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Did Wagner Sr. fall below 5%? I'd have to go back and check the comments I had from him last year, but I don't think Dr. Lucha was sold on Wagner Sr at all. John

And to clarify Kriz's point, many of the biggest stars in the world do just that. Christ... Senators are tweeting now. And some of it is dumb stuff. John

Who in the hell is Ross talking about? John

My guess is Edge, Doc and Schmidt. John

Someone seems to have the numbers since numbers get tossed out in Dave's STL pieces (and other pieces on wrestlers who worked a fair amount in STL) regularly enough. John

Punk will win it. Bix's pimping not withstanding, it a reasonable question whether he will deserve it. But he will win it. The better question is who will come in second. John

Dog: if it wasn't clear from my posts, I'm with you on hating Tweety and Speedy. That's why I was ducking the Road Runner & Speedy vs. Wil E. & Sylvester tag team. I just don't want to see Speedy's "suck heat" dragging Road Runner & Wil E. down. Now... Road Runner & Tweety vs. Wil E. & Sylvester might be interesting because Tweety would get jealous, slap Road Runner and walk out of the match to leave it RR vs Wil E. & Sylvester. Of course RR would overcome the odds with Wil E. & Sylvester stooging out for him. But it would make it obvious to the fans that Tweety was a heel. John

~! John

Thank god in my mind Coppala stopped at 2. John

Hmm... that might be true. John

The titles of the shows and film were centered around Bugs and Road Runner not Wile E. so one has to assume that Bugs and RR were the draws. Totally agree. I think we've got a lot of heel fans here, and they're not willing to cut RR slack. RR was a Monster Face, only Bugs was bigger in the Warners promotion. Everybody respected Road Runner because he never tried to steal any of the other face's thunder or try to upstage them. Even through everyone knew that RR brought Wil E. into the business and the two had a tight bond, RR was personally okay with Wil E. working with, and putting over totally, the biggest face in the promotion, Bugs. He also got a kick out of Jones' idea of booking Wil E. under the mask against Sam. This was damn generous of RR too. RR and Wil E. only worked a limited number of matches a year, and to quote Gorilla Monsoon, the Road Runner always came out with the "winners share of the purse". Even though RR-Wil E. were huge gates, and on a per-match basis Wil E. made as much if not more than any heel in the company, it still was only a few dates a year. In contrast, a hardworking heel like Daffy was grinding out good paydays week after week. Being cool with Wil E. working other feuds, especially those big drawing dream matches against Bugs, put good coin in Wil E.'s pockets and food on his table. Like Andre, everyone respected RR. "When Road Runner was on a card, we all made money. Let me tell yah, son... that 'BEEP BEEP' shit done packed the kids in. I would have given my left nut to work with that son-bitch, and by gawd we would have knocked their boots off. But he and the Coyote were magic together... yah don't fuck with pure gold like that." -Yosemite Sam John

I would totally disagree with the notion that RR wasn't a main eventer. The Bugs cartoons weren't the only main events in the Warner's promotion, as they were like the WWF in the 80s working multiple cards each night. This was one of the great things about Warners: they could work a lot of people into main events so that you weren't getting a Bugs Bunny main event every week at the Mid South Coliseum. Chuck Jones, who had creative control over Road Runner while he was at Warners, was brilliant in not wearing out RR. He limited RR to 1-3 matches a year, all huge draws as fans wanted to see what happened next in the RR-Coyote feud. It was totally unlike the later Daffy vs Speedy feud that was forced to be a main event feud in the declining days of the studio, got run into the ground and just plain sucked. As long as Chuck was around, they were always among the most highly anticipated main events of the year. When Chuck was dumped by Warners, you quickly saw what would happen in someone else's hands: 14 shorts in less than two years, one of many examples of the promotion going off the rails. Road Runner was closer to Andre in how Jones conservatively booked him. You knew you were getting something special. And like Andre, Road Runner needed a special heel to work against to make the Road Runner Match work. Wil E. was perfect in that role. RR was iconic, as were the matches. Even things like ACME became household words. Wil E. was so great of a stooge heel that he was a bit like The Destroyer working as "Dr. X" in the AWA when Jones gave him the Ralph E. Wolf gimmick to work with Sam Sheepdog in a special midcard feud. They didn't quite want to have Wil E. openly jobbing to a midcarder like Sam, but in a wink-wink with the fans, they had Ralph work also use ACME products from time-to-time, including in his first match with Sam. It always kept the fans guess, "Is that really a Wolf... or is it the Coyote?!?!" Jones was a awesome booker, knowing how to create major main event programs, how to book midcard feuds, and how to occassionally toss out at the fans those "I don't know what they hell that was, but it was amazing!!!!" matches. Pepe was Jones' Hacksaw Jim Duggan. And it was a sign of just how great of a booker Jones was: Pepe won a freaking Oscar. John

No decline and fall of Vito. He handed over a strong business to his son, who made it stronger. John

