Bob Morris

The issue of when does a media outlet turn down advertising from somebody is a sticky issue. Under normal circumstances, those who are doing the reporting have ZERO to do with advertising decisions. At my own paper, I won't even take a classified ad for a garage sale from somebody in the community for two reasons... I don't know how to do ads, and more importantly, it is a conflict of interest for somebody to be in engaging in both reporting and selling ads, because each duty implies you have a different type of business relationship. Dave Meltzer is in a situation that isn't really comparable to typical media for two reasons: 1. His newsletter was a one-man operation for so long. I don't know if Dave is ever going to reach a point where he believes he needs to hire somebody else to do the ads for him. As it pertains to his website, as John mentioned, it's always been Dave putting somebody else in charge of the website (not the case with other media outlets, in which the outlet supervisor also supervises the person doing the website) and just sending stuff himself to it. 2. Wrestling is filled with scum... the scum may be of varying levels and degrees, but it's scum nonetheless. Any time you deal with somebody who wants to advertise with you, you've got potential scum on your hands. With the way things developed for Dave and others who put together wrestling newsletters, sometimes they are caught between a rock and a hard place. What I really look for them in their writings about subjects is to watch the bias and favoritism. As far as the advertising goes, ideally, they'd get somebody else to do it... but then they'd also get somebody else to be the reporter and become a supervisor for both. I doubt Dave will ever want to become just a supervisor so long as he wants to publish the Observer. When the day comes that Dave decides to get out of the reporting side of the things, I suspect that's also the day the Observer will cease publication.

Cheetah is still around at tOA.

In watching Volume One of the Summerslam anthology, speciifcally SummerSlam '89, I was pretty amazed at just how heated the Tito Santana-Rick Martel feud was. During the six-man with Santana/Rockers against Martel/Rougeaus, the fans go nuts every time Tito looks like he's going to rally back and take Martel down, and then when he hits the flying forearm, it's one of the loudest pops of the night. The one disappointment of that match was I didn't think they did enough to pay off a Santana-Martel confrontation to really satisfy the fans... and it also makes me wonder if there's a way to track down the SNME match they had, which was one I recall to be pretty solid. Part of me now thinks they really should have done a Martel-Santana one-on-one match on PPV to blow it off. Obviously, Survivor Series wasn't available, but they probably could have worked it into the Royal Rumble card.

The biggest problems with InVasion is WWE failed to learn the good things that came from the nWo and ended up doing mostly the bad, except in this case, the heel side was the one made to look incompetent. I really don't know for certain that the angle could have been saved. It's understandable you'd have Shane McMahon as the owner to get the ball rolling, but when you consider you were trying to blow off a Shane vs. Vince storyline at WM that year, Shane needed to be replaced by somebody else in the role of WCW figurehead at some point. Or you needed to make a real impact in the Vince vs. Shane match to transfer Shane's heat to somebody else. Goldberg coming out of the crowd to spear Vince during the match might have done it... or at the very least, ensure a massive crowd pop.

I think they always had Wacholz in mind for the Nailz role, but as I understand it, Wacholz's voice was considered too high-pitched for him to sound threatening. Hence they had others do the "speaking" for him.

So apparently Cena was on MTV News challenging Rock to a match at Wrestlemania 26. Which if it were to happen, means Cena complains about how Rock abanonded the WWE, while Rock lets everyone know what terrible business The Marine did and how 12 Rounds opened to $1.75 million Friday night and went from a projected $10.1 million opening weekend to $5.5 million, while Rock's latest flick has already passed $40 million.

Dave Meltzer in the 3/22 F4W.com update, on plenty of pro wrestling folk wackiness:

I still believe that Vince's unwillingness to work with Savage has to do with what was in Bret Hart's book... Savage left the WWF in the dead of the night for WCW, ala Luger. It's thus consistent with the reason Vince wants nothing to do with Luger. I would, however, grant that part of the reason may be because Savage is so nutty, perhaps nuttier than Vince in some ways. Savage's press releases issuing challenges to Hogan seem more to be about Savage trying to feed his ego, knowing Hogan isn't going to respond to a press release. And we all know Hogan is nutty as well. But anyway... it may be hard to imagine someone being nuttier than Hogan or Vince, but Savage appears to fit the bill. Or at least when compared to Hogan. After all, both Vince and Savage released songs in which they sang about how they were better than some guy they didn't care for ("Stand Back" for Vince and "Be A Man" for Savage) and Hogan, for all his stunts, hasn't done that yet.

