Epic rick roll.

WWE's never been topical enough to make a RickRoll reference. At least, not until 2012.

"Aw-rahght!"

Who could have seen Mae Young coming?*

Has Vince ever USED a phone before?

*You know, aside from anyone who's watched wrestling in the past ten years.

HOLY **** YES

Y2J-HBK PHASE 2 BEGINS

Take THAT, obscenely expensive Jeritron 6000!

McMahon giving money away is really killing the flow of the show. I'm curious to see what the ratings will be, though.

Did any of you loons register?

(I didn't)

How could I pass up the chance to win $2?

Just got there on my DVR. Goddamn. Those two are going to steal the show in any program with each other.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

GOD DAMNIT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE MINE

Did they have to bleep out "WWF" and "shit"?

Justin Smith rules.

ROFL ROFL

God, I loved this angle. RIP Ray Traylor.

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So I've read 400 + pages of Bret Hart's unreleased-in-the-U.S. memoir, "Hitman," in the past two days... it's fantastic. It feels super-credible, even at its most ego-placating moments. One downside is that I respect HBK a considerable deal less than I did before picking up this book.

Pretty obvious he has an axe to grind with HBK. I wonder how much of it is true.

I doubt there's anything in there that's too shocking, considering how incredibly massive a douchebag HBK was in the '90s, but yeah, you've definitely got to take the fact that Bret basically considers Shawn the worst person on Earth into account.

By the way, AmDrag made Cade tape to the cattle mutilation in a dark match. Shrug.

Heh, GTV on that Big Show vid. What was the original plan for that angle supposed to be? Didn't it end up being Golddust TV or something?

That makes me happy and sad at the same time. If Dragon can get a WWE contract and a nice payday, then good for him. He'll be able to retire sooner. But at the same time, you know that Vince and his big-man obsession will get in the way of putting Danielson where he should be, and that's not in the lower or mid-card. The fact that he's less than 200 lbs will really hurt him with the idiot WWE writers. But at the same time, he was trained by Regal and HBK, so that can't hurt. He's at the stage in his career in ROH where he's passing the torch to the younger guys (like losing the fall to Tyler Black in a tag match over the weekend), so it won't surprise me if he leaves, although I don't want him to. He's one of the very first original ROH guys (along with Low Ki and Christopher Daniels).

I was shocked when I read that. Both that he had a dark match and that he won. That's almost as weird as it was watching his match with Cena on youtube.

I've lost interest in wrestling. Last time I went to a show was NYR 2007 in Kemper..frickin amazing. I loved the DX match.

I was going through my VHS archive this morning to watch HBK promos from late '96-'97... Bret was understating how much of a jackass HBK was on-camera during that time period. Shawn was breaking kayfabe all the damn time, delivering personal attacks on Bret during interviews and during guest commentary. Kayfabe still meant something back then, too; its ridiculous to see how unprofessional Shawn was. It seems that he's a whole lot more mature now than he was then, thankfully.

It was certainly unprofessional, but the sad part about Bret's book is that he basically admits that everything Shawn used to say about him back then was true. He doesn't say "Shawn was right", but he admits that he went around banging broads everywhere he went, constantly cheating on his wife while promoting a "family values" image on TV.

Not that it excuses HBK, but as seriously as Bret seemed to take himself, I can understand how the hypocrisy would start to grate on others around him.

That's certainly true. Bret had about as much to do with their inability to coexist with each other as Shawn did. Nearly everything Shawn said about Bret was true, though it doesn't excuse Shawn from saying those things on camera. Bret could have broken kayfabe, too, and drilled Shawn for being the unstable, pill-popping, power-hungry jackass that he was, but Bret at least had the sense to not let their squabble spiral to that point.

Huh. The Danielson-Cena match has made the rounds a lot, but I'd never seen this:

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This just makes me wish they would sign Danielson and Low-Ki, shift Noble and Londrick over to ECW, and turn that show into something that amounts to "ROH on Sci-Fi."

It's a rare occurrence for a try-out guy to go over an established talent, but in this case Cade and Dragon trained together under HBK, so it could have been Cade and HBK telling the bookers to let Dragon go over, being that it is his hometown and they want to give him a chance to get a job.

That's pretty much it, I'd think. I doubt there's anything more to the story.

A little late to notify everyone, but the Hulkster is on Larry King talking about Nick. I'm sure it replays a little later in the night. He hasn't owned up to anything he or Nick said on the released jail tapes thusfar.

