Loss

He mentored the people that are considered to have the best wrestling minds in the early video footage era. Watts, Jarrett, Dusty.

I agree that it's been time for a while now to start preparing for a post-Cena landscape in WWE, but I don't get this desire from WWE to seemingly push him out before his time. Cena has gone along with it, but I can't figure out if it was that he started looking for outside work as a response to that, or if they started building up Reigns as a response to him getting older and starting to get outside offers. Either way, they were presenting him as "old" when he was still in his 30s, and the story with Reigns is something you'd think they'd be able to tell over multiple matches spanning 2-3 years. Reigns won the first match. I don't see the intrigue in them having another match since we've already gotten the payoff. This Wrestlemania will be the culmination of a three-year push for the guy having gotten big wins over every single person they can offer up with Brock being the only program with the payoff not given immediately. And that would have happened sooner if it wasn't for a change in plans. Brock-Braun is why non-finishes exist. Matches just like this. There was zero reason for either guy lose at this point, so I don't get that at all. This is another match that shouldn't really be one-and-done. I like Reigns a lot and think he has absolutely proven that he belongs at the main event level, but I don't think he's salvageable at this point as the number one guy. I don't see any better options sadly, but they've made everyone hate him in a way that I don't see how there's any coming back. That they've stuck by him so long in spite of the crowd reactions and wellness violation and that he retired Undertaker and all of that -- it's hard to figure out what exactly they're going for. With Cena, it made sense because you could at least see how they were outwardly and intentionally booking him as a babyface for kids and women and a heel for their hardcore audience, doing things to get him over in dual roles. Cena was a moneymaker, and it clicked. With Reigns, it comes across more as Vince in a battle with his fanbase for the soul of the company, and it's uncomfortable.

A lot of the Watts booking doesn't age well, particularly before Jarrett's crew came in and popped the territory. Dundee turned things around with elements of Memphis booking and Eddie Gilbert kept it interesting doing the same, but take that stuff out and you have pre-1984 Mid South, which had some really good stuff and was successful, but wasn't nearly as exciting as a television product, which is Watts' primary case.

Vince McMahon has many strengths as a booker, but I've always seen his bigger strengths as being a strong hypeman and visionary (read: promoter) and producer. He's also tremendous at thinking outside the box, the end result of which is the occasional blockbuster amidst a sea of failures. But overall, Vince runs away with the greatest promoter of all time title. It's not even close. In fact, he's so good at promoting that he's created the post-booking landscape that we live in now, one where it's less the angle or the match that sells the show than it is the chance to experience the brand itself. To me, Vince can craft angles and is good at it, but it's not his strength. He's better at coming up with concepts and laying out an overall direction. I'll also throw out Dutch Mantell as a dark horse. Yes, his TNA run was horrendous (everyone's was, pretty much), but he created the hottest period in the history of Puerto Rico.

Ric Flair has lived the gimmick 24/7 for almost his entire adult life. I wish him the best, but it's a lot of self discovery to embark upon when he's nearly 70 years old.

In terms of both results and enjoyment, my pick is Riki Choshu. Made the 1/4 dome show a thing. Had multiple dome shows outside of that. Created the G-1 Climax. Made Muto, Hashimoto, Chono, and Sasaki stars. Booked highly successful interpromotional angles with WAR and UWFI. Countless great feuds and matches. King of the booking upset.

The human experience was a nice attempt at something, but has clearly failed.

Good Lord. That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I was the typical "Hogan should put over new talent" smark at the time and thought it was a good move. But it wasn't. Yes, Hogan needed put over younger guys. But he should have been putting over Goldberg and Scott Steiner after proper builds, not Kidman and Vampiro in throwaway TV matches. There's something to the idea that even when they're older, people just don't want to see the icons portrayed as broken down losers. Older and maybe not capable of beating the top stars? Sure. But there's a certain status they should always maintain. I don't think Hogan and Flair should have been the top guys in WCW at that point, but an occasional main event and 3-4 matches per year with a near top-level opponent, winning some and losing some, would have been ideal. New Japan I thought always got their veteran booking just right, and that's what I see as the standard.

Interviewers, announcers, referees, etc. are so not presented as actual dimensional people in pro wrestling most of the time.

To be clear, this was a work until Russo decided to go into business for himself on the promo later in the show, talking about Hogan's creative control clause and how he held back Booker T, which ironically perturbed Hogan so much because he thought it was character defamation, being as that it implied he was a racist. That was what prompted the lawsuit.

He started off really motivated in WCW before settling into what he became. I'm sure he didn't get any guidance on his role once the NWO started blurring the face-heel lines, so he ended up cheering on Goldberg and hating the NWO and the backwards reactions ended up spilling to the undercard heels at times, so it made for a big mess. That said, his penchant for "Oh!" on big moves and "Everywhere I go, in airports, hotels, you name it, everyone is asking me about ____, all that anyone wants to talk about is ____" being the case for everyone in WCW at one point or another drove me crazy. But those are small gripes. If there's ever a Bobby Heenan restaurant though, Mrs. Guerrero's Chili has to be on the menu!

Like! Podcast should have three sections: - Shave: Intro and greeting - Haircut: Meat of the topic, the reason you're there - Two bits: Random discussion

Did someone who lives in Chicago who is a member here get their haircut tonight and talk about wrestling with their stylist the entire time? If so, I was sitting next to you getting my own hair cut. I heard "heels should cheat", "I'm indifferent on Jason Jordan", and "It's probably best that he's in NXT", so I figured chances were at least 50/50. PM me if you don't want to respond here.

I hope you've satisfactorily fallen on your sword and that we can now talk about Bobby Heenan.

Ok, bye. To be clear on my reasoning here, had he made that exact same post outside this thread as I asked him to do so this thread could continue to be about Bobby Heenan, I would have been happy to engage him. He didn't. If you have thoughts on this and want to ask questions, please ask them, but please start a thread in Announcements & Feedback and we'll talk there. Let's keep this thread about Heenan.

Why are you fighting this fight in this thread? Stop. "Who cares what a homophobic asshole thinks?" does not equal "Homophobic assholes have no right to free speech." Either way, this is a thread about Bobby Heenan's life and legacy, not speech and how we handle disagreement. Take it to feedback if you feel the need to continue this.

I'll pretend the misspellings are a tribute to territory wrestling and their multiple spellings of Sheik Adnan-Al Kaissie, Rick Flair, Mike Rotondo, Lex Lugar, Zambouie Express, Kerry Von Eric, etc.

They could always decide later to show it on the Network. I wish it was available on closed circuit!

Ric Flair (against Warrior on house shows) and Haku/Meng are a couple more.

I don't want WWE to be a wrestling first company. I'd like for them to be more like they were in 2000 where the midcard booking and storylines were pretty much on point, and the matches seemed better than they probably were because of the faith people had in the company to deliver satisfying payoffs. It was fun when it needed to be and serious when it needed to be, the crowds were hot, people believed the top guys could be beaten under the right circumstances, and the comedy was generally funny. Give me that, and I'm more than happy with WWE personally, even if the best matches top out around ***1/2 or whatever.

Raw main events, which are obviously Vince's number one priority, show that Vince can still book a hell of a main event picture when he decides he wants to -- I'd say he's more capable of it than HHH to this day, honestly. However, I think HHH is better at doing a top-to-bottom card that draws people in.

I would like to see WWE work toward creating a new Undertaker, an iconic type that's more of an attraction for most of his career that can stay fresh and have longevity by not being overexposed. That should have been Big Show's role, but that hasn't happened for a variety of reasons we've discussed before. Maybe Braun can eventually settle into that.