Hawk 34

Will they at least have Umaga and Morrison drop the titles before serving the suspensions? Umaga could easily be written out with the routine "Because he can't be controlled, he is therefore, stripped of the title" but Morrison would probably have to hot shot the title over to Punk or knowing WWE, to Big Daddy V. Orton won't hurt because they can use the same aforementioned act with Umaga on him as well.

Leave it to someone here to express disappointment that John Cena wasn't among those on the list. The fact Cena keeps himself clean or at least has the intelligence to avoid having his name caught in these investigations is a blessing for WWE.

I never blamed WWE for not trusting Undertaker and Batista. You can't trust Batista to have a good match even if he is motivated (also, a great reason the match was surprisingly good was because of Batista's new found motivation and anger for getting knocked down the card). Going into the show, Cena/Shawn was seemingly the better match to close the show with. As for WM24? Obviously a great deal will change as far as who suddenly gets over, who comes into the company and who isn't there anymore as well as the usual injury plauge. I'll take a rough stab at what I think we could expect for WM24 and what else could be added WWE Title Ken Kennedy W/ Vince McMahon Vs Triple H © W/ Stephanie McMahon -This seems to be idea right now although we know those plans change constantly (Orton-HHH was set for WM just a month ago) but given that the curren angle with Vince is supposed to anchor the show for awhile, I think we can assume that this will continue throughout the next half year into WM. I'd actually have HHH going into WM as the champion as opposed to the general idea that most have. I'm not honestly expecting this match because Kennedy can't stay from the DL and HHH changes his mind constantly. World Title Edge Vs Undertaker © -This seems to be a lock and it should be. I'll have Undertaker defending the title since it's the one thing he hasn't done at WM (defend a title). It presents the feeling that Edge has nothing to lose and Undertaker has to defend the title and streak together. ECW Title CM Punk Vs Umaga © -I'm not trying to draw the Samoa Joe comparison here but Umaga-Punk would be a really good match especially if given free range. I could easily see Umaga moving over to ECW around the Rumble to set up a program where he takes out Punk and takes the title away. Batista Vs John Cena -If John Cena doesn't figure back into the title matches, this seems to be the popular place to slot him at. Given that Batista time is still limited, might as well jump on the biggest "dream match" they have left in-house. US Title MVP © Vs Lashley -I'm still not sold on Lashley but I expect him to get a "big" match and I'm thinking MVP should carry the US title straight into WM. Knowing WWE, Lashley would squash MVP in minutes. World Tag Team Championship Ladder Match London and Kendrick Vs Hart Foundation 2.0 Vs W.G.T.T Vs Cade and Murdoch -I'm taking out the MitB concept for the show because I believe it's better off for a secondary show as a potential draw such as E.C and HiaC. This is a fairly simple and logical match, three high flying teams with the brawlers mixed within. Who holds the title isn't important. IC Title Six Way Elimination Match King Booker Vs Carlito Vs Jeff Hardy Vs Cody Rhodes Vs Sandman Vs Snitsky -Just an excuse to put more people on the card, otherwise I would only expect Jeff and Booker to actually get a spot. Randy Orton Vs Shawn Michaels -Just a random match Extreme Expose Vs Michelle, Candice and Torrie -The annual Playboy promotion match, with the Expose being heels. Woman's Title Beth Vs Mickie -The best of what they got. You could probably slide two more matches in especially since some good names got left out.

It's not as if being out of the title scene would prevent him from having a high profile match. Putting the title off Cena gives him more options. He could actually have a real feud with someone not named Edge for once or he can used for the "mainstream entertainment" match ala Lashley. There is ECW as well...

If they intend to stick with HHH/Kennedy for WM (given the track record for HHH's original plans for WM over the past 7 years, I wouldn't hold my breath), they can have Kennedy take out HHH's best friend and idol prior to WM although he'd be the 200th person to do the act. If Flair does indeed "retire" at WM, he should and I expect him to uphold the usual tradition of going out on his back. You could plug any number of heel acts into the spot ranging from Burke, Morrison, Booker or even slot Batista in there for a respect match. Maybe Flair can do a tag with Batista to play off the mentor aspect. D'Lo Brown would be a solid addition to either Smackdown or ECW. Raw, while being the lesser quality show is already covered with acts. I do like the idea of Kennedy-HHH and Edge-Taker as the present choices for the WM main events but as I said earlier, I wouldn't expect those matches to actually occur.

I didn't think the show could get better but the addition of Bell managed to accomplish that.

That is essentially the same thing Nash did on his way out.

You are central in your beliefs about wrestling. You accept the idea of both old-school and sports entertainment but you are not extreme in either way. You believe that angles and matches are equally important to create a good wrestling product. Most similar booker: Paul Heyman Most similar promotion: ECW 1996 I was surprised actually.

Your gonna get your fuckin head kicked in is NOT an ROH chant. Its been around for decades in football A great majority of chants originate from another source before finding a place with a wrestling crowd. “Man Up” has obviously been a part of the athletic lexicon for a great deal of time but the term has only just recently permeated into a wrestling environment thanks to Jay and Mark Briscoe. Hence, the reason why it can accurately be identified as a ROH chant. The same can be said about the “You’re gonna get your fucking head kicked in” since it grew in volume with respect to Samoa Joe and the birthplace was in the confines of the ROH realm.

