Bix

I believe so.

The issue has never been guys going on one or two cycles a year, though, has it?

Bret wasn't getting royalties under the 1996 contract, though, was he? Warrior's offer was $750K/year plus a higher royalty percentage than everyone else in the company got.

Talked to the Maricopa County rep handling the Warrior inquires: This is just the preliminary, direct cause of death for the death certificate. The autopsy report with official cause of death is still a ways away pending a death investigation including toxicology, examination of medical records, etc.

Yes. I happened to watch an episode from the brief period Styles had to leave in '94, and Heyman is obviously feeding lines to Jay Sully. Lines like "Woman, the Left Eye Lopes of ECW..." coming out of his mouth is something to behold.

Jose's completely right. Ross is ok with certain guests, but what makes these wrestler podcasts work is the unbridled enthusiasm and unabashed geekiness, Austin and Jericho (when he has wrestling guests) have it, as does Colt Cabana. Ross...doesn't.

In the last segment of WrestleMania weekend, Bryan Danielson pretty much breaks. Amazing moment, maybe even more so than the promo that opened Raw.

Sure, but to the degree he was so much less puffy faced? He looks the same on video in the WWE 2K14 ad.

Someone posted this on the F4W board: He looked significantly healthier last Summer. This weekend he was very bloated looking.

- Authority Figures - World Title as the main focus of the show while every other title is treated as secondary - HOF ceremony before the 'biggest event of the year' - Bro Metal - Big screen and ramp combo - cribbing big WWE/WCW angles and running them. TNA doesn't feel like a different company. It doesn't look like a different company in a lot of cases. The company that tapes TV on a soundstage and in smaller arenas doesn't look different from WWE? TNA has a completely different storytelling and production style from WWE even if it isn't very consistent, quality-wise. Different in-ring style. The Mike Knox short films aren't completely out of place on Impact but would be on Raw. BillThompson might have the better summation, though.

I'll reserve some judgment until we see what they have planned for Paige (like the idea her demeanor here was a ruse to lure AJ in, which is what I expected when she started acting like a different person), but this was very much the right place to do this even if the angle was not especially well done.

TNA isn't consistently good or anything like that but I don't get the argument they're WWE light anymore. For better or for worse, it feels like its own thing.

If it's just an auto-renew on the card, they'll have little bleeding. If you have to once again "opt-in", then they might have some bleeding. We'll likely get a loaded up SummerSlam and Survivor, and probably will from here on out. I wouldn't say that they'll downgrade the Rumble, but it's so close to Mania that it adds just 2 months to a subscription. It's going to be in the area in the six months *after* Mania when subs will expire each year where they will make the effort to spike renewals and new subs. In a sense Off Season, while Mania would been the Season. It'll auto-renew like these services always do.

She was genuinely hated, that much is true. Mostly it is because her character was so grating and annoying and a poor, one dimensional performer. It was nice of WWE to give her some financial security, but the benevolence wore thin after the tenth time you heard her screaming hysterically. Where'd you find the time to ask all of those thousands of fans why they were booing her? It gets lost on people that "X-Pac Heat" came from crowds audibly groaning or going "Awww..." when his music hit. Nobody was telepathically interpreting boos. He had a noticeably different reaction from all of the other heels.

Just saying if it's a hurdle for them like you suggested it might be, it doesn't have to be. I'm sure Renee Young can hit time cues.

It's kind of funny: I don't watch WWE programing, but when I did flip over for some reason in the past week or so, I did happen to hit it during that segment. And I have to say... it was an *awful* segment in getting across the network. In fact, it probably risked turning off some fans because it wasn't easy for Cole to get stuff. What they really should so is akin to what you say: a taped segment walking through the Networks. It's freaking WWE Production, so they should be able to make a segment (or several of them) that make the Network look easy, fun, smooth, etc. The problem is that WWE Creative, and most of the folks running the company, have such a massive boner for LIVE~! So they think Cole & Co. would suck the fans in. That's dumb ass, and they need to get beyond it. Use Raw & SmackDown to market to product like you would, you know... marketing a product. John They can even do it live, whether it's backstage or she has an area by the stage. The point is that as much as WWE thought they needed to hold everyone's hands with videos like "here's how to connect to wi-fi," it wasn't nearly enough. They need to see someone (preferably Young, who's better for this than Cole/Lawler/JBL anyway) watching on a TV, pointing the remote, moving through the UI, etc.

