sek69

I don't want to come off as knocking MMA, I respect the sport, I just don't understand how it became to be considered a competitor of pro wrestling when as you said boxing seems a more natural choice. I know, thats why I said that Meltz is trying to gain cred by covering a "real" sport but the people he's trying to gain cred with don't respect MMA.

Well to be fair, Stu Hart was stretching people in the Dungeon up almost to the end. I know MMA is a relatively safe sport, but the object is still to knock out your opponent or make him tap (or pound him until the ref stops the match). Crippling injuries in wrestling like Hayabusa or Droz were the result of botched spots. Boxing is definately the most brutal sport, and why it gets treated with respect and MMA is considered barbaric is beyond me.

Wrestling fans have always had options when it came to what show they wanted to watch. Whether it was WWFE, NWA/WCW, ECW, AWA, or if you were lucky, a regional promotion like World Class or Memphis, there was always an alternative if you didn't like one company's style of product. With everyone but WWE folding and TNA just now beginning to emerge as a viable second option, a lot of the IWC (led by Meltz) are pimping MMA as an alternative for wrestling fans. Meltz even tries to make it sound like you have to be a MMA fan to be a complete fan of wrestling. I'm wondering if the blending of MMA and pro wrestling isn't like forcing together cats and dogs. On paper it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch, since both are presented as athletic contests, and both undoubtedly require skill to excel at. The problem lies in how each side's fanbase views their sport and how the public at large views both sides. Most longtime MMA fans (I don't know if MMA has an equivalent term to "smarks") look down at wrestling as "that fake stuff" and resent being lumped in with wrestling fans. A lot of pro wrestling fans don't like wrestling to be compared with MMA since it tends to expose a lot of the worked side of the business. I mean, you watch a guy work an armbar as a resthold in WWE, then in the "real stuff" someone taps to the same armbar in seconds. There's also the view of the mainstream, non-fan, public. Most non-fans think MMA is barbaric and all wrestling fans are inbred retarded rednecks. Lumping those together doesn't help anyone in the public eye. Wrestling journalists like Meltzer seem to think covering MMA will give them some mainstream cred, but those people he's trying to impress think MMA is nothing more than contained barroom brawling. Personally, I don't mind MMA but I can't sit down and watch it like I can with wrestling. I think part of it is that when I watch MMA I always have a twinge in the back of my mind that someone could seriously get hurt doing this. I don't have that in wrestling since there's usually a low risk of someone getting f'ed up unless something gets botched. I think what it comes from is that I used to watch boxing a lot growing up, but then I started seeing guys I watched growing up who ended up brain damaged and punch drunk. It made it hard to enjoy boxing knowing that these guys getting knocked out are probably going to suffer long term effects. When I watch wrestling, I don't worry that the guys I enjoy watching are going to end up vegetables. At least not from wrestling. They may fuck themselves up with their personal demons, but most guys retire from wrestling with scarred foreheads and bad knees at the worst unless they had some kind of drug problem. I know a lot of people here are MMA fans, I wondered what you guys think of the breeding together of MMA and pro wrestling.

I'm sure they'll talk about it on the main feature and probably show at least the finish, but most people either forget or don't know that the match was going at a pretty decent clip until the You Know What happened. I mean, the set has the Killer Bees match, 2 Bulldog matches (although one was very good) and a Hakushi match, but no matches against HBK because Bret wanted to turn this DVD into his own personal wankfest. That's probably why he doesn't want the 10 man tag on it, because Shawn's in it and he figures that one Rockers match is all the Shawn that's required on his DVD set.

That's the downside to only hiring pretty boys who don't follow wrestling: no one knows the names of moves so no one can do decent PBP.

Why does everyone hate the Coach? He's no Gordon Solie, but he's better than the usual no-nothing airhead announcer.

I was starting to wonder if Backlund ever had a match with a clean finish.

I certainly understand why Bret wouldn't want the ss97 match on the set, but talking about his career and not showing that match is like doing a story about Bill Clinton and not talking about Monica. In fact, not showing it just adds to the "elephant in the room" aura of the whole event. Plus I thought for sure the 10 man tag would make it since Bret was/is such a mark for anything that enhances his Canadian-ness. Isn't it kind of egocentric of Bret to not include that match since it doesn't show off his skills enough? I agree it was important to have some Hart Foundation matches, but I could grab any Coliseum Video from the 80s and find a more worthy Harts match than the Killer Bees one.

