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In theory that could happen, but how likely is it that Punk would honestly crash the party without letting his boss-in-training HHH know about it first? It's much more probable that the whole thing was planned to some extent. The WWE is pretty notorious for being very strict on its employees when it comes to making public appearances, with everything having to be okayed by the office first. And walking about the biggest fan convention in the world with the title belt and a bullhorn would certainly fall into that category, especially when he's interrupting their own official panel. It doesn't even have to be a WWE Panel. If Punk tried to do that on the Leverage Panel, he wouldn't: * get Man In A Suit helping him * get two Green Shirts running interference for him * avoid getting his ass dragged out of there by Comic Con Security * getting to spend some special time with the SDPD or SD County Sheriff, whichever covers the con It's a nice angle. If Punk was a Great producer/director, he probably would have been hipper to make sure that Man In A Suit and the two Green Shirts weren't on camera so obviously. Then again, if WWE/Punk Fan is going to suspend brainwaves enough to believe think security wouldn't jump in (at an event with some of the biggest entertainment stars in the world appearing every year) when an asshole stalker crashes a panel, then they're going to suspend their brainwaves for everything. Frankly thinking more about it... to Sell the Realism of the Angle, they really needed some rent-a-cops pretending to be SDPD drag Punk out of there and Punk's Videographer "hide" the camera in his pocket (to make sure the SDPD doesn't take the film since it's something that a lot of Law Enforcement are starting to do to avoid the risk of being shown potentially roughing someone up). Then once he "got out of jail", Punk could cut a youtube promo on how the WWE doesn't want him to speak out, and even sicked the cops on him. Great rebel shit: fighting the Authority of Vince, Trip and the Law. John

I agree that the schedule is posted, and it's on it: http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci11_prog_thu.php On the other hand... Punk's pal taped it and gave it to Punk to upload it. Hell, they were shooting the March To The Door before going into the panel. Noticable in the March To The Door are three people: * Man In A Suit * Two Green Shirts Man In A Suite is right infront of Punk on the March. You see Green Shirt #1 off to the left of the screen stopping wide outside the Door (0:08-0:10). He has short hair, a clipboard/papers and appears to have something on his *back* hip/waist with an antena. Cellphones typically are on the front, and no longer have antenas. Walkie Talkie! Green Shirt #2 stops close by the door, lets Punk pass him and then follows him in (0:14-0:20). He's Large, Dumpy & Bald. Right at 0:20 we get a nice shot of the back/right side of his head. Ear Piece! So we have what at the very least are three Event Staffers spontaneously escorting Punk who showed up with no advance warning to the Mattel & WWE panel... or some combo of Event Staffers or WWE Employees since we don't know if Man In A Suit is Event Staff or Mattel or WWE, and we don't know if the WWE or Mattel likes to send employees to Comic Con in matching slacks & Green Shirts with walkie talkies and ear pieces. Oh... in addition to Video Cam Pal. Let me see if I get this straight. Sometime between Monday and Thursday morning, Punk does this: And so Punk works with the WWE to get Man In A Suit and the two Green Shirts to help him with his OMG IT'S A SHOOT ANGLE!!!! stuff. Look: it's a pretty cool piece of Red Meat for The Base. I'm copping to that. And I also copped to it being something that they probably want to get onto Raw next week to keep attention on Punk, rather than just having it a Viral thing that a chunk of the fans won't see. I like it, even if I'm not creaming myself over it. Solid, funny little two minutes. I'm just pointing out the obvious to anyone who watches the video in an observant fashion rather than a OMG PUNK IS FUCKING WITH THE WWE AGAIN!!! fashion. Much like with WWE Production always having the right camera angle on the initial Shoot Promo, there are obvious tells / give aways in this that Punk, the WWE and Trip are working together on this part of the angle. I tossed out the most obvious one first: Punk clearly brought a Videographer with him with instructions to start shooting the March To The Door. I thought it might be overkill to point out more... but there, I've wasted this post going over the first 20 second of the video where we have other obvious give aways of it being well planned out in advance by the WWE. Please don't make me break down the rest of 2:51 to point out the other things. You know... things like, "It sure doesn't seem like they have security insider at these panels in the event a stalker decides to jump a panelist... because if they did and this was a Shoot where No One Was In On It, Comic Con Security would have been dragging Punks ass out of there in 30 second rather than Letting Him Get The Mic." John

