Bob Morris

I'm not certain if I would compare the Taker WM streak to Goldberg's streak. Goldberg's streak was more about a guy who was clearly the top draw and needed to be treated as such... when his drawing power wanes, that's the time to end his winning streak, but instead, his streak was ended when he was still a hot property. Taker is no longer the hot property he once was, although fans still like him. Really, the best way for the streak to end, IMO, is for Taker to win one of the top titles at a Royal Rumble, then defend it against a guy you want to push at the following Wrestlemania. Then it's more of a case of you wanting to make somebody truly look like the "next big thing" as not only does he break the streak, he goes on to defend a top title. But I don't really have much faith in WWE Creative to book that properly.

In watching WM III the other day, I still get a kick out of WWF having the balls to let Danny Davis get the pin in the six-man tag match where he teamed with the Hart Foundation against the Bulldogs and Tito Santana. Every one in the building expected Davis to get his ass kicked and then pinned easily and then he cheats his way to victory.

The whole idea that WWE wants to have no usage of the word "wrestling" in almost anything it does has gone beyond ridiculous. If they honestly think calling themselves an "entertainment" company means they'll be distanced from everything that's considered "negative" about pro wrestling, just wait until they find out how plenty of that "negative" stuff happens in other forms of entertainment as well.

Has there ever been a good Stevie Ray singles match? I know he had plenty of good tag matches in Harlem Heat, but I can't think of a good singles match he had.

Well, to be fair, Vince McMahon is also a part of They Who Must Be Obeyed. And I imagine Steph is still in that category, even if she supposedly isn't the control freak she once was. I'm sure if Shawn, for example, became a booker, we'd hear stories about how Vince keeps shooting down all of Shawn's great ideas to get talent over.

Agreed that the Flair-Funk Clash match doesn't hold up so well. The GAB match is a much better match and that one holds up better... particularly for the post-match stuff with Muta and Sting and how the four men just keep brawling until it becomes quite clear to the heels that it's best to retreat and live to fight another day. The Steamboat/Dustin Rhodes vs. Arn/Zybysko match also holds up pretty nicely. Very good job of building heat and utilzing the tag team formula exactly how it's supposed to work.

True fans of wrestling are no different than true fans of any team in a legit sport. Fan of the Red Sox or Cowboys bitch, moan, complain, rant, rave, and go crazy if their team loses. Sometimes they're not even happy if their team wins. But that sort of negative emotional reaction does not mean they aren't fans, it just means they're passionate (and a little unreasonable). They invest a lot of time and money into following their team and they want some return on that investment. The only time to get worried is when there is no reaction at all. Negativity still means fans care, apathy means they quit paying attention. I certainly understand that those who complain care about the product, but the problem is they want it to be a product that they personally prefer regardless of what is actually working. To put this into perspective, I can remember Dallas Cowboys fans who complained about the firing of Tom Landry and no doubt felt they were justified after the Cowboys went 1-15 under Jimmy Johnson. No doubt Johnson's later success pacified them, but if they looked a little closer, it was evident the game had changed and that what had worked for Landry previously wasn't necessarily going to keep working. Of course, fans today who complain about the wrestling product can rightly point to WWE not drawing the numbers it used to draw and TNA doing terrible from nearly every business standpoint, but the fans don't always realize that what they happened to like from the past isn't necessarily going to work today. They don't always understand that there was a difference between how the territories worked and how wrestling works best on a national level (in other words, Ric Flair wasn't going to be able to duplicate Hogan's success if he had been the guy Vince picked to headline his company) nor do they understand that WWE, as a national company, is going to target its product to where they see its fanbase demographics heading and where they believe they can draw in the most new fans, rather than just playing to the current fans. That's one of the reasons WWE went with the Attitude Era circa 1998 and pushed Austin to the top... they didn't just see Austin getting strong reactions from the current fanbase, but saw him as somebody who could bring in more fans who weren't watching at that point. And even when WWF was hot at that point, you had plenty of fans who complained about much they disliked the product. For those that enjoyed it, they seemed to think WWF was promoting a product directed to those who grew up with it and wanted something more to their tastes, rather than a product designed to build up a new audience along with it.

I think most of the Trip moments we've discussed miss the point... what he would consider his defining WM moment. It's already been mentioned that Austin, Rock, Foley and Jericho have them. We all know Hogan, Savage, Taker and Michaels have had them as well. And yes, I would agree that Trip's moment was him being the first heel to win a WM main event match. But it's always possible he wants one more to go along with it. Not that I believe Trip is ending Taker's streak. Trip does wield a lot of power but one could argue Taker's wields just as much, particularly when it comes to the streak.

