sek69

Apparently WWE is now a "drama free zone". I can't access that page (firewall at work blocks anything sports related which seems to include wwe.com) but what justification could there be releasing Matt Hardy? Wasn't he about ready to come back from his injury?

Maybe its just my bleeding-heart liberalness, but if someone's expressing suicidal thoughts you try to get them some help rather than kick them in the balls. I guess Vince already proved his views on suicidal employees with the whole Kerry Von Erich deal, so as long as the blood doesn't get on his suit no big deal.

Wow. This is turning into one of those stories that ends with "...and then he turned the gun on himself." Someone says they have nothing left to live for and they respond with firing him, taking away the one thing left in his life?

There's just something about how he uses the number of words in each issue as a selling point that makes me wonder if his high prices are worth it. Speaking of Dave's sales pitches, I always wondered why people in the industry would subscribe to the Observer. Especially now, since WWE is the only game in town. Seems kind of self-serving to read a newsletter full of stories about yourself, wouldn't you think?

It seems like Dave charges an awful lot for the newsletter. $90 doesn't even get you a full year sub. Does he know it's not 1986 and there's other sources for information besides newsletters? Just seems like an awful lot of money when you consider the best parts end up on the net in some form sooner or later anyway.

The "IWC" always gets behind the underdog, then if the WWE ever pushes them they end up turning on the guy faster than one of Hogan's tag partners. I think part of it is the somewhat elitist attitude of being a mark for someone underpushed just to be different, then once your guy gets pushed and has people on his bandwagon being a fan of the guy is nothing special. As far as Heyman style booking being hated, I'd wager most of the heat comes from the workrate wonks since that kind of booking usually protects poor workers. Not to mention sometimes Heyman didn't know when to stop, with half the matches having 947 run-ins and "lights go off and on" spots just to hide the fact that there was two garbage workers in the ring.

Austin and Eddie having good matches would have gone a long way toward making Eddie a star no matter if they had a long term program or not. One day WWE will learn that all you need to do to make someone a star is have them face a main event guy who's got mark cred to spare (Rock, Austin, HHH, Taker) and have the main event guy make him look like a million bucks. The main eventer doesn't even have to job as long as he makes the guy look credible. Then (and this is the part they haven't figured out yet) you let the guy try out his newly minted credibility before you have the main eventer who "made" him squishing the guy right out of the box.

Rhyno was over in ECW because of Heyman's ability to get anyone over and the fact that most of the guys in ECW were average sized. Once he was in the ring with WWE guys it really exposed him as a midget. I can't say I'm gonna miss him, but getting fired for breaking a flowerpot is pretty lame. I guess they view public domestic disturbances the same way they look at flying first class, only main eventers are allowed to.

LOD-Arn/Tully and Hogan-Sting are what leaps to my mind immediately, since they pretty much killed years of booking. I also vote for Angle-Austin from Unforgiven 2001. Not that Kurt didn't deserve to win, but the whole thing seemed forced having the All-American win the belt a few weeks after 9/11. It was actually kinda sad to see Kurt celebrating in the ring with his family in front of an apathetic crowd. (it was funny to see Taker join the celebration late then leave early, still pissed over the Taker/Kane - Kronik match)

Could they pick a worst name for the LOD DVD? Oh well, not like Vince is known for his tact. As long as it has AWA, NWA, and Georgia footage this should rock all sorts of ass. The Greatest of the 80s set sounds odd, the title sounds like an old Coliseum best of tape but a 3 DVD set is bound to have some gems on it. I'm not really bummed out over no HOF DVD, considering who was inducted. I mean most of the good matches amongst the people involved were on the Hulk Rules DVD anyway.

HHH did the right thing after all. I wonder if by WM 22 he'll be the champ again while Dave is in the second match from the bottom.

Cena beat JBL, which means either they are switching both belts or HHH decided Batista isn't worthy after all.

Well Meltz is raving about the Ladder match and HBK/Angle, so it's definately going to go on my DVD buying list. Speaking of, since HBK accidentally busted Angle's mouth during their match, I wonder if Kurt's wife is going to go around calling Shawn a sloppy worker now.

I figured Taker was going to win the moment Orton announced on RAW he was going to challenge him and pretty much got booed out of the building. They've done a pretty good job getting the fans to boo people from the opposite brand regardless of their heel/face status so that sealed the deal for Randy. As far as HHH goes, a long match can expose him too but if they go 25 minutes and the match sucks he can just go to Vince and do the old "he can't work WWE style" and get his precious back. WWE used to know how to book monster faces, you never saw the Warrior going 25 minutes during his time on top. Now everyone has to have a half hour chinlock match with Hunter to prove their worthiness.

Judging by how they seem to be blowing through the undercard, I guess HHH got his wish for a 25 minute match. That should do nicely to completely expose Batista.

