sek69

I don't think the plan would have ever been to have Magnum be the JCP Hogan, I think the plan seemed to be more like phasing the eternal Dusty-Flair feud into a Magnum-Flair one, and allowing Dusty to take a more behind the scenes/Baba at the trios and comedy stage of his career kind of role. That's why I think the accident was so important. Not so much for what may have been with Magnum directly, but for what other plans were changed as a result of it. Think about it, Nikita probably stays heel longer for one. The Horsemen/Lex thing probably still happens because that was about replacing Ole. So now you have super babyface Lex vs super heel Nikita and it may not have even mattered if the title was involved or not. You could get a pretty decent run out of that before Nikita's wife gets sick and kills his interest in wrestling. Starrcade would have done better since it wouldn't have featured Flair vs a lame duck champion, and maybe that allows Crockett to be able to pay some guys instead of going broke and starting the mass exodus to the WWF. That's a lot of maybes to be sure, but it illustrates how Magnum's accident was the butterfly effect in action.

This is pretty much how I feel as well. From 1983-1986 Flair seemed to be a good enough draw champion as champion, I don't think anyone else who was a viable option to replace him would have done significantly better. He wasn't the draw Hogan was, but to be fair no one was until Austin came around 15 or so years later. Everything from 1987 on seemed to be a chain of events that was one mistake after another once the plans were changed post-Magnum. I know some people don't believe the "Magnum was destined to be champion" stories, but at the very least him being out removed a pretty big part of the main event plans which caused everyone to be reshuffled. To this day, I can't figure out why they couldn't see the forest through the trees and make Luger champ. He was like the Goldberg of 1988 and not only did they not give him the belt, they kept having him lose in the lamest ways possible, like a blood stoppage for a trickle in a promotion where even jobbers were known for 5 alarm bladejobs. Not only did it kill Luger's momentum, it made him look like a guy who couldn't get the job done in the eyes of the fans. I even remember one of the Apter mags doing a story about that, perhaps as a subtle "WTF, dude" message to Dusty.

As always, the general rule that if a web domain has a number plus a word it's usually shady at best if not flat out illegitimate holds true yet again.

Cubeta lost any credibility he had with me when I realized his day job was one of those CASH 4 GOLD style scam sites.

So Terry Taylor actually responded positively to my friend's ideas and wanted to know more about him. How weird that going to a random houseshow in Buttfuck, WV leads to discussing booking ideas with one of the people in charge of the company.

So my one friend I went to the TNA house show with was talking to Don West and JB about how someone would get a job in TNA in a creative/booking/writing sense. They told him he'd need to talk to Terry Taylor, and my friend gave them his email address. I thought they were just humoring him, but lo and behold, he got an email today from Taylor asking him to send a few of his ideas over and he'd look at them. Also as a funny aside, he was talking to Jeff Jarrett and telling him how much he'd like to work for the company. Jeff asked "what do you do?" and he replied he'd even be a cameraman if that's what it took. Jeff took one look at him (my friend's about 6'5 mind you) and said "you're overqualified to work here".

It would be hilarious on so many levels if the media's refusal to pay any attention to pro wrestling (and in turn their failure to mention any of the issues) led to Linda getting elected.

I know it's become almost a running gag that they have been the biggest draw, but after seeing them in person the other day they really are some of the best heels in the company.

So I went to the TNA show in Wheeling WV today, and I have to say it was actually pretty good. It started off on a sour note as I got caught in a speed trap by the local po-po who saw an out of state plate and heard dollar signs. We ended up missing the first match because of it, but the rest of the show made up for it. Everyone seemed to be having a good time in the ring, and all the matches were good except for the required Rob Terry squash. Seeing him up close makes it look even more obvious that he's basically an even more roided up British version of Batista. Except at least Big Dave can do promos. At one point I wondered why half the dudes in the building were seemingly walking towards me, then I realized the Beautiful People were set up right behind me to take pics/sign autographs. My one friend pointed out that it looks like they have a different Knockout tag belt to use for these that people can touch. Don West was working the merch table like he was back on the Home Shopping Channel, now that Billy Mays is gone he really needs to be the next "sell you shit on TV" guy. Earl Hebner was there off and on selling his "DAMN RIGHT I DID" shirts, and gave West a good punchline while hawking Earl's shirts he said they were being sold half off because "Earl needs the money". My friends felt bad about the whole ticket thing (which I'll probably fight and win since it was clearly BS) that they paid the $20 for us to go in the ring and meet Kurt Angle. It was pretty cool, and I guess now I have a valid right to have an opinion on pro wrestling since I can say I've been in the ring. Also Jeff Jarrett was signing autographs after the show and was pretty personable, laughing at my buddy's joking attempt to shoehorn himself in the autograph line. Funny story, when we first entered the place (which was a high school gym), there was a woman in a TNA t shirt and jeans at the concession stand getting food. My one buddy was all "hey, what's up" and when I start busting him about hitting on some random chick at a wrestling show he pointed out that it was Karen Angle. We actually ended up running into her a couple of times and my buddy even got a pic with her. I guess everyone is cool now but it was kind of weird considering Jarrett and Angle were teamed up in the main event that everyone is just hanging out together at a house show.

