[quote name='pimpster4183']McIntyre looks like some random indy guy, he has no look, he sucks on the mic.. why is WWE pushing him down everyones throat trying to get him over?[/QUOTE]
the way him and HHH were dressed in the rumble i lost track of who was who a few times. hell cole even called he HHH at one point
I only got to see the first hour of the show due to a power outage, but man was it ever awesome. Jericho's opening speech was good, and I dug the post-speech reveal of Edge in the GM's office. Morrison-McIntyre-Kane was one of Kane's best matches in a while, and certainly the fastest-paced thanks to Drew and Morrison. I liked that they setup Kane's history in the Chamber because it made him losing the qualifier seem significant, and Striker did an excellent job putting over just what kind of insanity we might see with Morrison in the match. Hopefully, we don't see a Starship Pain off the top of the structure like Striker suggested - that would be ing retarded.
Truth-Knox was over much faster than I expected. Truth actually go to squash a name guy, which shocked me. Knox hit the flying bear, then just got beat clean with the flippity-do-forearm. I'm all for a Truth push - at least the Jericho job won't be wasted if they go through with it, and they need to push more guys, and Truth can certainly carry the ball, especially if they allow him to cut promos that are more than just two words in length.
The post-Raw Batista-Cena footage was awesome. It was WM highlight package-worthy stuff with the toss of Cena OVER the announce table and the sick Batista bomb on the steps. I'm not sure why they didn't air this on the show itself - perhaps they were concerned about Batista not being able to pull this off live, but I loved seeing it here. It made their inevitable match at 'Mania more interesting, while also allowing them to fit in better with the Vince-Bret storyline.
Punk-Batista was glorious. Every single thing about this ruled the world. Batista's spotlight entrance, Punk looking sleazier than ever with nipple piercings, the unexplained willing countout loss from Batista, Gallows holding Punk up as he had the goofiest expression on his face, then ran around like he won the world title at 'Mania, and then firmly embraced Serena as she jumped into his arms. And of course, Batista making googly eyes at her too ruled.
Jericho-Matt cut off right after Matt's face got all bloody and Striker put over this being a war wound of gladiatorial combat or some shit, but I liked what I saw of it and I assume that Matt lost since Jericho's being pushed and Matt is well, Matt. I can't wait for the show to hit Hulu so I can actually watch the rest of it, because hour 1 ruled.
Screens -
Quotes -
Grisham - There’s Graceland. Dare I say, there’s gonna be a lot of shakin’ going on!
Striker - That’s Jerry Lewis!
Striker - It took 2 superstars to eliminate the undefeated Intercontinental Champion - and not just any 2, but DX!
Striker - Kane has been in 2, no 3 Elimination Chambers, and it’s part of why he’s so twisted and demented!
Striker - I WAS AT THE FIRST ELIMINATION CHAMBER AT RINGSIDE AS A FAN AND NOW I GET TO BE THERE AND CALL IT!
Striker - IMAGINE STARSHIP PAIN OFF A 36 FOOT HIGH STEEL STRUCTURE! WE COULD SEE THAT AT ELIMINATION CHAMBER!
(after the Knox cross body)Striker - FLYING BEAR!
Punk - I need to know what you’re willing to do to protect your savior?
Serena - I’d do anything…
Grisham - CM Punk eliminated 5 in the Rumble match - more than anyone else.
Striker - And it took a superstar the caliber of HHH to eliminate the straight edge savior!
Striker - In the elimination chamber, there is NO WAY OUT!
While I certainly like the concept, 10 minutes of nothing but Sabu botches sounds torturous. On the other hand, there's enough footage for 100 Sabotchamanias.
I think Sabu's persona would suffer if he didn't constantly wreck his shit.
I got about a minute and a half through the first video. Do they show his old, old fire deathmatch from Japan where it got way too hot in the ring? I'll try and find it...
The genius of Paul E when running ECW: turn the fact that Sabu botches so much stuff into a character asset by saying it's his totaly disregard for his own body as well as his opponents.
