Jingus

What exactly are you guys talking about that's so particularly awful? I looked at the spoilers, and they sounded like the usual TNA nonsense. (Shooty-shoot-shoot promos about internet bullshit that most fans neither know nor care about! A match where a microphone is the only legal weapon! A match where if Matt Hardy loses, then Jeff has to become his opponent's butler! LOLTNALOL)

The Rock was better at overall audience manipulation. Once he got past the Die Rocky Die phase of his rookie years, he could pretty much get the crowd to react any way he wanted to almost anything he did. That's something that poor Cena still struggles to do, often having the crowd shit all over whatever he's trying (no matter how well he actually executes it).

It worked on the people in the audience last night. When the match started, they were doing the usual fifty/fifty cheer/boo split for Cena. By the time the match was over, pretty much everyone was rabidly cheering John.

It was good live, everyone in the crowd LOVED that match. But the dirty secret is that it was awkward because the show got mis-timed. Someone pulled a Kidman backstage and the main event ended up going into the ring a full ten minutes before they were scheduled to. But they still had to fill all that time, so these script-it-in-the-back indy spotsmen suddenly had to improvise an extra ten minutes of wrestling. That's why they ended up putting the super-long heat on Red, they just had no idea what else to do.

I actually liked the finishing sequence of this one. Russo tries to give Jarrett the guitar, but JJ angrily smashes it over the ringpost rather than smashing it over Truth's head. Killings sold the triple Strokes in almost a Japanese manner; he kicked out of the first one pretty strong at the 2-count and started getting right back up; he kicked out of the second one at 2.9 and tried to get up again, but was moving slow and looked generally woozy; and finally the third one nailed him down for good. If you're gonna do finisher kickouts (and really, the Stroke is one of the less-protected finishes this side of the Angle Slam) then that's probably the way to do them. It genuinely was sexual harassment. They kept trying to get Athena to do more sexually-risque vignettes (like April was doing at the time, and Lollipop would do later) but she repeatedly turned them down. So, as a result, she got subjected to nights like this one. A few months later, there's a show where another girl is trying to rip her pants off, and the office had actually told the other chick (I forget who) to yank them off for real while not bothering to clue Athena in about that part. Yeah. I don't know exactly what he was supposed to say; he probably just vaguely told the management that he was gonna go out there and cut an anti-Russo promo. Nobody on the show would've sanctioned him saying a word about Owen, that's lawsuit-bait. I'm not sure if Russo was even supposed to be out there for this segment, I think he was legit upset about what Piper was saying and hit the ring for real (say what you will about Vinnie Roo, but he's not a physical coward). I am pretty sure the Harrises weren't supposed to be out there, I think they came out for real to make sure things didn't get ugly between Piper and their boss. Raven did a hell of a lot of fun stuff during his early tenure in TNA, it was the last time he was genuinely interesting and relevant (outside of his indy feud with Punk, anyway). Douglas... sadly, not so much. Shane's body was completely falling apart at this point, worse than it ever was in ECW, and he unfortunately looked pretty washed-up.

Yep. He looked bloated. Weird thing is, he was still trying hard to stay in shape. His workout time in the gym wasn't said to be any less intense than all the other guys. And I know for a fact what kind of diet he had, cuz I made at least one or two food runs which included his order: grilled chicken sandwich (with lettuce and no sauce or condiments at all) was his usual go-to.

They outright say in some of these announcer rules that titles aren't really that important, period. That's barely a step above Russo's condescending dismissal of a world championship as "the prop".

??? He had a LOT of indy fans in his 2003-2005 run who were very high on his work. His matches with the likes of Chris Hero in IWAMS and Samoa Joe in ROH were heavily pimped by lots of folks. Personally I thought he was highly overrated back then (unlike in 2013, when he really WAS that good) but he certainly had his share of supporters. Still voted for Baba, though. His worst matches were somehow less boring than Punk's crappiest stuff, even when he was getting old and decrepit and REALLY immobile.

Announcers don't have the ability to stop time in the middle of a live broadcast and go "oh shit, wait, is what I want to say AGAINST THE RULES?". As often as not, they're improvising most of their commentary live, in real time. It's hard to keep in mind an entire list of like 200 banned words that you're not allowed to say, including such things as "me", "interesting", "belt", "up for grabs", and "every pronoun ever".

