"Well what if WWE give them 10 mins and the crowd don't react? They are hardly gonna give them another 10 the next week."
Absurd. It's been proven in the past that the crowd digs cruiserweight action. Kidman Vs. London was incredibly hot at last year's No Mercy. Any title defence on PPV has gotten great response. And even if that weren't the case there's ample precedent for pushing an idea til the crowd accepts it. Bradshaw still regularly wrestles to a symphony of silence. Ditto Heidenreich. Look at Snitsky and Kane's matches. Need I go on?
Originally posted by Big BadNow I'm really hoping they ditch the rumoured Eddie heel turn and have a Wrestlemania interpromotional tag match of Eddie/Rey vs. Jericho/Benoit. ~~~BOOYAH!
Hell, why not stick Edge and Christian together and throw the returning Dudleyz and a ladder or two in there while you're at it. It's not like any of these guys look like they've got anything better lined up, and that one match sure as hell would sell the PPV for me.
1) Edge just came back this year from major neck surgery, and Christian had a back injury that kept him out for many months, and you want to stick them in a ladder match? 2) More importantly, sticking Edge in there would be a big step backwards for him. Going on the assumption that Batista wins the belt at WM, Edge should be on the plate for him. Sticking Edge in a meaningless tag match on the biggest show of the year would hurt his heat going into a feud w/ Batista.
I'm not really an Edge fan, but I just don't see the logic in sticking him in a "hey, we've got nothing better for you to do" match on the biggest PPV of the year.
Originally posted by oldschoolheroWhen was the last ten-minute-plus cruiser match in WWE? I can't think of one in recent memory.
Didn't Akio/Chavo from the Japan SD go 10+ minutes? I think there were a couple on Velocity that cracked (or came close to) the 10-minute mark this last year.
Originally posted by Big BadNow I'm really hoping they ditch the rumoured Eddie heel turn and have a Wrestlemania interpromotional tag match of Eddie/Rey vs. Jericho/Benoit. ~~~BOOYAH!
Hell, why not stick Edge and Christian together and throw the returning Dudleyz and a ladder or two in there while you're at it. It's not like any of these guys look like they've got anything better lined up, and that one match sure as hell would sell the PPV for me.
1) Edge just came back this year from major neck surgery, and Christian had a back injury that kept him out for many months, and you want to stick them in a ladder match? 2) More importantly, sticking Edge in there would be a big step backwards for him. Going on the assumption that Batista wins the belt at WM, Edge should be on the plate for him. Sticking Edge in a meaningless tag match on the biggest show of the year would hurt his heat going into a feud w/ Batista.
I'm not really an Edge fan, but I just don't see the logic in sticking him in a "hey, we've got nothing better for you to do" match on the biggest PPV of the year.
The plans I've read about have Eddie Guerrero facing Rey Mysterio, Edge & Christian facing Chris Jericho & Chris Benoit, and the Dudleyz involved in a WWE Tag Title Match of some kind (presuming that Rey & Eddie lose 'em). Why cram everyone into one good match when you can stretch it into three?
DVDs; Blog ~New Our Lady Peace album "Vampires" this March~
oldschoolhero, unless it has a storyline (like Kidman/London had) or it involves Rey Mysterio then people won't react at the moment, my point is WWE didn't build or involve either of there factors last night. Doesn't matter about the silence if they are good characters they will put them in matches reagardless of the crowd but the crusiers just dont have that yet.
I'm sorry, I'm usually pretty lenient when it comes to forgiving the fed's sins, but their handling of the cruiserweight division is the one area where they hve absolutely no excuses for their poor booking. They were gifted a three-way angle in October of last year th could've carried them through until right now, but it was buried for no reason whatsoever. And I don't mean "no reason that I like", I mean there was literally nothing stopping them from taking advante of the heated situation that had developed between London, Kidman and Chavo. Then there was the total and utter bungling of the division over the spring and summer of last year, with the belt jumping from Jackie to Chavo to Classic. They finally recover with a good heel turn on the part of Spike, then relegate him to the sidelines, barely giving his potentially-strong character a second thought. And now this mess of the past coupla months.
You say the cruisers don't have those characters "yet". That's totally untrue. They've had many, many character to work with over the past coupla years-Noble's redneck, Chavo's rudo, Kidman's arrogant prick, Tajiri and his band of assassins, Nunzio's chickenshit mob don, Spike's little bully, London's sheer insanity, Spanky's off-the-wall antics. They're not reacting "at the moment"? That's because the division and the wrestlers themselves have been constantly shit on. Cruiserweight matches are some of the easiest to book. Get two talented guys out there, say "here, take fifteen minutes", and watch the crowd ooh and ahh at the pace and daring on display. It worked for the Hardyz. So what the fuck is so hard about letting it work now?
