Zakk_Sabbath

I could name 10,000 things but honestly, right now: lack of fat guys who can work, man-- we need this generations Earthquake and Yoko to step up.

If Brock drops the title before 31, then Ambrose should win the Rumble-- I think Ambrose/Cena could be this younger generations Austin/Michaels. Don't get me wrong, I think Reigns is fantastic, but right now, he's being booked with the worst components of Cena (forcing him down fans throats) and Diesel (the guy but not *really* the guy). This injury might be the best thing that happened to him. Same goes for Bryan-- he deserved so much better as a post WM feud than Kane. Which is not a knock on Kane, it's more of a knock on a) the booking and b) how they've devalued his character over the last several years.

Yeah, I'm taking a break from Nitro (just because I don't wanna burn through them too quick, and football started) but those 1995 Raws are fucking abysmal. The most entertaining thing about them is tracking the progress the Kliq makes on growing their mullets out.

I said it in the Night of Lesnar thread, but a Cena/Lesnar/Ambrose/Rollins four way in the cell would be fucking awesome. There's the Ambrose/Rollins issue, the Cena/Lesnar issue, and the Rollins/Lesnar curbstomp issue, all flying around in one cage. You could make it non-title and have any of the other three guys go over without ever having Brock do the favor (or, if for some dumb reason they want to take the belt off Brock before WM, they could do it here). Or make it a title match, and have Brock go over (my favorite option). You could play up Rollins' newfound Edge-like "Ultimate Opportunist" gimmick in the build up, and have him play up the fact that he's outsmarted everyone by getting a title match without even having to pay the dollars EDIT: Finished typing this before reading your post, Greggulator. Putting Orton in for Brock wouldn't be an awful idea either. I thought that one multi-man HIAC match where Rikishi fell into the hay truck (?) was loads of fun. Obviously you couldn't get intense in today's environment, but it would still be a cool visual to have that much chaos in there. On the other hand, maybe that's infringing on the Elimination Chamber gimmick a little too much, and I'm sure they wouldn't want to do that.

It just might be age, but you can't say that Brock's not a little less jacked up than his first run

To be fair, having Mark Henry feud with Sheamus as an insincere heel is better than Big Show pretending to be BFF with the guy who broke his leg three years ago. Milk and chocolate cookies?! Now there's an idea: right after the main event, Roode invites everyone out for milk and cookies ala Andy Kaufman at Radio City. C'mon man, who doesn't love free milk and cookies?

The crappy thing about that is that they could be using those three hours to actually get guys over by letting them wrestle extended matches. I may have mentioned this already in the Nitro thread in the Network folder (which, I am taking a break from since I spent like a week straight watching Nitro from the time I got home til the time I went to bed, and got burned out right as Hall and Nash debuted and shit started heating up)-- anyway, the thing about Nitro was that even though the announcers did nothing but talk about the NWO the entire time, they at least gave time to the undercard to shine in the ring. Sure, there was still a ceiling for those guys, but it's maddening that WWE would rather give time to a bunch of meaningless comedy or diva segments instead of letting them have decent, competitive, TV matches, that would do SO much more for them. Take Rey-- he was one of the most over WCW talents of all, and I swear to God, I don't think I saw him cut a single promo or "act" in some shitty vignette from 1996-1999 (which, let's be real, The Filthy Animals weren't going to move the needle when the WWF was as hot as it was). Even my non-fan friends know Rey from the Revenge game! He's still over to this day, and he hasn't even had human knees since 2005! There's a reason that everyone from Jericho to Rey to the Radicals to Raven were over as soon as they hit WWF TV despite the fact that they had never even gotten a second of airtime with them before they were brought in.