Just how much of this attitude is WWE needed to educate fans better vs fan stupidity? How can you read that site regularly enough to want to send an email feedback and not know the many ways to watch WWE Network on your TV? They badly need to change the "announcers show off the app" network tutorial to Renee Young backstage at a TV pointing a remote and going through the UI. Even if it's more fan dumbness than anything, WWE needs to educate them.

Having seen that awful WO.com letter someone pasted in the WM thread about paying $70 to not have to watch WM on a laptop or tablet, just how much of this attitude is WWE needed to educate fans better vs fan stupidity? How can you read this site regularly enough to want to send an email feedback and not know the many ways to watch WWE Network on your TV? They badly need to change the "announcers show off the app" network tutorial to Renee Young backstage at a TV pointing a remote and going through the UI. Even if it's more fan dumbness than anything, WWE needs to educate them.

On WOR this morning, Dave said that advance buys from cable & satellite companies are way ahead of an average WWE PPV, albeit nowhere near WrestleMania levels.

Shimmer was a very good card overall. First two matches were iffy, but quick. Not a ton to say about it, but it was super enjoyable. Well, except for me, the feed stopped playing right before the main event finish and kicked be back to the "My Account" page with the "Watch Now" button for Shimmer gone. No reply yet from WWN Live support yet, either. What makes you say Ki vs. Barretta didn't have selling?

Want to know what Warrior was talking about with his letter? Read my article in the new issue of Fighting Spirit Magazine, available in a variety of app stores as well as PocketMags on most platforms! Seriously, what a night that was. Not sure if I can even verbalize any additional thoughts at this point. Go read my Twitter or something.

Oh, it's no contest. ROH had good undercards. This was completely terrible.

I didn't go to New Orleans, but there were a few indie shows that appealed to me this weekend. The most interesting to me is the "Indy Supershow" tonight at WrestleCon (Masato Tanaka vs. Kevin Steen, Jeff Jarrett vs. Colt Cabana, & more), but that's not on IPPV, presumably because of the ROH and TNA talent on the show. So that leaves me with Shimmer coming up in a few hours and the first Dragon Gate USA show last night. I had no interest in the DGUSA show until earlier this week. The Japanese Dragon Gate talent was cancelled because of visa issues, so Gabe had to try to put together a new card. The way it fell into place, the top three matches were the returning Low-Ki vs. Trent Barretta, Masato Tanaka (in town for WrestleCon/Indy Supershow) vs. Chris Hero, and DGUSA champ Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet. The undercard was, surprise Teddy Hart run-in aside, completely, irredeemably terrible. It was like any random low level indie wrestling undercard, just with very athletic guys who can fly around well. Nobody had any idea what they were doing. Ki-Trent was really good. None of Ki's bad habits were visible and Trent is a very good, polished worker. The type of guy that's probably better for having been in WWE but most indie fans wouldn't admit it. Trent got real heat by doing little heel spots like boot scrapes after teasing big moves, and he even pinned Ki clean. Tanaka-Hero was excellent, more or less the match you'd expect. Finish fell a little flat because the announcers and most of the fans didn't know Tanaka's "Sliding D" finisher. Show was well worth my $10 just for this match, as I had hoped. I had no idea if I'd like Gargano-Ricochet but I really did; it was about as good as this type of flippy indie match can get. It built great and both guys were about a zillion times more polished than everyone on the undercard. Loved that Ricochet kicking out of a belt shot after a ref bump got the biggest pop of the night. This made me somewhat more likely to want to get another DGUSA show but made it I will never, ever watch EVOLVE.

April folder! From DGUSA Open the Ultimate Gate last night in New Orleans: Low-Ki vs. Trent Barretta Masato Tanaka vs. Chris Hero Johnny Gargano vs. Ricochet Plus threads for the key Raw segments, especially the HHH video, Batista-Orton, and Cena attacking the Wyatt Family.