Well *they* forget what happens after the show ends, so I guess they assume everyone else does too.

SD first: A lot looks decent, but the bad looks extremely bad. The Boogey Man got laughed out of the OVW Arena where they tend to be more forgiving of bad gimmicks. I don't know what's being passed around the WWE booking staff to make them think he's ready for prime time. TNA Spoilers: Guess that solved the "AMW vs 3D isn't a title feud" question I posed earlier, but hot shotting the tag titles is another WWE style move than TNA needs to avoid to form a distinction in the fans' minds between the two companies. The whole funeral bit has a Katie Vick vibe to it, hopefully it comes off better on TV. If you absolutely, positively need to get something over, Jim Mitchell's the guy to go to.

I was always under the impression Inoki was a mark for the NWA name since he's all about old school in wrestling. I know when guys working for NWA territories work in Japan, they're promoted as if the NWA still was as big in America as it was in the 80s.

Since TNA and New Japan have a working deal (Liger working Bound for Glory) and Inoki has always been a mark for the NWA, could it be feasable for the new IWGP champ to make an appearance on a TNA show?

I posted that already back on page 1 :ph43r:

Well they pulled the rug out from ECW when Raw became available, and they made the announcement they were parting ways with Raw in the middle of WWE's negotiations with other networks (which was part of a bigger shittiness contest, but still), so Spike has a history of being flighty with wrestling programs.

Canadian Stampede and SS97 are probably the two most memorable matches in Bret's WWF career and neither are on the list. Yet we get a Harts vs Killer Bees match, which I'm sure is technically sound and all, but c'mon.

From what I've gathered by reading interviews, the Carters have a solid game plan laid out for TNA. They seem to know that the goal isn't to immediately go head to head with WWE but to gain back some of that audience that liked wrestling but not the WWE product. They aren't trying to set PPV records, just keep taking baby steps to slowly establish themselves to fans. As long as Spike doesn't get skittish and pull the rug out from under them, I think TNA has a solid shot to establish themselves.

What I want to know is how can Linda spend her life around Vince, Shane, and Steph and still be an emotionless droning robot? It's fairly amazing to see the contrast between those three (who even smarks have to admit are entertaining when they aren't taking up the entire program) and her. And how hard is it to hit a convincing low blow? That was one of the most cringeworthy moments I've seen in years. That's the kind of stuff that ends up on TV when you're trying to sell your buddies on wrestling. Going from last night's Raw to the Impact replay was like night and day. If Spike was smart, they should run a TNA special the first time RAW gets pre-empted. I bet you it'd draw a big number.

The problem with Joe is that he's not as much of a monster if he's facing someone like Nash. Also despite TNA pushing the X division as not having a weight limit, it kinda stands out that Joe's the only fat guy and the rest of the group are built like cruisers. Joe's easily on my top five current favorite wrestlers, but they're running the risk of booking him into a box where he ends up frozen out of the world title picture. I just wonder what happened to the Naturals. I know they were at the NWA Anniversary Show but having your main tag program not involve the champs is a WWE kind of move.

Great news for TNA and wrestling fans, not only did they not lose any ratings from their debut show, they actually gained a few.

So what are they gonna do since they went ahead and fired JR off TV without having someone lined up? King and Coach as a duo doesn't sound very promising, since King would have to take the face role.

So what was the point of JBL beating Rey? The whole point of Rey existing is that he's the scrappy underdog who beats the odds.

The best part is the F5 is now called "the Verdict". That alone makes Brock my new favorite wrestler.

WWE probably thinks Hayes' voice is too gravelly for TV, despite having a guy with a pretty severe speech impediment announcing their flagship show. Interestingly enough, watching the Mid-South/UWF set reminds you what a good team JR and Hayes were back then.

I'm convinced that if the Savage-Steph thing never happened, Vince must believe it did. He's hired back so many people with more dubious mental states than Savage, the only thing I could see Vince not looking past is if someone boinked his daughter. As far as the announcers go, WWE is reaping what they sowed by insisting on pretty boy announcers who don't follow wrestling. Despite their best announcers all being ex wrestlers, anyone who cares about the biz is considered too markish to hire. I find it highly ironic and hilarous that if you remember when the WWF had solid and knowledgable announcers, Vince won't hire you. I always thought Kevin Nash would make a great announcer, plus it would give WWE a reason to fuck with TNA. And it would keep Nash from trying to keep wrestling. Everyone wins.