Ridiculous quotes from WO.com columnists

[El-P]

Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels would be hysterical only for the reactions and over-"analysis" of the Shawn apologists, the Shawn haters, the Bret Cult, the Bret haters etc... Add the Flair marks who hate Bret and want to prove Flair was still good in in match with Shawn... That would be better than the match itself.

Make it happen.

[Dan]

So Hart is actually going to have match? I remember a few years ago Kurt Angle was telling everybody that he wanted to wrestle Hart. And everyone was like "LOL, Bret was nearly decapitated and he had a stroke. It's not going to happen, stop being krazy Kurt~."

[Bix]

There's a big difference between the match Bret would have with Vince and the one that he'd have with Angle.

[artDDP]

I'm not really getting on Dave for that remark it's just funny (to me at least) how he has these run on sentences and tangents when he can sum it up efficiently with 5 or 6 words

Even funnier is he's pretty concise in his Yahoo! Sports UFC blog. Perhaps he has an editor there?

[KrisZ]

I chuckled at this one in the new WON

 

There is talk about remaking “Vision Quest,” the 1985 movie about high school wrestling which featured the lead heel character that you would say was based on Brock Lesnar, except Lesnar was only eight years old when the movie came out. Taylor Lafuner is being talked with about the lead role of the movie Matthew Modine starred in.

[jdw]

It would be interesting to see who Dave thought the heel was based on back in 1985.

 

John

[Bix]

That was quite possibly the most Meltzerian passage that I've ever seen in the WON.

[Loss]

I think Dave talks about Brock Lesnar too much. Everyone does, honestly, but he really does.

[artDDP]

Dave wants his newest obsession to be as big as football or baseball and he really thinks Lesnar is going to be the one to take it there.

[Dan]

Was reading a WON from 2002, Dave made a funny:

 

Rico looks almost exactly like Ken Shamrock. Speaking of lookalikes, Edge, on many occasions, including on our radio show, has spoken when it comes to all the women after him, that it's just the hair. He said if he didn't have the hair, nobody would think of him as attractive. Other wrestlers have tried to convince him to cut his hair because the long hair look is really 80s, plus, that pretty boy look is great for the undercard but not when pushed as a main eventer. Anyway, Pride fighter Jeremy Horn looks exactly like Edge, except without the hair. And having seen him, Edge really was telling the truth.

[artDDP]

Dave's MMA coverage gets annoying really quickly when he starts detailing how the crowd reacted to everything from the ring girls to the cotton candy vendors.

[Bix]

I don't understand why we need live PBP from both Dave AND Ben Miller.

[Cox]

From Todd Martin's Raw recap last night:

 

Hugging Shawn Michaels was not something that rung true to me either, having read Michaels’ and Hart’s books years after Montreal where they clearly still didn’t care for each other at all. And even if it is authentic, it isn’t what the crowd wanted to see.

Don't the WON types always give TNA shit for making things too complicated? By having Bret and Shawn make up before the Vince stuff, it kept the Bret/Vince storyline focused on Bret and Vince. Adding Michaels to the mix just complicates things, especially when he's going to be programmed with Undertaker at Wrestlemania and staying face. Plus, by Shawn and Bret burying the hatchet early in the show, it makes Vince look like more of an asshole for turning on Bret later, whereas if Shawn had turned on Bret or fought with him or whatever, nobody would have cared about Bret and Vince at the end of the show, and that was the main event.

[Bix]

I'm not even sure if that's the stupidest thing that he said there:

 

TNA is a promotion with some serious and obvious flaws, but watching Impact and Raw tonight, it felt like TNA is the hot promotion and WWE is the stale one. WWE is so fixed to its narrow formula vision of sports entertainment that it feels like you know everything that’s coming. The music openings for all WWE shows are the same. The fireworks are the same. The backstage segments are the same. The matches are the same. The comedy is the same. There isn’t the feel of unpredictability. Everything feels sanitized, and aimed at a young and unsophisticated audience.

 

TNA’s opening segment, for better and worse, was emblematic of how TNA is different. You had this ridiculous finish with a cage gimmick match ending in a no contest. Homicide is supposed to climb out the cage but he can’t make it. The crowd turns on the promotion. Homicide falls off the top of the cage and the camera misses it. And then Jeff Hardy just shows up unadvertised. In a lot of ways it was a disaster but it was also exciting to see performers out there without a seeming safety net.

