Hawk 34

That, is an atrocious line up. First off, RVD/Benoit has been done and it wasn't worth seeing a second time. Flair/Hogan? WTF. We've seen this 20,999 times. Hogan, isn't going to work a match with Flair again. Yeah, slap the three newest stars of WWE in one match, brilliantly idiotic. HHH/Edge can't work because someone needs to turn face and neither should be a face. UT/Rey, is a criminally bad choice for a Mania. Rey, usually catches backlash in giant killer storylines and no one really will take Mysterio seriously enough against UT. Foley/Finlay? Finlay, doesn't work hardcore style and he doesn't have the personality to work a storyline with Foley. Way to waste Angle. HBK/Benjamin is pointless. You can't just slap people together and call it a "great" card. You're forgetting that there would be 12 months to build to that card. Plenty of time to turn people and advance storylines. It's just a hypothetical card. I'm sure if last year someone had said Triple H vs Cena and Angle/Orton/Rey would headline Wrestlemania, you would've called that idiotic, too. Triple H Vs Cena, would have made perfect sense a year ago. In fact, people were pretty much penciling Cena/HHH in automatically, at this time right now one year ago. Rey wouldn't have been expected but Eddy wouldn't have been out of the question and that was basically who Rey Mysterio was the last 3 months. Eddie's ghost.

Hogan, has more gas in the tank. Hogan, could go another 5 years doing one match per year and working the paint by numbers match and still draw and pop a crowd. Austin, essentially has one match left in him and he's severely rescricted.

That, is an atrocious line up. First off, RVD/Benoit has been done and it wasn't worth seeing a second time. Flair/Hogan? WTF. We've seen this 20,999 times. Hogan, isn't going to work a match with Flair again. Yeah, slap the three newest stars of WWE in one match, brilliantly idiotic. HHH/Edge can't work because someone needs to turn face and neither should be a face. UT/Rey, is a criminally bad choice for a Mania. Rey, usually catches backlash in giant killer storylines and no one really will take Mysterio seriously enough against UT. Foley/Finlay? Finlay, doesn't work hardcore style and he doesn't have the personality to work a storyline with Foley. Way to waste Angle. HBK/Benjamin is pointless. You can't just slap people together and call it a "great" card.

Osama Rodriguez, (with new name) debuts tonight as a manager. I seriously doubt that Punk debuts tonight but if there was ever a time...it's tonight in Chicago. I wouldn't mind if he kept the gimmick from last night either, he could make it work somehow.

Have you followed this business over the last 25 years? It's all about ego, baby. It starts with those two. You can't just tell Austin or Hogan to job in a major match at WM. Of course, they care about jobbing and not jobbing. They got precious egos and images to maintain.

You know, I haven't a single thing about tonight's game. I flipped through various sports talk shows tonight and hardly anyone even talked about tonight's game. Can a game exist if no one saw it?

You two, take it outside.

The fact they haven't found a way to throw 'Taker Vs Benoit against each other in 6 years is down-right sad. I mean, just call it a #1 contender's match and go at it for 25 minutes. Throw Benjamin to Smackdown as well, because he should be working people like Rey, Angle, Benoit, Hardy etc. (not Flair, RVD)

Yeah, I could easily see Austin cutting some darker edged promos on Hogan. Making it clear that you "can't trust a rattlesnake" and Hogan does his usual "brother" act to counter it. Then Hogan pulls a SID on Austin and walks away, of course Austin beats off the heel tag team and pins them and Hogan comes back out, they staredown as the show fades out. It's not that hard to explain why Hogan and Austin agreed to team and they don't have to mention the WCW history. They could do without shoot storylines for once.

That wouldn't work, you can't put two sets of baby-face tag teams against each other like that. MNM, is probably heading over to Raw, MnM vs Austin/Hogan is better. You can't blow a sure-fire draw on a tv show. WWE doesn't get a cut of the revenues for that, it'd be a waste of $.

