Indikator

Stolen from WCMB (Bret Hart in his autobiography about Ric Flair) : 1989, Bret feels like he's not making enough money, and Brian Pillman gives him Flair's number: "I knew Flair liked me, because Bobby Heenan had brought him into the WWF dressing room earlier in the year, just to meet me.... We chatted for a time, and he left me saying that if I ever needed a place to go, to call him. Now seemed like the right time." Okay, I need to know - does anybody of you gentlemen believe that? I myself am unsure if I should be confused or greatly amused. Maybe both.

Could that have been Lex Luger instead?

One 1994 WWF European tour was called the "Hart Attack Tour" so somebody needs to ask him how they named it

This picture should repesent the current PG era

Can somebody please link a couple of "Pearce's booking sucks" threads?

So Bret-by-numbers was rather incompatible with Flair-by-numbers? This makes me long for uncooperative behaviour alà Robinson-is-gonna-school-you or Murdoch-will-make-this-match-bad

If you can please tell stories. I´d be interested if anybody ran away and yet debuted later on.

You have fake fans in pretty much every business (and movie/tv show) who are only there to generate noise, so that didn't suprise me at all. Have you ever seen a crowd in an entertainment product that was subdued?

Vince pretty much stopped caring about quality programming after WCW and ECW went under. A cable channel would strenghten his monopoly on the wrestling industy, thus I don't think he is concerned about these things as long as he still has +500 million $

Looking at screenshots of the new ROH DVD I notice that they apparently stopped darkening the fan area. Could this be a potential disadvantage if you think about the potential wankerous behaviour (+ retarded signs etc) you might get to notice? How horrible can ROH signs get? Will there be a new generation of fans-with-names like My Chemical Romance Guy and Beret Guy? Suddenly I don't really want to watch new ROH.... mon dieu!

Was Warrior prior to Summerslam worth a damn?

Now I saw a sign that suggests they are not Lenny and Squiggy, who are apparently from Laverne & Shirley. At least that was broadcasted over here but before my times. Damn you pop culture references I don't know about Other things I noticed: - Paul Diamonds micwork is laughable and quite possibly deteriorated over the years when I think about his Memphis anti-drugs promo - Cactus Jacks promo where he spits on the WCW tag belt is fantastic and so much better than his 1995/1996 run where he was too goofy for my taste - here he was just sad, ambitious and slightly deranged. He is a good goof of course, I just prefer his madman shtick - I do not dislike Jay Sulli and Matty in the House and even most undercarders like Keith Scherer .... didn't think I'd like them - I really like the Sherri/Shane Douglas combo (also Woman/Tazmaniac/Kebbin) - I was suprised how much they tried to push the Bruise Brothers All in all I think ECW is quite fun, people shouldn't put it down too much. Sure it's not the best wrestling ever, but it is a good tv show where you want to watch the next show/episode and thats all what counts, no masturbatory "I follow the current IWC trend and love/hate wrestler X" parrotting. But I am also a person who was like "Madman Pondo was in USWA in 1992? I gotta see that" 2 weeks ago so what do I know. I was not disappointed though with his match vs Jeff Jarrett

The bout went 25 minutes and would have been a five-star match except the first four minutes were pretty slow." Great Dave-ism Were there also bios/obits for the other passengers of the car accident?

Going through old ECW TV I have a question regarding The Public Enemy. What comedy act are they imitating. The Three Stooges? As a European I have never had the chance to watch old Three Stooges because they are never aired over here. And it's funny to see homages from other programming towards the Three Stooges (i.e. Home Improvement Halloween episode) and just look at the faces of other people watching the episode who are totally irritated at what the hell is going on on the screen

Bret was a huge draw in Continental Europe, the only question is which countries had a good TV outlet back then in order to specify the places. Just think of the recent Paris show. I was at a similar show a couple of years back and people came from all over the place and didn't care for the current product one single bit. It's interesting, there are a lot of European wrestling fans who followed wrestling - rather WWF - from the moment they stumbled upon a tv show on SKY TV back in the mid 80s until the Montreal Screwjob. A lot of them stopped right there. I don't like them as fans too much because they are stuck in that onedimensional wrestling style the WWF offered back then and never cared about other promotions or eras like the Backlund era.

Doesn't this always happen? They always are happy go lucky when a boom in a country occurs and then they try to milk it so much that the cow will inevitably die. Or they start ignoring the market. This is not about a global crisis but rather their incompetence and/or how they look down on non-english speaking countries.

Why do you think that the blue collar crowd MMA has will spend more money than WWE fans?

Finally a board that recognizes the importance of network tv. I always thought that the lack of it was the reason that kept TenKoji from the likes of Kobashi und the musketeers apart. In the end we will see a shift in distribution of the product. Over here in Europe I talked to a couple of guys in the business how an (internet based?) "on demand" service is going to be the next big thing - or rather how promotions are going to get their lion share at some point in the future. You can only guess when such a system can keep a promotion afloat. I often wonder how ECW could have survived in a DVD era, although you can't neglect the infotainment aspect of Hardcore TV that led to a whole lot of penetration that ROH has been missing. It's really interesting to see how the studio format made promotions in the late 50s and how they were the doom for a couple of promitions thirty years later. And the more I learn about the old European tournament system the more I am amazed how an ancient and superceeded promotional concept had an impact over the business. We all have seen how MP3 and the internet has changed the music industry over the past few years. And it is quite possible that such a fragmentation of the wrestling business is going to happen. Heck, didn't it already happen in Japan with pretty-boy , worked-shoot and hardcore promotions for niche (or rather non-mainstream) audiences? We westerners should get used to the fact that there is not only one local promotion that offers a certain wrestling style. Welcome to the globalisation, I guess.

From the old "Upper Midwest Newsletter No.108 (3/1)" during the name association game "t) Derrick Dukes ... Many writers called him the "Black Owen Hart." A creative guy who deserves better from wrestling. He came to Minnesota from Ohio with about $80 and a dream to go to Verne Gagne's camp. When he realized Verne may not appreciate racial diversity he stumbled across Rick Steiner, who referred him to Eddie." Whoa Nelly.

Was I the only one who had the impression that the wrestling courts were glorified when Benoit was alive and couldn't do anything wrong in the eye of the common wrestling fan? It always had the ring of vigilantism to me

That reminds me of some stories I heard about Cena doing the exact thing with Spirit Squad members during their first European tour. Wrestlers will be wrestlers, I guess

Bix being the IWC top heel is amusing

I hope one day there will be trolls who are/were inside the business. They would also make the same wrong assumptions, but I won't get holier than you about it because we all make them

"Harley was the first to do the kneedrop" I seriously doubt that. Around 1958 a Swiss guy worked as Ludwig Von Krupp in NYC and when he went back to Europe prior to Races debut he introduced the Top Rope Kneedrop (aka Bombs Away) there and incited a riot. I can't remember who he got it from, maybe Buddy Rogers. Great link by the way. It would be awesome if somebody would update the TSM shoot interview notes like that