The Thread Killer

"We are da bar." These two have been teaming for how long, and "The Bar" is the team name they come up with Seamus and Cesaro?

Well, if nothing else, Finn Balor has now proven he can beat Bray Wyatt when he both is, and isn't wearing make-up.

You make a good point. I actually like a character who is a creepy cerebral cult leader type, but there is no reason he can't verbalize his motivations for his actions. Well, except because of shitty writing. I can't fault Wyatt for that. It reminds me of that quote which has been attributed to Michael Hayes, that a great heel will always have a reason for his actions so that in his mind, he's justified in whatever he's doing. I wish the WWE writers would keep that in mind when it comes to Bray Wyatt.

You said it. I'm still not clear on the reasons for the feud to start with. Sure, Balor is upset because Wyatt keeps attacking him, but Wyatt keeps attacking him because reasons.

A third Wyatt/Balor PPV match is not exactly a strong argument to keep me from changing channels and checking out the debut of the new Star Trek show. Here in Canada, it starts exactly at 8:30 pm EST, right as Wyatt enters the ring.

You know what Jason Jordan needs? Paul Heyman as his advocate.

You've got that right. Jordan has all the tools physically, and then some...but he is the proverbial "black hole of charisma." Giving him a storyline father who does actually have a personality hasn't helped. It seemed like the longer that match went, the more the fans got behind Miz and turned on Jordan. Not a terrible match though, all things considered. EDIT: LOL right as we're discussing this, JR tweets that Jordan has "it."

Were the fans just chanting "Let's Go Miz?"

The video packages hyping the big matches on tonight's show have been excellent. If I was on the fence about this show, that would have made me want to order. You have to give WWE credit, what they do well, they do really well.

You and everybody else there are in my thoughts and prayers.

Pretty damn good promo there by Neville on the pre-show. And Elias was right. That song did change my life.

He learned from the best shit person to work for. Maybe so, but a ton of the people who worked for Heyman (including those who he lied to, ripped off, and ended up owing thousands of dollars to) still speak glowingly of the guy and call him a genius. The amount of loyalty he still commands is amazing to me. I don't see Gabe anywhere near that. Sounds like Gabe may have emulated many of Heyman's bad qualities but not many of the good ones. Meaning, if you're going to be a full-of-shit carny conman, at least be charming and motivational about it.

Like him or not, Bruce Prichard's rise to prominence as a podcaster and his subsequent willingness to give shoot interviews over the past few years have given fans greater firsthand insight into the creative workings of the WWF/WWE than had ever been possible before. Prichard was part of McMahon's inner circle from 88-91 and then from 92-08. There may have been other people who were closer to Vince - Pat Patterson namely - but he's never going to spill the family secrets or admit where any of the bodies are buried. Prichard is a carny for McMahon, no doubt. But you can't argue that nobody (who is willing to go on record) knows more about the creative in WWF/WWE than he does. And based on things he has said, which has been pretty much confirmed by numerous other sources, I'd say hands down the greatest booker of all time is Vince McMahon. There is sometimes a talking point which I've heard before, (primarily from people who want to give Russo credit for the Attitude Era, but others have used it as well) that Vince McMahon wasn't really the "booker" for the WWF/WWE, he was the promoter. That talking point really needs to be put to bed, once and for all. Prichard has most thoroughly debunked it, but Cornette and a few others have also verified that it isn't true. Check out the interviews given by the multitude of former WWE writers over the years. Posters here have said this, and Prichard has said it out-and-out on his podcast: If you want to give Vince McMahon the blame for the crap his company has produced over the years (and Lord knows there has been a ton of it) then you have to give him the lion's share of the credit for whatever was good. Prichard has said it, as have others: nothing has ever made it onto WWF/WWE television that Vince McMahon wasn't significantly involved with in some way. At the very least he approved it going on the air. More commonly it sounds like he micromanaged, tinkered with it, and edited it. In a lot of cases he straight up created it. From where I sit, that's a "booker." Nobody has had more success than Vince McMahon has and it's highly likely nobody ever will. At least not in any of our lifetimes. Once again, the man has also produced a staggering amount of absolute garbage...but this is a guy who literally reshaped the entire sport of Pro Wrestling and turned it into Sports Entertainment in the process. No Vince McMahon, no Wrestlemania, no Hulkamania, no Monday Night War, no Attitude Era, the list goes on and on. I don't even really like the guy all that much and I wish he hadn't done a great many of those things. But he was heavily involved in booking pretty much every single major financially successful Pro Wrestling show in North America for the past 30 + years. To me, it's a question of who is #2.

Did anybody listen to the Jeff Jarrett episode? It was a very interesting listen, and he pretty much totally debunked the long standing theory that Jarrett's departure in 99 was due to Jim Ross dropping the ball. Prichard claims that JR was well aware that Jarrett's contract was up, and but had a verbal agreement to re-sign, so Vince okayed Jarrett still having the I/C title and being all over television. Jeff was represented by his father Jerry, who Prichard claims straight up lied to JR and the WWF about Jeff staying there.

