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LenDale is making himself millions right here with every 8+ yard carry as his draft stock keeps rising. That was likely the backbreaker right there.

Keith Jackson: "The Trojans lead, but Texas is about to attempt a field goal and looking to untie it". Time to send gramps to the retirement home, and while they're at it someone needs to take the Texas kicker out back and give him the horse treatment since he probably ended up costing his team the national title with those two missed kicks.

Lashley doesn't have a lisp that I can remember, but his voice is a helluva lot softer than you would expect coming out of a body that muscular.

Dang! I was hoping they'd run an angle where the guy said absolutely nothing for the better part of a year. The fans would not only look forward to him viciously dismantling opponents, but they'd be desperately waiting for the moment that he finally spoke. Tazz and Cole could easily get the angle over by building up his in-ring performance, while asking, "When will this guy say something?" The WWE could have continued the angle by having someone attack him or interrupt him everytime he picked up the mic, leading to instant, volcanic heat. The crowd anticipation for his SPEAKING debut would be tremendous! Unfortunately, with how they chose to do it or with the above angle, unless Lashley has the voice and eloquence of Dennis Haysbert ("24"), I fear that the IWC will start grumbling about his lack of mic skills and charisma. Lashley shattered the illusion during the time when he was forcing Simon Dean to eat 20 something cheeseburgers at No Mercy. Granted most people didn't watch that PPV, but unless they've coached him to make him sound differently since then, he's got a Mike Tyson style voice that just doesn't fit with his body type at all.

Kids tend to cheer for who they're supposed to. Unless Cena does something against another one of their favorites the majority of them will likely continue to keep cheering him. Most women cheer for the guys they think are "hot" and don't care about storylines as we've learned when the men in the crowd in the past almost unanimously turned on guys like HBK & Orton. If a backlash ever comes against Batista, you'll see this split will be the same. I also think some people regardless of age and gender get REALLY defensive if everyone doesn't like one of their favorites and that's pretty clear because the "Let's Go (insert Cena's opponent)" chant always comes before the "Let's Go Cena" one and the replies get louder only when the initial chant does. I guess this just reminds me of a time a few years ago when I was dating a girl whose younger sister was in love with that shitty pop group O-Town and I made a remark about how much they sucked, which led her to yell at me, start crying and thus hate me for the remainder of the time I was involved with her sister. Had I not said anything we would have still been on different sides of the issue, but once I expressed my opinion she reacted.

The main reason Undertaker as champ would be awful is there'd be even less competition for him than there is for Batista since conceivably he'd have to beat him for the title and Batista's clearly "the top dog" on SD. I don't think token runs or nostalgia reigns are worth much and if so, he already had his when he was the Undisputed Champ.

good took them long enought to figure he's shit John Cena will once again overcome the odds, by beating FIVE men. . . . only to lose to HHH cleanly one on one in the next few months.

You have to be bleeding "profusely" for the match to end, although that's suspect sometimes too.

Poor Shelton. Does anyone know how long his contract is for? I can't even fathom how much worse this burial's going to get before he's gone for good.

The way I read the segment was that Kash hates foreigners aka WWE "creative" needed something for him to do with the belt and that's what the dart or coin flip decided.

When you consider that Batista's already torn three major muscles in less than three years, I'd say the likelihood is that he won't be around headlining shows in 5 years, unless he works The Undertaker 2 weeks on/10 weeks off type schedule.

Someone explain how an adrenaline rush lasts almost as long as the average beatdown segment in your typical Angle or Michaels match? While I didn't enjoy seeing it in every match, Hogan was the only guy who ever did this properly in that the "hulk up" to match finish never took very long, while there are times where Michaels and Angle go an extra 5 to 10 minutes or more before ending the match with a bad neck/back/leg etc, which either makes them superhuman or horrific sellers. I tend to go with the latter on this.

Angle works the generic "WWE style" with a few of his trademark spots that expose the business almost as much as the man he's compared to a lot, HBK. For a guy with a banged up neck to do that running up the ropes belly to belly on a regular basis just defies logic. It also negates all of his selling just like HBK's pointless kip ups. There was a time Angle was the most entertaining guy for me to watch in the WWE, now he just blends into the background with everybody else. He's even unbearable to watch cutting promos when he decides to be a dickhead and try to do one while wearing a mouthpiece. Does he thinks it sounds menacing to lisp? If anything he sounds like a character who should be in that new movie The Ringer with Johnny Knoxville and the Special Olympians. I also don't fear for Daniels' life every time he takes a relatively simple bump the way I do for Angle. If we're talking about who has made a bigger impact, then yes Angle wins by a landslide, but right now he's just not exciting to me anymore, while Daniels still is.

