sek69

Ric Flair. He'd definately never get a chance in today's WWE unless he gained about 50 pounds of muscle and learned how to work WWE style.

Wow, Taker has a legit lawsuit there. I guess since he's a locker room leader and a big company man he'll just let it slide that he was exposed to a disease like that.

It all boils down to what Vince thinks. We can beat each other over the head with reasons for or against Rey as champ, but Vince is the one who decides and since he had a RAW guy move over and turn face that pretty much ends the debate. It's been my argument during the Rey Wars anyway: Yes Rey *could* be a credible champion but it'll never happen as long as Vince is around.

Turning Angle face was a good move, even if nothing else turns out to be. I mean he was getting cheered for saying he wanted to make Jesus tap out, if that's not a demand for a face turn I don't know what is.

C'mon, I'm not trying to fight with you, but I know you've had to come across people who's knowledge of pre-1997 wrestling seems to be entirely Hogan, Savage, and Warrior like Loss said. I would have thought you'd have run into those types, especially with that 80s stuff from DVDVR. How many people on the net remember when Adrian Adonis wasn't a queen? Or when Jesse Ventura wasn't that announcer guy with the funny hats?

Wasn't it Spike that wanted JJ as champ when TNA started on their network? TNA was hardly in a position to say no, just like with the Sting situation. JJ has to lose at some point, and they actually have more people in the hunt for the NWA title than WWE has for both of their brand belts.

What internet are you on? The one we're on now, where 90% of the people on it have no idea of anything pre 1997. This board obviously is the exception, but you go to almost any other board on teh intarweb and you'll see for yourself.

I guess the question is will a non-JJ champ increase buyrates?

Even at that, a lot of people on the net don't know of anything that happened before the Attitude Era and still never saw the evil Abyss-like Mankind.

The thing is, I don't think many casual fans remember when Mankind acted like Abyss, they only rememer the happy-go-lucky Mankind with the torn up dress shirt and Mr. Socko.

I don't get why everyone's so up in arms over Abyss's attire looking so similar to Mankind's. 90% of wrestling is copied from someone else. Even Mankind's look was similar to Leatherface so why all the fuss?

I love the schitzophrenic reaction Abyss gets on the net. Everyone his size is supposed to automatically suck, and he doesn't, so it confuses the hell out of a lot of folks. I guess that's why all the complaints about him center around his ring attire. Ironically, the one time he ended up shirtless everyone was all "OMG UR FAT~!". Abyss should be booked like Kane is in WWE, keep him credible in tag matches and the occiasional death match, and use him to elevate people in the upper mid card.

Backlund's on the outs with Vince now too? I thought all was forgiven after his Mr. Backlund run (still one of the best heel runs ever).

The more reports I read, the more it sounds like Big Dave's speech was less "see you all when I get back from this injury" and more "that's all, folks".

The guy who's put most of wrestling's superstars back together at one point or another suffered a heart attack over the weekend and is in intensive care.

Any word of what's on it? It's only a 1 disc set so I know it won't be a lot, but I'm looking forward to seeing some 70s WWWF action. Along the same lines, I wonder if they'd ever do a DVD of Bruno Sammartino. I know he won't have anything to do with WWE now, but it'd be cool if they honored the longest reigning champ in company history.

Piper's back? Awesome.

Not to mention it's the first and probably only time that WWE delivered (accidentally) on the promise of nudity on TV.

I love it when I notice something I've missed the last few times I've watched a show or match. Not work-wise, mind you, just stuff going on that I never noticed until the hundredth time you watch a match. For example, I must have watched WM3 a zillion times (it was the first tape I bought when I was a kid). Never until I watched it on the Piper's Pit comp did I notice a fan ran in after the Piper/Adonis match. As Piper's walking away from the ring you can see security deliver a hellacious shitkicking to the poor bastard in the ring behind him.

I don't see Dana White and Vince working together on any level.

Let's not forget the last time WWE messed around with shootfighting it resulted in a pro wrestler getting knocked the fuck out by a fat piece of crap (Butterbean). There's really no reason for a group like K-1 to want to take part in an angle with WWE since their fighters would probably kill 9/10ths of the wrestlers in a shoot.

There's precedent for the Rumble winner getting the title (not to mention the guy who won it is still working for the company).

Smackdown's a mess right now. The World champ is injured and there's no one lined up to take it. Any title change is going to come with little to no build unless they put the strap on Mizark. The US title is being decided in a series of matches where one guy's been injured for half of them. Benoit might end up in the world title scene due to Batista's injury which would put the US belt in disarray again. The Crusierweight champ is injured and there's no one credible to take that belt now either due to releases and most of the division reduced to jobbers. I wonder if MNM are paranoid since they're the only ones holding a belt on Smackdown who aren't injured yet.

Could this mark the return of the WWF Events Center to shill upcoming houseshows? I never understood why they stopped that, if they're going to go through all the effort of bringing most of the set with them for a houseshow, why not shill it like they used to when it was just barebones wrestling?

From PWInsider vis DVDVR: Well this is good news, and completely different from the "Sting won't put anyone over" story that came out when his signing was announced.