Jingus

Thanks for restarting these, they're always fascinating.

Sometimes the promoter will give you a You Did A Good Job And I'm Feeling Generous bonus for particularly hard work, but it's never written into the contract. Reminds me of a story Jericho told in his new book, when his paycheck for Wrestlemania 18 turned out much smaller than he expected. Like, less than a hundred grand, when Triple H got paid four or five times as much. He stormed into Vince's office all mad, and Vince just shrugged and said "Ross, cut him another check" without any debate.

Now that's just mean! In seriousness, there's plenty of random WoS available on Youtube. Mark "Rollerball" Rocco, Johnny Saint, and Jim Breaks are three good names to start with. There's also some pre-fame work with random dudes like Tiger Mask and Liger which is interesting for curio purposes, and Finlay shows up sometimes as well.

Orton's inclusion and Stone Cold's exclusion on that list are head-scratch-worthy.

Oh god, don't ever restart that horrible old "stiff vs snug" argument again. Yeah, that happened. He got on the air with her by having another radio host, a friend of Bubba's, pretending to interview her for his own show. Once she was on, he basically went into a Mel Gibson screaming fit, repeatedly calling her a "dumb black bitch".

Yeah, they kept trying to coax her to come back, but finally realized she wasn't playing ball and cut her loose.

He said "Fuck Haiti" on his Twitter, and iirc went on some rant on his radio show about how he shouldn't be forced to care about that country's disaster. Kong has extended family in Haiti and had been helping out with some charity efforts for relief, so it's not hard to understand her anger. She did indeed physically attack him, basically landing a few punches before it was broken up, according to most reports. But TNA didn't fire her, they wanted to keep her around; they refused to release her until weeks later, when it was obvious that she had zero intention of ever returning.

She attacked interview Bubba the Love Sponge backstage while yelling HAITI BABIES. She also attempted suicide at one point, according to Meltzer, but I don't know when exactly that was. I hope she got mental help before WWE signed her. Also, she was yet another female wrestler who wasn't getting paid jack shit. If you weren't a big WWE Diva, then TNA won't pay you much more than subsistence wages. This is the first I've heard about the suicide attempt, what was the story there?

Technically speaking, is that even legal? I know their rules are supposed to ban all outside cameras in some kind of draconian fashion, but does the law seriously allow them to steal people's private property like that?

It's repeatedly proven to be useless to challenge Dave on his retarded "MMA=rasslin" belief. He's practically a conspiracy theorist by this point. No matter what kind of logic or facts you bring to show his error, he'll only redouble his belief in the face of contradicting evidence.

The problem with those scenarios is that Goldberg's already ruined. The Streak had become the most important part of his character by the time he was champion. Once he got beaten, even one time, lots of his drawing power is gone forever.

It's been one of the most closely-guarded secrets of da biz that a lot of wrestlers are rumored to have this hepatitis. Apparently it's a tougher virus to kill in open air than something like AIDS, and easier to contract in such situations like a double-juice match (or possibly, a lot of the boys all fucking the same rats, though sexual transmission is more rare). And since it often causes no symptoms at all in some carriers, lots of people can have the disease and never know it; meanwhile, others can die from it. It's not just in America, either; I've heard it claimed that Juventud has it, and don't forget that this was the disease that ruined Jumbo's career. Along similar lines, in Japan hepatitis is sometimes known as "the Yakuza disease" because of the gang members frequently contracting it during their extensive tattooing, and the yakuza and wrestling have long had a somewhat shadowy but definite connection. And hey, remember the weird situation in the WWE five years back, where suddenly a bunch guys were all yanked off a Smackdown PPV for unstable liver enzymes or something weird like that? It was Lashley, Khali, and a couple of others I'm forgetting. Guess what hepatitis's primary symptom is. Yep, unnatural liver functions. Not saying that the WWE would knowingly employ Hep carriers as active wrestlers, that's a strong charge to make, but it's an awfully weird coincedence.

Everyone is skirting around whatever's wrong with him. I really want to know. The latest rumor is that he's got Hepatitis C. Which would actually explain the whole problem, and why TNA is so goddamn secretive about it. But keep in mind that there's been plenty of other Hep C talk recently (Waltman, Abdullah, Ian Rotten) so this might just be a copycat story.

Foley got tarnished with his company-man association with TNA, methinks. But as for Cornette, if anything, I think he got tired of his own self-promotion. He hasn't done any notable interviews in a while now, and pretty much just keeps his head down and works for ROH. Could we grade on a curve for someone who has nothing to promote? Because the first guy I thought of when I saw this thread topic was Russo. He someone managed to consistently keep a top creative position in several companies, despite never having the credentials or experience one would need for such a job. The sheer fact that he's still employed does indicate that he's goddamned brilliant at convincing other people of his brilliance.

fuckin' whoops, double post

You'd think that the former WCCW would be a hotbed of indy wrestling, but there's nothing here. Literally, as far as I've found, a grand total of 2 indy promotions running in the entire Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex area. Considering that this is an area at least the size of Atlanta, you'd think there'd be something here, but we've got jack shit.

