The Thread Killer

Quite honestly, as far as I’m concerned, the “real” Maple Leaf Wrestling died in 1978 when Frank Tunney stopped booking the Toronto territory independently and partnered up with Jim Crockett Promotions. (Of course, Tunney pretty much had to do that because The Sheik had pretty much killed the promotion by that point.) The JCP version of Maple Leaf Wrestling was the version that was running when I was a kid, highlighted by the epic feud between Angelo Mosca and Hossein The Arab. But then Tunney sold the promotion to Vince McMahon in 1983, and Toronto became part of the WWF. The only part of the classic Maple Leaf promotion that remained was the TV tapings at the Branford Civic Center, the TV show on Saturdays called “Maple Leaf Wrestling” and the biweekly house shows at Maple Leaf Gardens. But it was just WWF content at that point. I think Scott D’Amore trying to resurrect the brand is a kind of bizarre decision, to be honest. As we all know, the most coveted customer demographic is 18 to 49 years old. I assume that applies to pro wrestling fans as well. Nobody that age is going to remember the glory days of Maple Leaf Wrestling or care that it’s coming back. He’s not going to get a lot of mileage out of old geezers like me. Seriously, in this day and age who cares about resurrecting some old territory from the 1970s? That would be like somebody starting up The Sheik’s Big Time Wrestling again in Detroit, or Paul Boesch’s Houston Wrestling or Bill Watts presents Mid South Wrestling. In 2024? Who cares? This really strikes me as a cheap publicity stunt. This essentially looks like D’Amore is just slapping a new name on his Border City Wrestling promotion. And there was nothing special about that indie, believe you me. I have never really bought the hype around Scott D’Amore. I saw him wrestle a bunch on the indies here in the Toronto area and he was nothing special. I saw some Border City Wrestling shows and they were nothing special either. I know that a lot of hardcore fans went gaga over D’Amore’s version of TNA, but I hated it. I thought it sucked. I hate that stupid theatrical “cinematic” style crap, with the undead realm and characters getting killed off and stuff like that. If this is just going to be more of that garbage, then count me out. Not to mention, as soon as I heard he had signed Mauro Ranallo as his play-by-play guy, that was the final nail in the coffin. There is no way in hell I could ever watch a program with him on commentary again. Just the sound of his voice makes me wish I was deaf. So yeah, the so-called rebirth of Maple Leaf Wrestling is going to be a hard pass for me.

Yes, with “Yeet” of all things.

Scott D’Amore got fired and is in the process of rebooting his Border City Wrestling and rebranding it as Maple Leaf Wrestling, of all things. The guy in charge of TNA now is named Anthony Cicione.

I really liked Cody/Owens as well. I agree that overuse of finishing moves is a huge problem, but that’s pretty much an industry wide issue. When people are constantly kicking out of finishing maneuvers, they really aren’t “finishing” moves anymore…but that aside, I found that to be a really solid match otherwise.

Back in early February 1992, I went to a house show at Maple Leaf Gardens that featured a super-rare heel vs. heel match between Sid and The Undertaker. This was before Taker turned babyface by rescuing Elizabeth from Jake Roberts. Actually, this match happened about a month before Taker’s face turn so I can only assume that they were kind of field testing it at a house show to see how he got over. I still remember that match, hardly a technical masterpiece, but it was a ton of fun seeing those two big heels facing off. I got to see Sid live a few times over the years, and I’m glad of it.

Yeah this is sad news. He was always a guilty pleasure of mine, one of those guys who I probably shouldn’t have liked, but I did based on his charisma alone. I will never forget his entrance and performance at Survivor Series 96. I always liked the way that Paul Heyman used him in ECW as well, just had him come out and wreck guys. RIP

I never had any issues with the FITE TV app which has now changed its name to Triller TV…but that’s for international viewers, not in the USA I don’t think. I ordered a ton of AEW and ROH PPV’s from FITE before I quit watching AEW, and I never had one problem. I remember hearing they were buggy when they first launched the app, but I had no complaints at all, aside from the price and that issue was on AEW not FITE. EDIT: Last year I remember paying full price for All In: London ($50) and then saw that they were still charging the full $50 for All Out the following week. When reporters asked Tony Khan about that, he claimed there was nothing he could do. That was bullshit because the NWA used to host two-night PPV’s on FITE all the time, and they offered a discount if you ordered both nights. I just checked Triller TV and sure enough this year, if you order both All In and All Out, you can basically save $20. It’s $50 for each individual show or $79.99 if you order both. Which I’m still not going to do, and it’s still not big enough of a discount, but at least he learned something.

