C.S.

Can I please refer you to... Vince's Golden Rules of Sports Entertainment #24: Black people love to dance, sing and have fun. Unless they're an ANGRY Black person. But Swann gets angry too. He froths at the mouth and becomes WILD.

Forgot that UT-Mankind was on the same show. Was this their first match and the one where Foley shockingly went over after Bearer turned on Taker? Yeah, that was good. Anyway, the problem with all of these "Mero had a great WWE run" posts is that they're coming from a forum full of people who likely weren't watching the product week after week at the time and notoriously only pick and choose the "good" matches to watch, sometimes years after the fact. Almost anyone is going to look like they had an impressive run under those circumstances. Week to week, Mero's run was shit, his bland character was a disappointment, and he never got over in any context. His wife's boobs were more over than he was, and it's to his credit that he had a good head about that and did everything he could to help her. After all, like he said, the money was going to the same household anyway. Still, not many people in wrestling would be that secure and mature. Most wouldn't be.

Come on. Atrocious. Yeah, the gimmick was bad and nondescript (he said it himself he had no idea what they wanted him to be), but Mero had plenty of good matches there. He stole the show working with Austin at KOTR 96. And then he was a lot of fun as a Marvelous Marc bullying Sable around. I don't remember ANY "great" Mero matches in the WWE. KOTR with Austin was just "okay." Did they steal the show? Probably, but not hard when every match was weak as hell. That show is remembered for THE promo and nothing else. There were glimpses of fun stuff in Mero's WWE run, sure, but he never had a sustained quality run in the WWE like he did in WCW with Johnny B. Badd in his last year or two there. Mero's WWE run was a colossal disappointment.

I watched the Raw Cruiserweight segment on Hulu last night. Atrocious! (Not the match, which was fun, but everything else.) - Mick Foley looked like he was half-asleep when he was introducing the Cruisers. Didn't help that he had to read from notes. WTH? Just awful! - The commentary sucked (of course). - No TJP was a bad idea, despite fakeplastictrees's point: "You want to see THE CHAMP? Tune in on Sunday." That works for Hulk Hogan or Brock Lesnar. It does not work for TJP, who most of the Raw audience is unfamiliar with. We needed to see TJP on Raw. We needed to be shown what makes him such a big deal. If you didn't see the CWC, you're not going to be hyped for a match between Brian Kendrick and some random guy you know nothing about yet. - I agree with InYourCase: Rich Swann is already just another "dancing black guy." Sigh! The bloom is already off the rose. I wish Smackdown had gotten the division. My only hope is that Kendrick will put over TJP and then end up on SD in a non-Cruiser role.

The fact that the past their primes weren't drawing a dime Road Warriors were the top paid guys in WCW when Hall came in can't be right, can it?

TJP not appearing on Raw is baffling and a bad, bad sign for the division. Raw should have opened with him and his monumental victory. The Bully Choke thing is also bizarre. I guess this proves Vince really had nothing to do with the CWC, as if we didn't already know that. I too understand it from a PR and PG perspective, but Captain's Hook is an atrocious substitute unless they're going full-blown stoner/tweaker with Kendrick's gimmick.

Was Mero wrong about anything he said in 2007? I'm sure a lot of rasslin' fans drank the grapefruit-flavored Kool-Aid, but that doesn't mean Mero didn't have a point. His time in the WWF was atrocious though. This was the rare instance of a WCW gimmick and run being better than what the WWF came up with.

A new Legends With JBL was posted last night with Hall and Nash. Nothing new here, but it was a light, breezy hour of conversation. A little too sparse, if you ask me. It might have been better if these guys had been interviewed separately, because it was hard to get any in-depth responses with this format. A few observations: - When JBL was rattling off his epic introduction, his heart didn't seem to be into it the way it usually is. It wasn't quite as over-the-top complimentary as it has been for past guests. I wonder if JBL doesn't think as highly of Hall and Nash? Of course, I could be reading into nothing. - Nash struggling to recall Nick Lambrose's name was amusing, and it proves that wrestling geeks on forums like this one care so much more about the minutiae of the business than actual workers. - JBL thanking Hall and Nash for guaranteed contracts is the type of revisionist history that makes me roll my eyes. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Marc Mero the first wrestler to get a guaranteed contract in either fed? History really is written by the winners, I guess, and Mero wasn't a "winner" in WWE's eyes. Such a shame, because I think he was a great representative for wrestling and continues to be a good guy today with his inspirational public speaking tours.

