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Also, Cena works best when against a strong heel (Edge, Umaga, the new Evil Head-Punting Orton) which is something the WWE is kind of lacking. It's only going to be worse when HHH, who is a strong natural heel, has to play babyface for a few months after his return. It's like the difference between Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy and Hulk Hogan vs say, Nikolai Volkoff.

Eric Bischoff coming out and overturning practically every win a WCW guy would get against the nWo would seem to be the obvious example of this. There's a reason that angle never got a proper blowoff, and part of it (other than the egos and politics of course) was that the WCW guys were made to look like complete chumps to the point where actually booking them to win was near impossible.

If you're going to say Cena isn't Wrestler of the Year, then who is?

I wonder if Michael Buffer's appearance on SNME will somehow lead to WWE getting the rights to all his WCW appearances, since the Monday Night Wars are quickly coming up to the point where he was announcing WCW main events on an almost regular basis.

Man there's a Romeo and Juliet angle just BEGGING to happen between her and Ray Gordy.

The Legends show on the Monday Night War was a pretty fun thing to see. Eric obviously knew that the panel was stacked to try to gangrape him, but he ended up not only holding his ground but flat out owning people on more than one occasion. It also seemed clear that Hayes was Vince's puppet on the show since there was things coming out of his mouth that made no sense unless they were coached/fed to him. Like when he got upset at Eric for trying to put WWE out of business because it would have hurt the families of WWE employees/wrestlers, it seemed like such a Vince thing to say because what about all those families of WCW employees who lost *their* jobs? It was interesting to see Lawler pretty much say what someone here stated about Montreal being orchestrated by Vince to get Bret to WCW. From the reaction of the panel it seemed to be the consensus that between Vince transitioning to a on screen performer and needed to get out from the deal he signed with Bret, it set the wheels in motion for the screwjob to happen. Also, I don't think WCW gets the credit it deserves for the role it played in saving the WWF. RAW was such a horrible show by 1995, not even a "looks cheesy 12 years later" thing, even at the time it had terrible production values, cartoon gimmicks, Vince still announcing in 80s WHATTAMANUVER~! mode.... pretty much every aspect of the show sucked balls at that point. If Nitro hadn't have come along when it did to give them a boot in the ass, I really don't think the WWF would have lasted past the 90s. Finally, wow did Foley come off as a big fucking baby at still being all butthurt over WCW giving the finish away of his title win. Did HBK (who'd be more likely to have a tantrum over anything) get this upset when they spoiled him beating Sid by saying "he beat the big guy with 3 kicks"?

Why is Ultimo such a horrible pick? I mean, sure he's debatable, but I didn't think he was so "OMGWTFBBQ~!" horrible. Also, you want to talk about slippery slopes, it's going to be hard to exclude any other promoter after Heyman's been inducted. Especially since Heyman failed so epically at the main goal of promoting, that being the ability to make money. Crockett should make it in as a promoter since he had what was arguably the best in ring product of the 80s and actually made (some) money until he got cockblocked out of the PPV market by Vince. I don't think you can hold the fate of JCP against him considering he didn't fare any better than anyone else who ran against the WWF.

Vince is too much of a mark for multi-generational wrestling families for her to not make it to the WWE.

They have a Terry Funk-Chris Candido match up on the Shorties section that just symbolized so much that was wrong with WCW a the time. First Chris cuts a EDGY SHOOT PROMO~! bashing the WW*silence* and ECW for not having the leadership to recognize his talents, challenges Funk to a hardcore title match, and then they end up going outside to a nearby stable (they were in Idaho, so it didn't seem odd that there was a stable near the arena). They fight *INSIDE* a horse stall with THE HORSE STILL TIED THERE. Now Funk certainly knows horses, but Chris seems to know as much as you'd expect someone from New Jersey would, and ends up on the ground which results in the horse coming inches away from kicking his head off his shoulders to an audible OHHHHHHHH from the crowd. Tony of course comes with the insider terms like all the cool kids were using and states the horse has the highspot of the night so far. I've never seen a promotion make itself look so bush league in a short amount of time.

So what's the deal with Alan Wojojojojojojojojojick getting the bannoration from the Impact Zone? It seems odd that A. People take laptops to wrestling shows and B. TNA would feel the need to make a rule against it. His final tapings report was more maudlin than the final episode of a sitcom that's gone several seasons past its prime.

Boogeyman looks so different now I'm surprised he's not this era's version of the "Ultimate Warrior was two different people" urban legend.

That made me wonder if that's why HHH hasn't made an appearance yet. It seemed as if everything was tailor made for his TV return tonight, and it was just an empty tease. I'd wager he's the one guy everyone would be looking at to see if Vince is serious about everyone getting off the roids/HGH.

I don't know if it was internet BS or not, but I seem to recall the original plan was to sign Joe in one of those "prove WWE guys are better" deals and have him be jobbed out while in a completely stereotypical gimmick. Joe turned them down, Rosey pushed for WWE to reform 3 Minute Warning, WWE saw how much better Jamal was after being in All Japan, and the rest is history.

Probably not. Not now, but it certainly has potential to be one of those things that seem creepy in retrospect.

But it wasn't just Rey who pioneered that style, Juvi and Psicosis were right there as well. I guess Rey gets points for not being a fuckup like those two were, but at the same time he wasn't single-handedly changing the world. I don't want to come off as completely discounting Rey's contributions, but the indy fast paced style seemed to be more based on their view of Lucha in general than Rey specifically. He was certainly a big part, no doubt, but it seems like an important distinction to make.

