Bix

I *think* it turned out he did manage who they said he did, but only at the one arena in DC. The biggest problem was that everyone else inducted back then was a legit big star even if not a WON HOF/PWHOF level star who I knew from magazines or Coliseum Home Video rentals. When they announced "Manager extraordinaire James Dudley," it was obvious to me even as a kid that something was off. I'd have to check the Torch archives but I'm pretty sure even Wade Keller didn't know who he was and I can't blame him.

I'm starting to understand how working with Jim Herd scarred Cornette so badly.

I did not remember him being as tiny as he is.

To be clear, Vince doesn't think Christian is ugly. He just...doesn't like his face.

One that I'm banned from for quitting the site. Feel free to troll about that.

It's fairly rare with actual existing masked gimmicks. Stuff like Austin vs Caribbean Kid, Enforcers vs Screaming Eagles (Freebirds), etc is a lot more common.

Sometimes. Shine is from wrestlers. Control and hope spot are from fans.

Austin was asked about this when he was on Michael Schiavello's show. Asking Owen not to do the move that way had nothing to do with Chono because he didn't know about the injury until years after the Owen match due to Chono and NJPW not really making it apparent to him at all. Then he looked into the camera and sincerely apologized to Chono. A little weird, but Austin says it's just a freak coincidence.

Was alt.binaries.pro-wrestling around yet when it happened? If he just said "it was on Hotline and disappeared," I'd be more inclined to believe it was a real video. Hotline didnt gain popularity among wrestling fans until well after the DVDVR board launched, which I think was later that year. But the idea that it could show up on a site like Ogrish, Rotten, etc. in 2002 without it exploding on all sorts of wrestling sites, becoming a news story within the wrestling business, etc. is really far fetched.

To be clear, the guy in question (LordSmurf, best known as the guy behind NoMoreCoasters.com & DigitalFAQ.com) who said he saw footage of the fall did say he's seen all of the usual fakes and that wasn't it. This is the thread in question: http://www.tvpast.org/forum/unscripted/111...n-hart-wwf.html Like I said, he's not a crackpot and I wouldn't give this a second thought if it wasn't from someone I know. Best explanation if he's telling the truth would be it was some kind if fake obscured by the low quality of the video.

The first WrestleMania was on PPV on some small cable systems.

I'm curious (although probably not enough to watch the show) to see how they edit it. Obviously you cut the fall... do you keep any of the updates from Ross? Just an interesting question that we'll get to see the answer to. The fall didn't air anywhere. I actually know someone (who's not a crackpot) who says an honest to God legit fan-shot version on an early, low quality digital camera was on early P2P services like Hotline and shock sites like Ogrish, but I'm not sure I believe him just because the odds of it not getting attention on wrestling sites is nil.

And as far as the "1.5x prelim pay on every show they ran" part goes, it's possible Dave's financial reports he got faxed each morning from WWE with gate/paid/paper had payoffs & draws (advances) on them.

I don't understand why it's that hard to believe Gorilla was paid so well.

Yup, especially during Batista's segment.

I suppose it's possible. I don't recall forced upgrading being quite that severe in '03, though.

Actually started last week. "Officially" started with the one that went up yesterday.

A few weeks ago, Bryan Alvarez approached me about handling basically whatever he doesn't on the American wrestling & MMA side in Figure 4 Weekly. So now I'm everywhere and we hope to make F4W better than ever. Go read it! http://www.f4wonline.com/ for the none of you who aren't aware.

According to real estate listings, he paid $2.15 million for his home in 2010 (about a year before his current deal, maybe more, maybe less) and gets rent from the tattoo shop that's in the storefront on the ground floor. He's said many times he paid cash. He didnt have to give any second thoughts to cutting Joey Mercury a six figure check when he was gonna lose his house. Aside from the home, he lives very frugally. If he has high 7 figures in the bank, he could easily live off that for good.

He bought the building his loft is in (he also rents the first floor storefront out to a tattoo shop) with cash a good while before he signed his current deal in 2011. From the GQ interview between the promo and him re-signing in 2011: He was absolutely set to leave in 2011. For all of the mythologizing done with the promo and the match in Chicago, that's something that's not a work. Never in his wildest dreams did he expect them to make such a huge offer to him (honestly I don't know what that means besides the bus, since we know downsides never top $1 million anymore). Regardless of what you say about how he was booked, the champion is always paid incredibly well and he was the champion for a huge chunk of that period. I can easily see a scenario where he has zero need to ever work again.

You know it's bad when "I hope he fell off the wagon" is a completely reasonable response.

except cena and bryan are appealing to different audiences. 10 year olds might love their garish cena merchandise but (and i have nothing to support this, so i guess its just my theory) most adult wrestling fans dont want that or cartoon goats. no one can convince me that a ron simmons style tshirt with nothing but 'yes' on it wouldnt sell like crazy. speaking more generally (although it certainly applies to bryan), i wish wwe would lose their obsession with putting shit (usually the wrestlers name) on the back of their shirts. looks terrible. And when Bryan just had the maroon "YES!" shirt, it clearly sold really well to both kids and young adults. I feel like everyone keeps forgetting that. Plus it doesn't help that even if someone likes the design, the Goatface stuff was supposed to be about him being ugly and he never really adopted it for himself on promos.

To the bold, nothing. What i'm saying is, I don't feel like he's inherently improved. I feel like he's adjusted to his surroundings. I suppose it's maybe the same thing, I don't know. And I agree that the indies have not been great for a few years now. Obviously they've been poached by WWE, and to a lesser extent, TNA (well, really just Aries at the elite level). But do you really think that, at least as a singles wrestler, he hasn't improved in WWE? Or at least that he hasn't played to his strengths/the style hasn't played to his strengths in ways he wasn't able to in the indies?

I thought Cesaro was great in the indies, loved all of the weird lucha/Euro hybrid stuff he did. He was a guy who I followed basically from the beginning of his US career and was a big fan of. Having said that, he was nowhere near the elite worker he is now. And you know what? The WWE-ized version of the indy workrate style is far superior to indie workrate wrestling nowadays and has been for years. What's wrong with preferring Cesaro in WWE?