cm funk

Also, why do so many people want to see a Wyatts-Shield feud? I don't get that at all.

I'm surprised how many people seem to think turning the Wyatt family is a good idea. They debuted like 2 months ago and are barely established as heels at this point. I'm not even sure how over the act is apart from the vignettes and music/entrance. Plus everyone agrees that Rowan sucks, but people want to stick him in a prime spot in the biggest angle in the company? Not to mention that WWE is already unbalanced on the babyface side. I'm seeing a lot of stock being put in the news item that HHH is high on them and views them as faces down the line....maybe that's the case, but it's criminally early to pull the trigger on that. I think a much cooler use of them, if Kane does in fact show up as a brainwashed follower of Bray's, is to have Bryan confront him and Kane to be oblivious to who Bryan is or their past together.....and then maybe you spin off a story of Kane breaking away from there. But I don't want to see the Wyatt's and Kane march down to save Bryan from Orton and The Shield....that would IMO suck Thankfully I really doubt WWE is thinking in that direction

Yeah, that was pretty much the moment DiBiase was dead in the water, where they really dropped the ball. They built him up for months to turn babyface against Orton, and the crowd was responding and ready to cheer for him when the moment actually happened.....then they didn't pull the trigger. Evolution kind of limped on for a bit after that and petered out, I don't even remember how it ended. This is patently false. The Ted vs Orton "match" was only the second thing that had ever slightly hinted at a Ted turn. The first being the week before when Ted surprised Orton by pinning him in the main event clusterf*ck for...something or other, which led to the "match" as Ted's punishment. The crowd responded to it really well, because the match itself was brilliant and tremendously well worked, but it came out of absolutely nowhere at the time. If Ted was actually getting a babyface push, that would have been the beginning, not the culmination of it. And things went back to normal the next week so in actual fact he got no babyface push at all. People assumed that he would mainly because he was in the Marine 2 movie and was always pegged as the "future star" of the team ahead of Cody, so everyone assumed the plan was to split Ted from the group by the end of 2009 when the movie came out. But the reality is, they never even bothered. FYI, Legacy limped on as Orton's lackeys for a couple more months, until Ted pinned Orton in the Chamber and then Orton was the one who turned babyface against the both of them, leading to the triple threat at Mania 26. So we ended up with face Orton, Million Dollar Ted and Dashing Cody by the summer. I seem to recall them subtly building Ted up as the guy who would turn face for a while before they had the match on RAW. He'd give Orton weird looks during promos and speak his opinion only to get shot down, while Cody would blindly follow every direction. They weren't heavy-handed telegraphing it, but it was there, and there was stuff throughout the Legacy run like Orton punting DiBiase and taking him off TV for a while, and getting him to turn on his dad, where Ted was clearly positioned as the eventual babyface coming out of it. I'm trying to remember what the roster was like coming out of WM26 and why they went with Orton as a face. That was HBK's last show, Taker was basically done as a regular, HHH was done a month later, then Batista left soon after....so I guess they just panicked and thought they needed another poster boy babyface? I don't remember Orton doing anything interesting as a face until they moved him to SD in 2011 and he had the program with Christian

My sense was that Flair, drunk and rambling, BS'd about it during that 2K thing because he was on a bullshitting roll Austin asked him about it, and Flair, not wanting to contradict his BS, perpetuated the lie None of that is abnormal for habitual workers/liars/con-men/BS artists whatever Austin may legit not have known whether Flair was there that night or not. He probably knew it was BS. He might have asked the story just to see what kind of answer a sober Flair would give, and if he might backtrack and give the real deal story, like a subtle call out. Maybe he just wanted some entertaining BS for his show. Like Johnny Sorrow said, this is why Austin is great on his podcast, because when his BS detector goes off he won't be a dick to his guest, he'll just calmly no sell and change subject....and Austin likes to BS with the best of them

