sek69

Its funny that Bret "losing" to the Sharpshooter was mentioned, considering when Vince put Hogan out to pasture in 1993 he had him job to Yokozuna via a legdrop. If Vince did that to the biggest draw his company ever had (to that point), why would Bret think he'd be any different?

What kills me is the whole Montreal situation boils down to Bret not wanting to lose what's essentially a prop (the belt) in a worked match to a guy who he was in a program with despite having a personal beef. Everyone was painted in a corner with this: Bret offered to job to anyone from Taker to the beer vendor but losing to anyone but the guy he had a program with would have came off as a fluke win which would have cheapened the title. Vince screwed himself by offering Bret a contract he couldn't follow on, and Bisch was so into his head at that point that Vince probably checked his toilet before taking a shit to make sure WCW didn't have a camera inside capturing footage for Nitro. Shawn did himself in by letting his personal beef with Bret make him say things that would make it so the whole locker room would never believe him even if he honestly didn't have anything to do with the double cross. The scummiest one of the whole story is Hebner, really. Dude swore on the life of his fucking kids when he knew damn well shit was going to go down. But I can't help but think everyone ended up getting what they wanted out of the deal... Vince became one of the biggest heel characters in wrestling history, Bret got his fat contract (WCW botching his career afterwards nonwithstanding), and HBK got to be the top dog until his back exploded. They couldn't have done better if it was written that way....

I call bullshit. The sports page here always has letters on how big an asshole he is on his radio show. I guess you could say he's over as a heel here, but I give you the Sek 100% guarantee that he's been told "fuck you" more than once. I always wondered how they got along, considering Hunter seems to be such a mark for old school territory style wrestling and Steph......isn't. The thought of Hunter having to sit there and listen to all her stupid ass soap opera angles while he grits his teeth to nubs makes me LOL.

It's a vicious cycle, WWE keeps mentioning it because it riles up the Canadians, and it riles up the Canadians because WWE won't stop mentioning it.

My understanding is that there was a rift between Michaels and Jannetty when Shawn cleaned up and found Jeebus and Marty was (is still, apparently) drinking and drugging.

Its funny, HBK had a lot of people convinced that he turned over a new leaf since he's been back, and all he had to do was shit on Bret and everyone suddenly realizes Shawn's still a dick. Hogan's comments are another reason I'd never want to get involved with wrestling. Still pissed over WWF wanting him to pass the torch in 1993? Jesus Christ, of all the grade school infantile shit, that has to take the cake. How do guys like Benoit and Jericho feel, knowing that the Hart family trained them to become what they are today and the company they work for was close to releasing a DVD completely burying its most famous member?

Its hilarious that they can't understand Pittsburgh is a fairly smart wrestling town. They always try to get us to boo Kurt Angle and this time it ended up turning Eugene heel for the night (and Hogan too since he attacked Angle).

Is Heyman that good he can get that many people in a development fed to convincingly act like everything was real? That's the only part that leads me to think something went amiss. Maybe Matt bladed too deep, or got busted legit with the chairshot, it just seems like something was not according to plan.

Most of Heyman's worked shoots were promo form. The only time I can remember a worked shoot in ECW was the whole Benoit breaking Sabu's neck deal, which was more of them making lemonade from lemons, since it was a real fuckup they they were able to use to get Benoit over as the Crippler.

Interesting tidbit on the OVW tapings, where Johnny Jeter turned heel on his partner Matt Capotelli (who has a legit broken leg). Heyman usually isn't a worked shoot kind of guy, so I'm thinking this might have been a chairshot gone wrong. Either way, I hope one of our collectors can track this down when it becomes available.

