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According to this link from DVDVR, the Rumble will be the first WWE show in HD. I hope their makeup staff all got raises in anticipation of this.

I have nothing to support this, (other than all the people who have been known/suspected users in all sports going to see him), but I've always kind of suspected Dr. Andrews is a mark doctor in the sense of someone who looks the other way in terms of what drug tests show. I mean, just the fact that he's the go-to guy for WWE when it comes to top guys who need surgery makes me think there's some kind of deal where they send him business and he looks the other way when the routine blood work comes back looking like the test kitchen from BALCO.

Ha.......they have little pop-up video style facts during the segments, and during the "Shawn loses his Smile" bit they have one pop up saying "Michaels has relinquished more titles than anyone on the WWE roster". Which is true of course, but made me go all "OH SNAP" when I saw it. *edit* wow it's great having the original Y2J debut on DVD. The pop when "JERICHO" appears on the Titan Tron is one of the most visceral moments in wrestling history.

I think it's pretty clear that Mark Henry is the strongest person ever involved in wrestling, that much we should all be able to agree on. I remember reading in the WON when they started really testing for roids/HGH, Dave said something about how some people in the company expected Henry to shrink since they just assumed that someone who was that level of weightlifter had to be on some kind of shit. Then it turned out that he was one of the few guys in the company who stayed the same size after testing.

Reading about the procedures JBL endured to be able to have a normally functional post-wrestling life made me think it was a really bad idea for him to come back. It seems like the whole reason he's doing it is because he wasn't happy with his final run of matches, since his back was so messed up it was making him piss himself. I don't understand it, he had a good gig as an announcer and could have probably done that for the rest of his life. Instead, he's going to risk re-injuring his spine that required experimental new procedures to repair just to be able to retire on "his terms". Why? This is arguably worse than Angle getting the different kind of neck surgery and then going back to doing moonsaults and whatnot. By the way, I never said Austin "toned down" anything. I said he adapted his style after an injury, then a bunch of dudes started arguing a point no one made just to get back to agreeing with what I had said in my original comment. Also this: I'd wager that's more a reflection of the ratio of creepy folks posting on internet message boards rather than the sensitivity of the readers.

I didn't time it, but it was a decent length. The only thing that seemed edited is when the ring guys came out to fix the ropes. In fact, it seems to be the unpolished raw feed from the taping - no commentary and a lot of background noises that would have been muted or mixed out in a finished product. Not only the ring chatter/obvious spot calling mentioned before, but at some point you can hear what sounds like German commentary in the background. It seems kind of odd they were going to fire Anvil, you'd think there was a lot of guys you'd fire in 1990 WWF before you got to him. Then again, it's not like he was anything without Bret.

The way I heard it was Anvil put his notice in (where was he going to go in 1990?) then changed his mind between the time of the taping and when the show was set to air.

This seems light years better than the inexplicably lame 10th anniversary DVD. From what I can tell, they've pretty much nailed all the major moments.

January Schedule: Jay Strongbow as the HOF'er? Isn't his claim to fame being the WWWF answer to Wahoo McDaniel? Other than that it seems like a solid month. I never thought I'd ever see "Black Saturday" on 24/7, so that's worth the price of admission. Also, there's a promotion running if you sign up for 24/7 before 1/15 you get the first 2 months free.

Right, because not being a great wrestler means you should be killed.

The rope broke during the second fall, but only on one side. The other three sides still had all the ropes, but the top rope was sagging. Between the second and third falls they replaced the ropes. It made the "official ruling" seem pretty weak in retrospect, but then since no one at the time saw the match it was a pretty unique way of getting around not acknowledging the title switch. It's also funny to hear the chatter in the ring since there's no commentary. Shawn calls spots loud as hell, and Anvil has a "GODDAMMIT! SONOFABITCH!" when the rope snaps. Ditto when Bret slides into the corner to do his trademark chest first bump to make sure he only hits the bottom two turnbuckles.

Speaking of Von Erichs and fucked up relationships with fathers, here's a tidbit from Lacey's Myspace page: Uh. Wow........was she raised by Kevin or is this just something in this family's DNA?

That was apparently his plan, but then Vince convinced him to stay.

www.thestar.com/Sports/article/288194 That link was in today's WON update and it's about an NHL enforcer who retired due to concussions and almost beat up his 4 year old daughter. Some more grist for the mill when it comes to the "do concussions make you attack your family" debate.

