sek69

Funny thing about that is Bryan trying to get WWE accepted levels of tan only accentuated whatever skin pigment issue he has and makes the lighter toned blotches he has way more noticeable. I never even knew he had it when he was in ROH, and now he looks like has whatever Michael Jackson had.

The only deficiency sunblock could possibly cause would be Vitamin D since your body produces it naturally when exposed to sunlight. I'm sure he takes his Flintstone Chewables to prevent that. Also you have to remember most of the roster uses so much spray tan they end up looking as if they were basted in BBQ sauce. Someone naturally pale is going to look 100x whiter in that environment.

As someone of Irish descent, I assure you no make up is needed to make us look that white.

Wasn't the Bischoff deal with Fusient based on WCW still having their TV slots? I seem to recall the reason Vince was able to swoop in and get everything cheap was that losing the TV slots killed any chance Eric had, and like Loss stated it made it toxic for anyone else to buy it with zero TV time.

Well he did fail a Wellness test, so it's not like he was just making shit up about the guy.

By the way, that's brilliant and I'm ripping it off. I got my producer for WHATAMANOOVER! working on an audio mash-up of Kane and Costanza. And crowd aside, how cool was it that Punk was yelling "I'M the King of Memphis, Tennessee!!" ? You could totally tell that he was having a blast. Another missed announcer opportunity, I think. They mentioned Punk tweeting that he "did it for Andy Kaufman" when he kicked Lawler in the head, and when he sang Andy's song the only mention was Josh pointing out he was complaining about being disrespected but he was doing it himself now. (skip to about 0.52 to see the original version)

He's not universally loved, but he's pretty much the only guy who gets any kind of emotional reaction from the crowd. Even if it's a negative one.

The tweener gimmick just doesn't work anymore. Like SLL said, if you don't make it clear if you're supposed to boo or cheer a guy most of the crowd reacts with nothing. Also I wonder with JR gone does that mean Lawler is the new "beloved figure who gets beat up to cement someone's heel turn" guy?

The match was fine, but it just reminded me how much better they're booking Cesaro as the US champ and he's involved in an angle with a guy using a cobra puppet as a euphemism for his dick.

Kane recapping his entire WWE career in the most matter-of-factly way possible was one of the best things they've done in a long time.

Also that times a billion. It seemed to really hammer the point how important it is to have an announcer who can put over what we're witnessing. It's cliche to mention how badly they need JR, but even a David Crockett type losing his shit at the horrors taking place in the ring would have sold this as a dastardly act. Instead we have interchangeable clones too afraid of losing their jobs to stand out.

All this time I thought Ryback would kill someone with that clothesline he does, but he almost Droz'd poor Swagger with that backdrop tonight.

I hope after Ziggler was done with the "athletic sex" he did his run-your-hands-through-your-hair-and-flick-the-water taunt at her.

I like Jim Cornette, he's really charismatic. I can listen to him talk about wrestling all day. Especially when he's going off on people. His re-telling of the Boogeyman character in OVW was great. I just think he's a creative mind that knows so much about wrestling that he would be beneficial, he would just work better in group because he needs a filter creatively. You realize by describing him like that you make him sound like a more personable version of Russo.

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.