The Thread Killer

You make a good point. After listening to the debut episode of Bischoff's show this past week, I had the same thought. I know Bischoff can and will be just as guilty as Prichard of being full of shit. He will also have an agenda he is trying to promote. But so does Meltzer. Don't get me wrong...I genuinely respect Dave Meltzer's work and abilities. However, the massive explosion in wrestling related Shoot Interviews and Podcasts over the past few years by people who are either insiders or in some cases were actual decision makers themselves, has damaged Meltzer's credibility somewhat. I never did take everything Metlzer reported as fact, but I think there are more and more examples of times he was just flat out wrong coming to light. (The whole "who is the third man going to be" story is a good example. I am of the opinion that some of Dave's theories about that story were just not right.) I also don't discount the fact that Dave has clearly gotten worked by some of his sources who obviously had agendas of their own. One thing Prichard is clearly doing is using his show to bury people he has a bad history with. To hear him tell it, Jerry Jarrett is an idiot, Terry Taylor is overrated and Paul Heyman was never as successful as his brainwashed fans think. Maybe all those things are true...but you can tell that (at least in the case of Jarrett and Heyman) there is clearly some jealousy happening.

Loss, I can see why some fans would be surprised and even concerned about the upward trajectory of Bruce Prichard's relevance to Pro Wrestling. He has been experiencing a pretty amazing, unpredictable and unlikely career resurgence that I don't think anybody could have predicted. My feelings about him have vacillated over the past couple of years. At first, I wrote him off as nothing more than a WWF/E shill and apologist, who was obnoxious to boot. If I didn't suffer from chronic insomnia, it's likely I never would have listened to his podcast. Eventually, I warmed up to him - but purely for entertainment reasons. After a while, his show grew on me...as comedy commentary. I found his banter with Conrad Thompson to be quite humorous. His show was easy to listen to, and inoffensive for the most part. Lately, I find myself becoming disenchanted with the show for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is becoming incredibly over-exposed. His normal show is already famous for long episodes, and now we're getting bonus shows and the Network show on top of all that. It's getting to be too much Prichard, for me. Secondly, I am finding his act is kind of like Beavis & Butthead or the Three Stooges...funny on an embarrassing visceral level, but not the kind of entertaining that can be enjoyed without it wearing thin after a while. I can only hear so many Vince McMahon or Jerry Jarrett imitations before I get tired. (Although to be honest, his Terry Funk still cracks me up.) Also, his whole Meltzer-bashing act is getting beyond boring. It's the same damn thing every show now. The main thing that is turning me off Bruce Prichard is that people are starting to take what he says as a fact. That's kind of scary. Conrad Thompson has clearly stated on many occasions that the show is meant to be entertainment first, everything else second. If there are really people out there who take what Prichard says as gospel and use it as "facts" for the basis for an argument, that's kind of terrifying. A lot of other people in this thread have hit the nail on the head. Hearing from Bruce Prichard is the closet we're ever going to get to knowing how Vince McMahon's mind works. He can provide a peek into the creative process with Vince that can be very interesting. Do I think he's telling the truth some of the time? Sure. Hell, he might even be telling the truth a lot of the time. But there are also countless times where he's quite clearly full of shit. To be fair, Conrad calls him on that fairly regularly. Listening to a Bruce Prichard podcast and walking away thinking you got facts, is kind of like watching MTV News and thinking you got news. Technically it might be true...but not really.

Great post, shodate. Let's check The shodate Manifesto and see how you scored... Now please respond the way I know you're going to, so I can check off #6 as well. And for the record...yes I know what I just posted is "deformation."

I turned this week's episode off long before they got to the Main Event. It was bad enough that Conrad had his friend "The Casio Kid" (who is apparently a "morning man" disc jockey in Alabama) hooting and hollering in the background, laughing hysterically at everything Tony and Conrad said. But they bottomed out nicely when Tony started joking about Nikita Koloff's wife dying of Hodgkin's disease - while Conrad and The Casio Kid whooped it up. Because somebody dying of cancer is hilarious, apparently. I guess Bobby Heenan was right about Tony Schiavone after all.

