cm funk

If you separate the match and the finish itself there is absolutely nothing wrong with it in context. I really liked the story they told, and I like the WWE's franchise guy beating the UFC turncoat. But the follow up with Brock and Cena's characters after the match, holy shit it's been awful. Like I said before the match, as soon as they booked it for the PPV 4 weeks after WM they'd wasted Brock. Once that was done, there was nothing wrong with the way the booking went. But if Brock was going to lose they needed an exceptional follow up in the booking, and we didn't get that, they totally dropped the ball and fell back into all of their usual bad habits with Cena and HHH.

Dana White trolling Meltzer is pretty awesome. Meltzer so rarely gets mad about anything, I think he's just poking him to see if he can make him angry Also, the Extreme Rules buyrate really isn't indicative of the drawing potential Lesnar had. It was in the same billing cycle as the $60+ WM, plus a week after Jones v. Evans. How many people can afford a $250 cable bill?

I recall Lance Storm on the pre-WM show with Alvarez not picking a winner of the Rumble match and hinting he already knew what the outcome would be I and everyone else took that as him knowing Jericho was booked to win (obviously they are still good friends and Jericho even trained for his comeback at Storm's wrestling school). Lance Storm is kind of a dick though, maybe he was just throwing a curveball out there since everyone assumed Jericho was going to win? I tend to believe that they changed the finish because it was so obvious and everybody was picking Jericho to win. His promo on the last RAW before the PPV telegraphed his win.

You don't really want any of your characters in a publicly traded company pushing a pro-alcohol agenda, even if as a heel. It's easier to do the sanctimonious anti-alcohol heel act. At least you can deny any support for alcohol if any politicians or media comes sniffing around. Jericho's book is pretty clear about how much he loves to drink. Not the same as broadcasting that on your flagship television show, but it's public knowledge. Jericho is an unabashed drinker. I thought the whole angle with Punk kind of played off that without outright stating it, which is part of why it worked for me, that Jericho was being a total asshole and hypocrite. Maybe they could have spelled that out better, but like you said, they don't want to parade the drinking culture of wrestling on television

When was the last time Orton used the punt anyway? Since he's been a face it hasn't really been part of his moveset. It's a heel move. It's kind of like Big Show's KO punch, he didn't really use it as a face except against Mark Henry, and it was only done to put over how much of a monster Henry was, that Show had to resort to that to beat him

I haven't re-watched it yet, but in real time it was pretty epic

I liked the Jericho-Punk stuff and thought a lot of the critics were really over thinking it (IE. "they were feuding about being the best and now it's about alcohol and Punk's family? It doesn't make sense!" which seemed to be a common complaint). It certainly wasn't as awful as some people made it out to be. Where I thought the feud suffered was in Jericho's credibility and the outcome booking (loses Rumble, wins WM title shot battle royal thanks to interference from Cody Rhodes of all people, loses title match, granted rematch off-screen by Johnny Ace rather than the more logical result of Punk demanding the match due to Jericho's actions). Oh well, can't win em all.

Show's KO punch has been so well established at this point that you'd really have to super casual, coming in almost blind to not know the level of credibility they've built up for it. It was the finish to practically every JeriShow tag match they were on the winning end of (Show as illegal man nails punch, Jericho grabs the pin). Honestly, I don't think anybody has ever not been KO'd by it. In the context of that vs. Brock's match with Cena.....in WWE kayfabe if Show nailed Brock with that punch Brock would be out cold too.

The Stud Stable in WCW was pretty great. Dungeon of Doom could probably fit into both the best and worst categories. Sometimes they were really good and booked well (Jimmy Hart turning heel, Giant, teasing Luger joining early 96 before they just turned it into a rogues gallery for Hogan, later period with the Horsemen feud when I think the roster was Hart, Sullivan, Meng, Barbarian, Hugh Morrus and Konnan) other times it was really awful.

I always loved Raven's Nest/Flock. He worked perfectly in the role. I will say that the Flock was much more streamlined with the members fitting Raven's image, the Nest was often rotating and random, some working better than others. What would be the reasons for naming them among the worst stables?

