WWE: Aftermath -- One Year Later

[infinitywpi]

In April 2007, United Airlines flight 138 from New York to London crashed into the Atlantic ocean. All aboard were thought dead... including the wrestlers and crew of the WWE, headed to London to put on the Inssurexxtion pay-per-view. While the undercard suffers some losses, the main event scene is decimated... not to mention the deaths of Vince and Stephanie McMahon, as well as announcers, road agents, and production crew. Taking charge of the company, Shane McMahon reorganizes, draining talent from ECW, FCW, and OVW to replenish the rosters of Raw and Smackdown, while cutting the number of pay-per-views for the next year to four, reasoning that his talent pool isn't large enough to make monthly PPVs profitable. He puts his faith in a new booking strategy that sees CM Punk, supported by The New Breed, as Undisputed Champion, and focuses on Raw's upper-card workers as well as Smackdown's tag teams and cruiserweights. This is the story of how Shane McMahon failed... and how the WWE was reborn. (I told people this wasn't dead... but it's a slight format change. The first few posts are going to be summary posts; from where I left off through Summerslam, Summerslam itself; then up to Survivor Series; Survivor Series itself; up to Royal Rumble; the Rumble; up to Wrestlemania; Wrestlemania; then up to Summerslam again; and Summerslam 2008... which should be up about the time the real Summerslam is going on, to provide for some compare-and-contrast in how things went differently.) [URL="http://67.19.230.90/~arles/forum/showthread.php?t=22181"]Original Dynasty Is Here[/URL] (Note: The begining of this dynasty was written well over a year ago, before Wrestlemania 23. As such, it predicted... innacurately... the results of that show and went from there. Any questions you have, that probably answers them.)

[infinitywpi]

May -- July 2007 Raw pulls out all the stops, pitting their main eventers (including a returned Mick Foley) against each other in a double-elimination tournament to crown a #1 Contender while Chris Benoit makes good on his promise to tear through anyone who wants his Uniteds States Title, but soon comes up against Colt Cabana, neither man able to get a clean win over the other. The show is further strained by Booker T's knee injury, causing him to miss several months and consider retirement. Ric Flair's schedule eases up, while Carlito becomes a comedy act, desperate to win a title so he cna fulfill his promise to Ric Flair -- his last match, at Summerslam, will be a title match. Smackdown begins a ratings slide; while the returned Chris Jericho makes himself a thorn in the side of CM Punk, Punk 'finds' some old contracts promising his New Breed shots at his title, defending it once every thirty days. Y2J does the math and realizes he won't get a shot at the title until 2009, and proceeds a one-main campaign against the New Breed. He whittles their numbers down until he's the next in line for a shot... and Summerslam is the last chance Punk has to defend his title before it gets stripped. But the storyline isn't enough to get viewers interested in the neglected tag and cruiser divisions, even with Chavo renaming the Cruiserweight Title as the Mexican Title (to go against Benoit's United States Title). Adding developmental talent to the tag division only lowers its perceived quality among fans. TNA goes for a 'quantity over quality' approach. With the loss of so much WWE talent, there is now not much seperating the two companies, and TNA takes advantage of this with advertising campaigns touting the experience of their main eventers. They also get a viewership boost from an altercation in an airport, where X-Disivion Champion Christopher Daniels bumps into Mexican Champion Chavo Gurerro and points out how making a cruiserweight title into an anyone-title had been done already... and done better... with his belt.