Never saw Real Personal, seems to be a bit before my time. I learned A LOT from the MTV version of Loveline, though. I remember being like 8, and just walking around terrified that I would get AIDS at any moment

I have felt in the same boat. There aren't many wrestlers that I'm passionate about, and I find I rarely agree with this new breed of Internet fans and their "hive think"...one guy after another from nxt is great, triple h is the savior, Vince and Kevin Dunn are ruining things, blah. Don't want to kill a departed, but Rovert claiming that Sami Zayn is an all-time great at 30 years old made me question if maybe I'm too cynical to enjoy stuffing instead of potatoes anymore. Had a moment this year where I just said fuck it and I was done, then my wife's uncle invites me to wm30, and I was back in. It's an illness, I get it. This might be a strange little off-shoot to this conversation, but let me add this if I may. I've been participating in online wrestling discussion since we got Internet when I was 10-11 years old (I'm about to be 27) and so many things have changed. Partcularly on places like Reddit, which skew a little younger. "Fuck Dave Meltzer, he's just another dirtsheet guy, he was wrong about Punk in Chicago so he's not to be trusted." Really?? I mean, Jesus, are you even old enough to remember that they're called sheets because they used to come in the actual US mail? Or like you said, Kevin Dunn-- these kids are parrotting Cornette shoots with all this Bucky Beaver talk-- sure, the guy might have his opinions or whatever, and yeah, maybe he's been responsible for some awful, abhorrent bullshit-- but we're gonna play like he hasn't been a hugely influential figure in pro wrestling TV production over the last 20 years? I don't know that I would have even known the name Kevin Dunn when I was 12. Definitely helps harbor a feeling that not only wrestling, but meaningless, banal, daily discussion ABOUT wrestling-- has passed me by I really didn't start watching the E! show until I was around 11-12 (wonder why..) so I would probably place that clip somewhere like 2000-2001. It's so incredible to watch now that society has changed so much and Howard has basically put his own personal Attitude era to rest and basically spends the entire show with celebrity interviews and America's Got Talent talk.

Bingo, yes it's Elegant Elliot Offen from the Stern show. An often underrated wack packer. Originally started as a cross-dressing, fitness-loving, incredibly sexually bizarre figure, and later degenerated into this bizarre faux-tough guy who ran over an elderly woman with a car, and basically would come in coked up and cut wrestling promos. He's been off the show since probably 2006-2007, but when he was on, had a propensity for saying "RIGHT!?" after a lot of the things he said, hence my sig. Always loved catching him on the old E! and channel 2 shows as a kid. He was eventually banned from the show for threatening the staff and punching a wall. I feel like my words are not doing this justice, so I implore you to check this youtube stuff out (NSFW for language and.. other stuff): Elliott comes in with his "girlfriend/assistant" Violet, is clearly coked up, makes a huge scene Elegant Elliott goes off on Robin and Howard The appearance that got him banned Honestly, the guy is a legitimately insane, piece of shit con artist, but... well, we're all wrestling guys here. We've heard all that before. Apologies for this not being wrestling related

Honest to God, Jae, you have me wondering: If TNA shut down today forever, would they make just as much if not more money running "best of" shows on WGN and pumping DVDs into the $1 bin at Wal-Mart? I know it seems like I'm being an asshole toward TNA because that's all I've ever been when they come up, but honest to God, what generates more revenue: EC3 vs. Sanada in a 1/3 full high school gym, or Sting vs. Hogan, Angle vs. Joe, or Savage/Styles/Hardy vs. Outsiders and Jarrett on DVD? Even some sort of po-dunk VOD service, maybe? As far as branding, I mean, Jesus, it's been almost five years and they still can't decide whether it's TNA or Impact Wrestling (similar to when they first started, and the two people I knew who still watched wrestling after the Invasion bubble burst said "Hey, man, did you catch that NWA PPV?") I mean, you had Ed Motherfucking Ferrara making Tits n Ass jokes 30 seconds into the first PPV-- no one there thinks long term or knows fuck all about how to brand that product so it's actually more attractive toward consumers, sponsors, and prospective networks. Which is scary, given that Dixie supposedly comes from a PR background. It's sad, really. And, for anyone who grew up a WCW kid, astonishing, as well.

When you say that, I picture someone working a grumpy old wrestler gimmick under the name "El Cornetto". Hahah!! Accompanied to the ring by his valet La Reina de la Lecheria

It seems pretty awesome to me, which is why it will probably never happen

Undertaker was scheduled to make an appearance at a local "Family Fun Run" fundraiser in Texas on 9/28-- if he no shows, then it's probably pretty serious. I hope he's okay.

