sek69

I don't think WWE ever had tape traders in mind for any set they've ever made. If they did, they would make far more use of the vast libraries they own and not have so many repeat matches across their DVD releases. The only other time I can recall them releasing a multi disc set and having a disc full of just promos is the Roddy Piper set. In that case it made sense since 90% of what Piper's famous for happened in a Piper's Pit segment.

I guess it's because of Cena's injury, but this has surprisingly flown way under the radar considering the guy was WWE champion for the better part of the last 2 years or so. The way they arraigned this set is kind of weird: Disc 1 is the standard documentary stuff, with the extras being a look at all the various cars Cena owns. Disc 2 is the matches, which for a 3 DVD set is kind of odd that this is the only disc that has any. Disc 3 is entirely (unless I missed some easter eggs) "5 Questions With the Champ" segments from WWE.com. That's right, they devoted an entire disc on a DVD release of the company's biggest star to a throwaway joke segment on the company's website. Now they are pretty funny, and show a side of Cena you don't get to see by watching him do his best with horribly written material on RAW, but it's the biggest "WTF?" I've seen on a WWE DVD release. Having said that, the segments kind of remind you of watching Bob Saget's stand-up routine as Cena seems to channel equal parts George Carlin and Vanilla Ice during those bits. He'll go on a Aristocrats-level rant then end it all "NAHMEAN???" The documentary part is actually pretty good, and it makes it hard to hate Cena after watching it. He comes off as a genuine dude, which I'm sure is exactly the intended effect, but still it was good stuff.

I think part of the reason Kennedy got so much love (and still does to some extent) is that he was far and away the best thing in OVW when he was there. However time has shown that was more a reflection on how shitty the rest of the OVW roster was at that time. When Kennedy was on the main roster surrounded by people who could hold their end of the bargain, he was exposed as merely decent-to-good instead of OMG AWSUM~!

The new NWA episode has maybe the best jobber name ever: Benny "U-Haul" Trayler.

I got this the other day, and all I have to say is I hope no one ever lets Bret Hart see the documentary or else he'll have another stroke. HHH relays the tale of him, HBK, and Vince sitting around figuring out what they're going to do in Montreal and Hunter says to Vince "fuck him, if he won't do business then make him do business". Then the rest of the Montreal discussion is about how Bret needs to stop being a baby and forgive Shawn already. I mean, I generally don't take Bret's side in the Great Montreal Debate and even I was thinking "damn, way to pile on a brotha". Despite that, there's some pretty good stuff. Finding out Kevin Nash played peacemaker to get HBK and HHH talking again after falling out for a year (over HBK showing up to work loaded) was unexpectedly fun to hear about. They kind of come clean about the clique too, the "we didn't really have power, we just gave honest opinions" line was used, but pretty much everyone else chimed in how they grew tired of their bullshit after a while. The stuff with Marty was a little sad since he comes off as a guy who realizes he had a chance to be bigger than he was and fucked it all up.

I think the "Me want title shot" stuff was funny since the implication was that he had to talk to Orton like he was 4 years old. It's funny that in the WON Dave was all shocked at how young Jericho looked at age 37 which at that point made me realize that he's pretty much the Randy Marsh of WWE. For those of you not South Park fans, he's the father of one of the main characters that's always trying too hard to make the kids like him but they always think he's lame because he's a dad and dads are inherently not cool. Jericho reminds me of someone trying way too hard to be cool.

So watching the Shire footage that was posted on DVDR, I'm wondering why WWE never made a bid for whatever San Francisco footage is left. There seems to be enough to make it worthwhile, and you'd think that Pat Patterson would have tried to lobby for it. It seems to meet the "WWF guys before they were stars" threshold, and you'd figure it would get used at least as much as the AWA stuff they haven't used outside of the DVD set.

Kinda like Jesse during the boxing match saying Mr. T getting whipped could be Roots 2.

I wouldn't be surprised if TUF won, it gets covered in the WON in far greater detail than any wrestling show every week.

Was that Syxx promo the one that prompted that classic moment where Flair told him he had more championships than he (Syxx) had pieces of ass?

So the new group for the latest Legends Roundtable is Jim Ross, Pat Patterson, Michael Hayes, Mick Foley..........and Tazz. Even he seems a little surprised to be there. The topic of the show is "Bad Asses" and the high point has to be JR flipping out when someone (Hayes I think) mentioned Adrian Street was someone who you wouldn't think was a bad ass because of his gimmick but really was. Ross seemed to think that the implication was that someone gay couldn't be a bad ass, but also making clear that Adrian was just working a gimmick and was married to Miss Linda. The rest of the roundtable were just like "ok, no one's really saying what you think they said".

I guess I'm too cynical, but when they announced Flair returning next week in Charlotte, my first thought was "I guess they need a new 'emotional return' scene for the video montages since Benoit is in the background in the WCW one".

Other than needing to grow his hair out, I don't think it was all that bad. Hell, it's better than the embarrassing bob HBK was rocking when he first came back. Besides, it's not like he was ever a fashion plate. I don't think his current look is any better or worse than the Gene Simmons topknot-iridescent shirt combo from WCW.