I don’t have any Ogawa singles matches to recommend, but as soon as I heard he had retired, my first thoughts went to a lot of the great tag team matches he was involved in. I haven’t watched it in years, but at the time I absolutely loved Misawa & Ogawa (who were defending the GHC Tag Titles) vs. KENTA & Marufuji (who were the Jr. Heavyweight Tag Champs at the time.) I believe the date was 04/24/04. If I recall correctly, there was one particular spot where KENTA gave Misawa a bunch of Kawada kicks, and I still remember Misawa and the crowd’s reaction. I know that Marufuji isn’t the most popular guy in the world in these parts because of his flippiness, but I don’t know what to tell you, this was one of my all-time favourite tag matches. I followed NOAH religiously for years…right up until Misawa’s death, actually, and his team with Ogawa produced a bunch of solid matches, in my opinion. Let’s also not forget that Ogawa had a role in what a lot of people considered the greatest 6 man tag match of the classic King’s Road era: Misawa, Kobashi and Akiyama vs. Kawada, Taue and Ogawa on 07/04/93. Ogawa was definitely a great talent.

Agreed. I really think if they gave him an old-school, trash talking, motor mouthed manager that would really put him over the top. It’s a real shame they don’t really do managers anymore. This is a guy who is pretty much tailor-made for that kind of dynamic. It’s fine if he just looks menacing and crazy and keeps attacking dudes if he has somebody to do the talking for him, or maybe even interfere on his behalf once in a while.

That would make a great company slogan for Tony Khan’s iteration of ROH. “Ring of Honor: What’s The Point?”

Yeah I loved what I saw of Jacob Fatu in MLW and he’s in way better shape now than he was then. And WWE is doing a great job with the way they have presented him so far, making him look like a monster.

This is definitely good shit, pal.

The way this whole Punk/McIntyre angle has been booked has been brilliant. Like Good Bubba @KawadaSmile said, the injury has actually made it better. This is a great feud.

I am not yet convinced that Bron has “it.”

That’s exactly how I feel about 90’s AJPW. I absolutely loved that stuff when I first discovered it, now I feel guilty watching it because that style literally killed Misawa.

I liked Jarrett back during his run on top as the NWA Champion in TNA, back when everybody was calling him "Triple J." I do think he should have dropped the belt to either Raven or Monty Brown back then, both of whom were ridiculously hot at that time...but I still loved how he could work that old school heel style. People bitched about it, but I actually enjoyed the TNA Main Event scene when Jarrett was on top. It's nice to see other fans coming around on him. For the longest time, I felt like I was the only fan who liked and respected the guy. I think his podcast might have helped turn around the hardcore fan's perception of Jeff Jarrett. Then again...he was responsible for Vince Russo continuing to be employed in the Pro Wrestling business...so on second thought...fuck that guy.

That was apparently a huge part of it. Think about it, this dude turned down 67 million dollars just to wash his hands of WCW and ended up selling the whole thing for a miniscule fraction of that. There was literally nothing anybody could have said or done to keep Pro Wrestling on the Turner networks at that point. I honestly don't think Kellner or AOL/Time Warner would have kept WCW on Turner TV even if they were doing peak 1998 ratings and profits...because they still couldn't sell advertising for it, and they were convinced that Pro Wrestling was a white trash product that sullied the image of their brand. That's what made Pro Wrestling returning to TNT and TBS all the more hilarious to me, years later.

I never understood this either, especially when Bischoff covered Starrcade 97 on his podcast. Bischoff claimed that Sting came in looking pale, with no tan and somewhat out of shape, and that during the production meeting he seemed distracted and disengaged, partially because he was going through a really rough patch in his marriage. It was only later that I discovered (by Sting's own admission, mind you) that all that stuff is basically carny code for "Sting was fucked up on drugs and his wife had just found out he was cheating on her, and was getting ready to take him to the cleaners." Supposedly, everybody loves Sting backstage. So nobody wants to bury the guy and just come out and say that he was fucking up. Compare his situation to how Shawn Michaels was acting before Wrestlemania 14, except Sting is nicer, and people actually like him. But by his own admission, at this time in his life Sting was into the whole sex drugs and rock n' roll aspect of WCW in a big way. So nobody wants to come out and say it (except Kevin Nash, who has had no problem mentioning it) that when Starrcade 97 came around, Sting was pretty much out of it. I have zero doubt that Hogan saw this as an opportunity to pounce on the situation and hang onto the belt...but even Sting has been pretty transparent over the past couple of years that he was in rough shape during this time, and probably wasn't in any position to carry the company as the World Champion. That's still no excuse for the ridiculously convoluted finish with Nick Patrick and the "slow count that wasn't really a slow count" though. That was just some Hogan bullshit, which made everybody involved look really stupid.

