getting a chance.

RVD made the right move when he stopped appearing for the WWF. What does it say Bruiser when we both watched those Raw shows and didn't really remember Van Dam being on them outside of maybe the initial squash of Jeff? The whole Mr. Monday Night schtick he did in ECW was derived from these brief Raw shots in 1997, it was more of an ironic nickname than something serious. Yet it stuck. Ahmed ended up much like Rikishi. Some guys just have bad heel turns and become expendable. This happens every few years. Happened with Tatanka in 1994 and his career was wrecked. Ahmed had this happen in 1997 (along with his sloppiness and injuries), then Rikishi in late 2000.

Can we agree the Ahmed heel turn basically killed his career? He went from feuding with the Nation for a year to then joining the group and doing a goofy heel turn, and then got hurt on top of it so that when he came back they had moved on and he was further screwed. Of course he was injury prone and sloppy, but that heel turn was the catalyst for the downward spiral.

It's an interesting point but what exactly does Michaels have at stake here? It's just him trying to end Flair's career, so is his heart really 100% in it? To sweeten the pot I think Vince needs to be a dick and make Shawn put his career on the line as well, then we have something truly compelling. As far as match placement goes, they screwed UT out of the main event last year so UT/Edge should main event this show.

The problem with doing the 1990s is that the stuff they would do on the show would just be the same pop stuff that was 80s. It would just be people doing Whitney Houston songs from The Bodyguard, or late 90s boy band and Britney stuff. In other words it would hardly be indicative of the 90s as a lot of people remember it. Am I the only one who thinks the hideous shoulder/arm tattoo will eventually cost Carly votes?

There are some amusing jobbers on these shows. I thought it was funny to see Dennis Stamp of Beyond the Mat fame, and am I right in thinking the one jobber that Brody squashed (Pete Sanchez) is the same jobber that Flair beat in his 1976 MSG debut?

It's a Catch 22, it really is. On one hand if you job the face clean you run the risk of fans not believing in him anymore (Sting had this problem in the 1990s at times). On the other hand the heels eventually wear out their welcome big time if they constantly cheat to win with no repercussions. This happened to the NWA by 1988, also happened to WCW by 1999 with the NWO. This is a separate issue, but I think the NWA's problem in the 80s was that Flair was the last of the travelling world champions in an era of promotions consolidating their power and going national. The sort of booking that works well with a travelling champ (namely cheating like a mofo or retaining via time limit or other BS reasons) is stuff that works fine on a regional level, but is it really something you can get over with a national audience and a unified promotion? Anyway, the Raw on right now is hilariously weird. I didn't remember half of this stuff. Tommy Rogers vs. Bobby Fulton on Raw in 1997? WTF? I didn't really remember RVD making all these Raw appearances, but he and Lawler were actually a team in the tag tourney. This stuff was counterproductive to ECW though. While wildly entertaining and different it just made the guys involved look bush league to mess around with Lawler in a midcard angle on Raw. Oh, and what was up with the finish to that main event? Kama just pinned UT clean in the center. Huh?? Since Ahmed was doing the obvious heel turn why not just have him turn on UT, then Kama gets the win, then the new Nation celebrates? The way it came off UT just looked like a bitch that lost to a returning JTTS.

Should he have just jobbed clean to all those guys? I personally don't mind a top face being screwed out of a belt as much as a top face jobbing clean. I remember seeing the Dreamer/USWA stuff in Memphis at the time and thought it was truly strange. This was in the dying days of the USWA right before the screwed up sale by Lawler and Co. to some dudes from Cleveland that weren't really solvent.

I truly wondered about that. Was there some sort of stip to that match that wasn't clearly announced? As in maybe it was mentioned at the time or in the arena, but they didn't explain it clearly on TV? I can't see how titles change hands on a countout. Some people will chastise me for this, but I am digging these old AWA shows more than the NWA shows. It has more of a charm somehow.

I knew U of L had no shot today, but I can't even say we got fucked over considering we had 18 FTs to G'Town's 4 attempts. You can't win games only going 10/18 at the line though! Dammit my guys suck at the line. If U of L plays Memphis in the tourney it would be such a brickfest it would be unwatchable. That said, there was nothing I saw in Georgetown today that shows me they aren't a 2nd round upset waiting to happen. They are total bullshit, a fraud league champion. Yes, they went 15-3 in the Big East, but it's such a bogus 15-3 with garbage wins, fluke luck, screwjob refs, etc. The WVU game, Marquette, Villanova, Hibbert hitting a 3 to beat UConn, the 2 pt. win over Syracuse. Mark my words, once Georgetown gets to the NCAA tourney and doesn't have the Big East refs they are so losing to a 7/10 seed.

