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http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=D3UzA...+arts&hl=en Yeah... that one stuns the hell out of me.

The Ras poll is largely game/set/match. Scott has a track record over putting his finger on the scales in the GOP direction above the average pollsters, then magically in the last week of campaigns "correcting" back to the Average so that his Final Poll(s) are closer to reality. Firms are usually judged on their Final Poll, rather than the majority of people paying close attention to how the poll it doing the long campaign. Scott has a sneaky ability to move his Final so that he retains some credibility. 10/21: 48-47 10/28: 51-45 (+3/-2) John

This is a lot of fun. You'd think it's repetitive, but it's interesting for the variety of people who did it, and also for watching Andre change over the years. John

Monday is too late to roll something out. They would really need to roll it out no later than Thursday. Friday news dump is a bit too late, and instead you'd want to use that as an advantage: the next goes out on Thu, it's the talk of Friday, no one pays attention to the defense over the weekend, and by Monday the news has moved on to a degree. That said, Dave is probably getting this nonsense from "connected" people who largely are WWE'ers and don't know two shits about politics and elections. A surprise on Monday isn't enough to wipe out a the 5 point lead Nate projects it to be, unless Murphy was banging 12 year olds. Linda has run mediocre general campaigns, and largely has only been effective in the primaries due to (i) he loads of money, and (ii) the lack of a decent batshit crazy tea partier that captured the mind of the Base during the primary. In other words, what happened in 2010 with O'Donnell and the crackpot in Alaska, and quite a few other GOP primaries. When it's come to the general elections, her campaigns have been poor beyond simply the ability to toss a ton of money at the campaign.

One doesn't often see Loss that cheesed. John

The premise of the question was based on Available Material being able to be taken to the Island. There was a variety of territories. There's very little available, especially of real matches (i.e. Arena matches in full / near full condition). Essentially just Japan and WWWF/WWF in volume, and the WWWF/WWF is a bit spotty: they have far more in the vault than has been release, which makes it not available. For other territories... it's really sparse. Hot beds like JPC, Florida, Georgia, St Louis? Real depth of lucha material, AWA and Joshi? Good luck. I think a good / interesting / fun / great set by Will of the 70s will eventually be very cool. But the vast majority of it will be matches in Japan or matches in the WWWF. It also won't remotely come close to generating 300-360 disks like the 90s sets have (depending upon how many bonus disks get created down the road). The 70s probably would have been a really awesome decade to be a wrestling fan is: * there was as much TV as there was from 1984-93 * as many arena show and other big matches were filmed as in that period * we had access to all of it John

Well, having been a fan of futbol in the 90s, the best players in the world were not English men. Not in any year. Or even close. Granted, there were mediocre / overrated players from the Continent and South America. But there were countless English players who were getting pimped to the sky who really weren't all that. Alan Shearer and Gabriel Batistuta are about a year and a half difference in age. If you polled just English on who was better, Shearer would win handily. If you polled the Continent and South America, Batistuta would win, and probably by a good margin. It's one of the nice things about being a futbol fan in the US: they are all "exotics" to me, as they are all better than US football and footballers. I can be a bit more objective, love my team (Manchester United), love the English players on the team... but also love the non-English on the team, and lust after those on other teams. I love Paul Scholes... along with Eric Cantona, he'd be my favorite United player over the years. But I also tend to be objective: Xavi is the better player. * * * * * Flipping it back to pro wrestling. Ric Flair, Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express are the reasons I'm a pro wrestling fan. Their entertainment value on TBS in the mid-80s is what pulled me in. I didn't start watching Japan because I was a WON reader or an online guy who heard others pimping it. I had a Japanese co-worker give me a tape from a local video store to watch. I liked what I saw. It wasn't "exotic". I was just "great". John

Nate updated his projections for the Senate. His model on CT: Projected vote share: 51.7-46.2 (Murphy +5.5) Chance of winning: 86%/14% Murphy 90% is his "safe" level, so this still is in "likely" for the moment. Would take something odd for it to turn. John

