Cox

Jericho came over during the summer of 1999. As crazy as it sounds, Hunter still hadn't even gotten his first World title reign when Jericho made the jump, and wasn't firmly established as a guy who could hold the belt. He didn't hook up with Stephanie on-screen until December of '99, and if they are to be believed, they fell in love after they became on on-screen couple, so Hunter's position as a top guy was pretty tenuous when Jericho came over. At the time, they were both competitors for that top heel spot. Soon thereafter, Hunter solidified himself, first by linking himself on-screen to Stephanie, then by having the strong program with Foley that cemented him as a true top guy, and finally by linking himself off-screen to Stephanie.

That's probably for the best anyway, with their TV taping schedule (they tape six weeks of TV at once) and the weird "alternate universe" quality of the PPVs as it is, I can only imagine the PPVs were wreaking havoc on how they planned shows. Until they're either doing live TV (and I'm certainly not suggesting that) or at least doing fewer weeks of TV tapings at once, they are probably better off shelving the PPVs.

I wouldn't say that Vickie Guerrero had heat. I would say that Vickie Guerrero was unpopular. I would say that fans didn't like her and they certainly booed the crap out of her. But to say she has heat? Heat is when fans want to pay to see a heel get their comeuppence. I don't think fans cared if she got her comeuppance or not, they just didn't want to watch her. Maybe that's what the writers want in today's WWE, but I wouldn't call it heat.

Yeah, well...how many pro wrestlers think the NFL is a work? Wrestlers are the most cynical bastards alive, they think everything either is a work, was a work, or will be a work, sometimes all three at the same time.

Do you think maybe he feels a little silly about being so vehemently pro-WWE during all of those media appearances now?

Anybody think this book could help their WON Hall of Fame candidacy? After reading it, I was really amazed that they weren't in, they would seem to have this locked down for work (WON Tag Team of the Year 3 times, a bunch of matches in the top ten for match of the year balloting from during their run), which was all done independant of Cornette. The book does a great job making a case for them as draws as well. Frankly, it's amazing that they weren't in the first class, as I doubt Cornette would be in without them (how else was he getting in, from booking Smoky Mountain?) so I'm not sure how he can be in and they aren't. The Backlund record book that came out a few years ago seemed to help push him over the hump, so I'd have to think that this should give them the spike they need to get over the top, and might even help rise the tide to get the Rock 'n' Roll in as well.

He might have lost the agent job when they decided to can the cruiserweight division, though. On that Raw booking sheet from a few months ago, he wasn't listed on there as an agent, I don't think.

And you KNOW that they probably wanted him to lose to Billy Gunn at SummerSlam in '99, but realize that Billy wasn't over one lick despite being programmed with the Rock for two months, and despite winning KOTR and whatever else, so they abandoned ship there and reunited the Outlaws that Fall.

How many times have you seen guys like Hulk Hogan or Vince McMahon admit that wrestling is a work or whatever, before lying their ass off about a bunch of other stuff in interviews? Just because they're being honest about one thing doesn't mean they're being honest about another; on the contrary, appearing to be honest about one thing can often help you spew whatever bullshit you want because you were "honest" about something everybody knew anyway. In this case, Lou is probably trying to frame himself as being a serious athlete and above all the nonsense around wrestling, since that is what your average Thesz fan would want to hear, when he's really as much a take-the-money carny as anybody else.

Hasn't Meltzer talked about Rock, well after his wrestling career was over, watching tapes of, like, Austin Idol in Memphis or whatever? I mean, a guy who doesn't like wrestling isn't going to seek out stuff like that.

I've never gotten this. No...it is not good publicity for Dave Meltzer to say, "This guy has an embarrassingly bad grasp of what happened in WCW." There are times where this cliche might apply, but this sure isn't one of them.

Isn't this the promo where they debut Rocco the Dummy? If so, AWESOME.

