The Thread Killer

Mad Dog and Loss sum up my feelings exactly. Sweet Georgia Brown, Mad Maxine and Luna Vachon all independently made very similar accusations about Moolah. Those accusations alone, paired with what we already know for a fact about Moolah's business practices equal more than enough to justify people protesting her name being used for the Battle Royal. Coming up with a list of people who knew Moolah, that claim she never exploited them, or that they never saw her exploit somebody proves absolutely nothing. It's nothing but a massive red herring which is insulting to the intelligence. I'm sure that over the years, Bill Cosby had coffee with hundreds of women that he didn't drug and rape. That doesn't somehow magically invalidate the 50 + cases where he did.

That was kind of my takeaway from this match, too. I never said this was a bad match - I don't think Misawa and Kawada had what you could call a bad match, honestly. It's a good match. I just wouldn't have rated it at 5 stars.

I am an admitted fan of the show, and that is something that even I don't get. If you can't listen to just one episode of that show, and see that Prichard clearly has Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to WWE, not to mention a vested financial interest in playing that up - I don't know what to say. That's scary. Apparently the main feedback they have gotten since the show debuted is complaints about the technical issues and presentation, so they are planning on addressing it over the next couple of weeks. I am guessing there will be new cameras at the very least showing up soon. We'll see.

From things he has said over the past couple of years, I get the impression Conrad Thompson had a plan all along. Coming off his podcast with Ric Flair, his idea was to have a show that he would host, featuring somebody who had all the inside scoop on the inner workings of one of the "Big 3" wrestling companies from the 90's. He would use the dirt sheets as his source and as "a fan" he would question the insider about particular events or wrestlers. After some growing pains, this formula obviously worked with Bruce Prichard and Something to Wrestle. From what I understand, it actually exceeded his expectations with it's popularity. It's pretty amazing how much this show took off and how much influence it is having on fandom right now. The fact that it spiked WWE Network numbers to the point where WWE reached out to him is all you need to know about how popular that show is. But I know he wanted to repeat the success of the Prichard show with somebody from WCW and ECW. He has gone on record saying that he has tried to get Joey Styles to do a similarly themed podcast regarding ECW. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually he does repeat the formula with an ECW insider. We discussed this earlier in this thread, but where his plan fell apart was when he chose Tony Schiavone to be his WCW insider. Tony either didn't remember or didn't know 90% of the things Conrad wanted to talk about - plus he made it clear from the get-go that he was there to make money to pay for his daughter's wedding. They eventually "saved" the show by switching to the "watch-along" formula and gradually turning it into a comedy show. But when it became clear his "insider's look" formula wasn't going to work, he got lucky because Eric Bischoff's "Bischoff on Wresting" podcast was tanking at the same time. It seems pretty obvious that he and Eric worked a "Twitter feud" to whip up interest and now they're going to be debuting "83 Weeks" later this month using the STW formula but discussing WCW and some AWA and TNA. Like I said, I'd bet that ECW show is yet to come. I am guessing the fact that Tony has re-established a fan base and his show is having a degree of success (although nothing compared to STW from what I understand) they decided to keep it around. The problem is that with 83 Weeks coming up, they don't even need to keep up any form of pretense that What Happened When is going to be discussing the inner workings of JCP/WCW. It looks like the show is going to be devolving into nothing more than a comedy show, a weekly watch-along where you cram in as many dick jokes as you can. And to me, that sucks. Just because Tony didn't have the level of access or knowledge that Prichard did to what was going on behind the scenes, doesn't mean he didn't have some level of insight. And to be honest, his sophomoric humor aside, I find his personality much less abrasive than Bruce Prichard's. I was really hoping we would still get some kind of insight or discussion from Tony Schiavone about wrestling, even though 83 Weeks was kind of taking WHW's place in Conrad's grand plan. But based on the episodes done since The Schiavone Wedding, that doesn't seem to be the case. So I guess from this point on, if you want to hear about WWE behind the scenes, you listen to STW. If you want WCW, you listen to 83 Weeks. And if you want Conrad being annoying and non-stop dick jokes, you get WHW. That sucks, but I guess that is how this plan is going to shake out from here on.

