It's possible...I had heard the same rumour myself. Although I'm not entirerly sure...Vince has recently bought all of the old WCW and ECW tapes, so it could be that instead he simply intends to air reruns.

Whatever happens though, if Heyman's involved, it should be very good indeed

The same thing that happens to many talented guys, who could get over, in the WWE...he was shuffled to the undercard, and never seen again. He could, of course, be injured...but either way, we'll be seeing about as much of him.

The thing about the Brock situation is that he actually has five (or is it eight...) years left on his contract. The agreement is that, unless he is selected by a team in the NFL, he comes back to the WWE to work the rest of his contract. Also, he can't work for another wrestling promotion for those 5 (or 8, as the case may be) years, without violating his contract.

Sounds fair enough to me...they're letting him do his own thing, as he wants to do, but making sure he doesn't completely drop his commitment to them. The long and short of it is, we'll probably see him back eventually...if he doesn't suceed in the NFL, sooner rather than later.

You know...there are some reasons why that would be good...and some bad...

On the plus side, it would put Randy Orton under the wing of a guy who is probably the best all rounder athlete in the world today, and he'd probably be able to pick up his game, in the same way Chavo did when tagged with Eddie...

It would also mean Kurt, who's been a little injury prone lately because of how frequently he's used, would be able to rest up, spread the load a little, and recover from past injuries.

On the other hand...tag team exposure isn't as good as singles exposure, and I think that's what Randy needs. He might put on better matches with Kurt covering his lack of experience, but I think he'll come along faster in the singles game.

...where are you getting your information???

Angle won't be GM...I highly doubt HHH was traded back to raw...but then again, it could be...

oh well...

I could care less about Terri, but to let Sean O'Haire go, what are they thinking. This man can wrestle, he has the moves, dispite his size. I'm sure if they used a little more grey matter, they could come up with some kind of angel for him, good god, they must be insain

looks like I'm not the only one

Did he really? Was he doing autographs? Or was he shopping for bling bling?

I happen to like Eugene, he's funny and will bring in ratings...also, he'll be gone soon.It's like a publicity thing...same thing that happened with Zach Gowen...


Does anyone have Smackdown:Here Comes the Pain for PS2???
If not, i highly suggest you go out and get it, It is amazing.The graphics are good, the gameplay is good, and the CAW Mode is AMAZING!!!

I've created like 30 guys already ( my goal was to have a "created" Royal Rumble)
I've created me, all my friends, and people like Bill Cosby and Gary Coleman(A CAW Sample character), As well as a few other wrestlers who aren't included in the game...so seriously, go get it!

Bradshaw isn't being pushed because he's talented He's being pushed for the same reason the Big Show, or A-Train were pushed - because they're "hosses", and it's a well known fact that Jim Ross, and to lesser extent Vinnie himself, love to build their product around guys who look like they're big enough to eat the ring.

Bradshaw's a brawler, not a wrestler, and not a very good one at that. He works too stiff, doesn't sell, doesn't know one end of the microphone from the other, and makes a very pale shadow indeed of the great worker he attempts to copy, a man who used a lariat as a finisher because he made it look good, unlike Bradshaw, who uses it because it's the only move he knows.

As I've said before, I'm coming round to Triple H a little more...he's picking up his game a little (no pun intended), and has at least dropped the title (to my man Benoit no less)....but he's still far from world class anymore, and saying you prefer him to Angle is kinda like saying you'd rather have salt in your coffee than sugar.

You are so lucky that I must kill you

Yes My fav game right now...clocked more time on it than I do online (which is saying something). My three main CAWs have maxed out stats by now...everyone else is on 9ish. If you want, PM me and I'll give you the formulas for making some of them, you can gimmie yours too.

I was there for the ride of the "Attitude" era, which was by-far the BEST era EVER. haha. I modelled my whole life around it, dude. Well, not so much anymore, but you know what I mean.

Can anybody here remember 'The Rock's' original name when he first entered the WWF? It was Rocky Johnson, right? I'm not testing, I'm trying to remember. . Mankind and Steve Austin were my fricken child-hood heroes. Seriously. I can remember all the way back to when D-Generation X started, although the memory is blurry.

Anywayz, long story short, the Attitude era ruled, and will forever be remembered.
\m/ \m/

I agree...the age of "ruthless aggression" has thus far been a very dry, mediocre to crap period for the industry. During the era of Attitude, when the big three were still in full swing, all three had to work hard to try and stay ahead of the game Now the WWE is a little...hmm...they're doing whatever they want, instead of what the fans want, because even their closest competitor isn't anything like a realistic threat.

Some things are improving...after all, even in the golden age of Attitude, Chris Benoit, Eddie and Kurt Angle weren't in the main event scene

Rocky Johnson is the name of the Rock's father, in turn the son in law of wrestling legend Peter Mavia, where both wrestlers in the (then) WWF.

Strickly speaking, the first name he wrestled under was his real name: Dwayne Johnson, in his first ever match against the Brooklyn Brawler at a house show. However, when the Rock first started wrestling properly after a failed football career, he was sent to OVW, and there wrestled as "Flex Kavana".

The name you're thinking of, however, is "Rocky Mavia". The creative team decided that he'd get the best reaction if he combined his father's and grandfather's names, as some kinda nostalgia trip. The Rock was against this for a while, prefering to ride his own wave into the industry, but eventually relented.

He wrestled as Rocky Mavia for several years, the character of "The Rock" eventually surfacing (and naming himself) in a promo during his first fued with Stone Cold Steve Austin, for the Intercontinental Championship...though the name may have been flying around for a little while before that.

Thanks, man. I remember when The Rock and Austin had a ladder match, I think it was. You see, now that I actually want to think about this stuff, my mind can't remember a damn thing. . I remember The Rock used to hang out with Farooq and Bradshaw back in the day though, right? That's when his hair was all messed up. lol. My favorite era for The Rock was when he was a heel in Team Corporate. He fricken ruled, man. Team Corporate was awesome, too. Vince McMahon was the perfect 'bad guy' for Austin, IMO. He was just a cowardly little man who did whatever he wanted, and I loved it. haha. We All Did.

What's your favorite moment of the Attitude era? I have many, my friend. I watched when Austin was kicked right in the chin by Shawn Micheals, which was one of the most exciting matches, I think. That's when Austin won his first World Title, eh? I watched it at my uncles' house, and my uncle wanted me to leave because he hated me. lol. Another of my favorite moments is Owne Hart and Ken Shamrock's fight in the 'Lion's Den,' or something. Have you ever had that Ankle Lock Submission done on you? I had it applied on me once, and I couldn't walk for a week, dude. Seriously. It hurts.
Good Times.

I had a video of Cactus Jack over in Japan fighting with . . . . . I can't think of his name! The really old guy with the striped black and white leotards! !!! Anywayz, they were using fire and barbed wire and thumb tacks and nails and everything, dude. It was fricken brutal. Another moment of Mick Foley was when The Rock slapped his head thirty-some times with that chair at the Royal Rumble. I can't remember what year it was, though. I bought that video and I showed the video to my Dad, and he said it was pretty harsh. Speaking of Mick Foley, didn't Dude Love fricken rule?!?! lol. He was awesome, man. Seriously. When we used to backyard wrestle, I would 'pretend' I was Mankind. I even sewed some leather up like his leather that he puts on his finger. I actually made my friend gag and puke with that move. haha. It was good times.



As you can see, I enjoy this subject very much. haha. I just wish they hadn't of gone down hill like they have recently . . . itz actually quite sad.

The Rock "hung out" with Farook for a short time when Farook was the leader of The Nation of Domination. D-Lo Brown and Mark Henry were members of The Nation for a while also. Cant remember all the members names though.

If memory serves me right, Farook hooked up with Bradshaw and became The Accolytes(SP?) , and started working with the Undertaker, wreaking havvock on everyone.

That's right about the 'Nation of Domination.' That was a big gang, wasn't it? Bradshaw and Farooq did team up to form The Accolytes, and were the Undertakers' henchmen, but then after that dried up they became the "A.P.A.," as in the 'Accolytes Protection Agency.' They were stale during this period, IMO.

One team I was never into was the Hardy Boys. I just never was into their 'style' and 'image.' They was just too new for me, because I was mostly into the old school of that era. I was even hurt when they started changing the enterance area (up at the top of the ramp.). Damn, I still remember when Austin was knocked out from Shawn Micheals up there. That was a cheap shot if there ever was one, too.

Seriously, man: Itz my favorite topic.

Right . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .but I was never into Soccer, nay could I play soccer that good. You wanna talk sports lets talk about floor hockey.

Note to Vince: Bradshaw is not going to click with anyone Backlash is gonna lose them a lot of money, and we're going to laugh as another talentless "hoss" goes back to the undercard where he belongs, after we stop crying upon seeing what is sure to be a painful match.

