Yeah, that's the first thing that came to mind when seeing the Dudleys on the list. I wouldn't be surprised if they kept up the ECW angle with Paul Heyman bringing in some of the released guys as a faction.
I guess everybody's really got a price. It was very well done, the worked-shoot. Would've been better if Matt didn't attck Edge before the break.
Wow, that was pretty damn good to where nobody saw that coming. As recent as today, i saw on newsboards that he was schedule to show up on TNA's PPV on Sunday.
Yea, I was looking forward to that too...guess I'll just have to get excited about Rhino showing up then!
Wow, WWE is playing it off like nothing happened. Go to their websites and read the Raw recap and there is NO MENTION of Matt Hardy. Plus you would think it would be plastered all over the front page, nope, nothing. Btw, for those who are curious to see the run-in: http://rapidshare.de/files/2988035/Matt_s_Return.wmv.html pretty low quality, but watchable. Great, great moment, in which I wish i couldve seen live.
I TIVO'd that segment and watched it about 4 times. I could have sworn that the guy was just a Matt Hardy look alike and that they were just trying to make it look like him. When you watch it the camera shakes and never gets a good picture of the guy. I figured it was the WWE pulling a stunt like they did at the wedding. Even when the guy came out of the crowd I thought it was a fake. The only initial shots they had of him were shots in a crowd and you couldn't really see his face. It wasn't until he actually got the mike and talked that I could tell it was him. And not only is the WWE playign it off as a shoot, the announcers did a good job of that last night. There was absolute dead silence from them when it happened. Kind of similar to when a fan runs on the field in baseball except there the announcers talk and you don't see it, here you saw it but the announcers refused to act like it was going on. I am glad they finally brought him back in because that may be the only thing to save that worthless storyline.
Anyone else think the "draft'' is pathetic? There has to be a better way to switch talent. Didn't they do this two times before?
I think it's great idea, but thus far it has been terrible in practice. I really wish they would have placed more emphasis on trades and free agency, like real sports. And yeah, there've been three drafts. The original draft in 2002 was pathetic and in no way reflected the value of each superstar. The second draft, the first one via a lottery, was pretty inconsequential. The biggest picks (Triple H, Paul Heyman) wound up back on the show they were drafted from that very night. I think Booker T is the biggest name that's still where the 2004 draft sent him and he wasn't even drafted, just part of the trade to get HHH back. This most recent draft was very exciting, but I do think it was heavily tilted in Raw's favor. It may be that Vince is saving the bigger marquee names from SmackDown's upcoming move to Friday nights and also giving Raw some star power to ease the transition back to USA. I think that the brand extension is going to end as soon as SmackDown's contract is up. They just don't have enough stars to warrant two separate rosters anymore, and it's only going to get worse in a few years when guys like Angle, HHH, and HBK start retiring. That's not to say that they haven't been doing a fantastic job at building up the new guys, but take a look at the monster roster they had in March of 2002 after all but a handful of WCW came over. It was an unprecedented who's who of wrestling.
Are they planning on getting rid of Jim Ross? They've had Coach on RAW for the last couple weeks, and he alluded that he might replace JR...
I liked it better when they were all on both shows but they seem to use Smackdown to set up the main events for Raw and that kind of sucked.
The rumor is that The King is the one that will be gone in favor of Coach. I hope so. Lawler's act has worn thin.
I haven't watched wrestling since the WCW NWO days... I just happened to be flipping through channels and came accress smackdown... what is this BWO stuff?
BWO was a parody of the NWO in ECW. Recently, at the ECW Reunion PPV, BWO reformed for that night. When the WWE wrestlers were brawling with the ECW guys at the end of the show, JBL, being the bully that he is, started to stiff up Blue Meanine, opening him up. Blue Meanie was rightfully angry and started to threaten to sue JBL. Then money began talking and WWE started to make an angle out of it and so far, the two parties are working together for the sake of business.
Amid complaints, WWE agrees to remove Arab-American character By JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN AP Business Writer July 22, 2005, 3:08 PM EDT STAMFORD, Conn. -- World Wrestling Entertainment has agreed to remove an Arab-American character from a popular television show after complaints about an episode featuring masked henchmen that aired the day of the London bombings. The Stamford-based wrestling company said it would no longer feature Muhammad Hassan on its "SmackDown!" program. UPN, the station that airs the show, had asked WWE to be sensitive about the character, WWE said. "It was an interesting character," said Gary Davis, a WWE spokesman. "This was an unfortunate sequence of events. Some people drew the conclusion these people were terrorists even though they were not terrorists." During the episode, five Hassan henchmen in ski masks and camouflage ran into the ring to beat up his rival, the Undertaker, who had defeated Hassan's sidekick. The men then carried Hassan's sidekick over their heads, which to some evoked a martyr's funeral. The show did not air in London, but it did appear in the U.S. with an advisory to parents because of the bombings, Davis said. The segment sparked 200 to 300 complaints, he said. "There really wasn't any time for UPN to edit the program. So they opted to put up an advisory," Davis said. While Hassan will not appear again on "SmackDown!," he will be featured Sunday on a pay-per view event. Beyond that, his future is uncertain. "SmackDown!" draws more than 5 million viewers per week, Davis said. "We asked them to remove it because we thought that was the right thing to do," said Joanna Massey, a UPN spokeswoman. Hassan, a character introduced last November and played by Mark Copani, grows up in Detroit as a typical American. But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he believes he is treated differently by his fellow Americans, leading him to embrace his Arab roots and feel alienated from the U.S. "The whole point of the story line and this character was to point out the injustices Arab-Americans have suffered since 9-11," Davis said. But the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee objected to the character. One of its campaigns resulted in nearly 500 complaints sent to WWE, a spokeswoman said. The character could raise doubts about the patriotism of Arab-Americans, said Siwar Bandar, communications coordinator for the committee. "The character deals with a very sensitive issue," Bandar said. "However, he does so in a context that is violent, that is turning his back on America." The committee welcomed the decision to take the character off "SmackDown!" and hopes WWE will make major changes to the character or not feature the wrestler at all, Bandar said. WWE counts on villains to draw fan interest in its plots, said WWE analyst Dennis McAlpine, managing director of McAlpine Associates in Scarsdale, N.Y. With the Cold War long over, Russians are out and it's getting tougher to find a bad guy, he said. "You can't find too many more bad guys any more," McAlpine said. "I think the character was probably getting a bit over the top any way." The controversy left Hassan angry on a recent episode in which he was greeted with shouts of "USA" as he entered the ring. One fan held up a sign telling him to leave the country. "Because of my heritage, because of my background, I'm labeled 'terrorist,' " Hassan told the fans to a chorus of boos. "I have been denied my God-given right to pursue the profession of my choice, to pursue the American dream." http://www.newsday.com/news/local/w...,0,6472017.story?coll=ny-region-apconnecticut I think the WWE should pull back the curtain a little bit with this one and let people know who he really is and make Hassan not a character, but an identity that Copani (who's italian btw) agreed to take on for a shot at the big leagues.
Damn, Hassan was one of the best heels in a long time! I hope they keep him around...he's a pretty good wrestler...Anything to get away from that stupid Guerrero/Mysterio storyline. I change the channel or leave the room when a Guerrero/Mysterio montage appears now... Here's a secret, Eddie Guerrero has testicles the size of garbanzo beans from all the steroids he's pumped over the years!
Give me a break. The whole point was to rile up the audience and give them a storyline worth following.
