goc

Yea but if we get a Patriots/Panthers SuperBowl we can get Hogan vs. Flair one more time!

Have not seen any reports on this, or anyone else really mention it but I have been wondering for a while: with only 1 title now, what happens this year at Elimination Chamber? They are building up a Brock title match, which I kind of assumed would be at EC and not WrestleMania. But if Brock is going to face the Champion one on one, and the Royal Rumble winner gets the title shot at Mania, what exactly is going to be contested inside the Elimination Chamber?

Man I had not even thought of Lesnar/Bryan. There are really so many more interesting Lesnar matches than just about anyone in the company. I guess that's kind of unfair since he doesn't work anything close to a full schedule but I would be interested in seeing Lesnar vs Taker, Batista, Bryan, hell I wouldn't even mind a rematch with Punk. Last year you could have swapped Batista and Bryan with Ryback & Sheamus but Ryback DEFINITELY wouldn't work now and I don't think Sheamus would either. As far as Taker/Cena goes, has there ever been a report for why they seem to have no interest in running that match at Mania? I can't imagine they really are worried about having Cena lose, so does one of them not want to do the match? Or is WWE worried about the crowd being completely anti-Cena?

Sounds like the kind of made up rumor that credits the WON when in fact it was never reported there. Haven't listened to this week's podcast nor read the newsletter, does anyone know if Dave said anything about this? That feels like Taker hearing all the rumors that he's supposed to fight Lesnar and remembering "oh hell no that guy hits like a truck and my body is already almost completely broken" That's a big high profile match for Daniel Bryan but I really don't like the matchup. EDIT: Oh and I just read this report right after my post.

I decided to check out the UFC Fight Pass and it would be so awesome if WWE would let you choose different camera angles when watching stuff on the WWE Network. I doubt they would ever do it because they have a lot more reasons not to than UFC but it would still be pretty cool to choose to watch a match from just the hard cam or something like that.

I really think everyone should calm down calling this a "heel turn" after just one week. I'm pretty sure this whole thing leads to Bryan being the one who will end up causing the Wyatt Family to break up.

There needs to be a youtube video of Cena going into Hot Topic to buy that shirt.

I still kind of feel like Batista is coming back to work Orton due to all the history between Batista, Orton & HHH but Batista vs Brock would be so awesome. It's like the one big dream match between the two that hasn't happened. Not sure they are really going to pull the trigger on Taker vs Cena though since I think the crowd would be SO one sided against Cena.

I'm not sure the crowd would have taken as kindly to Dustin & Buck as they did Eaton & Arn, but it was an earlier time for ECW as well.

Memphis area just seemed to have guys that were awesome, then would disappear and not pop up anywhere else until coming back years and years later. Phil Hickerson and Troy Graham both did the same thing, with both working in bars/clubs.

One thing I did learn is that having obviously non Japanese people playing Japanese heels was not new to PY Chu Hi. Even with the horrible video quality I can tell that Oki Shikina is NOT Japanese. I looked up some info on him and apparently he was from Mexico!

I never really cared much for Jimmy Golden, but I'm trying to clean up some stuff that's been sitting on my hard drive and just finished watching January and some of February 1981 Southeast Championship Wrestling (Continental) and he has been outstanding as the new top heel of the territory. I don't totally understand the whole deal with Ron Fuller wearing the Tennessee Stud mask since everyone already seemed to know it was him, but Golden turns on him and ties his arms to the ropes and steals his mask. Then he cuts some great promos on Fuller while always having the mask with him. Then after a few weeks we finally get a promo from Ron Fuller who says he feels humiliated in the South East area and so he's going to move on to another territory. Of course, that leads to a great Jimmy Golden promo afterwards, since all the trash he talked about Fuller seems to have come true. All the while he's facing guys like Mr Wrestling II and Ken Lucas at the arenas, big stars (at least for the territory) coming to avenge their friend Ron Fuller. I'm sad this is all the Southeast that I have because I'd really like to see when Fuller inevitably comes back to face him. That's not to mention the good stuff going on between Bullet Bob Armstrong & Brad Armstrong vs Randy Rose, Dennis Condrey & Saito. Plus they spent about 10 minutes giving a very balanced and thoughtful look into an upcoming "Women's Liberation" tag match with Joyce Gable and Judy Martin vs. Roy Welch & Robert Gibson that kind of blew me away for a promotion based in Alabama in 1981. Southeast, Gulf Coast, Continental, whatever you want to call it this promotion is really a hidden gem. It's sad there isn't more footage.

