jdw

Ric will say anything to try to keep from paying her.

That actually aired two days after Survivor Series, and was taped October 1989. The January 1990 SNME was Hogan & Warrior vs Perfect & Genius, and the point of it was to ad more fuel to Hogan-Warrior leading into Mania. As far as Hogan-Henning on a PPV, the answer is no. Perfect debut in July 1988. The WWF had these PPV's that might be the ones Reno is talking about: * Summer Slam 88 No, that was always going to be Hogan & Savage vs Andre & DiBiase. * Survivor Series 88 No, that was always going to be a Survivors match for Hogan. * Rumble 89 No, Hogan was always going to be in the Rumble. That's just the way it was back then. * Mania 89 No, that was always going to be Hogan-Savage. * Summer Slam 89 No, that was always going to have Hogan-Zeus in some form. They started taping aspects of this feud back in April, let alone filming No Holds Barred before that. * Survivor Series 89 No, that also was always going to be Hogan-Zeus in a Survivors match. They didn't move away from having Hogan / The Champ in a Survivor tag yet. * No Holds Barred 89 No, that was always going to be the Hogan-Zeus blow off. Of course Zeus was so bad that they had to do it as a tag match. They were cutting promos for this back in November, even before Survivors happened. So we can eliminate *all* of the 1988-89 WWF PPV. Hennig was never going to main event any of them with Hogan, as Hulk was booked. Looking at 1990, Hogan was going to be in the Rumble to have the angle to set up Hogan-Warrior at Mania. And Hogan-Warrior at Mania is something they'd known for a while. * Rumble 90 Hogan was going to be in the Rumble to start the issue with Warrior * Mania 90 Hogan-Warrior. Always was going to be it. Hogan and Warrior also weren't going to work house shows against each other, so more the reason for Hogan to need a house show feud. Hennig was just a house show feud, like Bad News, Bossman, Kamala, and countless other guys. The angle was taped 10/31/89, to air 11/25/89 two days after Survivors. Hogan was also cutting promos for the No Holds Barred PPV, which was just the blow off the the Zeus storyline that went back to April. Hogan-Hennig appear to have done test matches on 11/20/89 & 11/22/89 before the angel ran. The feud proper started in December 1989. It ran essentially through Mania, though Hogan had a couple of tag matches against other opponents (with Bossman against the Powers of Pain). I'd have to look at the markets to see if Hogan-Perfect ran its course in those. Hogan-Perfect was fully blown off April 1990 SNME. Hogan's post-Mania feud was with Earthquake, which was set up on with an angle twice in in February: the Main Event one where Quake attacked Warrior but Hogan ran in to save him, and the Superstars one taped earlier by aired in March where Hogan ate a sit down splash, Warrior came to the rescue, etc. Hogan-Quake started working around the horn after Mania, with the break after the angle in May. Anyway... There was no PPV that Hennig was going to main event. He was the 1989/90 equiv of the 1988/89 Hogan-Bossman feud: house show based to fill time since Hogan wasn't going around the circuit with his Mania opponent before Mania (Savage in 1989 and Warrior in 1990), with a post Mania blow off on SNME (Bossman in the cage, Hennig with a normal match). Reno is full of shit. Though it's possible that somewhere, at some time, he had a longer match with Hennig on a house show that Graham simply doesn't have listed. And that Hennig put on a show in 10 minutes. But this does go to my point earlier in the thread: It's pro wrestling. Pro wrestlers, and those involved in pro wrestling, are full of shit. If they say the sky is blue, it's best to no believe them until you look up and confirm it. John

Earlier stuff, usually the ones where he's typing with one hand on the keyboard and one hand on his cock while waxing about CM Punk, have been bad and unconsciously fanboyish. I think this is actually the worst thing he's ever written, simply because he's so over his head in it.

That would be 01/04/96

Hansen vs. Kobashi 7/29/93. Looks like third in. Okay... Antonio Inoki, which should get some variance. And no cheating by claiming a long series of singles matches combined into being more than a singles match. 07/27/78 Antonio Inoki vs Bob Backlund

This is pretty fucking horrible: http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/894826...-do-wwe-cm-punk

http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbc...=9;t=024096;p=0

CWF. Florida cards, bringing in outside talent: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/...ida/battle.html

Muraco.

