2008 Running Pro Wrestling Thread

Loved the Flair ending, especially with JR and the King not interjecting any comments like they usually do. Too bad Piper didn't make an appearance. That would have been special.

Rest of card: Enjoyed Santino getting beat up by the divas. I thought a couple of weeks ago that Kendrick was turning heel on London. What happened? JBL/Orton/Hardy was cool. The Hardy/Orton match was nice, with a good ending of Orton playing possum.

 

When I saw Kendrick and London already in the ring before their match, I immediately felt they were going to be doing the job to Rhodes and Holly. It was a nice surprise and having Ross mention them as a new version of the Rockers was appropriate. What needs to be done with the tag team division is a unification of the titles and have the champs battle contenders on all three brands. I could also see the IC/U.S. titles merge into not a IC or U.S. title only, but instead have it called the TV title (hell, with five hours of TV it would guarantee a match on all three brands).

 

Only thing I can figure, and I may be wrong about this, is Jericho is one of the last ex-WCW guys on the WWE roster. He and Chavo might be the last two. Most of them are in TNA.
I couldn't figure out why Cena rated the individual entrance. What was their connection? And why not bring out Orton and Batista together? Wasn't Orton part of Evolution too?

Absolutely loved the send-off though. Seeing all of those guys on the ramp cheering on Flair made me wonder how many of them got into the business because of his influence. And the whole thing was made even better by an Orlando crowd that was hyped up the whole night. It was almost like listening to an old ECW crowd.

 

I believe when he said any championship, he was referencing either the WWE title, ECW title and Goldy. I hope to God that is what he meant.

 

Re: the special entrances,

I believe that Cena and Jericho coming out on their own was nothing more complicated than those two being - outside of Triple H - the biggest stars on Raw right now.

As for Orton, he merited coming out on his own, but my thought is that, although they were breaking kayfabe out there to a point, bringing out the cocky, arrogant heel champion and having him teary-eyed and embracing Flair would have taken it too far, at least as far as Vince was concerned.

 

If that were the case, Hacksaw, Stone Cold, William Regal, Chuck Palumbo, Dave Taylor, Finlay, Hurricane, Rey, Teddy Long, Shannon Moore and Ron Simmons should have been in the ring, too.

 

Last night was one of the reasons why I still watch WWE after all these years. Despite the terrible storylines, horrific tragedies, juiced up performers and any other negatives you can think of, and there are many, the Flair farewell was a great 20 minutes of emotion, nostalgia and class. There are many times in the past 20+ years I told myself I was done watching WWE's product. But I kept coming back because I didn't want to miss something exciting or great because when WWE executes a storyline and booking to near perfection, it a great thing. Last night was a great thing and I only wish I was able to watch Flair in his prime instead of what I saw in the final few years of WCW.

 

According to Bryan Alvarez (who used to help Meltzer at Wrestling Observer before starting Figure4Weekly), "Several years back before a Flair vs. Jericho PPV match the two had a big argument about who was going to lose (they both wanted to put the other over)."

Sounds like there was a lot of mutual respect there, not to mention I think Jericho was one of the few younger guys in WCW who treated Flair with the respect he deserved.

 

They also had some fun matches when Jericho was undisputed champion a few years back. I'm sure that's why HHH hasn't buried Jericho ... yet.

 

I heard the same story. Something like Jericho, Benoit, and a few others were the only guys Flair respected and liked on the WCW roster during its dying days.

 

Flair's finale is on YouTube ...

 

Some thoughts:

Why Cena with an individual entrance? I guess from what I've read the two were tight backstage and Cena has been open about his admiration for Flair and is one of the reasons he got into wrestling.

For those that wondered, Ric Flair REFUSED his match to be the main event at WM24. Here is something I found on a website: "There was a pitch made by a creative team member to have the final shot of WrestleMania be a spotlight on Flair's boots and robe. However, Flair strongly disagreed with those sentiments when the idea was brought up to him during a press conference held prior to the WWE Hall of Fame convention.

Flair told reporters that nothing is more important than the title belts and insisted that his match with Michaels did not belong in the main event position."

Did anyone notice not only was Vince not visible on Raw to the cameras, but had ZERO face time at WM24? Odd, considering that's his baby...

There was said to be some griping when Vince demanded all 3 brand rosters be in attendance for Raw the next night, as the ECW/Smackdown folks were looking for a nice off day in Orlando, but obviously as it turned out the Flair tribute is why they were required to attend. Nice touch.

It is said that Taker is getting a lengthy title run, so I don't think he drops it at Backlash but we'll see. He was suppose to have a real long run last year until the unfortunate bicep injury.

Lastly, as a "did you know"...the past 3 Wrestlemania's have ended in a submission. Interesting.

-HHH tapped to Cena in 2006 at WM22 in Chicago
-Michaels tapped to Cena in 2007 at WM23 in Detroit
-Edge tapped to Undertaker in 2008 at WM24 in Orlando