Strummer

I think the general consensus at the time was that Jesse seemed more captivated by the WCW product than the cartoonish WWF of the 80s. WCW had longer, instense matches and heels actually won big matches which Jesse of course loved (in kayfabe)

He was awesome at Summerslam 89 and Bash at the Beach 96. You could always tell he loved the old Crockett guys and seemed to lose a bit of enthusiasm when Hogan and company came in 1994. He didn't mesh well with Heenan at all because he never sold his jokes or set him up. He seeemed legit annoyed with him most of the time. He clearly loved Dusty because he would just let him ramble on and laugh it off. And Mark Madden treated the fans like they were idiots. Not in a "Hey let me dumb in down for you ya dumb marks" way but "I'm above this shit, I'm way smarter than everyone here!" type way

Punk's references to Johnny Ace and Trips/Stephanie were edited off on NXT apparently

what was the deal here?

they're taping next week's RAW right now "This is going on right now At the start of the show they had a graphic announcing that Rey Mysterio, Alberto Del Rio, and R Truth will be in a Number One Contender Match for the WWE Title at Money In the Bank. They also announced Alex Riley... versus Miz. John Cena comes out for a promo and he mentions that CM Punk has been stripped of his right to challenge John Cena for the WWE Championship in Chicago. He mentions that is why they are going to do the Triple Threat Match to determine a new number one contender. He also says that they are going to treat things as if CM Punk never existed in WWE. Cena says that he is not happy with the decision and he believes that Punk was saying what he believes in, but he does not agree with Punk. He does agree with Punk’s right to say what he did. Cena says that he wants answers from Vince McMahon and he wants those answers tonight. John Cena says that he wants to face CM Punk at Money in the Bank" H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T

it was a pretty good cover up. The announcers just acted like it was supposed to happen. Bourne sold it well enough to not make it look terrible. Awkward but not terrible

More likely Springer, it's not like you can imagine Russo getting ideas from watching a wrestling show. Russo stated in one of his shoots that he and Ed Ferrera would watch Springer virtually all day at Russo's home in Connecticut while they wrote RAW

I can remember that RAW from late 99 when Vince was feuding with DX over Stephanie (before she turned) and the entire show was built around him being arrested. What a dreadful show that was. And this was just after Russo had left

http://www.prowrestling.net/artman/publish...e10019224.shtml

Chavo was killing the company on the way out. Saying they misused Eddy and that he was sick of putting over guys who "sucked". Very strange as I pegged Chavo a lifer oh and he asked for his release

Retweeting re: NY state voting to legalize gay marriage: (from reading his tweets I'm not surprised he's in favor, but he's also been in pro wrestling a long time and we all know it's not the most progressive industry in the world) In reply to a fan not sad to see him leaving WWE (and indeed has a profile pic showing off her fat triceps) Re: the Hulk vs Warrior shoot video fight, and getting a zing in on Hulkster: again how does this man get along with Vince McMahon? Yet I guess Vince kind of likes the guy

I must say I've enjoyed Big Show's knockout punch finisher the last few years. Again it's actually been protected (don't think anyone's ever kicked out) and the crowd reacts to it

looks like he is going to take a long hiatus from the company. He claims on twitter that he knew from the beginning of the year that he was leaving (this is a reference to Summer of Punk in ROH before he went to WWE). He was one of my favorite parts of current WWE and with him gone the company should realize how valuable he was (is)

I can't help but find it humorous that the die hard TNA loyalists can't really muster up any defense of the company at this point. I mean they still try once in a while by pulling the "yeah but WWE does..." but you know their heart isn't in it.

I took it as the millionaire wrestler no longer gets the perks of the job while people are struggling to keep afloat

Mick Foley lamenting that he and his family won't get free rides at universal studios because he left TNA is one of the most pathetic comments from a wrestler I've ever read Mick should no better than to put that to print even if he feels it inside

the "heel in peril" style seemed to go away in the late 80s/early 90s. During the first few years of the boom it was obviously the preferred way of working tags

I've been following Punk and Maryse's odd twitter war for the last month or so It's great. Through all this Punk seems like a guy who could never, ever get along with Vince McMahon. It's amazing he's lasted this long

The problem is, it takes a really first-class worker to be able to make the Big Dive Catch spots look plausible. Unless they're doing the "one guy holds a couple of opponents in place so his partner can dive on them all" setup, there's no reliable way to have everyone standing together in a tightly-packed bunch as someone else Just So Happens to hit a plancha. You can have them brawling or clawing at each other or something, but it takes good peripheral vision and stellar timing for two guys to stop punching one another, turn around, and catch a guy all in a split-second. It's one of those spots whose popularity is unfortunate, because it's really damn hard to get it right at all. No, it goes back even further than that. Consider Hogan, for example. In the earlier years of Hulkamania, sometimes he'd get the pin from a rollup or a weapon shot or whatever. But after a certain point, it seemed like he basically demanded to do the exact same Hulk Up, Three Punches, Irish Whip, Big Boot, Legdrop, 1-2-3 sequence in every single match. That kind of thing kills my suspension of disbelief, when I know exactly how a match is gonna end even before I watch the damn thing. (Stone Cold sometimes had the same problem; although I'm a certified Austin mark, it got damn tiring how he could never win a match with any move besides a Stunner.) Oddly, the WWE is much better about that sort of thing nowadays than it used to be. Most of the guys tend to have multiple finishers, and they do a lot more early teases of going for their finishers in the build-up portions of the match. Hogan did beat Undertaker with a rollup at Tuesday in Texas. Off the top of my head that's all I remember

the "I must win with my finisher" routine started in the attitude era. Even in the early mid 90s big matches could still end on high impact transition moves or quick pins. Sting beating Cactus with a flying clothesline at Beach Blast 1992. Shawn pinning Vader with a moonsault at Summerslam 96, Flair/Vader finish at Starrcade 93, Bret/Diesel at Survivor Series 95. I much preferred this to the finisher merry go round

For anyone who went to high school in the early/mid 90s the gimmick was perfectly executed. Just thinking of the look, the wardrobe and the vernacular of the team reminds me of *so* many kids I went to high school with from 1993-1997. It's uncanny. In a way there was a subversive nature to the gimmick that was borderline brilliant satire

More than anything it was the stiff style that hurt him. The WWF guys weren't used to it and Shawn and Taker complained to management. Cornette tells the story of Vader coming out of the ring crying after a match with Shawn after Shawn told him he'd have him fired if he kept working so stiff. Cornette said Leon was a real sensitive guy who took everything personally.

I still remember the front cover with Kamala having Hogan's head on his spear. Scared the shit out of me as a 7 year old http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kt6pk9oN...a1wcao1_400.jpg

I've always thought Steamboat losing to HTM kind of hurt him. It's a debatable point (in fact I think it was on this board about 5 years or so ago) but it still sticks out