The show certainly started that way, which was why I didn't like it at first. Then over time, I think Bruce figured out that he was going to have to do more than just defend WWE and bash Dave Meltzer at every turn if the show was going to survive long term. He eventually got to the point where he will disclose interesting facts and insights about how things worked behind the scenes when he was either the head of Talent Relations or on the Creative Team. The show about the creation and implementation of the Million Dollar Man character is a good example of that. But the main reason I listen is because (at times) the show can be very, very funny. Stories like Vince McMahon's reasoning for the exploding limo angle ("You can't be on TV if you're dead!") or Bob Holly's proposal for a storyline for his character ("Give me the belt!" "Then what?" "Then...I beat everybody!") are the main reasons I listen. If you don't like the humor or you don't like the relationship and interplay between Conrad Thompson and Bruce, this show is definitely not for you. And although I don't doubt that some of the things Bruce Prichard says on the show are true and factual, I wouldn't trust him and I'd take pretty much everything he says as bullshit. I certainly don't consider STW a "news source." As much as he bashes Meltzer (and I do agree a lot of that is just a "gimmick") I'd take Dave Meltzer's version of events over Prichard's 9 times out of 10. So yeah, as a source of information or facts there is no way you can take that show seriously. As entertainment, it's fun and I like it most of the time.

I know he wrestled fairly regularly in Toronto as a babyface, back when Jim Crockett and George Scott owned minority shares in the Maple Leaf Wrestling office run by Frank and Jack Tunney. He wrestled a fair bit at Maple Leaf Gardens as a midcarder. My main memories of him mostly center around when he ran a stable in JCP that was obsessed (for reasons I never totally understood) with destroying "The Boogie Woogie Man" Jimmy Valiant. I might be wrong, but I think he managed the Powers of Pain when they were feuding with The Road Warriors, before they took off for the WWF. RIP "#1."

They discuss Mike Tyson being brought in for Wrestlemania for quite a while. The problem is, if you're a long term fan of the show then you've heard this all before. In the Royal Rumble 98 and No Way Out 98 shows, Conrad and Bruce go through the entire deal with Mike Tyson from start to finish in great detail. So by the time you get to Wrestlemania 14, there really isn't all that much more ground to cover, really - but they go through it again. So that was kind of boring. And as a show, Wrestlemania 14 really isn't all that good, so there wasn't much to discuss there, either. This was apparently their most requested episode, and I suppose as an introduction for new fans it might have had some appeal, but for long term fans it was really not all that interesting. I'm much more looking forward to the RVD episode on Friday. Of course, Bruce will vehemently deny that Triple H held RVD down, even though RVD himself has said that it's a fact - but I'm still looking forward to the show anyhow.

I saw the debut of the Network show tonight. Honestly, it really wasn't all that different from their podcast, and I'm not sure that is a good thing. The only major difference is they make an obvious effort not to say fuck. It's just a split-screen of Bruce and Conrad. The video quality is poor, it looks like a recording of their Skype call or webcam or something. Production wise, I would have expected a lot more. The only good thing was that when they talked about a particular match or incident, the event in question was shown on the screen, which was good. I think if they want to make this compelling over the long term, they need to ramp up the production values a lot. Then again, the podcast does insane numbers on it's own, so maybe this will just be an introduction for other fans to their existing formula. The topic was Wrestlemaina 14. The content was okay. Bruce defended everything creative did, of course. He took his usual shots at Meltzer and his review of the show. The one major takeaway from this show is that Bruce confirmed that the Undertaker did indeed let Shawn Michaels see him taping his fists before Michaels went to the ring - the clear implication being that if Michaels didn't do business, he'd have to answer to the Undertaker when he got to the back. Prichard claims this happened at the "Gorilla Position" right in front of him. This is interesting, because for years Michaels has claimed in interviews and his book that it never happened, despite The Undertaker saying that it did.

I watched this week's episode for a couple of reasons, I wanted to see what WHW was like post-Schiavone wedding, I wanted to watch Barely Legal again, and I was curious what Tony thought of ECW. I enjoyed it for the most part, and I'm going to admit I laughed out loud more than once - like at Tony giving John Kronus the name "Daryl" and especially his rant on Conrad for taking a job with the WWE Network: "You sold out. You joined the evil empire! ... Can I have a job?" My main issue with this show was with Conrad Thompson. I don't mind Conrad at all on Something to Wrestle, really. But I find he is a lot different on WHW, he seems obsessed with sexual humor and penis jokes. And that's fine, I guess. But he doesn't let humor happen, he's constantly pushing Tony to make dick jokes. Even if Tony is in the middle of talking about something else, Conrad starts egging him on to make a Klondike Bill joke. It really takes away from the show. I don't mind Tony making dirty jokes, but Conrad really needs to just let the jokes happen naturally. He does the same thing with Bruce, constantly encouraging him to go to their tried and true box of jokes ("Well, you know...huh?" "doot doot doot" etc.) and especially his impressions. Conrad isn't a professional journalist/interviewer and I appreciate that, but I found him to be really obnoxious during this episode, to be honest.

