sek69

I think Japanese fans never had the model of wrestling being defined as one company who's goal was putting everyone else out of business by any means. Sure, New Japan and All Japan were rivals but you don't really have the situation that you have in the US where non fans consider all wrestling to be WWE (or WWF to non fans who still aren't aware of the name change). I think the different mindset helps smaller companies in Japan since it's pretty hard for US indies to overcome the perception that since all wrestling is WWE, people expect WWE style matches.

Thanks to my local game shop, I spent the day today washing the memories of a bad Steeler game away with some Smackdown vs Raw 2007 and ended up with something that reminded me of this thread. First there's a storyline where Trish helps Chris Masters win a ladder match for the WWE title by grabbing the belt off the hook herself. That results in a 3 way match with Masters, Trish, and whoever wrestler the player chose where she stays on the floor as a manager until it all ends up a SWERVE~! where she ends up punting both guys in the nards and winning the match. I thought they were going to do a Million Dollar Man style angle where she gives the belt to someone else but instead they have her going around claiming to be WWE champion while the announcers are practically having strokes over how women can't hold the WWE title, even going as far as comparing it to a 300 pounder winning the Cruiserweight title. Of course this is the same company that has had Harvey Whippleman win the Women's title and also had Chyna win the IC title. Finally it ends in Stephanie coming out and cutting a promo saying her family created the WWE title and she was taking it back because she's the dominant female and whatnot. The whole thing had a real "we gotta keep these bitches in line" vibe to the point it was starting to get (hopefully) unintentionally hilarious how hard they were pushing "women can't be champion" deal. Even when Lawler as the heel announcer would try to put her over, they would have JR be all "WELL YOU KNOW SHE CAN'T BE THE CHAMP NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY". It almost takes you mentally out of the game since you start thinking "holy christ, someone has some issues with women positions of power".

Wasn't it just mentioned in the WON when discussing Gabe's dismissal that ROH is basically OK as long as Cary keeps funding it?

I don't know if I'd say ROH was close to the grave. If anything, it seems like Cary finally got sick of Gabe running the company like an e-fed and making masturbatory trips to Japan that cost a buttload of money for little return. I read that they're expecting one of their largest crowds ever for the next NYC show, so perhaps they made the right move at the right time to avoid getting in too deep of a hole. As far as 2009 goes, could this be the year we see one or possibly several major companies folding? NOAH is reeling and All-Japan seems to be hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

So in celebration of Hanukkah they are having 8 days of Goldberg matches starting on 12/21, complete with a special all-Hebrew match against DDP dropping on Christmas Day. Maybe next year we'll get the long awaited tribute to the all time greatest Israelite sports-entertainer, Barry Horowitz.

I don't know if Joey Styles one punch taking out Bradshaw is the funniest story of the year, but I'm really willing to entertain other candidates for my personal amusement. Oh man, someone needs to make a Punch-Out pic with Joey as Little Mac and JBL as Bald Bull.

That whole gimmick was actually pretty entertaining for a while until it started to get too ridiculous even for Attitude Era pro wrestling, with stuff like Dustin dressed in neon bodysuits and wearing a ball-gag.

You know it's kind of funny how we're discussing this stuff an on the 11/3/97 RAW up on WWE 24/7 there's two men-being-evil-to-women storylines with Marc Mero bullying Sable and Dustin "dumping" Terri for someone else in one of those uncomfortable shootstyle promos. Didn't the "one" he ends up with turn out to be Luna which started the Artist Formerly Known As Goldust gimmick?

Honestly, the Savage/Liz stuff worked because I don't think a woman in wrestling was ever given a classy character like Elizabeth. Most women are eventually given an angle where they stand up to a man and try to fight them as equals but Liz was always portrayed as the 1950s housewife type who knew her role.

It would be an interesting sociology experiment, I wonder if the people there who fap to bloody joshi pics would find that exciting or do the women have to be Japanese? Also I second what John asked, was this an accidental cut or did she for some reason decide to go full Muto at some indy show?

So one of my e-friends was all "have you seen the Terri Runnels chairshot pic?" and I said no, expecting some hilarious upskirt pic or something along those lines but instead saw this: So does anyone know the story behind this?

