Bob Morris Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 I love Vince vs Stone Cold in that Rumble. I'd also thought Rumbles sucked cock for ages before that. Rather than keep the numbers low so people can work and you can track what's going on, they'd just bog down, filling up with bodies, waiting for the Big Guy to come in and throw a bunch of people out. You'd see it year after year after year... same old shit. It got to be a painful match to watch. Even the "great ones", like 1992, don't really hold up as being any good. Probably the most overrated gimmick concept in history: Royal Rumbles. It's too bad the Survivor Series concept crapped out, largely because the WWF didn't know how to book it and wanted to protect folks from even doing job if freaking tag team matches. A well done Survivor Match runs circles around a Rumble concept. John I wonder if I need to drag over my reviews of Royal Rumble matches from tOA to here. I can remember looking at the Rumbles of the earlier years and how some of them did a better job of building issues and teasing Wrestlemania matches better than others. The 1990 Rumble was one of the best in terms of building issues and giving people an idea what the Wrestlemania card that year would be. They addressed Jake/DiBiase, Savage/Rhodes, Demolition/Colossal Connection, Piper/Bad News and Hogan/Warrior and did a good job of pacing for the most part until the end, when they have Hogan and Warrior and four guys remaining to enter. Plus the stuff to open the Rumble with DiBiase, tying all the way back to the previous year's Rumble, was done well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bob Morris Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 And regarding the '99 Rumble, I agree the Austin/Vince stuff was good but it could have been done better by simply having Austin eventually get too distracted with every wrestler coming into the ring and Vince being able to slip under the ropes and do commentary. And Vince winning the Rumble wasn't really the bad part... the bad parts were the stuff with the Ministry of Darkness, the white coats coming after Kane and too many spots in which one guy just stands around waiting for the next entrant to come. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 From the WON, not exactly Pritchard related, but certainly TNA: One of the reasons Bischoff has a lot of power is because Spike works through him, which gives him a lot of power. Spike lost a lot of faith in Dixie Carter after she pushed to them about how they were doing the angle to get the Main Event Mafia back together last year and they spent months building it up, telling Spike about Booker T and Kevin Nash and that she had them, only for Booker to have been in talks with WWE already and have no interest in coming back. She had Nash under contract but Nash did whatever it was that he did (he told friends he threatened to tell the truth about her) and she released him from his contract and allowed him to sign with WWE. This left them with months of build and no angle, and led to the Fortune babyface turn on Immortal and a feud that largely went nowhere. So what is "the truth about" Dixie? John I'll have to plug my former Cageside Seats colleague Sharon Glencross' pieces on Dixie Carter and TNA management here: A Closer Look At TNA President Dixie Carter Nightmares in Nashville: A look at TNA/Impact Wrestling management From the first link: "Dixie Carter is Ian Rotten with a trust fund." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 So Nash threatened to say what it already public knowledge? I'm... not getting it. Or did Nash say he'd be a witness in any number of lawsuits against TNA? That... doesn't sound like Nash. He's not one to torch a potential future paycheck so badly. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 Personally, I thought the Vince-Austin feud was untouchable in 1998 when JR was selling it like, "Vince, you run the company, YOU CAN'T GET IN THE RING BAH GAWD!!!" Once Vince became a total cartoon in 1999 it lost all appeal for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 In the old WWF, guys were married to each other for 6 months+. It was the same house show pairing night after night after night. The big appeal of the Rumble in my mind was to see guys who don't usually interact, interact with one another. Even in Battle Royales, you wouldn't see it as much because guys could just square off against who they were paired with. The staggered entry of the Rumble made things a little more open. It's not as big of an issue now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 There's also the fact that old guys knew how to work the ropes. They knew how to tease eliminations, get wrapped up in the ropes, lose balance, work quasi-comedy spots. By the late 90's it was beginning to be a lost art. New guys just sucked at working the Rumble, and everything became overscripted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cm funk Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 There's been rumors for years about Dixie and Jeff Jarrett......and there's been rumors and evidence of JJ being a bit of a speed freak.....there's probably some fire to that smoke. With TNA's track record of enabling drug users, it wouldn't surprise me at all that Dixie uses herself and facilitates the environment Nash's alleged threat could literally be anything though, picking out TNA wrongdoing is like shooting fish in a barrel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khawk20 Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 Nash's alleged threat could literally be anything though, picking out TNA wrongdoing is like shooting fish in a barrel Thing is, Nash would know that too, so you would think if HE thought he had something to hold over Dixie's head, it would have to be pretty big for it to mean anything at this point. Or it's more werking on his part..who the hell can tell anymore? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt D Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 I could see Dixie being delusional and thinking some of the stuff that is out really wasn't? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 Re Royal Rumble - am I alone in thinking the 2003 one was the best in terms of the pure in ring action? It was coming off the heels of the Smackdown 6 era so you had those guys (minus Benoit) plus a bunch of others like Jericho, Christian, RVD, Tajiri, WGTT, Hardys, etc... all going out thear and decinding instead of your standard punch/kick/choke/rope tease shit they were going to do a bunch of fast paced high spots and cool sequences and shit and it ruled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdw Posted October 21, 2011 Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 On Dixie, the only thing that isn't out there already that you could possibly see worrying her would be Dixie banging the shit out of workers, such as Jeffey. There are rumors, but Dixie is married (to the point that her loser husband has been sucking at the TNA tit as well). But that's about the only thing... unless Nash has done lines with her, and she doesn't want that out. Who the fuck knows. I'd go back to the point I alluded to: Nash isn't one to completely torch a bridge of a potential future payday. One suspects he knows that it's possible for his time in the WWE to once again be short term. If that ended up being the case, there's little chance that he'd not want to have the ability to con Dixie out of more cash. My thought is that if this rumor started with Nash, it's simply Nash talking out of his ass to but himself over. Yet again. John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted October 21, 2011 Author Report Share Posted October 21, 2011 Even if it's true, I suspect he meant it figuratively. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kjh Posted October 22, 2011 Report Share Posted October 22, 2011 So Nash threatened to say what it already public knowledge? I'm... not getting it. Or did Nash say he'd be a witness in any number of lawsuits against TNA? That... doesn't sound like Nash. He's not one to torch a potential future paycheck so badly. I think Nash is now a WWE lifer with his buddy Hunter having so much power now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrisZ Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 From the WON Dragon Gate USA announcer Rob Naylor has moved to Tampa to work with FCW. That explains the Punk reference to him on TV a few weeks back. I don't think that explained the reference but Rob being a news item in the WON is fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 So you know how lately Dave and Bryan have been constantly saying WWE sounds desperate and insecure about the usual stuff when they brag about something trending on Twitter during Raw? Last night at the Duran Duran concert at MSG, before the show and during the instrumental "Tiger Tiger," they had a screen where tweets with the #duranlive hash tag would be displayed. At one point, in between songs, Simon LeBon announced that they were trending in NY ("...and even I know that's a Twitter reference.") to loud cheers. I guess Simon LeBon is really insecure about Duran Duran not being mainstream or something. Does that make John Taylor his Kevin Dunn? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 If you're trying to argue that talking about trending on Twitter like it means something isn't a reflection of insecurity, you could probably pick a better example than a band that hasn't been mainstream in like 20 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 If you're trying to argue that talking about trending on Twitter like it means something isn't a reflection of insecurity, you could probably pick a better example than a band that hasn't been mainstream in like 20 years.And if you wanted to make that argument about a band you could probably pick a better example than this year's Coachella headliners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rovert Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 From the WON Dragon Gate USA announcer Rob Naylor has moved to Tampa to work with FCW. That explains the Punk reference to him on TV a few weeks back. I don't think that explained the reference but Rob being a news item in the WON is fantastic. Yeah by that logic Art Donovan is going to be signed too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tawren Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 I think it sounds desperate whoever is doing it. "We're on Twitter...we're popular...we're hip!" See, the thing about WWE is, they used to hip. They used to be with it. But then we changed what it was so now what they're with isn't it, and what's it is weird and scary to them. It'll happen to UFC too! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sek69 Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 Mentioning it once, like the band did, is fine. Mentioning it five times a segment like WWE does comes off like your dad trying to sound cool by talking about how listens to the latest hip and or hop music. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 Last time Duran Duran was relevant was... Wait they never were. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NintendoLogic Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 Mentioning it once, like the band did, is fine. Mentioning it five times a segment like WWE does comes off like your dad trying to sound cool by talking about how listens to the latest hip and or hop music. Yeah, I was going to say that the comparison was inapt because Duran Duran mentioned Twitter once in passing and didn't treat it like it was that big a deal. It's not like they stopped the concert after every song and let everyone know that Hungry Like the Wolf was trending. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 The mere fact that you have to hammer people over the head that you're "trending" (whatever that is supposed to mean, I mean, what is more useless than fucking Twitter?) means you're not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bix Posted October 27, 2011 Report Share Posted October 27, 2011 Even then, the issue on Raw is really that it's WWE talking down to the audience and revelling in their own awesomeness rather than presenting it more like a celebration of the fans as a collective like it was at the concert. It's in the tone. When the tone is different, like Cole gleefully celebrating that "anal bleeding" or whatever it was that he said that trended a few weeks ago, it didn't have the talking down issue because it was clearly meant to be funny more than anything. Then there's the fact that numerous prime time network shows are openly and actively trying to trend using on-screen graphics with hash tags and such. WWE is just being more annoying and ham fisted about it BECAUSE THEY'RE WWE. That's how they are with EVERYTHING and it has nothing to do with the concept of pushing Twitter hashtags in general. Twitter references are to WWE in 2011 as charity event videos were to the WWF in 1993. WWE comes across insecure in the process because they're insecure, not because of how they choose to express their insecurities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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