WWE General Discussion - February 2009

[Mike wanna be 0]

Matt Hardy's and RVD's haircuts - what's up with that? They have long hair everywhere except at the sides of their head from their ears forward that always cut short. Is that the neo-mullet? Did they cut it once by accident (maybe trimming their sideburns up too high) and now can't let it grow in because of the "in between" stage

They have to cut it like that, or else that hair wouldn't reach for the ponytail. It would come loose during a match and look like shit (not to mention be distracting as fuck).

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Mike Knox has been added to the Raw brand Elimination Chamber, per house show qualifier.

 

http://www.wwe.com/shows/nowayout/exclusives/9265678

 

Interesting add. But I guess they can use the EC to put over some fresh faces when Cena winning is a foregone conclusion. Knox outlasted Shad, JTG, Dolph Ziggler, Ted DiBiase and Cody Rhodes in a six-man battle royal to secure his spot in the EC - quite the line-up.

 

They probably needed Knox as a base for Kofi and Mysterio during the match.

 

I'd expect another heel added to even up the sides, Orton maybe. I wonder if we'll see Knox and Jericho vs Kingston and Mysterio this week on Raw.

Im trying to figure out who is left that they could add. It wont be Orton, Im fairly sure. It almost has to be JBL, with him winning a last chance battle royal among everyone that lost (Punk/Regal/HBK/JBL/Kane/Guys that Mike Knox outlasted).

[Fartsauce 0]

If they're doing Orton/Cena at Mania then you'd think either Rhodes or Dibiase ends up in the match.

[TheFranchise 0]

Matt Hardy's and RVD's haircuts - what's up with that? They have long hair everywhere except at the sides of their head from their ears forward that always cut short. Is that the neo-mullet? Did they cut it once by accident (maybe trimming their sideburns up too high) and now can't let it grow in because of the "in between" stage

They have to cut it like that, or else that hair wouldn't reach for the ponytail. It would come loose during a match and look like shit (not to mention be distracting as fuck).

It's true, I have a receding hairline and I have long hair and it does get awkward.

 

 

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

Matt Hardy's and RVD's haircuts - what's up with that? They have long hair everywhere except at the sides of their head from their ears forward that always cut short. Is that the neo-mullet? Did they cut it once by accident (maybe trimming their sideburns up too high) and now can't let it grow in because of the "in between" stage

They have to cut it like that, or else that hair wouldn't reach for the ponytail. It would come loose during a match and look like shit (not to mention be distracting as fuck).

 

Why not just let it all grow long originally and then it could all be pulled back in a ponytail? I understand know why they dont now, because of the dreaded "in between stage", I guess maybe they thought it was cool looking at one time and are now trapped with it.

 

I think Matt Hardy should cut his hair short as part of his heel turn. I don't think guys realize how bad long hair looks until they finally cut it and then look at old pictures.

 

 

 

[dubq 0]

Especially when those guys have receding hairlines.. HBK especially looks like an extreme doofus with long hair.

[Thanks for the Fish 0]

Especially when those guys have receding hairlines.. HBK especially looks like an extreme doofus with long hair.

 

HBK did a bit where he dressed up like Hulk Hogan, complete was bald cap and when the mustache fell off near the end of the segment it was basically HBK with a bald cap on and he didn't look bad. I suspect his hairline will force him to retire before his back or knees.

 

Edited - Okay it's not ecaxtly as I remembered however here s the vid - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11jk7_hb...ulk-hogan_sport

[Human Fly 0]

 

Speaking of looking like shit. That old Lightweight title....

[BruteSquad_BRODY 0]

Paul Bearer's wife died over the weekend

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Did The Cabinet encase her in concrete?

[foleyfanforever88 0]

Did The Cabinet encase her in concrete?

 

The Cabinet?

[Enigma 0]

Don't you mean Paul Heyman and The Dudleys?

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

Oh, yeah. Although a quick wikipedia fact check says Taker actually pulled the lever that buried him.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of all that stuff. Thanks a bunch.

[Silence 0]

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of all that stuff. Thanks a bunch.

 

No kidding. What a shitty angle.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

I was thinking it was The Cabinet because I had made this (no doubt awesome) pic shortly thereafter:

[EdwardKnoxII 0]

Yeah. Thank you for reminding me of all that stuff. Thanks a bunch.

 

No kidding. What a shitty angle.

 

And Paul Bearer had came back as UT's manager for like 3 month's before UT got rid of him. Hell was the point of bring him back then?

[Papacita 0]

Bearer was sick and couldn't stay on the road, hence their killing him off.

[Silence 0]

Bearer was sick and couldn't stay on the road, hence their killing him off.

 

They could have written him off in a less dramatic way.

 

Then again, many of UT's angles are usually weird.

[RepoMan 0]

Still not as bad as Carlito and Chris Masters being in a WWE Title Chamber Match.

