Bob Morris

The silly part about the whole "Flair won't put over Luger" story is that it wasn't so much Luger that was the issue with Flair in 1991 as it was that Jim Herd wanted Flair to take a large pay cut. And prior to that, it was more that Flair believed in Sting as the guy to take the NWA title from him when others pushed for Luger (and if I'm not mistaken, Jim Crockett was the biggest proponent of Luger getting the belt). But regardless of Flair's issues with Luger, I would argue that while Luger wasn't ready to hold the NWA's top title in 1988, he certainly was in 1991.

Is anyone else as amazed as I was that Val Venis, who WWE released this weekend, hadn't been released many months earlier?

Thanks, Kev. I actually did find the article via Dave, who mentioned it, along with one from Marc Ambinder's blog (he writes for The Atlantic) as well. I can also see where Bix's decision to pull the Keller bit into this thread comes from... Scherer does hint that the whole talk about what goes into producing wrestling seems pretty silly when it has little to nothing to do with why there are steroid and other drug problems in pro wrestling. Here's the Ambinder entry: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archiv...seball.php#more EDIT: This Ambinder entry is pretty funny with the shot thrown in at Antonio Inoki: http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/archiv...ch_hogan_in.php

Is the article Keller is referring to available online? I'd like to read it just to see for myself what the guy in question was doing with the article.

He definitely would've been the headliner for that show. I wouldn't say he was completely established yet, but it was clear they were booking for him to be pushed. WrestleMania IV had him in the only non-tournament singles match that wasn't for a title, simply to put him over. When I was a kid, I looked at the card and wondered what was the point of a "grudge" match, but looking back, they were protecting Warrior from being a throwaway spot in the tournament or battle royal. He was heavily shown on Superstars/Challenge easily squashing opponents. Think he would've had that series of Weasel Suit matches with Heenan by that show too. I remember, certainly by the late spring of '88, my classmate friends (all big WWF fans) going crazy over Warrior like the girls were going for over NKOTB. The ironic part is that Warrior's televised debut was pretty inauspicious... as I recall, it was on Superstars in a 10-man battle royal designed to get Bam Bam Bigelow over. Also, Warrior's run in the first Royal Rumble is pretty nondescrepit (I think I misspelled that) as he only in there a short time and got no eliminations. I know he blew up quickly in his matches, but you would have though he'd eliminate somebody. Seems like it wasn't until after the Rumble that WWF decided to start a push to bigger things.

And in a little more than two years, it will be the 10th anniversary of the death of WCW. (No, I don't count the InVasion as WCW being in existence. The fed died the instant WWF bought it.)

The new Witch Mountain movie comes out in March. Will be interesting to see if this one can pull in $70 million... I know it's one based on a franchise from many years ago, but then again, it's not a franchise that was considered to be "huge." So if that one does well, it might be what leads to Rock getting larger roles in bigger projects. It would certainly mean Disney would want him to be part of more of their planned movies.

Thanks for posting that, Bix. The fact that Benoit tested positive three times with no punishment certainly lends credence to the theory that top talent don't get suspended under the policy. Of course, those tests happened before WWE made changes after the Signature Pharmacy bust. And then you have 40 percent of WWE wrestlers and 25 percent of TNA wrestlers testing positive even when the baseline tests are announced in advance. I know it takes a while for steroids to get out of your system, but it sure appears the wrestlers just don't take such a policy seriously. I really hope there are follow ups to this to find out exactly what the results are of the changes WWE and TNA have made.

Bret has always been a big believer in his appeal outside the United States. He can make an argument about his drawing power in certain countries, but it never was there in the States and, for some of these foreign countries, it can be debated whether it was really Bret that drew the crowds or that it was simply the WWF name. What I noticed in reading Bret's book is that a lot of it seems to be reflecting his thoughts at the time. So a lot of the delusional stuff could be how Bret viewed himself at the time, but he may not view himself that way so much today. And I think we all know Bret still thinks very highly of his appeal in Canada, even though he seems to admit today that, for example, Montreal was less about losing in Canada and more about dropping the belt specifically to Shawn Michaels.

Regarding UFC, they seem to do a better job promoting than WWE currently is. If that continues, that should allow UFC to remain at least steady in terms of business.

