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This depends on who and/or how Bryan and Vinny are tossing around the praise for. If this is a baseball analogy, a reporter who was born in 1975 and started covering the sport in 1995 (similar to Bryan), we would expect that reporter to know about guys like Mike Schmidt, Rickey Henderson, Fernando, Doc Gooden, etc from the 80s: Big Stars. If the reporter was a little late in getting into baseball, and hooked up in say 1988 when he was 13, he may not have watched a lot of Schmidt (whose last strong season was 1987). But the name is one a baseball fan of that age range would know, and a baseball reporter of that age range would know since he was going into the HOF right around the time he started covering the business. Ricky would have still be active in the late 90s, similar to Savage and Hogan. We'd expect a baseball reporter to know things like that, and probably some basic info about them. Schmidt hit 500 HR, won a bunch of GG, was a Philly, and was thought of as one of the greatest 3B's of all-time (frankly The Best). But details? Probably not unless he was a total baseball history junky. We also wouldn't expect the reporter to know a lot about say Steve Sax. That's not even a jobber being tossed out there: few all-star games, starting 2B on a world championship team, major market, etc. But he wasn't a Big Star, so if you weren't a baseball junkie as a young kid, you wouldn't know a lot about him. Sax also vannished for the most part once his career was done, so there isn't much foot print. Can't expect Bryan to be terribly different. I don't think he's ever claimed to be a historian, nor that that Fig 4 is aimed in anyway at historically minded readers. It's more than any of the three newsletters aimed at the "present". It's kind of cool that he's enjoying old stuff on 24/7. John

What Bix and I were referencing: HIV Infected Porn Star Named, Linked To Hundreds Of Other Stars More porn productions shut down amid concern over HIV John

Don't know if it was in this thread, but I recall pointing out in one of these threads how mind boggling it was the amount of unprotected sex that had/has come back into the business. John

You need links.

I wonder how many "sleeper" registrations there are on PWO. This isn't the first time one has popped up. John

What Daniel says. Yes, it's a "work". But don't we all talk about how Triple H and other stomp on people push and overness by *beating* them, or at least failing to put them over? It wasn't intentional to make him look like a choke artist. It's just how it ended up via the booking: he couldn't beat Flair for the belt (despite lots of other people doing it, including Sting). And he couldn't beat Yoko for it, while Bret and Hogan did. John

After all the pimping of Heyman doing Something Big, that's all there is? He's working on a MMA video game? For fuck's sake... John

This probably could be split in half years for some: Shawn Michaels 1st Half: Up 2nd Half: Down Shawn had a good run to winning the title, and the WWF's business was good. It hit the wall at a certain point. Vince knew it, and paid big to keep Bret. Shawn-Vader was pretty botched, and in a "modern era" (i.e. further along in the Monday Night Wars Era), we likely would have seen Vader win the belt at SS and have Shawn chase him to get it back. Probably would have made for a better feud. Anyway, Shawn had his meltdown at Survivors, then on TV in those interviews, then was dogshit on the mic for Bret-Sid. Ended the year without the belt, though booked to get it back at Rumble... but lots of questions of where he was headed. Not close to how the first half of the year turned out. Hulk Hogan 1st Half: Down 2nd Half: Up It really looked like time was passing Hulk by through almost all of the first half of 1996. The face thing was dying, Flair-Savage was hotter than anything Hulk was doing, and the Outsiders were coming in. Looking back this was perhap a small window of chance for him to have been x'd out of WCW, and history might have been different. Instead, he turned heel and *made* history. Without him, the nWo never would have gotten over to the degree that it did with him. The perfect time for a heel turn, pretty much the perfect person for that role from the perspective of drawing and holding fans. Long term it just restrengthened Hogan's power base: it just locked him into being King. But people tend to forget that the first Outsiders match didn't draw a massive buyrate on PPV: they were over, but they weren't Red Hot. Hogan Turn = Red Hot There are other people in that mode. Austin was very little in the first half, and probably would have been a "sell" rather than a "buy". The Ringmaster gimmick was DOA. He was a clear "buy" come the end of the year. Pillman was an overpirced "buy" in parts of the first half of the year, but a "sell for whatever you can get" by the end of 1996. John

Yeah... terrible match. Really pathetic. Looks like TNA has another Big Surprise on the PPV. These haven't gone very well in the past. John

Actually to a lot of things the States want as well. Who has a hand out to the Fed every time there's a disaster? John

Flair-Foley tonight. Thoughts?

