C.S.

Wow... LOL.

No worries. Yes, I'd certainly love the healthy, full of potential version of Kurt Angle that he was in his first year or two (unless I'm deluding myself about that too), but that ship has long since sailed, and his trainwreck of a career and life is one of wrestling's saddest stories. He does deserve a last hurrah, but I don't think a wrestling ring is the healthiest place for him to have that. A WWE Hall of Fame induction and speech is the best we can hope for.

Unless they've added it since my post, no, I don't think so. I definitely would've read that one. I didn't keep the KU membership, BTW, but it's definitely worth having for a month or two. I second this. One of the best wrestling books I've ever read. One day I will go wild and order a bunch of Crowbar Press books. Just wish most of them weren't only available on that site. Oh man, I forgot all about this book. It's truly fantastic and takes an approach most books don't. Also one of the rare negative portrayals of Owen Hart. BTW, I'm surprised no one has mentioned the Brody book. I guess it's probably not under-the-radar by our standards, but it would be by general wrestling standards. I found it at a used bookstore last weekend and I'm looking forward to getting into it. Was really excited to spot it, because I went in there thinking, "No way would a high end, upscale bookstore like this ever have anything about wrestling." Turns out they had two: the Brody book and the WWE-published biography about Andre (which I already have). Oh, don't sleep on Gary Michael Cappetta's Bodyslams!: Memoirs of a Wrestling Pitchman. It's amazing. http://www.amazon.com/Bodyslams-Wrestling-Gary-Michael-Cappetta/dp/1550227092/

Show me where I said "would" or "should." All I did was speculate on the possibility, however remote.

Forgive me for quoting myself from old threads, but here goes: Kindle Unlimited (wrestling books) Kamala Speaks (wrestling book) is spectacular! Edit: Formatting should be fixed now.

Gable is pretty?

Considering what we've seen of Angle's career since then, I'm not sure how fake that mental breakdown would've been. He was too fucked up to be on the road, and he probably did need to quit wrestling.

Crazy idea, but any chance of Shane being replaced by *drumroll* Kurt Angle? That's the only other name I can think of that the fans wouldn't accept as a disappointment if Shane bows out. Kurt supposedly "retired" from wrestling, only to leave TNA and turn around and take other indy bookings immediately. Probably a pipe dream, but it's fun to think of the what-ifs.

I have to think he picked it himself, with input from his father, so what's the issue? The name's origins aren't only Muslim and Arabic, although you could hardly be blamed for assuming the worst about wrestling (and you may still be right to do just that). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_%28name%29

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, this seems like a severe overreaction IMO. His father was Tiger Jeet Singh, a very famous wrestler. Tiger Ali Singh's name was obviously a reference and tribute to that.

I watched the entire speech on Hulu last night, and one point that dawned on me: Shane went out of his way to mention the 5th, 6th, 7th generations - specifically his three boys, who he then named. Steph and Trips have only girls, right? I wonder if Shane-O going out of his way to mention his sons was somehow meant to appeal to Vince's old world viewpoints and future wishes. I could easily see Vince being the type of guy who would want to keep WWE in the family - the male family.

Reigns has been booked like crap since. Rusev has been booked even worse. They may know how to handle the initial build, but they sure as hell can't sustain it. Even Brock was fucked around with his first year. I don't even mean the Cena loss, which I absolutely praised back then because it was right decision at the time (Brock walked away from his previous run and Cena was the ace, so they weren't about to put their eggs in the Brock basket again right away because that would've been a bad business decision if he had bailed a second time) - I'm referring more to the baffling Triple H series and WM loss.

Looks like this is making the rounds elsewhere on the interwebs: - Cagesideseats.com reader comments: "Political hit" mentioned by name - that you, dylan? - pwfempire.com: "calculated hit" (never heard of this site - anyone familiar with it?)

