BBscout

There's a tight tag match with Rey/Juventud vs. Psicosis/LA Parka from Nitro 12-15-97 that I've always loved. Would think it's one of those matches that happened all the time but don't believe that was the case. Nice in-stereo tope con hilos from Rey and Juvi.

Survivor Series is in MSG this year and Rock is confirmed. Should be a big bridge between SSlam and Rumble.

We're not. There is no WCW now. Punk isn't Leaving with the belt to a WCW. Christ... Bret wasn't Leaving with the belt to WCW: he always was going to drop it. This is something so Inside Politics that only means something to hardcores and doesn't mean dick to the majority of current WWE Fans. For fuck's sake... Montreal was 14 years ago. How many of the WWE's *current* fans were even WWE Fans in 1997? Think I'm full of shit? Someone should track how many DVD's the "Shawn-Bret Montreal" set sells when it comes out, and then do the math on what % of WWE Fans dropped a dime on it. You'll find it's a low %. Montreal meant something to a generation of fans... but even within that generation it's wildly overblown. More people watched "Rock: This Is Your Life" and the freaking Beer Truck than Montreal, and Rock & Stone Cold are more iconic to that generation than Bret & Shawn and something like Montreal. I'll give you a real sports equiv: The 1975 World Series, Game 6, Fisk hitting the dinger. It was an iconic moment. Huge in that era. Now? It means dick except to baseball hardcores and fans like me who were fans in 1975 and lived that great moment live. "But jdw... that was 36 years ago. Montreal was only 14 years ago. They're no analogous." Okay. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1993/B10230TOR1993.htm Four years prior to Montreal. Massive baseball moment. 25-30M people watched it live in this country, which is saying something since one of the teams involved was a non-US market. How big is that dinger to current baseball fans? Do we hear people talk about it like they did Maz's HR when we were kids in the 70s? Now also recall that Baseball Fans tend to be an older fanbase than Wrestling Fans, and that Baseball tends to have less "drift" among fans than Wrestling where fans grow up and away from it similar to a lot of forms of Entertainment. The non-actualization of Montreal means something to a group of pavlovian hardcores like ourselves (well... other than those who go tired of hearing/talking about Montreal back in 1998-2001), but means little to the mass of WWE Fans. To them, this angle lives and dies on whether they give a shit about: Punk Cena Vince I suspect the Cena aspect means little since the "Cena Is Fired" gimmick not only was crippled by being recently run, but by Punk specifically pointing out it was meaningless. So it comes down to Vince, who means a hell of a lot less now than when he was going around in circles with Stone Cold, and Punk... a wrestler they're trying to elevate up. Basically comes down to whether they give a shit about Punk being the latest in a long line of wrestlers who have had issues with Vince. Not hardcores giving a shit about Punk, but WWE Fans. John Amen. Jury's out on the reactions at the upcoming venues that aren't Boston and Chicago-level reliable atmospheres. Not taking anything away from Punk because the work has been spot on, but Boston wasn't blowing the doors off for him as much as they were for Vince IMO. Definitely great buildings to build the necessary steam in though. The taped show between the live Vegas and live Boston shows hurt them with getting a chance to pick up anything they could off the mainstream mentions from ESPN, etc. This will be the second round of that attention and let's see what they do. I do think you're jaded on Vince's value to the angle. He's a fresh character again after being off TV for a while, and the last few times he's been there as a face.

I always thought of it as Sting is still one guy Hogan never pinned though. 0 for 5.

FWIW, Hall has said they had better matches on the circuit leading up to Mania. Not sure how many they had but two of them were on dailymotion if you haven't seen them. One from Los Angeles and the other San Jose.

How about the cut to the back with Kabuki and Tenryu laying a beat down on somebody. The look he gives the refs that are breaking it up is priceless.

Thought I read somewhere that there won't be a Hall of Fame broadcast the night before but instead will air the week after. True? EDIT - Got it ...Link

A reality TV show is where it's at. Put some of the boys and some of the divas in a house and roll that beautiful bean footage.

When I heard "most downloaded personality on AOL" again, I thought of "world's longest running episodic television show."

Angle-wise I'm a big fan of this and thought it may get overlooked. Shawn Michaels/Diesel/Undertaker vs. Owen Hart/British Bulldog/Yokozuna from an October RAW. At the time it felt like a big deal to have Taker aligning himself with anybody as opposed to ridin solo and could have been the first time since the 92SNME tag with Flair vs. Sid & Hogan if I recall right. The 5 on 3 beatdown with Douglas and Mabel that left them all laying was a cool sight and was delivered pretty well.

Using the Online world of wrestling, which would be the blow-off?: I was talking singles matches and for Cena I thought Michaels lost the UK one but he didn't. The win was mistaken for a loss because my memory of the match is that Cena went an hour with him. So three of four top guys if you go off standard wins and losses but I see that match as an exception.

they waited too long but still as of past September he was getting enormous face reactions and was killing everybody. And in a rare occurrence in WWE booking actually went over in the PPV 6 way to get the title after dominating everyone on TV True statement and I think it went to shit soon thereafter when they did Orton-Cena (during sweeps week was the reason for it I assume). I felt they had been apart from each other for a good while and people were looking for another face to cheer big besides Cena, but that there took some steam off Orton. Still maintain that will be a big time Mania match with Cena a heel though. I really wish they would do an All-Stars tag with that video game they've got coming out or a faces-raise-hands show closing moment between past and present era top guys.

Small price to pay if it's the end of his wrestling career. If it's true, I think it's interesting that both Shawn and HHH would both stop wrestling without putting over someone on the way up. Then again, Steve Austin did the same thing by losing to Rock instead of someone on the way up, so I guess there's no difference between the two. Michaels didn't make anyone on the way out but did lose blow-offs with Cena, Batista, Jericho, and put Hardy over clean in their singles match during his push. Can't slight him for that.

I would think there's hope with them going PG and that being one of his sticking points/not happy with their content in the past. Have they ever done a recruiting pitch type deal where they run something like that but have then audibled to plan B with the intent of that being an option anyhow (ie - Run this even without a deal in place then have the payoff just be for Taker if it falls through)