Cox

Just wanted to thank Kris and Bix again for having me on. It was a blast to be able to do the show and I think we had a lot of fun. And we finished before midnight, so...double bonus!

As I pointed out to Bix yesterday, and I think I may have made this point before, Shoemaker is that guy you're stuck next to in line while waiting to get into indie shows who tries impressing everybody else in line with his "insider knowledge," but most of it is stuff like "Did you know there were three Ultimate Warriors and four Undertakers?"

http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/wwe-smackdown-live-usa-1201782569/ Also sounds like we are getting another brand split, which should be interesting.

I think one thing to keep in mind with podcast length is that most people can only download a podcast of about 90 minutes over data plans. Anything longer would require wifi. For people like me who have unlimited data it's not a big deal but a lot of folks may choose to skip a long podcast until they have a wifi connection, which keeps them from listening in the car or at work.

And apparently it even made the 1991 Yearbook, which is consider buying just to see this match if I wasn't getting married in 2 months: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/18652-richard-morton-vs-bobby-eaton-wcw-main-event-080491/

Somewhat off-topic, but seeing this made me wonder if Morton ever worked Eaton in 1991 WCW while Morton was heel and Eaton was babyface. There was only about a 5 month or so overlap there to where this could have happened, but that would have been just so weird to watch, I really hope it happened.

I wonder how much of that may be because the WWE agents don't know exactly how to lay out a Zayn match (or a Styles match, for that matter) yet. He's only been on the main roster for a few weeks and I'm sure it's an adjustment for both Zayn and the agents to figure out how to make matches work. I think we've seen enough guys struggle with the adjustment to the main roster in the past to where a "wait and see" attitude for Zayn may be in order. And I wonder if that is why Jericho worked with Styles first when he was signed, since Jericho was really one of the last guys to go straight to the main roster from another promotion without time in developmental, and the only guy on the main roster, so he was one of the few people who could work with Styles and help him transition from a guy who worked one way in TNA and Japan, to the much different house WWE style.

I know this isn't a sentiment that is often expressed, but I sympathize greatly for the writing staff. The job of the writers is completely different than the job of a wrestling booker until around 1995. In the days of territorial wrestling, the booker wasn't looking to make TV entertaining, per se. They were just looking to create excitement so people would pay to see the show the following week/month/whenever. The shows were full of squashes, interviews, and angles to build to get the fans to the arenas to pay to see the blowoffs. And bookers could largely use the same cards 5-6 nights a week, because nobody really checked results or even cared to do something like that. It was an infomercial, basically. And sometimes the shows would be a slog to get through, but the few storylines or promos that happened every once in a while really made the show worth it. Today, wrestling is different. The goal is to deliver 5 hours of highly rated prime time programming to the USA Network every week, and on top of that a monthly WWE Network supercard. To put this in perspective, the TV shows generally accepted as being the best TV shows of the past 10 years are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos, and The Wire. Those four shows aired anywhere from 8-13 episodes a year, one hour a week. WWE does that much programming every 2-3 weeks. Of course the quality isn't going to be good. They're putting out way too much TV product. The best writers on TV have an entire year to plot out intricate storylines that culminate after 13ish weeks with a big finish. WWE tries to do the same with a similar sized writing staff, only they have five times the number of characters and infinitely more TV to fill. No wonder the weekly product is garbage. No wonder PS took time out of his Hall of Fame speech to thank the writers. It's an impossible task. That's why it's so easy for NXT to be so good. It's so much less TV to write, so it's easier to dedicate time to making it good. I just think the way things are structured, it's almost impossible for WWE to sustain truly great TV for anything other than short spurts because there's too much product to produce. They're asking too much of the writers to expect these shows to be coherent when they're trying to fill that much time and write for that many people. The fact that it's occasionally coherent, let alone good, is a miracle. And that's before we talk about having to cater to crowds who are impossible to please, how hard it is for heels to get heat anymore in a post-internet era, and how impossible it must be to work for a megalomaniacal billionaire who changes his mind on things fifty times before the show takes the air, and another thirty times when the show is ON the air. This is a long-winded way of saying I reached a point a few years ago, similar to the point you've reached, where I stopped watching the show weekly. And it helps me enjoy the PPVs so much more when I do tune in. My biggest complaint with Wrestlemania 32 was that it was too damned long (no wrestling show should EVER be 7 hours - nor should any entertainment event, for that matter). But as somebody who didn't care who won and lost and had no investment in the show as any sort of culmination of the best wrestling stories of the past year, I enjoyed it. The work was largely good, and sometimes great. The Shaq surprise was fun. It was cool seeing the women treated as actual stars and the men were treated as the bathroom break. I enjoyed my friend's annual tradition of critiquing everybody's new Wrestlemania gear. And I was happy that so many of the boys got to work the show and get a Wrestlemania payoff or a Wrestlemania moment, big or small. It was a fun show to watch that was immediately disposable. That's what WWE has become for me, much like I think it has for a lot of people judging by how much the numbers fluctuate month to month. And as long as WWE remains profitable, that's probably what it's going to be. And I think that's OK. I'm at peace with where my relationship with WWE is these days.

