Bix

While we're talking about Undertaker: Is there a decent argument that while he's incredibly talented and has great matches, he's not necessarily as great a worker as his rep would indicate because he's currently wrestling a style that makes no sense given his current gimmick (magical undead Undertaker again)? I think he's awesome in the ring, but there's a terrible disconnect that seems to miss the big picture: He's clearly doing MMA stuff because he thinks it's cool (which takes me out of suspending disbelief by reminding me what Mark Callaway wants his rep to be) while being pushed as "the best pure striker" ever even though he's not working a strike-based style most of the time and his strikes aren't sold as deadly. Big Show, who he's currently feuding with, is properly presented as a dangerous striker with a knockout punch. Why is Undertaker submitting everyone and knocking nobody out when he's such a great striker?

I had heard a rumor about Orton overdosing (not necessarily intentionally) when it allegedly happened but when nothing came of it, I figured it was false. Then, over a year later, Irv posted about it and Dave kinda sorta confirmed it.

James came back in 9/96, right as Jarrett went to WCW.

On another related note, anyone remember Wade Keller (or possibly one of the Torch correspondents) implying that Michaels stripped nude at the end of the "Good Friends, Better Enemies" PPV? I distinctly remember someone in the Torch saying he was naked and wearing only the belt as stood over Diesel and cursed him out. I found it weird that I never heard anything else about it and that it blatantly wasn't true when I saw the tape (though Michaels did pantomime cursing Diesel out after the finish). It wasn't Mitchell making some sort of weird joke or written in a context where it would be some sort of metaphor either.

Holy shit. I hope he got a good payoff, but holy shit. I always figured he'd never lose it or lose it when he retired. As someone at DVDVR put it, "This is the first wrestling result in a long time that I'm actually pissed about." (Unless it was Panther's idea, but it still should've been a bigger deal)

I doubt that the wrestling school would make enough money that he cut Vince in. It's not the best description, but with Warrior being given free ad time on the biggest shows on cable to promote his wrestling school and attempt at starting a religion, I can see why he used it. The debut issue of the comic was polybagged with an issue of WWF Magazine, so it was mutually beneficial to promote it at the beginning (sell more issues of the magazine than normal while trying to hook people on the comic). Does anyone know if the claim they made about the comic's debut being the highest selling single issue of a comic in history was an outright lie or if it was partially true with the magazine sales thrown in?

See, what I don't get from all of this is, how could a blind man know the difference between change for a $20 and change for any other bill anyway? I don't know if the texture of the bills is any different, but wouldn't a one, five, and ten all feel the same? He couldn't tell the difference from feeling the bills. The idea was that the customers are usually honest but he could tell from thuggish guy's demeanor what was happening. No, I don't know why he didn't go the "exact change only" route.

Yes, they aired on TV. The Destrucity segment that sticks out the most was so amazingly stupid that it was really awesome: In front of a plain white background (not a proper set), an older blind, black man is running his news stand. A younger, thuggish looking white guy pays for a newspaper with a single and says that he paid with a twenty. The blind guy immediately gives him change for a twenty as the thug sounds surprised and starts to backpedal, saying he was wrong. The magical (blind) black man proclaims that "anyone who would steal from a blind man must need the money more than I do!" Cue the Destrucity title card. From some site's article on Warrior:

I will say that I agree with Keith's reply about the "Ultimate Warrior got free reign" issue: Vince aired the really bizarre "Destrucity" segments that had nothing to do with anything other than promoting Warrior as a religious leader, as well as ads for Ultimate University. That was quite the coup for Warrior.

Just Benoit went from the NWA (Coraluzzo) to ECW. He had been doing shots for US indies, but mainly for Dennis Coraluzzo's NWA New Jersey. He ended up in the ECW-hosted NWA World Heavyweight Title tournament via Coraluzzo (who wanted Benoit to win, but Jim Crockett not knowing who he was along with ECW being the most high profile member at the time led to Shane Douglas getting the belt) but ended up staying in ECW.

Please don't. I think that was the one that I fact-checked for him. In fact whichever one I did fact check should be relatively error free aside from that big one. I have apologized for the NWA title issue in the past and really don't remember how it happened. My best guess is that I skipped that part because I figured that he would've lifted that sort of stuff from a reliable title history site.

I believe so.

I'm guessing that nobody read it because it was less ambitious than the other books.

That type of person also hates puppies and kittens and freedom.

The general belief is that it will be less of a chore to watch than the Mid-South set because it lacks the glut of long matches in the middle.

I think that the biggest part of the problem is that the guys who seem to have the influence to get Dave to put someone in by fiat (Steve Yohe, Tim Hornbaker, Steve Sims, and Kurt Brown) aren't well-versed in European wrestling. It also seems like it may take writing a detailed bio in advance to get Dave to consider someone.

BTW, I think Mike should review the book in epic fashion.