I can't for the life of me understand why people like undefeated streaks in a worked situation, considering that there's nothing legitimate about the streak when it's decided with a pen and paper. To answer the question, it would be nice to at least assume reasonably that the guy in question would still be there for at least a couple of years, which isn't a given with someone like Batista given his health woes. It's not so much a question of age as it is potential benefit in my view. Guys like HHH, Angle, HBK & Batista would gain absolutely nothing from beating Taker at WM. Orton & Kane were both beaten in such a way in the past that it would be stupid to waste the streak on a rematch, which basically leaves a midcarder who is about to get the Jesus push or someone like Cena if he finally turned heel in the process of taking the streak. Popularity wise he probably wouldn't benefit that much, but he would certainly benefit in a storyline way if he turned heel and bragged about how he ended Undertaker's run considering their history. The problem they have now is that they've made this such a big deal that only someone who would gain little from ending the streak is viewed as "credible", when they need to realize that ending the streak would give an unproven person the credibility they need, unless of course you're talking about Rey Mysterio who would be the worst possible person to do it since no one outside of Rey's family would buy that one.

Notice I said in this fantasy land where Taker agrees to job at WrestleMania because I don't see that happening regardless of who he were to face this year, next year or the one after. I have no interest in seeing him as champ yet again, nor do I think Batista should get the benefit of ending his streak. To me, the best suitable opponent for both would be Edge (MITB contract/undefeated streak of his own) who they could make a top player if he were to beat either guy, though that doesn't seem likely either. They've shitted all over the brand split already so you might as well just keep it up. Undertaker needs to lose at WM before he retires but the way he's squashed everyone who has had the chance just makes it seem like he'll be a true master politician and walk out of the WWE with his streak in tact even when he shouldn't.

The ultimate goal in pro-wrestling is to make money. The best way to do that is to make fans pay for matches they want to see. But, for the sake of argument, let's look at it from a "rub" perspective, then. Batista beats Undertaker at Wrestlemania. People WANT to tune in because you have the undefeated champion versus someone who is undefeated at WM. That's a big deal that should squeeze a few thousand more buys. Batista ends Taker's streak, and becomes known as "the guy who beat Taker at Mania". He becomes a bigger star than he was before, possibly causing a boost in stuff like house show attendance and TV ratings. THEN, another guy comes along to challenge Batista. Batista, because he's a huge star, gives a rub to the new guy. Batista eventually retires, but the new guy has a main event run, and eventually gives another new guy a rub. The cycle continues. When you put a guy over, you're not just making him a star, but you're giving him a tool to make other guys stars years down the road. That's why it doesn't make any sense for Taker not to put guys over, because he's limiting guys he refusing to job to the capacity to help make other guys years down the road. But this is the obvious point you're missing, in this fantasy world where Taker chooses to job at WM, someone ELSE could take Taker's streak, and Batista could also lose the title, thus creating two new stars (while keeping two old ones) instead of having one match that doesn't truly benefit either man win, lose or draw. I hate Orton, but if he beat Batista convincingly at WM, and someone like Lashley or some other person they want to make an instant star beat Undertaker on the same show then you've doubled your number of reasons to have people watch SD the following week. I also don't think too many people who wouldn't have purchased WM anyway would do so simply because Batista was fighting Undertaker so the idea that making fans pay to see this match which would still be no higher than 2nd or 3rd from the top is kind of silly.

Now if that's the question, then yes I'm sure I've lost by a wide margin

I didn't see it, so did Cena actually break the Master Lock, or was it just a bad case of reporting?

That's JBL.

I can't believe I'm typing this, but I'd actually love to see HHH beat Cena for the title in 2 weeks on RAW.

Joey just said they were in the studio, so there you go.

I'm willing to bet money that at least half of that statement is true.

Compare it to hockey!!!! I like baseball but hockey's a much better comparison to wrestling. But nobody in the US actually watches or cares about hockey. The Red Sox story is well known even for people that don't follow baseball whereas I'm an avid sports fan and couldn't even tell you if a hockey team ever came back from 3-0 down to win a best of 7. As much as I'd like to see Benoit win, I think it would be better for the series to not make it to 7 so that everyone following doesn't take it for granted that the next two matches are foregone conclusions. While I'm on the subject I'd like to see some more best of 3 falls type matches end in two as well, since I think that's more dramatic than sitting around waiting for the third fall all the time.

Orton needs to do an Eddie Judgment Day 2004 level blade job tonight AND work like a madman in order to make me care about him. I don't find anything he does interesting, but if he's willing to go "the extra mile" then maybe that'll make me not want to stab my eyes out while he's wrestling, especially if he's due for the Rumble/'Mania double next year.

So in 1995, WWF sold out MSG all the time? Can I see some facts to back this up please? Hey, I stopped watching wrestling around 1995 or so and then I started again with the nWo angle. I saw Nash throw Rey into the trailer and it had me hooked again. It was something different, I saw that, and decided to watch again. That is exactly what WWE needs to do now. Some different. I just happened to find this site when trying to see what year Hogan vs Kamala was on since that was the first live event I saw (12/26/86). http://www.angelfire.com/wrestling/cawthon777/80smsg.htm I know that they did really well in the '70s because if I'm not mistaken Bruno has the record for MSG sellouts and that means he had to do better business than Hogan did. Look at all the sellouts in the '80s. They did well at points in the '90s too. My point still stands that they were able to draw at MSG multiple times per year in the past whether wrestling was a fad or not. The fact that they can't turn a profit now, and won't be running at all in 2006 at their home arena is mindboggling to me and I don't think anyone would have taken that bet as recently as 2 years ago.