Cox

Wait, what?

I think I've talked myself into Sheamus winning the Rumble. Thinking about it, no matter who won the Rumble, that match is going to be, at best, the #4 or #5 match at this year's Wrestlemania (behind Rock/Cena, Undertaker/HHH, Punk/Jericho, and maybe Big Show/Shaq). Why not try somebody that would be somewhat new in the spot? Even if it fails, you're talking about the #5 match at Wrestlemania failing, and at least it does make the Rumble less predictable. Going in, without the final roster having ever been finalized for the Rumble, most people probably thought there were only 2-3 people who could realistically win the match: Jericho, Orton, and Cena. MAYBE Punk if he lost to Ziggler. Sheamus doesn't feel like he's totally out of left field like, say, Santino or Duggan might, but he's still different enough to where next year's Rumble might not feel like only a couple of people can actually win.

Henry was working with both a knee and a groin injury, so that's why he wasn't doing much. He probably should not have been in the match at all.

I want to say Psicosis wore my jersey in this match, but I could well be mistaken and it was another match.

Ironically, November to Remember will go down as a House Show I Regret Going To. In addition to being a god awful PPV, my friend's car broke down on the PA Turnpike and couldn't get fixed, so we wound up in Pittsburgh with no way of getting around town and having to take the bus home since none of us were old enough to rent a car. Just a miserable weekend all around.

I'm not sure I buy that Miz is a "joke" right now. He did get to headline Survivor Series against Rock and Cena, and then headlined the next PPV against Punk and Del Rio. Plus, getting #1 in the Rumble, to me, sounds like they trust him to be a guy who can give them 20-30 good minutes in the Rumble match and keep things interesting. I don't see much from the booking that suggests they're totally down on Miz, though they might not be as high on him a year ago.

Really? Tanahashi was Wrestler of the Year?

SMW had a jobber called The Stormtrooper in 1992, wearing a Swastika mask and t-shirt. It's funny because the announcers called absolutely no attention to the fact the promotion had a Nazi sympathizer working for him, he was just Joe Nazi trying to earn a living in the world of professional wrestling. He wrestled Dixie Dynomite in one of his two matches in a battle of racist gimmicks, and after losing, helped Killer Kyle attack Dixie and leave him laying, which seemed to make no sense. Anyway, this guy did not resemble Bill Dundee in stature at all so I doubt it was the same guy, even though it was the same area in the same time.

Then I've got bad news for you - I think as of last word, Meltzer said Flair will not be on this tour, I think as a result of what happened on the last European TNA tour.

I have a problem with the style of show recapping we see from the likes of Todd Martin and Bryan Alvarez. They always seem like they're in a rush to point out everything they see that's wrong and how they would have done it differently, basically trying to point out how much smarter they are than WWE creative, that they never take the time to try to explain why WWE chose to do it differently than one might have expected. Granted, some weeks it's probably for no better reason than, "We wanted to end the show with a pop and didn't know how to do it any better," but still, there is no real analysis in their writing, just "WWE IS SO STUPID!"

I've noticed that a lot of the folks who are coming out against JR's hard-on for college football are from outside the US, so to explain: college football is absolutely HUGE in the American South, and that was an area WCW was obviously targeting hard in the late 80's and early 90's. I look back and see that as Ross trying to relate some of their top wrestlers to an audience that loves college football. I can see where it might be considered grating to those who haven't grown up with college football as practically a second religion, but to the core WCW audience, I think it was a good move. Of course, JR being a legit mark for college football probably had a lot to do with it too...

Bet you most of us US fans won't get the WWE Network either.

More likely, athletic commissions probably saw it as a way to make a quick buck on licensing fees for something that was a mere formality.

They have the right idea debuting at Wrestlemania, but it should be Wrestlemania XXIX, not Wrestlemania XXVIII.

Not that I'm a huge fan of Six Pack Sulli and Stevie Wonderful or anything, but it's possible that, if they were doing announcing live rather than pre-tape, that the format for the TV show might have changed from the time they taped the matches to the time that they actually aired, which makes things seem out of order. That would be a problem more with production than with the announcing. As somebody who produces an (admittedly, very, very, very small time) wrestling TV program, I have that problem a lot, and often just air stuff that "feels" out of order, because otherwise, I won't have time for it another week, and hope people don't notice.

Too bad this was somewhat marred by the fire that took place on the same show, and by the poor follow up by Heyman with Mikey as champ. This was a pretty great moment.

Where does "attempting to murder The Giant" fall on the scale of "dickish things Hulk Hogan has done as a babyface"?

I actually have a story about this match, that I once told on DVDVR, but I figured I'd retell it here because it's pretty cool, if you can indulge me for a second. In '95, I was on the old Prodigy service and a bunch of us used to go to the ECW shows together. So I'm at the ECW hotel and I'm wearing a New Jersey Devils hockey jersey when a small Hispanic man comes over to me and says "Hey man, I like your shirt, where did you get it?" I mention I got it at a local sporting goods store, and we make a little small talk and he walks away. Afterwards, Dave Prazak (well before he was in the business, he used to be on Prodigy) comes over to me and says, "You know that was Rey Misterio Jr, right?" Of course, I didn't. Anyway, fast forward to the ECW show that night. It's intermission and I'm talking with some friends over by the entrance way and John Arezzi (known for his old radio show in New York during the WWF steroid trial with Vince Russo, who was running the AAA show that took place in Chicago two weeks later, and who I think was booking the AAA guys into ECW) comes over to me and says that Rey Misterio and Psicosis both want my jersey, and were willing to trade their masks in exchange for it. I decide to do it and told Arezzi that I'd take the Psicosis mask, so he takes me behind the curtain, where I wait for a few minutes before he comes out with Psicosis. Psicosis has a towel on his head to cover his identity. Arezzi points out that it's autographed (I don't think Psicosis' English at this point was great), we shake hands, and I walk off with the mask he wore that night. Only regret I have is that as cool as Psicosis' mask is, Rey's mask probably would have been worth more and is much more recognizable because he became a much bigger star. Still, pretty cool to have a match-worn Psicosis mask displayed in my basement. And the cool thing is, I've seen Tijuana handhelds of Psicosis wrestling in my Devils jersey, which was pretty cool, and two weeks later, I saw unmasked Rey at the hotel for the AAA show in Chicago wearing his own Devils jersey, so I guess he got what he wanted in the end too.

I could very well be mistaken on that. It was more a joke about how often Cornette tried to get out of fulfilling stips in SMW.

I mean, Cornette REALLY tried to make him a main eventer. First, they did injury angles in back to back weeks where first, DWB hung him from the corner post, and then the following week where DWB hit him with a beer bottle. Then, after making him sympathetic didn't work, they had DWB turn into a cowardly wuss, running from Horner every time he saw Horner coming like he was the baddest guy on the planet or something. I mean, I've always liked Horner, but he just did not work as anything but a low card job guy type, because he couldn't project a personality at all.

If you think Tim Horner, Bland Low Card Guy is bad, just try to watch the period where he was main eventing in Smoky Mountain. They tried every trick in the book to get him over, and he was still colorless Timmy Horner.

I'm guessing the real reason was, "We don't want any of these teams to win the titles, so let's figure out a creative way to get out of the promised stipulation." Cornette was on the creative team around this time, so they had the expert in getting out of promised stips right there in the match.

It's funny because it's true!

Reading this got me to thinking about the WWE's roster around this time. Here is a rough sketch of WWF's top guys from Wrestlemania to SummerSlam: Diesel Michaels Sid Bret Bigelow Razor Mabel Luger Davey Boy Jarrett (gone after July) The thing that stands out to me is how incredibly weak the heel side is. You could argue that five of the top six guys are babyfaces (Nash, Michaels, Bret, Bigelow, and Razor vs Sid). Mabel had been languishing as a mid card comedy guy until the monster push in the spring, and all of a sudden, he's one of their top two heels, and expected to carry the #2 PPV of the year? Why turn Bigelow AND Shawn coming out of headlining Mania? Why not turn Bret, Hall, or Luger to give the heel side something? Heck, why wait until August to turn Davey Boy when they didn't really push the Allied Powers? The roster itself isn't weak, but there aren't any compelling heel challengers for Nash here, which makes it no wonder he flopped so hard as champ, particularly by the summer. I wonder why Vince went with such a deep bench of babyfaces when most of them had nobody to work with, thus you have Bret feuding with Isaac Yankem, Shawn and Razor wrestling each other because there wasn't a compelling heel for Shawn to work with after Sid suffered his inevitable injury, Bigelow not even on the SummerSlam card, etc.

Man. This week's classic WON on the site (building up the Flair/Hogan match at Halloween Havoc '94) is full of unintentional hilarity.