Doctor Whos Next

Conrad's lack of awareness when he read out a whole chapter about Shawn fucking Sunny was pretty dumb. It was uncomfortable listening, and its no wonder Shawn got angry when he heard about it.

 

I see that Flair has given up the podcast he did with Conrad... publically he says its because he's "too busy"  wonder if its cause Trips and Shawn have had a word?  

 

Not that I miss flair.   There's something that makes me cringe when I hear him speak "live" for any length of time.  

I love the Jarrett impression to the extent of buying the Chicken salad t-shirt

 

Did you get a phonecall from Bruce?

Having a hard time coping with life after seeing this graphic. Barbarian and the fucking Lord as a tag team in their new gimmicks! Never knew this was a thing.

 

I wonder who was managing Barbs and 'lord at this point.   I'm guessing it was late 91, early 92, so Heenan wouldn't be involved.   Maybe Slick?   Or had he already had his born again power slam?

Vader has apparently been told he has congestive heart failure and has only 2 years to live.

 

Somebody better tell Bruce Prichard if true, Vader was in the lead to be the subject of this week's podcast and it sounds like its planned to be a burial.  

 

'Taker was just crowing around threatening to torture people in Latin and stuff.

 

Having rewatched this angle recently on the network, it makes no sense

 

In November 98 I believe, Taker got all satanic, and referred to a "ministry" and feuded with Austin.   At this point, The Rock was the WWF champ and was firmly "on side" with Vince.  

 

After St Valentie's day massacre, Austin is still nowhere near the title picture, and has a guaranteed lock in title shot at Wrestlemania.   Meanwhile Taker's making threats, so Vince books him against bossman in HIAC.  

 

After mania, the threats on Vince continues, he takes a back seat as he looks out for Steph.   Meanwhile Shane gets more and more of a git.  

 

McMahon pleads with Austin, Austin saves Steph, McMahon thanks Austin, Shane turns on Vince.  

 

Shane screws Austin out of the title, (presumeably a week later than intended following Owen's death) we all learn that Vince was behind everything, it was an elaborate plot to get the belt off Austin and make him care apparently.  

 

So, in Kayfabe, Vince hatches a plan where he's going to get a belt off of Austin 4 months before he's even won it back?   I like the revelation promo ("It was me Austin!!!!") but the timing doesn't make sense. 

Christ, if the TNA offices caught fire the statement would be something like:

 

"TNA is proud to announce a spontaneous remodelling of its Nashville offices.   With the modifications in place, the new headquarters allow 98% more natural daylight, and the new facilities use less water and electricity, making them much more environmentally friendly.  

Looks like Bischoff's in on the Podcasting gig, he is going to have a show on MLW.   Get your Bischoff Bingo Cards ready kids.  

 

- I don't recall

- Once Ted lost his power, the writing was on the wall.  

- I laugh at so called Wrestling journalists.  

- 87 weeks

 

 

I really don't like Tye Dillinger, his entrance is stupid, what the fuck is that little jig he does when he gets in the ring? Also his face, really, really punchable.

 

How is he the face in this Roode fued?

The whole things fucked these days. They can't make faces likable, anybody they try to make a baby seems to get booed and too many of the heels, likable or not, get cheered and play up to get those cheers.

 

It seems to be a cultural shift that WWE hasn’t kept up with (which is ironic giving how much they try to shoehorn pop culture into their product to try and remain relevant).

 

In every other form of entertainment, “bad” guys are loved just because they’re characters. Walter White from Breaking Bad. Acted reprehensible but people love him. Same with the Joker and Deadpool. Even Conor McGregor: acts a bell-end but people lap it up.

 

The good guy vs. bad guy dynamic that faces and heels are based on is just becoming dated. People are too intelligent and aware to be “guided” on who to cheer and who to boo.

 

 

 

Arguably you had that in the summer '99 with Rock and Austin.   Austin wasn't shy about stunning anyone if they got in his way, and wasn't in a rush to do much unless it got him closer to the WWE title, or gave him a chance to give Vince a smacking.  

 

Similarly, the Rock seems to be delighting in humiliating back stage workers, throwing money at them so they'll pick it up, starting the "it doesn't matter what your name is...." gimmick and yet, even though he's worlds away from Austin in the way he dresses and acts, he's still the second most over thing on the show at this time.  

 

Plus in this days its hard to be a heel.   When it suits them, it seems as if all of their world championship matches are contested under no DQ rules ("The refs letting it go here.".)   I'm fairly confident that if they did turn Reins, his heat would go out of the window and he'd end up with apathy or some contrary sods cheering him.       

They should do the verdict Feast or Fired.   Dixie and Billy each have to pick a briefcase out of 4 options

 

- Court rules in their favour

- Court rules against them

- Court says they have to make a deal

- Court gives them an X Division title match.  

 

They contest by having their lawyers fight it out.   Whoever wins the last contract is final, because TNA.   So Billy gets the "Win" case, but wait!   Dixie got the Make a Deal Case.  

Has it ever been revealed in a shoot interview if Vince was supposed to be the Greater Power all along?   I love the bit where he unveils himself, its like he's getting his dose of full heeldom after three months as a quasi-babyface but the actual logic behind the angle seems to be lacking.  

 

 

 

I've said it before on here but would love Heyman to say something like "If you want to face my client Brock Lesnar, you will need to prove that you are the man you once was and repeat the streak' with a view of Goldberg having to do a streak again all the way to Mania if he is to face Brock Lesnar, then you could do the Braun Strowman somewhere around February almost as the last roadblock (if that is still the PPV? I have no idea). 

 

If you do that he 100% becomes Boo-berg by the time we get to Mania. Batista '14 all over again.

 

Wrestling is silly now.

 

 

 

^^This.   How do you do a streak with  Goldberg?  There isn't the time or the roster to properly recreate the original vibe.  

 

5 hours of WWE on TV every week and there isn't enough time? They could easily have Goldberg do streak matches for 3-4 months, I know the rosters could be on the short side but your looking at 16 wrestlers he would have to face. The idea may be shit but you cannot say there isn't enough talent or time to do it. 

 

 

 

I meant time as in weeks for the streak to take place.   The original streak was billed as 173, you aren't going to meaningfully evoke that in four months, unless you bring him out on Raw and Smackdown.  

 

I've said it before on here but would love Heyman to say something like "If you want to face my client Brock Lesnar, you will need to prove that you are the man you once was and repeat the streak' with a view of Goldberg having to do a streak again all the way to Mania if he is to face Brock Lesnar, then you could do the Braun Strowman somewhere around February almost as the last roadblock (if that is still the PPV? I have no idea). 

 

If you do that he 100% becomes Boo-berg by the time we get to Mania. Batista '14 all over again.

 

Wrestling is silly now.

 

 

 

^^This.   How do you do a streak with  Goldberg?  There isn't the time or the roster to properly recreate the original vibe.   (Its the reason why Stowman has been fighting jobbers for much of the start of his run).   Assuming you could find enough opponents for him to squash, can his body hold up to wrestling week in and week out on Raw for three months before the PPV?  

 

When you consider the work Borash has done in the UK (getting various TV shows done) the network they're on (and the stuff they've invested) to lose fans is quite the achievement, but after years of being lied to it's not a surprise so many people have decided enough is enough.  

 

 

TNA's problem over here is that it doesn't appeal to the masses because its not WWE, and there is so much more content available to hardcore fans of varying degrees.   Even if they were knocking it out of the park creatively, I still think they'd struggle.  

Yeah, I was no huge AJ fan but her big promo, her tweets and her title run in general have been pretty aggressively whitewashed from the transitional period between the old Divas divisions and the new Women's league. Replaced in WWE-lore by the Bellas in fact. Proper history would probably show her to be quietly influential, but I don't imagine it's stuff we'll see much of on DVDs or the Network.

 

Funnily enough at the start of the Divas Revolution special on the last WWE 24, they had a montage of the tweets, but didn't mention AJ

Did Austin do TV shows like the Rock did? Can't recall it being promoted at all like Rock's were in 2000. 

 

I think with the insertion of the tag teams, Radiacalz, Jericho and Angle etc they had good workers who could also portray and carry a gimmick. Lots of stuff in 97-mid 99 that got over on the undercards were from people that were not exactly super worker or if you look back just didn't have that it factor like the second half of the era did. When I think back they were lucky to get such a crop of new blood in that could be shit hot within a year/18 months

 

Yeah, I think that was the problem.   The matches were all about "ooo look, he's got some birds with him/he's in porn/he might be gay"   so while King digs into his joke book, Ross is all about "whats going to happen tonight when the thing we talked about at the start is on?"  

 

Having said that a guilty pleasure of mine is the Brawl for All.   You can almost hear the strop in Ross' voice when Doctor Death takes a battering from Bart Gunn.  

Cool! Way more than what I thought. I forgot all about that Celeb Deatchmatch thing. That was quite the crossover actually, wasn't it. Perfect match up. I wonder how many people watched it and thought "wrestling alright now?"

 

I remember being slightly amused that the "announcers" set seemed heavily reminiscent of the Nitro one used at the time, and you had Austin and McMahon in the ring.   .  

I don't think it was ever 'reported' as such, but I think it comes from this Savage video where he vaguely threatens Hulk Hogan and Triple H amongst others, making specific reference to taking Steph from Trips. From there the rumours seem to have snowballed, but I guess we'll find out what truth there is to them soon enough.

 

 

I always thought that was Randy (not so) subtly acknowledging the already existing rumour without addressing it directly.   .  

Been watching Raw is War from '98...   don't think I'll ever complain about an Full Sail crowd again...   the California crowd after Fully Loaded '98 were particular stinkers.  

 

First of all, there's the old staple of shining lasers.   Aside from the fact it ruins the way things look on screen, its pretty dangerous too,

 

The signs...   yes,(insert your own name here) 3:16 was pretty funny, but its been 2 years by this point.   Plus, Folks are actually jockeying with each other.   It doesn't seem like they're eager to support people, it seems more like "hey, I'm on the telly, me".  

 

I've pretty much described most things from Summer 98 to summer 99, but the worst thing was when they started chucking beachballs.   One got Austin and he just booted it out of the ring, there was then another 3 or 4 chucked in at once that managed to miss the ring.  

 

It's spanners like this that make you understand why Kevin Dunn and co don't take kindly to lads dressing up as legends and why I don't think I've ever noticed Frank the Clown on shows.  

For what its worth I don't think its fair to bug Ricky about this issue on these forums.   Ricky seems like a good sort who uses this forum to share info about the UK scene, and talk proudly about his daughter who's made it.  

 

It would be uncouth of him to answer these questions publically.  

 

If she ends up fired, I'm sure there will be a shoot interview about it.  

Currently up to King Of The Ring 2000 in following the Raws and Sds of 2000 and i remember it being odd at the time but as i wss a kid didnt think much of it, but what the hell were they thinking with The Undertaker?

 

He looks bloody awful, clearly put on a bit of weight and the outfits he's wearing are terrible, he's stinking up the main event scene at the minute and seems so out.of place.

 

Is there any word from around the time why Undertaker was like he was? He looks so unmotivated as well

 

 

T'be fair, he had just returned from a longish stint on the injury list.   Plus it was at the start of the biker gimmick and it was the first time in 10 years he wasn't relying on his darkside character, so it was trial and error looks wise at that point.   Since about mid 97 they had a stacked list of fan favourites - card Shawn, Bret (depending on which country they were in), Taker, Austin, Rock, Foley.   Chances are there would usually be at least two top faces knocking about.   What with Austin being out they may have bought Taker back before he was fully in ring shape because it was just Rock.     

 

As daft as it sounds, Hogan and Bischoff are the worst parts of the NWO. Everything is about them.

Bischoff is abysmal, agreed. Hogan becomes terrible and is a pretty poor fit for such a hip and happening angle in truth but without the shock value of his initial turn and that great promo, I'm not sure it gains the traction it does to become so hot.

 

Also, for all it's sins, that Hogan/Sting match was the best thing WCW ever built.

 

The worst thing about the nWo, Bischoff aside, was the terrible dilution that happened way too quickly. Membership drive my arse.

 

 

I think the problem there was that WCW seemed to be all over the place with their intentions for the angle.   You can't do a full invasion angle with three lads and the Million Dollar Man on the outside, but by the same token you can't have 15 to 20 people in the same heel faction.   Realistically what they needed was four or five guys in the NWO who joined because they felt frustrated with WCW, and wanted to prove themselves as part of the NWO, then bring in new folks straight into the fold, and have them refuse to take part in run ins and the Hogan Stuff, then you do your wolfpac stuff.  

Yeah Lawler has always seemed quite close to Vince as far as business goes (he knows where the bodies are buried) .

 

Yeah, but so were Bruce Pritchard and Steve Lombardi

Austin was never learning Mandarin off his own back to sell the St. Valentine's Day Massacre to the Far East.

 

To be fair at that point in WWF's life, wrestlers from the far east were marketed as sneaky bastards, or men children that need to be taken under the wing of American wrestlers.  

Lawler's sober as a judge too. Not that alcohol is any sort of excuse in domestic situation, more to say this must have been pretty serious.

 

He'll be back, but it's one of those left of field things that always could have happened but you'd just never think it because Lawler's been in that safe nest in the company for donkeys years.

 

Lawler seems to get himself into all sorts of legal jams, and usually ends up coming out smelling of roses.  

Well they cut the performance from the US version of the video, so they must have thought they were going to get an Aretha Franklin level reaction. I liked it though. The performance is horrendous, but there's something so of its time about it. Like the WWF had official left the cartoon era.

 

I did note that it was dropped from the Network Version.   I do remember J.R. saying "This is the ultimate expression of freedom of speech" loosely translated as "Yeah, I know its shite, but, he's lucky he's in a country where they let you do this type of thing."  

 

You can't imagine this sort of thing post 911, unless it was an anti America gimmick that gets a jolly good thrashing from John Cena before he gets to "home of the brave."