WWE Network... It's Here

[sek69]

So I got one of those "We want your opinion" emails from WWE Network, and they were asking if I've heard of Connor's Cure. Then they proceed to ask if I donated and if not why. The capper was if I felt Stephanie and Triple H made good spokesmen for the charity, and at that point this was me walking away from my computer:

 

[Johnny Sorrow]

New Table For 3 with Sting, Vader, and DDP is fucking great. Don't miss it.

[WingedEagle]

New Table For 3 with Sting, Vader, and DDP is fucking great. Don't miss it.

 

Definitely enjoyed it but failed to meet admittedly incredibly high expectations. Also some very noticeable editing and jump cuts here.

[pantherwagner]

 

New Table For 3 with Sting, Vader, and DDP is fucking great. Don't miss it.

 

Definitely enjoyed it but failed to meet admittedly incredibly high expectations. Also some very noticeable editing and jump cuts here.

 

Probably 40 or 50 extra minutes of DDP talking. The odd cuts happen on pretty much every episode of this show, though. Sometimes there's an interesting discussion and it... just... gets cut.

 

But same here, enjoyed it but it wasn't what it could have been. Vader was completely silent during the Nitro discussion (obviously) so it was a weird dynamic. I loved Sting's White Castle talk though.

 

This show is hands down the best thing on the network.

[The Chief]

A bunch of Raws and Smackdown from 2002 and 2003 uploaded.

 

John Cena with "Red Dog" Rodney Mack as a second. Wow, I barely remember any of this stuff.

[artDDP]

A bunch of Raws and Smackdown from 2002 and 2003 uploaded.

 

John Cena with "Red Dog" Rodney Mack as a second. Wow, I barely remember any of this stuff.

 

Hell I found some house show results of a card I attended in 2003. I didn't remember John Cena being in the opener and Brock freaking Lesnar (with the Undertaker) in the main against the FBI.

[C.S.]

I watched the Lita-Trish episode of Rivalries. Yes, I consciously picked that over the Steamboat-Flair episode. Why? Because we've been inundated with Steamboat-Flair for 20 years, and as great as it was and still is, there's little new to be learned from it at this point IMO. Lita-Trish is fresher and less traveled ground. (With that said, I'll eventually watch Steamboat-Flair, of course.)

 

Not a bad episode, but I do think they may have exaggerated the impact Lita and Trish had. Well, okay, they both had an impact, but WWE didn't follow up on it whatsoever. If they had, no one would be going nuts about the "Diva Revolution" or Bayley-Banks main eventing a PPV in 2015. After Trish and Lita left, women in wrestling were still in the same meaningless marginalized position. If anything, their spots may have regressed.

 

I may be reading into nothing because they kept harping on what "besties" both women were and are, but Lita seemed almost resentful at times of Trish's bigger push and picture perfect retirement. Lita's own final match - where she was treated like crap - was completely skipped over, for obvious reasons.

 

A fun little hour, but perhaps more notable for what wasn't said and shown.

[El-P]

I never got the love for Lita as a worker. What did she ever do apart from blowing spots (among other things) ?

[Coffey]

I never got the love for Lita as a worker. What did she ever do apart from blowing spots (among other things) ?

 

I never got the love for Lita OR Trish.

 

Ivory, Molly Holly & even Jazz were better than both.

 

I've went off on this tangent before but Trish & Lita being great is the same revisionist history that tries to say Triple H was one of the top guys when Rock & Austin were on top. Trish was crawling on all fours in a thong barking like a dog & Lita had her thong hanging out half the time & did a "live sex celebration" but WWE doesn't want us to remember THAT. They want us to remember when they main evented an episode of RAW, when Lita damn near broke her neck.

[El-P]

I liked both better in managerial roles, Lita at the very least from what I've seen with Edge. She really wasn't much of a worker, she was all about spots and not doing them very well.

