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Like Mask or not, he doesn't pull that sort of stuff out of his ass. It's one thing to not report something for circumstantial reasons but retracting the truth is kinda...yeah... Funny how that thread got locked not many posts after that, with Mask ducking answering it. John

The Brody/Cobain analogy is a good one, and probably not for the reasons Brody Fan would think. I like the Destroyer's comment in that other Brody book: "I don't have anything to say about him. I always thought Frank was an asshole." -Dick Beyer John

Yikes! John

And Ric Flair has never done anything but drink. I'm not really buying either. John

Setting even that aside, Foley went to the WWF to get away from the hardcore stuff he was doing in ECW and in Japan. Working a safer style, career longevity, and bascially admitting at the time he was willing to sell out. Except he went back to being a hardcore, little more than a junky for a pop of the crowd and fame, The Hardcore Legend. Made him shitloads of money as well... but he never really came across as self aware in the first two books or the movie that he was lying to people, and largely himself, in what he was doing in that career path from 1995/96 on forward. He might rub up against the truth on occassion, but slip away from it. In the end, he's fairly similar to Dynamite in laying out a chunk of warts in an attempt to be "honest", but avoiding others and true introspection. Again, that's setting aside the stuff Bix mentions, and a fair number of things I heard back at the time. People can dimiss that if they'd like. I never found the person I heard a fair amount of Mick info to be incorrect on Mick stuff. In fact, one of the funny things I recall was someone ripping him about Mick's role in Barry's movie while it was still in production... and the person doing the ripping turning out to be laughably wrong. But yeah, I could be talking out of my ass, Mick & Mrs. Foley are saints, and there isn't a more self aware person in wrestling with his head screwed on straight than Mick. John

I disagree. Here's a story from Bret's book: I think we're looking at different things in the book. It's pretty clear that Bret thinks his father was fucked up. Loved him. Accepted some of the things he did. Admired some of them. But it's also clear that in many he thought his dad was fucked up. We can find examples where *we* thing Stu was fucked up, but Bret didn't. That's not what I'm talking about, anymore than this things about Bret that we think are fucked up and he doesn't think are unusual. One can find those in his relationship with Julie where half the time he's copping to causing many of the issues with his lifestyle and life on the road. And in turn we can find plenty where he thinks Julie was just being a pain in the ass for not accepting the lifestyle and life on the road. That was one of my points: he's more self aware than most people who have written books and are completely delusional. But he still has blinders on. This one of the issues with people like Bret or Shawn. If you're half critical of him, you're not critical enough for the Bret Haters and are too critical for the Bret Luvers. Bret's fucked up. But in his books he's remarkably more aware of how fucked up his life and the things around him and himself are compared to say Flair, or even Foley. That's coming from someone who enjoyed Foley's first book at the time. John

Sounds like the Ron Bass shoot might be the first one I need to get. As far as Brody being a partier, it's not terribly surprising. John

Bret does love his mother and his father. He also seemed pretty aware in the book that his dad was fucked up, and that his mother had issues. It's clear that he thought his entire family was screwed up, with the exception of Owen and about 50% of himself. But plenty of people love family members who they know are fucked up to a degree. Bret probably isn't fully self aware, but really how many of us are? If any of us wrote at that length about out lives, other folks would read it and find similar moments where we just weren't really getting it. I think Bret's willingness to portray Stu and Helen as they are in the book is a sign of awareness and honesty on his part. Perhaps a good contrast would be how Foley has portrayed Mrs. Foley in his books. One could argue that Mick is well to aware and thus doesn't want to expose here, so he's not being honest. One could also argue that he's oblivious, which goes in the other direction. I tend to agree with Bix's posts in here, along with Loss's. I think if we remove the words "hero" and "admire" from talking about Bret and instead toss out something like "compelling", it might be closer to what some of is see. I don't see any wrestlers as heros, and long ago seemed to lose my ability to admire any of them. But Bret is pretty compelling as a person. The book is, and the items Bix ran through in the list above make a very compelling arc. We may think Flair's career *in the ring* is compelling, and that some of the arc of his "wrestling persona" are compelling. But as a person, he hasn't been terribly compelling through the majority of his career. If he has become one over the past decade, it's largely for the trainwreck aspects. Hogan probably is similar. Bret is a nutter. But he's been a far more interesting nutter than most people in the business. Like all of them, there's plenty to get tired off. John

