Here is a poll for the choices in this week's Saturday Night Thread
WWE Vengeance 2005
WWE Backlash 2007
WWE SummerSlam 2008
Vote by clicking on the link below. Voting ends Saturday at 7pm.
http://poll.pollcode.com/51477265
WWE Vengeance 2005
WWE Backlash 2007
WWE SummerSlam 2008
Vote by clicking on the link below. Voting ends Saturday at 7pm.
http://poll.pollcode.com/51477265
Never seen any of these so I'm cool with whatever.
ReplyDeleteRaw or Vault after this?
Vengeance '05 is a pretty underrated show.
ReplyDeleteVengeance.
ReplyDeleteAwesome show, really.
ReplyDeleteOne of the last great HIAC matches with HHH/Batista
Solid triple threat in Cena/Jericho/Christian
Angle/Michaels II which is awesome of course
And a pretty good Carlito/Shelton Benjamin match
Plus Godfather made a cameo.
Really good show.
ReplyDeleteI was at Summerslam 2008. I voted Vengeance.
ReplyDeleteI went ahead and continued my subscription with the WWE Network. Granted I have an EXTENSIVE collection of classics, but there's nothing wrong with having the best of both worlds.
ReplyDeleteUnderrated indeed.
ReplyDeleteFor comedy? I'll give you that.
ReplyDeleteFor actual drama? Kurt has never cut a good serious promo.
I doubt he cared for Steph. If Hulk is fucking anyone's daughter, it's his own.
ReplyDeleteAll 3 of these shows are very good.
ReplyDeleteIIRC Undertaker came out, distracting Trips, and Jericho rolled him up for the pin.
ReplyDeleteTrue. And if the higher power Bray is working for is Vince, then...
ReplyDeleteVengeance 2005. It's godly.
ReplyDeleteKorporate Kane needs to give more heel powerpoint presentations
ReplyDeleteAngle pinned hhh semi clean on a raw and at a no way out. Ok, it was by pin rather than submission, but still!
ReplyDeleteThere's just something wrong when Arn Anderson has a pinfall victory over Hulk Hogan but Randy Savage doesn't (yeah it wasn't clean but it's still more than what Savage got).
ReplyDeleteAre you insinuating that you will be available on Saturday night? You know...I think you could use a side salad with your current full course meal.
ReplyDeleteSame here in Calgary. First day of Spring. Blizzard. Mother Nature is trolling so hard.
ReplyDelete8 instead of 10. If we only had 2 feet of snow, the igloos would melt.
ReplyDeleteI turned 15 a month prior to SummerSlam 2002. My friend got tickets for he and I to go to the show. We had a blast. Feels like forever ago.
ReplyDeleteThe way its told in several shoots is that Pierre went out of his way to sell a bunch of tickets and bring up the attendance by minimum 1000-2000 people, because apparently Montreal was starting to decline a bit as a wrestling town (this being the WWF dark time and pre-screwjob). So in exchange for the attendance boost Pierre worked hard to provide, he wanted a "hot finish", not even a win, but a hot finish that could get the crowd interested in a potential rematch. Shawn basically told Kevin to tell Pierre to go fuck himself and put over Kevin clean.
ReplyDeleteImagine, if you will, ADR doing a great job selling house show tickets to Mexicans for a Mexican house show, in an attempt to boost a sagging attendance figure, and then Randy Orton, under advisement from others, tells ADR to go fuck himself when ADR wants a decent, competitive title match with some sort of hot finish that could lead to another match at some point. Maybe a poor example, but it didn't seem too unreasonable if you are Pierre.
In all fairness it's amazing to see a good Khali match. It's like spotting a unicorn.
ReplyDeleteTNA filming from a casino? Hi, AWA! It's been awhile.
ReplyDeleteWith Gary Michael Cappeta announcing. Doesn't beat the promotional video, Mr. Wonderful smashing through the kids wall, in his underwear.
ReplyDeleteJeff Jarrett at Bash at the Beach 2000. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's what I was wondering. I won't be in until 11 this week, due to Fantasy Baseball obligations.
ReplyDeleteDidn't Tony Atlas beat him clean in the early 80s when Hogan was still a heel managed by Freddie Blassie? Apples and oranges, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm just fucking with you. Don't hate the playa, hate the game.
ReplyDeleteIf Chris Jericho is to be believed, I'd say 2002 was quite the contrary for Hogan. Jericho said he was impressed by the work ethic of the younger generation and was happy to do whatever they wanted (within his own limited abilities, of course) in the ring.
ReplyDeleteHe may have had less political clout than at any other time of his career in 2002, but he was still Hulk Hogan. If he's not OK with jobbing clean to Angle/Lesnar/Rock/etc, he's not going to.
As far as the topic at hand, I'd say Savage became exactly as big of a star as he was capable of being regardless of Hogan never putting him over. Yet again, a mountain is made out of a molehill about wins and losses in fake storytime fights. (This isn't to say they don't matter at all; it's to say they don't matter very much.) It's not like, just because he gave Savage a win, Hogan was going to abdicate his throne. He'd probably have doubled his efforts to subsequently quash whatever momentum Savage got from it.
ReplyDeleteOne moment that stood out was when Kurt and Cena had a battle rap, and Kurt got deadly serious, quickly.
ReplyDelete... Jesus?
ReplyDeleteCan't say I agree. There were more good comedic moments than serious, but that doesn't mean it was a 1:0 ratio or anything. Case in point, the 2001 feud with Austin. I especially loved the promo on the go home show to Unforgiven where he ripped the neck brace of.
ReplyDeleteCase in point... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41oePLlTnao
Serious Kurt was part of the factors that killed WWE's mainstream success.
