S.L.L.

Tonight, the roles of David Leviss and Jerry McDeviit will be played by Lance Russell and Bill Dundee. So if it's just about answering the questions asked, and not about answering them in any sort of useful, understandable way, should McDevitt have just advised Vince to answer every question with "pancakes" or "37" or "Iceland".

Well, the company almost did go under this year. That and NOAH losing their NTV deal actually puts both companies much closer to the grave than I had really predicted, as I was looking for a more gradual decline than the big drops we've seen. Part of the "gradual decline" theory meant that I was not predicting Gabe would lose his job, so that could change things in a big way. Whether or not it actually will has yet to be seen, but I guess we'll find out.

What would noted 100% shooter Frank Gotch think? Frankly, I think it's about time that one of these fine fellows took Dave's "MMA = pro wres" hypothesis to it's logical conclusion and declared that actual pro wrestling isn't pro wrestling because it's not on the up-and-up.

I am shocked - SHOCKED - that pro wrestlers are lying/stretching the truth in order to hype up a match. Next thing you know, we'll find out the whole tournament is fixed.

Like most everything else in fiction, it's not what you do, it's the way that you do it. I agree with Boondocks' analysis, and would add TomK's (I think) line that even if a female heel did do something really bad to a male face that might otherwise call for a physical response, you could always plant a kiss on her or put her over your knee and spank her, just to get that visual payoff that wrestling so often calls for. Obviously, that brings up some problems of it's own, but I say better that than hitting her with your finisher or putting her through a table for a face pop. At the risk of opening up Pandora's Box even farther, does anyone know the context of the pic in the OP? Not that there's too many situations where that could be acceptable outside of Terri getting blasted by another woman - and even that won't be kosher for everyone - but I'm still curious.

Common term, but I think the main criticism here is that the definition Randazzo gave it was not the actual definition of the term. You can call out WWE for misuse of the Owen voice/Lawler check-up, but Randazzo is a sharp enough guy that he should know what it is and provide the appropriate criticism.

If it was a poor choice of words then it was a poor choice of words. Regardless this plays into my view that Randazzo should leave his PR to a professional and not an internet "street team" of some of his friends in the future. I think this was a pretty bad misjudgement on his part IMO. Ultimately, I'm not sure if it made a difference either way, except this way it made all involved - myself included - look like buffoons. The nature of backlash is something that interests me, and that I've written about a few times before. You get enough people annoyed by a heavily-pushed thing and they'll launch a counter-offensive that's just as heavy, even if the situation doesn't warrant it or is counter-productive to their goals. I think after all of the excuse made for Benoit, the semi-excuses made for Benoit, the outright denials of anything being wrong, the limp-wristed acknowledgments of things being wrong but staunch refusal to see anything change, and everything else I put on that bingo card, there was definitely a sect of people who were eager to see Matt tear the business and it's apologists a new one, and reacted with a decidedly sloppy, overeager, transparent message-board-discussion-as-PR-campaign. The backlash to that was that the book was as good as advertised, which came from both the expected Benoit defenders and pseudo-defenders, as well as a lot of the same people who were pushing the book in the first place, because those guys will backlash against anything if you give them half a chance (no dis). But yeah, that was probably a bad idea.

Also, it's something that predates Owen's death (they did it when Doink beat Crush half to death with his prosthetic arm in '93, for example). After Owen, it got a name and they added the bit where Jerry Lawler goes to the ring to check on the victim in question. But yeah, never something that was actually used to signal that something bad actually happened. Off-hand, the other one that pops into my head is Randazzo attributing all the success of Kevin Sullivan's Satan-worshiper act to Woman and saying Sullivan had no charisma, which is nonsense and seemed like him reaching to inflate Nancy's importance in the wrestling world to make her role in the narrative feel more significant.