I think we should all share really obscure wrestling memories....stuff only a few people would remember and the chance of there being videos online is zero to none.
I remember when WWF had a live call in show called Live Wire and this guy with a really thick southern accent called in to ask Shawn Michaels what kind of gum he chewed.
I remember at the Royal Rumble press conference where Vader was to debut a kid asked Michaels and I quote "What happens if Vader does you like that?" That was all the kid said.
I also remember when WWF Mania was having a contest to co-host with Todd Pettengill by way of video auditions and viewer call in votes....a kid played Bret Hart's theme on guitar and sang the lyrics "vote vote vote for Jason" over and over.
Edit: Also My uncle (who is only 4 years older than me) and I vividly remember A bungee match between Austin and Pillman after the Hollywood Blondes broke up. Pillman was the face and the build up was that he was afraid of heights. Pillman won but he had to bungee off anyway. We can't find anyone with knowledge of this, so the fear of heights was moot point anyway. It was on an episode of Saturday Night. All I could find was a bungee match from some Mexican federation.
[quote name='gareman']I think we should all share really obscure wrestling memories....stuff only a few people would remember and the chance of there being videos online is zero to none.
I remember when WWF had a live call in show called Live Wire and this guy with a really thick southern accent called in to ask Shawn Michaels what kind of gum he chewed.
I remember at the Royal Rumble press conference where Vader was to debut a kid asked Michaels and I quote "What happens if Vader does you like that?" That was all the kid said.
I also remember when WWF Mania was having a contest to co-host with Todd Pettengill by way of video auditions and viewer call in votes....a kid played Bret Hart's theme on guitar and sang the lyrics "vote vote vote for Jason" over and over.
Edit: Also My uncle (who is only 4 years older than me) and I vividly remember A bungee match between Austin and Pillman after the Hollywood Blondes broke up. Pillman was the face and the build up was that he was afraid of heights. Pillman won but he had to bungee off anyway. We can't find anyone with knowledge of this, so the fear of heights was moot point anyway. It was on an episode of Saturday Night. All I could find was a bungee match from some Mexican federation.[/QUOTE]
Off the top of my head, I remember someone holding up a sign on Thunder that had "I haven't changed my clothes since Nitro" written on it. This was in the latter days of WCW when they taped the shows on the same night to cut down costs.
I suppose a sign like that would have more impact(heh) now since TNA tapes stuff for a couple weeks worth of shows in one night.
It's weird because I've been a pretty loyal wrestling fan since I was a little kid, but a lot of the pre-Attitude era stuff that always gets mentioned for Wrestlecrap I simply don't remember. I don't know if that's a weird "blocked out the painful memory" moment or something, but I can't for the life of me recall any matches featuring Knuckleball Schwartz, The Goon, Mantaur, Phantasio, or any of the other countless gimmicks from back then.
The only instance of TL Hopper I remember on WWF TV was a (I think) Summerslam "Beach Blast" pre-show where he pulled a Baby Ruth out of a swimming pool backstage.
Here's a fun one I recall seeing on TV that I'd totally forgotten about.
[quote name='pitfallharry219']Off the top of my head, I remember someone holding up a sign on Thunder that had "I haven't changed my clothes since Nitro" written on it. This was in the latter days of WCW when they taped the shows on the same night to cut down costs.
I suppose a sign like that would have more impact(heh) now since TNA tapes stuff for a couple weeks worth of shows in one night.[/QUOTE]
Well if you pay attention they always show the same signs in the crowd on Impact! like for the last three shows a dude is holding up a sign that says, "I flew 6,000 miles for TNA". You can see it with in the first minute of each show.
The only instance of TL Hopper I remember on WWF TV was a (I think) Summerslam "Beach Blast" pre-show where he pulled a Baby Ruth out of a swimming pool backstage.
[/QUOTE]
I remember that. They went backstage during the pre-show and all the jobbers and Jerry Lawler, I believe, were having a pool party in an above ground pool....for some reason.
