kaufman316

Looks like the Meltzer Scale for rating AEW PPVs!

"Dookie!"

Maybe Davey Boy Smith? He went from the Germany match with Owen to stumbling around WCW inside of two years at absolute most.

Either a brilliant work or a lame shoot, I think.

"At the end of the day I'm guilty of defending 3 women that needed a bit of defending. Not by being a bully...by being a man."

It also leans on interviews with his colleagues to get some added perspective; recommended reading for anyone interested in the subject himself, I think.

If fantasy booking and we swap either Hulk's Japan connections or AJPW/NJPW's stateside affiliations, does that make a difference?

Mad Max: Beyond Wrestlecrap

I'm curious about this as well. Mania 18...and Mania 25? Yes, I too notice a pattern.

As a fan of Piper I thought the book was informative and insightful. A good amount of it does cover his pre-graps life and unveils some of the kayfabe around his commonly-accepted bio e.g. whence his ring name derives.

Rico Constantino - though underrated, his character and presentation is deep in Boy Territory; no classic matches or legacy to speak of (apart from pinning Ric Flair!) and has turned out to be a bit...troubled as wrestlers so often are, but I would pay money to see him work while most wouldn't...which may be as much a sign of Boyness as anything.

I recall reading that Goldberg's DVD sold well above expectations, and that his video game appearances have been part and parcel with further success and exposure for him and the game franchises. Maybe there's something to that? Vince has typically been receptive to workers who move merch (excepting Those Darn Millenials).

Until this morning when he decided to break off and accuse Kerry Von Erich of being drunk when he crashed his motorcyle (True or not? First I've heard of that) and then call him out for "taking the coward's way out" by committing suicide. Still a shallow idiot at heart, it seems. The problem I found with reading the recaps is that Scooter's database of spurious facts gets mixed into the recaps, and quite frankly I'd rather learn from Dave's work as it was then without second-guessing everything.

Rudimentary observations in these parts, but worth highlighting nonetheless: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/magazine/is-everything-wrestling.html

Probably relevant, in a broader sense: http://blogofdoom.com/index.php/2016/05/19/wrestling-mythbusters

To recap: with houses down and PPV increasingly irrelevant, it's mattering less and less how well you do if you're not chosen to receive a rocket push since it won't affect your paycheque or card placement - "the brand is the draw" and the Brass Ring is clearly mythical. And of course, the downside payout for lower-carders is increasingly undervalued given the cost of travel, insurance, etc. remaining constant. I think Ryback's arguement has some merit, but if wealth is wholly flattened out it may strip those who do overachieve of their desire to excel...then again, he might argue that most of the roster is at that point already. By the same token, no other sports or entertainment industry (that I know of) pays all its workers equal wages, but the successful ones have paid enough to everyone to keep even the bottom-tier folks happy - I get the impression that this isn't happening for everyone in today's WWE. Basically, I think a lot of it is that guys are being hosed on the Network residuals, or lack thereof - Punk brought this up before he left, and he's probably not the only one. A flat fee structure for appearing on a Network video would be simple enough to pro-rate, and top guys would make more in their downside and in merch. Failing that...given WWE's television presence it would be simplest if the workers were made members of the Screen Actors Guild, as that would compensate some gaps inherent with their status as Independent Contractors (sic).

WCW left a lot of money on the table in 1998, mostly due to sloppy booking. They would have been well-served to use him in a series of one-off dream matches for PPV or at least Nitro (Goldberg, Luger, Piper, a retread with Savage...), which may have been trainwrecks but would carry marquee value. And even a part-time run with Sting - The Blade Runners Vs. The Outsiders could have been an upper-tier PPV match, if nothing else. Instead, he was fed to Hogan and paid to sit at home (or show up and not be used, as the case may be).

Does this mean Vince pays himself only 3.3 million total? I find that hard to believe. I can believe Vince paying other people more than himself in the interest of fairness but not that it comes out to only 3.3 million. I'm thinking, would stock dividends fill Vince's pockets enough to offset a lower salary?

There's also the observation that he seems to blow up like a tick when circumstances call for him to work longer than 15 minutes e.g. the last two Royal Rumbles. True or not, his showings/booking there has been uniformly terrible if grooming an ace is your goal as promoter.

Vince et al. letting his contract expire in the hopes that he would fizzle in Hollywood has probably cost them well into 8 digits of revenue and bigger fees for the run with Cena.

Maybe Piper losing his edge was (at least partly) due to being pigeonholed as a face for pretty much his whole career afterwards? I really liked his work with Bret but it was relatively slim pickings otherwise, I think.

Yes Piper came back a shell of himself in terms of Charisma and heat. He seemed to be go on cruise control and came off corny rather than edgy. Would you say that he had a taste of Hollywood and came back bitter that it never worked out for him? I wonder what changed.

Reminds me of the joke (made on here?) about wanting to meet Cameron and ask her about Lou Thesz.

Pretty sure the Russo ep will be the first I skip.

Hear, hear - I'm working on 2015 New Japan but keep falling further behind, and will more often than not find myself re-watching fare like Joe Gagne's Funtime Pro Wrestling Arcade (btw their new LoW2 episode is really good). But I'm almost done with the Steve Austin Blu-ray set, so there's that.