Bix

They started doing that post-Benoit. They sent out a form letter to everyone who had ever worked for them that said regardless of the circumstances under which you left, you're eligible. There was a funny item in the WON about Cornette getting the letter and going crazy. It was Bruno, not Cornette. He considered holding a press conference. Yup.

Keith is right about things clicking late. It seemed like having his family around him all the time while having some control of his career as a freelancer and being away from Choshu lit a fire under his ass that made him the wrestler he needed to be, but it was too late for him to become a real superstar.

Pretty sure Cornette and Fabs show up on WMC in '91.

Embry was having great matches, got over, and got the Sportatorium drawing well again, climaxing in the first sellout in years for the aforementioned match w/ P.Y. Chu'Hi that led to him and Pringle tearing down the WCCW banner. He had a bad case of bookeritis and nobody had any reason to expect anything he did to work, but it did.

That still doesn't explain why, if the listed Silverdome capacity for football was a work, he trusts the media estimates for the Pope's mass. The media estimates were based in part on the listed capacity for football. Also, I know I'm not much of a sports buff, but not enough is made of attendance most of the time for there to be any reason to work it in regular/real/whatever sports, right? I don't necessarily think Dave was getting bogus numbers from Zane Bresloff as much as I'm just increasingly puzzled by all of this.

Who secretly promoted the first UFC while working for the WWF.

IIRC, he wasn't openly with Stephanie yet at the time of WM2000.

This is also where I am. Even the most conservative Pope estimates don't seem possible if the lower WM3 number is legit. Plus, the media estimates for the mass were based on the same Silverdome football capacity (which Dave says is a work) that made the announced WM3 attendance plausible. From the photos, the mass is basically WM3 with the aisles between sections of floor seats filled up, and that's not enough room for another 7,000 or more people. I do believe that the Pope's attendance was higher, but not to that degree. Also, if the Silverdome came up with a new number for the mass to acknowledge WM3 while also declaring what the rightful record holder was, it's interesting that they chose to go just a few hundred people higher.

Something else I've been thinking about with the Silverdome talk: Ok, let's say the legit attendance was ~78,000 and the football capacity of ~80,000 is a work. What's the real football capacity? The Silverdome was, for it's time, the biggest domed stadium or among the biggest domed stadiums, hence the idea that nobody could ever beat ~93,000 (until Cowboys Stadium was built). If it held ~78,000 for a sold-out wrestling card, then at least using WWE's numbers, the football capacity was ~65,000, which wasn't as out of the ordinary. How well does this scale to other stadiums if they are or aren't worked? Were the figures of 75,000+ for The Who and especially 77,000+ for Led Zeppelin also works or did cramped standing room make up for the large amount of seats that got blocked off?

