Fantabulous

I can see the merits in the argument of putting Sting on TV to build the match. And if this was six months from now or any other time of the year, well, I'd still want his debut on PPV but I wouldn't be totally against something on Raw. But if I'm given the choice of where to debut Sting, Raw or Wrestlemania, I don't really see how you can have it anywhere but Wrestlemania. The chance to debut a genuine icon of wrestling in WWE on the biggest stage of them all is one that will never happen again. I'd take the chance in a heartbeat.

You're giving them a reason. A moment they've all been waiting years to see. Sting stepping foot into a WWE ring and not only that, Sting facing The Undertaker. You don't need to do any more than promise the fans that that is exactly what they'll see at Wrestlemania. As for what it can add a Wrestlemania number, I think it will add a good size number. Maybe not huge numbers, but I think there are a good many people who would buy Wrestlemania solely because they know they'll see Sting debut and face off against The Undertaker. And I wouldn't want Sting's debut in WWE to be on TV. Frankly, I think it would cheapen the whole notion of Sting coming to WWE if he made his first apperance for WWE on TV. Sting's WWE debut is a Wrestlemania Moment if ever there was one.

The big 'wow' moment is when Sting finally appears on WWE TV and steps foot in a WWE ring. Fans have been wanting this for years. Why waste that on TV when you can, quite easily, build towards it happening at Wrestlemania and get them increasingly hyped up for something they have to pay to see. It would make a big deal, the debut of Sting in WWE, so much bigger and possibly even iconic if it happens on the biggest stage of them all.

Let's presume it's Sting. I wouldn't even have him appear on TV before Wrestlemania. Undertaker can be doing a promo in the ring and the lights can go out. Cue flashing white light (it has to be white) and some eerie music, something violin-esque which suddenly stops and a scorpion symbol is projected onto the ring. You get a taste of the supernatural stuff that plays into the Undertaker gimmick without it being too hokey that it strays from the sort of thing they used to with Sting, and it ends with Undertaker being 'covered' in the symbol of Sting.

If Sting were to go to WWE, the smart move is one-off matches against select names. Putting Sting against anyone but top-shelf names would be a waste of time and a risk of exposing Sting where the payoff wouldn't be worth it. The big money would be Sting/Undertaker, which you would probably need to do first because keeping Sting around any longer makes him less special and anything else would, as mentioned, risk making him look less than the legend people want him to be. Thankfully, you don't need to do anything physical with Sting and Undertaker for this theoretical match: one staredown angle is all you needed and the rest of the build can be simple videos with Sting explaining his need to face one of the few icon's he yet to wrestle. In fact, anything physical would probably do more harm than good.

With talk of DVD's , this is good time to mention what is probably the ideal set to get for an introduction into All Japan, and although it appears a lot to take in, 32-discs worth of matches, it's worth it in the long run. History of the All Japan Triple Crown Championship This is a 32-disc set that covers the creation of the Triple Crown, which includes the previously mentioned Tenryu/Brody match, and has every Triple Crown title match from its inception through to mid-2007, with Minoru Suzuki's reign. This is a good set to watch because it shows the evolution of All Japan's main event scene from the 80s to the 90s, as Tsuruta and Hansen make way for Misawa and Kobashi. It showcases numerous classic matches and because it does show every TC match, when it comes to Misawa/Kawada or Misawa/Kobashi matches, you're able to see the natural progression that comes when two foes become ever more familiar with each other. This offsets what can be a problem with major All Japan matches, because a lot of what makes a match great is the subtlety of one match playing off of a previous one, and if you pick up from late on in the series, you're not getting the little details that make the match what it really is. As mentioned, you get to see the awesome series of matches between Misawa and Kawada and Misawa and Kobashi. There are also a pair of really stiff Misawa/Vader matches on here, the run of New Japan 'outsider' Keiji Muto as Triple Crown Champion and Toshiaki Kawada's fantastic run as champion in '03-'05, which includes intense matches against Don Frye and Shinya Hashimoto.

