kjh

This reminds me of the story where Harry Smith failed a drugs test in developmental and Vince McMahon put him on Raw for a few weeks, just so he could suspend someone on their main roster to prove that he was serious about drug testing. So would WWE script a fake choking angle just so they could "shoot" fire somebody who "went into business for themselves" to prove that they were serious about keeping their content PG? Just one possible silly conspiracy theory...

I know that the anonymous email WrestleZone published is almost certainly BS (Email Links Linda McMahon Campaign to Danielson Release), but boy does J.R. protest too much about the theory that Linda McMahon's campaign was behind Bryan's firing.

Bryan Alvarez in Figure Four Weekly refutes the Mattel executive is to blame for Bryan's firing story: The fact that WWE are keeping the unhappy party so quiet suggests to me that it was someone on Linda McMahon's campaign team or a Republican party bigwig who freaked out when they saw or heard about the angle. I suppose it's possible it was someone from USA/NBC/Viacom, but that doesn't make much sense given all the bad taste, violent and risque angles WWE has done in the past that essentially were ignored.

And Shawn Michaels is the greatest wrestler to ever lace up a pair of boots! Also, is it just me or do I sense a tone from J.R. that real men don't wear such jewelery?

I don't really understand how Bryan got screwed by being shoot fired. Even though the NXT invasion angle got off to such a great start, so did the Spirit Squad and the NXT guys are a lot greener than they were. In the long run the odds are strong that either the WWE script writers will quickly botch the angle because they don't know how to and are unwilling to book an effective long term outsiders angle or Triple H returns, moans that none of these guys knows how to work and sends them all packing back to Florida. Meanwhile Bryan's sitting pretty, being paid to sit at home for three months and can then milk the indy circuit dry, while waiting for this storm in a teacup to blow over and WWE inevitably decides to bring him back. If, in the unlikely scenario that this angle is a big success, WWE can always slot him back into the feud a few months down the line.

I'm not sure letting her go was that all stupid, but how they handled it makes the company looks like real assholes. Not surprising that the Knockouts division has devolved to this, given who is now in charge. Hogan, Bischoff and Russo never took women's wrestling seriously in the past. Hogan and Bischoff weren't paying attention when the Knockouts were a success, while Russo will never learn.

Yes, that's the first sentence in the foreword to Vince Russo's second autobiography Rope Opera: How WCW Killed Vince Russo, which really sets the self-congratulatory and self-pitying tone for the rest of the book. I suppose Vince's son VJ wouldn't know any better, but it says a lot about his father that this sentence made print. So this thread is here to give Russo his proper due on prowrestlingonly.com as one of the biggest carnies in the business, like Jim Ross and Triple H before him, as I go through his book and share with you his best contradictory nonsense. Feel free to chip in about stuff not covered in his latest book! Russo explaining why you have to pay $19:95 to hear him ramble about his career thoughts for a second time: On why writing Forgiven was his greatest accomplishment: He's a changed man folks, even from his last book, just look at the thought process behind the prologue for Rope Opera: Ah, for the good old days when Russo still got unconditional hero worship: Clearly there's never been an ignorant, racist bone in his body: I present to you Vince Russo consumate family man, part 1:

Who says the business higher ups Dave's been speaking to haven't been working him? It's not out of the question, as Donna Goldsmith and Michelle Wilson are experts of corporate doublespeak, artfully selling the WWE company line no matter how ridiculous or unfactual. I mean if I believed WWE directors and their official press releases Floyd Mayweather was paid $20 million to participate at WrestleMania and Donald Trump bought Monday Night Raw from Vince McMahon!

Yeah, John Cena, as per WWE's orders, uses Twitter as his fictional wrestling character would use it, to sell his WWE storylines as being real. Dave made fun a few days ago about Cena pretending to have a mild concussion and then when realizing it would be against WWE's Wellness policy to work this weekend's house shows as he was scheduled to do so, then having to pretend that he underwent an impact testing program and was cleared to wrestle by his doctors. Given his earlier cryptic cranky news update, maybe Dave knows more than he can officially let on?

Dave on Dana White accusing unnamed sites of taking payoffs to influence top ten rankings: Does Dave not understand how Dana's thought process reflects on him as a Yahoo! Sports columnist?

I've got the book, I could attempt something similar once I've found the time to read it.

Dave Meltzer claims that Hulk Hogan is broke

I broke this story on here two weeks ago. I’m looking forward to Abby kayfabing Bryan and the resulting 5 minutes of usable footage that it will produce. I thought I saw this here but couldn't remember, so I put up a post on the Comments thread with this update. My thoughts there seem to be echoed by those in this thread. Wrestling Observer Shoots Yeah, this doesn't look good. The trailer is full of fluff (Bryan eating ribs), softball questions, BS claims "I'm the one who started hardcore" and general silliness (Abdullah ranting about not being in the WWE Hall of Fame and Bryan breaking the news to him that he's in the Observer Hall Of Fame).

Case in point: Tito Ortiz had neck fusion surgery over two months ago, should retire.

This is what S.L.L. is talking about: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?s=&a...t&p=5418207

To be fair to Ariel, he also cited Kurt Angle walking into walls backstage because he was so messed up on pills as another reason why he fell out of love with the wrestling business. Was he saying he witnessed this personally somewhere or talking about Lesnar's eureka moment? This was his own personal eureka moment when he used to work for Spike TV briefly, got to go backstage at TNA and interviewed Kurt for his website around the time of Kurt's DUI problems.

To be fair to Ariel, he also cited Kurt Angle walking into walls backstage because he was so messed up on pills as another reason why he fell out of love with the wrestling business. That said, I'm not sure the Dan Miller story threw the best light on the MMA business either (Dana White allowing him to fight days after his baby daughter died), though that seemed to be lost on Ariel.

It wasn't Ian's first match in his hometown. He wrestled here as "Billy Fury" against Steve Strong on an International Wrestling card back in early 1987. He was really young and very skinny. I was at the match. Someone that e-mails Dave or posts at his website/board please let him know for me, thanks. I've posted this in the May 31 Observer Newsletter thread on Dave's message board for you.

Jeuron Dove thinks Batista's gay biker look is cool.

Todd Martin's blog archive is your friend! :-) Speaking of politics, I was amused by his rant of Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone that I happened to stumble on:

I agree with Cox - the McMahons will take pity on him if he ever winds up destitute like they did with Jim Barnett. And Bix, Ric Flair will continue finding new ways to top himself, because he will always want to live life like his "Nature Boy" gimmick even when he is too old to continue to fund such a lifestyle, and because too many people will let him get away with it with little or no criticism, because to those people he's the greatest wrestler to ever step foot on this planet.

Dailymotion video of Yokozuna vs Hacksaw Jim Duggan-Knockdown Challenge Yeah, just a typical Pearl Harbor salt throwing ambush angle with the added bonus of American flag desecration.

I was going to bring this up at Cageside Seats, but do we really buy the Scott Hall was taking Antabuse story anymore? I get Jake Roberts becoming a born-again Christian vibes from that story.