Did anyone bring up the possibility of skimming in the thread? What questions was he specifically asked (especially by people who already knew the story he was telling?) As indicated by the stuff I posted yesterday, the contemporary articles available on Google News Archives all say 90,000 or 95,000 (and one article beforehand specifically said that they could seat 93,000) including major papers and the AP. I guess Dave may have seen smaller estimates, but that's what I've found. I guess it's possible that a story a few days later that's not archived gave a turnstile count or a new estimate, but for an event like this that isn't a for-profit sports or entertainment event, I don't know how realistic that is and why an official number couldn't have been given sooner if they were keeping count. Looking up SilverDome.com on The Wayback Machine, there's no reference to either event on the crawled versions of the site until then 6/2/03 capture, which lists the higher Pope number along with the Wrestlemania number. The last one up before that was 4/10/03. So if the Silverdome put up a smaller official Pope number as the record, it happened at some point during that period of almost 3 months. I know what the documents Dave has say, but if the Pope numbers were significantly larger AND legit, then people at Titan and the Silverdome was doing SOMETHING sketchy. Going by photos and video of WM3 and photos of the Pope's mass, there is no way they could've fit another 7,000 to 10,000 (at the very least) people in the building. The Silverdome site had a couple more photos, which I grabbed and put on Photobucket. WM3: Pope: It's a little more clear that yes, the floor seating at the mass was closer together. But does filling up the WM3 aisles really give enough room for seats for another 7,000-10,000 people on the low end and 15,000 to 17,000 on the high end? More people, maybe. But not that much more. Doing more digging to see what numbers were used after the initial coverage of the visit and before 93,682 was used: - An AP story from 1/4/02 said the both WM3 and the Pope "drew more than 93000 people." - In a 1/28/99 St. Louis Post-Dispatch story, it was written that "News reports gave estimates of 90000 to 100000 for the pope's Mass at the Silverdome at the end of a 10 day visit to the United States in September 1987." - 2/3/91 Buffalo News: "In regal vestments he stood surrounded by thousands of flowers and 90000 Catholic faithful." Meanwhile, a 5/26/91 LA Times article about the bidding for the 1994 World Cup had the Silverdome's soccer capacity at 76,000. A football field is an acceptable size for soccer, so that's interesting, at least. I haven't found any kind of pre-2003 official figure. I would guess that whatever Dave is using is the original Silverdome.com number. After 93,682 started being used, it became common. I'm sure Dave's telling the truth about the documents he has and what he's been told. I don't think he's lying about anything. That said, I also don't think the smaller figure fits, especially if any of the numbers for the mass are legitimate. I'd at least like to know what the original Silverdome.com number was...

Here's a comment that doesn't warrant a thread if there ever was one: At MSG on Saturday (great show BTW, but I don't have a ton to say about it right now), I noticed something. I don't know if it's something they were instructed to do or that they all came up with themselves, but all of the women walk to the ring the same way. They stay dead center so nobody can touch them (even in the narrow MSG aisleway) and only move towards the fans to slap hands with children. Then they're back in the middle of the aisle or the lanes inside the rails around the ring as soon as possible, only moving to the side for the occasional child. The male wrestlers all walked out differently. It was pretty clear that the women were all trying to desperately avoid the possibility of being groped, which is pretty sad, though I don't blame them, especially after seeing that one clip (which I can't find right now) where an ROH fans tries to grab Lacey's breast.

He does. On two comps. I'll just find one of my copies and send it to you.

Heard back from Dave, he was rounding from memory, "Although different sources have listed paid from 74,000 to 76,000." Not sure what to make of that last part.

Archive/download is up now.

Had some live listeners but no calls, I'm guessing owing to the time of day at least partially. Anyway, the archive/download is up now. Went well for the most part, though unfortunately I accidentally became the one to tell him Oliver Humperdink died when talking about him being a shoot manager like Paul Ellering (and Gary Hart). He told me not to feel bad about having told him with no buildup (especially since he was in a hospice I would think) and that "that's the business."

I was under the impression Dave was giving me the numbers straight from his records, with flat-out "78,000" being the "rounded" version and the gate down to the thousand. I could ask, though. Even if you through out the round numbers issue, though, I don't think that the internal numbers fit. EDIT: Found a old TSM post that said the 88,000 figure for the Pope was in a WWE book (maybe the WM coffee table book).

