Professional Wrestling

[Pharaoh]

IF Hart wrestles it will be vs Vince McMahon at Mania so Bret can get his "revenge" after what happened in Montreal, 1997.

Not long after Bill Goldberg legit kicked him in the head, which gave him the concussion that forced him to retire Hart suffered a stroke. Obviously it was years ago but the dude ain't getting any younger.

One last match may be what he wants. Or maybe Owen Hart goes into the Hall of Fame? I know WWE is doing a DVD on the Hart Foundation and since Bret and Jim Neidhart are the only 2 dudes alive part of Bret's deal might have been to oversee that?

Hart has always said he wants to preserve his legacy - and that means not pissing Vince McMahon off and every now and then working with Vince on certain things.

You gotta admit though - Hart appearing on RAW on January 4th would be a pretty big deal. And it can be easily accomplished:

The Hart Dynasty become the new #1 contenders to the Unified Tag titles on any Smackdown prior to January 4th.

On the January 4th RAW DX defend the tag belts against some bums and after DX win the Hart Dynasty come out onto the stage to issue their challenge...

Then they introduce their "Mentor" - Bret Hitman Hart!!! Crowd would go crazy, even though Hart would technically be the heel.

Then at the Rumble Bret helps the Hart Dynsaty win the tag belts (does something to Shawn Michaels which makes him get pinned) HHH and Shawn have heated words after the title loss and later that night HHH gets eliminated from the Rumble by Shawn.

On the next RAW HHH and Shawn have words/Vince blasts Hart for interfering in the tag match and costing HHH a title (it's already been acknowledged that HHH is Vince's son-in-law)

Hart tells Vince to go away. Vince gets in his face and is spewing all kinds of shit about Bret being past it, says something like "I should wheel you out the back and shoot you like a lame elephant" - which is something similar to a comment Hart said in the 'Wrestling with Shadows" thing.

Bret knocks Vince the fuck out. Some weeks later Vince can be in the ring trashing some other old timer (could be Jim Neidhart simply to keep the thing connected) when Bret comes out again. Vince calls for security but Hart just says he's there to issue a challenge. WrestleMania. Vince v Bret. The first and last time.

Obviously Vince accepts and it's on. Meanwhile...

At No Way Out Shawn Michaels would win the World Title in the Elimination Chamber and then go on to face HHH at Mania after DX breaks up and HHH goes back to being heel. HHH would pin Shawn to take the title but it wouldn't/shouldn't be the Main Event.

The Main Event would be John Cena v Undertaker in the other World Title match after Cena wins the Rumble. Can Cena pin Taker and end the streak?

Those 3 matches would certainly help WWE counter the UFC PPV in the same month and the Hart v Vince thing might actually get some old viewers back.

And if the ball got rolling on January 4th no one would be talking about TNA going head to head with RAW - all the talk would be about Bret Hart being back on RAW.

[Pharaoh]

And since I'm in the "booking" mood:

TNA and 1 undercard storyline that could actually make people give a fuck about a dude they are supposed to be high on:

Jay Lethal (the dude that pretends to be Randy Savage) has an "Open" Challenge thing going on where he loses to old timers. Eventually people hope the pay off will be a match v Randy Savage where Lethal wins.

My question? Who the fuck will care about Lethal by the time you manage to get Savage into the story? Today's fan is not gonna care about Lethal if he loses every other week to some bum he's never seen or heard of. It will just make Lethal look like shit...

Unless you have Lethal only lose a few times. Instead of losing constantly why not have him cut some promos wondering about his losing streak, wondering if he really is capable of being the "Macho Man", wondering if he should find some other inspiration...

And have them play it up that as Lethal gets closer and closer to the end of his rope and is gonna go mental he starts to get "gifts" from "someone". All these gifts obviously reference Savage in some way.

At a PPV Lethal would be "scheduled" to meet the person sending the gifts. Everyone would think it's Savage... but it's really Lex Luger (connection to TNA is he is actually Sting's best friend/connections to Savage = Miss Elizabeth. What part he played in her death might kill this idea though).

Anyway - after seeing that it's Luger and not Savage Lethal would go fucking nuts and destroy Luger. After Luger gets his butt kicked Savage would come out on stage - do some pointing and shit and that's it.

The next episode of Impact would then see Savage and Lethal doing a promo in the ring, with Savage putting Lethal over. Then later on show them backstage shaking hands as Savage grabs his bag. To give a hint of something down the road you can then have Hogan enter the frame only for Savage to brush him off and walk away.

In my scenario:

Luger and Savage get a pay day (Savage would get 2 cause Hogan has more power than Sting lol), Lethal gets "put over" by 2 dudes that are pretty fucking famous, no one would remember the losing streak v old timers cause they'd be too busy talking about Luger/Lethal/Savage and you've planted a seed of a Hogan/Savage situation down the road if you wanna go that way.

And btw - don't be surprised to see TNA do a lot of "worked/shoots" now. Russo loves them and Bischoff believes they can be a big deal...

Which is why TNA is doing the Jarrett/Angle thing and involving Foley, Hogan and Nash in "shoot" style segments. IF TNA limit this stuff to backstage segments while AJ, Joe, Wolf, Daniels (and Angle) put on kick ass matches they might have a chance.

Being different from WWE IMO means having matches that last more than 10 minutes. With the in-ring talent TNA has they can afford to give these guys some time.

[Pharaoh]

Bret Hart will guest host Raw on.... January 4th!

