jdw

What need to be added to the Rude-Bobby discussion is that it was an era where far more heels were paired with managers than probably any other era. Rude was in a long stretch of being paired with managers, in WCCW, in Crockett, in the WWF and with Heyman when returning to WCW. It just was common. I think when one looks at that period, the pairing with Heenan actually was the most effective. Paul Jones sucked. I don't think Rude was close to his peak on the mic, but Jones was a terrible manager. My issue with Heyman in 1992 was that he was something of a later 70s / early 80s WWF-style heel manager where he focused the heat in interviews on himself rather than his wrestlers, even when the wrestlers could work the mic. He felt a bit like an Albano who thought he manager chum tag champs who would be gone within 9-12 months while he'd still be there anchoring the tag division. That's a problem by the early 90s when you're managing someone who has a 3-4 year contract, it a top heel for the company and is projected to be for several years... the heat needs to be on the *worker* if the heel is able to draw it. It was a strange contrast to Heenan, as while Bobby was something of a top anchor heel in the WWF often charged with guys who needed his help, he always seemed to put more heat on Rude than he did on himself. He seemed to know that he was getting plenty of heat by his wide range of appearances on WWF programing & events not just manging a variety of wrestlers, but also as a commentator. Paul... he just sucked it down a rabbit hole when working with a top heel. John

Heyman was around. So were Dave, Wade and Bruce. John

I'm trying to remember my age group peers saying the same thing back when Larry Holmes and Mike Tyson were the heavyweight champs. John

What Loss and Matt said: Sherry was praised strongly at the time as a manager. It's not just us "contrarians" who think that. Dave put her over all the time back then, and I suspect if one looks they'll find a time or two when Dave made the comment that Sherri was the best performer on a card or a show. I'm thinking Dave's fanboys might want read some of his older stuff. John

I think Janet was a result of a lot more than the three items, which I think Tim would agree. The Anti-Titty & Sex Brigade in the country, much like their very close overlapping cousins in the right wing noise machine, have an amazing ability to gin up media heat when they throw a hissy fit. It's not like Karl Rove was sitting in the basement seeing this was something great to divert attention from. The noise started almost *instantly*, and in modern media it was the hot story that night. Lots of folks hitched their cart to it because it's an easy one to get the Family Values crowd all worked up. It's pretty sad that a breast, and not much of it flashed and for a very short time, can drive a chunk of the country batshit and bring a lot of people to their knees. Exactly how much of the audience hadn't seen a breast in their life? 0.1%? We're a really fucked up country. John

Love the Baby Doll quote. John

Yeah... I don't see why it would be a problem with Wade being Wade if they're good. It's a bit like Dave's writing shortcomings. If Dave is bringing his A-Game on a topic, we've learned to put up with the occassional paragraph long sentences in the piece that you have to read four times to figure out what he's saying. Wade doing an interview isn't remotely close to that Actors Studio guy where even with a good subject rarely interviewed at length, you want to just bang your head against the wall. Wade's solid and good. John

Dixie isn't very sharp. John

They drew 6K. That's potentially "taking over New York"? He must have been on some good booze and dope over the weekend. John

Cool effort, Ray & Co. John

Looks damn sharp. And he is largely a shirt & jeans guy. John

Damn... I forgot about that. John

He ranks stuff in any WON where there are star ratings handed out. John

For fucks sake... they're getting all Captain Queeg over the freeking rankings/ratings. This from guys who've been saying Wrestling X is the best in the world for the past few decades, or a certain match is worth Y snowflakes. Before either of them toss out that their own rankings are subjective: A. No Shit B. Don't forget how defensive, argumentative and dismissive you get everytime someone questions your ratings of a wrestler's quality of work or the snowflakes you hand out C. You published a book on the Top 100 Wrestlers of All-Time and got more than a bit annoyed when folks questioned the rankings in it (despite being invited in the book to "Let the debates begin). D. All of the fucking above Looks... folks rank and rate shit. It's what we do. It's what Dave has done since the *first* issue of the WON ever. Ranking and rating shit makes for #1 bestsellers: That puppy is 700 pages that mix rankings/ratings with loads of history. Christ... did Flair ever go #1 on that list, let alone with 700 pages of material. Anyway, they need to get over their rolling the ballbearings on Rankings/Ratings. It's what we all do. It's what they do in their professional lives. John

I'd have to go back and look since it's been a while since I looked at what won in the 70s. But they tended to look for the most part what you would expect from a New York based publication that also tried to throw hat tips to the NWA. How many looked oddball? John

Good timing by the NLRB, and for reasons that have nothing to do with the Brothers or UFC. John

As far as Martha bringing the settlement in, paragraphs 22-27 pretty much open the door wide open. She goes off on the death, hammers the WWE and McMahons for it, references the lawsuit and the settlement. She's made all of it relevant by the "facts" of her complaint. In addition if it's part of their defense, they certainly can point to it. If it needs to be attached to any filings as an exhibit, they can always do it under a protective order which will keep it from being made public. John

It's possible. Settlement & Releases are often written in away that in return for the walkaway check, you're walking away from everything you could possibly asking the company for. Given how much was paid out... it's likely that it's written in such a way that someone in the WWE thought they were done with paying the Hart Estate. Can't be certain until one reads the settlement. It's likely that the settlement will be part of the WWE's filings since Martha has opened it up. Doubt it's that. Can't imagine they would have thought that. Given what it will cost them to defend this if it isn't instantly thrown out, it's unlikely that they even made enough profit on the thing to warrant taking the risk. Again, I suspect they thought they were clear for some reason. Would be rather dumb of them to stop paying. On the other hand, Chris has been chopped out of a lot, so payments would be little. The accounting will be buried deep in the discovery and won't likely see the light of day in the public pleadings. Probably easy to get those under a protective order before producing them. John