All of them, including the ones that are blatantly false?

I'm not. I like them a lot. I'm saying that I don't see how they influenced ECW.

Yup, same person. She was Pillman's girlfriend at the time.

Please don't. I skipped over reading some of the dead guy bios and there were blatant timeline errors that I ignored because any more would have driven me to the edge.

I got an advance copy and it's not pretty. A friend of mine described Keith as "ambitiously stupid" after reading it, which is a term I will steal forever and ever. It ranges from inaccurate to stupid to offensive, getting worse and worse. It's a barely coherent collection of essays about Benoit and the Harts and dudes who died and whatnot. Some of the "highlights": - He says "I digress" more than anyone I have ever read a book by. Sometimes without digressing. - Dates are messed up all over the place, starting most blatantly with Benoit's 1995 WWF tryout being moved before his first WCW stint in 1993. - Then he claims that the AAA PPV got Benoit his ECW gig. Yes, the AAA PPV the night after he broke Sabu's neck in his most famous ECW match. - "I should also note that at one point they fought into the women's bathroom, resulting in every brawl that WCW put on after that having to do the same spot." What?!? - Re: the WMXX main event: "It was a fantastic match, the best three-way match ever in my opinion, and ended the night with Benoit celebrating with fellow World champion Eddie Guerrero to a sea of confetti in a scene that will sadly never be seen on WWE programming again." Yes, that's the important part. - Does anyone have a Keith to English dictionary? "A few years before that, Benoit was arrested for a DUI, another fact that came out after his death in the media's attempt to somehow justify his actions by making him seem like a monster all along." - Nancy Grace bashing! "The early talk show coverage was a circus, with the WWE declining to send anyone to shows that they perceived as not in the interest of the company (i.e., everyone but Larry King) and 'reporters' like Nancy Grace and Geraldo Rivera bringing bitter ex-wrestlers with an axe to grind on their shows for maximum shock value" - Exactly why is there doubt here? "And like Zahorian, Astin prescribed huge amounts of painkillers and steroids to his clients, including a ten month supply of what was believed to be testosterone cypionate every three to four weeks to Chris Benoit." - Contradictions! "Toxicology reports didn't really tell us anything about the killings that we didn't already know -- Benoit indeed had elevated levels of testosterone in his system, well past the limits established by the NFL and the WWE themselves, and Daniel was given Xanax to keep him calm (or even asleep) before he was killed." - "He was having a bad year, personally, but none of his friends and co-workers, even those that knew him at home, would ever say that he was the type of person to commit an act of violence that terrible" Except for the friends who told Meltzer that they weren't surprised that he killed Nancy. - This. "Personally, I think that although erasing Benoit from the WWE 24/7 library in the short-term is a good move to distance the company from the murderer, in the long run it's going to be healthier for fans to remember the entertainer rather than the horrible person he became. The WWE's own company line following the tragedy was that they're in the entertainment business, and no matter the end that he met, Benoit was still one of the most entertaining wrestlers in the business. Wrestler Mark Kinghorn, who I talk with regularly, said it best when he told me 'I'd maybe ask fans to remember Chris Benoit as the entertainer he was because that is the Chris Benoit we all knew and loved. Maybe I'd also tell them to be careful who they pick as a hero cause ya never know.' I think that's the biggest lesson to take out of this, if there's anything positive to come out of it." - And this. BULLY FOR YOU! "If you have moral high ground enough to judge the entire body of work of a man because of his deeds in real life, then bully for you. It must be nice to be so righteous. I think it's sad, and it's a tragedy, and Benoit proved to be a horrible human being who got exactly what he deserved, but in the end unless you were related to Nancy and Daniel it's hard to justify acting like you knew them any better than Benoit's longtime fans knew him. In the end, there'll be a TV movie or an episode of Law & Order, and we'll all go on with our lives doing the best we can to cope or mourn or forget about it or whatever. I'm glad I didn't know Benoit the person, because it would have made it a lot tougher to like Benoit the performer, and if nothing else positive can come out of this whole sick situation it's that I can at least still get enjoyment from his matches and hope that one small bit of happiness can overcome the crushing horror that those two days have brought. I'll take what I can get, I guess." For what it's worth, I have no problem with someone wanting to still watch Benoit matches unless they make some weird issue about it, and he makes it like everyone who won't watch Benoit matches are doing it for moral reasons, as opposed to, y'know, simply getting creeped out since he used his finisher to kill his kid. - No, he hasn't: "["Superstar" Billy] Graham has since said that he has no regrets about his lifestyle choices" - One little city is an odd way to refer to that territory: "Further, Stampede started picking up stars from around the world, integrating styles from Japan and Mexico into the standard North American one, becoming a melting pot of wrestling goodness in one little city." Also, he may think that "melting pot" is a culinary term. - The