He's a real piece of work.

Jesus Christ, that stuff was ****ed up. I've hated Hogan since I was like twelve years old, but even then, that really damaged any hope I had of respecting him the slightest bit.

I said it earlier, but I would ****ing die laughing if he ended up needing some money and Vince made him job to Cena.

I still can't figure out this Evan Bourne shit.

I mean, they called him Matt Sydal when he debuted. Then, four days later, they decided to re-name him? Why not do it BEFORE you put him on TV?

I know about the training. I thought he was from Washington, not Oakland, although they did bill him it as his hometown...

Make him job to hornswoggle.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but oh my God.

http://i31.tinypic.com/dlpyep.png

They say opposites attract, but that's ridiculous.

Oh God, that poor kid. I wouldn't have thought that such a weird "eyes set a foot apart" face could be passed on in that kind of identical manner. At the very least, they could move in a little closer with each generation. Come on.

If it wasn't bad enough for Vince that this contest didn't pop a rating, I wonder what he thinks of 90% of the winners being fat trailer trash. Not exactly the example he was looking for from his "cross section of society" speech from last week. The most normal looking one is the poor broad that won the $2.

The guy who won the $250,000, I'm pretty sure I saw him on To Catch a Predator.

What bizzaro universe are we in when ECW is a significantly better show than Raw?

Welcome to the Worrrrrld of mid-to-late 2007!

The first thing he would have to do is return the job to HBK. I remember that match from a few years ago, HBK carried that piece of shit to a pretty good match (almost impossible with him at this point) and then had to lay down and count the lights. If I were to book the match, the end would see Hulk doing his whole hulk-up routine, at which time HBK would shake his head disapprovingly, then super-kick his head off.

F4W and the Observer are merging their online services. I've never subscribed to a wrestling newsletter, but $10/mo for access to F4W, the Observer, the radio shows, and most importantly, issues dating back to 1991 sounds pretty reasonable.

I do like listening to the Bryan and Vinny show whenever it's free, especially when TNA's stupidity makes Alvarez go nuclear.

Anyways, back issues eventually going up means that stuff like this will continue to be unearthed:

* "After five years, TNA finally got the next to last step of what had been a long-time goal. Once it became apparent that the business model of weekly $9.95 PPV shows with no television didn't work, the goal was to recreate the Monday Night Wars, and be in the WCW position, but with far less stupid spending and hopefully far less stupid booking. And they do spend less." - (WON 2007-09-17)

* "Chavo Jr. & Animal beat Misterio Jr. & Kidman. Schiavone was waiting all day for the line talking about Misterio Jr. wrestling in Mexico, and then said, Mexico is bordered to the south by Guatemala, not Nicaragua, as everybody knows. For the other three million viewers who don't have any idea why he said this, it's because 11 years ago, there was this guy who did a wrestling newsletter named Steve Beverly who had the ear of a guy at TBS named Jeff Carr. Carr made the call that WCW Saturday Night should only have one host, and it was Ross. Schiavone was so mad he went to the WWF for several years. He's hated Beverly ever since. Anyway, last week on 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire', a contestant was asked what country bordered Mexico to the south and called Beverly for a lifeline and Beverly said Nicaragua and his friend hesitated, but went with Beverly's pick, and was wrong." - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: February 05, 2001

* "When they made the stip where Flair got five minutes with Russo, Russo didn't sell it, and then said 'this is where I'm supposed to play chicken shit heel' to zero pop" - The Wrestling Observer Newsletter: May 08, 2000

* "Miss NWO finally ended with the sight of Bischoff French kissing an overweight mid 50s woman to no cheers, even fewer laughs, and a lot of gagging around the country. By this time the show was as much fun to watch as three hours of somebody masturbating. In fact, I'm not sure that isn't what we were watching." - Dave Meltzer, Wrestling Observer (February 3, 1997)

I was going to post about that earlier, but wasn't sure if people would be interested or not.

I'm actually already an f4w subscriber, and luckily for me my current month-to-month plan rolls over.

The B&V shows are the reason I got the membership in the first place, although I like Alvarez's daily shows, especially now that he's doing the mailbag. His shows with Buddy Wayne and Lance Storm (member shows...) are always really good, too. And now he's going to have Meltzer on 3 times a week, minimum (instead of every other week - he and Buddy Wayne alternated weeks) so I'm pretty thrilled about it.