Yeah, that was pretty much the moment DiBiase was dead in the water, where they really dropped the ball. They built him up for months to turn babyface against Orton, and the crowd was responding and ready to cheer for him when the moment actually happened.....then they didn't pull the trigger. Evolution kind of limped on for a bit after that and petered out, I don't even remember how it ended. Then he was miscast as Million $ Man 2K, which was horrible casting because he was a devoted christian husband and had zero chemistry with Maryse, who was in a relationship with Miz at the time (they are since married, and they had teased Miz and Maryse on screen in like a handful of segments when Miz was champ and they had tangible on screen chemistry, but never ran with it)....Ted with Maryse was like anti on screen chemistry, they both looked like they were going through the motions, felt like one of those things they booked as a rib on Ted for being a straight family man, and Miz for bagging a hot chick, and Maryse for being a hot chick shacking up with Miz. The crowds never bought Ted with Maryse or doing his father's gimmick. At a certain point when you screw things up for a guy on TV so bad, it's almost impossible to bring him back and get him over. I thought they were holding him off TV so long just to wash the stink off how bad they'd screwed him up, and had a plan to eventually bring him back, but I guess he was tired of waiting. Ted is just a victim of bad WWE booking IMO. I thought he was really talented and had a ton of potential, definitely as a babyface. I hope his passion for the business isn't totally gone, because it's a real waste of a good young talent. It sounds cliche, but if he went to New Japan he could probably totally reinvent himself and have WWE begging for him to come back in a few years.

Robley's story on that sounded pretty trumped up, and Cubetta asked IIRC Ken Wayne about it on a later interview, who was a Robley guy who'd been booked by him a lot when he was green and I'm sure got the 57 talk hookup through Robley and was at the arena that night, and he didn't totally discredit the story but he didn't exactly back it up either I think it was Ken Wayne, but it definitely came up again in another interview with someone who was like, "yeah, it could have gone down like that, if Buck said it maybe it happened, I don't really know, I wasn't privy to any of that" It sounded like the Robley/Brody MO was holding up promoters and getting themselves over at the expense of the promotion and opponent, then taking advantage of that to keep getting bookings. I can buy that they stuck it to the NWA promoters in St. Louis and screwed over the planned finish for Flair-Brody to make Brody look as good as possible, but the scenario the way Robley laid it out sounded way too fantastic

Wow. Simmons' opinions on wrestling are even worse than his sports takes. I didn't think that was possible.

From the moment Cena was hurt and couldn't work that PPV against Punk they badly fumbled the ball with Ryback. They didn't want him to lose, so they never should have stuck him in that spot where he HAD to lose when they had already had everything planned out with Punk, Rock and Cena. Then he became the guy who lost via screwjob every show because of their wishy-washy booking where they were trying to protect him but kept putting him into impossible spots he had no business being in, and it killed the aura they built up. When Cena got hurt they should have taken someone they didn't haven't big plans for who could afford to lose to Punk and put them in that spot. If they'd done it with....I don't know.....someone like Kofi Kingston.....it might have elevated the guy and been a fun change of pace. They could have done Hell No against Punk in a triple threat and it would have been a fun dynamic and neither of them would have been hurt by losing. There were a lot of things they could have done, putting Ryback in that spot was about the worst thing possible. At the time of all that it seemed to me like they building to Ryback beating Cesaro for the US title as they had matches where Cesaro would take countout and DQ losses and then got beat non-title, at a time when Cesaro was a strong champ before he started getting jobbed down the card, and I thought they were going to slow build Ryback and give him the Ultimate Warrior push with the secondary title and put him in a big WWE title match a year down the line or so. One of the worst decisions they've made in recent years putting him in there with Punk, for a guy like who you said they do seem committed to pushing, and he still hasn't recovered from it. As it stands now he still hasn't won a title and still has no major victories on his resume.

It was a catchy song, but I probably would have gone insane if I had to listen to it everyday....