So according to last week's WON, the value of Vince's stock is worth around $792m. Which means I'd think Shane would need to make an offer of at least the value of his stock, and probably at least a little bit more, in order to entice Vince to sell. So probably at least north of $900m, and perhaps approaching $1B, and I can see a man of Vince's massive ego not accepting any total less than a billion just for the ego boost that comes with having created a billion dollar company, as opposed to merely a $900m one.

Something I've thought about regarding the Vince McMahon "stab me in the gut and take it from me" comment of late... Stephanie McMahon, and I'm sure this will pain a lot of people to see this, but it's true, is a wrestling person. As far as I know, she has never worked for a company that is not WWE. She is married to a wrestler. As far as I know, she has limited connections outside of the world of wrestling. That may have expanded somewhat with the "Be a Star" stuff and the other philanthropy things she's done over the past few years, but by and large, she's pretty much within the wrestling bubble. Shane McMahon has spent the past seven years outside of wrestling. He's developed some connections in China, and was successful in launching a company in China, even if it largely was a failure. He has the sports management company which represents Rory McIlroy. His wife Marissa is an heiress to the Mazzola corn oil fortune. He has legitimate contacts outside of wrestling, and more importantly, connections to money. Could Shane McMahon create a consortium that could buy out Vince? It seems crazy on the surface, because nobody can picture Vince retired and not being involved with wrestling, but if Vince wanted to pass down the company while he was still alive, I could see him asking of his son what his own father asked of him in the early 80's, and buy him out. Could Shane raise enough money to do that? What would that price even be? A billion? I don't know if Shane could raise that much, but I also feel quite confident that he could outspend Stephanie if he wanted to try to buy Vince out. What better way to take the company from Vince than to make him a Godfather offer for the company. And because WWE is publicly traded, if they were made a legitimate offer by a McMahon heir to buy Vince out, he might have to actually listen to that. What if that was Shane's play the past few years, trying to open doors to find the money to buy out Vince, since Vince wasn't willing to hand it over? This all might be legitimately crazy. I have no idea. But it's something I've been thinking about since I saw the "stab me in the gut and take it from me" line and I wonder if it's something Shane could realistically try to pull off.

Wait, so is this Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez, noted long-time wrestling insiders, or just two guys who happened to be named Dave and Bryan, genuinely baffled at the possibility that someone in the wrestling business might have questionable motives for making shitty booking decisions? Seriously. See Wrestlemania 18, where HHH was happy to sabotage himself as long as he sabotaged Jericho more. Sabotaging his own babyface run just made it that much easier for him to turn back heel quickly, which is clearly what he prefers.

Triple H vs Booker T at Wrestlemania XIX will always be the gold standard for worst booked main events in company history. Triple H getting super racist for no real reason against a super hot Booker T, then beating him clean in the middle, killing Booker's chances of ever being a real main eventer wasn't just bad booking, it was an extremely shitty thing to do. Triple H would have to start using every bad stereotypical Samoan trope in the book, like right out of Roddy Piper circa 1985, for this to come close.

And Triple H eliminating him actually would have gotten him boos, which he was supposed to get since he's, you know, the heel. But as you said, you know how this stuff goes.

Men in a Mission were just as lame a gimmick in 1994 as they are today.

I voted no. The reason isn't because I can't believe they would book the women like this, because I can, and they do. It's more because I've reached a point where my default answer to any "do you believe this backstage story" question is no. It's just a weariness on my part on this particular topic, particularly with the ex-writers, who are almost universally bitter and have axes to grind. So I fully believe the company is capable of treating their women in a misogynistic fashion. I just feel like this particular story is probably embellished.

Colby had a match as a five year old for UWC, a small indie promotion in New Jersey that I used to work for and have plugged on this board in the past. He teamed with his dad and wrestled Reckless Youth and Don Montoya, and later worked a singles match against Montoya. It was total gimmick and was more about the other guys, but they were matches that did happen. And yes, Montoya did the job in both matches. He later did a match or two as an early teenager, 13-14, where he obviously was able to do a lot more. So he's been around a while.

This has basically been the theme of this season of Fargo, with the small town crime family in Minnesota, the Gerhardts, getting pushed out of town by the larger Kansas City mob. And as an aside, I've been hoping all season for some throwaway reference to late 70's AWA and haven't gotten it through 9 episodes. Can't somebody be a Verne Gagne fan hoping he wins the belt back from Nick Bockwinkel? Nick Offerman's character would be perfect for this.

Given that Styles is primarily a work candidate and he was churning out high quality matches in TNA/ROH/indies on a regular basis from 2002-2013, it would be wrong to say he accomplished absolutely nothing. Clearly, Dave values that a lot more than his electorate does. If his work in TNA/ROH/indies really resonated in any meaningful way, he would have gotten more than 11 votes in 2013 and he would have stayed on the ballot in 2015. Clearly, nothing that has happened in his career pre-NJPW has any bearing on his case whatsoever, or else he would have had enough traction to stay on the ballot. Therefore, for the sake of talking about AJ Styles' Hall of Fame case, he has accomplished absolutely nothing.

