sek69

It probably helps that SD has more guys like JBL and Finlay who work Benoit's style too.

The one rib Percy talked about is how they had Fink tape a skit with the Bushwackers where they were all eating sardines. They kept making them do retakes because the sardines were making Howard sick (the Bushwackers ate that kind of stuff for real and it didn't bother them). By the end of the taping, Fink was barfing but he never refused to do it because he just liked the business so much he'd never say no to anyone. His extreme willingness to be a team player combined with the knowledge he would never get mad and quit was the starting point for endless ribs. Cornette didn't go into details of what happened, but he said he's seen Howard in tears as a result of some of the shit that would be done to him.

Bret Hart has a really soothing speaking voice. I made the mistake of listening to a shoot interview he did on my headphones last night and the next thing I knew it was 2 hours later.

WWE did a great job making Eddie the top guy like they always should have, unfortunately it was after he died. I think Chris Masters has potential in the sense that he's improved a lot since his WWE debut, but he was brought up way too early and he's going to have to work ten times as hard to be seen as worthy of the push he's been given. Especially among smart fans, who have almost universally shit on him already. Ken Kennedy can be the next Rock. I'm dead serious. If he's allowed to show his personality like he was in OVW and not locked into a one note act, he'll be huge. He has that "it" factor that you need in wrestling in abundance. Paul Burchill can be a solid mid to upper card guy if he doesn't get buried in all this pirate foolishness. Personally I think Carlito can be a guy who can run with the ball in the future. He's improving in the ring and his Piper-esque squash on RAW where he talked while beating the guy showed he can bring the intensity as well as being funny.

I wonder if Tony Atlas in the HOF would include Rocky Johnson too, since they were the first black tag team champions, and we all know Vince would like a certain special someone back to induct him. I've seen a few Akebono matches, and he's not that terrible. Yeah, he's a workrate freak's worst nightmare but he's like Japan's version of Yokozuna (which is ironic on many levels). Sumo is still respected in Japan, so he has the instant cred to challenge the champion too. I thought Raven was taking time off because he was hiding a medical problem from TNA because he didn't want to fuck up their booking?

I'm shocked Vince's habit of using TV to act out his personal life hasn't bit him in the ass already.

She hasn't completely replaced him, he still does the big PPVs. I simply cannot imagine a WrestleMania main event winner not getting announced by Fink. My personal Fink moment is him announcing HBK the winner and new champ after the Iron Man match. Shawn sells it like it wasn't offical until Fink says so.

As much as he gets shit on, there's few things that send a tingle down the spine of a long time wrestling fan than hearing the Fink declare someone the NEWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW WORLD WRESTLING FEDERATION CHAMPION!

After listening to the Jim Cornette-Percy Pringle shoot where they talk about ribs and how horribly Finkel is treated, that's probably what Melz was trying to reference by using him in a Cheney parody. It was sad to hear Percy talk about how sometimes Fink would be in tears because people would be absolutely brutal towards him since they know he'll never quit because he loves the business so much.

That would be brilliant on so many levels.

I dug the "This is Awesome" chants when I first heard them in TNA, but once I watched Joe vs Kobashi and the ROH fans were doing it at the start of a match it dawned on me that they were doing it to get themselves over. Yeah I know, they were excited to see one of their puro Gods in person, but what's wrong with just marking out for the guy? The "Match of the Year" chants grate on me more than anything since that's such a smarkish thing to chant at a show. It'd be like going to see a movie in a theater and chanting "Best Film of the Year" 3/4ths of the way through. It's as if the people in the crowd are afraid of losing their smark card if they act like the marks they always put down on their message boards and chanting something like "MOTY" will redeem their cred. Then again, goodhelmet makes a good point about the audience changing. I watched Smackdown tonight (first time in months) and my fiancee watched for the first time in an even longer time. When Booker and Sharmell (who wasn't around the last time she watched) came out, she actually asked me "what's her gimmick supposed to be?" and I make a point to never talk "smark" around her. When Tatanka came out and Cole did the usual spiel about being a member of whatever tribe he's part of, she (as a part Native American who gets bothered by people who pretend to be Native) commented "they probably made that up, didn't they?" If she - who grew up marking for the Warrior and Lex Luger- is talking about gimmicks and assuming what the promotion is telling her is fake, that probably says more about the state of wrestling than what some smarks chant at a ROH or TNA show.

He's better off getting them individually. I have the box set and it's in the worst 5 disc case ever. It's comically ginormous.

