Marty

Just read it. What a wonderful piece. The Austin bit at the end gave me goosebumps. A perfect way to close out the article.

Probably because I've been watching the DVD, but he's the very first guy who came to my mind. The guy, even during his babyface days, could be classified as boastful ("The Best There Is...") but very well can be humble too, for he was never very flashy, and was more no-nonsense. Unlike Hogan, he never attacked when unprovoked, and all challengers when champ, heel or babyface. He also gave sunglasses away to the fans before matches, even those of his opponent (during the Owen feud), which is the type of act you don't see anymore. It's early in the morning, so I'm only really scratching the surface, probably vaguely too. I'll add more later.

You mean UPROARIOUSLY offensive "Black Trish" storyline. I'm scared to ask what that was?! Maybe a PM reply is more appropriate.

I was at that show when that happened, and believe me, the crowd (and certainly the people near me) clued in on why Jericho allowed the beatdown on Rock without helping Rock at all. One of the few times at a show I've seen a slightly complex angle (in comparison to others) happen without people scratching their heads. It worked big-time. Rock and Jericho, not necessarily in that order, were the 2nd and 3rd most over guys that night. Off topic, but take a guess who was the most over worker that night (he was considerably above Rock and Jericho too). (Loss should get this one right away.)

I'm struggling to see the irony. Booker's black and Vince isn't. As much as white seem to think it's "just a word", I personally still find it offensive when white people use it. I don't when black people do. Just the way it is. My black friends can say "nigga" all day (and do) but I better not hear it come out of the mouth of my white friends and they know better, so they don't. So why wouldn't Booker be offended? Hell, I was looking at monitor saying "Did Vince really go there on a PPV?" myself 'til I realized that, hey it's WWE...I've seen and heard MUCH worse from this company. CJ, I think Sek was referring to when Booker T said, in direction to Hollywood Hogan in WCW in 1997, "We're coming for you, nigga!" or something along those lines. Sek, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in your analysis. Also, agreed with Loss and Alfdogg on Shawn Michaels. Has Mr. Kennedy suffered a pinfall loss yet? Maybe that's another thing Shawn will get to have in the future...

And there it is. The post you thought you'd NEVER see. Actually, Loss, Tim Cooke, myself, as well as others, such as goodhelmet, I believe, have been singing Bradshaw's praises for a while. To varying degrees, yes, but most of us are pretty positive about the guy's work.

Apparently, the talk around Manchester is that he got really drunk at the hotel they were at and started a fight. Take that for what it's worth.

That could be it, yes. I still don't think he's one of the possibilities that the Torch was talking about.

I don't think this incident has anything to do with what the Torch article said. Remember, the Torch article said a "top wrestler" was on the unofficial watch, and I'd hardly call Eugene a top wrestler. It wasn't a suicide watch, either, it was reported as a death watch. I've heard the opposite of what Dave has said here, in that Nick Dinsmore's been frustrated playing the character. I can't remember where I read it, but someone at a house show yelled to him and said, "You can do better than this!" which caused him to reply, "I know."

I think Taker got himself over from Day One. His look felt incredibly different from many others, especially since he debuted on a Survivor Series team where he would naturally stand out in some way (with the bribe-happy Million Dollar Man and the goofy music tag team of Rhythm & Blues). They had built things up as a surprise partner being there, and it was one of those times where that truly had a solid payoff. If Jake deserves any credit for Taker's success, it's for Taker's transcend from heel to face. Jake, at that point, was such a prick of a heel that finally someone needed to put him in his place.

It's Angle. The giveaway for me was the "credentials". The thought of him going from an Olympic gold medalist who, inspite of a broken neck, was far healthier than now could really send wrestling into the limelight in a bad way, so to speak. Loss, I don't think Angle suffers from angina *now*. However, there's a history of it in his family. I could be wrong about him, though. And Sek...you still read Scott Keith?! Geez, man, there's *other* places you could've found that news/article.

Agreed about Jake with Loss. The only exceptions that come to my mind are maybe Honky Tonk Man and Ravishing Rick Rude.

Got the set, watching the second disc now, and something you guys should know: It's funny the things that happen when you have a rushed production deadline. At the end of the Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect SummerSlam 91 match, they forgot to edit the graphic that says "New WWF Intercontinental Champion" like they normally would with these releases. Oops! Anyways, my recommendation, for those who want the DVD, is to get the set as soon as possible. This set will be off the shelves once the wrong people notice that botch.

Steroids do not enhance your hand-eye coordination, but by adding muscle, it gives the athlete more power, allowing him to swing the bat faster. By enjoying a faster swing, the batter gains a fraction of a second to judge the pitch before he must decide to swing. That's where the benefit comes in. Second, the article implies that the major concern of steroids lies in baseball. The public cares most about baseball and steroids because that is where the sacred records exist. But the NFL and some other major sports have steroid problems equal in scope, if not larger. The thing with baseball, Al, is that its athletes face the same problems that those in the WWE face: A tight schedule (albeit with an offseason) that doesn't allow much in the way of workout time in between shows, or in baseball's case, in between games. That's why when you see a muscular baseball player, or one that maintains well during the season or even gets bigger during the season (although the latter's rare) that's where you wonder when they have the time to achieve that. I'm not saying other sports don't have a steroid problem, as football itself has much larger athletes than baseball does, and so does basketball for that matter, but under the above circumstances, that's where baseball is cornered and questioned, in my opinion.