Vince, is still behind the pop-culture curve. He still thinks its 1995 and appearing in Playboy is the "ultimate" thing. It won't be until 2011, when Vince's rotting corpse figures out that sex tapes were gold in 2006.

It's possible that using Hogan/Austin as a tag-team (perhaps at RR) against some baddy team (that doesn't really matter but it should be a legit tag team) would add a second big draw You have Austin make a save on Hogan one week and then Hogan returns the favor later. They agree that they should team together against the heel tag team. The storyline, will be key. Do they do the obvious route of Austin shooting on Hogan about WCW? Does Hogan do a jealousy angle? Or should they just go straight out and cut "I'm the biggest icon in this business"- "I'm the toughest SOB to ever step into this ring" promos and build it as ICON-ICON? I'd have low-card wrestlers align themselfs to a wrestler. Show video packages of fans supporting Hogan over Austin and vice versa...

Who you see winning that one? The fans turned on Rock for Hogan but Hogan was coming off a 2 year hiatus from the main-stream and 10 years from WWE-land and Rock was still stale at that point. Certain places, such as Canada/Florida/California/Ny would favor Hogan but Texas/Mid-west, would go towards Austin. Detroit fits in the mid-west section, so maybe Austin has the advantage in site location. I say it's split right down the middle ala WM6 (unless someone takes a complete heel direction)

Hogan, will want something in return. That's always the deal-breaker. However, Hogan is more likely to take the job before Austin. Who knows? Maybe Austin gets in another scandal with his GF and will get wiped out with court costs that he gives in and takes the job to Austin. That's probably what it'll take for Austin to lay down. They wouldn't have the balls to do an non-finish.

Hogan, also responded to Hogan/Austin chants during his speech on saturday by using the $ sign. Looks like Hogan might be playing the heel in this one as he goes around say "If the money's right", while Austin flat out says "I want to whoop Hogan's ass".

I didn't hear that Austin made up in regards to the Hogan match. I thought he just made up with WWE about the J.R. thing and that was that. I meant he kissed and made up with WWE, I wasn't speaking on the current status of Hogan/Austin.

And there's not one single match that could follow that match, unless it involved The Rock and even that is a stretch.

Hogan flew back to Chicago, as he had a race with his son sunday. Austin walked out after the JR fiasco. They appear to have kissed and made up and are going to get the wheels spinning for that match.

He's had his best matches as a heel, against Taker, Brock, Eddie and Benoit. His best match really probably is the Taker match. if he becomes motivated again and works like that, I would be a lot less opposed to him. I don't remember the Brock match though. I put the Benoit match ahead of the Taker match and Cena, had a couple good matches with Angle as well.

Last night's espisode was all about one thing "HE SHOT ME IN THE ASS!!!", thats all that matters.

Tonight, is in Chicago again. Wouldn't the crowd react just the same? Might need to test it out at another venue first.

Ya know, putting the titles on SS wouldn't be a bad move. Rotating sects of tag-teams and they can bump great off TBS and Kane.

I wonder why they gave close-ups on Punk and Dawber and none of the other 4 gangsters. It's not like Punk called shot-gun on the camera side rail of the car, they purposely intended to show Punk and Dawber. Aren't post-mania Raw's usually big deals? I mean I recall DX picks up Shawn's ball, Brock's debut and many more. Tonight should be a good show.

Hogan is great at working the crowd, but in terms of ring work he's crap! Point exactly. He is great at working the crowd, as is Austin. Put them two in front of 70,000 screaming fans at WrestleMania ... and you have another "BIG TIME" moment. Regardless of their in ring work ... does it really matter? No. Not when you have Hogan/Austin it doesn't. No, Hogan is brilliant worker (maybe the best ever). He doesn't need to do chain-wrestling to be a good worker. Working is more then just the moves within the ring. Working the crowd, is working a match.

You never saw Waylon Mercy. Or heel Brian Pillman... That wasn't a gimmick, that was Brian Pillman being Brian Pillman.