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Strange move since he's toast in the polls against here, with Blumenthal beating them both in the general. John

Does anyone think the WWF gave a shit? They live in their own world, even moreso back the. What Corny did before coming to the WWF didn't matter to them: it's like it didn't happen. John

Other than for a quick, monster payout, why would Heyman bother working for such an idiot? John

That was Jim going off after Bruce wrote the famous piece on SMW. What he aimed at Wade was batshit crazy, and what he aimed at Bruce was double. John

I think when dropping things into a spreadsheet, it was pretty clear that everyone fell into a specific category.

I actually believe that what he's doing this year is the *exact* same thing he did in counting votes last year. He's just being open about how he categoriez wrestlers. I don't think he counted any of Rocco's votes as "Japan". We went around in circles last year trying to figure out how he was counting, and the problem was Dave Speak: he wasn't being clear at all. John

Didn't think Bruce was with Live Nation in the way that U2, Madona and Jay-Z were. I recall him being pissed off about the Live Nation / Ticketmasters merger. John

That was the one that jumped out at me. John

I think it points to what was an obvious flaw in how Dave counts votes, and one several of us have pointed out in the past: People who don't know much about a "region" are allowed to vote in it. Steve would cop to not knowing much if anything about Euro wrestling. He does: * like the Johnny Saint he's watched over the years * know what's generally known by US historians about Deglane But neither of those are that much. Watching a Johnny Saint tape or two doesn't really give you a good understanding of where Saint fit into British wrestling. And I don't know if there's a really strong Deglane bio out there giving a good enough overview on him to make a final thumbs up/down choice on him. That's not saying that Saint or Deglane aren't worthy of going in. But I'd prefer to here from the "historians" of British wrestling on Saint, and who warrants being infront of him in the line. If Saint is the #5 candidate, then we really should make sure we get most of the 1-4 guys in first. Dave is letting people determine whether they're knowledgeable enough to vote in a region. And that's just nuts. Ross and Heyman and Gabe really don't know dick about Japan or Mexico or British wrestling where they should be voting in it (pretending for a second that they have ballots). But Dave is allowing them to vote in it if they see someon they feel like voting for. Dave is the one handing out ballots. He must know something about the people he's giving ballots to, and what they're knowledgable about. He should be telling them what they qualify for. John

I wonder who in the WWE is using the sockos to attack Martha. John

I'm thinking Bryan might be taking too many pulls from: Before seeing Wayne. John

Live Nation, anyone? I'm trying to figure out just how many decades out of date Dave is. Didn't Mike and the Jacksons "sell" the Victory Tour to Chuck Sullivan (with Don King) for a guarantee? Stuff like that has happened a fair amount over the years, and now it pretty par for the course among top acts: they have a national promoter/company handling shit. Live Nation with U2, Madona and Jay-Z simply is the biggest, but not the only one. John

"People who don't realize that Steinbrenner and the Yankees are copying Vince McMahon and the WWE just don't have a clue on what baseball is all about these days. It's all about getting the tabloids to put you on the backpage and the fans to talk about you. Fans don't go to Yankees games because the Bombers won back-to-back World Series. They go because Reggie is a larger than life superstar, Martin is a super over babyface, and The Boss is the biggest heel in baseball since Hal Chase. What people forget is that Hal Chase never was over to anyone but hardcore baseball fans. It didn't matter how many games he threw, or how involved in the Black Sox Fix he was. All that matter was that Chsse couldn't cut a promo if his life depended on it. You can't be a top heel without cutting heel promos and making the fans hate you. He may be a legend with hardcore fans, but he never sold a ticket. McMahon knows that, and people inside the Yankees front office tell me that Steinbrenner knows." John

"Charlie Finely is a real life Mr. McMahon." "Watching Bowie Kuhn be the comish of baseball is like watching Jim Herd run WCW." "Pete Rozzel understands that football is pro wrestling." "Lots of people don't like him, but no one draws heel heat like Howard Cossell. Roon Arlidge understands that Howard cutting promos is what draws ratings for MNF when they have poor match ups." John

He wasn't. I'm not sure anyone makes that argument. John

"big fight feel"? "This has playoff atmosphere." -NFL/NBA/MLB/NCAA announcer on regular season telecast Sports = Pro Wrestling Where Dave is confused is that Pro Wrestling has been lifting things from sports forever. So the line is there. It's not sports, including MMA, that are Pro Wrestling. It's pro wrestling over the years trying to be sporty. "Is Brooklyn still in the league?" -Bill Terry cutting a pro wrestling promo on the Dodgers back in the 30s Or so Dave would have said in the WON in the 30s: "Bill Terry knows that you need to cut promos to draw a crowd in baseball." Or some such nonsense. John