Damon is a rather large name in the mainstream for a baseball player. And I agree it came from the Red Sox, and then leaving the Sox for the Evil Empire. The guy has been on Letterman more than the Player of the Decade in MLB. He's a bigger "name" than anyone on the Yanks this past year other than Jeter and A-Rod. And considering that's the *Yankees* and it's an alleged Team Of Stars, it's saying something. Probably says even more about the poor job of MLB in getting their players over. John

It's not a matter of them being defensive. It's ego gratification. John

Agreed that this is the likely path. Onita may not have run two matches, though. The point with the Terry match was to pop the big one, which would be the first. Tiger Jeet's star power was way, way, way down by the point Onita hooked up with him. Terry's was to a degree as well, but Onita was about to get the buzz for it. I suspect Brody would be closer to Terry than Tiger. Their big match would probably be like the Onita-Tenryu match, where Onita brought the garbage while Tenryu brought the opponent star power. And after that... I don't know what path Brody would have in Japan other than smaller feds. Perhaps if he went to FMW first he might go to WAR after. Who knows. My point largely has been to dismiss the notion that Brody's future at the age of 42 was a clear path of major success over the next 8 years. I think if one takes a step out of the Brody Myth Making Aura and into what was really going on in his career in those last few years, and also the landscape of 1988-96 in the sense of who was in charge and what would be required of Brody in terms of work and jobbing... it's not really obvious that great things were ahead. It's quite likely that things would be tough. Perhaps Brody would have loved to go to the WWF and slide into a Hacksaw Jim Duggan gimmick. But even a wrestler as welling to put over *everyone* and do pretty much anything hit a point where he had to quit: Ricky Steamboat. It really wasn't the jobbing, but instead the gimmick going nowhere, and his push being stalled at the bottom... it was clear that he was stuck, and he quit. That's Ricky. Put Brody's giant ego and huge prick attitude into being told that his gimmick was changing to Repo Man. Folks might try to offer up a prick like Bad New Allen as a guy who was able to stick around for several years. I think the difference is that as much of a prick as Allen was, he also was willing to do "business" far more than Brody. With Brody, he quickly had issues. John

