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I think my favourite lines were: "Sorry, I think those of you dying to see Ric Flair punished for all those years of having a good time, or whatever it is that's bothering you, may have to wait awhile longer. Don't feel bad, though, some folks have been waiting for decades for him to fall." and "Ric Flair doesn't lead his life the way I live mine, and his values aren't my values. Here's the thing, though. I'm not intolerant of people making their own way, because I expect people to let me make mine. In Ric Flair, I see a passionate, talented, hard-working guy who gave more than he took, who can be shallow and has his share of flaws. He deserves criticism, but he doesn't deserve "pathetic", "con man," "train wreck", or "addict" labels, as much fun as some of you may have applying them."

Oh shit, you are right it and it was a dresser drawer too. I was very tried last night. To be fair, I did think the dresser drawer part of the story was only mentioned so Ric could save face and prove that the wound was accidental and not caused by his wife's blows. I can't see Ric being happy about Hogan joking about his wife beating him up. Unlike Bix I don't really buy into the stories about Flair blading in domestic disputes.

I really don't think an apology is required, Bix, as Dave didn't personally attack me in his response to my original blunt article and my final response to him on his message board was blatantly sarcastic. I know that in wrestling when you take a shot, expect a receipt in return.

That's a pretty fucked up thing to say. He deserved domestic abuse because he drinks or isn't monogamous or any other "indiscretion"? Once again I find the "I'm smarter than Dave~" crew to be going a bit overboard. I've been away for a few days so I haven't had chance to respond. I think it's a fair criticism that the post relied a bit too much on hyperbole to make a point. Due to work commitments, I didn't have as much time as I would have liked to carefully choose my words, though I still might have fallen into the same trap. My point wasn't that Flair deserved to be assaulted, which I thought would be a given. My point was that his wife was angry for a reason and that anger, given Flair's track record, probably was justified, even though she shouldn't, under any circumstances, have assaulted him. Dave refused to report in print the alleged reason for her anger he gave on his radio show. I think we also know that the story Dave relayed on his radio show is probably the best spin Flair could put on what caused the incident. So, yeah what Bix said.

Meltzer's story in today's Observer is such a non-story, going into less detail than he did on the radio show. Case in point: What did I say about the wrestling media doing their usual great job of covering for Flair?

Actually I've heard a fair amount of criticism of the British coverage due to using their own regular sports announcers who have little or no knowledge of the winter Olympic sports they're commentating on.

I wonder what prompted them to reach out to her after all this time. You'd think they would have done it when they were in Texas. I guess it was just another example to show the current roster that everyone comes back to Vince eventually. They did, she declined Wasn't that for the Battle Royal, not the Hall Of Fame? I see that Todd Martin has already called her a joke pick.

Actually any politician would do that generates a passionately positive or negative reaction for a speech they do. For example, I'm crazy enough to watch Question Time, a BBC live debate show with British politicians, and think that Margaret Beckett came across as a great patrician Cruella De Vil style heel when explaining how she mistakenly claimed £600 for plants and her refusal to repay £72,000 of second home allowance she claimed while living in a grace and favor flat. I'm not crazy enough to think that qualifies her to host Raw, realizing that just makes her a crappy politician. The extreme right wing BNP leader Nick Griffin generated more passionate heel heat for his appearance on Question Time than probably any wrestling match last year. That doesn't mean he should become a wrestler either. Did Dave/Bryan even watch the video? Because I'm not sure I'd want that video being on my site as an example of a great promo with similar racism to the type they'd criticize if Hunter was doing the promo directed to Booker T. I can see Bryan being so dumb that he'd mark out for something like this, but I don't think Dave would be so stupid. More drug induced emotional breakdowns in interviews are the last thing we need to return to wrestling.

Over at the Hartford Courant, I brought up the blatant hypocrisy of Linda McMahon positioning herself as a businesswoman who knows how to create jobs in tough economic times when WWE cut 10% of its workforce last year. But it gets better, as Dave Meltzer reported in this week's Observer that WWE got a tax break of $8.3 million through Barack Obama's stimulus package.

I wouldn't get you hopes up. As I said on Cageside Seats, being a professional wrestler is such a strange occupation with no regular workplace and hours that I could easily see WWE continuing to dodge their federal tax responsibilities for many years to come.

Yeah, I really didn't have a problem with the cartoon itself (though the inappropriate content for kids is probably the laziest thing you can lampoon Linda for). But his column was pure fantasy based out of ignorance. There are plenty of good reasons to bash Linda McMahon for, the myth that the McMahons destroyed wrestling’s innocence is not one of them.

William Colling on how WWE can learn to promote an annual PPV tournament from a regular series of British boxing tournaments shown on Sky Sports.

