Cox

I think WWE made up with The Legend during the Bruno negotiations since he's on the Bruno dvd.

I would love for the next trend in wrestling matches to be for matches to end on protected non-finishers. I think fans today are trained to "know" that matches only end via finisher or via outside interference, so a match ending in a way fans aren't expecting could be really memorable if done correctly. Similar to how I feel the Lesnar/Cena match from SummerSlam will be seen as memorable just because WWE main events have never really been extended 10 minute squashes.

So why did Vince breach his contract with Bret? Was it because Shawn, for a lack of better term, "won" and convinced Vince to let Bret go to WCW, so he could have the WWE to himself, only to wind up getting hurt? Genuinely curious as to your theory here, since the story has always been that Vince couldn't afford Bret's contract.

Benoit was elected about a year before his World title run. His only real main event run when he was elected in 2003 was the Rumble main event, though he was an important part of the upper mid card for years in WWE and WCW. I think the only thing his higher standing on the card gave him in comparison to Regal was more of an opportunity to have longer matches that would be considered great, as opposed to Regal, whose spot on the card was more about having good sub-10 minute matches than having truly great matches. I still think his candidacy comes back to work in the end, as I don't think he received votes because he had two main events on WWE PPVs in four years with the company. He was voted in because he was considered the best worker in North America from 1995 through 2003. To me, he is as pure of a worker candidate as you're ever going to find.

What other reason was Chris Benoit elected into the WON HOF besides work? He wasn't a draw of any sort, he wasn't any sort of trainer, and by 2003, the ROH/super indy boom had only just started, so while you can make a case that he had some influence on that generation of wrestlers, it was well before any of those wrestlers had made any sort of national impact, and really the super indy thing was really concentrated to the Northeast and parts of the Midwest during that time period. Benoit's main credentials at that point were his placements in the Best Technical Wrestler, Most Outstanding Wrestler, and Match of the Year awards, which included five total wins in the three categories, which are all work accomplishments. While I would agree that Taue would not be a work-only candidate, and that the vast majority of those elected into the WON HOF were not because of work at that point, I can't see any other argument for 2003 Chris Benoit other than work.

Wow, I can't believe that wrestling fans like wrestling matches! What a novel concept. What a dope. He has no idea that the real reason people hate his writing is because, simply put, he does not write good television. It's all based on faulty logic, hating women, and shock angles at the expense of good, long-form storytelling.

In fact, BIX didn't vote for Murdoch last year. I remember this because I gave him shit for it.

The problem with that is, Hansen isn't going to put over Sting no matter what, so what good would it have done WCW to have Sting doing these matches with Hansen where he sells for 70% of the match and then doesn't win in the end? At best, they would have had to do a DQ finish at Havoc, and the same Texas Lariat finish at Starrcade, but I still don't think that result helps Sting that much in the end. WCW made a lot of mistakes with how they handled Sting during that first title reign, but I'm not sure this was one of them.

I don't think even the most anti-Dave guy on this message board would accuse Meltzer of cronyism when it comes to Orton. I'm sure he's had a lot of sources whose matches he's ripped to shreds, while also praising matches of guys who have been a dick to him. Dave's tastes have always been a bit goofy, so when I hear him praising Orton so much, I just chalk that up as another weird Dave opinion that I don't get. Hey, clearly somebody at WWE agrees, because he's almost always in the top mix, even if a lot of other folks think he's well beyond stale. Certainly, Dave hasn't been afraid to criticize Orton when he's acted like an ass.

Why would I side with either party at this point? It happened 17 years ago. Both sides have made their peace with one another. There is no real side anymore. Both sides got over it and moved on with their lives.