 

Trish was better, but again, she could have been a much better valet/manager who could bump instead of a "good for WWE 2000 standart" in-ring worker. Hey, I remember her actually acknowledging *me* when she was working on the LAW in 98 or so, saying she loved me for talking shit about one of the two guys who hosted the show (I was listening on Realplayer and sending them mails back then, oh, the memories). Yeah, that's my Trish Stratus story.

[Sidebottom]

 

New Table For 3 with Sting, Vader, and DDP is fucking great. Don't miss it.

 

Definitely enjoyed it but failed to meet admittedly incredibly high expectations. Also some very noticeable editing and jump cuts here.

 

 

DDP Yoga plugs probably.

 

Does anybody know the date of the Nitro with the DDP / Sting awkwardness which was referenced?

[flyonthewall2983]

Actually no mention of DDP Yoga apart from Sting asking how Jake is doing. I loved it, but at just 20 minutes it was way too short.

[Loss]

Lita was around at a time when most people had the idea of a good worker as one that could do moonsaults and huracanranas. So she fit the times.

[thebrainfollower]

Lita's biggest problem was she spent over half her six years in WWE on the DL.

[thebrainfollower]

To the bigger point, Victoria, Jazz and Molly might have been better in ring talent than Trish (I think Jazz is horribly overrated and barely understand selling at all) but they certainly weren't better performers. Victoria was absolutely terrible as a face and couldn't get fans to care about her in the slightest. Jazz likewise, plus Jazz couldn't cut a promo well at all, had to be given a mouthpiece. Molly's a better case, she certainly started out good overall, but slid into playing a character that would not be able to work face. And like it or not, the perception was she let her appearance go in a promotion that is also about look.

 

Trish in 2004 was the most over heel on the roster. Fans genuinely wanted to see her lights punched out week in and week out and her work was just astounding at playing her character (HHH wishes he could get that sort of reaction at the time). Her promos were great as well, some of the best heel work on the mic that year by far (into 2005 as well). Her in ring work was usually not quite as good as Molly or Victoria but at least with her feud with Lita, fans really cared instead of the dead silence you would get in a Molly vs. Victoria match.

 

Plus Trish looked liked an improved version of the Pamela Anderson type that dominated looks in the mid 90's. She certainly COULD have coasted on her looks like Sable, Stacy and Torrie and still had quite a career but she had enough respect for wrestling and herself to work her hardest to become, by the standards of her time and promotion (which are the only reasonable standard to apply, not everything is All Japan) a very good talent overall. The fact that not ONE female has been able to step up as a face (plenty have as heels though) and supplant her a decade later should tell you all you need to know.

 

I think there is a resentment there in Lita's case, though it's not really justified. Like it or not her cheating on Matt doomed her to a legit heel status and the slut chants. Matt was seen as "one of us who did well" by the average WWE fan at the time and she did her career serious damage. I also think that's another point in Trish's favor, unlike most divas at the time (Stacy Torrie, Lita) or since (though the NXT women seem to be avoiding this pitfall) she never got romantically involved with a wrestler (at least not publicly) but instead stayed with her high school sweetheart and married him right after retiring. Those things also earn points in making your own career.

[SteveJRogers]

I may be reading into nothing because they kept harping on what "besties" both women were and are, but Lita seemed almost resentful at times of Trish's bigger push and picture perfect retirement. Lita's own final match - where she was treated like crap - was completely skipped over, for obvious reasons.

It is possible to have a great relationship with a co-worker, but be resentful about how they get treated preferably compared to you, despite same work level, etc.

 

As long as you percieve that your co-worker has little to nothing to do with the way the company treats them.

[Coffey]

Victoria was the pits too.

[ghost]

Trish is notable only in that she was a fitness model with zero wrestling experience who worked hard to become a perfectly acceptable wrestler (ie someone who didn't botch basic moves like most of the other terrible women's wrestlers at the time) and had buckets of charisma. She had 2 or 3 good matches and a lot of people who likely hadn't watched any other women's wrestling went nuts over her at the time. Her and Lita also took a number of hard bumps that none of the other women really did at the time; Trish had that hardcore match with Victoria (actually I think Ivory and someone had a hardcore match a few years before so it wasn't the first), being put through a table by the Dudleys, Lita threw herself off ladders, nearly broke her neck with a suicide dive, and took a beating from Austin and a steel chair.

