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* Jack Hardy's Angry
* Matt Morgan's a STUD
* SummerSlam Match-up?



I've decided to do things a little differently this week and give the report a little more structure.

Smackdown 8/1: I really liked seeing an angry Jeff Hardy. I just wish they weren't using his personal tragedies to push the storyline. I don't see the point of jobbing him out to the Mediocre Khali either. Who does that really help?

Mick Foley's promo on Edge couldn't have been more awesome. Further evidence of why Mick Foley is such a legend. If you haven't seen his greatest promos you need to find his promos as Cactus Jack from the old ECW. (You knew I had to bring that up at least once.) Anyway if we're lucky this is the opportunity that brings back the Edge that we love to hate. Again, it's too bad that this storyline has to be driven by a bad wedding angle.

TNA Impact Replay 8/2: I don't watch TNA on Thursday Nights because Burn Notice is on at the same time so I try to catch the replays on Saturday nights.

Matt Morgan is a stud. They should be building the promotion around him not to mention some of the other younger guys. I mean wouldn't you rather see Samoa Joe vs. Matt Morgan than Samoa Joe vs. Booker T? As much respect as I have for guys like Kurt Angle, Sting, and Booker T, their names aren't exactly increasing TNA's ratings. If I was Jeff Jarrett and Jim Cornette I'd be pushing the young guys to the moon.

TNA loves to do comedy and I think they do it well. Curry Man, Shark Boy, and Super Eric just crack me up. But let's not overdo it. It's a rough transition to go from Shark Boy hilarity to a pissed off Samoa Joe.

The new women's champion is boring and generic. I can't even think of her name off the top of my head. She's a decent wrestler but she doesn't grab my attention. I don't find it believable that she beat Awesome Kong twice either. I'd rather see Roxxi or ODB holding the belt.

WWE Saturday Night's Main Event: I didn't watch it for two reasons. One, I forgot it was on which should tell you how great of a job WWE did in promoting it. Two, while I think Autism is a horrible disease I also think Jenny McCarthy is a tool for spreading fear for blaming her son's Autism on vaccinations. The Autism people may want to find a better spokesperson.

Anyway from what I read SNME was lame.

RAW 8/4/08: I actually like Mike Adamle as the RAW GM. It's something new which is something that wrestling in general is lacking these days.

Santino Morella is comedy gold. TNA should take note on how to do their comedy bits.

I thought it was ridiculous how much praise Lawler and Cole were pouring on Adamle throughout the show considering Michael Cole got his head handed to him last week because of Adamle.

CM Punk vs. JBL at Summerslam? Really? Why is JBL still even on TV? He's not being booed because he's the bad guy. He's being booed because people are tired of him. At least that's what I hope they're booing him for. Jericho vs CM Punk would have been epic but I realize they'll do something with Jericho and HBK at Summerslam. Hopefully Punk will retain and they can have the Punk-Jericho match later.

News: The big story on the dirt sheet sites this week was that WWE has parted ways with Ric Flair. The buzz is that Flair was unhappy with WWE not allowing him to book outside appearances. If I was TNA I'd be offering him whatever they could. Even to have him in a non-wrestling role would be quite the coup for TNA.

All in all a pretty good week. Which means next week should suck hard.

by Trench Reynolds

So, big doings on last night's RAW with the 2008 Draft. Not surprisingly, RAW got the better end of the deal. Since it's the flagship WWE show that was pretty much a given. However, the draft was a dead giveaway for what's going to happen at the Night of Champions PPV. HHH will retain the title and go to Smackdown, if he doesn't get traded back to RAW again. Edge will lose to Batista and Batista takes that title to RAW.



I'm glad they kept the Hardy's on separate brands, but Matt Hardy to ECW? He's about as extreme as wheat toast. Then again, it's still not the real ECW. And yes, I will bring that up every time--thanks for asking. I thought Umaga would have been a better fit for ECW than Matt Hardy.

Speaking of Hardys: if HHH stays on Smackdown, I hope they do a program with Jeff Hardy and HHH. Even with Jeff''s past transgressions, he's over with the crowd like crazy and deserves a chance at the title.

The HBK/Y2J angle went pretty much the way I thought it should. However, they need to make Shawn Michaels' 'injuries' more traumatic to really have impact. When HBK hit his face on the table, it made him look like the most fragile man in the world. If you want to see how to really make an impact with a fake eye injury, look up how Tommy Dreamer and the Sandman did it back in the original ECW. At least they let the heel (Jericho) go out on top. That's how you get the fans to keep coming back.

