The Thread Killer

It seems like wherever I go as a fan, Mauro Ranallo haunts me. He was the play-by-play guy when Stampede briefly had their comeback on A Channel here in Canada. Then he shows up during the dying days of PRIDE. Then he's on The Fight Network calling all sorts of stuff, including Japanese wrestling, so if I want to see Puro with English commentary, it's got to be him. Now I start watching WWE for the first time in 15 years, and there he is on Smackdown. My issue with him has always been that he comes across like he's trying too hard and is trying to beat you over the head with how smart he is, or more accurately, how smart he thinks he is. He has to use the long form name for every move executed, and give you a bio of who invented the move, or perfected it. Then he has to try and be clever and throw out his wordplay and wannabe Howard Cosell descriptions of the action. In some ways, he reminds me of all of the things I hated about Matt Striker. I can appreciate it when the commentator knows a lot, but when it seems like they're trying to beat you over the head with it, it grates on the nerves. He's better in WWE than Michael Cole or a guy like Byron Saxton would be, but that is damning him with faint praise. For my money, Tom Phillips and Corey Graves are the best broadcast team in WWE, hands down.

Yes, Anthony Bennett was not so good. Nese was better than him, and yeah he had muscles. In my opinion he is taking HGH, or some other growth related supplement or steroid to get those muscles. For those who may not agree with me, I refer you back to Barry Bonds. During his first few years in MLB, especially during his years in Pittsburgh, Bonds looked relatively normal. Some time after going to San Fran, his head began to show noticeable signs of growth. You can google before and after pictures, and there is no doubt that his head began to get bigger, specifically his forehead and upper cranium. Lo-and-behold, later it comes to light that he is taking all sorts of PED's and Lord knows what else. It is a proven fact that HGH and some roids and supplements cause the head to grow up to two hat sizes bigger. Robbie Lawler in UFC is another guy with the same problem. Early is his career, he looks fairly normal. Starts his career hot, cools off due to injuries, racks up a couple of losses, and then all of the sudden he gets hot again...but he is much more muscular and has a noticeably bigger head. Now he looks like the Great freaking Gazoo. At one point during his career, I noticed the same problem with Edge, although he seems to have gotten mysteriously smaller since he retired. My point is, Tony Nese is absolutely ripped. He also has a giant freak head. To quote Stuart Mackenzie, it's like an orange on a toothpick. His head's like Sputnik. Spherical, but quite pointy in parts. A virtual planetoid that has it's own weather system. He has the exact same massive forehead and disproportionate cranium that Bonds and Lawler have. Problem is, if he actually does get signed, he probably won't be able to keep that look and get it past the Wellness Policy, since they can now test for HGH. Also, one of the good things about Cruiserweights for me was that they didn't rely on the same old tired "he who has the best muscles gets the biggest push" philosophy. Cruiserwieghts were different, because it didn't really matter what they looked like, as long as the could go. I guess in a sense, Nese stands out because he looks like more of a bodybuilder than a wrestler, and compared to guys like Sabre and Mendoza it's not even close. Plus he can wrestle that Cruiserweight style. But I don't know how long that will remain an upside if he has to submit to regular drug testing.

I'd agree with all the "turn Roman heel" sentiments, except unless WWE are really trying to blindside us with the heel turn, it doesn't look like it's going to happen. The feeling I got from the way Rollins acted while Roman was suspended, and from Stephanie berating and humiliating him during the opening segment of Raw, is that we're supposed to feel sorry for him. He's just a hard working guy who made a mistake and owned up to it, but his dastardly former friend won't let him live it down, and his evil boss is picking on him for not bouncing right back. I am truly amazed at Vince's bullheaded determination to ram Reigns down the fans throats as a babyface, whether we like it or not, all evidence to the contrary. I'd love to see the heel turn, but it seems like Vince is determined not to do it, no matter what.

Because it's a two hour tribute show to a guy who brutally murdered his wife and kid ? And that's it's totally offensive and hurtful to the living relatives ?

That's entirely possible. It's also quite likely that I am just predisposed to being sympathetic towards people with speech impediments. My younger brother stutters terribly (as did my grandfather). With my brother it is so bad that for years he couldn't even answer a phone, because he would freeze up and couldn't say hello in time, before the person calling would hang up. Getting through something like a job interview was impossible. He writes, and I am so sick of seeing people read something he wrote and remark about how intelligent and well spoken he is in writing, basically implying that they thought he was an idiot just because he had a speech impediment. It has been really tough watching him struggle with it, since he is highly intelligent but it has hampered his life so badly. So he compensated by marrying a woman who never shuts up, which has eliminated his need to speak at all...but that's neither here nor there, I suppose. The point is, I can't help but root for Kenneth Johnson. I hope he makes it, at least to NXT.

