Ok vote time.

There will be no auction for Sting. The options are

a) Get someone to take over the team
b) Eliminate Sting from the draft

I vote A.

A.

I'm fine with either one; I'd just vote that if we're going to do A, go ahead and offer it now. And if rightdeal wants to come reclaim his spot before the replacement steps in then cool.

A

A wins. A couple of other people said earlier that Sting shouldn't be eliminated. I'll PM littlekeed.

Btw I forgot to say but I love the Vader pick. I think I picked him in the last two drafts around the same spot. There's a load of great workers left but there's only one Vader. So badly used in WWF.

Vader was a fine pick, but I guess I don't know that he was THAT rare of a specimen. It's more that he was just the best version of the big monster because he could outwork almost all of them.

Just for the record I didn't PM him when he was up, that was round 1. LKJ did though so whatever.

Both Savage and Jericho had legendary feuds with wrestlers that didn't really have much value on the microphone. I listened to an interview with Thesz from the 1980s and he was reasonably articulate and quick witted. I love what he says about Hogan here, still fiery at around age 80. Sounds like pretty good shoot promo material:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKLPvIrP118#t=00m05s

With pick 3.30...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4azLULN6iE



Coming to a Monday Night TV show near you, it's the Whole F'N Show, Rob Van Dam!

RVD is one of the truly great "never was" stories for a top guy. He rapidly ascended to stardom in ECW (he was headlining the ECW Arena against undrafted 3 months after debuting as a nobody). Despite his cocky heel push, RVD's laid back persona and innovative aerial offense forced ECW into turning him face and making him TV champion for 2 straight years. He easily became the biggest crossover star both during and after the "Invasion" angle while Vince McMahon was busy burying all other WCW and ECW talent.

RVD nearly became a top main event babyface on 2 separate occasions. In 2002, RVD was groomed all summer to become Raw champion after the WWE planned to introduce a new title belt. Former creative writer, Seth Mates, recently told the story on a PW Torch podcast interview (http://www.blogtalkradio.com/pro-wre...terview-friday) about how everyone in creative including Vince was ready to push RVD to the moon, only to have HHH manage to change Vince's mind in the eleventh hour to give the belt to him instead. HHH then used his political powers to keep RVD down (sound familiar, Daniel Bryan fans?). In 2006, they finally gave RVD the ball to become the new top babyface, only this time RVD dropped the ball with his out of the ring exploits.

In 2002, PW Torch newsletter polled their readers about who would be their top pick in all of wrestling to start a franchise with. RVD was voted #2 on the list behind only Kurt Angle (directly ahead of undrafted family killer, Lesnar, and Rock). From the 9/7/2002 issue:

RVD, like Angle, is perceived by fans right now as a
wrestler who isn’t a backstage politician or someone who is being overpushed.
He is seen as a hard working, innovative, exciting, underutilized wrestler with
an understated charisma that isn’t phony. He has faults, including an in-ring
style that is seen as reckless for both himself and his opponents, although his
track record in WWE is void of any serious injuries or long absences. RVD
keeps himself in good shape and isn’t overly muscular (and thus is less at risk
of suffering muscle tears). Because he hasn’t been a consistent PPV main
eventer or WWE World Title holder, he is still fresh with a long-term upside.

It's been nearly 18 years to the day that RVD debuted in ECW. 18 years later, he'll forever be known as the biggest "true" ECW wrestler of all time.

Roster:
The Undertaker
Mick Foley
Rob Van Dam

Yeah I think Thesz is a great fit for your company. The promo thing isn't that big of a deal (there are ways around it anyway), it's just something I'm considering more than last time (hence why I drafted Andre of course).

Teejay beat me to the gif.

I really like the write up mkind. Not really into the pick though. I saw quite a few contemporary or almost contemporary guys that I thought were about tied in terms of how useful they would be for my company and Van Dam wasn't one of them.

Draft won't continue until someone comes in and catches up. I think littlekeed wanted in so I'll give him the whole window.

Thank you. I figured the pick would need some voice behind it beyond generic compliments. It's good to shake things up a bit anyway.

I have a feeling I know many of those guys you are referring to. Different strokes for different folks I guess. I preferred RVD's innovative in ring work and untapped main event upside to several other guys who I'm guessing the majority would've seen as more valuable picks here. To be frank, some of those picks kind of bored me. Many of them didn't fit all that well style-wise with my 1st 2 picks. Van Dam's personality and ring style always resonated with me a lot more than most, and the precedent for him as a near main event guy is there. The more I thought about taking RVD today, the more I realized just how similar he and Bryan truly are in terms of their popularity with fans vs popularity with management. There is no denying though that RVD blew the best chance he ever had with his own stupidity.

Side note: is RVD the only ECW original whose WWE theme song was at least close to on par with his ECW theme?

Ok, I'll take over. Give me a bit to come up with a quick list of guys.

With my first pick I want a guy who will solidify my main-event ranks. Since just about all of the very top guys are gone I'm going to have to reach just a bit...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYZ5JcHVpa8

Sorry guys I'm UK here and not usually online at weekends.

I pick Brock Lesnar. Was gonna pick Macho Man but think he is taken?

The Blade Runners explode.

that's a great pick for your company, keed. despite coming in late, you still manage to land two "face of the company" types. warrior's run is obviously short lived but i think it was the right pick for you all things considered.

Oh my gawd King, I think we're going to have a ladder match!!!

With my next pick I want a guy who can carry my mid-card. He can work as both a face and heel (sometimes blurring the line). His in-ring work is excellent and his mic skills became very good by the end of his career which could eventually mean a World Title push.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch-vlo59d5g