cm funk

My point is these were guys with minimal exposure who didn't have "names". If most of the names I listed weren't finds then I don't know what is.....where do you expect new talent to come from? Everyone has to start somewhere....most pro-wrestlers aren't just picked off the street The college wrestlers (which includes Haas and Ziggler) were recruited. Henry was recruited. You're saying "athlete" like WWE recruiting and signing and training them doesn't count I'm not knocking HHH at all, he's done a good job bringing in talent, and it isn't all "big name" indy stars he's signed, but you say this But when given a list of all these guys Ross brought in you're saying the opposite and minimizing them as finds (ie. doesn't really count because worked small indies, doesn't count because athlete etc.) Breeze worked Canadian indies and trained with Lance Storm. Bayley was around on the Cali indies and Shimmer. Banks was in the New England indies. Dempsey was in the NY/NJ indy scene for years before getting signed. Small stuff and they didn't have big names or buzz, but they'd all been out there working for a while before getting signed.....and they got in by sending in tapes and going to the tryouts

JR took over talent relations from JJ Dillon in I believe 96 and was replaced by Ace in 2004 There is a long list of valuable or top talent he signed that you're not giving him credit for beyond Rock, Brock and Angle: The Hardys & Lita Edge & Christian Mark Henry Val Venis, D Lo Brown, Test, Crash Holly, Steve Blackman and lots of other memorable attitude era staples Trish Stratus John Cena Randy Orton Batista Shelton Benjamin Charlie Haas Carlito Chris Masters Dolph Ziggler Damien Sandow All relatively or totally unknown guys signed by Ross and brought up through the system He's also the one who recruited Jack Swagger, who's the last big amateur signing they've had

huh?

Yea, that's about where I'm at, but thankfully I don't think it will ever get that bad That said, the often dull and uninspired product, the lack of respect for the audience, and the hilariously awful writing/booking.....sometimes it feels like I'm watching this stuff out of morbid fascination, like how I'll watch a terrible TV show/movie because it's so bad it's sorta good....but I'm basically just laughing at it The thing is, as bad as it is at times overall, there is still lots of good stuff in there For better or worse I'll probably never stop watching because this is where some of the best and brightest talent in the world is and this is the biggest stage in American wrestling. But 3 hour RAWs test my endurance, I haven't bothered with SD! in years because it's just a RAW rehash most weeks, and while I like Main Event well enough it's a throw away show....which is part of what makes it good because they don't micromanage it the way they oft do.....which is sad

Any gimmick you think of with 3 _____ black guys is going to come across as racist to race baiters. 3 happy black guys? Racist. 3 tough black guys? Racist. 3 angry black guys? Racist. I'm not even calling it racist....it's just stupid How many black guys do they even have on the roster? those 3, Titus, Darren Young and Mark Henry. I'm probably forgetting someone else. Oh R-Truth Mark Henry is the only guy worth giving a shit about, and he hasn't even been around lately Titus has been booked like a joke and they were handed a golden opportunity with Darren Young and squandered it.......and there's no reason not to stick them back together as a tag team when they had no real plans for either of them when they split them up It's just.....you've got 3 talented guys in their own rights....and Big E who they've completely dropped the ball with and might need to go away ala Umaga or Rikishi or Glenn Jacobs who had the stink of awful booking on them but came back to have good runs after enough time for people to forget "The Sultan" "3MW" and "Fake Diesel" etc. It's just really noticeable when the roster is so not diverse as is.....and they take some of the few black guys they have and stick them with this terrible shucking and jiving gimmick that crowds are rightfully shitting on

Sure.....but WWE's money is made in cities and metropolitan areas that are more diverse than bumfuck whiteville USA where they don't even run house shows in

