JimmyHendricks

Well, how many programs has NFL Films done in it's history? THOUSANDS. Yet, they only show 4 programs on a loop, all day. With the treasure trove of footage that they have, there is no reason for anything to be repeated in the same WEEK, yet along several times each day. I agree that there isn't much you can talk about during the offseason, which is why NFL Total Access should only be 30 minutes instead of an hour. They act like they don't have enough programming to fill 24 hours with, which is exactly the opposite.

Sorry, it has to be said: When I heard about an official NFL Network, I was psyched. 24 hours of nothing but football? Great! I hated having to pick and choose on the ESPN's, so I figured there would be non stop NFL Films crap 24/7. I wanted to get sick of Steve Sabol....well, I already was, but I wanted to hate him MORE! Well, I got the network last year, and well, it was OK. They have "NFL Total Access", which is their answer to Sportscenter. It's an alright show, and Rich Eisen is very Chris Berman-like, but during the offseason it's HORRID. It's always an hour long, but really should be 30 minutes when there is no football being played, save for the Draft. During the season, they recap all of the games, injuries, etc. and it's an action packed hour. In the offseason they spend all of their time asking Drew Brees on Chargers cam what that thing on his face is. Well, not really, but there isn't anything meaningful. And then there's the rest of the programming. There's NFL Films Presents, but not enough of it. We get "In Their Own Words: Someone", and an NFL Films well, filmed "Greatest Game". Why can't they show the original network telecast of these games? Worst of all, two things: They only show about 4 programs a day, on a loop, every 4 hours. For instance, "In Their Own Words: John Randle" is on FOUR times during this afternoon. So are 3 other shows. This evening, they'll do the same thing. Then overnight, they show NFL Total Access back to back for 8 hours. I guess they are trying to be like Sportscenter, except that Sportscenter updates itself throughout the day. Total Access does not. Recently, they've had stupid, no nonsense programming. They have shown hour long weekly (sometimes daily, sometimes ALL day) features on the Dolphins, Buccaneers, and now Chargers cheerleaders. Nothing is more exciting than seeing some angry bitch yelling at a 20 year old because she was slightly out of step, then seeing said 20 year old calling her boyfriend crying about how she doesn't want to be a cheerleader anymore. Ugh. There only seems to be about 3 commercials that they can run. I swear, I've seen that stupid NFL Shop commercial where the fake Eagles Mascot Kangaroo runs in and starts stealing jerseys about 500 times now. It's on EVERY commercial break. And, they always show a "Best of 2005" clip during each commercial break. Too bad they only seem to have about 5 of those as well. I've seen Larry Johnson's winning TD against the Raiders and Shawn Alexander breaking the TD record over and over and over. It has the potential to be something terrific, but they keep showing the same crap over, and over, and over, and over......and over. So, a boring recap show, repetitive programming, and horrible "original" shows= NFL Network is teh SUCK!!!11!! Anyone else who has this channel agree?

Wow. I can totally see that happening. Well, in 1999. Today Hogan will just go over clean with the legdrop and Brooke will perform her crappy song live at Summerslam, or sing the Star Spangled Banner. Ugh.

Searched for Hogan, found this. It's too hard to explain: I laughed hysterically at the chopped up WWF clips for some reason. I totally forgot about the demonic Warrior opening from Superstars back in 1990.

Why does everyone have such a hard on for Umaga? He's shit with the same shit gimmick every single week. Ooh! Thumb to the throat of death!!

I think it was part $$$, and part desire to see ECW work again that influenced Heyman. I mean, there's no way he's going to be able to do it without Vince, since Vince owns ECW now, so he agreed to go ahead with it. It's like going back to your childhood home, even though the neighborhood is shitty and the house has been remodeled. But hey, it was YOUR house, and you'd sure like to see it again anyway. I think that's how Heyman is--he so desperately wants to see ECW alive again that it doesn't matter. Oh and yes, he makes money off of it. But I don't think money is the dominating factor here.

Work. He'll end up being mad that Heyman sided with Big Show, and that his friend Rob Van Dam got screwed out of the title, yadda yadda yadda. The "column not exisiting" part is going to end up being that Heyman will pull the plug on it because Dreamer bad mouths Big Show or something.

Perhaps, but ECW is (and never was) going to become anything big because Vince is behind this current incarnation. One of the big reasons the original ECW worked was that the fanbase hated the WWF "New Generation" shit and wanted something different. When you take the guy everyone hated and put him in charge, well, it's an uphill battle immediately. Also, I don't think anyone at Titan Towers takes TNA seriously yet. Sure, they have intentionally signed TNA prospects to keep them from going there, but I think they feel like TNA isn't threatening--yet--and don't make creative decisions thinking about it.

