Loss

I do agree with you that it probably won't work, but I do think it's better to try something that has a small chance of accomplishing something worthwhile than not trying anything at all. WWE has taken steps in the right direction, but it's obvious not enough has been done when Lashley is still a top guy and has absolutely nothing to offer except his physique. Not to totally parrot Meltzer, but hiring, firing and pushing based on physique is as much of the problem as testing. Eddy Guerrero was clean of recreational drugs, but was still using painkillers and steroids up until the time of his death, according to his toxicology report. There have also been known drug problems with somas with Rene Dupree and Nick Dinsmore, two new school guys. Porn was trusted to police itself for a long time. When there was an AIDS outbreak, they shut things down immediately. I liken this to that. It's not even so much that I strongly favor hearings. I just think that if wrestling can't clean up its drug problem, it should be completely shut down because there's now evidence that the stresses of the lifestyle can result in death/harm to individuals not directly involved. Yes, it's a freak thing, until you hear other cases about domestic abuse and combine that with the staggering number of deaths. I'd rather see hearings tried than see wrestling banned tomorrow.

I wouldn't say that's completely accurate. I mean, yes, that's what happened, but Bret would have initially gone with the higher WCW offer if he was only out to get more money. Vince told him he was going to intentionally breach his contract and to go to WCW, which is the reason he got that deal back. Bret was never a huge US draw, but he was the key draw in most of the WWF's international tours from 1992-1996 or so. And while he obviously doesn't deserve sole credit, Summerslam '92 was huge with him and Davey Boy on top.

Daniel Benoit was killed by his pro wrestler dad. Personal choice is officially out of the equation, because the kid didn't make a choice.

Agreed. Ideally, wrestling would police itself. Wrestling has proven that it is incapable of doing so.

Which is one of my biggest concerns. Congressional action is essentially drug testing employees of a private company. Would any of us be comfortable if the government tested us for drugs at our own workplace? If you have nothing to hide, there's no reason to be uncomfortable. If the government wanted to drug test me today, they could feel free. Wrestling has proven that it can not police itself. So there are two options: (1) Get it regulated by the government. (2) Ban it completely because history has shown pro wrestling can not exist safely and under any form of ethical guidelines whatsoever.

Over 70% of the public thinks there should be a Congressional investigation according to internet polls. I'm just saying they should keep their minds open. I may be wrong, but you seem awfully against even the notion of wrestling cleaning up with your posts. You speak against it, underplay its impact and defend WWE when there are plenty of clearly presentable facts right there. Because it's not a prerequisite to be successful as an actor that you take drugs.

I'm hoping the Congressional investigation will eventually get more broad in scope than just looking for mark doctors. Investigating the cause of injuries of HHH, Edge, Kennedy and Batista, to name a few, over the past few years, investigating the case where Johnny Ace knew Bob Orton had Hepatitis and allowed him to bleed all over the Undertaker anyway, the idea of protocol in wrestling when dead bodies are found ... there are a lot of things that make wrestling hazardous besides steroids.

Where did the "I am a wrestler and I will kill you if you don't shut up" quote from Tanaka come from? And what was the exact quote?

There's also the implication that that phase of his life is over, when something happened recently where he got a Diva fired who he thought was a prude or something like that. I don't remember the details.

The only thing he's really done since 2005 or so that I think has been worth complaining about was telling John Cena he couldn't wrestle. But admittedly, that promo ended up launching his face turn, which was the first time HHH had a successful face turn after a few aborted attempts in previous years. Credit Cena's insane heat for that, but it also didn't hurt Cena, really, although the heel not taking the babyface seriously (something we've seen many times with HHH) isn't really the type of build for a show like Wrestlemania that you would think would work. I doubt we'll see HHH as a heel again to be honest, but if we ever do, it would be nice if he changed his promo approach from "You're a horrible joke who has accomplished nothing and everyone knows it" to "You may be great, but no one is better than me". The line about Cena not being able to wrestle wasn't really the problem in that feud, as much as it was that it really needed a promo later with him admitting he was wrong. As far as the draft, HHH wanted more heels on RAW because he wanted more available programs. There's nothing evil or deceptive about that.

I wonder if maybe even Hayes doesn't even own the rights to that song.

The fun part of that is that Hogan, Nash and Bischoff decided to work everyone into thinking Hogan was retiring. They went pretty far with it, with Hogan going on Leno to make it legit and being "phased out" by Bischoff in favor of Nash and his vision after the disappointing Halloween Havoc '98 buyrate. It was known the whole time he would be coming back in six weeks.

I wanted to mention MECW hiring Tommy Fiero as their head booker, but I don't know who's responsible for that one.

They were definitely using "Badstreet USA" at this point. This was at the height of their fake rock stars gimmick.

Also, Dawn Ostroff, President of the CW Network, said in an interview with Variety that Chris Benoit had never been featured on her station.

Another mark doctor gets caught: From today's WON: I have a feeling there's more of this coming.

Jim Ross showed up in character at a funeral and did WWE PR outside the funeral home. Jim Ross said it was time to forget about the tragedy and have a good time two days after the bodies were found. Jim Ross also has strongly implied many times that Debra deserved to be beaten by her husband.

Hyping the restaurant is one thing, but it was a valuable hour of TV and they went pretty far with it. Did WWE ever build a RAW entirely around Fozzy?

Sell and purchase price should be the same. Re: the 50,000 shares, he probably only gets access to a portion of them per calendar year. My company has public stock, and it takes 7 years to be fully vested, meaning at that point you can sell all of your stock at any time without penalty. After a year, he'll have access to 10,000 shares (hypothetical number), 30,000 after 3 years, 40,000 after 5 years, etc. The amount of stock is probably also based on merit and performance, and he would be rewarded with more stock the better he did his job. Pretty standard corporate stuff, but what caught my attention is all the stock dumping at the same time among execs. If they're acting on information to which they're privy that the public is unaware of, that is obviously highly illegal.

So James Fawcett is now the third pro wrestler of 2007 to commit suicide by hanging himself. This is starting to remind me of Heathers ...

I somehow missed this post before, but what an awesome post. 100% true.

That reminds me of how Nash and Hall both got huge pay rises from Eric Bischoff in September 1996 because he was genuinely worried that they were returning to the WWF, even though they were under WCW contract, when the WWF started the whole fake Razor Ramon and Diesel angle. He also had a clause in his contract which stated that he had to be the second highest paid wrestler in the company behind Hogan (though out of the goodness of his own heart he did let Bret be paid more than him), guaranteeing himself several raises for doing sod all and his spot as a headliner. What I admire the most about Nash though is how everyone by now should know that he's a carny con artist, yet he's still able to pull off cons like making TNA management believe he was willing to job for Chris Sabin and Wade Keller believe he's being completely honest in his shoot interviews with him. Nash is great for being able to pull things off like this obviously, although with the favored nation thing, Hogan wasn't even paid for under WCW budget. He was technically an employee of Turner Home Entertainment. They moved him over so Bischoff could claim a (very, very small) profit for WCW in 1995, the first profitable year in the history of the company. Somewhere in there, there is at least one great con, probably two.

Hulk Hogan cons WCW: There are plenty of examples of this, but my favorite is basically using the debut of Monday Nitro on TNT to hype his Pastamania restaurant and show off the menu, since the show took place in the Mall of America. Valuable air time, and WCW got nothing from it in return.

After reading this in his latest blog entry, I decided it was time for a "Jim Ross is a grouchy, hateful, vile human being" thread. Too many things he has said and done lately have exposed what most of us already suspected, but let's put it all in one place.