Category: wlinks

(I am so tired. This may not make sense)

I’m sure you’re sick of reading about ECW on Sci Fi by now; I know I kinda am. Still, there’s something that was mentioned that’s been stuck in my head, and I’ve been thinking it over for a day.

During the title belt presentation skit to start the show, Styles said like “RVD was the best wrestler never to win a world title.” Storyline wise, that’s seems correct, and if we take it as so, who does that leave? Who is the best current wrestler to never be world (singles) champion?

This is much more a golf concept than a wrestling one, but it’s been used as a tag line before on screen for Chris Benoit and by fans for Owen Hart and Eddie Guerrero, among others. The increased amount of title changes (and the increased amount of World champions) means there’s less to choose from, but I think it’s still an interesting question – you get to play with the nebulous concept of “merit” and rate their current level of performance to figure out their “current wrestler” level; it’s a perfect unanswerable question (which I usually hate.)

There’s actually a question inside of a question, too:
“Does holding [promotion name here]’s World Title truly make them a World Champion?” Depending on whether the ROH Title is a world title in your mind, Joe and Danielson may be eligible. A cynic may want to make the case that the NWA/TNA and/or SmackDown! titles aren’t/haven’t been world titles for a while, but I wouldn’t go that far. I think those decisions you’ve got to come up on your own.

For simplicities sake, I think you might have to narrow it down to “best wrestler in their region” and assume US. I have no idea who’d it’d be in Japan, and Mexico depends heavily on what titles are World Titles. (I’m thinking either Perro, Chessman, or Bucanero, but I’m afraid I’m missing someone.)

In the US, who would YOU pick as the best current wrestler? It wasn’t really obvious to me at first, but I thought about it for a day, and I think I have an answer. I’ll put it after the link just so you can think about it.

Continue reading “Best of the rest”

I didn’t get a copy of the show till 1:00am (and that was in a wacky WinAmp format of all things – a good avi didn’t get downloaded till later), but I steadfastly stayed away from wrestling sites and such so I wouldn’t be tipped off.

That meant I had no idea about the seemingly universal reaction to the show till I finished around about 3AM (lovely hobby I’ve got here). I’d like to think the posts I made around 3:30 were some fading sugar rush from the Mountain Dew I was drinking to stay awake, but really, it felt like complete vindication for hating the Versus show.

I think a lot of people gave that show a break, and figuring the content of that show was because it was still a WWE, and once the ECW label was the only one the show, things would change. That show instead convinced me that ECW was just going to be a third brand (and “ECW” because that draws better then “Heat”), and that’s what was presented tonight.

Still, I knew this one was messed up the moment they started
ECW Open: sudden violence (recall the flaming table spot to start TNN?) and/or people already in the ring and ECW being chanted, angle, then the open
WWE Open: Clips of what happened last as heat up, open, introduction

The moment you didn’t see Paul Heyman or Rob Van Dam already standing in the center of the ring, you should’ve known.

It is kinda mystifying how things got screwed up. Looking at SmackDown’s rating and RAW’s recent single brand PPVs (and what the guy on the Motley Fool keeps saying), it’s not a great time in the market to be starting a third brand. There isn’t really a demand for a third version of the same thing right now and I’m sure WWE would’ve said the same thing six months ago – but that’s where we’ve ended up.

It’s not even the toned down aspects which are a problem – they’re doing this like it’s nWo Nitro; a stable with no particular intra-strife taking over, and feuding with people who should be on other shows. You could make a case that Big Show’s a heel (but he’s really just been pushed as “angry”) and maybe Kurt’s a face (only because he’s feuding with a heel on another show), but everyone else is are just people in a gray area. Not gray as in “ultra cool tweener!” but gray as in “dense fog.”

Hey, what date is RAW on, Paul? I forget. Almost as fun as how the “This is really going to be Heyman’s new vision” has flipped overnight to “Heyman had nothing to do with this show; is still a god.”

ECW rankings!
1) RVD
2) Kurt Angle
3) Big Show
4) Sabu
5) off all the people who ever came thru ECW, Big Gudio, because he’s a tall guy
23243) everyone else

Dangling carrots
– “wait till it’s in front of an ECW-only crowd” – if it’s shot and booked the same, the ECW crowd will be crapping on it by then (if not sooner), and regardless of where it is, it’ll still be a WWE production under WWE control
– “wait till the New Breed premieres” – if they were so high on pushing new people, why was Kelli the only one to show on a show they were cramming everyone in on?
– “wait till after Vengeance and the RAW guys are gone” – they sure don’t seem to have faith to take off the training wheels now – if things go south quick, they’re not going to do it later either.

