Welcome one and all to the weekly "Best of" The World Wrestling Insanity Message Boards. Here at Hot Threads we aim to give you the cream of the crop when it comes to our fabulous residents. We'll be spending time jumping from the WWE to TNA to almost anything in the 'verse.

One of the biggest storylines in WWE history is taking place right now. We're smack dab in the middle (It could even be the beginning/end. This thing has been blazed through so fast I don't know anymore) of a power struggle. Vince McMahon lost control of the WWE two months ago. Seventy things happened within the next few weeks and that left us with two very interesting questions

1)       What the hell was up with Raw?

JohnnyCraze

holy crap, HHH just put down the entire roster and compared it to a broomstick....what an idiot.

The Chosen 1

Again... if we all didn't know HHH was the Son-In-Law... and we all just respected him as a veteran and looked at him like he was one of the top guys of all time...

Wouldn't this actually be pretty awesome?

Wolfchild

Well, this turned from lame to entertaining pretty quick.. Worried this is gonna go back to lame..

The Chosen 1

Seeing this just thrown together and having HHH as referee and CM Punk on commentary is like some crazy fan fantasy storyline that would never happen....

This is one of those "Remember When..." shows that we'll be talking about in a few years..

BUT the end of this show needs to be shocking or just meaningful... If it just ENDS and it's them just going "Yay we did it! and now everyones back! Yay!"

The Green Teabagger

I don't know what the hell is going on but I saw Hunter in the ring refereeing a match between Cena and Sheamus and CM Punk is the only commentator....

Now Vince comes out....

JT

This had potential and just went to crap.

aliasyoshi

So the biggest reason why people walked out are back? Over/under on how much that point will be ignored going forward?

JohnnyCraze

Wait, HHH and Punk are gonna team up at Vengeance?? This raw really makes my head hurt.

Galaxy

I might start a support group for the survivors of the 10/10/11 Raw.

Mike Johns

I'm just lost. Seriously. I have no idea where this is supposed to go.

The Chosen 1

Would have so rather watched a show where everyone was on strike... it would have felt special

Instead they somehow fired HHH, and brought back Awsome Truth in away that made you yawn

Sprout1883

can we just officially say this Angle sucks.

Half arsed and ill thought through all the way back to the Punk/Cena 'resolution'

WWE has had potential dynamite storyline(s) and months worth of big pay days and pissed it all away

How the hell have we ended up with Punk and Hunter teaming?

E.G. Woods

Yep. What started out with so much promise has quickly gone down the shitter. Although given how The Nexus, Mystery Raw G.M., and Cena is fired storylines of the past year or so turned out, is anybody really surprised? As Powell from dotnet said in his review last night, "The WWE is in a really bad place right now."

T-Dog

You'd have to be mentally retarded to enjoy Raw last night and I mean every word of that.

The Chosen 1

WWE's newest problem is that hey blow through 50 storylines in 6 shows....

Which is SOMEWHAT a product of society, as a lot of TV shows actually do that now, The Breaking Bads, and the LOSTs are the exceptions... The majority of scripted and reality TV FLY through storylines...

The problem is that WWE doesn't do it in a way that's enjoyable at all

James Guttman

Part of the fun for WWE is that they build people up knowing they'll just let them down.

Money in the Bank feels like it was 900 years ago, no?

The Chosen 1

Well, that just looks like people were very interested in the whole Walkout thing, then once that all got figured out people went

"Alright well... what else is on"

Average

Many of you spend far too much time analyzing a childrens television show.

James Guttman

Ratings don't mean much short term. The question is momentum and whether people will be buying the things they are selling. As fans, it's really about what you feel is good and bad personally as opposed to the ratings. There have been some pretty shitty Raws that got good numbers and vice versa.

Edit: In my opinion, the show was bad but nowhere near as Earth Shatteringly awful as the pundits are putting it.

2)       Who is behind this entire conspiracy that started just after Money in the Bank?

Galaxy

I don't want them go with Vince now because it's too obvious. Also, Vince was already the higher power.

I'm hoping it's built up to be Vince and then the big twist comes when shows up on Raw and says that actaully, he has nothing to do with it and has been playing golf all this time and enjoying retirement.

The Chosen 1

Really, there's no point in guessing because there's a 0% chance anyone in the WWE knows completely without a doubt who is behind the conspiracy....

There's no doubt in my mind, they are all sure right now that its Vince.... but the day of the big reveal they could decide "f**k it" and make it Hornswoggle.... again

Canadian Bulldog

Booker T

Aliasyoshi

Something doesn't smell right with this whole thing.