So back to wrestling, I just read a report that with Hunico taking over the Sin Cara mask, Mistico isn't expected to be re-signed when his contract expires on January 10th. How big of a deal will his return to Mexico be? Will it matter that WWE reported his full name when announcing his Wellness violation?

"two über workrate guys workrate the fuck out of each other" is one of my favorite wrestling message board quotes of all time.

I can't believe TNA still sticks with Mike Tenay as their #1 announcer. I guess if you want him to stick around on Xplosion that's cool, but he's been ruining their main show for YEARS. I don't know who should replace him, but they should be cycling guys on Xplosion constantly until they find someone to replace Tenay.

For people saying that the most tech savvy people already know where to get wrestling for free, that is true. You can go download every Raw, Smackdown and PPV if you wanted to. But it's not going to be anywhere near the same kind of video quality that they'll have on this service. I would definitely pay for that, not to mention getting current PPVs on top of it. Adding in some of their other tape libraries like WCW,Mid-South, WCCW, AWA, etc. is something they'll almost certainly do, even if it's not everything available at launch like the dubious report says would be the case with Raw, Smackdown and PPVs.

The thing is...Kofi really isn't that over anymore. He's been kind of jobbed out lately and that's been hurting him. I don't think he's much of a merch mover either. Plus he's been stuck in a feud with the heat vacuum Miz (who's stock has dropped so sharply in only two years). The kind of guy you described is great to keep around. Santino's really over with the kids/general audience and I'm sure those Cobra socks probably sell a ton. R-Truth is someone who's good to keep around. The crowd loves the interaction they get with the What's Up entrance and he's perfectly fine in the tag team he's in now. To be honest, Truth is a guy who I think has more to offer. He was really on a roll a few years ago as a heel before they turned him face again because of the Little Jimmy stuff. I agree that Truth was doing some really good stuff as a heel before they messed it up teaming him with Miz and then turning him face. But he was really disappointing in the ring during this time period to me. I thought his main event match with Cena at Capitol Punishment was maybe Cena's weakest PPV main event match. I was just expecting him to be more vicious in the ring go along with the character change.

I think the thing that stands out the most about the match lists people have posted for Cena is that in 2007 he was having great matches with pretty much everyone they threw at him. 2006 was really kind of when he started to hit his peak with the Edge feud. Then in 2007 he had great matches with Umaga, HBK & Great Khali, plus a pretty good one out of Bobby Lashley. The start of the Orton feud felt like something that was building up to be great until he got injured in October. After coming back from his first big injury, the torn pectoral in October 2007, he hasn't had that same consistency. In 2008 his big return against Orton turned out really disappointing, which I think was due more to him rushing back from injury than anything else because he and Orton went on to have great matches in 2009. He makes a return at the 2008 Royal Rumble only to go out with another injury after a pretty good match with Batista at SummerSlam. He had surgery for a herniated disc in September and was back in November for a good if somewhat disappointing series with Chris Jericho. 2009 started with the really good Raw match with Shawn Michaels from London then some stuff with Big Show and Edge that felt like it wasn't as good as it should have been. I felt he really picked things up once he got back to feuding with Orton though, with the great I Quit match, and the Ironman match which is my personal favorite Cena/Orton match. I think the end of 2009 started to show he wasn't able to elevate his opponents like he used to when he started his feud with Sheamus. 2010 started pretty good for Cena with good series with Batista who was at HIS career peak as a heel, a few months before leaving WWE. Once he got back to Sheamus it was another disappointing match and then a great SummerSlam 5 on 5 match against The Nexus, even though a lot of people hated the finish I still think the match holds up. Once he got to wrestling Wade Barrett it still felt like 2007 John Cena would have been having much better matches with the guys WWE was trying to push quickly into the main event. The Nexus feud seemed to drag on forever ending only for Cena to transition into a feud with Miz. 2011 started bad for Cena, I don't blame him for this however. While I think he could have done better with Sheamus or Wade Barrett, Miz was just pushed way higher than he should have been. Cena/Miz had one of the weakest WrestleMania main events ever. Then Cena ends the Miz feud only to have what I think is his most disappointing PPV main event ever with R-Truth in June but things did get better for Cena when they finally found someone new he could have great matches with when they paired him up with CM Punk. Once he transitioned to Del Rio, it felt like a lackluster series but WWE has never actually put any effort into booking Del Rio so that's always been a problem with him. Survivor Series had a really weak tag match with Cena & Rock vs Miz & Truth which the buyrate indicated no one cared about. 2012 started with a silly feud with Kane with really weak matches. The WrestleMania match with The Rock felt disappointing when you consider the massive amount of hype it had going into it. He did follow that up with one of his best matches ever with Brock Lesnar in April but booking did him no favors after that sticking him with a really lame match against John Laurinaitis in May and getting stuck wrestling DOA Lord Tensai on TV. His matches with Big Show are always disappointing to me because I feel like he's never had a better match with Big Show than he had with Khali which feels impossible. Once they finally got him paired up with CM Punk again it started to pick up with a really great match at Night of Champions in September but he gets injured the year and the rest of the year is disappointing. I didn't care much for the Dolph Ziggler match at TLC but a lot of people seem to like it. 2013 starts with Cena winning the Rumble and then getting with the Shield including a really great 6 man tag with Ryback & Sheamus against The Shield at Elimination Chamber. Follows that up with another really good match with CM Punk on Raw but WrestleMania against The Rock felt like another disappointment. After WrestleMania he remains involved with The Sheild, having some really good 6 tags with Daniel Bryan and Kane on Raw in April and May but getting stuck with Ryback on PPV in May in June in really overbooked, lackluster matches. He has a great match with Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam before going out for surgery. But since coming back he's been stuck wrestling Alberto Del Rio in another set of matches that are good but nothing to go out of your way to see. It seems weird that Cena would be able to get better matches out of Great Khali in 2007 than he ever got out of Big Show. Or that his stuff with Umaga is miles ahead of anything he did with Sheamus, Ryback or Wade Barrett. Maybe I'm just looking at 2007 with rose colored glasses, but I watched some of that stuff not too long ago and it still held up to me. I can't speak to the Bobby Lashley match since I haven't seen it in so long but it still feels like that match was better than anything Cena has done with Alberto Del Rio, which seems crazy. But I'm SURE it's better than the stuff Cena did with Miz or that one PPV match with R-Truth. I think it seems pretty clear that while Cena can still have great matches, his consistency is not the same as it was since his initial torn pectoral in 2007.

So I guess Tony Atlas DID go back to Puerto Rico after Brody's death?

I know Cena is back, but just having him in a forgettable match with ADR isn't going to help the fact that this PPV is headlined by Big Show and Randy Orton. The last few PPVs have all had pretty weak line-ups but this one is the worst.

I remember reading something about that Matt Borne 1 night run somewhere but I don't remember where. I seem to remember there being a real life fight with Buddy Rose involved.

I don't think anyone here is saying they WANT him to die or are hoping to read that when they click the thread.

It kind of feels like that's almost been done already though. Especially if you believe the reports that they are blaming weak buyrates in the last 3 PPVs on Daniel Bryan and not Randy Orton. Bryan hasn't had nearly as much of a chance to prove himself as a draw as Randy. Randy however has shown he ISN'T a draw, especially when they tried to move him to Smackdown and make him the "ace" and house show ticket sales dropped off big time.

I feel like we will actually get that Goldust/Cody Rhodes match at WrestleMania now. Although I'm not sure I really want to see Goldust as a heel at this point.