sek69

Excuse my third straight post, but holy shit: Rhino as NWA champion? I guess Meltz is right in assuming they felt they needed to do a change as a make-good to the fans for not being able to deliver the advertised main event. *edit* Damn you and your fast fingers, goodhelmet.

I'm wondering, instead of cutting time from matches, why didn't they just have the Excecutive Board or whoever decide that since Nash was out, that Raven would get the shot as the former champion. It seems like a waste of time to add another match to decide who gets the shot when it would be crazy to do a title switch and the former champ isn't even booked.

I think getting embarrassed like that would motivate JJ to build his company up to beat WWE.

By the way, I can't help but notice that Meltz has gone this far on the card without saying a match was bad. Even what he says didn't live up to expectations still was good by his standards. When's the last time that happened with a WWE show?

Guess I was right. Damn that Nash, messing up Joe/Liger.

On a semi-related note, when I was looking at the NWA title history at Wrestling-Titles.com I literally laughed out loud the first time I saw a photo of Mike Rapada. I swear that guy bags groceries at the store near my house now.

PG-13. Non believable gimmick, non believable wrestlers, they looked like a couple of kids who's parents let them run the ropes at an indy show after the matches.

That's gotta suck for the guys in the Ultimate X match, you know they probably spent a bunch of time planning it out only to have it get fucked up by something out of their control.

Meltz loves Angle because he's a gold medalist in "real" wrestling and Meltz has a hard-on for any type of shoot fighting.

I don't take Tom Zenk's word as gospel, but he pretty much just repeated what I've heard other WCW guys say over the years. Reading interviews over the years most guys would say Vader was a nice guy and a great worker, but if he got "in the zone" on someone you'd be nearly fighting for your life.

Baron was about 10 years past his prime at that point in his career (AWA vs the Road Warriors), but I agree with you that I never bought him as a legit threat. Personally, I never really bought into Jake Roberts. I know, but before everyone burns me at the stake, yes he was the master of psychology and promos but I never really saw a match of his that I'd consider good.

The two that jump to mind is Tom Zenk and Mick Foley, although Foley would request Vader be stiff with him. Zenk's comments were along the lines of you know when you're booked to face Vader he's going to be unbelieveably stiff but he ran out of gas quickly.

I have a feeling the Joe/Liger match got some time cut since they have to do something to fix the main event.

I don't think he was intentionally hurting people either, but he would get so revved up he would end up legit striking people. Still, intent or otherwise the goal is making it look like what you're doing is painful, not actually hurting someone.

I just don't see how people can overlook Vader being unprofessional just because he could move for a fat guy. I mean there's stiff like working All Japan style, and there's almost every Vader opponent coming away with black eyes or busted mouths. Almost everyone who worked with him in WCW seems to have a story about Vader taking liberties with people. If they're expecting it or ask for it like Foley did, then that's fine and game on. If he was just teeing off on people who weren't expecting to be working strong style, then that's (to quote Carlito) not cool.

I could see that, but you could grab practically anyone in the building and have potentially a better match workwise than Nash can bring at this point. If it was anyone else on this card forced out, it would have been a big blow to TNA. I think they can survive this.

How do you figure that? I don't think anyone is buying this show for the main event, no matter who JJ ends up facing. Joe/Lyger, Daniels/Styles, Ultimate X, AMW/Naturals, and you're saying JJ needs a quality replacement for Kevin F'N Nash to save the show?

Vader was a solid big guy, but his penchant for stiffing people kept me from being a fan. Unless you're matched with Mick Foley, you aren't supposed to be really beating the piss out of your opponent. Ray Traylor was definately the most underrated big guy of modern times. He lost a lot of weight after his run as the Boss Man and really improved in the ring. It's really a shame that he never got a chance to prove himself after that.

Just posted on WO: Hope it's nothing serious for Nash, you may not like the guy's work but no one wants to see the big lug die or anything. Luckily for TNA, since they booked Nash to get a title shot over a bunch of more deserving guys, it would be fairly easy to shoot a "guy angry over getting bypassed attacks Nash" angle to cover this.

I think Poffo would have had a better chance performance-wise in the NWA, but he probably wouldn't have had the longevity he enjoyed in the WWF. It's actually quite remarkable he managed to stay with the company for so long without being a roided up giant.

I used to dismiss Lanny Poffo as someone who was only around thanks to family ties, but his Mid-South work made me think he might be another guy the WWF dropped the ball on.

Well the match itself wasn't business exposing (considering how unstoppable Taker was in 94), all the horseshit after the match was. Even then you could make the argument that the post-match hijinx weren't that out of place in the WWF Cartoon Era since it was in line with Taker's gimmick.

It also bugs me how when wrestlers retire and become managers or announcers they lose their special magic wrestler powers and suddenly can be beaten up with ease.