Terry never really had issues with doing jobs in his career. Not even talking about the 90s. Going back to the 60s, 70s and 80s Terry was willing to do jobs all over the place. Brody had issues doing jobs starting in the 80s, and didn't get over it right up to the point where he got stabbed. In fact, jobbing was one of the reasons (in addition to being a giant asshole prick) that got him stabbed. Note: that not to excuse someone from murdering Brody simply because Brody was a giant asshole prick. But people also know that the murder wan't a random act of a killer simply looking for someone to stab in a shower, and just killed whoever was in there. He drew Brody into the shower and murder him because it was *Brody* and there were reasons he wanted to kill *Brody*. I don't think that absent getting murder that Frank would suddenly turn into Terry Funk. He wouldn't. Never would. As far as large amounts of money, the track record is that Brody walked out on large amounts of money, even when he didn't have an alternate income handy. Doing something because of the money didn't seem to have a big impact on him. I think this sentence indicates that you don't really know what you're talking about. I'm not trying to be a prick in saying that, but there really isn't any way to avoid saying it. Brody's history in Japan is extremely well known as it's been part of his bio for years. To say what everyone knows, but seems like it needs to be repeated: Brody walked out on New Japan twice. Once in 1985 and again, after peace was made, in 1986. Those were recent, fresh items that made it pretty clear at the time that he wasn't going back to the company any time soon. Worse for Brody: on the way out the door in 1985, he did a number on Sak. Add in that he bailed from All Japan the moment Choshu showed up. As Inoki went off into politics and scaled back his career, who ran New Japan? Sak as figure head "President" and Choshu as the real power booking and running things. Sak had no love for Brody, so he would never lobby to bring him back. Choshu's philosphy on gaijin was that his crew of workers could make anyone look good, so there wasn't a need to go chasing top stars as regulars making major $$$. They "created" Vader. They took a bad, green Norton and turned him into a top gaijin. They were less successful with others, like Halme. But by the time Halme was failing, the company native base in heavyweights was so strong, and the value of gaijin was so low that it didn't matter. In other words, the door for a regular job in New Japan was closed to Brody early in the Sak-Choshu period, and moving into the 90s because they simply wouldn't want him. This is a company that shrugged off losing Vader to WCW and UWFi to go onto probably the best run of live crowds in their history. In All Japan, Brody came back in late 1987 and early 1988 on his best behavior. Jumbo put him over, and Brody put Jumbo over. This was the era when gaijin weren't as "regular" as they became in the 90s: Hansen didn't work every card, or even every series. Brody didn't work the first series of the year in 1988. He didn't work the second. It's safe to say that he would have worked the Tag League, and at least one series in the middle of the year. One can see him doing that through 1988 and 1989. One can see him remaining on best behavior. I'll cut him the benefit of the doubt that he'd be willing to do a clean job to Tenryu in either a UN & PWF Title match (pre merger) or in a Triple Crown match (post meger) say in the spot where Gordy jobbed to Tenryu in 1989. Hansen jobbed to Tenryu, and perhaps he talks Brody into playing nice. Where I see a problem if Brody makes it to 1990 is that there's a clear fork: * go with Tenryu to SWS for big money * stay in All Japan and over time put over Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi and Taue while working that style they go off on The first is the "path of least resistance". And Tenryu over time was picking off the people who saw their days numbered given where All Japan was headed: Yatsu and Kabuki, for example. Yatsu was one that it seemed like the Babas knew what was up, as he wasn't given anything critical to do before leaving. Kabuki was a surprise. Going to SWS appears to play into Brody's desire to cash in. They were throwing silly money around. The problem with this is two fold: Tenryu wasn't stealing gaijin, and we don't really know what Brody's relationship with Tenryu was (or vice versa). Perhaps Brody being willing to job for him would have made Tenryu his BFF. But I still have a tough time getting past the fact that despite having a lot of money to throw around, Tenryu didn't sign any big name gaijin regulars of the era. Instead, he signed a talent deal with the WWF. I'm really iffy about that. So he stays with All Japan. But how quickly does that blow up? With Hansen losing Tenryu as a partner, the Revolution imploding, and Gordy firming up into a top gaijin team with Doc, it seems "natural" that Brody joins hands with Hansen again rather than Hansen sliding into the team with Spivey. But... how willing is he to put over Gordy & Williams as a (the) top new Gaijin team, the 90s equiv of Hansen & Gordy? This is the 90s, and Baba rapidly is moving towards All Clean Finishes. It's not 100% as we can point to the 1991 Kawada-Taue COR. But it quickly moved from "rare" to "never" with a special exemption to an occassional Abby dq. Could Brody live in that era, with it being Misawa and Gordy/Williams that he would initially be jobbing to (assuming he had no problem jobbing to Jumbo), and over time Kawada, Taue and Kobashi. I don't think so. More than that, I don't think he could have survived in the style long as Hansen did. He probably would have made it into 1991 when he was 46... It's hard to see much past that. After that, it's off to the indies. I think that's what everyone points to. The problem is that I don't see Onita paying Brody *regularly* (as in coming in for loads of tours), and I see it blowing up in not so long. Onita would want his win. Terry didn't work a ton for FMW prior to Onita's retirement. Really it's famed for just one big match. Onita had an even better match the next year: Tenryu. The year after that was his "retirement match". It's more likely that Onita would have used Brody *before* Terry's 1993 match. John

