sek69

His AWA work in the 70s was pretty good too.

It also shows just how wrestling gets away with the scummy shit they do w/r/t treating their "independent contractors" since the media is still harping on shit that happened 10-15 years ago.

Alberto is one of the few guys in WWE who doesn't have to live in fear of Vince/WWE. He has "fuck you" money and the knowledge he can go back to Mexico and be a star, so he's most likely to speak his mind.

The most fascinating thing of all this was it coming out just how toxic and dysfunctional the organization of the creative team is under Stephanie. Having a "home team" who seem to only exist to write drafts to get thrown in the trash by the team who travels on the road is pretty much the epitome of the last few years of WWE.

You are thinking of @WWECreative. That was Robert Karpeles a mid 00s staffer. Don't blame you for the confusion. CrankyVince got yanked at the same time but it was later reinstated. Months before, one of those two did a CrankyVince tweet and then the actual CrankyVince account reteweeted it and said something like "i don't know who this idiot writer is" in his own unique style.

This isn't the first time CrankyVince broke kayfabe, one of them did it months ago before WWE went on their rampage getting obvious parody accounts suspended.

No doubt that his booking is the main issue, but it's also kind of embarrassing they're owned by a TV company and their show has a look that would be dated in the 80s. Also, was the story that this change was made prior to the NJ show legit or just a cover story after their fans nearly rioted over a non finish in the main event?

Considering Dave (and others) have pointed out many times that 5 years seems to be the max anyone can book a major company before burning out, it is amazing he lasted this long. I have to wonder if this will do anything to the "write everything to please Vince" mindset that leads to all the bad comedy that bombs nearly every time.

Johnny, you must be tickled that Punk gave your radio show a shout out tonight.

I love that people on the BOARD~! didn't seem to know why the hard camera was shaking and were complaining about it. I guess it's been a while.

Everyone involved in the main event was awesome. Vince as WWE's version of crazy old man Terry Funk is tremendous.

Last two RAWs have had the lowest non-holiday ratings in 15 years. Football started, which is taking a little chunk, but three hours is kicking their ass so their idea was to throw the head writer under the bus. The funny thing is that USA has been pushing them to go three hours for a long time before Vince finally gave in, so it seems he knew this was likely to happen.

They're basically having him do the worst parts of John Cena's act (mainly the horribly scripted bad comedy), which is what turned half the fanbase against him in the first place.

Linda might actually have a chance in this thing if someone would just tell her to shut the fuck up. Every time she tries to state what are supposed to be her beliefs on the issues, she sounds like she's reading something at gunpoint.

A lot of this stems from Dave hating the WWF product in the 80s to a hilarious degree once it was obvious Vince was kicking the NWA's ass. Gorilla was the voice of that era, so it seemed that Dave went out of his way to go after him. I'm not saying Monsoon was Lance Russell by any means, but some of the stuff Dave nails him for comes off as petty at times. Yeah he said "literally" all the time and wouldn't put over obvious restholds as possible match enders, I can think of several announcers of the time worse than him that actually negatively effected the show they were calling. I can't imagine anyone who didn't grow up in Calgary thinking Ed Whalen was any kind of positive. Not only was he annoying on commentary, he actually would prevent heels from doing anything heelish. Few things looked more ridiculous than Ed in his Cliff Huxtable sweaters trying to pull the mic away from heels because they were saying heel type things.

Actually, it happens often in football if a receiver only makes 5 yards on a play where he needed 6 for a first down. The announcer will point out he wasn't in a position to gain the required yardage and question his football sense. Sometimes they'll criticize the coaches for their play calling, a lot of times it depends on the relative star power of the people involved.

So did Tensai sandbag Ryback tonight or what? He had no problem hitting his move on Smackdown, but he barely got him off the ground on Raw. At least he didn't seem to go up when he should have for the move. The announcers (well JR) did a good job covering and Ryback seemed to be able to audible a new finish well enough, but for a while it was veering into Jim Duggan/Alex Wright territory.

Man, the nervous tic she was showing in that video was quite worrisome, considering it tends to be a symptom of long term drug use.

I get WWC TV here and he's currently involved in an angle with Carlito who just turned heel. He's like the Puerto Rican Mick Foley now, guy known for violent brawls in the past now the chubby guy who comes out and waves to the crowd for a pop and get beaten up to get heat on whoever the next big heel is supposed to be.

They don't show any moves to the head/neck on the Saturday morning show.

So they're going to be riffing off of the replacement ref issue in the NFL now with the Brad Maddox deal. Over/under on how many times Bryan needs this explained for him considering he's the king of "HEY GUYS DID I EVER TELL YOU I DON'T WATCH ANYTHING ON TV EXCEPT WRESTLING AND MMA?" . I'm guessing at least two, since Dave seems to be a fan (or at least is aware of what goes on) and Vinny's day job is a football writer.

That reminded me of a great moment on the MLW podcast where Court Bauer was going on about booking old guys like Terry Funk and Abdullah who were really too broken down to be still working, seemingly forgetting for a moment his co-host is Konnan. Court related a story of seeing Terry Funk work a match then barely be able to move in the locker room, saying it's hard to book guys who don't listen to their body telling them to stop, finishing up with "isn't that right, Konnan?" It was Tim & Eric level uncomfortable comedy. Also the bio was one of the most hilarious things ever written. Sims has been friends with him for what seems to be a long time now, yet he still comes off like a guy in awe he's pals with someone famous.

Shane's first big promo was so bad. Not in the delivery or anything he did wrong, but it made him come off as a spoiled whiny bitch. "I was never good enough for you, dad!" kind of loses it's zip when the guy saying it was portrayed as someone who had enough pull in the company to hire Austin back over Vince's head.

WWE On Demand's History of RAW show is right at the build up for Survivor Series and the title tourney now. The angles are still strong, but you can already see the trends of what was to come starting to show. Every week is full of non finishes, and when they were building the "Kane and Taker are pissed at Vince" angle there was a while show of non finishes. What's amazing is if I'm remembering the time frame correctly (which can be hard in this era), the tournament leads into Mankind winning the title a few months later in the "that'll put asses in the seats" match. It's amazing that the tippling point of the Monday Night Wars happened right when Raw started to get comically bad. I guess it speaks volumes to what WCW was offering that they couldn't beat them again.

I lol'd at CM Punk asking on Twitter if "Belzer" has reviewed his DVD yet and if so how many stars it got.