In Canada, Smackdown is preempted tonight due to the NHL playoffs. That's the disadvantage to WWE programming being shown on an actual Sports Network here. WWE still does fairly good ratings for them, but nothing like the NHL playoffs when the entire country seems to be watching so it gets pulled sometimes. So we don't even get to see Smackdown until tomorrow. Not that I would have watched it through anyhow, but I probably would have flipped back and forth between SDL, the hockey game and the baseball game if I had the choice. Oh well, at least it didn't get pulled for a dog show.

Looking back and trying to remember, that's a good question. You know what's funny, I don't remember the narrative about that WM13 match as well as I thought I did. I remember Hart announcing he wasn't going to WCW and that he was coming back to the WWF, and saying the guy he wanted to fight when he got back was Austin. I remember the Survivor Series match vividly, because that was really when I started to see Austin as a Main Event level guy. (People like to talk about King of the Ring 96 as his WWF coming out party, but to me I was still having a hard time seeing him in a different light from Stunning Steve in WCW, the guy who I had seen get squashed by Hacksaw Jim Duggan in 30 seconds the year before. After Survivor Series, I started looking at Austin in a whole new light. I always thought he was a good wrestler but I never had him pegged as a Main Event level performer and I certainly never would have expected him to become the big name that he did.) In my post earlier in this thread, I had mistakenly assumed that the reason they escalated the rivalry to a Submission Match at WM13 is because of stuff like Austin attacking Hart in the ambulance and stuff like that - but I know realize that all happened after WM13. I don't remember what happened in their feud between Survivor Series and Wrestlemania that escalated it to that level, because for the most part I know Hart was supposedly a babyface at that time - although he had really started to go into overdrive with his whiny/complaining.

Exactly. Whenever I hear the phrase "I Quit Match" I automatically think about Magnum TA and Tully Blanchard. When they booked the Rock vs. Mankind I Quit match, I didn't go into that expecting to see them trading submission holds. I expected to see them try and kill each other. Hell, same for the JBL/Cena I Quit match. To me it means there are no rules and you try and kill the guy to get him to give up. I guess the Flair/Funk match in 89 was more technically based, but even still, that feud was based on Funk doing evil shit to Flair like trying to piledrive him through tables and putting a plastic bag over his head...not make him submit to a technical hold. When they announced the Hart/Austin match for Wrestlemania 13, I automatically expected a brawl - especially based on the context of the feud. Sure, Hart's biggest weapon was the Sharpshooter, but even before his neck injury Austin was starting to transform into an asskicker who also wrestled. I never once thought about submission holds from Austin, I just assumed Austin was going to try and run over Hart with an ambulance or something. I assume they didn't promote it as an "I Quit" match because maybe that was a match JCP made famous, so they called it a submission match instead?

Did you ever hear the story of the rib that Jack Lanza and Pat Patterson played on The Big Show when he first signed with WWE, like one of his first meetings with Vince? They told him he could smoke in Vince's office.

FAKE NEWS!

Yeah, the thing is I generally agreed with him regarding his philosophy on booking. I didn't think he's out of touch. I certainly agreed with his philosophy a lot more than what Russo did to the industry. I still think the old school 1980's JCP style stuff would still get over like gangbusters today, and I think NXT and the Gargano/Ciampa feud is total proof of that fact. Maybe he's just a terrible judge of talent. I almost fell off my chair when he listed Orton and Roode as guys who could carry the company going forward. And I like Bobby Roode...but he isn't that guy. Not in WWE.

I lost a lot of respect for Jim Cornette's opinion this past week. First, he reviewed the Gargano/Ciampa match and kind of shit on it. He didn't say it was a bad match, but he implied it was over-praised and picked it apart to a ridiculous degree. But even worse, he reviewed Wrestlemania 34. He says he "doesn't get" The Miz as a heel. He doesn't see anything in Rusev. He complained that the U.S. Title match was a 4 Way, claiming it would have been much better if it had just been Randy Orton vs. Bobby Roode because that would have been a great match. Then he reviewed the entire roster after the Main Event and claimed the only guys who are capable of being "the guy" moving forward are Seth Rollins and the aforementioned Randy Orton and Bobby Roode. Not AJ and not Lashley, because they're too old. Nope. Rollins, Randy Orton and Bobby Roode are the only two guys who are good enough to be the #1 guy now that Reigns is finished as a legit contender. All of the sudden, I figured out why Smokey Mountain went out of business.

