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WWE NETWORK GENERAL DISCUSSION THREAD


RIPPA

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On 9/21/2017 at 7:54 PM, Jamal said:

I enjoyed Trailblayzer. I’ve been a Madusa fan for a while so no real new info but nice to see some of the old footage as well as her interactions both with her husband and at the Hall of Fame. 

I was disappointed that they downplayed how good of a WCW run she had. They completely glossed over her feuds with Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto and jumped straight to the evening gown match and having BBQ sauce dumped on her by Oklahoma. 

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1 hour ago, A Guy Named Tracy said:

I was disappointed that they downplayed how good of a WCW run she had. They completely glossed over her feuds with Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto and jumped straight to the evening gown match and having BBQ sauce dumped on her by Oklahoma. 

Yea they completely ommitted that they were trying for some sort of division and a cruiser subdivision before everything went off of the rails. 

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Thoughts on Survivor Series 98

The opener of the Deadly Game tournament was hilarious, with Mankind looking over Vince McMahon's shoulder at his opponent's credentials, followed by Dwayne Gill getting scared by his own pyro.

Al Snow won his second straight PPV match, even though he was the leader of the JOB Squad and he was treated like a loser on commentary. Even the JOB Squad won their match on Heat. 

Big Bossman did a great job "accidentally" helping the Rock through the tournament. Bossman lost to the Rock in four seconds and then threw his nightstick to Ken Shamrock, only to have Rock intercept it. Bossman was going to pull similar shenanigans in Rock's semifinal match, but Kane beat him to the punch.

When Steven Regal came out wearing a plaid shirt, I realized that the "He's a maaaan...." theme song is a takeoff of "The Lumberjack Song" by Monty Python. 

Regal and X-Pac totally no-sold the announcement that they were supposed to wrestle an overtime period after their double-countout. X-Pac just limped back to the dressing room and Regal ran after him, when he should have stayed in the ring and won by forfeit.

The three-way tag team match was a disjointed mess. The highlight was the Outlaws' reaction to the enormous sign containing their entire entrance spiel. 

Mankind is the MVP for wrestling four times (twice in a tuxedo), putting himself through the Spanish announce table, getting screwed out of the WWF title, and getting beaten up by The Rock and Stone Cold after the match. 

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I'll always give credit to that show. Vince Russo might be terrible, but his fingerprints are all over that show and the booking and swerves are all impactful and made sense in retrospect/hindsight.

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Survivor Series '98 remains one of the best single day tournaments in pro wrestling history.

everything was perfectly booked. as mentioned, all of the swerves were executed flawlessly and the surprise was actually that. masterful.

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"Whatever it takes to win, I will do. Because that's the way I was raised and that's the way I'm gonna raise my kids...if I ever decide to have any."

Bad News continues to be the best. I get why the gave Warrior the IC title in 88, but man would I have been way more into Bad News owning the mid-card.

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Thoughts on WWF Capital Carnage (UK-only PPV)

The Brood was booked all over the place. Gangrel was a heel against Al Snow, Edge was a babyface against Tiger Ali Singh, and Christian teamed up with Sable, of all people.

The British fans hated Droz as Animal's new partner so much that they cheered the Headbangers and didn't pop for Animal's comeback.

Vince McMahon won the MVP award by cutting a great pro-American, anti-British promo on the fans. He got so much heat that he didn't even need. Vince dismissed "tea time" as "a pious load of crap."

Then poor Tiger Ali Singh immediately came out and also cut an anti-British promo, regarding the UK's alleged oppression of India. Just like on the first UK PPV,  Tiger would have been better off not talking on the mic at all.

Jacqueline losing her top could have only happened in the UK. It completely stole the thunder of Marc Mero, who had just wrestled his final match.

Steve Blackman was challenging Ken Shamrock for the IC title when he decided to attack the Big Bossman, who was doing nothing at ringside. Bossman immediately interfered and cost Blackman the match.

In 1998, Jeff Jarrett came to the ring with Jim Cornette, Barry Windham, The Rock & Roll Express, Tennessee Lee, Southern Justice and Debra McMichael.

When the Corporation took Triple H's title shot away and gave it to X-Pac, they should have simply said X-Pac was getting the shot because he was the European champion.

