cm funk

Yeah, that should be two separate polls....

Another good one is the Hair v. Hair match with Kevin Nash from a RAW in 03 I think his tag runs with Christian and Big Show are criminally underrated as well. JeriShow was carrying RAW with their matches for months

And just for the sake of it I'd like to throw out the Hogan match from 02 and Goldberg match from 03 as really great examples of Jericho carrying limited workers to well above average matches, that he probably wasn't capable of doing just a few years earlier I think Jericho's match with Goldberg was probably the best of 'Berg's entire WWE run. It's just competitive enough to make Jericho look good and still put Goldberg over as a nigh unbeatable monster. The Rock match has way too much over-acting for my tastes to the point where he's clearly outshining Goldberg and it takes me out of the match.

Jericho is easily my favorite active wrestler, and he's pretty high up on my list of all-time favorites, so I might be biased, but I consider him a very good in-ring wrestler who falls a little short of greatness, but certainly has had his moments. As far as active guys in the United States I can't think of many who are better. Definitely Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, maybe AJ Styles....Ziggler and Christian I'd put on about the same level.....and I'm failing to think of anybody else. Maybe Undertaker but he's barely active. I totally agree that Jericho was overrated earlier in his career, and had his share of sloppy moments and disappointing matches....but I'd say from like 03/04 onwards he's been really, really good, and at his best from 08 to present. One thing I give him a lot of credit for is his versatility. He can work well with just about anybody, in any type of match. Technical, brawls, spot fests, tags, he's creative in gimmick matches.....just a really well rounded performer.

I'm kind of curious what exactly the criteria is here, because it seems to change from person to person to fit Dylan Waco's narrative of HHH being among the abject worst. It's one thing to say, "I'd rather watch this guy than HHH because...." and an entirely different thing to hypothesize that so and so would have been better than HHH if such and such had happened I've been entertained by this thread, but you are really just going out of your way to underrate HHH and overrate a whole mess of dudes. I'd watch a Great Khali match before I'd watch a Giant Baba match, but I won't pretend like Khali is objectively better

His name has been bounced around for the 12 man tag

I've already heard Russo's booking philosophies thanks to his shoot interviews, but it would be awesome if somebody went to this and taped it or took meticulous notes

Surprised nobody has mentioned Austin/HHH v. Benoit/Jericho (5/21/01) yet

It bothers people because it's a second gen member of the Hart family, who worked and trained for years to be a serious female wrestler. If they gave the gimmick to one of the untrained models it would still be dumb, but nobody would really care. LOL so it's ok to demean women who are shitty wrestlers, just not ones that are good wrestlers? No, that's not at all the point I was trying to make I don't think the gimmick is particularly demeaning or offensive to women in general. It's stupid and pointless, but tons of men get stuck with stupid and pointless gimmicks and I don't think that the male sex is demeaned by it. I think it's offensive because it's a waste of a good female talent when there are so few of them in the company. If you have to have a farting gimmick give it to any one of the girls with no training who were hired because they're telegenic. It's offensive to me, as a wrestling fan, because it's stupid and pointless and a waste of talent. I don't care if they have a dozen farting divas if they don't have anything better to do. Nattie has more to offer. Is that clear enough?

It bothers people because it's a second gen member of the Hart family, who worked and trained for years to be a serious female wrestler. If they gave the gimmick to one of the untrained models it would still be dumb, but nobody would really care.

Everybody lies about steroids. Even people who are caught red handed (Hogan, numerous baseball players) lie about the frequency and reasons. I don't believe Shawn for a second. He might believe he wasn't on "steroids" if he wasn't using injectables like other guys, but there's no way he wasn't using things (stuff like andro that was legal then and not now) to add size. Just look at how big he got circa 91-92.

I'm not a reality tv fan/viewer by any stretch, but I liked the early seasons of Ultimate Fighter, and Hogan Knows Best, so I'm actually pretty stoked for this show. I wish Dusty Rhodes was on it, but I guess they had to hold back for a potential season 2. If done right this show could have legs, and there's a ton of different ways to keep it interesting. Divas house, Attitude era house, a season with Vince McMahon! The possibilities are endless!