 

If TNA tonight showed WWE that it needs to be more unpredictable and varied, watching WWE and TNA also sends the message that TNA needs to be much clearer with its storylines. WWE is always very careful to explain what’s going on, and that’s a good thing. You get video packages explaining the angles and they try to tie everything together.

 

Impact, by contrast, was full of inside references and rapid fire references to all sorts of things happening all at the same time. TNA needs to make sure their product is available to more than just the most hardcore wrestling fans. I’m not sure that tonight’s show was, even if I found it more enjoyable than Raw.

TNA was a fresh and exciting show that made them look like the hot promotion because the opener was a terrible mess and the rest of the show was a rehash of the Russo & Bischoff reset Nitro? Really?

[jdw]

There are still people who mark out for Monday Night Wars Crash TV. I don't think they grasp that the majority of the "good" stuff in the MNW era was stuff you could see coming, especially of you were a hardcore fan with info available to you and/or had half a brain of how wrestling worked. Most of the Crash TV stuff ended up sucking. Does anyone wax poetically about the Hogan-Nash title change of doom?

 

John

[Loss]

I agree. Hogan/Piper and Hogan/Sting were probably the two best-booked feuds of that era and both had a long, slow build.

[jdw]

Even the Outsiders wouldn't have been a "Crash TV Surprise" in this era to Todd: he would have known that they jumped months before and would be showing up any week. Hell, Todd may already have been a WON sub in 1996 or a reading of info online where everyone knew about that stuff.

 

Hogan going heel was a "surprise", and worked well. But for everyone like that, there were a dozen SURPRISE! moments that sucked and a dozen things you could see coming that were good. We knew Foley won the Title on "01/04/99" because it was taped the week before, and because Eric was blowing it off on the other channel. Foley Fans still thought it was a great moment.

 

John

[KrisZ]

The last real surprise was Cena being in the 08 Rumble. No one knew he was there not even Meltz.

[kjh]

From Todd Martin's Raw recap last night:

 

Hugging Shawn Michaels was not something that rung true to me either, having read Michaels’ and Hart’s books years after Montreal where they clearly still didn’t care for each other at all. And even if it is authentic, it isn’t what the crowd wanted to see.

Don't the WON types always give TNA shit for making things too complicated? By having Bret and Shawn make up before the Vince stuff, it kept the Bret/Vince storyline focused on Bret and Vince. Adding Michaels to the mix just complicates things, especially when he's going to be programmed with Undertaker at Wrestlemania and staying face. Plus, by Shawn and Bret burying the hatchet early in the show, it makes Vince look like more of an asshole for turning on Bret later, whereas if Shawn had turned on Bret or fought with him or whatever, nobody would have cared about Bret and Vince at the end of the show, and that was the main event.

Surely there was a way for them to bury the hatchet without having them go so far as to hug each other though?

[jdw]

The last real surprise was Cena being in the 08 Rumble. No one knew he was there not even Meltz.

I don't see that as a Crash TV style surprise. Those are usually surprises for suprise sake. It led to a multi-month feud with Orton that picked up the feud dropped with the injury the year before and wove in the Orton-Trip feud the picked up the pieces when Cena got hurt. Annoying as it was to see Trip wedge himself into a Mania main event again, and come out of the feud with the belt... there was some thought put into where they were going with it.

 

John

[KrisZ]

Yeah I didn't mean it as a crash TV surprise, just a surprise in general as Cena wasn't predicted to come back for at least 2 more months later.

[tigerpride]

Surely there was a way for them to bury the hatchet without having them go so far as to hug each other though?

The hug was there to put the nail in the coffin and to show fans that everything is now fine between Bret and HBK and to transition to Bret and Vince.

 

Also, if WWE had done the same opening segment TNA did, Martin would've crucified them

[Johnny Sorrow]

Babinsack's latest column is a hoot.

 

A theme emerged for a column over the past few weeks.

 

Sure, reading Mitch Albom’s “Have a Little Faith” played into it, but I won’t go for a book review of that book on a pro wrestling site. Bad enough I get annoying little gnats buzzing when I dare compare MMA and wrestling. But religion and pro wrestling have some strange connections, which I’ll get to further.

He doesn't get to it further, although I'd love to read his take on Judas selling out Jesus to the Jewish Elders and Romans.

 

The sad news of the turn of the decade is the passing of Steve Williams. I read and reviewed his book, “Steve Williams: How Doctor Death Became Doctor Life” a while back. At the time, he conquered his first battle with cancer, but it was not his last. Unfortunately, even one of the toughest of all pro wrestlers of all time could not win that war.

