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For the WWWF/WWF, it's always okay to work up drafts of two lists: * clear main events * are these also main events? And run them by people. Clearly Bruno-Larry Z were main events, even if Bob was also defending the title on the card. In turn: WWWF @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 29, 1977 Televised on the MSG Network and HBO - featured Vince McMahon on commentary: Lenny Hurst defeated Rocky Tomayo Johnny Rivera defeated Joe Turco at 10:51 SD Jones defeated Jack Evans at 8:19 Peter Maivia defeated Stan Stasiak at 7:35 via count-out Tony Garea & Larry Zbyzsko defeated George Steele & Baron Mikel Scicluna in a Best 2 out of 3 falls match, 2-0; WWWF World Champion Superstar Billy Graham defeated Ivan Putski via count-out at 18:01 Bruno Sammartino (w/ Arnold Skaaland) pinned Ken Patera in a Texas Death Match at 12:13 Verne Gagne pinned Nikolai Volkoff at 7:10 Chief Jay Strongbow fought Mr. Fuji to a curfew draw at around the 6-minute mark We can look at that and *know* what the Main Event is. It's not Superstar vs Putski. It's clearly the blow off of Bruno-Patera, while Superstar is between feuds with Bruno (finished the prior MSG) and Dusty (starts the next MSG). This was a throw away defense. No it's okay to compile something like that into the "are these also main events?" list and run it by some folks. It's like this card: http://prowrestlinghistory.com/supercards/...bud90.html#1290 I have no idea how Matt lists this on his 10K+ list of doom, and who he gives credit to. Yet *everyone* who is knowledgeable about AJPW in the period knows what the main event is. If one wants to stretch it to call it a Double Main Event and give the gaijin some credit, have at it. But everyone who knows about AJPW would agree that the match that went on second to last was the real draw. John

It's Larry. Why waste time on him. John

He credits Cornette. But star ratings go back in other forms of entertainment before it was applied to wrestling. Rolling Stone gave star ratings to records. It's common in movie review: you'll find Ebert using it back into the late 60s / early 70s. Restaurants? John

Exactly. Dave saw them when the AWA went into San Fran as Shire fall off / closed. It would be interesting to see what those cards were. I'd suggest a *different* thread for them as it would just clog this one up: Result Lists Of Doom tend to do that. But it would be interesting to see. John

Great to see she dropped the weight. FWIW, I don't think anyone was hating on her if you read up the thread. We were all sad that she was putting the weight back on since she looked so healthy in the picture with Takako. John

Dave's changed his ratings a bit over time. He listed something along those lines a few times in 1983 when talking about it, and has on occasions later. For quite some time it was along these lines: ***** All-time Great ****1/2 Match of the year candidate **** Excellent ***1/2 Very Good *** Good **1/2 Above Average ** Average *1/2 Below Average * Bad 1/2* Terrible DUD Of No Value Then he'd go into negative stars when really pissed at a match. Through about 1992, ****1/2 was the MOTYC threshold, even if he got confused when typing up a list like this of what they all mean. 1993 sort of blew things up with quite a few ***** and ****3/4, thought 1992 was tipping in that direction by the end of the year. I think if one looks at his ranking list in the 1990 Yearbook, block off where they list splits up in stars, then go back an look at some of his comments during the year in describing some of those matches at MOTYC, it's ****1/2+. I think he had two or three at 5 that year, a very few more at ****3/4, and perhaps a total of ten to a dozen combined over ****1/2+. John

WWE Dividends $10.95M - FY End 4/30/2004 $20.61M - FY End 4/30/2005 $50.06M - FY End 4/30/2006 $51.02M - 2006 Transition Period (5/06 - 12/06) $68.66M - FY2007 $81.40M - FY2008 $82.27M - FY2009 $83.64M - FY2010 $47.81M - FY2011 $26.85M - FY2012 $523.27M Most of which goes into the McMahon's pockets, though they worked a good three year con of taking a "reduced" per share amount than the public class. In addition, they had $258M in cash and short term equivs on 04/30/2005 when they entered into the agreement with NBC Universal, along with a net income of $39M (of which they were blowing half out as dividends that year as seen above). Nearly $300M in cash & short team, $39M of profit, and just $7M in long term debt. Then mix in all the favorable tax incentives that were likely sitting out there for starting up an network and the "losses" associated with it. Financially, it was a good time to do it in 2005. They simply had no vision. John

