Strummer

He said that the trainers in OVW were useless since they never drew any money. Alvarez refuted the point by saying drawing money has nothing to do with training wrestlers. Rumors are Nash got this idea from HHH, who was saying the same thing about OVW. Dave Batista might have also said something similar

Slaughter/Patterson was on the HOF DVD last year

I think that's a big part of it. I remember him doing a radio interview in 98/99 and he said he didn't like a lot of what the company did but he had a family to feed and children to put through college. He claimed the company was more "Sizzle" than "steak"

from the Raw Preview: Eric Bischoff has ordered a Gold Rush Tournament to determine the new #1 Contender.

I'm still wondering how they will explain HHH getting another title shot after he lost cleanly 2 months in a row. They at least better make him earn it in storyline.

Wait till the Hell in a Cell match in June, he's going to have to sell even more. Plus, Hunter is going to want 35-40 minutes for the match. That one could get scary and really hurt Batista

Jimmy Hart started out pretty well in the WWF, but become more annoying and intolerable as the years went by. He would be up there in my worst of all time list. He was much better in Memphis. Maybe the guy wasn't a full time manager, but my vote goes to the Genius. He did nothing for Hennig and then managed the Beverly Bros. when they were headed straight to jobberville. Oliver Humperdink, Slick, and Sapphire were all pretty bad as well. And while obviously not his fault, Cornette managed some pretty awful guys in the WWF

I'm thinking Eddy is getting the big heel push this summer, probably working Cena at Summerslam. I just can't see them giving Christian a main event spot, maybe a one shot deal on a B show

Hurricane and Rosey win the tag titles

"This people here in attendance are in awe of the action taking place in the ring" Gotta love Vince trying to put over anything, no matter how mind numbingly bad

from Meltzer's update today: There are times when famous wrestlers pass away and everyone starts talking about what wonderful people they were, and sometimes, you almost have to bite your tongue. This is not one of those times. Through thick and thin, through the bad times, and they were many, I don't think you'll find anyone arguing that Chris Candido was a really nice guy. He made a comeback at a time when everyone in the industry had given up on him. He was recently brought into TNA just as a test to put people over, and wound up winning a roster spot and was liked by everyone. If the circumstances of his death that are stated are accurate, it is one of the greatest tragedies of all. Practically everyone in wrestling who was at death's door at one point in their lives will say or have their friends say that are reformed. As history has shown, the vast majority of the times, it isn't true. What a lot of people don't understand, is for the minority who it turns out to be true about, it is a daily battle, as some, like William Regal and Eddie Guerrero will openly talk about. Chris loved pro wrestling, even though it came close to killing him at one point in his life. It was more living out his childhood dream than making money. I think he enjoyed it every bit as much when he was barely making ends meet than when he was under a six-figure contract. He was on the road right out of high school. He had a bright future. He squandered that future. But he was determined the end the story of his wrestling career on a high note and with respect of the people in the profession that he had at times let down. He was on the road to doing all that. What happened is one of those things that happen in life. There is no rhyme nor reason. Life isn't fair. You can question all you want about a guy who fought back from something that most never come back from, but then suffered a fluke broken leg, and suddenly, with no warning, this happened. Chris was very excited about his future in wrestling, particularly because he was starting to escape from the shadow of his past. The 6/10 and potentially 6/12 (if he was to be allowed to participate) were huge deals for him, and whether he would be able to wrestle or not, he was excited to be part of them. Candido's last pro wrestling appearance will air today on the TNA Impact show. I'm told they will do a tribute graphic for him on the show, I believe at both the beginning and the end of the show. Before the show started, Candido came up with his own angle, because in a cruel twist of irony, he had been in a wheelchair at a ruse for the last few weeks on television. Candido came up with the storyline that his real broken leg on Sunday was his karma for the ruse, which led to the tag team title change and what was told to me was the best Impact match in a long time. There was debate whether the match should air at all. Shane Douglas who was his best friend in the company, felt 100% certain Candido would have wanted it to air. So that was the decision. No death of a people you know at a young age isn't sad in some form, whether you know them personally, or followed their lives simply watching them work from a young age. Many people followed Chris from when he was a very young man, and some since he was just a teenager But for many reasons, this one is harder than most. It's not just because it doesn't appear to have been self-inflicted, but because this was the phone call for years that many people feared we could get at any time. And just when we thought we knew it would never come, it came.

