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It must be one of those mis-mashed childhood memories, but I could have sworn that when Rick Rude and Manny Fernandez held the NWA tag titles the belts were still the late 70s-early 80s style. Watching the shows again on WWE 24/7 revealed that they already changed to the more familiar belt style during the Rock n Roll's run right before.

Also there was a particularly lol-some blurb in the WON about how most of the guys didn't like how Vickie was treated on her way out but weren't upset enough to risk saying something and/or getting fired over it.

I wonder if the top guy rumored to have failed a test was Kane. It seems like his recent vacation was just long enough to be a cover for a Wellness violation. I'd have to think one of the "top guys with exemptions" would have to be Batista. No way a guy his age can keep the physique he has in a post-Wellness world without some kind of get out of jail free card.

My first thought was that he looks like a hybrid of Nigel McGuiness and James Hetfield.

Obviously Bix hasn't met too many Irish people

Didn't Stacy claim at one point she got fired after her and Chyna had a falling out and Chyna went to management?

It's a sad commentary on WWE booking when giving someone some offense before decisively beating them is considered an improvement. What bothers me about it, is this could have been Cena's chance to do what the Rock was known for and give a up and coming guy the rub. No to say Miz should have went over clean in the middle of the ring, but WWE seems to have completely forgotten how to use their top stars to get guys over without having the top guy do a clean job or make the up and coming guy look like a bitch.

Gonna need the story on this. When the company wanted to hire Zach Gowen, apparently there were two one legged wrestlers in the indies at that time. Our boy John hired the wrong one at first. I'm sure that had to be an awkward conversation: "my bad, we were looking for the other one-leg guy".

Edge and Jericho have the potential to be great as guys with the asshole-meter pegged to the max, but it seems that instead we're getting yet another version of that Russo staple "tag team partners who don't like each other". Also (and I really didn't expect it to be any other way) I was disheartened by the complete jobbing of the Miz at the ppv. They had a chance to build up a guy so maybe one day they don't have to have the same 4 people in every main event, but I guess it was more important to punish a guy for getting himself more over than he was supposed to.

Hiring random blonde bimbos to be Divas who end up getting fired because they don't know who Steph is.

I don't know about complain, but he did make comments about how Angle shouldn't be wrestling anywhere with his drug and injury issues when he started with TNA. Also during the times where Impact was the Kurt and Karen Show, he'd make comments on how it wasn't a good idea to spend so much time on them which can be taken a number of ways. Of course when talking about TNA it's easy to bash the usual suspects like Russo and their "avenging their high school traumas" booking style, but a large part of why TNA isn't any better than it is has to be due to the fact that not only are so many of their main eventers ex WWE/WCW guys, they're almost all old and/or broken down. Nash, Sting, Steiner, Angle, Foley. The only guy who isn't a complete wreck is Booker. The rest of them get mentioned in the WON, it's usually with some remark about them not being able to cut it anymore. Foley gets mentioned and it's more "well it's TNA, what can you do". Honestly I don't give a shit either way who Dave bashes and doesn't. I just threw it out there as an example that what Bix was talking about with him and Tenay is hardly the only example.

If Foley had quit WWE and gone away, or wrote books, or anything else then that would be it and it's his right to quit, etc. Once he went to TNA was was basically pushed as a main event guy from the start, that's when Dave would have said something had it been anyone else. That's one thing Dave has always been consistent on, no matter if it was Dusty in the late 80s JCP, the Big Four AJ guys still carrying on in the 2000s, or guys like Nash and Angle in TNA. It's always been something that grinds his gears when an old broken down guy gets (or stays) at the top of a promotion when it's clear he really shouldn't be anymore. Especially when one of his go-to TNA criticisms is their over reliance on ex WWE guys at the expense of their homegrown talent. As far as ROH goes, yes that is his favorite style, but most of Dave's raves on ROH were sight unseen and almost entirely based on what Gabe was telling him (with the rest being his opinion on guys like Joe and Daniels that he would have seen working in CA). ROH was almost exclusively an east cost fed and I don't think Dave was catching many cross country red-eyes just to watch an indy show. Like I said, it was a brilliant move by Gabe. He knew they shared a fan base and that the type of wrestling was right in Dave's wheelhouse, so he sent him show reviews that were basically press releases that Dave would print in the WON verbatim. Notice how once ROH was on PPV and TV and Dave was actually able to watch shows on a somewhat regular basis, a lot of his enthusiasm has worn off.

Dave was absolutely in the tank for ROH when Gabe was booking. Actually it was more Gabe being smart enough to realize most of the ROH fanbase would be WON readers or at least be aware of its existence, and using that to his advantage. It was also the first time I realized that Dave has a tendency to turn a blind eye to things involving his sources. Also him not really getting on Foley for being nearly as blatant about going to TNA for a pure paycheck grab as Kevin Nash. I don't know if Foley's a source per se, but he's definitely a Friend of Dave, and as such his TNA run (including another rehash of the tired commissioner role and a run with the promotion's top belt) has largely escaped the wrath most over the hill wrestlers using a promotion to masturbate with would be getting. In fact, I can't imagine anyone else getting a pass on the "quits a cushy announcer gig in WWE because Vince is a meanie" deal either. In fact, in his rush to justify Foley quitting rather than put up with it had the unintended consequence of making Foley look like a giant pussy who couldn't handle the same stuff guys like JR and Michael Cole deal with all the time. Besides, there really aren't any "other sites" when it comes to wrestling anymore. There's the WON, the Torch, and pretty much everyone else just cut-and-pastes from one of them.

Was this a real WCW announcer comment or is it an internet running gag? A little of both. There was a time where WCW really thought they could bill Ray Traylor as "The Boss", which was just having him be the Big Bossman only wearing what looked like a rent-a-cop outfit instead of his old prison guard one. The WCW announcers would try to subtly try to make it seem he was doing the Bossman gimmick without ever saying the full name "Bossman". The Boss (Man he 's big) thing was I believe SKeith's witty retort of said episode. For a guy who never missed a chance to bash WWE for being repetitive, he did a good job of recycling his own material quite a bit.

I just find it hilarious that this blow up all started over Mike Tenay. I mean he's went from being the resident WCW lucha nerd to making Sam the Eagle faces during SERIOUS MOMENTS on TNA shows. A lot of it is Shiavone Syndrome (good announcer forced to sell a crap product resulting in the announcer no longer giving a shit), but it sticks out that Meltzer largely gives him a pass when he would call out almost anyone else in the same position. He barely can hold his contempt for WWE announcers doing a lot of the same things, the only WWE guy he gives a pass to is Cole for being in the "get yelled at by Vince on live TV" seat.

It's increasingly obvious that Dave is growing tired of pro wrestling and all of the sleaze, scandal, and tragedy that goes along with it. Reading the WON these days makes it seem that he feels some kind of obligation to continue to cover it, but his heart doesn't seem as into it as it once was. Bryan just seems like a dude who picked the right guy to hitch his wagon to, and now he's the heir apparent to the WON franchise.

Am I alone in picturing Bryan as that kid in high school who was friends with the cool kids knowing he'd probably be stuffed in lockers on the regular otherwise? Like, he makes you want to take a swing at him but you know if you did, Dave would be in your face all "WHATS YOUR DEAL, BRO?"

I think we all know Bix can be a bit relentless when he gets a hold of something, but for Dave to respond like he did was a bit embarrassing. It comes off as both guys are still sore from the whole Ring of Hell fiasco and are looking for a reason to have another slap fight.

It's also really telling how strong the pack mentality is on the internet seeing everyone dogpile on Bix over there. I hope this is remembered the next time someone tries to dismiss the "half the internet bases their opinion on what Meltzer says" talking point.

Akiyama vacated the title in order to get treatment for his herniated discs instead of ignoring it, so perhaps what happened to Misawa will prompt guys to take the time to have injuries looked at.

For a guy who's supposedly a bad worker, I don't ever recall seeing a Greg match where I thought "wow, he really shouldn't be in there with these guys". Even toward the end of his career, he was able to hang in there with whoever the AWA had left to offer. Also to the "overpushed by Verne" point, watching the AWA on ESPN shows it's clear that Greg was used to put over Curt Hennig and groom him to be "the guy". The feud with Greg that was pushed as the continuation of the Verne vs Larry was the one that established Curt as a main event guy.

So based on his appearance at Slammiversary, I guess Kurt decided the blowoff to his "I'm doing MMA" gimmick would be to grow his hair and beard out to look like Randy Couture?

Greg was a great tag team worker, he just wasn't all that good in singles after a certain point. He wasn't overpushed by Verne since he never held anything but the tag titles (which no one complains about) and the TV title (which was created when the promotion was dying and didn't matter). Plus Greg was the one guy Verne knew wouldn't jump ship, so it would make sense he would keep him in the upper card just in case someone else bailed on him. I think a lot of the anti Greg stuff comes from the fact he was skinny and had a terrible physique most of the time and a lot of smarks are size queens at times. Of course Greg's probably going to live a long life like his dad while guys with acceptable builds are dropping dead in their 40s, but if that's the price that needs to be paid to satisify people then so be it according to some folks.

You know, I think that "female Ralph Wiggum" might be the most apt description of Candace Michelle I've ever heard. I await her TNA debut when she tells Mike Tenay her cat's breath smells like cat food.

In a weird way, it's probably better that it was Maria on the DVD and not some front office WWE guy slagging him the whole time.