sek69

Actually it came off as someone (Waxman maybe?) read a bunch of Observers in preparation but didn't really know what any of it meant.

I just read the transcript and it's Vince at his most Vince-est. I love how he acts like a mob boss on trial and claims he has no knowledge of pretty much anything that goes on in the company. Now I believe he doesn't get involved in the developmental stuff but I have a hard time believing (as Vince contends) that anything Wellness related was at Dr. Black's sole discretion alone. There was also a moment where they seemed to have Vince over a barrel by pointing out the Wellness Policy was a result of Eddie's death, only for Vince to basically say "NUH-UH" and no one followed up on that. It was irritating to read how it seemed that the people asking the questions seemed to know enough to tell that they were being completely bullshitted, but not enough to actually call anyone on it. McDevitt cutting top level heel promos in the halls of Congress on anyone who dares suggest WWE does anything other than put smiles on faces is just classic stuff. The end where it goes between McDevitt in full Tully Blanchard mode and Vince no-selling any and all questions regarding him personally using steroids/HGH was like something out of a Godfather movie. Not that it should come as a great surprise, but Vince coming out and saying it's all PR and he doesn't give a shit if guys are dying from drug use was kind of shocking considering he made mention of the public reading the transcript earlier in the interview. The whole thing came off as a more restrained version of the "Vince goes apeshit on Costas" interview, where it was all about Vince having to suffer the indignity of having to speak to the common folk. Someone (Stupak or Cook I think) once posted that Vince is like the Superman speech from Kill Bill where he acts the way he thinks normal humans act, and that's all I could think of reading that transcript.

I always wondered about Adonis getting fired, it's the only mention I ever heard of a WWF dress code that far back. I always got the impression he was given the Adorable gimmick as a punishment for letting his weight get out of control and then he made them mad by getting it over as well as he did. I also wonder of any footage of those matches with Dick Murdoch exist anywhere. I agree 100% with Dave's comments on Ed Whalen. When they show Stampede shows or matches on WWE 24/7, he almost singlehandedly succeeds in making it unwatchable to me. It's one thing to be the Lance Russell style voice of calm in a sea of pro wrestling insanity, but Whalen just comes off as nerdish. out of place and, vaguely child molester-looking.

I don't know if it was intentional but to me it always seemed like PE was imitating Amos & Andy "feets don't fail me now" black stereotype comedy, with a wigger gangsta twist.

Other than NOAH and possibly CMLL, I don't really see the economy having too much of an effect on wrestling. I can see the ongoing drug wars in Mexico having an effect on Lucha since it seems a lot of the violence is happening in the outlying towns that wrestling down there seem to frequent. I think WWE will actually do better this year. With Cena, Edge, and Orton making bigger contributions. Wrestlemania is a mixed bag, I'm sure since it's in Texas they are going to want to pull out the stops since I'd say this is the year for Steve Austin to go in the HOF probably along with Hayes and Kevin representing the Freebirds and Von Erichs. Maybe they can dig up one or both of the Funks (I'm sure Dory would do it). I think ROH could be the story of the year. If The Wrestler gets the mainstream attention at awards time people think it will, they could be in a prime position to possibly leapfrog TNA as the #2 promotion. Being featured in a movie that treats wrestling seriously (compared to WWE produced movies) may get the attention of that mythical audience that left after the Monday Night Wars.

I don't recall that particular scene in the movie, but no, Hansen definitely was involved in some of the wrestling scenes. It was actually quite funny considering how awful the rest of the movie was. Hansen comes up behind 2 TV executive types taking a wizz in a dive bar bathroom with the memorable line "WHATTA WE GOT HERE? A TINY WANGER!!"

Not to rehash the Lawler thing, but I thought it was common knowledge that Uncle Jerry liked the not-quite-legal girls but gets away with it because he's basically Jesus Christ in Memphis. Like, the one who sued him, I seem to recall at the time that the story was she recanted because Lawler (or his representatives) pretty much told her there's no way anyone in Memphis would convict the "King".

I think Japanese fans never had the model of wrestling being defined as one company who's goal was putting everyone else out of business by any means. Sure, New Japan and All Japan were rivals but you don't really have the situation that you have in the US where non fans consider all wrestling to be WWE (or WWF to non fans who still aren't aware of the name change). I think the different mindset helps smaller companies in Japan since it's pretty hard for US indies to overcome the perception that since all wrestling is WWE, people expect WWE style matches.

Thanks to my local game shop, I spent the day today washing the memories of a bad Steeler game away with some Smackdown vs Raw 2007 and ended up with something that reminded me of this thread. First there's a storyline where Trish helps Chris Masters win a ladder match for the WWE title by grabbing the belt off the hook herself. That results in a 3 way match with Masters, Trish, and whoever wrestler the player chose where she stays on the floor as a manager until it all ends up a SWERVE~! where she ends up punting both guys in the nards and winning the match. I thought they were going to do a Million Dollar Man style angle where she gives the belt to someone else but instead they have her going around claiming to be WWE champion while the announcers are practically having strokes over how women can't hold the WWE title, even going as far as comparing it to a 300 pounder winning the Cruiserweight title. Of course this is the same company that has had Harvey Whippleman win the Women's title and also had Chyna win the IC title. Finally it ends in Stephanie coming out and cutting a promo saying her family created the WWE title and she was taking it back because she's the dominant female and whatnot. The whole thing had a real "we gotta keep these bitches in line" vibe to the point it was starting to get (hopefully) unintentionally hilarious how hard they were pushing "women can't be champion" deal. Even when Lawler as the heel announcer would try to put her over, they would have JR be all "WELL YOU KNOW SHE CAN'T BE THE CHAMP NO MATTER WHAT YOU SAY". It almost takes you mentally out of the game since you start thinking "holy christ, someone has some issues with women positions of power".