[infinitywpi]

Summerslam 2007 The WWE Tag Titles open the show, as the bickering between Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas reaches new heights, culminating in their turning on each other during a match with Cryme Tyme, letting the faces steal the titles from them. They, of course, blame each other. Carlito tries to convince Colt Cabana to, if he beats Chris Benoit, give Carlito a title shot later tonight... so that he can win the title and defend it against Ric Flair. Cabana thinks Carlito must be joking... but Benoit walks by and says neither of them are getting a match tonight, becuase he's decided Ric Flair's final match shouldn't be agaisnt a scrub like Carlito... so he's giving him a US Title match. Both Carlito and Cabana are mad at this. Victoria retains her Women's Title against Trinity. Chavo leads 'Team Latino' (consisting of himself, Super Crazy, Rey Mysterio, and Armando Estrada) to victory over 'Team Cruiserweight' (Scotty 2 Hottie, The Miz, Stevie Richards, and Johnny Nitro) to make the belt's name change to The WWE Mexican Championship official. Chris Benoit retains his US Title over Ric Flair; although Flair gets caught cheating (and cheating quite a lot) ten minutes in and gets disqualified, Benoit tells the ref to keep the match going and just forget the title. This lets Flair end his career with a win, although he doesn't do it with gold around his waist. The finals of the Raw #1 Contendership tournament pits RVD against Randy Orton, both with one loss apiece; Orton wins after getting RVD hung up in the ropes and delivering a punt to the midsection that causes Van Dam to cough up blood. Orton's victory celebration is ended by the return of Edge, who declares himself the replacement for the injured Booker T in the tournament... and since he only has one loss, the tournament's not over yet... but will end tomorrow on Raw. "Rest up, Randy. You're gonna need it." Finally, CM Punk is forced to finally face Chris Jericho. With Kevin Thorne the only member of the New Breed medically cleared to be here, Punk can't rely on his numbers game to carry the day, instead pulling out all the stops for a hard-hitting match against a more technically-minded Y2J. Like a martial arts movie, the match tells the story of youthful rage against experienced strategy as the two try to wear each other down. The company's new direction has never been more evident, as the two clash for over half an hour until the Walls of Jericho are locked in, Punk resisting as long as he can... but instead of tapping, he motions for Thorne to get in the ring. Y2J releases the hold in time to catch a clothesline, and gets the win by disqualification.

[mistaken]

This is why I am an Ifinatatic. (did you ever find time to post up the whole welcome to the real world?) I mean the coastal zone is a perennial highlight. Real World has got to be one of if not the best start to end story arc. and this diary tough it did not live nearly long enough is one of the most inventive way to start a diary ever. (then there was VKM, even if no one else seem to get behind it. and i seem to remember something about the mob in yet another classic infinity piece.) I shall be all over this, like skinny Japanese guy attacking Nathans hot dog's on the fourth of july.

[totti]

I never read the origanal diary so I'm glad your doing a recap because I wouldn't mind following this. It looks great so far.

[infinitywpi]

August -- October 2007 Smackdown gains Kevin Thorne full-time as he begins a feud with Y2J. Chavo's 'Team Mexico' disbands, having completed their objectives, and various AAA and CMLL workers are brought in for title shots, angering Rey Mysterio, who has yet to receive his. Cryme Tyme steals wins over the various other tag teams, with only The World's Greatest Tag Team coming close to beating them... and failing when they turn on each other again, leading to a feud between Benjamin and Haas. Gregory Helms injures his neck during a match; much like Booker T, he really should have taken time off earlier but ignored his condition due to the lack of experienced 'star names' available. The show's ratings slide continues, although Latino viewership is on the rise. On Raw, Edge promptly defeats Randy Orton to declare himself #1 Contender. While Punk tries to find a way to weasel out of the situation, he find an unlikely ally in Matt Hardy, who doesn't care what he has to do to hurt Edge. Benoit easily 'wins' his short feud with an insulting Carlito, and follows that up by finally getting a clean win over Cabana; Carlito and Cabana are paired into a tag team and sent to Smackdown to replace some of the developmental talent that was called up too early. The Divas spend much of these months in a holding pattern, until Beth Phoenix is added to the divsion as the super-heroine Glamazon, begining a feud with "The Dark Widow" Victoria. (It would have been The Black Widow, but Marvel Comics threatened to sue.) Mick Foley began working a reduced schedule as his age and the schedule began to take their toll on him. The WWE begins a business plan involving contracts... the idea being they can cut costs by offering people short-term contracts, letting them go for a few months, then offering another one. The policy is expected to save nearly a million dollars a year in downside payments; of course, those workers who do not get two contracts in a row are upset that they no longer have 'steady' employment. TNA shifts into high gear, forming an alliance with Nu-Wrestling Evolution. Samoa Joe and Kishi Fatu became the tag champions, while the X-Division took a turn for the hardcore by luring away Tommy Dreamer and Sandman with higher salaries and easier travel schedules. That, combined with a Sting/Angle feud, drove their ratings to nearly double what they had been, topping the 2.0 mark for the first time... with Raw dropping closer and closer to 3.0.

