While watching baseball, I threw together a beta version of the 2004 RAW TV Index. Lots of holes to fill, but the main problem is I keep getting confused on which PPVs are for which brands later on in the year, and I can’t find a good list. This is what I’m thinking
AUG SummerSlam – Both
SEP Unforgiven – RAW
OCT No Mercy – SD!
OCT Halloween Havoc – RAW
NOV Survivor Series – Both
DEC Armaggedon – SD! ?
JAN Royal Rumble – Both
FEB No Way Out – RAW ?
APR WM 21 – Both
My ideas for the Iron Man match, thinking back to the last one
– Punt the rest of the show; do something for the main event slot, but schedule as many breaks between the 1:05 and 1:40 marks in the show. I’m sure they’ll try their best here – stuff like the Diva Search is made for 2 minute buffers between commericals.
– Start with mat wrestling. Brock and Angle went immediatly to Brock dominating with power, and really didn’t have enough different material to go the full hour. That shouldn’t be as big a problem with these two, but keeping it on the ground to start will save them from having to pull out more just to get through. It’s a big part of both guys styles, so I expect they’ll try.
– Tie goes to OT. This was the rule on the SD! Iron Man match and the WM one, but not for Triple H’s last Iron Man match. I’d actually like to see the OT worked with “most falls in X (5? 10?) minutes” rather than sudden death, since it fits the format of the match better. Either way, setting this up in the first hour leaves a nice opening to take this extra.
– Build on the spots from previous Iron Man matches. In real life, I’d assume Benoit and Triple H have been watching the past matches for ideas and strategies to use, but they shouldn’t forget that their characters should be thinking about those past strageties. Should Triple H get himself DQed again to try and win a fall? Is it better to stick with their primary move or to try and pull out something unexpected? Hopefully, JR and King will spend at least as much time talking about what’s going on in the match as they will talk about how great the match is.
– I’d even think about guest commentators for portions of the match, to give new life to the commentary. You’d get another dimenstion – Flair doing a segment with his knowledge of doing a sixty minute match, Jericho talking about having faced both men and how to gameplan against – without taking away from the match. I think this is a little out there to try, though.
– Don’t do falls during commerical breaks. Yea, it’s totally realistic, but I think you’ll find more people willing to give up a little bit of realism to see the meaningful moments of the match. If at all possible, don’t even do changes of momentunem during commerical breaks. It takes viewers out of the match when they aren’t allowed to changes in action.
– A clean finish. You really don’t need Eugene to get involved to heat up that feud. Anytime you ask people to invest a lot of time into a match and give them an unsatifying ending, you’ll end up with a lot of annoyed people. It doesn’t make sense to do a 59 man minute match and 1 minute screwjob finish, because the focus will be on the 1 minute finish and the rest of the match could’ve been 3 minutes long for all it matters. You can do inteference – it’d work fine as a side show late in the match when you want to give the guys a rest – but you don’t want it to have the deciding impact on a gimmick match, or the gimmick is diminished.
Judgement Day ’00
Winner of Fall #1: Rock
Winner of Match: Triple H
SD! Iron Man Match
Winner of Fall #1: Angle
Winner of Match: Brock
Obviously, Bret/HBK doesn’t follow that pattern, but I’m guessing tonight’s match will.
Things You Wish You Never Knew: Peter King reports Ricky Williams had a unpleasant body odor. This story offically got well past annoying to me when Dan Patrick asked Peter Gammons his thoughts on it, and if he would’ve been happier in baseball. (Dan sports radio oversimplifcation of this into pot vs NFL decision is quite tremendously as well.)
Pete Rose as not in Cooperstown signing autographs this year. That’s opposite of last year, but in line with his non-presence after the negative reaction to his book. The easy assumption is he’s doing this to get back in MLB’s favor. The true test of his low profile status is really going to be when ESPN’s bio flick airs on 9/25.