TL Hopper.

Drewcifer

Little Jimmy.

RYTMAN

It's Lawler.
F***, It's Lawler.
Why the f*** not?
Lawler.

Sprout1883

No doubt we will probably end up with Stephanie screwing over Tripple H or something

Likely it's Vince as we all well know it will be.

Foley could be cool

Aaron Wood

It's Vince.

But unlike, I suspect, the rest of you, that it being Vince is a bad thing. For starters, it's entirely logical. Vince got f**ked out of his job and his main guy, Johnny Ace, is f**king with HHH on Vince's orders. And really, outside of Stephanie and/or Shane (and he's not coming back), how could it be anyone else and have the story have a shred of logic to it?

Foley would be the next best guess. But even then:
1) Why would he f**k with HHH after all these years? If he were pissed at the McMahon family for some slight that now goes back literally years, why didn't he do something when Vince was around? He'd be the guy to be f**ked off with, surely?

2) Why would Johnny Ace, if he's a true "company man", why is he listening to and acting on orders of someone who has neither any role whatsoever in the company or any notable financial interest? It's not as if Foley could have somehow bought enough of the company without being a well-known major player, in say, the executive (i.e. Board Of Directors).

This reveal is such a no-win situation for WWE. If it's Vince, everyone online goes "How entirely boring and predictable" and if it's anyone else (outside of Shane or Stephanie and even then she's a stretch), people go "Typically for WWE, that makes no sense whatsoever".

The Chosen 1

It's Vince.... and anyone who says "How boring and predictable" is dumb.

Because that's the EXACT thinking that makes people like Vince Russo tick.

Vince is 100% the most logical. Regardless of whether everything is always about Vince, its the most logical. The Vince Russo thinking is "its 100% logical that's its Vince.. which means its predictable... which means we should make it Jeff Hardy"

The Green Teabagger

The other possibility is that it's Ace acting on behalf of Ace and not taking orders from anybody. He's just a tool who was pissed that Triple H "jumped over him on the corporate ladder" to become COO.

Aaron Wood

Ace is possible, but I doubt Vince would have a guy as wooden as him such a position. Even if Vince changed his mind on Ace being a non-talker, he hasn't got the charisma to carry the on-screen COO job off. Plus I'd like to think that when he texts, he's texting the head honcho.

Wolfchild

It's Jake Roberts. And Crab People are behind it, not Robot aliens or whatever.

The Chosen 1

It's probably whoever was behind The Nexus.... and the Anonymous RAW GM.

Dwattz

I'd love for it to be Punk somehow pulling all the strings. Like I said, be it cleverly or convolutedly, just as long as his push is reaffirmed. It would certainly be a show of good faith.

Though, I wouldn't be all that disappointed if it were Shane. At least with Shane it becomes less antiquated. And with Shane being Vince's son and the rightful heir, there's inherent motive.

Honestly, just as long as it's anyone BUT Vince... I'm not all that let down.

Sprout1883

The thing is it's Vince we know it and nothing else makes sense as said

Drewcifer

There's also the possibility that this "conspiracy" angle will be dragged out for over a year, only to be dropped with no explanation, or payoff, ala The Anonymous RAW GM.

Tenchi

It's Tony Schiavone. It'd be the greatest swerve in the history of our sport.

Mike Johns

It's Dixie Carter.

No, seriously... this was the higher power the Nexus was talking about all along.

Also, Daizee Haze was involved.

The Green Teabagger

What if it's William Regal?

James Guttman

As for my guess - JBL.

No reason. I've just decided to guess JBL for every stupid WWE "whodunit" storyline from now on because it beats guessing Triple H for all of them (and Vince, if Triple H is the target).

As you can see Raw left a lot of questions in people's minds. I'm taking it if you watched Raw one question came to your head right away. Who signed off on that John Morrison shirt? Have you actually sat and paid attention to that thing? It's either one big joke before they give him the boot or John Morrison really shouldn't be involved in his own marketing. If someone in their marketing department came up with that it was a joke that just went too far. I get the idea, “Hey, what if we called his fans JoMoSapiens since all the wrestlers call him a homose…” “Yeah, Bob, I get it. Tell you what, why don't you ask Vince?” And two weeks later the shirt is out. I get that. If this is a legit attempt to make money and not make fun of Morrison then whoever came up with the entire shirt needs to be fired.

James Guttman

They should have just morphed it with "Shaman of Sexy" and called them all Jomosexuals

The Chosen 1

. The worst part is the back of the shirt....

What the HELL does that mean?

