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Not sure if it justifies it. Does explain some of it. Dusty-Harley in MSG had a lot of Dusty kicking the crap out of Harley, and not as much Harley kicking the crap out of Dusty as I would have liked. But... it was pretty much Harley working as a touring NWA champ with Dusty the face in New York coming off his 1977-78 run there. I said somewhere in there that: In theory one wishes Harley had a section on top working a hold, but working hold segments never was Harley's strong point in this era. He's repetative with them and not terribly interesting. The Lawler match gets mindnumber at times because of the repetative nature of things. Later on I mentioned that I wouldn't have minded 4-5 minutes of the headlock pitched and instead have Harley "break him down", which is less Harley working control with holds but instead getting his shit in as far as his impacty moves. I would have liked to have seen it. But I kind of get why it wasn't there. I don't know if it's just want they wanted to see. I think we'd agree that the fans do pop when Bob takes it to Harley, and are going pretty batshit down the stretch for Bob kicking the crap out of Harley. It's not the perfect Bob-Harley that I would have liked, but it's hard to say that it wasn't effective. It's a bit like Hogan working matches 1984-89. Not my preferred cup of tea, but I've come to see it as being very effective in giving the fans what they want. Bob-Harley was pretty effective. The exception would be the stretch where they lost the crowd going back to the headlock (where the was vocal unhappiness from the crowd). But before and after that moment, even within the segment that was headlock dominated, they did get the crowd into it when they picked it up for a spot or highspot or sequence of spots/highspots. That's one of the dichotomies of the match: the headlock is repetitive as all hell, the crowd gets tired of it, but the two wrap around it a lot of spots/highspots that pop the crowd... and when you review what the spots were, they were pretty damn cool in the context of the 1977-83 time period in the US. I think fans were perfectly happy to see one sides matches if Their Face was kicking the crap out of That Heel Guy. Bob kicked the crap out of Sarge in the Philly cage match. Sarge did get some stuff in, largely by popping Bob in the balls. But it really was a major ass kicking, and I'm not sure if it was close to 67/33 if timed out, and probably a lot less in actually doing stuff. I'm not sure if this is that uncommon for most "sports" fans. Most people don't want to watch United beat Stoke 5-0. But United Fans like myself would eat that up. Every game doesn't need to be the 1999 United vs Munchen Champions League Final to entertain the partisan fan. As I wrote, I would far prefer to have see their 2/3 falls match from St Louis that year. Perhaps it sucked, with them botching stuff left and right. But I think their styles probably would have worked best breaking up this 35 into 3 falls where they each get a fall, they have three different periods to build to finishes, and by losing a fall make it as though Bob is in some Peril. Actually would really like to see them have worked in Japan in a 2/3 fall title match in this time period. That probably would have been something as long as they kept it in this length or a bit shorter rather than going 60. John

