Death From Above

If it was a Vampiro/Sting WCW throwback, they need a promo where Shawn starts calling The Undertaker "Mark" to stress the depth of their out of character friendship, then tries to set the ropes on fire... but they don't light and everyone starts booing. Ah, memories.

WWE desperately needs some fresh blood but now they are really seeing the effect of more or less anihilating all their legitimate competition. I think we're really starting to see the effect of what having one real national company with a huuuuuge gap underneath it for a long term period of time actually means to their ability to do anything fresh. WWE has never been that great at internally developing talent in the "we train you from the begining of your career, we bring you up, you spend your whole career with us" kind of sense. Even guys that "made it" there such as Undertaker or Kevin Nash or Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels weren't coming up through some sort of internal WWE developmental program. They've always been the masters of the free agent signing. And in some cases like Austin it was more of a "thow shit at the wall and see what sticks" kind of signing as opposed to some master plan to make people that big. There are exceptions when it comes to internally manufacturing stars, but when you look at who they are: Angle, Lesnar, Lashley, and The Rock (who didn't "start" in WWE technically but it was his first "significant" company) would be the four recent history prominent examples that come to mind, and are all guys they actually did pretty much build from the ground up, and they are all out of wrestling except Angle. I don't know what that says exactly, but it is... odd. (I guess you could also make the tongue in cheek arguement that Angle being in TNA means he's out of wrestling too, but I won't go there.) HHH, Orton, Cena, probably a Batista appearance, Jericho, JBL, Mysterio, Edge, Undertaker, Michaels... These are your headliners, more or less. Is there a fresh matchup available between *any* of them that makes any sense at all to be running? I guess Orton vs. Batista is coming and that could have some life to it. Aside from that, it's pretty much all been done many times over hasn't it? WWE has had periods where they struggled for main event matchups before, but then they at least had the option of lucking into something like Steve Austin, a guy I don't think they really had big plans for initially but because the competition was there, the opportunity to sign him and fluke into it was there too. The industry hurting as a whole is hurting their ability to produce new big business just as much as it is hurting everyone else. You can't have the same 8 people main event 2 major TV shows and 12 PPV a year for a decade and not have it go stale. I don't care if it's chocolate cake, you don't eat it every day.

I am going to have great difficulty shaking this image. YARR YARR I'M A PIRATE LINDA COME AND GET ME

Josh Barnett is a huge video game mark, that's sort of ballpark I guess (it's possible he's an anime nerd too, I don't think it's a big jump from being a Final Fantasy fanboy is it, at the very least he's probably got a grasp of the base concepts). Completely useless random trivia: I once made him laugh on Zach Arnold's old forum when he put out a call for a cathphrase in New Japan and he understood the reference when I suggested ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US.

Everyone realized pretty fast this was the spot WWE were putting themselves in right from the time they launched this thing, if they intended to carry on with it long-term. They simply induct too many people at a time and espeically since certain "makes sense but have the baggage" candidates like Bruno and Savage aren't in yet, it was kind of inevitable it would stretch out this thin. But it's a fake hall of fame for a fake sport, so my panties aren't in a knot over it. If they want to induct the dude with the parrot that's cool by me.

http://www.tsn.ca/mma/story/?id=270808&amp...os=secStory_mma I only bother mentioning this mainly because I find it hilarious that in 2009 this actually made news on a mainstream network, even as a blurb.

~COMMITMENT TO THE BIZ~ John Cena probably approves.

Mine is here: http://www.deathvalleydriver.com/Bestof90s/jdwwcwballot.html I'm loathed to actually read it and instead will just do the old Right-Click, Copy & Paste. It's probably as embarassing as all hell. John * Ric Flair vs. Vader - Starrcade '93 (12/27/93 - World Title) Probably the most overrated match of the decade. For fucks sake, it's not just me then. This match is an abortion. I'm stunned how much praise it still pulls in to this day.

The real question about Hogan that never comes up enough: Just what would the world had been like if his bid for presidency of the United States succeeded?

Okay I was certain I didn't halucenate reading the buried treasure thing so I started thinking where I heard it. Then I recalled it was from a wrestling book, but one I hadn't personally read, but one I'd also read threads on. That narrowed what I could have been reading when I saw it down a pretty long way to about like 3 things tops. Which brings us to the source being I do believe Randazzo's "Ring of Hell", for whatever that's worth. I really don't know the rest of the story, if there is one (and Lord, I do hope there is one I'm tempted to buy the book just for this as I already know that wrestling is a shitty, screwed up business full of strange people, so the rest of the book's material holds minimual interest to me). I know the book has been a huge hot topic of debate so I don't really feel like re-opening it's credibility/quality/whatever fucking problem people have with it again, especially since I don't own a copy. But that was the source of that particular rumor.

