sek69

So the new group for the latest Legends Roundtable is Jim Ross, Pat Patterson, Michael Hayes, Mick Foley..........and Tazz. Even he seems a little surprised to be there. The topic of the show is "Bad Asses" and the high point has to be JR flipping out when someone (Hayes I think) mentioned Adrian Street was someone who you wouldn't think was a bad ass because of his gimmick but really was. Ross seemed to think that the implication was that someone gay couldn't be a bad ass, but also making clear that Adrian was just working a gimmick and was married to Miss Linda. The rest of the roundtable were just like "ok, no one's really saying what you think they said".

I guess I'm too cynical, but when they announced Flair returning next week in Charlotte, my first thought was "I guess they need a new 'emotional return' scene for the video montages since Benoit is in the background in the WCW one".

Other than needing to grow his hair out, I don't think it was all that bad. Hell, it's better than the embarrassing bob HBK was rocking when he first came back. Besides, it's not like he was ever a fashion plate. I don't think his current look is any better or worse than the Gene Simmons topknot-iridescent shirt combo from WCW.

From WWE.com: Guess the rumors of Carlito putting in his notice are correct. I wonder what happened to get him so deep in the doghouse.

Pretty much any time Mick Foley ever discussed his title win being spoiled (including on the Legends show on 24/7), he would say he didn't blame Tony because he was just doing what he was told to do by Bischoff.

Well none of those other announcers were former wrestlers, so it would have sounded strange for them to say they were tougher than anyone. The only thing negative I can think of was that they didn't really mention a lot about Gorilla's past, so a lot of the newer fans at the time had no idea he used to wrestle. I know I didn't realize that for a long time after I started watching WWF TV. Even then, it never really sank in until that one Halloween episode of Prime Time when Gorilla walks in as the payoff to the gag about the gorilla mask where I realized how much he towered over the set. Plus you'd think it would be obvious that a lot of the "you can only see action this great in the WWF" stuff was coming directly from Vince. I mean, Tony gets a pass for all the bash-the-competition nonsense he said on Nitro because Bischoff told him to (like spoiling Foley's title win) yet Gorilla gets hammered for parroting lines clearly coming from the boss?

It's sort of been touched upon, but Gorilla had to call a lot of boring ass matches. 80s WWF shows had a lot of 20 minute matches between jobbers that were fucking ponderous to sit through as a fan, let alone have to call them as anything remotely close to exciting. I never held it against Gorilla or any WWF announcer if they strayed off topic at the 10-15 minute mark of a Steve Lombardi - Dr. X match, honestly anything that kept you from falling asleep was a major bonus. This may be sacrilege, but I personally can't stand Gordon Solie. If he isn't toasted, he's completely flat and monotone - he's like the Steven Wright of wrestling commentary. He's especially hard to watch on the Championship Wrestling from Florida shows. There's segments where he's trying to recap an angle and he just seems to ramble with lots of "umm"s, which seems like a minor thing to complain about but it's one of those things that once you notice it, it's like the most annoying thing ever.

Reading the WWE 24/7 thread at DVDVR got me to think, I can totally see how someone can have strong opinions pro and con about David Crockett as an announcer, but how can anyone be a real fan of pro wrestling and dislike Gorilla Monsoon? Dude was *the* voice of the WWF during its breakthrough period, and I can't think of a better "big match" announcer. Seriously, if I'm watching some 80s WWF and Gorilla isn't calling the match it just sounds weird to me. That's not even taking into account the chemistry he had with whoever he was partnered with. Gorilla and Jesse might be my favorite combination ever, and his pairing with Bobby Heenan goes without saying. He even made Al Hayes sound halfway intelligent, which is quite the feat.

Yeah this reads as either them attempting to end pro wrestling of any sort in GA, or that whoever came up with these rules hasn't been smartened up to the business. I don't think these rules will pass since it would make them look like a whole state full of rubes who think wrestling is real.

There's a pretty funny (unintentionally of course) column up making the case for the return of jobbers being what wrestling needs to make new stars. There's actually a valid point to be made that dudes were made to look like a million dollars by squashing jobbers on syndicated shows, but there's no way fans today are going to accept the return of Mulkeymania.

What seems to be sailing under the radar is that while all this is going on, they released Chris Masters. On one hand, they use a 20 year old to further their drug policy while firing a guy who was repeatedly teased about his shrunken, roid free build on live TV.

I'm not saying no one in the business ever goes on wrestling web sites, but to think the booking of a major PPV is based on someone saying mean words on the interweb is some pretty serious self-delusion. He had to be trying to yank Alvarez's chain with that.

So according to the WON, Harry's drug test failure was actually when he was still in developmental, and WWE waited until he was brought on the main roster and given a push before suspending him. The logic allegedly being that they wanted to prove they mean business by showing they're willing to suspend a guy they started pushing to show the media they mean it with the new testing policies. The whole deal with putting his debut dark match with Carlito on WWE.com was just part of getting him established as a name just so they can be on record punishing a WWE Superstar and not some no-name development guy. Things like this make CNN's editing of their piece that much more irritating, when there's stuff out there to report on that would absolutely murder the whole WWE drug policy if only the person doing the reporting would do the most basic of research.