I would have loved to have seen Punk eliminate Cena, in his hometown, to build to a Wrestlemania match between them. It would have been a fresh match and seen Cena not involve in the WWE title scene at Wrestlemania for the first time in six-years. The problem with Punk eliminating Cena for heat is that the crowd last night didn't seem to be super into Cena or the Cena-Orton staredowns, so Punk getting rid of Cena might have gotten a positive response. Nash not doing big moves is most likely because he can't rather than because they're saving them. Nash is pretty much shot physically and it was for the best he wasn't in for long or it would have been very obvious just how limited he is and the crowd would have been sad rather than mad. I don't think we'll see much out of Nash, ring wise, although the face-off of sorts with Show indicates they have some thought of going in that direction.

Alberto hasn't peaked as a heel so they won't be turning him face any time soon. Wrestlemania looks to have Cena/Miz and Orton/Punk based on last night. Big Show/Nash was teased but that match would need to be kept short. Alberto will presumably be in the World title match, which means he'll probably be facing Edge who, as the top face on Smackdown, is a good bet to be either champion or challenger. Edge using the Unprettier could lead to a Christian heel turn so maybe Christian costs Edge the title at Wrestlemania? Or the month before so they get to have their Wrestlemania singles match, though that leaves Alberto needing an opponent. With other matches known or ones that make sense on the surface, we could be getting this at Wrestlemania? Cena/Miz Orton/Punk Show/Diesel (?) Alberto/Edge Undertaker/Barrett Nexus/Corre

Good luck to Mistico. Even with Rey falling out of favour/falling apart, he is going to get knocked something fierce from the moment he steps into a ring.

Cena has been in the WWE title match every WM since 21. I think Cena/Punk is the obvious WM match for Cena this year and I would not rule out Punk eliminating Cena from the Rumble.

I don't see Triple H near the title picture until the program with Sheamus is finished. If Triple H is in the Rumble then I wouldn't be surprised to see Triple H eliminate Sheamus and then Sheamus turn around and cause Triple H to get eliminated; think Roddy Piper-Bad News Brown in 1990.

If Sheamus did win the Rumble, which is a longshot, he'd probably face Triple H at Wrestlemania anyway, because it's the match that makes sense for both of them.

I don't particularly care for Orton right now; he's (beyond) hopelessly miscast as a babyface. And my reaction to Orton winning would be mostly negative. But WWE are strongly behind him and they want him to be one of their top babyface, so that's why he is my pick and why I went the scenario outlined. Personally, I would get a kick out of CM Punk winning, and doing so by eliminating John Cena (because it would be in Cena's home town and would get huge heat), but I think I'd fire thunderbolts out of my....ear before that happens.

I'm going with Randy Orton to win the Rumble in a scenario I've mentioned before. Randy Orton gets screwed out of the WWE title against Miz; possibly a finish where the ref gets bumped, Orton RKO's Miz and has him pinned but they do something where the referee has DQ'd Miz, or, Orton, for something and Orton comes up short. They can show Miz, either then or later, looking ****y about having got past Orton and maybe even have him say something along the lines of never having to worry about him again. Then Orton winds up in the Rumble and wins and the build for Miz vs. Orton can be about how Miz has to face the man who has his number and there isn't anything he can do about it. They could throw in a twist about Miz considering 'laying down' in a WWE title match just to avoid Orton; if they do that Alex Riley can be the one who offers to take the title from him and take the match with Orton in his place. If Miz is in the Raw Elimination Chamber match at the EC PPV, they can put it on last and have Miz fluke his way to victory in some fashion,look all please with himself and then Orton's music hits and the PPV ends with Orton starting down Miz who looks petrified. The final month before Wrestlemania can be Miz trying to find some way to put Orton on the shelf or maybe Miz slowly cracking up because he can't get out of facing the man who has his number. However they handle the build to the match, I'd go with Miz vs. Orton for the WWE title at Wrestlemania and I'd start with Orton winning the Rumble tonight.

Two key players of the original storyline they are reprising, a storyline which they were counting on to turn things around and which will have already been written out and has already begun getting pushed, have been taken right out of it. Now, they not only have to rewrite everything from scratch, and change whatever developed from it, they now have to compensate for the fact that those two key players are going to be part of their competition. All of which could have been avoided by making sure the key players in their big storyline, a storyline they were counting on to turn things around, were under contract before they started it. Fans of a promotion that fails to grasp common sense in failure to grasp common sense shocker! It's a good idea to make sure key players in your main angle are under contract to you before you start it

It's things like this that make you wonder if Dixie and co. have some kind of disorder that compels them to leave themselves open to getting shafted in some fashion.

