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Cornette is on the new Greatest Wrestling Managers DVD (and shown in a positive light no less) and he's still a co-owner of OVW, so I'm guessing that James E. and Vincent K. can still do business no matter how hard Corny rails against WWE in his "shoots". Apparently right after "significant" became "promotions that guys who became stars for us worked in previously".

That kinda ties in with my next unpopular opinion: Vince McMahon might actually know something about professional wrestling, at least the business side. You'll get no argument from me that Vince is a flop in pretty much every other enterprise he tries, and that he's probably got a first class ticket to Hell already punched, but the guy seems to know a thing or two about pro wrestling. It seems to really get under a lot of people's skin that his brand of SPORTZ ENTERTAINMENT has taken over the industry in North America. East Coast J had an excellent post at DVDVR about how the territory system wouldn't have been able to work on a national TV level, and that the way WWE does televised wrestling is pretty much the only way it could succeed on a 24/7/365 basis. Individual angles or gimmicks may be lame or pointless, but by and large the WWE does wrestling on TV better than anyone else has ever done from the 70s on. I don't know the exact date he retired, but I wouldn't be surprised if the decline in the product of late started around the time Pat Patterson stepped aside as Vince's #2 guy. No one since has had the career confidence Pat had (he had the reins when Vince was on trial, after all) to tell Vince when something is flat out stupid. The only people who have the security to step up when something's idiotic usually don't unless it involves them directly.

Synn hasn't been around OVW since before Cornette left as booker, and Cornette pal and former top OVW heel manager Kenny "Starmaker" Bolin hasn't been around since right after Heyman took over.

People who stop watching WWE because of the wrestling quality confuse me. Match quality has never been a priority since Vince Jr has run the company, hell good matches tend to come from people who had nothing else to lose than to go out and bring the house down. Think about it, what's the most lasting memories of WWF/E and how many of them involve wrestling? Piper hitting Snuka with the coconut, Quake squashing Hogan, Warrior's insane promos, Jake's creepy promos, etc. Hell, wrestling quality in the WWE has never been higher than it is now. Don't believe me? Watch the houseshows on WWE 24/7 one day and see all the endless jobber vs jobber matches and complete borefests that filled up most cards from the 80s up til the Monday Night Wars era.

The only thing that bothered me about it is how Lawler had like a 10 yard running start into that punch. The old ECW Taz would have ducked that and dropped him squarely on the top of his head with a sick ass suplex.

Why is everyone upset about Tazz "losing his cred" because he got punched by Lawler? How long has he been retired? It's been long established that once a wrestler retires he loses his "super powers" as it were and becomes like a normal person in terms of being beaten up by others. Especially if they retire to become an announcer.

HHH certainly has the benefit of having the booking center around him, but he's more than capable in the ring. I'm of the opinion he came back from his quad injury too soon, and the crap matches he had when he returned seem to have set the framework for a lot of people's opinions of his in ring ability. I notice that a lot of times HHH's opponents get praised for having a good match, yet somehow HHH is still some stiff who's only pushed because he's boinking the boss's kid.

Loss said it best: There might have been someone as cool as Rude, but there was no one cooler than Rude. No matter if he was banging Jake's wife or being DX's bodyguard, Rick Rude just reeked of awesome. As far as unpopular opinions go, I've always been entertained by Kevin Nash, so any excuse to get him back on TV is aces in my book.

I would think the recent comments Foley made about Hunter on his blog seem to suggest there might still be some ill will.

Holy crap, Lilian getting knocked off the apron by Charlie Haas tonight and hearing her muffled screams over the PA mic was one of the most brutal things I've ever seen in wrestling. I rewound that on my Tivo a few times and I was amazed to see her walking off under her own power with assistance.

At least I got a time frame for Comcast getting 24/7. I went into my local office to replace a broken remote and when I asked the lady behind the desk she had no clue what I was talking about.

I'm guessing it was the Outlaws match at WM 14 too, as there was a couple of "holy shit that was almost fatally botched" moments. Not to mention the whole thing was rendered pointless by a Dusty Finish the next night on RAW.

I would imagine after the Mel Phillips/Pat Patterson scandals they want to get the fuck away from any potential pedophiles as quickly as possible. If OJ was getting some young fruit on his own time I doubt WWE would have cared, it was only when he started taking the kid with him on the road and exposed WWE to another embarrassing sex-filled tabloid-attracting PR nightmare that something was done.

Why is that? He's proven to be a perfectly acceptable wrestler and SD is in dire need of warm bodies to fill a 2 hour show these days. The "he's old" argument is not an allowable answer since he's younger than Finlay, the same age as Booker, and only 3 years older than Batista.

When Tatanka made his return to WWE, a lot of people were barely able to stifle laughter at the thought of a guy from the cartoon era wrestling in 2006. Yet when he did make it back on TV, pretty much everyone was impressed at not only the shape he was in, but how he was still pretty decent in the ring and took bumps some of the youngin's would hesitate taking. Considering SD's roster is pretty much barebones now due to injuries and ECW needing a talent pool, I can't figure out why someone like Tatanka is still jerking the curtain on Velocity. I'm not saying he deserves the title, or even a main event push for that matter, but Finlay's proven that there's room in the midcard for a middle aged guy who can still go. It looked like they were going to do something with him, with the promos running about him getting back to his roots (which seemed bizarre considering his gimmick was already as back to his roots as he could get without declaring war on the white man) but that seems to be dropped already.

It's still one of the better WWF/E shirts I've seen.

TNA is the new Lance Storm in terms of their current target of hysterical over-reaction. The smarkier-than-thou types are going nuts over Impact getting record ratings when they keep beating the drum of TNA never being able to succeed. I especially like in the Impact spoilers thread they're all "OMG TNA IZ TEH DUM" over Shane Douglas' "hardcore bingo hall" references as if it was giving free pub to One Night Stand. Someone pointed out that TNA is doing a houseshow that same day at the ECW Arena and got chastised for "grasping at straws here to make TNA booking seem logical" because "this [the TNA houseshow] hasn't been mentioned on-air yet". Which of course is exactly what Shane was doing, making references to it on air. Since smarky-smarks like to pre-judge things, hilarity ensues.

That was last Tuesday, so The Fight Network wouldn't be running Stampede now if the story is factual.

From Meltz: With the Pillman DVD, and the impending debuts of Harry Smith and Nattie Neidhart (she's rumored to sign after recovering from knee surgery) I figured Vince would be getting the Stampede footage soon. I just hope they don't do anything stupid considering they have tons more footage featuring Bret and Owen.

Kane vs Kane is already better than Taker vs Taker, since whoever was in the Classic Kane suit is at least as tall as Glen Jacobs. Nothing was funnier than seeing Brian Lee go face to chest with the real Taker at SS 94.

Chyna has said on Stern shows that HHH likes to pitch and catch when it comes to backdoor activities. I seem to recall Meltz making a throwaway comment about Steph doing whatever enhancers HHH was doing and that was the main reason she turned into everyone's chubby smokers-voice aunt practically overnight.

See, if WWE wasn't so adamant about making their workers hate the Internet, maybe Orlando would have read the RF story and decided that the NAMBLA lifestyle just isn't worth it.

This will probably cause more sports bars and restaurants to stop showing PPVs, since their prices usually get raised as well when they do this. WWE hasn't produced a PPV worthy of $40 in years, and even if they do the DVD will be out for half that price a few months later.

Wow, that's just....wow. Morality of teenage love affairs aside, why would he be riding with him to shows? That's like asking for shit to hit the fan.