09/22/80 Backlund vs Race (35:43) Taped: Madison Square Garden, New York From: WWE.com NWA World Title vs WWF Title. Good set of boos for Harley when he's introduced, with a few claps around. Big pop for Bob as the local hero. Harley gives the business to Bob before the bell, which Bob only takes so much of before wagging his index finger back at Harley and pointing out at all the fans in the Garden. Harley puts his hands on his hips, looks around, and of course the crowd is eating it up. The open with some rope running and leapfrogging before Bob hits a hiptoss and a big slam on the rather large Race. Harley is great in sliding back into the corner, drapping himself across the bottom rope and getting across early that he's in for a ride. A minute-twenty in and Bob slaps on the headlock. We know this is going to be a headlock-centric match, so the question is how well they work it. Harley seems happy to sit in it, so Bob goes early to the torquing of it. He get Harley up off the mat, and after less than a minute in it the break it up for a highspot: a terrific Thesz Press for a surprisingly heated nearfall. Bob follows with another chunky slam before taking Harley over into a ground headlock. The headlock takeover isn't one of Harley's most graceful, probably on Bob for taking him over low. A negative is you love Harley's graceful way of eating headlock takeovers as I do. Not a negative if you enjoy some of Bob's choppiness as I do, as this come across a little naturalistic of grab a head and throw him down. I'm actually spending more time on this that it really deserves since I've been told that these two blow spots left and right, and lord knows if this is one of those dreaded "blown spots". It's actually perfectly okay, and I'm sure we're going to see plenty of Harley's patented headlock takeovers later. They sit in the headlock for about forty seconds, largely Harley fifth of ginning the selling with Bob torquing the head once to encourage him to move along. Harley uses one of his favorite spots in the headlock to assist the face up into a bridge before getting dropped back on his neck and back to the mat with the headlock still being held. Harley makes just about every face look good in the spot, and Backlund looks better than most as he knows bridging like the back of his hand. If you rewind and watch it closely, they really do a great job of nailing all of the elements. Harley's move into the spots is quick and smooth. His move upward is strong, and he has his hand on Backlund's chin to sell trying to force Bob to break the headlock. Bob's bridge is really excellent, and his move over into driving Harley back down is very smooth. As always Harley adds his theatrical stylings by flaying one leg up in the air as he goes down and hits the mat. Really well done, and the crowd enjoys the spot. They spend about 20 second down in the hold before Bob torques the headlock to signal "lets move along". Harley reads that to mean "lay on my back and pound the mat" before eventually rolling up to grab a fistful of Bob's hair. Bob responds by torquing the hell out of Harley's head, which gets a response out of the crowd. Overall, about another minute down in the hold before they work up to a base to mix in another high spot sequence. This time it's a hiptoss into a sunset flip for a very nice nearfall before we get one of Harley's graceful headlock takeovers for another pin attempt. Another very nice high spot sequence to break up the working of the hold, very nicely executed. We get Harley's first grabbing of the trunks to roll Bob over into a pinning position, and then very little time before they follow with another bridging spot. Picture perfect again, and back down to the mat in the hold. All of this roughly within 30 seconds since the sequence peaking in the sunset flip peaked. Yes, it's headlocky, but they're picking it up a lot for nice little spots. This isn't any different from Bob's long 30+ minute matches with Hogan or Muraco or Valentine, or Race's with Lawler.. Of course no sooner does that through cross the mind than we get our longest spot down on the mat as Race goes deeply into fifth of gin. There's a little fistful of trunks for the roll mixed in, and a fistful of hair greeted by some quick torques. Bob tries to spur him on a few other times with the torques, but Harley's pretty content to keep it down for around 1:50. Some of the crowd is sounding a *little* annoyed near the end of it, and a little during Harley's slow walking of Bob back into the ropes. They reel everyone back in with Harley's classic I Gutwrench You, No You Gutwrench Me! spot. I'm thinking this is where people think there are blown sloppy spots as the *Ref* is sloppy in trying to get around to make the count, almost tripping over the wrestlers. But Harley and Bob are flawless on the move. Slam and Harley's best eating of the headlock takeover yet, and we're back on the mat. Crowd is okay with it going back to the mat, and there aren't any signs of rebellion yet. At the moment, it's just the length of the prior one that annoyed some of the fans. Harley spends another 1:30 this time before working to a base. This time it's a cross up highspot, with Bob holding onto the ropes to cause Harley to miss a reverse roll, then Harley rolling out of the way to cause Bob to airball an elbow drop, then Bob rolling out of the way to cause Harley to header the mat on a headbutt drop. A nice change of pace on the high spots breaking up the holds before we go back into the headlock. Each one of them got a pop, the biggest for the last. They break up this headlock spot with several grab of the trunks for the roll spots, with Backlund increasingly going to the "I'm Gonna Hit Him" spot playing to the crowd. Good heat from the crowd, and the ref plays his roll well. Nice touch of Race grabbing the hair, which causes the ref to move up to look at it and warn Harley, with Bob taking the opportunity to rabbit punch Harley's skull to get him to release the hair. Bob doesn't usually hit out of the "I'm Gonna Hit Him" spot. Harley is back in his comfort zone and doing a little more fifth of ginning, which Bob responds to by doing a bit of "rowing" in torquing the head. About two minutes in this one before they're up. After the quicker pace of working up to highspots early, we've had three longer ones. Crowd has pretty much stayed with them, the exception being some fans at the end of the first long one. Highspot sequence here starts with Harley hitting the kneelift followed by a jumping knee. He feeds Bob a vertical suplex counter, and when Bob gets him up there's that old MSG Backlund Jet Hanger Heat. It's a pretty fantastic hanging suplex as he holds Race up a long time, which is a great visual since Race is so damned big at this point. And no, that's not a knock at Harley's size as champion. I don't think it's a negative, as it makes a babyface looked damned impressive when he tosses the champ around. In this match, even things as simple as Backlund's slams look damned impressive given Harley's size playing into Backlunds typical way of "tossing" an opponent on a slam. On the hanging suplex, the visual is terrific. Anyway, Bob gets a two count off it, with Harley laying deep into it before kicking out to draw a good "oh!" from the crowd. It's back down into the headlock. A nice handful of trucks for the roll spot, with Bob working the bicycle strongly to sell it while in the roll and then threatening to punch him again afterward to show how pissed off he was. But after that it's fifth of gin, and this is the first time they lose a decent chunk of the crowd. We get some strong whistles about a minute into it, and what's funny is that Bob picks up on it, looks around the crowd, and starts torquing the headlock. Harley is kind of oblivious to it, flops from his side to his back, which seems to only annoy the whistlers more. All told, a bit over two minutes before Harley starts moving to a vertical base. We're about 16:30 into the match, and you're starting to get a sense that the match may just go off the rails. Except that their highspot this time is the abdominal stretch, which amazingly instantly pops the crowd. Bob actually works the hell out of it to keep the crowd into it until Harley is finally able to flip him off. Harley is fantastic in staggering around the ring holding his back, only to come around and see Bob still prone on the mat with his own stagger leading him right into position to drop his knee right on Bob's forehead. Harley follows up with another theatrical one. Bob does a good job of selling the damage before Harley pulls him up for a vertical suplex. It's spot of the decade time as Bob nicely floats over and behind, graps a waistlock and hits a great German Suplex for a two count with Harley beautiful rolling out of the pin adding the finishing touches. Bob airballs an elbow drop, but takes Harley back down with the headlock takeover when Race doesn't take the lead. They spend another two minutes in it. They keep the crowd through the first half of it with Bob theatrical going to a long series of torquing the head and another grab of the tights by Race for the rollover. They do lose them for the second half of it when Race flops onto his back. Fewer whistles than the last one, but there is one noticable fan calling "Come on!" at Race. Up on their feet, a couple of punches before Bob grabs the head again, but this is just to feed Harley the backdrop suplex. We're exactly 22 minutes in when Harley hits it. Harley looks to press the advantage with a nice kneedrop followed by going up to the top to get thrown off the top. This is the NWA Champ, we shouldn't be surprised. Backlund follows with one of his best atomic drops ever, with Race's size again making for a great visual as Bob holds him up for a long time before dropping him down. As expected, Harley flings himself over the top to the floor. This of course is COR time since that's how these things always end, we're now 23 minutes in and Bob just hit his finisher. Thankfully Bob breaks the count several times. Back in the ring, classic NWA Champ Begging Off, which we now know goes all the way back to Lou Thezs himself. Bob calls him out to the middle, but since Harley is working NWA Champ Style here rather than WWF Heel Style, he forces Bob to come into the corner to kick the shit out of him so that he can go with a nice NWA Champ Style Transition in the corner. Harley uses a headbutt to the gut, and Bob sells the shit out of it. The great thing about it if you watch closely is that in his theatrical selling of the hold, Bob eventually ends up on his side with his head in perfect position for Race to use very little effort to drop his knee right on Bob's skull. I'm guessing this is one of those sloppy, blown spots: positioning yourself to be give your opponent one of his favorite spots effortlessly. Harley hits another kneedrop to Bob's