[Nightshadeex]

Making a post so I remember to read it every time it's new.

[infinitywpi]

Survivor Series 2007 The show opened with a mostly forgettable Divas Survivor Series match, notable only for being the first time The Glamazon was able to get a pinfall victory over The Dark Widow; Dark Widow's team would still get the win after she interfered to knock Phoenix out while the ref wasn't looking. Carlito and Colt Cabana defeated The F.B.I. in a fairly nondescript match; the two were learning to work well together, but still weren't quite 'there' as a team. The Mexican Title once more went undefended on pay-per-view as Chavo and Mysterio captained seperate teams of mainly no-name new talent; Mysterio got the win in an amazingly heatless match. In an inter-brand Survivor Series match, the survivors on the winning team would get a shot at the title held by the other team's captain; Team Raw, captained by Chris Benoit, included Kane, RVD, a recently-switched Shelton Benjamin, and Chris Masters; Team Smackdown was co-captained by Cryme Tyme, and included Viscera, Val Venis, and Charlie Haas. At least, that was the plan... Chris Benoit never showed up to the show (Yeah, tragedy doesn't cancel out tragedy), and was replaced at the last minute by Marcus Cor Von. The match was re-written to end with Haas and Cor Von going to a double count-out, neither one able to answer a ten-count after a superplex. The Undisputed Championship was put on the line in a triple-threat match, CM Punk defended against both Edge and Matt Hardy. Continuing a tradition of stiff, hard-hitting championship matches on pay-per-view, this one was one that fans were split on who should win; marks wanted Edge, smarts wanted Punk, and the loyal Hardy supporters wanted Hardy. In the end, Punk was robbed as Edge pinned Matt Hardy to take the championship.

[infinitywpi]

November 2007 -- January 2008 Raw: The very next day, Edge declared that his next contender would be from Smackdown, so Punk was out of luck for a while. The rest of the show was, essentially, filler as management tried (and failed) to prevent news of what had happened at the Benoit household earlier that morning from leaking out to the wrestlers and audience. The WWE's string of tragedy continued. In the coming months, Charlie Haas claimed the vacant United States Championship, but with the top stars of Raw being unable to challenge Edge, found himself a marked man; it was only because the superstars chasing his title kept coming into conflict with each other that he survived, earning the nickname 'Crash Holly 2k8'. Another Diva Search was held as the Glamazon / Dark Widow feud continued, with each woman picking a handful of diva search hopefulls to 'mentor'; the winner declared that unlike past winners, she would never lower herself to posing in Playboy. The Divas' comic-book-like style would continue with the addition of the winner, Sara 'Death' Reagan. Smackdown: The Mexican title would change hands to Rey Mysterio with little fanfare on the opening match of Smackdown a month after Survivor Series; with Edge present, the title was relegated to third-tier behind the Undisputed Title and Tag Titles, which became embroiled in the same storyline. Marcus Cor Von used his Survivor Series stipulation to team with CM Punk, taking the Tag Team Titles from Cryme Tyme and using them as an excuse for Punk to declare himself in the running for the #1 Contendership. Punk finds his opposition is the returning Booker T, who allies himself with Cryme Tyme against the New Breed, while Edge feuds with an unretiring John Bradshaw Layfield (the Smackdown announce team becomes The Coach on play-by-play with Joey Styles as color commentator) who claims that he has bought enough shares of the company to give himself a title match. While Edge defeats JBL, he also has to watch as CM Punk and the New Breed defeat Booker and Cryme Tyme, cementing him as the #1 Contender and returning the 'Freebird Rule' into play for the New Breed. WWE: The annual Tribute for the Troops show nearly doesn't happen; nobody in the company wants to fly overseas. In fact, company revenue is down from a lack of overseas tours (among other reasons). It takes a returned-to-backstage, not-cleared-to-wrestle Undertaker delivering a rousing, patriotic speech ("I don't care if I have to go over there and wrestle a maniquin for three hours in a square traced in the sand to give those boys a show, I'm going over there, with or without you cowards!") to convince anyone to make the trip; the company tries to spin the trip for PR purposes, but a number of main-event level stars (anyone with a family, really) refuse to make the trip and the PR campaign doesn't quite work. TNA: With ratings that easily rival the failing, low-star-power Smackdown, TNA scores it's first major win during this period. Running an Angle/Christian USA/Canada feud for the TNA Title, they promise a huge surprise for their Christmas-week Impact. With Raw's rating lower than usual due to it being pre-taped and shown on Christmas Eve, Impact debuts their newest employee, and Chris Jericho helps Christian win the TNA Title from Kurt Angle. While some argue this should have been saved for pay-per-view, it gave TNA their first-ever ratings victory over Raw, although both shows were in the 2.x range. Internally, TNA attributes this to their focus on established indy talent, not developmental workers; the only area where the WWE is consistently better than they are is the women's division, and that is getting so stale that TNA hasn't bothered to bring in new workers -- the WWE's women's division has one of the same two matches, week in and week out, it will only be a mater of time before the luster fades from the division.