I'm hoping they portray Danielson as some no nothing greenhorn to the point that the Miz needs to teach him how to run the ropes and lock up!

Todd brings the outrage for Raw this week, which is always amusing. Holy hyperbole, Todd! Anyway, the guest GM concept has been more about drawing ratings than upping their image and well Jerry Springer doing a train wreck spoof of his talk show should have been more successful than most guest GMs. So it's hard to say it's the lowest point in the history of Raw, especially when the booking of Raw at it's most popular was heavily inspired by what was being done on the Jerry Springer show. I'm not sure how this was a crap finish, unless you think all DQ finishes are crap. The WWE champion comes out looking strong, taking out his two biggest threats in the Elimination Chamber match. That makes a lot more sense than Hunter or Cena winning the match clean and Sheamus not interfering at all. Also when has there ever been a DQ finish in an Elimination Chamber match? Doing a non finish, whether it be DQ, count out, blood stoppage or time limit draw, to set up a gimmick match where there must be a winner is one of the oldest tricks in the book. One that has worked forever, provided you don't start doing screwy finishes in the gimmick match too.

Plenty of wrestlers managed to have matches that weren't bad with Mark Henry in 2006 (most notably Rey Mysterio and Chris Benoit). Which makes Dave's talking point pretty silly (Kurt Angle's so great but even he couldn't carry Henry). Personally I'd partly blame all the injuries Kurt had clocked up by that point and all the pain pills he was guzzling to keep going for any off nights during that period.

Irv Muchnick's coal mine owner analogy really fits here. He'd fallen for the WWE fame trap.

Antonio Inoki looking very happy with his Hall Of Fame invitation.

I agree with you more on Onita than with Foley. Quitting a nicely paid colour commentary gig because he couldn't put up with Vince shouting at him is pretty dumb and almost on a par with Dreamer quitting his office job because he was a mark for ECW.

Foley lucked out. Lucked out that he had friends in WWE management that could convince Vince McMahon to give him a shot despite his misgivings of him as a talent. Really lucked out that his body held out for just about long enough that he could capitalize on the big money to be made in the explosion of WWE's popularity. There was no guarantee that Foley would end up a millionaire. And if it really was all about the money why do Foley and Onita prostitute their legacy by continuing to wrestle for comparative peanuts to this very day? They're addicted to the crowd pop just as much as Tommy Dreamer is! If anything, they may be dumber than Dreamer, because at least Dreamer still needs whatever cash he can get from abusing his body by continuing to wrestle; Foley and Onita have no excuse.

I'm not really sure the argument that Onita and Foley did it for the money and legit stardom holds water. Sure it was part of what motivated them. But I mean Onita wrecked his knees before he even became a star and Foley was taking plenty of stupid risks when he worked on the indy circuit between major league gigs. Part of it is a warped "respect for the business" and an insecurity that they're involved in simulated combat. It's the mentality where Rob Van Dam brags about taking unprotected chairshot because of his respect for the business and to prove his toughness in a macho culture.

And you can go much further back than that. I mean Babinsack grew up watching Lou Albano promos, so him acting like comedy has no place in the serious art form of professional wrestling is strange.

I'm not sure what he even meant there. Joe Babinsack's latest column. Turns out he meant Sean Oliver, the interviewer/announcer of Kayfabe Commentaries, which makes sense. I'm highly amused at him watching an indy wrestling DVD called Hot Summer Rubdown and complaining that it featured a wrestler rubbing oil on himself while other guys "wrestle" and one guy pretends to be drunk and exposes his ass. I mean what did he expect. Even better is him restoring a sense of dignity to his fandom after that by watching Shimmer.

It's interesting to note that according to Dave Meltzer Bret's promo wasn't scripted word for word, he was just given bullet points.

I can see your point of view, but there's been way too many guys who didn't know when to quit in wrestling. He's probably feeling the consequences of all those extra bumps now and it will only be worse in years to come. We can wax romantically about him doing what he loved doing, but pragmatically it wasn't a smart decision.

I posted this on Cageside Seats and it's worth saying here: To be fair to Tommy Dreamer, what was WWE going to do with him after they scrapped ECW other than wish him well on his future endeavors? He wouldn’t fit in with the branding of the new show and if they saw him as a talent that was good enough to use on Raw and Smackdown, he wouldn’t have retired and taken the talent relations job in 2004. Tommy Dreamer wasn’t much of a mark for quitting a job he was going to lose soon anyway. If anything, he was a much bigger mark almost 4 years ago when he quit his office job to come back as a full time wrestler of an inevitably doomed reincarnation of the promotion he became a star in.