Kahran Ramsus

I'd take Keyshawn. Miami is going to sink sooner or later (they always do) and Frerotte has never been good for more than two or three weeks. McCardell's numbers will head back into the abyss once Gates gets back. Ferguson doesn't impress me, and Driver's the new #1. That leaves Keyshawn, who might surprise a bit. Bledsoe isn't very good, but he's better than Testeverde was.

I guess I should start Atlanta's Defense next week then.

1-0. Good thing I picked Chicago & Miami.

He missed three months in the fall of 1993 due to a contract dispute.

Yes, and agreed. I think it would have been much more successful had it been released in theatres instead.

And the proposed RVD title run would bury the corpse.

Thank you for proving the man's point Rrrsh.

Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't think LOD2K5 is a good team, but for whatever reason the crowd loves them so they are doing something right. They have gotten the tag division the most over its been since the Filthy Animals were feuding with the World's Greatest Tag Team back in the summer of 2003. That said, the Blue Bloods 2K5 are my favourite team in the division and I really hope they get a title run eventually.

Fans don't like to cheer for new guys against established stars. That's partly why you always see HHH get cheered against guys like Eugene & Orton. Of the four new stars they've created in the last five years, all four (Batista, Angle, Lesnar & Cena) first got over as heels and ended up getting face pops long before they actually turned face and most actually lost heat after the face turn. Only Batista has avoided a backlash against him out of the four.

Trent Green Update: Apparently he's good to go. He's officially probable, but feel free to start him. I am.

Even if we 'have' to see RVD/HBK, just do it the next month. Wrestlemania is the only time we can get Guerrero/Michaels unless they switch brands.

Wrestlemania is the one time a year we get interpromotional matches and you want to waste HBK on an anchor like RVD? That match sucked the first time they did. HBK/Eddy is the obvious way to go.

Why is everybody talking about the feuds? What does that have to do with the quality of the match?

The Patriots rarely blow teams out, so the fact it was that close shouldn't be too surprising. Its the way they usually win, outside of letting the Raiders score first.

They would really have to stack the team if they wanted it to work. An HHH, HBK, Benoit & Angle Horsemen would probably be pretty good, but they would inevitably either become playthings for HHH or filled with losers that nobody cares about (Masters, Carlito).

I had wanted Austin to go heel for over a year by that point, so I loved the ending to X-7. The best main event in Wrestlemania history as far as I'm concerned, and the biggest since Hogan/Warrior.

I like Taboo Tuesday with one major exception. It should be on Sunday night like every other PPV. I have no problem with the concept itself, but nobody is going to order a wrestling PPV during the week anymore. They discovered this with Survivor Series back in the mid 90s.

Absolutely. But I was specifically referring to his push and stature in the company. Yes, he has. I believed I mentioned that and if I didn't I apologize because I meant to. The point was that those hiccups don't amount to much more than Shawn's hiccups during his career. Even in 1995, Shawn missed a couple of months in the spring (to sell the Sid beatdown on RAW, was he really hurt then?), some time in the late summer/early fall after the Marine incident, and all of December to sell the relapse on RAW. 1996 is the only year since 1992 that Shawn made it through the entire year without missing time. He happens to be quite injury-prone, just like Angle.

I really don't understand the longevity argument with Shawn. Pre-1992 he was one half of the AWA Tag Team Champions and a JTTS tag team in the WWF doing jobs to the likes of the Twin Towers, Powers of Pain, Fabulous Rougeaus, Power & Glory, Brainbusters & Nasty Boyz. From 1992-1994 he was an IC level competitor who got suspended for three months at the end of 1993 and managed to make a name for himself in the Ladder Match in March. From Wrestlemania X until after Survivor Series he was a manager of Diesel, commentator on RAW and wrestled maybe one real match in that entire period (the rest of the time was him standing on the apron letting Diesel do all the work). Now's when he really begins to rise as 1995 features Shawn as the most over face on the roster and the man who should have been World Champion that year and in 1996 he was the Undisputed top of the promotion. But after his win against Sid at Royal Rumble 1997, he disappeared for a few months. He came back for a month in the spring before leaving again after KOTR, and making his big return at Summerslam. From that point he wrestled until Royal Rumble when he got injured in the casket match. After that he just had the Wrestlemania match where he put over Austin. From 1998-2002 he was out injured. This injury time was longer than his entire run on top of the promotion from 1995-1997. From 2002-2003 he wrestled a part-time schedule with only a handful of matches a year and long periods off due to injury. Since late 2003 he's been wrestling more often, but he still misses a lot of time with injury, including two this year. The one after Taboo Tuesday that kept him out of the ring until the Royal Rumble, and the one in the spring that caused him to miss a couple of months. So basically, the longest he's been around has been two consecutive years, and about three and a half total if you add up all his time on top of the promotion. Kurt Angle since his debut in 1999 has been a top level performer since 2000. If you count his injury time, he's been on top for as long, if not longer than Shawn. And nobody would argue that Kurt Angle has longevity on his side.

