kjh

To be fair, I think The Rock was expecting a phone call from Vince McMahon, not John Laurinaitis, and the technical oversight excuse reeked of political BS to make Laurinaitis the fall guy in the farcical affair.

I think hiring random blonde bimbos to be Divas was actually a remarkably shrewd political move, sek.

I think sek is too vociferous of his criticism of Foley, but I think he does have a point. In WWE he lobbied to have programs with Orton and Edge where he helped make them as stars. I think we can conclude from how he's being used currently that he's not doing the same in TNA, that he's more interested in rubbing shoulders with the real stars, his old pals like Angle, Jarrett and Sting. He may do some comic relief with the Motor City Machine Guns, but he hasn't any interest in genuinely putting them over in the ring. That's telling, given that he's got much more sway in TNA than he ever had in WWE.

Damn you Bix, you intrigued me enough to resub to the Torch for a month! Looking at Sean's Torch Talk with Wade in 2002 it's pretty clear that though he thought Jericho was a "fantastic talent", he was clearly burying Jericho to Wade on his arrival to the WWF. In the interview, he takes credit for helping teach Jericho how to wrestle "main event style". Wade even takes a not very subtle shot at Dave in one of his questions (What do you say "to the wrestling reporters who didn't get it and kept saying it was all politics holding Jericho back"?) Lesson to Bix, trust your instincts, don't let Dave blow smoke up your ass.

Of course, what Sean told Dave and what he told Wade could be two completely different things.

By the way, Dave doesn't seem to be taking Bix's suggestion that he has a blind spot regarding his coverage of Mike Tenay very well.

tomk, I'm not surprised Dave's opinion of NOAH's major shows in 2007 is odd, given that at the time it sounded like he skipped the first half of the cards before losing interest altogether. I mean in 2007 Dave did think Takeshi "best heavyweight wrestler in the world" Morishima, Suguira, Marufuji, KENTA (who had to quote Dave himself "his (Misawa) last singles match that was in the **** range") and Joe were some of the most talented wrestlers in the business. There also tended to be at least one workrate match on each show (whether it be for the tag titles, jnr title, jnr tag titles, ROH title, NTV cup or future heavyweight title shot) that was much more Dave's cup of tea than Misawa sluggishly playing the ace again. It was pretty clear at the time that Dave saw things differently than you or Phil (remember him being really high on Misawa's matches with Sano and Smith, while Dave was pretty dismissive of them) were seeing them, so your disappointment is to be expected.

A summary of some of the errors and failing of Bryan's overview of Misawa's career (cribbed from other people): - Poorly proof read, as names were mixed up in a couple of key spots. - Listing all of his Observer awards and five star matches with next to no context. - No mention of his lengthy reigns with the Triple Crown and the significance of that. Little discussion of how Misawa became the star that he was, what made him so beloved and so over, the storylines behind his career defining feuds, etc. - No mention that Misawa suffered a serious concussion and a cervical sprain in his match with Takeshi Morishima in January 2007. - Inaccuracies in his description of NOAH's formation. - Incorrect speculation that Misawa planned to pass the torch to Yoshihiro Takayama because he beat him for the GHC title twice, but didn't because Takayama suffered a stroke before he could do so. He also blamed Takayama's brain trauma entirely on the punishment he suffered in his MMA matches. - Suggested that Misawa attempted to make Yoshinari Ogawa and Takashi Suguira into megastars like he attempted to do with Rikio, Marufuji and Morishima. - Didn't grasp how badly Marufuji bombed as GHC champion, criticizing the move to talk the belt off him as incredibly short-sighted and impatient. Bryan's defense of these criticisms: - Short deadline. - Sent it to people to read beforehand who he felt were very qualified to comment on it, none of whom criticized the piece, including a long time Japanese reporter who called it "super good and informative". - It was only meant to be an overview, you can read Dave Meltzer's bio for the definitive version, no need to replicate his work (specifically replying to someone who said that it read like a wikipedia overview of his career). To be fair to Bryan, if you gave the same task to his rivals for the number two spot, none of them would do much better. Wade Keller always relied on others to cover Japanese wrestling for him (like Chris Zavisa and jdw), before he lost interest completely. Dave Scherer has also focussed his coverage for ages on American wrestling too. The childish defense of his article isn't surprising given that for every one poster who had a valid criticism of his article, there were ten posters who instantly jumped to his defense. Often, the wrestling reporters are in a bubble almost as much as the subjects they cover. Finally, Bryan got to the number two spot not just based on his association with Dave, but because he's the leader in providing audio content, regularly having guests to interview on his show. Though Wade provides the same amount of content, he can't compete anymore with Bryan's ability to get guests for his audio shows.