Football "bad boy" Vinny Jones was really over with the fans, but he cut the worst promo of the year. He could barely string a coherent sentence together. Gerald Brisco gave him a red card when he shoved Bossman out of the ring, but he still came back at the end to have beers with Stone Cold. 

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Thoughts on In Your House 25: Rock Bottom

Golga hit the slow-turning powerslam and then went for the sit-down splash as if he were trying to tell the crowd, "Hey! It's me! Earthquake!"

Steve Blackman finally got a singles win on pay-per-view, but it would have been better if he had pinned or submitted Owen Hart. Instead, Owen just walked out of the match.

Bob Holly and Scorpio probably weren't happy to be on a team called the JOB Squad, but at least they had jobs. Of course, they probably would have made more money and worked less in WCW.

Shawn Michaels was a heel commissioner, but he couldn't resist the urge to reverse the decision of the Goldust-Jarrett match, so Debra had to do a striptease. Blue Blazer covering up Debra fit his goody-two-shoes superhero character perfectly.

I totally forgot that Michaels was the Corporate Commissioner and actually opposed the DX faction that he helped to establish. He got great heat at ringside, and the Outlaws really looked impressive by overcoming the stacked odds to beat Shamrock and Bossman.

Austin's Buried Alive win over Undertaker had an anti-climactic ending. Kane did the dirty work by hitting a tombstone on Undertaker, and Austin was basically coaching the backhoe operator to dump the dirt onto Taker.

Mankind had super-charged new "I won the match" music to replace his soft piano theme, and it played when he apparently won the title. Mankind also foreshadowed his title match at the Royal Rumble when he tried to force Vince to admit that Mankind would never say "I Quit."

The difference between the People's Elbow and the Corporate Elbow is that The Rock doesn't throw the elbow pad to the people; he spikes it onto his opponent. 

The Rock is the MVP of his own pay-per-view. He cut a great promo at the outset, predicting that this would be the first of many PPVs named after him. He did commentary during his own title defense. Even though he lost in the middle of the ring to the Mr. Socko Claw, he somehow walked out with the WWF title.

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Thoughts on Royal Rumble 99

We start the Year of Nonsensical Booking with Big Bossman vs. Road Dogg. It's a hardcore match, but Vince doesn't put Road Dogg's hardcore title on the line. Nothing really hardcore happens, Bossman wins clean and doesn't bring the title back to the Corporation.

On the other hand, Ken Shamrock was finally booked correctly. He came in with the IC and tag team title, and he beat Billy Gunn with the ankle lock. Too bad he was an also-ran in the Rumble match.

Luna showed up for a strap match in an outfit that exposed her entire back and buttocks. Even Jerry Lawler said it was a bad idea.

I've given Mankind several MVP awards based on the insane amount of punishment he took in his matches, but I think we can all agree that what happened to his brain in the I Quit match was a bad idea. During one of his live shows, Foley said everyone asks him about the Hell in a Cell match, but he arguably suffered more damage here. It was so bad that the WWE Network put up three TV-MA warnings in a row at the start of the Network broadcast.

The first part of the Rumble was so filled with angles and lower-card wrestlers that it began to seem like it didn't matter who won the Rumble. The storyline about a $100,000 bounty on Austin was lost on the guys who were in the ring while Austin was traveling to and from the hospital. Undertaker wasn't in the Rumble because he was too busy taking Mabel away in a hearse, and Kane was only in long enough to clean house and then chase away the mental-hospital personnel.

Vince McMahon is the default MVP of the show. Despite getting stuck in the No. 2 spot, he recruited enough goons to battle Austin throughout the night.  He also brought The Rock out to distract Austin at the end to cap his master plan and set up the Austin-Rock showdown at WM 15.

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That WWE Story Time show. With the exception of maybe Coach, is there anyone on there that doesn't come off as a total asshole?

This week, the Rock reflects on throwing a 100 pound typewriter off a balcony at 14 before throwing eggs at people down below. Jake Roberts/some guy was afraid of snakes legit so I fucked with him story that seemingly appears every week, etc. etc.

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One weird thing about Prime Time, they overdub Rick Rude's music. I always assumed his music was public domain.

