sek69

My first impression watching TNA last night was, even if the whole Homicide getting stuck ordeal hadn't happened, that the whole cage setup looked like it was made by Fisher Price. The second thing I realized right after was "how the fuck is anyone supposed to climb up and over to that opening?".

Well Dusty was the booker/top star of the competition, and we all know how offended he gets when other companies run against him. What really struck me is how when they were doing the DustyDust bit , JR made sure to mention how Dusty was okay with it. That seemed odd, considering it was the middle of the Monday Night Wars and all.

I seem to recall the Sheik telling that story long before Hogan became famous for being a professional bullshittter.

Oh man, I forgot how great DustyDust was. Dustin really does a good impression of his dad.

I haven't heard anything to suggest that he wanted to be more involved with WWE outside of hosting RAW, but maybe I missed the memo. My only comment is why do people want so badly to minimize his movie career? Sure, he's not going to be Oscar nominated anytime soon, but most of his movies have been moderate to major successes and I don't think any have been considered flops.

The real main event in terms of what gets the most hype will probably be Bret vs Vince, followed by HBK vs Taker in what I'm betting will be some sort of "loser must retire" match.

I tend to think Dave keeps Babbysack around for the Bruno connection, as I'd gather it's a lot easier for him to just email the Sackster "hey ask Bruno what he thinks about this" instead of waiting for Bruno to reply via carrier pigeon. Also this thread is reminding me that I need to go on a IRL Babinsack hunt since he lives somewhere around here.

I think that's what really gets me about the whole MMA=wrestling deal, wrestlers who buy into it are all "it's like pro wrestling, only real" while Dave and company are all "man wouldn't MMA be awesome if it was predetermined like pro wrestling". On one hand, yeah a lot of things would be more awesome if you could book the outcomes to your advantage, but then a lot of the appeal of MMA is that it is real.

Yeah this has to be one of the most puzzling urban legends in wrestling, especially since the video is out there. I would hear people say Luger was screaming like a girl, or that he got his ass kicked legit, then you watch the match and there's maybe 2-3 attempts to get Brody to sell and it's pretty clear he isn't playing ball. Lex just looks at him llike "what the fuck?" and walks out. Personally I think Brody's career would have more or less ended once the territories died out. His whole MO was getting a promoter to pay him to roll in to an area, have some crazy brawls, and then leave without putting any of the regulars over. It sounds harsh to say, but he died at the perfect time to get the Cobain/Hendrix-esque "one of the greats who died too soon" aura where no one would have to see the mid-90s "burned all bridges and is either jobbing in the WWF or main eventing indy shows in high school gyms" Brody. Also, wasn't the whole deal with him taking aspirins to bleed better the main reason he died? I always heard he bled out because he took a shitload of aspirin to prepare for his match where it was expected he'd be doing a five alarm bladejob.

Most WON columnists got their introduction to MMA via Japanese groups, Bob Sapp was a huge star in Japan, this seems to have caused the WON crew to think anyone who gets big in MMA in the US must be a huge star too.

You also live in Japan. Where, it should be noted, to be a nationally recognized MMA fighter all it takes is to be black. I don't get it.

You also live in Japan. Where, it should be noted, to be a nationally recognized MMA fighter all it takes is to be black.

I would expect it from someone married a woman who, as a preteen, wrote in her diary that she would marry him when she was old enough. I never knew that. Who'd have guessed Bret would have something in common with Tom Cruise?

Off the top of my head, I'd say this:

Bryan was doing a segment-by-segment review of RAW and when he got to the point where they announced next week's host he stated based on the pic they showed it looked like he had no charisma. Listening to Dave have to explain that Damon is not only a charismatic dude (for baseball) but also a pretty big star was awkward to say the least. It seemed like he was trying very hard not to clown him for not knowing, but still had a "dude, don't you fucking KNOW who this is?" tone to his voice.

Of course backstage nonsense has affected what you see on TV as long as wrestling has been televised, it's just more obvious now because there's only 1 real major company.

Wow, Vince must have been really pissed to see a host on RAW bomb so badly, especially one espousing the same political views he has. It was kind of funny to see him being all "liberals, amirite?" to a crowd of wrestling fans in Texas and getting crickets as a reaction. He must have really been yelling in the headsets too, since "Dennis Miller must be writing your jokes" became everyone's comeback to a corny one liner.

This should be interesting. A large part of the internet crowd hates Cena with a passion, yet they feel obliged to hate Sheamus because he's a Friend of Hunter. Also those same folks constantly decry the WWE for not pushing any new blood into the main event, yet when they do so there are complaints that the guy they push isn't any good and/or doesn't deserve to be pushed.

What is someone who wants to be a wrestler supposed to do? Doesn't seem fair that a guy should be expected to shoulder responsibility for the people running the industry they want to go into being heartless dicks. Also, what's to say everyone who wants to be a wrestler is fully aware of how the business is run? Maybe they think it's just the indies that run this way and once they get to WWE everything will be different.

I still don't know why it being a risky profession means it's all on the person who's doing the job. Most jobs aren't 100% safe, hell a TV set could fall on my head where I work and kill me instantly. That doesn't mean my employer has no reason to make sure the mounting brackets aren't attached properly. The fact that I accepted a TV could fall on my head doesn't absolve the company of doing whatever it can to minimize the chance of it happening. Shit happens, we all know that. Construction workers sometimes fall off high buildings, soldiers get shot at, and sometimes NFL players get career ending knee injuries from their cleats getting stuck in the turf when they get hit. All of those people also benefit from working in fields where millions have been spent in making sure anyone entering that line of work is as safe as possible. What's been done in the last five, ten, or even thirty years in wrestling to make things safer other than mats on the floor? I think Loss is on to something when he mentioned a lot of it comes down to is the poor training most wrestlers are getting. I remember back when Tough Enough was running, most of their training consisted of them taking thousands of back bumps and running the ropes. Obviously some of that was done for TV, but I remember watching the show and thinking "wow, this is all the training they can give these guys?". Looking at the guys who have come up through the recent developmental system, the ones who were mostly trained by WWE are the ones who ended up with injury after injury (Batista and Orton come to mind) and guys like Cena who were mostly trained out of WWE have a lot better track record.

Another point that I see largely being slept on, everyone's up in arms over CM Punk being a heel for telling people drugs are bad, but to me the far more reprehensible thing is how every babyface he's faced has the same response of "everyone's free to live their life" which seems to be a way to say it's OK to do drugs if that's the choice you decide to make in life. I mean, when you think about it, how fucked up is it where you have babyfaces implicitly endorsing recreational drug use on a show that is supposed to be PG rated programming?

I guess there's something heroic about a guy like Misawa taking the punishment himself to keep his company afloat, but it just underscores how messed up the profession is.

Misawa's neck probably wouldn't have broken had it not been subject to the abuse it took over the years. Let's not let his death cause people to use revisionist history to erase the last few years of broken down zombie Misawa continuing to wrestle because he was the only sure draw his company had.

Didn't Harley Race try to get Benoit to stop doing the diving headbutt at one point? I seem to recall him saying he was afraid Benoit was going to end up in a wheelchair since he had problems from it and he didn't do it nearly as much as Benoit did.

I seem to recall it being something about they didn't want to to the job and it ended up being a quick joke match.