It is a non-story. But Obama's Birth Certificate is a non-story. Yet what % of GOP folks think he was born in Kenya? In a close election in a state that's going Obama, this last in the race being seen as Pals With Trump doesn't help with Obama Voters that Linda is trying to peel away from Murphy. Again, if even 1% hear this and are annoyed enough to switch from Linda to Murph, it's not good for Linda. Lord knows... the number of people who think Obama is Kenyan is far higher than 1%. John

Vince McMahon 'fesses up to donation to Trump Big picture, it's a small thing in the election. But small picture... there are quite a few Obama voters who really hate Trump for all the birther shit. Trump stupidly popped back onto the national stage with that goofy $5M Offer which got laughed down as soon as he announced it. Just another late reminder to some Obama voters what a prick he is. Obama is out polling Murphy in CT. Murphy has been working hard to get Obama voters all lined up behind him, though it seems unlikely he will. The national race tightened after the first debate took away the opportunity for Obama to spend a good chunk of Oct focused on supporting candidates in Senate and Congressional races where the Obama rub would have helped (in contrast to say AZ). But getting lumped so closely with Trump less than two weeks out, during the same week Trump popped back into the news... not great timing. Small thing, but even getting 1% to move from Linda to Murphy is bad for Linda... of getting 1% of the undecided to head to Murphy... not good for her. John

http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/wcw90.htm Flair was the balance of July, through August and into mid-September. Two months and a couple of weeks. A contrast? 03/27/88 Mania: Randy Savage pinned Ted Dibiase to win WWF Title Here are the televised or taped matches: 04/25/88 MSG: Ted Dibiase defeated Randy Savage 05/27/88 MSG: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase 06/25/88 MSG: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase 07/09/88 Boston: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase 07/23/88 Spectrum: Ted Dibiase defeated Randy Savage 07/31/88 WrestleFest: Randy Savage pinned Ted Dibiase 08/06/88 Boston: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase 08/28/88 Spectrum: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase 08/29/88 Summer Slam: Hogan & Savage defeated Andre & Ted Dibiase 09/24/88 Spectrum: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase in a steel cage match There were countless non-taped matches, along with quite a few matches at Superstars/Challenge tapings some of which probably were filmed as well (and I think have seen the light of day). There also was an MLG card where a few of the matches appeared on Prime Time, but it's not clear if the entire card was tapes. This the last singles match I find: 10/17/88 Utica: Randy Savage defeated Ted Dibiase in a steel cage match Basically seven months after Mania. Hogan-Savage the following year was very similar. Hogan won the title back in the "first attempt" (for all the masses knew), and then defended it around the horn against Savage for quite a few months. Those two drew well. Sting-Flair didn't.

The shit I've forgotten over the years... Jim Ross Colon Surgery http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUnUvJYGsEs

90s for variety, also for availability of that variety. There is still of lot of great 80s stuff that just didn't make tv/tape and instead is just arena matches. One thing on the 80s that would be interesting is an estimate of what % of Lucha (EMLL & UWA) tv exists in US collectors hands? A massive amount of Japanese TV (AJPW, NJPW, IWE, AJW) exists in collectors hands. My guess would be, if we were to compile everything from various sources (such as using Classics and commercial releases as a backfill), 85-90% of the NJPW+AJPW tv matches are available and in a fair number of cases in more complete form than aired on tv. A lot of AJW is available. I don't know if Dan ever has attempt to organize it was well as the AJPW/NJPW seasons sets have been, and perhaps it's too much of a beast... but good lord is there a lot. Surprisingly, a fair amount of 1980-81 IWE is available. My guess is that well over 60% of all matches that aired on TV are available in Japan in the 80s are available, with some in more complete form than ever aired on TV (think of the Jaguar-Lioness / Chigusa-Devil combo). Could you imagine if 60%+ of EMLL and UWA tv was available, with a premium on the major matches and with much of the missing stuff the more routine? I think people's heads would explode.