I know I've said it before (and probably in this very thread, in fact), but I think the F4W/WON site, in general, would benefit from a massive format overhaul. I mean, I'm sure that Dave has already written a part of what we will see in this week's Observer, so why wait until Wednesday to post it? Why not post more subscriber-only content over the week, rather than post an entire WON in one day? Then he can assemble bits and pieces of what he has written over the course of the week for the site into the print-only Observer on Wednesdays for distribution. I just feel like there is a better way for the Observer site to operate, as there still seems to be a very 1990's vibe to how that site works, which isn't surprising given that Dave and Bryan both seem to be pretty old-fashioned people, but it's still disappointing. On another note, the Observer site might actually be one of the worst-designed sites I visit on a daily basis. The overall look of that site could benefit from a drastic redesign even if they didn't change a single thing about how content is released.

Has anybody ever actually said anything positive about Kevin Dunn's time working for Vince? He's been the director there forever, so he's responsible for the whole style of WWE TV, for better or worse. Has he added anything perceptible to WWE TV in the past 15-20 years? The look has barely changed since Raw went to the big screen/ramp format in 1997, save for a few aesthetics here and there. I'd be genuinely interested to hear from an unbiased source as to what he actually does, for good and for ill. Unfortunately, there do not appear to be many unbiased sources since everybody other than Vince apparently hates the guy.

I liked the first 2/3 or so of Ring of Hell , but once I realized that Randazzo was using shoot interviews and internet wrestling reviews and such as actual sourcing for the book, it became obvious to me that he wrote the book with an agenda, and was using whatever half-qualified source he could find to make the point, even if most of those sources could have been and should have been questioned by anybody with the exposure to the wrestling internet underground that the former PolishBobStupak would have had, so it kind of lost me in the end. There probably is a good point in there somewhere, and there is some good insight from former WWE writers before that became a cottage industry on blogs and Twitter, but he used some faulty ass logic to get there, which makes it hard for me to take seriously.

Has Kevin Dunn ever been painted in a positive light? I remember he was seen as a boogeyman for all things that internet people hated about WWE dating back to even the Paul Heyman era, with the old meme that all of the problems with WWE TV were Kevin Dunn's fault.

Maybe they think that people are only watching the live stream and are trying to draw more attention to that, because they think viewers can't find the archive? I mean, I picture Vince trying to get the WWE app to load an old PPV before grumbling that he can't get it to work, throws his phone away, and wonders why they're even wasting time with this blasted network that nobody can figure out how to use.

I'm not sure if WWE ever ran a show at the Forum. They always ran the Sports Arena.

So last December, the Carter family was allegedly close to selling TNA to Toby Keith and Jeff Jarrett, only to bail at the last minute when Jarrett and Keith would not guarantee an on-air role for Dixie after the sale is complete. That here we are, eight months later, and the company is about to go out of business, when they could have cut their losses and sold out, but refused so that their daughter could spend another eight months play acting as a wrestling heel...well, that strikes me as particularly foolish, yet very TNA of them. TNA is truly the worst.

There is a certain "drunk guy rambling through an old story" quality to Dave's historic pieces and obits. On one hand, you can't believe all of these great stories you're reading, but on the other hand, you wish he'd just sober up and actually tell the story in something resembling chronological order.

I'd say that's Edwards' fault for tying himself to such a selfish twat in the first place. It's not like it's a new revelation that Davey Richards is an asshole.

Paul Heyman should only manage Brock. He does a great job as his mouthpiece but has been complete garbage when paired with everybody else.

Barnett would have moved to make a deal with Vince to screw Ole anyway, whether he would have been given a chance to save face or not. All that did was give Barnett slightly more justification to make a move he would have made regardless.

Their list of the best sports movie quarterbacks was far worse. How do they have a top 10 and barely even mention Paul Crewe? How did some guy from Napoleon Dynamite make the list but Paul Crewe didn't? Awful. At least the sports movie list had Clubber Lang.

Plus, I mean, what if he runs into John Cena at the gate? I bet he'd feel like a real dope if he checked the Money in the Bank briefcase after having a perfect opportunity to cash in right before boarding his flight.

It's probably for the best that he doesn't check that.

After listening to Shoemaker's podcast this week with Peter Rosenberg and Sam Roberts, my theory is confirmed; he is THAT guy at the indy show standing in front of you who thinks he knows a lot more than he does, and his friends all think he knows a lot more than he does. Awful.