Bash at the Beach 1999. Single worst-booked show I've ever seen in my life. They fucked EVERYTHING up, from start to finish. At least the usual suspects like Heroes had the excuse of a horrible roster, a skeleton crew of washed-up has-beens or anonymous nobodies, being booked and directed by amateurs who'd clearly never run a real wrestling promotion before. WCW managed to slit its own throat while still employing dozens and dozens of the best workers, brightest minds, and biggest stars in the industry. (That is, it had the guys who were the best workers and brightest minds, and then also had those other different guys who were the biggest stars; in WCW '99, there wasn't much overlap between the two groups.)

Actually, when asked about this match, Foley said that bump didn't hurt at all. Something about the way he was rolling and bouncing, he just happened to have enough horizontal momentum that the impact was more sideways than straight down.

Ah yes, the one and only Lollipop. She was said to be quite popular among the boys.

Maybe I got the wrong impression. I admit to being not-sober when I listened, and I am not a ball-buster personality. So that's probably just a thing that we can chalk up to different senses of humor. The audio problems are the real dealbreakers. I know how hard it is, you know how hard it is, but that doesn't mean anything to casual listeners who are used to hearing crystal-clear audio on the Alvarez podcasts and don't know how much money/time/effort it takes to sound like that. When you can't understand what the person is saying, that's the kind of red flag that drives people away.

I listened, I enjoyed, but as a guy who's done a podcast or two, I offer up some advice: ease up on the audio meme drops. You know how when a kid gets their first video camera, and they play with every single visual filter setting and make an unwatchable short film that looks like a Youtube remix of Natural Born Killers? It's the same basic tendency. And yeah, Sleaze was legit unintelligible a good 50% of the time, rendering his content moot. Those are the kind of things that make listeners give up on an amateur podcast. The rules for some of the contests seemed a bit confusing, the trick questions were cruel, and in general Johnny Sorrow needs to sound a little bit less like the all-powerful ringleader at a GWAR concert. Anyway, that's my opinion, and I'm sincerely trying to help.

He booked himself outta his own website. Classic Russo.

For guys I've known and worked with, I'll confirm Bobby Eaton and Jerry Lynn. Awesome dudes, they go out of their way to be nice to everyone. For guys I've just heard about, nobody's mentioned Mick Foley yet but I've never heard anyone say anything bad about him personally (not counting people knocking his in-ring style or whatever).

Everyone else mentioned the "sterile shills" atmosphere of modern commentary, so there's no need for me to belabor that. But I do think that's the biggest single overall problem with their product today. They're yammering about Twitter posts and constantly saying trademarked catchphrases and clearly faking their enthusiasm, and it's just un-listenable for the most part. They do have moments of competence, even fuckin' Cole was on fire all night long at this year's Mania, but overall it's a tough thing for me to watch without muting the damn sound. For all the people saying Ross and Lawler were awful in the Attitude era: do you honestly believe that the guys who followed them were better? Jonathon Coachman, Todd Grisham, Mike Adamle, Heel Michael Cole... I mean, JESUS that's just a marathon of crap. I can't fathom imagining that any of them were better than JR and King. And speaking of which, when they put Heel Coach at the desk is when the announcing really went into the shitter for me. He NEVER STOPPED TALKING, being such a spotlight-hungry motormouth that neither Lawler nor even goddamn Joey Styles could get in a word edgewise. And he never actually sold anything the babyfaces did, coming back with this smug "Oh well, it doesn't matter, I don't care, those good guys are somehow still much worse than the bad guys whom they just easily defeated". If the announcers don't care, why should the viewers?

I loved that match. It really showed off Andre's ability to sell and look vulnerable, which is a fascinating dichotomy when we're used to Andre as Fezzik The Invincible. (BTW, total tangent, but, that fight in The Princess Bride had GREAT psychology. Compare it to Andre's pathetic fight against Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer; yeah, he's handicapped because he's basically the actor inside a Godzilla suit, but that movie just did a whole buncha things wrong.)

That's pretty much where I'm at too. With the disclaimer that I freely admit not having seen some of Tito's and most of Martel's best stuff. I like Martel an awful lot, and need to see a hell of a lot more of his AWA stuff (and AWA in general) but he's not in Steamboat's league. Tito is a guy I've never understood the hype for. Yes, he was pretty damn good; but he never personally clicked with me.