I don't get the people pooping all over Kenneth Johnson. I thought his performance was perfectly passable, and he comes across as naturally likeable, as well.

I don't know about that All I know is that ratings are in the toilet and that USA are not happy (hence the split) and that WWE are ice cold as a show. I'm not sure about the overall picture of health for the network, but USA does have Mr. Robot as well, which is probably the hottest scripted program on television right now, in addition to being a critical darling. So there is some good news for them that doesn't rely on WWE.

I'm not worried about Randy Orton going to Suplex City. I'm more worried about Brock Lesnar going to Chinlock Town, the least exciting place on earth. And if Brock goes, all of us are getting dragged along for the long, boring ride. Whether we want to go or not.

I actually read Russo's first book, entitled "Forgiven." (I got it for $5 in the bargain bin.) It was a surreal experience. I guess he had written the entire book, which covers his career from the start, up to his departure for WCW. It was a tell all, mean and vindictive, The two main targets in his book were Jim Cornette and Jim Ross. But sometime before the book was scheduled to be published, Russo underwent a religious conversion and he decided to change his ways. So he published the original "angry Russo" manuscript, but alternated it with chapters written by the new "religious Russo" where he emphasized how much he has changed since then. After my reading it, I couldn't understand - if he had truly changed and didn't have the same bitter, vindictive feelings anymore - why he had still published the original manuscript as part of the book, which still had all the anger and bile included? Anyhow, the point is that even in his own book, Russo admits that the booking committee was made up of Vince McMahon, Pat Patterson, Jim Cornette and himself. Pat Patterson retired, leaving just Cornette and the two Vinces. That is who booked WWE for the majority of "The Attitude Era." Even Russo admits it. Now in his book, Russo claims that he finally went to McMahon and gave him an ultimatum that either Russo or Cornette had to be kicked off the committee, and McMahon chose Russo. According to Russo, that is when the true brilliance began. Cornette was off the committe and Russo and Ferarra were in charge. I am not sure exactly how long a period of time it was, but even Russo admits, there was a very limited time period when he had exclusive control over the creative process in WWE. That's not what he told WCW when he went looking for the job there, of course. When he went to Turner he claimed responsibility for writing all of the Attitude Era, which is why they hired him. But fact is, the whole "Russo wrote the Attitude Era" myth has been pretty much debunked by now. Even if Russo himself hadn't admitted that he worked with McMahon, Patterson and Cornette for a large chunk of that time, his work in WCW proves it's not true. We got to see what "free reign" Vince Russo looked like in WCW from November 1999 - January 2000. The attitude era never looked anything like that. Like I said before, I can't stand Jim Cornette. I think he's a close minded, stubborn, ignorant, overly opinionated loudmouth with antiquated thinking who has no respect for people with ideas other than his, and an ego that parallels and in some ways far surpasses Vince Russo's. He himself has said some absolutely ridiculous things over the past few years, and I think if he ever got a chance to book a promotion he would sink it quickly with out of date Southern Fried Rasslin. But when it comes to Vince Russo, he's not wrong.

And the thing is, as much as I can't stand the guy and despise what he did to the sport of Professional Wrestling, he has every right to make a living. He has a family to take care of, I respect that. But what has always driven me crazy about him is the total lack of respect he has for the business. He uses wrestling to make money while at the same time bashing it and doing everything he can to ruin it. It's maddening.

I checked that out. It looks like Russo went and deleted the tweets that you re-tweeted which showed clear examples of him not taking responsibilities for his professional failures, (after he blocked you, of course.) The man is hysterical. You pointed out what a hypocrite he was being by saying that, and provided evidence, and he responds by erasing the evidence and blocking you.

Vince Russo published a new blog at RussoBrand.com, where he explains his relationship toward the end of his tenure in TNA and then working with them as a consultant and his contact with Pop TV, which he discussed on a podcast with Disco Inferno. Below is an excerpt from the blog: I never fail to be amazed by Russo's logic. This is even better than his famous "the real reason people hate me is because I'm from New York" rant.

Exactly. Just like his epic meltdown (which is covered earlier in this thread) towards Dave Meltzer, when Meltzer reported that Russo was talking to Lucha Underground about a job. Russo went mental and denied it to the hilt, claiming he only went to the LU show to interview somebody for his podcast. It has long since come out and been confirmed that when he went to the LU show he did ask them for a consulting job, but they wisely told him they were not interested. If somebody waved a booking job in front of Russo, he's jump all over it in a heartbeat. Thankfully, there is nobody that stupid. It's like Cornette says, as scary as this sounds, writing for a Pro Wrestling Promotion is the only thing Russo is "qualified" to do. He has no other transferable skills, so of course he's going to make the rounds of every possible promotion asking for work. Since he can't really write, it's not like he can do novels (aside from co-authored autobiographical stuff) or scripts. He'd have to have somebody hold his hand and help him every step of the way. I'm starting to suspect that was Ed Ferrara's role in their relationship - translating Russo into English. At least Ed Ferrara has a college degree and experience writing scripts for television. As scary as this sounds, Ferrara actually teaches writing now. I doubt we'll ever see Vince Russo fall back on writing scripts or teaching writing.

