Bix

He definitely discusses it in the 2/26 episode of WO Radio. He might have also mentioned it in the 2/24 episode.

I think he means the one match on YouTube from Australia vs Al Fredricks (#1 Paul Jones):

In what way? I'm in agreement with most everyone else in the who gives a fuck department on this one. The publisher that holds the WWE and UFC licenses (who is hemmoraging money and about to be delisted by the NASDAQ) is in such rough shape that they sold the UFC license and fired everyone in their San Diego studio. While UFC3 didn't do especially well and was down from the 2009 and 2010 games, it did make a profit. While this gets them some cash (I guess we'll find out how much at the end of June when they release their quarterly financial statements), this is a pretty bad sign for them. Cancellation or delay of WWE games would be bad for both WWE as a company and much worse for the undercard wrestlers who make the bulk of their income from the royalty checks. Meltzer pegged it as $35K per wrestler years ago and I'm under the impression the checks have gotten bigger. WWE '13 should still come out but next year is more of a question mark. UFC becoming a sports property under EA changes how the game is marketed. Dana White implord yesterday that EA is able to distribute into a lot more countries than THQ. Also, THQ has been pushing the franchise to fighting game (as in Street Fighter, Tekken, etc) fans and failing to get traction. Plus, regardless of all this: WWE going from Acclaim to THQ was big story, too, it was just more interesting to non gamers because THQ jumped from WCW.

Because it's a big story and I was, in fact, sworn to secrecy on it until it was announced? The only people hyping it up were the guys at the F4W board reacting to Dave's tease, I just confirmed it was a big story. WWE has changed their home video game publisher exactly once: Acclaim to THQ in the late '90s, which was, in fact, a big story.

And here it is: EA Sports bought the UFC video game license from THQ. Makes you wonder if THQ will try to unload WWE as well and if WWE '13 is in any danger, which would be really bad for WWE and the wrestlers, especially the undercard guys who make most of their money off the games.

Was that ever the narrative? She met him at an independent show she went to as a fan and they didn't go to the same school.

Oh, it's not Dream. Nothing to do with Bellator or drug testing or anything like that.

It's likely not something that will interest you on the surface but, well...you'll see. Won't be long.

It's a MMA story with potential wrestling implications.

Not Brock. Meanwhile, HA:

Man, I don't know if it would hit 35%, but it's there.

Very few people if any had 45-inch TV's back in 1985. A 27 inch tube tv was proably the norm for your average family. 36 inch tube tvs were considered "big". Having said that, I can't imagine watching the action on a 45-inch screen in a big arena if you wren't within the first 10 rows, tops. I imagine a lot of venues with the same setup had complaints and refund requests. Pretty sure it was just Dallas. They had other problems like the deceptive advertising and the feed going out in Pittsburgh (leading to a riot and the show being aired for free on a local indy station) but that was the only story about a small screen that was in the WON at the time.

That he couldnt talk about but was bracing for it mentally. WWE Network? Vince stepping down? MMA crap? If it's the same thing I heard about yesterday and was sworn to secrecy on, it's definitely not #1 or #2. #3 depends on your definition of "MMA crap." I can't really say more than that but it is big. (And if it's a separate story then this is going to be a big day)

Doesn't TJP live in Florida nowadays?

In each market that only had one CCTV venue, they were deliberately vague about the show being on CCTV. If the market had more than one venue to push on TV, they were much more up front about it.

Didn't he work as WWE's local promoter in Quebec after he and Jacques had a falling out? That must've paid him pretty well, too, especially since Montreal was their top house show market for a while.

Cable ratings, as we usually see them, are coverage area ratings, meaning they're a percentage among people who actually get that network. Broadcast network ratings are household ratings, meaning they're taken from every household with a TV. See above for how this affects cable. There are household ratings released for cable shows, but they're rarely used. Also, the structure of household ratings is part of why Smackdown did such lousy ratings on MNTV: Markets without the network are still counted.

HA-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! UUUUUUNNNNNBEEEEEEEEELLLLLLIIIEEEEVVVVAAABBBLLLLLE! ANNNNNYTHINNNGG CAN HAPPEN IN THE WORRRRLLLDDDD WRRRRESSTTLLLLINNNG FEDERATIONNNNNNNNNAAAAHGHGHGHGH!

KRONE~!

I have enough faith in Kane not wanting to be seen as a guy ruining the match that he'll have his working boots on. Whether or not it'll turn out well is a separate issue.

Wahoo was on the ballot for years and considered a Murdoch-esque gatekeeper beforehand. Looks like you're right about Curtis though, he went on as part of the addition of Australia/Asia Pacific/Atlantic Ocean Pacific.

To be fair, it's not just sympathy votes for death that got guys like Wahoo and Iaukea in. Dave writing bios that made great cases for them contributed just as much, if not more.

One thing I'll say, not so much to defend Sting's candidacy as much as clarify things, is that looking at WCW from a traditional on the books profit/loss standpoint doesn't really paint an accurate picture until the huge losses in 2000. Bischoff getting TBS to pay rights fees for the TV shows made the company profitable and would've put all of the previous years in the black if any of his predecessors did it, but he also signed a lot of wrestlers to contracts that weren't with WCW proper. There was a lot of creative accounting going on and it's better to look at how shows drew.

A ballot can have up to 10 wrestlers and unlimited non-wrestlers.

Was talking to Loss about Cena and Lesnar going on the ballot this year among other things so I figured I'd start a thread. Based on the information we have from last year (who got in, who dropped off, and who Dave announced as being added for 2012 with reasonable guesses as to categorization) without any knowledge of if Dave was convinced to add more candidates (like Jimmy Hart) since the HOF issue came out, the list of candidates should look something like this: HISTORICAL PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Gene & Ole Anderson The Masked Assassins (Jody Hamilton & Tom Renesto) Johnny Barend Red Bastien Pepper Gomez Dick Hutton Hans Schmidt Kinji Shibuya Wilbur Snyder John Tolos Enrique Torres Kurt & Karl Von Brauner w/Saul Weingeroff Tim "Mr. Wrestling" Woods MODERN PERFORMERS ERA CANDIDATES Batista John Cena Edge Owen Hart Curt Hennig Ivan Koloff Brock Lesnar Fabulous Moolah Pedro Morales Dick Murdoch Rock & Roll Express (Ricky Morton & Robert Gibson) Buddy Rose Sgt. Slaughter Jimmy Snuka Sting Mr. Wrestling II JAPAN CANDIDATES George Gordienko Gran Hamada Volk Han Masahiko Kimura Seiji Sakaguchi Kensuke Sasaki Mike & Ben Sharpe Kiyoshi Tamura Hiroshi Tanahashi MEXICO CANDIDATES Perro Aguayo Jr. Atlantis Cien Caras Karloff Lagarde Blue Panther L.A. Park Huracan Ramirez Vampiro Villano III Dr. Wagner Jr. Dr. Wagner Sr. EUROPE CANDIDATES Big Daddy Henri DeGlane Horst Hoffman Mick McManus Kendo Nagasaki Jackie Pallo Rollerball Mark Rocco Johnny Saint AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC/PUERTO RICO CANDIDATES Spyros Arion Carlos Colon Domenic DeNucci Mark Lewin Mario Milano NON-WRESTLERS Lou Albano Bill Apter Jim Crockett Jr. Gary Hart Jerry Jarrett Gorilla Monsoon Dr. Alfonso Morales Don Owen Jesse Ventura