jdw

"Tanaka is better than those All Japan boys." *laugh* *sheepish grin* "Well..."

http://web.archive.org/web/20080210042613/...hp?archive_id=6 http://web.archive.org/web/20070928191422/...hp?archive_id=2 Lord knows how many other matches he had. He went to OVW the following year. Like I said: "indy" probably has a special meaning that doesn't really mean people who worked indy before going to the WWF/WWE, but instead something else. "Big Indy Star" seems to be the closest we can get to it, since it eliminated the people I mentioned while allowing Punk and Bryan to be trend setters.

Yeah, Cena was a Bassman guy. As was The Miz. Randy Orton was as well. Sheamus was Brtitish indies. Edge, Christian and the Hardy's were as well. Kane and Jericho as well. Of course Punk and Bryan are *different* indy guys for some reason. One suspects because they made their name as Big Indy Stars for a decent amount of time before going to the WWE. In contrast, the Hardyz might have been known in small indy circles before going to the WWF, but weren't really Big Indy Stars before going. Or some such nonsense. Everyone is always looking for a First or a Game Changer. Similar to Bret and Shawn "opening the door" for "small guys on top" in the business in the US. When one looks closer at it, it tends to end up far less clear than people think. John

It's kind of funny that he doesn't mention anything about Linda's campaign in that "short hiatus".

Agree with both Chris and Keith.

Kind of a lateral move. Below Vince, it's Trip, Barrios and Wilson who are actually managing the core business units and strategy. She may be moving over into a Learn The Rest Of The Business role with that "work with WWE’s business units to support key growth initiatives" aspect which takes here away from the Entertainment side that she was in. A lot of companies do this. We had it most recently when the "heir" to our CFO was moved from her longtime Finance management role into oversight of the other half of the stuff that fell under the CFO (Operations, Logistics, Support). It was a straight lateral move, no promotion, and someone else taking over here "old job". Some people initially saw it as her being moved out for another Finance person, but they were missing the boat. Our old CFO wanted her to learn and manage everything to get ready to take his job when he retired in a few years. Which is what happened, and she's not the CFO. We all assume Trip and Steph will run the company after Vince. Both of them were focused on the Entertainment side. This moves Steph into a spot where she can work more closely with Barrios and Wilson, and on the future of the business side of the business rather than the entertainment side.

I fucked up. Bond and Carpentier... just two horrible misses in the Class of '96.

You know my whole deal, so why bother asking.

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/100729...ing-survive-wwe Have fun...

I haven't been able to figure out any good numbers (and WWE doesn't say in their financial statements how much they get from Netflix under their current deal), but for what it's worth, Dave said earlier this year that content providers don't get a lot of money from Netflix deals. Have seen some articles on that, though like you, the numbers tend to be buried. Here's where it gets tricky. There also have been articles about Netflix cutting into viewership of existing shows, including one tangent on the impact on kids programing. Making older stuff easily available send ratings/viewers down 10%+ on the newer stuff. Given what Comcast will be paying for Raw, assuming that it stays there, one suspects they don't want to see it damaged. Slightly different with a WWE Network on the cable dial. They could show "last week's" episode on the Network to be a "lead in" to this week's on Monday. In a sense, back to back.

They've even talked about thinking live events might not fit into their VOD model. Some of that may simply be positioning. The major live events (i.e. Sports) are all pretty much tied up for years to come. The few major ones coming up in the next few years (NBA and Big 10) being the biggest, are at a price point that Netflix flat out doesn't want to pay. The next NBA contract will be $1B+ a year. No way Netflix want to cough up that. On the flip, the NBA would force Netflix to pay a premium above and beyond what ESPN/TNT would pay similar to when they first went with DirecTV on the Sunday package: it was a new model for the NFL, and they were going to force DirecTV to pay a ton and take all the risk. So for the NBA to move half their package off a regular network, or create a new 3rd package for Netflix... those Netflix boys would need to back up the Brinks Truck. This in terms of how ESPN overpays for Monday Night Football - vastly more money than NBC, CBS and Fox pay for generally weaker games. I think a lot of that is why Netflix at this minute doesn't want to go down that path: pricey, and not cost effective year. On the flip, if they continue to grow, and their explorations in New Content (like House of Cards) continues to grow, that it wouldn't be surprising to see them become a player next decade when deals start popping up again... and a larger % of the population has spent years of using services like Netflix. On that level... perhaps at some point experimenting with content like the WWE is a good test for them. Far cheaper, and with vastly smaller number of viewers than say a big sporting event. Let's them test live "broadcasting" and delivery. John

Have to watch them again. Don't recall getting that vibe, and instead the oft repeated stuff about Pat laying around. With the Bob-Hansen cage match, that was one that really felt like it wasn't even half done... and then Bob walks out of the cage after nothing. Probably so frustrated with Pat's work that it ending worked for me. :/ Bob did have a number of matches that just picked up and went home... though I think some of them were among the 20+ matches. Bob vs Arab felt like that. Perhaps more like 2 acts, skip the 3rd, and have a short 4th that wraps everything up without having a lot to do with what came before. Haven't watched that one in ages... Some of that was stylistic, as longer runs to the finish is something we think of. Eh.