As if there was any doubt, Jericho on the cover of an upcoming WWE Magazine

I was trying to make the comparison to major porn companies vs major wrestling companies, but this thread has gone so far past the point of ridiculousness that it's almost at Andy Kaufman levels of performance art. All we need is for jdw to start pontificating on how American porn stars don't work as hard as Japanese porn stars. While I'm sure Sweetser would be the most knowledgeable about the porn biz, what with his contacts in the industry and all, the bottom line is that fans of wrestling want to spend as little time as possible thinking about or being reminded of the seedier side of the business. We saw an extreme example of that with the Benoit situation, there's people still unconvinced that Chris did the murdering and I'm sure they built that fortress of denial since any other possibility would force them to deal with certain realities they aren't comfortable with. Whatever the case, this thread should either be immortalized for prosperity or nuked for the sanctity of humanity. I'm not sure which.

lol @ this ridiculous bullcrap going on at the TNA ppv:

This is coming from the guy who thiks all porn stars end up running their own buisnesses? Right, because that's exactly what I said wasn't it? My whole point is there's people here making the case that nothing wrestling does can be worse than the most fringe, hardcore, small time porn company you can think of and I maintain that it's a lot closer than people want to admit. It comes off as denying the sleazy shit that goes on in pro wrestling or when forced to admit it, make apples and oranges comparisons with "WWE vs small time internet porn peddler" rather than "small time indy fed vs small time internet porn peddler" which would end up in a far more equal comparison.

There is some serious denial going on in this thread. It's like admitting wrestling is sleazy somehow is a personal affront to some dudes.

Meltz may get some grief for his MMA opinions, but he seemed pretty spot on mentioning in the WON that if nothing else you can't accuse UFC/Brock of lining up fights with nobodies to build him up. Fighting a former world champ gets them something to advertise, plus they're learning from all the upsets that you pretty much have to get the maximum drawing power out of someone as soon as you can before they end up getting KTFO by some no-name.

Well now Vince's "OMG MEDIA OUT TO GET US" paranoia is somewhat justified. I can't wait for the 20 minute rant on RAW this week that you just know is coming.

TNA has its own viral marketing site now at http://www.11t11n07a.com/. When you put the puzzle together, you see a photo of Sting along with the words "genesis" and "November 11", along with what appears to be "Huffman" (Booker T's SHOOTNAME~!) written backwards.

The list Al posted was pretty long & suggested that porn had (has?) as big, if not bigger, problem with AIDS than wrestling does with drugs. I've seen as much porn as the next guy, but I think watching porn is a really selfish thing. Perhaps watching wrestling is too, but I think it's sleazy how every day there's hawkers in Tokyo trying to hustle girls into adult video on the promise of a gucci handbag or some shit, and I think it's stupid that some girls are dumb enough to go for it. And when these girls end up pretending to be schoolgirls abducted and raped by homeless guys or some shit, that's sleazy. And this idea that porn stars don't get psychological problems from doing porn is stupid. There was an expose on the porn industry by a British documentary filmmaker a few years back, and if you wanna see a guy who's ready to snap there was one straight guy doing gay for pay who was really hanging on by a thread. I'll just respond to these in order.... Point 1: The list Al posted dated back to the late 70s, early 80s. Do you REALLY think a similar list involving wrestlers wouldn't be at least 2-3x as long? Point 2: Japanese porn is kind of on a different scale. The whole culture is so repressed sexually that it's bound to boil over into weird shit like tentacle rape hentai and simulated rape porn. What else would you expect from a place that pixelates the genitalia in regular porn? Also how many dudes are roped into indy wrestling on the hopes of being in the WWE some day only ending up having to blow some scummy indy promoter who's only in the business just to have a steady supply of available young boys? Point 3: I don't think anyone's trying to argue that porn is some happy land of sunshine and bunny rabbits. HOWEVER, the mainstream porn business is run in a better manner in regards to treatment of employees than mainstream pro wrestling is. Yes, you can find some scummy internet porn dealer getting fresh faced farm girls hooked on crack to make them to degrading things, but you also have guys destroying their bodies on indy wrestling shows for practially no money in front of 50 people max. You have to stick with apples-to-apples comparisons here.

Man, I'm starting to thing half the people in this thread have never even watched a porn movie. The vibe of "porn is icky cause people have SEX" is equally hilarious and disturbing. Are ya'll serious in your apparent belief that the porn industry is one long train of rape and horror? The God's honest truth is that the wrestling business has a far larger trail of broken, damaged, or dead bodies. Look, porn and wrestling are both a zillion times more fucked up than your usual 9 to 5 job, but in porn the performers aren't brainwashed zombies who go around believing they're really the character they played in their last movie and encouraging their children to enter the business. In both, there's people who go in wide-eyed expecting to be superstars and end up drug addicts, but there's more of a sense of "we need to keep this shit from getting out of control" mindset in porn than in wrestling.

Mistico not being allowed time off despite being broken in a million pieces says hello. Also all the stories of training in the New Japan dojo and the extent of what the new trainees' job fully entails.

You could make the same comparison with WWE and various indy groups in the US and other countries. Some have "fetishes" of their own, if you weeeeell. I'm just saying that there's a lot of kneejerk reaction because porn = sex and a lot of people have hangups about anything sexual. Porn as an industry is probably a more healthy profession to break into than pro wrestling, not that's setting the bar especially high or anything.