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Yet still, 99% of the population will hear its a movie about pro wrestling and assume it's a zany screwball comedy.

So the local morning show was discussing the upcoming movie "The Wrestler" as part of its news segment, and once it was determined the movie was about pro wrestling they surmised it must be a comedy (hint: it's not). The one news babe actually said "well it stars Mickey Rourke so it should be funny".

Anyone else somewhat surprised that the Paco Alonso writeup was basically "here is a dude the Lutteroth family let sit in the big chair and he didn't fuck things up"?

Meanwhile, in the "I hope this doesn't come off as bad on TV" department, from the quick Raw/Smackdown spoilers on WO.com:

Right now the audits basically come down to the IRS asking if the wrestlers are employees or not, WWE saying that they aren't, and the IRS saying "well ok then". If it's ruled that they are employees after all, WWE (and the wrestlers too, probably) are in for a world of pillaging.

McDevitt wins cases for WWE mainly because he knows how the wrestling business works and most of the time the people going against him in court don't. The moment he's up against someone who knows how things work (like Lesnar), they tend to settle with the quickness.

Unless you are reconning all of ECW and WCW into WWE proper, then no. I don't recall him doing his ECW style promos in WWE. (of course he very well may have, that era of WWF tends to blur together in my brain)

DEAN is always the guy who looks back on things fondly and seems to always be hesitant to not like something, but like 90% of ECW doesn't age well at all. It was absolutely groundbreaking stuff at the time, especially given what was being offered by WCW/WWF, but it's hard to watch anything from their heyday and think "yes, this definitely holds up over time". Pretty much the only thing that does still have the same effect now is the promos. Taz still seems like the badass of all badasses and Mick Foley talking about Uncle Eric is still one of the best. Also you could make the argument that Steve-a-mania is probably the reason the WWF hired Steve Austin, or at least the reason he was allowed the ability to freely cut promos. Other than that, I don't think there's much of ECW you can look back on and honestly say "yeah, that's pretty good".

I don't think a Ric Flair shoot would be very interesting, since there's zero chance he'd dish any dirt on WWE and everything else about his career has been addressed ad nauseum. At least with Kurt Angle, there's a very good chance he'll challenge someone to a shoot fight in the course of the interview.

WildPeg/ResidentEvil, I've never had any personal issues with you, so I say this in no way starting any new lame internet beefs with you: The last thing you want to do is start telling more crazy stories. The reason people have the opinion of you that they do is you've been way to willing to share stories with the world that might have been better off kept under your hat, if you get my drift.

Speaking of voices, it should be pointed out that Jericho's near-whisper heel promos are what's making his new character work. Am I missing someone or is he the first guy in WWE since Jake Roberts to figure out that quiet heel promos are like a billion percent more effective than the usual "RAAAAAHH IMMA KILL YOU" variety that most heels do?

CanadianChick is a wrestler? That's news. It's been a while since I posted there but I would have thought there would have been more of a fuss made since the two things that make the IWC cream their jeans are wrestlers and girls posting on their message boards (in that order).

One thing he has going for him is the low overhead, the USPS has bulk rates for shipping as many newsletters as he does, plus I'm sure he can write the cost of buying PPVs off as a business expense if he wants to (which I'm sure he doesn't have to do anymore, but I bet he did for a while before he made it big). Between the WON and his Yahoo gig I'd wager he's probably pulling in somewhere in the mid six figures, which must be odd for him now that he's most likely making the same or more money than most of the people he writes about. One thing I'll remember from the post-Benoit media circus was how tired and ragged Dave looked in his appearances on TV. I really thought he was going to cut back or end the WON after that, it seemed like the life was just completely sucked out of him.

I'm sure it was probably a planted sign, I was more amused with that possibly being where they got the title for Rey's last DVD set.

So in the latest episode of RAW up on the Monday Night Wars part of WWE 24/7 they have a lucha minis match on the show, and someone in the crowd has a "Max Mini: The Biggest Little Man in the WWF" sign.

Not that they weren't influential matches, but isn't Dynamite/Tiger kind of the expected default answer from lucha/cruiserweight/indy flippy guys? It's like asking a home run hitter who his influences are and getting the usual Babe Ruth/Hank Aaron answer.

I wonder how much money that Levy, et al are devoting to this since it seems WWE is playing its usual strategy of trying to run the clock out on a case they know they'll get demolished over in court.

Also, today's "Scott Keith is a moron" segment: Of course, as several commenters on his blog pointed out, Freddie's part of the Smackdown team. I'm still amazed so many people treat this guy like the pinnacle of wrestling knowledge.

I guess there could be an argument made that dealing with assholes like Bob Holly as a rookie would prepare you for a career full of dealing with bitter old never-weres upset that they've been reduced to grooming the next generation of stars who destined for success he never had. If I had to spend my peak athletic years as Sparky Plugg, I'd probably be a miserable bastard too.

I see he's learned to add "in my opinion" before spouting his usual ridiculous bullshit in order to have the ready-made defense when someone calls him on it/laughs in his face about it.

I'm guessing Dave got a ton of "you gave a ballot to WHO?" emails from people.

Hasn't it been stated before that WWE contracts are laughably illegal and the only reason they get away with them is that wrestlers are basically afraid to upset the status quo and risk getting blackballed?

I'd agree, but that would mean Flair has a shred of financial smarts, which history has shown repeatedly is not the case.

I think they were just trying to expand their horizons internationally, and ended up with the opposite when Vader went all David Shultz on a TV show host.

I think it was Michael Hayes who mentioned Adrian Street, and he obviously meant it in a "his gimmick was supposed to make you think he was a big pansy but he was really a bad ass dude" way and I'd imagine the hilarity Hayes ended up in recently would explain why JR would think he was going to go another direction with it.