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Shawn's retired. Regal has no real pull. So yeah, Danielson's WWE career could go either way. If Paul Heyman was still around, then he'd have a better chance, as he would see Danielson's talent and potential star appeal. Who on the current WWE creative team would really go to bat for him? He doesn't fit the mould of the type of guy Vince, Hunter, Steph, Gerwirtz or Hayes likes to push.

On a related note and to try to get the thread back on track, Dave Meltzer wrote this in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter: It says something about the wrestling business that Dave felt he needed to point that out.

The two things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Has this gimmick ever worked? I can't recall any time the "my old gimmick was phony crap, now you're getting to see the real me" storyline actually working when the wrestler is still working for the same promotion, in the same environment. Jeff Jarrett buried the Double J gimmick only to be back working the gimmick in 6 months. Dustin Runnels went to that well several times and it didn't work for him either. The less said about Shawn Stasiak and Chaz Warrington the better. If history is anything to go by, then Bryan will be lost in the shuffle and forgotten about within a month.

I think you'll find that even the ladies you find ugly, most of them would be perfectly capable of bearing you healthy children.

I think you mean Freddie Blassie, not Kowalski.

Dave unusually posted a thread entitled "For some reason the Mickie James discussion got me thinking" and wrote:

Yeah, Jingus and Bix are right about the gay media not watching wrestling and being gullible marks for a wrestling promotion's claims about their storylines involving gay potrayals. Recently there was a silly column on OutSports.com praising Orlando Jordan's TNA gimmick, which you could only praise if you didn't understand wrestling or are being intentionally glib and misleading.

To be fair, I did say possibly.

You forgot that it's for the insecure pro wrestlers benefit too.

It's an arguable point that WWE is more popular today than 2002-2005. Certainly arena attendance is much healthier than it was in the dark days of 2003 and 2004. However, TV ratings and domestic PPV business are significantly down from that period. Recent market research is evidence against Dave's sweeping assertion too. From the Apr. 5 2010 Observer Newsletter:

"But I also don't get it, I'm like gees you haven't watched much wrestling then" - Chael Sonnen on the pro wrestling promo comparison to Dave "Watched more pro wrestling than possibly anyone in the history of the universe" Meltzer.

Wasn't this the finish to Austin vs. Angle at SummerSlam 2001? I think they realistically could have gotten Flair to be WCW's mouthpiece. Unlike the other big names that the WWF opted against buying out their contracts, Flair didn't have an exorbitant downside guarantee.

Wait there's more from that edition of the Observer:

Dave Meltzer, Mar 29 2010 Observer Newsletter: No grudge to see here, none whatsoever...

Are you sure that's not the number of buys for Mania outside North America? Otherwise, this would be the first WWE PPV in history where more people bought the PPV outside of North America.

Wow, going against UFC 111 (Lesnar vs. Mir, GSP vs. Hardy) on the same weekend must have cost them a minimum of 100,000 buys in North America.

They wouldn't have been made to look like total chumps, but they would have still been put in the role of immediately putting over the real WWE stars. Look at how Hall, Nash, Goldberg and Hogan were treated when they finally entered the company. Hall jobbed out to Austin in his first major match, before quickly flaking out. Nash was plagued by injuries, but found himself jobbing out to Hunter and Jericho on the way out the door when he was healthy enough to return. Goldberg had his balls cut off by being forced to wear Goldust's wig, work Hunter's pat match and job to Hunter in their first match together despite him being crippled at the time. Hogan jobbed to Rock, Undertaker, Angle and Lesnar, and returned the favour to Hunter for putting him over at Backlash in his first return to the company. That's not to mention Bischoff hugging Vince and Flair jobbing to anyone who's anyone plus Rico before he became Hunter's manager.

Was it anymore offensive than Slick eating fried chicken to introduce his Jive Soul Bro video or Virgil playing black man servant to Ted DiBiase?

It wasn't BS to begin with. The WWF raised the price of their In Your House PPVs in September 1997 when they extended them to three hours. By the time the PPV buyrate information had come in and Vince realized the company was profitable, Bret had already got the contract offer from WCW and was leaning towards jumping ship. I agree though that Montreal through inspiring the Mr McMahon character saved the company is a big myth. Austin and DX (and to a lesser extent The Undertaker) were already red hot acts before Montreal. The company was on the right course before Montreal even happened.

The whole angle was never going to work long term because they didn't want to portray the outsiders as credible threats. Even if they had all the real stars, they'd have jobbed them out the same. It would have worked better if the key wrestlers were in the right roles, but it wouldn't have saved the angle. Austin being heel only really made sense if he was going to feud with Rock and Hunter when he came back. That never happened, so they should have kept him as a face.

From the file marked TNA wrestlers still don't seem to like having an openly bisexual wrestler in their midst, Dave and Bryan had this amusing exchange on their latest radio show: Dave: I could tell you some Orlando Jordan stories, *giggles*. Bryan: I don't know if we should tell these stories on the air. Dave: Oh, I've heard some Orlando Jordan stories in the last er week, *laughs*, Oh God. Bryan: Well we'll wrap this one up early then and I'll. Dave: *Laughs* Bryan: Anyway, Rob Terry... Dave butts in: I'm not trying to hide anything but it's just him hitting on various people. Bryan: Oh, lovely! Dave: Yeah, yeah.

Dave and Bryan's original reports said it was a Spike TV decision. Of course, their original reports could be wrong, but wrestling promotions do have a tendency to willfully disregard market research that is at odds with their own promotional philosophies. At the end of the day, even if TNA asked to move Impact back to Thursdays, Spike TV had to agree to the move.

You can blame them for not realizing that it never had a chance of succeeding though, which suggests that their promotional instincts are highly questionable for today's wrestling market. They got the big picture completely wrong. To a degree this is a fair point, especially with all of TNA's sudden time slot changes confusing their audience. But it should be noted that they weren't able to maintain their rating on Thursday night after bringing in Hogan, Flair and Bischoff before the move to Mondays, and then weren't able to maintain their rating on Mondays after moving.

I think Austin's second heel turn at the Invasion PPV was a much bigger mistake than the first. The return of the "old Stone Cold" Stunning all the Alliance stars on the Raw before the PPV got such a mammoth pop that it proved, if it wasn't obvious already, that Austin had to be the face of the company against the heel invaders. The Angle vs. Austin feud was perfectly enjoyable, but it was a massive flop in terms of business, as they were both in the wrong roles, something the promotion unfortunately realized four months too late when they turned them both in the aftermath of the Invasion angle being torpedoed at Survivor Series. Though perversely entertaining, the stuff with the milk truck made Angle look like such a geek and a lame Austin wannabe.