cabbageboy

No need to ever remake Bond movies like Dr. No. As long as you can come up with a megalomaniac villain or an evil group like SPECTRE you can keep doing Bond movies.

I think if RVD had been healthy then Heyman mostly would have used the Radicals as high card jobbers and used them to get RVD over. Heyman would have realized that these guys wouldn't stay too long before going to the WWF. Maybe Malenko and Saturn would get a tag title reign.

Jericho lost a few matches on the way out in WCW but he was off TV long enough during the Summer of 1999 that it meant nothing. Once he showed up on Raw, no one remembered or cared that he had been jobbing in WCW. I recall thinking once Jericho jobbed the TV belt to Konnan realizing that he was going to the WWF, and that was at like Starrcade 1998.

Uncle Ivan is at least a wrestler and part time manager for his nephew. Magnum TA's mom hadn't even been on TV before (that I know of) and I was perplexed when she was there. At least when Dusty would do these "babyface gets stripped of the belt" angles he would inadvertantly hit a promoter or something, thus being stripped but he didn't mean any malice.

Am I the only one who is also baffled by Bulldog's heel run starting in 1995? It actually made perfect sense I suppose, given how he was screwed out of the Rumble win in Jan. and also how he and Luger never totally gelled as a team and didn't win the belts. So once Luger bolted for WCW it was like he said "Fuck this I gotta DO something with my career!" and attacked Diesel during a random tag match. Thing is, it was such an arbitrary turn at the time. It didn't help that Nash wasn't exactly that over so when Bulldog turned on him it didn't really draw a big heel reaction. Other odd angles with Bulldog were things like the Michaels feud. I couldn't figure out why he was supposed to be a bad guy in it when he seemed to legit think HBK was after his wife. Even though it turned out she was lying about it, I don't recall it being said that Davey Boy knew this all along. Or the whole teaming with Owen....good stuff and seemed to be leading to a Bulldog face turn until the Hart Foundation angle kept him heel.

DeBeers at least knows how to be a professional heel. He even twirls his mustache and everything. I'm intrigued that he is blatantly trying to usurp Slaughter with the team...am I to assume this is how they write Slaughter out when he went to the WWF? It IS kinda scary that most of these guys on the waning days of the AWA went on to better things. Slaughter obviously became the WWF champ less than a year later, and Adnan managed him. Nord became the Berserker, which is at least a step up from this. The Destruction Crew got picked up and became The Beverly Bros. (which isn't a good gimmick but likely much more $$). Trooper became The Patriot not long after this. Diamond caught on and became the Orient Express with Tanaka. Zbyzsko went to WCW and did decent. Ironically I think the roster was probably better overall than it was in 1987. Those shows really did suck hard, with nothing but white bread jobber guys like DJ Peterson, JT Southern, and Mitch Snow getting pushed.

That Magnum angle is hilarious stuff. I've heard of it for years but seeing it made me wonder what the hell this guy was thinking. Geigel basically gave him a slap on the wrist and was feasible about the whole press conference fiasco, and then he punches out the president of the NWA? I've noticed a pattern on these NWA shows though. The shows with the most arena footage or interviews away from the studio tend to be more exciting. The TV studio setting is just too antiseptic or something.

The problem with the Edge/Vickie swerves is that neither would be worth a crap as a face right now, so there is no point in turning either. I am amazed that WWE doesn't seem to grasp the obvious way to end this angle: Edge either loses a match to someone with Vickie's job at stake, then he cuts a bitter promo dumping her and demanding a divorce.....or Vickie finally abuses her power so much that Vince (or Shane, Steph, Linda, etc) steps in and fires her on the spot. Both would end with Edge cutting the vicious promo.

Eh, Angle was also acting like a complete madman behind the scenes and had alienated the entire ECW roster from what I recall. Add that to his various injuries and his painkiller addictions and WWE rightfully cut ties with the guy. I don't know what you do with Kennedy though. At best I would just use him as a US title contender at this point. The ship has sailed for him as a main eventer.

I'm not sure the Jets with Favre couldn't beat out the Jags for a playoff spot. Jacksonville could be anywhere from an 8-8 team to a 12-4 team. Bear this in mind about Tampa. The Bucs could have been better than 9-7 last year, but for whatever reason Gruden pulled Garcia and they phoned it in the last month of the season, losing 3 out of their last 4. The division was crap though so Gruden didn't want an injury to Garcia and thus rested him, but in reality they could have been an 11-5 type team.

Eh, I like both types of horror films but it just depends on how well done the monster movie is or the psychological style as well. Anything where someone finds out they are dead at the end though....ugh.

My Favorite Bulldog run: It has to be 1991-92. That era is what made Davey Boy the biggest star in Europe and climaxed with his awesome IC title win over Bret at SS 92 (one of my favorite shows ever). To be honest I always thought his heel stuff from 1995-97 sucked, since he never really did anything all that evil and just seemed to nice to be a heel. Or to clarify his heel character sucked and didn't draw much heat, but his wrestling was excellent. Underappreciated? I think so and he should have gotten a world title run at some point. There were plenty of places to do that. Why didn't WCW give him a win over Vader in 1993? Was Vader drawing such insane business that he couldn't job and regain in time to lose it for good at Starrcade? As in why not give Bulldog the belt at Slamboree 93, then have him job it back at that Clash in August where they did the rematch, etc. I think he also could have gotten it from HBK in 1996 if they had done the bogus double pin finish and given him the belt, but he would have been a lame duck waiting to job it back at KOTR 96. His 1999 run was so uninspired that I can't say they booked him especially good or bad. He was in the top mix for a while but the whole "heel in bluejeans" act was a bit bizarre. He did however slam the garbage can into Stephanie's head though, giving her the blackouts or whatever and this led to her marrying HHH in storyline.