skull, lining it up methodically before going for the cover. Bob kicks out at one because you never can trust an NWA Champ not to double cross your own title out of you. This is Harley's big flurry of offense: a very nice piledriver, a headbutt drop, a swank kneelift to the skull and another, more theatrical headbutt drop. He sets for another piledriver, but since he already hit it, we know that Bob's going to backbody dropped out of it. Sure enough he does, and... BOB DRIVER~! And what a kickass Bob Driver it is, splatting Harley good and getting a huge pop for the Garden crowd. Harley is laid out before Bob's legs, so Bob eventually simply rolls over onto his stomach using his legs to roll Harley as well for the cover. Fantastic nearfall. Harley kneelifts Bob's head off before airballing a driving headbutt off the second rope for another strong pop. Bob goes for a cover, but Harley gets his foot on the ropes. Double knockdown sends Harley to the floor, and it's DCOR time for sure now. No, Harley dives back in under the ropes. Bob nails a nice legdrop right for a double pin, with both rolling their shoulders out at two. They have a nice spot of Bob hooking the underhook, Harley fighting to keep from eating it, before Bob finally hoisted him up and over to launch him with the double arm suplex. Another good cover and two count from this. Did I mention strong heat and buzz through almost all of this since Harley hit his backdrop to end the headlock section back at the 22 minute mark? A little fists of fury before Harley goes low and we get a good Bob splat with Bob tossing himself to the floor. Bob crawls up onto the apron so that Harley can bounce his head off the ringpost. Of course juices himself, which means we know what comes next. Harley nicely pops Bob back into the ring while staying on the apron. He pulls Bob back up and lines him up to run him into the post, but of course gets countered when Bob coolly smacks him in the back of the skull driving Harley skull first into the post. Harley splats to the floor and goes to work on his forehead with the blade. A good job of getting face juice then following up with a theatrical way of getting payback heel juice. If we didn't know that Harley was under the apron slicing himself, *this* would look like the COR spot. But no, he pops up and dives under the ropes to beat the count. Bob goes to town on the cut, with the ref checking Bob's cut to see if he needs to stop the match. The buzz in the crowd is stronger, and there's quite a few noticable standing. Fists o' fury on their feet with Bob hitting a backbreaker (where they hell did he pull that one out of the Backlund Big Book Of Moves) for a jet hanger heat cover that the crowd thinks is it. Seriously, the crowd at this point is thinking Backlund is going to win the NWA Title. We get some shitty WWE.com black & white because of a close up on Harley's forehead. For fuck's sake, I'm paying $4.99 a month for this, show me the damned match in color. Bob nails a neckbreaker for another strong nearfall. He whips Race into the corner and nails a terrific gutwrench for another jet hanger pop and a nearfall. Harley tries for a vertical suplex, Bob floats over again and slaps on a sleeper which the crowd goes nuts for. Race gets one hand on the rope, which the WWF ref kicks off for a big pop and crowd is REALLY thinking Bob wins as Harley goes down for the "raise the arm" spot. When it goes down a second time, you can see a fan past the turnbuckle jumping up and down because this is it. When the arm is raised the third time, Harley grabs the ref and pulls him foreward into a headbutt to knock him down. Bob releases the hold, the ref shakes off the headlock and signals for the bell to be rung. The ref raises Bob's hands and the crowd goes REALLY BATSHIT. If Backlund-Patera is A+ batshit level crowd pop of the era, this is a strong A. Heavy boos for Race holding up his belt that he retains, but even after the crowd knows each are keeping their belts, they pop big for Backlund hopping on the ropes as the winner. Breaking up the match in sections: A - the opening minute and a half was good establishing the local hero and the typical touring NWA Champ B - the first four minutes of headlock work was quite well done with shorter sections in the hold before bringing up for a highspot sequence before taking it back down C - the next ten minutes see them work longer headlock segments between highspots, eventually getting a round of whistles about 15:30 into the match. D - They have about another 6:30 of headlocks segements after the whistles first appear. The crowd never seems as lost as it was in the whistle section, but it's also not terribly into the headlock anymore. E - They work to the finish for a bit under 14 minutes from Harley's backdrop to end headlock section C & D are what almost certainly turn off folks who don't like this match: 16:30 of long headlock segments. The opening and the shorter headlock sections are quite solid, and the headlocks are broken up quickly enough into short segements. After that, it overstays its welcome. I wouldn't disagree with that entirely, but I would point out three things: * even in that roughly 16:30 of longer headlock segments, the crowd is back with the workers for every highspot sequence To a degree, one wishes they simply kept picking it up after a minute as they did earlier as it would have kepts the headlock segements from dragging on too long. In theory one wishes Harley had a section on top working a hold, but working hold segments never was Harley's strong point in this era. He's repetative with them and not terribly interesting. The Lawler match gets mindnumber at times because of the repetative nature of things. Still, when Bob and Harley picked it up between segements, they very quickly had the crowd in the palm of their hands. * those highspot sequences in that section range from "good" to "fantastic" - I Gutwrench You, No You Gutwrench Me! - Cross ups of reverse roll, elbow drop, headbutt drop - vertical suplex counter into hanging vertical suplex - abdominal stretch --> kneedrops --> vertical suplex floatover --> German Suplex The final segement transitioned out with Harley's backdrop suplex that started the run to the finish. The Cross Ups sequence was a good change of pace from the other highspot sequences they broke up the headlocks. The two standard Harley Suplex Counter Spots are both very good ones that we'd still see getting pops in 1987 in the elmination tag match. The whole ab-stretch to german suplex sequence runs the gamut from good to very good to fantastic. It's worth taking a pause to consider that during the "boring" headlock wears out its welcome section of the match, the two still delivered that stuff. It wasn't tossed out in the fashion of "let's do a table spot" masturbatory moves. Instead, Race tried to get out of the headlock, Backlund ended up getting the advantage, nailed a move to try to win, Race kicked out and Bob took him down to wear him out more as Race wasn't quite ready to be put away. The attempts got heat from the crowd, and they weren't upset when it was initially taken back down to the mat. It's when a segement stayed on the mat too long, and Race ginned it up too much, that a segment would hit the wall. But as soon as it was up, the crowd was there for them. * the final run to the finish is nearly 14 minutes of fantastic stuff It's just a really loaded and long run to the finish, and the crowd is there with them thinking they're going to see a title change. We've seen good Backlund matches where they've worked good spots for 15-20 minutes and then gone 1-2 minutes to the finish. I'd have to take a look back at the time, but the great matche between Bob and Rose in the Garden didn't have that long of a section to the end. Of course this match didn't have a base of a match on par with Bob-Buddy. On the other hand, the run to the finish in this match was only about 6:30 shorter than the *entire* Bob-Buddy match. "Midnight" on this match was the Atomic Drop, which could have lead to a count out. They went a good 12:30 past the Atomic Drop, and if you were in the building that night and not entirely jaded about it being a COR/DQ/DCOR/DDQ finish, you'd be on the edge of your seat wondering which of Bob's moves/spots was going to bring home the title. One of the other things that could get criticism is that it's the Bob Show dominating Harley, and that Harley kept a ton of stuff in the holster. I wouldn't disagree with that description of the match. But it's probably best to look at context. This isn't Bob vs Harley in Japan or St. Louis where your might run a champion vs champion match between the two on nearly equal terms, though likely to favor Backlund to a degree as the more obvious babyface and Harley's comfort in playing heel. This is the WWF. Bob is the Local Hero. Harley is the Touring NWA Champ coming into town to defend his title. He's already bitched out in this building to Dusty. He works this match pretty much spot on as Touring NWA Champ here to make the Local Boy look great. The slight difference here compared to him working with say the Von Erics is that Bob doesn't really need Harley to carry large sections of the match with Harley's Big Book Of Moves because Bob can fill space with stuff. So Harley gets to focus on being the stooge NWA Champ, which is a massive component of the NWA Champ by this point in time. Would I have liked to have seen a chunk of the headlock pitched and instead 4-5 minutes of Harley "breaking down" Bob? Sure. But I also would have liked to have seen this 2/3 falls over these 35 minutes where the breaking down could be the 2nd fall. Didn't get it booked for either of those things. I suspect these two have a better match in them in a different setting and with different booking and layout. But for this building, despite the issues in the headlock segments that went to long, the two played their roles well enough that the place was going pretty damn nutter down the long stretch. The sloppy and/or blown spots criticism is something that appears to me to be errant. I was open to it on rewatching it to write this up, but just didn't see it, especially not where it was the primary criticism tossed at the match. The DVDVR set match against Koloff is an example of a sloppy mess of a match, though it rather staggeringly made the cut as one of the best 100 WWF matches of the 80s. I think when one looks at the two matches, it's not to difficult to see the sloppy mess. I'd definately recommend it. It's historic and is loaded good stuff. It has great heat early, down the long stretch and in the highspot sequences throughout. While the two don't hit it off well on the mat or working the holds, that just isn't Race's strong point. Race's strength is in "spots" (and not just "moves), and the two work spots together very well and pretty much state of the art for the setting. John