So apparently, John Cena is the guest on tomorrow's show. I have mixed feelings about this. I'm impressed they managed to land him as a guest, and am mildly curious about what he'll say. However, I generally can't stand the guy and just the sound of his voice makes me want to change the channel. Also, Edge is on record as saying that he owes a large part of his success as a Main Event level guy to Cena being willing to put him over, so you know Edge isn't going to ask him any tough questions.

Is it too soon to tell if this lawsuit actually has any merit? The good thing about TNA was they were very leaky, so we knew all the sordid details about their problems as they happened. This story needs more of that.

I have a question. Is it a really slow news day for the IWC, or is this story a lot bigger than I think it is, and I'm missing something? Twitter is abuzz with all the latest back-and-forth about this story, and I don't see the big deal, really.

You can't really compare the two broadcast teams, due to the eras they were in. Look at Jerry Lawler as a traditional heel-biased color guy when he first came into the WWF, and then contrast his performance with a few years later, when all he seemed care about was "puppies." *shudders* Then for a while after the attitude era was over, he seemed to be sympathetic to the babyfaces, or at the very least didn't have any clear allegiances. We'll never know how JR and Lawler would have sounded calling WWF in the 80's, and thankfully we'll never have to hear Gorilla Monsoon calling something booked by Vince Russo.

I started my career working in prisons. The phrase "Who's your boy?" had a much, much different meaning there. And I second New Jack, but I would also not call him "my boy" for a couple of different reasons. The main one being I don't want to get stabbed in the head.

Yeah, it used to be a breeze to cross the Canada/US border, but after 9/11 it kept getting harder and harder. First they made it so you have to have a passport, which you never used to need. Now, they run your name and if you have a criminal record, they might arbitrarily decide not to allow you in. It doesn't matter if the charges are ancient or not violent in any way. I have a friend who has crossed with no problem several times, but once he got detained for 5 hours and turned back, due a couple of minor misdemeanors on his record from over 20 years ago. From the sounds of Jim Cornette's story, that is pretty much exactly what happened to him.

They should have brought it back as a pog. "Remember Starrcade? It's back...in pog form!"

This is devastating. He was a great manager, but I loved The Brain and Gorilla so much as a broadcast team too. One of my favorite memories of Bobby Heenan was such a goofy little nothing moment, but I'll never forget it. Heenan was doing color on a match, with Gorilla on play-by-play. (This was while Heenan was still managing the Heenan Family, before he moved to commentary full time.) Somebody (I forget who) was fighting a masked jobber named "The Gladiator." The Gladiator looked suspiciously like another regularly used enhancement talent by the name of Rick Hunter, and was not exactly an imposing figure. You never knew how The Brain would call these types of matches. It would depend what kind of mood Heenan was in. This time, he decided to try and add some drama and mystery to the proceedings. Bobby Heenan: "That could be a dangerous man there. We don't who that is under that mask. That could be anybody." Gorilla Monsoon (in a thoughtful voice): "That's true. That could be Haku." *incredulous pause* Bobby Heenan: "It's NOT Haku!" (King Haku was managed by Bobby Heenan at that time, of course.) I don't know why, but that kind of back-and-forth between the two of them used to crack me up to no end. From that day forth, whenever my friends and I saw a masked wrestler, we used to put on serious voices, nod thoughtfully, point at the wrestler in question and say to each other seriously: "That could be Haku." One of my favorite Bobby Heenan memories (of many) and just a small example of the fun and irreverent commentary both those guys used to provide. You could just tell that there was legitimate friendship and camaraderie between the two of them. They were having fun and we had fun listening to them. First we lost Gorilla and now Bobby Heenan, and the world is so much the worse off. On their best days, the guys who call wrestling now could never match that kind off-the-cuff, unrehearsed, goofy fun. That's what wrestling was and is supposed to be, as far as I am concerned. It has lost something from becoming so scripted, slick and over-produced. We will never see another team like Gorilla and The Brain. What a one-of-a-kind talent. RIP Bobby "The Brain" Heenan.

I'm just stoked that we're finally going to get to see Sami Zayn vs. Kevin Owens.

My sentiments exactly. Any old school JCP fans who might want to complain that WWE is reviving and then doing anything negative to the legacy or memory of Starrcade only need go back and watch Starrcade 1999. I can't think of anything WWE could do to Starrcade that Vince Russo didn't already do. To me, this has Triple H written all over it. He is a confessed mark for JCP era NWA. The fact that it is in Greensboro like the first four events were, and that Ricky Steamboat and the RnR Express will be there already shows me it is more of a tribute. I'd imagine that if he is healthy enough, a certain Nature Boy might be making an appearance as well.