I tend to believe the Silverdome seating capacity number generally tossed around is legit. Whether or not the actual attendance figures are made up or not is another matter. Dave really needs to be asked where he heard the number for the Pope's attendance... and maybe he needs to give us the real scoop on the attendance at the NBA All-Star Game that surpassed the WM3 number WWE tosses around and whether or not they really had any chance of breaking attendance records at this year's Super Bowl or if the added seating that didn't work out was just some publicity stunt gone wrong.

Um, really? I wonder if this means Bret will be pissed at Dave again.

Covering several of the topics discussed here: * I don't know how relevant it is to the WM3 talking point, but I did look up the Silverdome's capacity a few years ago and some of that seating is "luxury box" seating. I put "luxury box" in quotes as it's not like what we think of regarding luxury boxes today... but I did wonder if those premium seats were used for seating or not. That being said, those seats still weren't enough to take the 93,000 number down to 78,000. They amounted to a few thousand seats. * On the Vince needing the first WM to succeed to help him financially, I do agree that Vince wouldn't have gone broke if WM didn't work out, but it might have allowed some of those other shareholders the opportunity to gain power... perhaps to the point that they could leverage enough of it to keep Vince from fulfilling his vision. I know Vince had a lot of power back then, just as he does today... but in those earlier years, I suspect he wasn't the untouchable guy in power as he is today. It might have taken a lot of effort to get him out of complete control in the early years, but there might have been enough guys near the top using their political pull to gain leverage and alter the structure of the company... and who knows what Vince might have done in the long run if that had happened. * Regarding Slaughter, he does mention on the True Story of WM DVD that, when Vince first approached him, he wanted him to do a program with Hogan. A few things to keep in mind regarding how Slaughter's character was developed when he returned in 1990. First, Slaughter was not immediately positioned as the Iraqi sympathizer. The original idea was for him to be bitter about the Cold War coming to an end and declaring it only happened because America became soft. That was why they turned Nikolai Volkoff face and claimed he was from Lithuiana... to give Slaughter a foil to work with as they built to Slaughter/Hogan. When Slaughter did return, it was still early in Warrior's title reign. I don't think the decision to get the title back on Hogan came before Summerslam... with Savage, the plan all along was Hogan would get the title back at WMV. With Warrior, the plan was to make him a champion for longer than that. So it's possible that, going into Summerslam, Slaughter's understanding was that he would face Hogan at WMVII but the title wouldn't be involved. Of course, the Iraq-Kuwait ordeal arose and WWF decided to have Slaughter be an Iraqi sympathizer in hopes of drawing more heat... and on top of that, it was become clearer that Warrior wasn't drawing as well as they had hoped. So I imagine, around the time of Survivor Series, Vince and company were already planning to move the title back to Hogan, so the best way to do that was to have Slaughter win the title. It's possible Slaughter wasn't informed he was getting the title until a few weeks prior to the Rumble... though I personally suspect he had an idea of what was going to happen shortly after Survivor Series. Because by the time Survivor Series came along, it was pretty clear Warrior wasn't the guy to hold the top title, and with Hogan/Slaughter already set in stone, Slaughter needed to win the title so Hogan could get at WMVII. * I didn't understand the way they were negative regarding WMVIII. What I think should also be noted was that WWF signed Sid prior to gettting Flair and had an idea about doing Hogan/Sid for WMVIII. It's possible when Flair was signed that WWF was ready to change plans, but then went back to the original plan for several reasons... Hogan/Flair not doing well at house shows might have been one, but there was also the Zahorian steroid trial coming up and, if you wanted Hogan out of the title picture, he couldn't lose to Flair at WMVIII. Also, Hogan was flirting more with Hollywood at that point, thus another reason he couldn't win the title at WMVIII.

Yes, the behind the scenes stuff at WM IX is another highlight. I forgot to mention that. I tend to agree the WWE's continued attendance claim may hold more legitimacy than others have argued. For all we know, WWF at the time may have claimed everyone who was in attendance, not just those that bought tickets for the event. Regardless, the number has been surpassed by other events, notably the 2010 NBA All-Star Game that drew more than 108,000 people.

I believe it was touched upon earlier in the thread, but a big reason why WCW never fired Hall for so long was because of the lawsuits between WCW and WWF and likely somebody with WCW afraid that Hall would go testify for WWF if he got released. As I recall, once the two companies settled the lawsuit, Hall was released a couple of weeks later. Of course, that didn't stop Kevin Nash and DDP from bringing him up in interviews, which may have been influenced by a certain current TNA booker.

