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Court Bauer is still saying that WWE doesn't have a business plan for their network and Vince hasn't even thought about the programming schedule yet. Court claims Vince even tried to buy Universal HD from Viacom.

It's the day UFC finally come out of the closet and admitted that they're "professional wrestling" without mentioning that dirty phrase! UFC Wants To Express Itself In New York The complaint itself. Some amusing excerpts: There's much more hilarity to be found in points 111 through 158. I think MMA should be sanctioned in New York as much as any other fan of combat entertainment and sports, but this complaint is really hilarious.

That would certainly be a lot cheaper than spending tons of money on producing reality TV shows that may fall on their face.

New WWE Network survey tells us their latest programming ideas

If that's the case, I can't think of a reason why UFC would work the # then, not really something that particularly benefits them all that much. The company got a lot of flak at the time from hardcore MMA fans for bringing in such an unproven athlete best known for being a phony WWE superstar. I could see them pushing an overinflated number to get people to stop complaining about it.

I've always been sceptical at Dave's oft repeated claim that "half had never purchased a UFC event in their life" before UFC 81 Lesnar vs. Mir. I'm sure that was true for a significant percentage of viewers, but the 50% figure seemed way high, as though the show drew very well on PPV (600,000 buys), Hughes vs. Gracie, Shamrock vs. Ortiz and Liddell vs. Ortiz in 2006 all drew more, significantly more in the latter case. Though not PPV, 5.7 million viewers on Spike TV watched the short third fight between Shamrock vs. Ortiz in 2006 too, and the Ultimate Fighter before Lesnar's UFC debut had been going for six seasons, the first of which followed Raw. I know the 50% figure apparently came from market research done by UFC, but I'm not sure I'd trust what they push.

To be fair, IIRC that wasn't the finish management wanted to have booked, as they had changed their mind and wanted Flair to drop the title to Luger at that point, but Flair refused, so we got this instead.

In a BOARD thread about who would be Steve Austin's best drawing opponent in a return match, Dave repeats his talking point that Lesnar draws more wrestling fans on PPV than any wrestler currently. I expect we'll be hearing a lot more of this next summer.

Wouldn't Pride be considered a pro wrestling promotion by the definition of "one that billed and promoted within the pro wrestling world"?

It means he should shut up about it. He has made more money from piracy than every uploader on PWT combined. It's not just Gabe that gets screwed over when everyone steals their stuff. The indy workers not making any money to begin with aren't benefiting from everybody being too cheap to pay to support their efforts. I didn't realise Gabe was running a cooperative/profit sharing scheme? The whole "I'm doing it for the boys" schtick seems more to be a way of guilt tripping pirates to see the error of their ways to pad his bottom line than to genuinely boost his workers pay. I know that's cynical but we are talking about a wrestling promoter who had no qualms about bootlegging in the past.

By '98-'01 they were a national promotion. Not saying it was a hotter period overall for wrestling, but there is a reason why they ran one specific arena less. Well, my point was every major arena was run less. Philadelphia was run seven times by the big two in '98, whereas the old WWF ran the Spectrum 10 times a year. In the whole state of Tennessee in '98 the WWF ran two shows and WCW eleven. Less people were attending wrestling events because less shows were being held. In a lot of markets less people were watching on TV too.

Was the peak really higher in 98-01? The WWF was running Madison Square Garden monthly in 77-84. By 98-01 that was cut in half. In most parts of the country the peak occurred way before 98-01. I suppose it depends if the cold areas offset the hot ones.

TNA Bound For Glory pay-per-view buys down significantly from last year

Really quite tame to what a lot of wrestlers got up to.

I can't wait for the Stand Up For WWE Again campaign!

The name of this thread should probably be renamed: Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff now the most powerful people in TNA

I think this is the crux of the problem. Before coming to WWE, Rey had been working in the U.S. for about seven years. They didn't just want someone who can wear a mask and move merchandise like Rey does, they wanted someone who could work like him too and would be less of a headache than the demanding and injury prone prima donna that he was replacing. From that perspective, the signing has been a failure.

When reading this quote it reminds me of the survey done a few months back that surprisingly showed that pro wrestling fans are fans of more sports than MMA fans are. Should we toss on the ballot great American sports heels like Kobe Bryant, A-Rod and Michael Vick? Outside of the SummerSlam 2002 buyrate, Lesnar was really a bust as a draw as a professional wrestler. He was on top as WWE's business significantly contracted and was an expensive flop for New Japan. Based on his professional wrestler career, he's a horrible candidate. But you can't seriously expect a Pro Wrestling Hall Of Fame voted on predominantly by former and current pro wrestlers, and people whose views are heavily influenced by them, not to induct Lesnar. Lesnar will get in for the same reason that Angle got in and tomk has articulated so well in the past - pro wrestlers even today are legitimacy marks. Lesnar being in their Hall Of Fame legitimises them as real athletes and real life tough guys. When Lesnar left the business at WrestleMania XX in the manner that he did, he was despised by many of his jealous co-workers for walking out on the company and not appreciating the mega push that was handed to him on a silver platter, but when he won the UFC Heavyweight title many of those former enemies were publicly patting him on the back for a job well done, because it reflected well on their profession.

This is probably the most offensive line in the whole piece: How exactly did Kanyon "set himself up" to be humiliated by having his sexuality mocked with the Boy George angle and be bashed in the head with an unprotected steel chair shot? By being a WWE performer? By being gay? By hiding his sexuality? Is Babinsack trying to say that Kanyon was silly to get so affected by a punishment angle to the point that he attempted suicide, because he should have saw it coming and had somehow "set himself up" for it? It's offensive to put part of the blame on the victim for workplace bullying.

I think Nash is now a WWE lifer with his buddy Hunter having so much power now.

Bruce complained about the Rock n Rolls working such a formulaic, pat match, which misses the point. They perfected the tag formula to such effect that's why everyone is told to copy them. Bryan's "I don't see their influence anymore" argument was odd, as he cited all the current WWE performers claiming that The Ultimate Warrior was their favourite wrestler growing up, not Ricky or Robert, as evidence that influence is overrated as a criteria. But I don't think anyone other than perhaps Mason Ryan is watching Warrior tapes to learn how to work. The problem with Lesnar is the precedent has already been set by the likes of Sakuraba and Funaki going in. He shouldn't go in as without the UFC run, which really shouldn't count, he's a weaker candidate than other stars with hotter short-lived peaks like Batista, Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Goldberg, Warrior, etc., but I don't think that'll matter to most Observer voters.

The worst addicts were those who enjoyed partying and bodies were absolutely thrashed, so it's a hard issue to disentangle, but I think the latter is the bigger problem of the two.

So what is "the truth about" Dixie? John I'll have to plug my former Cageside Seats colleague Sharon Glencross' pieces on Dixie Carter and TNA management here: A Closer Look At TNA President Dixie Carter Nightmares in Nashville: A look at TNA/Impact Wrestling management

I think Hulk Hogan's power and interest in using that power diminished as his contract came up for renewal. Now that he's re-signed with TNA his power has returned.

It's probably unsurprising that Dave doesn't understand how Twitter/Facebook could help a wrestling company, when he hasn't embraced that technology himself or realised how to use search engine optimisation to his benefit. It's only in the last month or so that f4wonline.com added the option to retweet their news posts and like them on facebook. Other wrestling blogs and sites have been well ahead of the curve on this matter.