2008 Running Pro Wrestling Thread

I wouldn't be surprised at all. Especially after I read Steroid Nation by Shaun Assael. A lot of male bodybuilders in the 80s did gay porn on the side to earn extra money. Bodybuilding and pro wrestling are loosely associated and the participants display the same kind of behavior: steroids, extreme dieting, weightlifting (duh!), recreational drugs, etc. Plus, there was an interview with Percy Pringle aka Paul Bearer a few months back with him joking about guys doing each other on the road cause there was nothing else to do. Behind every joke is some truth . . .

 

Meltzer's update today says why HHH wasn't at Raw ...

--The reason HHH missed the show on Monday and won't be on next week's show is that his brother-in-law, Gordon Ouellette, passed away suddenly over the weekend at the age of 41. There is a story at www.nashuatelegraph.com (in the obituary section) although didn't give any details on the death.

 

This Chavo-CM Punk feud is very solid. And nice promo to hype up Stevie's return to the ring.

 

I thought Shane O'Mac had died...

 

Agreed on the Stevie promo. They could have just thrown him in the ring and given his operations a brief mention on air. Instead, they gave Richards the opportunity to tell us his emotions from the past few months. Every once in a while, the WWE takes a situation (in this case, very unfortunate) and hits a home run with it.

 

Where had Stevie been?

 

In a 1997 ECW match, Terry Funk dropped a metal guard rail on Stevie's neck, breaking it. Stevie never really had it fixed until recently. But complications arose and he needed something like 9 operations because his vocal cords were severely damaged. Stevie had to sit out the last six months or so because he kept needing operations.

 

I might have to start watching ECW online is this is the case. My cable system doesn't have SCI-FI as a basic channel, so I haven't watched ECW in almost a year. Maybe CM Punk isn't in the doghouse after all.

 

Yeah, I watch it on wwe.com. It's free and I'm at class on Tuesday nights. Plus there's still some shit on the show that's worth skipping, although a lot less than usual lately.

Kofi Kingston is fun to watch...he's billed as WWE's first Jamican superstar and is pretty athletic and charismatic in the face role. Morrison and Miz have improved in the ring since being teamed together. I never thought CM Punk-Chavo would be compelling television but they have had a string of good matches and Chavo's Fiesta was well done and picked up the feud a notch, as did the Gulf of Mexico Match. Edge's occasional involvement in the rivalry doesn't hurt either and gives it a more legit and bigger feel.

 

Count me in as someone who has been pleasantly surprised by the Punk-Chavo angle. Chavo's long had the skill and it's cool to finally see him rewarded with a legit push instead of the lame-assed Kerwin White angle he was in before Eddie passed away.

If WWE really wanted to push the ante on the women's division, they'd get Victoria (underrated hottie, btw) off of ECW and slapping around Kelly Kelly, bring her back on Raw and set up what I think would be a hell of a storyline with her and Beth Phoenix. We all know Candice Michelle will eventually come back and take the title, which would likely set up Mickie James to go back to psycho heel.

 

I just love seeing this on Meltzer's update today:

-Jake "The Milkman" Milliman, now 61, teams with Frankie DeFalco to face the Heartbreak Express for the AWA tag titles tonight in Waukesha, WI at AMF Lanes

 

I kind of wonder why they didn't keep Morrison's singles push, because he was really developing that faux Jim Morrison character. On the other hand, the only reason he got that push was Benoit snapped on that weekend and he got thrust into the Punk match.

Also, Smackdown is leaving the CW after this season, and they're contractually obligated to put it on a NBC Universal channel. Meltz seems to think they'd work on MyNetwork, but I'm wondering if this isn't where they out-and-out merge the ECW and Smackdown brands and give it a two-hour show on Sci-Fi. I believe they were looking at two U.S. brands (Raw and ECW) when they floated their world expansion plans last year. This would clear the way. Call the brand ECW but call the show Smackdown.