We disagree on this. I don't think the WWE was committed to doing a real network, nor willing to go a joint venture route to get it done, and also was still wedded to their PPV model where they thought that getting 24/7 out everywhere and getting people to sub to it (i.e. pay directly for it rather than having it buried on the cable bill like Discovery Channel is) was a viable concept. How do I know they weren't committed to it in 2005? Because in 2010 they still had their head up their asses about it, with marginal commitment. Even now it's debatable how committed they are to it. They've finally gotten to the point where they "want" to do it, but they really haven't gone balls to the walls to get it done. I don't see this as a reason to toss off doing a Network, and instead an incentive to create one: if there was a future problem with finding a bidder for either Raw or, more importantly, SmackDown, the Network was a fall back. Put the effort into getting it launched, up and running, in as many homes as possible even if it's at an ultra cheap carriage fee, and then you have it ready when the next negotiations occur. We can go around in circles on the Raw / Viacom deal, though I tend to think that the WWE went into that with the wrong priorities for that cycle of negotiations. For me, the key should have been shopping around for a partner who would support the launching of the Network, be it Viacom, NBC Universal or whomever. For Vince, they key was a 40%+ increase in rights fees... though that number is arguable off since the WWE was in the process of cutting down on their share of advertising money on Raw and SD. It's likely that the increase was largely to off set letting Viacom keep all the advertising, which is where SD had just transitioned to if I recall correctly. Anyway, I wouldn't have obsessed on the rights fees at the moment: the network should have been the long term goal. You say that as if they were correct in making the network unlikely. I don't agree with their decisions on it, going back to the XFL days all the way to 2008 when the market tanked. Hell, tennis wasn't a hot product when they launched a channel. Any number of channels launch without hot product. What the WWE had was more eyeballs than most that launch. They bought the WCW library in 2001. They frankly could have launched it with just the WWF material, but between WCW and WWF they had plenty of material. Setting aside they should have settled with the Fund ages ago, which I suspect both of us would have done before it became a headache and actually worked with them to maintain and amend the original agreement rather than flip them the bird. To me the WWE has plenty of relatively easy opportunities to get it done, if Vince was committed to it and willing to give someone a piece of it to get it launched. He wasn't committed to it, and they have an aversion to the second part. John

Why the link? You don't expect us to read that whole thing, do you? John, noting that the list of contributors does bring back memories... for better or worse.

My point: she should have known for several weeks that she wouldn't need here victory speech.

On the dividends, someone needs to remind me to sift through all their 10-K's to see how much they've pissed away through that over the years. $213.7M in 2009-11. There is value to a company, especially in terms of stock price, in doing dividends. But it's impact on the WWE's appears to be minimal, and the true value to the company of their stock price is... really marginal. It's not like they need to keep it up to issue new shares. The McMahons also don't appear to be unloading a lot of it. John

