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To add to the point Loss made, The Rock was probably the greatest wrestler ever at incorporating a lot of comedy into his schtick, while still being able to be taken completely seriously as a main eventer, as he knew when it was the time for laughs and the time to be serious. Mick Foley was excellent at this too now that I come to think of it. Steve Austin and Vince McMahon managed to pull off some completely ridiculous angles with straight faces. The Midnight Express, one of the greatest tag teams for work ever, had tons of comedy spots in their repertoire. So, yes there is a place for comedy in wrestling, even in the main events with the right performers and the right ideas.

I wasn't talking about drawing. My point was that the number of territories a "great" worker works, which territories he works and his position on the card is much more important than the actual quality of his work. For example, Bryan Danielson is more highly revered by smarks as a great worker than Edge, but who'd get the most support on the ballot if they both went on this year?

Goc's right. The money mark doesn't pull out when TNA is drawing near record ratings on Spike TV. For the moment they're fine, even if they're losing money. Long term, it depends on how long Angle, Sting and Foley stick with the company for and whether they are able to make any new stars or pick up any more ready made stars from WWE.

I think Loss is right when he calls those Shawn matches "inoffensive, but not particularly good". When he's in with lesser workers like Skinner, Blake Beverley, I.R.S., Adam Bomb and Kwang, the results are even less inspiring. Though I haven't seen the matches in a long time, so maybe I'm giving Bret a bit of an unfair rap.

How the HOF and its voting is structured, being a great worker only matters if you were able to headline in a lot of territories (especially the big ones like New York or Minneapolis) or in a major national promotion. That's why Dundee and Rose will never get in, because their greatest work happened in one or two small territories, so their best work hasn't been widely exposed. I don't think Benoit and Eddie get in without their runs as WWE headliners, while Rey's still on the outside looking in, despite being a consensus great worker, because Vince has never fully got behind him.

I think he was better then, in the sense that he wasn't as slowed down then by injuries, age and his bloated muscle mass as he is now. I don't think his quads could hold up to such a fast paced match today. Who says WWE aren't willing to give him paid leave if necessary, as they are willing to do that for Shawn, Undertaker and Hunter? The problem isn't so much a willingness, but having so little depth in headliners, most of whom are injury prone or broken down, that often it has to be all hands on deck to have enough star power for two touring groups.

I don't think Bischoff not being able to tell a story or "build" anything is true (WCW did build Hogan vs. Sting for about a year during his period in power) or would be a good criticism if true (that's why promoters have bookers). It's also completely untrue that the WWF weren't hotshotting in the spring/summer of 1998 to pop rating, as they teased giving away their biggest matches away on free TV on several occasions though rarely delivering, changed the World title on free TV and gave away big gimmick matches away on free TV such as Hell In A Cell. There's probably tons of other stuff they did that I'm forgetting too. The WWF were just much better at using their hotshotting to build their key feuds and storylines, but even they fell into the trap of focussing too much on week to week ratings.

I don't think it's just a matter of overexposure, to some extent it's a matter of taste too. Some people may just like other formulas or styles of wrestling better than Flair's.

I was actually watching the documentary section of the Road Warriors DVD a few days ago and J.R. (I think) was trying to spin that match as the peak of their popularity, only for Hawk to screw it all up with his demons. So it's a match the company is in love with, probably due to the major arena setting and the huge crowd.

Just to clarify I don't think all submission holds need to be set up, just pointing out that I think Loss overplays how integral Flair setting up the figure four is to his formula, based on the matches I've seen from the DVDVR '80s sets. Part of the problem with the Flair formula for me is that though the figure four can be a game ender, it rarely is for Flair, particularly the first time he applies the hold. It hurts the drama of the match for me personally, though admittedly it's very affective at putting the babyface over and getting the fans to believe it might be his night. I don't disagree with what Jingus said, just that often I don't find how Flair fills up time while on offense to be particularly interesting, making some of his matches feel a bit bloated and overcooked.

Maybe I need to see more Flair, but one of the things that bugs me about his matches sometimes is how little work he does setting up the figure four. Often he slaps it on as soon as the guy fluffs a move affecting his leg/knee, if you're lucky he may hit the kneebreaker too. Meanwhile, he often slaps on an arm bar for several minutes just to give him a chance to jaw with the ringside fans.

Five moves of doom is probably a deserved knock for lazy Bret when he's dogging it at house shows and dark matches taped for Coliseum home video, sleepwalking through his set moves at a snails pace. I'm not sure it's a fair knock in general, given that for his big matches he busted out several other moves and mixed things up more.

Outside of The Rock and maybe Vince, he was Steve Austin's best drawing opponent. Probably by quite a margin as they had so many PPV matches together.