I'm not sure how the 1980-88 Lakers (or even expanded to 1980-91) weren't a Dynsty. 5 titles in 9 years, with 2 other trips to the Final, isn't one. Or Mike: 6 straight full seasons with the Bulls = 6 straight titles. Those 6 titles in 8 season. Dittos the Spurs 3 titles in 5 years. Pop was playing humble. Were the Celts on a different level? Sure. But no one us comparing the volume of success. It's a bit like saying there is no such thing as a great and successful rock band other than the Beatles: no one sold as much, no one had as much success, and no one has the critical acclaim. I'm a Beatles fan... and even I wouldn't claim they're the only great and successful band, the R'n'R equiv of the Celtics, and it's not worth mentioning those other ones. John

I wouldn't toss the 1957-69 Celts at Dave as being comperable to the entertainment popularity of the current NBA: it's not close. The NBA from 1957-69 didn't have a pot to piss in relative to today. It's biggest stars weren't as big of stars as Mike in the 90s or even Lebron today. While Wilt was a known major star in the sports world (even when I started paying attention to the NBA in the early 70s he was still a big name), he wasn't as oppressively in our face as Mike was. I completely disagree with the notion that the Celts are the only NBA dynasty worth mentioning. The Russell Celtics died when I was 3. I'm not even sure if you were born by June 1969, Will. I'm not going to say they're irrelevant: I'm a fan of sports history, so it has great meaning to me. But 1969 was the 23rd season of the NBA. There have been nearly twice as many season since then: 41. If you're going to ask me what's more relevant, a dynasty from the 11th through 23rd season of the league or the totality of what's happened in the last 41 seasons, I'll go with what's happened in the last 41 years. Titles since 1969: 11 - (72, 80, 82, 85, 87, 88, 00, 01, 02, 09, 10) 6 - Celtics (74, 76, 81, 84, 86, 09) 6 - Bulls (91, 92, 93, 96, 97, 98) 4 - Spurs (99, 03, 05, 07) Those are worth mentioning. You can't write the history of the NBA without talking about the Magic Lakers, the Bird Celtics or the Jordan Bulls. They are the history of 20 years of the NBA where it was growing rapidly in national attention. And ignoring the Shaq-Kobe-Phil Lakers or Timmy's Spurs is just crackpot stuff. In a few more years we'll be able to see if the current Lakers step up to that level, or push slightly higher. Three straight Finals and a back-to-back is a pretty good foundation. John

I attend sporting events. In stadium/arena, the other stuff isn't that entertaining. All that other stuff is largely annoying. In many arenas/stadiums that's almost a non-stop "noise" going on. It's not terribly fun. It also doesn't have anything to do with getting over the product: the players, the game. In fact, more time is spent on getting over various advertisers. Go to a game, get a movie trailer. Fun? Yeah... right. Those blooper reels actually got more pops from the fans back when they were first introduced years ago because they stood out. Now they're just one of many things going on the video screen, and by the time they pop up much of the crowd has checked them out. Even the crowd shots, with people reacting when they get they're on camera, have less heat than they originally did because people are increasingly zoning out. When the Dodgers first rolled out their spot of using the Journey song for a sing along, it got a ton of pop from the crowd. It frankly surprised me how over it was with the crowd, and how many of them know a song that annoyed the shit out of me when it first came out while I was in high school. The last time I was at the Stadium, the reaction was down quite a bit. This during a pretty good performance by the Dodgers where the stuff on the *field* was getting excellent pops from the crowd. After a while, people start tuning out much of the noise. Movie trailers don't seem to get much pop at all these days. Even video pieces about the team have less interest. It's not just the Dodgers. I've seen the same thing at Staples for Lakers games and Clippers games. All that other "entertainment" stuff gets less crowd heat than the original intro and prime of the Laker Girls, or Dancing Barry at his peak. That spot of shooting / sling shoting shirts into the crowd? Very mild pops from the crowd compared to when it was first introduced. Sports are working their ass off to try to make going to a game an "entertainment event". In the end it doesn't matter what else the Clippers do, they don't get the heat the Lakers do because: Clippers = Tuh Suck Lakers = 3rd Dynasty in 30 years When the Lakers have sucked, which happened for two short periods in those 30 years, fan heat went down, and it didn't really matter what else the team did to try to entertain the fans. I suspect Dave gets this. Fans don't give a shit about the rest of the stuff the WWE doed if the *product* sucks. By product we mean what goes on in the ring along with the out-of-the-ring stuff that relates to the storylines. By "suck" we mean that it doesn't interest the fan base, not what interests me specifically. This is the same in the UFC. Doesn't matter how great the light show is and the entrance music is. If UFC has a year's worth of shitty cards with fan destroying finishes, we'd see a decline in UFC's business even if the light show was great and all the promo pieces were great. In the end, the *product* people are paying for needs to deliver or folks wander off. The Bulls don't draw on TV like they once did, and don't move merch relative to the rest of the league as the did in the 90s. Why? As "product", they were great relative to the league in the 90s, and aren't in the past decade. Why? They had the best player in the game, and they won. We will see the same thing in Clevland starting *right now*. Doesn't matter what promos the Cavs cut, and how "entertaining" they make the "arena experiance". The product is going to suck relative to what it was as recently as April. I think Dave gets that. I just don't think he slows down to see if all of his points in support of Pro Wrestling = MMA fly, because they don't. He'll move onto others when some point out errors in those ones, but the same thing will happen again: he'll roll out points that don't fly. John

