Professional wrestling thread

They've been saying that about Hardy for years and years. It still hasn't and will never happen.

 

That is very true. They've said it so much, I've blocked out the previous references to it until now.

 

Perhaps, but according to Meltzer, he's booked with Rated RKO against DX in Raw house show main events starting in January, and while that may change, there's apparently little doubt that they're going to bring Rodimer in with Goldberg/Lesnar/Joe-level backing.

 

And the thing with Hardy is they could make him a main eventer at any time and have the fans behind him. The guy's been buried more than a corpse in a flood plain, but he always gets good reaction, even if he's stuck in the 100 Years Feud with Gregory Helms or losing to any big stiff on the roster. And with the absolute lack of high-level faces on SD, giving Hardy a major push may not be as, uh, foolhardy as it sounds.

 

You can switch Hardy's name (and I'm a fan of V1) with RVD's.

 

I don't think they'll ever give RVD a prolonged push because he wears on his chest the double cardinal sin of not acting like a WWE superstar and not being a WWE product. Rare is the WWE acquisition that doesn't have to work some form of penace before they're cleansed of their dirty past and can be presented as a legitimate WWEr (Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, even Goldberg to a lesser degree). Vince will never let RVD get big because he neither discovered nor molded him. At least Hardy he got to introduce at a national level.

 

You know what screwed RVD in WWE? When he came in. During the Invasion angle--maybe the worst booked invasion angle ever--RVD was over. Even though ECWCW was booked as the heels, RVD was getting cheers. He was getting more cheers than Austin, which at the time was close to impossible.

So that pretty much hurt him. The fact Rob's willing to say, "The writing and booking sucks" doesn't do him any favors.

 

And McMahon loves and adores Austin with all his heart and soul, so the guy upstaging him isn't going to set too well. Plus the interviews with High Times and the aformentioned willingness to slam the bookers and writers in public, as well as his decidedly non-WWE wrestling style almost guaranteed he'd never be anything more than a mid-card crowd pleaser who'll never be put in a money-making position.

 

According to the dirtsheets, RVD's pretty upset with the company and vice versa. Vince asked him to to be part of the Iraq tour and he turned them down, because WWE could not guarantee his safety. Since all wrestlers are independent contractors, if they die during a tour, it's almost impossible for their families to sue the company. Almost immediately, WWE punished him. He (and Punk) were the first two wrestlers pinned in the elimination chamber match at December To Dismember. When Rob exited the chamber, he received loud "T-N-A!" chants. Before the match, he was talking to other wrestlers about not re-signing when his contract expires in six months, rather opting to work the indies and TNA.

If he went that route--and he doesn't have to; he owns Five Star Comics in L.A. that makes money hand over fist. He wrestles because he wants to, not because he has to (like Ric Flair)--he'd probably be better off. Especially if he jumped to TNA. RVD-A.J. Styles, RVD-Chris Daniels, RVD-Abyss matches, amongst others, would be a lot of fun.

 

I think Five Star Comics closed down in September. But the refusal to do Iraq and his drug arrest with Sabu earlier in the fall might have put the nail in his WWE coffin. I'm surprised they even do anything with Sabu anymore.

But while I could see the two and Heyman moving to TNA, I don't know if all these WWE jumpers are helping TNA as much as it seems, because every time a big name like Christian or Angle slides over, you have to rework the top of your card to include them, and you fuck around with the continuity too much (do Angle and Joe flip coins to determine who's the heel and who's the face every week?). I'm guessing Heyman has some sort of proviso in his contract that would keep him from having an on-air role with a rival wrestling company for some time after his eventual buyout or firing or whatever, because I can only imagine how incendiary his first TNA promo would be.

 

I'd pay money to hear Paul E. shoot on WWE. A Paul Heyman Straight Shootin' (with ROH) would be epic.

 

If TNA's smart, they'd pick up Heyman, RVD and Sabu and do a PPV at the New Alhembra (nee ECW) arena and let them, other ex-ECW guys like Raven and Rhino, ECW-friendly workers like Joe, Styles and Daniels and some one-shot pickups go crazy-go-nuts. They couldn't call it ECW, but Vince can't keep the fans from chanting it when Joe hits a plancha through a table onto RVD.