06/11/76 Terry Funk v. Jumbo Tsuruta

I'm a little surprised that Cena's wife "went public". Would have thought that as part of the settlement that they would have included a "we won't talk shit about each other" clause. John

I think there's a danger in taking what wrestlers say on face value. So you need to look at it and see if it makes sense. $2000 a week for "prelim wrestlers" in the mid-80s Expansion Era is a fucking joke. Clearly Dave meant some other level of wrestler, since "prelim wrestlers" weren't making $104K a year. Gorilla sold his shares in the WWF in 1983 before expansion. You're saying that the value of 12.5% of the company in 1983 was: $4.68M + $100K + Gorilla's Employment Income for 10 years On the last one, let's just estimate it at $150K a year. Perhaps that's high, and I doubt Tony was making that much from Crockett, but over time Gorilla's workload expanded to include All-Star/Challenge, Primetime, taking over the MSG cards from Vince, adding the Spectrum gig, the Boston Garden gig, various PPVs, and various CHV assignments in the 10 years covered by the employment contract. I'd say an average of $150K might not be out of the question, especially if the employment contract called him to be paid $X per broadcasting assignment. So that's another $1.5M. The total "cost" to Vince of buying out Gorilla was $6.28M for "12.5%" of the company. That values the worth of the company in 1983 at $50.24M. I highly doubt the value of the company was that high. Nor that Vince would broker a deal that was that high for Gorilla's 12.5% when he only paid "$100K" for Zacko's. Beyond that, if he had 87.5% of the company, it's not the difficult to spin out the valuable pieces and leave Gorilla with nothing. More than that, it's not that hard to take the "expansion" aspects of the company (i.e.), dump them in a new company 100% owned by Vince, and firewall Gorilla's 12.5%. In other words, leave all the Old WWF Territory Revenue in "Capital" and put all of the New WWF Expansion Revenue into Titan. That would be money from the new cities being run, closed circuit / PPV, CHV, Merchandise, Ice Cream Bars, licensing (actions figures and the like), etc, etc, etc. So that "1.5 Prelim Money x Every Card" would be limited to just the cards in the Old WWF Territory, not Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Detroit, etc. You'd also limit the number of jobs you give Gorilla under the Employment Agreement, and if he was valuable, carve them into a new one. All contracts for performers would be with Titan, which in turn would "license" the appearances to "Old WWF, Inc." and "New WWF, Inc."... and isn't that awesome: part of the "cost" of running an Old WWF, Inc. show would not just be paying the talent, but also paying Titan a "agency fee" for allowing the performer to work MSG. Since Vince owned Titan 100%, that would be a fee going right into his pockets... reducing the profits of Old WWF, Inc. All the assets of Old WWF, Inc. could slowly be eliminated due to "obsolescence". In other words, Gorilla's famous MSG Ring could be done away with because Titan set new guidelines for the rings to be used in all WWF Brand shows run by both Old WWF and New WWF. Who owns those new rings and cages and announcers tables and canvas and ropes, etc? Titan, which in turn "rents" or "leases" them to Old WWF and New WWF. The production equipment? Same thing: standardized under new Titan guidelines. House show tapings? Titan moves them all out of the Old WWF region into New WWF cities. "WWF Syndication"? The old shows are eliminated and replaced by "national" shows, which of course would be run out of Titan, and "licensed" out to New WWF and Old WWF. This is pretty standard business. Vince is a smart man. This is easy to do. Vince would own 87.5% of Old WWF, all of the talent, all of the equipment, all of the production, everything. You get where this is going, right? Vince could run Old WWF in a fashion where it's break even or at a loss, and all of the profits are eaten up by Titan. Same thing with New WWF, but he wouldn't care there... he's just trying to fuck Gorilla in the ass for trying to hold him up for Millions for 12.5% of the company rather than taking the $100K or so that another shareholder took. We know Vince is just about the most ruthless fucker ever in pro wrestling, and probably the smartest business man in the history of the business when it comes to competition. You really think he'd be dumb enough to sign a bad deal that would net out $6M to Gorilla for 12.5% of the old territory when he simply could have burned him? Did Vince buyout Verne for $6M for the old AWA territory? Or did he attack Verne, steal his talent, fight a bloody war, and eventually leave Verne with a dead promotion? Here they are: Gorilla had shares in Capital Gorilla sold his shares to Vince Jr. Vince Jr. was happy enough with how much it cost him that he let Gorilla be one of his key announcers Sure. He probably averaged $100K a year in the 70s between his wrestling and profits. He likely bought his home(s) when prices where low, and watched property go through the roof. If he upgraded to nicer neighborhoods and didn't do it by ringing up a load of debt, he saw his new property value go up as well. He probably averaged made $100K+ in the 80s with his announcing duties. If he was reasonably smart with his money, setting aside 10% or so for savings and investments, he'd be doing well. I'll give you a For Example: My father didn't make $100K a year in the 70s or 80s, or even close to it. But he bought a house in 1973 in a nice city when property values were low, and socked away 10% of his income into the 70s/80s equiv of a 401K (the old ESOPPs / Employee Stock Purchase Plans), which the company matched his purchased (in a far more generous fashion than my company and most others match 401K contributions these days). The stock market was up over 2500 at the dawn of 1990, after getting over 1000 very rarely prior to 1984 (and often being quite a bit below that from 1970-84). His company stock went up a good deal from the time he was hired and started contributed in 1965 until 1990. The company also had a separate pension that while less than the ESOP wasn't hump change after 25 years of working there. He had very little debt at that point: his house payment was literally less than the car payment that I had on the car I bought coming out of college (a 1989 Honda CRX). He frankly could have paid his house off in cash at that point he had so little left on it. All in all, as the 80s ended, he was extremely close to a net millionaire between 17 year rise in his house value (relative to chump change left on the mortgage), his ESOP, the pension, and other savings. Net. That for a guy who never made close to $100K in the 70s and 80s, was smart / frugal with his (and my mom's) money, and wasn't even really adventurous in trying to make a shitload out of that by playing around with the market. Gorilla would have made a crapload more income in those two decades than my father. He would have likely bought nicer homes, in even more upscale cities. Perhaps he ran up a debt doing so. Perhaps he wasn't prudent in making investments, though Gorilla did come across as more prudent than your typical spend / drink / whore / snort wrestler of the era. So... Yeah, I would expect Gorilla to be a millionaire by the end of the 80s, even without Vince paying him $4M or $6M or even $1M to buyout his 12.5% of the company. What evidence do you have that Gorilla was even paid $100K for his share? Do you have a copy of the sale agreement? Do you have a copy of the check? Anything? Or just hearsay and/or Wrestling Stories? John

