Loss

This was Bill Watts in '92, who thought it would make the WCW guys look bad if they were being upstaged by an outsider.

Did Patrice write a book?

Rick McGraw passed away in the mid-80s, just after he'd done a stretcher job for Roddy Piper at a TV taping. The match was aired days after his death anyway.

According to JJ Dillon's book, he would take power naps alone in his office and come out 15 minutes later bouncing off the walls.

About a year and a half before.

Vince and Stacy Keibler went on a promotional tour - alone - in Australia - in 2002. They came back and Stacy's push was killed. Interesting.

Bam Bam Bigelow told the same story in his RF Video shoot.

I still like the Playboy interview where he said that all he can remember from his first sexual encounter was that he wanted to insert crushed leaves in the girl's most private of parts, but I'm sure others have favorite sleazified Vince stories.

I think DW's post was in sarcasm to the one before it.

The problem is that the world champion was arrested for drug possession when the company is trying to get this whole wellness gimmick over to the public. Say what you will about whether it's that big of a deal to smoke pot, but that's not really the issue, is it? Vince would be just as in the right to fire him as he would be to give him a slap on the wrist.

They're not testing for it, but the wellness policy says that a drug possession arrest will result in immediate dismissal from the company.

That will certainly raise some eyebrows in the back. I'd hate to be RVD when Vince finds him today. Not because of pot being this dangerous drug or anything, but because Vince is relying on him to launch a brand new hour of television in primetime and is planning on giving him the ball and making him his top star. Then, he almost immediately embarrasses the company he works for and gets arrested by violating a company policy that has gotten massive media attention lately. If RVD is not fired from this, there is a definite double standard.

This isn't so strange, especially for wrestling, but I think this is the first time I can think of where the world champ has been busted for drugs.

From F4W: The world champion was arrested for drug possession. Wow.

I'm really surprised WWE hasn't made Trish a posterchild and tried to market her to women instead of to men. They could do fitness videos, as you mentioned, and repackage all that old ICOPRO that is probably still in a warehouse somewhere. A book deal would make sense also. They could even strike up some type of deal with Victoria's Secret for her to get her own line of lingerie or something, especially after her WOWZA appearance on RAW during the Kane/Lita wedding. And even if they wanted to just keep her as a strong wrestling character without the cross promotion, she really should have been involved in main event angles pretty regularly, as she was one of the strongest characters on the show for many years.

Trish was a fitness model putting herself through medical school before taking an offer to become a pro wrestler. She also has a really awesome house, if I remember correctly when they did the tour of it on Confidential, that she designed herself. Trish rules!

I would say you're probably right, sek, but who knows for sure. I will say I expect Batista to be gone not long after he comes back.

I was about to post on this myself. Yes, let's hope Kobashi makes a full recovery.

This is the first time ever that fan response has necessitated a face turn for HHH. I suggest watching the RAW Homecoming again -- really faint babyface heat for HHH. If HHH had gone against Batista, Benoit or pretty much anyone else he's faced in the past few years, he would not have gotten that reaction. It happened for Edge, Angle and Van Dam as well. If Jericho hadn't left, that feud would have revitalized him too. Cena is not tanking. There's no problem to fix because there is no problem.

Interesting.

Something for HHH to keep in mind -- the notion of him turning babyface and being really over and fresh in the role, if not for John Cena, would have been ridiculous. The DX reunion can be credited to John Cena getting HHH more over than he has been in over 5 years.

Oh my. I just visited that thread. It doesn't matter that Cena has insane heat, because he has a bad hiptoss. And Cena has Jeff Jarrett heat. Funny. Does half the crowd buy Jeff Jarrett merchandise like crazy while the other half pays millions of dollars every month to see him finally lose?

I've seen Cena compared to X-Pac in some cases, which is ridiculous. Fans are invested in Cena, whether they want to see him win or lose. What makes it work is that both sides are given so much ammo all the time. I don't post at TSM, but anyone is welcome to post this as their own or even credit or however you want to do it.

I'll hop on it. I hope I get the MSG Network.

John Cena is great! He's not only survived the fans turning on him, he's used it to become an even bigger star than he was before it started. They've hit on a really awesome dynamic and WWE is actually playing his push really wisely by giving the fans who hate him more reasons to hate and the fans who love him more reasons to do so. Michaels in '96 started getting bad reactions and had temper tantrums. Cena gets the same reactions and has managed to use it to re-energize two ultra stale wrestlers in Kurt Angle and HHH, and also to finally make Edge appear like he might reach his potential. This is a rub they've all gotten from working with him. Cena has had the pressure on him for months now and has kept working hard and hasn't cracked. He has my respect. Because of the emotions he tends to bring out in fans, he probably has more interesting (not necessarily good, but interesting) matches than anyone in wrestling currently. He's obviously a great interview and is doing a really good job of slowly making changes as the climate in WWE changes to keep himself fresh. I hope he's wrestling's top star for years to come.