The Thread Killer

The obvious problem is that they don't have enough writers. They need to hire some more.

Yeah as far as making introductions, having Ric Flair for a Father-In-Law means there probably are not a whole lot of doors closed to him at this point.

I don't really listen to The Jim Cornette Experience, and that was the show he was doing those "Deep Dives" on. From what I understand, he hasn't done one of those so far this year, I think the last one he did was in December, I'd have to check. Brian Last did mention those episodes always get great feedback and the most downloads, so I am a bit surprised that they haven't gone back to reviewing SMW or OVW year by year. I love Cornette's incredible depth of knowledge when it comes to the history of Pro Wrestling, and I tend to agree with his opinion on the current product - but I could not possibly care any less about what he thinks of Donald Trump. It is on The Experience that he tends to devote a fair chunk of time ranting and raving about politics, so that is the show I tend to avoid. He and Brian Last appear to be trying to keep the Drive-Thru a history only, politics free zone, so that is the show I check out every Monday. Even when it's a bit bland because of the lack of good questions, it's still moderately entertaining - and as I said, for some reason this past week I found it really, really funny.

Jeff Jarrett has mentioned in a couple of interviews that Conrad has really been trying to persuade him to join Team Conrad and do a TNA themed show, but Jarrett didn't want to do it. I can't help but wonder if Jeff knew he'd be going to work for WWE and that there was no way he could do that podcast while working in WWE full time (for a variety of different reasons.) Conrad has also apparently been trying to find the right person who worked behind the scenes in ECW to do an ECW themed show with. Depending who his co-host would be, I'd be up for either of those shows, although logistically I don't know how he'd ever have time for it. He already runs his mortgage business, is married to Ric Flair's daughter so you'd have to assume he has a home life, plus the three existing podcasts and their additional hectic live show schedules, he runs those Starrcast conventions, and if rumor is to be believed, he's somehow involved in AEW behind the scenes.

If anybody here is looking for a good laugh and has some time to spare, I can't recommend this week's episode (#84) of Jim Cornette's Drive-Thru enough. Cornette and Brian Last are both in great moods, and the opening segment where they debate Brian "smartening up" his daughter to the fact that The Tooth Fairy is a work is worth the price of admission alone - not to mention the great questions and answers. This show can be hit and miss, but this week they are on point.

I agree, the Superbrawl series has been excellent. I was worried there wouldn't be much for them to talk about with SuperBrawl III, since I knew Eric Bischoff had just taken over as Executive Producer of Television around the time of that PPV, and that his position wasn't involved with creative (yet) so he wouldn't have much to say about a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Sure enough, Conrad did pitch him some questions that he just couldn't answer because he didn't know. However, there was plenty of meat on the bone in that episode. I loved getting his take on the fall of Bill Watts and I thought his opinion of a few of the matches on the show itself were refreshingly honest. His feelings about the RnR vs. Heavenly Bodies match were especially insightful, as well as his comments on Jim Cornette. If listening to this particular episode doesn't convince you that Eric Bischoff is being honestly introspective on his show, I don't know what to tell you. I have listened to a couple of recent episodes of STW recently, I listened to the Sid episode and the Gorilla Monsoon episode. They were both good episodes, but they really underscored to me how Bischoff is now doing Prichard's show better than Prichard. You can really tell how much Bischoff enjoys doing the show by how engaged he is. I especially enjoyed this week when he basically asked Conrad's permission to go "into the weeds" and get off topic in order to answer a question. One side note, having listened to 83 Weeks, WHW and STW I can't help but get the impression that Conrad considers Tony and Bruce friends, but that his relationship with Eric is really all business, and it's possible that Conrad might actually not even like Eric all that much on a personal level. Is this just me, or does anybody else get that vibe?