Back in 2011 it was 1M live streams a day. Given how rapidly these things are going (such as Netflix subs), it's likely grow a fair amount since then. Here's the thing about this: MLB.tv will know exactly what level of resource they'll need to dedicate to it by the number of subs that the Network gets. This isn't like an iPPV where people impulse buy it at the last minute. It's unlikely that say 250K people are going to sign up for WWE Network 1-2 hours before Mania, trying to figure out how to make it work on their TV, etc. The vast majority of subs will come in advance where they'll have a very good idea of what they need to dedicate, and in turn build in a bit of margin above that for a small % of last minute attempts. It's not likely to be a problem on the back end. The greater problem will be on the front end: User Error in setting it up. And that's where the WWE and/or MLB.tv is going to need to dedicate some resources. The annoying thing about User Error is that a large number of them just can't grasp that they're fucking up, can't fix it, and tend to turn to Support to fix it for them.

This is something I've been saying: launching the network, particularly with including Wrestlemania, seemed like they were risking thumbing their nose at the sugar daddy. That's why I didn't think they'd want to launch before they had the TV rights negotiations wrapped up. But they did, because they figured they had to launch in Road to Wrestlemania mode. Its a gamble but that's how McMahons roll, I guess. My guess, given (i) how much they pay for WWE content and (ii) how many different ways the PPV revenue is split up and Comcast's size that WWE Content is more valuable to their bottom line that WWE PPV. Even more so if they were willing to increase the rates by 50% or more in the new deal. If WWE Content is of value to them, they'll be more than happy to pay for it at a price that can make them money. This is all just business. John

