sek69

Possibly, but he's also said he's changed his diet in recent years that started off the weight loss as well.

Well 1996 kicked off the biggest boom period in wrestling ever with the nWo stuff, and I think 1998 was their most profitable year before the bottom fell out. I do agree 1992 was the better year in ring wise.

I find it funny that Dave is always bringing up the dated references used by the WWE announce team, but never passes up a chance to make a 70s Roller Derby reference in the newsletter. This week it was comparing Charlotte to some tall blonde who Dave claims was one of the most popular female athletes in the country at the time, which makes me wonder if he realizes Roller Derby wasn't nearly as popular everywhere else as it was on the West Coast.

Wasn't Sasha working indies prior to going to NXT? She seems to be really solid in the ring and as stated her promos are getting better but still have room to grow. I think what gets Dave and others to go so nuts over Charlotte is that she's gotten to be really good in a very short period of time. It kind of reminds me how The Giant didn't look out of place main eventing PPVs against Hulk Hogan in his second or third match ever. The sense of "if she's this good now, in a few years she could be the best EVER!" seem to take over people's minds.

There's nothing more WWE than having the reaction to record low Raw ratings be to Bring Back The Olds. Nothing helps the current guys grab that brass ring like bringing in guys from the past so everyone can fawn over the real stars.

Not saying they're going to end up the same way, but going to three hours of bad creative every week (plus a largely useless 2 hour B show) was what started souring people on WCW. When they are getting lapped by their own developmental group, someone has to find a way to pierce the bubble Vince is in.

Well Raw just hit a record low rating this week, so I don't know how much more of a hint he needs.

I'd assume there's probably something in the contract stipulating RAW is three hours, but I can't imagine there isn't any way Vince can't go to them and say this is killing our business. Of course as I type that i realize that would hinge on Vince admitting it, which kind of goes against 30+ years of documented Vince-sanity.

Three hours is just killing WWE at this point. How can you possibly expect anyone but the hardcores to sit through that much programming? You're certainly not going to get any curious potential new fans to make that level of investment. They have to be at the point where whatever extra TV money coming from an extra hour of Raw is being outweighed by audience fatigue.

I thought that was him, but I couldn't figure out why he'd want to be part of that. Then I realized they were in Detroit and it was probably free money for a show he probably would have went to anyway.

This show was weird to me in the sense there was nothing wrong with the matches themselves, they were all OK to very good. The issue is I couldn't be bothered to give a shit about anything going on at all. They might as well have aired 3 hours of guys having practice matches at the Performance Center.

Hasn't it been stated by several former WWE writers already that Vince doesn't even pay much attention to things outside the main event level in WWE? The idea that he keeps tabs on NXT seemed silly to me. It's also the likely reason KD can sway him against NXT guys so easy if Vince has never seen them down there he only has Dunn's word that they don't have it.

Seems like Hunter, when parsing his corporate-speak, more or less echoed what Austin said in his interview with Vince that there's way too many people on the writing/creative team these days.

When Zayn won and the crowd was all on their feet it really reminded me of old school ECW crowds* where they would be really invested in seeing an angle pay off and showed respect to the guys involved. NXT crowds sometimes get shit for being to smart for their own good (not always undeserved), but last night was a real refreshing scene. *In which I mean "applaud for Eddie vs Malenko" and not the "vampires cheering for MOAR VIOLENCE* crowds.

From what I can tell when they add categories/descriptions it seems to happen all across the board at once. The actual videos seem to load in different times based on the platform.

LOL @ Hunter tweeting after the show "can someone help me? I'm missing a whole box of brass rings".

I know exactly what you mean, and it's pretty pathetic that shit like this ever crosses people's minds. Practically everyone is better off in NXT at this point as long as the people in charge at the top insist on lopping everyone off at the knees.

All the Corbin/Bull stuff made me wonder if a 911 gimmick would get over in WWE.

NXT is all Hunter and Raw/Smackdown is all Vince and KD. Between the booking and the near constant barf-inducing mega zooming camera, the top shows are nearly unwatchable.

I noticed the last three Raws from 1996 that were uploaded gave me errors on Roku until the next day, Seems like they are doing some kind of placeholder deal.

I'm not surprised that their own stuff is what they are uploading. Next in line is Prime Time according to the schedule. The TNT segment with Paul Orndorff insulting an overweight lady is tremendous. Is that the one in the Gym? In the UK in the 1980s which I didnt know at the time it was Orndorff he was ridiqueled on various compilation shows that looked at silly and funny stuff where he was berating someone at a gym. No idea where it was from though. That same one. It's hilarious. I saw it for the first time more than a decade ago in (I believe) one of those Best of WWF tapes. Shoe: A random ep of Prime Time Wrestling is on the network's schedule for Friday or Saturday. I scanned through it and saw a bunch of Rene Goulet, Mr Fuji, Iron Sheik, Volkoff... typical mid 80s WWF garbage, but I won't criticise them now that they are uploading stuff. Prime Time was never about the matches (at least it wasn't for me), it was all about Heenan and Monsoon interacting.

WWE has the advantage that they could create their own Rousey if they wanted to. They could easily take someone like Nattie and make her a submission bad ass. Would it work? Maybe, maybe not. The issue is they barely have the attention span to book beyond the next John Cena feud so the whole women's division would have to work hard just to be at the level of an afterthought.

Jay Briscoe and Adam Cole had the exact feud you were looking for in ROH. The culminating match wasn't in a cage, but it was bloody with a decisive babyface win.

I've always got the impression that Vince still harbors bad feelings over the Sable era where women dared to use the fame they got from being in the WWF/E, and that seemed to come to a head when Stacy Keibler became a bigger star by being on Dancing With The Stars. Ever since then it seems the women have been booked in a way that ensures they don't get to be bigger stars than WWE wants them to be.

I love how WWE seems to be trolling everyone since the biggest complaint was that there's a dearth of older content on the Network, the first thing they've uploaded in forever that was pre-90s was TNT shows that no one would watch more than once for the "lol, 80s" factor. Don't get me wrong, I like Fuji Vice and coked-out Hulkster yelling about Python Powder as much as the next guy, but it was way down the list of things I was waiting for them to upload.