HEYMAN, LITA, PPVS AND LOTS OF WWE NEWS AND NOTES
by Dave Scherer @ 11:01:00 AM on 12/29/2004

Superstar Billy Graham appeared at last night's house show in Glendale, AZ (right outside of Phoenix, where he lives). PSF1 was there and sent this recap of the angle. "Coach comes out and interviews Superstar Billy Graham. Graham calls Coach a "cockroach", Coach calls Graham a has been. Graham decks Coach. Very cool as all this happened 8 feet from me."

Ryan Hansen sent this one. ... In reference to Bill Moody's weight loss, he has a website which shows a before and after shot -- regarding the gastric bypass surgery. The difference is incredible! To see it, click here.

Along those lines, Moody/Pringle/Bearer was at Smackdown last night visiting friends.

Rob Peterson sent word that Paul Heyman's bio has been pulled from the Smackdown page of WWE.com.

As we have reported before, Heyman is now off the road for the Smackdown brand and may or may not be working as a storyline consultant.

Francisco Rosario sent this item from Puerto Rico. ... The local newspaper Primera hora features a daily two-page picture of women posing in bathing suits. Today’s feature was none other than Lita. I’m guessing this is as part of the promotion for New Year’s Revolution. You can see her picture by clicking here and then click on her picture for a larger view.

Andy Scheeler reporting.

I just got a card from DirecTV laying out the 2005 PPV schedule for WWE. Here it is:

Jan. 9 New Year's Revolution ---RAW
Jan. 30 Royal Rumble--RAW/Smackdown!
Feb. 20 No Way Out---Smackdown!
Apr. 3 WrestleMania---RAW/Smackdown!
May 1 Backlash---RAW
May 22 Judgment Day---Smackdown!
Jun. 12 Bad Blood---RAW
Jun. 26 The Great American Bash---Smackdown!
Jul. 24 Vengeance---RAW
Aug. 21 SummerSlam---RAW/Smackdown!
Sep. 18 Unforgiven--Smackdown!
Oct. 9 No Mercy---RAW
Oct. 30 Unnamed PPV---Smackdown!
Nov. 27 Survivor Series--RAW/Smackdown!
Dec. 18 Armageddon---RAW

Unkown PPV the day before Halloween? Halloween Havoc?

Thats what everyone thought last year when a new October PPV was TBA... instead we got Taboo Tuesday, which is almost liek Halloweens Havoc "Spin the Wheel" gimmick, except fans pick instead of randomly picking a match.

(Hopes for Halloween Havoc)

Yeah, can't have those WCW names no matter how good it was. We need cutting edge names like TABOO TUESDAY!!!!

I also hate December's as it has to be the most uneventful month for wrestling.

It seems like WWE intentionally books Armageddon like crap every year. I can't remember the last time the December PPV was good from top to bottom.

Whats about when the WWF comes up with a new name for a PPV is Jim Ross KILLS IT!!!! I bet on the edition of Raw before Taboo Tuesday, he said it at least 10 times in the first 5 minutes of the program. It must have worked because I was so brainwashed by it I ended up looking forward to the piece of garbage.

Thank goodness it was free.

I can't remember tha last PPV that was good from top to bottom.

I ws just about to say that. Canadian Stampede?

Uh... any WWF PPV from January-May 2000. Summerslam 2001. No Mercy 2001. Wrestlemania X-7. Summerslam 2002. Vengeance 2003.

I'd agree with SummerSlam 02.

Vengence 03 had the crappy McMahon stuff, plus that bar room brawl BS.

Eddie/Benot opened with a **** match.
Rey/Kidman vs. WGTT middled with a **** match.
Main Event was a ***1/2 match.
Gunn/Noble WASN'T bad (amazingly)
Cena/Undertaker was a *** match

That counts as a great show to me.

Good show, sure. But it says top-to-bottom, which I take as meaning nothing bad.

No such thing then, since top to bottom means the majority of the show to me.

Summerslam 2002 had a pretty boring Test/UT match.
Every WWF PPV in 2000 elligble had at least 1 stinker.
RRumble 2000 had NAO/APA
NWO 2000 had Tazz/Bossman
Backlash had APA/Bull & BBM
Judgment Day had Shane/Show
Canadian Stampede had... well, only 4 matches, so really that shouldn't count.

I liked Test/Taker, so that's how we differ.

Fine... Chris Jericho vs. Ric Flair was ultra-lame, and Jericho jobbing clean to the figure four made zero freakin' sense.

I would've still wanted my money back from that trainwreck.

