The Thread Killer

I can't believe they're cutting Drew Gulak's PowerPoint presentation! This is a bullshit backstage conspiracy!

Maybe Undertaker. Did Austin and The Undertaker even ever work against each other on PPV?

Jack Tunney was obviously never really the President of the WWF. He was just a suit Vince McMahon used as an on-air figurehead during the 80's, when Vince didn't want the fans to know he was really the owner. (The fact Vince was the owner was public knowledge but it never got talked about on TV until after the Montreal Screwjob, really.) Jack Tunney and his uncle Frank were the local WWF promoters in Toronto and used to have an office across the street from Maple Leaf Gardens. I met him a couple of times when I worked for the guy who had a wrestling poster concession at Maple Leaf Gardens. I didn't like Jack Tunney when I met him. I was only 16 or 17 but I remember he was rude and dismissive to my boss, the employees I saw him interact with, and he was even rude to the fans, which is really stupid for a wrestling promoter. I am pretty sure he came from the school of thought that all wrestling fans must be stupid gullible marks. Jack and Frank Tunney also did everything they could to put any and all independent wrestling promoters out of business in Ontario. That's what that book that I link to in my signature is about. There was an outlaw promoter here in Ontario named Dave McKigney and Frank and Jack Tunney were always trying to put him out of business. They were very spiteful and petty about it, too. Jack Tunney was reportedly a notorious cheapskate too, I think the reason Nash disliked him is because the WWF used to always draw huge houses in Toronto to Maple Leaf Gardens, but the payoffs were always suspiciously low. (Having said that, I don't think the WWF ever sold out Maple Leaf Gardens when Diesel was champion.) The guy I worked for told me that the wrestlers all hated Tunney because he was so stingy with payoffs. There were rumors that he used the payoff money to pay gambling debts, and that as soon as Bret Hart became champion in the WWF he used his stroke to get Tunney fired. Tunney had the exclusive contract to run Maple Leaf Gardens for wrestling, which is why the WWF stopped running shows there after Tunney got replaced. Having said that, all that information is just "rumor and innuendo." I know his relationship with the WWF ended on a bad note. His wikipedia page is actually really detailed and is pretty accurate, I think.

That seems to be a huge waste of Angle, doing this with no build. Joe is reportedly cleared to return now, and there are a bunch of other guys on Smackdown they could have borrowed to replace Reigns rather than Angle. I figured we'd be seeing him at some point, but not like this. As far as Wyatt, as much as I loved the other matches he and Balor had on PPV already, and as much as I was looking forward to the debut of his cross-dressing Sister Abagail, the important thing is that he stays healthy. I guess we can make do with Balor vs. Styles in the meantime. This show has gone from "no way I'm watching this crap" to "mildly interesting" on the TTK scale.

To echo what others are saying, I was personally hoping it was AJ. Apparently they started the ball rolling in that direction on Smackdown this week, but I missed the show. As far as where Jinder as champ is ultimately going, who could say? By every estimable metric I can think of, he's been an absolute bust as champion. The fans still chant "WHAT?" during his promos, which indicates they are not invested in his character, and his matches have been mediocre at best and total shit at worst. Years ago, I would have assumed that Vince would look at how he is doing as champ, do the math and get that belt (sorry I mean Championship) off him ASAP. However, this is the newer "I know what you want even if you clearly indicate you don't want it, and I'm going to cram it down your throat whether you like it or not until you learn to like it, or stop watching and stop showing up at the arena and if you do it's not my fault" version of Vince McMahon. So in this case, I assume Jinder will be champion for years to come with no end in sight. I was thinking about this the other day. There are so many "unappreciated" or underutilized wrestlers that some fans dream of getting a big push and making it big. Guys who are supposedly "held back." This is one of the rare cases where McMahon elevated somebody who went on to demonstrate with no doubt that he had been exactly where he belonged on the card before he got pushed. 3MB is pretty much perfect for Jinder Mahal, as far as I'm concerned.

I read that it was meningitis which is no damn joke, that's for sure. Even if you survive it, it can knock you on your ass for up to a year.