I collected the entire run of AJPW from 1990 up until the AJPW/Pro-Wrestling Noah split. I then collected the first couple of years of Noah. Unfortunately, this was all on VHS, which means in my crawl space I have a massive box of VHS tapes which I haven't touched in almost 10 years. I also collected the first 25-30 ROH shows on VHS. I got out of the promotion to a degree when the Rob Feinstein scandal broke, then I came back later. I purchased all the "big shows" like the Joe/Punk Trilogy and Joe vs. Kobashi. I have a ton of ROH DVD's that are unopened, that I got a great deal on at an ROH show in Toronto back in 2008. I think those are in a giant plastic tote in the back of my closet. This is all from back in the days when I made a lot more money and had disposable income. It's been a while since I've watched either promotion. Whenever I get a yearning to see some 90's AJPW, I watch it on YouTube. I've never really had an overwhelming desire to see any of that early ROH again...certainly not enough to pull that massive box out of my crawl space (and suffer the inevitable allergy attack from the dust and mites which must be covering that box now) then buy a VCR and hook it up. But I remember that stuff pretty clearly. I watched some of those early ROH shows repeatedly before VHS went the way of the dodo. To be honest, I don't think a lot of that early ROH would hold up all that well. Also, I think it may have kind of set the template for a lot of the spot-heavy independent stuff which still permeates the scene to this day. I could die happily having never seen another Xavier match, or especially a (shudder) "scramble." Don't get me wrong, there is some great stuff in there, but there is also a lot of dated nonsense. I can't even imagine how the "Christopher Street Connection" would go over with Twitter today. Some people might disagree with me, but I think the 90's AJPW stuff is pretty timeless. You can watch a Jumbo & Company vs. Misawa and Friends 6 Man match, or any of the "Four Corners" matches today and they're just as dramatic and compelling as they were at the time. And that's not even getting into the Misawa/Kawada rivalry or Misawa/Kobashi matches. As far as negatives, you could aim the same complaints at them that some do at current NJPW...the matches are long and take a hell of a long time to get where they're going. Also, the style is undeniably brutal. It's not a coincidence that Misawa died in the ring from a neck injury and Kobashi had to retire after missing years of action due to injury. It can be hard to watch that old stuff now, knowing what those guys were doing to their bodies. But from a quality standpoint, I can't really see a compelling argument that would convince me ROH was any better than AJPW. If nothing else, based on the sheer volume of the work. If you believe in Meltzer star ratings, then check out this famous list. Like I said, the sheer volume of high quality matches is unparalleled. I don't think we'll ever see a single promotion produce so many classic matches in such a time frame ever again. To me, it's AJPW and it's pretty much a no-brainer.

I listened to the first episode tonight, and I thought it was excellent. It turned out exactly the way I hoped it would. Conrad was prepared and much more professional than he is on STW and WHW. Eric did claim he didn't remember quite a few things, but he also remembered quite a bit too. He provided some interesting details and insights I had never heard about the formation of the nWo. I really enjoyed this a lot.

Apparently Bret Hart brokered the peace, a condition of which was a public apology by Harry Smith.

That's an excellent point and Jericho is an excellent example. Chris Jericho is kind of the anti-Roman, isn't he? He's a guy who manages to stay fresh and relevant by pretty much constantly reinventing himself. There is no way Jericho would still be as popular as he is right now if he was still working the exact same character he had back when he first made his WWF debut all those years ago - or even if he had stuck with one of his previous incarnations. His frequent breaks from the business help him sure, but he is constantly evolving. It's actually quite amazing that he has done that right under their nose, yet nobody there has looked at him as an example and thought to apply some of those creative techniques to Roman Reigns.

I meant Gail Kim deserved to be famous like the current WWE Women's Division but also, it's kind of sad to me that she isn't part of the current WWE scene because she would have been able to showcase her talents against a higher quality of opponent than she did during her WWE run and in TNA. And also, she would have presumably made a hell of a lot more money had she been in WWE now. Sadly, she was just a bit ahead of her time.

I have to admit, I am looking forward to this. I listened to a few minutes of the preview clip, and Conrad sounds a lot more formal and organized than he does on STW, and miles apart from his shtick on WHW. That was a concern of mine. It's probably more formal because it's the premiere episode and I imagine with time and comfort he'll relax, but I liked the brief clip that I heard. Hopefully Conrad will use his research (which he apparently has people doing for him now) to call Eric out when he's B.S.ing, but he won't revert into dickjoke mode like he does on WHW. Like I said earlier, I actually like Bischoff in this setting from what I have seen. I'm going to give it a good chance, and the timing couldn't be better because I am rapidly getting tired of STW.

