sek69

I'm a bit of a MMA n00b, but I'm finally going to start trying to get caught up with the scene. I had a question about DVDs. In the WON, Dave will mention from time to time how WWE makes assloads off their DVD sales and that's one thing UFC can't compete with since there's some sort of copyright issue with the older footage. Was the footage not part of the deal when Zuffa bought UFC?

Considering it was during the holiday week, that's not too bad. TNA's ratings have been pretty good considering they've really only been on nationwide TV for like a year or two. You can make the case the ratings should be higher to justify some of their signings, but all in all I don't think Spike or TNA could have asked for much more.

(second post since "edit" wasn't working for me) I feel compelled to add another point as well. As much shit as Vince gets for being out of touch (not entirely undeserved), the biggest problem that WWE faces is that their head of talent relations spends more time signing clueless bimbos who end up pissing off the entire roster. I mean seriously, it's amazing how much Johnny (I won't even try to spell his real last name) Ace's stunning incompetence gets forgotten about. There's tons of guys flailing around with nothing to do, and his pet project is hiring 20 more models like Kelly Kelly. He's managed to make half naked women boring to wrestling fans. That takes a special kind of failure. Has anyone in the history of WWF/E gotten more heat for fucking things up and remained employed? Does he have nude photos of someone or what?

Agreed. If they had the same amount of people in creative, but they were actually fans of wrestling rather than guys in between sitcom gigs, there would be no problem. I kinda like the balance they have on their creative staff now where they have guys like Michael Hayes and Dusty along with the Hollywood rejects. While the main storylines are still made to please Vince, at least we get some good TV along the way on occaison. BTW, what happened with HHH supposedly being an 80s NWA mark? You'd think he'd be able to steer things away from the bad comedy and soap opera stuff. Maybe he's just biding his time until Vince kicks it and he gets a bigger say?

Also, the stigma of wrestling would mean most entertainment writers would think wrestling writers are dogshit even if RAW was the greatest program on TV.

The thing with WWE writers (and probably TNA now) is that if you come in with an actual love for the business you get ridiculed for being a silly mark and not taken seriously. WWE has created an atmosphere where you have to almost hate wrestling to get a job there. There was an interview posted over on DVDVR with a guy who used to work in the video department, and it even extended there. I mean, I kinda get why they wouldn't want drooling fanboys working for them but who the fuck would want to be around wrestling that much if they weren't a fan on some level?

As heartless as it may sound, you can't really expect TNA to pay for Konnan's transplant if they can't afford to pay guys for their rental cars and hotels.

"Assy McGee" is like most Adult Swim shows, a ridiculous premise that somehow ends up funny. Also, they get away with the more risque humor because they don't start airing those shows until 11:30 or 12 at night (AS technicaly starts at 10:30 but they usually have shows like Futurama on then). There's also a disclaimer that starts every block that warns people of what they're in for. In fact, some episodes of certain shows even warranted a second disclaimer (Fullmetal Alchemist and Ghost in the Shell both have episodes that have extra violent themes), so they're still definately covering their asses at Time Warner/Turner.

Man, this Vladimir Kozlov push is going to be brutal. They couldn't even put him on TV in Deep South yet he's gonna get the big push at the top level because he's a big guy. Seriously, what's the point of having a developmental system when they completely ignore any feedback they get? They'd be better off just sending a few agents to some indy shows and signing anyone over 6 feet tall. At least then they might accidentally sign someone good.

Even better still was Jimmy Wang Yang staying as far away from her as possible. I can imagine him, an asian dude dressed like a cowboy, trying to act invisible while Amy was getting her bitch on at Steph.

The story in the latest WON about the events that led to Amy's firing are the most hilarious things ever written. The first strike was her being a general bitch toward the other divas, asking Layla El if it bothered her that she (Amy) got a push while Layla the Diva Search winner was "collecting dust". Strike two was her making sarcastic comments about Vickie Guererro, asking why she's a diva and having generally no clue who she was or why the company was keeping her around. The final strike was while her and Jimmy Wang Yang were doing a segment and when Stephanie offered up some suggestions Amy (who didn't know who she was talking to) played the old "who are you to tell me how to do my job" card. Stephanie proceded to inform her who she was and that was it for her. What's funny is Johnny Ace went to bat for her after the Vicki thing but nothing could save her after that.

In the ultimate case of "one of these things is not like the other", in last week's WO Dave mentions the current creative team for SmackDown is Michael Hayes, Dusty, and that fat dude who strips to a thong and rubs his ass on people.

Everyone doubts it, but I guess it's possible Russo's new attitude could be legit and he's not a gigantic asshole anymore. Still, it does say a lot about Cornette where he seemingly goes against his beliefs all the time these days.

Yeah the WWF/NWA one hour shows were paced better, but they weren't the main shows of the promotion either. I guess you could make the argument that Superstars was for a while, but there was always Prime Time Wrestling around for them to go in depth with an angle if they needed to.