Yeah: Punk knew when it was, flew out "on his own dime" and had his own videographer ready to film. This is good red meat for The Base. It will be interesting if it gets on Raw next Monday. They should. But it's also a sign of how quickly they are pushing this. This is no slow developing storyline where Punk is "fired" and wanders off for a Jericho-like break to refresh himself. Right to the hard sell as a continuing storyline. John

I'm not talking about *now*. I'm talking long term. The ISPs/Telecoms do and will view it as an area to increase revenue and profits. The notion of unlimited data at no increased costs will be dead within 20 years, if not earlier. Because there still is competition right now for ISPs, and they are leary of taking the first step. On the other hand, we are seeing some take the first step with phones. I totally agree on this, and frankly that number is going to skyrocket over time. We're at a stage very similar to what anyone whose done e-mail system admin or works closely with their company's e-mail team has seen. The amount of data passing through a company's servers, and being stored on it, went through the roof year after year in the 00s as people went beyond just ending e-mail with text and started attatching more and more shit to it. It's easy to send a 30MB PPT to 20 people... or to get a 250MB db file to review. Users don't really see the impact. With data like video content, especially as it's (i) getting higher in quality, (ii) more is being put up there, and (iii) ISP speed has increased where it's quicker for consumers to get their hands on... usage is going through the roof. That's generally my point. And Comcast's ISP business will likely overtime be merged into one of the other major ISP. It's hard to tell if the ISP+Content provider model of Comcast and TWC will survive when those two end up (i) gobbling up the rest of the smaller Cable providers, and (ii) inturn merge their ISP business into one of the Phone Telecoms. You may see the Comcast and TWC content spun out while the ISP/Cable business end up one each with Verizon and ATT... or maybe they stay together. One suspects that the other major content providers (Disney/ABC/ESPN, Fox and the former Viacom empire) would probably bitch and moan even stronger if the TW and Comcast content remains in the arms of the new mega telecoms. Who knows... I don't. I avoid CC debt like death. I was tossing ATM/Debit Cards/Credit Cards all in the same bucket of items that we all use in one for or another, are wedded to using them, and the Banks (and other financial entities) have trained us to accept certain transaction fees/costs that are vastly higher than they should be. And something that the majority of people should be up at arms about is instead just accepted. John

I did the old Ctrl+F on the WON this week, and I don't see anything on Punk signing a new contract. Dave had a few read-between-the-lines sentences on "They wouldn't let him do this..." and "scripted", but I'm not sure if he came right out and said he's obviously signed. Am I missing something from this, or is Dave just being way too cute... or way too clueless? John

I like how Dave's chart of Domestic B-Show Buys magically beings in 2005. Does anyone have the full list, going back as far as possible (say the In Your Houses)? John

There won't be a revolt. They won't instantly gouge the "masses", but instead the "high data users". They'll take 10% of their customers and gouge them, which: (i) makes them money; and (ii) slows the growth of some of the remaining 90%... which saves them money What they'll in inturn do with the remaining 90% is slowly increase their rates to (i) allegedly cover increasing overall data costs, but really (ii) increase profits. My current regular (i.e. not during the NCAA Football Package) cable bill is pretty batshit, and it's not like I've added any new service/tier to it since getting cable internet. How has it gone up? Probably half of the increase was that initial low 1 year deal to sucker you in expires and you go to the normal rate. The other half is simply a constant jacking up of the rates. A chunk of that is TWC passing along the costs of what they pay to ESPN and other content providers. A chunk of it is profit. Data isn't exactly free for the ISPs, especially as people not only increasingly use the net, but the content they get off the net massively increases in size. Netflicks alone is a beast, and there remain a ton of potential customers *raises hand* who haven't even tapped into that. Watching episodes of TV, or buying them off of Amazon... big load, which is barely tapped into yet. Then add onto it that likely over time Phone ISP and Cable ISP will combine, and how people are using their phones for ISP access a shitload... The ISP's are going to give it away for free if they don't have to. Why? You have to think of this in terms like a bank. In an honest, truthful world, going to an ATM to withdraw money should cost us less than it costs to stand in line to withdraw cash inside the bank. Why? Think of all the costs associated with the inside part of the bank. Then think of all the costs of running a cash machine. They're not even close. Yet we have all these Transaction Fees from the Banks for using ATM's and Credit cards, even for getting *our* fucking money. Why? Because the banks can. It's a massive profit center for them with a captive customer base. We've been trained to go to the ATM to get cash. We've been trained to use our Visa/MC/AMEX or Debit Cards to buy stuff. And we've accepted those transaction fees. 99% of us in the world hate transactions fees. In a sense the easiest thing to run on would be a bunch of pols saying that they're going to cap transactions fees at $0.05 a transaction, and the savings to the average person would be $xxx.xx per year. Yet how hard has it been to pass caps on transaction fees? The masses don't matter. The don't revolt. In fact, not only can the banks buy off the pols, but they can con the rubes into think that capping transaction fees is a Jobs Killer (or some other bullshit). In the long run, the national ISP business will be run by 2-3 major telecoms who will understand there's no reason to fight, that it's better to come up with similar price plans, and look for ways to soak the marks while both manipulating them into being fine with it and buying off enough pols to keep it from being changed. Christ, we've already seen this with Net neutrality where the telecoms are rolling the FCC and Obama Admin. John

