PeteF3

Jim Cornette's reviews of recent WWE programming on recent Experiences also illustrates that they're fucking terrible at actually booking to these so-called "casual fans." Cornette is about as casual as it gets (the first Raw review was prompted by him tuning in to see the Revival tag title match--it's not like he was forced into it) and in half or more of the segments he had no idea what was going on or who the people involved were supposed to be.

They can feud with the Argonaut Rough Riders, Midnight Express-style.

Would it be any more "begging" than Don Henley and Glenn Frey risking a C&D from the NFL?

The post-Rumble '97 Raw is terrific, really the first Raw of the new era, even though it's under the old set.

I wouldn't say anything definitively but it's absolutely 100% possible that Bret had a policy of not mixing pleasure with business, no matter how many ring rats he slept around with.

The Simpsons is another outfit that has separate French dubs, and I doubt it's just them and WWE, either. It may not be more than the difference between American and British English but it's clearly enough that mass media accounts for it.

What really got McAfee was that, whether it looks professional or not, he'd been in the shorts all day and then 45 minutes before he's supposed to go on the air is when he gets yelled at. A simple, "Hey, get out of those shorts" soon after he arrived would have been more palatable. And of course, as Pat said as he was on the verge of quitting...this is a second job to him. He'll have an NFL broadcasting or podcasting or Barstool Sports or talk radio career waiting for him as soon as he leaves.

Meltzer has said that the true idea man for Montreal will reveal himself. Dave had posted on Wrestling Classics some years ago that he could tell the full story once the guy died, but he's apparently chosen to tell the story himself. So that's kind of significant.

Shango-Santana was better than I expected, with both guys working hard for a match not intended to be seen. JR calls the match straight-laced but has some amusing one-sided conversations with Bruce Prichard along the way, telling him he'll "work on that" in response to some instruction or another and asking what Santana's finish is called.

https://twitter.com/marykayfabe/status/1111761051597578240 Screen grabs. It's the original match, folks!

Or Fred, to his friends.

If '99 WCW wasn't such a colossal shit show that killed their one remaining Golden Goose, then even if the AOL merger meant their death on Turner was inevitable, then maybe maybe *maybe* they could have lined up a TV deal elsewhere. Like, say, the suddenly-needing-inventory USA Network. Maybe not, but the company being so aesthetically and financially terrible sure didn't help.

A big crowd losing their shit over a World title change, thus irrevocably proving that drawing a singular pop outweighs the larger needs of the business.

"The ending to Dexter was terrible" is possibly the least-controversial take in the history of television, or at least tied with "The Simpsons went through kind of a decline after Seasons 9 & 10." I'm on fairly safe ground.

I have no criticisms of the end of The Sopranos, so no. The criticisms of the end of Lost, though, have led me to not bother binge-watching the series after the fact since it all seems like a waste of time. Dexter also.

Leaving aside the can-you-criticize-without-watching question for a bit (as it's so self-evidently true that's scarcely worth arguing), as someone following what actually happened on-screen, Goldberg-Nash sucked and the finish was idiotic (both the idea of Goldberg losing at that time, and the manner in which it was carried out). Both then and when I watched the '98 Yearbook. Booking for a singular "pop" is Vince Russo bullshit. You always have to know where you're going to go tomorrow.

Yeah, they apparently did have another match in '89, presumably around the same time as the Arn bout. Magee is a heel managed by Jimmy Hart. So the date may be right after all, but it's *a* match rather than *the* match.

This. When I was watching the '98 Yearbook I was amazed all over again at how effective the WM14 build was, and not just the main event. Even Sable's in-ring debut was a big deal and it turned out to go as well as it possibly could (probably too well, leading to them going back to it way too often). Tyson got eyeballs on the product, but Vince helped engineer the MNW turnaround by sheer laser-like focus while WCW was, as usual, all over the map. WrestleMania III was also a brilliantly booked top-to-bottom card. Literally every single match served a specific purpose--either blowing off a feud, heating up an existing or new one, or establishing new stars. And sometimes all of the above.

I thought the Rock-Austin X-7 build would be near the top spot for Worst Builds, actually. Shoehorning Debra into the thing was pure death. I think it gets overly romanticized because a.) The match was great and historical, and b.) They had the sense to shitcan the Debra stuff before the event, which was the right move but also made the build even choppier and more haphazard. This match seemed like the start of the WWF deciding that having two huge stars face off wasn't enough and they had to overthink things to death.

Yes it is.

My memories and cursory re-examination over the years indicate that this place (in Loch Sheldrake, New York, apparently at the Community College) made the Fernwood Resort look like Cowboys Stadium.

The most notable thing about this show is that among all the tiny dumps the WWF taped television in from late '93-'95, this special has to be the absolute worst. It looks like it's coming from an industrial warehouse basement somewhere. That and maybe the surprise finish to Crush-Bret.

How much '90s MUGA is actually out there that we know of? I don't think even a certain eastern-PA tape dealer has much before the mid-'00s revival. I've seen lists of two tapes on the old KanD Match Listings site and on Lorefice's site, some of which has shown up on Jetlag's Youtube. And yet... https://youtu.be/jq-4-KJCIaQ I found Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Tully Blanchard from a '95 show on Nicovideo and threw it on my Youtube channel, as well as a match from the same card between two Brits out of the Snake Pit. I knew of this match, but had no idea that there was more MUGA actually taped. Edit: I should also point out that I've found a few pages of what appear to be Japanese match reviews of other not-circulating tapes from this era.