I'm about 75% done with Bret Hart's book His take was when Rock came in as a rookie "The Kliq" treated him like shit, and were probably threatened by him "taking their spot" or whatever bullshit was in their pilled up minds at the time now, Bret does screw up time frames a bit....Hall and Nash were in WCW by the time Rocky debuted on the main roster.....but I don't doubt that those guys were dicks to him in their early interactions.....and I have no doubt that Shawn was a dick to him and that his driver/errand boy Hunter was there parroting it The "Rock will never work a match with Michaels" and the general heat from when he was a rookie....smoke to that fire. Years before reading this book I'd heard Meltzer talk about this....and Bret and Rock are both people on good terms with Dave and talk to him so there may be some skewed perpective.....but Rock and Michaels was kind of a dream match that WWE wanted and Rock made it very clear he had no respect for him and no interest in working with him. Rock and HHH have mended fences....imagine how much of a douche GHBK must have been back in 96/97 And let's be honest.....Nash is a cunt. He's a "great worker" in the sense that.....yes, he is IRL a real asshole. "It's a shoot brother"

the "new day" gimmick is laughably bad and downright insulting really. Take the few black dudes on the roster and give them this.....whatever the fuck this gimmick is.....smh I actually thought they had a germ of a good idea when it looked like they were put together as a new NOD style group....then I thought this New Day shit was so over the top and terrible to set them up for a heel turn.......but no, it's just WWE being shitty again I really feel bad for Big E Langston because he's a stud and in different hand could be so much more valuable to a promotion than where he's at now as far as the way WWE had treated and portrayed asians and latinos.....well.....the less said the better the talking point for years is they want another Mysterio.....how about just putting a latino out there and let them be themselves? also, not racially related (or maybe it is) but they just suck at the masked wrestler thing. It wasn't that long ago that white men in masks were a staple and drew tons of money.....but maybe that's one of "THAT'S OLD SCHOOL BULLSHIT" Vince pet peeves

Hart had a fairly damning list of guys in his book. That article just reads like an in poor taste carny heel drawing tactic to me "I used to be ok with the blacks, but now I must speak my conscience. I'll wrestle the Japs and the Indians, but not the blacks" and obviously the crowd is full of black fans. what a heel turn

Also, Jon Jones' brother Chandler is a defensive end for the Patriots, and it was said that HHH and Steph were guests of the Patriots....so that may have been their connection

Even as a teen I thought the way Dustin was fired was ridiculous. You book this and fire one of the wrestlers because there was blood in the match?!!

Because house show crowds are mostly kids who love Cena and their parents WWE has two separate audiences.....and both of them are equally important to their bottom line. The hardcore fans who fill up your TV and PPV crowds in big cities and travel to shows, and your kids/parents that buy the merch and the video games but aren't as reliable as the diehards. They can't afford to alienate either half of their fanbase....which is why you get often disjointed and inconsistent booking that often doesn't appeal to either side of the audience

As a diehard New Englander.....I hope not I wanna say one thing about this D-Bry stuff.......I have friends who don't watch or care about wrestling who like him. Like, "oh, yea, that crazy dude, I like him". Which is super cool. Reigns....? I doubt these same people know who he is.....or care. I should show these people Shield matches. But anyway.....WWE did a great thing last year when they listened to the crowd and gave them what they wanted.....and if they really want Reigns to be "the next guy" they're going about it all wrong I don't know what they have planned for Bryan, and I don't know if they know, but I know he's one of the few wrestlers in recent years that excited people I know who aren't fans and generally surprised me by it. Punk was another one.....just the last people you expect non-wrestling people to like but they do.....so run with it WWE

HHH & Big Show vs. Sting & Ziggler would be good. Would have a ton of heat and Dolph is a great FIP. The roof would come off the place when Sting finally got the hot tag

Maybe they didn't have time, being distracted with packing up the set early and moving on from Hartford and all? They actually left everything in Hartford because they're running live from there in Thursday. Titan Towers is already set up for live broadcast, no need for production trucks or anything I didn't expect them to sweeten or alter things anyway. It was much too out there and talked about already, they had to just embrace it and move on At least one interesting thing I didn't notice til now......I don't think the announcers ever called it "bizarro land" re: the crowd reactions. They finally seem to have dropped that tired trope

For those curious it doesn't sound like they altered the audio on the Rumble match at all, and I expect them to talk about the reaction to him during his sit down interview they're hyping up. If they're smart they do the Diesel black glove "you're with me or you're against me" deal and get back that cool edge he's lost. Be the first good thing they've done with his character in a long time.