Except that WWE GM's typically stooge. The non-stooge ones don't seem to have a lot of longevity with WWE Creative. They seem to only know how to write ones that make life tough on the faces and that the face has to overcome. John

Crap... I forgot about that one. Going between Graham's site and the legendary CRZ recaps... WWE @ Richmond, VA - Coliseum - August 4, 2002 Smackdown! - 8/8/02: Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) defeated Hulk Hogan via KO at 10:05 with a bearhug after hitting the F5; late in the bout, Lesnar kicked out of the legdrop; after the match, Brock returned to the ring and hit a bloody Hogan in the head with a steel chair and, moments later, smeared Hogan's blood across his own chest; had Hogan won the match, he would have won Lesnar's WWE World title shot against the Rock at Summer Slam (Brock Lesnar: Here Comes the Pain) WWE @ Norfolk, VA - Scope - August 19, 2002 Raw: WWE World Champion the Rock fought Triple H to a no contest in a non-title match when Shawn Michaels attacked Triple H as Hunter was about to use his sledgehammer, while ringside security held back Brock Lesnar on the floor; as the show came to a close, Michaels and Rock fought off Brock and Triple H WWE @ Fayetteville, NC - August 20, 2002 SmackDown! WWE World Champion the Rock & Edge defeated WWE IC Champion Chris Benoit & Eddie Guerrero when Edge pinned Guerrero with the spear; after the match, the Rock knocked an interfering Brock Lesnar out of the ring as the show came to a close Summer Slam 02 - Long Island, NY - Nassau Coliseum - August 25, 2002 (sell out) Pay-per-view bouts Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) pinned WWE World Champion the Rock to win the title at 15:49 by blocking the Rock Bottom and hitting the F5; at about the 12-minute mark, the champion hit the Rock Bottom on Heyman through the Spanish announce table; Rock was noticably booed in the match (Rock's last appearance for 4 months) (Brock Lesnar: Here Comes the Pain, The History of the WWE Heavyweight Championship) WWE @ New York City, NY - Madison Square Garden - August 26, 2002 Raw: Triple H pinned the Undertaker after Brock Lesnar interfered and hit Taker in the face with the world title belt; due to pre-match stipulations, Triple H became the #1 contender to the world title WWE @ Uncasville, CT - Moehgan Sun Hotel & Casino - August 27, 2002 Smackdown!: WWE World Champion Brock Lesnar (w/ Paul Heyman) pinned Matt Hardy in a non-title match by blocking the Twist of Fate and hitting the F5 The Undertaker defeated Chris Benoit and Kurt Angle by pinning Benoit with the powerbomb; due to prematch stipulations, the Undertaker became the #1 contender to the world title (Taker's surprise debut on Smackdown!) WWE @ Milwaukee, WI - Bradley Center - September 2, 2002 Raw - included Eric Bischoff awarding Triple H with the Raw brand-exclusive world heavyweight title since Stephanie McMahon made WWE World Champion Brock Lesnar exclusive to Smackdown! And I didn't add that last sentence. John

Trip won the feud with Rock. Rock won a side feud with Vince. The Trip-Brock-Eric thing that was mentioned is one of the all-time classics. I remember just dropping my jaw when that happened. John