Great pic of Chris Hero, UP, very hilarious.

Now that Eddie Kingston is in ROH, possibly he and Hero could start their feud back up. Hero has gone back to being an evil, no nonsense heel as opposed to a funny tweener.

The MCMGs vs. Yoshino/Doi match on Impact was awesome, and get this: the crowd was super-hot. For wrestling! Featuring the two pretty boys who wouldn't bleed and another tag team with insane movesets!

TO THE BACK WITH JB JEREMY BORASH!

From the latest observer:

The update on Orton is that his broken collarbone was worse than originally thought and he’s now not due back until October.

Jericho lays out HHH to end Raw... after Lance Cade hits his finisher on John Cena.

What AWESOME alternate dimenson did I slip into, and can I please stay here?

Well how bad would it suck to be the guy that missed out on the 50 grand?? Wow that's got to hurt.

About time they did something bizarre, that everybody on earth didn't see coming.

I hope they're serious with the draft next week, and move someone like, say, HHH to SD (although that will never ever happen). They really need to create some new feuds, and some new stars.

Cena to Smackdown would be okay with me. MVP to Raw is something I hear a lot on rasslin boards.

Heel Jericho is lovely, but I was all WTF? at the Cade push. It's nice in that it's completely surprising, but I'm worried about the plausibility of it. Cade went, in a single week, from being known as a mediocre tag-team competitor to someone that can take out Cena.

Cade hasn't been pushed yet. My guess is what they'll do is have him join with DiBiase, Jr, and maybe Cody Rhodes to form a young heel stable, with Jericho as the mouthpiece. All these 2nd generation guys. Maybe DH Smith if they ever decide to stop burying him. Part evolution, part four hoursemen.

They're not going to turn any of these guys into stars overnight. What they have to do is stuff like this, where Cade takes out Cena, and then they need to stick with it. They can't have him job next week. Slowly turn it from "WTF?" into something more than a fluke.

I agree,i wanna see bigger names switching shows this time and see some new stuff..... Im holding out hope.....

Jesus, I'm so f'n sick of Hornswoggle.

Punk and Morrison with yet another really good match.

It'll be nice when Punk and Morrison graduate to bigger and better things. They work well with each other, and I always look forward to their matches.

Aw damnit, they're burying Morrison!

Matt Sydal's so awesome they apparently lifted the SSP ban for him. Don't be surprised if Paul London blows up his car.

Sydal is fine other than I think his look reeks of ripping off the MCMG's.

Also for awhile if you clicked on DiBiase's pic it went to Harry Smiths profile so that may be a clue...

I forgot to mention that. I knew from the spoilers he did it (they filmed last night two weeks ago) but it was still kind of a 'woah' moment.

That drives me nuts that they ban certain moves, just because some reerun like Brock Lesnar tries to do one at Wrestlemania and fails miserably. Glad they at least let Sydal do it, but London's SSP is a thing of beauty. Hope Tyler Black doesn't make it to WWE soon, because then it would be bye-bye to the Phoenix Splash.

Kidman is the reason that move got banned, he kept injuring people with it....

When they had guys like Kidman and Juventud on the roster they routinely ****ed people up with the SSP and the 450 so they got banned.

Ok, I remember that now. Kidman and Juvi could be pretty botch-tastic at times. Hopefully they are rethinking these bans so that if a guy can do the moves well and safely, they allow it. Obviously in the case of Sydal they made that exception. It's a good thing they did, because his flippy moves are a thing of beauty.

Ah, Maryse, si seulement je pourrais vous porter à ma pièce et te faire l'amour doux toute la nuit.

http://www.freeimagehost.eu/image/78d3113220122
http://www.freeimagehost.eu/image/f83d093220123
http://www.freeimagehost.eu/image/1815d83220124

They's collages of Maryse's Playboy pics. Nothing new, but still quite lovely. NSFW, natch.

From the Observer:

Here’s a scary stat. Every Smackdown world title match on PPV since 2006 has had either Batista, Edge or Undertaker in it. What makes that doubly troubling is that all three have been out during that period for long stretches of time with torn muscles. Even sicker, since the 2002 creation of the second world title, every Raw title match but two had either HHH, Cena or Orton in it. And in both of those two shows, HHH was in the actual main event as his matches were pushed bigger than the title match.

And yet, on wrestling boards when I argue that HHH is a backstage politician who never puts anyone over, I'm treated as though I just wiped my ass with the pope's hat in the middle of an Easter service.