Meng and Sid were always my "instant clicks" over to the other channel in the Monday Night Wars era. I could sit through Mongo for morbid curiousity on how bad it would be. But Meng was a click. John

Does Dave just get nothing about the WNBA Business Model? The majority of its attendance is Arena Package based. Our company has season tickets to the Staples Center. That means all Lakers, Clippers, Kings *and* WNBA games. We would _never_ buy WNBA tickets on their own other than for the reason that the Staples Center forces us to buy them as part of the package. The types of things excluded from the package are special events. Springsteen playing the Staples Center isn't in the package. I don't think the X-Games are in there, though I could check. The WNBA's television package is *forced* on the NBA's network partners. If they had a realistic choice, ESPN/ABC wouldn't bother with it. They certainly wouldn't pay much of anything for it. The WNBA doesn't draw. The NBA draws, and it's muscled the WNBA into part of their "product" base, forcing their business partners to carry it in their arenas and networks. While the WNBA division within the NBA financial statements may reflect a profit, if the NBA were to complete spin off the WNBA not only cutting off all funding but also cutting off their muscle support, the WNBA wouldn't survive more than five years without hitting a massive financial crisis. The WNBA is the equiv of the ECW Brand in the WWE. If the WWE had spun that off two years ago with no funding, no production support, and no corporate backing to get a TV contract, it would have died fast unless it had a new money mark like Dixie. You'd think Dave would know this. It's possible he's getting fed crap by sports reporter subscribers who either are misinformed, or too clueless to have looked into why the WNBA exists and continues to operate. Think the womens professional soccer league after the famed World Cup win. "Womens pro soccer league? There is one?" Exactly. That said, I think CyNick is twisting Dave around on a throw away line about women works. Though it is pretty funny that Dave, after denying talking about joshi puroresu, eventually goes off on JBA jag, then transitions into a Toyota lovefest. John

I agree with the comment of Matt and Loss: Hogan-Savage should/could have continued on with Hogan chasing. I think we all understand WWF-Think from the era: Dynastic Babyface Champion *never* chases Bruno didn't. Pedro didn't. Bruno II didn't. Bob didn't. Hogan didn't. Even Randy didn't, when they originally planned to have Ted win at Mania IV and have Randy chase him. Those champs all did strong business without chasing. So you can see 20+ years of a mindset that "this has always worked for us". The small difference is that they left what could have been a monster PPV buy with Hogan-Savage at SummerSlam with some stip (Hogan retires if he doesn't win it back, Hogan's last challenge if he doesn't win it back) or angle (Savage injures Hogan at the tail end of the series around the horn that puts Hulk briefly on the shelf, only coming back at SS). We might think that it's "stretching" to take it from Mania (04/02/89) to SS (08/28/89), but take a look: 04/02/89 Mania 04/22/89 Spectrum 04/23/89 MLG 04/24/89 MSG 05/12/89 LA Sports Arena 05/19/89 Chicago 05/20/89 Spectrum (2) 05/21/89 MLG (2) 06/03/89 Boston 06/16/89 LA Sports Arena (2) 08/19/89 Spectrum (3) 08/28/89 SummerSlam 09/15/89 LA Sports Arena (3) 09/16/89 Chicago (2) 09/17/89 MLG (3) 10/10/89 London 10/13/89 Paris Other than a SNME against Ted and a throwaway with HTM, it wasn't until 10/20/89 when he started around the horn with Bad News that Hogan had another challenger. As in *no* other challengers. It was non-stop Hogan-Savage from April through October. It was a bit frontloaded into Apr-Jul, but it was hitting a lot of other towns in Aug-Sep. They probably could have frontloaded things into Apr through Jun in the house shows with Hogan chasing, then do a major injury angle that gives Hogan a vacation for August and most of July. Someone else could have stepped in to challenge Randy in that stretch. Beefcake got most of the "off night" matches, but I would have looked for someone else... though Hogan was pretty insanely protective if his spot and not wanting someone else to shine in it. It might have draw a bit more house show money, though the fued as it was drew well. It almost certainly would have draw more buy for SummerSlam, which would have made for a perfect climax for their rivalry. John

