Boondocks Kernoodle

That's just calculating the percentage of the PPV money that goes to WWE, not what percentage of buys were in North America. EDIT: Bix beat me to it.

Am I the only one disappointed that they turned Edge back heel so quickly? I can't deny that he makes a better heel than face, but he's so played out in that role, and his extended run as heel champ on Smackdown was reminding me of 2004 HHH by this time last year. I dread the possibility of he and Cena main-eventing another series of PPVs this summer.

Didn't HHH say on Conan just days before WM18 that Jericho wasn't at the level he needed to be?

I'm pretty sure Luger vs Steiner and Hall vs Bigelow were supposed to happen at Starrcade '98, but then they...just didn't, I guess.

No, they re-signed him in the late 90s. I guess Bischoff must have been a mark for the "beat up Vince" story because I refuse to believe that he impressed in his tryout match. Also in addition to the other tales of creative accounting I believe they also counted the revenue from Halloween Havoc '94 and Starrcade '94 (as well as the 1995 editions) in their '95 statements, thus turning a "profit" for the first time.

I'm sure he'd be that way now too. We've never really seen him interact with complete morons on the level of the posters at F4W, the 4chan of wrestling boards, so of course we haven't seen this side of him before. He could deal with these things better, but when he reports that he was talking with production people at CBS after the StrikeForce show and they were NOT concerned about the show going too long, and the reaction is "I don't know Dave. No, I think they were concerned. Yeah, they probably were. It seems like they would be," I can see why he would become exasperated. He just said they weren't concerned! He, Dave Meltzer! But I agree that he is part of the problem, especially since Bryan created a special moderated section of the board so Dave could avoid the dummies and he rarely if ever goes in there.

To be fair, that board is enough to drive anyone mad.

I'm not talking about anyone here, of course, but the problem with that line of thinking is that wrestling isn't marketed to the same audience as soaps, it's marketed to, well, total meatheads. I bet they didn't do too many gay kisses on Baywatch. I just can't believe they're doing this angle when Bischoff knows full well how it's going to pan out thanks to the Lenny and Lodi thing: the crowd is going to chant "faggot" during OJ's matches, someone from GLAAD will take notice and he'll be pulled off TV by the summer. But nobody in TNA has learned anything from WCW.

Can anyone confirm for me that Heyman claimed that the Beulah/Kimona angle was part of a plan to attract bisexual fans? Mitchell made reference to that in a '96 Torch column but I've never heard it anywhere else.

Here's what Dave said about this angle two months ago, which is after they shot the first "gay kiss" angle but didn't air it:

JR had power then?

Was it ever announced on TV before SuperBrawl III that Flair would be making his return? I was watching the episode of Saturday Night from the night before that show (incidentally the last appearances of JR and Bill Watts) and while Gordon Solie mentioned Flair in his interview with Windham he didn't say that he would be there the next night, nor did Bischoff in his Control Center segment.

No, but Shawn referred to his fans as such around that time.

Well, I wouldn't call him lazy. It was definitely Nash's in-ring peak, whatever that's worth (though his best match, the no holds barred match with Shawn, came after his heel turn). The problem was that Nash has that naturally smarmy asshole charisma and his character at the time didn't reflect that at all. He was just a smiling nice guy who loved the fans and didn't charge for autographs. Also, it can't be overstated how lopsided the face/heel alignment was during his reign. Let's look at the roster at the time of the much-maligned King of the Ring '95, the undeniable nadir of the Diesel era: FACE Diesel Undertaker Shawn Michaels Bret Hart Razor Ramon 123 Kid Bam Bam Bigelow Lex Luger Davey Boy Smith Smoking Gunns Savio Vega Bob Holly Man Mountain Rock Adam Bomb Aldo Montoya Duke Droese Doink HEEL Sid Owen Hart Yokozuna Mabel Mo Jeff Jarrett The Roadie Tatanka IRS King Kong Bundy Kama Jerry Lawler Hakushi Skip Blu Brothers Henry Godwinn Rad Radford

He wasn't hated onscreen, it was just that he drew worse than, well, any champion before and maybe since. I don't think the fans were necessarily begging to see Diesel as champ, even if he did get over big at the Royal Rumble. His ascension to the top of the card had more to do with Vince's obsession with "turning heads at airports" than any real fan reaction to Nash. A lack of hot heels was a big factor - his first PPV title defense was a face vs. face match with Bret, who was more popular than he was, and then Shawn in a match booked to get Shawn over as a face (and with the size difference it would have been impossible for Diesel to get sympathy anyway). Then he feuded with Sid, who has never been a draw (I do still love him, as we all do), Mabel, who wasn't over and nobody took seriously, and Davey Boy, who had just spent the previous several months in a midcard tag team. While his interviews weren't bad, they weren't exceptional either (Nash was always better on the mic as a heel), and while he was over as a face, Shawn, Bret and Taker were all over more. So I'd say the reaction to him wasn't an outright rejection, more like a big "meh" than took Vince a whole year to wake up to.

Oh, there is no way that's true.

Maybe I'm remembering this wrong, but I thought it was the great ideas that he, Dave, had for the Invasion that he told to Vince and was hoping he would still use. I sent an e-mail to the Observer Radio mailbag asking Dave if he could reveal his long-talked-about idea for the Invasion. I sure hope it isn't the same one Jim Cornette had.

Not sure about this, but Wacholz wasn't under contract all that time. He did the one match at Slamboree, then years later they re-signed him and never used him.

Bryan confirmed it was Angle when I asked him on his forum was it Benoit after the murders went down. Just to clarify, it wasn't suicide watch, they were afraid of him dying like Eddie. It was pretty obvious from the start that it was Angle because Keller said that his death would be a bigger story than Eddie's due to his real-life credentials or something along those lines.

It was Survivor Series '93. He was supposed to be one of Shawn's Knights and would have his mask ripped off during the match, though I'm not sure if he would have continued as a wrestler after that. He was supposed to start up as a booker for the WWF after the PPV, but the day before he left a note for Vince saying his horse was sick and went back home.

I wonder how much money Shawn cost himself by turning down the 2nd Hogan match and wrestling The Masterpiece instead.

Not rovert, but others were commenting that Dave would ignore the story.

Well, Ric was a big Jesse Helms supporter.