Al

Wikipedia is generally my go-to source when it comes to title histories and such.

Main points of contention: 1. 90% of the coverage is pre-taped. Because of that you never see an honest sporting event. Phil Mushnick several years ago had a great article about a gold tournament, noting that if you saw a golfer attempting a difficult shot who wasn't one of the stars, it was always going in. 2. The coverage is edited down to show only events where important American athletes are participating. 3. The West Coast viewers, who are in the time zone the Olympics are in, NEVER get live NBC coverage. Really, the Olympics are somewhat special as they are the highest level of competition for most of the athletes and they only come along every four years. A great deal of the events are downright inaccessible.

Re: The SNME dig. This coverage style is nothing new. The Miracle on Ice itself aired on Tape Delay. NBC's coverage is pretty abysmal though. NPR had a good article about it. http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/02...sc=fb&cc=fp

It allows them full rights when they produce merchandising as well, doesn't it?

It's a political cartoon. It's a bit much to demand that they zero in on the most scathing criticisms of WWE, isn't it? The general point is that Linda McMahon is CEO of a shady company, and the cartoon got that point across.

I don't know if the Apter mags reported it at the time, but they listed it in their wrestling history section in the PWI Almanac.

From Wrestling To 'Rassling. I don't know if you can find it in print anywhere, but I think it's the pre-eminent book on the subject.

I specifically remember visiting a website stocked with FMW, WING, IWA Japan .gifs in 1998-99. Then you had ICP issuing Stranglemania as well. I don't think it's entirely outlandish.

The Freebirds debuted in Philadelphia with David Wolfe in their corner. Looking at that match it really looks like WWF was preparing to build them on the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection, and within a month they were gone.

The promos afterwards were quite uncomfortable. Dreamer suffered a legit injury, you can make money off that. But I REALLY didn't need to hear the details of the medical procedure.

Exactly. It became a little disconcerting to watch.

That was one of the odd quirks about WWF at that time. They had angles in specific cities. A six month feud between Sammartino and Piper in the Boston Garden, for example. MSG had some great feuds but they didn't travel.

The article itself was barely readable. What a mess. I actually started watching ECW back in 1993. Thanks to living in Pennsylvania, we got to see ECW's programming on Sportschannel 48. One of the first shows I watched featured an angle where the entire locker room ended up in a riotous brawl around ringside. And scantily clad valets, quite a revelation for a pre-teen. ECW had a wonderful run through 1995, but in '96 the product just became too violent for my taste. I think the final straw involved a foreign object and Tommy Dreamer's testicles.

Given what I've seen of internet comment boards you could do far, far worse.

Let's see: FAVOURITE WORKERS: Chris Jericho, C.M. Punk, John Cena, Eddie Guerrero FAVOURITE PROMOTIONS: WWE by default FAVOURITE MATCHES: Cactus/HHH Rumble match, Cena/Umaga Last Man Standing, Lesnar/Undertaker Hell in a Cell BEST THING ABOUT THIS DECADE: Explosion of media. Wrestling footage has never been more accessable. WORST THING ABOUT THIS DECADE: Lack of truly viable second national company.

Two possible explanations: 1. A standard music royalties deal could have given the company the specific right to use the music on VHS releases. DVD might not be covered under those agreements. 2. When Napster became a huge news item, it really became a wakeup call to the recording industry that made them aware of how much their royalties were worth. Married With Children doesn't even use the original Sinatra theme on dvd, and the Muppet Show has been a long time coming due to how many music clearances they need for each season.

Watching this myself now. The early part of the documentary is complimentary towards Gotch, Thesz, Lewis, etc. That's probably the most important part of a fluff documentary like this one. Interesting choice of narrator whose name I don't recall offhand, but I know he's done work for Ric Burns' documentaries in the past. Kiniski's interview is fun but in fairness to him, it's an old interview and he certainly wouldn't know it would appear on a dvd documentary 15 years in the future.

Bobby Heenan put it in his book. I'm guessing that the Sheik himself was the source of that story.

Just from an unsubstantiated observation, it seems like the biggest immediate concern is wrestlers not receiving adequate medical care after their careers (or time in WWE/WCW, for lack of a better term).

"That said, looking back, it's pretty ridiculous how blood marks were chided for being barbaric vampires by the "classier" sheet writers and readers who championed Cactus Jack and the AJPW head drop style. Which isn't to say that blading is not inherently ridiculous, but that it didn't do close to the damage of the almighty workrates. " I think that hardcore style had it's share of accidents. Pogo breaking his neck for one. Foley telling the story of a female wrestler getting badly burned in another bout. The problem is that since the performers usually aren't of such a high profile as a Misawa, these don't get as much attention.

If I had to guess, Afa likely wished to devote time to his wrestling school.

Documentaries in general tend not to lend themselves to the full truth. It becomes homogenized into something that is easy for the viewer to digest quickly. In this case does WWE even have a dog in the historical fight? Easy enough to get quotes from a historian and get to Flair as quickly as possible. Chapman also interviewed for the AWA dvd. Did they even get new footage or did they just recycle those interviews?

I assume they did not show the clips of Rhode's loss or the angle surrounding that loss? Too bad, as the whole thing together works so much better than any piece by itself of that whole five day switch-fest. Can someone give me a rundown of this angle?

Agreed, television is crucial. Just look at the MSG attendance numbers in the late '60s when WWWF did and did not have television coverage.

Well how much did Hogan draw in Memphis against Paul Wight?