It easily would have been viable. Look at the number of channels that popped up between 2002 - 2008. Many of them had far smaller niche's than the WWE. The problem the WWE faces now is that there is a mass of content out there forcing new channels onto providers, while providers are fighting back to draw lines on monthly fees. NFL and NBA are obvious ones, but they're far from the only. Out here in SoCal, we've had Time Warner Cable Sports Net (a/k/a the Lakers Channel) launch. Time Warner plunked down $150M to $200M a *year* to get the rights to Lakers games. The Lakers are a massive draw in this city, with a rabid fan base. There is a push to get the channel onto other carriers. Those other carriers see the Lakers Channel as one of many like this that are coming. Dodgers deal is up soon. Other local sports teams, especially ones that can combine their packages. Hell, there already are plenty of these around, like NESN. We also had the PAC 12 Network launch. BeIn Sports dropped a lot of silly money on marginal product, then had to buy their way into carriage deals. NBC Sports just dropped $80M a year on the EPL as they try to upgrade that channel (not to debate the wisdom of that purchase). The SEC Network will be coming, likely after the SEC and ESPN see how the PAC 12 network goes, and then determine whether to follow the Big 10 Network model or the PAC 12 model or a bit of both. Fox wants to brand a Fox Sports Network, and has a fair amount of content to populate it with. Etc, etc, etc. The time now is bad. 2005 would have been much easier, if not *easy* relatively speaking. The WWE had several things going for it: * existing massive capital Well... the McMahons have drained a lot of it away via those dividends. But relative to a normal start up, they had strong capital in terms of easy cash from operating profits and also an easy ability to borrow, and likely fairly cheap, if needed to support such a project. * relationships with potential partners The WWE had TV deals with major media corporations who might have been willing to go in on a joint venture. The Big 10 Networks is a joint venture between the Big 10 and Fox. There are a number of other channels like that were ownership is split. * loads of cheap content The WWE had loads of content, and also ran essentially their own production company. This isn't like TNT having to pay for new productions (Leverage), "new" re-runs (The Mentalist), all those old re-runs (Angel) or sports (NBA). Those are major costs. The WWE's production costs are relatively cheap and don't need to mix in profit for the entity they're buying it from: the WWE is the producer. * solid eyeballs The WWE had viewers: a base of people who watched the shows. Those are all things that many of the channels that launched between 2005-2008 struggled to get, where any *one* of them was a key to simply getting on. This was a major lack of vision by Vince and the people under him. Rather than movies, it's probably something that Shane should have stepped up and run with. Channel + Home Video + Web combined as New Media Properties. John

Wait... the fuck? She was still hoping to write a victory speech on election day? It was clear well before that she was going to lose. I get putting on the brave face, but come on... John

Reads like Linda McMahon campaign manager Corry Bliss has been watching too much WWE as he's trying to cut promos. FWIW, it would be awesome to see how much he (and his related compaines and pals) got paid for exploiting Linda's deep pockets in this loser of a campaign.

I *think* she's playing the long game. She came in with the massive Dem wave of 2006 that was then supported by another big batch of pick ups in 2008: 44+1 --> 49+2 --> 57+2 Just taking a quick look, it appears that she's already tied for 26th in the Dem Senate Caucus counting those who go out in January. In 2014, a few others ahead of her will retire or get bounced... there's also the possibility that some, like Kerry, will move onto other things earlier. She was a freshman who retained her spot, learned the ropes, supported Leadership, and moves up the depth chart and over a few seats closer to the Chair / Ranking spot on some committees. This is pretty smart. Like we both seem to be talking about: if your state is semi-stable, the keys are (i) getting elected, and then (ii) getting that first re-election under your belt. Then you can holding it a long time barring those waves or scandal or changing demos in a state. I'm a hardcore lib, and really wanted him to kick the GOP in the balls for their most blatant lies. When Al didn't, and continued acting in the manner that he did when running, I think I got pretty quickly that he wasn't going to give the opposition fodder to paint him as out of control or a joke. That's smart. Not entirely sure if he wants to be senator for life like say Inouye, Leahy, Lugar and Hatch types. But I think he wants a "run". He's 61. 2014 re-election... could see him doing 3 terms: 2007-2025 which is 74. Totally agree, and suspect it will come if he wins re-election. Then he has a clear 2014-2020 to define himself. John

Rand won in Kentucky not TN. In fact it is very unlikely Rand could have won in TN. I get Lawler's territory mixed up.