I liked that too, cause I'm a Flair mark.

::shrugs shoulders::

Good thing I'm not TSM poster Tawren, a.k.a the biggest bitch about match ratings possible. The guy gives matches everyone and their mother calls **** around a * rating.

Star ratings are pretty pointless to me anyway. Everyone has their own way of evaluating matches, so it's not like a set thing.

Damn right. I HATE when people argue star ratings for matches. Everybody has they're own opinion, so what's the point in arguing about it?

When a match is great and non-stop action and someone calls it dull and boring and the worst match of the year.

Or people saying HHH/HBK from Bad Blood wasn't horrible... I mean horrible. Boring as fuck, I fell asleep twice (1 time during live showing, 1 time during replay). Non-stop resting after a simple move... BLECH!

Yes, but SOMEONE maybe actually did enjoy HBK/Triple H. That's what I'm saying. If someone likes the match, there's no point in trying to convince them the match is bad. They've already made up their mind. Plus, why do you care what some other poster thinks of that match? You have your own opinion, and good for you. But let that person have their own opinion too.

Unless it's someone like "Ray" who says an opinion is wrong when it comes to match ratings.

match ratings are pretty pointless. i often find myself disagreeing with how someone rates a match. it really depends on what you like, for match quality.

Yea, especially when there are assholes who would take 2 stars off of a match rating because someone failed to sell the leg for 5 seconds.

that sort of thing bugs me. who cares if they arent selling a leg injury the whole time.....it's the overall feeling of the match, that truly matters.

guess i grew up at a time where it didnt always matter if something got sold the whole time. it was generally assumed if someone was hurting....mostly because the announcers did a good job.

Part of the thing is, though, that sometimes selling properly helps the overall feel of the match. I do think that up and coming wrestlers don't sell quite as well as those of the past. Partly due to "Hardcore" wrestling. I can see sometimes that the lack of selling can have an effect on the match. But I do agree that some people are WAY too critical about it.

The biggest "no-seller" of all is Shawn Michaels, with Angle in a close second place. Michaels will have backwork done to him for 10 minutes... then magically kip up, dance around the ring, and no sell for the rest of the match.

Angle sells a move for a minute, then forgets to for the rest of the match. And I hate the "get up, run up the ropes and slam off top rope" spot he does. It's sop unbelievable that it makes me sick.

Yeah but, the babyface is supposed to triumph over the pain. Thats the whole point of the miraculous comeback. They no longer feel the hurt because their adrenaline is pumping so hard right?

I know what you mean though, they could at least sell it a little bit. There was one time in a match between Edge and someone, might have been Eddie Guerrero where Guerrero pretty much broke Edge's shoulder during the matchup and Edge speared him with that very shoulder and pinned Guerrero like it was nothing. Stuff like that kinda irks me.

Personally, I have always liked it when whoever has had a bodypart worked on sells it the whole match. Steamboat comes to mind when I think of people that really did that well. Of course the best IMO was probably Ricky Morton who looked at times like he was on the verge of death in there.

See also: JBL... I mean Bradshaw at No Way Out 2004 vs. The Worlds Greatest Tag Team. He uses the "broken arm" (or injured, whatever) with every move he does, and barely flinches to sell it. At least the match ended because he did the Clothesline from Hell with it, and the pain distracted him enough to eat sweet chin music from Shelton Benjamin.

See Also Part II: From the Files of Police Squad: Undertaker vs. Brock at No Mercy 2002. Broken Arm Undertaker no-sells it for 30 minutes, randomly "Groaning" in pain. Pfft...

I think that fued was the beginning of the end for Brock. Perhaps he lost his passion for wrestling after that because I remember reading reports about how unhappy he was with the program they were having. It seemed like during that time, he was just uninspired.

I thought the Brock/Taker feud was one of Taker's better feuds wrestling wise, and one of Brock's better all around. I mean, take away Angle, and Taker is Brock's biggest foil.

Brock's uninspired started near the end of 2003 when Undertaker was making him and Big Show his bitch at the same time. The Hardcore Holly feud didn't help, but he DID beat the shit out of Holly to win the feud, so I don't see the big deal.

So Brock was "uninspired" when he turned in his career-best performance (in my humble opinion) against Eddie G at No Way Out? I understand your point, but the only time I could actively see Brock phoning it in was in hostile MSG with the big Jewish lug.

I don't mean uninspired as in "dogging it", I mean he wanted out. He didn't dog it knowingly until Wrestlemania XX with the match from hell.