sek69

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.

It's funny, the only person on those Roundtable shows that ever comes across like someone telling the truth is Lawler, and you know he's probably the best bullshitter of the bunch. Dusty at times seems pretty upfront, it's like he's at the stage of his life where he's like "fuck being political" and just tells it like he saw it. Then again when they talk about NWA during the time he was booking, he always seems to get a line in about how it wasn't his booking that caused something not to succeed but something out of his control (usually Vince). It was probably entirely made up, but the story of why the Shockmaster fell over (Dusty said some production guy put a board by where Ottman made his entrance that wasn't there in rehersals), topped off with young Cody asking "isn't that Uncle Fred?" when the mask fell off, was one of the best Dusty stories so far. Hayes doesn't usually have much to offer, either he chimes in about being drunk during whatever period's being discussed or he's being Vince's sockpuppet. Foley is just there to put himself over as much as possible in that "aw shucks" fake modesty demeanor that he never seems to get called on. Pat Patterson usually is one of the most entertaining people on the panel since he's pretty much the only guy in WWE who can say just about whatever he wants about anything without fear of losing his job. It's also funny in a business filled with homophobia that the guys joke around with Pat as if it's no big deal. I mean, it shouldn't be of course, but it's wrestling. Pat himself had the line of the show in the Worst Gimmicks episode re: the Red Rooster ("What's wrong with having a cock in the ring?").

I guess WWE is still trying to find a balance with showing Benoit on 24/7, they still edit out his matches but if he's standing in the background during a Horseman promo on Nitro they leave it in. However I noticed on the new episode up that when Mean (by God) Gene introduced them there was an obvious edit to remove Benoit's name. What's funny is that the quality of the edit drew more attention than leaving it in probably would have.

Oh yeah, forgot about Regal making his return and promptly busting the nose of the world champion right after WWE announced their TV shows would be family friendly.

The return of Shane-o-Mac and the white boy shuffle The birth of Chris Jericho: Serious Man Mike F'N Adamle as RAW GM I'm sure a lot of folks here have opinions for us about this show.

There was a link on the page to the censored version, and I just now realized how much they sweetened the crowd back then. Also lol @ Sean Mooney on commentary calling Koko B Ware "JYD".

Actually it wouldn't surprise me if the ones that worked directly for WWE are non union. I'm almost certain I read somewhere (old WON maybe?) that the only unions WWE deals with are the workers in whatever arena/town they're in that night. I can't imagine any union would allow the near 24/7 workweek WWE employees are expected to maintain.

That reminds me, why don't they do end credits in wrestling anymore? One of the neat little things about WWE 24/7 is seeing the crew lists on both the WWF and NWA shows (Producer: Virgil Runnels!). I mean even if you're pretending that wrestling is real, someone still has to work the camera and they haven't been shy about showing the production truck/crew on TV.

In today's update, Dave mentions that WWE will be announcing that all their shows in the US will be rated PG. Any thoughts on what that will mean, and will this include PPVs too?

While Dave would give them props for their production, and of course acknowledge how much they were drawing, it seemed pretty clear that he didn't like the fact that it was Vince's cartoon style and not the more traditional NWA style that was going to be the mainstream success. Also: Who was this referring to? The only guy I can think of who disappeared after the Duggan-Sheik incident was Adrian Adonis, but I don't think cocaine was his biggest problem. JYD maybe?

Future Dave would be upset at the use of the word mark like that.

The football thing I could give you, but the gist of his rant was yet another "blarg, internet is TEH EVILZ" routine like we've seen millions of times from people in the wrestling business who seem to be the most mad about the internet making it a little harder to con people. I'm not saying the internet isn't full of jackholes, cause Lord knows we all are aware of that fact, but because of the internet a wrestling company can't just come out and say some bullshit without having it called on by someone on a message board. It really seems to piss off the old carnies that they have to put a little more effort into working the marks due to that goshdarn interweb thingy. Also, based on his reaction to the Benoit deal, it probably would be a good idea if he didn't talk about murders.

The latest from the "JR is running out of things to be grouchy and vile about" department: Uh, yeah. A guy who's spent over 20 years in the wrestling business hates the internet because there's bad language, people use fake names, and sometimes spread bullshit to get themselves over. Is JR working a neo-Andy Kaufman gimmick where he's being so blatantly grouchy that people don't realize the onion-like layers of irony? Also this: Which is JR basically saying "don't assume future events spoil anything 'cause no one knows what the fuck's happening further than next week". Of course, that's true, but a WWE employee saying so in public is pretty LOL.