He never went for the STF in the match IIRC which I thought was odd. The only sub attempt I remember was Brock's Kimura which Cena stood up out of leading to a flying knee to Brock's skull from Seth

quick thoughts: - Everyone called the backlash coming against hotshotting Reigns coming. I was calling it last summer. It's been painfully obvious since he came back, with the general apathy towards him, that he wasn't ready. Sad and predictable booking. And now what? Your hardcore audience just shit on your chosen one. I feel bad for Roman and I feel bad for WWE, but it was entirely forseeable. And I can understand how they thought getting Bryan out early, and then putting in some guys the crowds likes later to get the mood back up would work in like 1988.....but holy fuck how do they misread their audience this bad? They literally just didn't shit on Reigns, they shit on the entire rest of the match, all of the action, and other than Mizdow, Ambrose, Ziggler and BNB nobody got any sort of positive reaction. Like Meltzer said on the LAW after the show, if they were going to go thru with the Reigns plan, why didn't they wait til after the Rumble to bring Bryan back? Were they that clueless? - there was some good stuff in the match (Bully Ray and DDP were fun), but so much bad booking that overshadowed it. - Triple Threat was incredible. It really felt like they were improvising when Brock was down for so long, which made the drama of it that much better and Brock's Hulk comeback even better. Brock took so much punishment in that match. He's unkillable. Seth put on the performance of his career thus far, and Cena was big match great as always. Can't say enough good things about this match. undercard: time filler. I like the Cesaro/Kidd team and the odd pairing with Rose a lot, and I like the guys in New Day but not the gimmick. Good opener. I thought the Mizdow/Usos match kind of sucked. A lot of it was really sloppy, and this tag formula with Miz and Sandow has run it's course. Miz takes the whole match, which makes the Usos look bad, and all the crowd cares about is Sandow. The crowd was booing The Usos who are the ace babyface team and are over everywhere because all they care about is Sandow. Miz was even getting cheered! It would have been great booking if the blowoff was happening on this show, but it didn't. I actually like the Diva tag which a lot of people seem to have hated. There was that weird tag spot where the ref insisted Paige get in when Natalya was working over one of the Bellas, but other than that I thought it was one of the better Diva PPV matches, and I love that they got time. I like that they're going the LayCool route with the Bellas, and Nikki has improved a ton.

Articles from that site get linked through Yahoo all the time.....it's a sketchy tabloid gossip website that takes things Meltzer has said, then twists them and jumps to their own conclusions. It's a typical clickbait NEWZ site

Another thing re: magazine dates is these publishers didn't have the largest production budgets or circulation, or huge staffs. They weren't like Time/SI/People that published weekly and practically gave themselves away for free in order to drive up circulation rates and ad revenue. Think about the advertising in those wrestling magazines.....creepy apartment wrestling and tape ads from promotions themselves. There was better advertising in comic books and porno mags.

Russo was one of many nails in the coffin. It was like a doctor being handed a dying patient and trying to fix it by bashing it in the face with a shovel. A retarded shovel. Could WCW have been saved in 99? I think so. Russo's stupidity didn't even give it a fighting chance. Kevin Nash's run booking was when things really went in the crapper......yet somehow it got WORSE under Russo

I wish WWE could use Taker's downside guarantee as leverage to get Michelle McCool back on my tv. Other than that I have zero interest in Taker at this point. Not after those shitty matches with HHH, not after seeing them drop the ball on breaking the streak and with this Brock run, and especially not seeing the kind of shape he's in these days. Wyatt's heat has been on life support for a while. A Mania match with Taker won't help that. Would be such a typically dumb WWE move..... It's not like they need the starpower of a Taker match/appearance.........if Macho going in the hall and Sting aren't enough......but desperate times and all

I generally find Dave's odd quirks charming.....but this NJPW stuff has gone way over the top. Even for "fanzine" stuff as you put it, when you're overselling something you like to the point of ridiculousness you're really doing everyone a disservice

I should re-listen to the audio show on the awards, but Dave's fanboyism about New Japan makes for terrible listening. Even if I agreed with him I think I'd find it tough to listen to

lol nothing she says there is wrong.....but functionally retarded is a nice way to put it.... I wasn't even thinking of Hogan and Bischoff......but the years of Russo off and on.....ugh