Were there any reports on when Encores hit? I don't think they (or whoever gets Raw/SD) really cares as long as their first run has some level of protection, similar to First Run vs Re-Run on other shows. In addition, if there's even a small chance that the Network grows the wrestling audience (heavy lift there), they'll be happy with those New/Returners checking out Raw/SD.

I think those might be promising for one time subs, but they are also always the types who at the end of 6 months might check out. They moved on from pro wrestling for various reasons, and those reasons haven't likely changed. The trick with this is to get continuing and then sustain things with New Subs = or > Non-Renewals. John

Also Wade Keller said that he was of the belief the WWE talent contract only covered merchandise as in tangible/physical objects. So talent as it stands aren't entitled to Spotify type royalties rates. I have time and again pointed to the contracts of Trip and Steph to show where Network money would fall. I've also points out that one of two things would happen: * the WWE would account for the "Network Money Pool" under one of the existing sections in the contract, or * the WWE will craft a new section that's more explicit on the Network Money Pool Looking at the sections, they don't really need to do the second - I'm pretty comfortable that it is already covered. But that doesn't mean you don't transition to the second one over time to avoid Talent asking the question and having to always answer it for them. John

This is going to be interesting to see. John

It's been years since the younger pictures of Bryan were around, but he has gotten older. If you're on FB and have the picks he and his wife post pop up in your feed every so often, you get the sense that he doesn't look like the younger kid you once knew. He sure as heck has aged from the time of the King of Indies where he worked a match, and that was a dozen years ago. He looked early 20s then, and looks early 30s now. He's always looked 6 or so years younger than he was.

Earlier I was having issues sending someone a PM, getting database connection errors. Wasn't having any issues posting, or elsewhere on the site. Then I sent myself a PM a little while ago as a test... and then deleted it. Now I have: "-1 New Messages" Showing up at the top of the page. Anyone else having PM issues?