I'd like to add one, was Chris Benoit really supposed to win the Main Event of Uncensored 97? Supposedly Hogan put a stop to it when he found out a lot of press was going to be there for Rodman. I can't remember if that was one of Scott Keith's gems or not

1. Roddy Piper 2. Hulk Hogan 3. Ric Flair 4. Ted Dibiase 5. Curt Hennig Guys that just miss out: Paul Orndorf, Jericho, Rock, HHH

Lawler was hired back because Vince loves the guy. Vince's idea is that Lawler is speaking for or representing the young horny teenager watching the show. He's saying what they are thinking. I enjoyed Lawler up until about late 99 when he started to turn face and go gaga over the women (mainly Debra and Terri). He was a commentator in the mold of Heenan, where he would make fun of the faces and praise the heels instead of getting over moves, psychology and the like. There has been debate whether that can be effective or not, but I believe in can be useful in getting wrestlers over. Heenan proved that. Lawler has stated several times that he would rather wrestle than commentate, but Vince thinks he's too old to work full time. Like I said earlier, it boils down to Vince loving the guy.

I was also going to point out about how one week Benoit/Malenko/Eddie would be way over and then the next they would get no reaction at all. It was very weird. It seemed to be dependent on what market they were in or the programs they were involved in. This especially applied to Benoit during this time frame. He would get tremendous reactions sometimes and then nothing. It was very unique.

From personal experience from 96-97, the great matches on the undercard were not the reason why the casual fans I knew ordered PPVs. My friends/cousins and I ordered several WCW PPVs from 96-97 and while the undercard was on, they were all almost completely silent. They thought guys like Benoit and Malenko were boring. Then they would erupt when the NWO came on the screen. I remember ordering Hog Wild 96 and like 5 or 6 of them went out to play basketball during Benoit/Malenko. Then they were going crazy during Hogan/Giant and Hall/Nash v Sting/Luger. I remember my cousin and I were dying to see Nash and Giant feud in the summer of 96 (96 was my last year as a mark). The NWO was clearly the draw and really the only reason we ordered WCW PPVs. They always made more noise during WWF PPVs. I remember them loving guys like Tatanka, Adam Bomb and Men on a Mission, etc. There was more of an emotional bond with WWF guys (even low card guys). We didn't even know what workrate was. The only time I was into WCW over WWF was from Sept. 95 till Nov. 96. I was drawn to Nitro because of the dream matches they put on top rather than the great wrestling in the undercard. The NWO drew me further in until the Piper/Hogan feud in Oct/Nov turned me off to WCW and I really never came back. The great matches might have drawn some smart fans, but the NWO drew the vast majority of the money because they drew in the casual fans.

I agree HTQ, the casual fans I know were all talking about Austin on Piper's Pit. Plus all the mark boards I visit were going crazy over it. I still think they will give the credit to HHH/Batista though.

WOW. I think this should tell the company that the fans are dying for new faces on top (Cena, Batista).I'm sure Hunter/Batista will get the main credit for that number. Jesus, that is a lot of money.

he also claimed that Warrior was supposed to turn heel at Summerslam 92 but that Hellwig vetoed it because he knew he would have to do clean jobs in the role. That was proven to be a total lie.

yes, there were. What I meant was that Scott's style of writing used to be good from a technical standpoint IMO. The way he structured his pieces and was able to build suspense in his early rants (I'm not talking about the PPV rants or TV rants, the essay type ones I mentioned earlier). When I first got on the net, I will admit to buying into Scott's supposed claims on WWF/WCW history (such as Austin winning at FF, Mankind scheduled to go over at Mind Games, Benoit supposedly being scheduled to win the Main Event of Uncensored 97) I started e-mailing Meltzer and obviously I know the real deal now. I haven't been a fan of Scott since about 2000, when he basically told me to "Fuck off" after I started questioning his claims and opinions

Sorry, how's that defending him? You're saying he's capable but chooses not to? That's worse than not being able to, but trying anyway. It's defending him in the sense that he isn't a talentless hack, as his early work clearly showed potential, but he's continuing to write about something he has no interest in anymore. He's spending all his time with his new wife (can't you picture that?) and his budding career in eletcronic retail. I will admit to liking Scott's early work, the 1993 WCW rant, the King Lear Rant, and The Lazurus rant. I even enjoyed the fall of the AWA rant. There were obvious historical mistakes in them, but the themes of the rants were interesting and they were written very well. I think the main criticism of Scott is in his reviews of wrestling matches and not necessarily the quality of writing.

Scott clearly doesn't care that much about wrestling anymore, but I think he's afraid to leave the scene because it will hurt his "writing" career. This guy used to have rants up like 20 minutes after the show ended, now it's usually a couple of days or weeks (for PPVs)

Joey is being hypocritical after all the stuff ECW did in the past that he conveniently doesn't bring up when bashing the WWE for being "insensitive"

great review Loss, thankfully people are finally giving that match the praise it deserves. It's a shame it was dismissed simply because everyone on the Net was pissed at Bradshaw and his Main Event push. I REALLY liked the JBL/Eddy feud. The angles/promos/matches were all good.

much appreciated, great stuff