Part 1 of Flair's interview with Austin is GREAT and I urge everyone here to go listen to it if you haven't already. Flair is totally relaxed and funny and tells some great stories, and you can tell this is a huge thrill for Austin

Yeah, the DiBiase ones are some of the worst other than the few guys who wouldn't play ball or were trying to kayfabe and came off ridiculous (Ox Baker, Porkchop Cash....) The political rants in the Watts ones are great IMO, because Gary is clearly cut from the same cloth when it comes to personal politics, and it's really entertaining. I actually agree with a lot of Watts' libertarian ideas and I can respect where he's coming from on a lot of things, but it's friggin hilarious when they're like "Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck are the greatest!!" You're from the UK (?) so some of the unintentional comedy there might not have resonated with you

CM Punk has been that over on shows. Bryan himself has been that over when they have the big city/smart crowds, and pretty damn over in most places in general. It was a great reaction and great crowd to be sure, but that's not atypical for WWE PPV or post-PPV RAW crowds Shit, the night after WM Fandaaaaaaango was that over, lol

He was a pretty hardcore fan going back to the 70's. He downplayed how much he followed the business in more recent years, but he was definitely still hardcore through the Monday Night Wars era. His main frame of reference was WWWF so he knows everybody who passed through there, and whatever stuff got into the NY market on cable/satellite (he definitely had satellite tv when he was a kid), so got Los Angeles stuff on spanish language tv, some San Fran, Mid South in the 80s.....he definitely watched a lot of wrestling from different places. Sounded like he read a lot of wrestling magazines too, and he smacktalks Dave Meltzer here and there (for stupid reasons. he trashes "the sheets" quite a bit too, maybe he just thinks it gets him over with wrestlers) but I'm sure he was an Observer subscriber at some point I liked Cubeta an an interviewer. There's definitely some where he starts acting like a tool, and he has a few annoying quirks.....but overall he did a great thing. Some of the people he interviewed have since passed, some of the people were dug up from god knows where.....and I don't see anybody else trying to do what he did. It's great content for the pro-wrestling time capsule.

Bryan transcended being "the IWC poster-boy" quite a while ago. If you actually followed the product you wouldn't find the reaction he got strange at all

there's a story that's been floating around for a while, and told in different iterations on shoots, about the Nasty Boys beating the shit out of Shamrock. and the story is that they totally cheap shotted him when he wasn't looking, and used some kind of gimmick to KO him before they went to town. every version of the story I've heard makes the Nastys sound like total cowards

HHH has supposedly never had a drink in his life, and Flair loves him...... Doubt Punk would have ever been willing to carry Flair's bags tho....

Flair has never struck me as someone who would suicide himself. He might get married and divorced a few more times and continue to drink himself into a stupor, but he seems to love life way too much to want it to end. It's entirely possible with his age and habits he accidentally kills himself though.

Bret was probably tougher than most guys in most lockerrooms. I figure there's a degree of bullshit when it comes the Hart Dungeon stories, but Stu Hart was a legit tough guy from the days where you had to be legit to get where you were in the business, and there's been enough evidence from multiple sources to back up how hard he trained guys. You don't open up your own territory and break as many people into the business as Stu Hart did without being legit. Bret being the Hart kid who went the farthest in the business.....and the amount of respect he had/has with other wrestlers.......the guy can surely handle himself in a fight better than most

"IT'S CLOBBERING TIME!!!" It's what The Thing from Fantastic 4 says before he goes into battle. It's a shout out to the comic book fans. And it's over as fuck. Your review so far is.........interesting.

