C.S.

No, it gives the other person the point. A short-term sacrifice but a long-term strategy to injure your opponent.

Mark Madden posted his WON HOF picks on wrestlezone.com: "Bryan is on my WON HoF ballot. I also voted for Brock Lesnar, Ivan Koloff, Perro Aguayo Jr., Gene and Ole Anderson, and the Assassins." - Daniel Bryan = Odd Choice for The Observer Hall of Fame - No! No! No! Who Isn’t On My Hall of Fame Ballot

I don't know Dragon King Karl from Dragon Ricky Steamboat, but instead of talking shit about him and his voting decisions, why not invite him here to state his case? I'm certainly curious to hear his reasons. He may decline, but at least a good faith invitation would be better than what's happening currently. Openly bragging about being blocked on Twitter for trolling is not a good look for this forum. Just my opinion.

Yeah, Creative generally sucks during this Fall period. It has for years, and it's a known thing that it has. I find that inexcusable. Back in the Attitude Era, there was no "cooling off period" like there is now - there was no mentality that "it gets hotter when WrestleMania season approaches." For better or worse, Russo tried to keep things moving and hot every week. You can criticize a lot of what he did, but he was never complacent. We can't say the same for the WWE today. Yes and no. I am not really excited about the match, but I kind of want to see it because at least it's the rare example of a long-term story with a payoff of some sort. Why they're putting Kane in that spot instead of a younger talent who could benefit is another story entirely. Then again, they probably look at Seth as that younger talent benefiting from Kane's presence.

All of this bullshit about football is just an excuse WWE uses, and I'm surprised any of you would buy into it. When WWE's ratings were at record highs during the Attitude Era, did football make a difference? Not really. The product was red hot then (even if many aspects of it can be criticized in retrospect or didn't age well), and it's stale now. Period. Also, I think I'm the only one who likes the Kane-Rollins feud. It's the rare storyline they've actually bothered to build up - and for months on end too - and it's not even the main event anyway, so who cares?

Not sure how either Benoit or Del Rio were surprises. They were the blatantly obvious choices to me. The Rumble has almost always been super predictable, and '04 and '11 were no exception to that. To answer the questions in this thread: Who should win the Rumble this year? Dean Ambrose (or Bryan if he's ready) Who will win? Probably someone predictable like Brock or Reigns...yawn.

No truly classic matches, but the entire show was FUN! - Owens and Ryback didn't mesh well, but I loved the cheap heel finish, and I think Owens will be a great I-C Champ. - NEW DAY ROCKS! - Speaking of which, everyone is mentioning Sting's injury, but what about Bubba Ray? He was visibly clutching his forehead for several minutes after that table spot. Fun match. - Charlotte's selling, other than a couple of spots, was spectacular. I thought she was legit injured at first. Match of the night? - Jericho as the mystery partner was an illogical "WTF" moment, but I like the story they told in the end. I'm up for some Jericho vs. Ambrose. - Both Rollins matches were good. I hope Sting's injury isn't as serious as we're hearing. - Count me as one of the few who is happy to see the return of the "Demon" Kane. They spent months building his issues with Rollins, so I'm actually looking forward to the payoff. I wish they'd give Kane his old mask though. The current version of his mask is ugly and boring. - I'm also glad we're getting the payoff to Brock/Taker at Hell in a Cell next month instead of at WrestleMania.

A writing staff is the one area where Wade has always kicked Dave's ass. I'm not saying all of Wade's writers are fantastic, but at least he's made a consistent effort from day one to feature other writers. Dave hasn't really done that - at least not in the same way or nearly as strongly.

How is this "mainstream" though? "Outside of wrestling" and "mainstream" aren't always necessarily the same thing. I've never even heard of this site.

For all the nitpicking about TNA, this is a really cool gesture - especially if Earl Hebner is indeed "the first referee to ever be inducted into a professional wrestling Hall of Fame." Is that actually true? We know there are no referees in the WWE Hall of Fame, obviously. What about the Observer Hall of Fame? There is at least one other wrestling HOF too. Maybe more than one. Is a ref in any of those? Here is the official press release from TNA, for those interested: http://prowrestling.net/article.php?TNA-announces-Earl-Hebner-s-inductor-Hebner-comments-on-the-honor-more-details-on-the-Hall-of-Fame-ceremony-44017

I thought it was a decent enough show - started out slow, got better as it went on, but still probably the weakest of Austin's Network podcasts so far. I actually think Jericho might have been a better fit to do this one. The one thing I wish Austin has asked about was Christian's seemingly forced retirement.

