cabbageboy

It seems like Edge has been working with some sort of pectoral injury for a while on and off. What I mean is he can't just complain to Long and say he has a torn pec and Long says it's either gut it out or be stripped of the title. So Edge refuses to be stripped of the belt and Kane comes out, hits a chokeslam, that's it. Just anything to avoid another of these title vacancies that have plagued SD for 2 years. As far as Nitro goes, I too think he's a pretty decent worker but it's just that he's a complete jobber that has zero business holding even a fraudulent world title at this stage of his career. The guy went from working dark matches with Kenny to being a "World" champ?

Why are they not mentioning what Benoit's blood alcohol level was?

Why can't Edge just wrestle on Sunday and job the title to Kane? Hell, give the big man one decent little run with the belt. If UT can wrestle hurt to drop the belt then surely Edge can do it too. If Mark Henry actually wins the title do you realize two of the main champs in WWE would be Henry and Nitro? How can they go to sleep at night after that?

Not sure about PPV but I know I saw a tremendous Bret/Hakushi match at that Raw taping I mentioned. First time I'd ever seen a guy do a moonsault from inside the ring to the floor. Bret/Bulldog from IYH is a good match and has a shocking amount of blood for the time period, but SS 92 is majestic. Besides, Bulldog never worked right as a heel in that late 1995 run. In fact he really didn't find himself in that role until teaming with Owen.

I saw that PPV on 24/7 not too long ago. It's a decent enough time waster show and I actually went to the Raw taping the night after that PPV. HBK/JJ...that match is okay I guess. I don't see the classic there that some people do though. Too much Jarrett Memphis stalling and the finish is still moronic. 1995 was a lousy year for PPVs mainly because it was the first year that they did monthly PPVs and had the growing pains involved with that.

Why don't they call up Katie Lea? She could perhaps reignite the feud from OVW with Beth Phoenix. Why does Smackdown need women anyway? There is no women's belt on the show, so they are completely pointless. Seriously, what is the point of stuff like Torrie vs. Victoria on SD?

If Hall and Nash stayed in the WWF I don't know if any sort of wrestling boom would have taken place. Razor Ramon would have gotten stale and Diesel would have mainly jobbed to the main event guys since his title run tanked. Also, I think they would have tried to sabotage the pushes of various newer guys to see that they didn't get all that over.

Good grief, the Popeye movie was from 1980, which is kinda out of date by the time that early 90s Hogan tape was out.

So...Joe is going to have to win that match. Right? And why the hell put that match on at a nothing PPV like Hard Justice? I assumed this was their BFG main event.

In all fairness they almost had it right with RVD if not for the weed bust in 2006. Without that he likely would have been a top star in WWE right now.

Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't the various former champs end up having it Cena 4, Lashley 2? That's interesting, they aren't even hyping this like it's Cena against the unstoppable guy. Of course that's what happens when the other guy jobs to Vince and Shane for months. I don't think the GAB match will even have a conclusive finish. Lashley isn't some Khali/Umaga type monster chump heel that they can just feed to Cena and job out. Lashley is someone they have taken a real interest in pushing. I think this will end up going on to SS.

Finley tried to move the A's most anywhere that would take him. From 1962-67 he tried to go to Dallas, but was denied permission. He actually wanted to move to Louisville too, but again was denied. From there he made an attempt to go to Oakland but was denied on the first try. He then at least mentioned Atlanta, Milwaukee, San Diego, Seattle, and New Orleans before finally getting approval to move to Oakland. The A's may well be the strangest franchise in baseball. They have the 3rd most World Series wins ever (10) but they tend to seriously suck hard for decades in between major runs. They were awesome from 1910-14, then fell apart and sucked for over a decade. Then they got really great in the 1928-33 era and won 2 titles and almost a 3rd. From there they sucked without fail for damn near 40 years before the early 70s Reggie Jackson teams did the threepeat. And of course they moved twice during that 4 decades of futility, from Philly to KC to Oakland.

