Wrestling Discussion Thread (WWE, TNA, ECW, WCW, etc.)

I actually think that Vince is playing quite a good heel at the moment. He's always been great at generating heat and having him as the uber heel, with lackies to do his bidding, really works.

Although I agree with that I think the DX feud had reached a point where he needs to pit another team against them rather than it being him and Shane.

Vince has always been an exceptional heel in terms of charisma, but his act has become completely self-serving. I'd have no problems with his large role on the shows if he were acting as the puppeteer, with his puppets booked as strong as he was. But when you look back over the past coupla months' worth of shows and realise that the only people to score significant points over DX were Vince and Shane, it's pretty ridiculous. How much would help Edge, for example, to be allowed to beat down Michaels and Hunter so completely? Think of the heel heat he'd get for Pedigreeing HHH. Instead Vince is booked as a viable in-ring heel, and put over more than any other bad guy on the Raw brand.

So yeah, get him an extended hiatus, and transfer some of that heat onto someone who can actually wrestle. That'd fix alot.

Agreed. Completely.


Switching gears (I was putting this together as the first or second post, thus the quick editing...), according to TNA, tonight's show has the following:

- Highlights from the AJ & Daniels/LAX rematch.

- Sting may or may not agree to the Career vs. Title stipulation at Bound for Glory

- Christian Cage will cut a heel promo, and fans will remain confused as to what the Hell is going on with the Jarrett/Zbyzsko/Cornette/etc. angle. If TNA could just kill the "face rebels vs. heel establishment" bullshit that was played out even five years ago...

- The Naturals vs. The Paparazzi. Douglas should be doing color commentary, at least.

- Abyss will kill some jobber.


Any thoughts? Mine are mostly negative towards the main event clusterfuck.

Sting needs to leave TNA. I nearly choked laughing during his Hard Justice promo, his wide eyed shoutiness was just Hilarious.

*Highlights* of the Style&Daniels/LAX rematch? That sucks. Christian's interview could be interesting, though.

Vince's impact is greater when he pops up once every few months. It gives it a whole "oh shit the boss is here" feel. Otherwise you have a 60 year old playing the top heel and while Flair has the chops to be a legit wrestler at that age, Vince doesn't. Plus he was on tv 5 or 6 times last week. Its WAY too much.

TNA is a clusterfuck. Nothing good going on except some above average wrestling buttressed by absolutely nothing.

I really think the only way this DX feud would be justified is if it ended Vince and Shane's in-ring involvement (including promos and figurehead roles) forever. Then, just stick with one GM per brand, and have them show up to lay down the law once every few weeks or so, maybe more.

I agree, three GMs (Raw, SD!, ECW) and Vince as the boss who shows up to law down the law one way or another.

Nah. No more Vince, IMO. There's nowhere else for him to go.

Maybe he can return a few years down the road, as a complete surprise. With the right angle, that would be wonderful.

The problem is that none of the main heels really have Vince's charisma. They are just best as muscle, maybe having Divari set up a massive all encompassing stable of heels could solve the problem.

Double post

Vince does play a great character and adds alot when he's on in spurts. Once every 5-6 months, like they had Jack Tunney in the 80s. Or otherwise just refer to Vince but not show him. I don't know, Dario, you might be right.

Actually with Davari and Estrrrrrrada, (eventhough they've cut down his mic time) the heel maangers are coming back. On MSG last night seeing Heenan and Jimy Hart interact with Monsoon and each other was great. Really put over a couple of blah matches.

They need a strong face GM for Raw, to just wash away the repetitive taste of it being ruled by a tyrannical authority figure for the past four years. I'd suggest bringing back Bisch as an enlightened tough-but-fair kinda boss, but I think that train has sailed.

Also, positioning Edge & Nitro as the "new" DX, challenging HHH & HBK and claiming to be far more degenerate than them, has money written all over it. Those two most definitely have enough charisma to play off of the top faces.