[quote name='Halo05']I think Sabu's persona would suffer if he didn't constantly wreck his shit.
I got about a minute and a half through the first video. Do they show his old, old fire deathmatch from Japan where it got way too hot in the ring? I'll try and find it...
For the youngsters, Hulk Hogan had actually won the AWA World Title twice, only to be "Dusty Finish-ed" out of it each time. He jumped to WWF shortly after the 2nd time it happened.
In this alternate universe, he actually won it and became the company's top star in 1982, in conjunction with the theatrical release of Rocky III, "Eye of the Tiger" entrance theme, and all.
How, if anything, does this change the face of wrestling? Does the AWA still fold 8 years later? Does the WWF still become a big hit nationally, gobbling up the territories? Does Hogan's ego stay in check, allowing him to drop the title to people like Jumbo Tsuruta and Otto Wanz? Does none of it matter, and Hogan jumps to the WWF while being the AWA champ (predating Zbyszko by 8 years)?
Tough to say, as I think it's presumptuous to think Hogan's ego was as big as it became when he was still in the AWA - tough to say if he'd have still jumped, I think.
But wrestling would be largely the same, as what was bigger than Hogan was the WWF going national and putting the regional territories out of business. Hogan may have never witnessed "Hulkamania," and the AWA may have lasted considerably longer than it did - but I can't help but think a 1-2 national promotion scenario would have played out nevertheless. WWF could have still cannibalized the territories without Hogan. Who's to say that Hogan's star couldn't have been someone else who never made the jump from territory to WWF?
[quote name='gareman']I remember that. They went backstage during the pre-show and all the jobbers and Jerry Lawler, I believe, were having a pool party in an above ground pool....for some reason.[/QUOTE]
That was actually the show that got me back into wrestling. If I remember right, it was the pre-show summer pool party (aka an excuse to have Sable/Sunny/Marlena in bikinis)
That was also the preshow where the rope broke on Yokozuna when he went for the Banzai Drop on Stone Cold.
I still don't get it, and maybe it's my deep-seeded markdom for Sabu but he's a ing berserker; sometimes things don't work out and you break your jaw on a guardrail.
[quote name='mykevermin']Tough to say, as I think it's presumptuous to think Hogan's ego was as big as it became when he was still in the AWA - tough to say if he'd have still jumped, I think.
But wrestling would be largely the same, as what was bigger than Hogan was the WWF going national and putting the regional territories out of business. Hogan may have never witnessed "Hulkamania," and the AWA may have lasted considerably longer than it did - but I can't help but think a 1-2 national promotion scenario would have played out nevertheless. WWF could have still cannibalized the territories without Hogan. Who's to say that Hogan's star couldn't have been someone else who never made the jump from territory to WWF?[/QUOTE]
Well, who would it have been? I don't think they could have re-made Backlund. It wouldn't have been Snuka, he was too "foreign." They'd done Pedro Morales. I don't think they could have gotten Muraco over as a megaface... Jesse Ventura, maybe? Tito Santana? Maybe David Sammartino (jk!!)?
My personal thought is along the lines of yours... it would have delayed the inevitable, but we'd have been down to a "Big Two" by '95. I'm not sure how Hogan's career would have turned out, though.
I posed this to a friend who believes that it would have changed nothing, except McMahon would have wooed AWA Champ Hogan instead of Top Babyface Hogan -- the only difference would have been Verne Gagne getting more off of merchandising before being forced out of business. It tends to make sense, Vince would lure him into defending titles in MSG instead of places like Minot, ND.
Right. I don't know *who* it would have been, but it would have been someone other than Hogan.
The difficulty in figuring out who it would have been is harmed by hindsight. In retrospect, we can't conceivably see anyone other than Hogan. But that's the nature of the wrestling business - who to push, who to promote, who to ditch. If picking and pushing Hogan was that easy to predict in advance, then it shouldn't be hard to identify who the "next one" will be. Stone Cold was the crowd's choice and not the WWF's choice, Rocky Maivia was the WWF's choice until he became the fan's choice (and was a persona very, very far from what he was originally), and John Cena is clearly the WWE's choice and only partially the crowd's choice.
tl;dr? It's easy to see who should be pushed in hindsight, but not in advance.
