Professional Wrestling

[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?

[Pharaoh]

I'll break down the show tomorrow but right now:

I think TNA over-did it with the old stars and veterans.

Did we really need Val Venis (aka Sean Morley) there to play poker with the chicks?

Did we really need Orlando Jordan there to interact with D'Angelo Dinero (Elijah Burke)?

Did we need the Nasty Boys on the show at all?

The Hall, Waltman, Nash, Hogan, Bischoff thing is just awesome. A lot of history there. That was needed.

Flair on the show? Not needed but awesome. I wish he had some interaction with Sting, whose appearance in the rafters is so 1997. (Much like Hart v HBK lol). But Flair on the show anywhere is good.

Hardy arriving is kind of like Lex Luger's arrival on Nitro's first episode - in all honesty there isn't a "bigger" star than Hardy to bring in to wrestle regularly (provided he gets off the drug charges.

TNA fired a lot of shots and made some noise. Good for them.

Not happy Desmond Wolf got beaten... kinda weird.

On the WWE side Hart and Shawn Michaels actually hugged! Never thought I'd see that. And Vince McMahon "turned heel" on Hart by kicking him in the nuts to close the show.

The rest of RAW was just the usual shit except a segment with Hart and Jericho. Jericho is fucking money and has been for the past 12 months+. And during that time he's had ZERO World Title wins. Vince McMahon is a fucking idiot and needs to wake up.

Maybe TNA wakes Vince up a bit and WWE starts to book their shows better. They have the talent. Creative just needs to be creative lol

BTW, Bryan Danielson wrestled in the "dark" match on Raw v Chavo and won. This may or may not mean he's getting a TV debut soon. If they want a guy that can actually wrestle than Danielson is the man. They have a lot of options with him depending on what they wanna do.

The teacher vs student thing is easy (he was trained at Shawn Michaels' school) and would result in awesome matches plus would elevate Danielson straight away. But fuck RAW.

I think TNA won the first round - even if ratings won't reflect it