Good news; Booker T and Kevin Nash have signed. Just not with TNA... I wanted to play safe in regard to spoilers.

The No Chance in Hell Group. Cody Rhodes R-Truth David Otunga Husky Harris Michael McGillicutty Ted DiBiase Mark Henry Darren Young David Hart Smith Primo Tyson Kidd William Regal Yoshi Tatsu Zack Ryder Ezekiel Jackson Heath Slater Justin Gabriel Jack Swagger Drew McIntyre Mason Ryan Daniel Bryan Chris Masters David Otunga JTG Kane Kofi Kingston Santino Marella Vladimir Kozlov Rey Mysterio If the stars align and mystic forces are at work King Sheamus John Morrison CM Punk Alberto Del Rio Big Show Sheamus A strong chance and a credible bet John Cena Wade Barrett

A Rough Guide to the ‘Young Lions’ system in Japanese wrestling If you’ve played TEW then you’ll have seen the term Young Lion used and this rough guide is intended to explain how that works in Japan which is pretty much the blueprint for how it usually works everywhere else. When a young Japanese wrestler first debuts for a promotion he’s referred to as a ‘young boy’ because he is just starting out in wrestling. For the first year or so of his career, he’ll usually be put in tag matches where his role is to ‘get the heat’; it’s his job to set up the hot tag for the veteran partner. If he’s lucky, the Young Boy will get a few moves in so he doesn’t look like a total nothing but his role is strictly to get beaten up to build to the tag. If his team is losing, then the Boy gets pinned and if the team is winning then the veteran gets the pinfall. This does not change. Period. In singles matches, the Young Boy gets strictly token offence, if that. His role is to get beaten up and come back for more until he loses. This stage of the Young Boy’s career is all about ‘showing fire’. It’s about the Boy taking a beating, not giving up, and coming back for more until he finally loses. Because he is at the beginning of his career, the Young Boy wears basic attire; tights, boots and kneepads. And it’s usually black or, if not, some other simple colour. This reflects the stage at which the Young Boy is at; he’s in a position where has only ‘earned’ the most basic of attire. After about a year of this, the promotion will usually send the wrestler overseas for an ‘excursion’, typically for up to a year, where he’ll gain experience working in other promotions. This is intended for the wrestler to improve as worker and for the fans to see him working his way up the ladder in his career, albeit not necessarily in the promotion. Once the excursion is over, the wrestler returns to Japan. His attire will have ‘matured’ and he might be wearing something with a little more colour, his physique will have improved, and he’ll be seen to have grown. At this stage in his career, the wrestler will still lose to veterans but it won’t be so easy this time. He’ll get in more offence than before, get to shine more than before, and the portrayal is that the young wrestler has grown in his time away but he still isn’t at the stage where he can beat the veterans. It’s at this point where the wrestler might get his first taste of championship experience and be put in matches for whatever Midcard titles the promotion has. If it’s in tag matches then, like before, his role will be to get the heat for the veteran partner. However, he’ll get more offence than before and will be seen to ‘belong’ at that level. As before, if his team is losing then the younger wrestler will be the one who gets pinned. However, if his team is winning, and he’s considered good enough or ‘matured’ enough, then the young wrestler might even be the one who gets the fall on the junior member of the opposing team; as always, it’s the junior partner of a team who usually gets pinned. In singles matches, because it is at the Midcard level, the wrestler will be more of an equal in the match and while it will be clear his opponent is the better man, the young wrestler will come out of the match looking like he really belongs at that level. The wrestler is typically closing in on eight years before he gets to move up the card a little more. You’ll probably start to see him in six-man main events where he’ll usually drop the fall or if the promotion wants to start people getting behind him, he might get to pin the junior member of the opposing team. It’s also at this stage where might start vying for the company’s main tag titles which is typically done to get the fans into accepting them at that level before they can move on to the company’s top singles title. The wrestler will be teamed with a current top wrestler where the usual pattern continues; the junior wrestler of the team drops the fall and senior member scores them. This pattern gets broken when it is felt the wrestler is good enough to be a top singles wrestler, and if a junior member of one team beats the veteran member of the opposing team it’s a big deal. Top stars in Japan are protected and rarely do jobs so that when they do, it is big news and it means something. When this happens you can take it to mean the wrestler in question is being put in line for move to the top level; whether he can stay there is reliant on how good he is, because Japanese fans rarely accept sub-par talent at the top of the card. So, the wrestler has made all the way to a shot at the company’s main title. And loses. Because he is still growing, and while his positioning has made it clear that he can make it to the top, he has to be seen to ‘grow’ to the level where, if the promotion feels he is right for the spot, it will be accepted for him to become the ‘Ace’ of the company. A native wrestler in Japan rarely wins a major singles title on his first try for the same reason a rookie never beats a veteran; he has to be seen to have earned his spot, by growing in stature and growing in talent. It’s a similar deal as when the WWF fans turned on The Rock when he beat Triple for the IC Title in early 1997; he hadn’t earned the spot he was put in. For a Japanese example, when New Japan decided to get behind Shinsuke Nakamura in his rookie year and have him beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan for the IWGP title, a lot of fans did not accept Nakamura because he was still a rookie and didn’t feel he had earned the spot he was put in. Once he has had that first title match, however, the wrestler has usually ‘made his bones’ as a main event star. He’ll still do jobs to main event stars, because he isn’t a ‘top’ star, but the wrestler is now at the stage where he gets the Young Boy tag partner to set up the hot tag and will be the one who faces the Young Boys in singles matches to beat them up and let them show ‘fire’. This guide is general, and sometimes a promotion will do things differently for whatever reason (case in point, Shinsuke Nakamura), however what’s been outlined here is the usual pattern for rookie wrestlers in Japan. In short, they have to earn their spot on the card and show they have the talent to be at their current level because only then will fans accept them naturally progressing up the card.

