Loss

I like the good kind myself. I voted character, because it was the closest thing I could come up with. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hoss Based Booking. Even WWE with their Big Man obsession understands the value of guys like Chris Benoit, Fit Finlay, Rey Misterio, etc and puts them in roles where they are meaningful, even if they don't build the company around them.

I was just wondering if anyone else has read this yet. I read it today and enjoyed it. I don't think Bischoff owned up to *quite* as much as he should have, but he did provide some interesting insight into WCW's corporate structure and how it affected what could and couldn't be done on WCW programming. And he did admit mistakes in many instances, and for the most part stayed away from personal attacks. The whole "dirtsheets" thing got old after a while, but admittedly, some of the criticisms (not all) were valid. Anyway, no one is ever going to write a book on pro wrestling where everyone is going to agree with every point made, but I think Bischoff's book is actually a great source for provoking some discussion about the history of WCW. Dave Meltzer thinks so too, apparently, since he's about to do a multi-part feature (and I really need to subscribe right away so I don't miss anything). In the pantheon of wrestling books, I'd probably only put Dynamite Kid and Foley's first two books ahead of this. I'm still not sure which I think is the better book between this and The Death Of WCW. That's a book that gets criticized for being too negative, but it honestly does give Bischoff a world of credit for what he accomplished as well. Anyway, let's talk about this stuff. Years later, it's still more interesting than anything going on right now in the world of wrestling.

I remember Nitro sometimes having two commercial breaks in a match that only went 8-10 minutes. Fun stuff. It got even worse when they went to 3 hours. Then, they spent at least 1/3 of the live part of the show kissing up to sponsors too. Tony Schiavone having the bottle of Surge in front of him and refusing to even touch it was weird.

Of Jericho ones, yeah, but why stop there? Keller's stupidity knows no bounds. I've had a lot going on for the past week or so, but will eventually go Google crazy and find as much stuff as I can.

2003 was easily the most uneventful with the least amount of good. Highlights of the year include HHH/Nash, HHH/Steiner, Goldberg having a horrible run, a Test/Scott Steiner feud, Vince going over Zach Gowen, Stephanie McMahon and the Undertaker in PPV main events, Mr. America, Jim Ross getting set on fire, Sable getting a disproportionate amount of television time, the Miller Lite Girls and the killing off of Booker T and Chris Jericho on the big stage. There were a few good matches scattered here and there, but it was easily my least favorite year of the new millenium for them.

Meltzer says Jake made that whole story up, but I have no idea. A Jake Roberts Lies thread would be great in the future too.

Not only do I have no problem with it, but I actively like it and think it's a good move. I think the key to making it something they can work with long-term is to make K-Fed a heel manager with a big stable instead of building toward a Cena/K-Fed showdown, or doing it as a comedy match if they get that far. K-Fed may be the biggest heel in modern pop culture. It translates to wrestling well. His music career will probably fade away pretty quickly, and the tabloids will eventually stop caring about him. He's a decent interview that would only get better with experience and this may be a career for him, just because he's so easy to hate and isn't even asking for big money. I don't think the ratings are quite as important at this stage, but I do think his appearances should be hyped well. I'd like to see some type of fake shoot somewhere in the mainstream media, and I'd rather them try to make him the next Andy Kaufman than the next challenger for Cena. A great way to get one of the generic monsters they have laying around over is to debut them on TV as K-Fed's bodyguard and put them into a program with Cena right out of the gate.

* The Rock was nervous about working in front of such a large crowd at Wrestlemania XVIII, until Hogan told him to follow his lead and trust him, and that he would be okay.

Sek's post about Hogan/Taker at Survivor Series '91 in the other thread got me interested in compiling a list of our favorite lies and myths perpetuated by Hulk Hogan, lies that he may have told enough times that he himself believes they are actually true. Here are some of my favorites. Please share yours. * Bret Hart never put 150,000 people in Budokan Hall. This is actually true, but Bret never headlined at Budokan and the building doesn't hold nearly that many people. * Andre the Giant weighed 700 lbs at Wrestlemania III. * Hogan tore every muscle on the right side of his body slamming Andre at Wrestlemania III. * Hogan once had to shoot on Tatsumi Fujinami to keep the WWF title when working Japan. * Hogan created the entire "Macho Man" gimmick and look for Randy Savage. * Hogan was about to retire from wrestling until Terry Funk, who morphed into Jack & Jerry Brisco in later versions of the story, persuaded him to come back. There's way more to work with here, but I'm blanking at the moment.

Yeah, and of course Hogan sold it to everyone backstage in WCW because Russo and Bischoff were alike in that they liked to work the locker room. Hogan and Flair and everyone else off TV was supposed to come back on the Valentine's Day Nitro, which was going unopposed since RAW was pre-empted for the dog show. Russo was fired by the time that show took place though. That was an odd Nitro anyway, as they needed new stars pretty desperately, but Flair and Hogan both got an unbelievable reaction, especially compared to everyone else on the show. I still don't understand this part to this day, but Meltzer has pointed it out as well. Hogan will get booed by the live audience any time he's shown on the Jumbotron before he comes out, but when he comes out, he gets cheered like crazy. That Nitro is the biggest example of that happening I know of.

I won't disagree, but I'm curious what makes September 1986 the starting point. I'm blanking on that month.

So, is Joey Matthews still in rehab? It's been like five months.

Something else interesting -- the word "finish" is banned from WWE TV. I believe he told a story about someone allowing the word "finish" to end up on TV and getting fired for it.

