cm funk

1. less emphasis on size and/or the gassed up look, but other than that not really IMO 2. the no brainers are the 2nd, 3rd gen guys. Orton, Del Rio, Dibiase, Hennig, Rhodes, Roman Reigns etc. The talented big guys like Show, Henry and Kane. Cena. Jack Swagger. 3. Comedy guys like Otunga, Santino and Brodus would have fit right in in that era.

I have no problem with Bryan paying tribute to Benoit, but the recklessness of his spots lately is way over the top. There is really no need for the guy to put himself through so much physical abuse. I don't know if the stopping the match on RAW last week is "part of the angle" but his suicide dives into the barricade are brutal, and if he's not careful he's going to kill himself. The diving headbutts are nothing compared to that

Like the third season of NXT was designed to get Kaval over? I think with both Punk and Bryan, earlier on in their WWE tenures, there was a constant battle between the writers that were high on them and the man in charge who wasn't. Punk also had the problem that he had heat with some of the agents. Nah. Watch season 1 of NXT compared to the Low Ki season. Ki got himself over in spite of the show. NXT season 1 was actually booked logically, and it was booked to make stars out of people. The first episode was "HEY, THIS IS DANIEL BRYAN, HE'S A STAR!" By the time they got to season 3 or whatever they were just looking to humiliate the kids. Seriously, I don't recommend watching NXT again, but the moments that got Ki over were totally in spite of the booking

Flair didn't really have any great feuds in WWE, but the whole Flair-HHH-Evolution deal was entertaining. He had a few great matches in that timeframe His first program with Taker was great. The Foley program, looking back on it now, was horrible in just about every way, but at the time I thought it was ok. Not sure what's sadder, that WWE put them in the ring and let them do that in their condition, or that TNA did it again a few years later

Don't know about Punk, but they had Bryan marked from day 1. The first season of NXT was all about getting him over. The fake firing and having him as the who comes back at SummerSlam against the Nexus was money. I think they actually know what they are doing when it comes to booking that kid, bumps in the road aside

Yeah, but Mark Henry would not work his fam like that. Wife, baby girls, he's got a house and mouths to feed. I mean, I know it was supposed to be a heel turn, but it was basically the biggest face turn. We all hate that John Cena is the babyface of the company. Like I said, it works either way, but at the crucial moment Cole was kind of shit In the end, regardless of Cole, great angle

Well, she did end up doing something and having a great WWE run I wouldn't blame you if you tapped out at this point. It's almost torture just reading this. I would have quit (and did IRL) months ago

I'm still amazed that TNA let Foley wrestle. Not just once, but multiple times. It was like watching a badly wounded animal fight for it's life. Entertaining on some level, but why put us through that? I really wish Foley had quit after the Orton program. It was a perfect way to go out. The ECW thing with Edge and Terry Funk was good too. Everything since then has been really excessive. I know he loves the business and is a wrestler thru and thru, but damn, it is going to be so sad when he is completely braindead and unable to move around in his mid-50's. A sad tribute to THE BIZ

Just rewatched the Mark Henry turn angle It's even better on the second watch. Cena teases it so well in his speech, and Henry, man Henry, that wasn't acting per se, that was real emotion and real talk, which is why he's so great. The only thing I didn't like when I watched it again was Cole's line about "HOW COULD HENRY BETRAY AND USE HIS FAMILY LIKE THAT?!?!" man, he's Mark Henry, of course his family is down to grind. But I couldn't tell if that was Cole putting over how badass Mark Henry and his family is or just being a shithead as usual. It works either way, but sometimes it's hard to tell with Cole

Really? Heyman and Dutch are idea guys. A good promoter will use them for ideas. Nobody expects wrestling geniuses to balance the books. TNA is a shithouse of wasted potential, that wasn't Dutch's fault. The times when Dutch was really allowed to book the company it slowed down and started to build to stuff. ECW was the most creative promotion ever, that they went broke and died, eh, it is what it is. If Vince is tapping Heyman and Dutch for ideas and using less of his TV writers it's for the best

That was taped ages ago

The YAPAPI STRAP MATCH is truely one for the ages

If I'm looking at that picture correctly that magazine is $9.95......which is completely insane

Funk feud in 89 and the two Savage feuds (92 and 95/96) are my favorites. I actually prefer the WCW rekindling of the feud to the more famous WWF one, with great stuff like Flair attacking Angelo Poffo and Liz turning on Savage. And the Funk feud is the best example of babyface Flair IMO. I'd have to put Sting in there too simply because it was the most enduring over the years. Tough to leave out Dusty & friends vs. The Horsemen, and Luger, but what can you do? Luger feud is hurt IMO by him never getting the big win against Flair.

