sek69

I kept hoping Trish's music would hit during the Divas match to spare us the torture, but no luck. I don't know what happened to Cade and Murdoch. Maybe they froze in front of the live TV audience?

Well it seems like the Jesus Push is on for Chris Masters, I don't know if he's going to get over, but it won't be from lack of trying. Two matches in, Ashley's credibility is shot with her Gayda-like performance. Not like Torrie can carry anyone to a watchable match, but Ashley was blowing basic spots to an embarrassing level. Carlito vs Flair? Kinda weird seeing Ric compete for the IC title, even in this stage of his career, but at least Carlito's future over-ness is in good hands.

It seems like "trying to be something he's not" is how they're pushing Chavo now, so maybe he was just furthering the angle.

Someone asked him about the future of tag team wrestling in WWE, noting that they've pulled away from tag wrestling lately. JR's response: Tag teams don't get as over as singles? That must come as a surprise to the Rock n' Rolls, the Midnights, Von Erichs, Freebirds, Road Warriors, Fabs, and about a zillion other tag teams that were the top draws of their promotions. I almost agree with him about a lack of quality team until I remember they break up every tag team as soon as they get a small amount of success. The moment a team debuts, they immediately start planning their breakup. They don't even do that well either, since instead of a potentially hot breakup angle the usually just have the draft break teams up and it's never mentioned again. Hell, even when they did have a tag team break out as potential stars (MNM), they ended up jobbing them out to a hastily made novelty act just to pimp DVDs. This also was another knee-slapping moment of hilarity when asked about wrestling in the 90s compared to today: (empahsis mine) Yeah, like Rob Conway: Male Stripper, Eugene, Jillan the Mole Woman, the Boogeyman, Rosey the 400lbs Superhero, Road Warrior Heidenreich, and Simon Dean. Jesus, it's like JR doesn't even try anymore.

I know its somehow possible to download streaming video, that's kinda what I was asking about.

There's currently 3 Impact! shows available for download here, can anyone convert those into the actual shows to download instead of the RealPlayer links?

I read a while ago they were going to do that with HBK and Lance Cade, which would have made sense since he actually trained Cade. I guess they decided Cade was better as half of the 2005 version of Dusty Rhodes and Dick Murdoch

Removing Dave Lagana is the key. It doesn't really matter if Dusty ever has one good idea, getting Lagana off the main staff will likely improve morale since he pushes the lame ideas and shits on anything the boys think of for themselves.

To me this is a good thing. Dusty, for all the bashing he gets, comes up with some entertaining stuff. By most accounts, Dave Lagana was the guy who shit on any idea that was brought to him by a wrestler, and you'd have to think Dusty won't do that.

Wasn't that during Giant's nWo push? That would at least explain it story-wise.

"...and he's having a GOOD day" - Lance Cade's response to his partner's tirade in their video from RAW.

The tight shot of Edge's face with his eyes tearing up and the look of terror on his face at the thought of being paralyzed should have ended the show. WWE has no sense of drama when it comes to things like this.

I was thinking that as well, I could sell like a champ too if someone was potatoing the hell out of me.

Cause you know the best thing to do when morale is down is to law down more rules to make people unhappy. Distraction from what? Did someone blow a spot because they were playing PSP during a match? These guys aren't flying airplanes for chrissakes. This seems like an extra step just to bust balls. Doesn't deducting from someone's check seem easier for all involved than keeping a credit card on file? "Move along, nothing to see here folks" .....besides, international shows are right up there with DVDs as the few draws the company has left to count on. The irony-meter just pegged if Taker was in attendance at that meeting. Lord knows the key to drawing money is to sell Bob Holly's 80s jobber offense rather than revamping the creative staff.

I don't think we'll see Trips until the first USA show unless someone backstage panics since Spike is kicking WWE in the balls by not only running those "WRESTLING IS TEH FAKE" ads for UFC programming, they're running ads for TNA now during RAW. In Vince's mind, I bet he thinks he's punishing them by keeping his biggest star (HHH) off RAW. As far as tonight's show, I really hate when they do angles like the Edge/Hardy stuff and everyone gets all shooty until they come back from the break and everyone's back in Wrestling Announcer Mode for the next segment. I mean, I like how they played off Edge's real neck injury and he sold it like he was afraid for his life, but when everyone moves on to the next segment it cheapens everything. Not to mention it trains the fans to think every injury is a work, which is bad because sometimes shit happens and the Marky McMarkersons will think it was part of the show. I'm also not going to get excited about the Flair angle, since it always ends up being a swerve to get Flair back with HHH, at least it was the last 546 times they did it.

Back when WWE.com started with title histories, they acknowledged Inoki's switch with Backlund in Japan. The histories were gone for a while, and now they're back with no mention of Backlund ever dropping the strap.

I'm more worried about the quality problems than the match listing. I hope that WWE isn't going to start letting the quality slip just to get more product out since DVDs are one of the few sure money draws they have now. I still can't get over how poor the WM 21 DVD was, if they can't make sure their top show comes out looking good what can they be sure of?

From what I heard, the extentsion he signed just took him through SummerSlam and he's taking an open ended break from wrestling.

C'mon, it's worth it just for the Yoko match alone. That's probably the greatest worst match of all time.

You know, I hate to say it but Shawn was right. Why should someone who's full time with the company do two clean jobs to someone only around to promote his TV show and won't even do a practice match to make sure everything's smooth? I don't agree with him doing the promo on RAW (since it muddled the face/heel dynamic for his program with Masters), but I can understand the frustration behind it.

I worry that WWE is rushing some DVD sets too quickly without checking for quality. If I recall, the WM 21 problems came from them wanting to get the discs out as soon as possible.

Whatever was at that link, it's now a 404 error. If Jericho is "working the smarts", couldn't TNA slap him for using their logo? Christ knows Vince would if someone was using the WWE logo in a rib.

It would make more sense at this stage of his career. Less guaranteed money, but more time he can spend with family and with his band.

I'd agree on Buddy Roberts, but anyone who says Michael Hayes doesn't deserve to be in the HOF on his own merits needs to watch tapes of his work in World Class and Mid South. He'd get "I'm going to kill you" heat from the crowd just standing there not doing anything. Hell, you could make an argument just for how he helped make entrances and music a key role in getting over. I can see your point with not having active wrestlers included, but you have to consider a wrestler is never completely retired until death. Even Lou Thesz wrestled when he was 74. It's the nature of the beast that guys (especially now) will always come back for one more payday.

Well the Dudz had a contract that they just let expire, Jericho (apparently to the best anyone can tell) has no contract with anyone right now. Speaking of, the Dudleys were rumored to be going to TNA too. Bubba even said they might go there for a while before trying to get back with WWE. He didn't seem to think it would burn any bridges. I don't think there's really anyone in TNA right now who has the power to fuck with anyone politically, and they'd be stupid to allow it to happen if they got someone like Jericho.