This is the thing now and forever though, right? Since Austin vs. McMahon, these guys have convinced themselves that a Main Event level storyline can't really be interesting to the fans or compelling, unless they are somehow involved. Remember the Main Event of Wrestlemania 2000? A Fatal 4 Way with The Rock, Triple H, The Big Show and Mick Foley for the WWF Championship wasn't good enough...there had to be a "McMahon in every corner!" I'm not a huge Mick Foley fan, but I found it interesting in his book The Hardcore Diaries when he talked about pitching stories and angles to Vince and the Creative Team, only to find that the sole focus of Vince and everybody else was the angle between Vince & Shane vs. Hunter & Shawn. Nothing else deserved attention, because come on...three McMahons in one angle! And when the roster was beat up and there was nobody to fight The Undertaker a few years ago, don't bother elevating somebody into that spot to make a new star...no! We need Shane back. Whenever anything starts to gain momentum or get popular, it's now pretty much a foregone conclusion that it's only a matter of time until a McMahon shows up to insert themselves. I honestly think these people have deluded themselves into thinking that is what the fans really want to see.

Yeah, a little bit of me died inside when I read that.

I've spent a lot of time around Senior Citizens, and discovered the hard way that statement isn't necessarily true.

Funny story... In the late Summer of 1999, the local "all sports" radio station in Toronto announced that Terry Funk was coming to town, and would be wrestling in his official Retirement Match! (Not to be confused with his retirement match in August of 1983 in Japan, or his retirement show in Amarillo Texas in September of 1997, or...) They made a big deal about Funk's history in Toronto, how he lost the NWA World's Heavyweight Championship to Harley Race in Toronto almost 22 years to the day earlier, etc. It was announced that Funk would be fighting Sabu, at a Strip Joint called Diamond's Cabaret. The show was called "Last Dance." Of course upon hearing this, I was there. So myself and my girlfriend at the time, along with some other friends headed off to the peeler joint to see Terry Funk fight Sabu. We had a great time - even when Sabu did one of his suicide dives after balancing off the top rope and almost killed everybody in our row. After the match, Terry got on the house microphone and made a touching speech about how he was too old to keep doing this, his body was wearing down and how he loved all his Canadian fans and was glad to be retiring in Toronto where he'd had so many famous matches. My girlfriend asked me if I was sad to see my favorite wrestler retire, especially in such a sad way - in a scummy strip joint in front of 300 people. I replied that no...I was pretty sure we'd be seeing Terry again, sooner rather than later. Sure enough, there I was watching WCW Nitro not five months later and there's Terry! That was the run that he had when this PPV (Souled Out 2000) took place. My girlfriend noticed Terry on TV and was a bit surprised to see him. She asked me how I knew he'd be back. I explained to her that Terry Funk retirements didn't tend to stick. For the record, yes you read that right...I took my girlfriend to a Terry Funk vs. Sabu match at a Strip Joint. In retrospect, this may explain why: a) She's not my girlfriend anymore and... b) I am currently single and seem to have difficulty maintaining successful long term relationships with women. He's retired multiple times since. Terry Funk wrestled as recently September 2017. He's about as good as staying retired as I am at staying in a relationship.

I watched it, and I have to admit...it wasn't all that bad. I would say it's probably the best Buff Bagwell match I ever saw, but that is really not saying much. If I had to rate it using the Meltzer system I'd probably go 3 and 3/4 stars. It wasn't an all time classic but it was very solid and watchable, especially considering the participants. As much as some people love to dump on DDP, his obsession with meticulously pre-planning his matches out ahead of time tend to pay off during matches like this one, or his matches with Savage. The finish was ridiculous and made no sense but hey...WCW.

