Bix

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0BYSLdthvQ The face smash into the turnbuckle is especially egregious.

Michaels didn't work the Hogan match in a way to make fun of him? Wow. I've never seen anyone interpret it that way. Even the staunchest of Michaels defenders admit it, though they praise him for it. Shawn Michaels has done plenty of matches in the overbumping style. The Hogan match went past that and into parody.

I take it that rovert posted the same thing at F4W?

"Gay By Association" sounds like a Lifetime original movie.

In Flair's mind, a Straight guy dancing around naked (sometimes with a wrestling robe on but his special place exposed) and waving around his dick > a gay guy dancing in a gay way and making the wrestlers look gay by association

As I mentioned at Cageside, he referred to Kanyon's sexual orientation as eferred to Chris Kanyon's sexual orientation as "the choices he made in his lifestyle" during their phone confrontation on The Howard Stern Show. At WC, indy wrestler Matt Farmer posted that "From those that I heard from Ric was more than justified for confronting the guy. Guess everyone was upset over this guys over the top behavior and was embarrassed because they frequent this bar often." Please don't ask me how associating with a flamboyant gay guy in a club in south Florida could be embarrassing, much less outside the norm.

Found it. Fred Phillips was his birth name, not Phelps.

I swear that I'm not making a joke here, but wasn't his pre-baby smuggling first name "Fred"?

You took the words right out of my brain there.

Cageside Seats liveblog Dave's coverage at F4WOnline Weird show. Looked great on paper, wasn't so great in execution. The 3-way was surprisingly good with a crowd that cared a lot more than I expected them to, MITB was fun with some innovative spots like Kofi's stilts, Dave-Cena was very good with a great finish, and Michaels-Taker was great with an even greater finish, but the rest was pretty underwhelming. The tag title match and Rey-Punk didn't get any time. Jericho-Edge was mind-numbingly dull but the post-match spot was cool. HHH-Sheamus was nothing as a match and pointless without Sheamus going over or looking like something special. Bret-Vince was bizarre and sad. It was Bret slowly beating on Vince with some help from his niece and nephews for ten minutes with no offense from Vince as the crowd loses interest. It was clear that Lloyds of London decreed that Bret couldn't get hit or even put in any holds. I guess they felt like it had to go ten minutes, but with the restrictions, that killed the match. It should've been nothing more than a Bret flurry, the Hart Attack by the Dynasty, one or two low blows, and the Sharpshooter, in that order.

I never noticed that the leg was only hooked at the finish in WWF matches back then. Huh.

Had written these up at another board and dug them up to post at DVDVR, so...

From a DVDVR thread:

I've never heard that before. Are you sure that you're not thinking of TBS considering dropping JCP and negotiating with WCCW, Global Wrestling in Florida, and Ole Anderson around that time?

Yeah, down .5 with minimal gain for TNA is a lot, especially this week, though last week's show was definitely promoted better. I'm curious to see the segment by segment.

I've always found it odd that it took until JCP's 3rd PPV to get Turner Home Entertainment to distribute the PPV to help get clearances and keep away any kind of WWF opposition. It should've been clear from the moment Vince sabotaged Starrcade.

I'd say 1986 is definitely a positive. JCP started to expand in a big way and so far were doing well in the new markets, especially Philly. The booking was still strong, they weren't blowing money on expensive syndication time slots, they weren't going to questionable new markets and returning to them after they didn't draw, they drew more paid admissions that year than WWE did in 2009, etc. Then Magnum had his accident, Dusty lost his touch, and Crockett made a series of bad business decisions.

What was the context and reasoning for the Flair thing?

Maybe Savage doesn't remember.

Since this is the "Why is Savage persona non grata in WWE?" thread of record, this is in the latest WON: Whatever happened or whatever Vince thinks happened, it was personal. Of course, would Savage have called if the Stephanie rumors were true? Wouldn't he ask Lanny to do it? If we're going for the "nothing happened but Vince thinks it did" theory, when did Savage originally put up that video where he calls out HHH and talks about Stephanie?

Buddy Rogers crew (besides Rogers himself as booker and top heel) was Johnny Valentine, Arnold Skaaland, Billy Darnell, Johnny Barend, and Magnificent Maurice. He took the booking job for Al Haft in Ohio, popped the territory, and then left when they had a blow-up, taking the crew with him. He may have done this with other promoters, as well. That's all I've ever heard about Rogers and his crew. Maybe most of them worked heel and never got beaten by babyfaces in blowoffs? I've never heard anything like that, though, just that it was a case of most of the top stars leaving with the booker like with Ken Mantell's crew leaving World Class for the UWF in 1986, and that Rogers' crew always drew really well.

Didn't he win the "Strongest Wrestler" WON award at some point, too?