And he didn't have a regular guy like that covering Memphis, Mid South, Florida, etc. :/

The AWA had way more coverage than say JCP or Florida in 1984-85 in 8.5x14 format, much more than JCP or Memphis or pretty much anyone other in the US than the WWF and (when he lived there) Texas. Try comping it with Memphis. From 1986, the AWA was increasingly a shell. Not much went on around the house show circuit that needed to be covered, he covered news out of the tv tapings, and he tracked the comings and goings. He didn't write up the regular TV shows for any promotion like he does for Raw and SD (and Nitro & Thunder). That's stuff that's evolved in the WON over the years. He wasn't even consistent in covering the NJPW and AJPW TV until 1990. So lots of TV matches that we now think are cool never got mentioned in the WON, across all sorts of promotions. Heck, he wasn't even doing a ton of detail on UWF when it got nationally syndicated. If you look at the big picture of coverage, where wrestling in the country got to by 1986, and that it wasn't even a fulltime job yet for Dave, it's pretty amazing that we got what we got (and that people now have it to look back at).

I think I covered the sheet writing of the WWF in the 80s in several of the posts. Despite that, Dave correctly covered the *business* side of both, which included the booking side. When JCP/WCW went to shit, he pointed it out. When their booking was shitty, he pointed it out. Flip on when the WWF did something good: he pointed it out. Not just opinion-wise: In terms of how much space it got. WWF got a ton of space in the 1984-89 period. I'd be hard pressed to figure out what got undercovered. John

Read through all two decades ago. Two telling things: * he came right back into writing the WON almost instantly * he spent a significant amount of time covering the WWE in 1984-85, more than any single promotion I think if one looks at the 1986-89 WON's where he finally settled into the weekly format and coverage pattern that he largely still follows today with minor tweaks, the coverage of the WWF was significant. Did he enjoy the quality of WWF work? Not a ton of it. But then again, not a lot of hardcores did... and that wasn't really the influence of Dave. They all preferred what they grew up on, and generally saw the WWF as weaker / less entertaining / less fun. There are some WWF backers, but they were a smaller, less vocal group of writer-fans in the Letters Section. John

I think a lot of "smarts" never really gave a crap about wrestling being "mainstream". I think a fair number of posters on this board who've been around in online hardcore wrestling fan discussions for 10-15+ years, along with a lot of our comrades who've moved on from wrestling, spent a lot of time cracking on those who obsessed about Mainstream. With Meltzer having the biggest target on his back in that respect, since he couldn't stop mentioning it. We largely didn't give a shit. And while I don't watch a ton of current stuff now, back when wrestling was at it's mainstream peak and people were obsessing about it, I watch a shitload. But I, and a fair number of posters on different boards, really just didn't care. We'd been wrestling fans when it was hot, when it was cold, when it was in between.

I think I covered the sheet writing of the WWF in the 80s in several of the posts. Despite that, Dave correctly covered the *business* side of both, which included the booking side. When JCP/WCW went to shit, he pointed it out. When their booking was shitty, he pointed it out. Flip on when the WWF did something good: he pointed it out. John

There are about 10000 Linda McMahon political campaign jokes that could be derived from above sentence. It might not be all that different from a political campaign. If WWE can't get people who are interested in wrestling (past or present) to subscribe, it's going to flop. Kind of like political candidates fail if they can't build support and drive turnout among people who agree with their positions. Linda got 498,341 and then 637,857 votes for her $100M. Which is a lot of jack to spend in a state of 3.6M people. That's the key. They have millions of people who watch the TV every week. If they can't get a large number of *those* guys to pay, then they're fucked. It's a bit like the NFL's DirecTV package. You can spend a lot of money marketing it during American Idol. But if the people who watch the 32 NFL Teams regularly don't sub, then they're fucked. And in the end, that's who sub to the NFL Sunday Ticket: the NFL Hardcores who want to watch more than just their local team for free. John

No doubt. But launching something at CES isn't a $50M marketing drop. It's something that all sorts of companies do. I work for a company with significantly more revenue than the WWE... like 20-25 times it, depending on currency exchange rate fluctuation. We're at CES every year. We don't spend close to $50M on it. It's simply standard stuff for companies to do. It's hardly the only time the WWE has gone to CES. "They also have likely built up a large pool of e-mail addresses from customers / subscriber / others who have bought things from WWE.com or subscribed to things there or gotten on their mailing list, etc. They can blast stuff out that way." -jdw That went into my point on piggybacking the Network onto marketing/advertising for Mania. A major ad, or ad campaign, for the Network is hard to justify on an ROI standpoint for just the Network - we're talking about a marginal chance of reaching likely subscribers who don't what WWE TV regularly or semi-regularly. But if you bootstrap it as a secondary element to a Mania XXX ad, where the ROI is to get people to buy the anniversary Mania, then you are plugging two revenue streams at once, and lead with a major one that is far more likely to get a pop. USA Today has an average daily circulation of 1.4M readers for the print version, another 250K for digital delivery of the paper... but that digital number is inflated by double counting of single readers using multiple devices. How many of those 1.5M are they really going to shake out to sub to the Network? On the flip side, if they're doing a Mania spread in USA Today (and/or other papers), and 1/3 or 1/4 is devoted to watching the Network "on the Road To Mania", then you're double dipping with the ad: trying to get people to impulse on Mania, and trying to get them to buy the Net. I'm sure they have a Marketing Budget for the Network. But I'm pretty confident that the majority of the marketing of the Network will be: * on existing WWE Content (Raw, SD, other TV, their own Website) that their core fanbase regularly watches/visits * in association with Mania marketing * direct marketing to a database of fans / customers they've built up over the years * online marketing On the last one, it's pretty funny how I suddenly am getting shoe ads on the "tower ad" on the right hand side of my Yahoo mail account after buying a pair of shoes online earlier this week. Obviously Yahoo scans the mail and provides related ads. I got a ton of Dr. Who popping up all over the web after ordering a gift set. This isn't an expensive form of marketing, gets to people who have devices, allows the Network to be part of a larger WWE marketing campaign that also pimps other products in a timely fashion (I wasn't getting ads for just one Dr. Who product... but a wide variety of dvd's), etc. Granted... the WWE may think running a Super Bowl ad is the way to go. The ROI is nuts, but we all tend to agree that the WWE has made mistakes for years on their Network plans. Another one wouldn't be surprising.

