kjh

He makes it sound like a self help book for self loathing WWE addicts anonymous, though I think what he means is that he wants to use his book to enlighten mainstream fans to the error of their ways and so they too can learn that there is a big wide world of indy wrestling out there that is so much better than WWE.

Linda McMahon, her family, her campaign donors and WWE's board of directors all invited to Irv Muchnick's book signing on March 25th in Connecticut.

I'm not sure what he even meant there. I got the sense from the article that he was grouping you and Greg Oliver in with the "nattering nabobs of negativity" that pervaded the YouShoot DVD. I must admit I did get a kick out of Joe Babinsack marking out for a delusional ol' carny like Bob Holly, partly because he's experienced these vocal internet critics himself. Got a kick out of him implicitly burying Meltzer's reporting in the Observer on the evidence of a 115 minute "shoot" interview too.

Well, WWE were supposed to be really annoyed when he turned up on Impact, so S.L.L. is right that's another reason why he wouldn't turn up at the Rumble.

Not that he was fired over it, but the Watts urinating in public story seems to be accepted wrestling folklore. Hank Aaron finding out about his outspoken Torch Talk interview thanks to Mark Madden was the straw that broke the camel's back, but it's generally accepted that his brash, uncouth nature was about to get him fired anyway. Brody sounds so kind and cooperative in this account! Well, this is true apart from the fact Graham forgot to mention that he had a knife at the time. Which was a boneheaded move, as that's what forced WCW hands into giving Benoit and the rest of the Radicals their unconditional contract releases.

Meltzer breaks the bad news.

I think it was dumber to even dream that Jeff could turn up with all his ongoing legal problems.

I don't hate Shawn Michaels. I've enjoyed a lot of his work over the years. I just think that the talking point that Shawn Michaels is a completely changed person is a myth perpetuated by the fans and sheet writers who are marks for his work in the ring. Obviously Shawn will never be as big an asshole as Chris Benoit turned out to be, but Benoit went to work, worked much harder than Shawn does, put over more people than Shawn does and then went home, which just proves what you do in the ring is pretty irrelevant to whether someone is an asshole or not. But as tomk says that's by the by. I actually think tomk overrates his drawing power. On his own post comeback, he wasn't a big merchandise seller and hasn't really drawn anything special outside of maybe his comeback match (but most attribute the success of that PPV to the pure sports build of Rock vs. Lesnar) and the Hogan match (but clearly Hogan was the bigger draw there). The first DX reunion match did really well, but it has been diminishing returns ever since then. DX merchandise is still pretty strong, but Cena is bigger, and Jeff and Rey are in the same ballpark.

I'm wondering what hoops you jump through as a religious zealot when playing heel is against his faith, yet DX is OK. You need to jump through a few hoops to even work for the company. Which goes back to what S.L.L. said. He may or may not be a zealot, but he seems to use his faith to get what he wants (being booked as a babyface on the company's flagship show).

Not sure how correct that is, but there's also Shawn justifying his refusal to move to Smackdown due to his religious commitments, the *wink wink* DX segments where only Hunter is involved in any sexual innuendo while still being involved in a gimmick that encourages children to crotch chop and chant suck it, and the continuing lies and lack of contrition about Montreal.

Being HHH's "flunky" sort of suggests that he hasn't really changed that much at all other than he's no longer completely messed up on drugs, so he's less prone to unpredictable mood swings, temper tantrums and the like.

The odd thing is that he wasn't booked like that pre pec tear.

Name me a top star John Cena hasn't jobbed out to in the last couple of years. I know Shawn, Hunter and Taker are a bit more protected by the booking, but I think this statement is a bit of a stretch today.

Hmm, not sure I'd go that far. There are plenty of wrestlers that a stubborn Vince eventually got behind because the crowd demanded it or injuries forced his hand.

