Road to Wrestlemania 2006

yeah, but hasn't this repeatedly been put to the test over the last 5+ years?

I really think they could have kept the Edge-Cena feud going strong toward a Mania blow-off with Cena regaining the title. Something about Cena's character works far more strongly chasing the belt but I'm not sure what or why that is exactly.

To make a bad angle even worse, Vickie Guerrero and her daughters will be stationed at ringside during the Rey Mysterio vs. Randy Orton match at No Way Out on 2/19.

I think it'd really boost Carlito's character to carry around Money In The Bank for the year. I'm guessing Kane, Masters, possibly RVD and Shelton if they're not going with a IC match.

Note how HHH "tries" playing the heel but gets to take funny/true shots at Cena ("you're not a very good wrestler", "your one big move is pumping up your Reeboks"), while Cena gets to respond by kissing HHH's ass ("you are a 10 time champ", "you don't need the belt to walk to the ring and call yourself the best wrestler alive"). Jesus H.

I actually got a bit excited when Benjamin's match was announced because I thought that someone like Flair would interfere to set up an IC title match at Mania (particularly after his promo where he said we hadn't seen his last title reign).

So now Flair is in the MITB ladder match (surprise!!) and I assume that Carlito will find a way to qualify, leaving us with Carlito vs Benji vs Flair vs RVD vs two others. I'm guessing that they're looking for Show and Kane to defend the belts at Mania (interpromotional tag team turmoil?) so the two others are ... Masters and ?

I too often ask myself what the creative directors at the helm are thinking but then I remember that these are the same people that thought last year's Wrestlemania would be headline by HHH vs. Babyface Orton months ahead of time but needed to be repeatedly told "NO!" before shifting gears. Maybe this is like that but now they are without the time left to change direction and prevent the massive crowd rejection by the time of the PPV.

Big Show has had his work boots on lately.

Edge is now officially a midcard afterthought.

Torrie is a billion times hotter than Candace will ever be (btw Scooter Keith's site has a link to Candace's P14ybOy pics -- meh).

It looks like Steph had the implants removed and is going for the fat preggers mommy tits look. I guess she's planning to breast feed, or something.

Didn't really watch RAW this week because of '24' and Habs-Flyers, and after the awesomeness of those two, Vince's rasslin' just seemed so moronic and drama-less. I officially am cheering for morbid trainwreck wrestling: I want the worst card for WM, the most blatant killing of any non-HHH/McMahon characters and more bad porno acting.

Y'know, all this SNME/HoF nostalgia has gotten me thinking... what will the common fans remember as magic moments ten years from now? I mean, for nerds, they'll say Benoit/Eddy at the end of WM or the spontaneous Benoit ovation at Royal Rumble, but I suspect most kids won't hold that as their ultimate MAGIC wrestling moment. That aura is gone.

what will the common fans remember as magic moments ten years from now?

Depending on the time frame for "now",

Rock vs Hogan I (the staredown)
Benoit/Eddy WM XX (I hate to say it, but that moment will mean 1000000X more to casual fans because of Eddie's passing. Six months later, both guys were midcarders again)

a personal choice: Batista turning on HHH after months of fantastic buildup. Other than the Angle/HHH/Steph feud from 2000 (er, before they blew the payoff), that's the best angle HHH has ever been involved in (yes, better than DX vs Nation).

In a way, it's up to WWE to cement the magic moments. If they continue to show that Benoit/Eddy ending, it'll become magical.

Agreed about the Batista angle. I wonder if he'd be an even bigger star had he stayed on RAW (and if Cena would have the reactions he gets now if he stayed on Smackdown!).

One more thing about RAW: They buried Stacy! They sure didn't waste any time, etc. I actually like the way WWE buries people who talk shit about them -- burying Chyna by letting Molly use the handspring elbow (which was a million times better than Chyna's) was one of my faves in that respect.

RAW's on at 11pm anyway, because of (thanks to?) curling.

Making fun of their own drug testing program before it even starts -- nice one.

I feel bad for the Spirit Squad. Those guys were killing themselves inside the cage getting their asses kicked 1-on-4 by Shawn, only to have fucking SHANE come out and destroy Shawn in 10 seconds all by himself.

