Throughout the years theat I have been on the PWB blog, I have read a variety of opinions from many smart wrestling fans. Whether its Mollie, SideShow, DK, Jeyrod, Arron, Kanadian, Da Tru, or even Kitty Limits, they have been a lot of insightful looks into the wrestling business. What I dont know about you (except for Lex and Kanadian) is who are your favorite wrestlers of all-time. This positive post will make up for yesterday’s negative VOTD post.

My FAV 5:

1) Shawn Michaels

Ever since I was a 4 year old watching WWF in St Martin, Shawn Michaels has been one of my favorites. As a young lad my favorites included Bob Holly, the Smoking Gunns, Takanka, British Bulldog, Warrior, and Steamboat. I see why kids like Cena. They will grow out of it, trust me. HBK’s matches with Razor, Diesel, Undertaker, Bret, Mankind, and Vader (along with his”Heart-break Hotel” segment) made me a lifetime fan.

2) Christian (his TNA heel run was very good)

Christian and Edge are complete equals in my opinion. As heels they are both top notch and there in work wrestling is very good. Edge may be better than Christian in the ring, but not by much. Christian’s TNA run, right from his shocking PPV debut was good. It wasn’t until Kurt Angle came in that it went sour. The “Angle’s Alliance” ruined Christian because it turned him face. Christian was undefeated for 2 years in TNA.

3) Santino

What can you say about this guy? Matt has Jeff, JR has Austin, and Santino has Microphones. Santino is gold on the mic, comic gold. At first I wasn’t against him because as a face all he would do is win by flukes. He consistantly won via roll up. When they turnd him heel when facing Umaga, little did I know that Santino would become a star. He doesnt need to have wrestling skills to be a star. I predict that Santino will be in the Hall of Fame some day, right next to Heenan. Noone has been this good on the mic since The Rock.

4) Scott Hall/ Razor Ramon

5) Ricky Steamboat and Rob Van Damn (a tie)

Last year, C.M. Punk was booked to capture one of the “big two” world titles in the WWE (sorry Matt Hardy). I wonder…will we see another young WWE superstar put in a situation like that this year?

There’s no sure answer, but I think there is one question we can debate: which young WWE star will have the best 2009?

Here are the candidates:

• John Morrison
• The Miz
• Evan Bourne
• Jack Swagger
• Brian Kendrick
• Kofi Kingston
• Cody Rhodes

What do these guys have in common? They are all under the age of 30. While we might consider guys like Shelton Benjamin, MVP and Mr. Kennedy young superstars, they are actually in their 30s.

The way I see it, the guys on the list above are the most likely candidates to have an outstanding 2009. But which one will get pushed the most?

If I had to guess, I’d say John Morrison, although Evan Bourne is a close second when he comes back from his injury–I could easily see either of them main-eventing a PPV in the later stages of 2009.

I wish WWE would pull the trigger on some of these guys like they did a few years ago with the New Year’s Revolution Elimination Chamber match; rememember when the match came down to Cena, Carlito and Chris Masters? That was a cool finish to the match, and I’d love to see a champion put in the position defending against one of these guys in 2009.

So let’s debate: which one of these guys will it be? Is there anyone under 30 I left off the list? You be the judge.

I know everybody’s enthralled with Vickie Guerrero’s nude pictures right now, but there are more important issues at hand. And when I said important, I mean IMPORTANT.

Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Henry Waxman (D, California) released the results of the committee’s investigation of steroids in pro wrestling yesterday. Unfortunately, the findings aren’t pretty. Since these are your government’s tax dollars hard at work, I’m going to quote the heck out of Waxman’s letter to the Office of National Drug Control Policy that came with the report.

Here’s a summary of the investigation’s findings:

The documents produced to the Committee, and the information provided during interviews, indicate that steroid use is pervasive in professional wrestling and that the organizations involved have not taken adequate steps to address this problem. The information reviewed by the Committee shows:

• In the first year of the WWE’s testing program, which began in March 2006,40% of wrestlers tested positive for steroids and other drugs even after being warned in advance that they were going to be tested.
• Six months after the WWE announced its 2006 steroid testing policy, it relaxed the policy to allow wrestlers suspended for steroid abuse to participate in “selected televised events” and “pay-per-views.”
• The WWE hired four of five wrestlers who tested positive for steroids in “pre-contract” testing conducted in 2007 and 2008.
• The WWE regularly approved “therapeutic use exemptions,” explicitly allowing the use of steroids as part of a “testosterone replacement acceptance program” for wrestlers who abused steroids in the past.
• Test results from the WWE’s top competitor, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling, reveal that a large proportion of TNA wrestlers have also tested positive and that there are significant weaknesses in the TNA testing program.

More on the WWE from the report: (more…)

The newest edition of the “Heyman Hustle” in the Sun newspaper features Paul Heyman’s “Paulie Awards.” The award that stood out to me was his “Industry Snapshot Paulie Award,” where he declared that TNA is an “asterisk.”

Here’s Heyman’s unadulterated take on TNA:

A tremendous talent roster that anyone would salivate to develop, a network that actually wants to help, and a vast audience of former WWE fans who are simply looking for an alternative.

And the best TNA can continuously come up with is…”WWE Lite.”

It’s a shame when a promotion spends big money for Kurt Angle and Sting and Mick Foley and Booker T and stops itself from recouping that investment.

The most marketable idea for Petey Williams is to be Little Poppa Pump? How many knockoffs can one promotion do (Jay Lethal as Randy Savage, SoCalVal as Elizabeth, Shark Boy as Stone Cold)?

Team 3D lose every night, which they understand how to do and stay on top, and yet no wrestling fan walks around saying “Wow, The Motor City Machine Guns muist be the best tag team in the world.”