The story I heard years ago was that Inoki was investing in some Brazilian company trying to turn cow shit into fuel, not sugar cane. I find that one a lot funnier even if it turns out to be rubbish. I can't source it so it's probably nonsense, but between that and the time Fidel Castro got him to buy an island on the premise of it holding buried pirate treasure... well, Inoki was an adventerous one. Maybe it was both cow dung and sugar cane. I mean it's concievbably possible, if you're looking to develop an early age bio-fuel. I don't even want to imagine what that would smell like.

Considering the amount of money TNA is losing, I'm not convinced that's safe either. I mean it's a pretty hard expense to justify in the best of times let alone now. It's a horrible product (in my opinion), but the much bigger issue is that it's a horrible product that has consistantly lost money and hasn't shown signs of doing otherwise. I guess RoH is financially stable, and if they cut out mastubatory crap like running shows in Japan because that used to be the cool thing smart marks wanted to do in 1998, they at least have a chance to be a good little business and ride everything out. I haven't really followed their whole ownership change closely but I get the impression from what I've read they are heading the right way on that front. Even if RoH becomes #2, I'm not sure it means anything. It's like calling the CFL the #2 pro football league in the world next to the NFL while the money losing/dying/folded/whatever Arena League is TNA, the size gap economically still makes the comparison pretty much entirely worthless regardless of what you think of their respective products for entertainment value. In competitive business terms there is no #2 in North America, and there won't be for some time barring something entirely off the radar happening. I used to think all the doomsday talk about Japan was just that, talk, but that was back in the "if Zach Arnold proclaims the apolcalypse every single year, some day he will be right" days. It doesn't look pretty business-wise. If New Japan loses their network TV, that's a crippling blow to the business. Who knows how long it could take before a network goes that direction again. I've made this point about RoH (or any new company) expanding to TV: networks *do not* come looking to you because they think they can help *your* product. They don't care about your product, and it's not their job to care about your product. They come to you only if they think you have something that helps *their* bottom line. I'm not sure what wrestling (anywhere) could do to make that case right now. I guess in business terms, 2009 is fasten your seatbelts time by the sound of it. That was awfully gloomy but it's all I could think of at the moment. EDIT: At some point in 2009, we really should be hearing internally about the WWE floating the idea of their own network, not just like the 24/7 channel airing old stuff, but new programming as well. I don't know if anything will become of it, but they should be floating the idea of an outright specialty channel covering more than PPV and old Nitros.

I have no reccolection of No Holds Barred (I'm sure I must have seen it as a kid but it's been forgotten), but to this day I have a soft spot for Suburban Commando. Hogan punching out a mime tops most of his WCW work for me. I don't ask for much.

Would prefer to see things carry on chronologically but I agree as long as it happens I'm happy either way, these are a really cool nostalga trip.

So, this spawned from a comment Loss made in the "what are you expecting in 2008" thread but it doesn't really fit there. Seems better suited to comments that don't warrant a thread so I'll post it here: In a sense this touches on why I passed on the '80's Memphis set after really enjoying the Mid-South one. I get why the entire Benoit thing ruined a lot for a lot of people, though I'm not one of them per se (mainly because by then I was not paying any more attention to the in ring product in this business than I am now). But I have a really hard time getting into anything focussed around everyone's current favourite child abuser, Jerry Lawler. I just can't enjoy his work, because the fact that (I'm sure a great deal of it) is "great wrestling" doesn't get me past the fact that as a human being he grades as a failure. I'm sure he's a fine wrestler, I'm just not sure I really care. I've always been more interested in "what's good" than I am in "what's new" so the '80's project as a whole is something I view as interesting. I just don't want to watch a set built around Lawler, no matter how good his punches look. To each their own reason to be disgusted with the wrestling business, I guess. It's not like there's any shortage of material to pick from. That was just mine for the past year. I'm not suggesting "Lawler is the worst person in wrestling" or anything of the sort. Those sort of sweeping moral judgements from random people on the interwebz are stupid and childish. He's just one of the people that, personally, bothers me for reasons that have nothing to do with his in ring career. Are there 100 other guys you could make the same case for? Probably more than that. Okay, easily more than that. I could probably name 100 workers off the top of my head easily that have personal problems I'd find "morally objectionable" but have watched without caring. But anyway, I find Lawler a lot creepier than most people I guess, and I figure I'm entitled to find him creepy if I want to. I'm sure it's a fine set that a lot of people are enjoying, and to each their own in the end.

