Loss

I think the realization becoming obvious with the HOF, if it hasn't already been so for a few years, is that nearly everyone who needs to be in is in, so the standards are being changed so someone can be inducted every year. Really, I think you can put Rey in and shut the thing down for good until John Cena is eligible, and then shut it down again.

I think Meltzer really nailed what drove Flair in his write up in the WON a couple of months back, when he said for Flair, wrestling was a chance to continue the high school lifestyle he enjoyed so much where he was popular, a good athlete, dressed well, threw great parties, and always got the girls. Flair had Benoit drive, but got into wrestling for totally different reasons.

In order for his BBQ sauce to truly become a global phenomenon, he has to stop selling the double entendre-laden merchandise on his website. Big nuts? Get it?

*bump* I think I've figured out a way around this. Look for an update within the next few weeks.

They had a couple of syndie squashes on Pro and Worldwide around that time, but otherwise, yes.

Lance Storm is an exception to so many rules in wrestling that it doesn't surprise me that he doesn't get Ring of Hell. It's not really about him. I do think that the item regarding Hall and Nash is a valid criticism, and I would like to see a Randazzo response. One other thing I noticed re-reading the book lately: when covering the 90s, I wish he would have gotten his hands on some Observer back issues. It's like he was just reading the Torch ones because they're available on the VIP site, but he should have forked over the dough to get the WON back issues, and really used the Observer far more as a source, and wrestler shoot interviews and message boards slightly less. I enjoyed the book, but that was an observation I had reading it. Is Dave ever going to finish reviewing the book?

What did you think of WWF in the year 2000? They were enjoying heretofore unheard-of financial success, WCW was a joke which couldn't do anything right, but still the whole year is largely regarded as an artistic success as well. 2000 was obviously a great year, largely because they didn't spend the year tied to a formula or in holding pattern. They were constantly trying new things and working hard to keep storyline continuity, to a point where everyone noticed how strange it was when HHH and Rock teamed on a random episode of Smackdown. If, say, Jericho and JBL, just to pick a random example, team this Monday on RAW, no one will even think about it. The WWF was king in 2000, but they were hardly resting on their laurels the way they have been pretty much 95% of the time since 2001.

Whether it's going to work in the end or not, WWE is definitely finally trying to interject lots of new people near the top of the card, and the face of the big shows has completely changed. I've always preferred desperate, back-against-the-wall Vince to a Vince who's doing well and sees no reason to change anything, which is what we've been stuck with honestly since the death of WCW. The success or failure of the Punk title run is determined in the follow up more than it is the way he won the belt, so the jury is still out. But Cena, Batista, Michaels, Jericho, JBL, and Punk on top at least creates several new possibilities. I tend to think we're going to get a Batista heel turn and title win over Punk, leading to a Michaels/Batista feud to occupy Batista until Wrestlemania. Cena will feud with Jericho during that same window. Punk and JBL have something going on and off, with maybe Lance Cade or whoever else they think they might want to mix in breaking things up in all the big feuds from time to time. On Smackdown, I'm thinking they will find a way to keep Edge and HHH separate until Mania also, and I see Taker feuding with someone like Umaga once the Edge/Taker feud comes to a conclusion. If HHH goes heel, he can feud with Jeff Hardy, but HHH and Edge both as heels on the same show may be too much fighting over the same spot. I'm thinking the Matt Hardy to ECW move is a way to try to push him hard and get him over before eventually moving him either back to Smackdown or to Raw.

I was just about to ask if anyone knew the passage. And if that's truly what irked him, yeah, that's ridiculous. Although, I will admit that I can see Bret's frustration, simply because the facts about Montreal have been out there for so long, and time has proven so many things that those involved like Michaels, McMahon, and HHH denied at the time to be true, that I don't understand how anyone can say Bret's side is just "one side of the story", when it has been confirmed by neutral people who have no special interests in either direction to be true. The whole timeline and rundown of events is one of the most easily available things about pro wrestling out there, so there's really not any excuse ten years later for people to still be saying that we don't know the whole story, because we know way too much about it as it is. Bret is a complex guy. It's hard to fault him the things he truly believes (for the most part), but at the same time, you wish he could let go of a lot of it for his own well-being. I say this as someone who thought he was pretty much 100% in the right at the time based on what happened. And even if Bret does have a point, making a big production at a banquet is silly.

