sek69

Finished reading both books, excellent reads. The first book seemed to be more of a direct copy of the usual WON style obits and didn't seem to be edited like the second book where it feels like the story was cut off midway. It's also funny to see how he lifts from his own work, since the Road Warrior Hawk story had some parts lifted pretty much verbatim for the story in the latest WON about the formation of the Horsemen. Did Meltzer ever mention why there's repeats between the two books? I thought the Owen and Andre stories were done better in the first book (despite Dave again mentioning the "Andre shit on Bad News" story that was left out in the second book), I don't see why they needed to be reprinted. Having said all that, I can see why folks like Keller get bent out of shape and call Dave ghoulish for making money off dead wrestlers. On one hand, you figure Meltzer wants to write everything he can about a guy in an obituary since it would probably be the last time he'd go in such depth about a person, but after reading two books full of stories of steroid abuse and drug overdoses it kind of gets creepy. It's not his fault, it's just reading story after story of how guys from the 60s and 70s seem to live long lives and guys from the 80s and 90s all die in their 40s from enlarged hearts makes you want to suck on a tailpipe after a while.

Vince winning the ECW title gave us Gangsta Mack Vince as seen on RAW, which makes it A+ in my book. I think people are finally accepting that the current ECW is not going to be the old ECW on a bigger budget. Hell, the promos of the ECW Originals going on about Vince killing the old company and rebuilding it the way he wants it pretty much drive that point home.

Didn't MTV hold back on the last episode because that would start the clock on the contracts of the guys on the show? Since it seems that the show's gone, why didn't they air the last episode? It would seem that it doesn't matter now if the contracts start ticking or not.

You're continuing to bash a match that you haven't even watched yet, putting it down to people who have seen it and thus are more qualified to speak on the subject than you are. Also, "I don't ever plan to watch it, but I know 'X' sucks" is the worst form of argument because it's obvious the person maintaining that point of view is talking out of their ass. It's a go nowhere debate since you can't point out things that may change their mind since they stubornly refuse to watch the very topic of the conversation.

Right, because Russo's booking has been so stellar that someone would have to bury him to make him look bad. Ironically, Dave's been reporting that Russo wasn't responsible for everything he's getting blamed for and has been hammering TNA on missing the point of the "Fire Russo" chants. Instead of a "wow, our fans are hating this" reaction it's more of a "wow our fans are idiots because they don't know the booking hierarchy" reaction.

I got the second book tonight, and I noticed something. Now I've only been a WON subscriber for a less than a year but when he does an obit in the newsletter it seems like he always ends with a paragraph on the time leading up to the person's death. In the book, it seems like there's a paragraph missing where it just ends well before the person being talked about dies. Like for the Andre story, it basically ends with his last WWF run in 1992 and a brief mention of returning to All Japan. No mention of his final appearance on WCW TV, or him being in Paris for his father's funeral when he died (which I always thought seemed a poetic way for the big guy to go out). Hell, there wasn't even a mention of the famous shitting-on-Bad-News story which Dave *always* finds a way to work in when talking about either guy.

I don't know, I thought Meltzer was pretty fair in his treatment of Cornette when he got fired for slapping the Artist Currently Known As Santonio Morella. He flat out said Cornette was in the wrong and he should have known better than to do that when he was already on thin ice from his other adventures. However, you are right about Flair. I'm sure when he dies, Dave will mention how he carried the casket to a ****1/4 match.

I don't even know how someone could get this in their head, even as a preconcieved notion. I'm far from the biggest HBK fan but I do give the guy his due as the closest thing we've got to a mid 80s Ric Flair type who can have a long match with just about anyone and have it range from very good to excellent. Maybe if the WON started pushing "John Cena really is a pretty good worker" as a Lesson Of 2007 people would stop the irrational hate.

Anyone ever read the two Meltzer books? I scored them both off eBay for like $24 total including shipping and I was wondering if anyone here has ever read them. Specifically, are these just collections of Observer bits (which would be fine by me) or does he add new information?

Wasn't that meltdown triggered by someone basically saying the Torch VIP wasn't worth the money, which caused Keller to do an entire life inventory? Also, I wonder if he's mad that Meltzer wore the same outfit as him that one time too.

A few things crossed my mind watching this match: 1. Anyone else get the impression that match was the result of some pants-shitting after Orton got sent home? You can almost hear the writers "WTF are we going to do for RAW now? Why not just let HBK and Cena go the whole second hour? 2. How come Chris Masters and anyone else with a receeding hairline gets hairplugs, but the guy in his 40s with a heartthrob gimmick inches closer and closer to looking like Dory Funk, Jr? 3. Smartassery aside, can anyone really make a case against Cena at this point that doesn't amount to "I hate him because he's popular"? It's only April and the guy's already had 3 MOTYC in my book (vs Umaga, Mania, and tonight). He may not have MOOVZ~! but he *gets* professional wrestling like no one else of his era has.

It would be interesting to get the perspective of someone who just subscribed to the Observer and their first issue was this week's which is about 80% MMA with WWE getting barely two pages at the end.

He's almost Vince-like in how he seems embarrassed to be associated with wrestling at times.

Somehow I don't think that the person who sat by while her husband (allegedly, but who are we kidding?) nailed pretty much every female who worked for his company is going to have the inner strength to keep Shane and Steph apart. Just something about the way they act gives me the impression that they're only getting along to avoid getting Vince's foot up their asses. Especially how Shane seems to try too hard to convince people he and HHH are bros. I just don't see the two of them hanging out after a show. The fact that Steph seems to be the embodiment of her father in female form would suggest once she gets full control of the company Shane might as well find another job because he'll never get anything approved ever again.

Reading how Shane's plans to re-enact Vince's WM 3 opening at this year's show got nixed by Steph got me thinking: When Vince dies/gets too old to run things/retires and Steph takes over, how long before Shane says "fuck this bullshit" and starts his own company? Shane's vision of wrestling seems to run against the Vince/Steph view, how long can he put up with her in charge, especially since she seems to enjoy vetoing any and all ideas he comes up with?

I thought it was just basically Vince Sr. didn't like his act and never booked him.

Because a frightening amount of people who post on basically every other wrestling board but this one base their opinions on his rants. The bullshit he makes up ends up being accepted as fact by people who just assume he's an expert because he's reviewed like every US PPV of the last 20 years. These people tend to be the ones you end up bashing your head into a brick wall over because they fight you to the death and it's obvious they have no opinions of their own.

I could see how someone would say 90s AJ was overrated in the sense where some people just heap so much praise on it you almost want to hate it just to be contrarian. It does get tiresome to hear a segment of the online world constantly compare everything currently happen to 90s AJ, then bitch when the current stuff unsurprisingly fails to measure up. As far as Brody goes, it just annoys me how he's held up as a legend when he'd never do jobs despite not staying very long in a territory. Not saying that he should have lost to everyone, but it was kind of annoying how you'd almost always know his match would end in a wild double DQ schmozz.

One thing that bothers me that they want to push the WWE and World titles as equal yet MITB and Rumble winners will always end up going to RAW to face the champ unless it's someone like Taker where it doesn't matter which one he picks since it's not like he needs the rub. I know that the WWE title is the one with the history, but if just once they had a guy who was up and coming decide to chase the World Title it would at least kayfabe wise lend some credibility to the title. Right now Smackdown's like the ROH of WWE brands: better wrestling but people will leave in a heartbeat to win the WWE belt.

I don't think you realize the incredible and irrational hate boner Keith had for JBL during his title run. Long after even the most ardent critic had to admit that JBL came into his own as champ, Keith was still raging against the machine. All basically because he beat one of Scoot's favorites for the belt. Maybe this would make it clearer: he was madder that Eddie lost to JBL than the fact than he was concerned about the issuses that forced WWE to take the belt off him in the first place.

I dunno, I guess he's one of those guys no one can speak ill of because of his death, but the attempts to spin Brody as some star creating heat machine are hilarious. He'd pretty much never do jobs despite either winning a title or being booked with the territory's top star. Can anyone say "this guy became a star because of Bruiser Brody"? Hell, tales like the one about kicking babyfaces in the teeth "because they should know better" sounds like some shit Bob Holly would do today to some rookie and get crucified on the net over it.

Of the many things I've heard about Brody, "great worker" doesn't come up often. I mean he was as good as you can get in those wild and crazy brawls that were something to behold until ECW would do 5 a show, but that was pretty much it.

That might be the most "Vince" moment ever recorded on TV, if that makes sense at all.

I always wondered why putting up the Clash against WMIV caused so much anger, but Vince running PPV at the same time as Crockett and forcing PPV companies to choose didn't. I mean, wouldn't the PPV companies in theory make more money if people could order both shows instead of having to choose? Sure, WWF was the more established PPV name by then, but for most people wrestling is wrestling and all they knew was wrestling was hot at the time. I guess it's like the revisionist history we see on WWE DVDs now, where Vince crushing the competition is "just business" but anyone else trying to do it to them is unfair.

Yeah, but that's a World Class show, you'd expect almost everyone on the card to be dead. Also Battle of the Belts had Gordon Solie and Mike Graham, and I bet Gordon was wishing he was drunk for that. It does show that Graham's "hey let's turn everything into a discussion about ME" style wasn't just invented for WWE 24/7.