Professional wrestling thread

Does your dream involve a 7-0 mushmouth lumbering into the middle of it?

Don't answer that.

 

I think they gave RVD the belt because (A) ECW ONS I was his idea and was a huge money maker for the company. I don't think Vince realized what he had in ECW until that night; during the show, Vince saw dollar signs and brought back his vision of ECW. (B) Once they re-launched ECW, he had to put the belt on someone recognizable to the casual WWE fan. Van Dam's been in the company since 2001. He's more recognizable to the casual WWE fan than Sabu or Sandman or Dreamer or Nutley, NJ native Balls Mahoney. Sabu doesn't talk, so they would have had to hire someone to act as his manager. Could you see scarred Sabu with Maria? Dreamer's beaten up and bloated and would have to be re-established to the audience. If WWE wanted to, they could have re-established The Innovator Of Violence to the fanbase and he could have been accepted as a bona-fide top guy. Dreamer can still cut a promo and as long as his matches are relatively short, he won't be a disgrace. He's not Khali, let's put it that way. Sandman would have been interesting. He created the anti-establishment babyface gimmick that made Steve Austin a multi-millionaire. But would the WWE fanbase see him as an Austin rip off, drinking and smoking on the way to the ring with his cane in-hand. WWE did screw up by not paying for the rights to Enter Sandman. One of the wildest scenes you will ever see was his entrance at ONS I, with the entire Hammerstein Ballroom singing along with Metallica.

 

No, in my dream, the great Khali is nowhere to be found.

 

That's a lot better than Khali getting to hold Big Goldie for a while...

 

So the Cena-Orton match, I presume was a countout win for Orton? RAW went off the air with Cena laying out after being hit by the weakest belt shot by a "monster" HBK vs. Khali? UGH!! If HBK was smart, he'd have kept hitting Khali with a chair until he was KO'd and then pinned him.

Edge is MITB again and yes, I do believe he's going to Smackdown, too. Edge vs. Undertaker? Not bad, although Taker's injured. Edge vs. Benoit? I'd watch that. Edge vs. Kennedy? Sounds like a WM24 match when Kennedy returns, depending of course how long he's out. Edge vs. Batista isn't a bad thing, but it's not great either. Finlay vs. Edge? Different. Edge vs. Kane, been done before, but Lita will be mentioned here again. Edge vs. Mark Henry? Ugh. Also, if Edge is champ, that doesn't mean he can't show up on ECW or Raw, too.

 

I'm curious why Edge and Orton didn't want to get their revenge on Khali too.

As for no-DQ matches, there's always a massive logic hole in them. Why not just choke the guy until he's unconscious? Why not shoot the guy in the face? But that's one of the inconsistencies that we as wrestling fans have grown to accept (see also: whip, Irish).

 

SMACKDOWN SPOILER ALERT IF YOUR SMACKDOWN GETS SPOILED WELL SCREW YOU, I GAVE YOU FAIR WARNING. HINT IT'S NOT MISTERRRRRRRRRRRR KENNEDY




















KENNEDY












Okay, that should do it. Taker and Batista went to a draw in their cage match. Mark Henry attacked Taker. Then Edge cashed in his MITB briefcase, beat on Taker, speared him as Taker did his sit-up thing and pinned him to win the World title.

Of course, they've already openly talked about it on ECW now, so it's not THAT much of a spoiler. But just in case.

 

Unreal how a couple of injuries totally changes the WWE landscape. And how unorthodox was it for them to announce Edge winning the World Title during ECW tonight. And there is a story on wwe.com Maybe Vince has finally realized how smart the fan base really is.

So now what? RAW loses its top heel in Edge, but SD! gains a much needed shot in the arm with Edge. But no Kennedy and no Taker with Mark Henry and Rey Rey on the horizon. You have to figure Trips is on his way back soon, but that is still a couple of months away and obviously he's going to RAW, but who knows. So does Edge feud with Batista to start? Sounds like a dumb question, but obviously it's going to happen, but then what. Mark Henry? Rey Rey? Booker T? Fucking yawn.

