Matt D

Add to that the Chyna/HHH double turn on the show that was so complicated I don't remember it. But it made no sense either. WM15 was a godawful show with a godawful build. The build to the main event was better than good, and that was the only thing I was personally referencing since we were talking about the main event matches at Mania this year. (Keep in mind, I'm also not in the camp that thinks that Lawler should have won so I'm probably having different arguments than anyone else here).

That made no sense and shat on months of build. Absolutely. But the Main event stuff with Austin at that point was all hands on by Vince and can't be judged against the undercard. Maybe more so as 99 goes on.

There's also a difference between the undercard and a lot of what was on top during the Attitude era, and there's also a difference between Mania 98-Mania 99 year and the 99-00 year. To me Mania 98-99 was a pretty good build. Vince tried to get the belt off of Austin. Vince finally manages it by stacking the deck so far against him with Taker and Kane. Foley gets screwed after being unable to do the job with Austin. Vince ends up with his corporate champion in Rock. Austin has to go through more hoops than you can imagine to get his title shot (including Taker, the Rumble, and Vince). He does. Rock and Foley trade the belt around. Austin finally faces Rock for the title with Foley in the mix as the ref. It might have been shuffled around when various things happened (like Steve Williams' injury) but it all FELT long-form and epic. And it's not like there were a ton of surprises along the way. Survivor Series (albeit the biggest plot-driven PPV ever but it's self-contained) and Big Show's debut. That's about it. I don't feel like there's any real build to Cena/Miz. That's my problem. I look back and I don't see the path. Del Rio/Edge isn't any better, though them adding Christian to the mix helps a lot there, if he's not just a mini feud for Del Rio over the next few weeks.

I actually think Del Rio vs Big Show would have been an interesting program and hyped the DVD. Granted, you don't use Mania to hype the DVD. But Del Rio going over huge at Mania vs Big Show seems like a bigger deal to me for some reason.

It's Mania. They're going to micromanage the matches and dust Patterson off to put them together. I'd rather have a long-ranging well plotted epic story than just about anything else. It's Mania, the greatest celebration of sports entertainment there is.

Lawler shouldn't have won, Miz needed the win and a chance to look good, especially with a Wrestlemania match with Cena coming back. Who should have won instead of Edge to face Del Rio? Rey v. Del Rio was already blown off. The booking was predictable because it was the right booking to set up the matches for Wrestlemania. They should be praised for it, and not doing the stupid stuff they've done the past few years where they kept changing the title at the Chamber Honestly, the right booking for Mania should have either been having Orton having to go through a bunch of hoops over a number of months to get a title rematch with Miz (the first or second since Miz won the title) or Barrett winning the belt in Sept and Cena finally going through a bunch of hoops to get his revenge against him at Mania. There's no weight to Cena/Miz. They have six weeks to build it but they shouldn't have to at this point, not for Mania. I guess I'd call this PPV the best they could do considering the bed they made.

That would take getting some fat guys with actual characters and not cookie cutter well built guys with short tights and crew cuts. It won't happen in the current environment. Back to Vickie, this is actually the one way I think she'd work as Bobby Heenan. Give her all the cookie cutter well built guys with short tights and crew cuts. Give her four or five of these guys and have it look like she's trying to turn the WWE into this drab kingdom of these guys for her own personal reasons.

I tend to see her more with one guy than with a whole stable (Though I know she was with Chavo, Edge, Ryder/Hawkins at one point but did she actually come out with the Edgeheads for their matches?). I also think Cole would be somehow fresher and it'd get him out of the booth which is desperately needed.

Well the the problem becomes a reluctance to use managers, no? 2011 could be centered around Cena vs Cole and his stable of disposable heels, but I feel like they'll never pull the trigger on that and take him out of the booth.

I'm dubious about this. Rock'll be gone in a month and Cena will still be here to carry the company, albeit in a terribly damaged form. If this is the way they finally turn him (or really create a Bret situation where he's a heel to any male over 14 and a face to anyone under, explicitly), then that's one thing, but it's like bringing in the travelling NWA champ in the 70s-80s and having him make all your local guys look like worthless chumps instead of contenders that JUST missed the goal.

That's why I like my explanation better. It hurts my head less. The Bischoff turn was over Piper and just a short while away, right?

He's also a guy who put a TON of work into his craft. That was obvious. I think Randy "30 page faxes to Steamboat and the Ultimate Warrior" Savage was in some ways the PERFECT opponent for him. I also love the idea that the Outsiders were the MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR.

I thought this made sense storyline wise as Bischoff, secretly part of the NWO, wanting to make Piper look like an ass.

Dave made a typo, it was UFO. Thanks. There are obviously mysterious hints to the future in Dave's Observer typos.

How about "Signature Spots" instead?

From THE LAST OBSERVER EVER: The April 85 one where he announced that he was done and talked about Mania: "Northwest Champ Karl Steiner wrestled throughout Europe and East Canada as Bob "UFC" Dellaserra." So what did the UFC stand for?

I still think the match ought to be Taker/Sting vs Kane/Barrett which ties up all the loose ends from last year nicely. If they want to give Jackson a rub too they can add Nash in as the third guy. Have Sting work FIP. Or hell. They could just have a supermatch with Taker/Sting/Nash/Show vs all of Corre and Kane. Just a feel good thing.

It says something about the FORMAT. Trying to get ratings every week twice a week and giving away all the matches seven times over on monthly PPVs means that anything different is appealing on some level.

It's the schemey promoter going "Neeehhhh, all the marks root for an underdog just like them! Nehhhhh." while stroking his handlebar mustache and counting the cash. And it's a sucker bet from the promoter's POV because no lower-card guy has ever won it. In my head, Kayfabe Vince (MR. McMahon) was sweating bullets for a second when Santino came out of nowhere. Granted, they could just do to him what they (Was it Bock in 96?) did to DDP after he won Battlebowl.

I feel like I'm stuck in 1993 right now. That and 1985.

I would have loved this just to hear Bryan and Dave's reaction, after they complained that WWE may f*ck with the integrity of the Royal Rumble gimmick by having some jobber win it and then get screwed out of the title shot in their Rumble preview. The integrity of the Royal Rumble? It's already ridiculous enough that the act of throwing someone out of the ring makes you good enough to face the world champion on the biggest show of the year, as opposed to, you know, beating several top contenders for several months. If we're going to talk Kayfabe, then I think the fact that it's the #2 PPV draw of the year, most years, and usually by a large margin at that, is more than partially based on the "Anyone can win" element. Even if everything was real (or in this case logical), Vince calls his wrestlers entertainers. The object isn't to have a fair athletic competition. It's to make money by forcing modern day gladiators to compete with one another in a relatively (and admittedly) corrupt environment. Within the "WWE UNIVERSE" logic, what draws is more important than what's fair, and the anyone can win element of the Rumble draws.

Whenever I disagree with a Brit about anything, I just shake my head sadly and blame Maggie Thatcher. I doubt that applies here though.

Poor Chris Masters didn't even get on that list of 20underrated WWE guys.

Am I the only one that feels sort of weird when I'm watching old NWA and see him with that belt?

I never understood that mindset, even a little. I wonder how much of a role Miz's success played into that. He's clearly a huge fan and used that as part of his motivation. Also seeing how the wrestlers who were hired during the "no fans" period clearly had no passion for the business, and either quit or just gave up until they got endeavored probably played a part too. It's probably a little harder to find people who want to get into wrestling who aren't fans these days. During the boom it had to be a lot easier, no? Now you sort of have to be a mark for the business for wanting to head that way instead of doing something with MMA or what have you. Or at least that's my generalization for today.