Yeah, I found it. From just a couple of weeks ago on "Fightful.com" Comments like that, I'm not sure she'd be welcomed back in WWE which is a shame. She deserves to be part of the recognition the women are finally getting, she was ahead of her time in that regard in WWE.

I could be wrong, but I think I read something somewhere about how Gail Kim made an appearance on a podcast recently and had less than flattering things to say about Stephanie and the WWE women's revolution. I'd have to search for it, but I'm pretty sure that Gail has decided now that she's retired she isn't going to hold back her opinions.

Loss and SomethingSavage make interesting points about the need for character evolution - how Reigns hasn't evolved and how some of the classic guys never did or never needed to. The only arguments I can see to those points are that the classic guys seemed to have characters that worked for them, so they didn't have to change. Reigns isn't really working now. Secondly, guys in the 70's and 80's weren't ridiculously overexposed the way they are now. Any of those big names would have become stale if they had been on a three hour show once a week in addition to monthly Pay Per Views. That was what was great about the territory system. Once a guy got stale he could go somewhere else for a few months, then when he came back he was fresh. Guys like Flair and Andre were constantly moving around. I know Flair had JCP, but I don't think he was being overexposed on TV the way Reigns is. Also, Flair would have been better if he had gotten a haircut and changed his name to Spartacus.

Seriously? I had no idea they were making that much money from this thing. If I am not mistaken, isn't Wrestlemania pretty much the financial cornerstone of their entire fiscal year? If this show made more than that...I guess we'd better get used to shows in Saudi Arabia.

Excellent point, and I think when considering that information Loss, it can lead to only one of two possibilities. Either WWE is so reliant on their written, carefully scripted promos that they are now unwilling to let the actual character of the WWE superstar be shown unless it is one that they created...or poor Roman Reigns has Brad Armstrong syndrome. I often wonder that if Steve Austin of 1995/1996 came to the WWE of today, would Stone Cold ever have been born? I doubt it. Back then, they still allowed guys to shoot from the lip with their promos. Hence the "Austin 3:16" promo. Today, Vince would have sent Austin out there with a script, and I don't think the fans would have showed up to Raw the next day with signs that said "THE guy 3:16." I do believe that material is more believable if the guy speaking it actually thought it up himself. Maybe Roman isn't allowed to express his personality. I consider the promos he did against John Cena. They were hardly "shoot" promos but I think Reigns was getting legit pissed off that Cena was being allowed to go out there and tee off on him. I know what Reigns said was scripted, but you could tell he sure meant parts of it and - surprise - he came across as legitimate and convincing. It's such basic Pro Wrestling 101. If a guy is good on the microphone, let him talk. If he isn't, give him a mouthpiece. Vince's bizarre decision to stop using managers never made sense to me. Hell, in the 80's the WWF was crazy with managers. Aside from Jake Roberts and Roddy Piper, if you were a heel - you had a manager whether you needed one or not. Now, Lesnar gets Heyman...everybody else gets a script written by somebody who probably never even watched wrestling to begin with. OR... I have heard from a bunch of different guys (including Brian James himself) that backstage, Brad Armstrong was the coolest, funniest guy you ever wanted to meet. He was apparently hilarious, and Road Dogg went so far as to claim that when the cameras weren't rolling, Brad was much livelier and funnier than he was. But get him in front of a microphone or camera and he became like a deer in the headlights. (Which was a shame, because when you consider his work, imagine if Brad could cut a promo?) I have heard something similar about Dean Malenko of all people. Apparently, he was a total cut-up and hilarious backstage, but he froze up doing promos and became The Iceman. Could be that is the case with Reigns, but I'm more inclined to think they just don't want to take his training wheels off. Because if you can talk for yourself, then what does WWE need with a bunch of writers and writers assistants?

