My feedback, for the most part, was about the Jeff Hardy vs. Undertaker - Ladder Match. There were about 4 posts or so about this in my "Ask Tito" forum. Many disagreed with me that the match didn't make Jeff Hardy or to not give him a rub off the Undertaker. That's fine with me, but in a few months, we'll see how "over" or if Jeff Hardy will continue to be the WWE's whipping boy. I say he will, as I've seen in the past with his feud with Triple H last year, after Triple H pounded him to regain the Intercontinental Title, the "rub" from Triple H did nothing for his career but make him lose more often than not.
The Undertaker just embarrasses Jeff whenever he fights him. Hell, whenever anybody from the "top" fights Jeff, they hand his ass right to him and tell him that Vaseline will make it go in much easier. Even if Jeff does get the fluke win, there's always the rematch for him to get buried in. The Ladder Match from RAW, in my opinion, was nothing but the Undertaker beating the living crap out of Jeff. Jeff would get his few shots in, including the ending where got some great chairshots in on the Undertaker. But you just knew that the Undertaker would get up and kill Jeff for what he did.
I'll say it once and I'll say it a million times. The Undertaker does NOT give back to professional wrestling, unless the wrestlers are named Austin, Triple H, and the Rock, and even then, he still hasn't lost cleanly to a now face Triple H. And now, they are talking about making the Undertaker a face again? Oh no, it gets even worse when he's a face, as he's indestructable then and has an excuse to never lose cleanly.
Want the ratings to change, WWE? Tell the Dead Man Walking to start helping to properly elevate talent, or walk. He's stinking up both shows as World Champion, yet many wrestling marks and Vince McMahon himself can't see that. It doesn't take a fucking rocket scientist to clearly see that.
On to the PDC.
-Speaking of the Undertaker, the show he headlined on Monday with a LADDER MATCH only scored a 3.6 in the ratings, which is absolutely pathetic. Fans don't want to see the current WWE product, period. Storylines right now are too rushed (Flair vs. Lesnar, which was unannounced and rushed on television), the Undertaker as champion just flat out sucks, younger wrestlers have no credibility against Main Eventers, etc, etc, etc!! What made 1998 and 1999 great was the fact that they took their damn time to write the storylines, which never felt rushed or slapped together in the last second. WWE's laziness to pay attention to detail is sooo killing them right now.
-The WWE did have a great ratings night on Saturday Night. The Smackdown secondary show, Velocity, did a 1.2 rating, which is a full 0.3 points above their usual average (0.9). WWE Confidential did a usual good 1.3, but the story of the night was the 1.8 rating for Divas Undressed. Man, many people must have been returning home during that period it came on, and the hormones must have been raging then! Think about it.. a 1.8, on cable, for a MIDNIGHT timeslot on a Saturday night.
-I've seen this repeated everywhere, so I figured I'll just spread the word as well. For the Vengeance Pay Per View, yes, Stone Cold Steve Austin is on some promotional ads. So what? Promotional ads are usually sent out in months advance, and with the long term contract the WWE signed Austin to, they assumed he wouldn't be walking out on them before Vengeance would happen. It's time to face the facts that Steve Austin is NEVER coming back, at least for the time being. I believe that after a while, he could return sometime down the road, especially if the ratings get worse and worse, but not right now. Vince McMahon and the creative team are still bitter at Austin for walking out, and they'll hold that against him for a while.
-It's being reported that the WWE has filed a trademark complaint against Stone Cold Records, saying that the recording company would create "confusion in the marketplace" for using "Stone Cold" in the name. The WWE is rather picky on that sort of thing, as they have also complained about the XWF federation resembling the letters WWF. It makes sense in the case of Stone Cold Records, but not in the case of the XWF, which I felt was a prick-job on the WWE's part.
-Tonight's NWA-TNA doesn't look like anything I'd pay $9.95 for. The Main Event, I guess, is OK with Ken Shamrock against the guy formerly known as A-Wall. A-Wall or now called Malice is in awesome shape right now. The tag team tournament looks scary with the teams there, AJ Styles is defending his X-Title against a loser, K-Krush and Jeff Jarrett will take on Scott Hall and Brian Christopher (!!!) in a match of former WWF superstars from hell, and finally, a NASCAR driver will be there and have something to say to fans. Looks like crap to me. When you have plenty of innovative Cruiserweights on your roster, why not use them throughout the show? Why not use the better superstars you've picked up, instead of the garbage former WWF or WCW stars?
As I mentioned before, the NWA-TNA at least has some great announcing from Mike Tenay. From the first 2 shows, Tenay was on his game for both shows, and guess what? Unlike Jim Ross, he hardly ever went off the topic of the current match at hand. His announcing was an added professional touch, especially in the X Title match when he KNEW what he was commentating about. I used to actually like some of Thunder because he was commentating, although he had to put up with Stevie Ray on a weekly basis. Tenay is definitely up there with the best, in my mind, and I'd listen to him, any day, over Jim Ross or Michael Cole. Of course, Cole and Ross have guns to their heads to hype Main Eventer stuff instead of the current matches at hand, according to the stupid WWE system currently in place. When your main eventers are good, then sure, you can talk about them more, but in recent times, the top tier WWE wrestlers suck and it's annoying to hear about them through the show.
-I've talked about this with readers and friends, as I feel it's rather strange of the WWE to put the Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat Wrestlewar 1989 match on the Triple H DVD. Why not just put out a video on the whole feud, which includes the Chi-Town rumble match, the best 2 out of 3 falls, and finally, the Wrestlewar match, instead of just throwing one on a Triple H DVD. I do admire Triple H for his respect of that great match, and I'm sure he probably begged to have it put there. Still, the WWE would be surprised at how well a Flair vs. Steamboat video would do, especially since many longtime fans would cream about it and many newer fans would be curious about the video, given that they constantly hear every long time wrestling fan talking about that feud.
-Getting back to NWA-TNA, they have apparently issued an apology for comments made by Ed Ferrara about the Special Olympics. Looking up what Ferrara said, he apparently compared getting in the ring with Malice or Ken Shamrock to the Special Olympics, in that "you may win, but you still are retarded". (credit Jim Hall for what exactly was said) I didn't notice what Ferrara said during the broadcast, but I found one more Ferrara incident MUCH MORE rude than his Special Olympics comment. It was his actions with Francine, as when he picked her up, he had a handful of her right breast. If I was a father, and I bought the Pay Per View for my kid, I certainly wouldn't want to see some weird looking guy grab a lady's breast, only to about get a blowjob from the lady afterward. There should be an apology for that incident, too.
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