They'll pay to see the villain get his comeuppance.



Who is more boring on the mic, Randy 'Sominex' Orton or 'Talentless' Ted DiBiase Jr.?

Then, a pretty solid show turned into another typical WWE crapfest with the set collapsing on Vince McMahon. The last time they did an angle like this was right before Chris Benoit killed his family. You'd think they'd stay away from angles like this, just because of the history.

Anyway, I personally would like to see the angles revolve around the
wrestling--and not the soap opera.

by Trench Reynolds
images: Trench Network

Trench's Pro Wrestling Report



[NOTE:DBKP's Trench Reynolds usually labors in the fields of crime. With this post, he begins a labor of love: reporting on the drama that is pro wrestling.]


My name is Trench Reynolds and I blog about cr...
No, wait. That's a different day.

My name is Trench Reynolds and I've been a professional wrestling fan since 1982. I first started watching wrestling when I caught a rare TV match of Superfly Jimmy Snuka vs. The Magnificent Don Muraco and I've been hooked ever since.

I've seen the glory days of The Four Horseman and the rise and fall of Hulkimania. I watched the WWF go from cartoonish to the Attitude Era. I watched every week of the Monday Night Wars.

I started watching the original ECW when the E stood for Eastern.

So I know a little bit about wrestling. I still haven't figured out where I'm going with these wrestling posts yet, but come along for the ride, won't you?

So last night was the first night of Vince McMahon's million-dollar giveaway on Monday Night Raw. I'll be honest with you: I was glued to the TV and my cell phone was always within arms reach, like a sucker. I only registered once, but I figured that would be enough. So basically, Vince McMahon's gimmick worked: he kept me--and probably millions of other fans--watching his program.

The only problem was that there wasn't much in the ring to keep me watching between giveaways.



For example, Ken Kennedy is probably the most entertaining wrestler on RAW today, but when you put him in there with plain Paul Burchill, it's a snoozefest. Burchill was more entertaining when he was a pirate, but I digress.

Then you throw the usual suspects of John Cena, JBL, and HHH, in there and I could really could've cared less. If Randy Orton had been on RAW last night, I probably would have killed myself due to boredom. The only interesting part of RAW last night was when Chris Jericho threw Shawn Michaels into the TV.

Not exactly Roddy Piper hitting Jimmy Snuka with a coconut, but not bad. I was actually surprised by that. I think it would have been more dramatic if HBK had been bleeding, but from what I understand, he doesn't like to blade all that much.

My point is: if you're going to use a ratings gimmick like giving away millions of dollars to attract eyeballs, you're going to need to do something to keep those eyeballs once they're there.

Right now, RAW is not putting that product on TV--and I don't see it improving anytime soon.

by Trench Reynolds
image: the sun; Trench Reynolds; Ultimate Wrestling Gallery

WAR, TERRORISM, DISASTER, POLITICS, PATENTS, PROGRESS, COMING WAR, ASSASSINATION, PRONOUNCEMENTS, JAZZ, LABOR, PRO WRESTLING, SPORTS, JEWS, OH NO, MAINSTREAM MEDIA, HEALTH NAZIS, CIVIL RIGHTS,BORN, BIRTHDAYS, DEATH

GAMES

1933 Game of "Monopoly" invented.

WAR!

1945 during World War II, U.S. forces crossed the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany, using the damaged but still usable Ludendorff Bridge.

1991 Iraq continues to explode oil fields in Kuwait.

TERRORISM

1981 anti-government guerrillas in Colombia executed kidnapped American Bible translator Chester Allen Bitterman, whom they accused of being a CIA agent.

2007 A suicide attacker blew himself up in a cafe northeast of Baghdad, killing 30 people.

DISASTER

2007 Ten people were killed in the Bronx, N.Y., when fire tore through their home.

CIVIL RIGHTS

1965 A march by civil rights demonstrators was broken up in Selma, Ala., by state troopers and a sheriff's posse.

PRONOUNCEMENTS

1908 Cincinnati Mayor Mark Breith stood before city council & announced that, "women are not physically fit to operate automobiles".