All Japan has been on a thin thread for years, but they seem to understand how to operate within that. Are they really any thinner now than they were in the period where wrestlers were being paid in tickets that they could sell on their own to certain shows? Whether NOAH can do the same job of operating on a smaller level remains to be seen. I don't see either going under in 2009. NOAH could become the worst company in the world right now today and it wouldn't change that it would take more than 12 months to kill their hardcore fanbase which should keep them afloat at least in the short term, I would think. Japan is entering a phase where for the first time in history of the business there, they can't on any significant level prop up a product through the sheer mass of network TV which they've always had. Through sheer number of people you're marketing to, you can do a lot of things that wouldn't otherwise succeed and still work. That's totally done, it's a coffin that's been being built for years and is now more or less complete. I don't think the future answer lies so much with in ring talent (although I do think Japanese wrestling isn't what it used to be in ring but bad in ring product has never stopped anyone from making money), but in bookers finding new and creative ways to get people to care about their products. Whether in the next decade even new creative booking ideas are enough if network TV won't touch them anymore there, I don't know. Being on cable in the US is fine. In Japan being off the main networks is barely distinguishable from not being on TV at all. I think there's going to have to be a radical change in the business in Japan for it to "recover" business wise. Something really left field, in the "FMW is doing WHAT in their matches" sense... not meaning "get hardcore/have bomb matches", meaning "Something no one had really thought of and executed before that hotshots business for a few years". UWF was something radically different in the 80's, FMW in the '90's in the totally opposite way, I don't think the 00's have really had that radically different thing. HUSTLE in many ways could be, the Americanized style as interpeted in Japan, but it has never resulted in any large scale big business the kind produced by people like Maeda, Takada, Onita etc. I guess maybe one has to look towards 2010 and beyond to see if that next "new idea" catches on. Might not be a new company, just new ideas from within the old ones, but something fundamental has got to change or the Japanese business is going to stay more or less indy-level for a long, long time.

I never really did understand this subsect. And that comes from someone that thought joshi in it's big years was just great. I dunno, maybe in wrestling circles I'm the werido. I can seperate the fact that if I find a woman attractive from her DOING HER JOB for a living as entertainment. I've always stayed out of the "wrestling fans discuss chicks they think are hot" thing because I don't want to get painted with the same brush as... well, "those people". I mean, I had a thing for Megumi Kudo back in the day, but it had fuck all to do with the fact that Combat Toyota busted her open. They're two entirely seperate worlds, to me anyway.

Somehow I'm surprised this picture hasn't resulted in a thread on DVDVR where like a dozen people got banned. Then agian it couldn't possibly bottom out into stupidity any faster than the "Who sucked the most for the longest" thread did, it would just be creepier.

The Styles/JBL thing, as seen on PWInsider.com: I don't know if Joey Styles one punch taking out Bradshaw is the funniest story of the year, but I'm really willing to entertain other candidates for my personal amusement.

How does Pacman Jones playing himself collect worst gimmick votes? I understand a backlash against him being present. I don't understand how he qualified as worst gimmick. Then again I also seem to remember a similar point being made when people on DVDVR suggested voting for Great Khalil, I guess it was the year before, "He should be playing something other than 'big Indian guy with muslces'? Really"?

Just a comment related to the Memphis set. I've been going through some of old the audio shoot files in the multi-media section, and I'm on Terry Funk's shoot as we speak. One of the matches that is in there is the Funk/Lalwer empty arena match. It's really something, that even as just an audio file, with all you have to listen to being Lance Russell's set up when he's alone in the arena waiting for them to show up, Funk's manic crazy awesome mic work, and then Russel calling the match, it's still amazing. The pictures are almost unneccessary, the story is told so well. Just as nothing but the audio it's still incredible. It's like... some sort of surreal radio broadast. The most aweome radio broadcast ever. Funk is my favourite interview ever, and Lance Russel is seriously fucking amazing on that match. Between just the two of them, the visuals are almost 100% irrelvant.

Okay now I want to see this Santo/Panther match held in some random British museum.