sek69

Makes you wonder what will last longer, ECW or Kurt Angle?

I'd be willing to bet that the offical line will be that feuding with Vince is what led to DX reforming.

from the Wikipedia article on the NWA World Heavyweight Championship: This probably won't mean much to the smarky-smark-smarks like us, but for PWI to restore world title status is a boost in the eyes of the non internet savvy fans. We may poo-poo it, but PWI is still front and center on every magazine stand I come across to this day. Not bad for a company that everyone's been expecting to go out of business for the last 4 years.

I'd assume that part of that would be because HBK is too filled with JEEBUS POWER now to crack a lot of the "edgy" jokes DX was known for, leaving HHH to have to carry the promos. I have to say I'm enjoying the DX stuff if for no other reason it makes HHH not boring anymore. His "heel who outsmarts everyone and never loses and is serious all the time" schtick was getting beyond played out. Yeah, the DX stuff is recycled but at least we haven't seen that in 10 years. A few months of man-ass will break the monotony of him waving his sledge-penis around.

Well HHH's Vince impression was better than Nash's when he was "The Promoter" in WCW. I wonder if something else went short or did they really script that segment to go that long? It seemed that DX ran through their material halfway through and were doing their version of Ashlee Simpson's SNL jig to fill time.

That's all true, but Vince Loves Sabu, which usually means that person gets protected until Vince moves on to his next plaything. I'd also argue that Sabu got quite the pop attacking Cena last week, so even if they don't know about him they like it when he puts Cena through a table.

I still don't get why WWE would put themselves in a position where either the guy they want to be the future (Cena) or the guy Vince is high on (Sabu) was in a position to job. There's no reason a match between them should have been on a nothing inbetween show and not a Big Four PPV.

The only thing great about subpar WWE PPVs is how Big Dave will just totally go off at random points in his recaps:

I finally got to watch Over the Edge 99 tonight, and while I don't blame Vince for going on with the show, seeing Jerry Lawler sit back at the announce desk while JR was explaining what happened to the home crowd was one of the most heart wrenching things you can ever see. His face was completely ashen and he was only able to say "it doesn't look good" when JR was looking for someone to bail him out since he'd been stalling for time while the EMTs were working on Owen. Later of course we'd find out that Owen basically died in his arms, since being ringside Lawler was able to get to the ring probably before the EMT crew did. Being able to do your job mere moments after that is just astounding.

Not that the mutants aren't annoying and not like anyone expected otherwise, but they do have a point. I mean, it's nice to have another outlet for wrestling on TV for more guys to get exposure, but it is kind of embarrassing to see how watered down everything is. I can't really blame the mutants for not accepting what's really OVW with a few WWE guys on top as "ECW". I mean, I know the "old ECW" is dead and buried and the "new ECW" isn't as horrible as everyone says, but you can't go to the place where it all began and expect them to swallow the new group.

This message brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department. Former ECW wrestlers from 1997 on pretty much fall into three categories: 1. Guys who became stars (pretty much just RVD and the Dudley Boys) 2. Guys who are old and broken down (Funk, Dreamer, Sabu) 3. Losers who couldn't get over even if they got 839 pushes (pretty much everyone else on the roster)

Yeah, it doesn't matter what they do at this point the offical meme is "ECW is a failure".

Tazz also has a bad neck that bothers him to this day, not to mention he's probably a good 50 pounds heavier than when he was an active wrestler. He really had no reason to be in wrestling shape until the ECW stuff started. Speaking of ECW, that reminds me......I'm watching ECW TV and wondering why Lita is the only one on a WWE payroll who's ECW past never gets mentioned on TV.

Jeez, I totally posted that in the wrong thread. I thought I was in the "Thoughts that don't deserve their own thread".

Sabu may blow a lot of spots, but him stopping on the top rope and giving the crowd a "fuck y'all" look was pretty awesome.

HHH's opponent-destroying promos are probably going to have a bigger negative impact on wrestling than his lack of jobbing or relationship with the writing staff. Not only has his constant burials kept the WWE from producing a whole generation of superstars, a lot of people in the indys are probably going to copy his promo style since they'll think it's how a heel is supposed to cut a promo on someone. It still boggles the mind how a company can have Jerry Lawler, Ted DiBiase, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, and Arn Anderson on the payroll and have almost no one on the active roster who can put asses in seats with mic work.