Wow, two very good ideas. I loved Bisch as GM, prettuy dumb that he sits on the sidelines. He was very underrated as a character.

I don't know if there's a way to do a face GM... Teddy Long is the closest we'll get, but he's not really an engaging character, and I find him to be more often than not a poor use of TV time (then again, I find most WWE TV to be just so, as I'm still pissing and moaning about standard match times dwindling down to the 2-4 minute mark).

I will argue about the heels on RAW not having Vince charisma - scripting their promos has handcuffed a few of them (Edge, especially).

I was going to say the same thing, except it wont happen because they can't seem to get away from the Cena/Edge feud.

I think a face GM can be very effective, and as Long really only exists to book the matches I don't see him as a waste of TV time. It's not like he gets heavily involved in angles or anything. He's the glue that holds the SmackDown booking together.

I think Bischoff could be very effective in that kind of role. Post-haircut in 2004 he was close to it, and was working a great tweener vibe. He could book matches, set folk straight, and generally just keep order. The shows have evolved to a point where having no authority figure just doesn't work. They may as well try and make them as engaging yet unobtrusive as possible.

Piper for Raw GM.

Word on the dirt sheets is that Dx/McMahons will go on for several more months. However, grain of salt, etc.

In this day and age, a long feud such as this needs a true blow-off. There would be a subconscious reconnection (or a beginning of it) in a lot of fans' minds if DX took the McMahons off WWE TV "forever" (at least two years).

I find it amusing that Vince doesn't truly understand where ECW's brand loyalty comes from...


Piper as RAW GM is gold. Sadly, his brain damage has rendered his promos pretty depressing at times.

One thing I wish I'd never see again is GM's booking matches that night, specifically after a brawl during the opening match.

Agreed, it adds more hype if they book it for the next show.

I think he was a manager first, back in '89/90. He was then known as Thedore R. Long. I remember his tag team Doom (during the feud with the Horsemen) was announced as "Thedore R. Long proudly presents...!" Good shit.

I would just love to see Edge away from Cena, nothing against Cena personally but having him rule over main events for the better part of a year is no better than HHH doing it (even if Cena isn't screwing the boss' daughter.) Also get rid of the damn spinner belts, it's disgusting as a design and anybody who has their own world title makes me sick, even Austins and I'm a HUGE Austin mark.

I do kind of like the new DX idea with Nitro and Edge but I don't see HBK doing anything more than he is right now to make DX entertaining so I bet they'll just be opposite McMahons till they break them up.

And lastly for the love of all that's good and holy can we just let ECW be ECW? I mean who in the hell is interested in Test or Knox or Kelly, or Shannon Moore? Give me New Jack, Stevie Richards, FBI, Sandman, RVD, Sabu NOT talking, and do it weekly at Hammerstein so ECW fans will be at the ECW show. Just my opinion.

I'd love to see Edge away from Cena, too.

I know this is tinfoil hat talk, but I can't help wondering how much of Edge's main event push is being sabotaged, or if the bookers really are that dumb...

New Jack is a fucking sociopath, old school ECW or not. He also can't wrestle worth a damn. Hiring him is a terrible idea.

I think that, despite it's scant resemblance to the old organisation, the new ECW is finding its legs. I genuinely don't understand anyone who findsTest THAT offensive-particularly in this new fired-up incarnation. He's a musclebound jock, sure, but he's also fast, he's got some good big man offence and he's a really easy-to-boo prick. Knox is worthless but I think they're cottoning on to that fact, and Moore is likely to be no more than a jobber. There are significant improvements needed, but the show's not a write-off. Unless, that is, you class the old ECW as gospel not to be fucked with.

Also: I don't think Edge's push is being sabotaged. If that were the case he wouldn't have owned Cena these past few months, eventual Cena title win notwithstanding.

I don't think Edge's owned Cena at all. More tellingly, Edge has not been put over by other main eventers (or even upper carders).