I don't think anybody would argue that the Disney tapings were a triumph in terms of the in-ring product, but they were unquestionably a smart decision fiscally, and in terms of improving the look of the product. Prior to that, WCW couldn't draw anybody to their TV tapings and they were apparently losing a ton of money on running house shows that nobody would come to. By cancelling all house shows and moving the TV tapings to Disney, they certainly presented a much glossier looking product, in front of actual people (even if those people weren't actual fans and were just there to get out of the heat, and had to be prompted to boo and cheer by applause signs, apparently.) Bottom line is, moving to Disney apparently saved WCW a ton of money and helped get them out of the red...so from that perspective I guess it was a smart move.

Having attended a couple of those shows back in the 80’s, I can verify to you that yes…yes they were brutal. At first it was exciting, especially seeing the talk show segments and stuff like that. But once you got into the middle of hour two…it kind of began to feel like a death march. I will never forget one of the WWF tapings I attended, Dick Slater debuted as “The Rebel” Dick Slater. (I think this would have been 1986 or so?) I was excited because I knew who Dick Slater was from Watts UWF tapes. The rest of the crowd did NOT know who he was, nor did they care. I think we were into the third or fourth hour of the TV taping and I swear to you, you could hear a pin drop during his match against some enhancement guy. Then, on his way back up the aisle to the locker room, he held his arms out to exchange high fives with the fans, and nobody reached back. It was sad. I actually felt sorry for him.

I was more talking about the use of big men in modern Pro Wrestling, not Strowman specifically lol. I know he’s a lunkhead in real life, but I still think there are uses for guys of his size and strength.

I still think there is a place for guys like him and Omos in Pro Wrestling, but only if they are used properly. I really think you have to book guys like that in the old school way. Stick him in a Tag Team with a high flyer, or as a bodyguard for a small, mouthy heel. You don’t let him talk, you don’t ask him to run and you don’t have him wrestle on TV every week.

In Jamie Kellner’s case it will definitely go forever unanswered. He passed away just last Friday of cancer.

They never got the chance! AOL/Time Warner canceled Nitro and Thunder, which invalidated the written deal they had with Fusient. Time Warner then turned around and instantly sold WCW to Vince McMahon. It all happened in a week. Not to mention, let’s not forget that even WWE couldn’t get a TV deal for WCW, during the brief period they were considering running it as a second brand.

