JHawk

That's the story I've always heard, but I always thought the first half of that was kayfabe.

Keeping most of my thoughts actually on the DVDVR board, but the best part of the set so far is the fact that everybody is arguing over which matches are better than others to watch and different people are agreeing on every match. The set's going to be a pain to rank, and with the diverging opinions, the rankings might surprise some people.

Isn't Teresa Hayes Beulah McGillicutty's real name?

Jim Cornette: "I expected you to be all muscular today, Tony. I heard before the show that you were working with a dumbbell. Oh, hi David."

While Condrey was better at drawing heat than Lane, overall all my favorite MX matches are the Eaton/Lane tandem, so they get my vote. I love both the Eaton/Lane and Eaton/Condrey versions though.

I wish I could dispute this as an Ohio resident, but considering I'll go to Indians games where one guy holding a sign saying "need tickets" is standing five feet from a guy selling tickets and the two of them will never talk to each other, it's pretty accurate. I know they're likely working together, but I'm always "He's looking for tickets, talk to him."

Certain states do have laws against selling tickets at certain percentages above face value, but those laws very from state to state. New York, for example, limits to 3% above face value. Not sure if Illinois has any such laws.

No AWA news aside from the Lawler title win?

From the coming week's Observer: "The original plan was for Punk to go heel and win the Money in the Bank later this year. The suggestion for Punk to win the title the way it went down at first didn’t go over well, but the arguments were made that since the company decided on a youth movement and to shake things up (and it is amazing that the minute they started going with new people on top the ratings started getting a little better) that Punk is the guy to push more than anyone else. The argument is that Punk was more popular than he should have been given his push (true) and that he sells far more merchandise than someone in his position should (also true). Ever since Vince green lighted Punk winning the title, suddenly everyone in creative is 100% backing him. The producers on the other hand were very quiet when they were told, because many of them don’t think highly of Punk’s work, but none of them will ever argue against a Vince direction because everyone is afraid of losing their job. HHH behind the scenes is not a supporter of his dating back to his arrival in the company, and has joked that they now need to turn Michaels heel so Punk can have someone who can work him through a world title match. The Punk not looking strong is part of the Vince directive. Vince believes that Punk as a babyface always clinging onto the belt against “better” guys will cause fans to get behind him in the long run. It was the same idea he had with Mysterio, which in hindsight, most feel was a big mistake, but Vince was also never behind Mysterio as anything but a transitional champion at that time."

It took me years to realize that the first person to go for a pin when the referee is knocked down loses 99% of the time.

Considering they've done events before, including a CAC reunion, without incident, I wonder if it's more a "you've never been in the ring thing" than a "how dare you say Killer Kowalski's better than me" thing.

The problem most people have with JR's move is twofold. 1. He and Lawler have done Raw for so long that it doesn't feel like Raw without them together. 2. Ross said for two weeks he didn't want to move because he loves working on Raw, plus the schedule change interferes with him running his restaurant. It's hard to work for someone when you address a concern and your boss listens to it and does the exact opposite.

I found the results at titlebelt.net, but no attendance figures 7/1/86 Philadelphia Cage Match Dusty Rhodes & Road Warrior Animal beat Ole & Arn Anderson NWA Champion Ric Flair beat Road Warrior Hawk dq Nikita Koloff beat Magnum TA Rock & Roll Express & Baby Doll beat Midnight Express & Jim Cornette Jimmy Valiant beat Baron Von Raschke Ron Garvin beat Tully Blanchard Indian Strap match Wahoo McDaniel beat Jim Garvin Bunkhouse match Manny Fernandez beat Shaska Whatley Black Bart beat Todd Champion The Barbarian beat Denny Brown

Yes and sort of. You do need to join the Cauliflower Alley Club, but it's $25 a year. Well worth the purchase.

That's supposedly when he started losing interest. Maybe he meant 1984, which would have made more sense.

Scott Teal was selling this at the Cauliflower Alley Club reunion and said he didn't want to publish it because he's not interested in anything post-1982, but the book was too good not to publish. Too bad I'd already bought about eight books that I'm behind on.

Having lived less than two miles from Mike Tyson for a while, I have to admit that this is funny as hell.

Had they stopped airing the Philly cards by this point? I don’t remember seeing this and actually this is the first time I have heard of it, period. Philly shows aired into 1989, so the angle is on tape, but I have never seen it either and had only first heard of it about six weeks ago.

On the "planned" Flair-Hogan main event for WrestleMania VIII: Later that same thread:

Funny how normal looking guys like Regal keep getting caught and seemingly jacked up guys like Triple H and Cena never do. I'd like to think it's because Cena and HHH are clean but...

Jimmy Snuka in the WWF in 1982. Classic stuff.

Clash of the Champions XXXV I loved this on first showing but it hasn't aged well, although Ultimo Dragon-Alex Wright was good and Eddy-Jericho was cooking until Jericho blew up doing the Giant Swing. I still hold the garbage with the vulture at the end to be one of the worst endings in the history of any major event.

I second this one. Great action, solid psychology, and a terrific postmatch angle to set up the Tully-Garvin series.

In response to last night's Raw and comments I've seen on other boards about "when Nitro did it to Hogan-Sting everybody complained": Last night, they ran an angle justifying why they went off the air without a finish (Regal in the truck demanding they go to black). When Nitro did it, they just went off the air in mid-match despite at times running nearly 30 minutes long to do an interview segment. No angle, just "we're out of time". Much like the Horsemen attacks Dusty Rhodes in a parking lot ("we're paying you, you just run that camera"), sometimes all you need is a reason for what you're doing. The reason backstage bits usually fail is the fact that there's never an explanation for the camera being there. This worked because they established a reason for it.

"how hypocritical that when chris benoit kills his family, there's a national outrage but when john tatum kills jason sterling, no one says shit. a disgusting double standard regarding children and adults and which it is more acceptable to murder. " The commenter's screen name? "ANDREWwillKILLyou"