When did Funk ever main event a WWF ppv? He's been in semi-mains and Rumbles, but he's never headlined iirc. No Way Out '98.

I have this fear that sober, politically correct Michael Hayes booking will be lame. But hopefully not.

I don't, unfortunately.

The main problem with using ROH as a farm system is that it would put everyone in ROH under a WWE contract and they wouldn't be able to work other indies. Then, they'd be getting less experience, and the match quality -- ROH's calling card -- would suffer, which would negate the point of using ROH as a farm system. I think, more than using ROH as the developmental, they should keep ROH as an unofficial source of talent, and maybe just pay more attention to it.

Wow, they're REALLY putting a lot into Jericho's heel turn. Having him sideline Michaels, bringing Flair back to do a segment, and sacrificing both HHH and Cena in order to build his heat right before a pay-per-view. Where was this push years ago?

Yes, there is a backlog.

1982 seems a random year to choose.

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/5616/105/ This was in Comments That Don't Warrant A Thread, but I think it does warrant a thread.

Hulk Hogan isn't having a good week, is he?

We are on the same server, which I know is why we have had downtime, but we're still looking into why it makes a difference if www is typed or not.

If you know of anyone trying to come on to this website who can't seem to access it (like me the past few days), ask them to do the following: Instead of typing in http://www.prowrestlingonly.com, ask them to type in http://prowrestlingonly.com without the www. I'm not sure why this is happening, but this appears to be an issue. I hope to have an answer as to what is causing it soon.

Hulk Hogan would disagree. Vince relied on him to carry the company to an overwhelming degree. He tried doing the same with Bret, Michaels, and Diesel, all to lesser results. His father had always done the same with guys like Sammartino and Backlund. Until the past few years, the top star had always been the absolute most important aspect of the company, and it used to matter much more than it does now who was in that spot. Now, anyone could leave WWE (except for Vince himself) without doing any damage, which makes them disposable. It's also not just WWE that does this today. Ring of Honor also sells itself on being Ring of Honor, more than it does who is on their roster. I don't think I'd personally cite Paul Heyman's business decisions as proof of anything, because it was those business decisions that ended up killing ECW. ECW was horribly mismanaged, but Heyman was a great motivator and manipulator, which is why they hung in so long. Losing the talent obviously didn't help anything, but ECW's problem in late 1999 and early 2000 was that the WWF and WCW had taken all the things about the booking style that made it original and done them on a bigger scale to better results. It's not something the presence of Rob Van Dam could have stopped, and it would have happened even if Benoit or Malenko or Eddy or Rey or Juvi or Psicosis or whoever else you want to name were still around.

I honestly think this is completely correct, and don't really understand where the initial argument came from, nor do I see the problem with the original quote. "Couldn't continue at that pace" doesn't mean that they were crippled into retirement necessarily -- it can also mean that they could no longer justify taking such huge risks in front of such small audiences for relatively low pay. I would be surprised if anyone honestly felt no one ever left ECW for that reason. Regardless of what the exact reason was for each wrestler leaving (read: leaving for another promotion), the reasons were all symptomatic of the same root cause of risk versus reward. When Heyman lost Benoit, Malenko, and Guerrero to do those demanding token wrestling matches on the same show, he immediately brought in Rey Misterio, Juventud Guerrera, and Psicosis. I'm pretty sure that exchange took place in a ridiculously short window of time -- I think I've read even one day in the past. ECW didn't skip a beat in the transaction, which sounds like "disposable" to me. I also read it as a statement about the promoting style in ECW that later carried over to WWE, where the company name is the big draw and the wrestlers are all fairly interchangeable and the storylines are largely inconsequential. More of a promoting style where it's about the overall experience (even if WWE doesn't use that language in the way ECW often did). If you want to see where that promoting trend started, you look back at ECW, and you can still see it being played out in some ways today. Since pro wrestling started, promoters have had to deal with talent coming and going, but prior to Heyman promoting in ECW, they all lived and died on who was in their territory at that point in time. ECW didn't, hence Paul Heyman being the first promoter to treat wrestlers like the disposable commodities they are. Where is the disconnect?

I'm convinced that Benoit, Chavo, and Dean destroyed Eddy's steroids and painkillers before letting anyone know he had died, and that's why Dave was surprised when he didn't follow the same code when he killed himself. But this is a really ridiculous accusation, and what would WWE have to gain from doing it? Also, interpolate?