sek69

Hilarous comments from Tazz re: Michael Cole.... No matter how you look at it, that's just too funny for words.

My point was that Awesome (IMO at least) doesn't suck any more or less than the hosses they did keep, which is why it suprised me he didn't get signed since he was at least over at one point.

Booker T: He's been on autopilot since leaving WCW, despite showing signs of life recently with the program he had going w/ Angle. He was a great worker until it seemed he just came to terms with never getting a real chance in WWE and just started to coast. Tito Santana: He's one of those guys who's prime came *just* before the big boom of the 80s. Most people remember him as the guy who was in a couple tag teams and jobbed at Wrestlemania every year. His matches with Greg Valentine over the IC title were usually excellent, and his feud with Savage helped launch the Macho Man into the upper tier of the WWF. Jun Akiyama: I always saw him as like the Randy Savage of Japan in the sense that he was unfortunate enough to never get the full focus of the fans. He seemed to always be in someone else's shadow. Still, I always enjoy watching his work. Hulk Hogan: It's funny, I never liked him growing up. Maybe I was just cynical at a young age, but I was never a Hulkamaniac. Hell, I even marked out when he got squished by the Earthquake. You can't deny that Hogan's probably the most brilliant politican ever in wrestling history, his heel turn and nWo run was a work of art until WCW let him get too much control. Ironically, I don't mind his nostalgia runs of the last couple years. As long as he's not being pushed as a title contender, I don't mind his occaisonal ego strokes. Mike Awesome: Everyone gives Heyman credit for being so protective of Awesome, but he really didn't do anything that wasn't already done when Awesome was the Gladiator in Japan. I'm kinda surprised WWE didn't sign him, since he has the hoss credientals they like.

Yeah, but this is WWE we're talking about, since when to they care about if something's big for another company? That's the part that baffles me, since this is completely out of character for WWE to help another company out even if it helps them in the long run.

I'm surprised the "smart" fans that ROH seems to attract haven't turned on the company for having such an obvious working relationship with WWE, the evil empire. Hell, for that matter, I'm suprised that WWE has allowed what could possibly be a big angle develop outside of their sphere of influence.

Benjamin has said he uses the Stinger Splash because he was a Sting fan growing up, and HBK trained Cade so I'd assume he was a big influence there.

Road Warrior Animal returns! What more do you want!

Yeah, there's nothing more irritating than someone who acts like they're better than what they're reviewing/transcribing. You're a wrestling fan for chrissakes, don't act so goddamn uppity.

Boy, was that guy who did the transcripts a self-important douche or what? Did we really need his MST3K type comments after every paragraph?

One thing that bugged me is that they weren't really pushing that he's an Arab-*American*. Hell, other than announcing him being from Michigan, they never really mention it at all. The crowd chants "USA", the announcers should mention Hassan was born and raised in the USA just to underscore he's an American of Arab heritage. Mick Foley mentions in his DVD that the one thing Michael Hayes taught him is that to cut a really good promo, you have to believe what you're saying. Every time the crowd would chant "USA" at Hassan or when someone tells him "love it or leave it" I'd literally be jumping up and down begging him to cut a promo pointing out he's American just like everyone in the crowd. Another thing that bugged me about his character is how WWE has to make all Middle Eastern wrestlers dress in native garb, and I've never seen an arab born and raised in the US walk around in full Shiek attire. You'd think someone like Hassan (who's main motivation is his anger in being thought of as a terrorist) wouldn't go around dressed like one of Osama's henchmen.

Just more examples of what happens when a wrestling company insists on not allowing people who know the product to work on the main shows. It's almost like WWE went out of its way to punish the workers Cornette had the most pride in, which is the most self defeating thing I've ever heard of in wrestling.

Also, didn't the taping reports say that promo was done for Velocity? It should still make it on TV.

God (or should that be Allah?) bless 'em for trying to spin their way out of this, but offensive aspect aside there's no way you can walk away from that angle without getting the clear "terrorist" vibe which wrecks Hassan's whole character of being a guy who everyone thinks is a terrorist because he's Arab-American. Now they had him act like a terrorist, so to have him still claim to be innocent makes him look stupid.

That was one of my favorite moments of the Attitude era, Austin played it perfectly as someone who didn't want to be a hero but had to stop what Taker was planning.

The best angles are always the ones people can relate to. Austin-Vince was huge in no small part to the deep down desire to slug your boss that most people have inside. Standing up to bullies, defending women (remember when Austin saved Steph from Taker?) rather than exploiting them, taking the arrogant cocky bastard down a peg, all of those are tried and true angles that almost always result in heat and money drawn. If WWE hired writers who followed wrestling, they'd know that.

I think it has the potential to be a huge angle (not Hall and Nash huge, but still...) because it's all about a guy getting f'ed over by his girlfriend. People can relate to that a whole lot better than wanting to beat someone up because you have a foot fetish.

Focusing on the internet reaction to the Matt angle ignores that it got the pop of the night from the crowd. Once the fans realized they weren't being fucked with again, they ate it up.

The Blondes never really got a chance, they were cut down by the Powers That Be as soon as it became clear they had a chance to be real good.

I love how some smarts react when they get worked (ie the tards on Matt's board) "Waaaaah, you're getting big bucks from WWE instead of working for peanuts in ROH! Damn You!"

That's exactly what it reminded me of, Scott Hall walking out on Nitro. I was amazed WWE was able to pull this off so brilliantly, when Matt started yelling at "Adam" and seeing the arena security take him out like some fan jumping the railing, I was marking out at how awesome it all was. More importantly the crowd was going bananas the whole time. Funny how that works, instead of coming up with some stupid angle or gimmick they put two guys who (at least at one time) hated each other for real together. That's as basic as wrestling gets: I hate you, now I'm going to kick your ass. That's all it fuckin' takes to rake in the money.

Wasn't one of the claims floating around that the writers felt HHH was overexposed? As if anyone in the company would have the balls to say that out loud, let alone act on it.

Did anyone find out what happened to make HHH decide to take the summer off? At first I thought maybe he just went into hiding to grow that stupid Lemmy-beard out.

Odd.

I'm talking about the videos of terrorists sawing people's heads off that were released over the internet. Parts of the Hassan angle were CLEARLY based off those videos. Anyone who saw those videos would immediately be offended at the angle.

Which is my point with the angle last night. I didn't have a problem with it until they started invoking images of terror videos and having Cole and Tazz call Davari a martyr for the cause. It was an unnecessary level of realism.