I agree that people who want the "old" ECW aren't looking at it logically. It's 2006. Those people cannot and will not perform at anywhere near the level we remember. The new ECW needs to focus on new talent.

I wish Paul Heyman had free reign to grab any six wrestlers he wanted from the TNA roster, and could book ECW himself. I mean, anyone remember when he booked SD! in 2003 or so?

Eh. Heyman's SmackDown booking consisted of telling Chris Benoit, Edge, Mysterio and the Guerreros to have good matches with each other. Oh, and pushing The Big Show. Not that I'm complaining, mind you-it wa sbetter than the rest of the wrestling world had to offer at the time-but the guy has his limitations. The abundance of "tag matches booked on the fly" segments he likes to toss in, for example. Still, if they're gonna do ECW, they should let him take the reins.

And Edge has gotten more on Cena than anyone else in the past two years. He outsmarted him to win BOTH of his world titles, and despite everything working against him in terms of match stips he's retained his title in two high-profile matches in the past six weeks. As a weasly heel I'd say he's doing just fine.

THAT, Murrow, is smart thinkin'.

I am also in the camp that thinks that the ECW Show has finally hit its stride. For now. As for Test? He is experiencing one of the best stages in his career. Test simply works now. Before, he was ruined by bad booking and almost weekly turns. Now he's an uberheel, and has been away long enough that he is a fresh face again. Well done WWE.

Weasly heels (Honky Tonk Man) aren't main eventers.

He's also gotten physically punked out more often than not (the hotel room).

I agree the new ECW is on its way towards something... we'll see what in the weeks to come. Also, I agree with Test, though I think he should've had a name change too (what about Titan?).

Armando Alejandro Estrada is the prime reason I tune in every week. RAWs where he doesn't get mic time ruin my evening. AAE is golden toast.

THAT'S RIGHT! Wow, crazy flashback.

This same angle was also used for "Dangerous" Danny Davis and Bill Alphonso, IIRC.

'Cause it's too vanilla. I went with that name because it starts with "T" (gotta feel bad for the guy after tattooing his T insignia on his shoulder, then not being able to wrestle under that name) and it was the original name of Vince McMahon's company.

Vince has worn out his welcome with me this week. He was in SEVEN!?!?! segments on Raw. You just know the blow-off is gonna be HHH is Steph's babydaddy, Vince has a fake "heart-attack", HHH turns on HBK and thats that. The Edge-Carlito match was pretty good and just shows why he needs to move away from Cena. Shelton Benjamin needs a manager, (Davari?), to push him as another top heel on Raw.

ECW is okay, I was the one who preached patience for the show and it finally seems to be paying off. I liked last weeks show. The Balls/Thorn match needed more time and seemed a little off but otherwise it was good. Big Show is putting his all into his ring work and it shows. All they really need is a move away from Smackdown and to a permanent arena.

Murrow if you don't like New Jack that's fine but others do. Can he wrestle? No, but in all honesty that's not what he was ever booked for. I can see why you don't care for him, I just enjoyed the mayhem that came with his matches for a break from the other matches. As to ECW, I don't look for it to be exactly the same as it was but I do look for it to be ECW. What I mean by that is "Extreme Rules" matches are lame to me, the company is called EXTREME Championship Wrestling(or it was) yet only one match per week is EXTREME rules??

Also if I wanted a fourth of the show to be about divas stripping I would just put on an adult film of my choice. Mike Knox running in to cover up his GF who happens to be an exhibitionist makes no sense in ANY company.

However it's getting a lot better and it's usually better than Raw and Smackdown. I'm not saying it's bad or anything like that, I would just see more of a workrate during the one hour they have. As far as Test goes my problem with him is that he's just not that entertaining to me, he doesn't do anything that interests me at all. It may just be my personal taste but he doesn't appeal to me. I'm sorry if that isn't a good enough reason for you but it's all I have.