I think she would have done worse as an Indy from the start (i.e. avoided the primary). If the GOP produced a tea bagger out of the primary who did even a modest job of retaining the GOP Base, Linda would have been between two rocks: 0% of the GOP Base, and the Obama Dems over time coming home to Murphy. Linda wouldn't have broken 30%. Things in CT are different from 2006 where: * the GOP Machine intentionally tanked to help Lieb win * Moderate Dems were confused over their support of Lieb * Indies were confused over their support of Lieb The GOP Machine has much less control these days over the voters and also the candidates. Ask Dick Lugar about that. There also remain a lot of CT voters who felt burned by Lieb. It's why he didn't run for re-election, despite his massive asshole ego wanting to be Senator For Life: he'd long ago seen the polling that vastly too many voters in the state hated him. Few of those voters were going to take a suckers bet on Linda as an "indy" since they, more than just about any state, know that in the end an Indy in the Senate ends up with one of the parties... and then it's a matter of just how much they support that party. Everyone would have known that Linda would be a Republican. John

I don't think Franken getting elected was a fluke, certainly not to the degree that Ventura's was. As CFCW walked through, a lot of things came together for Jesse to win, the most important being that neither party had a strong candidate that could hold the entire base that party usually draws from. If either got to 40%, Jesse didn't win. Franken won his party's nomination. He was a active part of political discussion for more than a decade. He'd talked about running before that. While the third party wasn't without votes, it really was a battle between a Dem and a GOP incumbent. Franken won. He's been flat out on his best Senatorial behavior both when running and since then. Those of us who would like to see the old Al just ripping the fuck out of the GOP as Lying Liars in a way that is both funny but biting have been shit out of luck: he's put that away. I get the sense of three things: * he wants to step away from being boxed in as a Comedian rather than a Senator * that both in terms of the initial election and also the re-election * he likely feels that if he wins re-election, the seat is his for as long as he wants barring the state going hard right Klobuchar just won re-election with 65.2% of the vote. Franken may not ever get that high, but he's working hard to be Senator Franken and focused on his state. If he retains the belt in 2014, he knows that barring being completely bonkers or the state turning red he's going to be one of those Senators for Life. There's an incentive for him to be mellow.

On Vince running... he wouldn't have a shot of winning in CT. Could he win someplace else if (i) he had a well run campaign, and (ii) he followed the orders of that well run campaign? Quite possible. There are a lot of places Rand Paul couldn't have won. There are a lot of candidates against which Rand Paul could have lost. TN was a favorable state for him, especially in 2010. After pissing off the GOP Machine by running in and winning the primary (read Mitch as much as anyone), they circled the wagon around him... and actually got him to be very careful about what he said and where he appeared. He wasn't running against an strong candidate. There are plenty of other places in the country where he could have won a similar seat in 2010, depending on the opponents. If Vince got the GOP Senate nomination in Alabama, he'd win 95% of the time. He's just have to avoid stepping on his cock with something as problematic as Akin/Mourdock. Even then, perhaps Vince and his handlers could talk their way out of it. CT is different. Vince's baggage would be a problem he couldn't overcome. Not in this era. Jesse was a different era, different state, and with far less baggage. He was the recent "Mayor Ventura", which made him moderately respectable. I'm not entirely sure if Franken is analogous to either, other than the "entertainment" background. Certainly not to Vince if Vince just upped and left wrestling for a run at the Senate. Franken had been outspoken in politics since the Rush book, which was a decade before. Three rather outspoken best sellers. He's closer to say Maddow leaving the booth and running for office. John

2010 55% Blumenthal 43% Linda 2012 55% Murphy 43% Linda It's rather amazing that another $50M couldn't raise her above where she lost the last time. One might give Obama credit for coattails and that hurting Linda, but Obama "only" won CT by a 58/40.8 split. Linda didn't outperform Romney by much. A bigger contrast: MA 60.8% Obama 37.6% Romney 53.7% Warren 46.3% Brown Brown was actually able to pull away Obama voters from Warren. Anyway, Nate's projections on the states were interesting. That's a state where Nate's projections were: For CT: 56.6-42.5 Obama +14.1 52.6-45.6 Murphy +7.0 For Mass: 59.0-39.9 Obama +19.1 51.7-47.3 Warren +4.4 Around two points off on Dem/GOP numbers. Linda was did worse than the polling would indicate. John

I called it when she won the nomination. Seriously... I think if we go up the thread, we both called it then. It's staggering to blow $100M on two stupid campaigns. FWIW, has Dave ever given up what sort of "late bullet" that those idiot sources in the WWE/Campaign were feeding him? John

No idea.

