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I really wish Kevin Owens would turn, be forced to shave and become happy smiling babyface KO.

Nope.

I think that's probably due to that list being focused on national companies. JYD was the top star in Mid-South from 79 to when he left in 1984. Mid-South was not a big time territory that guys wanted to go to before JYD's run. He turned New Orleans into one of the hottest cities in wrestling when it had never really been a big wrestling town before. There were running the Superdome 3-4 times a year during his run and drawing anywhere from 15,000-25,000 people. And at his peak he was the most popular sports figure in that city: Yes Orndorff had some great runs with Hogan but what does he have outside of that? Nothing close to Dog's record of carrying Mid-South on his back for 5 years. Orndorf never really had a run as the top guy of a territory that I know of. He was someone who worked with the guy who drew money and did better than just about anyone else that worked with Hogan in that role so he deserves credit there but on his own he wasn't a huge deal. As for Big Daddy I'll leave that to one of the Brits to argue for him but Big Daddy suffers in those "draw comparison" type lists because they didn't run wrestling in big 10,000 seat arenas over there.

This isn't really new though people have been saying this kind of stuff about Dave, especially in relation to Flair and Konnan, for a long time.

Let's not act like there's some high degree of difficulty involved in gifmaking. Download gifcam, lay it over the video and hit record & stop at the relevant parts. That said, I'll see what I can do.

When was Dave ever overly favorable to WWF in the 80s or 90s? Even a passing knowledge of what the Observer was like in those days would tell you that Bruce's statement is bullshit (and that's coming from someone who really likes his podcast) yet you have idiots going "oh yep I 100% believe that is true because Bruce said it!" Dave's deal with the WWF was for information about Japan.

I agree that the WON HOF voters as a whole look more favorably on guys who have proven track records as draws but that statement is not 100% true. There are still guys who were massive draws and so popular they were cultural icons in their areas but still aren't in the HOF because they have reps as bad workers. Most notably Big Daddy and Junkyard Dog (who was much better in his Mid-South days than Dave gives him credit for)

The thing about considering Terrible Ted is there were other wrestling bears, I know there was a Ginger and I think one named Frank too. Seth Hanson has posted some cool posters from cards with wrestling bears on them and the promoters did stuff with them that I never knew about like having fans (or maybe "fans") wrestle the bear and even a match with Debbie Combs vs. the bear. Clearly the bear had drawing power though considering that the promotions that used wrestling bears used them over and over.

What would he know about it? You don't get those Meltzer guns that make geeks accuse you of doing steroids by eating pizza.

There is absolutely NO chance of HHH letting a story play out where Shane gets the better of him. So no way is that happening.

Probably a long time because it's not a very smart thing to do when you wrestle 3-4 times a week.

Ah ok yea that makes more sense. I knew the reasoning behind it was that it's not going to be all that hard to pay some doctor off to get your prescription after you fail a test.

7 minutes seems like a good minimum floor. That's about how long the Lawler/Bundy $10,000 match from Memphis is and that's my go to pick for best "short" match. I'm biased more towards shorter matches in general though because the longer a match goes the more likely it's either going to get into random matwork to fill out time (especially if it's going broadway) or in more modern times it usually just means an overly long finishing stretch filled with a bunch of finisher kickouts.

The issue with Eva Marie was she didn't have any proof that she had a prescription on her when it came time to take her test.

It's all well good to say someone should leave WWE for a chance to have better matches but wrestling is still a business. A smart wrestler's #1 priority should be to make the most money he can before his body gives out. Is a guy like Swagger really going to be able to make more money working indies than he can in WWE? I seriously doubt it. I don't think it's really a sure thing that New Japan would pick him up either and even if they did I still doubt he'd make more money there. Del Rio was very much in demand when he left WWE last time and by all accounts he was making good money working in a bunch of different places. And yet he still went back to WWE when they wanted him to because that's where the most money is to be made. And I don't think Swagger is going to be nearly as in demand if he leaves WWE as Del Rio was the last time around.

Seeing some complaining about how the opening to the Miz/Ziggler match at Backlash "mocked" CM Punk. I don't think that was anyone's idea other than Ziggler or Miz. If Vince or HHH wanted to mock CM Punk they would do something way more petty and obvious. Like have CP Munk show up on Raw and get squashed by Braun Strowman. Then be unmasked after the match and revealed to be Colt Cabana. Then Colt cuts a shoot promo about how he's done being CM Punk's friend and he's gonna testify on Aman's side in the lawsuit against Punk. "If that's the fight you put up in the Octagon what kind of fight will you put up in the courtroom!? Will you roll over & tap there too!?"

Recycle that box they stuck the Spirit Squad in and just change the label from "To OVW" to "To TNA" and that solves the Bray Wyatt problem.

Never been more proud to be a Virginian.

Dolph Ziggler is a loser is the best and most realistic story that the WWE has told in years. It's not some one off thing, it's been the story they've been telling on Dolph ever since the split started. Booker T shit all over him during the SummerSlam pre-show saying it wasn't like a #1 contender getting a title shot it was like the #5 or #6 contender. Not to mention all the stuff Ambrose said about him in his promos.

Was listening to something Cornette talking about Jose Lothario and he mentioned that Jose used to be a boxer before getting into wrestling. I almost think that makes his great working punches even MORE impressive since most guys who have come from a legit fighting background have not been able to transition to having good looking worked strikes.

My only interest in this card is to see how good of a match AJ Styles can manage to drag out of Dean Ambrose who has been pretty awful since Mania.

So Backlash is tonight, the first SD only PPV of the new brand split era. Card is: AJ Styles vs. Dean Ambrose Randy Orton vs. Bray Wyatt Alexa Bliss vs. Becky Lynch vs. Carmella vs. Naomi vs. Natalya vs. Nikki Bella Winner of Usos/Hype Bros vs. Heath Slater & Rhyno Miz vs. Dolph Ziggler Usos vs. Hype Bros Although WWE has not put out any official statement about it, there are a lot of reports floating around that Orton is not going to compete tonight so the Orton/Wyatt match won't take place. The card was light BEFORE that but now it's really looking bad. Apparently Orton is backstage at the arena but the word is that he still hasn't been medically cleared following the Lesnar match. And considering that there has been ZERO talk about this before now it makes me think he got a concussion from those elbows and WWE made sure that didn't get out because it makes them look like absolute shit that they had Lesnar throw shoot elbows onto a guy who was told NOT to defend himself and wound up with a concussion all because they wanted to run some stupid "worked shoot" angle and because they want blood but are afraid to have anyone blade.

Please don't work yourself into a shoot over someone photoshopping a pic of HHH to have CM Punk's fight in the background.

Yea this "you couldn't have done it!" talk ignores that Punk got paid a very nice sum of money. He could have easily gone the same route as every fighter starting out and fought some other guy with no fight experience as an amateur but he didn't because the UFC offered him a big sum of money to fight there instead. Give that same UFC offer to the "99.9999999% of the population" who have no experience fighting and I'm pretty sure they would also take the money to get embarrassed on a PPV.

DylanWaco speculated on twitter that this probably hurts Punk's chances of getting into the WON HOF now with the way the voters are and I think it's both funny and probably true.