The thing about Edge-Cena is that it's constantly featured and Edge hasn't faced anyone else. It doesn't make any sense(to me anyway) that the same guy gets title shot after title shot after losing repeatedly. Would it kill them to move Cena on to something else just for a little while to let Edge feud with another face who NEEDS the rub?

I don't want to come off like Baba because I have enjoyed a lot of things in all three brands, these are just the few things I'd like to see worked on.

How about a spoiler alert, huh?

If that happens exactly as i said above then I will quit my job and move to Stamford to save the company for us all

I was looking through a bunch of old tapes today and found some old Nitros from the beginning of the nWo angle. I forgot how good WCW was back then. I'd say 1996/1997 were their best years. It wasn't until the horrible ending of the Sting/Hogan match at Starrcade '97 where they started going downhill. Anyways, the roster they had in '96/'97 is just absolutely incredible. They had everyone from Benoit, Mysterio, Malenko, Ultimo Dragon, Harlem Heat, Syxx, DDP to the big stars like Hogan, Piper, Hall, Nash, Sting, Luger, etc.

How many of you think that the nWo storyline (the beginning before 30 wrestlers joined) was one of the best storylines in wrestling? Hall and Nash showing up unannounced and then Hogan turning heel was just great booking, imo.

I've always been more of a WCW guy.

That's probably why I am such a big TNA fan. WWE has always been more cartoony and WCW was about the wrestling. Even during the Attitude Era, I still liked WCW better.

Don't get me wrong. I love The Rock. I liked Steve Austin and Chris Jericho in WWE better than I liked their roles in WCW. Shawn Michaels is still my favorite wrestler of all time. I loved Bret Hart, The British Bulldogs, Owen Hart and all that.

But I still hold a place in my heart for WCW.

NWO was brilliant and made me a wrestling fan again after around 4 years of not watching much. Hall, Nash and Hogan. Then with Waltman and DiBiase. Problem was, they gave the NWO too many members. They tried to make it a rival promotion trying to take over and that killed it. But the original NWO was great. Their feud with the Horsemen was great.

I think one of my best mark-out moments was when Arn Anderson came out, brought out Benoit, Malenko and McMichael and announced the reformation of the Four Horsemen and then brought out Ric Flair. That was great stuff.

Nitro was the wrestling show to watch back then. People can call WCW a failure all they want but the fact is Eric Bischoff was the only person to "beat" Vince McMahon. I really miss the "Monday Night Wars" and wish TNA would get a two hour show on Monday night to go head to head with RAW. It wasn't fun watching it towards the end of WCW but from 1997 until 1999 was by far the most fun I've had watching wrestling. It was crazy to hear Bischoff give away spoilers to the taped RAW live on Nitro. Bischoff may not have been the best business person but he really knew how to compete with Vince McMahon.

I was just looking on amazon.com for some old WCW VHS tapes and read the card for Halloween Havoc '96. I remember ordering this on PPV and really enjoying it.

Here's the card...

Dean Malenko vs. Rey Mysterio
DDP vs. Eddie Guerrero
Jeff Jarrett vs. The Giant
Syxx vs. Chris Jericho
Arn Anderson vs. Lex Luger
Faces of Fear vs. Steve McMichael & Chris Benoit
The Outsiders vs. Harlem Heat
Hollywood Hogan vs. Macho Man Randy Savage

They put on some very good PPV's back then.

Nitro was great in the late 90's......But then they screwed up the end to the year long Hogan/Sting angle.....The NWO became a overbloated mess.....Jay leno, Dennis Rodman, David Arquette......I won't even talk about Master P and Kiss.

I would love to see a return to the monday night wars but I don't think TNA would stand much of a chance against Raw......There is great talent in TNA but it's current booking is as bad as Nitro was at the end.