Well, that may have been the plan at the time, but things really didn't turn out that way. Jun Akiyama was probably the underachiever of the decade and it was more Misawa's decade than Akiyama's.

Dave on the Figure Four board refutes the myth that Shawn Michaels wasn't a first ballot Hall Of Famer solely due to his unprofessionalism:

Part of the problem with Wrestler of the Year voting is that today the draw is more the promotional brand than any one particular wrestler. Still Jericho's a weak choice because he was pushed all year as a supporting player, rather than how a Wrestler of the Year should be pushed, and isn't a big merchandise seller. Really Rey Mysterio probably fits the traditional criteria the best, given that he's the hottest wrestler in Mexico, he's a big merchandise seller to kids and is great in ring worker to boot.

I don't think it is all to do with sabotage and maintaing the status quo of the powerful guys on top, though that certainly plays a part. I agree with Grimass, partly it's Vince's promotional philosophy that the undercard doesn't really matter, the money is with whomever the top guy is at the time, whether it be Hogan, Austin, Rock or Cena. But I also think part of the problem, recently espoused by Dave Meltzer on his radio show, is that they learned the wrong lessons from the popularity of the Rock during the Attitude era, who dropped falls pretty much every other week including to several midcarders. That guys should be able to get over with parity booking, not that the Rock was so talented he could remain over despite jobbing left, right and centre. That's how wrestling should be booked because that's what worked when the product was hot, not realizing the unique set of circumstances that led to the wrestling boom and not being that familiar about wrestling history before that.

I think Loss makes some strong points, but to be fair to Todd when he wrote "This segment sure buried MVP, Miz and the title", I don't think he was implying that it was intentional, just that was the consequence of the segment as it was played out. In general Loss is correct about losing sometimes being a positive, but I don't see how MVP losing clean in very short order to the Big Show is a positive to MVP or Miz (who MVP is feuding with) or the US title (which MVP is the no. 1 contender to). However, I do agree that the MMA mentality of Bryan and Todd when they apply it to wrestling is a bit OTT and stupid. Loss has already dealt with the fact that a babyface distraction causing cocky heel to lose is pro wrestling 101. But that doesn't deal with Bryan on Wrestling Observer Radio being bugged that Kofi doesn't get a title shot out of beating the Miz. The whole point is MVP cost the Miz the match, whomever beat him doesn't deserve a title shot because MVP's distraction caused him to lose. It's funny how Bryan wants wrestling booked more like a shoot (even in the example above where it doesn't make sense), yet is one of the first to scoff when sport gets in the way of the title match ups he wants to see in MMA.

I missed most of his take, here's it in full:

It's not like Dave hasn't repeated that story several times in the Observer either.

I would tweak that to say his criticism should be focused on the fact that these people aren't conducive to drawing the kids that the company markets its products towards. For all WWE's talk about how the company is more popular with kids nowadays, they draw less kids now than they did in the Attitude era when they were marketing to older fans. The age of Raw's median viewer is usually 38, meaning that half of their audience is older than 38 and the majority of their audience will get the Miami Vice tie in. For all I know Todd might not know or care who Zac Efron is and he would probably still complain if the celebrity GMs were people who could draw kids. I mean a week doesn't go by without Todd complaining about Hornswoggle being on his TV screen, even though he's a character that is popular with kids.

The Ernie Ladd bio was bumped by UFC buying Pride. And boy, with the benefit of hindsight was that one of the most overhyped stories of the decade.

Yeah, I live in the UK and I'm about the same age as Todd, and I can remember watching reruns of the A-Team on TV. So I find it a bit strange that Todd wasn't at least aware of the A-Team even if he'd never watched it. That's by the by, the problem isn't so much Todd's apparent ignorance about past celebrity culture, but the attitude he cops to these people being on Raw, given the diverse demos Raw appeals to. When 30% of viewers are women and >50% are over the age of 35, his "I don't know who these people are so they shouldn't be on my TV screen" attitude comes off as childish.