My guess is that long term, they will try to migrate to only streams. We'll eventually get to the point where you'll stream it right onto your big HD TV rather than stream it onto your computer screen. They would pocket all the money rather than have middle men. The negative to that is that the big ISP's are moving in the direction of charging big data users for what they suck down above a certain amount. It's going to be interesting to see how that impacts the likes of Netflicks streaming and other online viewing in high quality. With ISP's shrinking (i.e. heading in the direction of the two big phone companies and what will eventually be 2-3 cable companies carving up the country before the phone and cable company ISP businesses get merged), it's very easy for 1-2 of them to set a policy, have it not drive away a bunch of users, and then the rest of them follow that policy. It's essentially what the oil companies have done over the decades on price at the pumps. John

Anyone see Trip doing this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgbQYAdtYUc Then two weeks later, rather than the pedigree, stooges this far: It's not just that Vince was willing to let Stone Cold kick the shit out of him in the hospital, or that he was willing to piss his own pants... it's _how_ Vince sells for all that. Look at Vince in that second one "crying" though all of Austin's build up to put over how scared he is. Even if Trip were willing to piss in his pants, does anyone think Trip is going to be able to pull off the acting to sell the whole thing? That's always been Trip's weakness as a character: his acting sucks. He'll hit his lines, the might be okay lines... but his deliver lacks the wrestling fake "believablity" factor that connects with fans to sell stuff like Stone Cold, Rock, Foley and Mr. McMahon at their best. Trip's comedy, yelling and anger have always seemed forced. So even if he's not hitting the Pedigee, he's just not going to be able to pull of the full ranges of the role. John

I hadn't thought of that... but it is a good "Fuck You" to Highspots. The trick is going to be getting traffic to the site. Highspots has a regular customer base, mailing list, and a decade or so of knowing how to work Google to get high placement on searches (even if they're simply buying keyword ads). I doubt that Flair.com is run by a bunch of folks who are super savy on driving traffic. John

Exactly what Jingus said. In the earlier days of the net, the hardcore music fans pirated bootlegs. Now... regular music fans pirate/share new releases. We have a generation of online "consumers" who get/think that they don't have to pay for much... other than their ISP bill. It's probably not a massive bite yet for the WWE (or UFC), but it's likely increasing quite a bit. John

Her talent agency looked more interesting for a ride: http://www.legacytalentandentertainment.com/executives Ashley and Kristen (far right and secon from the left) are pretty hot, and Melinda is perfectly fine for her age if you've seen pics of her (see IMDB). John

In 1991? I don't think so. He was deep into the feud with Virgil. My guess is that if there was no Flair, they would have gone with a long Taker feud. Think about it: despite losing to both Warrior and Sid (and even Piper as a sub) around the horn, they still went with Hogan-Taker to headline a pair of PPVs. Taker vs Warrior/Sid was done in late September, in time for the tapings prior to the Euro Tour. He worked into a short filler house show feud with Duggan while the Survivor match with Hogan was set. Taker-Duggan went around the horn while Flair vs Hogan/Piper (Roddy on nights Hogan had off) went around the horn. My guess is that it would have been Taker vs Hogan/Piper-or-Duggan, with either Duggan or Piper filling in when Hogan was off. Duggan was one of the wrestlers who often filled that role, and I tend to think Piper was picked for Flair given their history and mic work. My guess is probably Duggan... it's an easy dual feud. They probably could also have done Hogan & Piper/Duggan vs Sid & Taker matches in the place of Flair being in it, since the draw was Hogan-Sid. Just don't think there were any Big Plans for Ted at that point. They probably would have entually come up with another Jake/Dusty/Virgil type of focused feud for him, simply because he was a good performer that the company liked. That tends to be proven that they liked him enough to anchor the tag title for over a year. But the tag title was slipping at that point, and in a sense he kind of made a side move from mid-card singles wrestler to slightly higher tag champ/challenger at a time when the belts were meaning a bit less. I also am not saying that Ted-Mike was the worst put together team. They made "sense" once they were slapped together. I'd agree with the general trajectory of the WWF tag belts though: I would tend to agree with that... though maybe put 95-97 as "next drop down" as they meant a little something more than it did in say 1998+ (or even now), but it certainly was down from even 1993. John

Site is owned by his attorney/agent's firm: http://mmzlawfirm.com/select-current-clients John