Is Rey that much of an influence? I'm not saying he's not or can't be one, I just never heard of anyone basing their style specifically on him. I'm not sure about the historical significance thing either, he was a part of the first wave of lucha stars to make an impact in the US, yes, but again I don't think there is anything specifically about Rey that would stand out as historically significant. He certainly has the longevity and the drawing power, but I don't know if that's enough. I mean, I wouldn't object to Rey being in the HOF, but there's certainly a case that can be made against him that doesn't involve the "OMGZ HE'Z TEH SMALLZ" argument that you know we're going to hear about.

Why can't the WON HOF be like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame where guys can be inducted as a solo artist and a group? If John Lennon can be in as a solo artist and the Beatles as a group, why can't Ric Flair and the Horsemen be the same way? Also, why is Rey considered such a solid candidate? If you use the usual Gordy List standard, I don't really see where you can say he's had a Hall of Fame career. OK, he brought a bigger Hispanic audience to Smackdown and he's certainly a draw, but doesn't the HOF require someone to be a clear top draw? He seems to be the wrestling equivalent to the "it's not the Hall of Very Good" argument that comes up in other sports HOF discussions.

Dustin Rhodes turns down the chance to return to WWE as a top heel, ends up in another Wrestlecrap-ian TNA gimmick: So WWE was all ready to bring Dustin back as Goldust in the original incarnation as top heel (possibly to be fed to HHH, but still), but he decided to pass on that and sign with TNA where they can't even do a proper Goldust ripoff like they planned because some random indy dude had the name they wanted to use trademarked already. Black Reign Dustin Rhodes? I wonder how soon after the PPV did he call his dad asking if he can rethink his decision. It's a shame, since Dustin is a talented guy who can get over when given a chance, even if the booking isn't helping, but every non-WWE run he's had ends up a disaster.

Maybe in the Russo sense, but everywhere I've seen it mentioned it's in a "this is lame of ROH" sense.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument for why the RnR's aren't already in. Them being out are one of the HOF's biggest embarrassments, the only other one that comes close is Angle being in pretty much only because Dave's a mark for legitimacy.

So at the July 27/28 ROH shows, there were flyers left on the seats and messages written on the bathroom mirrors telling people to go to a website called Abused Society which featured a photo of the Statue of Liberty that had blood coming from its eyes similar to Jimmy Jacobs' eye makeup. It also had the words PROJECT 161 repeating across the bottom. Over the next few days the web site was changed to show pictures relating to Chicago, and people started putting things together and realized the 161rst show will be in September in Chicago, and also will be the third PPV taping. It's also suggested that it's somehow related to the awesome yet vague promo done by Adam Pearce at the first PPV show. Strange messages start appearing on the ROH boards referring to Project 161, they get deleted, and then the Abused Society page gets changed to show a distorted photo of Gabe and his wife with the words "We Told You No One Was Safe". This causes Gabe to freak out and ban any mention of it on the ROH boards. An AIM name called Project161 would give strange replies if contacted: Now someone investigated the WHOIS on the website and found out it was registered by friends of Gabe, so it's obviously some sort of viral marketing/Alternate Reality Game type of thing. There's now a website called Project161.com which if you put your mouse over the red stripes on one of the faces, it shows a pic of two little kids holding foam WWF tag team belts. It's been suggested that the photo might be of a young Briscoe Brothers. There's even a blog at http://projectonesixone.blogspot.com/, which from the looks of things makes this sound like a combo of Raven's Flock and the nWo. I don't know, is this kind of angle going to work with ROH's typically cynical and smarky fanbase?

The bolded part has shown to be an obstacle for other members of her family. Not saying she's doomed to be another statistic but sometimes genetics can be a motherfucker to overcome. Also, I'd imagine there's a difference between a dad who wasn't around much and having your dad and and 2 of your uncles committing suicide at least partly due to your grandfather's insistence on making the Von Erich family into Christian superheroes.

Watching the hard sell shows for Starrcade 85 made me dig up the copy I made when it was the Big One a few months back. Upon seeing the build up, I wonder why was Krusher Krushchev facing Sam Houston for the Mid-Atlantic title? Houston was involved with Dusty and Magnum vs the Horsemen since they broke his arm, and Krusher was six man champ with the Koloffs who were feuding with the Rock n Rolls. For that matter, why was there still a Mid-Atlantic title at that point? People talk about there being too many titles in WWE now, but Starrcade 85 featured 7 different titles, plus the nebulous "US titles" (Florida version maybe? Not the more famous ones that came later) Wahoo and Billy Jack Haynes held.

I think it's partly that Backlund is an acquired taste. Dave's been pretty consistent in his general dislike of the vanilla babyface and Bob was pretty much the archetype of that. Also there was a weird comment in the Gotch obit on how Backlund giving up weight training for cardio at Gotch's suggestion "ruined his career" since he was a lot leaner and no longer had the same look. I thought turning down Vince's suggestion to turn heel was what ruined his career if anything, but what do I know. It's almost like Dave held some sort of weird weightlifter grudge or something.

To be fair, it doesn't seem Kevin was the sharpest knife in the drawer before the drugs started, but now he's like the wrestling equivalent of Reverend Jim from Taxi. Watching him host the WCCW shows on 24/7 is hilarious and sad at the same time, especially this week's show where Michael Hayes does his old Freebird routine to introduce himself, then throws it to Kevin. You can practically see the neutrons trying to fire as it takes a full beat before he starts to talk. Also, a photo to go along with the discussion: She's lucky, you can see her father in her without having the full-on Von Erich "short bus" look.