Been a while since I've read the religious sequel (took a chance on it when it was a $2 Kindle Deal of the Day, which was and is unheard of for a wrestling book), but I believe it does go into some of those wrestling topics. I can't recall what exactly he talks about or how in-depth it was, but I do remember thinking the second book was actually more enjoyable than the first.

Meltzer Update: http://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/terry-funk-alive-and-well-texas-after-exhausting-weekend-221171

I read the sample for this last night and really enjoyed it... The Power Slam Interviews Volume 1 by Findlay Martin It's a collection of interviews previously published in Power Slam Magazine. The sample contains three full interviews - Stunning Steve Austin (somewhat kayfabe but still highly entertaining), Mick Foley (after his ear was ripped off), and Shane Douglas (after the Dean Douglas run). The sample cuts off at the beginning of a Bam Bam Bigelow interview. I've never read Power Slam Magazine, so all of this is new to me. But if you have, I imagine it might be fun re-reading some of these. My only nitpick is that he begins every single interview (so far) with the same disclaimer that it was originally published as an article and the tense has been changed from past to present for easier reading. Okay, we got it the first time!!! Still, I really liked all of the interviews in the sample. $6.99 for 410 pages seems very fair to me. https://www.amazon.com/Power-Slam-Interviews-1-ebook/dp/B01ILZX304/ The same author previously published this (but I haven't read it): Pro Wrestling Through The Power Slam Years: 1994-2014 by Findlay Martin https://www.amazon.com/Wrestling-Through-Power-Slam-Years-ebook/dp/B014X2W6QG/ It's a buck more, at $7.99, which also seems like a good price. I hate the recent-ish trend of every new release starting off at $12.99, so prices like these are welcome.

The retirement is not sad, no, but his health issues are. People are freaking out and acting like Terry's on his way out of more than just wrestling. Look at this thread, for example: http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=151092

I know "Terry Funk retires" has been a longstanding joke in wrestling, but this sounds serious and sad. http://wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2016/0918/617615/wwe-legend-terry-funk-dealing-with-medical-issues/ Video: Meltzer Update: http://www.f4wonline.com/other-wrestling/terry-funk-alive-and-well-texas-after-exhausting-weekend-221171

Tyson Dux comments on the CWC's restrictions: "We had agents. We had to deal with agents as well and plan it out. I know for me personally, I wanted to do a stalling suplex from the second rope and they completely scrapped that. They said no way can you do that. For whatever reason, Me & Zach were supposed to be 50/50 right up to the end and it was more of a showcase for Zach which is understandable, right? I get it. There weren't major handcuffs put on, but they did want to steer the ship the way they want to steer it. So as we go along and get more progressive into it, they're easing up on it. Tozawa is known for that snap German suplex with a hold for the pin and they were adamant on saying no absolutely no head drops at all and when push came to shove, Tozawa did put (Ken) Johnson directly on his bean for that snap German suplex. It's the same as anything. It's wrestling politics. Either you kind of bite the bullet and ask for forgiveness later or you just do your stuff. I'm sure to God that burning hammer (Brian Kendrick's) was not discussed. WWE doesn't even let the tombstone fly other than The Undertaker." http://wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2016/0915/617562/tyson-dux-talks-wwe-cruiserweight-classic-limits-restrictions/

Has Josh Matthews ever been 1. professional, 2. good at his job? When WWE canned him, I was surprised. Now I completely understand. He's probably seething with jealous rage that it's TJP and not him who got to resurrect the WWE Cruiserweight Division (Josh was a wrestler at one time).

Speaking of weird stands, yours might be weirder than Meltzer's, honestly. If they don't say "ordered 20 boxes of pizza," what do they say?

What happened with Josh Matthews and TJP? Anyway, I think it's pretty clear that TJP wasn't originally the guy they were going to go with, but he was definitely top 5 or 8 in their minds if you look back at Bracketology and see who made "live" studio appearances. He was one of the few wrestlers who did and his story was one of the big parts of that show. But I agree that his story wasn't pushed as well as it could have been after that. It doesn't help that there was some other homeless dude in the tournament too (Swann?). Speaking of which, I am not buying this "Swann was one of the major crowd favorites" claim, because I don't see that at all. Yeah, the crowd liked him, but they liked a lot of other wrestlers too. Edit: Agree with CapitalTTruth though. If TJP's story had been pushed more, his wins might not have been as surprising and he might not have been as much of an underdog as he was. It works both ways.

