2006 WWE Appreciation Thread

[RIPbossman]

I felt this was a great year for WWE. There was such much to things to enjoy about the product.

-Edge cashes in Money In The Bank, shocks everyone. Goes on to have the live sex celebration with Lita.

- John Cena's crowd split, polarizing crowd reactions were fresh and entertaining in and of themselves. His current character has a degree of epic awareness, while his 2006 character had more edge and attitude, imo.

- Ric Flair wrestles in ladder matches and rolls around in thumb tacks. NO ONE thought they'd ever see that.

- Rey Mysterio wins Royal Rumble from #2 spot and wins WHC at WrestleMania. He went overboard with dedicating every match to Eddie, and he was booked weak for a face champ, but it was still something fresh.

- Saturday Night's Main Event returns to NBC.

- ECW One Night Stand is a great show with a vocal, blood thirsty crowd. Cena defends the WWE Title in enemy territory.

- ECW returns as a full time brand. The essence of the original ECW vanished from this show, but it was still a good wrestling show to watch.

-Big Show has a run a monster ECW Champion.

-WrestleMania 22 is a great show in front of a high energy crowd.

- Edge/Foley program and matches (which eventually included Funk and Dreamer)

-John Cena upsets Triple H, surprises everyone.

- Booker T wins King of the Ring, rejuvenates his character, becomes consistent as a performer and wins first WWE WHC.

- JBL and Joey Styles become new voices in the commentary booths.

- Mickie James vs. Trish Stratus rivalry is executed perfectly.

- John Cena and Edge have one of the goat rivalries, with an epic TLC match in Toronto.

- DX reunion. Not as good as 1997, but we wanted it for years and finally got it.

- MNM, Carlito, Chris Masters, Matt Hardy, Gregory Helms, Finlay, Bobby Lashley, and others keep the mid card interesting.

- Ric Flair vs. Foley rivalry.

-Rated RKO

- Umaga debuts

-Angle delivers as the "Human Wrestling Machine" until he leaves in the summer.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

As with any year in pro wrestling, 2006 had it's ups and downs. I'll try not to be bias, but that will be difficult considering this is the first year I watched wrestling full time.

Positives:

Edge cashing in MITB and his rivalry with Cena
Almost everything Ric Flair did
ECW One Night Stand
Big Show's ECW run
Edge and Foley rivalry
Booker T's heel run
Mickey James and Trish Stratus rivalry
DX Reunion
Flair and Foley rivalry
The majority of the mid-carders and feuds
Rated RKO
WrestleMania 22
Almost everything Kurt Angle did until he left

Negatives:

Edge losing to Cena 2-3 weeks after cashing in
The start of Cena's mixed crowd reactions (This is on WWE)
Rey Mysterio's Royal Rumble win and title reign
ECW as a full time brand
New commentators
Boogeyman's rivalry with Booker T

Though I'm definitely biased because this was my first year watching (I was only 7), the good greatly outweighed the bad, so I would call 2006 a success.

 

[Prince Vee]

It was 3 years for me since I started watching fulltime WWE. I started watching the product weeks before the Summerslam 2003. And I'll never complain anything really about the 2006. There were some errs and mistakes but when does everything got so perfect? In that context I'll never complain about the year 2006. To appreciate that, I loved Edge's cashing in his MITB that really shocked everyone amongst the all other things.

Cheers!!

 

[Sexcellence of Sexecution]

2006 had some good stuff, mainly with John Cena (Edge feud, HHH match at Mania, ECW match with RVD), but you are definitely overlooking a lot of the fucking terrible shit that happened that year. As in some of the worst shit ever done in the WWE ever. Number one of course is Rey Mysterio's entire run as champion. First of all, giving him a sympathy run for Eddie's death was not a good idea. It was as transparent as you could get and the crowd saw right through it. Let's also not forget the attempt to put heat on Randy Orton by having him say that Eddie Guerrero was burning in hell. Which didn't work by the way, because at Mania 22 I'm pretty sure more people wanted Orton to win than Rey (90% were pulling for Angle to retain though). The supposedly heartwarming WrestleMania moment of Rey winning the title was completely ruined by the amount of heat he got in Chicago, and by the fact that the match was 9 minutes long. Then when he was champion he lost on TV constantly. Also referencing the debut of ECW as a third brand as something positive stretches your credibility to a breaking point because that as some of the worst wrestling ever broadcast by the WWE in its history. December to Dismember is legit the worst PPV I've ever seen. The ECW brand would go from a horrifying attempt at recreating ECW to basically a developmental brand that introduced WWE fans to future stars such as CM Punk and no one else. Then let's talk about the return of DX. You know, the youthful rebels who are now 40 year old men doing lame sits that aren't funny at all. Obviously the return of DX was fucking brutal, but I'll give it a pass because at least it drew money. That DX merch was flying off the shelves and they got a huge pops from idiots.

So all in all, it was a pretty average year in the land of WWE.

 

[BestSportsEntertainer]

That DX merch was flying off the shelves and they got a huge pops from idiots.

They were over with the entire crowd. They were hilarious. What are you talking about?

