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To add to what Loss said about Eddie Gilbert, Missy Hyatt in her autobiography, who was married to Eddie at the time, claimed that Kevin Sullivan constantly undermined him on the booking committee, getting all his ideas nixed, which fuelled his depression and paranoia that led him to eventually quit the company.

Meltzer reported it a while back. Not that he'll miss it with the huge dividends he makes every quarter now.

You forgot to mention how the OVW wrestlers were told not to bang the bikini models and Mikey Batts was suddenly fired not too long after. It really is very creepy how almost every pushed Diva of the last 5 years has had to seduce Vince in the storylines.

From WWE.com: "World Wrestling Entertainment earlier this week announced it was investigating five violations, including drug possession, levied against Rob Van Dam and Sabu by the Ohio State Highway Patrol. WWE announced today that based on information gathered over the past few days, Van Dam has been suspended without pay for 30 days and Sabu has been fined $1000. These actions are consistent with the Wellness Policy at WWE."

Bryan Alvarez is reporting that no action has been taken against Sabu yet and he may have dodged a bullet. Thread Killer, I was just a bit shocked how short his suspension was. A little consistency in punishments would be nice too. Even though they've got a written policy, the rules do seem to be adapted in an ad hoc manner depending on the circumstances.

It looks like RVD is getting a whopping 30 day suspension and a storyline set up for his return as his punishment. He won't even miss a PPV payoff. Could WWE have been any more lenient?

What media attention? Sure a local newspaper picked the story up, but it hasn't gone any further than that yet. I'm sure Vince is angry and annoyed at RVD and Sabu for getting arrested, but it's wrong to say he's backed into a corner when the mainstream media doesn't care that wrestlers get arrested for possessing pot and even if they were wouldn't be bothered to read up about WWE's official drugs policy.

Drug problems do tend to cause problems in peoples private lives as well. I can't see his wife being happy seeing her husband look like a drug addled zombie or the walking dead, as he continues to jeopardize his future health for his wrestling career, so it wouldn't surprise me if he's going through another rough patch in his marriage.

Which has often been used as a euphemism in wrestling for substance abuse problems. And what makes you like a zombie? Being doped up on a cocktail of drugs in order to be able to wrestle full time when your body's so broken down that you should be retired.

If Heyman had a better offer he would have gone when his contract was up a few months ago. But TNA had no serious interest in him and his other options alluded to in the Observer didn't come to fruition (Wasn't he interested in promoting MMA or something?). Of course, I wouldn't put it past Heyman to make up such stories to bluff his way into getting a better deal with WWE than he would have got if they thought he had nowhere to go. Anyway, this is a no lose situation for Heyman, because if ECW gets completely screwed up he won't get the blame for it and he'll be able to maintain the mad booking genius image that he's crafted for himself.

Yeah, the Japanese wrestling industry and NOAH in particular really need him to make a full recovery.

Unless ratings go into a complete free fall, forcing Vince McMahon's hand, I can't see ECW being scrapped. He'll have to prove, for his ego's sake, that his vision of ECW was right and Paul Heyman was wrong all along.

In most cases I would agree with you, as it makes perfect booking sense, but my gut feeling in this case is that it would be better to put the title on Joe as soon as possible to wash out the bitter taste of the finish of the last PPV and send TNA in a completely new direction with Joe as the face of the promotion. Putting the belt on Steiner long term would be a risk because he might be exposed by working lengthy singles matches with lesser workers than Joe and because it sends the message that TNA is still stuck in the year 2000.

There's a guy that fits into the new vision of ECW. Vince must have forgot his phone number or something.

Money speaks louder than morals?

Heyman gave Kool Aid On Sunday they drunk it up Two days later sick

It still makes it bad booking, even if a few hardcore fans like yourself loved going down nostalgia lane, because you still left millions of TV viewers confused. I mean Vince Russo got crucified for his penchant of booking toward the Internet fans, so I don't see why Heyman and Dreamer shouldn't get criticised for doing the exact same thing. If you're going to harken back to old ECW storylines then show the old footage beforehand, so everyone knows the backstory and no-one is left confused.

Looks like JBL is taking a page out of the old Undertaker/Shawn Michaels playbook IMHO. Threaten retirement to get a renewed push, cushier schedule, better pay or other perks that they want out of Vince. It tends to work. Or maybe I'm just a horrible cynic.

Screw what. It's not like he's the next Great Muta who would wow American audiences with his state of the art high spots. And with regards to Triple H he probably doesn't know who the hell Nakamura is and even if he did I doubt he'd care. It may have a shitty product, but WWE is still an international company that is multiple times bigger than any Japanese promotion.

I'm having flashbacks of Kevin Nash "putting over" lil' Rey Rey in WCW.

One thing that is better, which is taken for granted now, is that there are many more competitive matches and major angles on free TV. But to expand on Loss' point it's a bit of a double edged sword though, because everything is so rushed now and familiarity breeds apathy. You can't have matches like DiBiase vs Virgil today, because bookers won't have the patience to keep a double act together so long before splitting them up because they have so much TV time to fill. And 15 years ago matches like that felt more special because you didn't see DiBiase work a competitive TV match virtually every week. I've been thinking about this recently with regards to why recent UFC PPVs in North America are drawing so well compared with most WWE PPVs despite WWE having a much bigger TV audience to draw from. If you want to see Liddell or Ortiz fight you have to pay to see it, while WWE's top stars wrestle each other for free so often why bother to buy PPVs when the booking is so mediocre.

Speaking of Wade, over at the Torch forums he's really hung a noose around his neck, bragging about how he didn't get caught on this issue with faulty guesswork. Unfortunately it seems that it isn't guesswork and Dave Meltzer's source is a mutual friend of Batista's who Batista assured that it was all a work. Oops.

OT I know, but could you explain that one Keith? I've never heard that before. After speaking with Gabe Sapolsky he reported that the finish of Danielson's first title defence against Roderick Strong was a shoot and that Danielson and Strong got into a legit backstage argument afterwards. Because it was buried in the ROH newswire section most people ignored or didn't pick up on the mistake. The problem with Wade's and Scherer's proclamations of shoot is that there is the possibility that Booker and Batista are working the locker room. It's not like WWE has learnt from any of the other mistakes WCW made.

Wade Keller and Dave Scherer are both claiming that WWE.com reported the fight so they wouldn't get scooped by sites like their own. Wade added that it also allows them to spin the story so that it sort of fits into storylines and they can better control the public impression of it. I remain sceptical though as Wade has been worked by Gabe Sapolsky in the recent past.