I don't know if you guys have heard about this story...but it has now come out that Vince Russo contacted both Destination America and now Pop TV behind TNA's back, trying to con the networks into giving him a job, basically trying to write for TNA directly for the network, not TNA. Apparently he was telling the networks that only he could fix the problems with TNA. The way this information got out? Russo admitted it himself! He hosted a podcast this past week, co-hosted by Disco Inferno. He admits that he went behind TNA's back trying to get a job, and even Disco called him on it, and told him it was a dick move. The story gets out, and Russo figures out...maybe I shouldn't have publicly admitted that, since it makes me look like a total weasel. So Russo takes the podcast down, but the story is out and several websites reported on it. Now...Vince Russo's arch enemy has the information and the shit is really on. Jim Cornette has launched a scathing rant aimed at Russo. Now of course, Cornette doing a shoot or podcast going after Russo is not news, but this is slightly different because it fleshes the history of the heat between Cornette and Russo out for those who don't know the story. Also, this is a vintage Cornette meltdown, even by his standards. This story and Cornette's subsequent rehashing of his history with Russo has brought a lot more about Russo out, that a lot of people who don't know him might not know. There are some interesting stories on this podcast which reinforce just how much of a backstabber Russo is. This is a guy who apparently has no issues going behind anybody's back (including his own "friends") when it suits him. A hilarious Russo side note, after seeing and reading a couple of interviews recently, I discovered that allegedly, Vince Russo has the writing skills of a child. I don't just mean he's a bad writer (which he is) I mean he literally can't spell. I have used a quote from a blog entry by Russo as a joke around PWO several times, where he uses the word "sediments" instead of "sentiments." At the time, I thought it was just a typo or a spell check error, but apparently there is more to it than that. Apparently, Russo's written show outlines that he handed out during TV production meetings were so riddled with terrible grammar and spelling errors that they were almost indecipherable. According to Cornette, TV network executives would look at these scripts and ask what the hell they were looking at. There is a saying among writers: "Writers read, writers write." Well, Vince Russo has gone on record as saying he hates to read. He doesn't read books, and doesn't even like to read the newspaper. He actually said in an interview that he didn't even like reading to his kids, that's how much he hates reading. So it's no surprise that in order to get his creative juices flowing when he was booking, instead of reading, he watched Jerry Springer for inspiration. The funny thing is, as much as I detest Vince Russo, I don't care for Jim Cornette at all. I find some of his opinions as ridiculous as Russo's (on matters like Lucha Underground, or Sami Zayn, just to name two.) I could also give less of a crap about Cornette insane ranting about politics, religion and every other thing that crosses his mind. The only issue I ever agree with Cornette about is Russo, but on that issue the man is right, even if he is terribly biased. It sure looks like he has every right to be. Point being, the more you find out about Russo, the more you see what a horrible person he really is. In my opinion, of course.

True...but I can't imagine they would go ahead with the match without Reigns around to help hype it up until 4 days before, would they? Aside from the practical problems that would create, it doesn't send much of a message to the rest of the roster either. "Get suspended, but come back just in time for your main event paycheck." I am also curious as to how they will explain his absence from TV, don't they normally just stop talking about somebody when they are suspended? It will a bit more difficult to write Reigns off TV, but I can't see them admitting a Wellness Violation on TV, what do they normally do, make up an on-screen injury or something?

Glad to see somebody else (whose opinion I respect) say that. I agree with you. Some times when you watch this stuff alone, you see something and you're not sure if you're seeing into some things due to preconceptions or expectations. I too was hoping for a bit more than what we got, not due to any faith in Cena's ability (of which I have little) but more out of respect for Styles (of which I have much, even more so after the two matches with Reigns.) To me, that match seemed lacking something and was kind of paint-by-numbers, not a bad match per se, but more just a collection of fairly well executed moves that lacked total cohesion. After, I wasn't sure if it was just me, maybe I had been spoiled into expecting too much after the Reigns matches, or maybe Cena had more ring rust than I expected. Whatever it is, I think you hit the nail on the head.

I just figured it had gotten slow around here because it's summertime. For those of us who live in climates where we only get 4-5 months of the year where it's actually nice outside, I assumed people were out more. That's the television network's logic behind summer reruns and fall premieres, no? It never even crossed my mind that people had decreased or stopped posting because of the GWE project. I'd hate to think that was the case, but maybe it is.

From what I understand, there is still a fairly good chance the decision will be overturned on appeal.