Here’s a really easy question for you: Why not? Why don’t wrestling fans walk around saying it? Because TNA doesn’t take the time to capitalise on their own storytelling to persuade the audience that’s the case!

TNA is so hell bent on trying to present a WWE-style product that it loses its own audience, which just aches to be given a reason to brag “we’re better,” or “we’re cooler,” or simply “we’re different.”

Until Dixie Carter and TNA management wake up and play to the potential audience that’s out there, their big claim to fame will be “we’re number two.”

Ain’t that the truth. Sure, the current stable war in TNA is fun to watch, but it’s still not resulting in ratings, as we’ve discussed several times recently.

It’s intriguing that Heyman takes TNA to task here–notice how he says TNA has a “tremendous talent roster that anyone to salivate to develop”? Perhaps Paul himself is the one salivating–as many of you have pointed out, hiring Paul Heyman would be the best move TNA could make right now.

Somebody needs to start a “Hire Heyman” campaign and bomard TNA’s offices with petitions.

There’s not a lot of news today, but I did manage to scrounge up a few tidbits that might not be worthy of their own post.

In WWE news, it appears that new WWE Divas Champion has been injured just days after winning the “title.” Actually, I shouldn’t put the word “title” in quotes when it comes to Maryse, because I really haven’t seen enough of her wrestling to judge her yet.

FYI, I’m going to put a break in this post, but if you’re of the male gender, you’ll want to read the rest of this entry. Trust me. (more…)

A few weeks ago, we discussed WWE’s abysmal year when it comes to pay-per-view buys. Of course, UFC blew them out of the water, with only Wrestlemania providing a real challenge to the UFC.

Even worse, WWE PPVs like Great American Bash and Unforgiven only garnered around 200,000 buys. Pretty low for the WWE, indeed.

Ever wonder how TNA’s PPV buys compare to WWE? Thanks to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer (via ProWrestling.com), we know:

• Final Resolution, Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage: 20,000 buys
• Against All Odds, Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage: 30,000 buys
• Destination X, Team Joe vs. The Angle Alliance: 20,000 buys
• Lockdown, Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle: 55,000 buys
• Sacrifice, Samoa Joe vs. Scott Steiner: 25,000 buys
• Slammiversary, Joe vs. Roode vs. Booker T vs. Cage vs. Rhino: 20,000 buys
• Victory Road, Samoa Joe vs. Booker T: 25,000 buys
• Hard Justice, Samoa Joe vs. Booker T: 35,000 buys
• No Surrender, Samoa Joe vs. Christian Cage vs. Kurt Angle: 20,000 buys
• Bound For Glory, Samoa Joe vs. Sting: 35,000 buys
• Turning Point, Sting vs. AJ Styles: 30,000 buys

If there was ever evidence that TNA is still the minor leagues for wrestling, this is it. I hate to say this, but TNA really needs to get some improvement in those numbers if they want to survive in the future.

Don’t believe me? Here are some more buy numbers for TNA from 2006 and 2007, courtesy Wrestling 101.com:

• January 2007: 34,000 buys for Final Resolution (Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle)
• February 2007: 23,000 buys for Against All Odds (Kurt Angle vs. Christian Cage)
• March 2007: 36,000 buys for Destination X (Samoa Joe vs. Sting)
• April 2007: 35,000 buys for Lockdown (Team Angle vs. Team Cage)
• May 2007: 21,000 buys for Sacrifice (Kurt Angle vs. Sting vs. Christian Cage)
• June 2007: 22,000 buys for Slammiversary (King of the Mountain)
• July 2007: 15,000 buys for Victory Road (Samoa Joe and Kurt Angle vs. Team 3D)
• August 2007: 26,000 buys for Hard Justice (Samoa Joe vs. Kurt Angle)
• September 2007: 17,000 buys for No Surrender (Kurt Angle vs. Abyss)
• October 2007: 36,000 buys for Bound For Glory (Sting vs. Kurt Angle)
• November 2007: 27,000 buys for Genesis (Sting and Booker T vs. Kurt Angle and Kevin Nash)

What stands out to me is that Lockdown now appears to be TNA’s flagship show, whether they like it or not. A 20,000 increase in buys is really good for them. Outside of that, there’s really not much improvement from last year to this year.

In fact, I did a little math. In 2008, TNA garnered 315,000 total PPV buys. In 2007, they got 327,000. Yes, you read that correctly. TNA actually did fewer PPV buys this year than last year, if these numbers are correct 292,000 (Thanks for Kanadian to pointing out there was an extra PPV counted on the 2007 numbers). While they garnered more buys in 2008 than 2007, it wasn’t much. Just think about this–just one WWE PPV, Wrestlemania, doubles the number of PPV buys TNA does all year.

I think these numbers really provide some perspective on how far TNA has to go before they are a real threat to the WWE–a long, long, LONG way.

Episode number 146 of PWB’s Official Podcast is now online.

In this episode, I’m definitely feeling the holiday spirit–it’s my version of a holiday special. There’s a short story about Christmas and what wrestling means to kids, as well as my thoughts on the Road to Wrestlemania 25, and how Batista’s injury actually alters it for the better. I’ve also got my thoughts on the new Eddie Guerrero DVD, as well as what was good about wrestling in 2008.

Podcast Table of Contents:

• Intro and Plugs (1:00)
• A Wrestling Christmas Story (4:13)
• The Road to Wrestlemania 25 (12:35)
• Viva La Raza: The Legacy of Eddie Guerrero DVD (20:05)
• The Final Word: Wrestling in 2008 (24:56)

Happy Holidays to all!