ExcellenceofAirPollution

Some people have a hang up with HHH and will never enjoy him being on tv. My opinion is if you don't like him....this is about the best way he's ever going to be used.....it's totally playing to all of the stereotypes and hangups people have about him.....and his delivery has been great. I love how they're gradually transitioning him into becoming Vince McMahon, and his completely insincere "I don't like doing this....but it's what's best for business" with a smirk on his face while he's being a complete dick to his employees. HHH as a sympathetic babyface is completely unbelievable.....this is the right way to use him. Same with Orton......that's a guy who's just so much more believable as an asshole heel. To be fair, I think I've seen a lot more praise for HHH in this angle than I have generic HHHate. I'm not a big fan of the guy.....he's dragged down a lot of stuff over the years.....but I can't complain about his role in this angle.

I hate to make the comparison, but tonight reminded me of when the summer of punk angle started going sideways. That angle was pretty divisive from the start and I would defend it here and on PWO while other people were like, "they WILL fuck this up....just watch" and that's exactly what happened and I ate crow on it. Punk came out fine in the end, but the potential that angle had compared to what they ended up with just didn't compare, and really they dropped the ball the moment Punk came back on RAW, and it got worse from there. Tonight's angle felt like them starting to drop the ball. And because that segment died with the crowd, and they clearly read internet comments to gauge the temperature of the audience (only reason they would bring up the ironclad contract after seemingly forgetting it).......I'm now worried that they will start to panic book the angle. For the pacing of the story and where it looks like they want to go and for all the characters involved.....they booked tonight wrong, and nobody looked good at the end. But they'll make it even worse if they panic about it and hotshot the angle the way they've done in the past when stuff bombs

Highly doubt they set out with the intention of burying everyone involved with the final segment, but that's what happened. I've really enjoyed all of this angle up to now, but this was just terrible. They completely lost the crowd and then just kept making it worse. None of it really made sense.....Bryan and Show's backstage promo was bad.....I didn't understand why they were working the match they way they did where Show was just completely dominating Bryan.....the guy who can practically beat the Shield by himself and has beaten Show several times....and Show hasn't been booked like nearly that level of monster in a while.......this was complete shit. And it makes no sense for Show to be overacting the way he was. Why do you care so much about Daniel Bryan? I also loved that they brought up the ironclad contract in the show opening segment, then promptly ignored it for the rest of the show. And now Big Show is supposedly broke?! Just like HBK was broke I guess. complete shit the rest of the show wasn't too bad. I liked all the stuff with Cody, it put him over big and the crowd was digging it, and if they do a Midnight Rider gimmick it will be awesome. Cody and Orton had a good match, I thought RVD/Sandow was a decent match, and I liked how they were hyping up Edge being on next week's show as a big deal. CM Punk's promo was money.

I didn't know how bad Helms got fucked up by that accident. Hearing it out of his mouth was pretty wild. He's legit lucky he didn't die, and that he had a friend in the state police who rushed to the scene when he heard it was him, and his girlfriend was crazy lucky to survive it with barely any injury, though it sounded like Helms took the worst of it in an attempt to save her. Crazy stuff, and Helms' perspective on it is really cool, in terms of now being an advocate against ever putting yourself in that type of situation. And the way he tells it is he'd partied "til the break of dawn" the night before, didn't really sleep/was hungover/still fucked up whatever and didn't even think he was in bad enough shape to not get on a bike

I had completely forgotten that angle. Foley selling absolute horror as Mr. Rock-O was snuggling Val's johnson was patently absurd. Thank you for reminding me how ridiculous 99 Russo WWF was

I remember the Venis-Austin match on SD! being really great for a tv match at the time and a lot different from the typical fare because Austin didn't go on TV and work under or even with midcard guys ever. I thought at the time, "Val Venis must be in line for a huge push" and then.....nothing. The RTC gimmick never got over with me, so while that was a prominant spot, it just never felt like something where Val Venis would come out of it as a bigger star. Always felt like the crowd was booing because the theme song was annoying as shit, the promos were overlong, and they just wanted these guys out of the ring and off TV. Total Vince McMahon entertaining himself, middle finger to the world booking. I think that's actually my favorite period for Val Venis in the WWF other than his first year in the company and the Ryan Shamrock and "choppy choppy pee pee" stuff where they were really having fun with the gimmick and being as over the top as possible. His feud with Rikishi for the IC title was really great and had the feel of two guys on the cusp who were being elevated by having awesome, throwback style matches and IC feud. Trish as his manager was a good pairing. They didn't follow through with either guy's push after that from what I recall. I thought Val as Chief Morley came off well and had a lot of potential. I don't remember how it was dropped......Bischoff punishing him for some transgression and he went back to Val Venis as a face maybe?........but I thought if they'd run with it longer he could have established himself and made people forget about the Val gimmick

