kjh

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2010/11/27/18...-of-her-dollars

There wasn't really anything wrong with The Rock swerve turn, they built it up for several weeks so that it made sense with the benefit of hindsight and set up the money match at WrestleMania. The problem was when Russo rushed through that formula ad infinitum to rapidly dwindling returns.

TNA management should be proud. Seriously, these guys are the biggest fuck up of their generations. So pathetic. This is a good illustration of the differences between the two promotions. Something like this would get you fired or at least suspended in WWE; in TNA they'll likely get a push. Matt was in WWE at the time but I get the feeling they weren't aware of it since it was on his pay site. To be fair, there were plenty of publicly available YouTube videos where Matt was clearly messed up on pills before they even suspended him. This wasn't something they nipped in the bud.

Unfortunately I don't think Linda realises this. On Face The State, a cheery Linda McMahon ably abetted by friendly interviewer Dennis House was pushing how she energized the local Republican party and how she did better than any Republican Senate nominee in over 40 years. Moreover, she went out of her way to suck up to Connecticut voters. So she didn't sound like she was saving face and cutting her losses, she sounded like she was positioning herself for another run, despite her complaints about a gotcha media that gave Richard Blumenthal a comparative free pass.

To those wondering about the status of Wrestling Observer Shoots neither Dave nor Bryan knew on their latest radio show. I suppose that's what happens when you do business with someone called "the cancer".

It's the same sort of analysis Dave wheels out whenever the WWE Hall Of Fame gets discussed or Matt Farmer gets further attendance data. Based on my objective mathematical formula, the Observer Hall Of Fame is clearly superior to WWE's. I wouldn't call it overanalysis, more lazy regurgitation of his usual talking points. I agree that analysing it as a shoot list is silly when we all know it depends on the petty whims of the people in power at the time. More interesting would be to analyse why some people seem to be surprisingly in favour at the moment like Rock and Savage, whereas why others are clearly out of favour.

Five observations from UFC 122 Yeah, as you rightly point out Bix, Gross didn't say they shouldn't air repeats in the normal time slot.

The latest installment of Dave Meltzer vs. Josh Gross on the Observer boards is equal parts amusing and fascinating. Here's Dave's posts in a thread about Gross leaving Sports Illustrated for ESPN (bolded are the parts that are most amusing to me): Re bolded parts: what Dave isn't allowed to fraternize with the enemy? And does anyone really think that Lesnar vs. Mir III will grow the business long term? Sure, it's the right money match to make at this point in time to keep business ticking over, but outside of drawing the biggest buyrate for a non title fight in UFC history and rehabbing Lesnar for another title shot it will mean little long term for the sport's popularity, unless Mir and Lesnar built the rubber match up for three months by being the trainers for the next season of The Ultimate Fighter reality show, which isn't going to happen unless Lesnar has a change of heart. I must admit I also got a kick out of the UFC employee who masquerades as a common fan questioning Gross' legitimacy and saying that he has an agenda that he is trying to push onto people.

Working on a post about this for Cageside Seats I noticed that Owen Hart was conspicuous by his absence. Given that the equally beloved Eddie Guerrero and Curt Hennig cracked the top 15 that may mean WWE are taking his ex wife Martha's lawsuit seriously.

Dana White claimed in an interview he was reconsidering booking the match because people (i.e. MMA smarks) were complaining about it on Twitter when he first floated the idea. Of course, this comes from the promoter that told everyone for a couple of weeks that Chuck Liddell vs. Tito Ortiz was still on for Vancouver when Sherdog leaked the news early that it was off the books and that Anderson Silva was going to be a curtain jerker after the Abu Dhabi debacle.

For all the ballyhoo about how silly and petty this list is, it's not like WWE purposefully erased anyone major from their history (apart from Chris Benoit but that's understandable). Would Frank Shamrock crack a top 50 UFC fighters DVD? I mean it's perfectly understandable for WWE to not want to put over too strong their former wrestlers who are working for their current competitors. I'm not surprised by Hennig's high ranking, he was always ridiculously overrated as a performer by people within the business.

I'm amused that Dave Meltzer actually thought Dana White was serious when he said that he was *maybe* rethinking the Lesnar vs. Mir rematch and clearly felt the need to send an emergency text to him.

I dunno, did they did WWE do this with regards to MMA? It was never in the newsletter. To be fair it has been mentioned in the newsletter, but only several months after he and Oliver Copp blabbed about it on the forums. IIRC, it was buried in a discussion about this weekend's card in Germany when, or soon after it, was originally announced. Clearly it mustn't be that important if the story is treated in such a fashion though.

Phil Schneider trolls Dave: Dave thinks it was a weak attempt: As a tongue in cheek counterpoint to Dave, did WWE script writers in the late 1990s watch MMA or syndicated talk shows to inspire their writing?

Host vs Host The combativeness was in how Bryan introduced the subject of TUF. It wasn't really Host vs. Host or Host vs. Call-In. It was Hosts vs. The Internet.

It was rather combative wasn’t it? Basically if you think Josh isn’t the best heel in business you are wrong and an idiot. Didnt they say the exact same thing about Sonnen The highlight was Dave revealing that the so called greatest heel in the world today actually came off as almost the babyface in a confrontation with his fighter Brad Tate who was being a complete dick in the raw footage that somehow got leaked, which was edited by UFC to make him look like Wile E. Koscheck Super Heel on the latest Ultimate Fighter episode, and Bryan being all which idiot leaked the footage and he should be FIRED (for breaching Zuffa kayfabe or some such nonsense).

Joe Babinsack reviews the MMA Encyclopedia I take it Babinsack has never seen Sapp's ring entrance then? A lot of his other criticisms seem really nit picky. It's an encyclopedia. You haven't got room to do long essays on the intricate subjects of the history of pro wrestling and how it relates to MMA (which was in the early part of the last century a lot more like pro wrestling than Babinsack wants to admit) or the issue of performance enhancing drugs in MMA. Some things are going to have to be omitted in the limited space you have for entries.

JBL got veteran Texan referee James Beard a tryout a few years ago and they were going to offer him a job until they found out he had blabbed about the tryout on Wrestling Classics.

To be fair to Dave might have thought it was a work because Dreamer was stupid (sorry, I can't bring myself to use the silly euphemism hardcore anymore) enough to work on with a bone sticking out of his wrist. Meanwhile, Meltzer is out of touch with current smark opinions: I also like how he no sells Sakuraba getting 20% of the vote!

Meltzer on early MMA PPVs: "UFC 2 did 100,000 buys not 300,000 buys, and in those days because there were so few events on PPV, every event was promoted like hell by the cable companies. UWFI debuted to 95,000 for a taped show months old at the same time. Pancrase debuted to 60,000 for a taped show months old a year later Completely different era. UWFI and Pancrase today couldn't do 8,000 buys today under those conditions. Pride, on a same day tape delay with a product that was far more appealing to Americans and with TV on FSN was only doing 10,000 to 20,000 buys in its heyday." Um... ECW came around once we had 12 PPVs a year from the Big 2, that's pretty much this era. You can't deny that Heyman was far better at getting their fans to spend money than TNA is now. It's still a completely different era, when wrestling was a lot hotter and the PPV market wasn't quite as saturated as it is today. It's also a completely different Paul Heyman. He definitely was in tune with what wrestling fans wanted in 1995. 2010? Probably not so much. Heyman was definitely far better at getting their fans to spend money than TNA is now. He probably still would be today. But it'd be much more difficult for him to draw 99,000 buys on PPV today. This was the latest quote by Dave in that thread: I think Bischoff and Russo are out of touch, one trick ponies too, but come on, they aren't quite that bad.

Meltzer on early MMA PPVs: "UFC 2 did 100,000 buys not 300,000 buys, and in those days because there were so few events on PPV, every event was promoted like hell by the cable companies. UWFI debuted to 95,000 for a taped show months old at the same time. Pancrase debuted to 60,000 for a taped show months old a year later Completely different era. UWFI and Pancrase today couldn't do 8,000 buys today under those conditions. Pride, on a same day tape delay with a product that was far more appealing to Americans and with TV on FSN was only doing 10,000 to 20,000 buys in its heyday." Um...

Dave's Norwegian food analogy may possibly be more hilarious than the WNBA talking point: