Loss

Rey has been named, just not in these articles. It's still not known who is suspended. And no, things won't be back to normal in three months. Many thought things would be back to normal after Benoit's toxicology report came back. Things aren't back to normal. They're not going to be anytime soon, if ever. This is a far bigger scandal than anything that has ever hit wrestling, and it's going to take quite a while to move past it.

Probably not, but the idea is that savings lives should be more important than making money.

I wouldn't necessarily even say it's just WWF. Other major sports are going through the same thing. The Jason Grimsley investigation for example and the media's current battle to get some of those names released. WWE, on paper, has a stronger steroid policy than any professional sport. So when cornered on something like this, they have to take bigger action than the other sports who just point to their own drug policies. One thing I wonder is how effective WWE would be if they made a 100% honest effort. MLB despite their best efforts still clearly has issues with steroid usage. This isn't just something that can go away with testing. There is HGH for which there is yet no effective test. There are masking agents. This is a legitimate struggle. On the legal front, I wonder if this gives WWE a leg up on Congress. Congress will ask about their policy. They'll cite the wellness policy, note they have suspended wrestlers. How can Congress respond at that point? It's definitely not just the WWF. WCW would be getting hit terribly hard right now if they were still around. ECW would look worse than anyone. I agree testing is not the only answer, because it's not just about punishing people who fail. It's about making philosophical changes and basically restructuring the wrestling business. Even if everyone involved has great intentions, it's going to take years to complete something like that. The main things against them are that there are suspensions that have occurred that they've kept under wraps to prevent disruption of storylines, that they haven't been consistent in how they've handled failures and that they created a culture over the span of 20+ years that encourages and rewards drug use. I do think WWE is probably doing their best to clean up now, but look how much it took for them to take action.

While it's obviously part of the problem, this isn't really just the result of a smoke and mirrors wellness policy. This is the culmination of Vince McMahon's national expansion of the WWF and the changes that were made that led to his greatest success. It's not a year in the making. It's 25 years in the making.

And if the formula is done right, almost anyone can have a decent match and get the crowd involved. I'm not saying It's The Only Way To Work or anything like that, but it has produced more good-great matches than just about any wrestling philosophy ever has.

Wow. This is absolutely devastating. That leaves HHH, Cena and Rey as the only big names they have left, if those are the same names that were suspended. Michaels and Taker will be back soon, and besides that, they have Umaga, Matt and Jeff Hardy, and then a bunch of people who don't mean anything. I know Johnny Ace was pushing for Sid to come in according to F4W, but it supposedly wasn't going to happen. Is that the name Meltzer referred to as someone expected to be hired this week?

Now, he has the rest of his staff parroting this: This is incredibly annoying. Now Face In Peril is played out also?

God, he's STILL going on about headlocks and about MVP and Benoit. This was in the latest newsletter.

It's not so much the move as it is how it is sold. Everyone should see Rey/Orton from Smackdown last year, built entirely around chinlocks, but they were put over as meaningful and got heat and produced a great match as a result. Yes, not everyone is Rey, but it just proves you can get just about any offense over if the guys involved know what they're doing.

A few items of interest in the latest F4W: * It was implied that the company actually frowned upon Kennedy speaking out against the media because they felt he was going into business for himself to make himself look good with the office, and that he came across as "delusionally asinine". This may or may not have something to do with him suddenly doing several jobs right after that appearance. * Michael Hayes thinks the problem with wrestling today is that no one lives their gimmicks. He is a HUGE fan of Teddy Hart because he does, and thinks he reminds him of himself during his World Class days. He wants to bring in the Harts as heels, but he's alone in thinking that because most people think because of the Hart name, they'll be babyfaces by default coming in. They want Bret to do an angle to help get them over, but don't have their fingers crossed on getting him to participate. Jim Neidhart has made it clear he is more than willing to work an angle with them. * Foley wants to be on TV more, but Vince is against it, because he thinks Foley was a big deal in 1998, but doesn't click with today's fan at all, which is the exact line HHH has had against him for months now. * Booker T is about to renew his contract and wants a verbal agreement as part of his renewal that he can sit in at production meetings. He knows he's working HHH for the foreseeable future, and wants to be in there so HHH will not badmouth him. He was also very upset about his territory getting passed over as a developmental territory, with Steve Keirn in Tampa instead getting the nod. It's said Johnny Ace is praising them, despite the whole area being a mess, because he likes being able to go to Tampa regularly and party with his friends. * Dusty Rhodes wants Jerry Lawler in ECW really bad. Vince wants to split JR and Lawler up as an announce team, but Kevin Dunn is against it.

I love that Wade Keller reviewed that match like he had never watched a main event in the US before.

