sek69

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?"

I think - and I'm only maybe 25% joking here - is the appeal was he threw a lot of clotheslines (excuse me, "lariats") so it reminded smarks of their favorite puro guys.

I for one think it's great, I'm getting tired hearing the internet bitch about the same things ad nauseam. At least this will be something new.

It was one of Dave's main avenues of banging the "all sports where dudes fight, real or simulated, should be promoted the same way" drum.

I don't get it. Every time HBO does one of these, Dave devotes at least a page of the Observer to how it's the Greatest Program in the History Of TV, and also how This is How Wrestling Should be Promoted.

He comes off that way everywhere, I've never seen a guy with such an overinflated sense of his importance to the business. Even the Von Erichs seemed to realize they got where they were largely because of their father owning the company, Mike seems to think he was a legit superstar who's dad just happened to be the boss.

I realized today that Ranjin Singh is my favorite person in WWE right now. He just seems to be enjoying every second he gets to be on TV, and his "THE GREAT KHALI SAYS" sportcoat is the greatest manager attire since the days of Jimmy Hart co-ordinating suits based on who he was managing at the time.

WWE was insulting the legacy of ECW by paying guys with checks that didn't bounce and having a Wellness Policy.

Also TMZ is now reporting Helms had a Soma on him when he was arrested, so this might end up as a bigger story than just a couple of the boys goofing around.

It looked like big Dave forgot the no head bumps rule with Bret and was trying to powerbomb him until it was obvious that Bret was sandbagging so he couldn't do it.