WCW had a huge roster full of solid vets and exciting younger wrestlers, that helped a lot in filling 3 hours. Plus in theory it was supposed to help them beat RAW by having the unopposed hour to promote the rest of the show. WWE's roster depth is pathetic. We'll probably just see longer matches with the usual guys, more video packages/commercials, and more talking. It'll probably hurt the ratings too. Not really sure why they'd want to do this, but supposedly USA has been pushing them to do it for a long time.

Supposedly they're thinking about speeding up the Brock-HHH program to the June or July PPV rather than SummerSlam. Guess they realized they're not capable of creating 3 months worth of TV for this without having Brock around

When I see HHH cut promos like the one he cut on Lesnar on RAW I lose all faith in him and his supposed understanding of "good" wrestling Deep down he's just a mark for himself. He thinks he's the modern Ric Flair? Ric Flair put in that position would have got Brock over more and by doing so got himself over more in the process.

It's supposedly going to be on a youtube channel called "Awesomeness TV" that's launching in June, and will then have a DVD release youtube's big thing now is creating channels with original content

Was interesting how Dana prefaced his comments by saying how much he likes and respects Meltzer, and then taking not one but two digs at him for losing the Yahoo gig, lol. I didn't read Dave's article yet, but I got the gist of his thoughts from the radio shows. I can see both sides of the argument, because Dave gets too analytical when talking about the "booking" of UFC and with injuries and suspensions and all the other BS that comes with MMA Dana can't plan things out like he would in an ideal world. But Dana going into attack mode means Dana is pissed off and Dave's article probably hit too close to home. I wouldn't be happy right now if I were Dana White either....he still can't break into the NY market, FOX ratings aren't blowing people away, FUEL isn't in enough homes and TUF isn't drawing great ratings, he's got a dearth of marquee matchups and fighters.......lot's of reasons to be mad right now, and Dave is an easy target to pick on

I thought HHH's promo was really bad, but I think most of his promos in the last year have been really bad, so that's par for the course at this point. It's obvious at this point that they intend to somewhat bury and discredit Brock, whether it's payback or "bluring the lines" with meta booking, but HHH just sucks at delivering that sort of promo. The crowd was sitting on their hands the entire time, and half-heartedly popping for his growwly bullet points. All that really got across was that WWE/HHH are good and Brock is bad, and there was nothing interesting about it. The audience and/or potential audience they're hoping to win over by having Brock around is going to laugh at that promo, and not in a "I want to see Brock kick his ass way". When he moved on to talking about how Brock quit UFC because he got into a tough fight I just groaned, because anyone who's paid attention knows he had two major health scares that lesser men wouldn't have come back from, plus HHH trying to talk like he's a real life tough guy is just laughable anyway. Between HHH burying Brock and Cena shaking off the match like it never happened, I can't defend the booking of Brock anymore. I didn't mind him losing and was willing to give it a chance after that, but yeah, they've dropped the ball. It's recoverable to a degree, but they're actively hurting Brock at this point. What I got from this is they want his character to be a bully who's tough and a badass, but will ultimately wilt when somebody stands up to him, and that's just not what they should be doing. This can be salvaged somewhat by having him destroy and "retire" HHH at SummerSlam, kick ass for the rest of the year, win the title, and go on to wrestle Rock or Taker. They haven't irrevocably done damage yet. But they haven't been doing themselves any favors.

RE: Guys getting "smartened up" I've seen or heard that particular talking point from so many old-timers, guys who don't have a problem breaking kayfabe anymore, that I absolutely believe it's true. Wrestling in the 50's/60's/70's was so different from what it is now. So many guys talk about how hard it was to break into the business back then, even just in terms of being recruited and trusted to be let into the community, before guys were weeded out by the training method. I don't remember who exactly, but one guy tells a story about being sent out with another trainee for their first match and they were literally beating the shit out of each other, because that's what their training had been like. After the match the promoter explained to them that, "we don't really beat each other up". Lots of guys understood that the outcomes were fixed and it was an exhibition before they really understood how to work. Also, you had far less "hardcore wrestling fans" getting into the business back then. It was football players, amateur wrestlers, tough guys/bouncers, strongmen, eventually bodybuilders/gym rats.....so many guys from past eras speak of having watched wrestling on TV or gone to a couple shows as kids, but not really being fans when they entered the business. WWE recruits some guys, but nowadays, how many wrestlers getting into the business weren't fans first? It seems like practically everybody on the indy scene was a huge mark or smart mark before they got into the business. The way Ricky Steamboat tells it his getting into the business was a total fluke. Girlfriend went to flight attendant school with one of Gagne's daughters, mentioned that her boyfriend had been a wrestler in high school, Gagne happened to recognize the name 'Richard Blood' as he'd wrestled Mike Graham in a state wrestling tournament and Eddie Graham had spoken about him. Total right place at the right time kind of thing.

