cabbageboy

After tonight I am starting to have that sinking feeling that Orton might retain at WM. He just looks like such a jobber after losing to Cena the way he did tonight that the storyline going into WM is that he HAS to finally get that win over Cena. None of these guys in this feud are remotely compelling right now to be honest. It's one guy who has had the belt forever and a day and I don't want him to get it again anytime soon, one guy that shouldn't have gotten it again anyway, and another guy who has had it so many times it isn't amazing if he gets it again. Man, where was Jericho tonight? Is he already this buried that he can't even get on Raw after the PPV? JBL has now moved on to the Finlay angle, so that is apparently dead. This was a pretty good show from an angle perspective, not so much for wrestling. I'm getting a distinct No Limit Soldiers vibe from Mayweather and Company, I really am. Anyone else feel this way?

I enjoyed this PPV. It set up what it needed to set up. I wonder if Kane wasn't in the SD EC match because he would be there to help UT to some extent and they prefer to have UT as the man alone. If Matt was healthy they could have put him in it, then maybe Kane instead of Big Daddy V. Yeah, I think it would have hurt Cena to job in his first PPV match back. That isn't what the point of the match was anyway. The point was that Orton is a scumbag asshole who only needed to get through the night and he's going to WM. Doesn't matter HOW he does it. This is now the 2nd time though that they have brought back a star and put him vs. Orton on PPV, only to have it end in a DQ (Jericho being the previous match).

Also, it now looks like it will be Memphis vs. Tennessee this coming week in a 1 vs. 2 matchup. I thought Duke would be #2 and it would end up as 1 vs. 3, so in that respect it is cool that Duke lost tonight.

This will be highly unpopular but I'll go ahead and say it. Having rewatched these 1997 Raw shows on 24/7, I have come to the conclusion that the Hart Foundation was a highly overrated stable. People wax poetic about the group but let's examine things: --Bret was hurt for months and didn't wrestle. --Pillman was way past his prime as a wrestler and was in fact near death. --Neidhart was mostly just crap by 1997. --Bulldog and Owen were really the only actual workers of the group, and for the most part they were just job bitches for Austin, Michaels, etc. One thing to note on the recent Raw on 24/7 is the whole Russo experience of everyone having dissention. At least the Harts were a cohesive unit. UT and Bearer? Blackmail and dissention. The Nation? Savio and Crush having problems...dissention. Austin and Michaels? Dissention among the tag champions. Russo of course would play that angle out eventually but in 1997 it was new and fresh.

Iggy, I think the thing is TNA simply tries too hard on every show. It's almost like they need to calm the hell down just a bit, let some angles take some time to play out, and just have some wrestling. The whole Russo car wreck style of booking is so incredibly 10 years ago. I will say this right now in the hope that it will happen: At Lockdown Joe needs to just beat the fuck out of Angle for the belt. Clean. Center of the ring. No run ins or BS. I'm talking 20 minutes of Joe beating the holy hell out of Kurt Angle, with Angle just getting token offense. This is one time where TNA 100% must cut out the crap and put someone over with a vengeance.

If you get DQed though you don't get the winner's purse. I guess Cena got that, not that Orton cares. That was ideal booking tonight though. Let's face it...they don't want to really put Orton over ANYONE of note on a consistent basis, certainly not Cena. I have no idea why Orton got back in the ring on that countout spot, even watching I was practically ranting "Dude, just take a walk here! Let Cena get the lame countout win!" I figured the only point in bringing Cena back this early was not to put the belt on him, but to just pop a buyrate for this PPV and for WM. It makes no sense to just put the belt back on him. Now HHH can beat Orton at WM, Cena doesn't have to job to anyone, and they can save HHH vs. Cena 1 on 1 for another time.

I think an 8 man tourney should have happened on SD with maybe the Final 4 guys competing on this PPV. Something besides just throwing 6 more guys in the EC. Anyway, tonight I am taking HHH to win the Raw one, UT to win the SD one, Flair over Kennedy, Chavo over Punk via some dubious method. As far as Cena/Orton goes, I am not 100% sure. The notion of Cena (or anyone for that matter) simply waltzing back and getting the belt again is sickening. I hate that type of booking, yet I also want the belt off Orton. I will go out on a limb and say Orton gets himself DQed, then they do a 3 way at WM.

UAB was up 7 with about 2 minutes left and choked it away, at least that is what I got from the highlights. The sad part is this is probably Memphis' best road win. How has Memphis managed to get any top teams to play them on either a neutral site or in Memphis? U of L now 10-3 in the Big East. I think it's really down to U of L, ND, and UConn as far as being teams who are threats. G'Town has been bullshit all year, getting by in ultra close fashion with possible crooked officiating.

I just checked Franco's Wikipedia entry and it said there he was half Jewish, 1/4 Swedish, and 1/4 Portugese (hence the last name Franco). That's one interesting combo.

The way things turned out ended up way better than this would be booking in 1988. Savage was flat out over enough to main event and be world champ. Putting the IC back on him would be stupid and pointless. Sure, he never quite beat HTM, but I'd say the WWF title is a nice consolation. I'll explain the difference between HTM and Flair. Flair's dubious runs were near the end of Dusty Rhodes' booking tenure in the NWA, when Dusty was trying to either get Flair to job or to make him look bad as champ. However, Flair had already had some excellent title runs before that 1987-88 period and he would go on to have an amazing 1989. Flair did win quite a few matches clean in the 1980s, and also went the 60m with a bunch of guys as well. HTM? Shit wrestler, had shitty matches, and retained quite literally due to countout or DQ. I've always been aghast at anyone who seriously thinks he was the Greatest IC Champ of All Time. Based on what exactly? His stellar Win-Loss record as champ? His great matches?