[infinitywpi]

Royal Rumble 2008 The Mexican Title is actually defended on this show, as Rey Mysterio retains against Chavo; most fans consider it "Too little, too late, seen it before." The expected rise in title prestige expected from having Mysterio hold the belt has failed to appear, with blame being split between Rey and the creative team. Backstage, a quick rewrite is required as bad news reaches Shane McMahon; the plan had been to debut indy sensations The Brisco Brothers strongly, by having them smash the New Breed for the tag titles tonight; apparently, TNA made them a better offer at the last minute. Instead, the New Breed beat Cryme Tyme to retain their titles, and basicly defeat the only team strong enough to challenge them on the brand. Edge cuts a promo on CM Punk, saying that tonight, the New Breed won't be there to help him... Cor Von and Snitsky are already tired from their tag team match, and the others are focusing on the Rumble... they'd rather put their energy into winning a title shot of their own. So tonight, it'll be one on one, and it's going to be Punk's public Edgecution. Charlie Haas defends the United States Title against Hardcore Holly; that goes over about as well as one would expect, with Haas retaining on a DQ when he suplexes Holly onto a chair. CM Punk cuts a promo on Edge, saying that Edge is trying to play mind games... but he's already lost the mind games. Because everyone saw Survivor Series, and everyone knows... Edge simply can't beat Punk. It'll be one on one tonight... no Matt Hardy for Edge to pin, to steal the win away. The Women's Championship is defended in a handicap match, as The Glamazon tries and fails to defeat both Dark Widow and Death Reagan. The show up through this match ahs been very underwhelming. In the championship match, Punk and Edge basicly replay the portions of their Survivor Series match that didn't include Matt Hardy, and then go into overdrive for ten minutes, busting out spots that haven't been seen for quite a while; the crowd begins to wake up and the heat on CM Punk when he gets his first clean, unassisted singles win in quite a while is seen as a good sign. The Rumble itself is considered, not the best Rumble, but somewhere in the top five and nowhere near as bad as it could have been. Raw provides most of the star power, with Hardy, Foley, Orton, Kane, RVD, and Kahli all taking part, while Smackdown provides plenty of younger, newer stars for the big names to knock around. With twenty-nine men having come out and only six left in the ring (Orton, Kane, RVD, Murdoch, Thorne, and rookie Matt Sydal), the lights go out and a familiar chanting begins -- The Undertaker returns to action and quickly clears house, eliminating Thorne, Murdoch, Orton, and RVD before Kane turns on him. Sydal stays out of the way as the two clash, and tries to deliver a missile dropkick to both men to knock them over the ropes; Kane goes out, Undertaker doesn't. Sydal's luck doesn't hold, as he's out the ring less than a minute later. Backstage, Punk is watching his nameplate be put on the Undisputed Title when an inten walks in. "Rumble's over." "Yeah? Who won." ".. Undertaker." Punk drops the title off his shoulder and slugs the intern in the face. "That's not funny."