This video proves she can do the whole "Total Divas" bikini thing too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QHnzx8Z2TA

WCW debuting Nitro in 1995 gives it the instant victory IMO. It was a compelling, must see, can't change the channel show. The WWF was a trainwreck the entire year.

*His appearance on Arsenio Hall and resulting scandals This surely didn't help, but business was in the toilet anyway. IMO, the effect this had was negligible at best. The WWF simply wasn't a hot product anymore, period. *His run in World Championship Wrestling and role in bringing the company down I know we aren't supposed to talk about the good, but he did more good than bad. Was he even around in very end anyway? Without the Hogan heel turn, WCW doesn't get all of those curious casual fans tuning in to find out what the hell just happened, and the nWo would've been just another group squashed by Starrcade. I think it's silly to blame him for the demise of WCW when that company had a million and one other problems that brought it down. *His stint in TNA and role in possibly hamstringing another potential alternative Hulk didn't help much, but TNA management was inept before him and after him. Can't see how Hulk reasonably takes the blame for incompetence that both predates and postdates his involvement.

To be honest, they are - kinda. There's a good match here and there, but truth be told, the Specials are where NXT really shines.

If Shawn didn't come back to face Bryan at his hottest, I don't see him ever coming back for anything else.

With how the brutal WWF schedule was in the '80s, I'm not surprised they didn't have time to watch the NWA. They probably didn't even watch their own shows most of the time.

I know nothing about how to get a channel on the Roku, but I have to ask... How is it that so many small indy feds have Roku channels? Some examples: https://channelstore.roku.com/search/wrestling (some non-wrestling results are mixed in) Warriors of Wrestling, Ace Pro, AAW, and a few others... I'll admit I've never heard of any of them. Did all of them really fork over 20k? Like I said, I know nothing about this process, so I am genuinely curious about what it entails.

Bret Hart's thoughts: "I can say that, through my experience, that a vast majority, of course not all of them, but a vast majority of the white, Southern wrestlers tend to be a little bit racial all the time, and the N-word was frequently used by a lot of wrestlers in the dressing room when there was a black guy not around, kinda thing. And being a Canadian, I found that really difficult, I didn't see eye-to-eye with that kind of stuff and never felt like that, and I've never been in that kind of mindset, but for Hulk Hogan to make the comments that he made that is something if you had a camera like that in most of the dressing rooms with a lot of the Southern wrestlers from Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, even Texas, you get a lot of that kind of slant on things. And I'm kinda glad he got busted for that reason, that times have changed, and y'know, you have to answer for that stuff, and he's answering for it. He's probably glad that Roddy Piper passed away, because he took all the edge off all that." He was referring to Hogan, not Meltzer, but I think it's still relevant in light of the recent discussion. http://www.cagesideseats.com/wwe/2015/9/3/9257411/bret-hart-hulk-hogan-return-wwe-n-word-used-locker-rooms

I was just posting what Meltzer said once upon a time. Personally, I think it's even more racist and fucked up, not less, if the n-word was in fact an official business term in wrestling. That blew my mind the first time I heard it. It's so shocking and appalling, and it shows how backward and stunted wrestling is compared to the rest of society.

Because it had long ceased being a "business" term by the time the incident with Mark Henry took place, which makes it "everyday conversation" by default. That's the difference. Still obviously racist either way, of course. It should have never been a term that was used in the first place, "official" or otherwise.

Never said otherwise, just explaining why Dave might have made that argument. I think what he's trying to say is that there's a difference between Michael Hayes/Bruce Prichard/etc. and a random wrestler who uses the term for black people because it's an official designation that comes from the office. Both are wrong, both are racist, but Hayes/Prichard/etc. might have actual racist views while the random wrestler is just parroting a term the way he would another term like jobber. Of course, it's still wrong and racist, but let's face it, wrestlers in general aren't always the most educated, enlightened bunch. See above. Of course it's racist.

Yeah, there is an obvious difference between Michael Hayes and Bruce Prichard casually using the n-word in everyday conversation and the same term being an official designation for black people in the wrestling business - similar to the way the term jobber might designate a person who loses the majority of his matches. It's still horrible and fucked up either way, but I can see why he'd argue that some people are racist and others aren't - as warped as that may sound. But yeah, Dave obviously needs to explain and clarify, and give more of a history of the term in wrestling, because it's obviously confusing and upsetting to a lot of his fans (and rightfully so).

I was looking for this in the Roku Channel Store last night but there was no sign of it. Any ideas?

Dave has talked about this before. He has said the n-word was the official term in the business for black wrestlers at one point. This lasted until the '90s, if I'm remembering correctly. (Someone can jump in with more exact timelines - I'm going off of memory here.) That's horrible, but it's not an example of Dave being racist. He's just reporting the situation, which is obviously fucked up.