Years ago I went over a few things about the WM3 attendance in some emails with Dave after a DVDVR thread brought up how the Silverdome football attendance being worked to such a large degree had to be unlikely due to how things were being blacked out on TV locally. Dave said: I didn't really think about the roundness of the official WWE numbers at the time, but recently I looked at them and realized something had to be off. What're the odds that both the paid and paper come down to even hundreds? The gate at an even thousand is a little more likely depending on ticket prices, but still seems off. FWIW, the official football capacity was 80,311. He also mentioned that the original Pope "estimate" was 88,000. Per Wikipedia via some footnoted sources (a Michigan newspaper in 2005 and a Detroit sports book), the number claimed now is 93,682. If it really was changed, then I guess it gives the Pope having more people in attendance some credibility at least, but still... Ok, wait a second. Dave also said to me and in various message board posts that Basil Devito came up with the number to beat the Pope and also to have a number that could never be beaten. The Pope's visit was almost six months later. So that part of the story is impossible since the 93,173 record was claimed AT Wrestlemania. Since the photos from the DVDVR thread are gone, let's see what we can dig up. One of the famous WM3 shots. Obviously, the building is as packed as it can possibly be. Similar shot of the Pope's visit from a different side of the stadium (Works only as a link, not embedded): http://pictopia.com/perl/get_image?provide...photo_id=538901 There are not 10,000 to 15,000+ more people there. Move things around a bit and it's basically WM3. Looking at this closer photo from before the building filled up for the Pope's visit, the seating arrangements look as if they could have even allowed for LESS people on the field than WM3. Either way, it's close. There's no way there was a major difference between the two events. And if WM3 drew 78,300, then the Silverdome would hold...what, 65,000 for football? The Silverdome was not an average sized football stadium, which is what that figure would make it. Contemporary pope ttendance talk from Google News Archives that I could dig up: - The AP said "more than 90,000 were expected." - The Richmond Times-Dispatch and Miami Herald said an "estimated 95,000 people" were there. - The Milwaukee Journal said that crowds for all the stops on the Pope's visit that week "fell far below estimates made beforehand" (presumably for other visits since the Silverdome looked full) but didn't give a number for the Silverdome. - The Sacramento Bee said "90,000 packed the Silverdome." - In a guide to going to one of the Pope's three Detroit area stops that the Pope was making on his tour, the Toledo Blade said that the the Silverdome "seats 93,000 comfortably." - The Dallas Morning News said "more than 90,000." - The Chicago Tribune said "about 90,000." - Another AP story said there was "a congregation of 95,000." The only references to 88,000 that I can find are from a oft-used wire report about the sale of the building a few years ago that said it was the number of seats in the building. There's nothing about 93,682 until 2005. Meanwhile, someone did a post at Bleacher Report a couple years back that brings up some interesting points. At any rate: If the Pope numbers are close to legit, WWE's claimed WM3 number is close to legit. If the official internal records are lower, then there has to be a reason why they'd be made up. Some kind of skimming to pay less taxes?

Starrcade did 2 arenas a few months before, but they also alternated matches, so the fans still had live matches constantly throughout the show. WM2 just had a single chunk of the show from each venue, which I doubt worked as well live. Also, as a relic of the previous year, in LA, the live event (and CCTV feed) started with the live matches followed by a playback of the previously recorded NY and Chicago footage.

They had to rent tons of arenas and screens, pay for a live satellite link they'd be using for hours and hours, set up the tape delays (it started at 1 PM in every time zone, I guess to streamline advertising), etc. They may not have overseen it all directly, though, as there was some awful stuff like one large arena being stuck with a single 44 inch screen.

http://www.cagesideseats.com/2011/3/20/206...-warrior-animal Please post questions for Animal here/at Cageside or call in with them if you have any.

This was either the first appearance or one of the first appearances of Owen's "rocket" themed, Bret-inspired gear (blue singlet and long tights plus weird Sgt. Pepper jacket) and I always figured he was going to get a push based on that until he blew out his knee and came back with the gear his brothers used in the Survivor Series match. And then he got a big push anyway, but as a heel.

Honestly at this point I'm starting to believe the 93,173 claim more and more, because the "real" numbers that Dave has are all a bit too round. Would it really shock anyone if the internal records showed the smaller figure to screw someone over on money/taxes? Also, Wade Keller was using 78,000 before Dave, if my memory of how Dave found out is correct.

Are there any fansubs around or just straight Japanese?

Confirmed more than ever by a WWE publicist freaking out at a TVWeek.com writer.

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkC...2837&cmd=tc Ep. #51. Dude is a riot.