Thanks a lot El-P. I really appreciate the kind words. I haven't been around much lately or contributing my thoughts on the show for the past few weeks because I just feel like garbage, physically. I really liked the Souled Out 98 and 2000 episodes and I wanted to post about them here but I just didn't feel up to it. Hell, they have put up some interesting bonus content on the 83 Weeks Patreon page and I haven't even checked some of it out yet. Conrad and Eric did a bonus episode where they discuss AEW and what it means for the business, and I haven't even felt up to checking it out yet. I've caught a bit here and there but for the most part I've been out of it, due to my health. I did start this week's episode (Superbrawl 6) last night but I didn't end up finishing it. I probably will later. You mentioned the "watch along" episodes and for what it's worth I wanted to mention...I have found with 83 Weeks that you really don't have to "watch along" in order to enjoy those shows. With WHW and even STW if you listen to the episode without watching along, you can tend to get lost or not know what they're talking about. In the case of 83 Weeks, there is a distinct difference. I know that SomethingSavage and myself have both mentioned how Easy E tends to (as he calls it) "get lost in the weeds" where he takes 15 minutes to answer a fairly basic question. He does that during the watch along episodes as well, and as a result he tends to go off on prolonged tangents and they end up barely discussing what is happening on screen, or they just end up touching on it briefly before going off topic. I'll give you an example. One of my favorite episodes is the one where they watch along with the final episode of Nitro. Eric had never seen it before, and they spend so much time discussing all the things going on with Eric, the sale of WCW and the industry at that time, that they barely touch on what is happening on screen. I remember at one point Eric gets really hot about something, seeing WWF guys on "his show" and I don't think it was a "work" either. He still has professional pride and an ego that can be ruffled even after all this time.

The greatest contribution Hugh Morris ever made to wrestling was being on the receiving end of, what I believe to be, the very first "What" promo by Stone Cold Steve Austin. "Your name is Hugh Morris. What? Is that supposed to be humorous? What?"

I really appreciate the kind words, guys. I had an assessment this morning at the hospital a local medical facility and was told I am going to have another procedure in about a month. So hopefully that will address the issues. I am hoping to be past all this crap some time in March, but at this point who knows? When it comes to watching these matches along with Eric Bischoff, one of the things that's been most interesting to me, is that in a lot of cases he literally hasn't seen some of these matches before. I know it sounds hilarious and maybe even a bit bizarre, but if you think about it from his perspective, it makes sense. We did a watch-along on the Jericho/Mysterio match from Souled Out 98, and he said he was pretty sure that he'd never seen it before. The reason is, at the time of the show he was obviously in charge of the whole damn operation backstage, so he didn't have time to sit there and watch every match, he was busy running around with other stuff. He has said that WCW did have a "Gorilla Position" but it was never anywhere near as complicated and sophisticated as the one in WWE now where Vince, Triple H and the Agents are all there wearing headsets and evaluating every little thing as it happens. In WCW he was dealing with the talent backstage mostly from the sounds of it, and then after the show was over, it was off to the hotel bar, and then on to the next show. He never had any desire or reason to go back and watch matches that had already happened. Then after WCW went under, he (understandably) went through a long period where he had no desire to watch any wrestling, least of all WCW. Back then, everything he saw was through the lens of WCW President, but now he is reevaluating WCW as a wrestling fan. It's kind of neat to watch him rediscover or discover for the first time what he had right under his nose at the time. And now, he can actually appreciate and enjoy a lot of this stuff as a fan, and not be concerned with a lot of the outside issues which distracted him or colored his perception of a particular match. It's funny, you can really see the AWA/Verne Gagne influence on his perspective as a fan. Bisch is all about technical wrestling, and he HATES gimmick matches. I think that is probably why he is such a big Dean Malenko fan. Love him or hate him, you have to admit that Dean would have fit in perfectly in the AWA. One of Eric's other big pet peeves is bad finishes. He has gone on and on how if he could have stolen one person from the WWF during the Attitude Era, it would have been Pat Patterson. Eric hates shitty finishes, and he has a ton of respect for the finishes Pat Patterson used to come up with for Vince. It sounds like during WCW's 90's heyday that Terry Taylor was in charge of finishes a lot of the time. This past weekend we re-watched the infamous Goldberg/Hogan match where Hogan put Goldberg over to keep the streak alive. If you believe Eric Bischoff, the whole thing was 100% Hogan's idea. He claims Hogan was dealing with some nagging knee injuries at the time and had privately confided to Bischoff that he didn't know how much longer he could keep going. Bischoff took the request at face value but claims he knew Hogan well enough at that time to know that even if Hogan thought he should retire, he'd never be able to stay away while the business was hot, there was money to be made and people still wanted to see him perform. Somebody asked in the chat if Hogan might have asked to drop the belt to Goldberg just to stick it to some of the other guys in the WCW locker room who he didn't like, such as Nash or Savage. Bischoff said that was entirely possible, although Savage and Hogan had such a weird love/hate relationship that you never knew from one week to the next if they were on or off. He vehemently denies that Hogan asked for the match so he could be the one to end Goldberg's streak. He doesn't deny that Hogan may have had that in mind, but claims he hadn't verbalized it to him. One thing Eric said while watching that match is that Hogan had a ton of problems in his personal life at the time, and he made the comment to Eric after the match, that he's never personally happier than he is when he is out there performing in front of a crowd like that. That's certainly a comment you can take two ways. One way is to say "Wow, Hogan sure loves performing for his beloved Hulkamaniacs" but the other is that how frankly sad it is that a guy with a wife, two kids and millions of dollars in the bank can't be totally happy unless he's performing in the spotlight - even if it's physically killing him in the process. I kind of got the impression that Eric kind of felt that it was the latter, not the former.