Still, is that sort of thing really what you want from an unbiased, legit GM figure? Cornette came off like a seedy used car salesman passing some lemon onto a customer. It's like you can see Cornette on TV and know he desperately wishes he could turn heel.

Just put Kane in there. He makes actual sense considering he is screwed out of the EC match for some reason I can't understand. It at least gives Kane something to do on the PPV, whereas Matt can come back and feud with MVP after No Way Out.

I hope they actually go with Edge vs. Kane. They never blew that feud off properly once Edge got hurt, and to be honest I am utterly sick of Rey Mysterio. To tie this with the Matt/MVP debate, hey if Rey can win the title and main event then either of those guys can do it. Not right now though, doesn't really make sense. But I can see that being a world title feud a year or so from now.

Is Bulls/Rockets really a dream matchup circa 1997? The Rockets were pretty decent but were just 57-25 compared to the Bulls 69-13. Here's a couple that I've thought about for my local teams: --U of L vs. UK, 1975 NCAA title game. Unfortunately, U of L lost by 1 in OT to UCLA. That's one game where I can safely say the wrong team won. --Same matchup, U of L vs. UK but this time 1986 FF. LSU got 4 tries at UK that year and finally beat them by 2 points in the regional final. I don't guess that is the actual final game though, it's a semi. Question along the lines of the HOF stuff. With guys like Clemens and Bonds named in the steroid controversy, who are some guys from the past 20 years or so that will get in the HOF free of controversy?

Where was that from about Hassan beating Batista? Cause I am calling major bullshit on that one. There's no way in hell they would have ever put the belt on that worthless shithead. Oh, and I fail to see how Edge vs. Lesnar in the KOTR 2002 finals makes much sense, considering Edge had just won the prior year. Though I think I would have preferred that to the nightmare that was RVD vs. Lesnar, which as longtime forum posters know I regard as the single dumbest booking decision of the post Invasion era.

You hit the nail on the head with this Joe angle. I can see Cornette's initial thought of having the ceremony in the ring. I can even see him wanting to redo it figuring that with Morgan out of the way it would go smoothly. But shit, after that just send the dude the fucking contract and let him sign it at home for crying out loud. And I don't really think Karen and AJ are supposed to be married or anything...that's kind of considered bigamy on her end. It was just a goofy punchline....right?

Not only that but Flair jobbing to some young guy in a sad attempt to elevate the guy (Kennedy, MVP, whoever) will only backfire and the fans will be even less accepting of the younger guy than before.

It might make sense but there's no way the match can end until HHH actually loses in that scenario. Maybe he could be unconscious and Big Show tosses him back in and that 3rd man pins him, then Jeff can beat that 3rd dude (JBL for instance). I say this because Jeff comes off like a bit of a douche if he directly takes advantage of the Show's run in.

Cornette is the lamest GM or commish type character I've ever seen. He seems powerless to stop heels from cheating, he seems more of a heel than a face (yet I'm assuming he's supposed to be face).

Hell yeah. What years are they covering? Just the ESPN era from 1985-90? I guess that is what they would have the rights to show. AWA even at its nadir is better than that UWF dreck.

This whole thing was simply demented today. We have two guys here who are both lying their asses off at every turn. I don't believe that Clemens is telling the truth, but so much of McNamee's actions are so seedy and creepy that I don't buy him either.

It sort of serves them right considering the laughable SOS FL has this year. They didn't play anyone out of conf. aside from maybe OSU and FSU and they lost both of those. Let's also not forget that epic trip to Rupp they have to make to close the season.

For some reason I have only 3 categories on 24/7 right now, with no shorties at all. No new updates, and in fact it removed several of the current programs. Anyone else have this problem?

That was a PPV that outraged me at the time, since I had people over who were all interested in seeing that Hogan/Warrior rematch (nostalgia for the first match mostly). Then the time ran out during that match and it cut out for 5 minutes or so, we missed the entire goofy finish with the fireball and everything. It did come back on for DDP/Goldberg. The maddening thing is Havoc 98 has so much useless shit on it that could have been cut out to make it a trim 170m or so. Nitro Girls dancing three times, jobber crap, etc.

But...but...Survivor Series 98 is the apex of Russo era WWF booking! Anyway, Ted DiBiase was not a credible wrestler in the WWF at the time of WM IV. I repeat: Not in the WWF. I had just started watching wrestling shortly before the first Rumble, so I had no exposure to DiBiase's Mid South/UWF work (I don't think it was even on TV here anyway). DiBiase hadn't even wrestled on a PPV of any kind before WM IV...would you really give this guy the title? He hadn't really beaten anyone and really hadn't even wrestled very many matches. Most of his heat came from his wacky skits with Virgil paying people off to humiliate themselves, and also from his attempts to use Andre to buy the title. This isn't to say he couldn't have had a run with the belt at some point in 1988, maybe for a couple of months in the summer before losing it back to Macho.