To me, Shane has always been an innovator and forward thinker, which naturally puts him at odds with out of touch Vince. - Shane ran the New Media department of WWE and obviously saw the benefits and growth of the internet long before Pops, his yes men, and old yokels like J.R. who only associated apples with the shiny red fruits growing behind his woodshed. - Shane wanted to get a foothold in MMA years before it had the major following it does now. I'm not sure if he had any interest in UFC specifically, but I do remember him wanting to buy PRIDE. Whether that would've been a good business move or not, who knows, but he clearly saw the future rise of MMA. - Shane had the balls and backbone to break away from WWE and form his own company - a Netflix-like service in China - which he did before the WWE Network was ever a thing. Bet the Network was originally his brainchild too, because it sure as hell wasn't Vince's. Creatively? Who knows. I have no idea how Shane fares in that dept. But I can say with some degree of confidence that he has a better sense of the bigger business picture than Steph might.

There's always been a vast disconnect between the website and the actual product. I don't think a fantasy piece on .com indicates anything about WWE's plans for Styles.

This sums it up perfectly: There's no political hit. Reigns has been given chance after chance. He has now main evented two WrestleManias in a row! If that's a "political hit," I bet half the roster would love to be "hit" the exact same way. Trips is a great heel when he wants to be, but as we've seen time and time again, he isn't always self-aware and doesn't know how to get out of his own way sometimes. We saw the same with the misguided Trips-CM Punk feud. The booking is bad and has been for years, and the over-reliance on scripting has hurt Roman's natural personality and charisma. Sometimes the simplest explanation is the right one.

I know there's already some discussion in the weekly show thread, but this really deserves its own thread. It's a major development, hugely shocking, and it takes Mania in a completely unexpected direction. That's assuming, of course, that the Taker match actually happens - but even if it doesn't, this return still has some longstanding ramifications.

There's no way Shane is beating Taker...come on now, LOL. But it will be a fun trainwreck (again, if it happens).

Shane is an awesome surprise and return IMO - totally unexpected - and you know he'll bump his ass off for Taker (if that match actually happens), so it's probably one of the safest options Taker has. Cena is injured, Braun Strowman would not have been good, Taker/Brock vs. Wyatts would have been a foregone conclusion. You can argue - and rightfully so - that they should have built up more stars worthy of Taker. But they didn't. This will be a fun trainwreck (again, if it happens), and Shane returning in any capacity is good news to me.

Yeah, I agree and think Jericho has been subtly building up a heel character for months - the insecure lame dad veteran who downplays AJ's accomplishments, has a beef with other "young'uns" like Ambrose, etc. Where is this Cena/Brock argument?

So now I'm supposed to be psychic and automatically know what you meant when you mentioned Koko? Please... Give me a break! And yeah, Koko is mentioned as a low point for candidates and rightfully so, because he absolutely is. Hot run? I'm not so sure about that. At his height, he was a lower midcarder in the WWF; at his lowest, he was a legitimate jobber. Godfather had a much hotter run by miles as that character and actually won the I-C Title. As forgettable as that reign was, it's more than Koko ever got. Granted, different eras - it's unlikely Godfather would've won gold in the '80s either. I was also going to say it's unlikely he would've had that gimmick, but Slick was around back then, so... You refuse to see that he was super-over. You've constructed a false narrative that suggests otherwise, because it's what you believe so it can't possibly be wrong. No one is saying he was Austin or Rock, but he was legitimately popular. Honest question: Did you have a problem with Rikishi's induction last year? Because, to me, their careers parallel in a lot of ways, and they more or less had similar spots on the card (Rikishi was a bit higher up on the chain briefly).

*I* agree and said as much, but these guys don't seem too sure: http://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2016/2/22/11095350/chris-jericho-shinsuke-nakamura-wwe

Jericho is obviously (I hope) in working mode, but his latest tweet about Nakamura: https://twitter.com/IAmJericho/status/701885228516831232

Absurd statement and not even remotely true. The girls were generally barely hot stripper types. They added to the act, sure, but the character was over. Your argument that competing in a bunch of clusterfuck multi-man tag matches should have awoken the workrate giant in him is even sillier. As for Koko, his Memphis work had nothing to do with his WWE HOF induction - do not kid yourself about that. Look, I'm not saying he was a great in-ring technician - of course not - but that was never the point. None of his characters needed to be that.

He was a gimmick wrestler who was never put in a situation where could he have decent matches, and his two big runs came in eras where that never mattered less (end of Hulkamania era and Attitude Era). Workrate snobs will hold it against him, but he was over like rover regardless of his in-ring ability.