Loss

Marty can probably find work in TNA or ROH since that match earlier this year with Angle got people talking about him again.

Is there anyone released that could get over big elsewhere, though, or that has a huge name that would even be a big draw on the indies? I think Matt Hardy was the hottest free agent in wrestling before the releases, and after a lot of them, he remains so.

Viscera drew a freakishly high quarter hour one week, so they've probably decided he's a draw. And it's very obvious watching him that Vince McMahon is a big fan of his character and is probably writing most of the stuff himself.

With the exception of Matt Morgan, everyone on that list has either been impregnated by Kurt Angle, defeated by Kurt Angle, drafted by Kurt Angle or acted as a lackey for Kurt Angle.

HHH Undertaker Hulk Hogan Shawn Michaels Vince McMahon Stephanie McMahon Kevin Dunn Jim Ross Jerry Lawler All wrestlers over 250 lbs All wrestlers over 40 I have a gut feeling.

I'm glad more British stuff is becoming talked about and available. Considering that the guys who I've seen work that style in the US are among my favorites, I'm sure I'd love all of it.

In a perfect world, Bret Hart would be booking WWE.

Speaking of that, working with limited guys, I remember Bret Hart saying once that he could carry anyone to a decent match by asking them ahead of time what their three biggest moves were and building big to each one happening. I thought that was pretty cool.

I'm assuming Cena/Jericho will be blown off on TV before the big event if that's the plan, but I'd rather see Edge use his MITB stip immediately after Cena beats Jericho or something. That way, the feud that is starting to gain momentum is saved for the big show and everyone wins. It's also interesting how much more they're willing to invest in Jericho the moment he turns heel. He works as a face and can't get anywhere near the belt, turns heel and is immediately there. They obviously have much more faith in him in that role.

According to Scherer's hotline: * HHH will be out until after Summerslam because the creative team thinks he's overexposed. He may even take more time off than that to make another movie. * Edge/Cena is the planned Summerslam main event at this point.

Vote for the team that you feel had the best run as a tag team from 1985 to 2005. Voting will last approximately 24 hours and the winner of each match will advance to the second round. Because the goal of the tournament is to promote discussion, please feel free to explain how you came to your decision as much as possible. Match #5 - Midnight Express (Eaton & Lane) v Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko Match #6 - Demolition v Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith Match #7 - Doom v Road Warriors Match #8 - Rock & Roll Express v Dream Team (Valentine & Beefcake)

Sometimes, wrestling isn't supposed to be entertaining every second that it's on. It's supposed to establish things for the future -- I'm willing to forgo the occasional ** 25-minute RAW tag match to do 3-4 squashes that get over guys who need to get over and build to a bigger and better match in the future. The problem they've run into now is that the PPVs are just like the TV shows because there are so many big matches on both, and the PPVs should always be a step above. From a business standpoint, it makes perfect sense.

If this is intended to be a dib at the ROH board for that one comment, it's really funny.

The thing is that metal tends to go through phases where it's cool and phases where it's not. Hip hop is always trendy, and staying on top of that trend (or gravy-training it) assures that WWE will always at least seem contemporary.

Match #1 - Jung Dragons v British Bulldogs -- Gotta go with the Bulldogs here. Far more longevity as a team with good matches happening nationally and internationally. Match #2 - Los Guerreros v Edge & Christian -- Edge and Christian. Eddy & Chavo are more of a team that could have been great than a team that was great, I think. Match #3 - Booker T & Goldust v Fantastics -- Fantastics. Bookerdust was a great team for the time they were together, but the Fantastics are probably the best American babyface tag team of all time. Match #4 - Chris Benoit & Chris Jericho v Hollywood Blondes -- Hollywood Blondes. Benoit & Jericho might have been competitive had they teamed over the long haul.