The non-Backlund matches that's I've written up, with a general summary comment pulled out of the write up: 06/20/81 Pedro Morales vs. Don Muraco (14:44+) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9906#9906 "Not a good match. Worth watching to comp with Muraco's other matches and to add to the list of what Pedro was up to." 08/13/83 Don Muraco vs Jimmy Snuka (11:24) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=9072#9072 "You know, other than the chinlocks, this is perfectly okay. The finish is shitty on the surface, it also is there to set up a rematch where Don couldn't bail out such as a lumberjack or a cage match. They didn't have that match in Philly, possibly because Jimmy kept flaking out. They did have a cage match in New York to wrap their feud. But overall, this wasn't horrible. It's more painful to watch Snuka's matches in Japan with Steamboat than this one." 01/23/84 Don Muraco vs. Tito Santana (16:01) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10851#10851 "Horrible match. Staggering how bad it is, and it probably is the worst performance from Don that I've seen." 02/20/84 Tito Santana vs. Don Muraco (16:05) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10852#10852 "After the good opening, the first eleven minutes settled into Tito being solid in working holds, but Don just not there again. The last five minutes with Don on top are very good to save the match from being another disaster. Not a good match, but this could be made to look really good by editing the first eleven into just the "good stuff" then letting the last five run in full." 05/20/85 Hulk Hogan vs. Don Muraco (6:12) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=2759#2759 "This was a decent Nitro Match for five and a half minutes, and built passably in two movement to the "finish" with the legdrop. The real finish is so shitty, and the overall quality of the match so "nothing special" that it's a head scratcher what this is doing on the list." 06/21/85 Hulk Hogan vs Don Muraco (9:05) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=4013#4013 "The positive if that it's double juice with both hitting gushers. The negative is that it's poorly lit with an old style cage so you don't get may decent shots of the juice. The other negative is that it's just a really poor match." 08/17/85 Ricky Steamboat & Junkyard Dog vs Don Muraco & Mr. Fuji (13:30) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=8941#8941 "All in all, a watchable match for it's simple tag structure. As talked about often in this thread, WWF Tag Style in the era liked to bitch out the heels. Even Adonis & Murdoch against the Briscos couldn't work a well laid out standard tag structure. Steamboat, on the other hand, seems to impose his will on WWF Tag Matches. He's going to sell, he's going to work face in peril, and the heels are going to have to do stuff to him even if it's basic tag heeling. It's comforting to watch. This wouldn't be a strong Crocket tag match in this era, or really even all that watchable other than for Steamer's enjoyable performance. But in the WWF, it stands out as being smartly worked. More watchable that some of the tags on here with a better foursome of workers." 10/26/85 Tito Santana vs. Don Muraco (10:21) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10904#10904 "Nothing better captures their rivalry than Tito having an incredibly long headlock on Don, Tito trying to be active with it, and Don just happy to sit around in it right down to one close up where you can see the sweat and drool pouring right off him." 11/09/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (15:35) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10323#10323 "You do get a very strong feuding sense in this match, which is lacking in two Steamer vs. Snake matches on the DVDVR Set. The hate is there, the spots the play off the recent angle are there, and the heat is there. It's limited in what they do, but watchable." 11/22/85 Don Muraco & Mr. Fuji vs. Ricky Steamboat & Tito Santana (12:39) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10324#10324 "When people talk about bad WWF matches in the 80s involving guys who could work, this is the type of match they were talking about. Sad." 11/25/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (16:38) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10325#10325 "Not a good match." 12/07/85 Don Muraco vs. Ricky Steamboat (8:33) http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=10326#10326 "You kind of think these two have an excellent match in them if they took the time to layout a strong match. I just haven't seen one that does that. The Boston remains the best that I've seen because of the play on the hanging angle. But if you could have mixed in either the two sections leading to the double juice here, or the double juice in the MSG match with the heated post match there, you might come close to that excellent match." Dear god... I hated pretty much all of those, and have another 50+ matches in the que to watch. That includes four singles matches with Pedro, 5 with Rocky, 5 with Snuka, another one with Tito, and 12 more singles matches with Steamer to see if they ever had one that was actually good... ugh! Don Muraco: the Bruiser Brody of the WWF.

Ah... I'm glad for that definition of "smark" - (willingly) fooled into believing the wrestler was injured for real. I like good selling of fake damage to a body part. I don't "believe" that body part was actually damaged, nor "willingly believe". There's a difference: (i) "Oh my good... he hurt Kawada's knee!!!!" (ii) "Kawada is selling the FUCK out of the knee!!!" John

First match, or first available match? 07/02/79 MSG WWF North American Champion Pat Patterson defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund when the match was stopped due to excessive blood loss from the champion at 15:21 I don't think that one is available. Has it bubbled up somewhere? PM? These three are: 07/30/79 MSG WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) fought WWF North American Champion Pat Patterson to a double standing count-out at 28:22 when, after Patterson hit Backlund with brass knuckles, Skaaland climbed on the ring apron and hit Patterson with the title belt 08/27/79 MSG WWF IC Champion Pat Patterson defeated WWF World Champion Bob Backlund via count-out at 14:29 after Patterson used brass knuckles while the referee was knocked out and then beat Backlund back inside the ring; prior to the bout, Patterson was escorted to the ring by the Grand Wizard while Arnold Skaaland escorted Backlund 09/24/79 MSG WWF World Champion Bob Backlund (w/ Arnold Skaaland) defeated WWF IC Champion Pat Patterson in a steel cage match at 16:43 by kicking Patterson off him and escaping through the door I've seen the 7/30/79 and the cage match. The 8/27/79 is one that I just came across recently, but haven't watched yet. Both Spectrum matches are available... watched them ages ago on Frank's old Backlund & More tape.

