PeteF3

He also recently expressed amazement/disbelief at the idea of black people living in North Carolina, like it's in the middle of Minnesota or something.

I will not stand for this impugning of The Rock. (No, not that Rock, the--never mind.)

I don't think we should assume that all industries are created equal. For example, I think it's been made pretty clear that the vast majority of college football coaches (and maybe football coaches in general) are complete pricks. I say this as a fan of the sport, but most of the coaches are utterly contemptible people overseeing toxic cultures to a degree not seen in most other job demographics. Probably moreso than in wrestling, but the possibility remains that wrestling may just attract more assholes amongst its rank and file than other lines of work.

Also appears that Mauro will be the announcer this year, which I approve of. He has his issues of course, but I trust in his ability to get people like Satomura over with a new audience.

Riddle just pulled out of BOLA. Yeah, I'm fully believing it now.

As Meltzer said about Hogan on WOR--you can be a voice or an advocate or be charitable all you want. But once you're doing it for the cameras, it becomes more PR than charity. No one's stopping Stephanie from being a women's advocate behind the scenes.

It surprises me, but yeah, I can't think of another scenario regarding the Richter screwjob other than Gorilla *not* knowing, because his entire broadcasting career was based on him being the smartest guy in the room. No way would he *willingly* come across as so clueless and confused.

Going most of the way along and I'm actually much higher on this than Downend. I rolled my eyes when I read him discuss the idea of vacating the World title and almost didn't want to even listen to the whole podcast, but while I still wouldn't go that route myself, the reasoning behind it is very well-argued. And I found myself agreeing with a lot of the other mid-card stuff or at least understanding it--Karl's idea of putting Raven with Piper is more sound than I think he would know, because that was an angle Raven specifically wanted to do. In general I agree with the rest of the rough layout: build up Jericho, build up Benoit, build up Steiner, save Eddie and Booker as projects for '99. Other random thoughts: - I don't even concern myself with when or how Goldberg's streak ends. You end it whenever the time is right. I'm not saying he goes 15 years undefeated like Andre did because it was a different world, but promoters weren't up all night in the early '80s wondering how and when to beat Andre--it was done when it was necessary and you could make somebody with it. I'm also adamant that if you're going to beat Goldberg, *beat* him. Andre didn't need cattle prods and 50 run-ins to finally go down--he went down clean. And was still a viable draw afterward. Whoever beats Goldberg (I agree that Steiner would be on the short list of candidates, though as I said, in '98 I don't even worry about that) needs to do it clean as a sheet. - From a selfish standpoint--I don't feel it would make any difference either way for WCW--I'd want to try to rebuild the tag division and try to create another point of difference from the WWF. This is also the answer to the question you had on what to do with Malenko--I admit I don't really have anyone in mind to be a viable partner for him, but he doesn't even need to be a tag anchor. It'd just be something for him to do. It would only hold back Benoit and Regal's not available, but you could find somebody. - I haven't finished the whole thing yet, but I'm curious about what we do with Bam Bam when he arrives. He bombed out as a ratings draw but I feel like he'd be an asset in some capacity and that he needs a plan.

Haven't gotten all the way through yet but I can see where these criticisms come from--the PTBN boys sometimes fall into the same trap where they "re-book" a show and start making changes just to say they made changes (like with WM4, though they did sort of admit their faults in the end). I also wasn't really on board with trashing those 51+ guys right at the start--not only would the optics be terrible to let that many people go at once (or even in smaller waves)...I for one *liked* the fact that there were 900 guys you could see on any one of WCW's hours of TV per week--somehow it was all much easier to sit through than the WWE's hours of TV a week today because of the sheer variety and no one being pigeonholed into working the "WCW Style." No, maybe Rick Fuller never drew my eyeballs or anyone else's to a show, but you need depth and mooks, too--and even WCW's mooks often had way more to offer than the bottom-of-the-card guys for the WWF--no sense in giving up on that point of difference. WCW had myriad issues in 1998 but profitability was not one of them--they were not in need of mass layoffs, at least among on-air talent.

And Dundee/Terry Golden. And Boss Man/Snow. And the Nitro Girls' intra-feuds. I dunno...by the standards of 1999 this all seems rather inoffensive by comparison.

Decent little tag stretch run--Gorilla Monsoon definitely would have chastised Lee for taking a needless risk when he had Trash bleeding and out, as that leads to the downfall of the Suicide Blonds. Jeb cuts a good money promo hyping the Trailer Park Street Fight at Christmas Chaos.

The usual empty but enjoyable match, because as usual, the crazy spots all hit even if there's not much in-between. I think the tornado DDT through the table should have been the finish, as it was a spectacular spot that looked deadly, but at least the actual finish came right after. Awesome trashes Tanaka after the match and we get a close-up of Masato's gnarly elbow. Interesting, as tim says, that they not only did a title change at a televised house show but that this aired on TNN on Christmas Eve, a day in which you'd think they'd be punting on giving us any shocking developments.

A throwback to those fun basic ECW house show openers from a few years ago--good to see Smothers and Rich keeping on keeping on.

Raven always thought he'd eventually drag Dreamer to his side, but Tommy has dragged him to his. He now wants to do the right thing, and promises he'll be there for Dreamer to get rid of the Impact Players at the PPV. We zoom out and Francine is listening, and seems receptive. I actually kind of hope this isn't another swerve on Dreamer because Raven needs some freshening up and a babyface turn, however ill-conceived a babyface Raven is on paper, is one way of doing that.

The Impact Players call out Sandman, who sees that there are 3 of them and 1 of him and naturally decides to answer their call. He takes out Jason, then Credible accidentally takes out Storm, Sandman takes out Credible, but Rhino appears to take out Sandman.

Pretty good action and a very cute finish, that's not only clever but is a little bit of character advancement for the Rock as this seems like the first time he's actively working to help Mick. I could do without Al doing comedy spots involving a bowling shirt while he's supposed to be working as a deranged heel, but at least he ended up being the butt of the joke in the end.

The start of the WWF roster kowtowing to HHH and Stephanie.