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I think Bruce made a pretty compelling argument that Joe couldn't have been a "fool", and instead was a "liar". That Joe was conned/worked would have had to mean he was unbelievably fucking stupid. While all of us who dealt with Joe on AOL recall that he was "fucking stupid", I wouldn't stretch it to "unbelievably fucking stupid" levels. On the other hand, I think some of us caught Joe in a lie or two or three where he had to retrace his steps... or had to have the AOL Grandstand Wrestling Thought Police come in to save Joe's reputation with a little Post Remover. Bix - I gave you a copy of Bruce's piece that I had laying around. Let me know what you think. John

Interesting concept. Don't know if the timing is right for it (pro wrestling being dead and all), or if Jason is a big enough "draw" to anchor it from a traffic standpoint. Internet marking advertising $$$ is up and going up, but one gets the feeling that the majority of that is going in the pockets of the big companies. Add in the fact the "pro wrestling" would likely have the same advertising attractiveness online as it does on TV, regardless of the numbers drawn. But an interesting concept. John

Great shit. I need to get this book. John

Agreed. John

Yep. It was called "Twenty-Five Million Dollars" and published back in 1992. I put together a bunch of Bruce's columns for him into a book/booklet called "Honor Among Thieves" back in 2003 or so. Pretty much everything I could grab off the Torch site that had been re-published in Wade's "5 Years Ago" and "Ten Years Ago" sections, along with a few other these he'd tossed up for one reason or another. It was awfully good reading... recall that he liked it. He probably should have done one of those self published book things covering his stuff up through 2001 since that would have closed the book on WCW. Anyway... the Joe P thing rocks. It was still applicable in the years after WCW went out of business as all these fly by night promotions sprouted up. John

Agree with Cook on Dave, MMA and Yahoo. The tricky issue there would be what Dave is making off it, and whether it drives anything towards something he makes money off of. Dave isn't exactly the sharpest when it comes to the front end of business decisions. He was the anchor to the Hotline, and always was going to be if he had a clue going in. But other people made a good chunk of change off it for being "partners" while adding almost no value. The website has been discussed over the years, probably funniest by Zach Arnold when he was an insider there. He made a sting of errors there. eYada was great for Dave because he was one of the folks getting paid while Meyerwitz blew through investors money like a crack whore going through her rocks. But I'm not sure if the experiance was a positive for his business other than the $$$, and it something that a longtime reader like Yohe points to as the point where the opinion element of the wrestling side of the WON started declining pretty fast. So... There are people who do what Dave does over at Yahoo and it's nearly their entire career. Rob Neyer at ESPN has been doing webpage pieces for ages... I want to say back to the 90s. It pays enough that it's what he does, with the books he's written almost side projects. There are a lot of other guys like that. Considering the hits Dave gets, he should be making a big chunk of change. Not more than he makes off the WON print version at this point (depending on what the subscriber base is)... but a big chunk o' change. I'm not sure if that's the case. I hope it is for his sake, but he's not always cut great deals or really thought these things out in depth. :/ John

Beverly was sort of the precursor to Ryder and Scherer - someone largely a fanboy on the outside slow brought inside, causing much of what they wrote/write open to problems. Easy to manipulate, and also willing to roll the Party Line. That annual was great to read when I forst got it way back then. But looking at it about 3-4 years later, it came across far less solid. I couldn't point to exactly what since Beverly so quickly went to "not relevant" that it was pushed out of my mind. I guess the difference being that Scherer and Ryder continued to be whoring shills for so many years that their stuff from 1995-97 stayed in the mind a lot longer. About the only thing from Beverly that sticks in my mind was his defense of Joe P after the famous Liar Or Idiot column by Mitchell. It was a defense the brushed by the truth to Joe P and Bonnie being good people who loved pro wrestling and not worthy of being criticized. John

He's right about pretty much all of it. It's also just about impossible to write that without coming across whiny or bitchy. The truth some times is a bitch. John

Actually, I see where it came from. John

Old discussions and you came across something written on *Saturday*: Where is it from. I'd be interested in seeing the rest of the discussion. John

Yeah... they had him back for at least one, possibly more, read-between-the-lines Flair vs. Doc / NWA vs. UWF unification stuff. John

From Dan's AJPW Lists, these were Taue's TV matches from the first series of 1988: 1/2/88 Special (taped 1/2/88 ) 1. Giant Baba/Akira Taue vs. Buddy Landell/Paul Harris (3:38 aired) 1/23/88 (taped 1/23/88 ) 1. TNT/Pete Roberts vs. The Great Kabuki/Akira Taue (9:32 complete) Taue wasn't back on TV until July. The 1/2/88 match didn't air on Classics, so there isn't a more complete version of it unless it showed up on some Taue Special. It *was* his debut match, so it might have. One suspect all of it was taped and sat in the can. BTW, is not Taue's wiki bio pathetic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_Taue John

My apologies to Gabe. I forgot. Everything good that happens in ROH is because of Gabe, while everything bad that happens in ROH is because of someone else. Cary Silkin is the Kevin Dunn of ROH. John, just joking Bix...

Okay... so I admit thinking that was a great 1-2 punch. John

They were getting to be more like ECW, with Gabe thinking PPV would strongly impact the business direction. Hasn't happened. He appears to be more realistic about hitting a roadblock than Paul E was. John