Let's back up here. Did I actually read that someone thinks UT is losing the HIAC to Edge? Ha! The guy already "lost his career" in the last match with Edge and this is his return match. Not only does it make zero sense for UT to job in this match it's not even remotely the right booking in this situation. Come to think of it, SS is a PPV full of matches where they have booked themselves into a corner. Edge has been a goof of late and jobbed his ass off, yet UT can't simply show up and lose. Cena has zero momentum right now and needs a win, yet Batista has been denied in his various title matches and needs a win.

It's funny because The Heartbreak Kid seemed like a flop for Stiller but it did make 127 million worldwide. Night at the Museum was a major hit for him in 2006, so I'd hardly say his career is in trouble or anything. As far as Black goes, he really hasn't had a flat out live action star vehicle since Nacho Libre, which made about 80 million (99 worldwide). But yeah, Tropic Thunder is going to make money due to the fascination of seeing Downey, Jr. in blackface....or whatever it is he's doing, haha.

The Patriot had a curious US career, which is ironic considering his gimmick. I remember seeing him on Global back in the day (like 1992 or so) and then didn't see him until a run in WCW that I barely remember where he and Bagwell won the tag belts. Then nothing again until his WWF run in 1997. Wonder why he never had a sustained run in a US promotion?

I was messing around with the numbers last night and consider these potential weekend numbers with that same 42% decline: Week 4: 25.4 million (Aug. 8-10) Week 5: 14.7 million (Aug. 15-17) Week 6: 8.5 million (Aug. 22-24) Week 7: 5.0 million (Aug. 29-31) Now, something struck me as very odd about those numbers. Not so much this coming week but more the ones in late August. I can't see those weekends being as low as all that with some fairly bleh competition in the 2nd half of the month.

I don't think Santino can win the women's belt, that one would go to Beth and he would get the IC. At least I would think so. Let's face it, Punk vs. either JBL or Kane in a standard match won't be all that good. It just won't. Punk right now isn't good enough to carry either without a stipulation involved. Kane at least is a potentially amusing choice to put vs. Punk in a storyline sense. Let Kane reveal his mask in the sack, go on a crazed psycho roll of destroying people left and right. Maybe they will still do that for Unforgiven? As for SS, nothing any of us can do about JBL/Punk so let's just hope Punk goes over clean and they'll move on to something else.

Well of course Punk vs. JBL is the best world title match on the card, but what does that really say? It's at best an adequate TV main event, but is hardly PPV quality when faced with the much more tantalizing prospects of Punk vs. Jericho on PPV. They cannot afford to have Punk keep screwing around with JBL if he's going to get over as champ, unless they want to do some crazed gimmick match. Otherwise the matches will be mundane (or even suck) and it won't do much for Punk's ability to get over as champ.

We've discussed this in previous threads but Titanic was aided in late 1997 and early 1998 by having a really lame batch of movies as competition. There were a couple of Oscar contenders released during its run (As Good As It Gets and Good Will Hunting) but neither of those films had a real massive release. Both came out in about 1500 theaters and were rolled out slowly, never getting more than 15 million or so in a weekend. But aside from those movies? Not much. The Wedding Singer did decent business in early 1998, but Adam Sandler wasn't quite the big draw that he would be even later that year when The Waterboy did huge business. Ironically the movie that came closest to unseating Titanic was another Leo flick, Man in the Iron Mask. Also, Titanic had the great fortune of being the only major show in town during several holidays. It came out near Christmas 1997, then there would be MLK weekend in Jan., then stuff like Valentine's Day, and so on. I knew Titanic was going to be huge however once my grandma expressed an interest in seeing it when it first came out. I didn't actually see Titanic at the theater, which I now sorta regret. Saw the Bond movie that came out the same week.

I was about to say...in what universe is Survivor Series 92 a bad PPV? Hell I know I'd take it over any friggin Taboo Tuesday show. Spring Stampede 94 I suppose has better top to bottom action on it, but for whatever reason it's a hard show to CARE about since the direction WCW was going in was abruptly changed once Hogan signed. Besides, does Spring Stampede 94 have Kamala vs. UT in a casket match? I think not.

Eh, how exactly were Rhodes and DiBiase supposed to win that match if Cena/Batista actually were able to coexist? They are two borderline rookies with belts they didn't really even earn. Batista and Cena didn't turn on each other, so of course they would beat the piss out of them. I have a feeling Adamle might make things truly intriguing by making Cena face off against his boys Cryme Tyme with the tag belts on the line. In an odd way wasn't it to Punk's advantage to lose to someone tonight? As long as he simply lost he only faces one man at SS, whereas if he had kicked out at the last second he would have faced both JBL and Jericho. With that said, are they all but trying to tank this PPV with the title matches? I mean Mark Henry defending the ECW title, Khali in the SD title match, and now Punk vs. JBL? Man they must really be relying on Hell in a Cell to draw the buyrate here. I would say Cena/Batista as well, but I have a feeling that match is a no decision waiting to happen.

Okay first off I think it would be obvious when I said UCLA's 11 national titles I was referring to college basketball. Joba Chamberlain is hardly a Cy Young candidate this year, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that he could become one in the future with more starting experience behind him.

Yeah I don't have a problem with that aspect of the NWO angle. The main point of it was that WCW had a bunch of guys with their own problems, feuds, agendas, and that they couldn't easily become this Band of Brothers to take out the NWO. In fact several simply joined it rather than try and fight.

Danville, hate to tell you this but HHH is now on SD (if you were watching Raw for him). I don't mind whatever direction the Raw title scene goes in unless it actually is Punk vs. JBL at the PPV. That match has zero big time buzz to it and was done on Raw to boot.

I thought Reid wasn't training down in FL but was instead training with George South at his school or something. Anyone know for sure?