It should be mentioned that the TNA taping reports almost always sound horrible and have a million threads on a million boards bemoaning how shitty it is, and when the show actually airs it ends up not as bad as the reports made it sound. I hate to be a TNA defender when most of them on the net are mindless shills, but with only an hour of TV a week there's going to be a fast (rushed) pace unless you're going to have the entire company booked around one or two stories. Two hours would allow them to get everything they want in every show without having everything come off as having fast forward stuck in the "on" position. Not to mention that things like a 5 minute VKM skit would be easier to tolerate on a two hour show, it really wouldn't be taking much away from the in ring product. Spike and TNA both seem to be happy with the ratings Impact is getting, so it would seem that the magic 2 hour slot should be closer to a reality.

This thread deserves a bump, and the latest episode of Legends of Wrestling on 24/7 prompted a question: Andre was one of the subjects, and once again they did the old "we didn't know if Andre would go along with the match" routine. For someone as universally loved and respected in the business as Andre was, why do they keep pushing the idea that he may have pulled a shoot on the biggest show in the history of the business? It seems like such an insult to the guy to keep suggesting he would be unprofessional like that. Every non-WWE version of the story I've heard is the only concern was if Andre's back was in good enough shape, not that he would suddenly decide to go off script mid-match.

I've come to the conclusion that my favorite piece of WWE revisionist history is that the territories died because they didn't know how to deal with competition. This comes up on the AWA disc where Bobby Heenan talks about Verne asking why Vince was running shows in Minneapolis, didn't he know that was AWA territory, and Bobby replies that you see 4 gas stations at an intersection (basically stating that Verne didn't know how to deal with someone else running a show nearby). This amuses me because the WWF had all the important venues in the Northeast on lock for most of the 80s. It's easy for Vince to say "ol' Verne just couldn't hang with us" when no one was allowed to run shows in the big venues in Boston, NYC, Washington, and Pittsburgh. Hell, till its death WCW had to run in the AJ Palumbo Center on Duquesne University's campus (seats about 5,000) since Vince had control of the Civic (now Mellon) Arena here. Guess Vince didn't know how to handle competition in *his* territory either.

Man, now that he probably doesn't have too many other options, WWE needs to sign Kevin Federline to a long term deal like yesterday. That promo was amazing considering it actually made you think fucking K-Fed was going to whip John Cena's ass.

So in the tag title match that turned into a ladder match, Joey Mercury broke his nose and got what WWE.com called "severe facial lacerations" when he ended up eating the ladder. I always wonder when watching a WWE ladder match if someone's going to be seriously hurt, since every one now seems to be designed to have another "holy shit" spot meant to top the last one. I was thinking while watching the Cena-Edge match that if one of them had been hurt in one of the extended spot sequences, the company would have been seriously boned. I mean, what's going to come of Mercury getting his face bashed in last night? They were already considering MNM's reunion to be temporary, so even if this buys them some more time, it's not like WWE has any interest in tag teams anymore. As soon as a team loses the belts, they feel a need to break up the team. It just seems like there's no point for those guys to kill each other.

As paranoid as Vince gets, I kind of expected a response too, but more along the lines of the "This Week in Wrestling History" segments featuring the New Age Outlaws jobbing every week.

I'm not sure what to make of Charlie Haas: Defender of the Black Man, but if that's what it takes to get the World's Greatest Tag Team back, I'll take it. I was hoping for the return of the velour tracksuits though.

but Ric Flair getting a huge pop for his return tonight was an unexpected bonus for me. I didn't think the current average fan gave a crap for Flair anymore and they weren't in the usual Flair Country hot spots.

I've watched this, and Andre appeared to be drunk. I did a review of the match on the old board (which seems to have disappeared into the mists of time), and I felt bad for Maeda since he has a rep for being an asshole who shoots on people due to the other incedents he's been in but he truly had no choice here. He's in a ring with at near 500 pound guy who's not co-operating and he doesn't want a drunk-ass Giant to get his hands on him. There's a few spots where Maeda almost gets killed by Andre's non-cooperation, he ends up doing what he has to do to protect himself.

Saw this in today's WO update: Unless there's a fountain of youth hidden in Japan, the last time I saw Misawa he was pretty broken down. Giving him a major title at this point seems like the puro equivalent of the Hulkamania Nostalgia Tour of a few years ago. I know he runs the company, but this seems to be at near Verne-as-AWA-champ-in-the-80s levels. Besides, I thought Marufuji was supposed to be one of the up and coming stars, does this mean NOAH lost confidence in him as a top guy?

Dave's usually smart enough that when he's writing about things that are rumored to leave them open-ended so no one can nail him on getting something wrong, but I don't blame him for the Angle thing. He had every reason to believe that he was being told the truth, and considering how crazy Angle seems to be these days, it probably was the truth at the time.