The 04/25/83 MSG match isn't available as far as I know. The 06/04/83 Spectrum match is available, and is poor. Their 08/28/78 MSG match is available, and I thought good though it's a pretty basic match. The 09/25/78 MSG rematch isn't available, nor any of their trilogy in Philly from 12/78 - 2/79 (would really like to see the cage match blow off). I enjoyed that one. It's 20 minutes, so it takes its time getting going, but it turns into a fun match. I'm a big fan of that match. I'm a big fan of the 1981 Philly trio with Slaughter, just flat out love the cage match. I like the matches in Japan against Dusty (05/27/80) and Stan (09/30/80) a heck of a lot. The first match in MSG with Stan (02/16/81) is quite fun. The second 60:00 draw with Inoki (07/27/78) is one of the best 60:00 draws that I've ever seen, and one of my favorite matches of the 70s. It misses the clear heel-face element of the Bob-Greg draw, but the mat work to open is terrific, the bust out a lot of high end 70s style offense, and they break the match up across three falls which is a benefit that Bob-Greg doesn't have. The 07/30/79 MSG match with Patterson is the only of the four available matches between the two that I like a good deal, though I might be in the minority in not caring for their 09/24/79 cage match. Like the 01/21/80 feud opener with Patera: slow building 25+ minute match that shows how good Patera is to start that year, and how much the two are on the same page. The 04/12/80 Philly match with Hogan is a gas to me, watching Hogan work holds and knowing what he's doing. Fun match. 04/16/80 Bob-Inoki in Florida is a load of fun to see them take the match out of their respective home courts and actually get the crowd into it with their work. 08/24/84 Bob-Choshu on the tour just after he left the WWF is surprisingly entertaining, given Choshu's rep for working with gaijin and the "on paper" vibe that the two won't mesh. This and Choshu's match in 1985 with Martel might be my favorite matches of his with gaijin. All three Buddy Rose matches are worth watching. I'm really fond of the MSG one because the crowd loves it so much, and they have the time to stretch out. Buddy's great in it, but Bob is right there hitting his notes as well. For the Harley match, think NWA Touring Champ coming into the WWF Territory to defend against the local hero Bob. That will put you in the mind set to not be surprised by how much Bob dominates. They do have a stretch after 15:30 in where they lost the crowd with the headlock, though they do reel them in when they pick it up for high spots before taking it back down. Once they end the headlock section, they have a one of the longer runs to the finish in a Bob match in that era.

But hey... at least X Games bullshit is in the Olympics! John

"Certification" appears to be the USDC for NJ equiv of "Declaration" elsewhere. It reads exactly like a declaration, with Dave swearing under penalty of perjury and signing it, which is what you'd do in a declaration. You do these voluntarily in support of the party filing it. I get Eddie's team looking around for someone to counter Longbord's declaration, and if I was working on the case and knew something about MMA coverage, I likely would toss out "Dave Meltzer" to the attorney I was working for. Of course on the other side, if asked by Dave, I'd wonder why he would want to volunteer rather than just sitting it out. Perhaps he knows Eddie, is friendly with him and you tend to help out friends. On the other hand, I'm not sure Dave would want to go through a depo or discovery on this. John

Known. I suspect a lot of us have read Wrestling to Rasslin. I've got a copy of it sitting on on of the shelves of my "wrestling book case" in my den. It's utter dogshit, and exactly the type of PhD paper that I was talking about. I've read the Ball book, and it's equally as shitty. I was smart enough to avoid the Mazer book. John

He was a solid prelim guy. Give him 10 minutes, and he'll fill it. The Backlund-Sharpe went 19. I didn't find it a chore, but don't doubt others would, especially folks who are tired of seeing headlocks in Backlund matches (though lord knows they're in a hundred Flair matches that are available). It is a largely pedestrian match, but I remain interested in contrasting how people work holds in the era, say Muraco when someone can't push him to work it vs Bob in there with a prelimer like Sharpe who must work it in 50% of his matches in a year as a centerpiece. The other thing about the match that stood out in the match is that it reminded me how much I hate Gorilla on the mic. This was several shows into Gorilla joining the Spectrum booth to break up my all-time favorite "so campy they're awesome" announcing crew of the era: Dick Graham & Kal Rudman a/k/a The Dick & Kal Show. There are two prime examples in the match where Gorilla is whipping out his "I'm smarter than this" cock to shit on the match with a "that won't beat his / never wins matches" that is just fucking annoying. He also doesn't bring any of the enthusiasm or enjoyment to the mic that Kal does, which makes his color commentary painful as all shit. I'll rip the fuck out if it more when I get around to re-watching it and writing it up. God to I hate Monsoon on the mic, and he just ruins what was a golden era of WWF match calling by Vince in MSG and Dick & Kal in Philly. John