I'm pretty sure he will. I think Dave was pretty fond of Jeff.

People lie about their politics and views. She clearly has, and of course is hardly the only one. So it is worthwhile to take a look at her actions prior to crafting her campaign message. Her actions prior to that are as a head of the WWE, which she certainly has pointed to over the last two campaigns as an example of "I'm a successful business woman, and that why you should vote for me!" John

Linda appears to be sinking fast: Murphy Up As McMahon Fades In Connecticut Senate Race, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Women Propel Obama To Big Lead Over Romney 48-47 Linda in the prior October 4 survey (which always seemed a stretch to me) to 49-43 Murphy. John

GOP State Central Flooded With Calls Over McMahon's Obama Ad

Dusty also was in the WWF "around late November", not WCW. John

SKeith full of it... what a surprise! John

Interesting, since it looks like they're moving up the The Spring TUF from the standard time frame: The Ultimate Fighter 3: April 6, 2006 – June 24, 2006 The Ultimate Fighter 5: April 5, 2007 – June 23, 2007 The Ultimate Fighter: Rampage vs. Forrest: April 2, 2008 – June 21, 2008 The Ultimate Fighter: US vs. UK: April 1, 2009 – June 20, 2009 The Ultimate Fighter: Liddell vs. Ortiz: March 31, 2010 – June 19, 2010 The Ultimate Fighter: Lesnar vs. dos Santos: March 30, 2011 - June 4, 2011 The Ultimate Fighter: Live: March 9, 2012 - June 1, 2012 This one starts taping next week, and ends tapings in January. My thought is that if they could have gone in the Live mode (which is a hell of a long time to keep Jones and Sonnen hanging around), Sonnen could have fought Griffin easily and be ready to hop in the house in March (or even Feb if they wanted to move it up a month). Even if they didn't want to go Live, they could have started taping in late January since Jones is ready to tape a month after his fight with Belfort. Start taping in late January... I don't know how they split the taping / editing, and how they re-edit earlier events based on knowledge of what happens later... but if they're less concerned about that and have a split team (people filming and people editing), they certainly could get stuff taped in late January onto the air by late Feb very easily. They did a reasonable job of quickly getting stuff onto the air each week during the Live season. Of course this would have been a problem if Sonnen was announced as a coach and lost to Forest. John

This would be highly unlikely. Flair has just got the belt back. My recollection was more that the match was a "tryout" to see if Scott could work a strong singles match on top. If he did, then he would be pushed. The match wasn't well received, and that was generally it for Scott's singles push. Also: * it's probably worthwhile to look up when the NJPW/WCW Starrcade show was agreed to Pretty sure NJPW knew that it would be Flair-Fujinami, and Steiner-Fujinami never would have been made. * recall this was the year where Flair was insane to get a contract extension I'm not sure after the unhappy 1990 year he had (where he quit the book, refused to job the title to Lex, and Sting had the belt), that a couple of weeks after getting the belt and the top spot back that he'd be happy to job it instantly to Scott... without that extension that he later was fighting for as the price to job to Lex. My guess is that the WON in the era could clear things up. John

Pete got to it before I did. Those always were "throw them out" ratings, just like the Dog Show week. John

What an asshole.

Nate Silver of the 538 in his Senate race projection has a Projected vote share of 51.2-46.7 for Murphy, with him hving a 78%-22% Chance of winning. John

People were shitting on wrestling in newspapers in the 1920s. We're fans of a garbage form of entertainment that has long been one of the cesspools of the entertainment business. It's not just "cultural elites" who think it's a fucking joke: most of the nation does, and has for our entire lives. It's a waste of time to (i) worry about it, and (ii) get all worked up about it being elitism when people think it sucks. I mean... frankly it does suck, but we love it anyway. We need to get over it. John