According to inside sources, the writing team have recieved a lot of stick in the locker room for their pushing of Bradshaw; he is the current number 1 on who people least like to work with (among such names as Bub-Buh Ray Dudley and Hardcore Holly) for his terrible ring work. If Vinnie really does intend to change his company around, he really needs to push someone worth a damn....Bradshaw isn't worth either a damn or, indeed, a contract.

But anyway, on to what I did this weekend...

Wrestling School

Today I...yes I...took part in an extremely long, grueling session of training, with the SCW (Scottish Championship Wrestling). at their new training center in Linwood, just on the outskirts of Paisley Being the only female student, I found myself very swamped with people wanting to wrestle me...many of them are now in pain I don't doubt.

The regime started at 12 noon, outside a garage just around the corner from Bridge Street where a friend (who had told me about the place to begin with) and I encountered two of our fellow students...big guys, who made me feel extremely small. Our trainers: Conscience (former and first ever SCW Scottish Heavyweight Champion) and a young guy called Chris Charisma (they train under their gimmick names obviously), had not yet arrived.

Eventually, ten people gathered to wait, of which three (myself included) were first timers. Our trainers ended up being some twenty minutes late thanks to the lousy weather, and let us in; surprisingly, Conscience is a very friendly guy, despite all appearances.

http://www.scottishcw.com/images/conscience.jpg

He also didn't batter an eyelid about a girl being on the team. He said the sport needed more women who actually knew what a wristlock was

There wasn't a ring today (I was told my people who'd been before that you weren't allowed into the ring until you'd gotten a bit more experienced), but there were several dozen crash matts that we arranged in a ring-esque manner.

Now, as friendly as Mr Conscience is...his warm up was brutal! After doing some running on the spot, push ups, squats, and other basic stuff, he had us line up and do forward rolls up and down the length of the hall...cartwheels up and down the length of the hall...and judo rolls up and down the length of the hall. All of this together really did make my head spin, especially when my last cartwheel collided with the wall (was, however, the only newb able to do them).

After some ten minutes of this, he handed us over to the not-unpretty Chris Charisma, who took us through some stretches. This was mercifully light work, but after the stuff before it I was actually on the point of collapse...my friend, who was watching me, mentioned that I started swaying a little, and looked pretty pale However, I endured and, after my vision stopped being just a big black void, managed to finish the warm up without missing a beat.

I'm gonna assume the warm up was so brutal because the guys were just worried about someone injuring themselves, and just went far above and beyond what was needed...the warm up took much more out of me than the wrestling.

Book 1: page 1 - the lock up

Ah, my first wrestling lesson begins We started off by pairing, finding a spot on the canvas, and just locking up. Nothing fancy...just a collar-elbow tie up. The new people were paired with more experienced guys, and I ended up with Mr Charisma. He was very good, and we did a bit of circling around the canvas...lock up...break...circle...lock up..break...wash, rince, repeat. Given I watch so much wrestling, my lock ups were pretty crisp, and he was surprised I'd never recieved any training before Either that, or he was hitting on me...

My Kurt Angle-esque stance during circling, and twitching of the fingers, proved a very nice touch

After we'd perfected the lock up (some of us anyway), we learned our first move, in the form of a wrist lock. The mechanics of the move begin with, from a lock up, throwing one of your opponent's arms away and taking a half step to press your back to their stomach, getting a firm hold of their other arm. From there, you press both thumbs into the back of their hand at the wrist, and spin under their arm to force them into the hold. Picked this up pretty well, good stuff

Next we learned how to reverse it, which was later demonstrated in a far more theatrical manner to me by Mr Charisma. I kept screwing up the reversal though...I could get the move itself fine, but I fumbled their hand a little, and took too many steps (your footing needs to be very exact. The move should have involved two steps, I took three or four. This is one way in which wrestling in the UK differs from US wrestling...it's geared around the idea of it looking like a crisp, very flued competition. There's less of the over-done theatrics...though they're certainly there).

Next up was a hammer lock, from a tie-up. The mechanics were sort of the same, only you'd twist underneath their arm to fold it behind their back. Rather than the wrist, you grab a hold of their thumb with your left hand (you would, by the way, be holding their left arm...you ALWAYS work the left arm), and grab their left elbow with your right hand. This, we were told, was to signal to your opponent that the move is in place, than you're happy with it, and that you're willing to work from there.

The Bump

We took a break from holds at this point, to be shown a brief bump...which was a basic backwards fall. As most people were fairly new, we were still allowed to do it on a thick crash matt..standing with feet shoulder distance apart, we needed to throw ourselves backwards, shoulder first, popping our hips forward (your hips have to land after your shoulders, or your spine takes the impact instead of it being spread). At the same time, you need to tuck your head, and spread your arms to the side, palms down.