Well, I don't really think Vince purposely wants ECW 2005 to fail. I think he created the whole thing wanting it to succeed and make money. The problem is that Vince's (and everyone around him) perception of ECW is very different from the fans, especially the hardcores.....all 3000 of them. That's why we have ECW Legend Kurt Angle and Unstoppable World Champion Big Show........and breakout star, **shudders** Test. Vince is a businessman. He isn't intentionally stinking up the product so it can fail. He can, and wants to make millions off of the ECW name. The problem is that he, the so called wrestling genius, has no idea how to really do it. So, in a way, he IS burying ECW, because his vision and idea (and perception that the whole promotion and idea was garbage) will do him, and his version, in.

What are you all talking about? Vince McMahon is a genius who built and made professional wrestling what it is today. Austin would be nothing without Vince's creative vision. His idea for Stone Cold Steve Austin put the business through the roof! Chris Benoit--I mean, he was a nobody midcarder before Vince hired him. And look at Chris Jericho. A cheap Shawn Michaels ripoff! Only after he came to the WWF did Vince turn him into the first ever Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion--and a powerful and successful one at that. Haven't you listened to Steve Lombardi and Gerald Brisco on each one of the WWE DVD's? Wake Up, people! Really, though--did any of you really expect Vince McMahon Presents ECW® to be anything like the past incarnation? When they decide to do something without any competition, with no other reason to do it except that they can, well, you can't expect much. What's sad is how they are blaming everyone but themselves for the current failure of the "ECW Brand". It's been that way since 2001. The InVasion!11!! failed because, to Vince, WCW was a joke that never had any big stars--and it was booked that way. Now we have ECW 2005 with World Champion Big Show and Kurt Angle and Test as two of it's biggest stars. Yup, just like 1995 all over again! Someome said the instant they put Angle with ECW it was done. They were right. It was immediately apparent that they didn't have faith in the ECW name from the start, so they loaded it up with WWE bred talent (yes, I know Big Show started in WCW--but really, he's a WWE character at this point. Does ANYONE look at him as The Giant?) and made it RAW Version 1.5 with a ECW logo on it. In 6 months, ECW will be dead and buried, just like WCW. Perhaps that's what Vince really wants. Bury the name and kill any buzz or enthusiam that the fans used to have for the old product. I mean, WCW did a good job doing that to themselves with Russo, but can you watch an old tape of Nitro without thinking of the InVasion!!111!!? I can't. The only saving grace is that I hope that ECW 2005 dies very quickly, and we don't have 6-12 months of horrible memories.

No wayz Shawn iz goode Bret is teh betterr bestest wrestlerz evarr!!!!

Hogan should not be wrestling anymore. He can barely walk. And it's not like he's Flair or Terry Funk. He can't even bump hardly at all, and he couldn't do much in the ring to begin with. He's great for the occasional nostalgia appearance every now and then, but he is 78 years old and shouldn't be wrestling, especially in high profile matches against talent that the WWE claims is their future. The only way this can work out is that Hogan cleanly beats Orton whenever they meet, complete with the embarrasing big boot and 30 second delay before the legdrop finish. Why in the hell would they feed Orton to the lions like that? As punishment for his behavior? Who knows. You know, if I were Vince, I wouldn't be putting an egomaniac senior citizen out there against top talent when he somehow has 100% creative control. What does he think? That Hogan will do the job via RKO? Give me a break.

At the RAW the night after Brian Pillman died in KC, they taped Shotgun Saturday Night and one of the matches was Ahmed Johnson vs. Some Jobber. Ahmed dared the guy to hit him, which he did. Then, he took off his elbow pad and gave it to the guy, and asked him to hit him again. He did. Ahmed then took off his KNEE BRACE and handed it to him, again daring him to hit him back. He did. Then Ahmed squashed the guy in about 20 seconds. The weirdest and dumbest match I've ever seen live.

That's what I'm wondering. It's at ShopZone but I haven't seen it anywhere else.

I never remember them formally announcing it. In fact, I can remember watching the Coliseum Video (we didn't get PPV around my neck of the woods until 1993) and thinking, "Wow, that sure doesn't LOOK like 100,000 people". Yeah, I thought they were at the Coliseum still. Hey, I was 9 at the time. Give me a break. I just thought of this one while doing my laundry: Was there any particular reason why the Warriors/Heenan Family match went on last at Survivor Series 89? With Hogan being the egomaniac champion and Vince wanting to promote the shit out of "No Holds Barred" and Zeus, it always seemed weird to me that the Hulkamaniacs/Million Dollar Team match went on in the middle of the show. At least that's how it was on video. It was followed by Piper's Team vs. Rude's team and then the Warriors/Heenan match. Were they trying to test Warrior as a main event performer? I can remember in the video package at the start--where all the superstars say what they're thankful for--Warrior went on last during that too--Hogan went on first.