I always took that as Vince's way of apologizing to Bret and diffusing a very tense situation. "Yeah kid, I owe ya this one, I deserve it, lay it in" I don't think Vince took any pleasure in what he did to Bret at Survivor Series 97. He did it because he thought it was right for business, but I think he was guilt ridden about it. After the Monday Night Wars ended he was pretty quick to try and mend fences with Bret, especially after Bret had the stroke. Bret was the one who was reluctant to patch things up. I think Bret has talked before about apologetic Vince was at Owen's funeral, but Bret was just in no place mentally to hear that at the time

Totally agree. Strong established managers aren't as important now as they were in the territory days when you had to cycle talent in and out and get new people over quickly, and in promotions that didn't necessarily have the best talent to work with, but they can still be a really valuable booking tool. I think a good heel manager is basically a booker's best friend, and the classics like Heenan, Jimmy Hart, Dangerously, Gary Hart, Akbar, the Wisemen etc. are proof of that, where they were so over as heels that you could practically pair anyone with them to leach heat and the manager would do most of the work. Heyman isn't only one of the best managers/non-wrestlers of all-time, he also as a booker understood how to use managers to get people over, and how to get managers over. He got random not incredibly talented people like Judge Jeff Jones, Lou E. Dangerously and Joel Gertner really over with the ECW audience. He used Jim Mitchell really well. He took people like Jack Victory and Jason Knight who weren't objectively good as managers or talkers and got them over as "seconds" who just stooged for heat. He booked valets about as well as anyone ever has. The outside the ring personalities in ECW were one of my favorite things about the promotion. Going back to the Chikara days I thought Larry Sweeney could have been the second coming of Bobby Heenan with his promo skills and ability to work/bump. It didn't play out as well when ROH used him as a manager, but I think he'd already started spiraling out mentally by that point. Really sad what happened with him, a lot of wasted talent, and if he'd had his head screwed on straight he'd probably be in WWE right now managing random midcard heels. Eddie Gilbert is another guy who I would have loved to see get a real run as a manager in WWF or WCW in the 90's if he hadn't passed away. He never would have gotten a real look as a wrestler in either promotion, but as a promo and personality he could have gone places. Pillman could have been an incredible manager in WWE if he hadn't died, because physically he was pretty much done in the ring by the end. That's an all time "what if?" how they would have used Pillman if could have survived.... Face managers is something I thought of earlier when this topic started skewing towards discussing managers. It's not an easy role to pull off, and there haven't been a lot of memorable ones in modern wrestling. Paul Ellering who I mentioned before might be the best, but he and the Road Warriors were not typical faces. The face valet can work, but a male face manager isn't an easy gimmick to pull off. I always think of Arnold Skaaland paired with Bob Backlund and how brutal that was. Imagine if they'd stuck Bret Hart with an old-timer as his manager and how bad that would have killed his heat?

Foley wrestling the HIAC match completely out on his feet after being thrown off the cage, and Taker for keeping the match together (basically by just beating the shit out of Foley, but it's what Mick wanted....), and Funk, and Hebner, Jim Ross.........everyone involved in that match was a f'n trooper. Even to this day, that whole deal is totally insane to me and we will never see anything like that ever again I've never seen Over the Edge 99 and I never want to. I was following the show on the internet, WWF on AOL IIRC, but that had to be horrible for everyone expected to perform after that. Every review of the show is that the guys were just dead inside going through the motions trying to put on brave faces.

Except I can't buy HBK buying into the McMahon reasoning re: Bryan, that's the opposite of the way he thinks. They could do a turn for the sake of surprise, but that would be stupid. Makes way more sense for HBK to try and be the voice of reason, and HHH "turns" on him to further his descent into McMadness

I think swapping the belt around in the interim before it goes back on Bryan could potentially hurt the angle. There's probably a way to do it while keeping Bryan and Orton looking as strong as possible, but IMO it takes the heat off of what happened at SummerSlam and Bryan being the guy to overcome Orton & The McMahons. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point they decide they don't want Orton holding the belt for that long and they decide to put it on Punk for a few months. I think probably the best way to do that is a triple threat with Orton v Bryan v Punk where Bryan is about to win and "gets screwed" somehow . That keeps Bryan strong and chasing the title without being downgraded, and when Orton wins the belt back they're still on the same path

Maybe the Briscos were just dicks to him because he was Stu Hart's kid? Would they have ever had any run-ins with Stu, or work Stampede, or have any reason to have heat with the Harts? I still haven't gotten around to reading Bret's book, does he talk about this at all in it?