The last episode was fabulous. Jannetty beat some jobber (it took him about 10 minutes!) and then in the postmatch interview mentioned that he needed to recruit a tag partner. Gee, I wonder who that could be? The entire last segment was gold. Bruiser Brody and Adnan beat the crap out of Jerry Blackwell before the bell, then Brody goes down and beats the shit out of Greg Gagne because he can, finally Blackwell and Gagne chase Brody, and then Blackwell gets on the mic and rants. You haven't lived until you see and hear a 500 lb. Georgia redneck rant and rave on the mic. I can't even count the ways in which this ruled.

Johns doing INXS actually makes more sense than Carly doing Cranberries, since his voice sounds like it would fit the material pretty well. Carly has a much bigger voice than Dolores O'Riordan though. Are they even doing a 90s week? INXS isn't really a 90s band though, I think of them more as late 80s.

Yeah I noticed Hansen had the black vest deal going that Austin later popularized. This might sound odd but why is this one dude called only The Barbarian? Isn't that awfully confusing since this I'm assuming was Nord the Barbarian? Why shorten it and call him the name of another, more famous, wrestler?

Doesn't really matter now, he's gone anyway. It's funny that some of these so called ringers (Michael Johns, Carly Smithson) really haven't hit a home run yet or connected with their choices. If they do a 1990s week, Carly has to do The Cranberries.

It is interesting how WWE brought in guys who seem like the prototypes for the NBT group (Orton, Cena) and these guys became stars, while the actual NBT guys themselves were buried, jobbed out, put in gay gimmicks, etc. Orton in particular seems like someone who would have been right at home in this group. Of course the obvious WWE guys who seemed like this sort of NBT type talent were Chris Masters and Carlito. Their late 2005 pushes reminded me a lot of that WCW era.

I watched the show with Hall squashing some jobber and the Rockers going against Dennis Stamp (of "I'm not booked" fame) and another jobber. This stuff is awesome, I am hooked. Unlike with 24/7 where shows update maybe 1-2 times a month, this stuff is on ESPN Classic all the time. By the way Larry Z., I would assume Bockwinkel was awarded the belt on a forfeit when Stan Hansen didn't show.

I'm not sure what is up with SD of late but it hasn't been too great. Watching it I get the feeling they have a good initial idea with some feuds or angles (Edge/Vicki, Noble/Palumbo/McCool) but these things just tend to fizzle out.

Keep him around for comedy gold if nothing else. He obviously won't win, just a slightly more disturbing Sanjaya for this year.

Yeah I didn't really mind the group too bad. If WCW had tried something like this a year or so earlier it might have gotten over, but by mid 2000 it was really too late to turn things around. I too thought Sean O'Haire would be a major star in wrestling, but he was never in favor politically in WWE.

Yeah but George South and Joey Maggs were at least not total unknown jobbers. They were on WCW TV a lot. Bockwinkel had a competitve match with some total unknown jobber that would be getting squashed by King Kong Bundy in 20 seconds. Not sure why but I got a laugh out of the Midnight Rockers coming out to Judas Priest.

Double post.

Yeah I was about to say about Gagne...I saw a match on 24/7 a while back from MSG where he faced Nicolai Volkoff. It was when he didn't have the AWA title though, so it was sometime in the late 70s.

Lushus, I assume you mean Against All Odds there? If so, I agree. That chick is gone after doing it.

Scott Hall was the man on these old AWA shows. How the hell did Gagne not find a way to make money with him? This feud with Col. DeBeers is hilarious, with the Col. refusing to wrestle Hall because he feels he's obviously on anabolic steroids. This is the actual feud! Other thoughts: What was up with Bockwinkel having a serious match with that no name jobber on this one episode? The guy is a world champ and he's fucking around for 10 mins. with some bum. World champs shouldn't even bother with jobber guys...when did you see Hogan or Flair back then do that sort of thing with frequency? If they did face a jobber, they squashed him.