Even if they did sek, we both know it really wouldn't mean anything. I am not one of those people who whinges about Linda working for the Trump administration, or the fact that Vince and family are friends of Trump and most likely voted for and support him. I don't much care, to be honest. I'm too old and too jaded. It's a free country and they can donate money to and support whoever they want, it doesn't really bother me at the end of the day. Having said that, I firmly believe that the only time WWE would ever do anything "progressive" is if they thought it would make them look good. Vince is pretty much the ultimate capitalist, and I think he's proven that all he really cares about in the end is putting money in his own pocket. (So he can turn it around and lose it on bodybuilding federations, and nutritional supplements, and record labels, and movie studios and football leagues and...) To me, (and I say this having worked as a charitable fundraiser) any gesture he made would be totally hollow. Which is why a $100 donation from a blue collar person always meant 100 times more to me that a $10,000 donation from most corporations. (Not all, but most.) All Vince cares about is making money for Vince. If he gave a shit about other people, the term "independent contractor" wouldn't exist. He'd have employees with medical benefits and pension plans. So yeah, even if he does do something with the money, to me it wouldn't mean a damn thing. I guess in one sense, you could apply the old "the money doesn't know where it came from" argument and say that if they did make some form of donation and it did do some good, that would be okay. But for me when it comes to that kind of thing, it's the thought that counts too.

You said it there. I had the exact same reaction. I'll do you one better, I don't think any of their matches are worthy of the amount of praise they get, never mind "six stars." Not a popular opinion, I know. I'll be the first one to admit, I am not a Kenny Omega fan. I can't get past his ridiculous facial expressions when he wrestles. I know he is used to wrestling in Japan, and in front of large crowds, so maybe he thinks he has to have over-exaggerated facial expressions to get his point across, but a lot of other people wrestle under the same conditions he does, and don't come across like they're doing bad community theater. However, I have a good friend who went on and on and on about their first big match, and the subsequent rematch. He swore up and down it was one of the greatest matches of all time, and that I had to see it, and it was a game-changer, etc. etc. etc., so out of respect for him, I finally checked it out. Plus, I really like what I had seen of Okada, I saw one of his earlier matches with Naito a few years ago from the G1 which blew me away. So as much as I don't like Omega, I went into their first match with as much of an open mind as I could muster. SO DAMN LONG. Everybody is bitching recently about Wrestlemania being too long - and so they should. But NJPW is just as damn bad with their last couple of WrestleKingdom shows. Not only are their shows long, but these Omega/Okada matches...I can't do it. I couldn't sit through it, I tried but I kept getting so damn bored I finally turned it off. I normally don't mind long matches, either. Hell I am a die-hard King's Road fan. Some of those 6 Man matches with Jumbo and Company against Misawa and Friends really stretched out - as did many of the Four Corners Tag Team Matches and Triple Crown matches...but for some reason I never had a hard time staying emotionally invested and engaged in those matches. I tried watching the Omega/Okada matches and for the life of me, I just don't get the appeal, I really don't. Which sucks, because I'd like a viable alternative to WWE but for my taste, NJPW ain't it. I don't get the Okada/Omega matches, I really don't. I bet you could trim a good 15 minutes out of there and you wouldn't lose a damn thing in terms of psychology and storytelling.

