MikeCampbell

Meltzer is reporting that the reason for the renewed main event push of CM Punk and the John Morrison face turn is because Undertaker is hurt and Hardy's future is in doubt. Can anyone elaborate on the latter? Is he injured? Wellness issues? Something else?

I'd agree that restholds bring down a match, but only if they're truly restholds, meaning that they're not done for any other reason than to give them time to rest. I've seen plenty of matches where headlocks and chinlocks are used extensively, but are done in a way that it's clearly being done for a purpose and not just to kill time and rest.

I don't really have a problem with things like this, so long as it makes sense in the context of the match. Look at Edge's reverse X-Factor spot that he always does for a two count. It's not like he grabs the guy at does it, it comes when he ducks a big swing or avoids a lariat, so it makes sense for him to do the move. It's when guys do stuff for seemingly no reason at all other than to do it or to have it backfire (like Flair off the top) that I'm not really a fan of. I'd credit nWo Bischoff for this more than McMahon, and Bischoff was actually doing the sort of things that Jkeats was talking about. The Outsiders "lost" the WCW Tag Titles several times and he'd simply give the titles back to them. I think it's been overdone over the last five or six years, but I don't think it's such a bad thing. And it's not like the evil authority figures don't get their comeuppances. This is a big part of what separates pro wrestling from the legit fighting, it's supposed to be a performance. It's such a big part of wrestling. Can anyone picture an Alien movie without the alien bursting out of someone's chest or a Die Hard movie without explosions and gunshots? It's certainly something that could be done, but it wouldn't feel quite right and the fans of those movie series would complain. I don't think finishing moves are a huge stretch from that. Finishers are something that are very much anticpated by the fans because it's a sign that the end could be near and their favorite could be winning.

When Loss gives you the passwords?

I don't think it really matters whether the champ is heel or face, or even if there is a champ. But in order for there to be money in "the chase" it simply needs to be between two wrestlers (or teams) who are genuinely over.

Did Goldberg even really have a "chase" to the title? I like to think I've got a pretty good memory for stuff and I'm completely blanking on any real "chase" he was the U.S Champion and just doing his usual thing. Then it was announced he'd be going for the title, and the night of the show he had to go through Hall to get his match with Hogan.

Loss, you've got those '88 editions of the WON, any info about Flair/Luger as a drawing card leading up to the 'Bash or Starrcade? Also, does anyone have any specifics as to how well Flair/Luger did in 1990, with Lex as the fill-in for Sting? I think Loss pretty much nailed it though. There are times that a hot angle or a good storyline can draw money with the simple chase and keep the fans coming back in hopes of finally seeing the blowoff. But it's far from being an iron clad concept, Hogan, Inoki, Austin, Misawa, and I'd even add in Hashimoto, they all held their titles during their promotion's best days during their respective eras and there wasn't any sharp decline in business.

I don't know for sure, but I think you're right about the acoustics in the dome. I seem to recall watching one of those WCW PPVs with matches from an NJ dome show and Ross and/or Schivone talking about the quiet crowd and how it because they were respectful of the action or something to that degree.

Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But your last sentence makes the point. It's your personal taste. You're not stating it as fact the way Dave, Bryan, and Wade do, nor are you using what they said as some sort of argument that you must be right and whoever disagrees is wrong. Out of all the silliness you could find on the ROH board, nothing was more funny to me than when SKeith gave Joe/Kobashi the full five snowflakes and someone posted something like "take that!" to people who think it's an overrated match.

He actually wasn't the only guy getting booed, Albert was too (Lance Storm winning the IC title from him actually got a pretty big babyface pop). Actually, I think "Albert Heat" or "A-Train Heat" might even be more fitting than X-Pac heat. And I think SLL is spot-on about giving fans too much credit as far as distinguishing genuine heat from heel heat. Again, I don't dispute that he'd worn out his welcome by the time the WCW Invasion happened. But I'd say that, at least some of, his heat was due to the fact that he was the only WWF wrestler who was still working like a heel and relying on things like low blows to hit his finisher and interference from Albert. Such as his match with Tajiri from SummerSlam. Hell, when Kidman beat him at InVasion the announcers' reaction was "OMG WCW is on the board!" in a happy celebratory tone. Sure sounds to me like Kidman was supposed to be a babyface against X-Pac.

Probably my favorite 'wrestling myth' is the idea of X-Pac being so universally hated that it coined the term "X-Pac heat." I've always hated that term. If you watch WWF from his return and DX's face turn in '98 until the reunion when HHH was champion in late '99 he was one of the most over guys on the whole roster, probably third only to Austin and Rocky for crowd pops. Sure, he overstayed his welcome in the WWF, when DX was basically scrapped in late 2000 until he joined the nWo in 2002, he was more or less just sort of treading water.

