sek69

I'm sure Dusty would have liked the angle if Vince said "make it good" before getting in the limo. I still wonder how Gerwitz ended up with so much pull. At least Kevin Dunn has been with the company forever, Gerwitz not to long ago was the guy everyone was making fun of behind his back for being a comic book mark and now he's in the Inner Circle.

The best part of the WON story was the mention that the idea came up to invite Bruno to the show, part of the reasoning being "Wilkes-Barre isn't that far from Pittsburgh". For those without a map nearby, they're on opposite sides of the state. Apparently the voice of reason won out since Dave didn't think Bruno was even asked.

To be fair, it would be pretty crass even by WWE standards to have a guy who's gimmick is based on death appearing on a tribute show. That much I never found fault with. I pretty much stopped taking tribute shows seriously when HBK wanted to get his win back from Rey after the Eddie show.

It would be interesting to see who was on what side of that debate. I wonder what HBK thinks, considering both his Jesusness and how he always spoke fondly of the days where Sherri was his manager.

I was reading the list of upcoming WWE DVDs and I realized that the only two left that I care about for the rest of the year are the WCCW set and maybe the Steve Austin set depending on the matchlist.

This is one of those things that can only happen in wrestling: they really can't acknowledge the real death of a recent inductee into their Hall of Fame because the next few weeks at least are all going to be built around a worked death. Man, now I have this whole scenario in my head where Vince was watching World Class tapes with his Mr. McMahon Joker grin on his face going "This Fritz guy was BRILLIANT~!"

I HAVE OPINIONZ 4U!!! (he's on the left, Dave "It's Still Real To Me" Wills on the right)

The latest episode of TNT features the Moolah/Richter screwjob and a cameo by Mel Phillips. Considering how WWE 24/7 tends to skew toward smarter fans, I find that somewhat hilarious as it unintentionally paints the company in the worst light possible all in a span of 43 minutes.

Man, any point Mitchell ever tries to make is immediately canceled out by him being such an insufferable douchebag. Saying he has to consult Wikipedia for info on gorillas? Come the fuck on. Yeah, it's pretty close to the border for racism, but Vince could have a Klan rally on RAW next week and most of the media will ignore it just like they ignore anything wrestling does outside of WrestleMania. Also, is the term "Silverback" racist now? Is the IFL team with that name racist, or do they get a pass for being all white dudes? Or are they double-secret-probation racist for comparing the team to big black dudes? Hell, I always thought Mark Henry looked more like Predator than a gorilla anyway.

Hogan's nWo run was also in the era of the Monday Night Wars and having to appear on TV every week, and once the shock of Hogan as a heel wore off he was right back to being excessively stale. The same could be said for his subsequent WWE nostalgia returns. At first it was "yay, this is cool just like when I was a kid" but after a few weeks it was just an old dude limping around the ring.

Just got the April 1981 MSG show, and boy does the timekeeper enjoy his job. He rings the bell before and after every sentence spoken by Howard Finkel to the point where you want to shove his little bell hammer up his ass. The show also has Patterson vs Slaughter and the Backlund-Hansen match seen on the Cage Match DVD so it all balances out.

I decided to start a little thing here if you will, where I ask questions and hopefully spur debate on selected topics. There was discussion on how someone like Andre would never succeed in today's wrestling at the level they did back in the day due to more TV, PPV, and whatnot. My question is could Hulkamania have worked had Hogan started in 2004 instead of 1984? I'm going to say no. A big part of what made him special is that Hogan almost never wrestled on TV. When he did it was a special occasion. Hell, I'd even go as far as to say he was the most protected person on WWF/E history as guys who could potentially overshadow him were generally kept far away. In today's world Hogan would have to wrestle every week, quickly burning aura out to the point even his charisma couldn't save him. While I'm sure he'd get over, I don't think it would be on the scale he ended up reaching. Agree? Disagree? Thoughts?

They need to start next week's RAW with a Vince montage set to "Tell Me a Lie".

The only thing that could top this is finding out Divari wired the limo to explode as payback for getting removed off TV every time the guy he's managing gets over.

Considering how Steph/HHH have pretty much cemented control, I think this is going to happen. Maybe not the putting them out of business part, but I totally see Shane getting tired of being squeezed out by his little sister and telling the both of them to GFY. If he's got any of Vince's genetics at all there's no way I'm seeing him content with being the puppet the company puts out to dance for the stockholders.

Come on now, I know Sid's a big guy and therefore deemed to be of no use to the people who are into wrestling as an art, but I don't want to be a fan of wrestling if there's no place for Sid.

Read in the latest WON that Sid wants to return to WWE. He's still in shape and with the rash of injuries in WWE I'm sure they'd be open to it. THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN. Especially if they bring back the sparklers spelling out SID above the ring. I'd pretty much mail my wallet to Titan Towers if during a Cena promo he got powerbombed out of his camo shorts by the Master and Ruler of the World.

Did Carlito drop his accent when speaking of his own family or did they edit/fix that?

Reading in the WON how the plans for succession in WWE after Vince are to depict Steph and Shane to be equal co-owners, but Shane would be more of a figurehead who would be the one who would talk to the public. After the latest victory over her brother with the website (Shane thought it was stupid to keep kayfabe and get beat out on real stories by NOOZ sites), it's pretty much finalized now that she's going to be the new Vince both in temperament and total control of the company. It's funny how the kids seemingly will end up assuming the roles of the parent they seem to take after. Also, all the talk of a post-Vince WWE made me wonder what the first episode of RAW after his death would be like. I'm picturing his coffin going up the rampway while bagpipers play "No Chance In Hell", all leading to him being shot into space from a cannon molded to look like a 30 foot penis.

I'd like to throw Brazos vs Villanos on the pile just because it's one of my personal Holy Grail matches.

Al hits a good point, people don't get turned off of wrestling because the in ring product is fake, they get turned off because the booking makes them feel stupid for watching something so obviously fake that they turn it off rather than be insulted. My question is why can some dudes on a message board figure this shit out but people actually in the business never seem to?

I don't know if this deserves a separate thread or not, but apparently the DVD release not only removes the boos from Big Dave's entrance (why? he was the de facto heel in the match) they also reshot the Trump-Boogeyman skit according to the thread at DVDVR.

But wait, I thought building characters and solid promotion was the Lesson of 2006. I mean, isn't that why Tito & Ken drew such big numbers when everyone knew it was gonna suck as a fight? Such is the Meltzer Paradox: boxing and wrestling need to act more like MMA, but MMA gets its best buyrates when they do what boxing and wrestling have done for the last 100 years or so.

I just watched the Dela Hoya vs Maywether fight on HBO On Demand I realized a few things: 1. The "24/7" hype shows that Meltzer went on about as the new gold standard of PPV promotion are nothing more than the Rock/Brock "PURE SPORTS BUILD" videos stretched to 4 episodes. 2. The main draw for the PPV was the clear heel vs face dynamic that has worked in pro wrestling since forever, and if you read the WON it was if boxing had discovered the magic formula for hyping shows. 3. It really exposed the flaw in his basic mindset that boxing and wrestling all need to act more like MMA to survive in modern times when both this fight and Wrestlemania scored huge buyrates pretty much entirely on the tried and true method of building characters and solid promotion. I don't get why he thinks everyone needs to try to reinvent the wheel.

Speaking of Lanny Poffo, does it weird anyone else out that he looks like a completely different person without facial hair? Exhibit A: My brain can't wrap around that being the same guy who pranced around throwing frisbees and competing in battle royals in a suit of armor.