The Mickie-Trish angle is by far the best thing on WWE programming right now. It's not even close. Mickie takes out Torrie so she can tag with Trish and turn on her once and for all -- awesome!

This angle hasn't consistently been awesome though, they didn't need to go all "single white female" and involve an actor playing Trish's boyfriend. I could have also done without Ashley being involved in any capacity.

"It's not even close."
I really don't know about that. The last 5 weeks or so of Smackdown I've seen have been very fun. A minor higlight of my week has been downloading each new episode.

Since it is the WWE SD! could very well start sucking again but
recently overall Smackdown has been maintaining storyline continuity far better tha Raw does. Recently it's more like a traditional wrestling show that builds anticipation for matches. The perversely hateful McMahonisms and sitcom writer schtick are far less permeating since Vince and Steph apparently care less about SD! than Raw.

Booker T's heel run has been way fun. He had a best of seven series with Benoit for the US title in which a groin injury forced him to use Orton as his replacement.

The sociopathically violent Irishman Fit Finlay debuted and has been tearing it up with stiff looking offense. Right now he's in a program with Young Black Hulk Bobby Lashley after costing him a match against JBL. The two have got into these uncommonly well staged (army of security guards pull em apart) brawls.

Kurt Angle is the babyface champion but instead of being a neutered panderer to the fans like practically every WWE face champ, he's retained this serious competitive killer aspect of his character. It's really the best use of the Kurt Angle character at this point in his career.

There was a near perfect six man main event from about two weeks ago JBL, Orton, and Finlay vs Angle, Benoit, Mysterio, and Lashley. That's what I would track down.

Oh and MNM are one of the greatest tag teams of all time and they usually do stuff every week. Unfotunately their fantastic match with Kendrick and London was on Velocity last week but not everything is perfect.

Foley looks to be in decent shape, but they're going to have to bust out some insane shit to live up to what they've teased in their promos.

Rather than cutting a promo on Cena in the ring, HHH got a five minute promo video to talk about the champ's lack of talent. He was also shown training with a former Mr. Universe, and other WWE stars such as Foley and Angle talked about how great HHH is and how the business revolves around him. Cena ... well, he got to save Shawn Michaels after his match.

Vince has been dipping into Hogan's spray-on orange tan kit. He continued to channel Hogan by engaging Cena in tests of strength, dueling knucklelocks, and twelve minute lockups. I have to hand it to the WWE though -- if you want to make your champion look like a total douche, having his ass handed to him by a 60 year old non-wrestler is the most effective way to do it.

At least Trish vs Mickie should be good.

All and all there are probably more matches I want to see this year than last year's Mania.

What really seems off about the McMahon-Michaels feud is Michaels' very awkward babyface performance. I mean, the McMahons ARE pretty over as heels and the things done to HBK have been mean-spirited and twisted enough for the audience to want to see him get revenge. But Shawn hasn't really given a promo in which he's talked the audience into buying a ticket, to want to see him achieve the release of revenge satisfied. Hell, he could even bring the biblical shit into it. Basically, I think he should have promised to outright murder Vince McMahon in the center of the ring in the main event of Wrestlemania.

You're right, Shawn should have done more talking during this feud. Shawn's been put through so much bullshit and humiliation, you could see his temper starting to boil over even though he wasn't speaking up. Eventually he should have snapped. However, that's been the script for every Mick Foley feud since 1999, including the present one with Edge, so maybe they didn't want to tread the same ground. Still, there has never been a reason (in storyline terms) for the Shawn-Vince match to take place. One day, Vince said that the match was on and that was that.

Started watching a bit, but I'm getting insanely apathetic about this whole mess. The Shawn-Vince feud is too ridiculous; I cannot suspend enough disbelief that Vince can last more than 1 minute in the ring with Shawn Michaels, especially the latter has been taking Kurt Angle to the limit in the past year.

As for Cena-HHH, does it really matter? The only right ending is Ric Flair cashing in on his Money In The Bank after HHH wins it, and Flair dropping it to Edge at Backlash.