What i mean was they don't have characters now, because i believe you are only as good as your last show, it's been a while since any cruiser has had mike time. If you can't make a crowd react either good or bad then there is something wrong with your character. But WWE really did drop the ball with the Kidman/London angle, they had the match of the night and then it was done with, no London revenge angle on Smackdown or nothin. Just ridiculous. Like the HHH/Angle/Steph angle, no pay-off.
"then relegate him to the sidelines, barely giving his potentially-strong character a second thought."
I think this one was done to overtly stick it to Heyman, since Funaki won the title at the same time Paul got punk'd, and CW Champ The Boss was his pet project. Everything else is just straight up awfulness.
pimpstress ain't easy: "Chavo is the poster child for nepotism. He sucks."
Wha.
"With Chavo holding the belt again, it just gives more creedence to Vince's hope that people won't give a shit about the Cruiser division."
I think the last time people gave a shit about the cruiser title was when Mysterio was chasing Chavo, who had a tremendous schtick going at the time, for the belt. Not that London beating Chavo for the title at Wrestlemania Heat is going to change that, and I would've put London over five guys to try and get him over in one night, but golly, Chavo was easily the second best worker in that match.
Angle vs. Cena was really tremendous in person. I thought Kurt was finally dead for sure when Cena did the top rope legdrop onto his head, but not yet! Angle hasn't had a two week run in the ring like this since fall 2003. It really feels like a Kurt Angle Retirement Tour culminating against Michaels, but I don't think that's the case.
Didn't they run a Chavo/Kidman match on Smackdown a few months back as a blow-off to the Knocked Out/Concussion storyline, but the match was so bad/there was so little crowd reaction to the match that it was cut from broadcast? I think that the next week, they re-did the match for Velocity, which was the end of the storyline and feud, and I think the last we've seen of Kidman since.
I could be wrong about the Velocity thing, but I'm almost positive they did the blow-off match on SD and it got cut because the poor match quality and crowd reaction.
Yeah, there was a SD match between Kidman & Chavo that got cut, due to (IIRC) the ending being botched & bad crowd reaction.
That wasn't the last we've seen of Kidman, though. He had a couple matches against London on Velocity after London came back from his broken nose, which was after the Kidman/Chavo Velocity matches.
They did do a Chavo/Kidman match in Dayton for SmackDown!, and cut it.
While it's surely possible they could've cut it for quality/heat reasons, there sure are a lot of things that suck and don't get over that don't get cut - they just get edited. I don't recall a long video package to fill time, so it's possible the show went long (which seems to happen 3 or 4 times a year) and they just cut it from the show because it was the easiest thing to cut and they wouldn't mind redoing it.
Unless someone can come up with a dirtsheet tidbit, there's no way of knowing WHY they cut it, but they did cut it.
Kidman wrestled for a while longer after this, doing another Velocity blowoff match with Paul London to resolve that part of the saga, and appeared on Velocity (and SD!) a few times after. His last match was 01/01/05 on Velocity and I believe he's got a knee injury again, but they've never bothered to inform people.
Originally posted by JustinI think this one was done to overtly stick it to Heyman, since Funaki won the title at the same time Paul got punk'd, and CW Champ The Boss was his pet project. Everything else is just straight up awfulness.
That could be, but Spike had been dead in the water since Bubba and D-Von got chokeslammed into vacation. His title reign was pretty uneventful after the first defense agianst Rey (and I think the turn was the last time the title was over, but agree to disagree.)
Originally posted by JustinI think this one was done to overtly stick it to Heyman, since Funaki won the title at the same time Paul got punk'd, and CW Champ The Boss was his pet project. Everything else is just straight up awfulness.
That could be, but Spike had been dead in the water since Bubba and D-Von got chokeslammed into vacation. His title reign was pretty uneventful after the first defense agianst Rey (and I think the turn was the last time the title was over, but agree to disagree.)
Well Cubs, the Spike/Dudleyz/Rey storyline made the title seem important. The Cruiserweight strap was important enough to Spike that he'd screw over his good friend to get it, and the title was important enough to Rey that he'd go through the Dudleyz to get to Spike to get it.
Since then, though, there's no such importance. Hell, some would argue that the RAW Title had to be legitimized by Benoit beating 29 guys and then HBK & HHH to get at it, inferring that it was THAT important to a veteran like Benoit.
DVDs; Blog ~New Our Lady Peace album "Vampires" this March~
I'm sorry if I wasn't clear, but I meant "the angle around the turn was the last cool moment for the belt - everything since the Rey/Spike match has been eh, but that match was good."
My feeling is that Battista stays with Raw and wrestles HHH at WM21. Why do the same angle 2 years in a row? (Rumble winner switches shows and wrestles in the WM main event in a triple-threat match)