If rumor and innuendo are to be believed, Flair has to take a lot of the heat for that. Apparently he was the one who was campaigning heavily behind the scenes to turn heel, as he supposedly preferred working heel and thought he had one good run left as a heel against face Hogan. I don't think he quite understood that people just didn't want to boo him, and they weren't going to do it, regardless of what he did. It actually brings up an interesting point about Flair as a person. He himself has admitted in many interviews that he has suffered from a lack of self awareness and confidence at times, believe it or not. He claimed that when he returned to the WWF in 2001 he didn't want to wrestle and he didn't think anybody would want to see him wrestle. I've seen it talked about in more than one interview that it was the Undertaker who pitched working with Flair at Wrestlemania 18 and Flair couldn't understand why Taker would want to work with him. Triple H said in one interview that he had to sit Ric Flair down when he was pitching the idea of Evolution and "remind him that he was Ric Flair." The fact that Flair wanted to turn heel against Hogan bears that theory out, in a way. It seems that he didn't quite get how people perceive him, which is crazy when you think about it, considering how people are constantly naming him as the GOAT. You'd think he'd actually believe that people think that, even if he himself didn't necessarily agree with them.

Was the LA match any good? Like I said, I don't care what anybody says, that Bash at the Beach 94 match holds up. It's a good match and I don't think I'm the only person who thinks that. Even some other PWO members thought so.

They actually announced that Hogan vs. Flair was going to be the Main Event of WM8. Like on TV, and everything. I remember it very clearly. Then they changed it. Why would they announce it and promote it if it was never really the plan? That sounds like more than a fanboy fantasy to me.

The story I've always heard was that the WWF tried running Flair vs. Hogan on a couple of house shows to try out the match, and that it didn't draw (I want to say this was in San Francisco but I could be wrong) and that the two of them didn't have any in-ring chemistry. Depending on where they tried the house show matches, I can see them not drawing. If they ran Hogan vs. Flair in a northern market where the NWA had little exposure, casual fans might not care about Flair or even really know who he was. I can see that. In Toronto, we only knew about him through the Apter mags mostly. We didn't get barely any NWA TV here at that time. If they tried to run in a more traditional southern market, I can see fans not coming because they don't like the WWF, Hogan, or they thought Flair had sold out by going to the WWF. What I don't buy is the argument that the match wouldn't have worked, due to "bad chemistry" because anybody who saw Bash at the Beach 94 could plainly see that if booked correctly, the match worked fine. More than fine. Go back and watch that, I say it still holds up as damn good match. I know Flair claimed on his WWE DVD that he didn't know why the main event to Wrestlemania 8 was changed, and Hogan said the same thing on the Monday Night War episode that covered Hogan coming to WCW and their Bash and the Beach match. They could be lying, of course. Maybe one or both of them know why they never had a program in the WWF and they aren't saying. You could speculate that neither guy wanted to lose, but if that was the case they could have easily done a screwjob finish - just like they ended up doing in the Hogan/Sid match that actually ended up being the main event of WM8. Plus, Flair showed repeatedly over the years that he didn't have an ego about losing to Hogan. You could argue that Vince didn't think Flair was a big enough name or a draw, but if that was the case, like sek said - why did he put Flair over like a million bucks in the Royal Rumble? And why would he have put Flair in the other half of the double main event at WM8? The fact that they never had that match in the WWF never made sense to me. Does anybody know what Meltzer's theory is? Did Prichard ever cover this on one of his podcasts?

In my opinion this whole thing with the Shield vs. Miz and Company has become beyond stupid. The Shield vs. Braun & The Bar would have been awesome. I don't know why they had to make it a handicap match. I hate handicap matches with a passion. I can't think of one handicap match I ever enjoyed, aside from them being used with enhancement guys to get monsters over. The addition of Kane has done nothing to help this story. At this point, I don't even think I'm going to watch the stupid PPV, that's how little I care about this now.

Maybe, but even in some of ECW's most famous feuds, there were clear good guys and bad guys. Raven was the bad guy, Tommy was the good guy. Raven was the bad guy, Sandman was the good guy. Shane Douglas was the bad guy, Pitbull #1 was the good guy. The lines may have been blurry, but they were there.

And doubly funny, since they are now ditching the Global Force name again.

