sek69

One thing that bugged me is that they weren't really pushing that he's an Arab-*American*. Hell, other than announcing him being from Michigan, they never really mention it at all. The crowd chants "USA", the announcers should mention Hassan was born and raised in the USA just to underscore he's an American of Arab heritage. Mick Foley mentions in his DVD that the one thing Michael Hayes taught him is that to cut a really good promo, you have to believe what you're saying. Every time the crowd would chant "USA" at Hassan or when someone tells him "love it or leave it" I'd literally be jumping up and down begging him to cut a promo pointing out he's American just like everyone in the crowd. Another thing that bugged me about his character is how WWE has to make all Middle Eastern wrestlers dress in native garb, and I've never seen an arab born and raised in the US walk around in full Shiek attire. You'd think someone like Hassan (who's main motivation is his anger in being thought of as a terrorist) wouldn't go around dressed like one of Osama's henchmen.

Just more examples of what happens when a wrestling company insists on not allowing people who know the product to work on the main shows. It's almost like WWE went out of its way to punish the workers Cornette had the most pride in, which is the most self defeating thing I've ever heard of in wrestling.

Also, didn't the taping reports say that promo was done for Velocity? It should still make it on TV.

God (or should that be Allah?) bless 'em for trying to spin their way out of this, but offensive aspect aside there's no way you can walk away from that angle without getting the clear "terrorist" vibe which wrecks Hassan's whole character of being a guy who everyone thinks is a terrorist because he's Arab-American. Now they had him act like a terrorist, so to have him still claim to be innocent makes him look stupid.

That was one of my favorite moments of the Attitude era, Austin played it perfectly as someone who didn't want to be a hero but had to stop what Taker was planning.

The best angles are always the ones people can relate to. Austin-Vince was huge in no small part to the deep down desire to slug your boss that most people have inside. Standing up to bullies, defending women (remember when Austin saved Steph from Taker?) rather than exploiting them, taking the arrogant cocky bastard down a peg, all of those are tried and true angles that almost always result in heat and money drawn. If WWE hired writers who followed wrestling, they'd know that.

I think it has the potential to be a huge angle (not Hall and Nash huge, but still...) because it's all about a guy getting f'ed over by his girlfriend. People can relate to that a whole lot better than wanting to beat someone up because you have a foot fetish.

Focusing on the internet reaction to the Matt angle ignores that it got the pop of the night from the crowd. Once the fans realized they weren't being fucked with again, they ate it up.

The Blondes never really got a chance, they were cut down by the Powers That Be as soon as it became clear they had a chance to be real good.

I love how some smarts react when they get worked (ie the tards on Matt's board) "Waaaaah, you're getting big bucks from WWE instead of working for peanuts in ROH! Damn You!"

That's exactly what it reminded me of, Scott Hall walking out on Nitro. I was amazed WWE was able to pull this off so brilliantly, when Matt started yelling at "Adam" and seeing the arena security take him out like some fan jumping the railing, I was marking out at how awesome it all was. More importantly the crowd was going bananas the whole time. Funny how that works, instead of coming up with some stupid angle or gimmick they put two guys who (at least at one time) hated each other for real together. That's as basic as wrestling gets: I hate you, now I'm going to kick your ass. That's all it fuckin' takes to rake in the money.

Wasn't one of the claims floating around that the writers felt HHH was overexposed? As if anyone in the company would have the balls to say that out loud, let alone act on it.

Did anyone find out what happened to make HHH decide to take the summer off? At first I thought maybe he just went into hiding to grow that stupid Lemmy-beard out.

Odd.

I'm talking about the videos of terrorists sawing people's heads off that were released over the internet. Parts of the Hassan angle were CLEARLY based off those videos. Anyone who saw those videos would immediately be offended at the angle.

Which is my point with the angle last night. I didn't have a problem with it until they started invoking images of terror videos and having Cole and Tazz call Davari a martyr for the cause. It was an unnecessary level of realism.

Sass's logic is the same used to say Austin wasn't really being crucified, it was a SYMBOL, not a cross, you know. It just happened to look very crosslike and meant to invoke the idea of someone being crucified, but since they never called it a cross that means the people who thought such were just being oversensitive. They plainly meant to invoke images of real people being killed, which I think pushes it above rape. We read taping reports, where how bad something is reported is based on the guy filing the report. I didn't make any posts on it until I saw it for myself. Maybe you finalize your opinons on secondhand info, but I don't.

That's ridiculous. Hassan's whole gimmick is that he's unfairly treated because he's Arab-American and everyone thinks he's a terrorist. HHH fucking a mannequin and Chavo becoming Whitey weren't nearly as offensive as this since they weren't meant to invoke images of real people being killed by terrorists. Like CJ said on AIM last night, I hope no one who's lost family members to terrorism are wrestling fans.

Is it 1986 again and no one told me?

Man, if he does get fired, imagine the shoot interview that'll come from it.

After I had time to think about it, I hope WWE does fire Corny so he can go to a place like ROH or TNA that would not shit on every idea he comes up with or undo all the work he does to get people over.

Melz has a hard-on for "real" fighters, I'd be willing to bet thats why Kurt Angle got in, since he has the "real cred". He's almost as bad as Vince when it comes to wanting to be seen as someone legit rather than a rasslin' guy.

Slapping the guy crossed the line, and I guess considering Corny's past he's probably fucked for sure now, but if thats the case there should be something metered out for the guy laughing too. Hell, if someone did that in WWE, they'd probably be greeted with more than a slap from a hyperactive 50+ year old booker. I'm not saying it's right, but in the Kangaroo Court that wrestling operates in, it's been well established that physical assault is acceptible payment for disrespecting the business.

Wrestlers shouldn't be out there laughing during serious angles either, promoters shouldn't have do worry about guys in a developmental league not taking shit seriously.

Come on, you justified JBL wailing the shit out of Meanie and drawing blood, but Corny slapping someone for potentally fucking up an angle is a fireable offense? The WWE needs more people like Corny, they don't need to be firing people like him over piddly shit.