TheBigBoot

The Rock at Survivor Series.

 

Like Michaels in 2002 and Steamboat in 2009 I wondered what he would be capable of after such a long hiatus, and he surpassed my expectations.

Same here. Cena/Rock next year will be memorable from a 'WrestleMania Moment' POV anyway, unless they really mess things up, but I was wondering how much The Rock would "bring" to it especially with him looking so musclebound at the moment. Top performance there.

1. The Undertaker - WrestleMania

2. Jerry Lawler - Elimination Chamber

3. The Rock - Survivor Series

That Divas battle royal from Raw a couple of months ago, some nerd will probably know the exact date.

Halloween?

Like a lot of people I'd imagine, not been online much the past week but remembered deadline for this was today. My nominations are:

1. Jeff Hardy vs. Sting - TNA, Victory Road - They'd have been better off just cancelling/replacing/rebooking it.

2. Wade Barrett vs. CM Punk - Raw, 24/01/11 - Could have been an interesting heel/heel match. Instead it was a waste of time. Pointless stip, too.

3. The Miz vs. John Cena, WrestleMania XXVII - Not technically the worst but easily the most disappointing. Cena has been great all year but the two times the most casual/returning fans will have seen him (this and Survivor Series) were really bad nights for him.

Expect Lawler/Cole will win this anyway.

1. Sin Cara Azul

2. Michael McGillicutty

3. Abyss

The first was the most cringe-inducing (in fairness, Abyss would have had him beat if I'd seen more TNA) to watch, the second wasn't technically the worst but was by far the most boring, Abyss is Abyss and the little I did see of him showed me no signs of improvement.

I actually like everyone else nominated to various degrees (yes, even Kelly and Otunga) apart from maybe Mahal but I'm willing to give him a chance

Surprised Mr. Anderson is getting so few votes...

Might be down to less people watching TNA.

He's a funny one isn't he? Nearly won Wrestler of the Year on here last year, yet just the year before he was considered by some to be "the worst". Now he's back to being considered rubbish again.

Jerry Lawler's WrestleMania moment.

Wish I'd thought of that. Even more of a shame when the rest of the feud was mostly spot on, particularly Cole transforming from annoying Miz suck-up who was otherwise a straight play-by-play guy into cowardly heel announcer into all out arrogant heel leading to his downfall to being humbled in the end.

Whilst unlikely, I'm hoping Lawler gets another chance this year. Even though it looks like it will be Booker I'd buy Lawler vs Rhodes for the IC Title, vs Christian, or vs Swagger over Vickie Guerrero jokes. There really aren't that many babyfaces on Raw or SD right now who are below the Cena/Triple H/Orton/Punk/Undertaker level where they are all going to get feature matches at WM.

I'd even take Lawler & Bryan vs Cole & Miz which would be a good match.

WWE Smackdown

There

1. Zack Ryder

2. Dolph Ziggler

3. Sheamus

Sheamus - finally getting a crowd reaction after silence as the champ

Bit harsh. I do think he's stepped it up again since the face turn, though.

1. Rey Mysterio (still the best pure babyface going)

2. Jerry Lawler

3. Sheamus

Went for the three that made get behind them the most in their matches from the POV of wanting to see them win every time out. Although, in terms of people I am not nominating, I will agree that Roode, Cena, Sting and Big Show deserve credit for doing the same - I just prefer Sheamus more at the minute - as does Orton for finally getting 'it' as a face this year and Ryder who I really liked as a heel in 2009 but has become the surprise babyface success of the year. Throw in Edge, Bryan and Taker and its been a long time since I can remember that many genuinely likeable faces in a year at once.

1. Vickie Guerrero

2. Ricardo Rodriguez

3. John Laurinaitis

"Mr Excitement" John Lauranitis. Dismissed by pretty much everyone in the start for being a poor man's Vince McMahon, but came into his own over the last month or so when he realised how boring he was and played up to it.