I'd honestly like to see Benoit-JBL, MITB2, Mickie-Trish, The Smackdown title threeway and I suppose I'm curious as to how they plan on putting the tag titles on Masters-Carlito.

But if instinct is telling you not to give your money to the McMahon family then perhaps it's best to not allow anyone to talk you into doing so.

See, part of the fun of watching PPVs in bars is just getting into the drunken rowdiness of the people there... however, I saw Royal Rumble in that setting and besides the RR itself, everything else was boring because of the build-up. The atmosphere will be highest for Vince-Michaels simply because it's the one that got the most build, whereas JBL/Benoit will be probably 2nd or 3rd from the top and ignored. WWE has not done a good job in getting us emotionally invested into anything else, including the Smackdown 3-way.

I think MITB2 will be the only saving grace for viewing it in a bar (spotfest + Ric Flair = attentive and excited crowd).

Bbbbbbut last night it was a virtual stalemate between Vince and Cena! What about Vince's man-boobs? Huh?

I'm very skeptical about MITB2. The guys in last year's match are human highlight reels who are used to working ladder matches and with each other. There are a lot of mismatched styles amongst the guys this year. Anything other than a Flair or Benjamin win would be madness, although I can kinda see the logic in Lashley winning if they want a fresh face to feud with Orton (if Orton wins the title).

The best place to watch a major PPV is in a bar, no question.

I like the different styles... you can't have 6 stuntmen in there either.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46687

"The idea that these Mexicans are somehow stealing jobs from American wrestlers is ridiculous,"McMahon said.

"After all, someone's got to take these folding chairs to the face." McMahon then picked up a folding chair and whacked Rey Mysterio Jr. in the face.

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/Illegal-Mexican-Jump-C.article.jpg

http://www.wwe.com/inside/news/stylestalks

None of this makes sense, in or out of the storylines. JR is supposed to be fired (in the storylines) and they've never explained why he suddenly appears to call SNME and Mania. Out of the storylines, JR is supposed to be old and stale, so why bring back a stale character for the WWE's highest profile shows?

In part, I think this is about the WWE trying to cater to the "casual" fan base who they want flocking to their product. If those people turn on SNME or Mania and don't hear JR's voice, they might think that the sky has fallen in WWE since the last time they watched. It's all about presenting familiarity to the casual fan -- this also explains Austin coming back to do jack shit on SNME for 15 minutes.

WWE itself is stale; almost every single one of their wrestlers became stale before they woke up and repackaged/fired the wrestlers or changing directions.

Y'know, with the whole Cena debacle, I wonder how long it'd be before the audience turns on everything Vince tries to shove down their throats.

I'm somewhat sympathetic when the issue is specifically about Mania because nobody calls the epic main event match quite like Jim Ross. But I don't understand why they would hire a guy like Styles on the basis of his ECW work and then prevent him from using the skills that made him such a popular announcer while he was there. Let the guy adapt his style to what the WWE wants without forcing him to be more like JR. Styles knows what he's doing, it's not like when Michael Cole started out and he was so bad that they fed him all his lines and was constantly spouting JR-isms.

I personally think that the WWE announcing style is retarded and the "Main Event" style is stale, but any announcer or wrestler who signs with them and expects to continue to do sarcastic play-by-play or work a high-spot/stiff style is incredibly shortsighted and naive.

Y'know, Bischoff wanted to win and while he had an ego, he was happy just to introduce the luchadores and the new style of wrestling (Benoit, Malenko, Jericho, Eddy) into his creation, Nitro. MacMahon's ego is bigger than that; he needs to create everything. The wrestling style, the announcing and the characters must have the unmistakable MacMahon stamp on it. I think it'd eat him alive if Kendrick/London/Noble introduced their style successfully (i.e. make money) to the audience without his heavy hand in it.

Neither Vince or Shawn were there (?) but there were a lot of boos any time their names were mentioned. Should be an interesting match later today. But that was nothing compared to Cena, who was booed literally every time he opened his mouth. Then the crowd started chanting for HHH, probably out of spite. Can't wait for that trainwreck of a main event.