Mad Dog

I always thought JCP/WCW had better jobbers and squash matches than WWE did. It felt like WWE always had bottom of the barrel job guys except when Cornette was bringing like Rhino and the Hardys in.

Exactly. If you are a Simon Gotch type, you probably get 6-12 months and a run through all of the promotions before that shine is gone. Someone like Kalisto can probably live off of his previous indy work and WWE run for several years before his value would drop.

I think WWE is where you go when you are thinking about retiring in 5-7 years and just want to make some easy money and not hustle 24/7. You can do your run and then do another year or two doing a redemption tour before riding off into the sunset.

It amazes me Mojo was there for as long as he was and showed zero improvement as a worker.

They could easily release 100 people today and still have a bloated roster. I remember doing an EWR sim of the WWE in 2019 and it was insane. I think I had over 200 people under contract to start.

You know, he never went in the Dick Bag as much as I thought he would.

The Brawl For All was really a stupid idea. I do feel like Jim Cornette and Jim Ross came off as almost delusional when they talked about how big Steve Williams was going to be. I wasn't even online yet when they brought him in and even as a newer fan he felt like a weird fit for WWE at the time. He's obviously an amazing worker but I just don't see him getting over with Attitude Era crowds.

I gotta say. Vince and Steph are underpaid and I'm not even kidding.

They need to do something because Dark is just a slog to get through. It's pushing 3 hours of squash matches most weeks. I get they want to pay people but there are a solid 10-15 guys on the undercard that could get let go or loaned out to other promotions.

See, I would actually expect them to do the opposite of that. It's the same reason they job the hometown face all the fucking time.

But you have to protect that young up and comer Miz...

Oh the Authority was just brutal. That's where they really started chasing fans away. In hindsight the Authority felt like they were the main heel faction for a decade. Just never-ending and pointless.

The Mack stuff is pretty solid. It's really a good series as each writer comes in and just keeps building on what the other did. I just read it a few years ago. I actually thought the Brubaker stuff was better than what Bendis did. It's also a nice bit of side flavor but the White Tiger is a good mini-series to toss in when you get to her showing up. Daredevil Yellow and Daredevil Ninja are also okay side series to read.

You should consider starting with Smith because that entire run builds off of the vents there. His run is only 6 issues and then you get David Mack's issues which are surprisingly decent. Waid's run is a nice palette cleanser after some really dark times in the book. It's almost a relief in some ways to get a Matt that's sort of happy. It has some weak arcs in that initial run but it's a fun read. I haven't read Soule's stuff yet.

NXT has been awful about this. I think faces have had 3 months with the belt in the last several years and now heels are beating heels for it.

I know you are in Canada. Do you want me to keep an eye out at local Half Price books for Astro City stuff?

My guess is Busiek is signing with a new company and the IP goes with him. Conan and Star Wars both got pulled off or digital platforms when they moved to Marvel.

Also, this was during the All-New relaunch and it really got lost in the shuffle of a lot of books that were just starting.

I think where I was also disappointed is I really liked X-Force with Remenber and this just kind of missed the mark. But I had been reading Cap for 8 years monthly by this point and it just wasn't the right time. I might give this a second chance though. I like the idea of taking characters out of their comfort zone for certain stories. I liked Iron Man going into space around this time as well.

I hated it at the time personally. I might be more agreeable to it now but it just didn't sit right with me coming off of Brubaker's amazing and down to earth espionage comics.

It always depended for me. For some reason it never worked right downstairs no matter what system or device I used but was usually fine upstairs. We have like 500 mb internet speed.

Yeah but they signed 200 people to collection dust down there. No one has time to actually teach them things.

Yeah, I think they learned some hard lessons at Takeover from having fans again. They won't learn anything but I don't think the expected the fans to not give a shit about the unsanctioned match.

Redditors have awful tastes in general so I wouldn't take anything said seriously over there in regards to WWE stuff.

Larry Hama is the man!