I think they were playing up the "boring" bit from the start, it just took them a while to get the balance right in terms of making it an entertaining boring.

1. Randy Orton vs Christian

2. Jerry Lawler vs Michael Cole

3. Mark Henry vs The Big Show

I think Sting would flop in the WWE as a wrestling character. HOF, one time deal, yeah he'll get a big time and well-deserved pop. But as someone else has already mentioned, it's too late in the day for Sting to mean anything to anyone except a bunch of hardcores, or casuals who happen to watch TNA and accept Sting as a legitimate star there. Casuals who are in their 20's/30's may accept Sting as a star too. But the WWE is aimed at a younger audience these days who accept Cena (amongst others) as their messiah(s)

I don't see why the younger audience couldn't accept both Cena and Sting as legitimate stars. If anything, Sting always appealed to a lot of "little Stingers" as well and it was the older Flair fans from the Mid-Atlantic days who were the ones who occasionally booed him (but only really when he wrestled Naitch or Vader).

and the questions that need to be seriously asked here is 'Do they actually know who Sting is?'

Maybe. Depends if they are the type who buy the DVDs, etc. or if they are just ones who watch it on TV every week. If they buy the WWE DVDs/magazines/whatever then I think they've mentioned Sting more than anyone else who hasn't worked for them.

and 'Will they care?'

I don't see why not. It depends how good a job they do at building things up.

It wasn't Taker's boots or jacket

 

I thought that, but if they're bringing Taker back, no reason to not freshen the old look up. Considering he was a regular evolver for the majority of his career, he's been pretty stagnant look-wise for a good few years.

Exactly. Taker has always been a guy who changed his look every few years and a lot of those changes have come after he's 'died' and risen back from the dead again. So this seems like the ideal time to give him a new look for what could realistically be his last big run (I can see him working maybe the odd novelty match once a year after that but I think this could be his last proper year as an active wrestler).

The only thing i don't understand about the video that doesn't apply to undertaker or sting is the creepy shack/house

I thought maybe that was Taker's secret hide-out out in the woods or something. Remember in the past when he's disappeared he's talked about time for solitude and rehabilitation or stuff along those lines? Maybe that's where he hangs out when he needs to go into hiding for a bit.

Anyone said Brock Lesner?

Because Brock isn't known as a guy who wanders round in the rain to scary music, whilst wearing a trench coat and hangs out in a spooky-looking shack in the middle of nowhere?

Again, one-off appearences with people who've actually appeared in the WWE before and, more importantly, within the last ten years. TNA does not even show up on the radar of most casuals, so why would the WWE universe (for lack of a better term) care about a person who's been in purgatory for the last ten years?

 

Another thing to consider is this: support for WWE and WCW was quite tribalistic in its day. Some old-school casuals would not give a fuck about a 'WCW legend' and vice-versa.

That is true. Back when both were around I knew people who wouldn't watch WCW because it was "rubbish" and never watched it to see if that opinion might change. Taking it outside people I met in real life, there was also a bit of that with the WCW-made guys like Goldberg where a lot of his "only knows two movez" online critics seemed to be the same people who were hardcore McMahon defenders. I don't think that was a coincidence.

Even then though I think Sting was probably the one guy a lot of people wanted to see in WWF even if they hated WCW. I mean think back to the (majority) WWF/ECW fans on the internet in 1999 and how things were treated even with guys like Booker T. and DDP who weren't hated in the way that people like Bischoff/Hogan/Nash/Turner were for being "evil" or guys like Luger and Goldberg were for 'not knowing how to work' or Hall, Hennig and (particularly) The Giant were for "getting fat"/"eating too many pies, lol" (and being an addict in Hall's case), there was still this feeling they would get "exposed" if they went to WWF. Sting on the other hand is a completely different story. I think even a lot of hardcore 'WWF 4 Life' fans would have liked to have seen him... And even if they wouldn't have back then I think the bad feelings have probably gone away over the ten year gap you mention.

Re. the video package itself...

Looked like Taker coming back to me. Could be wrong though.

That's what I thought when I saw it last week - "Ah, so Taker will be back for Mania after all". Now I did also think it looked like Sting's 97 promos but I just thought "WWE ripped off Sting's Starrcade Promo on that one".

I hope I'm wrong and it does turn out to be Sting (or the idea suggested here by purplemonkeydishwasher and Dazz where it turns out to be both of them) but for now I'm not setting myself up to be disappointed. I expect we'll get a better idea after tonight since I expect there will be a follow up video that might have some more clues in it.

I heard Taker was surposed to do some western cowboy type movie for WWE films, this vid has a hint of western in it to me, perhaps taker is comming back with deadman cowboy gimmick like Jonah Hex lol, I dunno, its more likely than Sting showing up, although that would be the first WM since 19 that I would outright pay for just to see Sting.

Taker has always had a Western-type theme to a greater or lesser extent - be it immortal who seemed to have been around since the Wild West in Death Valley, California or Bad Ass Biker from Texas.

If it isn't Sting I'll suck my own dick. Or at least give it a damn good try. 22 1 11 is the date mentioned in the promo

Yeah, good luck with that.

There are some corners of Internet land suggesting it's Slither a.k.a. The artist formerly known as The Boogeyman.

That would go over like Savio Vega.

Or the alleged child-molesting Se7en character that WCW bottled on, and Dustin Runnels was primed to portray.

I'm still not sure about that one. The way I read it at the time was that WCW dropped it because they thought it could be misinterpreted as a paedo gimmick rather than actually being one.

I've got but haven't yet read Dustin's book: what does he say about it there?

sorry was on the mobile when i posted it, yeah thats the pic i seen, as for the promo that aired i'm still gonna say sting will be involved, why would taker return at raw when he's on smackdown and his brother is on smackdown, his brother being the one that set aboot him and killed him off at the ppv once again.

Ric Flair was on Smackdown when he made his return on RAW for his last hoorah. On the road to Wrestlemania brand allegiances mean very little. Plus WWE are advertising the show as "the return of The Undertaker."

They then quietly had Naitch switch brands (move his profile from the SmackDown! page to the Raw one) after he came back that night (following his falling out/setting up his own financial advice company/absence). That seemed almost like they were mocking SmackDown given who the SD crew had gotten in that draft and then first Flair disappears from the show after a few weeks, then when he comes back it is on Raw (fair enough) but they decide to stick him on Raw every week. They did the same with Batista last year (switching brands, even though they could have still done him vs Cena as inter-promotional). So yeah, if they want someone on the A-Show in the build up to WM, they'll stick them on the A-Show.

I just don't see why WWE would go to so much effort for 'Taker. He's only been away since October - usually it's a little longer when they give him a big buildup, or they have him show up after a PPV?

It does seem a little strange, as I don't really see how anyone could take it for something other than a letdown given the "mystery" element to the vignette, but I still think that's who it probably is.

It has been 2 months longer (I mean until Wrestlemania it's self when he will probably wrestle again for the first time) than the last time he was buried alive by Kane and Vince McMahon at Survivor Series 2003, and I they did all the gongs and everything creeping out Kane since the Royal Rumble match. I'm sure there was simular video packages as well.

It is also longer than his 2007 absence (May to September) where they did the desert stuff Baz Windham mentioned.

FWIW, I really would like to see Sting get the big DVD set, Hall of Fame, WrestleMania send-off package and I think he deserves it.

I liked the Big Daddy V gimmick partly for the Abdullah the Butcher tribute act with a bit of Vader thrown in there, partly because I thought Striker had potential playing the annoying little nerdy sidekick who likes to patronise people with big words then gets squashed when he himself wrestles but hides behind a monster, but I think mainly because we don't get many super heavyweight fact guys nowadays and the fact he was able to beat people with just an elbow drop.

Don't agree he was the best fat guy since Quake (I thought Yoko was really underrated) and don't remember what the crowd reactions were like in terms of him getting over really but I do remember them putting him over some top stars. Thought he was something different, but I also thought WWE did the right thing in releasing him given his health problems (like Yoko towards the end of his run he really did get to the stage I was worried about him having a heart-attack which isn't something I want to think about watching a wrestling show).

25. Elimination Match: The Rock N Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson), Los Boriquas (Miguel Perez & Jose Estrada Jr.), The Headbangers (Mosh & Thrasher) & D.O.A. (Skull & 8 Ball) (Team WWF) vs. Public Enemy (Rocco Rock & Johnny Grunge), High Voltage (Rage & Chaos), The Destruction Crew (Wayne Bloom & Mike Enos) & Los Guerreros (Eddie Guerrero & Chavo Guerrero Jr.) (Team WCW)

It certainly wouldn't.

It's the only one I can think of though (with both companies' top dogs, same with Vince and Eric) - then again, that's probably a good reason why I wasn't booking WWF or WCW.

I suppose Vince putting his hatred of Austin behind him and screwing Goldberg out of the streak would have been nuclear heat. Then again so would Vince and Eric working together to screw Austin.

Thinking about it, if I had to put together a once in a lifetime eight hour Super Dream Card Spectacular in 1998 it would have probably gone something like this:

PPV Show (entire taping held in a massive outdoor stadium):

1. Undisputed Title Match: WWF World Champion Steve Austin (WWF) vs. WCW World Champion Bill Goldberg (WCW)

Sting vs. Ultimate Warrior is one of the

If it IS Sting, someone will have to change that line on his Wikipedia article about being the most famous wrestler never to be in WWE

 

Just out of curiosity, to whom would that title now go to? Abdullah The Butcher?

He's up there. He has to be: the guy's still pretty well known today and considering he started in the late 50s and is still going (or was until recently) and has one of the most famous gimmicks ever must be in the top five at least.

Or "Mr TV" himself, Jackie Pallo.

I think the 'problem' with Pallo and McManus was that were Middleweights billed as being around eleven or twelve stone. The (W)WWF was mostly a 'Big Man' territory and those guys would have looked tiny next to people like Sammartino, Graham, Monsoon, Andre, Scicluna, Stasiak or a lot of the McMahon's regulars at various points then. For the most part, Vince Snr. was all about the big men.

Kendo and Haystacks (which we almost got in WCW) as Hogan opponents would have been interesting, I think.

El Santo pisses all over Hashimoto in the biggest name never to work in New York stakes in my eyes. I don;t think he worked for the McMahons to my knowledge.

I'd agree with that. Santo is one of the biggest names ever and his films were/are known not just in Mexico but Latin America in general and also parts of Asia, Europe (having a Turkish imitator, etc.), Canada and the Middle East (I remember Fadda talking about him having statues dedicated to him in Beirut).

El Santo pisses all over Hashimoto in the biggest name never to work in New York stakes in my eyes. I don;t think he worked for the McMahons to my knowledge.

Am most likely wrong, although im sure he may of done a "one off" for them way way back. Will check it out!

 

Edit: Could find any evidence, although i may be thinking of Mil Mascaras!

I don't believe he (Santo) did, for the simple reason that Madison Square Garden had a rule that forced masked wrestlers to unmask if they wanted to work there which was lifted specially for Mascaras when he beat The Spoiler (who was forced to unmask to work there). Had Santo worked there it would be him we'd be hearing about them bending the rules for.

El Santo pisses all over Hashimoto in the biggest name never to work in New York stakes in my eyes. I don;t think he worked for the McMahons to my knowledge.

Am most likely wrong, although im sure he may of done a "one off" for them way way back. Will check it out!

 

Edit: Could find any evidence, although i may be thinking of Mil Mascaras!

Yeah, Mil Mascararas eliminated himself from the 1997 Royal Rumble. About that "Biggest Wrestler To Never Work For WWE" role, could it be Jushin Thunder Liger or The Great Muta?

Muta's an interesting one because he had the gimmick and the experience getting over with a North American crowd. I do think he could have gone to WWF at some point in the early to mid 90s and done pretty well. Not that he would have held the WWF Title but I think he could have matched up pretty well against guys like Randy Savage, Bret Hart, Ric Flair, Kerry Von Erich, Owen Hart, Mr. Perfect, Shawn Michaels, Razor Ramon, Lex Luger or 123 Kid if he'd gone there at some point in 1992-1996.

He had two things in his favour that a lot of the others didn't in that quite a few people still knew him from his NWA run at that point and also there were guys the same size/smaller than him working at or near the top during the steroid scandal years. WWF were even accused of trying to replicate/recreate it with Hakushi. So I see him as a higher profile version of Hakushi, with a bigger push. I think he's certainly up there as far as Japanese wrestlers go.

Less sure on Liger because of WWF not having a Lightheavyweight/Cruiserweight Division and I can't see McMahon pushing him as a serious heavyweight in Liger's prime.

That said, I'm sure could have been 'The Man' in WCW's CW Division (in the same way Rey was) when it was starting up if he'd wanted to make the move but (like Sting) I imagine there was no incentive when he was already regarded as the top dog in the world in that division in the biggest company in his own country (NJPW) and even booked the division which he wouldn't have gotten to do in WCW

Yeah, that's pretty cool.

The numbers don't lie.

 

You heard the man.

 

That's what I meant when I said the statistics don't reflect my opinions.

Okay so following on from the above bit about HBK, Williams, Egde and Jericho I decided to see who had actually won the most UKFF categories overall taking into account all categories (Posters, Pro-wrestling, MMA, and Britwres). Probably useless but, inspired by the Royal Rumble Stats thread, here are how the numbers work out for UKFF voting over the years (multiple Award Winners only)...

UKFF HALL OF FAME

Most Awards in UKFF History

Top 5:

1. Shawn Michaels

Thanks again, rick.

The thing I found most interesting was Shawn Michaels being involved in the MOTY almost every year yet not winning the wrestler of the year. I'll need to look back over the 2006 shows though because I can't bring myself to believe that Edge vs. Mick Foley, as fun as it was, was the best match of 2006. Even in WWE.

It wasn't. IIRC it was actually a fairly controversial pick.

There was a lot of criticism about that match when it happened both at the time (WM XXII thread being one of the best that has ever been on here), then later on when it was winning MOTY (not just the thread itself but I remember On-Topic people mentioning that it shouldn't be winning it in other threads). I don't hate that match (I do think it was overrated, however) but I think what actually rubbed people up the wrong way/the problem seemed to be that the people who did like that match never really explained why whereas a lot of the guys who hated it spent a lot of time explaining themselves/drawing comparisons to other matches/etc. to explain why.

Another useless statistic for you but speaking of 2006, that was the only year in 2003-2009 that Michaels wasn't in the running (didn't make it to Poll Stage) for 'Best Pro-wrestler of the Year'.

If there is ever a UKFF Hall of Fame then Shawn Michaels, Doug Williams, Edge and Chris Jericho need to be the first names in there as 'UKFF's favourites' based on the number of things this forum has awarded them since those four have pretty much cleared up at the Awards year after year.

On the other hand, I think the fact that Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon (WWE WrestleMania) was voted both Worst Match of 2010 [65.81%] and Biggest Anti-climax Of 2010 [30.08%] is pretty good confirmation that the majority of people (at least on here) thought that match sucked more than they could have ever imagined it would.

The sad thing is I doubt this was the case down to how restricted Bret felt in the ring at the time, the match was so badly booked it was shocking. Of course having seen the way Bret's confidence built later in the year, had that match happened this year instead I'm sure it would be booked differently with Bret at least throwing in more of his signature moves.

Given that he did a second rope elbow in MSG then, if Llyods hadn't put their foot down, he certainly could. I think we'd at least have got the old inverted atomic drop-clothesline-backbreaker combo. Throw in some punches, stomps, low blows, chairshots and the Sharpshooter and that's all you need.

That said, I think the counterbooking of the match went way beyond Bret's physical limitations. The whole match layout was a problem.

The avatar/sig combo for poor old Cleetus is a stunningly outdated set of allusions, isn't it? It's like something my dad would have come up with. "He's unfunny like.... er... Chubby Brown and... er... Liam Gallagher."

A lot of my mate's dads (and a lot of people I know over the age of 50/60 in general) would probably draw comparisons to someone from their own youth rather than an era they can neither relate or remember to like the late 90s, so your dad's actually pretty cool by that standard.

Good job. I think all the winners of the Best and Worst on the UKFF awards are thoroughly deserving. Apart from Cleetus, but he'll take it in his stride.

 

Even though Nash jobbed to Daniel Bryan? One more for the good guys.

 

Nah, Nash put Bryan over better than even Michael Cole did, that's all. That's just what a great guy Nash is. Next year he'll do the same for Tyler Black.

Very considerate of him letting the younger talent shine like that. A bit random but could it ever happen I actually think Nash & X-Pac vs. Bryan & Barrett would be a good match.

Haven't seen any of Black/Seth Rollins, he's one of those guys I've heard a lot about but never watched, so I'll be interested to see if he does as well as Bryan. They've mostly done a good job with new talent this year so I'm optimistic for him and whoever the next batch of NXT/Tough Enough guys are.

Good job. I think all the winners of the Best and Worst on the UKFF awards are thoroughly deserving. Apart from Cleetus, but he'll take it in his stride.

Even though Nash jobbed to Daniel Bryan? One more for the good guys.

I find these interesting...

Best Wrestling TV Show Of 2010

Winner: WWE Raw [48.67%]

 

Best Feud Of 2010

Winner: The Nexus vs. John Cena [34.13%]

 

Greatest Moment Of 2010

Winner: The Nexus debut [45.90%]

 

Best Babyface of 2010

Winner: John Cena [41.38%]

 

Breakout Star Of 2010

Winner: Wade Barrett [30.25%]

Because it shows for all the complaining about the Nexus angle around which Raw was based for most of the year, which was the entire focus of Wade Barrett's push and which Cena spent most of the year feuding with there were obviously a lot of people who rated it, even to the extent they enjoyed it over everything else in 2010. A small victory for WWE's booking team.

On the other hand, I think the fact that Bret Hart vs. Vince McMahon (WWE WrestleMania) was voted both Worst Match of 2010 [65.81%] and Biggest Anti-climax Of 2010 [30.08%] is pretty good confirmation that the majority of people (at least on here) thought that match sucked more than they could have ever imagined it would.

Congrats to the winners/losers.

Matt Hardy and Christian's top class performances in the SmackDown! Money In The Bank just about grab that one for me ahead of Ziggler/Bryan but only because I find it hard to judge between the three Ziggler/Bryan matches they put on in one week.

Still think there were easily twenty worse Divas/women's matches than the WM XXVI one in 2010. That match was basically just a collection of finishers (some of which were actually hit pretty well) and a couple of old school comedy heel manager spots (from Vickie).

Was going to post thoughts I'd started typing on WM XXVI but doesn't look like I'll have time and its almost irrelevant since it looks like Raw: Old School is going to win this thing. Good as it was, I liked Raw: KOTR (which I'd have voted for had it made it to Poll level) just as much/better. I have no problem with that but you might as well give the award to Roddy Piper since I think it's that promo of his that tipped it over the edge for people? Match quality wise there were certainly better shows in WWE alone but I think it just shows that the 'old school' setting still looks good and it really did freshen things up for one night only.

Looks like HJ will (deservedly) win 'worst'. Nice as it was to see Scorpio on a PPV in 2010 I'm sure there are other ways that could have happened.