Having Cody vs. Orton this soon is unbelievably dumb. The whole point of this angle is Dusty at first protecting his son, but Orton is younger and inevitably will beat the piss out of old Dust at the PPV (possibly another concussion?). Then Cody decides to man up and swears revenge on Orton for what he did to his dad. Unless this just ends up being a DQ tonight they are blowing a potentially interesting angle.

Nah, I think the next couple of months are to get the various belts off of Joe so that they can go with Joe vs. Angle at BFG. For instance next month at the PPV they can job the tag belts to the Steiners or someone, maybe Sabin/Shelley or the reformed XXX. Anyone really. Then Angle can defend against Sting or whoever in Sept. and Joe loses the X title in some goofy 3 way again. Then you have Joe vs. Angle set up for Oct.

I think the ending of Rams/Titans is poetic justice. The Titans were the luckiest bastards on earth, but their luck finally ran out 1 yard short of OT. Here's a what if from the Pats/Panthers Super Bowl: What if John Kasay doesn't kick the ball out of bounds like a dumbass? Do the Pats get down the field for the FG and win anyway, or does it go to OT (where Vinatieri wins it with a FG regardless, haha)?

Here's a question to ponder. How long will Vince keep himself off TV? And further, what sort of possible angle can they do to explain his return? I honestly have no idea how they do it unless they simply ignore the entire limo angle as if it never happened. Retcon it from continuity.

Yeah from a booking standpoint it at least wasn't the chaotic, bizarre stuff from the previous show. The in ring work wasn't as good however. Watching the Shelley/Sabin match tonight I realized why Backlund's TNA stint has been so strange. They are actually trying to have him be a FACE with his psycho old man gimmick. What the hell are they thinking having Backlund as a face with that act, since he's obviously highly annoying? It's no wonder the crowd sided with Shelley and Sabin there. I was a bit baffled by the end of the main event. Why does Joe get to now choose some new partner? Shouldn't he and Angle simply be the tag champs? It will likely be moot since Joe will select Angle anyway. Or maybe Judy Bagwell.

I think WCW had it all planned out until that Starrcade but had no idea what to do after that. To be honest I don't think the finish of Starrcade 97 had any real serious impact on WCW's demise, since I don't know what they could have done with Sting as champ in the long term. There was no one match that wrecked WCW....it was 100 crappy matches with lousy booking. I don't even think Nash ending Goldberg's streak really wrecked the company as much as some people believe. It wasn't that Nash ended the streak, it was that Goldberg didn't really avenge it properly and get the belt back. I don't think even the Fingerpoke of Doom nonsense would have been a killer if they had done something plausible with it (like have Goldberg go through Nash and the NWO to take out Hogan for the title). Ironically Sting was involved in the match that made me realize WCW had no clue what they were doing. It was right after Spring Stampede 99 and DDP had shocked everyone and won the title. The DDP title win and heel turn was the most bizarre and heatless thing I've ever witnessed, since he was punked out hard by Steiner and put on the shelf, then comes back and jobs to Hogan in a TV match (where they destroyed the old Nitro set). Then DDP is arbitrarily tossed into a world title match at the PPV where he honestly just came off like a 4th guy because they needed a 4th guy. He literally had no heat to win the belt whatsoever, and had done a weird heel turn on top of it. So Sting faces him on Nitro and beats DDP soundly in the first hour to win the belt. I thought finally WCW had some sense and realized the DDP run was tanking, but they book a goofy 4 way rematch for later in the show. DDP regained the title by pinning Nash (?!) after Page had been in the crowd protesting the entire match. And then Sting was quickly forgotten as Nash--who was just pinned--got a title shot at the next PPV. Take a look at Nitro's ratings after this April episode. As it got into May and June of 1999 they started tanking bad. For me this was the last straw, and I never took WCW seriously again even though I kept watching till the bitter end.