[infinitywpi]

February -- March 2008 Raw: The build to Wrestlemania focuses on Punk and Taker, with Punk taking on a new, ass-kicking persona instead of his weaselly champion one. A series of hard-hitting matches with various opponents is meant to cement his legitimacy as someone that Taker might not be able to beat; nothing emphasizes this more than a clean pinfall over Kane in under ten minutes. Taker, meanwhile, plays mind games, kinapping and releasing the members of the New Breed who remain on Raw, for no apparent reason until during a contract signing, they turn on Punk and Undertaker announces them as The New Brood. In an effort to draw attention to the United States Title, a new gimmick match is created: Reach For The Sky. A combination of a ladder match and cage match, the belt is hung above the ring, a ladder is placed inside of it... but a cage also surrounds the ring, so you can't rely on controlling the ladder to prevent your opponents from climbing. While the gimmick gets attention, Haas is still mainly overlooked in favor of two of his five opponents: Matt Hardy and RVD. The Glamazon holds trials for sidekicks, failing to find any and continuously losing to Dark Widow and Death Reagan, until the introduction of someone she feels is on her level: The Awesome Kong. Smackdown: Cor Von, Thorne, and Snitsky continue to use the Freebird Rule to defend their tag titles against a severely lacking-in-momentum tag division, their main concern being if the Undertaker will get tired of messing with the New Breed on that show and come over to theirs. Only one other tag team is getting wins; after losing the Mexican Title to Matt Sydal, Rey Mysterio and Chavo have patched up their differences and are trying to make their case for a tag team title shot. Sydal, for his part, takes the ball and runs with it, having a series of high-risk matches with the likes of Super Crazy, El Generico, and Davari. Edge spends his time moping, getting wins over rookie talent in an attempt to see which of them connect with the crowd. The answer, sadly, is none... but it could be because they're all being beaten by a former World Champion in rather short matches. WWE: Triple H's rehab has finally completed, but something nobody saw coming has happened. As the only parental figure in his daughter's life, he has bonded with her in ways that he didn't expect, and has decided not to return to the ring -- at least, not until Aurora is older. He instead agrees to open a small training facility out of his home, taking a select few up-and-coming talents and training them personally. TNA: Although it drains their finances, TNA makes sure to keep track of everyone the WWE makes an offer to; TNA then offers that person ten percent more, and a longer contract. This, along with several overseas tours in areas that have been neglected by the WWE, skyrockets their popularity, becoming known as the place for young talent to learn and for established talent to have one final heyday. Christian Cage finds himself with more challengers than he knows what do with, and Impact has managed to go four whole months without running the same match twice. They've even received a second show, TNA X-treme, showcasing the X-Division talents. While the Undertaker's return gave the WWE a ratings boost, things soon returned to normal as the Taker didn't wrestle, giving TNA a chance to gloat about how their veterans actually did things in the ring. Finally, just to prove they can, TNA hired away John Coachman, forcing the WWE to hire a not-quite-competent Mike Adamle to replace him.