I've never had location services on, and it used to work. Edit: It's still working (had to re-enter my password). Location services definitely isn't on, and never has been.

You mean you didn't love the constant references to "Satoru Sayama, the original Tiger Mask"? (At least that paid off when Regal said "I knew him before he was Tiger Mask!") Mauro and Bryan both alternate between endearing and annoying for me. Mauro can be infuriatingly smarky, but at the same time, it's so different from what everyone else is doing that I'm not sure I hate it. Bryan is so rough around the edges, but he's also so enthusiastic and passionate, like a kid on Christmas morning. It's hard to hate that. In the end, I think I'll take their odd chemistry over the paint-by-numbers feigned excitement we get from the commentators on the main shows. As for TJP, I said it before: I wasn't a fan of his before last night, but he turned me into one. Did a great story and favorable booking help? Sure. But he also did his part with fantastic babyface work and great underdog selling. I was rooting for him in both matches last night, which wasn't the case in his previous matches, where I was either rooting for his opponent or apathetic about the result.

So, let me get this straight... You devoted countless hours upon hours to watching the tournament, but you bailed out on the final 20-30 minutes because you didn't like one of the guys in it? Wow. I wasn't a TJP fan either, but he earned his stripes tonight.

WOW! Before tonight, I'll admit I didn't give a flying fuck about TJ Perkins. Now he's one of the best babyfaces in the entire company and somehow had me rooting for him in both matches. Metalik vs. ZSJ was a mismatch and never really came together IMO, but at least the right guy won. Perkins vs. Ibushi was much better, and that really was a stunning upset. No one called it (except for that one guy earlier in this thread). Way to take the shine off Alexander by pairing him with Noam Dar, who is so weird and off-putting. BTW, was he always announced as being from Scotland first by way of Israel? I thought it was Israel first by way of Scotland? Did they swap the countries around? Anyway, fun match with the horribly named #DIY. For some reason, I was under the impression that the match was going to be Gargano-Ciampa vs. Revival, then Gargano-Ciampa vs. Alexander/Dar vs. Revival. Kinda disappointed there was no Revival, lol. The final was great. Trips coming out seemed too masturbatory at first, but when he unveiled the Cruiserweight Title (which I was hoping he would do), all was well in the world. It looks more like a Smackdown title IMO, so I hope the Cruisers eventually end up there, like Swagger did. Perkins showed tonight that he's a fantastic babyface and great underdog seller. I'm sold now.

He did say in one of his books that he wanted to reach the point with the comedic side of his character where people would shake their heads in disbelief that he was ever the "Hardcore Legend."

From J.R.'s Q&A: MariahCareyLover Asks: Hey JR. Do you think Eva Marie could have heat waiting for her when she goes back after her suspension? Posting all those pictures on Instagram acting like she is on vacation. Most wrestlers who get suspended they go to their house and hide those 30 days. J.R.'s Answer: This matter is a non issue to me. Sorry. Failing a drug test for the reasons that are reported are unnecessary and irresponsible. This seems nasty and hypocritical to me. No way would he throw Roman Reigns or any other "WWE darling" under the bus like this. I bet he hasn't. But "because it's Eva" he's being a judgmental twat. Fuck off, J.R.

Here's the difference between Rey and Alberto: - Rey was a midcarder who eventually won the World Title and was still treated as a midcarder even when he had the belt. - Alberto was a main eventer from the day he joined the company and retained that status through most of his World Title reigns. In his first feud, he beat Rey. Alberto eventually became a heatless midcarder, but that was later on. WWE kayfabe: Alberto > Rey Worldwide influence and lasting impact: Rey by a mile

In WWE kayfabe terms, ADR blows Rey out of the water. He was far more successful in the WWE with multiple World Titles and victories over Rey himself. Rey was a WWE midcarder who had one or two short laps with the belt. Obviously, in terms of worldwide impact, Rey is the clear victor. Rey was an innovator and trendsetter that will be remembered for generations to come. But in the WWE bubble, ADR was better.