On Ted, if you go back and look at 1990-91 before that team got slapped together, Ted was pretty much just a midcarder relative to the Major Top Player role he had in 1987-89. The Virgil feud was quite well done for a WWF feud, but it was more along the lines of a Really Focused Midcard Feud than say Savage-Steamboat going around main eventing non-Hogan cards. The Dusty feud was also focused, but it was lesser than Virgil. At the tail end of 1989 into 1990 he had one with Jake as well. Again, a focused mid-card feud to move him into after his Player days were over. He had long stretches of mid-card feuds with guys like Kerry, one with Tito that I don't even remember. He had a feud with Bossman between the Jake and Dusty ones. They gave him stuff to do, but it was clear that his time on the top had run. The thing with the Tag Title is that in the Golden Tag Era is that you rarely got Tag Champs that were "slapped together" for the fans like Money Inc: Windham & Rotundo were pushed as a "team" almost from Barry's debut: second night of a back-to-back taping. Sheik & Volkoff were slapped together, but to play off the US Express Valentine & Beefcake were slapped together, but Greg was coming off the IC Title right into it: he was a major player. It's also a bit of a strange change with Barry's issues, and a long run because of holding off the Bulldogs win until Mania II. Bulldogs and Harts were "tag team specialists" Santana & Martel were a patch for the Can-Ams push. Rick had been brought in to be part of a "team". Teammate bailed. Tito got slapped into it. Demolition and Arn & Tully were sold as tag team specialists. Andre & Haku were slapped together: simply a monster team for Demolition to chase. Andre was Andre, though. Then back to Demolition, the Harts, the Nasty Boys and the biggest tag team of the era, the LOD. Pretty much 1985-92 was dominated by duos sold as a "team". Clear exception of the brief turnaround of Sheik & Volkoff, the asterick of Strikeforce taking over for the Can-Ams, the Dream Team continuing Valentine's recent major push and being an extended bridge between top face tag teams, and the short Andre-Haku team to set up Demo for the Mania win. In contrast, Ted & IRS won the belts out of nowhere on Feb 1992 and dominated it until Jun 1993 when Ted was getting ready to head to All Japan. It just was... different at the time. Then they had their major early feud with another slapped together team in the Disasters, and it felt like a the page had turned. John

I don't think the plan ever was for him to team with Kawada until Jumbo got sick. Taue got put on Jumbo's team because Yatsu and Kabuki left, which took away the Old Guys (Jumbo & Yatsu/Kabuki & Fuchi & Inoue & Ogawa) vs Young Guys (Misawa & Kawada & Taue & Kobashi & Kikichi) dynamic. Jumbo needed a partner, and it worked to give him a protege. The pecking order was through the entire feud: 1. Jumbo 2. Misawa 3. Kawada 4. Taue 5. Kobashi 6. Fuchi 7. Kikuchi 8. Ogawa Which gave you: 1. Jumbo 4. Taue 6. Fuchi 8. Ogawa 2. Misawa 3. Kawada 5. Kobashi 7. Kikuchi Not *perfectly* balanced, since Kobashi didn't have a true rival in it and instead was trying to prove himself against Jumbo and chasing Taue for the #4 spot (which he didn't get until 1996/97). Taue never really was being built to be a monster. Hell, he wasn't a monster when he started teaming with Kawada. It simply was this: #1 Misawa & #4 Kobashi vs #2 Kawada & #3 Taue With the imbalance coming again in that the #5 (Akiyama) didn't really have a true #6 rival (since they screwed up with Omori). In that role for nearly two years, Taue wasn't the monster, but instead the guy who: * lost his main rival Kawada who (i) became his senior partner and (ii) the guy chasing Misawa's #1 spot * was more directly compared to Kobashi than before John