LMAO @ TNA. McMahon claims they ain't competition but here he is, pulling out the big guns. The only bigger guns than Hart would have been Austin and The Rock.

TNA is in for a major battle on January 4th. IF they get more than a 1.0 rating they should be over the moon

BTW: a link to a pretty detailed account of the Montreal Screwjob that basically changed the course of professional wrestling forever (which I may have already explained?):

http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/co...s-Screwjob.htm

[D's Nuts]

I haven't been this excited since I was 7 and got a Nintendo for Christmas. Bret Hart is on my Mt. Rushmore of wrestling. (The Rock, Stone Cold, Macho Man, Hart). RAW has been a bunch of doo doo the past few weeks so this should interject some life and energy into the mix. I hope they do this right and make it interesting. Knowing the PG nature of WWE now, it's probably going to be crap. Oh, crap.

[Pharaoh]

Not really, at least concerning Hart's storyline. The guy was pretty vocal about the direction the WWE was going before Montreal. He's a PG kind of guy.

The only problem I see is: what if WWE creative blow their load with Hart in 1 night?

IF they have confrontations between Triple H and Hart, McMahon and Hart and then Hart and Shawn Michaels what comes next?

The amount of stuff Hart's return generates could last years, but obviously they're gonna get it to the final stage at Mania - that's a shame, but there are a lot of options.

I wanna see how WWE play it, and I wanna see what Hogan and Bischoff (you know he'll be involved in creative for Hogan's stuff) do in TNA to counter attack.

This ain't Nitro v RAW from 96-99 but it's probably the closest we'll ever get to that level.

[DennyMcLain]

The best angle, IMO, would be news that Linda McMahon and Vince are having "differences", which leads to Linda abandoning the guest GM gimmick and installing Bret Hart as the permanent GM to get back at her husband.

Bret Hart "running" the show Vince is most proud of, and most closely associated with, would drive him up the wall. He wouldn't be able to bully his way around, like he did with Theo Long. Plus, he'd get to have his way with DX. But I'd write it that the only heel turn he'd have is with DX -- he'd be fair to just about everybody else. This would turn DX, and considering The Marine 2 is out (I'm waiting for DiBiase to turn and cause the end of Legacy), a heel tag team would be needed.

[Pharaoh]

You won't see Linda McMahon on the show anymore. She's running for Congress or something and wants to distance herself from the WWE product (due to all the years in between the PG stuff aka the Boom Period/Attitude Era lol)

I think HHH needs to turn heel, especially now that Raw basically has no top line heel.

But with Hart coming in Shawn Michaels might be the best man for the job. In the storyline dating back to the last Mania:

Shawn Michaels lost to the Undertaker and then essenitially retired. He took odd jobs in a restaurant and was happy to stay away from the business... until HHH came calling talking about a DX reunion. Shawn agreed to return...

And now the run around with Hornswoggle, acting goofy and generally being silly.

Is THAT what Mr. WrestleMania came back for? Is THAT what an ICON should be doing? Running around acting stupid with DX?

McMahon also said no to his rematch with Taker.

So, in storyline you could have Michaels get fed up with the goofy shit and announce that the loss to Taker is eating him up inside. He's won world titles, won the Grand Slam in the WWE, he's done it all and he's the fucking man and now he's gonna do everything he can to beat Taker.

Even if that means helping McMahon "get" Bret Hart ... again.

That's an interesting turn - since Michaels wouldn't exactly be a heel.

He's just a man willing to compromise certain morals to get what he needs - a rematch with Taker.

But I have ZERO faith in WWE to book that in an interesting way. It's all gonna be simple, basic, formula so the PG audience can understand it.

[Pharaoh]

January 4th is here boys.

Possibly the first and last time TNA v WWE.

Here's hoping for some really good shows with some sweet suprise "guests".

Rumoured for TNA = Scott Hall, Sid Vicious, Ric Flair, Rob Van Dam, Shannon Moore (one of these things is not like the others lol) and the return of Angelina Love.

Apparently WWE will have the Smackdown brand's Hart Dynasty on Raw (I wonder why?) and some Diva who's name escapes me right now

Very interesting night in store.

Enjoy

[Pharaoh]

First shots fired by TNA tonight.

During the UFC show prior to Impact they have been doing cut aways to the "Impact Zone"

Shown so far?

Scott Hall and Sean Waltman (X-Pac)

Shannon Moore and .... JEFF HARDY!

Hardy is still facing drug charges but his mere appearance is HUGE!

[Pharaoh]

I'll break down the whole 3 hour Impact later but...

Appearances included:

Jeff Hardy - HUGE surprise. Just fucking HUGE!

Scott Hall & Sean Waltman - expected but still good

Ric Flair - probably qualifies as a big surprise.

Eric Bischoff - like Flair was a big surprise to see him on camera

Sting - big surprise to see him on the show. Thought they over-did it.

Apparently AJ Styles v Kurt Angle in the main event was pretty fucking good based on all reports I've read.

Now, no matter how good you are any 3 hour show is gonna drag but TNA really delivered some serious surprise appearances and their main event match was top notch so that's AWESOME for TNA.

The only problem for them now is what they could do to top it if they get another LIVE Monday Night slot next month or the month after?

Dixie Carter has lots of coin, and so do some of the wrestlers but they'd have to get people like Ken Anderson, Rob Van Dam, Paul Heyman, Randy Savage, Lex Luger to appear if they wanna "top it".

In saying that they really don't need to top it. TNA should have got a lot of people's attention now. If you are gonna watch wrestling then why not TNA?