 

[The Samoan Heritage]

I honestly enjoyed 2006. It could've been better but for the most part I was kept entertained.
I enjoyed...
- the ECW invasion angle and the One night Stand PPV.
- Edge and Cena Wwe championship battles
- DX reunion and feud with the McMahons and Rated RKO
- Big Show ECW championship run (the first half he was built as a serious threat facing Taker, Flair, Kane, RVD, etc in extreme rules matches. Then he became just another guy in his feuds with Cena/Booker T and his feud with the McMahons vs DX.)
- Mysterio championship chase being devoted to Eddie. (His reign is another story though)
-And just about everything that was involved in the mid-card. The battles for the IC championships with Jeff/Nitro/Umaga/Carlito/etc, the Battles for the U.S championship with Benoit/Kennedy/MVP/etc. and Mickie James run in the women's division.

My favorite part of 2006 has to be Survivor Series that year. The Legends vs the Spirit squad, team DX(my favorite Survivor Series team of all time) vs Team RKO, Team Cena/Lashley vs Team Big Show, and Taker vs Mr. Kennedy. I will always remember that segment on Raw were they had all 6 Survivor Series teams come out.

The only true low parts of 2006 for me would be the overuse of The Spirit Squad and the John Cena vs Kevin Federline feud.

 

[RIPbossman]

Also referencing the debut of ECW as a third brand as something positive stretches your credibility to a breaking point because that as some of the worst wrestling ever broadcast by the WWE in its history. December to Dismember is legit the worst PPV I've ever seen. The ECW brand would go from a horrifying attempt at recreating ECW to basically a developmental brand that introduced WWE fans to future stars such as CM Punk and no one else. Then let's talk about the return of DX. You know, the youthful rebels who are now 40 year old men doing lame sits that aren't funny at all. Obviously the return of DX was fucking brutal, but I'll give it a pass because at least it drew money. That DX merch was flying off the shelves and they got a huge pops from idiots.

.

December to Dismember was a disaster. But all in all there were good things on ECW programming. Sabu and RVD's ladder match, Angle, Big Show's run as champion (and his match with thumbtacks against Ric Flair). If you could get past the fact that it was ECW in name only and could accept it was a good wrestling show in it's own right, it was enjoyable.

Triple H turned face for the first time since 2002. The DX reunion was something really fresh for both Shawn Michaels and HHH. It will always be worse in comparison to the original, but it was still cool to finally see it again.

 

[Rhodes2TheFuture3313]

The Best thing about 2006 was RATED RKO. These guys were put together and fit perfectly like a glove. Edge & Orton were the most brutal 2 man powertrip in the HISTORY of WWE. Right before Edge retired we got a somewhat reunion when they tagged together on Smackdown while Edge was WHC. It was pretty cool. It was just 2 guys bent on destroying anyone who got in their way to the top of the card.

 

[The Brain]

Of course there were some good points but overall I think 2006 was one of the weaker years in the nearly thirty years I've been watching WWE. Some of it was due to the fallout of things that happened in 2005. Chris Jericho left right after SummerSlam. Christian left a couple months later. Eddie Guerrero died right after that. Batista got injured just as 2006 started and missed half the year. Then half way through the year we lost Kurt Angle too. Now I've seen plenty of talent come and go over the years but losing those guys in a short amount of time hurt the company.

I was not a fan of the DX reunion. The original DX were young immature pranksters rebelling against everything. They were cutting edge. A decade later HBK and HHH looked ridiculous as 40 or near 40 year olds making poop jokes. It was pretty much the opposite of what the original DX stood for. It didn't help that two of the greatest of all time were working against Vince and Shane McMahon and five unknown male cheerleaders. It was a mismatched feud that didn't do anything for me.

I was also not a fan of ECW. Unfortunately it was doomed from the start when RVD got busted and lost both his titles so quickly. Here's a guy that was handed the world on a silver platter and blew it because he couldn't quit smoking pot. Way to go RVD. What a wasted opportunity. I don't know how much it mattered to ECW anyway. I think the first guy I saw on the new show was the Zombie. It was clear from the start ECW was not to be taken seriously. The show had a minor league feel and anyone that went there from Raw or Smackdown had to feel like they were being demoted.

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Orton should have been a big match. The feud started off ok but it quickly fell apart after the first segment. There was no momentum after that and nobody cared by SummerSlam. Brooke couldn't even be bothered to show up for a match she was supposed to be a focal point for.

Undertaker vs. Khali didn't turn out very well. Watching Big Show sub for Khali in a Punjabi Prison match didn't really make sense. Punjabi Prison was supposed to be this big dangerous match but when you take the Punjabi giant out of the equation it really lost whatever appeal it may have had in the first place.

May 19 and Impostor Kane were both lame. December to Dismember was God awful. Speaking of God, Vince vs. God was kind of funny at times but overall was pretty meh.

2006 had some good moments. Cena vs. Edge, Foley vs. Edge, and Taker vs. Angle were all great. Trish vs. Mickie was solid and King Booker as champ wasn't bad. I just think there was a lot more mediocrity than good stuff going on in 2006. Overall, not a good year.

 

[I Heart Cena]

They were over with the entire crowd. They were hilarious. What are you talking about?

Nah, b, they was wack af. Cringey and lame.

 

[Sexcellence of Sexecution]

They were over with the entire crowd. They were hilarious. What are you talking about?

The original DX were young immature pranksters rebelling against everything. They were cutting edge. A decade later HBK and HHH looked ridiculous as 40 or near 40 year olds making poop jokes. It was pretty much the opposite of what the original DX stood for.

That's what I'm talking about.

My point stands that if you liked DX in 2006 you're probably just an immature simpleton that thinks poopy is hilarious. They were cringe worthy at best. The word lame could not be a more perfect description of how they came across.