MoS

I didn't know about this. When did Rock call out Dogg? This is also interesting because I thought there was also heat between NAO and Hunter for the longest time.

I look at how Goldberg was booked in the first month or so of his return and I think if Reigns is booked like that (obviously not identically but in the same vein) he wouldn't have the mixed reaction issue, at least not to the same extent. Goldberg in his opening promo came across as a bigger ass-kicking cool badass babyface than Reigns and all his "I am THE guy" promos. So I guess the company does know how to book babyfaces and make them look badass instead of geeks or losers who cannot hang with the evil heels, but..they choose not to do that with Reigns and co.? I dunno, it is very weird. I really like Goldberg, but Reigns is a significantly better worker than he is, and yet he has never looked as good as Goldberg was booked to look, even without the surprise squashes.

Does Christian count? He was the ace for WWECW for a year and had a cup of coffee with their secondary world title a couple of times, but apart from that he never had a big singles run as a top star.

It's the whole Benoit debate again (and so close to the ten years' anniversary of that tragedy) where we have to ask ourselves if wrestling for so many years and taking so many bumps played a role in the tragedy. I do not know a lot of details of this incident and Breaks's mental state, and in any case I do not have any appetite for having that entire debate again, but I do not think it is something that can be discounted.

Hopefully this dude gets perma-banned soon.

We know that wrestling is full of awful people, but stuff like this really jarres you out of a stoic acceptance of that. Awful, awful stuff and again makes me really question myself for being a wrestling fan.

What exactly was Global Force Wrestling? I was not keeping track of it; did it run any shows? Or was it essentially a talent agency which contracted wrestlers and made deals for them to appear on various promotions' shows?

But that's part of the bullshit Russo narrative. Cornette hating Russo has plenty to do with Russo politicking him out of his WWE booking job and later doing the same to get him fired as a TNA road agent. He also hates Russo for the damage that he feels Russo inflicted on the business, but it's not the whole thing. I do think it's possible at this point that Russo has deluded himself into thinking Cornette only hates him because of what he booked, but he's also a compulsive liar so who really knows? Either way, the whole "Bro, why would you wanna kill somebody over FAKE WREST-A-LING?!?!" shtick is a fabrication. Fair enough. Depriving someone of their livelihood and a job in a profession they love to death while doing almost irreparable damage to that profession is much more justifiable. I was going through 1999 WWF a few days back, Russo's last few months with the company, and dear Lord it is terrible. Absolutely awful. Forget about the well-documented horrible mid-card stuff, even the main event scene is terrible. That entire Austin-HHH-McMahon angle is so utterly boring, the only reason Austin survived that was because he was teflon by that time. Even then, I felt that Russo had started to actually damage Austin's character and his overness due to consistent terrible segments and booking, a feat almost admirable because of how impossible it seemed. Really, Austin survived a lot of awful shit booking like the Satanic Undertaker angle, being embalmed and crucified and whatever, and it might have led to a drastic decline in WWE's business shortly after becuse, as I said, the constant horrible booking had started to damage the company's top draw. WWE dodged an arguably fatal bullet when Russo departed. Chris Kreski might very well be the most underrated booker of all-time. His seamless, inter-connected, logically consistent angles in 2000 up and down the card led to arguably the greatest year in company history.

I'm just glad they are not reaching out to Russo for creative salvation. Dude almost ruined the Greatest Rivalries DVD when he presented Austin v. McMahon.

I agree Corny sounds way off his rocker when he goes on those kind of rants. Although parts of me thinks Corny is just cutting a promo, because that's what these old-school guy always do. If he really is cutting a promo, then Russo is right: Corny is using him to get over. Goddamn it, fuck you Cornette for making me take fucking Russo's side, no matter how superficially.

I am not going to pretend I do not enjoy a good rant, particularly about Russo, the most horrifically inept booker there ever was, but in the video linked above, Cornette once again reiterated how he would murder Vince Russo if there were no penal consequences. He said that the thought of him breathing air disgusts him. In this case, I agree with Russo: how anyone can hate somebody to this extent over wrestling is beyond me. Not only is that particular kind of rant something I would not enjoy (although that is a matter of personal taste) it makes me think Cornette is a lot more fucked up than Russo is and needs some medical help to sort out his issues. At this point of time, Cornette is so consumed by his Russo hatred that if Russo were to die tomorrow, I do not think Cornette would be able to have any meaningful existence of his own, because he seems to need Russo and his presence to sustain his soul through pure hatred.

Awesome. Thanks!