 

They were the last guys left in the match at the end!

 

Masters and Carlito where solid upper midcarders at the time. Masters had the big push with the Masterlock Challange going for and Carlito had a decent cool heel persona. Knox is generic hoss getting a token push 2,673-B.

 

[TheFranchise 0]

WCW TV Title Tournament Quarter Finals: Johnny B. Badd pinned Chris Benoit by lifting his shoulder out of Benoit's dragon suplex and Benoit pinned himself.

 

 

 

-------

 

 

Has this finish been used lately? It sounds simple yet awesome.

[goldengreek 0]

Article on last weeks RAW:

 

 

 

What in God's name were they thinking?

 

WWE had done a great job building up new lead heel Randy Orton over weeks and months, even while he was injured, finally building up 2 weeks ago to an angle where, just as Vince McMahon was going to fire him for disrespecting Stephanie McMahon, Orton attacked Vince McMahon by slapping him in the face, then punted McMahon in the head with a scary stiff looking kick. The angle was great, even if we did have to watch Stephanie McMahon's melodramatic screeching to EMTs and everyone from the National Guard to Homeland Security to come help her father.

 

Next, Randy Orton wins the Royal Rumble to win the guaranteed Wrestlemania main event. OK, this sets up the confrontation between Stephanie and Orton for RAW. That confrontation would, in turn, set up any one of a number of storyline possibilities: Either Orton and Stephanie are in cahoots to take the company away from Vince (and she sent him after Vince), or Orton and Shane are in cahoots to take the company away from Vince and Stephanie (and Shane had Orton attack Vince), or it's Orton against ALL the McMahons. All intriguing possibilities.

 

Then came RAW last Monday night.

 

Randy Orton comes out with "his therapist" and a battery of "lawyers" (played by whatever remaining staff there are in the WWE offices) to say that he has been diagnosed with IED "Intermittent Explosive Disorder" and in essence... can't be held responsible for his actions (yes, readers...its a real condition; as stated by the American Psychiatric Association it's "a behavioral disorder characterized by extreme expressions of anger, often to the point of uncontrollable rage, disproportionate to the situation at hand"...pretty identical to what most of us felt fans felt after this past Monday's debacle). Further Randy and his "lawyers" state that as such that they will sue if Stephanie McMahon attempts to fire him with the implication that its a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

 

Here comes problem number one: Guess what Intermittent Explosive Disorder has been linked to? Steroid use. Not exactly the subject I'd be going out of my way to remind the public about if I were WWE. Even better, WWE.com is continuing to sell this "condition" as legitimate, and is providing a sort of description of Orton's "condition" on the website. No mention, of course, of the connection to steroid use.

 

Bigtime oops...but we're just getting started.

 

Here comes problem number two: WWE has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to Jerry McDevitt telling the world that its wrestlers are "independent contractors"...not employees (despite the fact that a cursory reading of any website citing IRS regulations that determine contractor vs. employee make abundantly clear that WWE wrestlers are employees). Why does this matter? Independent contractors can't sue under Americans with Disability Act regulations.

 

Oops number two.

 

Since I doubt that WWE has decided to admit on live TV that Scott Levy and those suing the company to force a determination that WWE talent are, in fact, employees, and are planning to settle their lawsuit...a bigtime oops.

 

Back to RAW. Orton now says he'll sue WWE for breach of contract, since a Wrestlemania 25 match was "guaranteed" as the stipulation for winning the Royal Rumble, and if he's fired WWE is in breach of contract. OK, at least a little believable by wrestling standards.

 

Then Orton goes so far as to say that he'll get a court injunction preventing Wrestlemania 25 from taking place if he has to to get what he wants. Kayfabe goes out the window as the RAW locker room, heels, faces, even Chris Jericho, all come out to scowl at Jericho and Legacy. They might hate each other in storyline, but no one wants to miss a big payday. That is, unless they're "employed by JBL" who is supposedly paying HBK enough to skip Wrestlemania (wonder if HBK gets medical benefits as an employee?).

 

Orton screams at Stephanie...daring her, begging her to fire him. OK...still time for her to break up laughing, and drop the bomb that they were in cahoots all along. Did they do that?

 

Nope.

 

Here comes problem number three. Stephanie McMahon says she's not going to fire Orton, but instead says "we have bigger plans for you". Out comes Shane McMahon.

 

Um....last time we saw Shane McMahon he and Stephanie were at war, ending with him getting slapped across the face by her. So why he'd come out to help her? I dunno, but then, WWE has its Executive Vice President totally spay and neuter Randy Orton and Legacy, beating the living crap out of Cody Rhodes, Ted DiBiase, Jr., and Randy Orton.

 

Think about it (and plenty of pissed-off fans did all last week): a non-wrestler takes out the trio being positioned as the top heel faction in WWE all by himself through some of the worst worked punches thrown since James Caan's Sonny Corelone missed Carlo Rizzi by a foot with a punch in a street scene during The Godfather, not to mentioned getting blown 45 seconds into his "beating" of Orton, Rhodes, and DiBiase.

