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Only with a much better product. 2002 - 2004 had some absolute gold in it.

I too always thought the Vince / Hogan dominating most of the advertising materials was a factor. Although is was a great match / build, it wasn't the match which should have been put front and centre. Austin / Rock seemed quickly put together at the time. The absence of both long term before the match and the knowledge Rock was soon out again didn't help. Nor did his recent heel turn IMO, as great as it was. it all seemed very out of nowhere. For the first time in three years Rock wasn't booed at Wrestlemania - and he was a heel! And yes, the Kurt / Lesnar dynamic worked better with Bock as heel. Still a great card though, one of my top 3 Mania's ever.

The thing with Dolph is, he has never really been given the chance to sink or swim on his own. The company clearly doesn't have faith in him as a talker, that's why he has always had side acts up to now - and I can't remember the last time he had mic time on TV. The same could be said of a lot of wrestlers over the past five or so years. He is awful as a face frankly also, his best foot was definitely forward as a heel. There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle he still needs to put in place. But seeing as he has been around for almost ten years, I question whether that is happening any time soon.

Sandman being blinded. At the time that VHS hit my doorstep I thought it was the real deal.

Glad to see Jake get inducted, obviously well deserved. DDP has to be inducting him, surely, it's the choice which makes the most sense for a number of reasons.

KENTA is a great talent, but a good fit for the WWE? I don't know. We'll see if it materialises.

Dammit AJ, they're minerals...

More than feasible I'd say. The 2011-2013 window must be enough to live the rest of his low key lifestyle out nicely alone.

RE the Vince match, yes it was totally abysmal. The psychology of seeing a 64 year old man get beaten the shit out of, outnumbered vastly by a whole family and submitted half way through a card was always going to be a clanger. Add to that Bret legally couldn't take bumps (or smartly do so), and it was always destined to be shit. Nobody in their right mind was shocked it was shit, but not many could rightfully predict how shit. With a lot of smoke and mirrors, it could have been passable at best, but there you have it. The smarter thing to do would have been giving Bret a hot tag to finish up in a Cena / Hart vs Batista / Vince match., especially if Bret were able to do the moves he did in his MSG house show appearance months later. But again, there you have it. But no, I don't think the match takes away from Bret's legacy. If he came to the ring in his Sgt Pepper jacket, pink shades and singlet, perhaps. But this was most certainly a cameo appearance disguised as a match when discussing the Hitman's career, for all purposes.

I think this argument was put to rest at the Royal Rumble, though, when everyone shit on Cena/Orton and the last few minutes of the Rumble match. If people just like chanting YES then they wouldn't have reacted like that. But wrestling fans by and large are a massive group of miserable dickheads who like nothing better than to shit on things, just because. Not saying DB isn't popular, he clearly is massively popular. But there is a percentage of people chanting for Daniel Bryan during a Randy Orton match because they cannot wait to film it and upload it to YouTube under their YT account "AmericanDragonEST1999" or go onto wrestlingforum.com and talk shit, just because.

Yeah she was / is in Japan teaching English. haven't heard anything about her losing that ig though, or showing up drunk. I hope its not the case as she is there in part to clean her act up. One of the sharpest declines (or gradual, but certainly has a steep depth) of any wrestling personality ever.

Sure was!

God I hope not. Wrestlemania 25 was the last Mania where the two stayed out of each others build / match.

Still watching TWA. man, i wish this shit was filmed better. As memory served, the events looks better through the browsing of photographs than tape.

Not really. It's like saying it's shitty of me for not attending work functions for free either.

He gets a kick out of people who have never met him forming very strong opinions about him. His personality seems to relish it.

Dixie Carter is such a mong. She will go down in wrestling lore on par with Herb Abrams.

The Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada, and Masato Yakushiji vs Taka Michinoku, Terry Boy, and Dick Togo from Croydon 1997. Those who saw it live claim it was better than the Barely Legal match.

Everyone knows wrestling is fake too, so by that logic why even watch? It's a television show man, the story was Cena was not at the arena yet. You have to just accept what the yare presenting and judge on the merit, not the thought process that he's already backstage. Again, by that logic, why should we care about two guys fighting who ten minutes after a match are joking around and playing PS4... But there was no explanation as to why Cena was late. He just randomly wasn't there. It's not like Orton did something nefarious to keep him from getting there. He just wasn't there. It made no sense by any logic. It made as much sense as him being there on time. Again, you have to except what they present you and not be all like, "But Cena always shows up early". Are you saying Orton can slap around Cena's Dad and the two happily co-exist backstage without Cena trying to tear down walls to get to him? Would make pretty shitty television right, something happening two hours before a show stared in catering off camera... Or you can take the stance that Cena is so angry, he's sitting by a pond feeding ducks contemplating how he is going to get to Orton and what he'll do when he does it. It really doesn't matter. But to rule it off by saying: Is pretty absurd.

The Piper "did you kill my cousin" stuff always made me cringe the most. No Roddy, no he didn't. Piper can be such a strange lunatic.

Watching old TWA tapes at the moment.

Everyone knows wrestling is fake too, so by that logic why even watch? It's a television show man, the story was Cena was not at the arena yet. You have to just accept what the yare presenting and judge on the merit, not the thought process that he's already backstage. Again, by that logic, why should we care about two guys fighting who ten minutes after a match are joking around and playing PS4...

This. Ali knew what he was signing up for. It's not as if anybody took advantage of him.

Thanks Bix for sharing that insightful text, great find!

I love the text of the letter that they sent him to get him to work Summerslam 91. I know I saw that sometime in the last 24 hours but I forget where. Whaa? I can't find the thing, but I know I read it. When temporarily caving into his demands, Vince wrote Warrior a letter of apology that basically said that Warrior was the most valued member of the WWF family and he respected him as a friend and a performer, or something. Then they suspended him right after the show. Whaa?