Line I shied away from: The first time we saw Kelli, my initial thought was “OMG, they’re doing a transvestite gimmick.” They could’ve been a bit more flattering to her, but, hey, whatever gets you on National TV.

That show’s rating is largly unimportant, unless they get the quarters and find out people were leaving already. Next week’s the key, and they’ll probably hot shot something as an apology.

I’ve got bleacher tickets today, and I’m so tired. Stupid cable.

I just figured out that Vito, the WWE SD! jobber, has suddenly taken up crossdressing, because Vito, the character on the Sopranos, was gay. It’s typical WWE – I’m not sure if I should be dumb for taking this long to get it, or if they’re just dumb for doing it.

What’s going to happen when they have two FBIs, anyway? Is it an interbrand group or are they moving someone over?

Edit: In other random comments to show how I’m watching SmackDown late, perhaps there’s more meaning besides the King Booker, Regal and Finlay teamup. Perhaps they are forming a group, but it’s not some sort of Royal Court – but instead, another return from the beyond: team WCW!

Well, perhaps not. (But if someone shows up with the TV title next week…)

Alvarez has pointed out all week that, five years ago, RAW came to Tacoma to restart the WCW brand and they’re back there tonight, probably to start the ECW Brand.

Concidently, today is Memorial Day; ten years ago on Memorial Day, Scott Hall appeared on Nitro to kick off what became the nWo. That one went a little better than WWE’s WCW.

They’re setting up the ECW split tonight for far more internally significant reasons (timing, timing, and also timing), but they at least have a good This Week In Wrestling History bit. And maybe someone in charge might watch it, just to remember why WWE’s WCW failed and WCW’s nWo worked.

Everything else aside, I really like (wrestling) tournaments with points. I worked out the possibly scenarios for TNA’s World X Cup this weekend: they’ve got a singles match (2 outcomes) and a battle royal where the runner up gets points as well (16 outcomes – so a total of 32.) The full break down by scenario is after the break, but here’s what to look for

– With only 2 exceptions, the winner of the gauntlet match clinches at least part of the overall win.

Team USA can steal the overall win if they get a second place finish in the guantlet, and the team that loses the singles match (Japan or Canada) wins the gauntlet. The standings would look like this

USA 7 (2 tag + 3 singles + 2 2nd place)

gauntlet winner 5 (5 1st place)

singles winner 3 (3 singles)

Mexico 2 (2 tag)

– If you’re betting on a overall tie finish (and that’s where my money would be), you’ve got 6 chances out of the 32. Regardless of the singles match outcome (since they’re both at 0, there’s a lot of echoing), there’s 1 chance for a three way tie and 2 chances for a two way tie.

If Petey Williams beats Jushin Liger, those ties are Japan-USA-Mexico, Japan-USA, USA-Mexico.
If Jushin Liger beats Petey Williams, those ties are Canada-USA-Japan, Canada-USA, USA-Mexico.

Of those, Canada-USA seems the obvious pick (though apparently everyone’s working the next taping, so they’re not limited by availability). Mexico would end up 3rd with 4 and Japan last with 3.

– USA can not finish worse than second.

Continue reading “2006 World X Cup outcomes”

The best part of WWE.com’s interview with London & Kendrick is London’s horrible attempts at metaphors to explain why they have to wrestle WWE style in WWE.

The worst part is they’re never asked why they wear the masks! That’s inexcusable. Cole should fire this sucker right now.

PS: I’m not looking forward to Todd flying solo on Heat. But I agree that’s it better than Dreamer! (Or Dreamer can’t do it because of ECW – but that’s not as funny.)

tnm quits weekly visitor (for 22 or so paragraphs);

oh no. This has been a horrible 48 hours. I don’t know if I can go on much longer. Next week’s going to have to be especially awesome to make up for it. Though I’m working on that.

(Chats which just feature the same running jokes forever and nothing more? Surely wouldn’t know anything about that.)

Oh, by the way, I thought I paid to renew this domain, but it doesn’t appear to so when I look at my WHOIS info. So, if I disappear forever in two days, it’s been real. Really real.

The WON Obit blog, written by a mysterious man of mystery none of us could possibly could figure out, has moved to http://wonobits.blogspot.com/. If you’re into that sort of thing, subscribe to the RSS feed and get updates when it, uh, updates.

saving me from another post: Joe vs the World #1 will debut this weekend. Joe is promising “thecubsfan” as his first guest – it was a tough get. (If this works out, the plan is to cull the guest list from people who’ve posted on this at least three times. If you are reading this, you may already be winner!)

Tyson Tomko released. So very sad.

SI.com @ WrestleMania week

This is sorta mandatory reading.