Everyone loves their own government spending, and hates "other people's" spending. It's the same as those folks who hate spending on healthcare, but don't want anyone to touch their Medicare. Anyone see the story of the house that burned down with the fire department standing around with their thumb up their ass because the homeowner didn't pay their Fire Department Subscription? That should tell everyone all they need to know about why we need taxes and government services. John

Someone hook Dave up. Probably good if it was an existing Lucha voter like Dr Lucha to do the hooking up. John

rovert's line =

Two things on explaining it: #1 - Dave thinks he has In his mind, he thinks he's explained it and it's clear. As a voter and a long time reader/listener of Dave-speak, I actually get how he's explained it and have tried to make it a bit clearer for folks. #2 - If he explains it any more, it's not going to look good I've tried to get that point across a few times: if you vote for a Japanese wrestler, you're counted as a Japanese Ballot. Doesn't mean you know a thing about Japanese wrestling other than Dave has said good things about Kobash over the years. You are now a Japan Voter. Dave doesn't tell voters what categories they are qualified/eligible to vote in. It's up to the voter to simply fill out his ballot. We can debate whether that's a problem. I tend to think it is. I'm frankly not qualfied to vote on Euro wrestlers, and shouldn't be allowed to. I'm marginal on Mexico: better than probably a lot of people tossing votes to luchadors (given the number over Ballots counted), but compared to Dr Lucha, Jose and a ton of lucha-loving posters on freaking message boards who will never get a sniff of a ballot, I'm pretty woeful. I tend to lean on the knowledge of others to help educate me, but it's not that different than if Dan Wahlers were simply taking my votes on Japan to figure out who to vote on. Dan really doesn't know enough about Japan to be voting on those guys... and I'd be more than willing to agree that I'm not in the class of Mexico voters that Dave should be cultivating. Mexico, Japan and Europe are pretty easy to fix. Dave could start off by identfying a number of voters to be the Japan Voters, the Mexico Voters and the Euro Voters. I don't mean that publically: Dave himself putting together a list for each. There's also nothing wrong with going to a Dr Lucha or Jose and asking them to identify some other potential voters who have the depth of knowledge on Lucha (in this case it would largely need to be historical) that warrant a ballot. You're not looking for 60 voters in each... unless you luck into Dr Lucha hooking up some folks down in Mexico who are super knowledgeale. Japan would likely be larger, but I also wouldn't start it with a voter Cast Of Thousands. Build it up. Is it worth it? I think for Mexico and Europe it is because there's still a lot of talent to be looked at there. In Japan, it's slim pickings now. I have two worries: * the current mass of Japan voters making bad picks * a smaller group of Japan voters feeling that they need to "pick someone" just to have someone go in The first was a worry with how close Sak was to getting in. His candidacy appears to have cooled off, but he's not going away anytime soon. The second... we've seen that in other HOF's, right? John

60% is a low threshold. I think the problem remains that there's no control over who can vote for Mexico candidates and Japan candidates. It's still on the "honor system": if you vote for a luchador, you're an expert on lucha. Dittos Japan. Dittos old timers. John

Rock was a football player. The number of college football players that have become MMA stars who had no wrestling or other martial arts background prior to going into MMA is... ? I'm sure you can point out the guys similar to Rock who've done it and become "stars". John

The biggest assests you need to make it in MMA before anything else is athletic ability and the right mindset. If Rock had decided back in the day to go into MMA instead of pro wrestling and prepared himself for it, there is no doubt in my mind that he would've made into MMA. I'd put big money on it that he'd do very well. I'm trying to figure out what martial arts background Rock had that would have made him a MMA guy of any note. He played football at The U. This isn't like Dr. Death who played football and was an NCAA wrestling All-American. Rock's dad was a pro wrestler. It doesn't mean that Rock's dad was a *wrestler*. He, we don't even know if Rock can fight. The difference between Rock and Brock is that Brock actually had a martial arts background: he was a NCCA champion wrestler. In another generation people will be talking about how all those West Texas State guys would all have been big in MMA, and half the rubes will be buying the bullshit. John

Did Dodd say different things to Dave and SI? Or did Dave *hear* things differently than SI? Or did SI simply ask the right follow ups? The SI quotes don't leave anything up to "misinterpreted". Sonnen copped to taking something banned. Dodd rolled out the excuse for not being able to pull someone who copped to taking something banned. Both of which are at odds with the thrust of Dave's comments. John