Peter Dawson

None of the implications are good. One is he eats your lunch after you lose it, another is he just takes your lunch like some second-rate Ace Merrill, or he's one of those dicks who sits next to you at a restaurant/cafeteria and casually just takes food off of your place without asking or, worse, making crow sounds.

Drewcifer

At least it wasn't "JomoErectus".

Mike Johns

Last year about this time, just before I abandoned ship on the Tales From the Insanity Universe deal, John Morrison was being set up to be sort of a Gambit figure in the ensuing Nexus on Infinite Earths I was working towards.

I'm kind of glad I never went through with it. Jomosapiens? Seriously? You just lost all cool points, John.

Aaron Wood

Air Boom was a name given to the team essentially via Twitter. Morrison himself had something of a tournament some months ago for fan names, ending up at Jomosapiens.

Twitter has a lot to f**kin' answer for.

Mike Johns

That still doesn't excuse the marketing department from going to John and telling him, "no, we're not using this. Please, stop listening to morons on Twitter, and let us, the marketing people, who went to college for this shit, do our jobs."

The Chosen 1

NONE OF THIS EXPLAINS THE LUNCH THING!!!

Was that a stupid Twitter thing too?

Drewcifer

It's probably part of some inside joke, like "I'm going to be out here eating your room service lunch, while you're in there banging my girlfriend..."

Rytman

I've heard it used as a generic taunt.
"We are going to humiliate you in a manner similar to a schoolyard bully taking a smaller kids' lunch from him."

Dwattz

"Who would steal 30 bag lunches?"

Aaron Wood

I think it's the PG version "I'm gonna make you toss my salad".

Mike Johns

Which brings us back to "JoMosexuals"...

Seriously, everyone, please - you have all put more thought into this than the people who allowed this to exist. Unless John Morrison is paying you to save him, or, doing this is getting you in with some guy/girl who happens to be a JoMo fan for some reason, please realize that you're trying to help a man who clearly either wants to go to TNA, or doesn't realize that all he is doing now is putting him on a path to going to TNA.

Dwattz

JoMo's another one they're completely shitting all over. At this point he might as well call himself the "Charmin of sexy"...

To round out Hot Threads this week I'm just going to take a post from The Chosen 1 and let it all go from there. He brings up a thought and puts it out there for others.

The Chosen 1

I'm gonna take advantage of the Opinions part of this thread for a second here.

If it wasn't for this site, I would have ZERO idea of anything TNA related....

How does anyone still watch this? Really, I know that being cynical is a big part of being a wrestling internet fan, and so I can imagine people still watch because there's nothing better than a big pile of crap to be cynical over.... but does anyone watch TNA because they LIKE TNA anymore? At least with the WWE hate you still have moments, shows and story lines that make even the most cynical WWE fan on here go "That's pretty awesome."

With the exception of Bully Ray coming into his own, and Sting's joker character I literally haven't heard a single positive thing about TNA in or out of the ring in a year

Exx

I've been enjoying it much more than wwe lately. Basically since they started Bobby Roode's push. Its the first time I've actually been interested in a TNA HW title match in years. I even liked the Hogan/Sting segment last night. Joe/Crimson was good. I keep wanting to like Gunner but not sure if they're ever gonna get behind him. I think he has alot of potential though. And the AJ/Daniels feud has been built decent.

I just don't post much about it cause no one here seems to talk about the shows, just the out of the ring stuff.

The Chosen 1

Okay so, Roode has some type of big thing going on with Angle? I had no idea until today, but is it good? What's good about it?

Wasn't Angle just feuding with Sting like... yesterday? How'd a Roode thing start? Or wait did he win that weird backwards series thing?

The Green Teabagger

Bobby Roode won the BFG Series after Joe injured half the tournament including the "undefeated" Crimson.

To TNA's credit, the Roode push since has been pretty solid even with the odd (imo) decision to have Angle (who as World Champion in Immortal can apparently book matches) to have Roode face off against each member of Fortune on Impact over several weeks.

Each match was good, ESPECIALLY Roode vs. Styles. That was an awesome match.

They've done a few of the video packages hyping Roode working for over a decade to get a title shot and how he's sacrificed time with his family, the whole nine yards, and they've been high quality stuff.

The only way this fails is if Roode doesn't win the World Title at BFG.

The thing is.....I have absolutely no faith in TNA. I have no faith that Kurt Angle won't beat Bobby Roode in five minutes at BFG. None. I want to believe otherwise, but it's TNA. I want to believe Bobby Roode will win the TNA World Title and actually be the main event (as World Champions should be), but it's TNA AND Hogan's re-signed a deal. I want to believe TNA won't find a way to f**k this up, but it's TNA.

E.G. Woods

The WWE hasn't exactly been on fire for the last serveral years, as I've said the same thing about them that you have said about TNA. If it wasn't the lame "Guest Host" phase on Raw in which creative felt it was more important to put over D list celebs that their own talent,(actually stopped watching for awhile during this time), it was their extremely sanatized "PG" programming,(stopping a match to patch up a nick on a wrestlers ear. WTF?), or the amount of storylines that started promising, and then fizzeled out. Ex; Nexus invasion, John Cena gets "fired", The Mystery Raw G.M., etc.

Yes, TNA has it's fair share of problems, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't turn Impact off a few times due to boredom, anger, etc. However, in addition to the positives listed here,(Including giving The X-Division more attention than in the last few years. That's not saying much, but at least it's a start.), I will tune into Impact more often than not because I like it, and also because it provides an alternative to me for whatever The WWE is doing

Wolfchild

I'm upset by the lack of Austin Aries in the above post.

Actually, I like more than I hate about TNA. The major problem is the stuff I hate seems to take up much more time then the stuff I enjoy. If you lose, basically, all the WWE-Ness of TNA, then I would enjoy the product that much more. X-Division, Knockouts, and (sometimes) the Tag Team Division stand out in my mind as being above average.

Hogan, Constant Turns, and stupid (worse than WWE) talking segments, make me hate and laugh at TNA.

And if you want an Impact thread, We'll do an Impact thread! Usually on GT and Me are around for it tho.. Sometimes Johnny, Sometimes Mike Johns, and Sometimes JT...

Exx

I like Aries. The problem is there isn't really anyone for him to fight. Brian Kendrick who they keep pushing as his opponent is a terrible babyface. I'd call him the worst babyface in the company if Anderson wasn't there. When Kash attacked him this week, i was cheering cause it finally shut up Kendrick's nonsensical ramblings. I think a big problem is the x division was buried so long that its hard to get into. They need a real must see feud in the division to get it back on track. As it stands, Aries seems like he's too good to be stuck in that division.

I'm pretty much the same in being in favor of losing the wwe-ness aside from the ones like Bully Ray and Mickie James who still add something good to the show. And I think the Jarretts are really entertaining heels. They play off each other so well.

I did like Sting sort of endorsing Roode a couple weeks. Seems like its been a while since a veteran did something like that.

JohnnyCraze

I think TNA has stepped up their game in the last few weeks. Roode is doing well as the next World Title challenger to Kurt Angle for BFG.
The X-Division is getting interesting again....mostly due to Austin Aries who I didn't like at first but am now liking.
I don't know what to think of Brian Kendrick though.
Sting/Hogan has been interesting for what it is. I love the Joker/Sting thing.
Even the knockout's division has been pretty good. I like Winter and I like the fatal four way they're going to do at BFG.

Mike Johns

I wouldn't go as far as to endorse the show as purely watchable, yet, but the positives have been more obvious lately. Roode's push actually seems right. I make a lot of parallels between this and the slow split of the American Wolves, and how, at the moment, Roode really is being pushed in the same way Davey Richards was as a single.

I do really like both Aries as X-Champ, and the Kash/Sorenson feud.

Beyond that, there's a lot of crap on this show, but it's been a lot worse. I also remember feeling this way about the show going into LockDown. Once LockDown ended, though, the show just went retarded. I know better than to get too excited about this show too soon.

With that we've reached the end of Hot Threads for the current week. I only have two pieces of advice for any of you reading this column right now:

1)       If you're reading this and have yet to join the World Wrestling Insanity Forums you really need to. You can join a fantastic community of people and also maybe get your thoughts put out on a website. Granted, when you post it on the forums it will be on a website...this would be a .com.

2)       While you're on the World Wrestling Insanity Forums why don't you join The WWI Halloween Costume Contest   http://s14.zetaboards.com/Wrestling_Insanity/topic/6679474/1/ The rules are simple and it only takes, maybe, 5 minutes out of YOUR MONTH! So go ahead and join for a chance to have fun, and see if you're better at dressing up as something imaginary compared to other people on the internet.

3)       Over at www.ClubWWI.com , James Guttman has introduced the Free Message Board Audio Archive Series. He'll be posting a free audio from ClubWWI.com and the link will be up in the ClubWWI section of the forum. That's it. No Twitter. No Facebook. No carrier pigeon. Just another reason to join the party.

Until next time.....