I think the winner in all this is going to be Colt Cabana. Smackdown is hurting bad right now and like we've said on here before, Cabana already wrestles a WWE style. So I say Colt is on SD before the end of the month and somehow gets into the mix.

 

I haven't watched ECW in a while and now I know why - Extreme Expose dancers. That was fucking brutal.

 

Raw can absorb the loss of Edge because they still have Orton (even though pretty much everyone hates him backstage) and Umaga and Khali, and if worse comes to worse they can run HBK as a tweener.

WWE made a big deal ahead of time out of Mick Foley winning the world title when he won it on a taped Raw a few years ago, figuring that if people knew, it might actually help ratings. I think they went up, so there was some merit to that. I guess they figure most or at least many fans would catch wind of a world title change on Smackdown, more so than would be aware of a regular edition's spoilers, so might as well make it a big deal and see if people watch on Friday specifically for it.

They're probably trying to figure out who does what on SD now, but I could see Batista going after Mark Henry, getting revenge for the injury to Undertaker. That would leave Benoit for Edge (he'd have to drop the U.S. title to MVP, which was probably going to happen soon anyway). It's been a while since those two wrestled, and they've had some good matches. I think Mysterio's another month or two away.

You're right about Cabana -- it's possible they could make him SD's version of that Santino Morelli or whatever his name is on Raw, or for that matter early John Cena when he was an unknown pushing established stars to good matches on SD.

And Extreme Expose is excrement.

 

HBK should go over to Smackdown and wrestle Edge for the title when Rey Rey and HHH get back and both end up on Raw.

One thought that came to me while watching the burial of RVD (of course, pinned by VKM) and Sandman (Snitsky squashed him and I'd guess Sabu vs. Snitsky is next week) is this: One Night Stand has been in June the last two years, is that still on the PPV schedule? If they use all three brands now on each PPV, will they just drop ECW:ONS or will it be ECW guys exclusively battling guys from other shows? Say Edge vs. Punk in a title match. Cena vs. Snitsky (hell, if they want Cena vs. Khali, why not Snitsky?) in a title match. Whoever is ECW champ vs. Burke/CorVon. After that, fill it with guys with ECW ties like Benoit, Rey Mysterio, Sandman, Sabu, Dreamer, RVD, Balls Mahoney, Little Guido, etc. and that's hopefully not a wreck of a card.

 

I had a strange thought during that ECW main event.

Did you guys see the botched finish were the ref made the count and then had to restart it because RVD's shoulder was partially up?

Does anyone else think that may have been intentional on RVD's part, like an F-you to Vince? I was just curious. Either that, or Vince botched it by not covering him.

I, too, was a little confused that they gave away the title change during ECW.

I know that most fans realize Smackdown is taped and can check the spoilers on the internet, but I still scratched my head at it.

For one thing, Edge isn't half as popular as Mick Foley. Seeing Foley win was a big deal for fans because he had worked so hard and so long to get to that point. Edge is already a two-time champ and a heel at that.

For another thing, that was a little different circumstance. It wasn't the WWE that gave away Foley's title change. It was WCW.

That's where the famous Schiavone line came in, when he said "Fans don't turn to our competition because I understand they're going to have Mick Foley win the World Title. Yeah, that'll put butts in the seats."

That's when the ratings spike happened. Almost to the moment, people switched over to RAW. WCW had actually been winning to that point because Goldberg was supposed to wrestle Nash in a Starrcade rematch for the World Title.

It ended up running over, so people switched back from RAW to NITRO and what happened was the infamous "Fingerpoke of Doom" where Goldberg had been arrested, and Hogan took his place, then poked Nash with his finger and Nash laid down to give him the title.

That infuriated fans, and WCW never won the ratings again. It was the last nail in the coffin, really.