He also created the Gangstas, so it might be fair to say he was. It was probably as simple as turning on the TV or picking up a magazine once in a while. Time had cover storys on both grunge and gangsta rap, you had to be living under a rock to be unaware of those cultural zeitgeists. WWF had some relevant ideas in the 90's, but the execution was too cartoonish,; Men on a Mission, Rad Radford, Man Mountain Rock all came off as bad parodies of those scenes. I would say Goldust was pretty relevant for it's time, and the start of WWF being more in tune with popular culture leading into the attitude era

Isn't there actual footage of Vince riding the zipline on one of the DVDs? I don't think it was spoofing WCW so much as both companies at the time trying to top each other with stunts and shock value. They were both into wacky stuff with vehicles and explosions and crazy stunt bumps I was surprised WCW kept doing that sort of stuff after Owen's death. They had Kanyon fall like 25 feet, crazy stuff with Vampiro and Sting, etc. IIRC WWF didn't do anything like that again for a long time.

I just meant in terms of both of them getting married to a girl they were with before they got famous, and neither marriage working out. Sounds like Cena's breakup is a lot uglier though

IIRC, and I'm not even sure how exactly I know or remember this, Cena's wife was his high school sweetheart and they got back together years later. She was more or less the back at home girl when he got off the road. Cena hasn't been shy about his conquests, I figured they basically had an open marriage or an unspoken agreement that he would always come home to her. It really doesn't surprise me that the marriage didn't last. The Rock had sort of the same situation, married his college girlfriend before he really got famous, and they had an amicable divorce

I think AJ Styles could get over huge in WWE. He's got a personal charisma and ability to get over with crowds that TNA really hasn't capitalized on as much as they could have, and he's a really good worker who IMO would quickly adapt to the WWE style. I remember him saying in an interview years ago that he never wanted to go to WWE, that they offered him a development contract at one point and he took it as an insult, and honestly, that's just stupid. His peers Danielson and Punk took those "insulting" deals and are about to co-main a PPV, and he's still toiling in the toilet of wrestling promotions. I guess TNA takes care of him and pays him well, but if I were in his shoes I'd be jumping at the first opportunity to go to WWE and become a bigger star.

Harry Smith must have rubbed some people the wrong way backstage. Long before the Hart Dynasty stuff, the way they put him on TV knowing he'd failed a drug test just to make an example out of him was really sketchy. They wouldn't have done that to anybody they really liked and were high on. Also, I'm sure they weren't eager to forgive and forget about Diana Hart's tell-all book, and Davey was a legendary prick, maybe Harry was just paying for the sins of his mother and father. Also, none of the Hart Dynasty were good talkers, which I'm sure had them getting buried by Kevin Dunn and people of his ilk backstage. Tyson Kidd seems to be in good standing and it looked like him and Justin Gabriel were due for a little push as a team before Gabriel got hurt.

In theory it's a good way to introduce fans to the product. Somebody buys it for Punk, thinks ROH is cool, seeks out more of it. Are ROH DVDs still sold in Best Buy, FYE etc. or is it strictly online?

You're right, my mistake. I don't think it was the impetus for him getting the belt though. Subsequently, I was looking at some of the PPV shows from 04, and SummerSlam 04 was such a downer of a card. Only two faces won their matches, Cena and Edge, and Edge wasn't very over at that point in time (and would start a heel turn soon after). The show led off with two heel victories, Dudleys beating Mysterio, London and Kidman in a 6 man, and Kane beating Matt Hardy who was fighting for Lita's honor, and ended with four straight heel victories. Angle beating Eddie after screwing him all summer as the SD GM, HHH beating a retarded person, Undertaker DQd against JBL in an awful match, and the still heel and not ready for the world title Randy Orton beating Chris Benoit in the main event. What a terrible show.