I will preface my comments to say that, for better or worse, I "get" the WON HOF. It isn't ideal, but it's the best we have. Is it strange that Brock Lesnar is on the ballot despite being an active pro wrestler for six and a half years, and being a full-time, major league pro wrestler for three years? Sure, but he has moved numbers in an era where only Cena appreciably moves numbers. I personally think that waiting until well after a wrestler's peak, be it 20 years from their debut, 25 years after their debut, whatever would be a lot better for voters to have a full story of whether a wrestler belongs in the HOF, but I also understand Dave has a completely different point of view regarding this, and it's his HOF, so he sets the rules. I get it. I disagree, but I get it. What I don't get is why Dave keeps re-adding AJ Styles to the ballot. Two years ago, I think it was said that AJ Styles had the lowest voting percentage of any candidate that has ever been on the WON HOF ballot before. So clearly, nothing that Styles had done from 1998 to 2013 had warranted Styles even the slightest bit of consideration from the electorate regarding his candidacy for the ballot. Fast forward two years. Styles has since become the gaijin ace of New Japan, having many great matches with the top stars of the #2 wrestling company in the world. He's held the IWGP Heavyweight title twice, headlined a good amount of shows that have drawn decent crowds, and even upped his standing in the US with ROH and the indies, to where he has become one of the top indy draws in the US. Despite all of this, Styles can't even get 10% to remain on the ballot an additional year. Now Dave is talking about adding him again in two years, but now in the Japanese section. Can't we just let Styles' NJPW career breathe a little, just to see what his ultimate legacy is there? Why the rush to get him on the ballot now? If he was a candidate worth keeping on the ballot, he would have stayed on the ballot one of these two times, but he can't even muster up 10% of the vote to stay on the ballot. Just wait 5 years and see where his NJPW career stands after that point. Even two years from now, in the most optimistic scenario, you'll be talking about a career where Styles had four HOF-quality years and 15 years where he basically accomplished absolutely nothing. That is what bugs me more than anything about the WON HOF. Just let these guys build their candidacies.

Part of TNA's problem (and granted, TNA's problems are legion, but in this particular case, is what I mean) is that they taped all of that TV back during the summer, and they didn't want to give away a title change on their biggest PPV of the year. Granted, these are the problems you run into when you're forced to tape months of TV at once because you're a dead company only too stupid to realize you're dead, but these are the things that happen to you when you are TNA.

There are enough non-wrestlers on the ballot who have their own weird voting rules that the time might have come to spin them off into their own region, rather than counting them as part of US Modern and US Historic, especially since there appears to be enough decent candidates there to have created a logjam in that group. There are probably better candidates in the US Modern Non-Wrestler group than there are in the US Modern Wrestler group at this point.

Yep, I realized this after you posted it. I'm a bit embarrassed about that, as I misread Dave's numbers, but I guess these things happen from time to time. I still don't see how this category has 135 people voting in it with 59 people NOT voting for Colon, but it makes more sense now mathematically, at least. Really hope Colon gets in soon as i think he is unfairly keeping the bar higher for Lewin, DeNucci, and the other rest of the world guys who may not be getting a fair shake of things with Colon skewing the numbers. From what I've seen counting ballots the past few years, a lot of people vote only for Colon in this category.

Just went back to 2012. Colon had 61 of 63 votes. Somehow this was also 59%, even though that is 96.8% of the votes. ETA: I just realized I screwed all of this up. I was looking at votes needed for induction, not total votes cast, which I don't think is listed on here. You can ignore everything I've said, sorry about that.

There were 198 votes cast in modern US. Talking with Bix on this, he seems to think Dave hit 7 instead of 4 on the number pad for Colon, giving him 46 ballots instead of 76 ballots, which seems to make the most sense. But something similar happened the year before, when I went back to look - Colon is listed as having 85 votes out of 86 ballots cast, for 59% of the vote. That REALLY doesn't make any sense, and unlike the 2014 balloting, that can't be summed up with a simple typo - 59% of 86 is 51 votes, and Colon is listed as having 85. Something is pretty fishy about these numbers.

I'm going back and looking at last year's WON HOF vote totals, and something is not adding up. Dave has Carlos Colon getting 76 votes for 56% of the ballot. But that doesn't make any sense; there were 82 votes cast in the Rest of the World region last year. 56% of 82 votes would be 46 votes, not 76. If Colon did get 76 votes out of 82, he would have easily been elected last year with 92.8%. Has Dave ever offered any retraction for the vote total Colon showed last year? I still don't see how Colon would have only gotten 46 of 82 ballots cast in that category, even as weird as the breadth and depth of that category can make it look, but at least that would make more sense than Colon getting 76 of 82 votes and not getting elected.