So Cena went over last night, which I think surprised everyone. I actually think that was a great booking move, because they can have a rematch next month and probably do pretty well with it, whereas if Cena were challenging Orton, there wouldn't be the same intrigue because everyone knows title runs are long these days in WWE and a belt won't change hands after a month. I am really sort of tired of WWE formula booking where they basically do the exact same cards for 2-3 PPVs in a row (way too many rematches), but in the confines of that formula, Cena going over was a good move. I haven't read anyone's reaction to the finish anywhere, but I'm assuming there's lots of complaining. With Undertaker's return and HHH and Rey heavy in the mix, the upcoming show will probably do fairly well, especially if people think Cena is going to drop the title.

And yes, best influence. It's a Hall of Fame. Why would you want people in for bad reasons? It would be like suggesting putting in Vince Russo because while he did book WCW to its death, WCW's death was also very influential on the modern scene.

I was trying to think of if anyone had a HOF-level run from 1988-2001 under Turner, or more specifically if anyone wouldn't be in the HOF without the strength of their WCW run. Flair? Would have been a HOF pick prior to the Turner buyout. Funk? The same. Hogan? Would have been a HOF pick prior to coming to WCW. Savage and Piper? The same. Steamboat may not be in without the Flair series in '89, but he's really the only one I can think of who had his case made because of his WCW run. On the flip side (and yes, this is a completely different category of discussion than the first part of this post), you have a lot of guys who are voted in on the strengths of their WWF runs, but who never would have gotten those runs without being in WCW first. Benoit and Guerrero, only because the WWF would have never taken a look at them had WCW not hired them first. Same for Rey possibly. Who knows if the WWF would have ever been interested in Steve Austin without his long WCW run either? He probably would have been hired eventually, but maybe several years earlier before he was ready to break out, and it would have been much harder for him to finally get to the top. Without his WCW run as Cactus Jack, Foley would have never had a WWF run. In Austin and Foley's case, I'm trying to be careful how I word it because they both benefitted from friendship with the WWF-employed Jim Ross, but probably wouldn't have had that relationship if not for wrestling in WCW when JR was there. Maybe Jim Ross is in the HOF partially because of his great announcing from 1988-1992 in WCW. Maybe Vader, but Vader is like Benoit, Dynamite, etc. in that he's in for the ringwork, and I tend to think if he was a stateside guy his whole career, he wouldn't be getting in any Hall of Fame. The voters tend to favor guys who were big internationally. Am I missing anyone?

Yes. And I was referring to 1989-1991 as the prime.

What's funny is that during the Steiners' working prime, Morton and Gibson were in the same company working as a nostalgia team and were having better matches with largely the same opponents. Washed up Morton and Gibson >> in their primes Rick and Scott.

Unintentionally funniest wrestling headline of the week:

Pro wrestlers who are not dipshits, are mature and have self control do not exist is the argument being made, regardless of whether we hear about their infractions or not. Orton is a scumbag, but so is every single other person involved in wrestling with absolutely no exceptions to the rule, because a good person would never be involved in wrestling in the first place, because wrestling is completely built on deception. The reason we watch is because of this, not in spite of it. The appeal for many is that it's a freakshow where you see despicable people doing despicable things to each other to make money. Human cockfighting if you will, that appeals to everyone's darkside.

Rey also apparently cites Scott Steiner as the reason he became a wrestler.

The Jimmy Kimmel joke about Benoit was not edited from Flavor Flav's roast on Comedy Central, by the way, even though it was reported that it would be.

I am glad that the number 65 is getting more press now. It's a fair number, and the problem of early deaths in wrestling is big enough without having to exaggerate it or misrepresent facts. The facts are scary enough.

The Steiners formed in '89, and didn't really get over big until later in the year when they named the Frankensteiner and won the tag titles. They were big in 1990, which was probably their peak year, but still not Hall of Fame-level big, and in 1991, the injuries started taking their toll and the team was never the same again. They had some brief good runs from 1991-1995, but they were sporadic and never really sustained all that long. That's also when Scott Steiner got his arm injury and was never the same again. Everyone knows they were a mess under Watts, and their WWF run didn't really have any impact. When they came back to WCW in 1996, they were barely over, and the program with Hall and Nash was so bad that it killed them as a team for good. There are some cool stories with them. When Woman turned on them to form Doom, they wanted Scott to be on TV with a black eye from being attacked in the limo. Scott's masculinity was threatened by the idea of wearing makeup, so he had his brother punch him in the eye repeatedly until it swelled shut.

Wrestlers can overlook anything if they think they can have good matches and do big business.

That's a pretty baffling point of view.