Thank you, Kahran. The WWF was exceptionally good in 1993, but the problem is that people who didn't watch back then on a weekly basis can only easily view the year in terms of the fairly mediocre PPVs they did that year. It's almost the opposite of 1992 in that regard, since 92 was a great year for the PPVs but my lord it was snooze worthy on a week to week basis from WM to SS. Raw was a shock to the system when it debuted in Jan. 93. Before then the Monday show was Prime Time Wrestling with Monsoon and Heenan doing comedic banter in the studio and introducing some stale pre taped matches. Then Raw debuts and we had this ultra frenetic and energized show from a small NYC venue, and they put major matches on free TV. I don't see how a year that yielded Flair vs. Perfect (Loser Leaves Town) on Raw, the Michaels/Jannetty feud (the Jannetty upset and the 2/3 falls match), the shocking Kid upset of Razor Ramon, and the whole Battle Royale and IC match with Razor/Martel could be considered a bad year.

I'll elaborate on the 2003-04 product. Yes, those guys that were mentioned were in fact there, but really some of them like Jericho and RVD were buried as hell during that time period. Christian was treading water as well, maybe got an IC run out of it. I've let my apathy for Lesnar/Angle be known on here in the past, mainly because in the initial part of the feud I never found Angle and Co. to be serious enough as heels and Lesnar didn't exactly inspire me to rally behind him. Then they shift roles and Lesnar worked better as a vicious heel, but Angle was too smarmy to work as the inspirational face. What did Benoit do in 2003? After his stellar match with Angle at the Rumble he really didn't do anything that I recall until very late in the year when he feuded briefly with Lesnar. The one guy during that time period that was booked well and captivated me as a viewer was Eddie.

The Crow Sting angle is something that sooooo doesn't hold up with time worth a damn. Actually the beginning of it is still terrific, as the fake Sting attacks Luger and all that. The War Games to follow was also interesting from a story standpoint. But after that the storyline literally goes nowhere for about a YEAR. Let's face it, Crow Sting was a total pussy. Here is a guy who lets one simple misunderstanding transform him into a sad sack who prowls around the rafters as his friends all get their asses kicked by the NWO. Finally he decides to do something about it and helps them out, but the main villain actually kicks his ass clean in the center of the ring. I mean how was this character so over with fans? I wasn't the biggest Sting fan in the world from 1988-94 or so, but at least the guy was a never say die hero who faced the odds (Horsemen) or took hellacious beatings from a monster (Vader) and came back for more. Sure, people turned heel on him regularly, but at least he kept trying to see the good side of someone even against his better judgement.

Sting is a bit old now to do the whitemeat babyface blond look he used to have. If he goes back to that they might as well bring in Vader to beat the crap out of him for old time's sake. I think we've all put way more thought into this feud than TNA did. Hell to them all it was meant to be was a filler feud for Sting to beat someone while Abyss was selling the injury.

That was a goofy Taker angle, never even made an impression on me. I'm not sure what it would take, but I think it would have to include a complete lack of interesting stuff on the horizon. I stopped watching in late 1989 (resumed watching in early 1992) and I think I stopped because it looked like Hogan had the title and there were no real challengers on the horizon, Demolition had the tag belts with nothing more to do, Warrior had the IC title and no serious threats on the horizon. Of course I stopped before they could put Hogan vs. Warrior at WM 6, but the thought of them doing that never occurred to me.

I'm not disagreeing necessarily but isn't this a hard story to put over while a guy is off TV? We're supposed to buy into Daniels having some huge change in personality while he's not even actively involved in storylines, but just through some vignettes. This seems a bit lazy. To fully do it right Daniels and Sting needed some semblance of a prior onscreen relationship. Something before Daniels left, even if it was backstage stuff where Daniels was seen asking Sting for advice and telling him how much he admired Sting's work. Daniels being off TV was a copout way to have a guy do a 180 turn without laying the foundation for why he would do it.

I don't recall Cornette managing Bulldog/Owen after Mason pulled his con job and stole their contracts out from under Cornette. I forget why but Cornette was nearly unconscious and Mason made him sign some papers. Mason stayed with Bulldog/Owen for a while until their own dissention storyline started taking shape and Mason drifted more into the NOD full time. However, since he never gave up control of their contracts he may well have been their manager even during the Hart Foundation angle, but this was never really delved into in any way. It was either: 1. Mason was in fact still their manager offscreen, but made no sense being with them onscreen since he was with the Nation. 2. Upon joining the Hart Foundation Bret got them to buy out Mason and be their own men again. 3. This angle was simply dropped.