WWE will lure another celebrity to be tied into a Wrestlemania match in some form. It results in WM doing well, but the only WWE PPV to crack the top 10 as UFC continues to dominate. As far as business goes, UFC and MMA will weather the storm while WWE will decline, but still be fairly profitable. I would agree with Loss that it's possible the well will start drying up for WWE internationally. There will be no switch between TNA and ROH for the No. 2 promotion, but it's not like it matters as TNA will continue to lose money and only stay around because Dixie Carter wants it to stay around, while ROH won't be a money-losing venture like TNA is, but won't make enough to warrant expansion.

Yeah, I didn't really mind No Holds Barred either, but where it really gets the flack from wrestling fans is the fact they immediately took Tim Lister and turned him into Zeus in the wrestling world on the pretext that he believed he really was Zeus and jealous of Hogan. Even most kids didn't buy into that angle. And Hogan has made worse films. I still crack up every time R.D. Reynolds posts the Santa with Muscles entry making fun of all the ridiculous premises and how his buddy and girlfriend (who I believe is now his wife) left in the middle of it.

I wsa going to toss this into the WO columnists thread, but it's Alvarez with stuff in the update. Yes, because having good, long wrestling matches is more important than having quality storylines that people enjoy, even if the latter is what really lends itself to better ratings for wrestling shows.

I'd go with 1988, but maybe it would help to narrow it down to those where major developments came. Don't know how everyone else feels, though, on limiting it to specific Observers, but it might save you some time.

So I still read some of the show reports out of habit, and I think Jeff Hamlin is pretty much like Todd Martin, in that somebody referred to Martin as Captain Obvious (except Hamlin sounds more like Scott Keith), but this from his latest show report: http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/7806/ I haven't watched Impact for a few weeks, but they were pushing the Machine Guns as heels, and it apparently didn't dawn on Hamlin that Shelley is doing what heels do: Exaggerating their value and importance. I'm not saying the promo was good, but it at least sounds like Shelley was engaging in heel bravado and Lord knows what Hamlin is trying to prove. If Hamlin is trying to be funny, he sure didn't succeed here.

Goldust, of course, had started off as a "Hollywood starlet" gimmick done over the top. That was the first problem before they switched to the androgynous character playing "mind games." As I recall, his character was toned down considerably because of complaints from overseas networks. The worse part was the era of The Artist Formerly Known as Goldust. Not only did the gimmick flop badly, but that was also the time when Dustin Rhodes had put on about 20 pounds around the waistline.

In watching AWA on ESPN Classic, they did an angle with Wendi Richter and Madusa Miceli where Bad Company interfered in a match between the women and dropped Richter throat first across the top rope, leading to a beatdown before the Top Guns made the save. In comparison to what Loss mentioned about Sherri, both that and Richter involved women who were wrestlers (Sherri pretty much had to be a manager given that the WWF women's division was dormant for some time) so I suspect some fans may not have thought as much about it because they were trained as wrestlers. Well, in Sherri's case, anyway. I could see more fans being uncomfortable with the Richter/Bad Company angle, but it was put over as a heinous act (although not particularly well as Lee Marshall called it like he would any other heel attack) and they didn't go too far with it. As for a woman doing a blade job in WWE, it would really need to be with one of the Divas who the fans truly buy into as a wrestler, her opponent would need to be one as well and you would need to properly book the feud in order for it to truly be effective. One other thing: In one of the e-feds I am in, there is a person who handles a women's wrestler who has pushed to compete in the men's division as she wants to be the first woman to win a World title (as in, the men's top title). The character is a 6'6", 225-pound woman and is a willing participant. There has been debate, though, as to whether or not a woman should be allowed to compete against men, even if it's just stuff being written into an e-mail. In real life, the only example I can think of is Chyna, and it was portrayed more as a novelty act than anything else. So the question I would pose is this: Is there any way to effectively portray a women's wrestler going up against men's wrestlers, or is that something that is better left not done at all?