Pour some gasoline, light a match, run like hell I've tried to tell you guys this is happening. On the vast majority of wrestling sites I've ever been to, the smark consensus on various workers has seriously not changed in the past dozen years. You'll generally find many more fans of Angle, Brody, RVD, Lance Storm, Booker, Muta, Edge, and guys like that as opposed to anyone who's a big supporter of Lawler, Henry, Cena, Fujiwara, any luchadore who didn't work on national TV in America, etcetera. I don't know what's caused or maintained the stagnancy of the old opinions at some places, but it's definitely there and in great quantities. At least Brody would be forced to work harder in a match like that, Angle's way too obsessed with getting his shit in. And if Brody tried to guzzle him, well... old timers can ramble all they want about how tough the dude was, but let's face it, in a shoot Kurt Angle would strangle Frank Goodish with his own goofy hair.

Watching the Tribute show, it's pretty obvious that some of the wrestlers hadn't even imagined the murder-suicide possibility. Most of these guys aren't very good actors, and it several dudes were still clearly reacting in the "mourning the unexpected passing of a beloved friend" manner, rather than the "just found out your friend died in the most fucked-up manner possible, and it's all his own damn fault". If the office really was aware that Chris was the killer before the show went on the air, then they did a pretty good job of hiding that fact from many of their employees at the time.

I don't see the big deal. Although the situations are quite different, they're still comparable. Both Hank Aaron and Rhonda Rousey were trailblazers in their own ways (although one would think that Jackie Robinson might be a better example, or even Jack Johnson). Aaron had a much rougher go of it than Rousey did, but he also did it a lot earlier and in a sport which had much heavier mainstream media attention. Rousey is essentially the first female MMA star who was both such a good fighter and such a good draw that even Dana finally accepted the idea of a women's division in UFC. Rousey is the figurehead for that moment, the poster girl; and as such, naturally she gets plenty of hate mail. That happens to every celebrity ever, to some extent; but of course the context of the typical "the first LITTLE GIRL in a real man's man sport like Ultimate Fighting?! Gawddammit, that's blasphemy!" sort of reaction makes the situation nastier than it would be if she were, say, a famous tennis champion. And Meltzer himself did explicitly say that the two situations aren't remotely identical, that Aaron had an infinitely tougher time and whatnot, so it's not like he went out on a limb with this statement.

The same. Ditto. ...tritto? Anyway, yeah, where is that clip from? It's hilarious, I've never seen a bunch of dogs just randomly break up a cat-fight like that. By sheer accident, it kinda reenacts the CM Punk/Teddy Hart parking lot brawl (except that one had Sabu, Scott D'Amore, and Chris Sabin doing the pull-apart instead of a buncha puppies).

See, that's it right there. If that was a finish in a hate filled match that led to a double countout? I'd have no problem with it. I'd still have a problem with it, because it's a stupidly dangerous spot. Those guys are both lucky that their brains are still inside their skulls. The guy doing the DDT hit the back of his head hard on the concrete, and also landed back-first on a couple of thick cables for good measure. Meanwhile the guy taking the move came uncomfortably close to breaking his fucking neck, with the way he landed. The spot is so awkwardly done that it's hard to tell if it's a botch or if they actually meant to go straight to the floor. And, worst of all? Hardly anyone even saw the landing! Only the fans on that side of the ring could even tell you what happened. Landing on the floor, between a guardrail and the ring, most of the live audience just plain didn't see it.

WWE can afford to offer a hell of a lot more money than even NJPW can. They're the biggest, most profitable wrestling company in the world. WWE midcard contracts offer more cash than almost any position on any other roster in the world. Also: the WWE would not have hesitated one second to fire Del Rio or turn him into a jobber if he hadn't turned out to be so damned good at his job. He got his megapush because he worked hard and got over, not because his contract said so. If he'd bombed and turned out to be a worse-than-Sin-Cara level performer, they probably would have future endeavour'd him pretty quickly, regardless of whatever the contract said. If Okada went to the WWE, no, I don't think he'd be treated much different than Yoshi Tatsu. One simple reason: what Japanese guy ever has? Tajiri is the closest thing we've got to a "pushed" Asian star in this company, and there were plenty of periods where he was a total jobber and he never even sniffed being in the real main events or top angles. Otherwise, every other Japanese guy has been some midcarder who might get an initial honeymoon push, but is generally treated like a complete joke. Remember all the shit they did with Kaientai, wasting some of the finest Japanese juniors as squash fodder and racial stereotypes. The only Japanese guy that the WWE treated with respect was a goddamn Hawaiian Samoan pretending to be a sumo wrestler.