JimmyHendricks

I have bought WrestleMania on PPV every year since WM 9 in 1993. I really don't think I'll be doing it this year. I'm not really protesting the product or anything. It's simply that I am just not that interested in any of the matches. I truly, honestly, don't really want to see ANYTHING on the card. And this isn't one of those "I'm bitching now but will ultimately buy it on PPV because I always do" type of deals. I honestly cannot see myself watching this thing for 4 hours straight. It's funny. I'm REALLY looking forward to the HOF ceremony more than anything. I'm sure glad it's on free TV and not on PPV. Oops, better not give Vince any ideas. Plus, the super duper 2 disc deluxe edition DVD will come out 4 weeks later, and probably will cost $22.99 at Best Buy. Hmmmm.....wait a month and pay $23, or pay $50 to see it live. There's nothing I can't wait 4 weeks for--if I even buy the thing on DVD. Hell, I might not get EITHER one based on how it's looking.

I think they opened with the tag match just so they could spend 10 minutes individually introducing EVERY participant, complete with FULL entrances for each. They blasted off so much pyro that the ring was in a haze for the first 5 minutes of the match. I bet as soon as they went to the first commercial break the ratings started to drop. It's not that people don't like wrestling matches, it's that they don't know who any of the people participating are. I mean, it's like turning to Monday Night Football expecting something exciting, then realizing that it's the Arizona Cardinals facing the Houston Texans. I think they wanted people to go "Ooh, this looks COOL!" but eventually people lost interest because they didn't care about any of the participants. As much as he would like to be, even HHH has never been that cross-over star that Hogan, Rock, or Austin was. The rest (Cena, Rey, Orton, Angle) are really only known by people who have watched the product before. I mean, Austin walks out and Joe Schmo from Anytown, U.S.A knows who he is instantly. Angle or HHH walk out and they don't recognize them. And the people watching for the first time in forever are astonished that HHH and Kurt Angle are still wrestling. It's the same reaction Hogan and Austin get. "Wow, Hulk Hogan is still around? Isn't he like, 65 years old now?" It's not good and doesn't help the product to bring the old timers back. Sure, SummerSlam popped a good buyrate, but it's something that shouldn't be celebrated, because it won't (and didn't) last. Anyone else notice how much the announcers kept giving a history of every person that appeared on screen? As if that will make people keep tuning in. I'm sure the average American will order WrestleMania knowing now that Mark Henry dead-lifted 903 pounds. "Ooh! Honey, look! That HHH has won the world title ELEVEN times! Let's watch RAW on Monday!"

Because doing that would result in a cheap finish. Vince's first responsibility is to the audience, and rolling Shane over for the easy pin would disappoint them--and we know Vince NEVER wants to do that.

This won't change a thing. About the company, at least. Linda will go on the next conference call talking about the great success of SNME, that pulled a "respectable" rating up against the NCAA Tournament. Do you really think Vince will admit that an angle involving HIM brought in a bad rating? Of course not. It'll all be Edge's fault, and Cena's for not looking good during the opening match. I'm not shocked by this rating at all. WWE still seems to think it's 1999 and 256 million people are watching every week. Um, no. Good lord, they couldn't even top "The Sixth Sense", a movie everyone on planet earth knows the secret behind. Sad sad sad.

There is truly some great analysis going on here guys. I'm impressed. One thing I've really seen/felt in the last couple of years--when was the last time you were truly excited, shocked, or surprised by something on a WWE program? Hell, when was the last time you truly marked out over someone or something? I can't remember the last time I was/did. I was vaguely intrigued by Matt Hardy's return (the outsider attacking Edge and being "arrested"), but then they cut the balls off the whole thing by having Vince "hire him back" and shake his hand in the ring. Nowadays, everyone knows what's going to happen well ahead of time. I mean, it's been that way for Smarks forever, but occasionally even WE would be shocked by something. But there's no more surprises. Even the casual fan knows Mark Henry doesn't stand a chance against Undertaker. Everything just.....happens. No surprise returns, and anytime something is rumored or hoped for (Bret) it never happens. I don't think that's the MAJOR problem, but it's part of it. Like tonight, for instance. Was there anything monumental about SNME? Did you want to run out and call all your friends as soon as it was over? How anxious are you to see the next WWE program? Back in the day, I can remember going to school on Tuesday morning and spending almost every class talking about RAW and Nitro. Now, I've been out of school for years, but I bet no one's talking pro wrestling anymore. The last time I was truly impressed by something WWE related was Shawn's mini heel turn leading to SummerSlam against Hogan. That was some truly classic stuff, especially the promo in Montreal. But, as always, they axed it and Shawn was back to being a Jesus lovin' face immediately after Hogan kicked his ass. Why can't Vince, the "genius" of pro wrestling, think of a money drawing super-mega angle to end all angles? I mean, it can't be that hard, can it? I guess it is, though, since we're going to have some pretty mundane matches at WrestleMania. When the most shocking thing is going to (possibly) be Rey Mysterio winning the world title (that we all know he'll lose to Orton a month later), something's wrong. But we already know something's wrong. Too bad Vince doesn't. Or maybe he does, and just won't let his ego accept it. Either way, it's bad for us.