Just because Cena held the title for a while doesn't mean he was protected. People seem to be getting it in their heads that not jobbing equals protected, but it doesn't mean a damn thing if you lose or not when the build for most of your feuds involve your opponent pointing out all your flaws and basically calling you a shit wrestler and then having you agree with everything they said. It would be a welcome sight to see the guy WWE considers one of its big stars for the future not get shit on in someone's promo for 20 minutes and not have anything to say in rebuttal besides "YEAH YOU'RE RIGHT BUT I'M CHAIN GANG 4 LYFE~!" I'm hoping the reason RVD kept the spinner belt when Paul presented him with the ECW title is that they're going to do the old "you only won one of these belts" when Edge wins at Vengance. It's completely backwards booking to job out the champ of your new offshoot brand on his first PPV match, but it's not like they're actually trying to make ECW work anyway.

As I recall, Doug Gilbert was fired pretty much as soon as he walked out of camera range and Jerry Lawler had to beg the station not to cancel their program for having a guy talk about smoking crack and raping 13 year olds on what I believe was still a Saturday morning TV show. Of course, wrestling being as carny as it is, Doug was back working with Lawler (and Brian Christopher) as late as 2003.

Doug Gilbert shoots on Brian Christopher, Randy Hales, and Jerry Lawler live on Memphis TV while Dave Brown stands there holding the mic looking like he just shit his pants.

You could say the same about easily 75%-80% of the guys Bobby Heenan managed in the 80s.

It warms my heart and restores my faith in the WWE audience that Armando Alejandro Estr(rrrrrrrrr)ada is getting over. He was one of the most entertaining parts of OVW when he was there, especially when he was going around saying he was going to get a question put on the ballot asking the people to elect him the Dictator of Los Kentuckos. He's proof that pro wrestling isn't rocket science (and I mean that in a good way). Everyone scoffed when Umaga made his debut but they went with the tried and true formula of Big Silent Monster Heel + Manager With Mic Skills. It worked for all the stiffs Bobby Heenan managed in the 80s, and hopefully it'll remind Vince that it can still work now.

So just because ECW fans consider themselves smart, WWE shouldn't even try to kayfabe them? I'll have to make a note of that. Besides, I'm talking more about the current fans who are new to ECW, not the jaded old school ECW fans who are above being worked and kayfabed. They're also trying to make ECW TV look like a non-WWE show, complete with the ECW bug in the corner of the screen instead of the WWE logo. They also make it clear "WWE" and "ECW" have different rules, rather than how RAW and Smackdown are pretty much the same show with different colored rings. It just seems silly to me (and it plays into the "Vince wants ECW to fail" theory over at DVDVR) that they spend so much time stressing the differences then you go to ECW.com and it undercuts everything by making it clear that ECW is nothing more than a wholly owned subsidiary of WWE. Of course the smart fans already know that, but we also know Stephanie is the head writer too but they don't go around yelling that from the rooftops.

Some of you may remember when Vince brought the nWo back they started selling the classic nWo shirts, only this time they had a giant WWF.com logo on the upper back which kinda kills the whole thing the nWo was about. Now I see that ECW.com redirects to a subpage of WWE.com instead of having its own domain. There's of course banner ads for WWEShopzone.com and a big paragraph of legalese at the bottom stating how everything is property of World Wrestling Entertainment. I thought they were supposed to be getting back to kayfabe on the websites, why can't they stop reminding people that all these factions that are supposed to be separate on TV are really all owned by the same company?

I still get goosebumps when I watch that. Especially now considering what happened to Liz, it's a nice reminder of How Things Used to Be and perhaps of How Things Should Have Been. It's nicer to remember her that way than as just another senseless wrestling death. Ironically, as I was typing this I was listening to an mp3 of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo`ole which is probably best known as "the song playing when Dr. Green died on ER".

This isn't directed at Dave, but his post reminded me that I'd be willing to wager that very few of the ECW marks coming out of the woodwork now ever watched ECW back when Dean/Eddy/Chris/Rey were there. We didn't even get the syndicated ECW show until 1996 here in Pittsburgh. If you didn't live in the NYC or Philly era from 94 to 96, you probably weren't watching when ECW was all about introducing wrestling to the masses. A lot of people talk like they were front row sitting next to the Hat Guy for that shit instead of copping to not watching it until they scored a copy of the tape.