[infinitywpi]

Wrestlemania 2008 The show opens with a total of seven Smackdown tag teams competing for a title shot; given how most of them are nobodies, Rey and Chavo win easily. Kane loses another match, this time to Randy Orton, who has recently been studying CM Punk and vows to beat all the people that Punk beats, and to do it faster. Indeed, he takes four minutes less to beat Kane than Punk needed. The Mexican Title gets its highet-profile challenge so far as Matt Sydal defends agaisnt Edge; Edge, however, has been angry with his lack of competition as of late and snaps during the match, getting disqualified after hitting the con-chair-to not twice, but three times on poor Matt. In a tag match, The Glamazon gets another pinfall on Dark Widow, but gets surprised when her partner, The Awesome Kong, turns on her and demolishes all three women, stealing the Women's Championship and leaving with it. The few remaining divas who aren't involved in the feud all run down and are demolished in short order as well. The Reach For The Sky match is the show-stealer of the night; but then, high-flying matches have always done well at recent Wrestlemanias. While the cage does prevent some people from seeing the match as well as they'd like, it also adds an element of brutality that the wrestlers use to their advantage. In the end, it's not Haas, Hardy, or RVD who walks out with the title, but Shelton Benjamin who makes a leap from the top of the cage to the top of the ladder, nearly falling before grabbing the United States title. Having to follow that match is rough on anyone, but The New Breed defend their tag titles in an inter-brand match against their former teammates in The New Brood. People have been saying that the winner of this match will telegraph who wins the main event, and so are doubly confused when all hell breaks loose and, after a double-pinfall, the ref declares The New Breed's Colin Delaney and The New Brood's Kevin Thorne to be the victors. And finally, we come to the main event. The crowd is hot, and while it becomes obvious that The Undertaker is nowhere near the man he used to be before his ordeal lost at sea, he still has the passion to give the match his all. Suffering somewhat because Punk refuses to use his stiffest strikes (While The Undertaker says he can take it, Punk and the medical staff aren't so sure), this will go down in history as the most 'average' main event in Wrestlemania history, saved only by the emotion and reactions of the crowd as CM Punk flips out of a Tombstone and reverses it into a Go2Sleep for the win. After the victory, The New Brood come out from the back, carrying a coffin; they load The Undertaker into it and return backstage. Despite the lower ratings of the last year, Wrestlemania still tops one million buys.

[mistaken]

and now the march to summer slam. loving the catch up story line, this dynasty should be hot when full write ups explode on the scene!

[infinitywpi]

April -- July 2008 Smackdown: While the New Breed and New Brood are forced to work together, Rey and Chavo's title match is continously pushed back until the creative team can work it into the storyline currently running on Raw. Chavo threatens to walk out; Mysterio convinces him to stay with the company for just a few more months. The growing-in-popularity Matt Sydal's feud with Edge vanishes when Edge jumps ship to TNA; he instead gets put into a feud with old-school Trevor Murdoch. The two manage to make the clash of styles work for them, and put on some entertaining matches. Val Venis is moved to Raw after his tag partner, Viscera, has a heart attack; the big man survives, but needs long-term medical care. It happens one year to the day of his "I wasn't on the flight because they told me I was too fat... eating saved my life, so dammit I'm going to eat" promo. The upper-card of Smackdown has gone mainly ignored; the show is basicly the Mexican Title and Tag Titles now, all the bigger stars being moved to Raw. Raw: Orton and Punk get into a feud of trying to one-up each other; fighting the same opponents, fighting tag matches with and against each other, each trying to outshine the other. While the heel/heel antics grate at first, Punk slowly begins a face turn (mainly because nobody in the company thinks turning Orton face will work out well). The Undertaker is credited with Wrestlemania's buyrate, and so he and The New Brood do double duty on both shows; while on Smackdown they work with The New Breed, on Raw they just cause havoc until an ankle injury knocks the Undertaker out of commission. The Brood perform a ritual to transfer his power into another and begin stalking Kane, who wants nothing to do with them... and is attacked from behind by the Undertaker's chosen successor, Abyss. Shelton Benjamin gains a reputation as the new Jeff Hardy; his matches are amazing to watch, but have an inherrent "How's he going to screw this one up?" factor to them. He spends the months mainly facing the few names brought over from Smackdown, until entering into a feud with RVD. Amazing Kong runs rampent over the women's divsion until The Glamazon, Dark Widow, and Death Reagan join forces to stop her; they do so, but none of them are able to get a clean pinfall to get the Women's Title away from her. WWE: In early May, The CW announces they will not be renewing Smackdown due to low ratings. In fact, the WWE has been losing the ratings war to TNA for a few months now, except for the three weeks between Wrestlemania and the Undertaker's injury. Faced with the loss of Smackdown and the prospect of having less TV time than their rivals, the company asks USA for a third hour of programming; USA agrees, provided it's done by making Raw three hours long and allowing them to shoot some of their shows at events; episodes of Psyche, Burn Notice, and Monk are planned to be taped at WWE shows over the next four months. In addition, Paul Heyman is re-hired as Shane begins to see that his booking style simply isn't working; it turns out that Heyman had suggested the finish to the tag team match at Wrestlemania, and Shane decides he wants more advice like that on a regular basis. TNA: TNA is riding a wave of popularity, but their budget is quickly being overspent; perhaps worse for them, their midcard is begining to feel neglected. The addition of Edge to their main event and Lance Cade to their tag ranks (along with fellow HBK-trained worker Bryan Danielson) makes some of the home-grown talent feel put off; Samoa Joe, in particular, feels he has been misused and decides to sit out the rest of his contract. Kurt Angle actually keeps improving; the full main event means there's not so much focus on him and gives him time to rest and rehabilite his old injuries. Just to rub salt in the wound, TNA hires Ric Flair back for one final run, culminating in his 'real last match' against Sting on pay-per-view. Buyrates set a TNA record, nearly 800,000 -- most of them international, as their partnership with Nu-Wrestling Evolution gives them a larger fanbase in Europe.