Didn't see this until now. Nothing much to say. This is all rather tame stuff compared to what a lot of us have seen over the years. Don't think I saw anyone here threatening to show up at another posters house and kick their ass. Or a person calling someone's employer and saying an online person he didn't like was posting kiddie porn... only to have that humorously backfire when a lawyer from the employer contacted him with a nice "STFU or we'll contact law enforcement to report your harassment" message, which spooked the hell out of said jerkoff. Which reminds me of the time Bischoff implied rather strongly on the old WCW "radio" show that someone he didn't like was a child molester... and after being contacted, Time Warner came down on Eric nicely for that one. Anyway... John

They do have more subscribers in the US than HBO does, though. Sure. But HBO is a channel, while Netflix is closer to a Carrier than a channel. The WWE Network on Netflix would be the equiv of HBO on Netflix's Comcast/DirecTV/TWC. If they go internet, Netflix is likely the best way to go because they're ahead of the curve, and fighting hard to stay there. But the question is whether Netflix will guarantee a big base amount + cut of subs, or if the WWE only gets a cut of the subs if it's a premium "channel" within Netflix. Or if the "WWE Network" is even a premium in Netflix.

Good god... that was what it was about?

Don't know. I'm not sure we have a great survey of stuff of 70s style workers when it comes to available stuff. Agreed their isn't enough out there. I'd say Destroyer, Brisco, T. Funk,Jumbo, Robinson,Bock, Rose, Murdoch, Patterson, O'Connor, Lawler. Plus the luchadores that people short shrift all the time. Plenty of guys on the tail end of the 70's . It's an argument that could be on a loop. All really good workers. Just a limited amount of tape covering a lot of territories. Or getting lucky/unlucky on who worked in Japan and their stuff made tape.

I think some do, more than others. The best Pat-Patera has a smart, low tech layout that hits some nice payoffs. Patera had good matches with pretty much everyone that year (well... don't recall with Pedro), and pretty good layouts as well (like against Bruno). But that one did feel more of being Pat's. Others... not as much. Beyond the sense that all workers being a bit of their own stuff to matches. I don't disagree. Patera in 80 is a stud. I thought we are talking Pat in 1979. The matches with Pat and Ted is clearly Pat's show and Ted would ape a lot of this throughout his career. Loaded glove= knuckle duster. Figure 4 = Million Dollar Dream. Both were bumping heels who you could believe could be on top. Also with Patera in 1980 his first big matches are with Bob, and Pat. Both Bob and Pat had great psycholgy. I think Patera took a lot from their matches and put it into his own. A smart worker would. I'd classify Patera as a smart worker. I'd agree with Patera being a smart worker. Not sure how much of it was lifted from those two, or stuff he had from his prior travels. There are things with his bumping and selling that have a Mid Atlantic heel feel to them. The power guy stuff is pretty standard stuff for power guys, though he nicely added to them by bumping & selling more like a Mid Atlantic heel than a power guy. I mentioned 1980 because that was what was in the starting point: 1979-80 WWF MVP.

Here again John you're making up quotes to suit your needs. Maybe Dave, You and the fly on the wall had this discussion, but it's not out there to collaboarate. What I'm saying is that we all make up "lists" and then someone points out that we've forgotten someone (or several someones). If someone wants to point to the 15 Greatest Workers List that Dave dropped on Austin, then I'm willing to bet we can all come up with a few people that Dave probably would go, "Oh right..." if we mentioned them to him. John

20+ is different from 20-30 that you mentioned earlier. I think his best match is the 07/27/78 draw with Inoki. It goes 60, so I don't think of it as a 20-30 match. That was kind of my point: "Never really put Bob in a box on match length." He has a lot of good matches that are in that 20-30 length. He has some that go quite a bit longer, like the second draw with Inoki and the draw with Valentine. Some shorter, like the last two on your list that are 13 minute matches. The Bob-Sarge would be in my Top 10, and that's 16 as I mentioned. Dittos the two best Hansen matches. I don't think length was the problem with the two poor Bob-Pat matches in Philly. It was largely that Pat didn't seem to want to work very much. He did in the best available MSG match. Maybe Pat throught, "I've got 10 less minuted here in Philly, might as well do less in this one." But that doesn't really make a lot of sense.

Doing porn, or *watching* porn? I haven't got a clue on what someone owning a sextoy could remotely have to do with "doing" porn.

30M Netflix subs in the US, 40M worldwide. It's growing fast, about 5M new in the US in the past year. It's quite a bit below cable penetration. I'm still interested in how much money content providers are making off Netflix in the model the WWE would be following.

Not really. Dave defends Angle as a HOFer and thinks he was a good choice.

WWF tags in the 80s had a lot of shitty finishes. It's not exactly Hulk Hogan Legdrops in terms of clean, no bullshit finishes. At a certain point, it seemed like all of them had Conference Finishes, though that often was more of an early 90s thing than an 80s thing.

99% might be high... but not far off. John