reading more of the thread, since Owen was brought up......he was massively over post Survivor Series 97 when he did the run in and attacked DX on RAW after being off TV for a bit. The fans would have eaten up for a main event push at that point, but they just didn't want to do it, and it would have screwed up the path they had laid out with Austin getting the title at WM. Even just a hot shot for the belt with Owen would have put him over for life. But HBK didn't want to work with him and they had plans laid out well in advance already......so what do they do with Owen? Put him in a feud with HHH (ironically enough given the topic of this thread) where he loses every important match, and all the heat he has coming off of Montreal is gone. Then he gets stuck in the Nation of Domination which was sort of cool but never really made sense, then a random "MMA" feud with Shamrock and Dan Severn, which again was cool, but it was not any sort of big picture stuff. Then he's put in a tag team with Jarrett, who again ironically, is someone Austin didn't want to work with or put over.......then the Blue Blazer stuff and we all know how the story ends. All of this was entertaining because Owen was really good, but they totally wasted him. It's like the opposite of HHH......Owen had a natural connection with the audience and could get anything over......HHH would get the best booking available and it still took a long time for him to catch on

I don't disagree with this, but I always felt in 95-96 that HHH was getting pushed pretty hard and wasn't getting over on a level equal to his push, and that was before I knew who he was friends with or anything like that. Come 98-00 he was really good, and over, and deserving of his level of push.....but it was a struggle to get him there. And he didn't "get himself over" like FSW said, that's bs. Foley working with him and doing a cage match and a hardcore match at MSG that were all about making HHH look legit got HHH over. Getting paired on TV with HBK got him over. CHYNA was a heat magnet because she was so different and unique and weird.....that got HHH over. Leading DX with the red hot Outlaws and red hot on his return X-Pac got HHH over. Storyline drugging, marrying and presumably raping Stephanie McMahon got HHH over. Practically murdering Shawn Michaels when he came back for a week of tv and wanted to be back in DX got HHH over. He didn't do it all himself, nobody does, and he sort of was shoved down the audience's throat with how hard they tried to get him over for years. He was obviously good and talented enough that it stuck and he got over, but it wasn't like he was instantly embraced by the WWF audience.

That was my same thought. What was he making in WCW? I could see him making around 200-250K, because Bischoff would overpay everyone and Jericho was a hot commodity at the time, and I think he was on his second contract and had gotten a nice raise.......and I feel like Jericho has said that took a paycut going to WWF because he knew the opportunity to make more money was there. But he'd been in the business for a decade.......the idea that he had banked 7mil+ by that time seems far fetched. Even if he was cheap as hell on the road and good with investing......that seems like a lot of money for a guy who was working Canadian indys, AAA, secondary Japanese promotions, ECW and a few years with WCW. In this what if scenario where Jericho buys WCW......he gives huge pushes to himself, Lance Storm and Rey Mysterio......DDP and Booker stick around and take paycuts because they want to keep working.......Nash, Luger, Hogan etc. get paid by Turner and Jericho doesn't use them.......Bret Hart gets the Pat Patterson spot in creative......Eddie jumps after he fails a drug test in WWE.....Konnan gets a big push and is probably tapped for creative.....Mexican talent gets used......young talent like Helms, Noble and AJ Styles get big pushes.......it would be like a bizarro version of TNA and some of the talent that jumped to WWE

This card on paper is looking real weird to me right now Nattie-Brie Bella in the first non-title diva PPV match in forever Rhodes-Sandow in a feud that started out promising and hasn't gone anywhere. Sandow loses every match since he won the case, and Rhodes hasn't gotten over as a face at all HHH shoved into the middle of the main event, which makes me way less excited for it than I was A mixed tag, where the heel team just lost to Nattie/Khali on RAW Christian, who isn't world title big 4 match over, in the world title match Mark Henry not even on the show. Maybe they'll add Henry/Show vs. The Shield. Hopefully. Ambrose and RVD stuck on the pre-show. RVD goes from huge comeback in the main event a month ago, to the pre-show. Nice job there WWE. I was pretty excited for this show the first few weeks after MITB, but every week I'm getting less and less interested

I totally thought this was James Le Gros

Taker/Michaels from Ground Zero 1997 that ended in the giant brawl and tope - setting up the first Hell in a Cell the next month - I remember being blown away by that when it first aired... That's my pick too. Awesome chaotic brawl which told a great story of Michaels being scared shitless of Taker and running for his life the entire match, only gaining brief advantages by luck, cheating and interference. Taker has been trying to murder HBK ever since he cost him the title at SummerSlam, and kills the ref before the match even starts. Taker destroys Michaels for a while before the bell even rings. Ref #2 gets taken out, leading to more wild brawling. Taker chokeslams ref #3 and finally the whole thing is declared a no contest. The entire lockerroom empties to try and stop the fight, and it ends with that awesome moment of Taker's flying no hands tope onto about 20 guys while Michaels and DX retreat from the carnage. And the no finish worked perfectly to set up the first Hell in a Cell match. It's always been my favorite of the original HBK-Taker trio of matches just for the story, uniqueness and spectacle of it alone. Angle-Austin at SS would be my 2nd pick

I don't know, did they look like this?