[Nightshadeex]

[QUOTE=infinitywpi;478631]episodes of Psyche, Burn Notice, and Monk are planned to be taped at WWE shows over the next four months. [/QUOTE] My three favorite shows!

[shamelessposer]

[QUOTE=Nightshadeex;478970]My three favorite shows![/QUOTE] Haven't seen Psyche or Monk, but Burn Notice is probably the best currently active (why did you have to end, Avatar? Why?) show on television right now. And I'm very much subscribed to this thread. I thought the background was interesting, but once I found out you were the same guy who did "Welcome To The Real World" I had to see where this goes.

[Prophet]

Wow, phenomenal premise. I went back to read the original, and actually whimpered when reading some of the names who didn't make it. But this is a great read, I'm definitely on board. (FYI - Psyche, Monk, and Burn Notice are all brilliant shows.)

[infinitywpi]

Summerslam 2008 The show opens with Rey and Chavo finally getting their tag team shot against DeLaney and Thorne; they lose in eight minutes. The two shake hands and exchange a hug in the middle of the ring before leaving; reports later say that as soon as Chavo got backstage he let loose a profane tirade of anger directed at Shane McMahon, quit, and left the building. In a gauntlet match, The Glamazon finally gets her title back from Amazing Kong, but only after Dark Widow and Death Reagan soften her up... and she has to cheat to win. The Glamazon appears quite disgusted with herself as her former foes aprove of her actions. Sydal loses the Mexican Title to Murdoch in a Texas Strap Match; while it's a very good match, it says something about the two that this is technically Smackdown's main event and yet it's the third match on the show. Benjamin and RVD fight for the United States title the old-fashioned way: ECW Rules style. The two put their bodies on the line, but being ECW rules, something screwey happens as Matt Hardy runs in and hits both men with a ladder before pinning Benjamin to claim the title. Kane and Abyss put on your standard 'big man power match', complete with Abyss dumping out his trademark bag of thumbtacks... and then eating a chokeslam onto them for the loss. The New Brood come out and begin to 'punish the false savior', leading to Kane coming to Abyss' rescue. The crowd eats that up. Orton and Punk put on a main event full of personality; while both men are have proved themselves on each other's level, Orton has proved he's the better heel and Punk has proven he's the better face. Fifteen minutes in, Orton gets disqualified, but Punk begs the ref to forget that decision. "I'm not beating him by DQ, I'm gonna pin his ass to the canvas!"Another fifteen minutes, this time with Orton cheating his heart out and Punk taking the match outside the ring, knowing there will be no DQ, no countout, leads to several near-falls with both men using their strengths to try and get the advantage. When Punk gets the pinfall, everyone knows it's becuase he is the better wrestler -- a far cry from when he held the title a year ago.