SPORTS

1955 Baseball commissioner Ford Frick says he favors legalization of the spitter.

PRO WRESTLING

1940 Ray Steele beats B Nagurski in St Louis, to become wrestling champion.

HEALTH NAZIS

1997 5 sue Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto, because his smoking has violated the country's constitution guaranteeing a wholesome life.

OH NO

1981 1st homicide at Disneyland, 18 year old is stabbed to death.

MAINSTREAM MEDIA

1993 Diff'rent Stroke actor Todd Bridges arrested for stabbing a tenant.

JAZZ

1917 1st jazz record "Dixie Jazz Band One Step", recorded by Nick LaRocca Original Dixieland Jazz Band, released by RCA Victor in Camden NJ.

LABOR

1932 Riots at Ford-factory Dearborn MI, kills 4.

1967 Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa begins 8-year jail sentence at Lewisburg Federal Prison for defrauding the union & jury tampering (commuted Dec 23, 1971).

KILLERS

2007 Sex offender John Evander Couey was found guilty in Miami of kidnapping, raping and murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was buried alive.

POLITICS

1850 In a 3-hour speech to the U.S. Senate, Daniel Webster endorsed the Compromise of 1850 as a means of preserving the Union.

1975 The Senate revised its filibuster rule, allowing 60 senators to limit debate in most cases, instead of the previously required two-thirds of senators present.

PATENTS

1854 Charles Miller patents 1st US sewing machine to stitch buttonholes

1876 Alexander Graham Bell received a patent for his telephone.

PROGRESS

1926 The first successful trans-Atlantic radio-telephone conversations took place, between New York and London.

JEWS

1977 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin meets President Carter.

COMING WAR

1774 British close port of Boston to all commerce.

1936 Adolf Hitler ordered his troops to march into the Rhineland, thereby breaking the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact.

1998 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking in Rome, said the U.S. wouldn't tolerate any more violence in Kosovo, which she blamed on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

ASSASSINATION

1951 Ali Razmara Shah of Iran (1950-51), assassinated.

BORN

1849 horticulturist Luther Burbank was born in Lancaster, Mass.

BIRTHDAYS

Comedian Alan Sues is 82. Photographer Lord Snowdon is 78. TV personality Willard Scott is 74. Auto racer Janet Guthrie is 70. Actor Daniel J. Travanti is 68. Former Walt Disney Co. chief executive officer Michael Eisner is 66. Rock musician Chris White (The Zombies) is 65. Actor John Heard is 62. Rock singer Peter Wolf is 62. Rock musician Matthew Fisher (Procol Harum) is 62. Football Hall of Famer Franco Harris is 58. Football Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is 56. Rhythm-and-blues singer-musician Ernie Isley (The Isley Brothers) is 56. Actor Bryan Cranston is 52. Actress Donna Murphy is 49. Actor Nick Searcy is 49. Tennis Hall of Famer Ivan Lendl is 48. Actor Bill Brochtrup is 45. Opera singer Denyce Graves is 44. Comedian Wanda Sykes is 44. Singer-actress Taylor Dayne is 43. Rock musician Randy Guss (Toad the Wet Sprocket) is 41. Actor Peter Sarsgaard is 37. Actress Rachel Weisz is 37. Classical singer Sebastien Izambard (Il Divo) is 35. Rock singer Hugo Ferreira (Tantric) is 34. Actress Jenna Fischer is 34. Actress Audrey Marie Anderson is 33. Actress Laura Prepon is 28.

DEATH

322 -BC- Aristotle dies.

1959 Hinsdale Smith developer of roll-down auto windows, dies at 88.

1985 Victor W Farris inventor of paper milk carton, etc, dies.

1988 Divine [Harris Glenn Milstead] transvestite actor (Hairspray, Polyester, Pink Flamingos), dies in Los Angeles at 42.

1999 movie director Stanley Kubrick died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70.

March 7, the 67th day of 2008. There are 299 days left in the year.

compiled by Mondoreb
image: northstargeneral
Sources:
* Today in History
* Today in History

DBKP.com - Bigger, Better!.
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The WWF's 1980s Legion of Death

The WWF expansion in the 1980s was known as "Wrestling's Second Golden Age". It also racked up quite a death toll, with many of that era's stars dead at an early age. A look at some of the biggest who've passed away.

Although the best-known of the wrestlers then was perhaps Hulk Hogan, Hogan is one of the few still alive today.

