MikeCampbell

What I find to be both funny and stupid at the same time, is that everyone was giving props to the WWE for actually going through and making the violations public, especially to a young guy they seemed to have hopes for. And now with the truth coming out, they look just as bad as ever for basically screwing out with the policy so they could make themselves look good to the media.

I've been reviewing Vengeance 2003, and I was totally taken by surprise by Cena/Undertaker. I could have done without them disrespecting the FU, but aside from that, the match seemed to be exactly what it should have been, judging by the storyline, the young punk needing a lesson in respect, but also earning some of his own along the way. The more of these earlier Cena matches I see, the more I agree with Loss about the Cena backlash being all about his character, and not his wrestling. Not that Cena was a great wrestler here, but he was more than up to the task. I saw the Word Life DVD a few weeks back at FYE, and I'm wishing I picked it up to see how good their SD rematch is.

And I'm bumping this back up. I was watching the Jeff Hardy match from RAW Monday night (which I thought was damn fine) and I suddenly thought of something: Aside from the history of attitude issues. Are Randy Orton and John Cena really that different? I don't mean they're exact equals (I'd put Cena over Orton), but when I got to really thinking, I found lots of similarities. They both had good runs in OVW before being called up in 2002. They both were groomed for greatness upon their call-ups. They both take lots of flak for their lack of MOVEZ! Yet both have been part of some damn good matches. They've both taken flak for their finisher, but they're two of the most over and protected finishers in the WWE today.

The funny part (to me anyway) was that it wasn't even anything I started. Someone else started a thread about the ass-sucking wonder that was Misawa/Marufuji and wondering if that's the sort of performance they could expect out of Misawa, and it just sort of snowballed from there.

I've seen the Sano, not the Bison. Have you seen the Marufuji match, Phil?

Gotcha. Sarcasam doesn't always translate well with me to the written medium.

You clearly have no respect for the boys in the back who bust their asses for you. You could not be more wrong if you claimed that you saw Elvis walking down the street.

A Montreal DVD with interviews from Bret, Vince, and Shawn, with documentary and highlights of the build up and stuff would be the shit! But it'll probably never see the light of day. Who knows? Maybe the ten year mark will give Bret the idea that it's over and done and he needs to let it go?

I seem to have been banned from the ROH Message Board, for insinuating that a broken down and past-his-prime Mitsuharu Misawa probably won't be able to put the best match that ROH has ever seen, and for guessing that he's probably coming more for the big payday (judging from ticket prices) rather than for any great love for ROH or the fans. I guess someone got pissed off.

Is anyone at all shocked that Teddy Hart got himself canned from the WWE already?

My fiancee almost bought me a pin she saw in Hot Topic that said "I'm cooler on the internet." I hope Gordi is exaggerating a bit about Hyatte being a crazed egomanic, a la Skeith. Because that's just sad. A wise man once said "The internet is serious business."

I don't know if the popularity of sites like 411/Inside Pulse etc. has much to do with strictly columns. I'm sure there are popular columns, but since 2003 when I started on 411, I only go out of my way to read a scant few of them. Most of the traffic is generated by the news, TV recaps, and tape reviews, I'd guess. I know when I stopped watching WWE in 2003 when I was in college, I kept up with all the goings on in the WWE by reading the RAW and SD results every week. But overall, it's mostly the news that I'd guess brings the traffic. Poor and cheap folks like myself can get all of the news from the WON, Torch, PWI, etc. without having to pay for it.

A few weeks back on the 411 Podcast, the subject of JD Dunn came up and Larry Csonka summed it up best "He picked up a lot of Scott Keith's old stuff and does it a lot better." (stuff meaning recapping RAW, ECW, and SD, as well as video reviews).

Ah, OK. I was thinking maybe he spazzed out on the ROH board or something.

How so?

Titles in wrestling have very little value as it is, but it still irks me to see them outright being devalued. There wasn't any real reason to put it on HHH if it was going right back to Orton. What' so hard about Vince telling HHH he only gets his title shot if he beats Umaga? HHH/Orton still goes down in the ME, and HHH has the excuse of already having worked a match in the evening as to at least partially why he lost.

Lacey vs. Daizee Haze from the first SHIMMER show. Anyone who's only seen Lacey doing the loudmouth manager shtick in ROH needs to see this yesterday. Really good stuff, with Lacey pulling out all kinds of brutal ways to dish out punishment, and Haze doing a great job with her selling, and then making a great comeback (with a better Yakuza kick that Chono) and pulling out the win.

For the last two months, my sister in law and I have been having this argument. I keep telling her that Cena is on something, and she insists up and down that he's not. Because he's not juiced up like Batista, and he didn't get named in the sting. Needless to say, after today, she's not up to arguing anymore.

"He kicked him in the Uterus!" - Bobby Heenan

So it's already confirmed that Misawa's first ROH match will be Misawa/KENTA vs. Morishima/Marufuji, and rumor has it that night two will be Misawa/KENTA for the GHC. So ROH is shelling out huge money (and charging huge ticket prices) for two matches that could easily happen in NOAH, rather than showcasing their own talent in some form. Maybe I'm just overly cynical with ROH, but does anyone else get the idea that only reason Misawa was even booked was so that Gabe could get the ego boost/bragging rights of saying he got to book Misawa?

Well Impact going to two hours will solve all of TNA's problems . Now that Impact is cramming two hours worth of booking and matches in to a one hour show, does anyone really expect them to slow down and *not* try to cram 4 hours worth of stuff into a two hour show?

Yeah, unless NOAH wants to shock everyone by putting the strap on Joe, don't bank on Marufuji being champion. There's almost zero chance of NOAH running a Budokan with a poor draw vs. a 1st time outsider on top.

Maybe it's just been too long since I've seen him, but did anyone else think that Rey looks to have put some weight on when he came back last night?

Maybe I'm just too cynical, but ROH, the company that's supposed to be all about the great wrestling and classic matches, charging people that much to see someone who's frankly less than a shell of his former self at this point in his career seems like a con.

Would ROH Charging $100 a pop for tickets to the NYC show with Misawa be considered a con, considering that at this stage in his career he's so broken down that he's little more than a Japanese Scott Steiner.