sek69

So Spike made a deal with K-1 to show their events. I guess with this deal, Bellator, and TNA, it seems Spike's goal is to be the premier source for B level combat sports.

Watching the Jarrett/Angle vs LA Park/Electroshock match from Triplemania and it really hit me how after a few years of not seeing him as being overpushed as the top heel of a company can make you appreciate how great a heel he is. I guess it's another thing to add to the list of things Russo fucked up, being able to enjoy Jeff Jarrett without being afraid he's going to be pushed down everyone's throats.

What I was saying is that while Kerry certainly was a fuck up, once the raid happened they had him miss a few shows in case another raid was attempted. I don't believe they ever changed the advertising for those shows so it would appear to the fans he no showed since as far as they knew he was supposed to be there but wasn't.

At least part of Kerry's no shows in that period were intentional since WWF was tipped off that there were plans to try to raid the locker rooms at shows because word was out to local police forces that Kerry most likely was holding while on probation for drug offenses. If I remember the sequence correctly, the first time it was attempted it happened to be a time where he legit no-showed, and after that it was more Vince/WWF telling him to maybe skip a few shows until the heat dies down. I also personally believe it's the reason they eventually let him go, they didn't want to risk having a public raid and have one of their top guys get busted. I'm not sure if that's better or worse than the accepted "Vince didn't want him suiciding while holding a belt" theory.

They've run SummerSlam in LA so many times now, the crowd came off as excited as a TNA PPV audience who's seen their 708,808th free show in a row.

Can't believe no one mentioning Heyman's "you broke his arm" over and over in a tone of voice half "I can't believe you did that" and half "oh shit, what's HHH going to try to do to us now".

A couple things occurred to me the other day. One being that the WWE Network is the prime example of McMahon stubbornness in action. Once it became obvious they weren't going to get the clearances for it to be an expanded-basic type channel, they should have ended it right there since there's practically zero chance of any other concept being anything but a money loser of epic proportions. Yet they won't, since they were stupid enough to run advertising for it on WWE TV before any plans were drawn up. Now Vince seems willing to throw away a shit ton of money just to not have the moment of egg on his face that would come with announcing the plug was pulled on the network. Secondly, Linda's main (only?) campaign tactic has been touting how many jobs she's created via WWE. Everyone goes for the low hanging fruit of OMGWRESTLINGISDIRTY, and no one has mentioned how the majority of the people in WWE are independent contractors with zero benefits who pay expenses out of pocket. Instead of tracking down ex WWE wrestlers who can always be explained away as being bitter, ask Linda why the guys/girls breaking their bodies to enrich her family get no benefits until they become addicts and WWE volunteers to pick up the tab for that. Wrestling gets away with a lot of questionable shit no one else would get away with because of the "it's wrestling" mindset. Someone in the media needs to get over that before WWE ends up kayfabing Linda into Congress.

That seems to be a bit of an overstatement since that wasn't even the worst oversell job he's ever done.

Wasn't it finally someone like Test who finally said flat out "fuck this shit, not doing it" when they wanted them to do stuff like flag burning?

Watching ROH TV reminded me how "Harlem Bravado" is a name that sounds like a guy who should be in the Urban Wrestling Federation, yet somehow belongs to a goofy ass white guy who looks like a long lost Von Erich cousin.

They'd have better luck if there were any viable options. Not to mention the top guys (the wrestling equivalent of the "1%"?) will never risk their golden goose to help the lower tier guys. Wrestling has been able to bank on the inherent selfishness of human beings to keep their business model going for over a century now.

So all during the build for Mania, Dave was admonishing anyone in WWE who was griping about the Rock because he was going to pop a bigger buyrate and in turn make everyone more money. They did pop a record buyrate, per Vince at the investor call it was the biggest money making show ever. The guys just got their payoffs and the mid-low card guys all ended up getting far less than expected. So the idea that Rock would lead to everyone making more money seemed to not be the case, which is a pretty ironic lesson in trickle down economics.

Still, it's a lot of work for little reward. Even if she wins (which seems unlikely), she's not going to have any real power in the Senate. All they're ultimately doing is spending money to further the idea that the McMahons fail in everything they do outside of pro wrestling.

So what's the actual point in all this? If Linda wins, all they accomplish is blowing a shit ton of money just to be a junior senator in a small state where she'd be the main focus to be unseated in the next election. I keep hearing "it's all about the power" but you get power in Congress by hanging around forever and collecting appointments to various committees, and there's no way Linda would last long enough for that. It's not like she could springboard it into anything higher either, so it's just like the McMahons decided to flush millions down the toilet for no discernable reason.

