Loss

It's about time for Rey. The Jericho bio is remarkably well-written for something I'm sure he had to put together quickly.

Jericho did say there are some amazing stories in the book about fights he has had with Vince over the years. He also said that there are some guys that will come across as villains, and he hopes they don't take it personally, because he has no resentment toward anyone now, but wanted to describe how he felt at the time. That screams HHH to me, but we'll see. Jericho has always been very involved in crafting his promos and putting together his angles, and he also has a rep for being pretty outspoken. Most WWE guys aren't like that, so it doesn't surprise me that they had some bumps in the road. I recall when Stephanie was defending Jericho when he came back and didn't catch fire like they thought he would initially, which makes me think Stephanie probably was one of his bigger supporters, maybe going back to all the screen time they shared years ago. I would say that she probably did more TV segments with Jericho than maybe even HHH. Either way, it's close. Of course, that didn't stop her from going out of her way to wear high heels in 2002 in every segment when they were briefly paired to show that she was taller than Jericho.

I remember Dave making references in the WON to the WWF's Memphis-style booking at the time, in the sense that they were running way more angles than normal and seemed to be booking for their hardcore fans more than casual fans. The Hogan and Luger megapushes would seem to challenge that, but I do see the point.

I really think Austin didn't work that well in a non-wrestling role. They still worked too hard to protect him, so you had him stunning active wrestlers on a regular basis when he was retired and if anything, they should have been doing occasional angles to beat him up. And yeah, I do remember Austin being overly excited about the Sheriff thing. Obviously, a lot happened from 2001-2003 to take Austin from the hottest act in wrestling to someone who didn't make too much difference whether he was around or not. Some of it was Austin's body breaking down, some of it was others in the company gaining power and limiting what he could do, and some of it was paranoia on Austin's part. I still recall the WWE magazine right after he walked out where they had quotes from pretty much everyone on the entire roster burying him for leaving, with ridiculous stuff like Undertaker saying he never thought much of him.

Maybe cynicism has taken over, but all I could think watching that was that this was during the time period when Steve Austin could no longer wrestle and his GM role had run its course, so he was desperately trying to find a way to be useful and hang around, and HHH got to fill his normal spot of truth-telling heel and bury his gimmick.

I was just thinking the EXACT same thing.

It's still weird to me that someone who doesn't grasp really basic pro wrestling concepts like Eric Bischoff had as much success (and more failure, but he did have success) as he did. I tend to think Dave is right in that he was just really surrounded by people who knew wrestling well, and listened to them. Plus, admittedly, he had a few positive qualities that most people in wrestling don't, namely that he's not a control freak who feels the need to put his fingerprints on everything, and he was willing to go with ideas that weren't completely his. Vince is too proud to steal someone else's ideas, at least intentionally.

As bad as the exploding boat video and amnesia skits were, Vince Russo (and WWE, for that matter) have probably given us a dozen angles and segments from 1999-present that were just as bad, if not worse.

I understand that Brody was popular among the hardcores once upon a time, but I think it's more contrarian to like Brody than it is dislike him these days. Aside from Gordi and of course Dave, I don't think I've ever come across anyone on a message board that actually liked him.

Wasn't Nash also laying there laughing while getting pinned by Christopher Daniels years ago when working a UPW show?

That would be the time to pull the trigger on the Cena turn, especially now that according to the last WON they are open to the idea.

I do kinda think if they are going to do a unification match that they need the belts on the two biggest names in order to sell it. And John Cena vs Undertaker has happened a few times, but they will just pretend it hasn't, and that's about as strong a main event as they could do at this point.

Here's where you lose me. Why can't it just be "I don't agree with you and here's why"? Why take it a step further and accuse someone of something because they don't agree with your opinions? You have no idea what anyone's intent is.

I suspect Jericho was put back in the match because he signed a new deal.

I haven't seen a single Chris Masters match this year, but I don't think it's right to dismiss them without watching. Anyone who's watched wrestling for any length of time knows that sometimes, people who aren't that good when they start out start to put things together at a certain point and become good. Look at Rick Rude and Steve Austin, just as the two most obvious examples that come to mind. Likewise, there are people who are good who slip over time. So this post isn't necessarily to defend Masters (although I am intrigued and interested in watching some of the matches that I've seen recommended), but more to point out that it's really not a good idea to decide that if you saw someone early on and they weren't very good, that there's no way they can turn things around. It's happened for as long as wrestling has been around, and it's not some new, out-of-the-box idea that wrestlers change over time. Second, most people who have been posting on various message boards have been doing so for many years now -- I'm guessing a decade plus for most of us. I think it would be worth everyone's time to get past the point where we're criticizing intentions behind praise or criticism, and instead focusing on the point itself. Yes, there are bandwagon jumpers. Sometimes, it may be people trying to "fit in" by sharing opinions, and sometimes, it may be that someone read something that clicked with them for whatever reason, and they agreed with it, or it made them see wrestler (x) or match (x) in a different light. That's true of pretty much any form of entertainment that gets reviewed, by the way. Either way, we have no way of being inside each others' heads, so criticizing intent is a waste of time. I can't ever recall having a heated "debate" with Phil or jdw or Dylan or whoever else, but there have definitely been differences in opinion. I think those guys are probably the most anti-group think types around. They all like what they like, and don't like what they don't. They explain their reasoning behind everything. And in truth, they probably get falsely accused more of just posting things to stir up shit than I can recall anyone else getting accused of. If anything, the group think and mob mentality I think exists more these days with the WON/F4W crowd. That's not a criticism (Well, it is, but that's not my point in bringing it up ...), it's an observation. Phil and Dylan are pretty committed to their opinions, but they're not above reconsidering them if someone makes a point worth hearing either. You can't really say that for people like Bryan Alvarez, Mo Chatra or whoever else you want to mention from that crowd.