It's not that the finish itself was bad, not that I liked it, because almost any finish can be a good one if it's done right and presented correctly. The problem is more an overall one in that you got the exact same finish for 98% of All Japan main events in the 80s; a 20+ minute match and then one or both men got counted out or disqualified. When you're doing the double countout finish for most of your main events then even when it's done for a match that fits, it just comes off as overkill.

Appropriate that a program that is a struggle sit through is on a channel called Challenge.

A word of warning when it come to All-Japan main events in the 80s; get used to the non-finish. When it came to the main events in the 80s in All Japan, and this goes somewhat for New Japan too, stars did not get beaten. Ever. You might occasionally get a flash pinfall but when it comes to a conclusive finish you did not get them at all in All Japan. So while the action may be good, or great, just remember that when you decide to invest the time in watching whatever match it is you want to see, be very aware that you won't be happy with the ending. Case in point, Bruiser Brody vs. Genichiro Tenryu from All Japan on 4/15/88, and bear in mind this was a title unification match to form what would end up becoming the Triple Crown. After about 25-minutes, Brody hits his big kneedrop off the top rope and begins selling his knee and winds up rolling to the floor. Tenryu, selling the move, also ends up rolling to the floor. Cue a double countout. Lame doesn't even begin to describe how this feels and how frequently this sort of thing would happen in All Japan. Thankfully, the second incarnation of the UWF hit it big but that's another story...

If someone were to end the streak, I think it would have to be someone Undertaker respected and I think Undertaker would want/need to be involved in the booking of said person in the follow up, simply because I wouldn't trust creative on their own with something like this. I think Undertaker would want to know for damn sure that whoever beats him doesn't wind up right back where they started six-months down the line. In the end, I don't see the streak ending and there really isn't any point in doing so. Yeah, you could get some top new heel over with it, but WWE have done such a great job in making the streak mean something that I think ending the streak would end up like turning Austin heel and you'd only make fans tune out as a result.

It's worth mention that Undertaker might not even be at Wrestlemania. The last I heard is that it's still uncertain if Undertaker will be healthy in time to wrestle there. If he can't wrestle I guess they could have him show up as a surprise to confront Barrett and co.

They really need to stop the schizophrenic booking of Michael Cole. He goes from regular babyface announcer, to intolerable heel GM spokesman, to serious announcer hyping up the next PPV to heel cheerleader all in the space of five minutes and can jump from one persona to another at the drop of a hat. A new viewer to Raw would give themselves a migraine trying to make sense of Cole.