Loss

I think a lot of those generalizations are unfair too. However, market research (I don't remember who did it, but I remember it being covered in the WON) showed that the majority of their fans aren't college educated and their income levels are lower than the average for fans of every major sport. That's hard stigma to overcome.

It's not my point, it's WWE's. They were trying to get live sports dollars while making their television product more theatrical than ever. I don't understand their end game there, or how they possibly thought that would work.

It's also hard to try to brand themselves sports programming while having characters like Bray Wyatt and Kane on the roster. They can't really have it both ways, can they?

So all this work WWE has done in an attempt to clean up their image has meant almost nothing.

Feel free to start a thread. Just be nice and try not to repeat topics that already exist. No real etiquette beyond that.

I joined Jason Mann on his excellent Wrestlespective podcast recently to talk about the main event of Wrestle War '90: Ric Flair vs Lex Luger. RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/Wrestlespective iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wrestlespective-wrestling/id424900891?mt=2

Thank you!

Here's the oddball question of the day. Was KIELBASA LADY 1998 or 1999? And does anyone remember when it happened?

We're working diligently on it as we speak. I can't give an exact timetable but sooner than later.

The Austin/HHH vs Benoit/Jericho tag was great at the time because it ended a bad two-month period for Raw and it looked like the Benoit/Jericho team was going to be pushed to main events. But that match isn't as good now to me, mainly because the referee was counting falls no matter who attempted them in that closing stretch when Austin and Jericho were the legal men and also because I hate the idea that you can pull the referee out of the ring during a fall count and not get disqualified for it. I would actually call the Bryan match this year my favorite HHH match.

So Goldberg should be a heel just because he's representing WCW? And Flair would be more effective as a heel than a babyface? I don't buy that. Not to mention undercard guys like Rey and Kidman, or Sting. There's no reason to do a one-sized-fits-all approach to something like this. Not everyone in WCW had to be a heel. It just needed to be clearly defined within each individual feud who was babyface and who was heel. I really think by this point, the bigger issue was that they needed big personalities with motivations that made sense. Fans could decide who they wanted to cheer or boo. That's not shades of gray as much as it treating the biggest angle in wrestling history with the special consideration it deserves. It would be the one time they could turn a lot of old hat wrestling conventions on their head and it would be the best path and make sense. Ideally, if you want WCW fans to be invested and stick around, you want to give both fanbases permission to cheer their home teams.

I really don't think the face/heel alignment did matter as much during an invasion. People would likely cheer guys like Flair and Goldberg, and boo guys like Bischoff. But they would be on the same side.

A PPV dub would not exist for anyone looking to lawfully purchase Summerslam '98, which is solely what we discuss here at PWO.

Mike Sempervieve seems like an incredibly nice guy. That said, his "positive spin" style doesn't really mesh with Dave's style, and he seems nervous on the air.

Thanks to everyone who read and special thanks to those who responded. Writing is going well, but keeping this from being War and Peace is going to be my biggest challenge. However, if I have any more "scraps" as I go, I'll make sure to post them here.

I don't have a problem with him only being around at certain times of the year. I just wish they would come up with a storyline explanation for where he is the rest of the time. When they did the suspension early on after breaking HHH's arm, that was a good example of what I mean. As it stands now, he just left after getting the biggest win of his career with no explanation and no declaration of what his future plans are.

I agree with you that Stephanie lost something when she started doing the concern trolling with Daniel Bryan instead of just outwardly hating him. I'm glad we had a few months where things were coming together really well and I'm sure we will again at some point, but I suppose that's the new reality of wrestling. That level of quality is something we should enjoy when we have it, because it's very difficult to sustain. To be clear, I don't even blame WWE for all of it. There have been some circumstances out of everyone's control since Wrestlemania, specifically related to Daniel Bryan. It's just that the end result is what it is.

Even beyond that, Cesaro is actually less over than he was before they were invested in him. They've stopped playing to his strengths and don't seem to be matching him up with guys that will give him a good match. He hasn't had one since Wrestlemania. I'm glad he likely will tonight. The Cena/Wyatts feud is awful. Paige matches are fun, but never get over that much with the live crowd. I do like how they are positioning The Shield, but we don't see them pulling out the week-to-week matches they were in 2013 either. There are still good things happening, but I'm not sure I want to spend three hours every Monday watching Raw because I like Bad News Barrett.

The WWE I loved so much from the Royal Rumble to the night after Wrestlemania seems to be gone. I'm about ready to go back to just watching something if I hear people rave about it. Even setting aside booking, we haven't had a great match on Raw in a long time either.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.