That seems right. Didn't they do a rest hold while everyone (including Vince and King) focused on the timekeeper? Interesting.

No, I specifically remember Razor Ramon interfering, injuring Savage's knee, which caused him to pass out while in the figure four.

HHH numerous times. The first that comes to mind was against Booker T. at WM XIX. I'm 95% certain that was clean, wasn't it?

I don't think ending the split would change anything. Think about it: All they have to do is create compelling television. Make the shows interesting. You can do that with mid-carders. You don't need a Austin or Rock like superstar to make the show interesting. The talent is there. They just need the material to work with. As long as everything is meticously scripted for everyone, no one will break out and no one will be interesting. You are all right for saying that it's the same 2 shows--because non wrestling people are writing for both of them. We don't need 4 hours of HHH a week, nor do we need 4 hours of anyone else. I think it's a combination of a lack of interesting/compelling/good content and the fact that the company as a whole is horribly overexposed. We don't need a PPV every month. Remember when there were only FOUR each year? Aaah, memories. But PPV's bring in money, so we won't see that end anytime soon.

Does anyone know if at Wal-Mart if the WM DVD is shrinkwrapped by itself with the Rey DVD? If so, I'll go buy that 2-pack and return the WM DVD to Circuit City, where I bought WM this morning.

The 10/6/97 HHH/Bret match on the D-X DVD IS the one where Shawn puts the flag up his nose. I was there live. It's also the same RAW where they showed the curtain call on the titantron and also was the RAW after Brian Pillman's death. In other news, it's great to have the full HOF ceremony on the WM 22 DVD. Bret's speech (in it's entiriety) is awesome.

Pro Wrestling was accepted in the mainstream in the late 90's because they finally came out and admitted that it was fake, and took a more realistic approach. That made all of the "it's so FAKE" arguements shut up, because well, the WWF wasn't shy about it anymore. Sure, you still had the Undertaker sacrificing victims to the hell God or whatever, and you still had Kane blowing up shit, but HHH was a "real" character, so were Rock and Austin. You had characters like Mankind who went out there and fell through tables, but then Mick Foley went on the Today Show and charmed Katie Couric, showing that it indeed, was all fake and under the mask, Mankind was a nice guy. People forgot that they were supposed to bitch about it not being real, and actually started to watch, and appreciate, the performers. Then WCW folded, and Vince had no reason to compete, and push the envelope anymore, and he stopped caring what his fans think. So now we have goofballs like Umaga, horrible angles where Vince is wrestling God, and insulting storylines like JBL and Rey. Do you blame the media for shitting all over it? Can you really defend this crap against a non-wrestling fan? Now, it's back to it being "all fake" because YES, Vince being "stopped" by God's lightning is incredibly, incredibly fake. We know Umaga isn't from the jungle of Samoa or whatever. In 1999, Umaga would go on Jay Leno and talk about how fun the character is to play. Now, we are supposed to buy that he is an animal man or whatever the fuck he's supposed to be. Give me a break. And as someone else said, a lot has to do with what people think of Vince McMahon the person. When he gives interviews, he's basically the same asshole he plays on TV. He yells at Bob Costas and THAT is what gets played over and over again. He's the face of the company, and it's a bad face to have. He could go out there and be intelligent, articulate, and win over a Katie Couric or whoever. But he doesn't. Much like Hogan in the 80's going on talk shows and doing his goofy "Whatcha gonna DOOOOOO, bruther?" gimmick, people respond with "How can you watch this stuff?" It's the same reason why in 10 years (or hopefully less than that), when "Desperate Houswives" is off the air, people won't be talking about how great it was. They'll be talking about how horrible and dumb the whole show was because of the outrageous factor of it. So, all in all, wrestling isn't accepted by the mainstream because well, it doesn't want to be. Vince calls THAT "Attitude", I call it stupidity because he could be making a lot more money if he stopped being a circus and started being a performance.

The best part of that Shawn promo was when the crowd was singing the "Goodbye" song, and he simply just sat down in the ring.......and they stopped. Amazing.

I thought the "Unearthed" boxset had all the extra "American" stuff. I knew there was going to be an "American V" of his final recordings, but I can't see how they can put out an "American VI" album. Well, I can definitely see how they CAN, but I don't think they SHOULD. "Unchained" is my favorite of the four. "The Man Comes Around" was good, but it was sad to hear how deteroiated his voice had gotten. I still think the first one was the best overall. It deserved the 5 star rating it got in Rolling Stone.

I love Vinces reaction as the three count is being made. Where did this match take place? When the Bulldogs are entering the ring it looks like they are in a dome.