On the IC, I tend to agree generally with Jerry's first post that it was that period where it became something very less. Not sure it was the number of title changes... but it just fell off in meaning too much. I'd point back to it happening a bit in stages even before that. It fell off a bit in say 1990 with Hennig. Not really the massive fault of Hennig, but it didn't seem to have the level of cha-ching that it did in the Savage/HTM/Warrior period, moreso Savage-Warrior (where they were pretty clearly the #2 or #3 wrestlers in the company at the time) than HTM. Hennig did get the push with Hogan, but didn't really meet that task remotely close to how Savage had. The Bret-Shawn-Razor era of 8/91 - 1/95 had pretty decent focus on the IC Title, and the bigger wrestlers in it were well pushed... but they weren't at the Savage-Warrior level in the promotion other than a special outlier (Wembley). But that era clearly was higher than the post-1999 era. Then the title seemed to take a drop with the stuff in 1995. All the screwing around with Double J. The Dean Douglas stuff. The quick toss back to Razor, which at that point felt almost like Shawn earlier in the year: "We don't know what else to do with this belt so we'll go back to the 1992/93 guys. The title that year seemed to be lacking, and by 1996 we had guys holding it that were way down the pecking order: Goldust, Marc Mero and young Trip. Clearly the company wanted the IC to be a launch to stardom for Ahmed Johnson's big push, but that went nowhere. In 1997 Rock won it when he was nowhere near ready for it. Owen seemed to get it in a "we don't know what else to do with it" moment. Austin "dropped" down to the IC Title to feud with Owen more as an extension of his hate for Bret rather than the IC being something major (i.e. like when Savage and Warrior had it). 1998 was kind of lucky: Rock wasn't big when he won it, but really grew while holding it. His eventual feud with Trip wasn't really Savage/Tito, Savage/Steamer or Warrior/Rude level where you could see it main eventing a non-Austin/Hogan house show (which they didn't do in that era anyway), but it did bring some focus there. Maybe some glimer of it moving upward, but that probably was false because WWF Creative really didn't care too much about belts at that point other than the World Title. 1999 saw it go off the cliff. So staged: * peak era with Savage and Warrior due to multi-crew house shows * a drop when Hennig got it that largely was sustained through 1994 * Double J Era 1.0 in 1995 taking it another level down (he just wasn't seen as a Star) * that sustained sort of through a point in 1997 * a brief moment of it looking to turn with Austin/Rock/Trip that might get back to Bret-Shawn-Razor levels * 1999 cliff diving The Tag Title would be interesting to look at. I suspect it took it's dip from the 80s level no later than 1993/94 (Quebecers and Headshrinkers). It's possible that one could point to the long Money Inc. Era, which never really seemed to click with the fans, even with a team like the Steiners as opponents. Nasty Boys winning it sort of ended the Golden Tag Era, but the Warriors were at least a "major" tag team winning it. It became something of a joke by late 1995 into 1996. John

The company has been profitable because it's a financially very well run company. Having largely a monopoly also helps keep it's talent costs down, among other things. The company has always reacted proactively on costs relative to upticks and downticks of revenue. This isn't new: they did it back in the early 90s when cutting back on the number of crews and shows they ran. On the revenue side, the company average revenue in FY2003 through FY2006 was roughly -17% off the earlier company peak. That doesn't take into consideration massive increases in the international business (which really wasn't driven by Trip's performing but instead the WWE simply clearing more markets for TV rights and PPV exposure), increases in TV rights from the peak, and increases in average ticket and PPV prices. You know the details in the financials and the business in that period as well as I do, Paul. Attendance and PPV buys in the country were down. Ratings were down. Fans turned away from following the company relative to the peak. WWE Corporate was smart in finding ways to keep those drops from too greatly impacting the bottom line by (i) being extremely smart on costs, and (ii) tapping into new revenue streams. Trip didn't "sustain" the business. He was on top pushing himself down the throats of fans, parts of a Product that lost a chunk of it's US fans. WWE Corporate did a hell of a job sustaining the business, in large part based on what the salad days had built. John

+0.3 the day after "the most talked about PPV following the Greatest Promo Ever" means... what? When we use to pay a crapload of attention to ratings back in the 90s, +/- 0.2 from the normal ratings range was meaningless and happened all the time. There also tended to be post-PPV bumps where people who didn't buy the PPV tuned in to "see what happened". Last night has a "see what happened" factor, opened with Vince & Cena talking about it, then rolled out a World Title Tourney to anchor the entire show, then climaxed with a Vince angle and The Return Of Trip. +0.3? Pimping that is akin to Russo & Ryder pimping insignificant ratings bumps to justify The Genius Of Russo. John

