Bix

It doesn't count as using steroids if your father feeds them to you without your knowledge.

Not as much when you're 45, needing a hip replacement, and spending much, much more time at work leaving less for the gym than you've had in years. As far as the original topic, I emailed Dave Meltzer, and he says that Massaro was only sent home, not to rehab, which is still odd.

EVERYONE peaks their cycles for Wrestlemania. Look at how Undertaker suddenly developed his 6 pack last year.

Is it just me, or when Flair gets angry, does his pre-facelift face somehow come back over his lifted old man face? That was odd to see. Fun segment, anyway.

So a few weeks ago, Dave Meltzer mentioned in the WON that Ashley "was in bad shape at catering" and would be gone for awhile. The obvious implicaton was that she was "in no condition to perform"-level high on something and sent to rehab. Tonight on Raw, she was back. What does this mean? For all of the Wellness Program's faults, WWE has been pretty pro-active about sending addicts to rehab since Brian Pillman died. This seems to be done exclusively due to people showing up at work high, as nobody (not even Kurt Angle or anyone sent to rehab) has failed a test for painkillers since the new policy was implemented for whatever that's worth. It seems like the case may be that someone was sent to rehab, left early, and was allowed to come back to work. Should we give WWE the benefit of the doubt and guess that Meltzer got bad info or something isn't what it seems? I feel like I should assume the worst with them but given their history in this specific area of drug abuse over the last decade, I'm not really sure.

Generally speaking, it's been implied that he was involved with whoever we was involved with on-screen (with Dave, in "read between the lines" fashion, once noting how much Candice Michelle's push nosedived when she was no longer doing Vince on-screen and Kelly Kelly was suddenly called up, though she didn't end up linked to Vince on-screen), as well as that moves like the hiring of bikini models out of catalogues were specifically to find women for Vince to have sex with. The OVW wrestlers were told not to have sex with the bikini models and then Mikey Batts was fired after he went against that order. Loss has mentioned the plight of Stacy Keibler a few times:

The part I find most interesting is the indication that something changed. I don't get what the step is to change from "sham marriage where the wife allows the husband to have whatever affairs he chooses but there's still some sort of barely functional relationship there" to "sham marriage where the marriage is completely done except for a public front and the legal stuff on paper" other than that there must have been a catalyst, so it's too bad that Dave can't tell us what it was.

I had figured that to be more of an Undertaker reference.

I don't recall seeing items that linked them but that may just be me zoning out. What were the specifics? He has linked Vince w/ Candice Michelle pretty blatantly in the past.

Is it just me, or has Dave turned up the heat in the WON in the last couple months as far as "read between the lines" comments about the McMahons having a loveless sham marriage? He has talked about it various times over the last few years (especially their "arrangement' that allows Vince to bang the Divas), but it's gotten a lot more frequent recently. Between noting the panic over the story of Vince buying a condo himself getting out, his comments on the Valentine's Day story that WWE floated, and now his comment about their kiss at the Walk of Fame ceremony being "for public consumption." I get the impression that he's trying to say that the marriage is as finished as it can be while still keeping up appearances and that it's a recent development. What does everyone else think?

Well, it's incredibly insightful by the standards of both Missy Hyatt and WO.com, and thus pretty surprisng. I think she may have discussed some of this in the past online but not as much or without insanity breaking in. Plus, "The Midnight Express had a lot of great highspots but still managed to get heat" is a good talking point that I hadn't seen before.

Ron Rivera also shot his own copy of Misterio-Santo from the crowd. Not as good as Bob's, but well-done enough to use on a comp. in lieu off Bob's so he doesn't get mad at you.

Jerry Bryant was diagnosed with ALS during this period and passed away a few years later. He was coming off of his first push as half of Memphis Vice with Lou Winston. Bryant was pretty much the only Memphis job guy to get really good, and it gets sad watching him in '85-'86 where he's improving constantly knowing that it came to a brutal, screeching halt.

Not just, Barbarian vs Manny, Barbarian vs Manny with Manny doing a Mike Awesome style tope. I will try to hunt it down (and maybe Barbarian vs Morton from the same period).

I can do one from 1987 if it's cool with Loss. Awesome, my favorite wrestler, Manny Fernandez, had a better more newsworthy year in 87 and I always wondered what Meltzer's take on the "Greatest wrestler to lace boots" was.... Since you mention Manny, I have to mention this... A tape of a weekend of TBS & Memphis from '85 that I was converting had an awesome clip that we MUST find the full version of. At the beginning of the TBS Saturday morning show, they showed a clip of a Manny-Barbarian singles match from one of the syndicated shows (!!! already but I'm not done yet) as they often did. The clip freezes (again, as they often did) while Manny is airborne in the middle of a perfect Mike Awesome-style heavyweight tope over the top rope! It looked amazing and we need to track the match down.

I think he means specifically for Magnum.

I'm not asking. I'm offering you up as an example: if someone wanted to have Lawler walked through to help get him, you'd be able and willing to do it. Gotcha. So he was exposed to Kikuchi matches on the undercards of "big" matches as opposed to Kikuchi's own "big" matches (either in status or Meltzer pimping like the Can-Ams '92 MOTY or the tag w/ Malenko vs Fantastics)? I've always realized that. But... Dory Funk is awkward and mechanical as all shit, not to mention Akira Taue being even more awkward and mechnical. Reading the WON piece on his retirement, I got the impression that Dory was much better in context touring as champion with Terry trying to stop potential challengers, etc. With no TV from then, he's just a bland dude as opposed to a quiet conniving dude who relied on his crazy brother to help him out. That was an aspect of character: Crazy punch drunk guy, as opposed to Bob who was more a guy who happened to come off as dorky. It's his variety of it that people aren't crazy about. If he had a different image/look from "first non-ethnic white guy babyface WWWF champion" then his mannerisms probably wouldn't annoy people as much, but between his look, mannerisms, and sometimes odd execution, it's easy to see why some people aren't crazy about him and some even despise him.

Yeah, using the WON poll and/or Dave's personal rankings isn't the greatest idea when Jumbo routinely placed on the lower end (not at all once IIRC) and Tiger Jeet Singh got praise.

If the Briscoes went to WWE, they'd have to reprogram their style to the complete opposite of what got them over in ROH. I don't think that they'd fare too well.