I tend to think you answered your question there. Their audience watches the shows. They also have a fairly well traffic'd website to market the network on. That's likely where they'll focus on. In turn, one of the few things they market in a give year is Wrestlemania. Since this is #30, much like #20 and #25 it will probably have a bit more marketing than the average Mania. So they'll likely piggyback some Network marketing on that marketing. They also have likely built up a large pool of e-mail addresses from customers / subscriber / others who have bought things from WWE.com or subscribed to things there or gotten on their mailing list, etc. They can blast stuff out that way. They pimp the shit out of Twitter, so they'll likely try that as well. It's not likely they are going to spend $50M on marketing it. They will probably produce some ads for it, but it's the WWE: they Production team can do that falling out of bed, as they to promo pieces every week of the year. My guess is that they'll try to draw in from their current base first, then look for ways to expand it over time to former fans and non-core fans. John They need 1 million subscribers to break even. Seems like they'll need to do something beyond their normal hype. If they spend $50M on marketing, they're going to need more than 1M to break even. You're adding additional costs to the project, and likely with little ROI on that $50M. WWE Fans watch WWE Programing. It's not like people watching American Idol who aren't wrestling fans are going to see an ad for WWE Network and think, "Shit... I need to pay some money to check this out" when there's Free Shit over there on Raw and SmackDown each week. John

I have no skin in the Bryan game, so this isn't to defend him... and for anyone who dislikes him on podcasts, have at it. It's the last sentence I want to touch on. For some reason we treat Pro Wrestling and Pro Wrestling Fandom as being something different from other forms of entertainment and/or hobbies such as sports. "Why be so negative about it?" "Why be so critical of it?" "If you don't like it, watch something else!" "Why do you think you know more than the people in the business?" But if we take a look around and are truly honest about it, we both see and admit that people do it about EVERYTHING. Examples... Snowden is one of the best MMA writers around, and has been for years. He writes positively about MMA, and he writes critically about it. He Fucking Pisses Off a whole slew of people inside the business, in the reporting world, and in the Fanboy Circles with his critical pieces. They think it's hatchet writing when it's really Jon using "critical thinking" about the MMA related topic, and if what comes out is positive then it's positive, and if it's criticism then it's criticism. It's what one wants out of a writer, rather than some House Organ bullshit or some Fanboy bullshit. I'm a Manchester United fan. The fucking suck this season, and the rest of the futbol world is have a good, well deserved laugh at us. As a fan are were suppose to blindly sit back and watching the ship sink? Should we stick to reading fanboy articles, or house organ pieces? Or should we seek out writers who are looking at the club, the upper management and the field level management objectively, providing us with insightful analysis? I'm not talking about slagging just for the sake of slagging, since I'll admit that there's a certain negative writer I won't read because it's not analysis on any level but just tossing venom out that's half brain dead. But analysis like one gets from Jon on MMA? Yeah, that's the shit I seek out. Movies? I don't need a movie reviewer to tell me that Transformers is a hit - I go over to Box Office Mojo several times a week, and have for years. I'm more interested in whether it's any good, and whether it has any impact on the business of film. Same with the Marvel movies. I checked out reviews of Wolf of Wall Street and American Hustle when my girlfriend and I were trying to decide on date movies over the holidays. I want some good reviews, not some bullshit fanboy crap of "It's MARTY!!! It's so AWESOME!!!!" In turn, when I am asked about the movies, I'm honest in what I think about them, try to get across what I mean in non-spoiler fashion, get a gauge of the person I'm talking to and can recommend one of them to some, the other to different people, and both of them to still others. We do this about EVERYTHING. Yet Pro Wrestling is somehow this religion of fandom where we're all the equivs of Moonies or Scientology folks who can't be critical of the mother church. Irony? Dave loves a certain New Japan wrestler, thinks he's an all-time great, and even at this young stage of his career doesn't have a problem with him going in the HOF. Who shat on him for that? Who did a metric ton of critical thinking about whether Dave was right, or off his rocker? "It's okay when we do it, but not when someone else does it about something we like." :/ John