It looks like Orton v. Kane is going to happen Orton has had a strange year by his standards. Probably the most over guy in the company this time last year, moved to SD to be the ace of the brand at the same time the show moves to SciFi and gets downgraded even more than it was, ends up putting over long time vets Christian and Mark Henry for the world title, now he's stuck in a throwaway last minute program with Kane, the lowest profile Mania spot he's had in years. I actually think he's had a great year as a performer and has been really well booked. It's a refreshing change from the Cena/HHH sort of superman babyface ace booking. I think I've liked it because it's been different from the way they portray their lead faces, and they haven't tried to fit Orton into that mold. It's been refreshing, and it's the kind of booking that would never happen with Vince's micromanaging of RAW I'm really curious to know what their plans were for him a year ago though, and what the other ideas for him and Mania were. The Barrett program had already been blown off on TV, a title chase and rematch with Henry which seemed possible at one point never materialized and they went in a different direction with Bryan

John can probably help out with this but I remember Helms doing a clean job to Triple H just a few weeks later. This did happen, and it was a glorified squash. Rock was supposedly really pissed off by this, thinking it was done as a direct slap in the face to him from Hunter.

I haven't been paying attention, did he do the talkshow rounds to promote his new movie, or has he saved the appearances for the leadup to WM?

Shaq would have been huge and brought tons of new eyes to the product. To think anything otherwise is ridiculous. WWE craves mainstream attention, Shaq would give you TNT, ESPN, NBA, Twitter, SI, USA Today, talk radio......it would generate the biggest buzz in the sports world they've had in years, probably be a bigger deal than Mayweather The bottom line is they make money by being larger than life and the only game in town when it comes to wrestling. Shaq furthers that image, and having somebody like him involved only pays dividends in the long run But, at this point it's way too late to do it. Bring him to the show, start an angle with somebody, pay it off next year. I'd give the spot to Dolph Ziggler, he's a guy they should be building around and could use the exposure, you give him the rub and steadily push him up the card over the next year, give him one of the world titles over the summer, then bring Shaq back in as a surprise entrant at the Rumble and build to a match from there. Ziggler has the size and athleticism to match up with somebody that size, and could carry the match with his bumping.

big money and star power And it isn't going to happen because nobody cares enough to waste a shitload of money trying to beat the WWE at their own game. Seriously, it would be a massive undertaking requiring hundreds of millions of dollars to try and start from the ground up and take the crown of wrestling supremacy, and there is nobody out there who wants it. When the WWE begins to die and splinter, as it inevitably will, that's when we will start seeing competition. But it isn't going to happen any time soon.

This was after the team/feud with Angle and match at the Rumble where Benoit was clearly ready to be elevated but they had him treading water for the rest of the year until they started up the stuff with Lesnar, Heyman and Cena leading to the 04 Rumble. As a huge Benoit fan at the time (hey, we all were) and weekly viewer of SD I remember hating the way he was booked for most of 2003. This was also the time frame where he was put in a go nowhere feud with A-Train for a couple of months, who was a total negative heat channel changer at the time.

What's really weird about the Brodus thing is they left him in the RAW and SD openings. You'd think since he was pushed hard for a month and given a showcase spot at the Rumble that they'd at least bother to cover for his absence with some short vignettes. How hard would it be to have 30 second videos of him and the Funkettes traveling around searching for the Mothership or something equally silly? It doesn't do anybody any good to pull him off TV cold.

I have serious doubts about the Shaq match actually happening. The LT and Mayweather angles were started at the Royal Rumble. The Trump angle started in January also. If Shaq is really wrestling a match they're waiting an awfully long time to get the ball rolling on it, frankly not enough time for it to be properly hyped up. Shaq has a weekly TV gig where he could have been planting seeds, and there's been none of that. He might be there and he might have some involvement, but an actual match? Plus they've started something between Big Show and Cody Rhodes the last two nights, which could be an IC title match at the show.

The Rumble winner was in the opening match last year, and I wouldn't be surprised if Bryan/Sheamus opens this year. They've been gradually eroding the credibility of the Rumble, but they've also been doing the same thing to their titles

I f'n love this match. Perfect ECW psychology, right down to the dueling tables at the end

The Eddie/Tajiri v. WGTT match from SD was I think my dad's favorite post-90's match, or at least the only one he visibly marked out over and couldn't stop talking about This is a great thread idea, I might actually watch a few old Tajiri matches and give my thoughts. Tajiri was so much fun in ECW and the early part of his WWE run before they lost interest in pushing him. He's probably the guy who got over the most with my casual fan friends in the late 90's when I was trying to get them to watch ECW. Awesome wrestler, awesome mannerisms and facial expressions, just awesome.

Yep, Jarrett may have been the biggest WINNER. He got to create his own fiefdom, where he will always be on or near the top. Yeah, but it's TNA He's going down in infamy

Seems like the GM role has taken the place of managers for the most part. Not a good thing.