I was watching GLOW Vol. 1 today...so, so terrible. Cringeworthy even by cheesball 80s standards. I can't believe Ivory stuck with this, but she probably got the highest pay since she seems to be the only woman who actually knew how to wrestle. I also got an added bonus, I was watching January 87 WWF TV to see the debut of Demolition and one of the random jobber matches was Kamala squashing a young man from Boston named Mick Foley, who the announcer called "Faley". The look on Mick's face when the announcer botches his name is priceless, and a glimpse of things to come.

Most 80s SNMEs had a common layout: Start off with a match between to uppercard guys, usually to a non finish to sell the next PPV. The Hogan match would be next, usually around 12ish. Factor in pre-match interviews and post match Hulk posing, this would eat up more time than you'd expect from a Hogan match. Then there'd be a match for the workrate fanatics, that'd be your Harts vs Rockers kind of match that would usually get a decent amount of time. They'd usually close off with a jobber match since it was closing in on 1 am and most of the kids have already gone to bed.

That's why they're doing Joe/Styles/Daniels in an Ultimate X match. That way he can lose the X belt without taking the loss directly.

From DVDVR: Wade Keller just reported in his latest Torch VIP audio update that Joe and TNA have agreed to a multi-year deal through 2009.

I don't know if it's a wrestling thought or not, but my fiancee voted 16 times for Stacy tonight.

He also seemed to have them in Canada too. I guess they don't clear customs in the US.

Yeah, they used the SNL format: have the good stuff early and have the jobbers at the end. The Harts and Rockers had a good match that ended when Demoliton got involved and turned into a three way schmozz.

No, Raw and Smackdown aren't the same as SNME. Let me ask you. Did you see those shows? If you were, then maybe you have a short memory. Let me explain why they were different. SNME weren't just the alternative to the other jobber match shows, it was the show where things tended to HAPPEN, and stars were truly showcased. Title matches didn't happen much...more like combinations that you wouldn't see otherwise. But wait, isn't that what happens now? Nope. Because of the "brand extension," certain people tend to be kept apart from others. But on SNME, I would imagine that all bets would be off as far as brand extension...or at least things would be greatly loosened. Plus, production. The production in the WWE has taken a slow but steady decline since the Monday Night Wars. Camera mistakes, screw ups in segment switches, even bad lighting at times. Those fuck ups will stop quick, fast and a hurry on SNME. SNME was the show that got the WWF to raise their production value and how they viewed televised wrestling in the first place. Will this SNME be "the same" as the old one? Nope. Will it be just another variation on their regular show? Nope. Just use your imaginations for a second. Instead of just shitting on everything and being goddamn ignorant, fire up that hamster in that wheel of a brain and think of what could be and what has been done in the past instead of just putting the smark stamp on everything. It just goes to confirm a suspicion I have that it isn't so much wrestling that's gotten worse but fans that have become jaded know-it-alls. Don't be that guy that yells "Two!" whenever there's a near fall and feels superior for it. God damn, do you only hang out here to disagree with my posts? Anyway, other than the potential of some inter-brand matches (which aren't even that special since they have so many cross brand PPVs), there's really nothing that can happen on SNME that can't happen on RAW or SD. The Angle-Taker rematch would be a good SNME event, but that's happening on SD next week. Or does pointing that out make me a cynical, jaded, know-it-all smark with a hamster wheel for a brain? Perhaps if WWE hasn't gotten so lazy since WCW died, fans wouldn't become so cynical. Perhaps if they didn't have writers who failed at shitty sitcom writing, fans wouldn't be so cynical. Perhaps if talent didn't get released because they were turned into walking dick jokes, fans wouldn't be so cynical. All I ask of WWE is a reason not to assume something's going to be a waste of my time to watch.

What made SNME special in the 80s is that it was the only time you'd see guys in competitive matches on free TV instead of the squash parade that was Superstars. Now, every RAW and SD is the way SNME was then, and it won't have that specialness this time around.

They were on Velocity a lot, I don't think they made it on SD more than a couple of times.

Don't forget WWE's "keep anyone TNA would want under contract no matter if we use them or not" policy. I think that alone is going to keep London employed. I think Dupree's probably gone since he's been having injury problems, as well as Conway, Tomko, Vito, and one or both Bashams. Stacy's all but gone when her contract ends, so maybe the "time to get her head together" she talked about on Larry King is code for "getting my agent to get me out of my WWE contract".

I think a lot of WWE's problems can be traced back to Vince deciding to only pay attention to the main eventers. It's been said that he only wants to hear about plans for the top guys, apparently not realizng that today's midcarders and jobbers are where tomorrow's main eventers come from. I think that's why guys get stupid gimmicks that have short lives, or are badly misused, they figure Vince isn't paying attention so who cares? By the time guys get on Vince's radar they've probably been damaged by poor writing.