Marty

First time I saw Brother Love, I got completely worked. I was 10 and had turned on a WWF show (I think it was the one shown Saturday afternoons on the Kingston, Ontario station), was a little late and missed the opening montage. Anyways, first thing I see is this overweight, annoying preacher yelling about love and such and I'm thinking that the station dropped the WWF from its programming for some religious show. I channel flip, then flip back and see Ted DiBiase by his side and think, "Damn..." He was annoying, but it made the times he got his comeuppance so satisfying. I still remember him being beat down on separate occasions by the Warrior and the Boss Man fondly. I also liked his heel ref work in matches such as the Harts-Rougeaus ones. And Undertaker early on came across as a scary mofo with Brother Love by his side.

For all of Ventura's wackiness, it's not like he didn't gather experience prior to becoming governor, what with becoming mayor of Brooklyn Park. I'm also guessing he had seen his share of political stuff when involved with the Navy as well. It's not like he just jumped into politics, unlike Linda, who had no experience at all prior to the 2010 campaign. (Politics and business can often be two very different games.) Loss is right about all the skeletons in Vince's closet. All the stuff that's already been mentioned in this thread, all the steroid stuff over the years, all the early wrestler deaths. This stuff could've easily been used versus Linda. It would be even easier versus Vince. Most people would recognize Vince as the person in charge. Linda would often just be argued as someone involved with the company.

Has the WWE shown this much during any of their retro pieces (DVDs, Vintage Collection, 24/7)? Because, in my opinion, this was one of their best face turns, considering Boss Man had a solid upper midcard babyface run afterwards (heck, he was a good Hogan opponent also). Anyways, like Pete, I loved this angle when I was a kid, and there was enough kayfabe I was into that it floored me too. "Boss Man as a good guy?" was the thought in my head.

I think the only thing Ross didn't want anymore was the heavy travel schedule (possibly due to showing up at airports smelling of alcohol). I'm assuming at his age, he wanted to cut down on that. (Probably the same thing for someone like Fink.) NXT was probably the perfect show from his point of view because he got to do a series of tapings and not have to fly to work again for another month.

It translated well to the magazines too. I didn't get too much in the way of JCP TV, but I remember seeing Morton and Gibson busted open at the hands of the Sheepherders in one of the mags and thinking, "Yikes! Poor guys..."

I think PPV buys are also up from last year, not just in total but for at least almost each show compared to that show's buys the previous year. That said, last year's PPV buys, aside from WM with Rock hosting it, Survivor Series with Rock teaming with Cena and MITB, were a pretty bad year compared to years before that.

1990 was quite the transitional TV year up here in Canada. Up to this year, WWF TV would be on the regional stations. Remember seeing Superstars on CHRO in Ottawa and maybe one other station (an American one, I think), Wrestling Challenge on the NBC Rochester affiliate, and CKWS in Kingston would have a show that had a mix of Superstars/Challenge matches, with a match at Maple Leaf Gardens to close the show (it was the one Billy Red Lyons hosted). TSN (in its relatively earlier days) would have a few shows: an AWA one (remember the Sarge and others being on there), Pro Wrestling Plus (the one that summarized what happened in the territories) and "TSN Wrestling", which would have one-hour shows from Calgary and Winnipeg. If memory serves, in fact, I first saw Chris Benoit on TV from, of all places, one of the Winnipeg shows. This all (or most of it) changed in 1990, around the start of September. Suddenly, the AWA show, "TSN Wrestling" and PWP ceased to exist, as TSN was finally able to reach an agreement with the WWF to do Prime Time Wrestling. I can't remember how soon it affected the other shows, but CHRO in Ottawa, I think the year after, started showing one of the WCW shows. Maybe they still had Superstars too, but I can't remember. Don't remember the Kingston show lasting much longer, but then again, I can't remember how long we still had that channel. WWF has for as long as I remember had a stranglehold on Canada, but this cemented it, as any last bit of the Canadian territories and their coverage died here. The partnership between TSN and the WWF would continue for the next 16 years...until HHH's mustard cum shot.

Agreed on the Punk doc. Thought it was very well done, the additional indy footage only helped too, and I liked the varying viewpoints. One of my favourite parts of the DVD is the TV matches (specifically the ECW title one vs. Morrison, the tag titles one w/Kingston vs. Legacy, and the IC title one vs. Regal) all being completely in full, including everything that happened during the commercial breaks. They haven't done that very often on these releases (to be honest, I can only think of one of the DX ones that did it). I really liked that Regal match beforehand, and the stuff that happened during commercial only helped it even more.