Dave's opinion on the nWo stems from two things: 1. WCW was never allowed to get any significant wins over the nWo, and any time they did it would just get overturned the next night. It ended up being the Dusty Finish of the late 90s where no one bought a WCW guy winning anymore since everyone knew it would just get reversed on the next TV show. Obviously they wanted to keep the momentum going as long as they could but they ended up making the WCW side look like punk asses who couldn't get the job done. 2. Dave's been consistent in having the opinion once heels become "cool" and popular you basically ruin the point of having heels. You end up having the guys who are supposed to be popular and draw money for your company again look weak, and the entire point of the wrestling business is to have the faces eventually gain revenge on the heels for their heelishness and that was never going to happen.

I always wondered about that, was Piper really brought in just to be a manager? I just assumed he was just in that role while recovering from an injury (the ear thing from Starrcade maybe?), but was it the plan for him to stay a manager? If so, what made them decide to have him wrestle after all?

IMO it seems like Dave is carrying a bit of guilt over Pillman's death still, he seems to think he could have done more to convince him to stop wrestling when he was in bad shape towards the end. As such, he is still super sensitive about anything regarding him, especially what was written in Ring of Hell.

They were going to have Taker's streak with a bullshit finish like that? Not saying that wasn't the plan, but what an underwhelming end to the streak that would have been.

Heyman is also a master of always making sure he has something to fall back on, so while he has nothing but nice things to say about Stephanie now, I have no reason to believe the two could work together in any aspect for any length of time. I'm also fairly sure they parted on good terms specifically because they both knew they wouldn't have to deal with each other anymore. Vince is a smart guy, he knows Heyman is good when it comes to the verbal aspect of the game. Putting him in roles that take advantage of that is hardly a sign of respect. I think it's more Vince wanting to be the boss of guys who used to be his competition, and once that starts to lose its appeal and/or be a headache he no longer has any use for them. One of the excuses given for the original ECW going under was Heyman refusing to give up any control to allow someone to help him run things, that doesn't seem like the kind of personality type that would respond well to having extreme Alpha types like Vince and Steph as bosses. It does seem like all three of them realize that, which would explain why everyone seems to be respectful towards each other now that enough of a cooling off period has gone on since Heyman's dismissal.

I don't think there was ever any intent to give Joe the Umaga gimmick. There was a desire from I'd guess Vince to hire Joe and job him out in one of those "see how the other guy's talent can't hang in WWE with the big boys" deals, but Joe knew that's what they wanted to do and passed. Umaga made his debut afterward and dummies on the net were all "OMG JOE WUZ GONNA BE UMAGA~!" It should also be noted that the December to Dismember fiasco is like a living testament to Stupak's portrayal of the creative staff's intense hard-on against Heyman. They gutted the show and rewrote practically every and anything that had his fingerprint on it and ended up with a turd of a PPV that ended up running too short.

So basically people are mad that guys went out to hype a book written by an e-friend of theirs. Do these people also go on the internet and complain that a movie or video game wasn't as good as the trailers/commericals because I'm pretty sure that happens too. Sure, you can say that the hype for this book was a bit excessive but there's little doubt (for me at least) that without them doing what they did no one would have even known this book was released.

Good question. I caught a bit of RAW last night, including her announcing next week's Slammy Awards matches, and she seems to want to be Sarah Palin these days. Oh man, can you imagine that? Next week on RAW we get to meet Steph's "Downs baby" which will turn out to be Big Dick Johnson dressed as an adult baby.

I don't know about Meltzer rather seeing Daniel die than the business, but of all the things to take issue with he sure did seem to be most upset about how Pillman was portrayed rather than say, the guy who murdered his family. Also, I agree with Dylan. It's not that the book is a perfectly written masterpiece but a LOT of people are upset over someone breaking "internet kayfabe" if you will and actually admitting wrestling is a scummy profession.

Semi off topic, but I love how JR is the only guy who tries to keep kayfabe on those Legends roundtable shows. A good drinking game would be to take a shot every time he uses the term "antagonist" instead of heel or even just bad guy.

That and a little of "that other book is out of print so I see nothing wrong with basically selling it again with a different cover". My wife reads romance novels and they literally will release the same books every 5 years with different covers to the point where she checks the copyright date on "new" books to make sure they aren't reprints. Scooter's take on publishing seems very similar.

Did they ask him about Vince offering Harley Race a huge payoff to no show the first Starrcade? They tried to get Flair to talk about it on the latest Legends Roundtable and he acted like a mob boss not wanting to betray confidences.

Kennedy not being able to coherently explain the plot of the movie he's starring in has to be a late contender for the most embarrassing moment of 2008.

I'm pretty sure Bret told the "everyone does their finish on Vince" story in his HOF speech.