Bix

It was already out there in the ECW bankruptcy filing.

Wait, so those matches actually took place? I thought it was just one of those things that IWCCW hyped forever on their TV but never actually happened. I'm as shocked as you are and desperately want a tape of oneof these. Meanwhile, this got posted elsewhere. It's a bounced check from Steve Corino to a belt maker:

In the latest episode of "Irv Muchnick Is An Idiotic Lunatic," Irv seems to think there's a deep meaning to the Wikipedia "hacker" (Irv seems to have no grasp of how Wikipedia works) living in Stamford and editing racial slurs out of Chavo Guerrero Jr's entry on the site, as well as the incident in general, in spite of the fact that anyone with half a brain realized it was a coincidence within a few days of the murders. Dave Meltzer put it best: If you're a big wrestling fan, and hear that Chris Benoit, model employee, missed a PPV for a "family emergency," the death of his wife, who used to work in the business, is a likely guess to make.

I think this Meltzer quote from WC should be reposted here...

BTW, does anyone think that the technical wrestler/free agent hype was designed in part to mess with ROH fans who thought it might be Danielson? I've seen a few people who first thought it would be Danielson, including non-idiots.

I thought Regal was going for a Marc Rocco type of vibe with the new gear.

Counter-Point: Nassau Colisseum True...

For what it's worth, the Bash crowd was pretty anti-Cena.

My gift to others who grew up on '80s WWF: The uncensored version of Ron Bass bloodying Brutus Beefcake, as aired in Canada:

It wasn't my podcast (the one I tried to do with the same guy never got posted because the audio levels were monumentally messed up before I ended up recording in stereo and found The Levelator), it was Chris Harrington's. But yeah, the ex WWE PA said it was to remind everyone they were expendable.

Jake Roberts. He went over the situation in '91 in the "week in the life of Dave Meltzer" type issue over Vince fucking with him and The National.

Monsoon & Stan Lane was a surprisingly awesome team for the Steiners-Harts match on the Wrestlefest '94 tape. Monsoon always shined in matches w/ good amateur style matwork.

That was Buddy Wolfe, IIRC.

I generally don't believe in "X-Pac heat" but the fact that he was the only "WWF" wrestler booed during the Invasion works against him.

Yeah, keep in mind that Goldberg started by doing a semi-shooter gimmick with rolling kneebars.

You do understand that lots of books quote interviews others have conducted and it's considered normal, right? I just read this book about standup comedy, a much more mainstream subject, and there are plenty of interviews by others cited. What does it matter? Haynes most likely would've told Randazzo the exact same thing. Should he have left out all of the Benoit & Guerrero (dead guys who he couldn't talk to) quotes from other sources because he didn't interview them himself? It's been awhile since I read that book, but I remember it having a pretty strong "Vince is EVOL" tone. Also, the errors were fixed for the paperback. The newsletter sources revolting is a change, and what's with the trend (starting with Meltzer and continued by you) acting is if this book had a chance to be a giant mainstream crossover hit that shook the entire world? Randazzo's mainstream interviews were minor ones, and it would've taken a big push from a major news outlet that happened to come across the book to get any further. Sold out its first 2 printings in 2 weeks.

Either you were reeeeeeally stretching to make your list look big, or you really believe any of this should be treated as something to look at for figuring whether someone should or should not be in the HOF. Taking liberties in wrestling is like PIM in hockey; it may look bad, but it won't keep you out of anything. Most of the ones you quoted were intentionally ridiculous. The list was a slightly reworded version of one I did as a half-joke a year ago.

It would be ridiculous for me to say that Matt being a friend of mine has nothing to do with me defending the book, but there are plenty of criticisms that I agree with such as: - He didn't make it clear that the reason he would blast Nash while also saying his general views about the business were smarter/more sane was because Nash would also wrestle drunk, thus injuring Big Show, or using his influence solely to fuck with those lower on the totem pole. This led seemingly the majority of readers to conclude he was a total hypocrite regardless of how they viewed the rest of the book. - With everything that Dave's written about Pillman, that chapter should've been fact-checked better. Still, the fact is that Meltzer's Benoit-Carrey/Nicholson comparison is still ridiculous and insulting, something I would have criticized regardless, like I did his initial coverage of the brain damage findings. Saying that since Hall also did the finisher joke in 2002 must mean that he never did it before is also rather ridiculous.

Skipping the Pillman stuff because as you said, there's nothing wrong with what Dave wrote there for the most part other than the fact that it was too long. The book takes the same stance, that a lot of stuff caused it, but most of the causes other than "Benoit was always crazy" involve the wrestling business. If Benoit wasn't a wrestler, he wouldn't have had his psyche worn down by the dungeon or NJPW dojo, he wouldn't have been abusing every class of drugs of abuse (even if he was predisposed to addiction, he still wouldn't have been on such a wide variety of shit), and he wouldn't have an damaged old man brain to the point that he may not have been legally (and one must stress that it would be legally, not morally) responsible for the murders. Hell, if you want to dig deeper past the mental issues, he wouldn't have had the testicular failure as a marital strain. WWE was more afraid of the brain damage reveal than the steroids because it specifically blamed the act of taking bumps in a pro wrestling match. And again, the rest are symptoms of being a wrestler. I look at at this way: If Benoit wasn't a wrestler, he still would've been mentally ill, but he wouldn't be as bad as he ended up.

It doesn't. Just that he's fucking goofy about his name. Don't claim to be wearing a white wedding dress here, Bix. It's not like you haven't pointed out the goofiness of folks for stuff that's pretty trivial. We all do it, and had it aimed at us. It's more that it's pretty much the least important thing about the book and you keep going back to it, not the act of joking about it. Wanted to get that out of the way, will now go reply to the previous post...

Gotcha Re: the reviews. I still don't see why the name thing or the reasons for it undermines anything Randazzo did.

Full version of the section of the ballot w/ the new rule, encourages those less familiar w/ foreign wrestlers not to vote for them: Anyone who receives mention on 60% of the ballots from their geographical region (broken down as United States & Canada; Mexico or Japan) will be added to the Hall of Fame this year. If you are unfamiliar with any of the candidates due to geography of never having seen them, that is fine. Ballots are sent to people all over the world and in different wrestling cultures so that everyone has as fair a shot as possible. For wrestlers whose primes were before 1975, they only have to get 60% of the votes among those who were old enough to have been in the same era with them.

Hrm? We're talking about the feature in the 7/14/08. BTW, the Matthew Randazzo IV vs V thing is pretty simple: He didn't know that that his great great grandfather had the name until more recently.

I don't mean this as an insult, but it's really a bad idea to use this euphemism when talking about professional wrestlers, especially since at least 3/4 of your list is made up of known steroid abusers.