I think there is a difference between getting the fans to appreciate submission work and getting a few submission holds over as finishers. WWE has never done the latter well and has a mixed bag with the latter. For every ankle lock and gogoplata they got over big as a finisher, there are plenty of holds that wrestlers tried to get over and quickly gave up trying on.

Actually Heel Vince predates Heel Eric by over 3 years if you consider the heel promos he did for the USWA vs. WWF feud in 1993.

Actually the fact that the NWA champs usually played babyface in their home territory (the Funks in Amarillo, Brisco in Florida, Flair in the Carolinas until Dusty arrived, etc) aids your point, rather than compromises it. To be fair to Hunter, it probably didn't help that both his wife and his father in law had long runs playing the Evil Owner trope, before hurriedly transitioning into babyfaces to fit this storyline. And well Shane prancing about acting like he's still young and cool is a bit sad really.

I think it must be remembered that the last WWE boom period was really short in comparison to Sammartino's, Backlund's and Hogan's runs carrying the promotion. It's definitely proof that tied to Mania a hot babyface chasing a heel champion can do tremendous short term business. It's not proof that it's a viable way to book a national promotion long term. Austin's heel title run was a bust, so was Jericho's, so was Triple H's outside of the Batista feud, so was JBL's and so on. House show business was in steady decline for several years until they got behind John Cena and Batista as fresh babyface headline acts (and later DX and Rey Mysterio).

Keller: UFC fans and announcers pushing sport in dangerous direction Wade writing about MMA is always amusing. I can't believe he wrote this column without mentioning the fact that UFC gives out bonuses for fight of the night or only gives a boring fighter a title shot when their hand is forced. Seems like a salient point. It's funny too how there is no explicit criticism of Dana White who put pressure on Anderson Silva to have an exciting fight beforehand and ripped on him much more than the announcers did when he failed to do so.

Sek brings up a good point. I know HHH bashing is overplayed at this point, but part of me wonders if all the recent talk about there's always being "money in the chase" is WWE sources having to defend to Dave Meltzer HHH always being the long term World champion with a straight face. I think I agree with most here that though a well booked chase can certainly draw money, if the chase isn't paid off with a dominant run for the babyface as champion, it's usually counterproductive in the long run for the babyfaces and companies involved. You can point to Lawler's chase in Memphis and the Von Erichs' chase in Dallas as drawing, but that they chased for so long and their World title runs were so unspectacular, it did a lot of damage to the luster of their top babyface and consequently their territory in the long run.

Jerry Jarrett hasn't been involved in an official capacity with TNA for years. At one point Jeff and Jerry weren't even speaking over the messy fallout of Jerry being squeezed out of the company he helped set up (remember Jerry turning up at Titan Towers with Vladimir Kozlov). That said, Jeff does seem to have picked up on his Dad's concept of "make sure you end up holding the bag of money".

HHH really mustn't have liked Booker or something, because almost as soon as Booker got over the first burial, he did it again.

I think both sides found each other pains in the asses to work with, especially when Jim's notorious temper was getting increasingly out of control (cussing out Kevin Fertig for wrestling with a baseball cap on, slapping Santino Marella repeatedly after laughing at a Boogeyman segment, etc), which is why Jim would never want to work for them again and the feelings mutual. As Jim worked more with John Laurinaitis and Stephanie, there's probably more heat with them than Vince himself, but obviously Vince would have got fed up of all the headaches Cornette running OVW caused him.

I must admit I was amused at Cornette's claim that Hayes's public displays of drunkenness were due to working on the creative team with so many idiots. Come on now that's a bit of a stretch. I think Bob and rovert match my thoughts on his commentary. On the one hand, I'm sure he would love Jeff and Dixie to read it and have an epiphany, but on the other it's just his typical promo to get the smarks on his side and there's no real insight that hasn't been said by plenty of reporters and fans for years and years and years now. With regard to codegreen's post, his bridges are already well and truly burnt with Vince and he really doesn't care. That said, people badmouthing the company has never stopped Vince from bringing them back before if there's money to be made. Cornette's probably shrewd enough to realize that too.

I'm not sure I'd point to Bret's tag matches with Neidhart as an example of when Bret had a less formulaic approach to matches. I remember there were 3 Hart Foundation matches back to back on the DVDVR 80s WWF set, which made it clear that there was a fairly rigid order to his spots even then. That said, I think Bret did try to mix things up for his big matches and his style evolved over time more than sek is giving him credit for.

So I should take the word of a bunch of coked out con artists when there's plenty of footage that may dispute their opinions? Not that their opinions count for nothing, but there are plenty of reasons they may put over his ability compared with Kevin and Kerry that has nothing to do with putting on more entertaining matches for the fans.