Migs

On Simmons podcast yesterday: Bill: Why was no one writing about wrestling in a serious way before you? (*my brain explodes*) Masked Man: [words I can't fully comprehend because holy shit] Bill literally says, "Meltzer kinda."

This is really interesting because, going back through some WONs from the late 80s, this was a frequent talking point regarding why Flair didn't have the same appeal for mainstream fans as Hogan. Hogan looked like a superman, and Flair seemed like a weasel.

I think it might have worked if they basically ran back the Hogan-Heenan feud with Warrior. Barbarian could have worked nicely as one leg of that. But instead Bossman got that feud.

He helped Piper cut Adonis' hair at WMIII. He had a falling out with Jimmy Hart earlier, then helped Piper to get back at him (if I'm recalling it correctly). It just kinda grew from that. That character led to me playing with my mom's hedge clippers a lot more than a kid probably should've. Brutus claims it was a Pat Patterson idea, basically out of thin air (although somehow related to Pat's romantic partner, who was a hair stylist). Brutus seems to have a real ax to grind with Patterson, though, so I'm not sure to what extent I buy it.

I believe before they hired him. At the least they had the "dark" concept and might have put together the specific character around Callous. He tells the story on Austin's podcast.

Undertaker was a Bruce Prichard idea, in some collaboration with Vince.

Would it be more fair to discuss boring wrestlers within time periods? Like, I'll gladly accept that Larry Z had some decent stretches but his '86 AWA stuff has so much stalling and is so epicly dull. The heel Rougeaus were pretty dreadful, despite how fun the initial promos were that set up the turn. Their heat segments are coma inducing. Endless chinlocks.

Did Hogan by choice take much time off, or did he go out very briefly with an injury? He worked pretty regularly (weekendish schedule) around the horn with Savage after Mania, drawing a surprising amount of money despite the job by Savage at Mania. Are we thinking about 1990 and the Earthquake thingy where he took time off again? John I believe Hogan was doing some movie filming (Suburban Commando?) but he did also have an injury (pectoral, I think) that kept him out for a bit. Beefcake had to sub for him in main events with Savage.

Apparently the potential buyer is Billy Corgan. http://wrestlechat.net/exclusive-smashing-...-tna-wrestling/

The chapters are almost all dead wrestlers, which does indeed suggest he's pilfering from his Deadspin columns.

Uh oh. My copy just arrived... was hoping this was on the good end of Shoemaker's work and not the bad end.

I've watched a lot of the Invasion stuff pretty recently (partway through the No Mercy PPV at this point). There were a few key mistakes: 1) Shane was booked as a massive babyface right up until the actual invasion started. I suppose this was to build goodwill for the WCW brand if they were going to launch a separate show. But the turn really stalled the momentum of the angle from the start, with Vince functionally turning face over the course of a night. (This supports the idea of waiting a bit - Shane's heel turn could have been slower and might have been more effective.) 2) They absolutely had something with ECW as a separate group, and they ran through a whole angle literally in a night. The pop when Heyman formed that group is massive, and with him as a figure head cutting promos, the ECW guys feuding with the WWF or WCW had some legs - especially since RVD rapidly became the only star of the "Alliance" besides Austin. Even if you wanted to bring Stephanie into the angle, her running ECW with Heyman was probably comedic gold. (While watching, I immediately got the itch to fantasy book a world in which ECW gets to take over Sunday Night Heat and have its own show. 18-year old Chris would have freaked out for an ECW show.) 3) No stakes. If this was invasion, there needed to be an energy that these guys were not supposed to be here, that if the WWF lost a title to them, it might be lost for good. Instead, it was just (dueling) commissioners booking straight matches that meant nothing. If the Alliance got hold of a WWF title... a WWF guy would get a shot the next night. So what was the impact of the title change? I'm sure people have made these points before. Relevant to the specific discussion we're having here: none of these issues had anything to do with the guys they were able to bring in. Even if you don't get Hogan, Flair, the Outsiders, etc. - the booking of the angle could have been significantly better. There were ways to make at least a few of these guys bigger stars - Booker and RVD for sure, but they could have taken a shot with a couple of other guys they liked.

I would imagine the plan would have been Savage as IC champ taking part in the tournament. One point that sticks with me - I don't understand what the point would have been to give Savage the IC Title. He clearly didn't need it. He needed to destroy Honky Tonk, but he got to do that on the Main Event. Going back to fall of '87, they were linking up Savage and Hogan, which makes it seem clear that Savage was likely to be involved in any post-WM program with Dibiase. It seems obvious that there were only 2 possible tournament outcomes: 1) Dibiase wins the belt. If that happens, and Savage is IC Champ feuding with him, you deprive the B-shows of an IC Title main event. Considering how Vince relied heavily on the IC Title feud for that purpose in this time frame, that seems highly unlikely. I guess you could do Savage-Andre on the B shows and Dibiase v. someone else on the A shows, but who is that someone else? Bigelow? He was in tag matches with Hogan against Andre and Dibiase, but it seemed like they soured on him quickly. This to me is one of the bigger issues with the idea that there was ever a plan to have Dibiase come out as champion, which was changed because HTM refused to job. Once they know Hogan is taking time off, the direction on top seems most likely to be Savage-Dibiase, in which case there's no likelihood they put the IC belt on Savage during that feud. 2) Savage wins the title, setting up an IC Title tournament. But if the plan is for Savage to win, what benefit does he get from having the belt? Maybe the idea is to put Savage over strong as the first ever double champ? They did try something similar with Warrior two years later.

When did the tournament become the plan for the show? Because one way to do Wrestlemania would be to let Andre giving Dibiase the belt be seen as acceptable, and then Hogan or Savage (more likely Savage, since Hogan did have the movie) could go over Dibiase at Wrestlemania. They could do Hogan-Andre in a cage as the undercard as the blowoff to that feud, although query whether that match so obviously overshadows the World Title match that it has to go on last, thus screwing with Savage's position. (Of course, you could argue this happened anyway, even with the tournament. On the box for the video version, Hogan and Andre are the ones on there, not Savage or Dibiase). In the above scenario, one way you set up Savage as the challenger would be by having him go over HTM, as the IC Champ was always technically the top contender to the World Belt. So Dibiase would keep the belt but Tunney forces him to defend against the top contender at WM. I'd guess you'd go to an IC Title tournament. An IC Title tournament would be really interesting in this universe because Beefcake claims he was promised the title at Summerslam before Vince changed his mind and went with Warrior. But if there's a post-WM tournament - do they put Beefcake over? If so, what happens to Warrior? Or do they put the belt on a heel and a similar story plays out at Summerslam?

I don't think so. He got a real, clean, clear win at Summerslam - his loss of the title wasn't a choke, it was stolen from him. He then got to win the title again in September. I can't imagine anyone with the perception that Bryan can't win the big one.

Tommy Dreamer is still with Beulah (although of course they were broken up for that period in the late 90s when he was with Francine).

I wonder (and am hoping) that Punk and Bryan both being taken out by the Wyatts is the start of THE INTERNET DREAM TAG TEAM~! of Punk and Bryan that will continue for the next couple of months until one or the other's ego (if not both) fucks up the team, and we get Punk vs. Bryan at Mania. Honestly, I'd prefer those two to even get 10-15 minutes against each other than some 20+ bloated affair against a Clique member. It's not like they haven't done rematches at Mania before. The Nerd Megapowers!

I'm still working on Sean Waltman tearing his asshole. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

I'm about as big a Shane Douglas fan as you can find, but this is terrible. The ending is fun, and the pop is great, but Douglas playing plucky babyface in no way works. And it lasts forever.

This was so, so wild to see. Must have missed this the first time because I was in no mood to watch the WWF in this period as a Bret Hart fan. Somewhere, Bill Watts began to weep softly.

Has there been any consideration to breaking these long ones into two parts? Always find it easier to take through these in a couple of chunks (like the way Austin breaks up a 2 1/2 hour interview into parts).

PWInsider Wondering if the success of Total Divas has given them leverage to suggest to cable companies that they can promote programs like Legends House successfully. If their non-wrestling programming can draw viewers, the network might have real value. I would hope that the cable companies are not as easily misled as you think they are. Total Divas is on a popular woman-centric network. It's no more successful than anything else that is on the channel, and in the larger scope, it's not that successful to begin with. That does not equate to some mythical boon of having a WWE network available to the cable companies. In fact, I hope it never gets off the ground because I see another spectacularly failed venture that would eat up a good chunk of their resources, and they do not need it. In fact, if anything, the future (for now) is in a streaming service that is available online. Not suggesting that they'd be misled. Nor do I think WWE could credibly suggest a boon. Just suggesting that it proves there is some market for this type of show that isn't tiny. But yes, the placement on E! is obviously different than it would be on the WWE Network, You have to wonder, in the streaming era, why they don't simply sell an online version of 24/7? I would gladly pay whatever the current 24/7 fee is ($10 a month?) for access to the content. And obviously, they're capable of doing something more expansive as well.

PWInsider Wondering if the success of Total Divas has given them leverage to suggest to cable companies that they can promote programs like Legends House successfully. If their non-wrestling programming can draw viewers, the network might have real value.