ECW is slowly improving.....at least once you get past the opening Knox and Test segment....I see nothing in test that I didn't see in him the last time he was around.....he's a one trick pony....They aren't booing him cause he's the heel.....they are booing him cause he sucks ass.

But as bad as test is he's Ric fuckin Flair next to Knox....The guy sucks in the ring and has no chemistry with Kelly.....and she is a total mess so keeping them together is double the trainwreck.

Also it's time to get Shannon Moore in the ring......The promos got old weeks ago.....I still don't understand the logic behind Renee Dupree being in there.

The Big show as champ is still hit or miss.....at least now they've stopped putting wwe guys in the ring against him.....hopfully things will improve but enough with the Main event title matches ending in DQ's.....actually there should never be a DQ in ECW.....Having only one match a week be under Extreme rules is flat out criminal.

Kevin Thorn looks goofy as shit but the guy can wrestle......I would love to see him in a feud with CM Punk.

It's getting better but still has much to improve......And for the love of God get the damn show off of the smackdown tapings.

I appreciate that some don't find Test entertaining. Hell, I wouldn't push him if I were running things. But looking at it objectively, he's a decent midcard guy. He's big, he's strong, he moves twice as fast as others his size and he's got a decent set of moves that work in the six-minute TV match style. And I disagree that people are booing him because he sucks. Knox gets bood because he sucks. Test gets "you can't wrestle" chants because that's what the ECW faithful do when confronted with a heel of his type. You split that pairing up and Test would fare infinitely better.

BMetal, New Jack's brawls could occasionally be entertaining. But it's been six years since he was on a national show, and I'm sure his volatile temprement hasn't improved since then. From a workrate standpoint he's awful. From a locker-room standpoint he's even worse. I'd much rather they take a charismatic up-and-comer and give them similar schtick than waste money on a man known for his dangerous conduct both in the ring and out. He's just not a guy who deserves another shot after the shit he's pulled.

I agree that ECW is getting better. I think you can tell that Paul Heyman is getting more and more control over the booking. Now all it needs is to get rid of the "Extreme Rules" matches and have it be all extreme. I don't mean all the matches should involve chairs and tables, there would still be great wrestling and all, but the anything goes vibe of old ECW is needed here.

And I really miss the old style ECW tag team matches where either member could enter the match at will, and tags were never necessary.

I'd like to see a real three way dance too.

I'm probably going to cop some heat for this but the fact that not every match is extreme is a good thing.

1. It saves the wresterlers bodies - Even someone like Sabu can't go on forever if each match he is in he almost kills himself.

2. It adds excitement when a match is extreme. If you overdo something it looses it's shine, so making the main event and one other match a "hardcore" one actually makes people want to watch the whole show.

The problem that ECW faces is that it's trying to please both new fans, used to WWE product, and Smarks like Baba. It needs to pick a side and either build heat around younger guys with WWEfied attitude or just bring out the guys from 6 years ago and turn it into chair shot central. Trying to draw a middle ground between the two is just not working.

The company is called EXTREME Championship Wrestling.....By making one match out of the 4 or 5 matches a "Extreme rules" it cheapens the name.....But even in the old days of ECW not every match was tables and Chairs and frying pans.....They had guys like Malenko and Benoit that provided great wrestling without beating each other with random objects.

Part of what made the original ECW great was the fact that even if there was a run in the match continued......even if they fought outside the ring for 5 minutes you were gonna see a finish to the match.

They don't have to get hardcore and beat the shit out of each other with chairs or go thru tables in every match......but remove the DQ and Countout rules....There should NEVER be a countout much less a No Decision in ECW....We get enough of that shit on Raw and SD.

I'm hard pressed to remember a DQ or countout decision in the old ECW......But I can name off a half dozen of them in the less than 10 episodes of WWECW.

Please, let's nix WWECW right now.

You don't like the product, you liked the original, we get that. Please don't do the Babaisms.

Speaking of Baba, I just saw Necro Butcher on CZW....that guy is just fucked.