smkelly

Bret called the cops on that airport lady. But in all seriousness, Maryse is dating the Miz still, right? I'd expect him to defend her if the situation ever arose, especially if he was in the vicinity of said situation.

My motive behind the question I will soon ask is in no way to defend the WWE, but more out of curiosity of how things work behind the scenes. The question I pose is this: Would the WWE (Vince) have been fined by the USA Network for cancelling the show on such short notice? If yes, then how much of a fine? I'm thinking that there would have been advertisers that would have been mad, and I assume repercussions of some magnitude would have occurred.

Agreed. Bret's autobiography, in his own words mind you, indicts Vince as a double-crossing, lying, manipulative, and impulsive asshole that he always found hard to trust. If anything, Bret has had a hard time learning from previous mistakes throughout his career.

Yeah, that was pretty bad.

PWTorch: I suspect that this coming Raw will have a better rating now that Punk is being advertised for his returning statements.

Exactly and well said to boot.

Sounds like Finlay vs. Callihan was an awesome match.

I've never seen Hogan/Andre either. I have it on several DVDs though.

I like your lists. FYI - Your last post says 'May' but actually features mostly April matches but does have two matches from May in it.

No, you are not alone, man. It is one of the best six-man's of all-time, but I'd need to watch the other three big six-man's in order to definitively say that.

This is my #1 New Japan Juniors match of all-time. Probably the #1 juniors match of the 1990s. And in my top ten of New Japan all-time as well.

Because our faithful admin who watches a ton of wrestling hasn't seen it yet.

I agree with the analysis on the Rey/Cena match...but it has already been given the moniker of a MOTYC. Good luck defending that position though.

The amount of road agents. Their spoken language is scripted. There is only one way to work in the WWE.

Has the WWE ever drawn a $12 million dollar gate before? Has any wrestling event anywhere in the world ever drawn that type of money before? Those numbers of what UFC has done helps my argument more than it hurts it. If possible though - can someone post/PM me the numbers on all of their Pay-Per-Views please? Their market in Canada is enormous. I mean, to draw 14,000 on the same day as the Stanley Cup finals, in Canada, it has to be a gemstone upon Dana's fireplace. Because Vince couldn't do that. 4,500 tickets for UFC @ $800,000 might be sluggish for them, but it annihilates what the WWE is able to procure. I need to know time spans and WrestleMania ticket sales to know that for sure though.

Here's the full thing: And people dislike that man?

The problem is all of the stuff before and after WrestleMania. As we're constantly reminded of, WM is the "biggest event of the year". Which is true. I just have a hard time envisioning them doing the kind of business they did with Austin and certainly not Hogan level business ever again because of the actual length of their current slump. Sure, WrestleMania events gross a lot of money with all things considered, but the day-to-day operations of the WWE, which is 52 weeks of television, and at the minimum of 12 Pay-Per-Views, along with the world-wide tours they do every year, and everything else, I just don't see where the next boom of interest is coming from. The world-wide economy has progressively gotten worse, which is likely a singular validating reason why the wrestling economy had similarly plateaued and then begun declining steadily over the years. The lack of any solid "other" professional wrestling competition has also contributed greatly to the lack of overall interest in pro wrestling. The meteoric rise of MMA within the last few years has taken layers of wrestling fans and converted them to real fights. All of the off branch MMA shows, UFC related, or whatever else the MMA world has to offer has become the alternative to the WWE as to what WCW once was in my opinion. That's not a winning business combination of structure. Besides, they've tried the PG way, and it clearly is not working for them. And if they do intend to go the route of a modernized Attitude Era - honestly - the only way they will be able to compete is if they book their shows as though Cornette, Heyman, and Russo had somehow all donated their reproduction juices and a being was created that was a third of all the men it took to make "it". But even then. They still wouldn't do the kind of business that they did in 1998 because of all the PR groups that wouldn't be following TLC's advice. They are in a conundrum of some magnitude. I mean, they have made business endeavors which have alienated, polarized, and drove portions of their fanbase away before. Like they did when it went PG and Cena was like Highlander and more Hogan than Austin. They lost fans when they turned into a Russo production. They lost fans when Vince suddenly became a fan of Walt Disney's empire. Maybe I'm being too pessimistic about it, though. Maybe they can recover from their decline. They have done it more than once before. But to say they have everything in their favor is just a little too pretentious and naive for my tea. You are right though, they have a monopoly over global wrestling. It would seem though, that if that was anything remotely beneficial to such a large audience that the WWE would clearly and undoubtedly be one of the richest companies...or at least crack the Wikipedia page of top revenue companies world-wide that is two-hundred and four entries deep. Maybe their monopoly is more about picking up poop with their hands then perpetual energy.

The match, 1/20/97, it's on Ditch's site. I think he has all of their single matches minus the October '98 one on the site as well. What Lorefice had to say: 1/20/97: 10/21/97: 10/31/98: He didn't have anything substantial to say about the match on 6/11/99. I echo his statements about the above matches by the way.

I don't know if cm funk PM'ed you or not, but if he requested them via PM, would you mind finding a way to post them through here too? I'd like to see them. Never heard of them before.

I looked through the Internet archive. One result came up from 2009 and it redirected me back to the current root site. Sorry, man.

The thing I look at with ratings is how when something doesn't immediately "light the world on fire" then whoever the spotlighted worker was is called a non-drawing wrestler and is generally pushed aside because of the general "make it or break it" type performances the WWE has regularly done. Personally, I don't ever anticipate another big money boom epoch for the WWE. I think they've pretty much been to the highest point that mainstream professional wrestling can achieve.

Well...good then ------- I don't want this to parlay into fantasy booking realms too far, but if I were Vince, I'd make up a faux lawsuit claiming intellectual property thefts and damages and if I'm correct in my thinking, breach of contract would cover breaking the "90 day no-compete clause". Notwithstanding, ROH just did something similar, but in a different context and for a different reason and in a different "legal presentation style". I would use that consistency to my advantage though. I think this could be a modernized version of the 'Austin vs. McMahon' feud. I don't recall any "wrestling lawsuit" angles, but I suspect at least one (or several) exist from Memphis. Wait. Flair and Bischoff. That sounds familiar, but I can't finger a specific, "I'M SUING YOU!" tirade.

And these polls are usually voted on by fairly dumb people. Basically, no one but the slowest 15.1% thinks that this is a shoot, and they like it anyway. Kinda like wrestling in general. Pointing out that it's a work, and all the ways in which it is obviously a work, does not make you smarter than the room, and if you think otherwise, I'm frankly embarrassed for you. You mad?

Oh, I am "having fun" with this angle in terms of it being enjoyable. No doubt.

This makes the whole thing obvious to anyone who was still unsure, which is no one hear, I'm just making a general statement. Dudes at another forum think it doesn't prove that it's an angle, but instead proves that it is a shoot. The ones who think it's a shoot must have thought Punk and Cena were really fighting.