Part of me thinks HHH is much less harmful in the role he's in now that Cena is unquestionably the top star they have, and he's reached a point where he's pretty untouchable. With the Cena/Edge rivalry ending though, I wouldn't want to be Edge. The natural next step for him is feuds with Michaels and HHH.

If any reports come out like that, I'm sure they'll be from the Torch. From reading about RAW tonight, it sounds like an abomination. I thought DX was supposed to be short term.

Added: Steve Williams v Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 06/01/91) **** Negro Casas, Shu El Guerrero & El Espanto Jr v Super Astro, Yoshinari Asai & Kendo (Hamada's UWF 03/01/90) *** Aja Kong, Bison Kimura v Grizzly Iwamoto v Manami Toyota, Kaoru Maeda & Mika Takahashi (Hamada's UWF 06/07/90) ***1/2 El Hijo del Santo, Super Astro & Kendo v Negro Casas, Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera (Hamada's UWF 06/07/90) **** Dump Matsumoto, Bull Nakano, Condor Saito & Yasuko Ishiguro v Kanao Nagatamo, Sayuri Nakajima, Kyoko Aso & Yukari Omori (AJW August 1986) ***1/2 Leilani Kai v Itsuki Yamazaki (AJW August 1986) *** Chigusa Nagayo, Yumiko Hotta & Noriyo Tateno v Devil Masami, Yumi Ogura & Mika Komatsu (AJW August 1986, 2/3 falls) ***3/4

He has his flaws like everyone else, namely the blind Hogan worship and vendetta against Ric Flair, but yes, he has probably been overly villified. I'm interested in him explaining his relationship with Flair in his book, why Benoit/Jericho/Guerrero et al didn't get main event pushes, why he stuck with Hogan when he stopped drawing, why he allowed Nash to book, why he fired Austin and Waltman by FedEx, why he insisted on unmasking all the luchadores, why he hated tag teams and gave Rick Steiner and Buff Bagwell million dollar contracts ... we've really only heard the other side to all of these stories.

Me too, especially since Austin said in an interview in ECW that he came up with the idea for Steve-O-Mania and it was turned down.

Ric Flair's return to WCW teaming with Arn Anderson against the Hollywood Blonds at the June '93 Clash drew a low rating, and the Blonds took the blame for it. The idea was to get Austin away from Pillman, thinking that Austin was being wasted in a team that didn't mean anything. I e-mailed Meltzer a while back about this. He said everyone knew breaking them up was a mistake because they were a great team, but the idea to break them up -- Dusty's idea -- was actually just an attempt to make better use of Austin. This time period has caused some confusion, with some people saying Flair broke up the Blonds, and others saying Flair was grooming Austin for a World title run. Neither is true. Flair was not booking until months after the Blonds were broken up, and there were never any plans constructed by Flair for Austin to win the WCW World title either. Austin's push remained steady in the upper midcard until Hogan came in and Duggan squashed Austin in seconds at Fall Brawl '94. Austin apparently had the idea to be Hulk Hogan's brother and tag team partner in storylines and start Steve-O-Mania in WCW, but that was turned down. He then ran into trouble as they went into '95. He was scheduled to do a job for Renegade at a TV taping and left the TV taping and I believe flew home. Hulk Hogan and Kevin Sullivan convinced him to come back after promising him that if he put over Renegade, they would re-unite the Hollywood Blonds. Austin took that a step further and even agreed to put over Randy Savage as well. The Blonds reunion never happened, although it was planned at one time. Austin then got injured and was fired by FedEx, which is pretty legendary by now. Bischoff's side of the story was that his attitude was a problem in WCW, he was injury prone and that he wasn't marketable. History has made Austin's side more prevalent, and I'm not saying I agree at all with Bischoff's assessment of Austin, but it does at least make sense considering the state of WCW and where Austin was in the grand scheme of things at the time.

Vince might just respond by posting Kurt Angle's drug test results on WWE.com, or even making a graphic of them on RAW. TNA/Angle should be careful who they mess with, especially when in this situation, they are the ones in the wrong. Bryan Alvarez said yesterday on F4D that Angle was so messed up toward the end of his WWE run that the company hired handlers to get him from place to place because he was incapable of getting to arenas on his own. Alvarez said he has received separate e-mails from various people in the company that he's the worst addict there's ever been in WWE. Angle gave up nearly $500,000 of guaranteed money from WWE to go to TNA. Yet he's supposed to be putting his family first. Worst drug addict ever in WWE. Ponder that.

Production values were good enough when TBS first purchased the NWA that PPVs still don't look dated 17 years later. Flair had 4 or 5 really phenomenal ring entrances, and so did almost everyone else. They also had a knack that year for picking great music for everyone.

Drug testing helped WCW close the gap in the 90s, and now it appears to be benefitting TNA.

Angle failed a drug test earlier this year. He was calling Johnny Ace and Vince McMahon 10-20 times a day before his release and leaving incoherent, babbling messages on their voice mail. He was confronted and asked to seek help. He refused. He was fired. He's nowhere near ready to be wrestling again. He probably should have just retired anyway.

WP, I'd love for you to take a stab at doing the Jericho blurb at SC, even though AOA already claimed it. I know you're a fan of his, but I haven't seen you discuss him much, so your thoughts would be interesting.

Kevin Sullivan wanted Harlem Heat to come out with chains around their neck managed by Col. Parker, who looked like a plantation owner at that point. Yeah, it was shot down.