Loss

I've never been fully clear on what happened to Austin the night before Wrestlemania.

He was friends with Steve Williams.

Them getting the tag titles isn't a myth, according to the WON at the time, that's correct.

Lex Luger is down to 170 pounds: http://notsam.posterous.com/for-those-wond...at-lex-luger-lo

Actually, the story was that when HHH told the joke, Shawn didn't laugh. I don't think HHH "hates" Jericho, as much as it is I think that he didn't want him jumping ahead of him in the pecking order, and did what he had to do to stop that from happening. Years later, there's no chance of that happening, so that probably explains why HHH has cooled.

That brings up an interesting point. Jericho has largely been doing his own angles since coming back. If he ends up programmed with HHH again, which I suspect will happen at some point, how is that going to work? It'll be interesting to hear the HHH case for why Jericho can put together a program with Michaels, but not one with him. I would be surprised if Jericho got any input at all, despite the fact that HHH pretty much leaves him alone now.

In the WON, Dave seems to think that Batista getting surgery proves that it's not a covered-up wellness suspension, because you don't get surgery to cover up a drug suspension. Yes, it may not be, but it's also possible he was going to work through the injury, failed the drug test, and it became the perfect opportunity to do surgery he would have just put off anyway. It's possible that he's both injured and suspended.

Paying her to stay home treats her like a charity case. Giving her something to do to keep her busy is a good thing. You can argue that maybe they could have found a role for her in the company that didn't involve her being on camera, but having Vickie Guerrero on camera for less than 10 minutes out of five hours of weekly TV is really not that big of a deal unless you are demanding to enjoy every single second of something you watch, which is quite honestly part of the mindset that killed her husband. I completely 100% agree that the manner in which they've used her on television has been pretty disgusting, but I have no problem with WWE giving her an on-camera gig so they could employ and pay her. I would criticize the way they have used her, but not the fact that they have used her at all. It gives her something to do where she's serving a purpose instead of sitting at home collecting money and mourning her dead husband. It's the equivalent of The Price Is Right ending with Bob Barker reminding you to help control the pet population by having your pet spayed or neutered. You may want to see more time given to the Showcase Showdown, but you understand why it's there, and it takes up a relatively small amount of time, and people benefit greatly from it, so you just accept it.

That can only be wellness, right?

Batista is also a big enough star that if he had a wellness violation, they would disguise it.

That's the whole point. They weren't looking to make Garvin a star. It wasn't that they "dropped the ball" with him. If anything, they did exactly what they set out to do, which was find someone to go over Flair that Flair could beat to win the belt back at Starrcade. Fans at the time really liked the Flair/Garvin series of matches, and enjoyed watching him challenge Flair for the title, but there wasn't really a push for him to actually beat Flair at some point.

Factually inaccurate portrayal about the roots of wrestling? How so? Yes, I know his grasp of Japanese wrestling history leaves something to be desired, but care to explain the first part? As for "starry eyed nonsense", what do you mean? He certainly is entitled to that viewpoint, is he not?

Dave respected what they were able to accomplish from a business perspective and didn't care for their wrestling philosophy. He was pretty consistent in that, was he not?

Are any wrestlers liberal besides Foley? I'm interested in knowing the political leanings of various wrestlers. All I know is that Ric Flair, Vince McMahon, Shawn Michaels, and JBL are all conservatives. WWE has also typically given preferential treatment to Republicans under the guise of being unbiased in their Smackdown Your Vote stuff, which is interesting, because it's been Republican state senators from New York trying to require drug testing and social conservatives like Brent Bozell that have caused Vince some of his biggest headaches. You'd also think he would realize that he had his greatest business boom ever when Clinton was in the White House, so the idea that a Democratic administration is bad for business is something that just doesn't make sense.

This will probably spark some debate, but really think about peak period Owen and how over he was. We'll say, 1994. Then think about Benoit, Jericho, Eddy, Rey, etc. and how over they were at their respective peaks. Fans sort of insisted on those guys being pushed in top spots and they had a pretty organic climb to the top. Owen might have fallen in that category in a different time, as the wrestling fan mindset was much different this decade than in 1994, but there was never that fan demand for Owen to get his shot on top, that was there for Benoit, Jericho, Guerrero, and Misterio.

I don't think there's a need for a debate over which is a bigger problem in wrestling between performance enhancing drugs and painkillers. Both are equally big problems, sometimes among the same people. The style has been toned down, without a doubt, but I would still say that even with the style being toned down, you still have Matt Hardy and Jeff Hardy having ladder matches.

If they were using Santino like that now, he might actually be a draw. I think they also had an opportunity to do something like that with Trish Stratus in 2004-2005 when her heel run caught fire. Trish as a heel manager leading various wrestlers after Batista or John Cena because they rejected her when she made a pass would have been good stuff.

I actually enjoyed the back and forth over Angle and Michaels initially when good points were being made, but it always evolved into a 30-page flame war with people overstating their case to make a point, which got old. I'm sure I did my share of participating in that, so I'm definitely not criticizing anyone. There is no wrestler more frustrating to discuss than Shawn Michaels, because those who criticize him go too far, and those who praise him go too far. He's very polarizing.

His legacy will ultimately be the whole Signature Pharmacy fiasco.

I'm honestly surprised it took this long.

Crockett had a successful 1985-1986 running the classic style nationally. Dave Meltzer, who is probably the most pro-workrate guy you can find, often talks about how having good matches helps, but putting together storylines that hook people is key. Does anyone argue differently?

I think the idea that agreeing with someone in order to look cool is awfully cynical. I will cop to seeing something written by Phil, Tom, jdw, Dylan Waco, goodhelmet, Meltzer, Bix, Kevin Cook, S.L.L., and probably other people and it shaping my opinion. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of forming my own opinion. That means that someone made a compelling argument that made sense to me, and I decided I agreed with it. In the middle of a message board debate, I might have made the exact same point previously made because it fit the circumstances. I would say if you're someone who's never experienced such a thing, why post on message boards at all? The whole point is the interaction.