The idea of some wrestlers not having any entrance music is great. I know they'll never hire him, but that would be a great way to make someone like Steve Corino stand out from the pack as the "King of Old School". "Dory Funk Jr didn't have entrance music," he could say. I really like this idea. I think the last guy to not have entrance music was Scott Hall in WCW in the short period where he had turned on Nash and had been booted from the nWo and had no friends. I like the idea too -- they'd probably get a better idea with some guys if it's their music or the wrestlers themselves that are over, which has probably been the case with at least a few guys over the past few years. This is a fantastic, fantastic idea, and I love it, because it shows a way of thinking that gets away from the isolationist way of doing business that was necessary when there was more than one wrestling superpower. There is no indy in existence that wouldn't work with WWE. Again, agreed. This worked really well in getting the 1-2-3 Kid over in 1993. These are probably the two best points I think you made, especially since their Latino audience has been the fastest-growing segment of their audience the past few years. This allows them to bring in lucha heavyweights as well. As much as Konnan annoys me, the guy could be huge in WWE right now. I might add "shot to the kisser", which Keller lamented recently and has always annoyed me as well. I guess one thing about the WWE business model that is both practical and annoying is that they have never excelled at booking, but they have always excelled at marketing. The marketing affects the wrestling style, because you have to be able to sell t-shirts with the name of the finisher, so every match must end with the finisher. The marketing affects the interview style, because everyone has to say his catchphrase at some point in his promo. It's one of those necessary evil things. I'm absolutely in favor of this idea. It's a throwback to the old NWA as well, which HHH seems to be really high on.

Yeah, the Observer had something a couple of years back I think about how Michael Cole got laughed at by management when he tried to do some prep work before a pay-per-view and never tried it again as a result.

Thanks for posting the bio. Konnan thought he was borderline on WOL, but still, more info was nice. BTW, on the same WOL, Dave Meltzer also said Konnan is on the ballot.

According to various things Tim and the DVDVR guys have said, he apparently became sort of good at some point. When did this happen? I haven't seen him since 2003, but I know Dave Meltzer bashes him constantly.

I have all the respect in the world for them for doing the job, and I do admit that there are factors we don't take into consideration (i.e. approaching someone the Undertaker's size and telling him to put someone over, having to kowtow to the vision Vince wants and being afraid to question the status quo for fear of losing one's job, having a long-term plan for someone who gets injured or loses their heat, having the top guys make alterations to the final show or not doing what you asked them do anyway, etc), so I do understand that it's a hard, stressful job and that getting things to actually play out the way they're intended to play out is one of the most difficult and overlooked aspects of the job.