The first time, Conscience told me I "wasn't bad", but needed to keep the palms down. Had it down much better the second time, and everyone just took turns taking bumps, until Conscience was happy everyone had it down. I've no doubt that next week's gonna have a lot more...this seemed more of a "warm up to bumping".

The reason we needed to have it down, of course, is because next up, we were going to get clotheslined

New, let's get something clear...I'm 5'10, and weight somewhere in the region of 120lbs. Most of the guys were were 6'3 and up, and weighed at least 200 lbs. So, the question needing to be asked was: How am I supposed to realistically clothesline these guys?

End result was, as Conscience put it, just forget realism for a minute; there was no crowd to go "bullsh*t!", and I needed to know how to do it safely...and so I did. We'd line up, with one person being the person to get clotheslined, until everyone had done it to them, and then they'd go to the end of the line, until everyone had been the punch bag.

The idea behind the clothesline is you don't actually strike with the arm...it's a shoulder to shoulder impact. You extend the arm for effect, slightly bent, and with the inside of the elbow meeting the chest (more for your own safety than your opponent's), and they should go down in the bump we just tried. The arm was supposed to hit in the mid-chest area...lower than the throat, and above the solar-plexis.

They didn't actually hurt as much as I thought they would...granted, some of the bigger guys really but me down with a bang when they hit, but thanks to Bump 101, it wasn't so bad...the impact actually HELPED you fall in the correct way, as you didn't have much choice but to lift your hips.

My own clotheslines were a little too high at first, but they improved a little...I suppose it's just one of those things I'll have to improve on over time. They were, however, better than my forearms. Using the same system as the clotheslines, we took turns at recieving two clubbing forearms to the head, and one to the back...striking with your inner forearm, they're not painful in the slightest...or at least so I was told, as Conscience spared me from this particular ordeal, as the chances of none of the guys hurting me for real was very slim

The chain

After a brief run through an overhead wrist clutch, which forces your opponent to bridge backwards over your knee (which was murder everytime I was paired with a big dude), we started doing our first chain wrestling. Basically, we did a biref chain in which one of the pair put the other in a wrist lock...who then reversed it...followed by a reversal into a hammer-lock, into another reversal into another hammer lock.

Although I still didn't have the reversal for the wrist lock down, the rest was fine...Conscience did warn me that I was still taking a few too many steps, but that's something I'd likely filter out in time.

After a brief 10 minute break, we divided up into pairs for the last time, and were given five minutes to put together a 1 minute segment of chain wrestling, using everything we'd been taught. I was paired with a more experienced student there,which actually turned out pretty well as he knew instantly what kinda with was being looked for.

We were second up, and started out with a bit of circling...after a moment, I went in for a lock-up, but he moved aside in a sorta "up yours" way...which was a bit of shoot improvisation Anyway, when we finally locked up, he swung me about a bit in a heel-esque way, before eventually snapping me down into an overhead wrist clutch. I battled my way out with some sharp elbows to the chest, countering it into a wrist lock.

From there, he twisted be round into another wrist lock but, not to be outdone, I fought my way through into a hammerlock. From there, he tried a leg trip, but I desteriously stayed out of his way So instead he twisted in the hold, snapping me into a headlock, wrenching it in good and proper, before our time ran out.

We hadn't done this move yet, so I didn't really get my positioning correct, which Conscience described as "messy". On the whole though, he said it was pretty good, and didn't have anything much to comment on.

After everyone had done their thing, Conscience and Chris got up and did a brief, five minute segment of what kinda thing could be put together; for a big guy, that Conscience can move! They used mostly basic moves, what they intended to do next week I believe, but it was still pretty impressive.

At this point, it was time to pack up, and head home. We'd been wrestling for five hours, and everyone was feeling pretty tired. I noticed I was the only person who actually took a moment to shake Conscience's hand, and ask him if there was anything I needed to work on in particular.

He said my fundamentals were fine, but selling was fine, but I needed to work on my facial expressions a little, and to watch some Japanese wrestling to get an idea of it (not WWE, as it's too overdone).

My current condition

Well, I'm not really beaten up...my shoulder's a bit read though from when some of the guys came in too hard for a collar-elbow tie up. My elbows, shoulders, and knees are a bit stiff, but I'm not in any real pain...just very thirsty, and in need of food.

I'm not really intending to make a career out of this...it's sort of a spur of the moment thing...getting training is, however, something I would love to do, and something I might, if the winds blow that way, make use of...although aspirations in the industry aren't something I dream about.

For the moment, it's for fun...and fun is something I had today