Kind of a communication issue more than anything, but fixed and won't happen again.

Is that from Lords of Paste? If so, I l despise their flowery re-wording of news stories.

I remember reading that the plan was to make Mongo the culprit. There was some type of segment on Nitro where Hennig and Bischoff were caught on camera having a conversation about it, though.

You would think that, but Vince McMahon, who hates Southern things, and Gorilla Monsoon would say it all the time.

I was about to go on a tirade about how there are probably all these great promos in wrestling now that never get a chance to show it, but I'll stop. But yes, Cornette is still great, although this started to make me think while he probably doesn't like Russo very much at all, he's exaggerating his real opinions for dramatic effect because it gets over online.

I think I might pay to see that.

If that ends up being the only reaction, I will happily post seven times in a row that we were wrong.

I haven't noticed it in years, but they used to always say "kisser" instead of "mouth", and also use the word "official" instead of "referee".

This passage stood out. Obviously, that's not the "Eddie and Chris" that Lance Cade was referring to, but it's interesting that you can talk about deaths of wrestlers in the past few years by first name and have people misinterpret who you're talking about, but still be right.

I was saying to Bix online that one thing that seems to be not quite grasped by some newer fans is how remarkable it is that pro wrestling acknowledges its own history as much as it does these days. There was a time when guys like the Road Warriors, national stars for several years, jumped to the WWF and were pushed as "newcomers". Of course, downplaying accomplishments in other places still happens today, but then, it even happened within the same promotion. I remember Demolition holding the tag titles for most of 1988-1989, and actually having the longest reign ever, but the announcers never mentioning that on the air. Those things were really frustrating for fans at the time, especially those who read PWI, where complaining about that sort of thing was kind of a standard talking point. But I look at how wrestling is presented today, and it makes sense to a degree. Most wrestling promotions for the past decade have pushed the idea hard that the stars of yesteryear were better than the stars of today. For the most part, that's sad but true, but it's shocking that a promotion would actually acknowledge this and even play it up to a certain degree. Legends come back for special appearances where they sometimes get the better of current stars. Then, you have companies like TNA grabbing a major headliner like Jeff Hardy and I seriously wonder if Hogan, Bischoff and Russo even understood his star power when they signed him because they think of their own peak years as the glory years, right or wrong. But I would argue that sometimes WWE emphasizes history to their detriment. The whole opening collage is full of wrestlers almost all from years past, and at some point in the past decade, probably after the WCW sale, WWE really became more about promoting their past accomplishments and seemed awfully content to just stay complacent and not be as willing to take risks. Yes, they've given half-hearted pushes to some guys, and made genuine stars out of others, but more than that, picking a direction and sticking to it. I'm sure young fans will look back on it a little differently than I will as a 30-year old whose interest in wrestling probably peaked years ago, but I have a hard time describing the current era. I guess you could call it the Cena era since they've built around him for the last five years, but look at all the things they've tried and killed halfway during that time. They'll remember Orton, Batista, HHH, Michaels, Undertaker, Jericho, and Edge as the top stars, but aside from Orton and Batista, all are stars from a previous generation. Look at the scratch logo at the bottom of the screen. 1993-1994 saw a gold-plated logo, which changed again from 1995-1997, and changed again in 1998. Wrestling went through more changes in those five years than it has in the last 12, and having the same look, feel and format to a TV show for that long is just reflective of that. Most of what I'm saying isn't new I realize, but it's just interesting to me how if you compare previous eras, the biggest difference in wrestling of the past decade and wrestling of the previous decade is the lack of movement, change, and the same stars working on top for so, so long. I don't know if I'm nostalgic for staples of wrestling's past, like squash matches, ringside post-match interviews, slower paced television, well-promoted televised specials every few months and the like, but I do miss wrestling that has ups and downs, changes in look and feel and genuine attempts to take a new direction that sometimes worked well and sometimes failed miserably. For whatever it's worth, there was never a time when following WCW was actually boring. Frustrating and annoying, yes, but never really boring. I can't say the same now. I'll stop rambling, as there is actually a unified point to all of this, but I'm not sure I'm articulating it.