One of the things I dislike the most about the current product, and one of the things I miss the most about the kind of wrestling that existed when I was a kid, is the lack of clear "good guys" and "bad guys." I know I am out of touch with the current product and I am not suggesting that they are "wrong" in the way they are approaching things (although TV ratings and attendance suggest that could very well be the case) but I just don't like it. I find it very difficult to get emotionally invested in today's wrestling, and to me the quality of the match is only half the battle when it comes to compelling pro wrestling. You have to be emotionally invested to get the full impact of a good pro wrestling match, and I can't remember the last time I felt really emotionally invested in a pro wrestling match. I freely admit that I am probably stuck in the past, nostalgic for a simpler time. Having said that, let's look at other forms of entertainment. The top grossing movies from the past five years are all Superhero and Star Wars movies. If there is a genre of entertainment where there are clear heroes and villains, it has to be stories like Marvel movies and Star Wars. Vince himself has famously said he doesn't promote pro wrestling, he "makes movies." So make a good movie, then. I think wrestling fans would react positively to stories where there are heroes who do good things, and villains who do bad things, if these stories were written intelligently. I think the fact that wrestling has changed so much doesn't necessarily point to an evolution of character dynamics. I think it is far more indicative of a lack of creativity and poor writing on the part of the WWE writing staff. If WWE was capable of presenting well written storylines, I really do think the fans would buy back into the traditional face/heel roles. But it would have to be done right, and I don't think they know how to do that, I really don't. Or maybe they just aren't inclined.

Excellent point, and I think that is another reason why I philosophically didn't agree with this match. What Foley did was special and unique, and it's being diluted and devalued for no constructive reason. It's not like Shane McMahon needs to do stuff like that to add to his illustrious wrestling career. I really don't get the point of his doing bumps like that, other than raising the "stupid bump" bar for no reason. Overall, I thought this was actually a pretty good show, but I have some issues with that Main Event.

To me, there is just something fundamentally stupid and wrong-headed with headlining a Pay Per View with that match. Aside from everything else, if you watch it totally dispassionately it just wasn't a very good match. It was way too long, and it was sloppy and dangerous. There is no need to put guys at that kind of risk, screwing around up there on top of that cage, 20 feet in the air. It's not safe, and it conditions the fans to expect stupid, pointless bumps. And on top of all that, one of the participants isn't even really a wrestler. I just think the whole thing is stupid.

That Roode/Ziggler match was not so good. I don't know if it was because nobody gives a crap about Ziggler anymore, or if it's because Roode isn't catching on with the fans, but whatever the reason, that match just didn't connect with anybody...and I had thought the crowd was pretty loud otherwise tonight. As far as this Main Event? So far, bleh. Shane's punches are so lame, and he looks so sloppy with everything he does. (As so he should, since he's not really a wrestler.) Owens just doesn't do it for me, either. If only shouting made you good, Owens would be great. Are my ears deceiving me, or are some fans cheering Owens?

Exactly. There's your problem, right there. He's been made to look like an inferior joke in this rivalry with Mahal.

That WWE Championship match was a million times better than their match at Summerslam, but it still wasn't all that great. And booking Mahal that strongly still baffles me, India tour plans or not. Nakamura is pretty much toast as a Main Event level guy after getting beaten by Mahal two PPV's in a row.

I thought the US Title Triple Threat was excellent, adding Tye Dillinger to that match was the absolute right move. I really think that made the match way more entertaining than it would have been if it had just been Corbin vs. Styles. It would have been sad to see Baron Corbin beat AJ Styles as Corbin is quite simply nowhere near the level of AJ Styles...so if they had to put the title on Corbin, it's just as well they did it this way. I thought Dillinger was excellent in this match, and Styles was great as well. Corbin was Corbin. Execute a move fairly competently, stomp around, shout at the fans, repeat. With all the ping-pong title switches involving the US Title, that title is essentially meaningless at this point anyhow. I don't think losing it hurt Styles and I don't think winning it is really going to help Corbin. Not to mention, if they keep booking that title the way they have, it will just change hands a million more times over the next few months anyhow. The only way this helps Corbin is if they give him a half decent reign with some good title defenses over good challengers. Which they probably won't. Natalya vs. Charlotte was really good, in my opinion. Much better than I was expecting. This show has definitely been good and has exceeded all expectations. Although, that's kind of damning it with faint praise, since nobody expected shit from this show. Now that Jinder is in the ring, I fully expect the string of solid, watchable matches on this show to screech to a sudden halt.

Yeah that Rusev/Orton match was actually pretty inoffensive. I'd say it was fair to good. Would have liked to see Rusev go over, but we've seen a lot worse than that from Orton. I was pleasantly surprised.