I do see: If Paragraph 83 is true, it's *possible* that the WWE wasn't paying Owen his small piece because they believe that the Settlement is a full release by the Estate of all future claims against and obligations from the WWE for... well... *everything*. There are lots of Settlement & Releases that are written in a manner to try to put everything to bed, and with one big lump being the last payment a company will every make to someone opposite them in the case. One would have to look at the settlement to see if it's explicit in there, or if there there's anything the WWE could have reasonably stretched in that way. If not, someone in the WWE finance department is massively asleep at the wheel in paying out money to performers. Not siding with the WWE here, as seeing McDevitt playing media flack yet again makes me have a pavlovian reaction to want to see the WWE crushed. Also, paragraph 81 is again misrepresenting the amount of payment to go to Owen for tapes (implying a full 25% Net rather than a share along with other performers of that 25%). They do seem to be trying to claim they're owed far more than is realistic. John

Other thoughts: Martha's attorney does a pretty piss poor job of representing to the court what Section 3.1 (Original IP) and Section 7 (the various payments). He intentionally cuts off the cite to Section 3.1 before he runs into the issue of Exhibit A. Frankly, there's enough in the contract to make it clear that even if "Owen Hart" had been listed as Original IP, it wouldn't have limited the ability of the WWF/WWE to continue to use/exploit/sell his Works long after he was terminated. The section really goes to merchandise where any limitation is placed on the WWF. In Section 7 he's editing against to try to make the 25% on video tapes appear to be going to Owen rather than into a pot to be devided among *all* the performers on a tape... and even then one gets the sense in the sections that there's quite a calculation on how that's figured out. It's not like everyone on a Mania tape gets the same $$$. One gets the feeling of why this got tossed out in Canada. Again, it's possible that she's got some money coming the Estate's way as a cut from the DVD's if they haven't been paying for the use of Owen on them. But given how limited the WWE has been in using "Owen" since his death, it's hard to see where they remotely get into areas where they couldn't use him. It's not like they've created an Owen Hart Memorial Training Center. John

DVD is a dunker because it's little more than an extension of video tapes, which are covered by the contract. The difference between Jesse and contracts *after* his is that Jesse's contract wasn't written in a way to specifically cover the items Jesse sued over. The WWF/WWE learned from that mistake, and contracts since then (and probably even most around the time of Jesse's) covered these things. Looking at Section 2 (Works), I tend to thinks she's fucked with one exception: if the WWE hasn't been paying her anything for DVD's and other "sale" of his matches/materials. Looks like 7.7 & 7.8 cover that. One could get very creative in the accounting there, and perhaps it's not much $$$. But if she's gotten $0.00 from those things, than it would be a lot of fun doing discovery on the WWE to see what they've paid *all* performers over the years for those things. If the WWE has been cutting her checks for those along with other performers on them, then they look to be fine. Section 2 gives them the right to use those materials however they want, just with the 7.7/7.8 requirement they pay. I doubt the rest of Section 7 applies as it's unlikely the WWE marketed Owen merchandise after he died. Looking at the IP section (Section 3 and Exhibit A), I tend to think she's fucked. Read Section 3. Then read Exhibit A. Then go back to Section 3 and see where it references Exhibit A. Then think about it a bit. What Original IP reverts back to Owen, and thus to his Estate? It doesn't even list "Owen Hart". :/ John

Jesus christ... Brand Split. What they really need to do *when they can* is merge the WEC into the UFC brand. I know there are some issues there with Spike's exclusive deal, but down the road they can work those things out. We watched the WEC PPV on Friday, followed by Machida-Rua on Saturday... and you really feel for the WEC guys who have been busting their asses as "stars" in a minor promotion when guys like the now past-it Faber should have been making as much, if not more, than BJ over the past 3-4 years. It would greatly enhance the UFC PPV's (and frankly non-PPV TV Cards) to be able use those lower weight classes to broaden the talent pool. It also would help with the injury bug that always risks screwing up shows and leaving you with tougher to sell card: you have greater depth to be able to dip into and push matches up and around to cover. The UFC brand is quite strong. You don't want to water it down by splitting off a chunk of the talent. You want to continue to build it up. While it might be bad for the "sport" to have most people thinking UFC=MMA, it's obviously good for the UFC. When people think of pro football, they think of the NFL which puts any rival in the hole of having to climb and Everest of a mountain in the minds of football fans in this country. No impossible, but extremely hard. John

John

I love the "sin gene" concept. Eve ate the fruit based on Free Will: it was her own choice, not the genes in here. Adam ate the fruit based on Free Will: it was his own choice, not the genes in him. Unless Vince thinks God created them both with the genes that would make them eat the fruit. In which case, they didn't turn heel: God gave them those genes because he wanted them to eat the fruit. Wait... that means God was a heel on Adam & Eve from the start by giving them the Sin Gene, making them unable to do anything other than eat the fruit when the time game, which allowed God to go even more heel on them by tossing them out of Eden and fucking them over. Evil Mr. McGod. I don't think Vince gets genetics. John, no religious and thinks Vince is just as shitty in explaining his as he is in booking & writing...

More! More! More! John