I saw all four parts of the series and I thought it was really good, although some of the episodes were much better than others. I also think the general reaction to the series on Twitter and by some people in the so-called "IWC" has been borderline hysterical, because the series dares to challenge the established narrative about the demise of WCW, so of course they are desperately trying to poke holes in it. That book by Guy Evans about the demise of WCW that came out a few years ago really opened a lot of eyes to the truth regarding the corporate machinations behind WCW and it's place in the Turner corporate structure. Guy Evans did so much research and got so many executives to go on the record, that you really can't question his facts, and unfortunately a lot of those facts contradict the widely held beliefs which had been floating around since the sale of WCW to WWE. I have even seen some ridiculous claims that this series was an attempt at "image rehabilitation" by Eric Bischoff, which is hilarious. It's The Rock's production company that was behind this thing, and although I hear he and Bischoff are friendly, it's not like Dwayne Johnson is going to go to all the trouble of producing a four part series just to try and salvage the reputation of a guy who is pretty much retired from the Pro Wrestling business, aside from his podcast. Trust me, I despise Vince Russo and what he did to the Pro Wrestling business, and I would have loved to blame him for what happened to WCW. And although he certainly didn't help things any (especially by booking WCW in a way which was pretty much guaranteed to scare away advertisers) you can't even lay much of the blame over the demise of WCW at his feet. As much as I'd like to. The facts are pretty simple. From the moment Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions, there was a sizeable contingent of executives within the Turner organization that were vehemently opposed to Professional Wrestling being part of their portfolio. The biggest proof of that is the fact that Jim Herd and Eric Bischoff have both given in depth interviews where they describe pretty much identical experiences dealing with the resistance from Turner corporate when it comes to WCW. And Herd and Bischoff have never met, or even spoken to each other before. And I don't think they have much nice to say about each other, from what I recall. But they both had to deal with the exact same shit from the Turner organization. Add to that, the fact that WCW had a rotating cast of so-called "Pro Wrestling people" who were put in charge of WCW and proceeded to fuck it up royally. George Scott and his infamous decision not to promote Clash VI, which ended up costing him his job. Dusty Rhodes and his infamous "F you, I'll bleed if I want to" booking which cost him his job. Bill Watts and his infamous interview which resulted in Hank Fucking Aaron of all people wanting him fired. Ole Anderson...being Ole Anderson. WCW could have died right there...and almost did. Face it, by the time Eric Bischoff had his turn in the chair, there was no way Turner corporate was going to ever let another former Pro Wrestler run that company again. They had tried too many times and fucked it up too badly. I know a lot of fans look back at some parts of the late 80's/early 90's in WCW with great nostalgia because of the in-ring product. And so they should, and I'm one of those people. But apparently the company was still losing money hand over fist. So if Eric Bischoff hadn't taken over, who could have done it? Bischoff took over, and he succeeded very briefly, and then he proceeded to fuck it up due to being arrogant and having a lack of knowledge about how to run a Pro Wrestling company from a creative standpoint. You can't argue with that. Problem is, the latest revisionist history is the claim that: "If Eric Bischoff hadn't lost all that money, then the Turner organization never would have wanted to cancel or sell WCW...so it's his fault." Which is a great theory, if you ignore the fact that WCW was a money loser for Turner from pretty much day one. Not to mention, Fusient Media offered Turner 67 Million Dollars for WCW. The Turner organization could have washed their hands of having to run WCW and all the headaches that came with that, all they had to do was give Fusient 4 hours of TV time a week, and cash the check. Instead, they sold to WWE for pennies on the dollar. Why? Because they hated Pro Wrestling. They always hated Pro Wrestling, they didn't want it on their TV networks and with Turner being pushed aside after the AOL merger, they no longer had to have Pro Wrestling on their network. The real eye popping revelation was Stu Snyder and Brad Siegel pretty much admitting on camera that they colluded to sell WCW to WWE, which of course cost Turner 67 Million. My favourite part was when they asked Snyder if they had colluded on the sale, and Snyder said "No" while he was literally nodding yes and smiling from ear to ear. I had no idea that the guy who was the President of WWE at the time of the WCW sale was a former Turner executive who was dealing with a guy on the Turner end of the deal that was a personal friend of his! They only briefly touched on the fact that Vince McMahon and WWE are the only company in history who were ever able to successfully monetize Pro Wrestling through advertising dollars and merchandising. WCW sold a shit ton of nWo shirts, but if they had half a brain they could have made millions more, but their merchandising sucked. (Sound familiar, AEW?) Even at their height, when WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings, they were never really able to translate that into increased ad revenue, because as we all know, 90% of companies don't want to advertise on Pro Wrestling shows. And the blame for that falls on Turner corporate, not Eric Bischoff. When this series was first announced, I wondered why they were even bothering. Lord knows this story has been told by WWE ad nauseum. But in the end, I found the series enjoyable because they did manage to show a different side to the story. Plus...the level of deflection by a lot of the participants was outright hilarious. Kevin Nash still trying to justify the "Finger Poke of Doom." Bischoff trying to blame Turner corporate. Russo being Russo and making a giant ass out of himself. (The highlight of which was his claim that he was a more talented promo than 80% of the WCW roster?!) And of course, Bret Hart continuing to spew venom at Goldberg, Bischoff, Russo and pretty much anybody else he could think of. It was entertaining, and I was legitimately impressed with some of the interviews they managed to get. But at the end of the day, I don't think anybody is going to get their mind changed. There are fans who want to pin the whole thing on Bischoff (and/or Russo) and won't hear any argument to the contrary. And the actual people who were involved seem just as invested in sticking to their own versions of the story.