ReplyDeleteI thought he was ridiculous in that feud, great matches, but Kurt always sounds like a buffoon to me.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree on "Daniel Wyatt" - it would have been great if it happened, say, right after Bryan lost at "HIAC". A two-month program where he doubts himself, hits rock-bottom, and then regains his confidence would have been fun. They waited too long, though, and once we started on the "Road to WrestleMania", the only thing the fans wanted to see was Bryan headed towards a Bryan WM title victory.
ReplyDeleteNone of the above. All too recent.
ReplyDeleteHe probably encouraged him to do it.
ReplyDelete"Trust me, brother, Vince will respect for you it dude."
After Vince was done with him Hogan treated WCW like his plaything until it went out of business. A lot of people hated him and the politics he played in WCW, many of which were in WWE in 2002. He pretty much had to play nice. I think he knew if he wanted to last in WWE, which was the last game in town where he could make money, he had to be the opposite of what he was in WCW. If he comes into WWE, who really didn't need him as much as he needed them, and started refusing to put over their established guys he wouldn't have lasted long.
ReplyDeleteRaven's "Flock" is EXACTLY the formula that Bray should be following - there are a ton of guys that would benefit from a character change and extra TV-time: Gabriel, Kidd, and Bourne are the three that jump out at me the most (I'd really like to see some high-flyers in there to compliment the brawlers), but everyone from Curt Hawkins to Brodus Clay could benefit.
ReplyDeleteI'll be up for it.
ReplyDeleteObviously Vengeance is the winner.
ReplyDeleteThe money probably helped too. "Fucking job or you're not getting paid" can have a profound influence on your thinking.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't Andre have a bunch of pre-Hulkamania clean wins over him?
ReplyDeleteAnd he must have dropped the IWGP belt to Inoki or somone in a clean match, right?
I was thinking more along the lines of a certain backwoods country boy from the 80s.
ReplyDeleteIf you just go by kayfabe and consider the "fast count" at Starrcade 97 as an actual fast count (and supposedly Hogan bribed the ref, probably Nick Patrick in what would have been a face turn, to count slow), then that match would count. I mean, Bret restarted the match, but no one physically interfered with Hogan or gave Sting a weapon. Even with the fast count horseshit I'd consider that clean by today's "Get distracted by music and get rolled up" standards.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. The cell matches now just cant compare, being that they are generally non-violent, blood free and just reek of PG
ReplyDeleteMe too. The hold IS supposed to be broken, but according to the rules the guy applying the hold has until a count of 5 to let go, and he is perfectly within his rights to pull his opponent away during the 5 count, which I'd imagine was the original idea of it. That win is as clean as a Parallax drug test.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if there will be a Wrestlemania encore/replay on WWE Network or is it only possible to watch the broadcast live? I won't be home when Wrestlemania airs, but I will be home a couple hours after it is done
ReplyDeleteI saw it the other way. Hogan knew Savage WAS on his level.
ReplyDeleteHHH had babies? You would think that would make the news
ReplyDeleteI'm gonna lie; I'll probably jack it like 50 times to the Steph ones even if she's in a burka.
ReplyDeleteGo down as one of the all time greats. While hogan goes to court for porn tapes and looks like more of a fool with every passing day.
ReplyDeleteFuck Diesel he is the worst wrestler and world champion there has ever been. A backstabbing, no respect, politicking goof who was pushed because he was tall.
ReplyDeleteThe old school mentality just seems so weird today, in the land of 50/50 booking. Having a face dominate the heel for his entire career sounds like a Sheamus/ADR storyline. The inverse works, see: Punk vs Cena, as long as the face wins the decisive, ultimate match, but to have an interesting feud, the face kinda has to lose to the heel.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's much easier when you have 3-4 PPVs a year and no one important ever faces anyone else important.
He was fantastic on the mic a true guy who just got "it" from day one. Super pissed of Kurt was great at serious promos.
ReplyDeleteI'll bite how is that?
ReplyDeleteTurning him into the top babyface counter to Austin fell flat because people did not believe in Angle. I don't if he was directly to blame, but they turned him babyface and the ratings and buyrates started to fall, now the InVasion was fucked up, but the shittiness of Babyface Kurt was a factor too.
ReplyDeleteI prefer it on WWE Network because there aren't any unskippable commercials.
ReplyDeleteSherri for sure.
ReplyDeleteI believe it had more to do with the fact buy that time no on time alliance was seen as a viable threat. They simply weren't going to be treated on the same level as thee wwf guys. Saying people didn't believe in kurt is not factual. He was doing good work. Could he done better without the sole crushing invasion storyline burying everyone? Who knows, but to put the blame on kurt is a bit much.
ReplyDeleteHe had comedy charisma. I've never liked serious Kurt, ever.
ReplyDeleteI think playing the All-American Babyface character completely straight after years of subverting it didn't work.
ReplyDeleteI also just...don't think Kurt is likable, sorry.
No need to be sorry, You are entitled to your opinion just as I am to mine:).
ReplyDeleteKayfabing (to me) isn't accepting what the announcers are saying you saw...but accepting exactly what it is you saw. And what we saw was Hulk Hogan dominate the match and get the pin with his finishing move. But Bret Hart, abusing his refereeing power and siding with WCW over the nWo, forced Hogan back in to the ring after he had won the match fair and square. That's how it happened.
ReplyDeleteYou know what, I agree, that's not a clean win. It's also the most poorly booked match in wrestling history, and nothing else even comes close.
ReplyDeleteI remain miffed that no one told Hogan to go home and never come back after that abortion. Not only that, he had the belt back in less than four months.
ReplyDeleteYa know, I'll actually defend Hogan a bit here by noting that, at least in their WWF runs, there was really no reason for him to put Savage over cleanly. Much as I love Mach, he was definitely the 1b to Hogan's 1a, much as Rock was to Austin in their time.
ReplyDelete