[mistaken]

Amazing summer slam, can't wait to see where you take it from here.

[jw_forever]

Sounds very promising. I'll be reading for sure.

[infinitywpi]

So, I've forgotten how long detailed writeups take (well, my own kind of detailed writeups... not so much focus on the matches, more on the entertainemnt). So... what would people prefer? A whole show all at once (Meaning, it'll probably be posted on the weekend), or an hour at a time (in which case I can probably get them out Tuesday/Thursday/Weekend when it moves to three hours hows)?

[jw_forever]

I would say you should post a whole show all at once. Just my opinion. Im sure however you decide to do it, it will be an excellent read. No pressure!:D

[dtrot021]

lol, I always have Abyss and Kane in some sort of storyline in my WWE games. No matter what.

[mistaken]

got to go for all at once

[infinitywpi]

Okay, entire show at one time. At the rate I'm going, it looks like the goal will be to have each week's shwo up before the next week's Raw airs. Let's see if I can make it to Survivor Series without falling off the deadline like I did with Wrestlemania for Real World (That was only, what, nine months late?) So, a quick 'state of the union': September 8th, 2008, would be the first RAW of the three-hour era. It had already been decided that Smackdown would, for the remainder of its run, be half-recap and half-Heat-lite; the company was going to put all of its eggs in one basket. The hope, internally at least, was that the extra time would let them build up to monthly pay-per-views; although they would have to work around TNA's schedule now, seeing the numbers fo Wrestlemania made Shane believe that they could still draw at least 150,000 for monthly shows. If they could do that, they could start getting back on their feet again and have some stability. Once they had stability, the rest would follow. But the damage has been done over the last year or so; the roster is badly depleted, the fanbase is eroding, the competition has grown stronger, and the company was fighting to overcome the stigma of having died on that fateful day. Notable changes from the product of the real world: Matches are longer; with less TV hours, the focus is on using the big-name talent they currently have instead of shotgunning new talent onto the screen to see who sticks. With longer matches, the established talent get more TV time and when new talent shows up, they get a better chance to show what they can do. Occasionally, when a match is obviously bad, the call is made to cut it short and something is done to pad out the show; this happens roughly every-other week, as the lack of a house show schedule means that matches can't be 'practiced' as much. However, it has also done a great deal to cut down on injuries as the sueprstarts don't have to wrestle five nights a week. The women's division is almost entirely super-hero/super-villain themed, with the exception of Kelly Kelly, who did the 'ditzy blonde' thing one week when they mentioned everyone needed costumes and she decided to wear a halloween princess costume. Princess Kelly Kelly now fills the role of 'lovable jobber' in the women's division. Traditionally, the Mexican Title has been more a high-flier/semi-cruiserweight title and the United States Title has been more of a technician/mat-wrestling belt; meaning there was a bit of a bad reaction to Trevor Murdoch even fighting for the first title, nevermind winning it, and the ECW-esque ending to the US Title match also left a bad taste in the fans mouths as they had been trained to expect pinfalls or (usually) submissions in those matches. There are two active stables right now, the New Blood and the New Brood, both mainly concerned with each other and forced to share the tag team titles. With the exception of Kane and Abyss, they don't have much of an effect on the rest of the roster. As far as Internet fans go, there is a great deal of hope that losing Smackdown will be the kick in the pants the company needs to turn itself around; fans are split on whether the return of Paul Heyman to the booking staff will be a good thing or bad thing, as he hasn't booked in quite a while. While some hold out the fact that the wrestling content in the E has been improving steadily since the crash, even the most die-hard WWE fans now admit that TNA has the more robust roster and more popular names. The WWE has been behind before, but that was a vastly different time than it is now.