The Del Rio/Ziggler double turn was great stuff, and it felt natural. It's rare they book that way.

1995 WWF was wrong place wrong time. They had the potential to be a really great tag team. Put them in ECW circa 95 and they would have looked like all time greats I did find the act amusing, however. Sunny was such a great heel manager, and they brought in "Rad Radford" as the sleezy hanger on, lol

this is still one of my favorite WCW matches ever. Sullivan made Benoit in this match.

Yeah, but let's be real, he was "consensus top 10 in the world" among smart mark workrate fans of that time. I was a big Joe fan, and I even thought the praise of his work and the ***** ratings from Meltzer were overboard. He was having great matches working as the big man against smaller "workrate" guys on an indy setting. TNA pretty much copied that formula when they booked him to destroy X Division guys to get him him over and then ran with him working against Daniels and Styles for a while. Joe was good, but top 10 in the world is a stretch, and I'm positive nobody in WWE was viewing him as a top 10 in the world talent at that point.

Haven't watched any of this since it aired, but this is how I felt at the time. Anything was better than Russo at that point. It may not have been very good, and the roster had been decimated by injuries and defections, but it was still far easier to watch than the months of Russo. As far as Benoit & those guys and Russo goes, I got the feeling that even though they had to know how terrible he was as a booker that he at least made them feel like they mattered and that he was going to take care of them. One thing everyone says to Russo's credit is that he talked to guys about what they were doing and wanted to give everyone a direction. I'm sure Eddie, Perry and Dean saw Benoit getting this huge push from Russo and figured they might get similar treatment (and even the awful Revolution vs. Animals stuff was more of a featured role on TV than any of them had had in the past). After years of being treated like they didn't matter by Bischoff et. all it had to nice for them. I think they overreacted to Sullivan and probably just wanted out by any means necessary at that point, but you can't blame them for thinking the return of Sullivan to power would usher the same old guard in again......and really, it kind of did. He went right back to Hogan and Flair, and he probably would have done that even if those guys had stuck around. I don't believe he would have buried them though. Sullivan always seemed to treat Benoit with a lot of respect as far as giving him things to do and building him up while he was in the midcard. It was during Sullivan's time as booker that Benoit really got over with the WCW crowd after all.

Absolutely people subscribe for the podcasts. I'm under the impression that they are the biggest draw to the site, and I'm pretty sure Alvarez would tell you the same. There's probably more people who listen to the audio and don't read the newsletters than vice versa. I know personally, I read the Observer, but if there wasn't so much audio content no way would I be paying $10.99 a month. I also agree that a free podcast on itunes is a good way to spread word of mouth and potentially attract new subscribers to the website. That's basically what WOL used to be. There's money to be made in the podcast market that they aren't fully tapping into.

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Low Ki got himself over on NXT by being himself. And being himself got him more or less buried after that, and led to him asking out. That's Low Ki. He's kept his heat because that's what he does. Same with Cabana. He's a worker too. He's still milking his wasted WWE time, in the hope they wise up and hire him again. Claudio, for as bad as they've booked him for a while now after a hot start, has been given a ton of TV match time to shine. He deserves better booking, but he's gotten more than a lot of talent gets. If he's looked at as a better worker now it's only because more people have been exposed to what he can do, and to be fair to WWE, they have given him a platform in the ring to show how good he is

Comparing Joe to Chris Harris is an insult to Joe. Harris was a mess by the time TNA let him go/WWE signed him. He wasn't so much set up to fail by WWE, he set himself up to fail. Even unmotivated Joe at his fattest is a hundred times better than Harris in almost every aspect.

Glad to see it isn't just my imagination as I have the same view. Whenever he calls someone friend it comes off as sleazy and insincere. As for Meltzer I'm surprised he thinks they should be using guys with concussions since they can still do interviews. Flying and traveling with one isn't a good idea. Just better off resting. I'm sure Meltzer thinks this is a stark improvement from the past mentality, which is true. But Ziggler had his concussion almost a month ago. That should be sufficient time for recovery. Maybe he'll learn not to bump like a madman for every irrelevant TV shoot. He was talking about Fandango. Fandango apparently passed his IMPACT test already, but not the rest of the battery of tests they run guys through before they put them back in the ring. Not sure where that puts him in terms of travel, but it's probably just a good idea to leave him at home. That was a strange comment by Meltzer, as was his wondering if dancing could aggravate a concussion. Bryan didn't seem to know what to make of any of that. As far as Ziggler goes, he seems to have either had a particularly nasty concussion or they were just being extra cautious. I'm really worried about him getting back in the ring and bumping the way he does.

I would guess being Sam Muchnick's nephew and seeing what Vince did to his uncle's business, but that's just baseless speculation