Great stuff on Road Runner, Bob. I see Road Runner as a Ricky Steamboat / Ricky Morton style Ultimate Babyface. They really only could play babyface in their prime, and were near perfect examples of it. Road Runner didn't sell for Wil E., but that pretty much was the genre: babyfaces didn't do a lot of selling. Bugs didn't sell a lot. Early face Daffy didn't sell much. Jerry didn't sell much for Tom, though probably worked "fear" more than Bugs. Road Runner didn't need to sell because the RR-Coyote Match was all about Wil E. heeling, stooging and bumping big. No one really wanted to see Road Runner go heel, and like you point out, it's not like he could have worked it like Bugs did against Cecil. On the other hand, I don't think most of the fans rooted for Wil E., anymore than most fans rooted against Steamboat or Morton. There were always some fans who rooted against those guys, rooted for the heels... but let's be honest that they were just Heel Fans who were jealous of Steamer, Morton and Road Runner. Road Runner would have had a hard time working a long term feud with Elmer just because of format. Who hunts long term a road runner? It might have worked as a one-off novelty match, but would have been tough to pull off, not just because of RR but also Elmer's character. RR-Daffy... that's one where the characters don't quite mesh because what are Daffy's motivations for going after RR, and how does he go about it? On the other hand, we do need to admit that Daffy was an off the charts heel who could work with damn near anyone, and was one creative worker on the screen who if forced could think of something. Daffy would work a jealously angle, which he always did well, and then go Wil E. on the RR in trying to come up with ways to screw over RR. I wouldn't at all put it past Daffy to make it work, and with a master like Chuck Jones laying it out backstage with the two, it would have a chance to by a Short of the Year Candidate. We know that Daffy would have gone all out. Now I totally agree that Tweety-RR wouldn't work, but we probably agree where the blame would fall: that little bastard Tweety. You can't work face vs face with RR: someone needs to be heel, and like with Morton and Steamer, it couldn't be RR. One of two things would happen. Tweety just might refuse to work the match and play heel. That's actually better than the alternative. The worst thing that could happen is Tweety agreeing to do the match, then just try to steal all of RR's heat by not bumping or stooging for him. Think Brody vs Lex, with RR getting that look on his face as the short goes on: "What the fuck is going on here? What's gotten into this guy?" It would just be a massive train wreck, and really not because of RR. Luckily, Warners Creative was smart enough never to book themselves into that mess. I'm 100% in agreement with the Daffy comments. No doubt he has some personal resentment over Bugs passing him by, despite the fact that Daffy entered the promotion earlier and was already a main eventer when Bugs came along, even working Hunter Matches before Bugs. That also could have blown up when Daffy was booked into putting over Bugs in match after match. But Daffy was a total pro. He "channeled" that resentment into creating new depth to his character, let it hang out in fake-shoot spots on the mic to build up heat. Unlike Kevin Nash or Triple H, Daffy never used those fake-shoot comments to cut Bugs down, but instead to set himself up for more bumping and stooging. Bugs was Hogan, but a much better worker. Daffy was Savage like others pointed out. Great worker, great star, maybe underrated to some fans because Bugs was so big, but a massive star in his own right who could work with damn near anyone and have a good match, and at his best pull off some all-time classics. "People want me to bad mouth the Duck. Yes, he was quirky, tough to understand, and not easy to get close to outside of the shorts. He wasn't one to go out for beers with the rest of the crew. But when the camera was rolling, or when you were laying things out backstage, he was a total pro focused on giving the fans a great short. No one ever gave more out there." -Porky "Look, we all know he hated working that long feud with Speedy. Horrible booking, bad storylines, the booking committee was burned out, some of us had left, and production had gone to hell. But you can see Daffy busting his ass to make that mouse look good in those shorts, even if they're largely awful. That's a pro: even handed crap to work with, he tried to make the most out of it." -Chuck Jones John

Dave's talked about it for years in read-betwee-the-lines fashion. But he's reached the point where he's talking about it catching up to Vince. John

Flu-like symptoms carny for cocaine problem? Who re-worded that? They made it sound far, far more dire than Dave did. What Dave wrote: No sleep for a week then crashing for a day and a half? What Dave wrote is far, far more dire than what the Torch credited Dave for. John