Punk McGruff, Chicago, Illinois, 60652

There's also the fact that when Flair was in his prime, there weren't two world titles in control of the same company. Guys like Miz, Khali,Swagger, Ziggler, heck, even Sheamus, del Rio, Punk and Bryan (since their WHC reigns were before they were huge WWE-caliber stars in the eyes of management) would have never even sniffed the title in those days. There's a fine line between rolling the dice on a new face like Edge, Orton, or that guy who won at WM XX, and just being complete fuck ups booking wise. The infrastructure to build new stars is not in place. Just a few short months ago, anyone who knew anything would have agreed that Reigns was going to be "the guy." Now, the machine is shoving him down peoples' throats, completely forgoing the organic nature of his initial popularity. If he's not ready by Mania, he's still going to get the title-- it's just a sad reality that once he does, he's going to get the Diesel/Punk/Foley treatment of being a World Champion who happens to not be Shawn, Austin, or Cena, and maybe gets the semi-main slot. That;s just my predicuitijn

I honest to God think that Brock vs. Austin is one of the only matches left that I would openly watch, and encourage my friends and family (who quit in 2002 with the rest of the world) to see as well. Brock vs. Austin or Brock vs. Rock are big enough to get mainstream/casual attention, which, even with the advent of the Network and the idea of the PPV buyrate being antiquated, is still all WWE wants and craves. I agree 150% with everything jae said on the matter. Austin vs. Brock transcends star ratings or any of our other smart fan bullshit. It's a big fucking match. It conjures images to me of what wrestling was like from 1996-2003 where the biggest thing was simply "fuck the status quo." That's just the age I happen to be. If you were a Hulkamania kid or a Horsemen kid or a Freebirds kid, insert your name of choice there-- until they can build a legitimate threat other than Cena (and God bless Bryan and Reigns, my heart goes out to them) then we're going to be reliant on stars from the past, and Brock. Brock still has an aura and the air of mystique-- and I have no doubt that if they were paying him less, he would be just as tiring and just as overexposed. It's another happy accident, just like the very streak they allowed him to end.

I'd accept. But Finkel would have to piss for me.

Can people here reply without throwing a strop? It wasn't posted in another thread. It was discussed on 2 of the last 3 pages. Stop overreacting. I was being genuine dude-- I legitimately think that's why I missed it I just saw this link on reddit. It's a conversation on another board about Cena in 2003, and with the benefit of hindsight, it's really, really interesting. http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/lofiversion/index.php?t30256.html Nothing beats the guy who said simply "Disgustingly Average." I mean, he wasn't doing stuff like the Shawn or Umaga match for another 3 or 4 years, so I honestly don't even remember having a hugely strong opinion on him at the time. I DID buy that sweet "Word Life" t-shirt, though.

That was my confirmation that Nash is an idiot. Also explains why WCW went to shit with people like him in charge. I may be a little biased given that a lot of my formative years in wrestling were New Generation WWF and NWO-era WCW, but I have to defend Nash here. What he and Hall were trying to do was "reality based" down to selling NWO shirts out of trucks, having a separate 1-800 number for merchandise, a separate NWO website, and giving the idea of NWO being a separate promotion through the "empty arena" Saturday Night shows. When he says that Hulk's promos were too "wrestling" and too "Memphis" I have to grudgingly agree. They can't sell the NWO as "real" with the biggest star in the history of the business (to that point) doing the same "Well ya know something, brother" promos that he'd already been doing since 1984. Whoever edited those NWO promos (Want to say it was Craig Leathers but I may be wrong) deserves a ton of credit for adding months, if not years, to the shelf life of that deal

Unrelated: the word "telecast" isn't used enough anymore

Scott Flash Norton had the best fucking powerbomb in WCW/NWO Revenge

Sorry rov I missed it. It must have popped up between my post-lunch work poop and my "all my friends are wifed up and out to dinner, let me check DVDVR" looks

https://twitter.com/WWE/status/512976420247961600 "You've waited long enough... Prepare yourself for the next generation. 9/22/2014" So, what's the skinny on this? My hypotheses: 1) Something to do with the new video game 2) NXT call-ups/half-baked invasion angle 3) WWE trying to generate interest with no clear idea of anything they're actually going to do come Monday. What say y'all?

I agree-- which is why he'll follow the Bryan blueprint of being an upper-midcard heel for two years before they roll the dice, of course.