Thanks brother. I'm really hoping I start to respond to treatment and go back to work in March, but the way things are going right now, who knows. I am glad to hear you overcame your own health problems. My attitude is that for 9 bucks a month, it's worth it to get the show without ads and a day early, plus the weekly watch-alongs. Plus he mentioned that he has hired Dave Silva (a guy who works for Conrad) to help him come up with more original content for Patreon supporters. He says he wants to grow that part of the business and make the Patreon page a much bigger deal, so we'll see how it goes. If/when I go back to work I don't know if I'll keep up with it, but for right now it seems like a reasonable investment of my entertainment dollars.

I know this is going to make me look like a massive fanboy, but in the interest of full disclosure, I am going to admit that this past week, I actually signed up and became a Patreon supporter of 83 Weeks. I can't believe I did it, but I had a valid reason, in my opinion. I am having some serious health problems and have been off work since the first week of December. I was hospitalized for over a week, and since getting out I am basically housebound. I only go to Doctor's appointments and medical procedures. As a result I am pretty much going stir crazy. There is only so much reading and Movie/TV watching you can do. I have been listening to a lot of podcasts to kill the many free hours I have. For $9.00 a month, I get each weekly episode of 83 Weeks a day before it gets released to the public, and with no ads. That was a big selling point for me, since as much as I love the show, I hate the ads and find myself trying to skip through them. The problem is of course, that Conrad does a good job of weaving them directly into the show, so it's very hard to get around them. As a Patreon supporter I don't have to worry about that, so that is cool. However, the main feature I've been enjoying has been the live-streaming "watch-alongs" that Eric does with his Patreon subscribers. Multiple times a week, they will send you an email telling you what time to log in, and what match they're going to be doing. A few times he has taken requests for specific matches, otherwise he watches matches from the show he and Conrad are going to be covering on the next episode of 83 Weeks. At the predetermined time, you show up to the site, log in and you're in a live video chat with Eric. He gives you the time-cue for the WWE Network, and off you go. There are usually about 10-20 people in the chat watching along. The thing I thought was a nice touch, is that Eric has a decent way about him when he does these things. He comes across as extremely sincere and very personable. He actually remembers specific details about each member and goes out of his way to engage them during the chat. He also has a phone number that he will open up during certain chats and take questions. He has a daily chat he does every morning with the members called "ACD" which stands for "Ass Crack of Dawn." I have yet to participate in one of those for two reasons. Firstly, he discusses politics and I don't like to do that...but more importantly he does them too damn early in the morning for me. I like him but I don't like him enough to get up early just to participate in a chat with him. The reason I bring this up is because of the recent episode of 83 Weeks they did covering Souled Out 97. Now that they are done going through and reviewing all of the Starrcade Pay-Per-Views, it sounds like Souled Out is the next series they are going to cover. They started with 97, and it was an interesting episode to say the least. I found Conrad Thompson to be pretty much insufferable during this episode. He was in a FOUL mood - surly, argumentative and moody. He was being really bitchy and nit-picky, as if he either didn't want to be there or just wanted to argue with Eric no matter what. And then he had the nerve to turn around and complain that Eric was "talking down" to him. In the chat Eric had after the show was released, I actually asked him if Conrad was in an extra bad mood during that episode, or was it just me? Eric agreed that Conrad had been really cranky, and that he had a really hard time engaging Conrad during that episode, because he had done or said things which he thought Conrad would want to joke about or discuss more, and got nothing in return. He said he hoped it was just a one time thing and that Conrad would be in a better mood next week, when they covered Souled Out 1998. In response to another member's question, he freely admitted that he doesn't have any personal issue with Dave Meltzer at all, that they get along fine and have interacted positively several times since he has been doing 83 Weeks. He said that he generally takes shots at Meltzer more to annoy Conrad than anything else, although he does get slightly irritated when Conrad reads out news items that Meltzer reported that Eric knows for a fact weren't true...but Conrad (and other fans by association) took them as gospel. I might post more later on regarding my specific thoughts on the show itself, although in this rare case, the actual podcast and interaction of the hosts seemed to overshadow the show they were discussing. I'm curious if anybody else heard the Souled Out 97 episode and if so, what your thoughts were.

Good question. I'm not sure if they have edited it out, I'd have to go back and check. Problem is, I have no burning desire to watch that show again, as much as I love the idea of seeing The Dragonmaster in a Main Event.

If they think some of Ventura's commentary is racist they should go back and listen to Cornette on the Clash of Champions X. Some of the comments he makes about Mexicans are...well, let's just say in today's climate? Twitter would have the hammer and nails out.

So now that January 1 has come and gone, there seems to have been a noticeable shift in the content available on The Fight Network here in Canada. UFC has moved to ESPN from FOX, and as part of that deal, UFC is no longer available on The Fight Network. As I suspected, that seems to have left quite a large hole in the programming schedule. The Fight Network used to have infomercials in the morning until about 10:00 am or so, and then have a mix of UFC programming and a fair bit of "classic TNA" content. They show the weekly ROH show as well, and old NJPW and Pancrase, as well as combat related movies like Bloodsport, etc. But honestly, every time I looked at the Fight Network guide it seemed it was always either an old UFC card or special or live prelims or the post fight press conferences, or TNA or new IMPACT programming. Now that UFC is gone, they are showing a ton of obscure European minor league MMA shows, or Impact, Impact and more Impact. I saw an interview with Ed Nordholm of Anthem Sports and Entertainment this past week online. He reiterated that the main reason Anthem bought Impact was to provide content for The Fight Network and their other channels like The Game Show Network and Pursuit. I know the popular reaction online to Impact ending up on Pursuit is "LOL Impact can't get a TV deal" and that is partially true. I'm sure they would have loved to land a TV deal where they were getting paid to provide their show. But I don't think it's the death knell that some people seem to think it is. The Fight Network is literally loaded with classic TNA content, old PPV's, specials focusing on past stars and classic matches, etc. Today alone, by my calculation there is 8 hours of TNA and Impact related content scheduled on The Fight Network. The idea that Anthem bought Impact specifically to run as an independent Pro Wrestling company and make money via the traditional revenue streams isn't entirely true, I don't think. I don't think you can discount the need Anthem had for fairly cheap programming that they own themselves. At this point, The Fight Network may as well change their name to The Impact Network.

I quite enjoyed it. It wasn't an all time classic, but I liked the show. I've never watched an entire episode of the NXT UK show, but I had no problem getting into it. I got the impression that the Tag Team Championship finals and the Main Event were both trying very hard to be "epic" matches, they were both long, slow build match matches with a ton of false finishes. I don't think either of them accomplished what they were trying to do, but both were solid matches and bless them for trying. I enjoyed the overall feel of the show, I loved the venue and the crowd was insanely hot. The only thing I actively disliked was the ridiculous WWE camera work, with a million cut shots, needless zooming in and out and switching angles every second for no reason. Having watched the IMPACT PPV last weekend and the NXT UK show this weekend, the difference in camera work was glaring. Just because you can afford to have seven cameras and can jump between shots multiple times a minute, it doesn't mean you should, or that you have to. When it comes to production at that level, sometimes less really is more.

He trained at the "Future Stars of Wrestling" school in Las Vegas, mostly by Sinn Bodhi. He debuted with them in 2014. He has some MMA training as well but I don't think he's fought professionally. As El-P mentioned, he wrestled in Lucha Underground and he has also worked in AAA. I think the main reason he ended up in IMPACT is because Sonjay Dutt is a big fan of his. When Dutt was working for Global Force he booked Kross there, and now that he's an agent in Impact it looks like he made sure to get Kross in there as well. From what I've seen, he is a very solid promo but I haven't seen enough of him in the ring to have a strong opinion one way or the other. If he's even average as a wrestler, then IMPACT are smart to push him, in my opinion. He can talk, but most importantly he's new and isn't viewed as a WWE reject or cast-off. He's an original star and a new face and Impact is really going to need guys like him and Eli Drake if they want to succeed on their own merit and not end up looking like TNA used to, obsessed with getting WWE retreads.

Thanks brother. I think if the finish hadn't been so wonky, I probably would've been a lot more favorably disposed towards the Main Event. I wanted to like Moose, I really did. When I first saw him in ROH, I thought the guy looked like money. I especially thought if they built towards a feud between Moose and Donovan Dijak they might really be onto something, but that never really transpired to the best of my knowledge, for whatever reason. I can overlook most of my issues with him except two. I find that he moves really slow most of the time ("plodding" is the word I use) but even worse, his selling drives me nuts. I can't count the number of times I saw him get hit with some type of offensive maneuver, when his only reaction was to stumble backward two or three steps, wave his arms comically in a circular motion like he was losing his balance, and shake his head a couple of times as if he was confused. It was so damn cartoonish, it drove me up a wall. Maybe he was trained with the mindset that "you're a big guy, you don't have to sell" or maybe he just isn't any good at it, but either way, it drives me nuts. But hey, I am the first to admit that my opinion is just that...an opinion. Maybe Moose is better than I give him credit for being. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's just me. Here I am singing the praises of the Willie Mack/Sami Callahan match, and I haven't seen one other person online today mention it favorably. Just goes to show what is awesome for some people is "meh" for other people. I agree with you as well that Tessa/Taya without the referee angle was much better.

Yeah, Conrad says they are going to do an entire episode devoted to Raven and I am looking forward to that. Conrad is a documented Raven mark, and Eric seems to undervalue him, so that will be interesting when it finally comes. I agree with SomethingSavage, I get the feeling Raven was a bit of a thorn in Bischoff's side backstage in addition to all of his substance abuse issues causing trouble, so I have no doubt that is why Eric's opinion of him is somewhat skewed.

As far as the Piper episode, the one thing that really sticks out for me is the end, when Eric discusses Piper's death. He gets legit choked up talking about the way Roddy treated his kids and other kids in the backstage area, even when he didn't know he was being watched. It's pretty endearing, and I don't for a moment think it was a planned reaction or a "work."