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Yeah, I heard the audio update. I thought the most telling line was Dana White now knowing all about Triple H, who he didn't know from Adam before. Apparently they liked Shane, but the talks were at a very early, informal stage.

Maybe not domestic TV deals, but Shane was head of WWE's global media department at a time when the company greatly expanded their international business streams. He could be handy in Zuffa's goal of further international expansion if he worked in a similar role for them as he did for WWE, due to all the business contacts he made while working for WWE. I don't disagree with your analysis about Shane investing in Zuffa. It's much less likely to happen, but can't be completely discounted as a possibility, given his desire to invest in other MMA companies in the past.

Being paid to help dear ol' Mom in her campaign sounds like easy money. I question his sanity a lot more if he decides to work for UFC or invest in UFC and potentially disinherit himself. Given Dana White's no comment about the meeting to his friend Dave Meltzer I don't think he was just popping round to stir the shit.

And if Shane was helping his Mom with her campaign? This looks extremely doubtful given that Shane was last spotted visiting UFC's headquarters. I'm not sure that's exactly a sane move either. Vince may have just called Jerry McDevitt to have his will rewritten.

Ric Flair would never admit that he's an alcoholic and/or a sex addict or do anything close to it. Yeah, I'd imagine Flair would get all the other alcoholics drunk, if he ever appeared on Celebrity Rehab.

Well at least we know she's not marrying him for his money. Actually I think we now know where all his money that wasn't going to his ex-wives went to.

I don't know how you could objectively write a book about Chris Benoit that didn't reflect negatively on the wrestling business.

The Figure Four message board trolls inevitably fall for Irv's bait. From Irv's blog:

You act like wrestling and Roller Derby have nothing in common when in actual fact they have much more in common with pro wrestling than MMA does. I was being very generous in my analogy by making them all different types of bird. Would you like to argue that we're both the same as horses, after all we're just different types of mammals? On your second point, many MMA fighters are in the game for the love of legitimate competition and the sport in general. If it was all about money, why, for example, did Rashad Evans refuse to fight Randy Couture and wanted to fight Thiago Silva instead, when the former is a much more marketable fight? Why does Mike Brown complain about being booed? The stuff about amateur sport is silly, when MMA dojos are springing up all over the place and quickly overtaking the number of boxing gyms. I think if it were to become an Olympic sanctioned sport, you'd find a lot of young athletes who are currently amateur wrestlers or boxers would become amateur MMA fighters instead.

Saying pro wrestling and MMA and boxing are all the same is a bit like saying ducks, swans and geese are all the same. Sure, they share some common DNA, but they're still clearly different.

He's Our Hero Ric, so of course he's going to be "right" in his battles with Herd. A bit like he's Our Enemy the Anabolic Warrior, so of course everyone believes at the time he's "wrong" in his battles with Vince in the summer of 1991.

Irv makes his debut at the Figure Four message board:

I'm enjoying Irv's trolling of Dave Meltzer:

I think that rant was just a lengthy troll of Jonathan Snowden.

It wasn't just luck, circumstances and Austin's own talent. There were people on the creative team, most notably Jake Roberts, Jim Cornette and Jim Ross, who pushed hard for Austin to be given the ball. They deserve some credit for pushing Vince in the right direction. Just like Russo deserves some credit for pushing Vince in the right direction later on.

This isn't quite true, as Russo wasn't an official part of the booking team until mid April 1997, by which point Austin had already turned babyface and his feud with the Hart Foundation had already kicked off. So it would be wrong to give Russo too much credit for the Austin phenomenon, though he certainly helped to grow his blossoming popularity. Also, it took time for Russo to become McMahon's most trusted creative advisor; I think the great storylines of the summer of '97 that started the turnaround was more of a group effort, with Russo becoming more and more responsible for the creative direction as time went on.

That's a myth. Vince was only interested in buying out Stampede as a way to get their TV and a monopoly on promoting wrestling in western Canada. Any jobs given to the various Hart family member and hangers on by Vince was as a favor to Stu to sweeten the deal. It will be interesting to hear Ross Hart's take on Vince buying the company only to renege on the terms of the deal, but I think Bix should frame the question more neutrally. I'd be interested to hear his thoughts on Pain and Passion by Heath McCoy. Is it a fair portrayal of the history of Stampede wrestling? Anything he disagrees with in the book?

Is there space on the first disc for Dory Jr. vs. Kiniski uncut? I ask because I would imagine that the documentary will last at least 60 minutes and the two Flair matches will go a combined 40 minutes. Just something to bare in mind.

I'm not sure how important Murdoch being lazy at house shows when he's 41+ really is. Most wrestlers start slowing down when they reach that age. Or how important him being lazy in the WWF is, when the vast majority working WWF undercards were too. If Dave could demonstrate that this was a trait throughout his career, then that would be more worrying. However, I'm getting vibes of how Eddy Guerrero stunk up the joint with Rey Mysterio at a house show in 2005, while praising Chris Benoit for his superior cardiovascular conditioning.

Irv's twittering finally concludes:

Pretty much, though "the bwt" had Bix's back in the thread. The most amusing thing was people criticizing Bix for getting shots in at Dave Meltzer in his book review. Erm, Irv Muchnick's criticism of Dave Meltzer was an important part of his book.

Phil Schneider vs. Dave Meltzer on the Murdoch Myth:

TNA will remain in business in some form as long as Spike TV continues to want their programming. Spike TV seems to be behind TNA more than ever, so until that changes TNA is completely safe. Of course, if bringing in Hogan doesn't significantly improve ratings that could eventually change.