Well, they won't say it out loud, but they want to make everyone think Bret will be involved somehow in order to spike WrestleMania's buyrate. I truly believe that's the only reason Bret is being inducted into the Hall of Fame THIS year--it could easily wait until next year, but they want us to think he'll be around the next night to do a run in. I don't think it's a coincidence that they keep bringing up Montreal and showing it, and having the announcers mention it every 20 seconds. Of course, Bret won't be involved at all, and Shawn will go over clean (or worse yet, Vince wins with help from Shane or Steph) and everyone will feel let down. And everyone at Titan Towers will just shrug and say "We never said Bret would be involved." It's already working. I've been reading different SNME recaps and I'd say 80% of them have some mention about Bret being involved at WrestleMania--because they keep bringing up Montreal. I feel sorry for those idiots who will plunk down fifty bucks and get nothing. Oh well.

Honestly, what is the reasoning for putting Henry out there against Undertaker? Did they need someone who might seem like a threat to the marks or something? Hell, Orton's 1/4 the size of Henry and I really DID think he would win last year. Don't they realize that everyone knows how all of this will end? It's King Kong Bundy at WM 11 all over again. I've said before that Undertaker is just put on the WM card so he can win, the announcers can talk about him being 12-0, 13-0, 23-0, whatever, and the legend continues. Rarely has he ever seemed threatened.

And I actually liked hearing J.R. tonight. Styles sounds like some generic, paint by numbers announcer being told what to say. Oh wait..... I wouldn't mind J.R. and his "Bah GAWD SON of a BITCH!!" commentary every week if his voice wasn't so deteriorated. He always sounds like he needs to clear his throat. I don't mean to be insulting, I know he's had health issues, but sometimes it's really annoying.

Which is exactly why we've had Vince vs. Hogan, Vince vs. Shawn, Bischoff vs. Cena, Bischoff vs. ECW, etc., etc., etc. I truly feel sometimes that Vince believes that the next wrestling boom is right around the corner, and doesn't want to change the format because he's afraid the audience won't stick around. Things will never get better until they stop grabbing the roster by the nutsack. Everything is too controlled, and you'll never have a breakout star like Austin or Rock if you have some former "Ellen" writer scripting their promos for them. Oh yeah. The "Evil Mr. McMahon" character got old in 2001. However, Vince's ego states that anyone vs. Vince is instantly the hottest thing on the whole show. Too bad they can't realize we all got tired of it after Austin vs. McMahon ended.

Two sort of forgotten ones happened in the SAME NIGHT: On the first RAW after Austin walked out in 2002, (where Vince "toasted" him in the ring with a beer), Eddie came out to Austin's music as a tease, and the crowd went apeshit thinking it was really Austin. Later that night, Vince was in the ring thinking Austin had shown up, but Brisco runs down and tells him "he" isn't Austin. Vince goes, "Who the hell is the "he" you were talking about?" Rock's (who had been gone filming Scorpion King) music hits and the crowd goes even MORE apeshit. Seriously, it ranks right up there with Austin's run in. I miss the days when big things happened as surprises. Nowadays they promote the shit out of it to get ratings or to spike a buyrate. Another great one is Linda McMahon announcing Foley will be in the title match at WM 2000. Foley said in his book that it was the loudest ovation of his career. And, (also featuring Linda), the announcement by Linda that Austin would be in Rock's corner at Backlash against HHH in 2000. It was like the crowd had been waiting for months to pop for Austin, and they finally could.

I think the Austin one was so loud for two reasons: 1: When his music hit, the crowd, in the span of about half a second, realized: --Austin was coming out. ----He was going to interfere and attack The Rock. ------Foley was going to win the belt. 2: I remember Austin had some sort of injury, and hadn't been on TV for a week or so. The reports on the net said he wasn't going to be at that taping. I'm sure some of the crowd knew that, and were overjoyed when he appeared.

I'm not so sure. Vince seems to have a better grasp on reality (as fucking scary as that may be) than Shane. Shane legit thinks he's one of the boys and has every right to dominate the match. Vince has shown signs of sanity in this matches (The Austin cage match, the Undertaker BA match) where he gets NO offense. Vince knows the $ is in getting his ass kicked. I think it also has to do with who he faces as well. Austin and Taker probably wouldn't agree to be beaten up by the 56 year old owner of the company.

Someone at the Observer said about RAW a week or so ago: The show was planned and executed wonderfully, except that there's hardly anything worth watching on the show itself.That's how this show was. If Rock, Austin (98 version), HHH (99-01 version) and Foley (98-2000 version) were headlining this show, it would be awesome. But there just isn't enough star power to warrant a prime time slot. Mark Henry should NEVER get more than 5 minutes on ANY show, and tonight he got at least 10. Isn't that saying something? The opening match was too short and had too many people to make the casual viewer take notice. I'm sure people who don't follow the product every week are wondering what the hell the Boogeyman is, and most of them are laughing at it being another dumb wrestling idea. They threw Austin out there as a way of saying, "Hey, remember THIS guy?" They did it at homecoming and it didn't work, and it won't work this time because, well, Austin ISN'T ON THE ROSTER. I'm shocked Hogan didn't make an appearance. The women's match has a nice little storyline, but I bet half the people who tuned in are more shocked by the fact that there are WOMEN WRESTLERS. All in all, based on what they have to work with, it was an ok show. Of course, 70% of it wasn't wrestling, which will piss off the net to no end. But--Vince obviously wants to reel in the average American who will think Booker T is a funny guy or something. I don't know. After the first match, which was presented beautifully, I didn't get excited about anything--and I've been watching for SEVENTEEN YEARS, non-stop. I believe THIS show was more important than Homecoming, or WrestleMania. Normal people watched this show. It will be interesting to see how much the second hour drops tomorrow morning. I don't think it will pull XFL numbers, but I bet we won't be seeing another SNME on NBC for a long, long time.

I thought that happened. Taker/Shawn maybe??? I recall it vaguely. maybe it was just on a RAW where Taker pulled someone in to pound him... It's happened twice that I can remember, in Taker/Shawn and Taker/Kama back in the day. Like NYU and others have said, the match just kept going. Yeah, during the Taker/Kama casket match at SummerSlam 95, they both fell in there and the lid closed. I remember because that was the first casket match to have a camera in the casket itself, and they loved showing the visual of both of them falling over the top rope and in.

I think they're showing this match first to hook everyone in.....or maybe to get their main eventers out there before everyone turns the channel. They did the same thing in the 80's. Usually they'd have the title match or whatever first and have filler for the last half hour, since the show was on late. Since this is prime time and the WWE is still acting like it's the Monday Night Wars, I'm sure Shawn vs. Shane will be last, with the beer drinking contest at the start of the 2nd hour.

Another one: Why didn't Austin return at WrestleMania 16? I'm sure it's because he wasn't medically cleared to have any physical activity, but I always thought he could just come out and distract HHH or Vince, like Piper did to Rude at SummerSlam 89. Instead, the heavily advertised his return at Backlash, obviously to spike a buyrate. Me and my friends were watching Vince hit Rock with the chair at Mania and just SCREAMING for Austin......then HHH gets the pin. Man, we were PISSED. Austin returning then would have gotten the biggest pop EVER. Ah, how I wish the WWE wasn't so concerned about ratings and buyrates that they would have surprises like that nowadays. Oh well.

In reference to Backlash 2000: I agree. The whole "Austin won't be here" thing that Vince did before the match pissed me off. I thought it would kill the heat when Austin really DID show up. But, it didn't. Rock's win was one of the biggest "title change" pops I can think of. I always hated that all of that didn't happen at WM 16, though.

During Shawn's promo in Montreal? I seriously thought he was coming out for about 10 seconds, since the rumor was that he would be at SummerSlam. Oh well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTm77jvOeLo...imate%20warrior "Hulk Hogan" and "The Ultimate Warrior" work out. It's one thing to run around and simply act like the character, but good lord.

Yeah they mention that on the Self Destruction DVD. Jericho said it was odd that he would wear not only a singlet, but a singlet with muscles on it. Apparantly that was part of the reason everyone thought it was a different Warrior. I vaguely remember when Warrior was on Regis and Kathie Lee right before SummerSlam (where he turned over all the furniture) and Regis asked him about the face paint. I can't remember Warrior's answer. I DO remember him being really nice and cordial with the two of them, which was alarming considering his character. And now that you mentioned it, why did he have 356 different colored belts? Even when he was WWF World Champion he did it. Odd.

Stone Cold running in on Foley/Rock The quality is terrible, but there it is. It's also on the Monday Night Wars DVD, in obvious better quality. This clip just doesn't do it justice.

I love this thread, obviously. Another one: Why did The Ultimate Warrior start wearing different face paint over the summer of 1990? You know, just the small "Warrior" logos, one on each cheek, as opposed to the full face paint he had been wearing up to that point? He went back to the usual at SummerSlam, and never did it again. Were they trying to change his image? If so, um, why did he ACT the same? I never understood it, and didn't like it. It made him seem more "human" to see his actual face, instead of having this painted up weirdo to cheer for.

I thought of a couple of really good heel ones: Bret's "Enema hose in Pittsburgh" line on RAW. Lawler's first appearance in ECW (when the lights went out)

Holy CRAP, that was some MASSIVE heat Rock got for insulting the Kings.

Another one I've never understood: Why didn't Luger win the belt from Yokozuna at SummerSlam 93? I remember watching live and being flabbergasted that they would spend the whole summer with the "Lex Express" cross-country tour and then keep the belt on Yoko. Then, of course they have all the faces run out and hoist him up like he won the belt. Oh well, just wondering.