I haven't seen a ton of David's work from Texas, but his Florida heel run wasn't anything special aside from the novelty of watching one of the Von Erich's work heel. I 100% agree with Sek's comment regarding his charisma, even watching the little bit of David featured on the documentary of the WWE World Class DVD, he looks far more fired up and excited than Kerry or Kevin. Of course, that might be the execption and not the rule. Other than David vs. Kamala, which Bix pimped on DVDVR a ways back, I'm at a loss for any great David matches that weren't the Freebird feud. I would agree with this to an extent. If you compare these three teams to later teams like La Resistance, Cade and Murdoch, Deuce and Domino, Hurricane/Rosey, or Cade and Jindrak, no question that the three of them were far more over. The only team who might have come close was Booker T/Goldust. But, as teams, they never really made it to the top. They worked occasional main events, but were either doing gimmicks like a six man tables match with Jericho and Angle teamed with them, or worked against other main eventers like Hardys vs. Austin/HHH or E&C vs. Rock and Taker. They were treated a lot better than the later tag teams would be, but I don't think they revitalized or revolutionized tag team wrestling. I liked this a lot, but I'll agree with Ditch about it being overrated. The main thing that I thought held it back was because the idea was that Cena was going into the match hurt (his ribs when Umaga splashed him through a table) but he never really sold them. He's clutch them when Umaga went after them, but there wasn't much beyond that. Aside from that, it was fairly smart worked. HHH or Michaels wouldn't have done anything close to this, they'd have been more likely to take everything Umage threw at them, and then Hulk-Up and finish him. Cena was smart enough to get his win by avoiding Umaga's biggest shots. Plus Umaga's bumping and selling for Cena was great, and throw in a few cutesy spots, like when Umaga ran across the announce tables, and it's quite the fun match. The absurdlys slow cover was a bit much, but I didn't think anything else was too bad. HHH's promo about Booker's "kind of people" not being ready for the title wasn't very tasteful, but it was Wrestling 101 to a degree. HHH doesn't think Booker is worthy and the next week, Booker pinned him in a tag match. The match itself was fine for the most part, HHH stooged a bit, and got his control segment when he pulled the rope and dodged the sidekick, and then started working over Booker's knee. It was one of the few times that the Pedigree bump being taken on the knee actually seemed logical. But the ultra slow cover was stupid.

This seems like a fun idea, given that there is no shortage of universally accepted truths in wrestling. Stuff like Kurt Angle being the best wrestler ever, Lex Luger supposedly being a musclehead with no talent at all, and the Dynamite/Tiger Mask series all being ***** classics have already been debated and debunked by the more level headed crowd (many of which can be found here). So I thought it'd be fun to examine some others and see how much water they hold. I'll add some of my own thoughts later, please feel free to add to it. These aren't necesarrily my opinions or things that I dislike, just things that I seem to hear a lot of. - David Von Erich was the best worker out of the whole family. - The Hardys/Dudleys/Edge and Christian feud revitalized tag team wrestling in the WWF/WWE. - John Cena vs. Umaga from Royal Rumble '07 is a lost classic. - The buildup and eventual match between HHH and Booker T at WrestleMania XIX buried Booker.

Not that I've seen, but then again, the only boards that we've both posted on (to my knowledge anyway) have usually been fairly level-headed places with a minimum of stupidity. But I do think Sek is probably right, I doubt it'll happen beyond the Wade superfans at the Torch boards, but it'll happen. That's the fun in the interweb, people take criticisim too personally and get carried away. You've experienced it yourself a bit, when dealing with Alvarez over Angle/Michaels. It's all over the place, if you criticise TNA then you're a blind WWE mark, if you criticise ROH then you 'don't understand real wrestling.' Hell, I've been called a piece of shit and worse for saying that I'm able to watch, and enjoy, Benoit matches.

Vince getting pissed at him for wanting time off is what led to him losing the title to HTM. I heard somewhere, I forget where, that he'd told Vince that Bonnie was pregnant long before and wanted to delay the Savage match but Vince was adamant that it be at WM3.

The eight foot claim was for Giant Gonzalez aka El Gigante.

I very much enjoyed the show, although I thought the ending of the main event was complete horse shit. Steamboat still has it!

I'm pretty sure that "I'm not feeling it" referrs to the first UT/Lesnar match at Unforgiven '02.

It's not supposed to be racist (unless the Simpsons episode implies it, I've never seen it), just somewhat surprising and funny that he didn't know the origin of St. Patricks Day. I learned about it when I was in elementary school, but I lived in a town with a lot of Irish people and heritiage, so I sort of took it for granted that it was fairly well known.

Being Irish as well, I think you might be right, Sek. Unless it was some subtle attempt at sarcasm, and Scooter isn't the subtle type.

I hear Big Show let the cat out of the bag on VH-1 that it was gonna be Edge/Show/Cena for the World Title.

HHH actually acknowledged that they were married in real life on TV and referred to her as the mother of his kids. You're right, it doesn't make much sense.