MLB is more entertaining to attend in 2010 than it was in 1985? Seriously? As far as the NBA being more entertaining now than it was in 1985, I'm not entirely sure that most people who were actively following it then as well as now would agree with that. Nor people who've watched a fair share of 80s stuff on NBA TV and/or ESPN and/or DVD. One could ask Bill Simmons if he thought 1984 & 1985 were more entertaining than 2009 & 2010, and I'm pretty sure he's say '84 and '85. To me, it's not even close. I used the word "entertaining" since it's the one Dave chose. I'll avoid going down the rabbit hole of whether the "business" aspect of MLB and the NBA are better in 2010 than 1985. The business models are so radically different that they're not comperable, and they don't really have anything to do one whether Lebron, Kobe and D-Wade are more "over" with US sports fans in 2010 than Magic, Bird and Mike were with them in 1985 (the 2010 crew *isn't*). And the Lakers-Celtics storyline in the Final this year was *nothing* compared to what it was in 1984 and 1985. John

Longson wasn't NWA Champ. John

Other Dave notes, from the Kiniski bio: Thesz was a heel as champ in the majority of matches that exist on him from Chicago, which was the national TV mecca of the country. If he was in with a heel like Buddy or Hans, he was a heel. Against faces, he was that face. I suspect if we had footage of the famous matches with Lou and Leo in San Fran, we'd see Leo as the local babyface and Lou as the heel champ. In the match with Gagne, there is *nothing* "subtle" about Lou's heeling. It's pure NWA Heel Champion stuff, while Verne played ultimate babyface. I tend to think anyone who watches it would come away with the understanding that NWA Heel Champion style work goes right back to the very start: Lou. John

On the "undercard" notion, which is something Superstar Graham love as well, my thought would be to compare the undercards of Graham with Bob's. They're not disimilar, and on average Graham's are stronger. On the work thing, it's just something that Dave will never change. Pointless to argue with him at this time. John

Rock always came across as "acting". Over-the-top character. The fans liked him anyway: they didn't care whether he was phony or not because they enjoyed the character/Rock. Austin game across as a little more "natural". Rock was something of a natural born actor once he "found" the Rock character, but it was still obvious acting. With Austin, the acting once the Stone Cold character hit its stride just played more naturally to the audience as "That's the way Austin is", whether that was reality or not. Cena is far closer to Rock than to Paul Bearer on the "phony" scale that folks see as a total act. Neither Rock nor Cena is Austin, and obviously Rock just had more connection with the fans. But I wouldn't say Cena has the heat with some fans that he does because of phoniness. The entire promotion has been phony since forever. Fans just get annoyed by some guys, and sometimes it's just some of the fans being annoyed. John

On the WM3 / CNN "results", I suspect it was limited to the main event, possibly Piper-Adonis, and possibly Savage-Steamer. Most likely just the main event, and the size of the crowd. I recall a few other Manias popping up on Sports Center or elsewhere in the 80s, again the focus just on Hogan's match. John