Boondocks Kernoodle

Not cheating by Googling it, but I believe it's Al Snow.

http://forums.thesmartmarks.com/index.php?showtopic=80272 This should be viewable to non-members, I think.

It's so weird how the wellness policy seems to have come back after an absence of over a year. Nobody failed at all in 2010?

I must admit, I never knew Bruce Prichard was this accomplished.

It's on their Privacy Policy. I'd link to it, but...well, you know.

Fresh meat

I got the impression that it isn't supposed to air and was just done for the crowd.

Is it a bad sign that Cena got heavily cheered over Punk last night? I know that's to be expected, because Punk never really made a face turn, but I still got Royal Rumble '94 flashbacks. I could imagine people backstage watching that and thinking, "see, he's not that over." If the same thing happens next week, I expect Cena to win at Summerslam.

I don't even think he hid it all that well, because when I was 10 years old, I didn't even know what blading was, but I saw that spot and told my brother "when he goes to fix his boot he's pulling out the blood capsule, and when he holds his head after Piper hits him that's where he breaks it."

I know many of you guys are skeptical if not outright dismissive of such reports but, in case anyone was wondering, Dave said on Observer Radio that HHH beating up Punk was in the first four drafts of the Raw script and Punk was the one who talked them into changing it. Dave seemed very frustrated at the idea that nobody on the writing team knew enough to veto this in the early stages.

I remember seeing Goldberg and Abbott brawling on the Nitro the night after New Blood Rising and thinking it actually looked pretty good and that a real match between them (not that 30 second thing they did for Goldberg's comeback) might not be so bad, assuming they didn't do anything but wild brawling. That was originally planned as the Starrcade 2000 main event, believe it or not.

Well I DID say HHH yells about Bret at the breakfast table, so we'll have to agree to disagree! I'm sure he doesn't carry the anger with him all the time, or even a lot of the time, but I'm sure his impression of Bret is as "one of the old assholes who didn't help me out when I was a young guy." JBL had a bad experience with Tully Blanchard at the beginning of his career and in 2006 he chewed Tully out backstage at a WWE event. Shawn yelled at Bill Watts in 1995 for fining him in '84. Warrior still hates Hogan for whatever reason (well, Warrior isn't any kind of example of normal behavior, but neither are most wrestlers). People in wrestling hold grudges for a long time.

I think that left him with a negative opinion of Bret that hasn't subsided over time. HHH was very strongly against Bret coming back for Mania 22, when Vince thought he could get Bret to do a match with him, and he was against his return in 2010. He must have reasons for not liking him, and I think it's most likely that they are the same reasons why he didn't like him back then.

He means WWE wouldn't have been stupid enough to choose Bret over Shawn. See, because he's still mad at Bret for not jobbing to him 14 years ago. IIRC he was against Bret's return too. I wonder about Bret's future in a HHH-run WWE. I'm not sure that he has Vince's ability to put aside differences in order to make money.

They went through six Raw scripts, according to (the apparently unreliable) Dave. Is it that hard to believe one of them featured HHH beating up Punk? This is the company that had Cena beat up Rock the week before Mania. They don't know the value of refraining from physical angles. That they wouldn't immediately recognize that such a thing would hurt Punk's heat isn't unthinkable. They didn't even do the angle, they just considered it. That's impossible? You guys really think Dave just makes shit up?

I sense they're trying to do a bit of the "fan-friendly president Gorilla Monsoon" angle with HHH. He brought back JR and I'm guessing Punk's return will be attributed to him as well. It's better than another heel authority figure.

I know that this is indicative of extreme wrestling dorkiness on my part but I immediately recalled that the legendary Herb Kunze transcribed the article you were referring to. At least, I think this is it:

Meltzer gave Cena-Punk *****, the first WWE match to receive such an honor since the HBK-Taker HITC. I can't disagree.

Dave said on Observer Radio that this is just an angle but that the Vince-HHH transition is planned sooner than later. Bryan said that he had heard that the switchover was originally planned fro next year's Mania, but Dave said he doesn't know that there's an exact time. But it is being discussed as something that's going to happen rather than a theoretical situation as it had been in the past. Dave also mentioned that Vince gets more easily tired than before and that he needs a full day of rest every week to keep up his 4 hour a night sleeping schedule on workdays.

He also said that about the exploding limo angle. I liked the closing angle, but if people are down on it, it's because they were expecting something cool with Punk and they didn't get it. Of course it was underwhelming compared to Sunday, or last week's Raw. Punk is the hottest star in the business and he wasn't there.

When was the last wellness suspension before Sin Cara? Were there any in 2010?

So Dave is reporting that Sin Cara has failed a wellness test, that he failed the test over a month ago, and that he may not be brought back. What?

This is actually great for WWE. When Punk leaves in two weeks, they can claim he was fired for his homophobic comments (after a two-week internal investigation) and will look like heroes to the anti-bullying forces.