Well, fuck, we're all guilty parties to some degree or another, aren't we? Here's the quote in question. I wrote it last July, I don't think my thoughts have changed much since then, my only problem was I'm not sure if I expressed those thoughts clearly. I mean, I try to pick my words carefully, but it doesn't always work out so well. Comment was meant as an insult, but admittedly it's more complex of a situation than you see in your average internet moron. It's tempered by the acknowledgment that Dave had a personal connection to the scumbags in question, and as such, accusations about them hit him on a personal level that would understandably cloud his judgment further. I'm sure most of us have experienced situations where a friend or loved one fucked up to some degree or another and we're forced to choose between defending the person we care about or dealing honestly with what they did and "betraying" them. Usually, we're talking about minor infractions, but when it's something more serious, it tends to be a really hard choice to make, even if the latter option is clearly the "right" one. So maybe I should have been a little more fair to Dave, as I'm sure reading a book that was basically a laundry list of the horrendous faults of a lot of people he knew and cared about would have put him on the defensive. Objectively, he's still wrong, and he still "comes off" as a guy who would rather see the Daniel dead that the WWE dead, though I doubt he actually thinks along those lines. But in any case, probably unfair for me to expect him to judge the book with a clear head given it's contents and his connection to them.

Biggest problem with the InVasion angle - the one pretty much everyone seems to agree with - is that it was booked as massive vanity project to glorify the WWF/E in general and Vince McMahon in particular. While I'm generally inclined to agree with Bob Morris' line of thinking, I think that if you bring in the big WCW names and their big WCW egos for the InVasion, it at least balances the playing field a little bit in that regard. I mean, it would still have crashed and burned because the egos involved would have turned it from a massive squash into a huge clusterfuck where everybody came out looking like shit...but at least it would be even. As pie in the sky fantasies go, Bob basically has it right. I've had this argument with a friend of mine since back when the damn thing was actually going down. He said the angle couldn't possibly work with the guys they had, because they weren't stars. I always countered that when you don't have stars, sometimes you have to make stars, especially when that much money is on the line. But that's a fantasy scenario. Vince has long put his ego ahead of his wallet, and you can't create a realistic situation where he doesn't. Jewett's idea is just rehashed smark nonsense. Vince McMahon as noble babyface building a promotion around guys trying to break through the glass ceiling? Shane left with a promotion of old-timers and egos? I shouldn't even have to explain why this one doesn't work. The actual solution - independently of whether or not you get the big stars - is to book the WCW/ECW guys as a legit threat to the WWF/E guys. There were a million ways you could do that, but that's the key. But it was never going to happen, at least not in any sort of long-term productive way. How ironic that "the easiest angle in the world to book" was in fact impossible to book when you realistically consider who was involved.

I choose to call that my new wallpaper.

They just sounded very "Engrish-y" to me. Like something you would see in the localization of a Japanese-made video game back in the days before games were big enough business that companies would actually put money into doing half-decent translations of the dialog: "Jill, here's a lockpick. It might be handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you." "A winner is you." "All your base are belong to us." "You spoony bard!" "Eastmost penninsula is the secret" "This guy are sick." "I, Garland, will knock you all down!" "Conglaturation !!! You have completed a great game. And prooved the justice of our culture. Now go rest our heroes." "The truck have started to move!" "Get a silk bag from the graveyard duck to live longer." "VICTOLY!" And so on and so forth. "In Rhodes' smaty record to WWE experience in 8,000." and "This leader it's character girl. She's not 25 years old any longer." seem right at home with that bunch. And well, it's not hard for me to imagine Meltzer - completely divorced from reality - watching "The King of Kong" and deciding the lesson of 200X was that wrestling needed to compete with competitive video gaming by doing more to emulate video games.

They were fun to read, too. Really enjoyed going back over that stuff. And why was I just thinking about old DVDVR Momoe Nakanishi hit pieces the other day? Although I think I was thinking of the 30-minute match. That's the one where Phil says they basically wrestled four different matches in one match, right? I'm having trouble finding it in the archives.

So after he decided that competitive video gaming was also a form of pro wrestling, Dave decided to start moonlighting as a Japanese video game translator? "Randy Orton used a keylock. It might be handy if he - the master of unlocking - takes it with him."

Another classic workrate report. This time, it's Phil Schneider looking at the first Russo/Bischoff Nitro. The end of WCW ensued.... Another classic post from Jose Fernandez: More Jose, on the heels of Antonio Pena's passing:

You know, I was wondering how he was able to get away with that. I guess I have my answer.