I have to say I was really impressed with the documentary part of the new True Story of Wrestlemania DVD. They did a good job of getting insight from a lot of people involved behind the scenes with WWF/E, quite a few wrestlers and several of the celebrities who have been involved. They talked to Donald Trump, William Perry, Bob Uecker, Mike Tyson and Pete Rose, among others, about their involvement, and also had some new quotes from Floyd Meriweather. Some of the highlights of the DVD: * Vince McMahon was pretty frank about what a big risk the first Wrestlemania really was. A direct quote from Vince: "If Wrestlemania 1 had not been successful, we would not be doing this interview." It was pretty amazing to see Vince be so candid about how the success of the company depended largely on Wrestlemani. * Basil DeVito had some good insights. He pretty much admits that Wrestlemania VII got moved to the LA Sports Arena because of slow ticket sales, that when WM2 aired, the closed circuit receiver in Pittsburgh failed and they aired WM2 for free on the city's independent station, and that he thought it was going to be a bad idea to bring in Mike Tyson for WM XIV because they couldn't afford it (and then mentions a later conversation with Vince about how WWF at the time needed to expand its audience). * On the subject of WM VII, they come as close as they will to admitting that having Sgt. Slaughter become the Iraqi turncoat was a bad idea. I suspect the footage of Sgt. Slaughter interviews are older material, but he goes into the phone threats somebody made to him, his family and Vince McMahon. * They showed the shot of the crowd at WMVI in which you can see a young Edge. * Chris Jericho had some interesting insights about the Florida Citrus Bowl being used as the site for WM XXIV and how it really wasn't a great-looking venue, but that the crews did a great job of making things look more attractive. * One of the interesting topics they covered was whether Wrestlemania is better held in a smaller venue compared to a larger venue, or an outdoor venue compared to an indoor venue. Several of the wrestlers (Edge, HHH, John Cena) mentioned the differences between how much they hear from the crowd in a smaller, indoor venue, compared to a larger venue or one that's outdoors... how the smaller venues are where the wrestlers in the ring can really hear the crowd, but in the larger or outdoor arenas, how they don't always hear the crowd being that loud despite the fact they often are. As far as the matches goes, the biggest disappointment is that they talk about how the first Undertaker-Shawn Michaels might be the best WM match ever and it's not one of the featured matches. I don't understand why they put the Vince-Shane street fight among the matches, and I was surprised they put Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle on there, given circumstances with both men. Overall, though, I thought it was a good DVD, despite the match selection not being the best in terms of match quality or importance to the card. They did include some no-brainers from both departments, but a couple don't really stand out, IMO.

At this rate, to put WCW and TNA into the same pot is an insult to WCW. True, WCW's final year(s) were pretty abysmal, but during the company's entire run, you can point to plenty of times in which the company actually put out a good product that fans wanted to watch (even if it wasn't always drawing huge numbers). With TNA, you have a few good matches from its run... and that's about it. No periods in which people would say that the product, as a whole, was worth watching, even if it didn't draw big numbers. So the best way to describe TNA would be thus: TNA: The Bad, The Ugly, The Clusterfuck.

Well, we've seen Russo previously use incidents that were legit and turn them into angles, so if it happens here, it wouldn't be the first time. Either way, Bix did an excellent job detailing just how fucked up Jeff is (and brother Matt as well) and if TNA wants to save ANY face, they need to fire both Jeff and Matt and move on already, no matter who happens to protest.

Part of me wonders if Cena should have instead spent his time poking fun at Rock's days as Rocky Maivia, but that might have generated true heel heat... which may be what's best for Cena but not what WWE wants at this time. As far as gay jokes go, it just seems to be the easy way for any wrestler trying to get heat, knowing that wrestling fans, in general, easily respond to cheap heat. I don't think it's because every wrestling fan is a homophobe... they just easily fall into the "cheap heat" trap and respond to it.

I agree that Goldust getting a main event run against the top guy would have been a good idea had the WWF been willing to go all the way with the character. No, he was never a character that you would actually put the top title on, but that doesn't mean you can't make him a strong challenger for the top title. And by doing that, you have somebody who can help to prepare wrestlers who would be ideal candidates to become the top guy at some point... which I suspect WWF was thinking about doing when they did the program with Ahmed Johnson.

Agreed on the Attitude Era having caused some people (not necessarily those who post here) to gain misconceptions about predictability or lack of it in wrestling. Loss mentioned a couple of examples. I can think of a few others, such as Virgil beating Ted DiBiase to win the Million Dollar Belt (rather than a DQ win as I and likely others expected) and Marty Jannetty beating Shawn Michaels on Raw to win the I-C title. And while it may not be considered unpredictable, Rick Steiner beating Mike Rotunda for the TV title at Starrcade 1988 certainly qualifies as a feel-good moment. But feel-good moments work best when they are built to and/or there is plenty of backstory to make that feel-good moment the logical choice. Virgil-DiBiase had it. Steiner-Rotunda had it. Michaels-Jannetty was an off-and-on feud given Jannetty's issues, but the backstory was still there to make the feel-good moment one people would appreciate. Doing feel-good just because it makes people feel good doesn't work so well in the long run. It's sometimes counter-productive to what you are trying to build.

