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How bout Samoa Joe's '05? He was crazy good around that time. He was still good while in ROH, but really just went to shit after a while in TNA.

How so?

My memory's shit, but I swear I remember Michaels saying something in a promo with UT about having a classic match or something (for their first meeting). But, yeah the second one was more Michaels wanting revenge.

Those last few Michaels WM were good for what they were, but the set-up for them really bugged me. I just hate the "We're going to have a great match" as opposed to, "I'm going to kick your ass/defeat you". Nothing takes me out of a feud faster than two guys talking about having a great match together. The idea's supposed to be to win.

I empathize, because I had the exact same thing happen to me. Less explicable was that the reverse happened as well: I also can't jump very high and the short guy seemed mysteriously incapable of ducking down super far. Both of us were involved on both ends of more groin-to-skull collisions than I care to remember. The only way I finally made it work was to go half a step to the side and swing one leg way high over the dude, which promptly got me mocked for "doing Wolfie D-style leapfrogs". On the less funny side, my partner picked himself up a pretty bad concussion, complete with constricted vision and everything. I dunno how he did that by repeatedly ramming his head into my junk, but somehow it happened. That could be your gimmick: Dude with junk of steel!

Personal example: I was playing with my one-year-old grand-daughter recently. She had picked up a plastic stir-spoon and was carrying it around, and hit me with it. Got me right on the corner of my right eyebrow. It wasn't a hard blow, but it hit at *just* the right angle to split the brow and start it bleeding. A one-year-old using a plastic spoon to do that sort of damage is proof enough to me that it just takes hitting the right spot to start the blood flowing, and it certainly doesn't have to be a hard hit. You've got a tiny Abdullah the Butcher on your hands!

Lawler seemed to get legit pissed at Cole during the Capt. Lou part of the segment. He said something about punching Cole in the face that just seemed to have some real anger behind it.

WWE goes out of it's to prove the dirtsheets wrong shock. It was only a cameo and Ambrose hardly ambushed him or anything. Yeah, it just came off to me as, "See! That stuff's not true. Here he is!". He really didn't do anything. Was he even on besides that first segment?

So...the out-of-shape nobody is the interim Raw GM...on tv.

Honestly, I think Quack is just better at attention to detail than any other promoter outside of Vince.

I don't really think it's a bad thing for Shelley to go to FCW. Really, it could save him some trouble in the long run. He can kind of get used to what's expected from his new company, and not have to worry about getting the "he can't work" tag if he's on the main roster too soon.

Where does Mark Henry fit into all of this?

Wasn't Big John Studd dead in 1998?

I really liked his match with Nikolai Volkoff from SNME (10/5/85). Hogan seemed to really do some good stuff on SNME. He had the Race match, the Orndorff cage match, the Funk match, and the Bossman cage match.

I think RTC were the exact right type of heel for the time. Everyone was pushing things edgier and edgier. It made sense to have a heel that was the antithesis of all that. They nailed it all, from the dress to the truly annoying theme music.

Dana's really right, though. Demos are what's really important. And you do have to factor in all that stuff about total television viewers that night, etc.

When Goldberg debuted, I remember people talking about him kind of being a Ken Shamrock/Stone Cold combo. I think he used the ankle lock early on, and kinda did some MMA-type moves. The Austin part is pretty obvious.

They also had the thing where Truth's mic wasn't working for like 10 minutes. I wouldn't have liked to be the person sitting next to Vince for that.

I don't really usually think in terms of star-ratings, but that's pretty much where I'd put them. Am I going to suddenly start loving Davey Richards matches now?

My wife isn't a fan at all, but she's really fun to watch with. She's fascinated with the Funkasauras to the point that she constantly sings his theme music. She can't get over the fact that Cena wears jorts. Just thinks it's hilarious. She also comes up with her own storylines for guys that are feuding. Like, "Oh. He doesn't like him because he wears tiny pants with a t-shirt and that makes the other dude uncomfortable."

That's kind of the pattern of WWE for the last couple of years. Post-Wrestlemania/early summer they do something really different and cool that piques everyone's interest. In '10, it was Nexxus. In '11, it was Punk. This year it's Lesnar. It looks like they're doing something different finally and I get all excited. It usually last until about Summerslam, then slides downhill to Survivor Series. By about Royal Rumble time, things start to get a little interesting again leading to Mania. Rinse. Repeat.

Brock lost his *second* much hyped MMA match. He actually won his first MMA match. Unless we're rewriting history. John Sorry. Should've said first UFC fight.

Just gonna throw something out here...Lesnar also lost his first, much-hyped, MMA fight.

I follow WWE via dvr'd fast-forwarding mostly. I really should get back to watching Ohio Valley Wrestling. A buddy of mine from work is one of their commentators and it sounds like they're doing some fun stuff. I'll also watch some stuff on youtube and dailymotion and downloads, etc. Then I order Will's MOTYC sets at the end of the year and catch up on the good stuff.

Always loved this segment, especially the crazy brawl at the end. So so disapointed when they cut those guys out of the war games match. My brain might be making this up, but wasn't Goldberg one of the dudes that tried out?