Ok question, does anyone here happen to know the card TNA ran tonight in Bloomington Illinois for their house show?

A good friend mine is curious if Alex Shelley is on the tour because she wants to know if she should go to the show in Danville or not.

It's funny how he's wildly cheered live (which I just don't get) but the Raw ratings generally take a nosedive when he's on. Which is always his opponent's fault, of course.

It's been the same shit for 10 years. Longer than 10 years. Hun-Tor. Enough already.

I really hope they blow all 3 shows up with this draft. But especially Raw needs fresh faces, and they need to do whatever it takes to make new stars, whoever it is. If that means the ratings take a hit while you establish Lance Cade or an effective DiBiase/Smith/Rhodes stable, then so be it. They need new more than ever right now, I think.

The question is: will Hun-Tor be willing to put anybody over. I whole-heartedly believe Cena would. And I think Shawn Michaels would at this point. Jericho would. Batista? Not so sure. Undertaker? Probably not. Edge? Definitely.

Where are you getting that? Meltzer* just did a thing a few weeks ago analyzing the ratings, and HHH, Cena, and HBK are the biggest draws WWE has.

(*may have been Alvarez, not much difference now)

From meltzer, IIRC, I'm not sure if I read it or heard him talking about it, but it was a couple days ago. Apparently the final quarter hours of Raw have been trending down for a while now.

And that doesn't mean it's just HHH, of course, it probably means people are getting tired of seeing the same ol' shit every week.

TNA house show report from tonight in Bloomington

By Andrew Chiaravalle

Hey, I just got back from the TNA House show in Bloomington. The show was pretty bad and a lot of the talent announced for the show wasn't present. Just today, the day of the show they had Millano Collection AT advertised on there website to be there, he wasnt there. The show was really poor. The only decent matches were AJ Styles vs Robert Roode, and Samoa Joe vs Scott Steiner.

The match results:

Curry Man over Johnny Devine

Super Eric over Kip James

Womens match I don't know who was involved

AJ Styles over Robert Roode

Petey Williams over Kaz and Consequences Creed in a triple threat match

James Storm over Shark Boy

Samoa Joe over Scott Steiner

I heard there were a lot of free tickets given away. I dont know an exact number but it looked like there were probably 1,000-1,500 people there.

Man I miss the Rock. He was pure comedy gold.

The latest Observer mentioned that the rating for the HHH vs. Hardy match (with Cena on commentary) dropped, which Dave said never happens. But he didn't take into account that they took a commercial during the post-10pm overrun so that they could have another money give-away after the match. That's probably what killed the rating.

He made it clear it was a one-time thing, because he said he couldn't remember the last time that it happened. Although I'd bet it probably happened this past week too, since they took another late commercial.

I believe it did happen this week as well, during the Jericho/HHH segment. That was the context of the discussion, now that I think on it.

Mike Mondo and Johnny Jeter were both released, being in the Spirit Squad was not a good career move.

I come bearing a gift!

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WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

At least we have Kenny. Our rock. Nay, THE Rock for the next generation.

***Injury Update****


Apparently Orton may be making a mid-August return. He claims to have no pain in his collarbone and is using an electrostimulating device to help increase blood flow and bone growth in the area of his injury. Perhaps an RKO in the SS main event is in order :shrug:


***Raw Spoiler***








Flair will be there agayn.

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NO WHAMMIES/DOUBLE MURDER-SUICIDERS NO WHAMMIES/DOUBLE MURDER-SUICIDERS STOP

DX VS NOD BABY

It's Bomb! It's Bomb! It's Vader Bomb-omb-omb-mb-mb!

http://i30.tinypic.com/a9wyec.jpg

Who's that jumpin' out the sky?

Oh, hey. He's there. Neato.

Vince doesn't know his own password/cannot understand Puerto Ricans.

An Edge/Jeff Hardy feud for Smackdown sounds fantastic.

Yeah. Hardy to Smackdown never entered my mind, but it makes a lot of sense. That would be an awesome feud with lots of history to build on.

Guess Punk's winning the IC title.

Cade is lookin' edgy with his badassssssssss goatee.

"Chris, you're a MAN!"

Calling Matt getting drafted to Raw now.

Haha, oops. Did NOT see that coming.

First two picks I didn't anticipate, last two I saw a mile away. Especially the Hardy pick. As soon as they came out together...