Coffey

I can see Rob Van Dam & Carlito. Possibly Masters too, although I can't imagine what he'd do in a ladder match. A Masterlock through a rung? Who knows, I could've said the same about Kane and he's been in a TLC match amongst other things, so who knows? There's a lot of people I like to see in it, like Jamie Noble, but I highly doubt they'll get the chance. Especially if a World Title shot is on the line sometime down the road. Someone like Spanky or London could tear the place down in a ladder match but they can't win it, so they shouldn't bother. If it's Raw only, I'd say Carlito, Rob Van Dam, Chavo Guerrero...I think it has to be interbrand. It's too bad WWE doesn't use people like Rene Dupree, Johnny Swinger or Rob Conway because they'd be great for situations like this.

So, who else is going to be in this Money in the Bank match with Carlito? Obviously Rob Van Dam. Shelton probably won't because I could see him being in an IC title match. Masters will probably be in a Masterlock Challenge with Kane. I can't remember if last years match was open to both brands or not. They could slap someone like Matt Hardy in it. I wish WWE would bring back the Gimmick Battle Royal from Wrestlemania 17. Man, I marked out hard when Michael Hayes and Tugboat both came out.

We never talk about the current product that much anymore. Well, unless it's like newsbits. Not a bad Raw. Here's some of my thoughts: - Raw started with the Diva's Battle Royal. If it's going to happen, they might as well get it out of the way early. The crowd gets to pop for all the attractive women coming out and the match was kept short. Candice got to the point quickly in her post-celebration promo and then Edge & Lita hit the ring. Edge hit his point quickly as well: Him & Foley at 'Mania. Not a great opening segment but they got their points across and did what needed to be done. Now we know that Candice is the #1 contender to Trish's women's title, so we have that match next week. We also have Foley showing up to give his answer to Edge's match. After the first segment of Raw, we already know two things that are going to happen next week. That's a good thing. - Carlito's match was entertaining as he talked the whole time while taking out that jobber. It also let's us know that at Wrestlemania, there will be another Money in the Bank. - The Spirit Squad are comedy. I really liked that trampoline spot. Marty coming back is funny because someone here just mentioned him the other day. I wasn't real high on HBK getting as much offense as he did. Afterall, it was one-on-four. - Kane/Masters wasn't bad. Kane got his win back from losing to Masters in the WM tournament. I liked how Kane won with a move other than the Chokeslam. It's nice to see that shit. It brings that "unpredictable" feel back. I remember actually caring about near-falls at one time. The post-match Masterlock while Kane was doing his pyro thing was a nice touch. - We all knew that HHH was going to win the 3-way but the match was still solid enough. RVD seemed more over in this match than he has been since his return to the company. The Big Show makes a great monster. We got the "Mania Moment" staredown between Cena/HHH too. I'd say the low point of Raw was the Shelton/Flair match and even that match got the IC title off of Flair which is a good thing. I'm not real high on the whole Mama Benjamin storyline/angle but I think Shelton will make a decent enough midcard IC heel champion.

We knew she was getting cut as soon as she won the Diva Search, really. I mean, WWE got rid of Christy and she brought a helluva lot more to the table than Ashley. Both in terms of appearance and potential. Christy was something different. Ashley is just another generic blonde bimbo with fake jugs. Just like Torrie Wilson, whom is still employed for whatever reason.

Yeah but Ludvig isn't around anymore, so not Tatanka has a shot at gold!

I won't be watching live because I'd much rather watch the NBA All-Star festitivities. That being said, this PPV won't be worth the thirty-five dollars either as most pay-per-view events these days rarely are. I do plan on watching the event sometime before Raw hits tomorrow. I want to know what's going on when all the uproar starts.

..but they have a commitment to ROH too and ROH "made" them. I know they signed TNA contracts and all that but unless the money was huge, I can't see a lot of the workers just leaving ROH in the cold. Then again, Shelley & Homicide didn't go, so who the fuck knows. I do know that Strong & Aries hold gold in ROH and they're basically jobbers in TNA.

Honestly, I just might be that jaded/stupid because as long as the show is good, I don't really care about anything else. I think ROH is the best promotion in the world right now and Feinstein being involved there in the past doesn't change that fact.

...or he's already getting "heat" and now he's trying to deflect it.

I'm not going to lie, Hogan is the reason that I started watching wrestling. Right around the time Wrestlemania 4 ended is when I got hooked, or at least that's as far back as I can remember. I watched all of the build-up leading to Hogan/Savage at 'Mania 5 and I was hooked because of Hogan. I even got into crappy feuds, like those against Zeus and Earthquake because of Hogan. It was his charisma and theatrics I guess. That being said, I don't buy a lot of wrestling DVD's. The only wrestling DVD's that I own are the Ric Flair collection that I got on sale for $22 and Wrestlemania 19 which I bought off of a friend for ten bucks because he needed some money. My friend Eric owns Hulk Still Rules, the nWo DVD and the Best of the 80's DVD and they're all accessible to me. That being said, this DVD still appeals to me. It'll probably appeal to Eric as well and be a purchase. He's a lot more into buying wrestling DVDs then I am. He's almost as big a Hogan mark as myself except that he just ate raw eggs whereas I wrote a letter to Hogan asking him to get well soon after getting squashed by 'Quake. I believe that RRR and myself share that in common. It's all about the nostalgia. Yeah, it's a DVD set of nothing but Hogan matches but Hogan has never been about the workrate anyway. It's always been around the circumstances and the story surrounding a match. The build-up to the confrontation and the outcome of the match. Rewatching some of these matches will be like re-living all of the storylines and shit that I grew up on. Them all being together on one DVD is a lot easier than switching between three DVDs to see several different segments. I'm not saying it's perfect but it's a Hogan DVD that's pretty good and, in my opinion, will be worth owning. Sek does make a point about the scratch logo being blurred. That might hinder my acceptance of the DVD, at least a little. It's damn annoying.