From WWE.com: Guess the rumors of Carlito putting in his notice are correct. I wonder what happened to get him so deep in the doghouse.

Pretty much any time Mick Foley ever discussed his title win being spoiled (including on the Legends show on 24/7), he would say he didn't blame Tony because he was just doing what he was told to do by Bischoff.

Well none of those other announcers were former wrestlers, so it would have sounded strange for them to say they were tougher than anyone. The only thing negative I can think of was that they didn't really mention a lot about Gorilla's past, so a lot of the newer fans at the time had no idea he used to wrestle. I know I didn't realize that for a long time after I started watching WWF TV. Even then, it never really sank in until that one Halloween episode of Prime Time when Gorilla walks in as the payoff to the gag about the gorilla mask where I realized how much he towered over the set. Plus you'd think it would be obvious that a lot of the "you can only see action this great in the WWF" stuff was coming directly from Vince. I mean, Tony gets a pass for all the bash-the-competition nonsense he said on Nitro because Bischoff told him to (like spoiling Foley's title win) yet Gorilla gets hammered for parroting lines clearly coming from the boss?

It's sort of been touched upon, but Gorilla had to call a lot of boring ass matches. 80s WWF shows had a lot of 20 minute matches between jobbers that were fucking ponderous to sit through as a fan, let alone have to call them as anything remotely close to exciting. I never held it against Gorilla or any WWF announcer if they strayed off topic at the 10-15 minute mark of a Steve Lombardi - Dr. X match, honestly anything that kept you from falling asleep was a major bonus. This may be sacrilege, but I personally can't stand Gordon Solie. If he isn't toasted, he's completely flat and monotone - he's like the Steven Wright of wrestling commentary. He's especially hard to watch on the Championship Wrestling from Florida shows. There's segments where he's trying to recap an angle and he just seems to ramble with lots of "umm"s, which seems like a minor thing to complain about but it's one of those things that once you notice it, it's like the most annoying thing ever.

Reading the WWE 24/7 thread at DVDVR got me to think, I can totally see how someone can have strong opinions pro and con about David Crockett as an announcer, but how can anyone be a real fan of pro wrestling and dislike Gorilla Monsoon? Dude was *the* voice of the WWF during its breakthrough period, and I can't think of a better "big match" announcer. Seriously, if I'm watching some 80s WWF and Gorilla isn't calling the match it just sounds weird to me. That's not even taking into account the chemistry he had with whoever he was partnered with. Gorilla and Jesse might be my favorite combination ever, and his pairing with Bobby Heenan goes without saying. He even made Al Hayes sound halfway intelligent, which is quite the feat.

Yeah this reads as either them attempting to end pro wrestling of any sort in GA, or that whoever came up with these rules hasn't been smartened up to the business. I don't think these rules will pass since it would make them look like a whole state full of rubes who think wrestling is real.

There's a pretty funny (unintentionally of course) column up making the case for the return of jobbers being what wrestling needs to make new stars. There's actually a valid point to be made that dudes were made to look like a million dollars by squashing jobbers on syndicated shows, but there's no way fans today are going to accept the return of Mulkeymania.

What seems to be sailing under the radar is that while all this is going on, they released Chris Masters. On one hand, they use a 20 year old to further their drug policy while firing a guy who was repeatedly teased about his shrunken, roid free build on live TV.

I'm not saying no one in the business ever goes on wrestling web sites, but to think the booking of a major PPV is based on someone saying mean words on the interweb is some pretty serious self-delusion. He had to be trying to yank Alvarez's chain with that.

So according to the WON, Harry's drug test failure was actually when he was still in developmental, and WWE waited until he was brought on the main roster and given a push before suspending him. The logic allegedly being that they wanted to prove they mean business by showing they're willing to suspend a guy they started pushing to show the media they mean it with the new testing policies. The whole deal with putting his debut dark match with Carlito on WWE.com was just part of getting him established as a name just so they can be on record punishing a WWE Superstar and not some no-name development guy. Things like this make CNN's editing of their piece that much more irritating, when there's stuff out there to report on that would absolutely murder the whole WWE drug policy if only the person doing the reporting would do the most basic of research.

As if there was any doubt, Jericho on the cover of an upcoming WWE Magazine

I was trying to make the comparison to major porn companies vs major wrestling companies, but this thread has gone so far past the point of ridiculousness that it's almost at Andy Kaufman levels of performance art. All we need is for jdw to start pontificating on how American porn stars don't work as hard as Japanese porn stars. While I'm sure Sweetser would be the most knowledgeable about the porn biz, what with his contacts in the industry and all, the bottom line is that fans of wrestling want to spend as little time as possible thinking about or being reminded of the seedier side of the business. We saw an extreme example of that with the Benoit situation, there's people still unconvinced that Chris did the murdering and I'm sure they built that fortress of denial since any other possibility would force them to deal with certain realities they aren't comfortable with. Whatever the case, this thread should either be immortalized for prosperity or nuked for the sanctity of humanity. I'm not sure which.