So according to what I've read online today, the judge in this case issued her "final judgment" which upheld her original finding. Gawker's reaction was to file for Bankruptcy, but I'm not sure if this was done to protect their assets from Hogan ever seeing any of their actual money? American Bankruptcy law seems to differ from Canadian, so I'm not sure if I understand how this all works now. From what I read, it looks like Gawker can just declare bankruptcy, sell to a new owner, and don't have to pay Hogan anything?

I am looking forward to hearing what those in the know have to say about this (Meltzer) because I read some rumor that Brock actually held Vince up for more money at Wrestlemania this year, and one of his conditions was also that he be allowed to fight in UFC again? The story was broken by MMA reporter "Front Row Brian" on Twitter and he is claiming that Lesnar renegotiated his contract with Vince at Wrestlemania. I'd say this guy didn't know what he was talking about, but he broke the story on Twitter before it was announced.It's a rumor, but I'd love to know how true it is. We all know how much Vince loves people holding him up...but then I read rumors about Vince getting a piece of the action and WWE helping cross promote the fight, so I don't know what to think. If UFC helps hype SummerSlam, then we know the deal, I guess. WWE and UFC cooperating with each other in any way is so surreal to me. It's a pity Frank Mir is out on drug suspension because he and Lesnar hate each other and they are 1-1 against each other. Their rivalry is begging for a final fight to decide the trilogy, and that would be a pretty safe fight for Lesnar. They are apparently announcing his opponent on ESPN on Monday. They are going to have to be really careful, because there are a couple of guys in UFC who could hurt Lesnar's marketability by beating him. One of the names getting tossed around is Mark Hunt, and that is not necessarily a safe fight for Lesnar.

Are we finally starting to see the Billy Corgan influence on the product, with this vignette? Whatever it is, I loved that. That was just so cheesy. If Matt had hammed it up like that earlier in his career, how different might it have been? It's as if his promo coach was the Almighty Shatner himself. All we needed was .

Has anybody caught the backstage interview segments featuring Dean Ambrose and Sami Zayn over the past week? In my humble opinion, they have been quite entertaining and fun. On RAW, Ambrose and Zayn have an uneasy alliance up until Money in the Bank against Owens, Jericho and Del Rio. Ambrose cuts a hilarious promo pointing out you can't trust Jericho and Owens because they're Canadian, and you can't trust Canadians. He is of course, oblivious to the fact Zayn is Canadian, and Zayn's facial expressions are priceless. Then on Smackdown, we have another backstage interview where Ambrose continues his diatribe against Canadians Jericho and Owens, but throws in the guy from Canadian Customs. Zayn continues with the exasperated facial expressions, and patiently lectures Ambrose that if you don't want trouble with Customs, you shouldn't try and smuggle nun-chukkas across the border. It was a small thing, but quite humorous, and showed some acting and reacting skills that I didn't think Ambrose or especially Zayn had.

If the shows don't look and feel different, then this is a waste. Different rings is a good idea. Even better would be somebody new directing their TV shows and giving them a fresh look.

I wonder how Cody Rhodes feels about demanding his release right before what could be a potential opportunity for advancement came up. Ditto Ryback. And I similarly wonder what the fuck WWE were thinking releasing Sandow, a guy who was clearly popular (no thanks to them) right when they could use a guy just like him to fill a spot on the card. Weird.

I liked Smackdown this week. I especially liked the part where Xavier Woods got thrown face first into the barricade, and Big E got a boot to the head from Luke Gallows, and then AJ pinned Kofi, and then they walked up the ramp and The Club all pointed at A New Day and laughed at them. I liked it because I like AJ Styles and The Club (even though that name sucks ass) and I liked it because I hate A New Day and I hope they all get gonorrhea and rot in hell for a thousand years. One thing I noticed is that the crowd was still cheering AJ and company a bit (and this was Smackdown, where that type of thing usually gets edited out, no?) and that while A New Day was popular, they weren't half as popular as they seemed to think they were. They act like people are cheering them a lot more than they actually are. The jokes they were making about AJ and The Club really weren't all that funny, and their gimmick of laughing hysterically at their own jokes is...odd to me. Are they doing it because they know they aren't funny and they're trying to be obnoxious? Or do they really think they're funny? Whatever it is, it comes across as trying too hard. A New Day are like a really uncool DX. And DX weren't really cool. Anyhow, a rivalry between New Day and The Club could have legs, if they wanted it to. I'm hoping that's part of the direction they are going now, although I know Styles will be busy with Cena for a good while. (They have to trade wins, I assume 50/50 booking remains in effect for this angle.) Gallows and Big E match up well, as do Kingston and Anderson and Style and Woods. In theory, there could be some decent 6 Man matches and Tag Team Title matches out of this, if allowed to happen.