 

The question of whether there will ever be another Steve Williams in the squared circle is a tough one. Any comparable athlete: strong as an ox, athletically gifted and with a propensity for either violence or the display of the same is likely to head down the road of Mixed Martial Arts.

 

Because, today, there is very little trade in believability in professional wrestling. Very little.

 

Believability was old school, just like Dr. Death. Believability is what put Steve Williams on the map. It’s what propelled him to larger than life status, and it’s what allowed him to make use of his very real Oklahoma achievements. Believability is what took him to Japan, and allowed his team with Terry Gordy to rise to a level that will never be matched.

 

Because, today, no one seems to think that tag teams are marketable.

 

Believability apparently became something that modern day promoters couldn’t market sometime after the turn of the millennium. Around the time that another Steve Williams was peaking. Probably at that time when Stone Cold sold out, and drove millions away from the sport; because you can’t be a believable hero (or anti-hero, as he were) and then suddenly buddy up with the devil.

 

Which brings me to WWE Raw and Bret Hart.

 

For more than a decade, the biggest feud in professional wrestling was Vince and Bret. It spurred forth from a very old school, very dynamic and very much industry changing incident, that spiraled out of the moment, and engulfed the creative efforts of Vincent Kennedy McMahon and his product – for the first several years to positive ends, and then it sputtered and stalled and became utterly tiresome.

 

Bret as vanquished hero, standing up to Vince and walking away with his head held high, his pride intact and his wallet richer because of it all, was larger than life. It was legendary. It was more than the sum of the parts and the moment and the facts that were known and doled out.

 

Vince McMahon, in turn, became the ultimate bad guy. He became the character he is today, indispensible at the time, but improbably impossible to remove from the equation today. Vince’s infamy grew immediately upon the Montreal incident. He became more than just the longest running, most successful promoter, albeit one with enough shades of depravity, not in spite of that act, but in many ways because of it.

 

Vince as villain would have never worked as well without him having expelled Bret Hart.

 

It’s all about dynamics, and dynamics are the easiest thing to spot when they emerge, but obviously the hardest to create, especially on a blank canvas. (And the WWE continues to be a blank canvas: ignoring history, casting a blind eye to unique talent, caving in to the whims of McMahon.)

 

But it’s also about believability.

 

Believability made McMahon the villain, because the character he created was believably portrayed. We knew, once he tossed Hart out of the promotion, that he could fire anyone. We felt, once the levels of depravity rose, that he was capable – when in character – of almost anything. And even as the WWE went over the cliff of vulgarity and nonsense and dissing the fans … well, that was Vince being Vince.

 

There are those who look desperately for a renewal of the Monday Night Wars, and of those, many think that Bret Hart returning was more ho-hum than anything.

 

For once in a decade, I found myself – a person who still hasn’t watched a Monday night wrestling show in its entirety in many, many years – switching channels feverishly as 11pm inched closer. I wish that I was doing so to see a clash of styles, a clash of interesting angles and a battle that would launch the industry to new things.

 

But the big disappointment was Bret and Vince.

 

And while I’m in disbelief that Hulk Hogan actually did the absolute best thing possible with TNA – establishing AJ Styles as the Champ, and then endorsing both Styles and Angle as the best in the world, I’m disappointed by the complete mishmash of unbelievable aspects presented in the hours before, and the minutes after that awesome bit of professional wrestling.

 

With TNA, the believability is just not there.

 

The fans were stoked for bigger and better things. The fans of TNA are chanting, excited, energized and wholly looking forward to want to believe in the promotion. Whether or not they wanted to fully believe in Hogan himself, this was a crowd ready to be entertained, to be involved and to be part of the atmosphere.

 

But Hogan’s TNA showed that they don’t believe in the fans.

 

I laughed several times at the reactions. There’s a big difference between TNA and WWE fans – TNA fans still have that thread that can be traced back to the heady days of the cable wars. TNA fans still have vestiges of the believability of the old NWA, the passion and knowledge of the internet fans, and the respect for history of the Paul Heyman days.

 

WWE fans?

 

Not so much.

 

But the point is that the disconnect between Hogan’s vision and the TNA fans was plainly on display. Hogan didn’t believe that Jarrett would be cheered and he himself booed? Oh yeah, this is the guy who thinks crossing the International Date Line ears you bonus days. Hogan didn’t believe than anyone would remember that he said there would be no Nasty Boys, etc? Oh yeah, I think he said they wouldn’t wrestle…

 

And the best joke of all? Hogan wants the fans to believe that he’s the champion of the young guys.