(1) Protect weaknesses of guys you're pushing. In current WWE, anyone presented as a strong character -- face or heel -- gets over as a babyface because there are so few strong characters. That actually works fine in essence, but I'd like to see a little more hierarchy in the booking. Yes, they already do a halfway decent job of protecting guys like HHH and Michaels, but upper midcarders should be more protected than guys below them on the food chain. There should be a definite path to the top every wrestler takes with every wrestler having a role that is understood and makes sense. It sounds like common sense, but you don't put a live mic in a guy's hand that can't talk. You don't make a guy who can't work get in the ring for 15 minutes at a time, at least not on RAW and Smackdown. You don't put those who can't act in a position to do a lot of skits. There seems to be a lot of backwards thinking, and HHH has really poisoned Vince's mind into thinking they shouldn't elevate anyone unless they're great workers and great talkers and can work with anyone. Those guys who are that talented are a rare breed, and they can make some of the green guys look far better with a little forethought. Cena shouldn't be having long title defenses and he shouldn't be positioned as a sideshow champion. Batista should be a silent killer who disposes of his opponents in either short matches or longer, more competitive brawls. Instead of waiting for someone to come along that can do absolutely everything, you take the guys that are getting the best responses and put them in positions to remain strong and get over. There's no excuse for a guy as over as Christian to do so many jobs. They should really not have wrestlers pointing out super-obvious flaws in their opponents either (age, how injury-prone they are, how they've never won the big one, etc.) (2) Continuity, continuity, continuity. If two wrestlers have feuded before, don't just assume the audience has forgotten about it. Acknowledge it. Edge and Kane are feuding now. Throw a bone to the audience, and remind them that Edge defeated Kane in his comeback at Backlash 2004. Mention that Edge and Christian dropped the tag titles for the final time to the Undertaker and Kane in 2001, thus necessitating Edge's switch to singles and climbing of the mountain. Mention that Edge sided with the Undertaker back in 1998-1999 around the same time that the Undertaker revealed that he started that fire in an attempt to murder his brother. Storyboard, storyboard, storyboard. If you start remembering your own angles more often, the fans will become trained to accept that and want that. (3) Adjust the wrestling style considerably. Stop letting wrestlers "steal" the finishers of their opponents in big matches -- it's cliched, it's played out and it's cheap heat. Work the tag formula in tighter fashion -- cut off hot tags instead of the wrestlers always making it on the first try, let the heels cheat more often than they do instead of just working restholds until the face comes back. They have the largest video library available in the free world -- wrestlers should be encouraged to study matches and angles of the past when there's a certain point of view the writers are trying to accomplish, in just the same way film directors give their cast members role research and ask them to watch certain movies of the past. This ties into #4. (4) Send the writers through OVW. Make them watch tapes until they're ready to vomit, take notes on past angles, hear pointers from Cornette on what made them work or not work -- not just successful angles, but unsuccessful ones as well. Actually put them through a *class* and have them write papers on the history of St. Louis wrestling or the demise of WCW or the differences between WWE and AJPW wrestling style or whatever else. There is no system in place right now to create and foster new booking talent, as ex-wrestlers usually just take over and push their buddies. In a class of, say, 8 guys (and that's really all you'd need in a year's time), give each of them a month of OVW TV to book (with Cornette's guidance) and whichever ones are doing the best job are the ones who get called up to book for WWE. They need to watch matches to understand wrestling psychology and understand how the story can sometimes be furthered through the layout of a match and not just through skits. I'm not as opposed to some are about WWE hiring guys from Hollywood because it is an interesting perspective, but they need to aim higher instead of just marking out for anyone who's worked on a "real" show. That leads me to point #5. (5) Stop being embarrassed about being wrestling and letting the self-consciousness creep in through the booking. They go out of their way to encourage fans not to take angles seriously by making this incredibly light-hearted atmosphere where faces dress down the heels and make fun of all their obvious weak points instead of saying, "Yeah, you're good but you're not good enough to beat me", more of a phrase that gets over both guys. It's an old philosophy that will never change in WWE, but they hate the idea of being a wrestling company. They won't use the word on TV unless it just slips in. Do you think Bill Watts would ever call his territory Mid South Entertainment? Hell no! It's fine to have wrestlers breaking kayfabe in the media and acknowledging that what they do is a show there, but there needs to be a super-concentrated effort to maintain kayfabe at all times during the show itself. Be proud of presenting a professional wrestling product. (6) Hire announcers who understand the product and grew up as fans. They purposely look for people who have no product knowledge as commentators so they can teach them their way, and they consider it markish when announcers do preparation before the broadcasts. The announcer shouldn't participate in angles, he shouldn't be made fun of -- he's the voice of truth and him having credibility is important because he's the one who's saying what you want the fans to be thinking. That means less obvious bias and more attempt at objectivity, and that also means keeping them strong and credible by not having them shill stupid ga-ga that is only written for laughs and not in a serious attempt to get over anyway. (7) More squash matches. Guys like Christian would benefit tremendously here, because they wouldn't have to be facing the top talent and doing jobs every single week. Christian rarely, if ever, gets a win and he's a guy that's now being pushed near the top of the card -- let him establish his offense through squashes on undercarders so it'll actually be over when he does it in the big matches. (8) Abandon Ironman matches (they draw poor ratings and buyrates because fans know the exact moment the match is to end and it kills the suspense). If you want a match to go 60 minutes, just have it go 60 minutes. No reason to announce ahead of time that it's going to go 60 minutes. (9) Bringing in older stars for nostalgia is fine since fans usually like it quite a bit, but don't do it to a point where it overshadows the current product and makes yesterday look far better than today. Cena is in a point where they've set up a strong heel machine to feed him right now in Jericho, Michaels, Angle, Edge and HHH. Sadly, Hulk Hogan is back and looks like the far bigger deal. Ditto when Austin makes an appearance. If guys like that are going to be coming back, they need to use them to get over new heels by having the new heels leave them laying. Having the old guys come back and squash the new talent is as counterproductive as it gets. (10) See 1-9.