Also.... 3/9/07: 3/16/07: 3/25/07: 4/5/07: 4/12/07: 4/19/07: 4/26/07: 5/3/07:

Now there's no need for that! Jim Steinman wrote the Hogan "Rock n' Wrestling" theme. Tomk should show some damn respect. Actually, Hogan & Steinman are a good match. What's more of a "Bat Out of Hell of wrestling" than Hogan/Rock or Hogan/Warrior? Pat Patterson as the Jim Steinman of professional wrestling is an interesting analogy. Kinda wish I knew more about the production end of music to know whether or not fits better than the John Laurenitis-as-Steinman argument that TomK seems to be making here. On the surface, it seems to, but then the only Steinman I can think of that I actually like is "Ravishing", appropriately enough. If nothing else, always amuses me that Hulk Hogan's original theme was the instrumental version of a song about fucking outdoors.

Episode #49: Episode #50: 10/12/06: 10/26/06: 11/9/06: 11/16/06: 12/7/06: 12/14/06: 12/21/06: 1/11/07: 1/24/07: 2/1/07: 2/9/07: 2/15/07: 2/22/07:

More TNA Workrate Report highlights! Episode #27: Episode #28: Episode #30: Episode #33: Episode #34: Episode #36: Episode #38: Episode #39: Episode #42:

Don't think it was the purpose of the thread, but a few things Resident Evil got involved in went that way. Anyway, I think that's all lost to time in our post-NSW world. As to the topic at hand, can't talk about the greatest things written on wrestling message boards without talking about TomK's TNA workrate reports. Let's revisit some of the greatest hits, shall we? Episode#1: Episode #3: Episode #8: Episode #9: Episode #11: Episode #12: Episode #13: Episode #15: Episode #16: Episode #17: Episode #18: Episode #20: Episode #21: Episode #22: Episode #23: I'll probably dig through the archives more later.

Like others noted, the wrestling (w/o rock) connection did give MMA fans a reason to hate Lesnar. So, if I'm reading this correctly, hating a guy just because he was a pro wrestler is bad, but hating a guy because he's German, Japanese, wears a mask, talks too much, or has any number of other personae is totally OK. Or, alternately, it's wrong for people to hate Lesnar because he was only briefly a pro wrestler and had an extensive amateur career before that, just like fans shouldn't have hated Fritz Von Erich or Hans Schmidt because they weren't really German, or Yokozuna or Mr. Fuji because they weren't really Japanese, any masked wrestler ever because they weren't born with them hot glued to their faces, heel Eddie Guerrero because he was supposedly very soft-spoken in real life, or anyone else who's real personality doesn't totally match up with their on-screen reputation. I wonder if the opposite holds true for faces who are grouchy, hateful, vile human beings in real life?

I'd be amongst that group, and of all the teams I knew nothing about going into that tournament, they were definitely the one I came away most impressed with. If I'm Adam Pearce - and I'm pretty sure I'm not - they're the kind of team I'd be looking towards as potential hires for ROH. They have the in-ring technique necessary to keep the core ROHbot fanbase happy, plus the personality to fit in with the more "back to basics" approach that their supposedly going for now. Three things I want to note: 1. I remember watching Royal Rumble 2007 and seeing MNM come out for their match with The Hardy Boys wearing fur coats embedded with scrolling LED displays and jokingly thinking to myself "damn, how are NSE supposed to get noticed in the big leagues now?" 2. I've seen the slow-motion routine done three different times now. Not sure if this was necessarily the funniest, as really, it was the same bit each time, so it's kinda run it's course with me. That said, I think this was best technically executed version of it, as I really was questioning whether or not they were actually doing the bit or if the video was just being played in slo-mo. 3. Fun little match at the end, but I actually thought it was more because of the Phoenix Twins than the NSE. Dash Phoenix throws a really shitty corner clothesline, but otherwise, dudes were really spot on with their stuff. In any case, I am always for the uncovering and dissemination of great wrestling, so I thought this was cool, and I'm looking forward to more of these.

Digging around more in the SC archives, something I wrote in a review of the Angle/Joe Iron Man match: