djchapsticks

Seems WWE are dropping the 'Daniel Bryan' name after eliminating him from NXT. Looks like he'll be going back to his own name. If they are intent on pushing him, they've been going about it in a very, very strange way.

I've never quite understood the whole Bret-Austin thing when he inducted him into the HOF and announced his father would be inducted too. These two had one of the most vicious and personal fueds I reckon theres ever been. Austin tried to end Harts career, Hart returned the favour, Austin chaired the lot of the Harts in Canada during the national anthem, insulted his mother, father, sisters, wrecked him and his family's chance of winning dozens of matches, Owen broke his neck and laughed about it and they generally all hated one another. Hart leaves for WCW without a proper end to the fued and next time we see him on WWF TV, Austin and he are good buddies. I know most of the 'WWE universe' won't know anything of their past, but for the ones who do remember it (or in my case, rewatching it now as I missed a lot of it first time round) it smacks of vince taking folk for retards with the memory span of a goldfish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP6UP081pys WWF getting Cornette to bury WCW and it's talent on Raw. Pretty shocking. I don't remember this, it goes back to what I said a few weeks back on this thread about WWF paying any sort of lip service to the WCW. It's just something I don't think they would have done. Seems theres a lot from this era that I didn't see. To illustrate how action packed Raw was back then. This has all happened in the one episode. A lot of it defining the attitude era. Pillmans death (unforseen obviously and hard to consider part of the action) HHH giving the famous 'who is.....the show stoppa?' speech Suck it being said on WWF TV for the first time. HHH and HBK being called a couple of degenerates for the very first time (giving birth to DX) Marc Mero returning and showing the first signs of being jealous of Sable Cornette burying WCW Kane debuting Austin crossing paths with the Nation which would lead into Austin vs Rocky And the word 'Attitude' being used for the first time in a video package for Austin. Compare that to a 2 hour Raw these days. And it's a million miles away.

Being a member of the Nation in the middle as the mean fighting machine Kama Mustafa.

Watching the episode of Raw after Pillman's death. Even after 13 years it's still terrible how he was there on Raw one week and next week, just like that, he was gone. They done a 10 bell salute at the start of the show and the camera zoomed in on 5 specific wrestlers. Vader, Marc Mero, Owen Hart, Rick Rude and Hawk. Even worse when you think that 3 of those 5 guys went too early as well. On a sdie note, it's also the episode of Raw that Kane debuts after interfering the night beofre at Bad Blood. His original music was pretty f'kin scary, straight out of a horror film. No-one is even booing him.....half the folk in the audience look like they are shiteing themselves.

Watching this episode of Friday night's Main Event on my jaunt through 1997 Raw is War episodes. It's about a month after Owen dropped austin on his neck, but they're doing thier out and out best to keep him on telly and keep his momentum up, as he's the most over thing in wrestling by this point. And this is just a totally fantastic segment. Has me pishing myself. Goes to show just how friggin good Austin was in his rise to legend.

Exactly, he got a hard time for stumbling over his words every now and then, but he was churning out 8, 9, 10 minute promos at a time. Two minor backtracks in a promo doesn't make him a bad speaker. Best thing about him was that, I think a lot of what he was saying was coming straight from his own personal feelings. He wasn't happy the direction WWF was going, he genuinely didn't understand why he was suddenly being booed and he turned those irritations into gold.

I'm still watching 1997's Raw is War tapings. I'm up to the 2nd week of May and slap bang in the middle of what, for me, was a truly iconic time in the WWF. Austin is so fucking good that McMahon has insisted on giving him about 3 interviews per show and about 20 minutes airtime to talk. He's 100% the hottest wrestler in the company because he's slughtering everyone, even the fans for buying austin 3:16 shirts, and they love him for it. The Hart Foundation is now at it's peak with Pillman and Neidhart joining the week before and Owen winning the IC title off Maivia, an occurence that will see him become the Rock. Other than the guys scrambling around the main event though (Mankind, Taker, Austin, Hart Foundation, HBK) there is a whole load of nothing happening. About the most interesting is Shamrock debuting against Vader. Ahmed Johnson is feuding with the Nation (before they were the black nation) and it's really tedious, they've been treading water big time since January and it's not going anywhere. It doesn't matter though as it seems about an hour and a quarter of the 2 hours of Raw are just dominated by the Main Eventers all wanting have a go at one another. Looking back now, it's easy to see why Austin was the hottest property in Wrestling at that point. All of 1997 when he was in full on tweener mode was just superb stuff building up to the McMahon fued.

Born and raised in Oban though. They only moved to Canada in the late 80's.

Not forgetting both Russell Murray and Derek Graham-Couch, of course.

Danielson had a trio of matches against Strong when ROH Champ and they were all excellent. Some brutal shoot-fight looking stuff in them.

I don't think you're quite grasping the meaning of the word 'literal'. It's seems to be a term b*****dised by people who don't know what it means. If Goldberg had 'literally' killed a guy with a spear, the guy would be dead, and Goldberg would be in jail.

Kanyon had always been open about trying to take his life in the past. He mentioned that no-one would touch him with a barge pole after he came out of the closet and this led to a deep depression, though I always thought it more likely that he was never going to be a draw. Nevertheless, very sad, he was obviously a troubled individual that many (myself included) mistook for attention seeking.

That's the one. Thought it strange the he even paid lip service to the term nWo considering it was taking over the world of wrestling at the time.

Watching Raw from 24th Feb 1997, from the Manhattan Centre. ECW are just starting thier 'talent exchange' programme with the WWF. Stevie Richards from the bWo is facing Little Guido and Lawler (when he was still the brilliant heel colour commentator) calls bWo a 'blatant rip-off', Heyman who has joined for commentary asks 'of who?'. McMahon chips in that their clothing line is very similar to that of the nWo. Now I'm not suggesting he should completely ignore it and act as if Wrestling fans are stupid, but I always thought McMahon went to lengths to ensure there was never references to WCW or anythin in it by name during the 90s. Just a wee point I thought was quite interesting. For what it's worth, it's amazing watching the WWF evolve on a weekly basis and even though it hasn't begun, you can see the start of foundations which lead into the start of attitiude era, Rocky Maivia just won the IC title away from HHH the week before after thier first match against each other and he's getting 'Rocky sucks' big time, Chyna is just about to debut. It seems nowadays things don't even happen at the same pace that they did back then and there are no twists and turns to keep the viewers guessing. I never had Sky at the time so I didn't see a lot of Raw back then and although there was a load of shite on it like Flash Funk, Bart Gunn, the Real Double J (Road Dogg, the Godwinns and Headbangers. The main event picture was excellent with HBK, Hart, Austin, Taker, Sid and Vader all attacking one another at regular intervals.

Again, the spell I'm watching in the old WWF Raw episodes is the time between Rumble and Mania 13. Micheals has just won the title back from Sid and dropped it as he 'lost his smile'. But Sid is fucking marvelous. He cuts a promo in one of the first Raws of the year where he stands in the ring and tell's JR that you have to 'Hit, or be hitten, Kick or be kicken'. I just lost it at that point but he was a cracking character. Folk we're cheering a heel Sid a good 6 months before they were cheering a heel Austin. Though some of that might have been to do with the HBK hate from the male demographic of fans at the time. Plus on a side note, you can see the hatred in Bret Hart's eyes everytime he's forced to stand in a ring and cut a promo with, or on, Michaels. Shawn on the other hand is just being a cocky p***k as Hart hated him and he loved the fact that he got under his skin on a personal level. Hope what both of them said about each other this Monday was true and they have patched things up. I know Michaels had been pushing for a reconcilliation for a long time, but Hart just never believed the whole 'I've found God' thing from Michaels, always thinking it was just another of his ploys.

It's a blow to the WWE as well to lose a performer who realistically could still have been in main events for another couple of years, or even been given another run with the belt if they needed him to. He's pretty much a lock for next year's HOF now though. Taker the year after as well if he finally decides to pack it in (even though he's proven he can still have some cracking matches).

Just watched the end of Raw. Pretty sad, but it's good to finally see a wrestler bow out and it isn't the result of a bad injury or death and before they are of the age where they should be picking up a pension and living on glories long gone. HBK's speech was a cracker, and I believe him when he says that's it. He's got a young family and seems to be happy with his personal life, he had nothing more to accomplish in the ring and if he does come back to TV it'll be in a strictly non-wrestling capacity, he could certainly do a better job than Cole or Striker as an announcer. I just hope he doesn't get that 'itch' that most wrestlers talk about after they've retired.

Just got round to watching Raw and the worst thing writers could do with Orton just now is turn him one way or another. In a way it is similar to Stone Cold in that no-one knew who or when he would strike (I'm watching 1997's Raws just now and he is in superb form, before all the beer drinking and catchphrases he's just running everyone down at the mouth and the crowd still don't like him as it's still pre-mania 13.). But Cena's reaction to Orton post-match was good bit of writing, no handshakes, back-slaps or high fives which would have seen him pushing towards the face turn and Cena giving him a wide berth after the match in case he was next.

Wow, what happened on Smackdown does not equal ratings.

That look when he comes up with the pipe is just priceless. I'd seen it before, but not for a long time.

Unfortunate that he's came along about a decade too late. Punk would have been absolutely fantastic in the attitude era when the reins could have come off him a lot more and there was a lot of stuff for a hardline straight-edge living guy to get pissed off about.

Everyone always goes on about how the streak will end when there is a youngster ready to end it and take the company onwards. Well if McMahon was serious about Sheamus, surely now would have been as good a time as any to put that theory into effect? Personally I don't, and never have bought the theory. They've had chances to do it with Orton, HHH and Edge at points which would have seen them elevated to whole new levels.

My favourite theme of all time is still HHH's first theme 'My Time'. The start 'One, two.....is this on?' then the distorted guitar riff that sounded kinda like a siren going off is superb. It was a perfect theme to push him as the bad bastard hell character. Then the lyrics themselves break which break kayfabe a few times.