 

And Jarrett’s positioning himself as the same.

 

These are the guys that figure that Val Venis (unnamed) and Orlando Jordan (even if named) and the appearances of graybeards like Nash and Hall and Waltman will spike the ratings. But then again, I can name a dozen former WWE types that Jarrett figured would position TNA for the best, and where did that get them?

 

At a point where the biggest WWE castoffs are the only hope…

 

Hope for a reignited creative effort on both sides of the battle remains, but what are we looking at?

 

Mick Foley looking for Hogan backstage when he’s on TV?

 

The dynamics of Hogan repositioning to back young guys, all the while bringing in his buddies?

 

And in the WWE, we’ve got Bret making up with Shawn Michaels, and Bret and Vince in an ass-kissing contest.

 

Until Vince completely leveled any thought of a reconciliation with a preposterously WWE style pro wrestling angle, in which he kicks Hart and makes it all seem like a bad joke.

 

Sorry for the cynicism, but I was hoping for more.

 

I was hoping for dynamics that I could believe in, for angles that would reignite my love for the products, and for some few things that wouldn’t shred my intelligence.

 

Because I’m not so worried about the believability of Bret Hart and him coming back, because it’s plainly obvious that he’s traded in his reputation for getting Stu in the WWE Hall of Fame. Sure, that’s unfair, but that’s the only message I got from Monday Night Raw.

 

Maybe the WWE can salvage the ho-hum angle by playing up a dynamic of Hart not wanting to see Vince NOT induct Stu. Maybe they can play up some sort of contractual situation. Maybe they can go somewhere with this, as Dave has suggested in terms of a three month angle, but I’m just not believing it.

 

Because it doesn’t make sense for Bret to want to bury the hatchet, it doesn’t make sense for Vince to not want to bury the hatchet, and it absolutely makes no sense for any long term fan to understand the motivations, let alone any short term fan to grasp the details of it all.

 

But again, believing in the product is the one thing that had been killed years ago, and until WWE and TNA want me to believe it’s worthwhile to watch it, then what’s the use of watching?

 

Joe Babinsack can be reached at [email protected] e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . I have a review of Absolute Intense Wrestling and a recap of MMA titles and other fun stuff coming up…

 

THIS really gave me the giggles, but I'm a gnat:

There’s a big difference between TNA and WWE fans – TNA fans still have that thread that can be traced back to the heady days of the cable wars. TNA fans still have vestiges of the believability of the old NWA, the passion and knowledge of the internet fans, and the respect for history of the Paul Heyman days.

As an old NWA fan, I never knew I wasn't supposed to be a WWE fan as well. And "Heady" days of the cable wars? The only thing "heady" was getting your head ready with weed to watch a lot of wrestling, especially the "History" of the Paul Heyman days.

Seriously, what does that even mean? "I RESPECT the glory days of EC dub!" What?

Bix, you read a book of this guy's "sophisticated" ramblings? Jesus, I'd be like Brando at the end of Apocolypse Now,..."the horror..."

[kjh]

Because it doesn’t make sense for Bret to want to bury the hatchet, it doesn’t make sense for Vince to not want to bury the hatchet

I skipped this initially, because I didn't want to "shred my intelligence", but this is unbelievably dumb. It's not believable that Bret wants to bury the hatchet with Vince when he's already shook his hand, made a DVD with him, gone in his Hall Of Fame, come back as an on screen character and done plenty of public interviews saying how he wants to move on from Montreal? It's not believable that Vince doesn't want to bury the hatchet when he's supposed to be this "ultimate bad guy", "capable – when in character – of almost anything"? And if Vince wanted to bury the hatchet wouldn't that make him the babyface in this scenario?

 

Lots of things rang hollow in Bret's return storyline, but one of them wasn't Bret punching out Vince to close the end of the show. He already did that 12 years ago. And why pay $50 for WrestleMania if Bret gets his revenge on his first night back?

[Johnny Sorrow]

And how's this supposed to work?

 

For once in a decade, I found myself – a person who still hasn’t watched a Monday night wrestling show in its entirety in many, many years

So, you can be a top wrestling reporter and commentator and not watch it?

 

"You know, it's been many a year since I've watched Monday Night Football. I hanker back to the years of ABC. Cosell, Gifford and the gay antics of Dandy Don ...these are the things that made Monday Night Football great. So I can reasonably say, last weeks MNF Broadcast on ESPN was awful, no matter who won."