2009 Running Pro Wrestling Thread

IF they're building Hart-McMahon for Wrestlemania, that might actually be interesting. The feud more than any match, just to see how both guys play it. Dollar signs and time heal a lot of wounds, but McMahon has dicked with Bret on such a personal level over the years that I could see Hart thoroughly enjoying any opportunities he gets to work a little stiff with Vince.

Also, does this maybe set up a push for Hart Dynasty? Seems like it would easily lead to a tag title feud with DX.

 

Bret vs. Vince at WM? Zzzzzzzzzzzz

Bret managing Hart Dynasty (faces) vs. DX w/Vince in their corner? Passable ... for a Raw episode.

 

Maybe he comes back as Raw's GM. If played right, it'd be a hell of a storyline leading up WM.

Then again, the phrases "If played right" and "WWE writers" are about as divorced from reality as Tiger and Elin will be a year from now. It's too much to ask them to make sense.

 

Bret has said in some interviews that he would like to be able to give the Hart Dynasty a rub and help push them.

If played right, this could be a goldmine. Of course, it's the WWE, which means they have a decent shot of botching it.

 

From what I understand, he's coming in on Jan. 4 (same day as TNA's Monday Night Impact/Hogan debut) and will be around until April, or two weeks after Wrestlemania.

Given his history of severe brain trauma, including a stroke, and given the dramatic change in the way sports/entertainment organizations are treating concussions, I can't imagine he'd be wrestling much, if at all. Maybe a very loose, very short match.

A Bret-Vince match that looked like a shoot would probably be boring, because shoot-ish matches usually are. I'd be more interested in Bret-Shawn interaction -- maybe he's the referee at the HBK-Undertaker rematch at WM?

 

Hogan is debuting on TNA television on January 4th, huh? That's a 'fuck you' right to the face of Vince. Great smooth over, Terry. I wouldn't mind seeing how the ratings turn out when Impact! and Raw go head-to-head for a few months. This could very well be the start of another Monday Night Wars. Nobody likes monopolys in the United States. When Vince lost WCW, he lost so much more. With another company on his ass, houding for that better television deal than Vince is getting; which is horrible by the way, then we'll see who has the better product. Hopefully Vince decides to pull his stupid PG rating for his shows and goes back to the raunchy shit.

 

TNA isn't good enough for Monday Night Wars 2. I thought that was a one-time deal?

 

The Jan. 4 Impact is, depending on who you believe, a one-time deal (TNA, Spike TV), the start of a two-year contract (Hogan) or a combination of the above, which is probably the right answer. If they can goose a decent rating, it might be enough to convince Spike to go into the belly of the beast.

The thinking is that wrestling fans are conditioned to watch wrestling on Monday more than Thursday (since Smackdown left town) and that by putting them head-to-head, they'll pick up viewers turning off the latest Hornswoggle angle or Cena promo. Whether that pans out is anyone's guess.

And if TNA really wants to go heads-up, they're going to have to learn to time their ad breaks a lot better. There's no excuse for a taped show to be in commercial at the top of the hour, when remotes are roaming the most, but that happens more often than not on Impact. What's more, if they go live -- and I can't imagine they have the support chops to do that smoothly, given how clunky and disorganized the taped shows are -- they'll have to make sure they've got something good for disenchanted Raw viewers to turn to when they flip off a bombing segment.

As for WWE-PG: Blaming the family-friendly push is something of a misdirect, because the problem isn't that the product is getting hurt for lack of swears and blood and boobies. It's that the writing sucks and there's very little direction. Hell, late-era WCW was as raunchy as it got for the big two, and we saw where that got them. And ECW was universally loved by the smart fans for their cutting-edge promos and violence, but they were always one bounced check away from their inevitable demise. Overreacting is bad (like going out of their way to stop the match to sop up the blood early in the Christian-Benjamin match), but it's not a curative, either: All the fucks and chairshots in the world won't make me care about an MVP-Swagger match, given how they've been buried the last few weeks.

 

The way for TNA to be able to capitalize on Hogan is to bring him in to draw some interest, then use him to put over their top stars. My fear is that Hogan will just use TNA to give jobs to his buddies (i.e. Brutus Beefcake) and that it'll seem like WWE, circa 1989.

 

Allegedly Beefcake and the Nasty Boys aren't coming in, though that's always a fear with a Hogan move.

Hogan's apparently not going to be wrestling much, if at all -- his body did not take to his four-match Australia tour at all, and I think his replacement hip popped out or something, forcing the last three Hogan-Flair matches to be run-in festivals. Meltzer thinks he might do the Bill Watts thing from the 80's: be the guy who runs the shop but steps in when things get really bad.

Can't imagine Hogan putting over A.J. Styles under any circumstances.

Speaking of, is Styles the most underbooked world champion ever? He barely gets time on Impact and I forgot he was wrestling Daniels for the title at Final Resolution until the end of last night's show. But hey, that leaves more time for this Foley-Jarrett-Angle-Dixie-Hogan-Nash ... thing.

 

FWIT, I actually caught a few minutes of Impact last night (my son watches every wrestling show he can get his hands on), and saw a hell of a match between Christopher Daniels and some guy I'd never heard of.

It was a 10-minute Broadway, but was a great old-school match.

 

I think the guy Daniels was going against was Desmond Wolf, aka Nigel McGuinness from ROH. Desmond/Nigel has been getting a heck of a push since arriving.