loudmouth scary heel calmly expressing sorrow as he turns face is a rant? "Gouldie, after the match, gave what is without a doubt my favorite interview in the history of wrestling, expressing all his hurt and sorrow and rage in one five minute rant and essentially threatening to kill Bad News Allen in several different ways for robbing his only son of the chance to carry on the family name." - Just shut up. "While Vince was more than happy to push his new acquisitions in the form of the Hart Foundation and the British Bulldogs, he quickly reneged on the money owed to Stu and gave him his company back. It wouldn't be the first time he'd screw over a member of the Hart family, of course" - How? Really, how? "It should be noted, however, that the psychedelic green-screen promos with Jason and his manager Zodiac (played by Randy Orton's estranged uncle Barry Orton) were an odd harbinger of the more eclectic interview style pioneered by ECW years later." - Nice to see his priorities: "The match was well-worked on both ends, but the finish was typical Dynamite craziness, as he stood on the top rope and allowed Davey to ram Greg Valentine's head into his own, taking a flat back bump to the floor in the process. Luckily the match was a ***1/2 affair." - Surely, the bumps couldn't have done it! "The problem, it seemed, was that years of steroid abuse had deteriorated the [Dynamite] Kid’s back to the point where he shouldn’t even have been able to walk." - LOL wut. "Dynamite was returned to the hospital, where the doctors informed him that he would never wrestle again. But Dynamite Kid was nothing if not stubborn, and only two months later he was back, which was still months earlier than doctors recommended returning." - "Now, how good the match actually was is a matter of some debate. I thought it was a fabulous match, one of my favorites of all time in fact, and I gave it the very rare ***** rating." - "Even worse for [Davey Boy Smith], he got fingered for trafficking HGH to Ultimate Warrior, and was fired as a public gesture towards cleaning up the WWF's drug problems. However, since he was still a name value in the wrestling world, WCW was all too happy to sign him as soon as the ink on his release was dry and push him to the top, drugs or no. In all fairness here, he was sold down the river by Vince McMahon without any real cause and wasn't partaking in anything that everyone else in the promotion didn't do themselves, so it's not like WCW was taking in a crack addict or anything." 1. LOL 2. He quotes Bret Hart's book extensively, which at one point reveals that at the time, Smith was a crack addict. - Umm since when was Davey faking that the trap door handle crushed his spine: "After a few non-descript months in WCW, he took a bad bump on a trapdoor built into the ring, and suddenly blamed years of injuries and drug use on WCW, as his already-crippled spine put him in the hospital with an infection that nearly killed him. WCW, with no real options left, fired him while he was still in the hospital, but somehow he managed to get yet another shot with the WWF after Owen Hart died in 1999." - Random and I'm not even sure if it's true: "Diana again relates stories about Smith being so stoned that he was only able to sit at the table and drool, while she was forced to squirt him with a water pistol to bring him back to attention enough to feed himself again. Her solution was an overdose of Xanax (one of the meds found in Johnny Grunge's system after his death), which finally shocked Davey into checking into rehab." - He uses the term "white trash." As opposed to what other kinds of trash exactly? - Actress? "In one of those odd bits of serendipity that wrestling produces, an early storyline saw them hiring an actress named Teresa Hayes to play [Pillman's] "sister" for a one-shot angle where the heels attacked her before she disappeared again" - Keith talks about himself way too much. - "In the end, the person helped most by the [Pillman Memorial] shows was William Regal, who managed to get his career back on track after a history of drug use and won a job with the WWF again thanks to an epic match with Chris Benoit. I guess that’s something." Won a job he already had? - BWAHAHAHAHA "Not only was Owen dead, but the petty squabbling over the WWF's money tore apart the closest thing that Canada had to a royal family" - The wife he divorced years earlier and was still friends with as he remarried? "[Chris Adams is] probably best known for training Steve Austin in 1989 and then losing his wife to him in one of those bizarre angles gone wrong that only seem to happen in wrestling or Hollywood." - TMI: "I won't even get into the whole 'marijuana is or isn't a gateway drug' argument, although I've seen it act as such to a member of my immediate family and thus I'm rather more biased on the subject than some." - LOL HAM A FAT PERSON DIED: "Yokozuna. This one's pretty obviously not connected to anything he was taking, aside from ham sandwiches (if I might steal the old Mama Cass joke)." - YOU ARE A MORON. "Animal, showing what a class act he is, returned to the WWE in 2005 and formed "The New Legion of Doom" (the third such kick at that particular can, following 1992's Crush & Animal and 1998's Droz & Animal) with the god-awful John Heidenreich, and they actually won the Smackdown version of the tag titles to really spit on Hawk's grave." - Scott Keith on Miss Elizabeth, who was portrayed as an abused spouse afraid to leave her abusive husband for the biggest run of her career: "a groundbreaking symbol of female empowerment" There's more, but you get the idea.

I thought Flair was asking $50,000... No way they recoup it unless they sell retail distribution rights to Big Vision.