I really like Dave Penzer, so that's good news. More Borash though is pretty much the opposite of that. Hope Douglas comes back.

I'm glad to see that someone else is starting to appreciate Bobby Roode. I've been high on him for awhile now.

Why have TNA made Abyss into a garbage wrestler? He's one of the better big men in the business and TNA make him do crazy table spots and barbed wire matches and stuff. Why can't he just be a big monster that's still a little...special, like how ROH booked him when he was with the Embassey. He has Mitchell as a mouthpiece, he doesn't need to brawl all over the arena and dive off balconies. That shit should be reserved for people like Jeff Hardy and New Jack, the people that can't actually wrestle.

PLEASE tell me he saw iMPACT! tonight and that he considers Sonjay Dutt "dead weight."

They're no way Boogeyman can "no sell" that many moves in a row. He'll get injured on the second "o."

Please tell me she's not going to turn heel on Rey and say that she's with Orton now?

So did everyone else.

He shouldn't settle on anything that doesn't allow for him to wrestle in the States either. He might think being exclusive to Japan right now would be good but a few months down the road it might not.

I don't know if him thinking that would be a bad thing though. I mean, he knows that people bought the Ric Flair DVD. He knows that the ECW DVD and the Road Warriors DVD, etc. all do well. Instead of doing box sets, maybe they'll just release more specific DVDs? Of course, that means we'll never get a Survivor Series boxset or a Royal Rumble boxset and whatnot, which sucks, but if we're getting Steamboat DVDs and shit, I won't complain. Too bad we can't get both.

I don't really know how well this all ties in but the last two TNA PPV's one of my friends named Bobby wanted to watch the shows with us just because Sting might be there and then because Sting was going to be there (in the tag main event). Admittedly, he's a mark but after Sting wasn't there the first time and announced his "retirement" on iMPACT! Bobby no longer cares about TNA. That's sad to me. TNA sucked him in with Sting. He got to see the Canadian Destroyer and a good PPV Samoa Joe match and he was impressed. Now he's been run off by "bad" booking. Maybe not bad but certainly not the outcome he was looking for. I'm curious how many wrestling fans, in this day and age, are like Bobby. I don't mean just fans that aren't smart to the business or fans that just watch WWE Raw like it's Cheers, just another show on TV. I'm talking about the people that have certain expectations, not from a workrate perspective or a "hey, his promo has improved" way...but like how angles play out and shit. I can hear The Boogeyman and Shelton's mama getting cheered whenever they show up camera. Boogeyman is the shits and Shelton's mom is a terrible gimmick and certainly not going to wrestle anytime soon. There was a poster on an old message forum that I used to post at. Sek knows him. His name was artDDP. He used to always talk about how the downfall of WWF started when Stephanie stayed with HHH instead of going with Kurt Angle in their "love triangle" storyline. In fact, the blowoff upset him so much that quit watching WWF and starting writing fantasy booking stuff instead. The wrestling really doesn't matter. It doesn't. People don't want to hear that but it's true. People weren't watching Hogan/Andre to see a five-star classic match full of workrate. They wanted to see if Hogan could beat Andre. They wanted to see if Andre would win the title. They wanted to see if Hogan could slam Andre. People didn't watch Austin/McMahon because McMahon was a young lion on his way up the ladder of success and was putting on great matches during his climb. Great wrestling with great storylines is just a bonus...but it's not the promise of a good match that'll sell a show. At least not to the majority. That's why ROH is still an Indy fed. That's why Paul London is a jobber in WWE. Even in NWA where the wrestling was better (when compared to WWF) people were tuning in because they wanted to see the Freebirds get their asses kicked or they wanted to see someone be able to fend off the rest of the Horsemen and take out Flair. It wasn't about the matches so much as the outcome of the matches and the story surrounding the matches. It's all about the booking. The booking is everything. WWE is bad because the booking is bad. TNA is bad because the booking is bad. Good booking makes good characters and then the fans take notice and start to care. Good booking makes the belts mean more so that title changes actually matter and the fans can actually remember who has each belt.

Kris fuckin' Kloss? My God, can this "promotion" get any worse? This is so bad that it's sad and it's not even aired yet. Paying the fans to show up? The roster? Oh my goodness...

I'd guess it's like, all of the above. People don't want to hear WWF get censored. They don't want to see WWF get censored. They don't want to shill out all that money for an altered product. The fucking 21-disk was just slapped on top. It's just all the factors slapped together is what I'd guess. I'd guess it was discontinued because it wasn't making as much money as WWE had envisioned it would. Just trash.

How about current TNA instead of '99 WCW?

It was more that he could polish shit. He was the "go to guy" when they needed to make someone look like a credible threat. Kevin Nash, Batista and Scott Steiner all come to mind as they all ran over Jericho during their build-up. I guess that's the whole "solid match with most people" thing though.

I was there live for that promo.