I agree with Boondocks as well. As I recall, Bubba Ray didn't start getting cheered until he went after Mae Young (who was drawing bad heat at that point) and then they turned around and had Terri turn on the Hardys as soon as she returned. The initial angle with Bubba and Terri was good and JR put it over very well, but the proper payoff of Terri returning during a Hardys/Dudleys match and slapping Bubba hard in the face and the Hardys eventually winning and hoisting Terri on their shoulders never happened. Loss is correct that the presentation of women in most angles has mostly been poor. The ones in which it was done in the proper context, it has worked very well. I still remember how hot the crowds were for Jake Roberts after the angle Rick Rude did with Jake's wife... the angle was handled properly and tastefully, in that "Rude committed a foul deed and Jake is out to set things right."

http://www.411mania.com/wrestling/news/919...DVD-Listing.htm This was an absolutely tremendous lineup of the best matches from SNME, along with some of the great moments and the funnier sketches they did. The nice part about it is going to a three-disc edition so as much of the early yeras can be featured as possible. It will be nice to have DVD-quality versions of Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart, Jake Roberts vs. Ricky Steamboat, the two Hogan steel cage matches with Paul Orndorff and Big Bossman, Rockers vs. Brain Busters and the match where Shawn Michaels won his first IC title. And most of all, the Rick Martel Arrogance spots, which may have been the most awesome sketches on SNME ever.

In the words of The Rock, as said to the likes of Big Show and Kurt Angle... "SOMEBODY GOT A HAIRCUT!"

I tend to think these two things go hand in hand. Yes, WCW ended up losing TV because of the decision of a TV executive, but that's like blaming the bullet instead of the person who pulled the trigger. Would that decision have been made if WCW was still doing a $55 million annual profit and still drawing really high ratings at the end? I just can't see them pulling the plug if WCW had still been successful. And WCW was no longer successful for many reasons, some of which had to do with them putting out pretty crappy TV and some of which had nothing to do with that. But I've always thought just shortening it to Jamie Kellner really oversimplifies what happened. WCW did lose money pre-Bischoff, but the "creative bookkeeping" mentioned earlier in this thread, had it happened before it did, would have resulted in WCW turning a profit every year they were in existence until 1999. My post did not just blame Kellner, but also Ted Turner losing say in WCW's existence or future. Had Turner never been so sentimental to keep wrestling on his networks, it's not just that WCW would have likely been shut down much earlier in its existence, but that Turner would not have bought out Crockett in the first place and Crockett would have ended up filing for bankruptcy just as Verne Gagne did when AWA closed up shop. Sure, Kellner likely would have been overruled if WCW had been successful, but my point is, when WCW was not successful before, it was Turner who kept it going because he wanted to keep putting money into it. That's was my point more than anything... you need money and TV to truly have a successful promotion. You can have booking that people like, but without money to further fuel things or a TV slot to get exposure, you can only do so much, and it's more likely you'll end up losing money if you try to do more.

Kev summed up the nWo situation nicely, but I wouldn't say the nWo was responsible for WCW going out of business... or even partially responsible. The booking of the nWo did lead to the downturn in business, but not the company going out of business. Things that really led to WCW going out of business were Ted Turner losing his say as far as what was going on with WCW (the company lost money most of the years prior to Ted's businesses becoming part of Time Warner, but Turner insisted WCW keep going) and Jamie Kellner deciding there would be no more wrestling on TBS or TNT. There were things that were booked that cost WCW a lot of money and further fueled its downturn, but ultimately, it was when the person willing to keep pumping money into it lost his say, combined with somebody deciding not to keep the time slots for WCW, led to the demise. TNA is in the same situation. It's losing money, but Panda Energy keeps pumping money into it. If Panda decides to stop, there goes TNA. If Viacom decides not to keep TNA programming and they can't find another station, the demise is likely as Panda probably won't keep funding a company without a weekly TV slot. That's the two things a wrestling company needs: Money and a TV slot. Without them, the company either goes under or can never expand (with the latter, as is the case with ROH, which has been fine doing house shows, but it's in a very limited area... without regular TV exposure, ROH will never get past the indy stage).

I have the Roddy Piper DVD, and the way Bruce Pritchard described it, it was as if the WWF was trying to build to that opportune time when he would wrestle. I would imagine there is more to it than that... the company did seem as though they felt Piper was better in the manager role to start, given that his greatest strength was his mic work. I believe the point when Piper actually did start wrestling full time with WWF occurred after the Piper's Pit with Jimmy Snuka, although I'm not entirely positive about that.

If Randazzo did blow off Dave correcting him in the Observer, I can understand Dave being unhappy about it (and absolutely, Randazzo would be wrong for blowing him off). If not, then Dave doesn't need to harp on what he already went over in the Observer. It's one thing to correct somebody, it's another thing to keep jumping on the person about it every chance you get, unless the person refuses to correct it.

I should explain that when I made that post, I was going through the WO columnists thread and, of course, one of the discussions there was about how a couple were going about how terrible Cena is. So that was what prompted my remark more than anything.