Rourke at Wrestlemania not enticing.

And regarding why TV ratings for Raw have been up, that's likely because it's "free entertainment" and people are likely to watch more TV to escape from the reality that is the economic downturn. Smackdown, on the other hand, is suffering big time. It drew a 1.9 last week.

UFC was outdrawing WWE before the bubble burst on the economy, and it continues to outdraw it on a smaller scale after the bubble burst on the economy. I wouldn't have disagreed had that been your original point. But you mentioned the Rumble being down from last year, which I do attribute to the economy. I can see both sides, but I would argue the Rumble's drop in business would not have been as large if the company had been working to promote fresh matchups. The movie industry didn't really suffer during the Great Depression because new films that people like were being trotted out. UFC generally does a better job of promoting than WWE and seems to be trying to find fresh matchups, so it doesn't appear to be suffering as much from the economic downturn.

The problem of not developing new stars has been a problem throughout pro wrestling since the days of Vince's initial expansion and more promoters finding out what they could do with putting their shows on cable TV. It was then either keep the established guys on top or take the guy that most resembles who is either the top draw for the other guy or resembles a past top draw. Of the top players mentioned, Cena/Taker would likely draw more interest for WM as it hasn't been done in a meaningful fashion for a long time. I don't think people have that same interest for Taker/Michaels because it's based around whether or not Michaels can end somebody's "streak" again, whereas with Cena/Taker, you could actually do a storyline about how far Cena has come in his career, but is he good enough to beat Taker this time around? Other matchups they could do wouldn't likely happen as there isn't a selling point unless somebody changes alignment (case in point: Mysterio vs. Michaels, but it would need one of them to turn heel, and we all know Mysterio doesn't work well as a heel and Michaels doesn't want to turn into one). But anyway, this whole premise of "nobody creates new stars in a different mold" has been present in wrestling for many years and is not a product of WWE dominating the industry. And WWE ended up doing it because their hand was forced... today, it's harder to force their hand because they still have the DVD market and WWE 24/7 to make money from, two things they didn't have in 1995-96 when the company was truly in danger of going bankrupt.

Thanks for the info, Loss. And getting to the reported WCW DVD, I wonder if they plan to talk to Bill Watts as well, given that he's being inducted into the WWE HOF, and how they will ultimately portray his WCW run. Personally, I tend to think he has never really gotten an even-handed treatment, as his run seems to be on where people either loved it or hated it. And if WWE was able to track down Dave Crockett for the most recent Flair DVD, I'm really hoping they get Kip Allen Frye to chat, because I think he could provide the most interesting perspective on what life was like as WCW executive vice president.

I tend not to believe the rumors that Savage was banging Stephanie at age 17 or 18 or whatever. I do, however, believe it's possible that Vince McMahon won't do business with Savage because he's heard this story so many times, Vince believes it to be true. Not saying it must be true or it must be the reason why Savage was gone from WWF back in 1994. But if Vince believes the tale of what Savage was doing to be true, it would then explain why he wants nothing to do with the guy. Yes, he reportedly wanted to do an incest storyline with Steph, but in Vince's delusional mind, he likely thinks there is a difference between a storyline and a real-life ordeal. A lot of stuff doesn't add up, true, but Vince's current state of mind means he'll put two and two together and come up with six.

Really, the problem with the WWE Hall of Fame is that they just don't seem to have a clear idea as to what they want it to be. It first started more from the perspective of who was valuable to WWF/E and now they want it to be all inclusive, and as Loss mentioned, they want to market DVDs. And of course, it is political and the only people who will get inducted are those WWE is on good terms with and aren't currently under contract with another promotion. For example, if Sting wasn't signed with TNA, I'm sure WWE would make a major push to get him to accept a spot in the WWE HOF and then start rolling out the DVD of his career, as was planned at one point. EDIT: And on the subject of Koko's induction, what's more ironic is the Honky Tonk Man agreeing to induct him when HTM has yet to be inducted into the WWE HOF himself.