I knew from pics that Jimmy Garvin wears his hair short now, I wasn't expecting him to look like Bob Ryder. Those extras interviews are hardcore too. Between Gary Hart's tales of scaring some old couple shitless after a plane crash and Kevin's story of getting a hematoma and getting sent by Fritz to Japan to face some kickboxer dude despite being told another blow to the head could kill him while he's healing, there's some real fucked up moments.

You know, something just occurred to me. One of the main reasons given for why Montreal had to go down (from Vince/HBK/HHH's viewpoint) is that Bret wasn't doing business the right way by dropping the belt on the way out, or something along those lines. However, not even 6 months later, HBK was trying to weasel out of dropping the title on what what figured to be the last match he was supposed to have before leaving due to his injury. He knew he was on his way out, yet only "did business" under threat of an ass whooping from Taker.

It's really creepy how Kevin talks about his father like a wife speaking about an abusive husband. "Oh, he was just misunderstood, he was really a great father". Also, what the hell happened to Jimmy Garvin? Jesus.......... *edit* Man, Gary Hart may be the realest dude in wrestling. From telling Fritz to stick this job up his ass after getting stiffed to not being able to look at a picture of Gino because he wasn't able to save him, he seems to be the least BS guy on the DVD.

I don't get why Kobashi still has to do moonsaults at this point. I would think most fans are just happy he survived cancer, and would perhaps settle for a less than five star match just to be happy the dude's still alive. It seems like Austin was the only guy in wrestling who had a major injury and then adapted his style to do the most he could with as little strain on injured parts as possible. If he was just coming back for one or two matches just to be all "FUCK CANCER" and show the fans he's ok, it would be fine. I just get the feeling he's going to be the Japanese Shawn Michaels and do a full scale schedule until his knees explode in the ring and shower the first 5 rows like they were at a Gallagher concert.

Watching Nitro on the latest Monday Night War made me LOL @ how Jim Mitchell's baldness reversed after he left WCW.

Ironically enough, Kennedy's "gift" in the Shorties section of WWE 24/7 today was HBK-Austin from WM 14. Now maybe I'm used to the post-comeback Shawn, but my first thought was "Jesus, this is the most jacked I ever remember seeing him look" followed closely by "how in the fuck is he taking all these bumps?" Granted, he seemed to be in obvious pain from the middle of the match on, but he was doing stuff like the flip in the corner bump and flying over the top to the floor on multiple occasions. It's probably a pretty safe bet that he had some chemical assistance as well, but even with all that it was pretty crazy to see him doing all this with what was a career postponing injury.

The rules the commission want to put in place seem to be designed to unlawfully restrict the pro wrestling industry. WWE, for all intents and purposes, pretty much *is* the pro wrestling industry in the US. The argument could be made that Ichter is using his position on the commission to punish a company he's obviously planning to mount a large lawsuit against. Just the fact that he's been involved in pro wrestling related cases before and yet doesn't seem to want to hip the rest of the commission to the idea that it's all a work seems pretty suspect IMO.

Ichter is starting to look more and more like someone out to get WWE (which of course will only fuel their paranoia) instead of someone looking to make wrestling safer. Being on the commission and being a lawyer for the Benoit family is a ridiculous conflict that will only make WWE seem sympathetic.

Armageddon was pretty fun, I don't know how it translated on TV but the crowd was pretty hot for the whole show. There was a big fight in the crowd behind the announce tables during Finlay-Khali, and that was the only time the crowd wasn't really up for anything. I gotta say, Jericho still has it. He wasn't over at all when the match started but people were marking hard for him to win by the end. Also at the end of the women's match, Lilian got up to hand the belt to the ref, apparently got her boot caught on something, and took a header on the floor in front of the announce table. Don't know if anyone saw it on TV, but the mic was on and the whole arena heard the splat.

It's never been tested in terms of guys in their prime, but I think it's a safe assumption that someone skilled in one discipline (no matter how good they are at it) is probably going to be owned by someone who's skilled in many. Are other fighters as shook over MMA as boxers? Is there a hate building among amateur wrestlers or judoka over MMA fighters? I'd wager probably not, which is why a lot of the talk from boxers/promoters/writers comes off as whistling past the graveyard.

There's also stories of Yakuza guys being huge marks for heels, especially when New Japan was doing their nWo faction.