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Is Mick still married, or did Collette finally take "half" when Mick's income started sliding? John

I think I'd offer a cut if it would keep the channel out of one of their tiers where it costs extra to subscribe to it. You don't want to risk that and end up on a tier where only 30% of homes in a system sub to it. What the WWE would want is Basic level penetration. So sure... create a subsidiary that handles the network. 33% of it to divy up among the providors. The WWE should study how the NHL did theirs. It's almost certain that the rights of the content remain in the hands of the NHL rather than becoming an asset of the subsidary/network. See how the NHL deals with "costs" for the content. John

Looks like a list here: http://www.pwchronicles.com/links/puro/wpw.htm DVD #12 4/15/85 all matches from the Meadowlands, except for matches 2+3 1. AWA Tag Team Battle Royal 2. Kerry/Kevin Von Erich vs. Chris Adams/.Gino Hernandez 3. One Man Gang vs. Hercules Hernandez 4. Road Warriors vs. Jerry Lawler/Baron Von Rashke 5. Rick Martel vs. Jimmy Garvin 6. Ivan/Nikita Koloff vs. Steve Keirn/Jimmy Valiant 7. Ric Flair vs. Harley Race There's a long jump to the next show airing, so it's possible that there's more stuff that Dan was still trying to track down. John

Since it hadn't been mentioned in the thread yet, I thought someone should bring it up. John

I've advocated doing their own network in the past. The question now would be whether it's a good idea in the current economic environment. They would have to outlay some cash and investment in it. I've never been sold that they *have* to buy out some existing network to get penetration. Here's one current list of Cable/Satellite Networks: Wiki: List of United States cable and satellite television networks There are a zillion of them. MLB just launched a network, with an interesting concept of offering the carriers a cut of the new venture. The NHL Network launched in the US in 2007. The Tennis Channel is out there, and it draws test patern ratings. Clearly they would need to get the providers behind it. But the costs are a bit of a worry. The Cash & Short Term Investment was down from $266M to $176M from their Dec 2007 filing to their Sep 2008 filing. They're still pouring $20M or so a quarter into dividends, which is largely Vince's pocket. In tough times, you want to hang onto that Cash & Short Term Investment because who knows when things take a massive drop. The difference between running "live events" on USA/CW/MyTV and yourself is that those networks pay enough not only to cover production costs, but also turn some profit. On the WWE Network, the WWE would have to pick up costs until advertising kicked in strongly enough. There is some buzz that advertising money is going to get pinched for Old Media as more of it moves to New Media. There also remains the ongoing problem of wrestling programming not getting advertising money at a rate that one would expect for its ratings relative to other programing. It's possible that there's a bargin out there that they could pick off, but it's likely someone else would be eyeballing it even more with deeper pockets. I don't know if their time has passed. This really is something the WWE should have done long ago back instead of the XFL. Rather than suckering NBC and Viacom into partnerships for the XFL, the time was ripe to drag networks into partnerships to create a Wrestling Channel. That type of muscle would have gotten them the penetration they needed. John

Dead people. More deaths in wrestling. John

Not arguing with you on the overall point, John, as you're right on Knoxville's career versus Rock's, but Rock did lead The Scorpion King, which did in the same ballpark as the The Game Plan domestically, and was even better in foreign theatres too. Like I said, you're right on the overall point, though. After The Scorpion King, though, any movies he was the lead in were in the $30-50 million range until he did The Game Plan. Scorp was a spin off from a movie that pulled in $200M, coming out just one year after Mummy 2. It was heavily pushed as such, and one can even go to Box Office Mojo and still find it listed as part of the Mummy Franchise. One could reasonably argue that the "lead" in the movie was the Mummy Franchise. That was kind of obvious when Rock's next two movie made about half as much money. I'm not one who craps on Rock's career. I'm glad he got out of wrestling reasonably sane and is making good money away from it. I'm actually pulling for him to have a strong career, and find his breakthrough to an even higher level. Just have to be honest that his box office has been pretty pedestrian over the years. John

Yeah, Dave's comments in the past few months about Flair's millions in retirement accounts have been talked about before. No one is quite sure where they're coming from, and most are scratching their head given so much being written in the past about Ric being headed for the poor house and needing Uncle Vinces paychecks. They don't entirely add up. John

Great stuff. Clearly the Committee knew to ask about Vince being a performer and being covered by the Wellness Program... while in fact not being tested. John

Sure. You don't see anyone taking the time to discuss the quality of the Hogan-Bossman or Savage-Hart or Savage-Roberts matches on the set. It was kind of a dead thread before Dylan and I started bitching about Rockers-Busters. John

I don't recall that. I suspect someone here subs to the Torch and can find the PPV report since Wade put them all online. Hell, I wonder what I wrote about that PPV in the Torch. John

It would be a better set having the first one. I don't have a problem with the WWE putting shitting matches on their sets. Most of the better options are easily available. John

The one I'm thinking of wasn't Chyna, since no one would have cared online. I just have in the back of my head the picture of Trish bleeding onto that white baseball "sleves" style shirt she would wear. Terri was nutty and doped up enough to juice back then. And I have an image in my head of Lita's hair wet with juice working sympathetic babyface. I could be completely wrong. John

I think you're confusing this match: 10/31/89 Rockers vs. Brainbusters (1:50, 1:00, 3:43) With this match: 02/16/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (8:09 aired of ?) Those are their two SNME matches. The first one is also a Nitro-style sprint. It's actually pretty good for a WWF Golden Tag Era match, just on the short side. The second is just an embarassment while the Busters are being jobbed out of the company. Honestly, I can't imagine someone watching both and thinking the 2/3 is any good after seeing them work the first SNME match. My run through the Rockers vs. Busters matches that I have which are not on the DVDVR Set starts here: Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty And has these matches: 01/23/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (16:19) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York Aired: 01/23/89 MSG Network 01/29/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (18:21) Taped: Los Angeles Sports Arena Aired: 01/29/89 Z Channel 02/16/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (8:09 aired of ?) Taped: Hersheypark Arena, Hershey, PA Aired: 03/11/89 Saturday Night's Main Event 03/08/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (10:42 of ? aired) Taped: County Coliseum, Odessa Aired: 03/27/89 Prime Time Wrestling 03/18/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (13:53) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York Aired: 03/18/89 MSG Network 03/18/89 Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty (22:28) Taped: Boston Garden Aired: 03/18/89 NESN Really... the 2/3 is far and away the worst of the bunch. John

On the question of whether a WWF/WWE woman ever juiced, I want to say that they did at least once. Lita? Trish? It just sticks in the back of my mind, and that there were some who were turned off by it, while others pointed to it happening in joshi. John

That's very good. I don't recall that being any good. The Jake vs Savage the following SNME is much better. I thought the Hogan-Orndorff was surprisingly watchable. The Bossman match is very good. This is not the Rockers-Busters match you want. This is the quicky 5 minute or so match that blew off the Busters. It's a Nitro-style match, and not a good one. Their good SNME match was earlier in the year. It also was Nitro-style of spotfu, but at least had 9+ minutes to build through and was nicely heated. They had a decent house show run, though never the Home Run match that the could have had if they worked in Crockettville. I'm trying to remember if that was any good. I seem to recall Davey being pissed about losing and not wanting to do a hell of a lot, while Shawn "put on a show". John

Blade or hardway?

True or joke? John