sek69

Was it Hunter or someone else backstage that tried to knock Punk by saying he just tries to re-enact the puro tapes he watches?

Other than that Tombstone bump he took for Davey Boy, I don't understand the point of adding Davis to what would have been a solid Harts-Bulldogs match.

That's assuming WWE cares about getting smark hate, clearly they don't.

Since it was mentioned in the JR thread, I thought it was a good idea. Right off the top of my head I can think of several: Potatoing JR on live TV Making fun of Chris Masters for getting off the juice (also on live TV) Constantly insulting Lilian Garcia repeatedly on live TV (I'm noticing a theme here)

Also this is the exact reason WWE gives everyone stupid gimmick names now, since he'll be able to go to TNA whenever and use the name he was a star in WWE with (plus the additional u).

That whole thing seems so odd, why would WWE make up an excuse that can be easily shot down? He doesn't seem like an obvious Wellness case, does he have some injury issues?

Rock got special attention because he was the first third-generation guy in the WWF/E. Vince is a mark for multi generational families, as we see to this very day with FCW being 90% sons of 80s guys.

I think the issue there is that admitting that charisma/promo/drawing ability matters as much if not more than in ring work means that The smarky smark smarks have to admit that guys they hate (ie: were successful despite not being great technical wrestlers) were pretty good at pro wrestling. I swear half the IWC would rather eat a bullet than admit John Cena ever had a good match.

From most accounts Mickie was a gigantic pain in the ass to deal with (no fat joke intended) and that some reports had her "being late" in Europe due to drinking too much the whole time, which begs the question how much do you have to drink for wrestlers to believe you drink too much?

I know Dave was doing a lot of blind item stuff like "you can tell who keeps getting the pot failures based on who's push has stopped" right around the time MVP hit the wall.

No one is arguing that Finlay has had a better overall career - just that he's a better in ring performer. For a less contentious example, I can't imagine it would be considered "contrarian" to argue that Tim Horner was a better in ring talent than the Ultimate Warrior, though it would be "contrarian" to argue that Horner had the better overall career. If that was the argument being made, I would not have thought it was contrarian at all, by any measurement Warrior was a poor worker bolstered by his physique and his crazy promos (before we realized he was legit crazy). He also had charisma, which the Tim Horners of the world don't. That's why Warrior was going over Hogan at WM while Horner's big break was being part of a JTTS tag team in the UWF. I guess if you get down to it, that's what annoys me in the "X is better than Y" arguments. You can point to several examples of someone being a technically sound wrestler, but that's not what makes someone a good pro wrestler. Anyone who's ever been a main eventer or made significant money in wrestling did so because they had personality. Having wrestling skill is a nice bonus, but it's hardly a requirement. So yes, you can say someone like Finlay has superior wrestling talent compared to Shawn Michaels, but to paraphrase someone who made a few dollars in the business, it doesn't matter what your wrestling skill is. Hearing someone debate that a guy who spent his career in the mid card is better in the ring than a guy who's been a huge star just makes it sound like that person is either trying to blow up the mid card guy to something better than he is/was, or somehow denigrate the main event guy by saying he's no better than the guy who ran around with a midget.

So does he really think the show running long was the issue and not the huge fucking melee that broke out?

I don't really have a dog in this fight, but the "Midcarder X is superior to Main Event Guy Y" argument to me is like the height of contrarianism on the interwebs. I mean, I like Finlay, but his biggest legacy in the business is making the women's matches suck less for a period of time.

Wasn't MVP one of the guys who kept getting pot fines and got his push stopped to send a message that they weren't tolerating it anymore?

The 91-97 down period was drawn out further than it normally would have been, considering all the scandals and Vince being on trial pretty much forced them to change their entire way of doing business. They had to retrain their fanbase to accept guys like Bret and Shawn as main eventers instead of bodybuilder guys.

Shocking news: Todd Martin didn't like tonight's Raw. At this point, I really don't get why he keeps watching a show he clearly hates. They're never going to do anything he likes, why keep punishing himself? Dave doesn't pay for these gigs does he?

It should be noted that Linda has the best possible astroturf squad already in place with WWE fans. Given the level of discourse on sites like YouTube it would be next to impossible for a stereotypical paid shill to stand out unless they used complete sentences and spelled correctly.

I don't even think Vince dying would affect things too much, since Steph already runs a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and for the most part can sway Vince to do things the way she wants if need be. The only thing that would seriously hurt them would be losing TV clearance, which is why I think they are renewing interest in starting their own network. They have some pretty good TV deals in place now, but if Bonnie Hammer ever leaves NBC/Universal they may be fucked since they put all their eggs in one basket with Smackdown's latest move.

Are they going to have some kind of uplink to a studio for the guys still stuck? One of the things hyped for RAW was Bret having to acknowledge ShoMiz as the best tag team, and they're one of the ones still in Europe.

You know, 98% of that column echos my view of Jim Cornette these days. Yeah, I like a good Corny rant as much as the next guy, but he sat there and ate shit while working with Russo in TNA and only went back to the ranting when he got fired. I don't think I'd put him in Iron Sheik category yet, but he's clearly turned the corner to self-parody.

What always kills me is how when he's cycling off, he ends up looking dangerously similar to a old time territory fat guy like Killer Tim Brooks or something. You'd think a guy who probably uses bodybuilding mags as stroke material would at least maintain some definition when off cycle.

Considering JR's job was to give the news that someone was to be "endeavored", I don't think it's surprising that ex WWF guys may not have a favorable opinion of the guy. Also HBK's drug use wasn't even that well kept a secret at the time, let alone him being open about it now. Hell he'd be on TV looking less-than-top-form back in the Rockers days.

On more JR related topics, anyone know why he continues to work for the company that has gone great lengths to humiliate him in ways that stand out even by Vince's/WWE's standards? I don't think he needs the money, he seems pretty smart in terms of saving what he earned plus the restaurant looks like it's doing well. Is it just his way of sticking it to Vince in terms of making them pay him when they really don't want to just to keep him from going to TNA or some MMA group?

This all reminds me of how they showed the Thrilla in Manila on ESPN Classic a couple weeks back. The doctor waives of the fight, Ali is on his knees in exhaustion, and his corner people are all around him like he's going to collapse. When the announcer comes in the ring to get comments from him Ali's response was something like "first off I just want to say I'm the greatest, Fraizer may be the best in the world after me". Just classic stuff. We get so used to how Ali is today, it's easy to forget he was by far the best "heel character" of all time.

I'm all for a good HHH bashing, but I can't see how he would still be protecting his spot at this point of his career. He's established to the point where it wouldn't hurt him at all if someone overshadowed him at this stage.