Race just called for Murphy on MSNBC. Say goodnight, Linda. John

I think Animal House and The Big Lebowski spend way too much time bubbling around in my brain. John

I think he was a quite good worker when he wanted to be. When saying that, I don't think he was as lazy as Muraco, who probably was even more talented and charismatic than Greg... but just a stunningly lazy fuck in way too many (as in the Majority) of his matches. But I also think the 1979 rematch with Backlund is an example of Greg not being engaged, especially if watched with the prior draw in mind. I happened to watch the rematch years before the draw came out, and was rather stunned by how mediocre it was. In the context of watching a lot of Backlund matches, seeing how he worked when matches were good, and how things went when they weren't, you did get the feel that it was on Greg. Similar to a couple of Backlund-Patterson matches that I saw before a "good one" finally washed up: Pat wasn't working very hard, and attempts by Backlund to do stuff that worked against others tended to run into a brick wall of Pat wanting to lay around. It's been a while since I've watched the Bob-Greg rematch, so it's not pefectly in my mind and I also don't have a write up of it to refresh myself with. In my mind, it was less shitty than the mediocre iterations of Bob-Pat matches, and instead was "wildly disappointing" because I expected more out of the two. In turn, the draw hit those expectations... and then ran a lap or two around them. There were Greg matches in the 80s after the tag title run that were like that. I wonder if he got that his major push was over, he wasn't doing anything that interested him but the money was okay, so he was just getting by in his matches. The problem for *me* as someone trying to get my head around Greg is *that* is the Greg that I cut my teeth on. That image of 1986-91 Greg is the one in my head because he's the one I saw so many matches of on places like PrimeTime and some house show matches. In turn, I could contrast him with the JCP guys... and he really wasn't at their level. That's a *bias* on my part, and also a part of his career that is over influential in my brain when forming an opinion on him. Two things soften that: * I generally appreciate 80s WWF, and some 80s WWF workers, more now when sifting through it than back in the 80s Tito is an example... okay, a bad one since I didn't hate him in the 80s, just didn't pay much attention to his solid work. Better example is Hogan: I hated his stuff in the 80s, but now find a fair amount of that perfectly watchable. So watching more Greg may play into the fact that I'm more open to WWF 80s now than in the 80s. * I have seen some 80s Greg that I like a good deal Those Backlund matches. It's always a big positive when a worker has matches that are good not only in the context of a single 6-12 month feud, but that he focused enough to do it again 2+ years later... and then focused again to do it again 2+ years after that. 02/79, 11/81, 04/84... that to me is a good sign. Sure, they're comfortable with each other. But the last is five years after the first, a lot has changed since then, and the two put on a damn fine match at the dawn of Hulkamania that the MSG crowd like. That's a positive, not just for Bob but also very much for Greg. The Tito series is real good. The Tito & Steamer vs Greg & Beefcake is *damn* good, and it's largely Greg for the heels not only as a worker but also as the ring general guiding things for Beefcake. I'm less high on the more noted of the Garvin matches than just about everyone else, but I'm also not much of the "He punched him in the MOTHERFUCKING nose!" or "This was a fucking WAR!" type of fan, and instead thought that is was a gigantic mess stupid work: http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....=3935ཟ So I'm sure that with more watching of Greg in the WWF, I'll like stumble across something like the Toronto Tag the surprises me for how good it is. I'll also likely come across some stuff where Greg strikes me as going through the motions in matches. John