See, the difference between Mike and some blind worshipper like Rrsh is that Mike doesn't go overboard. Mike likes Shawn as a wrestler and will defend him on those basis. I have absolutely no problem with someone thinking Shawn was a great wrestler (I agree), or even the greatest wrestler ever (I disagree), but as long as you accept certain inarguable facts an acknowledge the other side of the argument. Instead a lot of the HBK fans around here are off the...'HBK DREW MORE THAN STONE COLD OR HULK!!!' types. He was an abysmal draw and the numbers are there in black and white, regardless of what you may think of him as a worker. I really don't know how that whole argument came up in this thread to begin with, since we are comparing Flair/HBK in a strictly wrestling compacity. I should add that arguing that HBK is a great draw because someone else was awful, is not a good way to prove your point. That's like me saying Koren Robinson is the greatest WR in NFL history because Peter Warrick is worse. Bret Hart, Undertaker, etc., have nothing to do with the point you are trying to make. If you think that HBK is the 90s Ric Flair, then that is your opinion. My opinion is that Steve Austin fits that role better. And he also had MOTYCs for WCW/WWF in most of the years he has been wrestler, just like Shawn (and he's actually had more actual MOTYs than Shawn has by my count). 1992 - WarGames 1993 - w/ Brian Pillman vs. Flair/Anderson, w/ Pillman vs. Steamboat/Douglas 1994 - vs. Steamboat 1996 - vs. Bret Hart 1997 - vs. Bret Hart, Canadian Stampede 1998 - vs. Dude Love 1999 - vs. Rock (Backlash), vs. HHH (No Mercy) - It was a pretty lousy year for WWF. 2000 - vs. Chris Benoit, RAW December 2001 - vs. Rock, vs. Chris Benoit, vs. Kurt Angle Here are my actual WCW/WWF MOTYs from 1992-2004, in this case it will be for both promotions, rather than just the one Austin was with at the time. 1992 - WarGames, Wrestlewar 1993 - Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect, KOTR 1994 - Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart, Wrestlemania 1995 - Shawn Michaels vs. Jeff Jarrett, IYH 2 1996 - Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, Survivor Series 1997 - Bret Hart vs. Steve Austin, Wrestlemania 1998 - Chris Benoit vs. Raven, Souled Out 1999 - Chris Benoit vs. Bret Hart, Owen Hart Tribute 2000 - HHH vs. Cactus Jack, Royal Rumble 2001 - Steve Austin vs. The Rock, Wrestlemania 2002 - Chris Benoit & Kurt Angle vs. Edge & Rey Misterio, No Mercy 2003 - Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle, Royal Rumble 2004 - Chris Benoit vs. HHH vs. Shawn Michaels, Wrestlemania Number of appearances: Bret Hart - 5 Times Chris Benoit - 5 Times Steve Austin - 4 Times Shawn Michaels - 2 Times Kurt Angle - 2 Times HHH - 2 Times Nobody else appears more than once. Kurt & Shawn will each go up to three, depending on what happens later in the year. So you can see from my perspective, why Austin rates more highly than Shawn as a wrestler. In terms of mic skills, I don't even see where it is close. Austin revived the WWF largely around what he was doing outside of the ring.

Exactly. There comes a point where you are so far off that there is no helping you.