People in the business have the need to feel that the "marks" all want to be them. John

I don't think Dusty would have brought him in. Dusty punted on using him in JCP. Before Dusty was Ole. BRody wasn't in GA after Ole got more control with the book. A stretch in 1981, and then for just one month in 1983 without doing anything very major. Ole was a prick... hard to see him putting up with Brody. Before that was Flair, which I talked about. If Brody came in, it would be like Hansen... and they wouldn't have put Brody with Lex, and I doubt Lex's buddy Sting would have wanted to work with Brody. He could have done that at any point from 1984-88. Instead they brought in Kamala. And OMG. And... christ, lots of people. They had chances to get Brody and didn't give a shit. I think people both back then, and now, project onto Brody this mystical greatness and overness that didn't exist. He really wasn't a fly on the elephant's ass of US wrestling. They wouldn't have gone in early 1995. WCW didn't give a crap about them at the time. They probably would have ended up going in at the time when the NJ3 did: late 1995. Doubt they would have gotten pushed to the top quickly. John

They never went anywhere. In fact, they were largely just joke "dream match" nonsense talk. Whatever $$$ amount Vince would have needed to give Mike to do it would have been off the charts: likely more than Mike was getting per big PPV fight at the time, which was ridiculous money. Mix in that Don King would likely get a bite of promoting as well, despite the talk of the revenue that could be generated, it likely would have ended up not making Vince as much money, nor greatly in his contral. Just wasn't going to happen then. John

The question is whether Art would have gotten to WCW alive. Not sure. But if he did, I suspect he would have overdosed in WCW before long. If it was Eddy & Art as a team rather than going into the CW division, I suspect Art's spirits would have been crushed fast. Looks at who was in the tag division by 1996 and into 1997. There's no way people like Hall & Nash and the Steiners, let along Harlem Heat and Sting & Lex, would have done anything to make the Gringos look good. In a sense Eddy was lucky that he got into the CW mix because while they were beat down over time by the powers in WCW, they at least had their own niche where they could do things against each other. I think Eddy from his time in New Japan was perfectly use to the split between heavies and juniors, and accepting a spot. Art... he was seeing the stardom of the Gringos in Mexico. Coming up to the US to get buried by Hall & Nash and the Steiners... his dope use would have gone through the roof with the combo of money and "what the fuck" attitude. He never would have gone to WCW in the pre-Monday Night Wars era. He had no allies there. You think Watts or Flair ever wanted to deal with Brody's bullshit? Ross? Eric had to have head a load of anti-Brody stories in the AWA. By the time Hogan came in 1994, Brody would have been 48 and it's not like anyone in the company would have wanted him. I don't think he would have gone to Vince for "big money". Do you really think Vince gave a shit about Brody? Think Patterson gave a shit about Brody? If Brody went, it would have been for the same type of deal that someone like Kamala got. I think someone mentioned SummerSlam. Wouldn't have happened. Remember the SummerSlam matches from the era: 1988: Hogan & Savage vs Andre & DiBiase with Jesse Ventura as special referee 1989: Hogan & Beefcake vs Savage & Zeus 1990: Hogan vs Earthquake This were "major" storylines and matches. Of course it wouldn't have happened in 1988 since it was already on the books when Brody got killed. In 1989, Zeus was a major push for Hogan tying into the movie, and Hogan-Savage was the major storyline of the year. In 1990, Quake was the guy who put Hogan out... and Vince and Pat loved running Fat Guys against Hogan (look up the number of them over the years from Bundy forward). If Brody game in, he would have ended up like Bossman, Bad News or Perfect: short feud that didn't turn into anything super major. I'm not even sure when Maggie would have gotten the win. If he hadn't gotten it before Dusty lost the book... it would have been a problem. I don't think in a company with Sting and/or Lex that Maggie's role would be super secure. We also need to remember how long it took for Sting to get his win over Ric (7/90) and Lex to get it (planned for 7/91 but Ric tried to hold the company up). The set up for Flair-Lex started all the way back in 1987 when Lex joined the Horsemen, and the turn started at the end of 1987. When Dusty got fired, they went with Steamer. I don't think anyone in positions of power in that 1989-91 time frame had a big soft spot for Maggie relative to say Steam and Sting. He was Dusty's boy. :/ I think Matt always was a bit smarter than Mike. They both had the bug for pro wrestling, but Matt actually went to school. Pretty much all Mike wanted to be was a wrestler. I don't think he would have made it through his 30s without a tragedy. John

I don't think the plan was ever a realistic Hogan vs Tyson in 1990. Hogan and Warrior was being set up for Mania: * SNME issues taped 01/03/90 to air after the Rumble * 01/21/90 issues at the Rumble * 01/27/90 SNME airs * 02/05/90 Toronto presser announcing Mania at SkyDome and Hogan-Warrior * 02/10/90 Superstars repeats announcement * 02/11/90 Tyson drops title to Buster * 02/23/90 Buster refs Hogan-Savage on TME Dave had the speculation on Hogan-Warrior from the first issue of 1990, and probably back into 1989 if I went back to look. In the second issue he called it a lock. He didn't cover Tyson's signing until it was actually announced, and even then said it would be Hogan-Warrior despite spending time on how much money Hogan-Tyson would make. Pretty consistent on that. The first issue did indicate that Zeus wouldn't have a shot at Mania because he sucked, but one gets a feeling that the knowledge of Zeus not being able to make it even before that cage tag took place. It was booked as a tag to get someone in there to carry the heel side, and Zeus was beaten by Hogan in it. Don't think you would have booked a blow off if there was a possibility going into it that Zeus would be built through Mania. They knew before the match Zeus couldn't carry his half, and any ideas of building him were dead. So they booked it to blow him off, and not even in a singles. John

