[Mr. Nerfect]

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

Yeah, you guys addressed the point of the nWo guys not being long for the world anyway. It's a fun exercise to imagine what could have been done with them in the meantime to maximize interest though. The name change might have been enough to make things feel more timely than a 2002 nWo faction. He hadn't really Bloomed as much as he would on Heyman's SmackDown, but Albert and Justin Credible getting back on board with them might have been something (I know, X-Factor being dead and buried is probably a good thing).

You could have the nWo turn into The Kliq with Credible joining. Albert could turn on Test in a tag team match against Pac & Credible, Test goes on a face crusade against them? I can hear Karl groaning now. Or maybe Test & Albert both join up under The Kliq once Nash & Hall are gone. So the faction ends up becoming Triple H, X-Pac, Justin Credible, Albert, Test & Trish.

If Stephanie insists on returning to the company down the line, her becoming suspicious of the Triple H/Trish relationship seems very "hangover from the Attitude era-y".

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

I guess the whole champion thing makes his roster positioning sort of moot. He was awesome on SmackDown, but trying to put the end results of what actually happened out of mind, I just think he'd have more to offer against the guys there. Fresher match-ups and all. I think I'd have liked Jericho to run things on RAW because I think feuds with Austin and RVD would have been that tiny little bit fresher. Not a giant point of contention, but it's one trade I'd bring up only to be shot down, haha.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

Agree with Taker and nWo needing to be separate. Or at least Taker and Nash. Can't have two guys in black singlets and leather pants running around. I would also like to re-emphasize the point of Taker being away from Austin. And even though he was a heel, Taker was still in that bubble of credibility with guys like Austin, Rock and Triple H. If you've got Austin and Triple H on RAW, then Rock and Taker on SmackDown makes total sense.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

Really? I guess a lot of people aren't as down on Kane as you guys generally are, so they might felt it was cutting off his balls a bit? As for Hurricane, I like the idea of him being on SmackDown to compete with the smaller guys, and re-ignite that dynamic with Lance Storm. Hurricane & Lance Storm vs. X-Pac & Justin Credible would be a tag feud with a lot of history behind it. I can't remember exactly where JC ended up, but I believe X-Pac was on SmackDown.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

That is awesome. The dynamic between Brock and RVD's personalities and presentations lead me to believe it could have been a HUGE eventual match. Brock's intensity vs. Rob's calm persona? People would have bought into RVD beating Brock at this point had they of gone that route.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

The idea of bringing him in the same way works too. It was a good debut that I got into at the time, but I felt that the follow-up was a bit soft. The only other idea I really have for Cena is bringing him and Orton in at the same time as either rivals against each other, or as tag team partners. The tag team thing seems weird, but the idea of two "blue chip" guys breaking ground together is an easy enough way to slowly introduce people to them. Might be a bit better than having Hardcore Holly beat the piss out of Orton consistently for a few weeks.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

I concur. I therefore officially support Batista as Jericho's "Demon of the Deep." Random suggestion though: If they had kept the darker nature of the Leviathan presentation, could it have helped Jericho develop a "darker," more "spiritual" presentation? Or even just becoming less flamboyant rock star and more "Ozzy Osbourne," "there's some crazy shit in this world" rock star? His heel run was running a bit flat, but maybe Jericho talking about a creature from the depths of hell rising to fight on his side could have moved his character away from falling wayside as much as it did later in the year.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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?

I agree not right away. Definitely sometime post-SummerSlam.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

Another thing to keep in mind is the health of Shawn Michaels. They weren't sure he could go for that long. Although I suppose they did have him work pretty much all the PPVs post-Survivor Series. It's interesting to imagine how it would have all fit together for him in this sort of world, with a more refrained program with Jericho and something with Eddie a-brewing, probably after dropping the US Title to Rey.

HBK beating Triple H at SummerSlam, moving onto a program with Jericho, losing that due to Eddie interference -- with Eddie pissed off he didn't get the title back from Rey in their final encounter, leading to Eddie vs. HBK at Armageddon works for me. Michaels would probably have to win that match, Eddie could keep his heat with the low blow, then Triple H could go about getting his Triple H program.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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.

I'll tap out on the Eddie/Rey stuff. It would have been a phenomenal way to bring him in. I also feels like it makes him a bigger deal than his initial singles run on SmackDown post-SmackDown Six awesomeness did. The dude gets the US Heavyweight Title.

I completely understand the brand identity thing, but part of me wonders if stacking the workhorse guys on one roster is the way to go. It's very, very easy to associate SmackDown with that and see potential match-ups and go "Oh, they have to be together!", which I am very guilty of (See: Angle and Edge earlier), but once those rosters are sort of settled, you can maybe switch a few guys around, and maybe have a D'Lo Brown take the place of Billy Kidman on SmackDown, giving RAW another guy who can stand out with his high-flying and such. Down the line, maybe having the smaller guys on one show becomes less of a certainty, and a guy like Jamie Noble might have more value jumping over to RAW for a program with Billy Kidman than he does just having more smaller guys to work with on SmackDown, but a less dynamic and stand-out program.

Originally Posted by hb2k 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...

I love your fantasy booking ones. I was actually really pumped with how you guys got it all together in the end. I was sort of like Karl where I was thinking "Hey, that's actually really fucking good." The thing is, a few of the guys that are lower on the totem pole could probably be moved around (like the aforementioned D'Lo Brown, or Al Snow), actually find things to do, and have more of a purpose and shake things up in even more unexpected ways.

I'm completely OK with the evisceration of the NXT roster. There are too many guys that are ready down there and should have a shot at making money. And there are a few performers down in NXT that have gimmicks I want to see expanded on that just don't get a chance with there being such a congested line. I think the faster you move some of those guys out, the stronger those performers in NXT get.