This is being slept on, IMO. Wrestling fans/people in the "bubble" are so used to lame comedy that they don't even realize this. You can't imagine the weird looks I got when I mentioned at work that I'm going to a TNA houseshow on Sunday. Half of them gave me a "why are you telling me you're going to a titty bar" look before my wrestling fan co worker explained what TNA is.

It's the opposite actually. It counts as a viewer if there's like 5-6 minutes in a given quarter hour, so there's some double-counting. IIRC this was demonstrated best when WCW closed. Actually if someone's watching a stream, neither show gets credit. That's the point he was making. Networks crave the 18-49 male demo, and a lot of them don't watch TV on an actual TV anymore. The more popular watching TV on other media gets, the more shows that appeal to younger viewers will get screwed over by Neilsen ratings that really haven't changed their application in 50 years other than taking time shifted viewing into account.

News flash: Dave Meltzer gets paid to write about MMA these days, therefore it should not be a shock when things like this happen. I don't like it, and I'd wager the majority of his subscriber base doesn't either, but that's the way it is. Perhaps it should be a lesson of sorts, one for 2010.

Wow, just listened to the min-WOL for Saturday. According to Herb, Maria got released because WWE felt she was going to get all kinds of offers after doing The Apprentice and leave like Stacy did. How insecure can a billion dollar company get? That's like my ex-girlfriend from high school who dumped me the summer after senior year since she felt I was going to meet some hot college chick and forget her.

Anyone else find it amusing that the same week the WWE named Wendi Richter as the next inductee to the HOF, their most popular Diva gets endeavored out of nowhere?

So I guess "the crew" is the meme for 2010? I'd be more willing to believe there's an anti Dave faction if a better example could be found than people pointing out that he constantly plays down/makes excuses for a 60 something year old man who still rocks out with his cock out like it's 1985. Not to come off as blaming the victim, but if someone with a well known history of drinking and womanizing ends up getting his ass kicked by his wife, it's not a large logical leap to assume he probably was doing something.

Perhaps NBC (or any other network) wouldn't edit down their coverage if it hasn't been shown time and time again Americans usually don't care if they don't have a rooting interest. No Americans have a chance = no one watching in most if not nearly all cases. Perhaps it's due to a generation of people raised on the Olympics as a metaphor for the Cold War, but if we can't wave flags and chant USA then there's no interest. I still say it comes down to the YouTube generation being accustomed to getting what they want when they want it getting pissed over having no control.

Other than shunting the USA/Canada hockey game to MSNBC, I don't see what the big deal is with their coverage of the Olympics. It seems like every one has been televised the same way, and today's ADD laden I-need-immediate-information generation goes nuts that NBC won't cover the Olympics as if it was a writer on a tech site liveblogging an important product announcement.

I wonder what prompted them to reach out to her after all this time. You'd think they would have done it when they were in Texas. I guess it was just another example to show the current roster that everyone comes back to Vince eventually.

I can't wait to see the reaction to Wendi Richter inducted into the HOF. I guess they wanted to have a "legendary diva" able to make random TV appearances since Moolah died and Mae is not going to be around forever (even if it seems that way). Still, I wonder which reaction will be strongest: the usual "No wimmens should be in the HOF" argument or the "how can she be in before *name of guy who's on the outs with Vince and would obviously never accept induction*, that's an outrage!"

I absolutely love the part of Dave's Jack Brisco obit where he's quoted going off on the sons of territory owners getting all pissy that he and Jerry sold their Georgia stock to Vince. It was basically "fuck all these guys who's daddies gave them everything". Here it is:

It's really more of WWE wanting control of the merchandising rather than any mustache-twisting chicanery to keep naive pro wres dudes from using their indy names. I'm not sure of the logistics but I believe they get a bigger cut of the merch profits if it's a name they created as opposed to one they didn't and/or someone's real name. I also think all the ECW guys were allowed to keep their gimmicks because WWE ended up owning them in the bankruptcy deal. Of course some folks will see evil intentions in literally everything Vince/WWE does so what can you do.

It's really quite amazing how this has been able to stand for 30 years despite it being so painfully obvious these people aren't true contractors. I wonder what mid carder Vince will give an Obama gimmick in order to vent his frustrations ala Irwin R Shyster.

The whole Epic Beard Man craze is kind of weird. At first it was cool seeing an old dude take out a young punk, but the huge amounts of both veiled and not-so-veiled racism it seems to cause everywhere it gets discussed is starting to be uncomfortable.

Imagine if they had started this back in 2000, we'd still be talking about the Ben Christopher family tragedy.

It was just a lazy way of bashing Linda, being all "lol, wrestling lady" misses the entire point of why she'd be a horrible choice to be an elected member of Congress. Hell, you could have really cut to the meat of the matter if someone would just ask her "would you recuse yourself the next time your husband gets called to testify before Congress to explain why so many of his employees die?"