Bix

Big Show's enlarged heart says hi.

I've always wondered if Scott just made his most infamously inaccurate claims up or saw them on RSPW and said he saw them in the Observer to save face,

I totally get how the bar graph is working. The line graph not meshing with it is what's throwing me.

Anyone who knows more about reading company financial documents who can chime in here? I can see where both of them are coming from: http://www.snl.com/interactive/LookAndFeel...performance.pdf I was always under the impression that the line graph was show by show, with each point on the graph representing a show and the lines connecting them showing the rise and fall in buys from show to show. There's nothing in the document that explains the line graph vs bar graph discrepancy as Dave has outlined it, and honestly it doesn't make sense. I trust that both guys know how to read these, and I don't think Johnson has made a similar mistake in the past, so this is all confusing me. The line graph appears to be where Johnson got the bigger number, as it shows MITB 2011 doing slightly less than NOC 2009, in the range NOC 2009 is the show that MITB 2011 was initially reported (by Dave) as tying in domestic buys at 166k, making it the biggest B show since then. With the UK out of the picture for MITB 2011, it makes sense that it would get close but not beat NOC 2009 worldwide. What it looks like Dave is working off is the "average current period buys" bar graph, which has the 185k (132k domestic, not 134k like Dave js saying) figure. What I can't figure out is why there's a discrepancy and why the extra WM buys would be accounted for on the line graph.

Not sure which thread to put it in, so since I'm looking at this one: Did we know about Beth's rape allegations in the divorce filing before? I remember the domestic violence accusations and Ric busting open his gig marks when the police came but not that.

No, because pro wrestling has been worked in some form forever. The better question is "When exactly did wrestling being worked go from being a way to fleece gamblers to being a way to make matches more entertaining and create programs that would better draw money than shoots?

That there's a lot of documented proof of how screwed up Flair is that nobody has bothered to look through before, I guess. Did a run-down of the new information at BR. And as long as the list is, it doesn't even scratch the surface of everything covered in the article.

I don't think it had been. Why were so many people making the ROH suit out to be dead with the Sinclair purchase when it turns out they won?

Tim, I really don't think you're getting the nuances of what is going on here. This is not a phase. Matt and Jeff Hardy not just a couple guys who do drugs occasionally and just don't happen to be addicts. Both are severe, non-functioning, and unrepentant drug addicts. Both have lost multiple jobs to their addictions. Jeff has gone to the ring high many times. His addiction is most likely responsible for Ken Anderson's concussion. His addiction is so bad that he needed to get high during the Victory Road PPV (after showing up straight), leading to the debacle with Sting. His addiction is so bad that he had no problem putting a video of himself online where he is completely wasted and bragging about how huge and awesome his drug taking is. Matt appeared to go to the ring high for his TNA debut. He had no problem putting up that video of Jeff. He's obsessed with slut shaming his ex-girlfriend (who he split from 6 years ago) while claiming that they have friends again for a few years. He's driven while high and could've easily killed someone in the process. He went on a bender from Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon that included somehow dropping his cellphone into a hot tub, mistakenly making a booty call message a public tweet, screwing up his own home phone number in the message, not thinking his girlfriend knew his (and her?) home phone number, tearing how house apart, shooting a video of the mess while he claimed to have saved a bus full of school children by wrecking his car, posting the video on YouTube at 4:00 AM, and then falling down the stairs of his house while possibly tearing his house apart even more. Both brothers were suspended by TNA of all companies for their drug problems. TNA! And all this here ignores all of the stuff that hasn't gone public for one reason or another. They are drug addicts. Just getting out of the spotlight is not going to magically get them clean. They've been out of the spotlight for months and only gotten worse. They need rehab, and not just the 3-4 weeks they'll probably get from the courts. They need a good 3-6 months minimum. Otherwise, they're never going to get better. They have been beyond resistant to getting help. Jake Roberts, Scott Hall, et al have at least gone to rehab at some point, and just haven't been able to get clean. Jeff (realistically at least a decade of addiction) and Matt (at least 6 years) have never even considered it. It sucks, but it's the reality of the situation. Matt seems like he's on death's door and Jeff is considered to as bad or worse.

Looks like an editor found the original post there and added the link. I didn't notice while doing the updates. Since the PWInsider item has been rendered irrelevant, I deleted the whole passage about their report just now. Always remember: I'll never link them myself without a huge warning. Even then, I'd only link them if I was told I had to.

My ongoing coverage thingy at BR. This is really, really bad. Thankfully it looks like some of his friends are turning around on getting him help, but still...

The Lear show never got to the pilot stage so this is further along.

At least theoretically, someone who would go in solely to mostly on in ring work would have to be so overwhelmingly great in the ring that it outweighs the rest. There are very, very few people in e HOF based solely on that criteria. Daniels flamed out in...what, 2003? 2004? He's just a less successful Jerry Lynn.

