Bix

I was thinking the exact thing.

An open letter to the staff of PWInsider, a site that infects visitors' computers with spyware.

This is amazing. So you know how tons of people refer to PWInsider.com as PWSpyware.com for obvious reasons? Guess what domain (along w/ the .net equivilent) Scherer bought last year and redirects to PWI.

I don't know if it's on "similar standing" but TSM had one. The TSM thread, which was like six years ago, was just for certain people to discuss how hot they felt the then-under 18 Hilary Duff and Lindsay Lohan were. F4W's thread is called "JAILBAIT APPRECIATION THREAD~! Minitramps/Prostitots NSFW!" and while I suspect that there's probably no actual nudity inside, I'm not going to bother finding out. I remember a good while back Vinny being very angry about spending a lot of time one day deleting what he viewed as actual child porn in that thread. So there you go....

Editorializing on a blog post? Shocking. His follow-up comments were absoutely "ra ra UFC." As far as the conflict of interest, I totally agree. And you'll probably be paid soon.

Yes the MMA board is probably one of the better ones on the net but in fairness name me another Wrestling board on a similar standing that has a jailbait thread. Rovert for the win. I love you, man.

Ooh I somehow missed this: I'm pretty sure that I've never said that. In this thread, I said that I haven't trolled at F4W since I've been paid to write. I've also said that that if the WO.com columnists are paid, then it embarrasses me. Both are very different things from what you claimed I said, and are the extent of the "I get paid to write about wrestling/MMA" comments I've made about that site.

What?!?! I didn't say that at all. It's not a matter of Dave choosing to be mum (and I fully understand why he has to sometimes). He didn't. When Oliver posted about it, Dave replied with a confirmation. To Dave's credit, he didn't throw a fit over it being reported, but he also didn't say anything about it on the main site, on Yahoo, or in the newsletter, which is pretty odd when it already broke publicly. My anger at Oliver is over him claiming that Keith took his comments out of context when Keith did nothing of the sort. It was an out and out lie about the website that I run and one of its writers. Jesus H. Christ, it's not theft or leeching. Is it stealing when it's done on mainstream topics? You also realize that in this case, my criticism of Dave was by far the most mild one I made, right? When the opportunity came to ignore or confirm the story, he confirmed it, but he didn't publicize it further, which is suspicious when you're dealing with such a huge story (to the point that it set and holds our pageview record), and it's ridiculous to suggest otherwise. I don't recall any petty digs at F4W at Cageside. I save those for this site. As far as sources, maybe I'm just unlucky in being friendly with the few people in the wrestling business who DON'T talk to the WON. Since one of the more obvious WON sources (who was outed as such by another site) is a crazy drug addict who used the newsletter to try to bury one of said friends on multiple occasions (including a "He's dating my ex-girlfriend, who's perceived as slutty!") story, I'm pretty happy the way things are.

I wonder if Tenryu reads 2ch.

EdInSanAntonio? Hardcore Hogan? Bryan? Granny? Care to address any of the actual points I made or are you just going to keep the "Waaah stop saying things that reflect negatively on WO.com" train going. The board is embarrassment. I haven't trolled there since I started getting paid to write about wrestling. Dave, Bryan, et al make themselves look worse by making that cesspool full of feces-throwing imbeciles their home.

How UFC's attempts to control the media and unwritten message board rules distort MMA news coverage Yes, I went there.

What did Dave and Bryan say about Angle after WM 19 (and then a year later when the documentary about it came out)?

"Originally an emotional experience that is life changing, it has evolved to mean a serious argument, one that better result in a change of action or else." I was going with his son being born in the form of the original definition.

Generally among hardcores, I guess. Even now, is Angle being overrated conventional wisdom outside of DVDVR and "related" forums? Maybe limit it to the internet era since there are more hardcores to draw from and a much lower percentage read the WON than before. With Angle I remember Phil saying he didn't have much more than "Iron Sheik suplexes and Rock-level punches" during the earlier (2000) praise he got. When did Angle reach the "OMG BEST EVAR" point in the Observer & co. circles, anyway? [insert obligitory crack about Alvarez saying Angle is so much better than just about everyone ever that it means a couple years on WWE TV made him an HOFer] One thing that sticks out for me in terms of articulating opinions and how those arguing contrary to those opinions get viewed is a letter Dave got after the 2nd America's Most Wanted-Triple X cage match in TNA. Someone asked for more elaboration on the high (****3/4) rating and Dave's response was pretty much "If you don't think that was an amazing match I don't know what to tell you" in the most condescending way possible.

Food for thought: What conventional wisdom in the smark realm has been challenged by those associated with the WON (for lack of a better description...Dave, Bryan, "Karl," former overseas distributor Mo, etc.), or is this not a direction to look in since the WON opinions usually helped form the conventional wisdom? All I can think of is Dave heavily criticizing the RVD/Sabu-Eliminators stuff for being incoherent spot exhibitions. Wade was always a lot more willing to go against the grain, often with well-reasoned arguments, like when he gave the Bret-Owen cage match "only" 3* compared to Dave's 5*. At first I was gonna make some sort of "On the other hand..." comment about the Brock-Angle iron man match but I've decided to throw out the "crazy Wade" era (Jericho joins the WWF -> Wade becomes a dad and has his come to Jesus moment).

What John said. Frank and maybe others were making the same exact "holy shit can he EVER hit that spin kick?" comments that people are making now.

Also, for the millionth time, NOBODY FUCKING HATES COOL HIGHSPOTS. THE "MOOVEZ~!" CRITICISM WAS OF PEOPLE SAYING "X SUCKS BECAUSE HE LACKS HIGH END OFFENSE."

I hate Mike Johnson, but his reporting that Hardy was the only person making an issue out of the dress code conversation was a great moment in grapz n00zings. Don't forget "someone" telling Meltzer that Punk was dating Lita. It wasn't true, but since rumors had been circulating online based on a photo of "Punk & Lita" (shot from behind) entering an arena, I guess Dave felt it was already public so he should report on it. As far as I know, he normally keeps that stuff private unless it's reported elsewhere or has an impact on the business.

It's not weight or being broken down. Not to be that guy, but I'll say that now that it's broken, you'll be amazed as some of the shit that has gone down in the last week when it's revealed.

I *think* Dylan is referring to not only how disappointing Sayama was (not just psychology~! and whatnot; he was blowing spots left and right) but also how awesome Gran Hamada was doing a similar style.

He does realize that the worker rankings that Chris put together were based on how their matches ranked, right? Whatever, this is the same guy who compared writing Ring of Hell to killing Jesus Christ. I still don't understand that one unless he's saying Italian = Roman or thought that Randazzo was an Sephardic Jewish name.

So Beast is an Alvarez sock puppet?

There's a flash streaming button. MP3 streaming via M3U playlist for Winamp/iTunes/etc is http://www.archive.org/download/LoserLeave...lOfFame_vbr.m3u

http://www.loserleavestown.net/?p=230 Colt Cabana returns to discuss his ballot for the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame. A fun show as always w/ Cabana, as he discusses his reasoning for his picks as well as his other projects including his own podcast and his comedy. As usual, other fun topics come up as well.

World War II is still depressing.