I understand why some of you think Reigns is pretty much ruined as a character right now, and for the most part I agree with you. However, I do think he would be fairly easy to salvage with a reboot. And there are obviously people who work for WWE right now who are capable of pulling such a reboot off. For proof of this theory, I submit the case of Andrade Cien Almas. I remember in early 2016 when it was announced that La Sombra had signed with NXT, a lot of people were excited. I assume that was based on his work in CMLL and New Japan, which I did not personally see. But based on his reputation, I was intrigued to see him. They unmasked him, which I didn't see as a big deal, since we know that (aside from Rey) WWE doesn't really like masked wrestlers. He finally made his debut in June 2016, and I think it is safe to say the consensus was that his debut was disappointing. Whatever the "it factor" is, Almas did not seem to have it. It became to obvious to everybody that he wasn't getting over, so by the fall they turned him heel, but that didn't really seem to help him much either. He pretty much floundered in NXT from the fall of 2016 all the way until the Spring/Summer of 2017. If I remember correctly, Zelina Vega made her first appearance in July 2017 and then he was taken off the air for about a month. When Andrade Cien Almas returned with Zelina Vega as his manager in August 2017, that is when he became the Almas that we all know and love now. But if you look at the dates, he pretty much floundered in NXT for over a year. He was so unremarkable that I remember Triple H making reference to the fact that he wasn't adapting well to the NXT/WWE style in an interview, and they actually made his mediocre, underwhelming and disappointing performance part of his gimmick. They had the announcers referencing the fact that he had come into NXT with high hopes but had failed to impress. Look at him now. Almas has been involved in two legit MOTYC's so far in 2018 and his pairing with Vega is viewed by most as not only being a highlight, but a refreshing change to the entire dated wrestler/valet dynamic. Look at their performance during his match with Aleistar Black at the most recent Takeover. This from a guy that a year prior had been struggling in a feud with No Way Jose. My point is, somebody in NXT saw the problem, identified it, and came up with a plan to change it. They saw that Almas had all the raw materials, but wasn't getting over as he was being presented. They pulled him back, tweaked his character, repackaged him and sent him back out there - and it worked. There is no doubt whatsoever that it worked. Anybody who has seen Almas with Vega perform since last summer can't possibly confuse him with uninspired guy who was working the NXT undercards in the Winter of 2017. All this, and Almas doesn't even speak English well. (By the way - I say all this about Almas, being fully aware of the fact that now he has been "called up" to the main roster, whoever is in charge of making creative decisions about him either probably didn't see what made him succeed in NXT, or won't care. They'll give him a "main roster" makeover, I'm sure. He'll likely be presented as a babyface, feuding with Shelton Benjamin, and split up from Vega in less than six months.) If WWE has the resources and tools to reboot and repackage a guy like Almas, who can't even really deliver a solid promo - what could they do with Reigns, who has all the tools? His work is solid in most cases, to very good - depending on the quality of his opponent. (And assuming he can be taught to stop repeatedly making that ridiculous motion like he's "loading" his arm before using his stupid Superman punch that he does way too often.) His promos are decent, and serviceable, if unremarkable. With some changes and a couple of weeks off television, he could easily be salvaged. They could shave his head. They could take the stupid plastic Kevlar vest off him. They could put him in tights. They could give him a manager or valet. They could make him go silent and stop delivering promos altogether. They could get rid of his theme music, which at this point makes people boo automatically like Pavlov's dogs. Hell, they could modify or change his name. They could do any number of things to change him and represent him, and then make him a top guy again. Let's remember, this is a company that successfully took one half of the APA who was midcard at best, put an entirely new gimmick on him and made him the WWE Champion in a very quick turnaround. My point is Roman Reigns could easily still be a top guy and there is obviously somebody in WWE who knows how to do something like that, because they did it (albeit on a much smaller scale) with Almas. Hell, they might be in the process of doing the exact same thing with Nakamura as we speak. It can be done, I just don't know if it will be done. I don't know if they have the will to do it. Also, if rumors are to be believed, Vince himself books Reigns. I doubt it was Vince who repackaged Almas or Nakamura. Vince seems to be getting more and more oblivious and more and more stubborn with age. I don't know if his attitude is becoming "if they won't accept him as I present him, then they won't accept him at all." I've never liked the tried and true WWE talking point about their best characters being "themselves with the volume turned up to 10." I've heard Stone Cold, The Rock, and Triple H claim that in interviews and it has to be a WWE created buzz-phrase. But if there is even a shred of truth to it, I don't think they've applied to it to Roman Reigns. I don't think the character he portrays on television is close to the guy he is in "real life." I think he is probably an alpha male type, sure. But I don't think he is much of a talker and them putting him out there and having him spout off ridiculous catch phrases like "I'm THE guy" is doing him any favors. If they aren't going to let him be him, then they need to do a much better job of finding a character that he can portray convincingly. If they do that, I think he can still be presented as a top guy. Maybe even "the" guy. But not the way they are doing it now, and I don't know if they even see what needs to be done to change things.