Also, who thought Brother Love was a good idea? I mean, I know who did, but why? I hated him as a kid, because he was annoying, but age and an understanding of satire has not improved the act at all. His first appearance, he comes out, says "I love ya" over and over for 2 minutes and leaves. He's introduced as Bobby Heenan's spiritual advisor and maybe there's something there if you play out how he's bilking all the heels out of their money for spiritual enlightenment, but they never really go there. As it is, I'm not sure I can relive 2+ years of Brother Love segments, even the good ones, like when Earthquake smooshed Hogan.

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4 hours ago, elizium said:

One weird thing about Prime Time, they overdub Rick Rude's music. I always assumed his music was public domain.

Also, who thought Brother Love was a good idea? I mean, I know who did, but why? I hated him as a kid, because he was annoying, but age and an understanding of satire has not improved the act at all. His first appearance, he comes out, says "I love ya" over and over for 2 minutes and leaves. He's introduced as Bobby Heenan's spiritual advisor and maybe there's something there if you play out how he's bilking all the heels out of their money for spiritual enlightenment, but they never really go there. As it is, I'm not sure I can relive 2+ years of Brother Love segments, even the good ones, like when Earthquake smooshed Hogan.

Brother Love segments are legit the first time I can remember watching wrestling and flipping the channel to something else and switching back every minute or so to see if it was over yet.

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Ride Along Season 2 started last night with the Shield in one car and Sasha/Bayley in the other.

The commercial also showed one with Bo Dallas (I am assuming he was with Curtis Axel but I missed it so I am not 100% sure)

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3 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Ride Along Season 2 started last night with the Shield in one car and Sasha/Bayley in the other.

The commercial also showed one with Bo Dallas (I am assuming he was with Curtis Axel but I missed it so I am not 100% sure)

I'm pretty sure it's Bo and Axel.  The Hardys are another.

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That Shield/Bayley/Boss episode is one of the best episodes of Ride Along - it just is too damn short

I am also amused at what shows Vince is willing to be filmed on and which ones he isn't (Since it was clear they were not allowed to film Vince headed to his limo)

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I found it amusing, and not at all surprising, that Reigns is pretty much the worst road trip partner.

Just chills in the backseat, falls asleep half the time and bugs fast food places that are closed to let him inside to use the restroom. 

Now Rollins on the other hand ... "maybe I should get 2 double doubles!".  My kind of guy. 

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Thoughts on In Your House 26: St. Valentine's Day Massacre

The fans didn't get into Goldust-Bluedust at first, but Bluedust got some heat by stalling outside the ring, and then Goldust got everyone pumped up for Shattered Dreams. I'm amazed that nobody made a "blue balls" joke.

Bob Holly and Al Snow battled in the Mississippi River on a 30-degree night, which made the Hardcore title seem like a worthy prize.

On the other hand, the IC title was an afterthought as Val Venis won it from Ken Shamrock in a match refereed by Billy Gunn. Even Michael Cole admitted that Ryan Shamrock was the focus of the match. And how many of us big brothers have had to yell at our little sisters: "Blood is thicker than water! (slap me)."

Ivory did her job of keeping Mark Henry from focusing on Debra, but the ladies' fight outside the ring distracted the referee, who didn't see Owen Hart hit Henry with a guitar.

The fans chanted "Boring" during the Bossman-Mideon match. Nobody cared about the Corporation-Ministry feud, so it's a good thing they merged. Besides, I love stables with way too many members.

Just like Shawn Michaels two months earlier, I totally forgot that Kane and Chyna both joined the Corporation. Chyna did it for money, while Kane was trying to avoid Vince throwing him into the insane asylum. X-Pac chased Shane McMahon to the back, which basically doomed Triple H to lose to Chyna and Kane.

Mankind and The Rock had a great Last Man Standing match, which doesn't get its proper place in history among their other battles. Although, it didn't make sense for Mankind to be knocked out from one chair shot to the shoulder after taking 10 to the head in the I Quit match.

Stone Cold Steve Austin is the MVP after delivering on his promise to annihilate Vince McMahon in a steel cage. Austin had the victory in the bag several times but kept coming back to destroy the boss. It was a strong blowoff to one of the best and most lucrative feuds in wrestling history.

 

 

 

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