Yes. Women's Golf has some fixed set of wins that gets one into the HOF. In basketball, *coaches* can go into the HOF before the retire. This is in contrast to MLB where managers can't go in while still active (unless its as a player). There are other HOFs that are like that. I believe that WRW Jr. and PDW are in the Bowling HOF, as are several other active players I believe. It's not terribly common, though. I know it's a different dynamic since you can wrestle long after you would have retired in any real sport, but it still seems odd to induct a guy who is still wrestling on television every week. Neither are HOFers. The question then becomes: who has turned 45, looked like a HOFer on a short career, and then on reflection probably not deserved it? I honestly don't get the notion of why keeping someone "waiting" is a bad thing in terms of eligibility. Shawn and Taker were actually eligible for a long time before getting voted in, just missing it several times. When one looks at them on the list of HOFers, it doesn't say "barely made it in". They're just in. In contrast, if Rey had to wait until he turned 45, what really does it matter? Waiting isn't a problem with the HOF. It's the people who fall in that age range too quickly and we really haven't seen enough of their career. 10-15 years historically isn't that long of a time. Jericho was around for 6 year before he got to WCW. There have been plenty of peopel like that, and likely will be more: Danielson worked more than a decade in indies before the WWE. Sure, they're younger guys... but we'll run into older guys as well. John

Again, what top of the card guys did he manage relative to the Wiz and Freddy? Watching the MSG cards, the Tag Titles are just "part of the show". They're not really the Bruno/Bob main event, or often even the #2 match (such as the Bruno Matches on the undercard of Superstar's cards, or some of the other big singles matches supporting the title match). The comment was: "Albano carried the WWWF territory on the heel side for more than a decade." -Dave Meltzer I would be interested in exactly what 11 year ("more than a decade") stretch that is? We know it's not literally the case, right? He clearly didn't carry the heel side in 1977. That would be The Champ and his Manager, neither of whom was Lou. And given that Graham ran deep into 1978 as a/the top heel in the promotion: * three mains against Bob * two strong supporting matches against Dusty to blow off their feud * and one against Bruno to blow off theirs The last was on October 23, 1978, which ironically had a main even where The Wiz managed Ernie Ladd against Bob. So largely two years right in the middle of some 11+ year run by Albano where the "heel side" was clearly carried by Graham and/or Wiz. Would Dave agree with that? Of course! I mean he's the guy who put Graham in the HOF specifically because of that two year run being the majority of Graham's argument. I don't doubt there are quite a few more challengers that Alabano managed that are reflected on the History of the WWE site, simply because he doesn't have full details on managers. But we have the Wiz listed as early as April 1973 managing Don Leo Jonathan against Bruno. We have Blassie managing no later than April 14, 1975 (Spiros Arion's slow off with Bruno, with the feud starting back in February). The earliest we have for Lou at MSG is June 15, 1970 managing Verdu against Bruno. It's entirely possible that he started earlier as Ivan had challenges earlier in the year. But the same goes for the Wiz. We know he managed Stasiak to his win over Pedro, but it's just not listed. It's also hard to say that Lou got "the big heel challengers" while Wiz and Freddie go the weak one. Wiz got Billy, and Wiz got Patera. The historyofthewwe site indicates the Wiz had Patterson in the third match, not listing a manger in the other ones. Those were among the key ones. It would be interesting to try to chart who managed whom based on the available MSG and Philly shows and matches. I just don't think it makes Lou come across that the "carried" guy. One of a rather strong three headed monster of managers. I suspect the argument would be that Cornette didn't manage a group that was on top for a long time. I wouldn't argue that. Again, I'm the guy who has long argued that Jimbo should be grouped with the MX: that's why he's a HOFer. He was a key part of a great "group", even if the group wasn't a long term monster draw. John

How many total shows does Evolve run a month vs ROH? What does Evolve draw vs ROH? It sounds like Evolve can't afford Gabe's old guys. Would I be correct in saying that ROH doesn't want their guys working for Evolve, while it's okay for them to take non-conflicting dates with indies such as PWG? If that's the case, it sounds like a matter of: * more dates with ROH vs fewer with Evolve * more $$ with ROH vs less with Evolve * ROH leaves them open to work plenty of other dates Not a hard choice. John