Yeah. The WWWF was basically a monopoly on everything from DC to Maine. That's a huge stretch of land, with several big cities to promote. I wouldn't be surprised if Vince Sr. had exclusive rassling access to a full quarter of the American population, considering how ridiculously large that "territory" was.

Flair doesn't usually tend to be a casual, compulsive liar though. Like, along the lines of Hulk Hogan just making up random bullshit for no reason. When Flair tells a fib, there's usually some kind of obvious bias or something he stands to gain from such a statement. In this case, neither of those applies; telling Bischoff and the TBS execs to go fuck themselves, in the form of a big ol' unsanctioned crimson mask, sounds like the sort of thing he'd brag about rather than covering up. And since Macho has always eschewed doing any kind of shoot interviews, there's no other side of the story to compare to Ric's version here.

Punk did have the rug abruptly pulled out from under him on several occasions, though. Bryan's overstating the case, but it did happen to a lesser degree. Although comparing his WWE career to that of someone like Low-Ki is a huge stretch. And I'm pretty sure that his "the best thing for him is to write that he's about to get fired" deal is just a joke, reflecting on WWE's weird human resources decisions and how they frequently go against what most sensible people would predict happening in these situations.

I dunno if that would even count. It only lasted a couple weeks, Steamboat himself was clearly uncomfortable in the role, and at least half the crowd still treated him like a face anyway. (And we can add "tried to turn Ricky Steamboat heel" to the long, long list of reasons why Vince Russo is the dumbest booker in the business.) Rey was only a heel for a few months with the Filthy Animals in WCW, and he wasn't any good at it. The dude is a born babyface-for-life. The normal version has, but not the grapevine variation. Sure, TNA stupidly had a couple of people break out of that one in meaningless Impact matches, but hardly anyone remembers that. When Angle grapevines the leg, there's a definite "well this match is finished" feeling from the crowd. Calling him "the worst" in that area is wildly overstating it. Compare it to someone like, say, RVD or Abdullah who literally can't change their styles even if you were demanding it at gunpoint. Angle would adapt at least a little bit to some opponents; the matches he had with Mysterio didn't look exactly like the ones he'd have with Nigel, or Rock, or Benoit, or Taker. Sure, Kurt does have his generic "insert opponent here" matches that he does by numbers, but he's more like 90s-era Flair in having strong tendencies rather than ironclad rules about what he does in every match.

Was Andre ever really considered to be the biggest star in wrestling? ("Biggest" in terms of fame, not biology.) I'm not sure he had a torch to pass in the first place, even with his household-name mainstream notoriety. Certainly he was never pushed as the #1 top star of any promotion he ever worked in. Seemed like he was always a part-time gimmick, brought in every once in a while to pop a few big houses and then move on to his next gig.

To me, Benoit was always the king of the three-star match. Put him in the ring with any opponent who was even halfway good, and he'd usually have the MOTN on most average shows. But when it comes to really top-shelf stuff, it is hard to name what he's done in the five star range. All those bouts with Eddy were way less fun than they should've been, as was much of his Japanese stuff with opponents like Liger. It seemed like he was always stuck on a plateau: inevitably very good, but never truly great.

Disco's always just been awkward in general, and was never exactly the excellence of execution. I remember watching David Young teaching him how to do a superkick... in 2003. And have you ever noticed the odd way he throws his bodyslams? He switches his hand from holding one shoulder to the other, while he's got the other guy up for the move, and it looks like he's always about to drop the poor bastard on his head. Somewhat related, does anyone else remember the online rant he posted about Danielson a couple years back? Basically, he said that crowds would always want to watch people like himself and Honky rather than a guy like AmDrag, because gimmicks and gaga are always more important than wrestling. Even aside from the narrow-mindedness of such an argument, it slightly astounded me that when naming examples of the best wrestlers in the world... his first instinct was to list his own name. Oh yeah. A guy who can do multiple roles well is much more valuable than a guy who can only do one thing. Heenan could wrestle, manage, commentate, cut money promos, everything. He was certainly involved in more money-drawing angles than Benoit ever was, although there'd be room for debate over exactly how much Bobby had to do with said drawing in his managerial capacity.

OWW's height figures are worked, they list Kane at seven feet, so that's no help. Oh for FUCK'S sake. Find another picture, then, a full-body one which clearly shows them standing next to each other. I looked through ten pages of Google search, and that was the only pic which came up showing them together. Where did I say that? Provide a quote, please. You can't, because I didn't. All I said was that he wasn't a monster like Sid, which is completely accurate. And even if he were the size of goddamn El Gigante, it doesn't change the fact that he was a guy in a latex catsuit wearing glittery makeup and groping himself. That's off-putting, but it's not threatening. And at the time, the WWF only put the belt on heels which were big scary giants (with the six-day transitional fluke of Backlund being the only exception). He just wasn't the model of the sort of character they pushed to the top. Like I said before, to make Goldust into a top guy, they basically would have needed to book him differently from the start.

Dustin Rhodes. Is taller than Undertaker?! Dude. Stop this argument. You're making yourself look really bad.