Just watched Smackdown from this week. I wonder where they are going with Batista. I mean, he's on the poster for the ppv this month but doesn't really seem to have any direction yet for how he might be involved.
For all the AWA talk, you guys should watch the DVD WWE put out about the subject. Interesting to see the rise of Vince McMahon by pillaging rival companies, only to have it happen to him years later.
[quote name='lombarvm']For all the AWA talk, you guys should watch the DVD WWE put out about the subject. Interesting to see the rise of Vince McMahon by pillaging rival companies, only to have it happen to him years later.[/QUOTE]
Have it happen to him? Where? TNA has people WWE shitcanned and people father time has passed by, but no "pillaging" to speak of.
How exciting is that segment? And it's just an *entrance* (well, to be fair, Sandman was 90% entrance anyway, but he had one of the best). So much of that video shows everything that was right about the real ECW, and why WWE would never let it become that.[/QUOTE]
he also had one of the best returns to ECW back when he left WCW to go back to ECW ...
Thanks for that link. Wow, it brings me back to think of Rhino as a rookie and as an unstoppable monster, which ECW did a great job of making believable (and every promotion since disregarding wholly).
ECW really used music to mask some weaknesses. Sandman comes to mind since we're discussing him. But New Jack was a shit wrestler that we rarely realized because of the excitement surrounding his in-ring antics and the constant blare of "Natural Born Killaz."
Viewing that clip, it's kinda funny to think that the same people who worship at the altar of the Real ECW are also the same people who pan WWE and TNA for run-ins and non-finishes.
According to a post on the SLAM! Wrestling website, Brooke Hogan is rumored to be joining TNA Wrestling. They wrote: "With Brooke Hogan's career in music and television stalled, it is rumored she might take an on-camera role with TNA."
Their ratings were down last week to a 1.2 from a high of 1.4 in January.
Too early to say the experiment has failed - but given the braintrust working behind the scenes right now, by the time Impact is back in the 0.9 range for 3 weeks straight, the programs *REALLY* going to be the most accidentally entertaining thing on tv.
I just want stuff to slow down in terms of match pace and storytelling. I want a program that has an attention span and doesn't regard the average viewer as a cokehead.
That said, TNA's admittance that they pay attention to *minute-by-minute* ratings trends seems like they're taking the mentality that something new has to happen every 60 seconds to keep the viewer interested. That means they're going the opposite way of what I'd like to see.
I always enjoyed Saturn, especially as the 'one of these things is not like the others' member of the Radicalz.
It's really depressing looking back on that now, a little over a decade on. A group that, by all accounts, had a hugely bright future back in 2000 and were primed to be the new face of wrestling. One retires a year later, one dies halfway through the decade, one lasts two years longer and gives wrestling it's darkest moment ever, and one literally disappears to the point that people genuinely question if he's still alive.
I remember being in the crowd the first night they showed up in WWF, and now it's impossible to not look back on it with a twinge of sadness. After everything that happened with Guerrero and Benoit, I am still amazed that Malenko is even still a part of the business. I imagine that's got to be real tough for him some days.
... sorry, the whole Saturn thing spurred that on. You can go back to the funnier 'Moppy' conversation now. Ha.
[quote name='007']I am still amazed that Malenko is even still a part of the business.[/QUOTE]
He almost quit in 2007, obviously.
He's one of a kind for sure. His treatment/persona prior to ECW and during WCW ("Man of 1000 Holds"/"Iceman") shows that WCW didn't always make monstrous mistakes with its talent, and his treatment/persona in WWF ("let's give you a James Bond theme song and have you feud with Lita") shows that WWF really doesn't know how to push people who don't look like Rob Terry.
ing retarded. 
