sek69

Here's one to settle a discussion I'm involved with: What was the motivation that led Crockett to sell JCP to Ted Turner? I was always led to believe Crockett was losing money.

No title has lost as much prestige in the last 15 years as the NWA Title. Actually, you could make the argument that the IC belt has lost more than any belt. I may be a NWA mark, but just because it's not 1986 anymore doesn't mean the NWA belt is totally worthless. It's the only non-WWE title being defended on national televison in the US, which puts it above any other indy fed right now.

I think some of that started when they moved to Viacom.

I think the whole sports-entertainment thing came about when Vince was trying to avoid having the state athletic commissons monitor WWF shows. Pro wrestling has the connotation of being a legit contest where sports-entertainment makes it clear that it's all a show. It is pretty silly when they started calling the workers "sports-entertainers", which is almost as bad as their use of "physicality" instead of "violence".

It must drive HHH bonkers that the guy who annoys him the most has ties to the one person who's arguably more untouchable with Vince than he is (Afa).

I'd have to vote for Big Show. Just like when I voted against Tully, the Brainbusters' WWF run was too brief to be too meaningful.

I know Flair wanted to drop the belt to Sting, but how is that any better than HHH not jobbing to Booker at WM because of Goldberg?

Dusty wanted Flair to drop the belt to Rick Steiner, I believe, and Flair told him to fuck off.

Anyone who worked in Florida was a favorite of Dusty's.

I've heard that before and it doesn't make sense considering Luger was Dusty's boy from Florida. Why wouldn't Dusty push him to the top?

I still don't get why Flair forever gets a pass for never letting Luger have a run with the title when he was the hottest thing in the business.

Where'd Marty Jannetty go? Didn't WWE sign him after the Rockers reunion match? Wasn't there some plan to have them team on houseshows? For that matter, whatever happened to the idea of having Garrison Cade grow his hair out and feud with Shawn?

Steamboat. The angle with Savage just by itself is better than anything Kurt's done in the WWF/E.

Mr Perfect, Dynamite was broken down by the start of the time period we're considering.

Randy Savage OOOOOH YEA, DIGIT~! SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM!

Razor Ramon I always felt he was the most underrated one of the clique until he completely fell apart out of the ring.

Austin

I don't get what Batista has up his ass about OVW. They trained him, built him up into a monster, gave him a run with their belt. The WWE made him D-Von's assistant preacher and HHH lackey until finally giving him a main event push. I'm guessing he's just parrotting HHH's opinion, but if Hunter thinks OVW is so shitty why do they still use them to train?

Taker

You could say the same of the WWE titles too. No titles in wrestling have the same prestige they used to anymore.

Jeff Jarrett still defends the title in other NWA member feds, just because the NWA doesn't have the pull it did in 1983 doesn't mean it's not still the NWA title. If fact, the only title that's exclusive to TNA is the X title.

Well the TNA title is still the NWA title, and the NWA has member groups all over the world. Before the board gave TNA exclusivity to the World titles, they were defended all over the world. Any NWA member fed can still request a world title match in their territory, but the ones overseas tend to not get title matches anymore since they want to keep the belt in the member fed that has weekly TV and PPV.

I tend to think either there's truth to the Savage-Stephanie thing or that the people in charge of the WWE (read: HHH) think it's true. He's insane enough that I could see him doing it, and there has to be a reason he's never been back to the WWF/E even in a cameo appearance.

Did Shelton bust Shawn's mouth with that spin kick? It made qute the pop and I didn't see the usual "smack the leg to make the impact sound" move.

I liked how HBK looked down at Shelton after the match with a look on his face like "damn, brotha almost beat me". That's the stuff they just don't teach at OVW.