Somebody should put together a YouTube montage of 80's clips of Hulk Hogan acting like an utter shithead to all of his friends. It might be even more enjoyable than all of the David Caruso/CSI opens.

Wait, doesn't he work for TNA? ETA: Beaten to the punch.

I think it also comes from Foley's first book, since I recall he wrote something about their quiet appreciation (which I'm pretty sure he included to make himself look better for making the IWA fans pop for him). Since that book was pretty widely read, it may have spread from that.

C'mon, there's absolutely no way this dude wasn't yelling, screaming, and chanting "YOU CAN'T SEE ME!" along with everybody else in attendance, he's just trying to appear to be too cool for Cena since he thinks that's what the internet wrestling fan does. He probably wrote this while wearing his "HLR" t-shirt.

I really enjoyed the Cena/Swagger match from last night, even with the botched floatover DDT spot (and I thought the announcers did a good job covering for it). The first two hours or so had some really good wrestling, although between the pot belly and the balding, it is hard to take Matt Hardy seriously anymore. Without Jeff to feud with and the heel turn not really taking, he could be in a drastically worse spot a year from now, especially on Raw.

To follow up on the "HHH as overrated" theme, I have a friend who has recently started watching wrestling again after about a 10-12 year hiatus (he stopped watching WWF right as the Attitude era kicked off, as he did not like the Crash TV format). He just does not get why HHH is pushed at all, outside of the whole marriage thing. To me, he has just sucked the life out of Orton since this whole thing began, because Randy Orton seemed to be in a lot better spot after he won the Rumble than he has been since feuding with HHH (which seems to be a common theme for all HHH opponents except Batista). I have no answer for him...even when I watch HHH, I can't think of why he's pushed other than "Well, he's always been pushed."

I think it's because it was just a nothing happening time for WCW. Reading the old 1991/1992 Observers on the F4W site, it sounds like there's great wrestling up and down the card, but nothing particularly interesting is happening, other than periods like the Dangerous Alliance takeover. Plus, at least for WWE purposes, Flair was out of WCW for most of that time and the top star is Sting, whom they have never had under contract and is currently a top star in TNA, so they probably want to avoid spotlighting a guy who was never a WWE-made star. I think internet fans who remember that time and have watched the tapes have a fondness for the era, but as far as mass-marketing anything that happened from that era, it's pretty light. Same would hold true for most WWF stuff from that period too.

I think in some way, the McMahons knew of the strange Savage/Liz dynamic, as Savage used to lock Liz in a room by herself if he would be wrestling without her at ringside in the 80's, and this was "known" behavior by the boys back then. Everybody knew that Savage had the weird jealousy thing going with Liz and short of an actual physical beating, I don't think anything would be considered out of the ordinary in that relationship.

Watts or Abrahms?

Recent Steiner:

This was all recently covered in the Classic WON archive on the Observer website, since Meltzer started with 1991 in uploading issues (the first year he used a computer to write the Observer as opposed to a typewriter). Fascinating stuff.

I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that Meltzer ever "accepted" the WWF style, so much that the WWF/E style morphed into something closer to what Meltzer liked. It's probably more accurate to say that sometime after the Crockett buyout, Meltzer realized that the Turner guys who ran WCW were too stupid to run the NWA style successfully nationally, and hated them as a result. I mean, the "MMA = pro wrestling" talking point is really about the NWA/St. Louis "wrestling as sport" style succeeding nationally, with Meltzer perhaps not realizing that the reason MMA can promote as real sport and WWE cannot is...well, because MMA IS a real sport and WWE isn't, and the mood of the US at this point is such that wrestling fans expect big, crazy gimmicks in their pro wrestling, and fans of MMA (or fans of regular sports who don't like wrestling for that matter) would never support that style of wrestling simply because they don't want to bother with "that fake stuff."

If Jim Crockett was conned by Bill Watts, he sure got him back good by not paying him $3 million of the $4 million he owed Watts. A good con would have seen Watts get all of that money.