I think Cox is right, fans wouldn't have complained about Dustin's early push so much if it wasn't for his father being such a heat magnet at the time, having aided and abetted Jim Herd in undermining and then running their hero, Ric Flair, out of the promotion at the time.

He's in a movie playing a Russian MMA fighter and I guess the director wanted him to have hair and a beard for the role.

The problem with the quote is that a fan with little knowledge of Misawa would think he worked a style similar to Mike Awesome and Masato Tanaka, which wasn't the case.

Speaking of wrestlers being full of it, Ted DiBiase said this in a Slam! Wrestling interview (http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Wrestling/2009/06/13/9790061.html) on Misawa's death: "I learned that wrestling is more of a two people telling a story and that the skill is not in how hard you hit someone with a chair or throw them through a table."

It's funny, but I don't think Meltzer would have been so bugged by the comparison in 2001 or earlier, which is the time Bischoff was probably referring to in his book.

I'm sure the caffeine and anything else Austin may have been taking didn't help, but I'd argue the stress of putting on a WrestleMania quality main event match on his bad neck was probably the most significant factor in causing his panic attack.

Austin is actually an interesting comparison and I think it's a bit simplistic to conclude that Misawa was just under more pressure to keep going than him. I mean Austin worked for several years on a badly damaged neck and felt compelled to start taking tons of suplexes to keep up with the Angles and Benoits who raised the workrate bar in the WWF in 2001. He rolled the dice on his health plenty of times in an attempt to desperately cling on to his spot as the top star in the business. Really, Austin got lucky that he was forced out of the promotion by the rise to power of Stephanie and Hunter, and even then he still flaked out, beat up his wife, attempted one last return, suffered a major health scare the night before Mania and rolled the dice on his health one last time by going through with what turned out to be his retirement match.

Giving Misawa the Tiger Mask gimmick was clearly a vehicle to groom him for superstardom. A bit like Lex Luger and Sid Vicious being made Horsemen. Given how popular Misawa became I'd say Baba made the right decision.

Of course, the truth depends on who you talk to. I think befriending the leading dirt sheet writer and explaining why he screwed promoters was a really smart way to guarantee more favorable coverage from the person who was the go to guy for insider gossip. I mean he trod on a lot of people's toes and there were plenty of people willing to badmouth him, that the "truth" would have been a lot more unflattering if he hadn't befriended Meltzer.

I'm somewhat intrigued at how he compares the creative process in TNA with WWE. Hopefully the book won't turn out to be a love letter to himself for all the great ideas that he came up with that Jeff and Russo in their infinite wisdom allowed him to do, while bashing Vince for not doing the same.

I'd have left too if I was supposed to get the titles but the current champs vetoed my win inside the ring (as told by IIRC Ellering in his shoot interview. Might have beenon the LOD set as well, can't remember).Yes, that story was on WWE's LOD DVD documentary.

I think Hunter's problem with Jericho is that he didn't meekly accept his sabotage in 1999 (hard to not call it that when Hunter's friends were sandbagging Jericho and Jericho had to prove his worth by carrying and putting over his then girlfriend) like a Chris Benoit would, he was quite outspoken about it.

Isn't the real irony that Shawn was joining in on the mockery of Chris Jericho only for Jericho to later become his best on screen rival in years? Or am I misremembering the story?

To be fair to tomk, even though the autopsy wasn't closed, she was clearly being paid to keep her mouth shut and spin the circumstances around Eddie's death to something more politically correct. Like Brian Pillman died of a broken heart, Eddie Guerrero died from training too hard.

It's interesting that the Toffoloni family didn't name WWE as a codefendant. You could certainly make the case that WWE was negligent in their treatment of Benoit as their employee and I'd have thought that everyone who was negligent in someway would be named. The throw all the mud against the wall to see what sticks philosophy.

I suppose it makes sense from the perspective that they went on PPV to increase their exposure and now that they've got TV they don't need the exposure being on PPV gave them. That said, TV is a much better vehicle for selling PPVs than DVDs, so the fact that their giving up on PPV for the moment is not a positive sign and it's a black mark on Adam Pearce as booker that PPV business has declined so much that it's no longer a viable revenue stream.

I thought this news story from Dave Meltzer fitted the topic of this thread: