Loss

So I've heard Sean Waltman has been resurgent this year. Anyone here see him that can confirm that? That's the first time I've seen anyone give one of his matches **** in years.

Which was part of the problem in and of itself. Benoit didn't have all that much heat at the time and needed whatever boost he could get. Whether the title was put on him or not, I would have liked to see him beat up Mick Foley the next night on RAW for reversing the decision. That is at least follow up. Jericho getting pinned by HHH and Angle at the same time pretty much killed Jericho's chances at the top for nearly another year, and he immediately went into feuds with X-Pac and Kane after losing the third PPV match in a row to Benoit.

Coming back, many people point to Fully Loaded 2000 as the day the booking problems started. I think there were signs a few months earlier, but I do agree that this was a crucial pay-per-view, and the matches made Benoit and Jericho specifically look fine, but because there was no follow-up on the losses, it only made them look like they weren't good enough to be taken seriously in main events. In Angle's case, getting squashed by the Undertaker was perhaps the worst decision they made that year. Things really haven't been the same since that PPV.

For a little non-WWE This Day In History stuff, Bash '89, often called the best wrestling PPV ever, took place 16 years ago today. 16 years ... wow. I remember watching that show on PPV. Thanks for posting this, Cawthon. I hope you'll continue doing so. It's also been five years since Jericho suffered his first of many, many PPV losses to HHH (which I also remember watching live and being crushed) and it's been 10 years since we had that Michaels/Jarrett match at IYH II. Big day in wrestling history.

He was trained by two excellent guys, but I have never heard of him at all, to be honest. Thornton v Gilbert could be really fun, though.

They're still not getting the point. They should take this as a wakeup call to start cleaning up the public perception of wrestling, figuring out where to start. Vince always takes the defensive position of an underdog fighting for survival and fighting to show what the company is. Read his interviews sometime -- he spends at least half of them trying to explain exactly what the product *is* that he's presenting. They may lose some fans in the interim, but if anything they'd be trading up by no longer playing to the lowest common denominator. Once they address the problem of public image, which will take years to complete, most of their other problems will take care of themselves.

Haven't seen the match, but look forward to doing so. I still like Cactus as a performer quite a bit, but he's more of "really fun" than "really good" most of the time, although he's been known to surprise me here and there.

Rey/Crazy was really good, but it was a heavyweight style wrestled between two guys whose strengths could have been played up elsewhere. They did include some highspots -- like Crazy's beautiful moonsault -- but it was mostly working holds and building sympathy for Rey. I liked the match, but "solid" is the best way to describe it. *** or so from my end. Of course, the first five minutes had me doing other things while it was on, so I'm not sure what they did then. Benoit/Guerrero was the best Benoit/Guerrero match in quite some time, but I still felt like it was all Eddy when I was watching it. Benoit chops, attempts the crossface and German suplexes way too much and does other stuff way too little, but Eddy controlled most of this match and worked some really cool holds to really awesome heat. Benoit getting punched in the mouth at the onset for saying "I love you like a brother" was super awesome, and I liked that it created an opening that Eddy actually kept for a long time instead of keeping the match going more back and forth. Guerrero looked like a world beater here, but the finish sucked.

Actually, Cactus took some suicidal bumps in his series with Sting, and prior to that, it was the Nestea Plunge and the elbow off the apron that got him noticed in the first place anyway. I was impressed with Foley's knowledge of the basics when he actually used an amateur move at Mind Games '96 against Michaels, but outside of that, as much as I like the guy, I'm finding that most of his work just wasn't that good, bumping included.

Rikishi was always a hell of a bumper, actually, even in his younger, more slender days. I saw Page mentioned and I like Page, but Page takes horrible bumps, which was one of the gripes the WWE guys had about working with him.

Eugene wasn't a bad gimmick, it was just beaten into the ground far too quickly. They still need to have him do the heel turn admitting it was an act, which is the proper follow-up. Plus, it was Dinsmore's idea. People often forget that.

They'd get equally bad publicity for having him switch shows like that. I think this Monday on RAW, they should bring HHH back and have him do something horribly offensive, resulting in Viacom demanding that HHH be taken off of television permanently. In fact, that would be a good solution to a lot of problems. I think it's worth sacrificing one show and trying to make it the most offensive two hours of programming of all time, featuring all my least favorites as prominently as possible. They may be onto something.

"Promotional consideration paid for by the following." *RIP* I'll always remember his voiceover for Fruit Stripes gum.

I wonder when it debuts.

I was thinking that might be a possibility too, although it may be Viacom that has a problem with it, in which case they're screwed. We'll see.

Vote for the tag team that you feel was better. Voting ends in approximately 24 hours.

Vote for the tag team that you feel was better. Voting ends in approximately 24 hours.

Vote for the tag team that you feel was better. Voting ends in approximately 24 hours.

Vote for the tag team that you feel was better. Voting ends in approximately 24 hours.

This is the public statement WWE issued last week that I hadn't seen until now. This is quite humorous.

From 1Wrestling: Considering Hassan is pencilled into face Batista at Summerslam, I find this hilarious. Looks like a decision they made finally had consequences to it. I feel bad for Hassan getting hung out to dry like this, but I think it's great that WWE is probably going to have to change a lot of their long term plans now because they screwed up so royally.

He'll soon be known as the Sole Survivor Of The Hebner Family and both Nick Patrick and Charles Robinson will refuse to do programs with him.

What's the date of the show? If it's after August, I just might, since I'll be living in New Jersey. Of course, I have no idea how far it is from NJ to Buffalo.

Right, and to clarify what the thread was about, you'll notice Mick Foley has yet to be mentioned because this is more about wrestling bumping setting the tone and pace of a match than someone taking insane physical punishment to get a match over.

Okay, I just checked with someone who had Observer access around that time, and yes, it was a total rib on both of them. The idea was that they'd give them 30 minutes and people would realize that neither guy was as good as people thought they were.