"Spoilers" for The Chaperone. This was posted on the F4W message board and made its way to Wrestlecrap. http://www.wrestlecrap.com/newinduction1.html While the poster says the lines aren't really from the script, every time I see Triple H's face, I'm going to think of the words I'M RAY BRADSTONE.

I can understand where both sides are coming from, but I think one thing that absolutely needs to be considered is that Vince Russo's booking wasn't helping a lot of guys in the company. His booking was a big reason why there was such a lack of good heels, as fans weren't into Undertaker during the Ministry of Darkness period, HHH doing his worked shoot "my time" gimmick and Billy Gunn doing anything in particular. That Chris Jericho would get strong reactios is not surprising. I think any sort of threat Jericho posed to HHH had more to do with the fact that Jericho got over quickly whereas HHH, despite being pushed strongly, generated crowd indifference until the wedding angle and subsequent Steph heel turn. Like I said, though, part of that can be blamed on booking as nobody was going to get the worked shoot gimmick that HHH had over with fans that don't care what went on behind the scenes. On one hand, Jericho was similar to Vader in that both made huge splashes in their first couple of WWF apperances. But when compared to Vader, Jericho had much more long-term success. I think part of that is Vader's style just wasn't suited for WWF/E to begin with, and his tendency to work stiff was what helped get him over as a monster in WCW in first place. Jericho, on the other hand, learned to adapt, just as he did everywhere else he went. Whether you are a fan of a certain style or not, you can't just take the same style you like working with you wherever you go, because every promotion does things differently.

Well, if Aaron Rodgers can continue to perform at a high level and the Packers start building something resembling a dynasty, you'll have your quarterback who can take over the spotlight from Peyton and Brady. Peyton may have hit his peak and Brady is approaching the age where he will hit his peak. So the NFL needs a new draw. True, they'd love for it to happen with a big market team, but the only big market team with such a quarterback is Mark Sanchez... and while he's played in two AFC title games, his level of play is nowhere near that of Peyton, Brady or Rodgers. If Sanchez's play doesn't reach that level soon, the NFL will look elsewhere. And while it remains to be seen if Tim Tebow can be a long-term NFL starter, I'm sure the NFL folks would love for that to happen. You could tell when they went over Broncos highlights that they were intent on pimping Tebow. Time will tell if Sam Bradford gets to that level. But really, your younger QBs are playing for teams that aren't that big of a draw, at least when compared to the big-market teams. The exception, of course, is Tony Romo, but he has yet to show he can take the Cowboys over the top. Oh, and if sek wants to get into teams with loyal fanbases, the Broncos definitely have that. They aren't the draw that the likes of the Cowboys and Patriots are, but the fans they do have are quite rabid.

Again, if Sting is going to wrestle at Wrestlemania, putting him against Taker is foolish. Either Taker's streak gets broken by an aging wrestler or the aging wrestler you brought in to give a spark jobs in his PPV debut, perhaps his WWE match debut. If Sting is going to wrestle at WM, it makes more sense to team him with Taker, then build to a split and do a match at SummerSlam. If you don't pair Sting with Taker, you put Sting against a WWE upper midcarder who isn't likely to be pushed to the main event any time soon so Sting can get a win to build momentum and thus not look like a loser the instant he arrives. True, Sting is at the end of the road, but if you are going to use him, let him build momentum for a couple of months and then you can have him starting putting others over. If all Sting does is job, a win for a young WWE guy becomes more meaningless with each passing month. That being said, it would probably be best if Sting just agrees to a WWE Legends deal, accepts a HOF induction and gets used in a non-wrestling role, as they are doing with Booker and are about to do with Nash.

In this particular instance, it's not surprising the surprises got spoiled. You had two wrestlers rumored to be returning to TNA for a Main Event Mafia reunion, but once they got signed by WWE, that was the instant the news would get leaked because it fucked TNA over regarding their plans. John Cena's surprise appearance didn't get leaked, but there was no reason to as he was still under contract with the same company and nobody was assuming he was going to jump to TNA or elsewhere when he did make his return. EDIT: Oh, and TNA lives for teasing their surprises over the Internet whereas WWE doesn't like their surprises getting leaked.

I suspect it was, because all three were produced by the same company and the Wrestlemania game shared traits of both NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat.