[hb2k]

Originally Posted by Noid I just listened to this yesterday. Another great podcast, guys. Not sure if you care to read them, but I had some thoughts whilst listening: * The idea of splitting up the nWo never occured to me, for whatever reason. The idea of Nash on RAW and Hall and Pac on SmackDown has more interest to me than it probably should. I also didn't hate the idea of the re-branding, with them officially becoming "The Kliq" on the air. The angle was pretty much losing steam right out the gate, but an evolved presenation may have helped, even if it was going to be short-lived and basically be the starting point to the Triple H/HBK program.

Always love seeing listener thoughts, especially on episodes like this based on creativity. Agree on the nWo splitting, it never really occured to me to do it either until Kieran pitched it. Ultimately they're not long for the world anyway, and I don't think it's even hindsight to say that, just because everybody knew Hall was on the clock from the first night in. An on air Clique for three months is an interesting premise, though since I'd have no desire to keep the belt on Trips longer than May at best, I'm not sure what they can really accomplish. Plus Hall will be gone before Summerslam, lets be honest.

Originally Posted by Noid * I'd actually have swapped Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho around. Angle could have played well off Edge and Hulk Hogan on SmackDown ("I'm a real Real American, Hogan"), and at the time, those programs were fresher for him than ones with Austin or RVD. Not a major gripe, and it ultimately doesn't matter, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Perfectly valid. Angle was so awesome on Smackdown that I can't object to anybody wanting to keep him there, an gut instinct says Angle on SD. I just look at the top heels in April 02 (Taker, nWo, Jericho and Angle), Angle was the best in every way and was the least stale, and Raw needed the injection of life. Plus as mentioned on the show, with Angle as champion, he can still be on Smackdown and do the things you'd mentioned with Hogan and Edge.

Originally Posted by Noid * I also wanted to see The Undertaker on SmackDown. I think he would have been a good early foil for face Edge. It also keeps him away from Austin.

Good call. nWo and Taker are in a similar position in this scenario I think, one has to work with Edge on one show, the other with Van Dam on the other. I actually think what you said in your initial feedback subconsciously swayed us with the Rock/Hogan Vs. nWo being the first big story out the gate, because that's natural, but yeah, Taker and Austin should never wrestle again.

Originally Posted by Noid * Kane and Taker being on different brands is preferable to me. Possibly to everyone at that point.

Here here!

Originally Posted by Noid * Raven/Kane pairing? Absolutely love it. Why not move Perry Saturn over from SmackDown as another minion of Raven's? It provides RAW with another workhorse. He could dismantle the guys like Al Snow and D'Lo Brown that you don't really have anything for.

Funnily enough some people HATED the Raven/Kane alliance on the other forums, preferring the idea of the HurriKane babyface team, which works well too. I'm up for Saturn getting in on the heel duo. Austin needs something new, the Austin Vs. Boss thing was played out, Raven as a short term feud with some fun brawls could have been the ticket, and him as Kane's superior immediately boosts him in the fans eyes and makes him dangerous without having to convince the world it's him alone. Raven was also off TV for a few months post Survivor Series, so I think its a way to possibly use him without the previous stink lingering.

Originally Posted by Noid * RVD as Intercontinental Champion was done for you, but it works so well. It's basically what Heyman did with RVD in ECW with the TV Title -- but RVD holding the IC Title whilst Angle dominates the World Title scene allows anticipation for that eventual clash to build.

In a similar vain, though we didn't get to it on the show, if Van Dam does the ECW TV Title gimmick with the IC belt for a full year, I'd love to do a story where near the end of 02 and into Mania season, Heyman is doing a promo talking about how awesome Lesnar is, he's going to win the Rumble, etc, and Van Dam walks onto the scene and says it doesn't matter if he does, because he's always going to be Mr. Monday Night. And Heyman sells a slight bit of nervousness. You can do these one off confrontations between Heyman and Van Dam, maybe an interviewer catches Heyman alone and asks or something, but whenever the subject comes up, its clear that Heyman is nervous about the idea of Van Dam Vs. Lesnar. You can play off the ECW history, the Alliance history, all the old footage of Heyman on commentary bigging up Van Dam, the time he jumped onto the announcer desk doing the RVD thumbs in the segment with Austin, all of it, with the idea that Heyman knows RVD better than anybody, and thinks he matches up in such a way where he can beat the unbeatable beast.

The day after Mania when Lesnar wins the title, and Heyman is talking about how he went through Hogan, Austin and Rock, he's the king and nobody could beat him, and RVD finally comes out to confront Lesnar, that could be red hot. Especially if Heyman is trying to hold Brock back telling him not to take the bait.

Originally Posted by Noid * On the topic of RVD and who he loses the title to, how about John Cena? If you did want to play things without the gift of hindsight and don't really know much about John Cena, you'd probably talk to Jim Cornette about his pros and cons. Corny always had him picked out as your "Ric Flair-type" heel. Generic John babyface isn't something you have to go with. I can just imagine Cena showing up in Vince's office with a cheeky grin on his face, and Vince just drooling over him. "Wow! Wow! Look at you! You're such a...specimen!" "Thank you, boss, I can't wait to get in there and show these guys a thing or two." "You know what? I'm going to give you just that opportunity tonight. I'm going to give you Rob Van Dam. With the Intercontinental Title on the line." *Cena thinks about this for a second* "Good luck, son." "With all due respect, Mr. McMahon...luck is for punks." Cena shocks everybody and cheats to win the IC Title on his first night. Just throwing it out there.

That's pretty cool. Again, it's a subconscious thing, but we talked off air about Cena debuting the same way he did with the Angle debut, just on Raw and with Angle as champion, but bringing Cena in as a heel, and an important one right away, could be a real jump start.

Originally Posted by Noid * Liked Batista as Jericho's bodyguard. I envisioned exactly the same thing actually, but I'm not entirely against the idea of Batista basically being Goldberg'd and just destroying people in his Leviathan gimmick.

That feels like a good fit. My only concern with the Goldberging is probably the same one they had in real life - you've just debuted Brock doing the same thing, so they stuck him with D-Von to have him there but not emphasise him too much, like he was "just" a big man.

Originally Posted by Noid * May not be urgent, but I always wanted to see Doug Basham with his Revolution gimmick in full-flight on RAW, with Queen Victoria coming along with him.

That might work well, think the only real flaw with the way we had the rosters was that there weren't many major babyfaces for a guy like Basham early doors...Austin, RVD, Jeff and Benoit, with the clock ticking on Austin, I'd say probably towards the end of the year?

Originally Posted by Noid * I kind of like Eddie and Shawn being on RAW. SmackDown is just so stacked, and it's not like you really had HBK for too many matches in there anywhere. I think there might be an ego thing with keeping him live too. Eddie and HBK is something I'd have liked to have seen down the line, and you could have built up Eddie on SmackDown, but I think he could have done some great stuff wherever he went with the right booking team.

I personally wanted Eddie on Raw as well, but got outvoted. The way we lined it up, Shawn immediately has Jericho and Guerrero to work with after Summerslam, as well as guys like Pac and Regal, and the Rumble match with Angle, so that's pretty sexy looking to me. But yeh, him on SD is kind of idealist, there's a reason he never went there.

Originally Posted by Noid * This makes me wonder: Since you're not really going to be running a SmackDown Six program or have a proper Cruiserweight Division, maybe Rey Mysterio doesn't need to debut on the SmackDown roster? You've got a lot of high-flying guys around there, but if the plan is to have Eddie and Rey wrestle, then maybe RAW would have been a good spot for him? Plus, even though I guess you do have Spike Dudley, Rey might stand out as "the small guy" on a show where there aren't a ton of them. I suppose that does change the context of your US Title program on SmackDown, which was beautifully laid out. Never mind me.

Haha, well its worth considering though. I do think a lot of the guys Rey would work better with are probably on Smackdown where the crew is generally smaller (Eddie, Jericho, the Cruisers, Shawn, plus Angle as champion), plus a Rey/Eddie feud in 2002 seems too good to pass up for me.

Love the ideas though, this show was really fun to do and kinda shows that as much as I was first daunted by possibly stale combinations, there were options available.

Also rather keen on that Roster Split 2016 idea, will pitch it to the guys and see what they think. It might mean a complete evisceration of the NXT roster...