Yeah, Foghorn was a total heel. Such an asshole heel that like MD says, you rooted for the Dog and Henrey to fuck over Foghorn. Tweety was closer to the old school Tweener Face, or more accurately a forerunner of the Modern Kick Ass Heel like Stone Cold. Tweety had a nasty and evil streak of beating the shit out of the various cats, especially Sylvester. Yes, the cats deserved an ass stomping just as much as the heels deserved Stone Cold opening up a can of whip ass on them. Bugs was a thinking man's bastard babyface. Tweety... that innocent "babyface" grill of his... yeah it fooled Granny, but we all knew he was one nasty motherfucker. A Face vs Face match between Bugs vs Tweety would have been a war. One suspects that Bugs would have decided at the start of the feud to sell and bump for Tweety like he did for Cecil, since Bugs would do what was right for the promotion. But Tweety is such a nasty little bugger that at some point Bugs would have snapped off on his arrogant two faced no selling ass and just put the Bird down. Bugs was like Hogan: he was far smarter and more dangerous than people inside Warners thought he was. If Tweety got a big head and didn't let Bugs get his heat back, Bugs would have booked Tweety into a corner, and when the Bird thought he would be going over, Bugs would have shot on him and gotten the fall. He also would have turned the entire Warners front office on Tweety, and gotten the little fucker fired. At that point, where could Tweety have gone? Disney wouldn't have wanted him. No way Mickey would work with him, Goofy wouldn't have wanted to stooge for someone so nasty, and Daffy would have spread rumors about Tweety with Disney Creative because Daffy wouldn't want any real competition in being the top bird on the Disney pecking order. MGM? Tom and Jerry would have had none of it. They still were pissed off over Tweety stealing the 1948 Oscar from them, one of only three Oscars the legendary duo failed to win between 1943-52... and the one that broke up their streak of four straight wins. Folks may think that Tom & Jerry were a laid back pair off camera, but they were competitive as all hell, and took their "art" serious. I mean... Jerry worked with The Man of Dance Gene Kelly, and Jerry busted his ass to hold up his end of the match. T&J saw Tweety & Sylvester as a cheap rip off of Cat & Mouse dressed up as Cat & Bird. They would have walked out of MGM before letting Tweety join the promotion. Tweety would have been forced to work with the garbage animation promotion of the era: Walter Lantz Studio. And let's be honest that Lantz, the Paul Heyman of Animation, would only have brought Tweety in to put over Woody before moving down the card to job to Chilly Willy. Yeah... it's too bad that Tweety wasn't booked with Bugs. By the 60s, Tweety would have been out of the business, pawned his Oscar to support his booze habit, and eventually caught trying to poison Granny to inherit her money. No one from the business turned out to be a character witness in his defense at the trial, and he got sent to the slammer. Bugs always would have pointed out to anyone who listened that all Tweety needed to do was work an even steven program and he would still be in the business making money. "Tweety was always all about Tweety. He didn't respect the business or the people in it. In the end, no one wanted to have anything to do with him." -Bugs "I never say anything bad about anyone, even that annoying Duck. But Tweety... he was a nasty little bastard. No one was sorry to see him leave the promotion." -Porky John

In AJW, it was the dawn of Bull's Era... right from the start. If there is any one Yearbook where you might want to "Go Long" with several extra disks, this probably would be the one. Though you might be helped in keeping it down by what's missing/lacking: * no ECW/SMW * no Raw/SD/Nitro/Thunder * probably don't have the full year of Lucha available (i.e. every episode) * Japan indy hadn't gone insane yet * AJW probably hasn't gone as nutty on commercial tapes yet * PPV wasn't yet 12 shows a year from both promotions John

Looking at Wiki: "Hare-Breadth Hurry" was the one where Bugs pinch hit for the Road Runner, making it a hybrid between the classical WEC vs RR spotfest short and the classical BB vs Stooge Heel short. It's a Chuck Jones short, it's Bugs, and it's Wil E... so I'm a mark for it. All the other ones are more traditional BB vs Stooge Heel shorts, all by Jones. The first, "Operation: Rabbit", was terrific. The others had their moments. The Wil E. opposite Bugs in these is of course similar to the Wil E. opposite pure babyface Road Runner, but against Bugs he gets some time on the stick to try to work the fans. I think we both agree that it does help get across Wil E's personality well. Rather than just being a coyote obsessed with eating that damned Road Runner, we see a coyote who thinks of himself as quite a brilliant fellow. He probably could find simpler prey, and easier ways to kill them. But he has a need to prove just how smart he is. Problem? No one is smarter than Bugs. John

And for an analogy, I think the WWE is closer to Profit with Trip as a vastly less interesting and less talented Jim. The McMahon's are the Gracens. Now I'd have to figure out who Bobbi is... John

I love Courtney Thorne-Smith and Heather Locklear, but even they couldn't keep me watching that show. John

It's really not terribly complicated: * Bret was right * Vince was wrong * Shawn was wrong Even on the level of being "reasonable", Bret was perfectly reasonable. The other two weren't... at all. It's possble that Vince would have been if Shawn didn't go the "I'm not jobbing" route. Because in the end, Vince would have gotten what he wanted: Bret jobbing to Shawn. But Shawn wasn't wan't reasonable on any level. We tend to over complicate this over the years. John

Wow... that would be a screw up. I'll have to mention it to him... John

John

I didn't mention him because I never found him super compelling as a heel. I'd agree that he was pushed as a monster heel, but... he's against Bugs, so you never really buy Sam has a chance. Kind of a loudmouth heel, but unlike Daffy where you wanted to see Daffy get his come uppance, with Sam... I don't know... didn't take off regularly. Wil E. didn't work with Bugs a ton, but was an awesome stooge. Of course his unending Buzz Sawyer vs Tommy Richesque feud with the Road Runner was more famous. But the Bugs feud gave us a deeper insight into how Wil E. viewed himself. John