I like that match a lot more than most people, but I can hardly see anybody rating it as a 5 star match. Firstly, to me that match kind of symbolically signifies the point in the Misawa/Kawada rivalry where they took the final step and pretty much gave up on psychology in their matches. To me, at that point they kind of gave in to the ridiculous trend that was starting to become more and more prevalent in AJPW at that time - namely, "let's see how many moves we can do where we dump each other directly on top of our heads and almost break our necks." It made me uncomfortable at the time because of how dangerous it was, and I haven't been able to bring myself to watch that match again since Misawa died, considering the cause of his death and the fact that this match and others like it contributed directly to his early and unnecessary demise. Secondly, if I am remembering correctly, the finish of this match gets seriously screwed up because Kawada got knocked loopy, and there was a messed up three count? I'm pretty sure that was this match. EDIT: Yeah I went back and watched the finish of this match on YouTube. Misawa and Kawada are trading bombs, leading up to the finish. Misawa clocks Kawada upside the head with an elbow smash, which it looks like legit knocked him goofy. Kawada goes down, Misawa makes the cover, the ref counts three, Kawada doesn't kick out. The bell rings, the fans cheer, and then for reasons not clear (perhaps because I don't speak Japanese and can't understand the commentary) Misawa drags a 3/4 out of it, glassy-eyed, wobbly-legged Kawada back to his feet, hits him with a dragon suplex and gets the three count...again. Unless that match was Best out of 3 Falls and Misawa won both in under a minute, that finish got messed up and killed the flow of the match pretty bad. No way that can be 5 Stars, based on that finish alone. Not that it wasn't a good, maybe even very good match - but not a classic. Even if you love seeing people dumped on top of their heads repeatedly.

What?! Two giant, sweaty, fat, smelly dudes? At a Ring of Honor show? Well now I know you're lying. That hardly seems possible. Next thing you'll be claiming they had neckbeards or something.

Oh man, you got to see that live? Who cares how many "stars" that match got, that must have an been incredible, once in a lifetime experience. One of my favorite stories about that match is from an interview Joe gave afterward. Joe said that Kobashi was convinced the American fans either wouldn't know who he was, or would boo him and expect a stereotypical Japanese heel - sneak attacking and throwing salt at people, stuff like that. I remember Joe saying he had to keep reassuring Kobashi that the ROH fans wouldn't do that, and they'd know who he was. Kobashi was reportedly blown away at the reception he got.

You have to admit, beating up Big Bird is a good way to get heel heat. Except with me, I never liked that damn creepy bird. I was more of an Oscar the Grouch mark. He was like the ECW style of Sesame Street.

Exactly. Of all the many things I hate about Mauro Ranallo, that is one of the things I hate the most. I'll never forget at one of the NXT shows in New York he tried to quote Biggie and said "If you don't know, now you know." WTF? And there was the line he used on this show that I already quoted, about Velveteen Dream dropping elbows like DJ's drop needles. I don't even understand what he's trying to do when he says stuff like that. He can't possibly think he comes across as contemporary with an urban, hip hop vibe or something...can he? Is he trying to be ironic and funny? Like he knows that a pudgy middle aged white guy wearing horn-rimmed glasses and wearing a suit saying stuff like that sounds ridiculous? Whatever it is, it's just so damn annoying. I am not a violent person by nature, but after watching an NXT show I find myself fantasizing about punching Mauro Ranallo in the mouth as hard as I possibly can. Mama Mia.

I could not possibly agree more with all of you more. You hit the proverbial nail on it's proverbial head. This is why I find the fact that WWE has a so-called "creative team" with a staff of writers to be almost unbelievable. There is little evidence of creativity and I don't know what those writers are doing. You could get somebody to take a first year Creative Writing class and come up with better stories. I think these WWE "writers" are so busy trying to put words into the mouths of these guys that they've stopped even worrying about the motivation behind the words. To me, this is why Bray Wyatt has failed as a character. Remember when he first came up to the main roster, on the back of that series of outstanding vignettes? He was full of potential, which has been largely wasted and gone untapped. Wyatt was never going to become popular on the basis of his in-ring work, like an AJ Styles or a Daniel Bryan. He was going to have to capture the imagination of the fans based on his character. And the WWE writers have totally failed him, by failing to come up with even remotely compelling stories to involve his character in. It doesn't matter how intriguing his character is, if you can't follow up on that and give him something compelling to do. The Bray Wyatt/Finn Balor "feud" is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with WWE creative. They had a prolonged rivalry which spanned several Pay Per View events and weekly television shows, and even the announcers were unable to explain the reasons behind the rivalry. I will never forget Michael Cole saying during one of their matches that Finn Balor had "taken great issue" with Bray Wyatt. For some reason, Corey Graves asked why...and Cole actually responded: "I don't know...you'll have to ask him." I was shocked, I almost died laughing at the utter incompetence. This is a major, prolonged feud which had been going on for some time...which the announcers couldn't even explain. Total lack of competent writing. It's really quite pathetic. If WWE didn't have such great athletes and put on good matches, they'd never survive as "entertainment" because they sure as hell aren't storytellers anymore.