Loss

Sullivan was burned out at the end for sure. He's a mix of successes and failures, more failures at the end. I don't blame it all on Russo, but I think the problem with speaking vaguely about who was responsible is that the people who truly were responsible for driving fans away have never really been held accountable for it. Russo, Bischoff, Hogan, Nash -- they've all had jobs and made money in big companies since WCW folded. Sadly, not everyone who was affected by WCW closing has.

Are they full shows or are they still the edited down versions?

Yes, but they did that because people were no longer watching or coming to shows. And who caused people to stop watching?

I don't think about that interview being part of a WWE-planned angle as much as it is Reigns living his gimmick. Then again, their biggest show in history began its build with an interview in the UK Sun.

Reigns should be saying "fans can express themselves however they choose" unless he's planning on turning heel. If he's turning, this was pitch-perfect. He sounds like Batista last year. And has Roman Reigns ever "locked up"? I'd really like to watch the match with a collar and elbow if it exists.

I was disappointed when Russo had RD Reynolds on his show that he wasn't great at presenting his argument. Russo pointed out that he raised ratings by "a full half point" and asked how anything specific that he did contributed to WCW's death. The only thing RD could say is that it didn't translate to house show attendance and pay-per-views.

Dave reported that Benoit would be jumping to RAW to feud with HHH long before it actually happened. He didn't sit on that story at all. Dave doesn't make a habit of reporting match finishes in advance. He does sometimes, but not very often.

The story with Savage-Bret was just that they wanted to have a classic match, but the road agents told them it just wasn't going to be that way because they weren't going to get much time. Poor Savage could not catch a break at this time to show that he could still go. A shame because I think Savage as the WWF's Babe Ruth - especially when surrounded by young guys who would challenge him to keep up - had great potential.

I'm tempted to say Gustavo Mendoza based solely on that long-ish match he had on the Mid South set.

It was never planned, but I remember that Undertaker wanted to work with Daniel Bryan last year. If he knew it was going to be the year the streak ended, I wonder what his thoughts were there. Bryan is the type of character that might actually be hurt by a win like that more than he's helped, but I do wonder if that's what Undertaker had in mind.

Stephanie is more considered a great character than a great promo. I mean, she is an effective talker, but it's her facial expressions, mannerisms and false sincerity that make her one of the top handful of well-rounded performers in the company. She and HHH seem more self-aware than ever, as evidenced by them making out in public all the time for heat. She also had a completely professional match with Brie Bella with better in-ring heel mannerisms than I recall seeing from anyone else all year. Everyone should be trying to emulate that sneer. She is not at the level of Vince when Vince was the best performer in his company, but she's very good. As for Heyman winning, the only thing I can chalk it up to is Dave's sway over his readers. While he has given Stephanie credit as a TV performer, he has also criticized her quite a bit for talking down to everyone, not realizing that's the entire point and what gets her heat. There is also talk of her not getting comeuppance, but this year she took a bump at Wrestlemania, a big slap from Brie Bella, was arrested and was pushed into a pile of mud by the departing Vicki Guerrero. She also sold the outcome of Survivor Series brilliantly in the post-match. I guess you could say she usually gets the last laugh in the end, but that's often true of great heels. She's too valuable to blow off completely as a television character, so they sort of have to keep cycling her back. That's not to say that The Authority should last forever or that Stephanie's only role should be what it is. It's more that she should be a fixture at this point. Heyman is better at wrestling promos, but he's nowhere near as effective as Stephanie is. He often gets cheered in fact, and the crowd usually sings along with his catchphrases. He did absolutely nothing for Cesaro (who was coming along much better with Zeb) and while he's been very useful as Brock's mouthpiece, I think it's inflated how much he has done for him. Even Zeb Colter got Jack Swagger over for a short run as a hot babyface this year. And Lana is an extremely valuable part of Rusev's act. So the Heyman choice is a little mind-boggling to be honest.

Wow. Incredible write up. Answers a ton of questions. We were right on pretty much all of them. Bryan was taken out of the main event scene because of the Summerslam buyrate. Not really surprising but interesting to see in print. Bryan revealing Hunter wanted to work with him at Mania to finish the story. Steph revealing she has improved because she was away for awhile and got corporate boardroom experience and had a new perspective on life as a mother. This was said several times on this board. Again it seems Hunter and Steph were fighting for him against Vince WWE ended up releasing a revised Summerslam buyrate at about this time last year that showed numbers only slightly behind the big 2012 number with Brock-HHH. That didn't get much play when it was reported in the WON for reasons I never understood, as the original number set the events in motion that led to the WM30 main event. I guess he might have won it earlier had the original projected number of buys for Summerslam been accurate.

That's the one.

Brock's Shooting Star Press was on YouTube at one point. It may still be.

Here's the alternate ad.

The two do go hand-in-hand. Wrestlers being booked well in theory make more money.

I'm starting to think there will never be an official transition to HHH. It's just that we'll look up one day and realize he has his own crew, production team, announcers and talent roster who are loyal to him and wow, when did he start running WWE? NXT comes across as a shadow promotion sometimes.

Scott Hall strikes me as the type who is not aware of how much wrestling has changed. He'd probably be stunned by how micromanaged everything is now and get frustrated with them not doing obvious things.

That's the version we had.

It's worth noting that John Cena was only in the title mix as much as he was this year because they needed him to bail them out when their other plans fell apart. I do think they will always fall back on him when other top babyfaces are injured, and I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that. It just turned out that they needed him in that role this year far more than they expected. Of course, that's also self-fulfilling prophecy. I wish they were constantly building up guys because then no single injury would wreak too much havoc on their plans.

The New York Times took a fascinating look at the NWA's attempts to compete with the WWF. Lots of gold in this article. http://goo.gl/1btkMp

I have quite a few shows lined up with guests already, but I wanted to extend an open invite to anyone who is able to discuss wrestling from all around the world (not just in one country or company) for any month in the 1990s. I'll be doing an episode on each month of the decade as part of a new series. If you're interested, please PM me at least 3-5 months (Example: January 1990, June 1991, etc) that interest you the most and I'll try to work you in as a guest for as many shows as possible. If there are things you haven't seen in the month in question, but you're willing to close any footage gaps you may have in advance and would still like to be a guest, that's fine too. Again, just let me know which months you prefer. Thanks!