Co-sign. How fucking stupid are they to do a spot like that so soon after the London scare? The only safe apron spot I've seen is the DDT, which they even do in WWE, because the guy delivering it basically steps down to the floor and the guy taking it takes a faceplant. It looks worse than it is. Simple and safe and it always gets a big reaction.

The best is when Cole switches to his "GOING TO COMMERCIAL" inflection after a spot, and they don't cut to commercial......

The money isn't coming out of TNA's budget. This is a Spike/Viacom deal where they're using TNA to cross promote Bellator, who they're investing a lot of money into. From TNA's perspective they can use these guys on Spike's dime to try and generate buzz for their wrestling product. The Tito deal with Spike/Bellator just came together within the last week or two. This was rushed to get him on TV and start promoting Rampage vs. Tito. I'm not really defending any of this, just correcting misconceptions. It just doesn't make sense to bash TNA for this stuff when they are beholden to Spike/Viacom. And the releases had nothing to do with this.

I think the no brainers would be Magnus and Roode. Magnus probably has the most potential of anyone to get a strong WWE run. He's got the size, the look and youth on his side. Roode would probably get lost in the shuffle, but I think they'd sign him at least. Joe would have some key supporters in Cena, Punk and Danielson so I think he'd get a shot. I could actually see Garrett Bischoff being brought in simply because of who his father is, and he's not a bad looking kid A few of the women might get a look. Taryn is the youngest and has the most potential, but I doubt they'd bring her back after the previous drama. Not sure what happened there with Brooke Adams/Tessmacher, but she's the other one with star potential. Storm might be a tough sell. He's got kind of a bloated/gassed look going on, not really the type of look they like, he's not young, and he seems to be slowing down with injuries. He'd probably get the "doesn't know how to work" knock too. I could see Vince doing something crazy like hiring Dixie and making her a tv character simply for humilation purposes I think they'd bring Jarrett back if they thought there was money to be made with him, Vince will bring anybody back if he thinks they have value, but I doubt they see money in a Jarrett run. And I doubt he'd want to go back. I'm inclined to think if they wanted to deal with Angle he'd already be back. He's been in TNA for almost 7 years and there's been multiple chances for WWE to bring him back. Too risky. As a HOFer and DVD subject after he retires, sure, but I doubt he ever works a match for them again. Hardy would absolutely get another run if he wanted it, that's been a given since the day he left, but he's got a pretty easy schedule with TNA. More interest on the WWE side than from him Not sure about Styles. He seems to have made a good living with TNA, has a family, I doubt he wants to be on the road 250 days a year Hogan will always get brought back. Always. Bully Ray? My understanding is he doesn't have many supporters backstage and is not considered worth the trouble. The book on the Dudleys was that everyone liked Devon and couldn't stand Bubba

Apparently this show did the best Impact # in a long time in terms of total viewers, so there was interest in Sabin challenging for the title and a show advertised as X-Division centric I thought Sabin's title win was a nice moment to reward him and the longtime fans of the promotion. It will be a short reign, but there's nothing wrong with that at all. Bully Ray wasn't setting the world on fire, and this might establish Sabin as someone for the casual fan to care about

HUSTLE pushed Amazing Kong against men, and even put the tag belts on her and Aja Kong

I think what you'd see is more historical pieces. Aren't there still some backlogged HOF bios/obits that Dave never got around to? Also, without MMA Dave would likely have more time to watch lucha and puro and indies and so naturally it would get more time devoted to it Personally, I don't mind the MMA coverage either. I'm a fan, and Dave is one of the more knowledgable reporters around who's been covering it as long as anyone

Nobody mentioned The Usos against Claudio & Swagger yet. I think that's going to be a fun little midcard feud. Usos have been bringing it and getting over ever since they started getting regular main show TV time, and I like the Claudio & Swagger dynamic. They work well together, and Swagger has always been a better tag wrestler than a single IMO. I loved Jericho/RVD, probably the best match they've ever had together. Naomi vs. a Bella was surprisingly good and given a decent amount of time. The segment with Mark Henry and The Shield was great. I'd think in 6 mans you'd see Henry teaming with Christian (was looking to be Ambrose's next opponent in the weeks before MITB) and someone else. Kofi Kingston would be my best guess. I wish they could do all their TV in the big hardcore citys. There is such a noticable difference when they're in a random town in the midwest or the south and the lack of crowd energy just kills what could be a good show. It'll be interesting to see how Cody's face turn and a now solidified as a face Ziggler get over in other parts of the country. Next week they're doing 4 straight TV tapings in Texas (international tour of Australia and South Africa coming up) so all but next Monday's show will be post-produced for desired reactions

changed my mind home jersey is the way to go

LIME GREEN MY EYES THEY BURN eh, I'll get used to it

Is it more annoying that Jericho breaks kayfabe to explain the finish, or that he has to explain the finish to the marks that follow him on twitter?

Went back to my old name from the green board days. I missed it. Was CM Funk, did more lurking than posting