Was the roster in 1996 really much worse than in 1994? 1994: Lex Luger, Tatanka, Bam Bam Bigelow, Bob Backlund, Owen Hart, Razor Ramon, Diesel, 123 Kid, Jeff Jarrett, IRS, Yokozuna, Jim Neidhart, Crush & Underfaker were the biggest stars. MISSING BIG NAMES: Undertaker (killed at Royal Rumble and didn't return until Summerslam), Shawn Michaels (manager of Diesel and colour commentator on RAW from Wrestlemania until very late in the year), Mr. Perfect (big star in 1993, disappeared soon after his return at Mania), Randy Savage (stopped wrestling after facing Crush at Wrestlemania) 1996: Vader, Mankind, Undertaker, Steve Austin, HHH, Owen Hart, British Bulldog, Sid, Ultimate Warrior, Yokozuna, Goldust, Jake Roberts, Marc Mero, Ahmed Johnson, Savio Vega & Ron Simmons were their biggest stars. MISSING BIG NAMES: Hall, Nash, Hart I'd honestly take the 1996 group. Vader had been WCW's biggest heel for years. Foley had mainevented in WCW. Austin was a very valuable part of their midcard and was part of one of the best tag teams in WCW history. Undertaker was a WWF staple. Johnson was a rising star in 1996. Goldust was extremely controversial but he got attention. Marc Mero was always underrated. Savio was at the hottest point in his WWF career, which isn't saying much but at least his matches with Austin were good. Simmons was a former WCW Champion coming in to the WWF for the first time. 1994 had Yokozuna who was fading fast after his title loss, a fake version of Undertaker, Lex Luger who was dying at that point, Jeff Jarrett who was nothing until he beat Razor in 1995, Bigelow who was in a cold streak before the LT thing in 1995, Crush who was on the way out, Backlund who was an old man who managed to revive his floundering career with a gimmick change in the summer, Tatanka who was struggling since the streak ended and who's heel turned destroyed him, and IRS who was relying on heat left over from his Money Inc days. Only Owen, Diesel & Razor were anything resembling rising stars throughout most of Bret's run. Bulldog showed up at Summerslam, and that's about it. Bret Hart didn't exactly have the WCW 1998 roster to work with either. Yes, but you are only looking at one side of the equation. You have to look at WCW's numbers, and they weren't going up until after Halloween Havoc in October. You mentioned that Great American Bash got a huge buyrate in 1996, which is true...well if you consider a 0.48 to be a huge buyrate. Great American Bash 1995 had a 0.51, so the 1996 show actually did worse. Bash at the Beach did a 0.71 for one month in July, but it looks pretty bad compared to the 1.02 for Hogan/Flair that Bret Hart went up against in 1994. It also wasn't entirely a result of the NWO angle. Uncensored 1996 featuring the Doomsday Cage Match did a 0.70 opposite Wrestlemania. WCW did not start doing really well with the NWO angle until after Shawn lost the belt. Even by November, they only got a 0.55 for World War III 1996. The numbers don't lie. The NWO had little impact on Shawn's title reign.

I actually have no problem with the number of PPVs they have. My problem is that they are all practically the same, aside from Royal Rumble & Wrestlemania. Is there anything that really differentiates between Armageddon & Judgment Day besides the date? That's the problem. I really think they need more gimmicks for their PPVs (not all, but some). Bring back KOTR and the old Survivor Series matches. Have the main event of Armageddon be a 6-Man HIAC every year. That sort of thing. The idea is that fans have some basic idea of what is going to be at a show long before the card is announced. There is a reason why the Royal Rumble does the second highest buyrate almost every year. People talk about the Royal Rumble match six months in advance. They need something like that more often. The other thing this does is to establish that if fans don't order this PPV, they will have to wait a year to see this match again. These days PPVs don't feel like must-buy because fans know they stand a real good chance of seeing the same main event on TV or on PPV next month when they do a rematch. With Royal Rumbles, there are no second chances.

Oakland at New England (7.5) Chicago at Washington (6.5) - Both teams are trash, so I can't spot a touchdown to either one. Probably a FG game. Cincinnati (3.5) at Cleveland Denver (4.5) at Miami - I might be kicking myself about this one later. Houston at Buffalo (4.5) New Orleans at Carolina (6.5) N.Y. Jets at Kansas City (3.5) Seattle at Jacksonville (3.5) Tampa at Minnesota (6.5) - This one was tough. Tampa Bay has the ability to keep it close, but I can't pick against the Minny offense at home in September where they usually start off hot. Tennessee at Pittsburgh (6.5) Arizona at N.Y. Giants (1.5) Dallas at San Diego (4.5) Green Bay at Detroit (2.5) St. Louis (4.5) at San Francisco Indianapolis (3.5) at Baltimore Philadelphia (1.5) at Atlanta Steelers - 31 pts. If they can't put up points at home on what may be the worst defense in the conference, it could be a long season in Pittsburgh.

Translation: I've never seen a wrestling match outside of WWE. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Erase the recent Hogan feud from history and the resurgence of promo GOD Shawn, and I wouldn't have made this thread. Seriously, Angle and Michales are the only ones even comparable to Flair in terms of the total pacakage. Stinko Steve Austin..is not. IMO <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Did you even watch Austin prior to the WWF or do you just think his career started in 1996?