While I won’t go as far to proclaim this as a classic or even the best comedy of this summer, it was still quite a fun clichéd raunchy teen comedy. It did suffer from a few instances of drag and a couple of moments that just felt completely flat. I’ll agree that Seth was an insufferable prick and that probably played a key role in the aforementioned drag moments. However, McLovin could do no wrong and stole the movie as expected.

Good question. I honestly can't think of one. A compelling storyline is easy. It's making it work in the context of a wrestling program that hinders any potential. Jimmy Loves Lacey is one of most brilliant stories done in wrestling and works on all levels because the wrestling advances the story itself. The quality of story just makes the in-ring product more meaningful. But it's a storyline centered around a woman, which has been done before. It's easy to take an older storyline and improve upon it, but to come up with a completely original angle that hasn't been done before is tough. The very foundation of professional wrestling exists solely on the premise of creating the illusion of dissension between two or more subjects in hopes of creating a false but believable sense of purpose in order to draw and appeal to a crowd of marks. It doesn’t necessarily invoke the need to conceptualize the most original and innovative storyline/angles because as HTQ just pointed out, it’s about the characters and the ability of those characters to make the people care. I used Jimmy Loves Lacey as a recent reference because it was a well done example of what professional wrestling ought to be. Compelling characters with a defined purpose in their actions, reacting to realistic circumstances that captivate a audience not just for the story in and of itself, but rather the actual performance itself. The storyline built the meaning of the matches, and the matches elevated the meaning of the storyline itself. It took tremendous attention to detail to execute it as successfully as it was done. If those five central characters within that storyline didn’t have the ability to captivate that audience, no matter now well written and crafted the plot and angle advancement was, it would have been for naught. The simple act of taking something as formulaic as boy loves girl, girl doesn’t love boy and building it into a epic wrestling storyline that delivered big time is more compelling that trying to captivate people by outlandish storylines. A good writer takes something at it’s most basic and elevates that to an entirely different platform. It has been done in pro wrestling and it needs to be done more often.

Good question. I honestly can't think of one. A compelling storyline is easy. It's making it work in the context of a wrestling program that hinders any potential. Jimmy Loves Lacey is one of most brilliant stories done in wrestling and works on all levels because the wrestling advances the story itself. The quality of story just makes the in-ring product more meaningful.

I continue to insist that ECW is really the only enjoyable brand from WWE right now and it's probably for the easy approach and the brevity. Raw and Smackdown, right now completely drag while ECW, thanks to the shorter time frame comes off as a better and more crisp product. The main event scene is somewhat refreshing as Punk and Burke are always a fun match to watch and Dreamer has surprisingly held up his end of the bargain. The downfall for ECW is obviously the limited roster size but given the fact it only has a hour to present the product, it doesn't hamper the quality too much. That's the opposite effect of TNA, which crams 20 different things in one hour. You don't need insane and over the top angles to maintain quality. Just smart writing for once wouldn't hurt. We've seen it done a few times but it won't be accomplished under the current regime and the forces behind them as well.

I'll be making a visit to Arlington Heights in the near future for work, so I'll take a shot at that venue.

I'm really glad that ROH is finally hitting the west coast. You'll really enjoy the show since I know they will put on a tremendous effort as they do for the shows but especially the debut market shows. The downside to all the new markets, personally means less shows for me to attend outside of the bi-monthly Chicago shows since Dayton has been reduced to a lower level market and they closed shop in Cleveland. Any more details on what this event is? I didn't read the article at first, which is why I thought it was a ROH exclusive show. Either way, it'll still be tremendous.

I'm slightly let down they didn't involve a ROH talent in the tournament. I'm not saying they should have booked that talent to win it, but just to be involved given their relationship.

Yeah. Let's rehash Montreal all over again. It's been almost 18 months, that's a long time. God forbid they just bring them in as a tag team with a little background history built in. I wonder if WWE will lie and say Teddy is Bret's kid.

Punk is actually going to speak? No way. It's quite a sad sight that Tommy Dreamer is a #2 face in 2007 in a ring of guys who weren't even in high school during his peak.

They could easily just have the newly turned Umaga work each at 'Slam. Possibly insert Sandman to even the tables with a 4 way.

Wouldn't they(WWE) just openly claim, "Hey, he is hurt from landing on his neck and will take time off" or do a injury spot along with Lashley? It just reads like Jeff and the site are doing damage control here.

Nattie reminds me of Beth, more so.

They wore matching pink pajama pants when they debuted as a team at the OVW Rumble edition of OVW TV. I would assume Harry has realized how stupid he looked.

I try to make an effort to watch this but it's not appointment tv by any means. I've probably seen 2-3 episodes in full length this summer. I really enjoyed the OVW Rumble. I think OVW has a small handfull of guys that I honestly believe are WWE ready. The booking and storylines in OVW aren't great as they were during Heyman's period, which I wish I would have been able to see on a regular weekly basis instead of DVD's every other month but OVW wasn't added back to the rotation until just this past fall.

They couldn't get Chris Henry and Tank Johnson to form a stable?