Wasn't it just mentioned in the WON when discussing Gabe's dismissal that ROH is basically OK as long as Cary keeps funding it?

I don't know if I'd say ROH was close to the grave. If anything, it seems like Cary finally got sick of Gabe running the company like an e-fed and making masturbatory trips to Japan that cost a buttload of money for little return. I read that they're expecting one of their largest crowds ever for the next NYC show, so perhaps they made the right move at the right time to avoid getting in too deep of a hole. As far as 2009 goes, could this be the year we see one or possibly several major companies folding? NOAH is reeling and All-Japan seems to be hanging on by the thinnest of threads.

So in celebration of Hanukkah they are having 8 days of Goldberg matches starting on 12/21, complete with a special all-Hebrew match against DDP dropping on Christmas Day. Maybe next year we'll get the long awaited tribute to the all time greatest Israelite sports-entertainer, Barry Horowitz.

I don't know if Joey Styles one punch taking out Bradshaw is the funniest story of the year, but I'm really willing to entertain other candidates for my personal amusement. Oh man, someone needs to make a Punch-Out pic with Joey as Little Mac and JBL as Bald Bull.

That whole gimmick was actually pretty entertaining for a while until it started to get too ridiculous even for Attitude Era pro wrestling, with stuff like Dustin dressed in neon bodysuits and wearing a ball-gag.

You know it's kind of funny how we're discussing this stuff an on the 11/3/97 RAW up on WWE 24/7 there's two men-being-evil-to-women storylines with Marc Mero bullying Sable and Dustin "dumping" Terri for someone else in one of those uncomfortable shootstyle promos. Didn't the "one" he ends up with turn out to be Luna which started the Artist Formerly Known As Goldust gimmick?

Honestly, the Savage/Liz stuff worked because I don't think a woman in wrestling was ever given a classy character like Elizabeth. Most women are eventually given an angle where they stand up to a man and try to fight them as equals but Liz was always portrayed as the 1950s housewife type who knew her role.

It would be an interesting sociology experiment, I wonder if the people there who fap to bloody joshi pics would find that exciting or do the women have to be Japanese? Also I second what John asked, was this an accidental cut or did she for some reason decide to go full Muto at some indy show?

So one of my e-friends was all "have you seen the Terri Runnels chairshot pic?" and I said no, expecting some hilarious upskirt pic or something along those lines but instead saw this: So does anyone know the story behind this?

Dave's opinion on the nWo stems from two things: 1. WCW was never allowed to get any significant wins over the nWo, and any time they did it would just get overturned the next night. It ended up being the Dusty Finish of the late 90s where no one bought a WCW guy winning anymore since everyone knew it would just get reversed on the next TV show. Obviously they wanted to keep the momentum going as long as they could but they ended up making the WCW side look like punk asses who couldn't get the job done. 2. Dave's been consistent in having the opinion once heels become "cool" and popular you basically ruin the point of having heels. You end up having the guys who are supposed to be popular and draw money for your company again look weak, and the entire point of the wrestling business is to have the faces eventually gain revenge on the heels for their heelishness and that was never going to happen.

I always wondered about that, was Piper really brought in just to be a manager? I just assumed he was just in that role while recovering from an injury (the ear thing from Starrcade maybe?), but was it the plan for him to stay a manager? If so, what made them decide to have him wrestle after all?

IMO it seems like Dave is carrying a bit of guilt over Pillman's death still, he seems to think he could have done more to convince him to stop wrestling when he was in bad shape towards the end. As such, he is still super sensitive about anything regarding him, especially what was written in Ring of Hell.

They were going to have Taker's streak with a bullshit finish like that? Not saying that wasn't the plan, but what an underwhelming end to the streak that would have been.

Heyman is also a master of always making sure he has something to fall back on, so while he has nothing but nice things to say about Stephanie now, I have no reason to believe the two could work together in any aspect for any length of time. I'm also fairly sure they parted on good terms specifically because they both knew they wouldn't have to deal with each other anymore. Vince is a smart guy, he knows Heyman is good when it comes to the verbal aspect of the game. Putting him in roles that take advantage of that is hardly a sign of respect. I think it's more Vince wanting to be the boss of guys who used to be his competition, and once that starts to lose its appeal and/or be a headache he no longer has any use for them. One of the excuses given for the original ECW going under was Heyman refusing to give up any control to allow someone to help him run things, that doesn't seem like the kind of personality type that would respond well to having extreme Alpha types like Vince and Steph as bosses. It does seem like all three of them realize that, which would explain why everyone seems to be respectful towards each other now that enough of a cooling off period has gone on since Heyman's dismissal.

I don't think there was ever any intent to give Joe the Umaga gimmick. There was a desire from I'd guess Vince to hire Joe and job him out in one of those "see how the other guy's talent can't hang in WWE with the big boys" deals, but Joe knew that's what they wanted to do and passed. Umaga made his debut afterward and dummies on the net were all "OMG JOE WUZ GONNA BE UMAGA~!" It should also be noted that the December to Dismember fiasco is like a living testament to Stupak's portrayal of the creative staff's intense hard-on against Heyman. They gutted the show and rewrote practically every and anything that had his fingerprint on it and ended up with a turd of a PPV that ended up running too short.

So basically people are mad that guys went out to hype a book written by an e-friend of theirs. Do these people also go on the internet and complain that a movie or video game wasn't as good as the trailers/commericals because I'm pretty sure that happens too. Sure, you can say that the hype for this book was a bit excessive but there's little doubt (for me at least) that without them doing what they did no one would have even known this book was released.