Odd. The dirt sheets were onto Stone Cold before Vince was. They got the potential of Rock quickly, and were onto him getting over with the NOD every bit as quickly as the Two Vince's. They got the concept of the Outsider's Invasion even quicker than Eric, knowing it needed to be put over strong, but also needed to deliver on #3. In turn, they grasped the excesses of the nWo era long before Eric & Co. They grasped the errors Vince & Eric were making in running WCW into the ground. They got the positives and shortcomings of Bret and Shawn on top, more so than Vince. They got the doomed failures of Vince pushing Lex, Sid and Nash far quicker than Vince. While they liked ECW especially in the beginning, they talked realistically about the business side when ECW fanboys wouldn't, and wrote realistically about the booking and presentation issues when ECW fanboys wouldn't... and frankly when Heyman was lost in his own Kool-Aid himself. They got the short term pop of the "injection" of the nWo into the WWF, but also saw long term it wasn't going anywhere... while Vince & Co actually had some hopes beyond Mania... hell, even put the belt on Hogan. They got pushing Brock like a monster even before he got pushed like a monster. They got the impact on his push it would be when Eric gave a belt to Trip. They were, if I recall correctly, rather positive on Batista's push and his potential to zoom up... and tended to be right on that, even if Batista's work wasn't something that turned them on. Dave has spent more than half a decade supporting the push of Cena, even if Cena isn't his favorite worker. Why? Because it's a business, and Cena does business. Shoemaker wants to see wrestling in post modern, post worked shootfabe terms. You want to see the sheets in terms of acting like sophisticated snobs who turn their nose up on pro wrestling. That's not really the case. Dave and Wade have covered it as an entertainment business for years, and generally don't ignore when something is over. They might not like Hogan, and lord knows you'll find a shitload of rips on him in the 80s and 90s sheets. But they also were extreme realistic about what got over, what was done well, what drew. We all may wax poetically about Jake crashing the Wedding and Macho getting bitten by the snake as one of the great angles of the era. But it bombed at the box office. Which they reported, covered and discussed. They may well have liked it, but they didn't ignore when it wasn't working. Again, if someone wanted to do a 30 year study of the WON, I suspect you'd find Dave to have been right more often over those years than the bookers / promoters of the WWF, JCP/WCW, ECW, TNA, NJPW, AJPW. On a lot of things they would have seen eye to eye, and either been right or wrong. But on the differences... bookers and promoters in the past 30 years haven't been so hot. JCP died, and only survived due to Ted's money. WCW died. ECW died. The original version of TNA died, only saved by a money mark. The second and third versions of it died, only kept alive by the money marks. The Hogan version bombed out... and who knows what the fuck it is at this point, other than perhaps the owner's masturbatory project. I could run this into the ground, and probably already have. We have a perfect example on the site here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=19237 For all one ever needs to know about a group of Bookers and Promoters across a two year stretch, with tremendous resources and talent and opportunities... and being a bunch of fuck ups. John

Depends on how you define "worker". Clean shit in the ring? Not Art's thing. Working the shit out of the crowd? Art's thing in Mexico after the heel turn. Plus would bump, sell, stooge and put the techincos over like hell when it came time to show his ass. On one level, he was a mediocre worker. On another level, during the heel run, he was rather exceptional. An interesting dichotomy.

I tend to think you answered your question there. Their audience watches the shows. They also have a fairly well traffic'd website to market the network on. That's likely where they'll focus on. In turn, one of the few things they market in a give year is Wrestlemania. Since this is #30, much like #20 and #25 it will probably have a bit more marketing than the average Mania. So they'll likely piggyback some Network marketing on that marketing. They also have likely built up a large pool of e-mail addresses from customers / subscriber / others who have bought things from WWE.com or subscribed to things there or gotten on their mailing list, etc. They can blast stuff out that way. They pimp the shit out of Twitter, so they'll likely try that as well. It's not likely they are going to spend $50M on marketing it. They will probably produce some ads for it, but it's the WWE: they Production team can do that falling out of bed, as they to promo pieces every week of the year. My guess is that they'll try to draw in from their current base first, then look for ways to expand it over time to former fans and non-core fans. John

She and Vince got Trip over after he initially bombed at the top of the cards (to the point that they took the belt off him in a panic in favor of Show), then she & Mick carried Trip in the Trip vs Foley feud, and then she carried Trip in the Trip vs Rock feud. Then she kept Trip over because she was banging him. Trip is a HOFer because of her. John In a carny business, surely using your feminine wiles to get control of the company over your older brother, who had been groomed for the position since birth, deserves some credit. Holly fuck... I forgot about that. Got control away from here groomed brother for herself and her husband. And made the environment that the Son-Heir left the company while she and her husband make millions a year. John