Strummer

I'd hate to go terribly off-topic, but what was the complaint there? Did anyone expect/hope (a) HHH v RVD in 2002 to be that good or (b ) Rob to win? b it was obvious from the build that it was going to set up Flair turning and teaming with Hunter but people hated Hunter so much and with all the dreadful stuff on RAW most just got their hopes up. RVD was really over too. Not as much as the previous year but still popular. It was an amazing reaction

wow the reaction to Bryan/Sheamus has to be the worst since RVD/Hunter at Unforgiven 02. Have no idea what they were thinking. But as Meltz noted it had been planned for months

other than the opener I liked the show. Orton/Kane was better than I expected but man Kane is just so awkward in his movements in the ring. I don't think he's bad per say just awkward. I even liked Show v Cody even if they were out of position in some spots. Show is bumping better now than he did in his 20s. The Cell match is going to be polarizing. It was dramatic for sure. While I was watching I knew the net would rag on Shawn because of his acting. The worry wort putting his hands in front of him with the "Oh My goodness" look was probably the best Team Ace/Long was better than expected Loved the last 2 matches. Rock was blown up and Cena did a good job doing the work in some sequences

Vince seemed to fall in love with Hunter for real when he came back bloated to the gills after the knee injury in fall 98. Compare his look from early 98 with Shawn to late in the year and it's obvious he was juicing (more than usual I guess) to get a push Remember he was working in a program with Mark Henry at the time and when he came back it was obvious they wanted him on top

the only good thing about the entire angle was how good Stephanie looked. There was one backstage bit during the build up where Jericho stared at her chest for the entire segment

It was always embarrassing when Bert talked about pro wrestling. He had absolutely no clue. In his report today Meltz said he had very little knowledge but the media always went to him when a story broke and yes I can't believe he was only 74

it's been years but wasn't Chic Donovan the protype for one the workers in the old Tecmo wrestling game?

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_New...cle_59453.shtml pretty interesting. Nash was on a drug that helped prevent heart disease (caused blood platelets to unstick so they wouldn't clog) and it showed up on his test. That's why the angle with Punk was dropped. the original plan was for Ace to have sent the text and lead a stable to try and take over the company (they sort of did this with Miz and Truth anyway) and feud with Hunter's group over control. I had always assumed that was the plan over the summer/fall. Anyway it could have been a decent storyline and better than what we got. Obviously Hunter was a last minute sub for Nash at the September PPV and no wonder why it made no sense for them to work. It was all frantic last minute stuff. If you believe Nash they didn't even know if Hunter was in good enough shape to work

Dude is just over. He's naturally charismatic and most of the time doesn't take shit from heels. He also has a great authoritative booming voice which has to help. The GM feud is getting a fair share of criticism in certain areas for taking up too much TV time and wasting talented upper mid card guys but no one can deny that it's crazy over. Teddy and Ace have been great and have gotten it over as a top program. I always felt bad for him in 96 WCW having to manage jobbers like Jim Powers and Joe Gomez

Bob Sweetan Doug Somers

I'll just say that I think people who say he was better in WCW are crazy. Maybe that has died down now but that was a big talking point on the net at the beginning part of the last decade and it used to drive me crazy. His WCW act was hilarious but I don't know how anyone could believe he wasn't a better overall performer once he hit the WWF

TNA seems to have destroyed all the (mild) progress they have made since Russo left after the tapings this week. I read the spoilers and yes it really is WCW all over again

Vince's "The crowd is in awe of the action going on in the ring" line during Taker/Faker still makes me laugh to this day. That seemed to be a WWF quirk about getting around silent crowds

"Sheriff" Austin wow was this bad. maybe it didn't get a ton of hype but Austin thought this was a great idea and would get over huge to clarify this wasn't necessarily hyped on TV but on the net it was reported that Austin had a great idea and that it would work within the storyline. After all the intrigue on the net we get Sheriff Austin

I was 12 at the time and I knew they would never show anything. I just figured it was the usual heel bravado from Flair, Perfect and Heenan

Glacier debuting on WCW Pro after months of hype

I mentioned the Lauper thing a few weeks ago. She did more for the WWF than probably any celebrity they've had(maybe Tyson is only other one). She did TV tapings, MSG house shows, SNME and of course the big dates. No idea how she could possibly be one of the worst celebrity runs in wrestling. Like I said maybe it's the Watts infleunce on JR

Beth/Eve v Kelly Kelly/Maria Menounos has been added i was wondering how they would fit these angles on the card with no one really feuding over the title. So they just put this together. Menounos is a huge fan so i really don't have a problem with her taking someone's spot

hey Jingus, there's a story floating aroud the net that Jeremy Borash has been pretending to be the owner of TNA to "impress" people at clubs and such ( ie hitting on women) Apparently Bischoff called him on this and called him unprofessional and pathetic. Didn't you say that Borash used to do this type of stuff all the time in the Nashville indies? the TNA workers are apparently taking Borash's side

Yeah Shawn late 97/early 98 has to be up there. For whatever reason people tend not to focus on that point in his career. More attention is paid to his failures in 96 and his comeback. It's like a lost point in his career despite it being a point where the company was about to launch

smart fans have always been iffy about the Rock. Even In his prime a large portion of the smart fan base couldn't stand him. I used to frequent a lot of boards where he was hated with a passion. Austin was much more popular in that sub group. It's not a deal like Flair where he's universally loved as an aside to that I see that CRZ is still doing his Rock hating schtick. It's been 14 years man. Yikes.

apparently on the new legends roundtable discussing celebrities in wrestling JR claims that Cyndi Lauper had no place being in the wrestling business. Well that's certainly debatable. She gave the WWF a bunch of mainstream exposure that helped usher in the boom. But I can understand someone who learned wrestling from Bill Watts feeling that way

Uh. When? Because I don't think I've ever seen such a dramatic before/after contrast in ring skills as there was with Sting after his gimmick change. Most of the time he looked like he'd completely given up and was just running through the motions. (Especially memorable was his godawful performance at Halloween Havoc '98, when he dragged the worst match I've ever seen from Bret Hart.) Every once in a while he'd seem to wake up and have a better-than-expected match with random folks like DDP or Sid, but mostly it's like it wasn't even the same guy. Oddly, it seems like he tries harder in TNA than he did in late-90s WCW, but by then his body was shot and you could tell that he couldn't do the stuff he wanted to anymore. Sting had some really good matches in 1999 (albeit, to me, surprisingly). v DDP 4/26 smokes any other WCW match from 99 through to the end. 9/20 v Benoit rocks, and 4/12 v Flair felt like Sting had never changed from the late 80s. I'm not going to touch on the HHH stuff, but yeah, I went through some 99 WCW recently and Sting stuck out to me as a "holy shit he isn't completely sucking like I expected but is actually pretty damn good" wrestler during the period. Sting was only kinda bad his first two matches back. By the summer he was not back to old form but he was trying his best and having the occasional good showing. By 99 he was pretty consistent with the DDP match and the Goldberg Slamboree match. the Hogan match at Superbrawl 98 is just astonishly bad. He had bad matches with Savage and Bret too. He was really quite terrible for all of 98 before bouncing back in 99

http://twitter.com/#!/marykayfabe !!!! Surreal to see her over a decade and a half later seems she's still a fan. Still loves HBK and Punk is a favorite

During 98/99 JR would talk about X-Pac's "surgically repaired neck" during his matches. It's the focal point of the match versus Hunter at Backlash 99 Gorilla used to point out how foolish it was for IRS to wear a tie in the ring because it could be used as a weapon against him. And it was!