Loss

I long for the days when fans put the product over with the cheering, chanting and booing. Now, fans put themselves over with the cheering, chanting and booing.

I'm interested in seeing it. Taker is one of the best in the company when he wants to work. I'm also thinking Rey/Orton has potential.

Yeah, One Night Stand II reminds me of WCW calling their PPV World War 3 ever year. Shouldn't the second one have been World War 4 and the next World War 5? Still, I'll probably find a way to attend this show, as long as tickets aren't beyond the realm of reason.

Not that I'm siding with WWE, but are there examples out there of Punk having good matches that don't last an hour and aren't against top-level talent? The only way Punk is going to forge ahead in WWE is to master working 5 minute matches where he hits all of his signature spots and does a lot of playing to the crowd. Once he gets over, he may start getting more time, and he'll just be doing the same formula but filling more space. I don't think Punk is long for WWE, though; I think the absolute best level of success he can hope for in the company is along the lines of an Edge or Christian, and even that may be stretching things.

I think fans know they're getting conned by Hogan, but they want to believe in him so badly that they don't care. They'll never call him on his lying, because he's not under oath; the Hogan the public wants lies and exaggerates and stretches the truth. It's what's expected.

Shawn Michaels v Chris Benoit - WWE RAW 05/03/04 First time I saw this when it aired live, I didn't think much of it at all. Someone must have spiked my drink with crack or something, because this was an awesome match, way better than I expected it to be when rewatching. The headlockery at the beginning is some of the better use of that spot I've seen in a WWE match and the build throughout is terrific. This match is definitely made-for-TV in that it's wrestled more like three 10-minute matches than one 30-minute one, so I don't think this layout would have worked on pay-per-view. Benoit is no-nonsense, though, and by proxy, some of the typical nonsense of his opponents gets left out of the game of his opponent because of the match layout -- there's no "oh-my-poor-back" selling, there's no no-sell kip up. It's just a battle of wills with each guy trying to outdo the other in any way possible. Favorite spots are Benoit's German suplex into a bridge (in WWE!!) and Shawn's Liontamer, which he should really use more often. There's silliness at the end with the ref bump and HHH making himself more important than the match, but this is probably Benoit's best match as champion and is definitely Shawn's best since returning in 2002. ***3/4 -- would have been higher with a clean finish. I normally don't really lower my opinion of the match enough to matter based on the finish, but with all the hype surrounding this, they really owed it to the fans to have a clear winner.

So, will WWE find a way to capitalize on Stacy Keibler's newfound mainstream stardom, or will they resent her for it because she's a woman, and find a way to make it not matter at all in a matter of weeks?

Ridiculous. So what if they put themselves in a position to not make it; the fact is that they *did* make it. TNA is hardly in a position to "punish" any talent they have, as they need all the help they can get. I do agree that guys no-showing PPVs is a problem, but they can take that out on the guys that have actually no-showed, not guys that did show up and put other talent over.

Eddy-sploitation. Is that causing anyone to swear off anything Vince McMahon ever promotes again? Not really. And would everyone be coming down quite as hard if he was caught soliciting an underage girl? Jerry Lawler is still gamefully employed in pro wrestling, so apparently not.

I hate to say it, but Vince McMahon is just as bad as Rob Feinstein. The difference is that Vince hasn't ripped off a bunch of tape traders with an axe to grind. I have to wonder if anyone would care that he was a pedophile if their ECW fancams weren't in such shitty video quality. This will be misinterpreted as me condoning his behavior, which I'm not. It's just that every wrestling promotion in the history of wrestling is filled with pedophiles and rapists. Was there a boycott of the WWF in the early 80s when Vince McMahon helped Jimmy Snuka cover up the death of his girlfriend? Was there an outrage against Giant Baba when he had Brody flush the evidence in David Von Erich's death, or when he got Steve Williams off of his drug charges? Is Inoki's Yakuza connection cause to not watch NJPW? I have no desire to invest my time in PWU as it's determined to fail anyway, but Rob Feinstein hasn't done anything that plenty of other people in wrestling haven't already done. And no, that doesn't make it right.

Nah. Kanyon publicly coming out of the closet is no more declaring himself a homosexual to the world than Matt Hardy publicly dating Ashley Massaro is declaring himself a heterosexual to the world. In fairness, if celebrities should be discouraged from coming out, so should straight celebrities who wear wedding rings in public. Exact same thing.

Bruno thinks Vince is a scumbag who sells drugged-upped sex objects to the masses and wants no part of it.

WWF related.

The selling point for this DVD will be seeing how creatively Hogan can lie about things that have happened in his career.

I'm curious. Is the Flair/Windham match from the Crockett Cup comm clipped or just JIP? If it's just JIP, I'd suggest splicing it together with the handheld version of that match that exists in full.

$100. Kind of a steal, actually.

I just picked up this set from a guy at Crazy Max and it's probably the most amazing collection of footage I've ever come across in one format. So be prepared for a full review of all of it soon, because it just blows me away that someone put this all in one set and I feel the need to share the love. I think EVERY wrestling fan should have this set, and at some point in the future, I might make some additions to it myself.

Johnny Ace had to fly to house shows to calm Taker down about the whole thing. Vince didn't discipline Ace, since he felt it would be seen as him appointing a weak person to head Talent Relations.

Or if he's winning it even. Christian winning was the right decision, and it surprised me that they went through with it. Let's hope he doesn't drop it back to Jarrett, or drop it to someone else who will then drop it to Jarrett. Or drop it to someone who will in turn drop it to someone who will then drop it to Jarrett. Or drop ... you get the picture.

Meltzer recently reported that the wrestlers had to sneak someone out of a restaurant where Dixie Carter was because he was completely strung out. Do you think this is a case of putting two and two together?