El-P, you must be either a glutton for punishment or a very determined man. First you sat through the entire end run of WCW, and now you're voluntarily watching TNA in chronological order - of your own free will. I don't know if I could do that in my spare time, knowing already ahead of time how much of it was pure shite.

I agree. Neither of them has accomplished much of note so far in NXT, but they seem to have impressed people with those matches against each other. (And so they should have, because those matches were great.) I keep hoping that this team of theirs somehow breaks through to the next level. It could be that segment was used just to put the Undisputed Era over as big heels - but I don't know why Burch needed to come out for that. They could have got the point across by just having Cole, O'Reilly and Strong beat up Lorcan. When Burch tried to make the save, I really hoped that signaled a possible angle/title match for Burch and Lorcan against O'Reilly and Strong. Another reason I thought that might be the case, was just by considering the NXT Tag Team division and looking at who is available. With the AoP now gone to Raw, you have to consider Heavy Machinery the #1 face Tag Team in NXT, but they're clearly heading into a feud with War Raiders. I guess it would make sense to predict that Bate, Seven and Dunne might now feud with the Undisputed Era as a stable? Other than that, who are the logical contenders to O'Reilly and Strong? I don't see TM-61 or The Street Profits being at that level yet. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Burch and Lorcan getting the shot.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of a butt-load. We'll know when the Q2 results come out in August, but yes it's probably at least a butt-load and possibly even a fuck-ton. I'm not a mathematically inclined person, nor am I good with numbers - so I really don't appreciate Log and sek lording their fiscal knowledge over me by using all these technical terms that a layperson like myself can't understand. It's obvious they both have a better understanding than I of big finance, and they're using it to make me feel stupid. Elitists.

If what happened after the Cole/Lorcan match this week means that we're getting a Tag Title match between The Undisputed Era and Burch & Lorcan, then I for one am going to have a joygasm.

Thank goodness somebody else finally sees what I was seeing. I totally don't get the praise for those two. Poorly acted and unnatural is a perfect description of the vibe I've gotten from those two since their debut in NXT. To me (and this is just my opinion) they've always come across like they're pretending to be Professional Wrestlers - just goofy and fake, and not genuine at all. I was really surprised they got called up as soon as they did, since I thought they probably needed another good 9 months to a year of promo training in NXT. Whenever they came on screen in NXT I always had the overwhelming urge to not watch them. If you look at the difference between them and somebody like Alexa Bliss it's like night and day. It's times like this that the loss of Dusty Rhodes and his promo classes in NXT are probably most evident. I don't think you can teach charisma, you either have it or you don't. But you can teach convincing promo delivery, and those two just don't have it yet, in my opinion.

Fascist.

You're right. I'm clearly guilty of deformation. I deformed your myral chorchiture.

I was working yesterday and I work 12 hour shifts, so I missed the entire show live. I recorded it on my DVR, and was planning on watching it later. I was originally going to avoid spoilers, but I decided against that approach and checked out this thread. Based on the general opinions expressed in this thread (about the quality of the wrestling) I may give this show a pass. Sounds like the only good things I missed were Jinder Mahal taking a phantom bump and Titus deciding to try and slide into home plate, both of which are available in handy gif form. Having checked this thread out, (and sadly...Twitter) I have to say I was mildly surprised at the level of moral outrage over this show. Some of you people sure do care a lot about...stuff. (Well, you care enough to complain about it on the internet at least.) I'm probably older than a lot of people here, and as a result I have probably become jaded. I personally don't really care all that much where they run shows, and obviously all Vince McMahon and WWE care about is money - so of course they had no issue doing this show. It made them a lot of money. I'm trying to come up with an example of a time Vince or his company did something "good" that wasn't about making money or portraying a positive public image for their company, and I can't think of one. If the whole Moolah/Snickers debacle taught anybody anything, it's that if you can figure out a way to hit him in his wallet, he'll start caring about the "issue" very quickly. Otherwise, all the outrage seems to be wasted energy to me...but what do I know? If getting morally outraged over stuff like this makes you feel good, do your thing.