 

I can't understand why the show wasn't closed by showing Shane McMahon at the top of the ramp...with back and forth shots of Orton and Shane McMahon staring at each other...fading to black, setting up the "What's Shane going to do to punish Orton" cliffhanger for next week. Given a week, WWE then could have thought of something better than what they ended with last night. Hell, the dumbest mark on planet Earth could have thought of something better than cutting the cajones off of its new lead heel faction.

 

It's a shame the crowd at RAW wasn't "smart" enough to start serenading WWE with a "Fire Russo" chant. This chant has become the new chant of choice at TNA tapings and TNA PPVs for particularly inane angles, Russo swerves that go nowhere, or PPV no-shows.

 

The chant has even spread to Ring of Honor with the January 17th Ring of Honor Edison, NJ show, which featured a scheduled Austin Aries-Nigel McGuinness 60 minute Ring of Honor World Title main event that was changed to a Tyler Black-Nigel McGuinness match, then cut to a time limit draw timed by many fans at 45 minutes. Along with the fact that a increasingly vocal group of fans have been showing their displeasure at the firing of Gabe Sapolsky and the booking changes made by Adam Pearce, that end-of-show clustermess had fans leaving last week's Edison, NJ extremely unhappy, as witnessed by the promotion's message board. They're not any more happy about THIS weekend's shows, either, and are showing their displeasure through lower crowd counts at recent shows (including at their Chicago Ridge, IL hotbed last Saturday).

 

Well...this angle last Monday on RAW may be more stupid than nearly anything TNA's done in the last year. Some have even argued it ranks up there with the WCW Shockmaster escapade in sheer stupidity. At least Shockmaster was just a klutz while wearing an unwieldy gimmick and walked through a wall by accident, while what happened with last Monday night's disaster was done on purpose.

 

Even worse, Dave Meltzer has speculated what that purpose is...and it's even more stupid that just a set of bad storywriting. He suggests in this past weekend's Wrestling Observer Newsletter that the reason for Orton's storyline Intermittent Explosive Disorder and "threatened 'lawsuit'" is due to Vince McMahon being upset at the lawsuit threats by Chris Benoit's family, who are charging that WWE has prior knowledge of years of Benoit's concussions, that they were negligent in not taking action, given potential diminished capacity due to these concussions; thus resulting in the murder-suicide that occurred. Meltzer has mentioned on more than one previous occasion that McMahon likes to act out his psychological issues in storyline form (imagine what that would mean for that Vince McMahon-Stephanie McMahon October 19, 2003 No Mercy match...ewwwww.)

 

*Sigh*

 

Why the hell can't Vince McMahon just get professional counseling like everyone else?

 

This storyline had better result...and quickly... in a swerve where Shane's somehow in cahoots with Legacy, explaining why Orton, Rhodes and DiBiase sold so ridiculously for him. Otherwise, Stephanie and the entire WWE booking committee may well have created a new disorder for the American Psychiatric Association called IED... "Inexplicable Episode Disorder", a syndrome where otherwise intelligent television storywriters come up with an episode so inexplicable that not even Bill Watts and Paul Heyman at their creative heights could write their way out of it

[The Niggardly King 0]

Still not as bad as Carlito and Chris Masters being in a WWE Title Chamber Match.

 

They were the last guys left in the match at the end!

 

Masters and Carlito where solid upper midcarders at the time. Masters had the big push with the Masterlock Challange going for and Carlito had a decent cool heel persona. Knox is generic hoss getting a token push 2,673-B.

 

One man's generic hoss 2,673-B is another's D-Rated Brody.

[YourKock'sReallyGreat 0]

Has this been mentioned yet?

 

http://www.wrestlingnewsworld.com/specials...oyal-rumble.php

[Enigma 0]

What great resolution on the photo.

[garfieldsnose 0]

goldengreek proves once again he sucks.

[Beto Chavez 0]

I noticed prior to the Royal Rumble this year that they changed it from the winner "main events Wrestlemania" to "gets a championship match" instead.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

Has this been mentioned yet?

 

http://www.wrestlingnewsworld.com/specials...oyal-rumble.php

 

That's definitely him. You can totally tell. I think we all know who is going over John Cena at WrestleMania this year.

[muzz 0]

Pretty sure that's bigfoot. He's going to lead the invasion.

[Enigma 0]

PWI is confirming that Randy Savage was backstage at the Royal Rumble very early in the day to discuss his 3-disc DVD documentary set, which will be releasing on June 9. It was supposedly the first time Savage and Vince have talked since Vince unsuccessfully tried to bring Savage back to the WWF in 1996 when his WCW contract expired.

 

There was no news about a Hall of Fame spot or if it was even discussed.