I read a lot of guys on the internet and in the dirtsheets (as well as wrestlers' autobiographies) where they called Bruno an average or mediocre worker. I disagree and I think he is fucking awesome. I could watch him wrestle for hours. It is very tricky appearing like a superman in the ring without fatiguing the audience or ultimately sucking out all the heat from your matches. Bruno mastered that trick his entire career, including his late 1980s matches. Meltzer wrote that as far as selling tickets in the same territory for the longest time, he is the greatest draw in history, and I am not surprised. No one has ever personified the ace role the way Bruno did. You could tell that he absolutely owned the WWWF. I would love a podcast episode dedicated solely to him.

I love watching Bruno Sammartino wrestle. I realise he was considered a bad wrestler by many fans, but I absolutely do not care how many holds he can execute. He brings an energy in his matches that is ridiculous, the crowd keeps going absolutely wild, and his physical charisma is the greatest in wrestling history for me. I'm so glad he is on good terms with WWE and they are uploading many of his matches on the Network.

WWE is coming to India in September.

It was certainly not a well-planned and thought out decision, and given that ye has been really bad throughout his career, they were right to treat him as a jobber. It is all about how they book him and his storyline from now on.

Most of WWE's Indian fanbase is urban/semi-urban, well-off upper caste people. Jindal is every bit their guy. No forum on the internet is equipped to have a proper discussion of the caste system properly because it is so old, complicated and evil, so there is no point discussing it, but let us just say that upper-caste Indians are perfectly happy exploiting the system and being racist here and yet being highly outraged (which is justified) without having a single moment of introspection about their own systematic racist behaviour (which is absolutely not justified) if/when the situation is reversed in America or any Western country for that matter. If Jinder does start a gimmick of being a hard working talented wrestler who is being held down because WWE fans in America are racist assholes, it will be very resonant India.

I am honestly not invested in the product enough to be pissed about this. I was just saying that at least on a superficial level, it makes business sense.

Jinder ain't great... but he's new. Something different. Orton is the same old shit. He isn't new. He has been a jobber since around 2010. Probably longer. The only difference is that he is a jobber thanking god that champions don't have to deal with wellness tests. I mean is he even Hindu to begin with? I know he is Canadian. He is Sikh, I think.

I am guessing this is to further expand their already massive Indian fanbase. WWE is covered online by a couple of mainstream Indian newspapers, so "Indian dude is the WWE Champion" will most assuredly be an article pumped out. It started when they gave Khali a month-long world title reign. As terrible as Khali was, I will go to my pyre defending that booking, because that just opened up the market big-time. Wrestling was popular here before as well, but this got it to the next level; it was all over the news here, and now India is their 3rd most profitable market, which is even more impressive when you consider the personal disposable income here compared to America and the UK. I just wish there were better Indian wrestlers available.

This is a predictable, cliche answer, but Kiniski at Starrcade 1983 is actually really bad.

I think the lens with which we measure athleticism has changes, yeah. For my money, Ric Flair might be the most athletic wrestler ever, even though he is not someone considered conventionally athletic, and because he was rather sloppy while executing his high spots.

I've said this before, but rewatching Goldberg's comeback entrance and promo, if Roman had done something even remotely similar instead of spinning Looney Tunes rhymes in early 2015, I think he would have been a hot babyface. I think Goldberg is underrated as a worker -I prefer him to Kevin Nash any day of the week- but Reigns blows him out of the water as far as working ability goes. All they needed to do was book a badass character as a complete badass. Watching the first few Shield promos, they were doing exactly that. In their first interview, Rollins and Ambrose did all the talking, while Reigns stayed silent. When Cole turned around and asked him what he wanted to say, he coldly replied something to the effect of "If I want to say something, I'll say it." That was awesome. How difficult is it to continue booking someone like that?!?

It's because I don't know what a wrestling expert is, because I don't think that the term has been used in wrestling at all. But if anyone has a legit claim to being called that, it's Dave. So, the opposite of what you said.

I haven't read the piece, but the frustration of the largely white, working/middle class blue collar workers, who have seen their jobs go away and their wages remain stagnant even as the cost of living keeps increasing exponentially, and who blame the Establishment for it - and upon baiting, minorities - who got frustrated and voted for Trump because he's an outsider and he promised change in loud, crude and simplistic words, despite having voted for Obama both times, is something a wrestling "expert" like Meltzer can definitely give a nuanced analysis on, because that group has been wrestling's traditional target demographic for decades now. The common blue-collar man just doing his job and hating the establishment was the gimmick that got Steve Austin to hecome arguably the greatest draw in wrestling history. Dusty Rhodes, Bruno Sammartino, etc, also had very similar gimmicks. The stoking of resentment against minorities is also very much in line with wrestling's traditional treatment of foreigners as a distinct, reudctionist binary of good or bad, with their nationality being their primary identifier. The relative ease with which promoters have got to get evil foreigners over as heels traditionally is also relevant here.