Yeah... I don't know what she's thinking. John

Magnum TA Don't think much different would have happened. It would be interesting to know when Crockett started negotiating with Luger and closed the deal there. Perhaps Lex wouldn't have come in, and instead would have gone to the WWF. But the notion of Maggie The Franchise Champ is pretty much a myth to me. Dusty booked heels to hold the titles, faces to chase and get screwed over while heels bitch out. The only way Maggie would have been the Franchise Champ would have been if he turned heel and took Flair's spot. That doesn't seem likely when you think about it. I'm sure that we'll eventually here a story when people realise that's the only possibility, and it will be another boondoggle like the Stone Cold Superstar revisionist bullshit. Anyway, Maggie would have stayed in the role that Barry, Lex and Sting occupied in 1987-88 while Dusty had the book. After that... who knows. Art Barr I think Art was always destined to die or have something bad happen to him. If he hadn't died then, he would have died in ECW or in the Monday Night Wars. Same reason: overdose. Eddie Gilbert I wonder if Eddie had it in him to turn into what Terry Taylor became: long term member of creative committees. Terry had the knack of burying his ego and getting pushed back int he mix to keep a job. I don't think Eddie did. I don't see a role for him in the Monday Night Wars because he would have runned egos wrong even if it cost him a nice six figure job. ECW was already out, and it's hard to see him and Paul reconciling over that. It's possible that Eddie would have kept trying to start an indy promotion like ECW. Brian Pillman (if no car accident that fucked up his ankle) Would have died of an overdose at some point in the 90s or early 00s even if he didn't have the accident. Was already losing his mind before the accident. He would have ended up banged up in one way or another from the in-ring stuff, and would have hit higher levels of painkillers eventually. Mix in the partying, and he would have died. Bruiser Brody Probably would have bounced around Japanese indies in the 90s. May have worked briefly for ECW at some point like the Funks did when Paul was trying to get things off the ground. I think some have vastly overrated what was left in the tanks for him. He's just turned 42. If you watch his matches in that last series in All Japan, it's pretty clear his body isn't in great shape in terms of breaking down. Folks who think he would have lasted to the Monday Night Wars need to remember that he would have been 50 when the Wars started to take off in 1996. He was a wrestler who, unlike Piper & Savage & Co., *wasn't* a big star in the US in the 80s that kept getting jobs and often at good $$$. Brody wasn't exactly the most tolerant with promoters, bookers and wrestlers fucking with him... and the Monday Night Wars were all about that type of bullshit. He wasn't a big star in the US, so no one would have treated him like WCW treated Piper. In Japan, folks need to recall that he walked out on All Japan when the Road Warriors and Choshu & Co. came in. He saw the handwritting on the wall, and wanted no part of it. What do folks think would have happened when Tenryu left and it was time to elevate Misawa & Co? Anyone expect Brody to work with those guys like Hansen did, not only in terms of quality but in the willingness to make them look good while also beating them up? Not likely. Or when Gordy & Doc got their push, being willing to put over the MVC? Just not likely. Hansen didn't start breaking down until 1994/95, and he was three years younger than Brody. Far more likely, he would have tried to go with Tenryu... *if* Tenryu would have wanted him. It's not like Tenryu stole any of the major gaijin of All Japan: Hansen and Gordy stayed, with Gordy getting the Triple Crown twice soon after. You think Brody would have liked seeing Gordy pushed up to that level? If he went to SWS, that would have blown up in no time. If he didn't, then he would have wandered off to somewhere like FMW. Onita would have certainly like to have him. Slight problem: Onita liked beating those top gaijin in the big matches. Does anyone see Brody willing to put over Onita like Terry did? I guess it's possible... Then there's the issue of people who think that Brody in the 1989-91 time frame would have come in for a massive, huge, Wrestlemania level feud with Hogan. 1989: Hogan vs Savage 1990: Hogan vs Warrior 1991: Hogan vs Sarge Which of those was Brody going to knock out of the saddle? None. Even if Hogan-Sarge was a bomb to a degree, it was specifically designed to play off the War. Vince thought it would be massive. There's no way he would have thought Hogan vs Brody would have been more massive. It's more likely that Brody *if* brought in would be in a short feud like Hogan-Perfect. And after that, once Brody found himself working in the 2nd or 3rd match on the card, he would have wandered off. I just don't think he had as much future as people dream up. Adrian Adonis Probably would have partied himself to death. Crash Holly I think something tragic was always going to happen to Mike. He had the bug bad... :/ John

http://corporate.wwe.com/news/2009/2009_12_17.jsp

The Takada-Coleman post by Dave is coming back to me - I think I read it at some point after he tossed it up. I don't think it was written about at the time of the Takada-Coleman match, and the comment about Sak tends to confirm that. I doubt Dave thought it was a big deal either. I've seen him give career advice (on request) to a HOF in the back seat of a taxi in Tokyo... and Dave not thinking it was anything big, and instead a common thing. I also don't think anyone at the time thought that Takada-Coleman was anything other than a work to give Takada a win, and I'm sure Dave wrote that up at the time. Just don't recall him tipping his involvement in the finish *at the time* in the WON. John

Dave has spent years claiming that Takada turned into a joke because of his Pride stuff. And here he's copping to giving creative assistance to it? "Does this make logic?" -Konnan Anyone have Dave's write ups of Takada-Coleman? It would be interesting to re-read what he wrote about it. John

I suspect that Cinzia got *some* money from him. A prenup for $0.00 is pretty rare given the circumstances. But I agree with what you're meaning: she likely didn't take him to the cleaners. Bret has historically been one of the smarter guys with contracts and more prudent with money in the business. I do suspect Julie got a reasonable amount back in 2002, probably the Canadian equiv of "half + child support". Only Dallas was around 18 at that time. Their youngest turned 19 this year according to Wiki, so ongoing child support probably has declined. I don't recall ever seeing anything that Bret was hard up for $$$. John

I get the feeling that they're just doing it to fuck with Snowden. John

We need Bryan and Dave to cover Congress to write about Lieberman double crossing Harry Reid and going all Super Heel on the Democrats. Boy that would be fun... John