Yeah I have no problems with this addition. It means we could see Tye win, or it means Corbin could beat Tye for the title which keeps AJ strong. It's not like Dillinger being added to this match is going to make it worse.

Damn, I don't think those two teams are capable of having a bad match against each other. I generally don't like tornado style matches and especially matches with all sorts of garbage/plunder and brawling (well, I used to love that stuff back in ECW, but I've outgrown that) but those guys made it work. These teams have had so many different kind of good matches against each other, this really could be the feud of the year. I honestly don't see how any other match on this show is going to be able to top that.

So this is tonight. Nobody seems all that hyped up about it, for reasons obvious. I will be watching, because I am already paying for the Network, so it's not costing me anything extra. If this was a traditional PPV, I wouldn't touch this show with the proverbial ten foot pole. Also, I've been bedridden for the last couple of weeks with a brutal illness, so at least it's something to watch on television. It beats laying here praying for the cold embrace of sweet merciful death. Maybe. WWE Championship Match: Jinder Mahal © vs. Shinsuke Nakamura I want this to be good, I really do. But I haven't seen anything out of Mahal yet which gives me any confidence in his ability to even be carried to a half-way decent match. On top of that, Nakamura has really been hit or miss so far in WWE, mostly miss. If this match is anything like their Summerslam match, I fear we are in for a stinker. Can't see Nakamura winning either, since they seem committed to the Mahal experiment. I predict lots of Singh Brothers hi-jinks. Hell in a Cell Falls Count Anywhere Match: Shane McMahon vs. Kevin Owens I can't stand Kevin Owens anymore. Having said that, I can't see him doing his ridiculous stalling/lie-down-and-take-a-break spots inside the Cell. He is capable of taking big, goofy bumps so this match is pretty much made for him. Shane is not a performer and has recently looked like he is about two steps away from a massive coronary, but he also takes big stupid bumps. This could have some train-wreck appeal, I guess. I don't know why they're doing this, aside from trying to make Owens into a monster heel. He sure is getting a massive push from the attack on Vince, so I guess they're trying to really make him into some sort of psycho or something. I am also puzzled by the point of having a Falls Count Anywhere match inside Hell in a Cell. One gimmick isn't good enough for this match? Hell in a Cell - Smackdown Tag Team Championships Match: The New Day © vs The Usos This match is pretty much the only reason I am going to watch this show. I really don't like the New Day characters, but their work since arriving on Smackdown has been outstanding and this feud has been utterly amazing. Every time these two teams hook up, you're pretty much guaranteed a good match, and it's a safe bet this will be no exception. I love this feud. WWE United States Championship Match: AJ Styles © Baron Corbin Well, I guess this will be a test to see how great AJ Styles is. Baron Corbin has really shown me nothing since getting called up from NXT, I just don't like the guy. His character is goofy, his look is goofy and I find his work to be bland and uninspiring. I'd like to think AJ will be able to drag a decent match out of him, but he couldn't do that with Kevin Owens, and Owens is better than Corbin, so I'm not holding my breath. I hope this doesn't turn out to be another interminable angle like the Owens feud, or Wyatt/Balor over on Raw. If they want to put Corbin over, fine...do it. Please just don't drag it out. Smackdown Women’s Championship Match: Natalya © vs Charlotte I didn't mind these two working against each other in NXT with Ric and Bret in their corners, and the same when they did it on Raw. This rivalry is getting a little old, no matter how you repackage it. But their matches are usually inoffensive. Randy Orton vs. Rusev I guess this will be better than the Summerslam squash, at least. It also depends how motivated Orton is. If he wants to make Rusev look good, this could be just okay. If he isn't feeling motivated, then chinlock city, here we come. Bobby Roode vs. Dolph Ziggler This new "I don't need a gimmick" gimmick of Ziggler is beyond annoying. His promos lately have been change-the-channel bad. Roode has been kind of bIeh since getting called up. In theory, these two could have a very good match, but I'm not sure they'll get the time or the creative opportunity. Logically, Roode should be going over here, so I expect a Ziggler win. Pre-Show: Chad Gable & Shelton Benjamin vs. The Hype Bros I love Gable and Benjamin, and it looks like Ryder or both the Hype Bros might be turning heel, so I expect them to lose. My hope is for the Usos to win the titles back and move into a program with Gable & Benjamin, but who knows what they have planned.

The crowd is emotionally drained from the Enzo vs. Neville match.