* Trip as a performer turned away fans. * WWE Creative by (i) shitty storylines, (ii) shitty booking, (iii) shitty development/use of talent, and (iv) and pushing Trip to the moon turned away fans Trip is 100% to blame for the first one: he wasn't as good as he thought he was as performer and really didn't do enough to help other performers in the company like say Rock and Foley had in the same era. Trip was lost within his own punch there, and what he thought were "improvements" to his performing usually weren't. Some might think I'm being tough there, but it's really worthwhile to take a look at how someone like Rock improved tremendously over that time, to the point that not only was the "acting" part of his performing really far ahead of the typical worker in connecting with the fans, but that the in-ring work increased to the point that he was able to have that match with Brock at Summer Slam that so strongly put *Brock* over without having to do a quicky short squash. On those four items in the second batch... Trip was a central member of WWE Creative banging another central member of WWE Creative while having the ear/trust of the person WWE Creative reported up to in pitching ideas. A large chunk of the top line drawing elements that would be part of that second batch fall at the feet of Trip. While in the end the buck stops with Vince and he has to take a lot of the blame, I think it's very reasonable to think that the majority of that second batch falls at Trip's feet as well. So much of 2002-2006 (i)-(iv) was based around the concept of pushing Trip as the anchor, making sure there wouldn't be another "accident" like Austin/Rock/Foley to jump ahead of him, cutting off the legs of potential rivals (and at times even minor short term ones like RVD that were just nonsensical things to stomp on), and push his few cliquey friends/chosen ones like Orton, Dave and Batista. Cena ended up being the "accident" of the era, but did he ever get to the heights of Austin or Rock? It never seemed that the company fully put their weight behind him early enough like the WWE did Austin in early 1998 (which was little over a year after Austin first started showing strong hints of developing into something potentially big in the lead-in to the Survivors Series match with Bret). Trip isn't fully the one to blame. But I think a far higher % of the blame can be assigned to Trip for 2002-2006 that to any single person in WCW in say the 1997-98 range that lay the foundation to them falling apart. Some Eric, some Hogan, some Hall & Nash, some DDP, some the overall group of vets who didn't want to do much to make the up and comers look good, etc. With the WWF, there's Vince... and frankly Trip. I don't see Steph as controlling what Trip does or who Trip thinks should get pushed in the mains. The other way around. Anyone really think that Steph was the one pulling for the horrible feud with Scott Steiner? John

My thought would be to pop in that Mania again. Compare the crowd reaction to Hogan-Rock and Trip-Jericho. Close? A "huge" comeback doesn't fizzle out in two months if it truly is huge. Jericho cleaning up after Steph's dog. I don't know what point I'm trying to make with that. I'm just raising it. It's a story revolving around Steph and Trip. They controlled that story. So if it bombed because of the dog, blame Trip and Steph... and more importantly Trip for not making sure Y2J wasn't strong enough to carry the alleged main event of Wrestlemania, and tell Steph she was being an idiot if she was the one pushing the stupid elements of the storyline. That's one of the problems with Trip at the time: "I am super star and my comeback is so big as a face that it doesn't matter what we do with Jericho: people want to see me kick his ass!" Trip thought too highly if himself. It was quite enjoyable to watch that thing fall flat after the greatness of Hogan-Rock. John

As pointed out, winning feuds with Mr. McMahon, Foley and Rock at the very height of each of their popularities in six months will do that for you. My thought would be to pop in that Mania again. Compare the crowd reaction to Hogan-Rock and Trip-Jericho. Close? A "huge" comeback doesn't fizzle out in two months if it truly is huge. Trip running through Vince-Foley-Rock was 12/99 through 05/00: The next thing you point to is a January 2002 return that meant nothing by Feb and Mar 2002. Then you jump foward to a DX reunion that happened in 2006. That side steps his role on top as the company's business went south over the course of four years. He has been the primary main event Wrestlemania wrestler since roughly 2002. Business has gone done in that period, yet they still build entire years around setting him up for Mania. It's a bit like Carson Palmer being the main event QB in Cincy: that was fine back before the major playoff injury, but time passed him by since that point and if Cincy really wants to be a serious playoff contender, they need to kick his ass to the curb. That's been the WWE. They're lucky that there isn't a real competitor with something fresh or they would have been as exposed as WCW was one Austin and Rock took off and fans found Hogan and Flair & Co stale as all shit. From a business standpoint, I'm less concerned about whether he brings back the wrestling we all love. I can pop in one of several hundred DVD's in the den to see some of that. I'm also less concerned about him delivering some of that new fangled stuff that people creame their jeans about: I'll go see some of that at PWG this Saturday. What I'm more concerned about is taking it as an article of faith that Trip will be an improvement from Vince and WWE Creative over the past decade. After all... other than Vince, Trip has been the central figure in WWE Creative for that decade. John