Not to change the subject, but that is a great setup for... Even clear photographic evidence that shows it's impossible that only 78k were in attendance at WMIII, the response is still "Yeah, but some douchebag told Meltzer that there were only 78k", yet no one can point to 10-12,00 empty fucking seats that would make that number possible. I'm in the process of counting individual people that were there that day and will post a thread with the findings as a "fuck you" to anyone that believes the 78k number. About the only thing involving wrestling that gets me wound up. Afterwards I'll check into a nice outpatient clinic. Yeah, the 78K is a classic one. Dave's fall back to it was that the NFL worked the attendance numbers for the Super Bowl there. That got a big laugh out of me. John

Frustratingly, Meltzer doesn't cite a source on that, but he must have been reasonably convinced of it to include it in the obit and then again in the book. What makes you so sure it's not true jdw? Do the math. Prelim working in that era makes $2K a week * 52 weeks = $104K a year. "Prelim" in the sense of Mike Sharpe? Lanny Poffo? Guys who worked prelims all over the country? Okay... that doesn't pass the laugh test. We went over the list of guys on the roster, which included roughly 20 JTTS. Does anyone think that WWF was passing out $40K a week ($2.08M a year) to *those* guys? So if not them, where is the cut off line for JTTS? It's laughable. Then look at Gorilla. Setting aside his announcing deal, which wasn't small, do the math on what he'd get: $2K per week * 1.5 * 3 cards a day * 52 weeks = $468K per year * 10 years = $4.68M Yeah... doesn't pass the laugh test. Gorilla may have talked that up, and others within the WWF may have talked it up... but this is "Savage Banged Steph" level of stupidity. John

The story of Vince taking wrestling out of smoke filed arenas has found its way into even more places. It's bullshit. It's pro wrestling. Everything is a lie unless you can document it with clear factual proof. It's always been that way, and it's usually best to keep it in the front of one's mind when reading wrestling "facts" rather than in the back. John "We've got standing room only here in the Garden." -Gorilla lying even though the fans at home can see empty seats

Exactly. He has sources probably in the cable business (or who cover the cable business), within the companies (WWE, UFC), no doubt some fighters (fight bonus based on PPV number), and also eventually sees what the WWE publishes as their domestic numbers. He likely triangulates based on which has a track record of being correct, or who is slightly better on others. I'm a little surprised that Dave would agree to be on either side of this case, or pretty much any other case similar to this. One would hope that Alvarez's attorneys let him know it opened him up to discovery, including potentially a depo. John

They've averaged $76M in PPV revenue from 2009-11. That will be up in 2012: they were already at $70.6M in the first nine months of the year. A chunk of that is international, and a chunk is Mania. So lets say they get 1M subs of which $2.50 a month comes back to the WWE. That's $30M a year. That's likely well south of what they would need to break even. 1M subs is a lot, even if they're on every major carrier. Other aspects of the cable/dish bundles are going up, such as EPSN. They're also going up in a fashion where they're buried in the cable bill (i.e. part of Basic services), where it's really hard for a customer to carve them out of his bill to save money. It's those extra "tiers" and "channels" that people eyeball when their cable / internet (and potentially phone) bills are up in the $150 to $200 range a month. It's easy to see a stand alone WWE, wonder how much they're really watching it, and think it's something they can carve out. The WWE's cut at $5 a month? That gets to the off set point quicker, if they get 1M subs. Again, that's a large number. It's a small number of you watch all the PPV and are going to cough up money for 11 of them. But 1M households don't do that. Really... the WWE needs to look at a JV with a channel company, and look to get into Basic at $0.06 a month just to get their foot in the door. Cheap-content the majority of the WWE Hours of the channel, go infomercial overnight for cheap revenue, and look for cheapish but more likely to pull a reasonable rating in Prime Time. 50M households at $0.06 x 12 months = $36M. And you're not giving away new PPV as part of the deal. That's not huge revenue, but it's a foot in the door for the long run. If it's not quite turning a profit, kill the WWE Studios (which should be dead anyway), cut back on the dividend putting money mostly in McMahon Pockets, and stop doing stupid shit like Linda blowing $100M running for the fucking Senate. Of course Vince doesn't seem to want to JV with anyone to get some leverage to get onto careers. John