Robert S

What a moron. I can only assume (hope) that he is either not aware of the historical connotations of the word "parasite" as part of antisemitism and/or he does not realize that Meltzer is Jewish.

Finlay really used that wording? Wow. Over here that probably would classify as a violation to the Prohibition Act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verbotsgesetz_1947) and would have serious legal repercussions for Finlay.

I also doubt that scalpers were much into wrestling tickets in the mid 80ies.

At the same time WWE has a Network show glamorizing all the ribbing and heavy partying stuff. As I had enough of Story Time after the first episodes: did they ever go into the more "hilarious" stuff like Mr. Fuji serving fried dog or Curt Hennig roofying everybody under the sun or did they draw the line at "Ric Flair having an orgy with some stewardesses"?

I am catching up on NXT currently. EC3 does not look much better than Jinder in the "how-does-he-pass-drug-testing" territory. Was he that big in TNA as well?

To some degree yes, you could also phrase it differently that their format and booking is great in hiding weaknesses of wrestlers even from people responsible for the call-ups. But yes, the way NXT (and to a lesser degree previous development programs) is working, wrestlers with not so much pre-WWE experience will have certain holes in their game when being called up.

It's a big difference if you have to produce 1 h or (taped!) TV per week and do little touring or if you are producing 8 (or how many) h of TV per week, 3/4 of that live, and be on tour 4 days a week or so. They will never get the same time to produce a match on the main roster as they do in NXT. The only thing they can do against that is being more careful in who to call-up. If they don't do that they will have to live with stuff like Bailey stumbling around blowing stuff left and right or Ember Moon reacting with the deer-in-the-headlight look once things don't go as planned.

I don't know the US legal system but shouldn't Cabana sue Amann for the legal costs? Over here in Austria in civil law suits the losing side has to pay the costs of the winning side (which I assume should ensure that rich people cannot sue poor people and enforce settlements as the poor people cannot afford to go to court).

I hope that they won't make the same mistake as last year and instead only drop one or two episodes a week.

The story about his death is really rough: apparently Jerry Lawler decided not to post bail as he thought that is was time Brian to finally grow up and deal with the consequences of his doing himself. I don't event want to begin to think what might be going through Jerry's mind right now.

Somehow Brickhouse is the saddest among all three wrestlering deaths today. Finding out that you have cancer in an early stage and not having the money to treat it is just horrible. It's hard not getting political about things like that.

This. The main reason for not having more PC guys on the main roster is that NXT is not a development league but rather a TV show that has its main focus in producing great wrestling and is hiring the best talent on the market to reach that goal. So the development guys barely get any TV time and I suppose not enough ring time in front of a crowd.

For me it was the other way around. But it is true that Ronda either looks like she is suffering from Bell's palsy (maybe this is a hidden JR joke?) or like Data's having problems controlling his emotion chip. Of course I could be nice and comparing the facial expression with Harrison Ford's standard expression.

The evolution of bad make-up?

I thought that was a list Scott Keith made up (or came up with) for the rec.sport.pro-wrestling ("RSPW") FAQ.

There are quite a lot of such guys on the roster, e.g. Corbin, Ziggler, Lesnar, Jordan, Mojo, both guys of AOP, Titus, ... (I know that most were before the performance center days, but they did not start scouting college athletes and similar only when they opened the performance center)

WWE often amazes me how little they do with what they have but Almas in a pre-show match against Sin Caras might be a new high (low). Not watching any WWE TV leaves also a lot of other questions looking at that card: - Why are the worse Rotundo son (and for that matter the better yet still shitty one) & Michael McGillicutty on the main show? - Where are all the great tag teams they have? (the Usos, the Bar, the Revival ... hell, I would prefer the AOP above most of the tag teams on the main card) etc. Oh yes, and if the Kane appearence is not a one-off (i.e. it leads either to a DB vs. Kane feud or a title reign) then I am done with WWE until the next Mania season starts.

Doesn't Lesnar have to be in the USADA program for at least 6 months to be eligible to fight? If that's the case I would assume he will fight on the Superbowl weekend show (if he makes it that far, that is).

The way 205 works I just find it unwatchable. I mean taping a B show after the A show just cannot work. Do it the other way around, that way at least the fans that are already there will be hot instead of everyone who stays being burnt out. Though what they should do is producing it similar to NXT. I mean no one cares about the "live" part of the show anyway. (I hope that the part of it being taped after Smackdown is actually still true.)

And PPV is not even a thing anymore. Everything is one the network and if you don't have already subscribed you can watch the big shows for free (as they don't get tired of telling you).

The first half of this match was fine and about what it should have been (minus bad Sting performance), but beginning with the Scorpion Deathlock this fell completely apart. You had Charles Robinson kicking Hogan's arm away when he was going for a rope break, an unnecessary ref bump, Nick Patrick put into the spotlight (sorry, this was not the time and place for the resolution of this storyline), a second way too long heat segment including Hogan doing face spots (e.g. Sting starting the knuckle-lock-test-of-strength, Hogan overpowering him and while Stings hands are on the mat stepping on them) and a horrible finish.

Probably worse. For as bad as wrestling is for you, most wrestlers don't end up with pugilistic dementia. I remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin wanted to take up boxing, so we asked my uncle to take us to train and he looked at us and said, "no, everyone who boxes ends up with slurred speech." Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were just on the Dan LeBatard show and even though both of their bodies are broken they are still cutting promos like its 1985. How many former employees (sorry, independent contractors) of Vince McMahon did not reach the age of 60 or even 45? As much as he disgusts me, I highly doubt that number will ever be anything resembling like that for Dana White. Are we pretending that those were problems with the act of wrestling vs. the act of fighting in a cage? Drugs, steroids, suicide, etc. are problems with pro wrestling, but have much more to do with the culture around the sport than the sport itself. Let's just say I could not sleep well or look at myself into the mirror if I made a billion dollars while my employees were dying left and right and only starting to do something against it when my company got into the headlines when an employee killed his wife and son with his bare hands. He might not have been responsible for drugs or steroids in the business but he definitely fostered an environment where taking them was advantageous.

Probably worse. For as bad as wrestling is for you, most wrestlers don't end up with pugilistic dementia. I remember when I was a kid, me and my cousin wanted to take up boxing, so we asked my uncle to take us to train and he looked at us and said, "no, everyone who boxes ends up with slurred speech." Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair were just on the Dan LeBatard show and even though both of their bodies are broken they are still cutting promos like its 1985. How many former employees (sorry, independent contractors) of Vince McMahon did not reach the age of 60 or even 45? As much as he disgusts me, I highly doubt that number will ever be anything resembling like that for Dana White.

He want 5.5 for the BOSJ finals, which is about on the same level as a 6.75 score.

So does that translate to 7* or 8*?