From WO.com: Sources in the cable industry confirmed a few days ago that WWE has finalized its deal with the USA Network for Raw and the rest of WWE's cable package. WWE sources say the deal may be announced tomorrow. Thank God, they never should have left in the first damn place.

HHH/Batista: I think Batista's getting the win, but they've squashed the heat on this feud enough to give HHH the justification for winning it back in a month or two. HBK/Angle: This match kind of exemplifies the WWE right now. These two can bring the house down if they both have their working boots on, but so what? No one's being elevated here, no new stars are going to be made here. Just two guys who both are wrestling on borrowed time. I'm going to go with HBK just because he's got the worst of the beatdowns during the buildup and that usually signals who's getting the win. Cena/JBL: Cena really should get a win here since he's the most over guy on SmackDown by far. My spider sense is tingling however, between Vince being a mark for JBL and HHH probably dropping the RAW belt (and him convincing Vince that two title changes on one card would dilute the value of him jobbing) I think Cena might get screwed here. Christy/Trish: Christy's gonna win here since they're going to try to get something for their $250,000. Christy seems to try pretty hard and Trish can make this look better than a complete clusterfuck. TBS/Akebono: This will end up being a Russoific schmozz I'm sure. Seems like they're trying too hard to have a "Wrestlemania Moment" to air for the buildup for next year's WM. Eddie/Rey: Didn't I hear they want to move Rey up to face more heavyweights? If so, I think Rey's winning here to get some main event cred. Orton/Taker: I think they had Taker convinced to job until Orton fizzled as a face. They pulled the last minute heel turn, but I don't think Orton is the future WWE wishes he was unless there's a single McMahon female he can marry. Money in the Bank 6-man: I'd like to see Shelton win so that the IC champ can actually be the #1 contender like it used to be.

I always thought Hogan not putting over Sting after one of the best buildups in wrestling history was the moment where WCW went down the toilet. Everyone points to the Fingerpoke of Doom, but that was just two guys using the Ego Dildo on each other where the Hogan/Sting thing pretty much killed Sting's character by having him job after being built up as an Undertaker-style unstoppable force. Nash makes a good punching bag because he used to take snarky shots at smark favorites (vanilla midgets) and was friends with people who booked themselves to the top. I certainly don't think he's innocent but as soon as Hogan jumped to WCW you could see the entire promotion bend to catering to his every whim no matter if it hurt the company.

Harry Smith and Nattie Neidhart are both doing a tour of Japan now I think. She is, at least, and I think she said Harry was going too. It'd be awesome if WWE gave the slightest shit about their women, since a Trish-Nattie feud would be a show stealer.

If Taker refused, he probably didn't need to. No one from WCW was getting put over anyone in 2001.

Not to mention the whole reason they had him become everyone's bitch is because he embarrassed Kurt Angle, who's become quite the cocky bastard lately.

I always thought of Goldberg as a Nikita Koloff clone. A goatee'd bald guy mowing down opponents and using basic moves as a finisher? All that was missing was the promos in a fake Russian accent.

Throwing a few more out there.... 1. I know Piper's had at least one legit motorcycle accident, but weren't they also used as covers for his hip replacement surgeries? I know I heard that was the reason he was retiring at WM 3. 2. Did Sgt Slaughter really get death threats during the Iraqi angle, or was that just Vince trying to retroactively add heat to a gimmick that they thought would sell out the LA Coliseum for WM but didn't?

I'm guessing this is going to be right up HTQ's alley, but I was watching some DVDs and it reminded me of a few things that always bugged me: 1. I was watching Bloodbath and saw Backlund vs Patterson from 1979, then on the Hogan disc there was the match where Hogan made his WWF return in 1983. One thing that really stood out is that in 1983 Backlund looked practically anorexic. Was it just an optical illusion since Backlund had shorter hair and switched to wearing a college wrestling style singlet? It definately looks like he had the steroid bloat in 1979, but I can't imagine a guy so goody-two-shoes he freaked out about turning heel shooting up. 2. Speaking of Backlund, why did he disappear off the face of the earth for 10 years after Hogan came back? I always thought that given Jimmy Snuka's problems Bob could have been a solid #2 face in the WWF. 3. The WWF worked so hard to erase Stan Hansen's time in the company from history, so what was the deal with his completely random appearance in No Holds Barred?

I'd be greatly appriciative if you could do that. I never was into those old Coliseum videos and it turns out they're the only place you can find moments in WWF history like this. I have my DVD list in my sig, if there's anything in there you'd want in return let me know. While I'm on the subject, I was thinking we should have a FTP server set up to allow us to share clips amongst each other. I mentioned to Cam on AIM that I have like 9-10 cds of stuff that would really get the thing going.