I'm sure they'll try to bring Stacy back, but you can probably forget about her showing up. Which makes me wonder if Cena will start comparing her to Rock about how she won't give back to the wrestling business that did so much for her.

Look, it's either Patrick or Gerald of Creative Control!

Death of WCW covered it... I believe Hogan/Russo is as pretty much as you said: It was a work where Russo made comments that Hogan didn't approve and thus he wouldn't continue with the program and took Russo and WCW to court.

The funny part about the KISS Demon was that he got pops for his entrance and mannerism, thanks to Dale Torborg being a huge KISS fan, and they jobbed him out purely to spite Gene Simmons and company for forcing WCW to live up to the terms of the deal he agreed to. Not that I think the Demon would have been a top draw at any point, but give him some midcard wins and he might have been somebody you can use to elevate people. Instead, it's the usual WCW shenanigans and then Russo returns to have Demon do goofy stuff with Vampiro and ICP.

I checked the blog that I linked to previously and didn't find an update regarding the case or why the judge granted the WWE's motion to dismiss. It's possible, though, that the person who maintains the blog hasn't pulled the information up yet to review. The Stamford article notes it's possible the plantiffs could appeal, so it may not be a dead issue yet.

I think the point has more to do with the fact that we have wrestlers turning face or heel and then suddenly aligning themselves with somebody who they had issues with in the past and pretending the issues never happened. When Bret and Owen Hart were reunited, they did an angle on TV to explain it. I can also remember when they did the first Survivor Series with Hulk Hogan and Paul Orndorff on the same team, about a year or so after their feud, and they did an interview where Hulk was asking Orndroff if he could trust him. Sure, in real life, beating up Dusty Rhodes in a parking lot gets you in trouble, but from a logic standpoint, there nobody asking questions because they know the perpretrators (the Horsemen) are feuding with Dusty. Where WWE logic would kick in is that, one year later, Dusty would suddenly be teaming with a face-turned Arn or Ole Anderson with no explanation as to why they are suddenly teaming with each other than "well, they are both faces."

You forgot to add the "better choices" than Paul Roma for being the fourth Horsemen as if Roma is the biggest scum on the face of the earth and the worst wrestler ever to step into a ring. I guess he must have thought the report of Roma being baited by WWE to badmouth Flair and Arn for the Horsemen DVD must be a lie perpetuated by Roma.

Talk about a mixed bag. There are some matches which are pretty neat to have (Savage vs. Michaels, Savage/Bret vs. Flair/Michaels, Savage/Hogan from 1985) and some which were obvious picks, but I don't get some of the ones that were included. Savage/Yoko makes no sense to include. It wasn't even Savage's final WWF match. I could do without ever seeing the Savage/Hogan match from The Main Event, ditto for that tag match at Bash at the Beach.

Hogan's ratting out of Jesse Ventura about forming a union was because Jesse was originally supposed to have a larger role in No Holds Barred but went into business for himself when taking the role in The Predator. Given that Jesse should have turned down the role and done a movie projection for Vince first, Hogan ratted him out for the good of the business. Also, Hogan was originally offered the role Jesse got in The Running Man but turned it down because Vince had tons of money put into Suburban Commando.

The silly part about Keith's comment is that Jesse was engaging in heel commentary. Listening to Jesse's comments on the Best of SNME DVD, he does just about everything to try to argue the heel should have won his match against whomever... more often when Hogan is the guy the heel is facing. EDIT: As far as the whole deal about a pin when passed out while trapped in a figure four goes, it always seemed to be the substitute for checking the arm of the wrestler who passed out to see if it drops three times. Of course, there hasn't been consistency with the "arm drops three times" rule for submission holds as I can remember multiple squash matches in which somebody won with a sleeper and the jobber's arm only had to drop once for the referee to call for the bell.