Don't forget the theme of the show tonight, and if Lawler's usual content would be appropriate or not. We'll see next week a bit more of a difference, I think.

Before the show, I dug out my Eddie Guerrero DVD from one of the boxes I'm moving this week to my new place. It was hard looking at the cover of the DVD, and the music video of "Hurt" at the same time and trying not to cry. It was even impossible to not cry during Rey Mysterio Jr.'s and Chris Benoit's speeches. This has been an incredibly emotional night, and to be honest, one I'm still hoping that is actually not happening, because I'm still hoping what happened on Sunday morning never really occurred. I'm an emotional wreck right now.

I'm absolutely stunned and in a shock of disbelief. I can't believe he's gone, I'm so sad right now. Eddie was one of the guys who got me back into wrestling after I took a hiatus from watching it, and he's the guy who's kept me watching it in spite of the questionable quality of the product. I owe my current interest in wrestling to him. I'm so sad right now. It's always the ones who you don't expect to go. I'm sad and in a state of shock right now.

Back to the Angle-Jericho stuff for a moment. On top of the BTR comment, there was also this comment from Jericho in his recent online commentary: First, there's the funny thing about categorizing Snitsky with Angle in any way, but just saying the "improvement" of Angle is eye-catching, due to the perceived rep of Angle being one of the best of all-time. This may very well be Chris' way of saying, "Sorry, Kurt, you ain't one of the best, despite what you think."

So I got the set. (Hey, I don't have any of the others on VHS, so I almost had no choice. Plus, at $200 CDN for 21 shows, I don't think I did too bad. That's less than $10 for a three-hour show. That's bargain bin type prices there.) Anyways, packaging was fine for me. The hidden WM21 disc is certainly unorthodox, but it was both secure for me, and easy to get out. The disc itself was fine, not scratched or anything, and since I'm very fussy about taking care of my DVDs, I don't think I'll have too much of a problem with it. Actually, the WM21 disc didn't worry me nearly as much as the WM7 disc (looked like a chip off the outside of it, which may affect the latter portion of the first side of the show) and the WM14 disc (looked kinda greasy on the outside, which may have affected the Austin-Michaels match). Both those cases were fine, as I tested them immediately, and the quality is fine. Quality of what I've seen is great too. As I said, I've seen the latter portions of WM7 and WM14, as well as the initial part of WM1 and watched, and slept through, all of WM3. Everything has played fine, which has been a concern, as I've had some issues with choppiness on a couple WWE DVDs (original WM21 and Undertaker DVD). At least with the set I got, they did their homework and made sure the playability was flawless. Ventura's commentary is in, of course, which I'm sure they had no choice, since there's only a bunch of film footage of him in as well, so it would've come across as stupid. I haven't seen any of the music editing yet, so no comment on it yet. As far as WWE-esque legal editing goes, you do get your blurriness, as I experienced during Michaels-Austin, but it appears they've done a few things to make it look like a professional editing job rather than the half-assed stuff they've done in the past. There's the reported dubbing of Hogan saying "WWE" (which I've yet to see) on WM5, but I liked what they did in WM14 where they have, in graphic form, "Shawn Michaels WWE Champion". I don't remember the show, but if they had "WWF" there instead, at least they didn't simply blur it out, is what I'm saying. I know it's really re-writing history, but if I'm forking out $200, I'd like some work like that done on their editing, especially on a set that celebrates their biggest PPV each year. Bravo to the WWE for that. The artwork in the inserts is neat. I like how in each set, there's a different bit of face-to-face artwork, thus showing continuity in the separate sets. (In order, there's Hogan-Andre, Hogan-Warrior, Shawn-Bret, and Austin-Rock.) There's also a bunch of promo posters from over the years as part of the decoration of them, as well as a collage of different significant events from all the WMs. Kind of hard to explain, but it's pretty neat. Overall, I may be in the minority, but I'm happy. Extras may be nice, but at least all of them are on DVD now, and anyone who missed an opportunity to pick up 16-18 before the big name change can do so now. To be honest, I really wish I wasn't at work right now. Now, hopefully the Bret Hart DVD leaves me with the same positive impression.

Or they'll toss in Benoit, if he sticks around.

Remember last year when you said that 2005 was the year to really move Shelton Benjamin, Edge and Christian up the card? I think for 2006, they really, really need to do that with Matt Hardy and Rey Mysterio Jr. Mysterio been waiting for a while, but the reactions Hardy's getting, as well as going over a bunch lately (including Christian putting him over in his last WWE match) do at least tease a push. They'll likely fuck it up and want to push someone else, but I can dream, right?

Coffey also caused me to laugh with the "her face is busted" line. Does anyone else think the writers watched Family Guy on Sunday, and stole an idea from them?

Bumping this, just to inform the Canadians here that the release date in Canada is November 22, one week after the American date. Not bad.