I hope so, I actually enjoy the majority of audio shows they have on the site. The only recent exception had been the Todd Martin shows where it sounded like he was going to shoot himself in the face at the mere mention of WWE. It was funny how on a Bryan and Dave show, some guy who was either legit stoned/slow or a troll called in and spent most of his time asking if he could give shout outs (or as he called them "put overs") to people. The next day there was a post on the main page stating that if you're going to call in you better know what you're going to say ahead of time.

So Bryan invested in a new setup that allows him to have up to four phone lines available to call in on. Every show on the WON Empire now seems to have a call in segment and quickly two things immediately became apparent: 1. The same people call in on every show, and since you can't listen to the show while on hold it creates a lot of repeat questions. 2. Bryan didn't take the time to learn how any of it works, hanging up accidentally on Lance Storm and then subjecting the listener to his call waiting beep (which to be fair was his phone company's fuck up, but it makes him look bush league as hell not knowing how shit works ahead of time). I hope this is just a fad that will go away once the buzz of owning new toys wears off, not every show needs a call in segment and it's starting to get grating.

I thought it was funny that he told Paul to knock it off with mentioning his kids, Heyman does it again, and Steph comes out to cut a promo and beat his ass. If it was anyone else in this segment, it would have been played as "well that guy's a pussy who needed his wife to fight his battles for him".

I see it as a can't win for losing situation. If all those people showed up (or even half that list), the complaint would be that they overstuffed the show. I don't really sense anyone was hankering for any of the names you mentioned, Edge is the only one who would have got any reaction (not counting guys on the injured list like Barrett or Henry). Warrior would have been cool but he's not really a guy associated with RAW, plus he's had fights with Vince and is completely insane.

Seems like an easy fix is to do what major sports do for their stats and set minimums, so a guy who only pitched a handful of games doesn't show up in the list of ERA leaders or what have you.

Finally got to watch the LA Park-Jarrett angle from AAA on YouTube tonight, didn't seem as OMG RACISM~! as Dr. Lucha made it sound on his show with Bryan last week. Quick synopsis: Park and Abyss had a match for Park's AAA Latin America title, Abyss had Jeff and Karen in his corner. Park overcomes both Jarretts interfering like crazy to win the match, only to have the Perros Del Mal run in and beat him down. They tie him to a chair with duct/electrical tape, and put a serape and sombrero on him to make him look like a stereotypical drunk Mexican. Karen was outstanding, posing next to him for pictures like she was a tourist. What stood out to me is that Park's mask was pretty much entirely ripped off for 3/4ths of the match to the point where they had to blur his face on TV and he had to hold whatever was left with his teeth. It was interesting to watch a whole episode of AAA TV for the first time in months. I have to agree with a commenter on cubsfan's site who pointed out AAA is trying to appeal to the same demographic that ECW appealed to in their heyday, but that group really doesn't exist in Mexico. It's certainly different from the product CMLL offers, which seems like the lucha equivalent to 70s WWWF trying to draw today, but I don't know if ECW-ized lucha is something that has legs.

I don't think either Luger or Hall could walk to the ring at this point. For vastly different reasons, obviously, but still.

The crowd wasn't booing when he stood back and let Big Show beat up Cena, the boos only started when he attacked the Rock. The commentary was clearly in full heel turn mode, saying Punk turned his back on the "WWE Universe" (ugh), which made it unintentionally funny saying it when half the crowd was still sort of cheering him. I'm sure he'll come out next week and go all out heel in a promo to cement it. He's always come across as a guy not entirely comfortable as the Smilin' Babyface WWE Champion they wanted him to be after the big angle last summer. I think he'd be the first to admit he's kind of a dick and being a heel seems like a much more natural fit.

It's not even hyping Brock-HHH, it's just hyping Brock being on the show. Also Mike Sempervive has been filling in for Bryan this weekend on the Dave shows. They have been so much better than the interruption fests Bryan-Dave shows tend to turn into, it will probably mean Bryan will never take any time off ever again due to everyone liking Mike's ability to discuss MMA and pro wrestling without it turning into "here's why I'm right and you're wrong".

Group photo from the F4W get-together in Vegas for the last UFC: Is Dave secretly a fan of the forgotten NES classic Mother?

A better team (that they might actually have a chance of landing) would be Demolition and Animal just to watch everyone's heads explode.