 

I think their long term impact was precisely zero. It's not as if they started pushing women's wrestling off the back of them; Trish and Lita main evented a Raw in 2004 and it took years for two women to main event a show again. Still they were part of a time which many people have fond memories off and were popular.

[C.S.]

To the bigger point, Victoria, Jazz and Molly might have been better in ring talent than Trish (I think Jazz is horribly overrated and barely understand selling at all) but they certainly weren't better performers.

 

Excellent, excellent post, which I've truncated for the sake of space. You basically posted exactly what I was going to.

 

Molly Holly, in particular, could wrestle circles around Lita and Trish, but Lita and Trish were better "stars" than any of the other women, and that's still what matters in pro wrestling.

 

Trish had the "look" they wanted anyway, but her hard work combined with that probably put her way over the hump. It was an easy decision for WWE to push her. She fit all the boxes and worked her ass off to improve. She may not have been a "natural" in the ring the same way Molly was, but so what? That has never been what WWE has recognized and rewarded.

 

With that said, I loved Molly, found her hot, and was always frustrated that she never got a bigger push. Still, in retrospect, she did well for herself. Smart young lady booking herself into that head-shaving angle and spot.

 

 

I may be reading into nothing because they kept harping on what "besties" both women were and are, but Lita seemed almost resentful at times of Trish's bigger push and picture perfect retirement. Lita's own final match - where she was treated like crap - was completely skipped over, for obvious reasons.

It is possible to have a great relationship with a co-worker, but be resentful about how they get treated preferably compared to you, despite same work level, etc.

 

As long as you percieve that your co-worker has little to nothing to do with the way the company treats them.

 

 

Yes, but in public and on camera? It's one thing to have those views privately, or even share them with Trish, but to act that way in an official WWE-sanctioned documentary?

 

Also, as thebrainfollower pointed out, Lita brought a lot of that on herself - some through no fault of her own (injuries) and others that were definitely her fault (fucking around with a married man and "betraying" a beloved underdog wrestler). Look, I'm not debating the morality, or lack thereof, of her actions - I'm just saying it wasn't a very smart business decision. We never heard anything like that about Trish, as follower also pointed out, which tells me she had a much better head on her shoulders than Lita.

[hammerva]

Based on the Stone Cold Podcast, Brock's biography should have been called "I don't give a shit"

 

Well based on the show, we are definitely not getting Austin vs Brock at WM in Dallas. If we are then someone was a real moron but there was no build at all

[NotJayTabb]

I think their long term impact was precisely zero. It's not as if they started pushing women's wrestling off the back of them; Trish and Lita main evented a Raw in 2004 and it took years for two women to main event a show again. Still they were part of a time which many people have fond memories off and were popular.

 

I think unfortunately Trish's impact was that the WWE spent years thinking you could just hire any model and teach them to become a wrestler. That the likes of Candice Michelle and Kelly Kelly came nowhere near to her is a testament to how good Trish was.

[Coffey]

Lita had an impact on fans. Without Lita, there's no AJ Lee, right? At least that's how the story has been portrayed, I'm not sure how close to reality that is.

[sek69]

Lita was just so 90s it was the perfect character for the time. Like grunge and Zima, it's hard to see what the appeal was now, you kind of had to be there.

[El-P]

Lita was just so 90s it was the perfect character for the time.

 

She debuted in 2000. Pro-wrestling...

[pantherwagner]

Lita with the red hair, cargo pants, etc. was a perfect look for the time. She's the cool chick that you know listened to cool music like The Prodigy and Biohazard (well, yeah...) and you know she'd talk to you while Trish would not even give you the time of the day.

 

You can say the same about the Hardyz, really. They were cool dudes with a cool look.

 

Nowadays sometimes you still see in some London neighbourhoods a guy or two dressed in baggy pants, tight fit shirts, arm sleeves, bandanas, facemasks, crosses'n'skulls, etc., and they look like absolute twats.