sek69

Between Bob Ryder, Russo, Billy's Pal Sign Guy Dudley, and Bischoff it seems like there's no 90s era relic TNA won't let have a hand in running things. How did we not get GLF booking at any point?

Dave already replied over on the WO board saying he's saved all his communication with Dixie and basically telling Bob to bring it.

I'd imagine Vince would want to buy the library just to add another trophy on the wall of people who tried ti run against him.

At this point, Stardust is even worse. He's even more of a comic book villain with the Mr. Sinister entrance attire, and now that his brother's gone the whole thing is completely pointless.

Welp, Dave just announced in the new WON that Destination America is canceling TNA Wrestling in the third quarter (most likely September when they have the option to opt out). Commence the TNA lunatics going full North Korea and deny anything that is negative against Glorious Dear Leader.

I think that's largely due to there being a lot of current stuff he's more interested in. New Japan, obviously, but he even went out of his way to watch the CMLL Anniversary show last year which is usually out of his wheelhouse despite being an historic event.

Somehow it slipped past my radar (mainly because I was still looking at the 1996 section like a dumb ass), but a bunch of 1997 Raws are up now. Still no Nitros, but I'll take what I can get at this point.

Also, John Cena should really be commended for putting over a new guy like a champ. It's practically unheard of for top level guys to do that until they're way past their prime like Brock ragdolling Hogan back in 2003 or so.

Bryan seemed to learn his lesson on his "contrarian heel radio host" gimmick when Todd legit snapped on him over the chances CM Punk would ever come back to WWE. His argument was as things stand it was unlikely, but if Bret could find a way to return after Owen died, it's not impossible to think one day Punk would come back. Bryan did his usual pretend-to-be-dense schtick one time too many and it led to Bryan having to issue an on air apology. Ever since then it seemed like Todd would just no-sell anything Bryan would say to him. Going out of his way to thank Dave and mentioning something about knowing who you can count on when times were tough sure came off as a giant middle finger to Bryan, but I'm sure he was too busy playing with his cats to realize he got burned.

He mentioned he learned English from watching matches called by Jim Ross, it's amazing he doesn't have an Okie accent. Actually, he barely has any accent at all, but that might be because wrestling has trained me to believe all French-Canadians sound like Pat Patterson.

Cena's been in the biggest company in the world for 99% of his career, of course he's going to have way more matches (and more great matches) than Steen. Just the sheer numbers of WWE schedule vs ROH/whereever else Steen's worked scheduled will bear that out. That seems like a pretty unfair bar to stake your preference on. I don't think Steen's the end-all of pro wrestling, but the only knock I can really see on the guy is he doesn't have the physique WWE wants/demands from their top guys. His promos run circles around everyone in the company, and he has that elusive aura that makes people stop and take notice that is sorely missing from anyone in WWE that isn't Brock.

Anyone else notice the new(ish) trend on non-finish pins where they lay their back across the guy's chest and hook the near leg? Once you see it, there's no un-noticing it and it telegraphs every pin that isn't the actual finish. It's not 100% his fault since I'm sure it's what's being yelled into his ears, but Michael Cole's constant use of "well" as an audible comma gets annoying. "John Cena has a title match at the next PPV, and well, it could be his last shot!" It's like he has no other way to link two thoughts together.

I remember there was brief dispute betweeen the family and Demon Jr. a few years back (over money I guess), and they brought up him not being a blood relation. For a second it looked like they might make him drop the mask, but things got smoothed over.

I totally get how adding old content people like us want isn't going to get the subscriber counts they want, but I can't figure out why they seem to believe its a zero sum game. They can continue to add all the shitty, zany, "original" programming they want and try to grab the lapsed Attitude Era fans and still throw a bone to the people wanting to watch 80s JCP shows. I get not wanting to spend the time doing all the music edits for Mid South and WCCW stuff, but there's a metric shit-ton of stuff that was already uploaded on 24/7 that's ready to go and they just sit on it. It's mind boggling unless it's some "Vince hates southern rasslin" nonsense at play.

It was refreshing to have a few weeks of babyfaces not getting their balls stepped on with no comeuppance.

It's pretty much Cena vs Rusev in an "Everyone Knows Lana's Going to Cost Rusev the Win" I Quit match, and New Day vs Kidd and Cesaro 2 out of 3 falls. The title match has been playing second fiddle to the Kane stuff and everything else comes off as filler.

There's going to be a point in the not too distant future where all the upper level people are Hunter appointees and Vince's yes-men will be old/retired/dead. I could see them bumping Vince to a Queen of England type role to keep the stock market happy while moving actual control of the creative aspect away from his hands. I also doubt anyone in the company thinks Vince is "ruining" WWE, but I'd wager the idea that a man heading into his 70s is only going to have a harder and harder time relating to his audience has to be growing.

Atter seeing the fuss Hunter made on social media about NXT main eventing the Philly houseshow with a women's match, it really seems he's going all in on the Good Cop gimmick. He even included Tyler Breeze in a tweet naming guys he felt would be the future of WWE. I mean, I love Tyler as much as the next guy but he seems the exact kind of guy who's going to get ground up and spat out by WWE creative. It's brilliant really, either his guys do end up running WWE and he's hailed as a genius, or they get flattened on the main roster he can still say "Hey, i was rooting for ya but the old man overruled it!". With the way he's headed, I seriously wouldn't be surprised to find out he pulled some Mafia style shit and more or less stages a takeover on Vince one day.

So Dave was lurking/posting in a thread on the WON board about Impact moving to Wednesdays, mentioning in his usual cryptic way that someone owed him a favor and that a lot of what appeared to be non sequitor comments on the TV business in the all mailbag show he did with Bryan could be taken as hints. So far the consensus in interpreting his comments seem to be Dave got the scoop Destination America is going to use their out clause to dump TNA in September, and he gave Dixie the heads up so they don't get caught falling on their faces like when Spike dropped them. It was also the reason a planned Kurt Angle interview was canceled so they wouldn't have to spend the whole show dancing around the elephant in the room.

Even more so considering how many wrestling fans acted like jilted lovers when Punk walked away from wrestling.

To be fair, that's how a lot of people predicted it would go when they debuted.

The Observer, WO Radio, Bryan & Vinny (& Craig), and Lance Storm shows are worth my $9.99 IMO. Even the daily WOL shows aren't too bad now that they pulled the reins in on the creepy callers who fap over women's indy wrestling.

They actually do have editors, but I'm sure they collapse from exhaustion once they finish the Dave portions.

It's been a running joke for years anyone on the WO site other than Dave or Bryan (and recently Semp) is pretty horrible, That's why the so called "front page rule" is in effect.

Connecting the dots, it seems everything happened after the match with Sheamus when he got busted open hardway. Dave and Bryan made several cryptic comments about Sheamus' habit of hurting people (with Dave straight up saying Daniel was the latest), so I'm thinking it was another concussion and with his history he might be in Mick Foley territory where he can't pass the tests to be cleared.