Jeff went to the ring pilled up on multiple occasions, and may have accidentally concussed Ken Anderson due to this. He had a big box of drugs shipped to his house, where cocaine residue was also found. He threw away his first WWE run to meth and later, when he was seemingly clean, dismissed it as a phase. In that video where he's clearly high while accusing Punk of taking Ambien, he outright brags about his own drug intake. Matt drove while pilled up, lost control of the of his car, and hit both a drainage pipe and tree. He could have easily killed people. He also had a separate citation for reckless driving recently. He single-handledly got WWE to ban Somas because his spiral out of the company was so bad. He was glassy-eyed during his TNA debut. Plus, while plenty of bad stuff has gone public, plenty has not. He absolutely has a terrible drug problem. Neither has given any indication that they will get treatment on their own, and it's sad. They're massive trainwreck addicts, and they're not going to get treatment on their own. They don't even try to humor anyone who says they have drug problems. Even if they get court ordered rehab, I doubt it'll stick unless they get lengthy stays, which is doubtful. Most likely they'd detox, be grumpy for a few weeks, and then start using again when they get out. Having said that, it looks like Matt will OD or wreck his car and die before that can happen. Jeff...who knows. At this point, it seems like Jeff is the weird one who happens to be an unrepentant drug addict in denial while Matt is the crazy one who is also an unrepentant drug addict in denial and probably needs more nuanced treatment like Sean Waltman got.

Thanks Mike. I have a new article up with various updates and the untouched mugshot. TMZ's huge ugly watermark actually made him look less awful.

No.

I presume you mean in terms of a push and not full benefits as a producer/agent.

The fall of Matt Hardy.

I know I've talked to Loss about this but I don't think I've mentioned it here before. It can't be stressed enough how badly Michaels was damaged by Vince McMahon not knowing how to push a blowjob face. The announcers fawning to the point of sounding sexually aroused (the worst being Dok Hendrix screaming "YEAH! WORK IT!" as Michaels danced), the stripping including flashing his pubic hair on camera, Playgirl, etc. Thank God they didn't show him stripping naked after his first PPV as champ went off the air. Only the brawls with Diesel and Mankind worked, because they made him a tough guy, like how Jerry Jarrett booked the Fabulous Ones.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/813933-...ile-intoxicated Hopefully he's ordered to go to rehab. Hopefully it doesn't take as long as it has with his brother.

I could have sworn that he downplayed the role of Mantell to the point that it came across that Gary was responsible to the Boom. John Not exactly. Gary booked the territory from about 1976 to early '83. The early signs of a boom (first Reunion Arena Kerry-Flair match) were under him, he brought the Freebirds in (including coaxing Buddy out of retirement so they had three Freebirds to face three Von Erichs), and he booked the big Christmas night show. They did big business the following week based on the word of mouth about the turn. Fritz shorted Gary on their agreed-upon bonus for a percentage of how much houses went up over average in each town (with the Reunion Arena shows counting as "a town" to be fair), so Gary quit and Kabuki went with him to Charlotte. He felt that with how hot he had gotten the territory, it wasn't hard for Mantell to step in. He didn't like Mantell for a variety of reasons. Hart didn't think he could book well (outside of Jimmy Garvin's gimmick with Sunshine and then Precious), felt that he mismanaged the locker room and the shows (letting guys work high and letting the Sportatorium tapings run so late with long gaps, causing fans to miss the bus), felt he was inexperienced for the role (he hadn't booked anywhere else or served as a booking assistant), overlooked good talent (like not pushing the Midnight Express harder), etc. Plus there were the issues of Mantell jumping to the UWF and taking much of the crew with him as well as Mantell arranging for Missing Link to attack Hart in the locker room. Cornette's account of what working in Dallas was like backs up at least some of this, IMO. Your mileage may vary. So essentially, it boils down to the personal animosity combined with Gary feeling that he got the territory hot enough that anyone could've booked Freebirds vs Von Erichs from that point on and drawn well.

The original class should be eligible next year so I wouldn't be shocked to see CIMA on the ballot at least.

I don't recall anything in the book about his booking of Dallas that seemed suspect. The obvious exaggerations are generally about payoffs (after a certain point, that is: he comes off completely honest about money before his Georgia run with Kabuki). Besides that I've heard that stuff like claiming the "Fritz is from Texas and Waldo is a Canadian who isn't his brother" expose was an ad lib to be stretching the truth, but that's about it.

With Lewin I guess that depends on how much you value the team with Don Curtis, right? I mean I believe he did well but he's not HOF level for his later US runs. Lewin and Curtis are guys who you always hear about working Hong Kong, Singapore, etc, but never with any details. Is there close to enough information about anything outside of Barnett's WCW to make an educated decision? If we're largely basing it on WCW Australia, is there any reason not to vote for any of the guys on the ballot for that region? Plus, why isn't Mario Milano on the ballot? He's a huge omission with that new region. Colon/PR makes no sense in this context, WWC is/was a US territory.

More later, but why is Dave grouping Puerto Rico with Australiasia and Asian countries that Jim Barnett's promotion did tours of?