We were searching for popular wrestlers from the 1980s and was surprised to find how many of them had passed away. In fact, if you look at the WWF's superstars from the '80s, most are part of the WWF's Golden Age Death Toll.

The 1980s wrestling boom (sometimes referred to as the 2nd Golden Age of Wrestling) was a surge in the popularity of professional wrestling in the United States of America throughout the 1980s.

The expansion of cable television and pay-per-view, coupled with the efforts of promoters such as Vince McMahon, saw professional wrestling shift from a system controlled by numerous regional companies to a system dominated by two nationwide companies: Ted Turner's World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and McMahon's World Wrestling Federation (WWF).

The decade also saw a considerable decline in the power of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), a cartel which had until then domineered the wrestling landscape, and in the efforts to sustain belief in the verisimilitude of wrestling.

WWF in the 1980s was big, brash and mouthy--and expanding across the country at a speed unknown to pro wrestling up until that time.

A salute to the Pro Wrestling Super Stars who are no longer with us.

We'll start with Andre the Giant.

Andre's drinking exploits were legendary.



Andre the Giant was well-known and well-liked among wrestling fans. He was a giant draw to crowds, too.

Wherever he went, crowds of the curious and pro wrestling fans were sure to follow.

For proof of his drawing power, look no further than Wrestlemania III in 1987. The main event was Andre vs. Hulk Hogan. The show drew the first million-dollar gate in wrestling history, set a pay-per-view record that lasted a decade, and set the all-time indoor attendance record for any live event ever—78,000+ butts in seats at the Pontiac Silver Dome in Detroit—destroying the previous record set by some rock band called the Rolling Stones.

His rematch with Hogan two months later, broadcast live on NBC, attracted 33 million viewers, making it the most watched wrestling match ever.

Andre's drinking, as stated were legendary.

But they were no legend. The man liked his alcohol.

The big man loved two things: wrestling and booze—mostly booze—and his appetites were of mythic proportion.

First, consider the number 7,000. It’s an important number, and a rather scary one considering its context, which is this—it has been estimated that Andre the Giant drank 7,000 calories worth of booze every day. The figure doesn’t include food. Just booze.

If Andre were consuming lite beer, that would work out to over 720 beers a day--60 cases of beer.

Sound impossible? Not so fast.

Vince [McMahon]Sr. pondered the situation and arrived at a novel solution. He wanted to keep the big man happy, so he bought a trailer and had it customized just for Andre. With plenty of room to spread out and relax, Andre could now travel in a semblance of comfort, which allowed him to do some serious boozing. During trips Andre consumed beer at the incredible rate of a case every ninety minutes, with bottles of vodka or top-rate French wine thrown in for variety.

It's been reported that Andre's bar bill for a month of shooting the Princess Bride came to over $40,000.

R.I.P. Andre the Giant.








The Death of Miss Elizabeth

Elizabeth Hulette, or as she was better known as "Miss Elizabeth, was the woman who defined the role of the valet. She died early on May 1, 2003 after Atlanta police responded to a 911 call at the home of Larry Pfohl, better known to wrestling fans as Lex Luger. Hulette was 42 when she passed away.

Hulette was alive when police arrived and later died at a local hospital at a little after 5:30 am. Police reports at the time indicate that Hulette had mixed vodka with painkillers in the hours before she died.

For most of today's core wrestling audience, Hulette was a large part of the early wrestling experience. As Miss Elizabeth in the mid- and late '80s in the then-WWF, Hulette was Macho Man Randy Savage's. manager. She also managed the Mega Powers team of Hulk Hogan and Savage, an angle that thrust her--and the valet role--into the limelight.

Hulette, who debuted in WWE in May 1985, was the first female of the new-look WWE. Her drawing power paved the way for future women to have major mainstream success. Though she was mostly silent in her WWE days, Miss Elizabeth was the gorgeous, petite brains behind Savage's brawny success. She didn't wrestle and didn't get intimately involved with Savage's matches. She was--plain and simple--eye candy. She was good at it, and the fans loved her for it.

Although Chris Benoit wasn't part of the 1980s Pro Wrestling Boom, we still included him as part of the Death Toll.



The plotlines in the WWF were interesting and fun.

And as always in Pro Wrestling, the most unneeded person in the ring was the referee.

by Mondoreb & LBG
Sources:
* Miss Elizabeth: the Death of Mrs. Macho Man
* Do You have a favorite Drunkard?
* 1980s Wrestling Boom



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