Vickie Guerrero yelling at a chair a couple weeks ago before AJ showed up was a nice parody of Clint Eastwood doing the same at the RNC, IMO.

I could be wrong, but did the NFL not stop the Bears-Lions game when Chuck Hughes died? Since sports was already covered... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_enter...g_a_performance Ones that stand out for me: - Gareth Jones dying backstage during the play Underground. Show not only went on, but the actors and director completely improvised things and I don't believe they ever informed the audience of Jones' death. Sure, this was in 1958, but this was probably even worse than how Owen Hart was handled. - Harry Kalas' heart attack. The Phillies and Nationals postponed their game to another day when it happened. Good comparison to Lawler's case. I've actually taken part in a play that was done 10 times, and there were times when "stuff happens". So much so that I ended up getting pissed about it, only to be reminded "it's show biz, things happen, show goes on". So there is that mentality, but that's for the odd botch and such. I think there's a difference between that and someone's life at stake, which is definitely the case with Lawler. At the very least, I would've paused things at that point, fill the TV time with whatever else, and maybe only proceeded when news was improving. If it was going to take a while for any positive news to come in, at a certain point, stop the show proper.

Apparently, the King was walking for a bit today for the first time since the heart attack. Regarding what the WWE could or couldn't have done, with the show or otherwise, for me, the important thing is that their EMTs were alert and ready enough to save Jerry's life, let alone where he is right now. I'm not ashamed to admit that every piece of news I've read about the King since Monday's horrible events have brought both a smile and a tear to my eye. I wish I could get someone close to me to read how fast his progress has been for inspiration.

So will guys like Punk and Bryan be asked to grow their hair long now?

That's great! I have to agree with those who felt Shawn's acting was bad, but not extraordinarily bad (aside from arguably at the end). HHH doing the WWE standard "constipated angry" sneer and Paul's well...uhhh...excitement top them both. To make matters worse...I'm guessing Brock goes over Sunday...when Shawn turns on Hunter.

Someone fill me in: What was the point of Shawn being in Dallas if he was scared shitless of Brock? Why would he go to the very arena Brock will be at for the contract signing?

Man, JJ's awesome.

Verne Gagne came to my mind, but I don't even know if he approaches Flair or Hogan.

I'd add Kane's too that as well. Hell, if you watched that Top 50 Superstars doc, Cena moreless says that about Kane's title win.

To be fair, RVD's title win and brief run (as well as the build to the Cena match) could be argued as a means to kick off the ECW brand at the time.

He was a solidly popular wrestler in Canada. Probably no different than the popularities of Owen, Jericho, Edge, Christian, Trish, etc. (Each person in that group was pretty interchangeable as far as popularity goes.) For what it's worth, I think it's fair to say the events of June 22-25, 2007 got the same mainstream press up here as the events of May 23, 1999 did.

Man, I totally forgot about the Ultimate Warrior-Phil Collins bit until Loss mentioned it above. Awesome.

I think Jerry is also overstating the Rude-Snuka match. If memory serves, it was a total throwaway match, added much later on without any build. It was designed to somewhat rebuild Rude for the Warrior title program later on. Snuka didn't really mean anything by this point. He was feuding with a post-IC title Honky Tonk Man in '89 and a full-fledge JTTS. WM6 as a whole was all about Hogan-Warrior. In fact, from a draw perspective, that's arguable, since the place sold out before Hogan-Warrior was even announced. Rhodes-Savage tag, Demos-Andre/Haku, Beefcake-Perfect and Roberts-DiBiase were also programs which gave those matches some meaning, but I don't think they even approached what Hogan-Warrior meant. Everything else was filler, if memory serves.

I'm guessing Kane might be a considerable distance behind Show. Show turned three times in '99 alone (Love ya, Russo). I remember the WM15 face turn, but I can't even remember how he turned the other two times.

Punk debuted as a face in 2006. Turned heel in 2009. Turned face in 2011. Turned heel in 2012? 2 or 3 times he's turned. Orton debuted as a face in 2002. Turned heel in 2003. Turned face in 2004. Turned heel in 2005. Turned face in 2010. 4 turns. Punk still has less. Cena's only turned twice. You're right on Big Show and Kane. I've lost count there.

I heard about the Taker-jacket problem too. Sean, was it as funny as it sounds? *pleasebeonyoutubepleasebeonyoutube*

Spike Dudley today, looking nothing like he did in the past. Sounds like he's doing well for himself; good for him. http://www.wwe.com/classics/wherearetheyno...ow-spike-dudley http://www.wwe.com/classics/wherearetheyno...-current-photos