Bill Watts: His story's sad to think about, he went from having shows in the Superdome to selling Amway products for Jesus. It wasn't even his fault his company went bust either, the area he promoted in had an economic disaster and suddenly everything went poof. Watts was probably the best motivator in wrestling. It's amazing seeing guys that did jack shit in every other promotion suddenly tearing shit up for Watts. Guys like Rick Steiner, One Man Gang, Jim Duggan all showed why the Big Two were so quick to snap them up. Fritz Von Erich: I think saying he had one angle and drove it into the ground kind of sells him short. All his feuds involved his sons, yeah, but the Von Erichs-Freebirds stuff was pretty early in the territory's run. The Kevin/Kerry vs Chris Adams/Gino Hernandez matches were pretty good, and I dug the feud that Kevin had with Al Perez over the WCCW title. It's also worth mentioning that he was doing stuff like music videos before Vince was. Jerry Lawler: You know, they really missed the boat with the Lawler Hates ECW angle by not mentioning that Lawler was doing "hardcore" about 20 years before Paul Heyman bounced his first check. The only real knock I have against him is that he always had to be the champion wherever he goes. It's kind of ridiculous to look at the title history of the USWA and see Lawler winning and losing the belt 30 times, sometimes every week. Dutch Mantell: He does a good job keeping up the traditions of Memphis style, but he wears out his welcome too fast to make a long lasting impact. Jim Cornette: Probably one of the most brilliant wrestling minds alive today. I'd say it was mind boggling how he was marginalized by the WWE, but it really isn't. Only they would put him in a position to fail rather than tap into some of his vast knowledge and love of the business.

I was....12 years ago, but thanks for playing.

My favorite Bill Watts moment was when he had that job with the WWF for like a second, and he ran into HBK who was pissed that Watts punished him for being late to a show back when he was a Mid South jobber. Watts replied "well, were you late for the next show?" and HBK answered no, and Watts came back with "well I guess it worked then, didn't it?"

Hey, just so you guys know I have DVD burning capabilities too if you need an extra set of hands.

Also, reports are that TNA isn't paying for its timeslot after all and Spike is planning to give Impact all the push it can.

TNA looks to be on the verge of becoming really good, yet I hear they want Triple J to be the focus once they move to Spike TV.

Here in Western PA we have the International Wrestling Cartel (that's right, the IWC). We get a lot of TNA guys and a lot of the local boys are surprisingly good for the usual "indy lifers" you normally see in small feds. They have a weekly TV show on a small power independant station, and they have a Super Indy tournament that features some really good matchups. They have a website where you can see results and order DVDs. I'm thinking of grabbing a few when I get done being goodhelmet's DVD whore.

I'm a big NWA fan (still am actually), and it always frosts my cookies to see 80s stuff listed as "WCW". WCW didn't exist until 1991 or so, just because Turner rebranded everything doesn't mean JCP and whatnot becomes WCW. Sorry, but that's always been a pet peeve of mine, same as people who can't figure out that the NWA and WCW world titles had separate lines.

I like that plan, one reason I didn't join in the tag tournament is in the WWF one you could tell some people got voted against due to the voter not being fully aware of their work. It was more like a "Greatest WWF worker You've Seen" Tournament.

You haven't paid much attention to wrestling have you? Bret got some of the loudest pops in Canada before all the Montreal stuff happened, I can't see how he wouldn't get a monster ovation if he shows up this Monday. The above quotes pretty much reveal you don't pay attention to wrestling, but just to catch you up, every time WWF/E has been back to Montreal since they have to make some reference to what happened just for the sake of it. There's also been the constant "re-enactments" of Montreal where they try to do the same finish.

I've been watching the hell out of some Mid South/UWF stuff and being compared to Watts in that era is a complement. Not everything he tried worked, but from 84 to 86 he had some solid results. I was impressed how he booked Jim Duggan, for example. Character wise he was pretty much the same Hacksaw we saw in the WWF, yet in Mid South he wasn't portrayed as an idiot. It was almost surreal seeing Hacksaw cut pretty much the same promos that would be viewed as goofy a year later and come off as the lovable (if not somewhat simple) top babyface. It really showed what Vince missed out on by relegating him to a comedy act.

Depends if they were referring to Bill Watts on his own (Mid South) or Bill Watts working for someone (WCW).