Boondocks Kernoodle

You mean "A CAGE!! A CAGE!! A CAGE!! A CAGE!! A CAGE!! A CAGE!! A CAGE!!" (music starts playing) "A CAGE!! A CAGE!!" That's my all-time favorite Flair promo. Well, that and "I make virgins bleed."

As it turns out, Coca-Cola canceled plans to bring in Flair for speaking engagements after the photos circulated of him with the black eye. He's charging $30,000 for overseas appearances and is insisting on receiving the money up front. Also, his release from WWE contained a one-year no-compete regarding TNA.

Kitao doesn't get nearly enough recognition as a famous wrestling crazy.

I wasn't making an argument that Taker was some sort of huge draw or anything, just that it was strange to give that tag to a guy who had headlined a number of successful pay-per-views just a year prior (not to mention wrestled in the most-watched cable wrestling match ever, but I'm sure we can come up with a few thousand reasons to tear that apart). I guess if you're talking about his run on top in '97, then yeah, you can say he didn't draw money when put in that position. If you want an example of Keith's faulty criteria for drawing, he once referred to Tammy Sytch as Sunny having drawn "insane amounts of money." Or something like that. It was in his Raw 10th anniversary special recap back in '03 if anyone wants to go find it.

"No-money-drawing" is certainly an odd claim, considering it was made in 2000, just a year after Taker had a huge main event run with Austin. Granted, you could have programmed Austin with most anyone and it would have drawn well in '99 but still, Undertaker held up his end. Summerslam '98 also did a great buyrate during a growth period when WWF PPV shows weren't guaranteed to be huge successes. So calling him out for not being a draw is just lame.

Of course he's implying it was a cover for something else. He just doesn't say anywhere that Orton intentionally crashed his bike to try to kill himself.

HOT

Irv doesn't say that at all. Sek's just setting up a straw man argument. I got the feeling Dave (and Irv by proxy) were suspicious that Orton wasn't in an accident at all. But that blog entry was written before Orton came back to TV. Irv needs to stick to covering THE CASE OF THE BENOIT WIKIPEDIA HACKER.

It's really been sad watching Irv lose it over the last year. I used to think he was the best writer about wrestling behind Dave (well technically he's a much better writer than Dave, as are a whole lot of people, but you know what I mean), but now he's become so obsessed with uncovering some new angle on the Benoit murders or the WWE's undeniably shady drug policy that he's embracing strange conspiracy theories. He's like the wrestling equivalent of a Truther. I was looking forward to his Benoit book when I first heard about it (I thought his essay in this book was pretty good), but if it's full of the whacked-out crap he's been rambling about for the last year, which I can't help but think it will be, I'm not so interested.

Oh man, why didn't I notice this before. Shawn pulling down his trunks and showing everyone his pubes, not to mention everyone on the other side seeing his bare ass, was freakin' strange. This wasn't the first time he did that either. I think the first time was after beating Jimmy Del Ray the day after he beat Jarrett. Then he did it again after he beat Sid on that one Raw. (Jesus, I known way to much about Shawn Michaels exposing his pubes. Help me.) It was especially weird considering WWF was still pushing the "family entertainment" thing at that time. (I consider the end of that era to be In Your House V, where Goldust was explicitly revealed to be a faux-homosexual.) Lucky we didn't get the worst part. In an Observer a couple of years back, Dave noted that he was at a TV taping in Stockton in '96 (and there was a Raw taping in Stockton the day after the Royal Rumble) at which Shawn did the striptease routine again, and he pulled his trunks down a little too far, if you know what I mean. Completely unrelated side note that I just thought of: Anyone remember the year-end issue of PWI in '95 where they printed a picture of Tammy Sytch in a coat and thong that made it look like she was completely bottomless? That was kind of extreme for the Apter mags.

I think my favorite was when he said that Savage should have defeated Prince Iaukea for the TV title in March '97 so he and DDP would have a title to feud over, as though 1) The best way to add heat to a PPV main event is to add the promotion's least important singles title into the mix and 2) The best way to have DDP break out of the midcarder pack was to feud over said inconsequential belt.

Didn't they also give the comic away at live events?

Those actually aired? I saw that one they showed as an extra on the Self-Destruction DVD, but I don't remember them airing on TV back then. But I'm probably wrong. I do remember them plugging the comic book and running ads for WU in WWF Magazine.

A-ha! Here you go: http://web.archive.org/web/20030516112557/...lt.asp?aID=7266

I used to have a link to it from DVDVR, but since they deleted the old "non-stick" wrestling folder in an empty gesture which did nothing to improve the quality of discussion there, it's gone now. And Google gives me nothing. Bummer.

Wasn't "The Buzz" just some project that the original author abandoned so Scott was chosen to pick it up?

I doubt Dave even cares about Scooter. Remember that thinly-veiled insult he made towards him in his Christmas day update so many years back?

Keith will always put a wrestler's on-screen behavior over their real-life behavior as criteria for his opinion of them. I was reading his blog a couple of months ago and he said something to the effect of that he lost some respect for Austin when he beat Debra, but more when he would bury midcarders by beating them up after he retired.

Did Keith do ANY fact-checking at all on this thing? One minute on prowrestlinghistory.com would have told him that Benoit was in ECW for three months before that AAA PPV. But he doesn't need "research" or other such fancy concepts, he's SCOTT KEITH, the world's foremost wrestling expert!

Yeah, I can just picture it. *Slow-motion montage of black-and-white wrestling clips* "WWE superstars are some of the most-loved entertainers in the world, considered role models by millions of children." *EVIL, reverse-color-scheme B&W photo of Chris Benoit* "But sometimes, WWE superstars do BAD things." *News footage on Benoit murders* "You never know when your favorite wrestler will go postal on his family. Use discretion." Final screen: "Choose your heroes wisely" www.wwe.com LEAVE THE MEMORIES ALOOOOOOOOONE..... I wonder if Keith thinks it was wrong for AC/DC to replace Bon Scott. Or the Three Stooges continuing after Shemp died. THE ROAD WARRIORS ARE SOMETHING SACRED HOW DARE HE

Well, more accurately, Dave said around $100,000, not over. It's going to be a series of interviews with the first one at the time of publication scheduled to be taped today.

In positive news for him, this week's WON reported that Highspots paid over $100K for his shoot interview, which is a ridiculous amount that his little chance of being recouped, especially in this Youtube age. But it should be fun to watch/listen to.

Don't forget about "Junkfood Dog." But of course, JYD didn't exactly shy away from the roids.

Yeah, because God knows Dave is so much higher on Batista than he is on Samoa Joe.

I seem to remember Jeff quit either because he didn't want to do an angle implying that he had a bad singing voice or because he thought it was too soon for them to break up his act with the Roadie. Maybe a little of both. Either way, he left and Roadie went with him because he was loyal to Jarrett. I don't know. I'll e-mail Dave and ask him.