Bob Morris

When it comes to the ECW/Heyman argument and who/what promoted the wrestling style, I can see the argument to some extent. Raven is the perfect example... he was working a safer style prior to starting his ECW career. Did Scotty Flamingo ever resort to multiple table, chair and other foreign object shots and a reckless style? But I think the point that is being missed is that, when it came to Chris Benoit, he was already wrestling a style that was going to lead to the injuries he accumulated. Working in ECW certainly didn't help, but even if Benoit had never shown up in ECW, he likely would not have stopped doing the flying headbutts and multiple suplexes that took their toll on his body. Would a wrestler like Raven have kept the same styles he worked prior to his ECW run if he had never been in ECW? Perhaps, perhaps not. But I think a better way to put it is this: Heyman's booking style and approach encouraged some wrestlers to work a more dangerous style, but some wrestlers were already doing just that, so who Heyman affected really depended on the wrestler in question. EDIT: I will add, though, that the statement that Heyman recognizing "wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are" causes some people to infer that "Heyman made the decision to no longer use certain wrestlers" when, in reality, that was not true for the most part. It would have been better to say that Heyman recognized the importance of stressing brand over wrestlers, knowing that there was no guarantee a wrestler would be working for the company, whether by the wrestler's choice, Heyman's choice or some other factor.

I've respected Muchnick's opinion from some of his previous writings, but indeed, if he's clinging to the notion that WWE tampered with evidence prior to the cops getting there, he missed the biggest question to be asked: "Why didn't they dispose of the steroids?"

The larger point stressed in the book is that Benoit was simply doing the flying headbutt with his arms spread out to the side to begin with. Noted in the book is that Dynamite Kid did it differently from Benoit by putting his hands in front of him to less. Not to mention there was a bit about Harley Race warning both the Kid and Benoit to not perform the flying headbutt on a regular basis.

I have posted my thoughts regarding the book to my LiveJournal. Here is the direct link to the entry. http://ratrangerm.livejournal.com/161061.html

"Heyman was one of the first to recognize wrestlers as the disposable commodities they are. He pushed them to the brink of their physical well being and when they couldn't continue at that pace, he replaced them with someone else." Reads more like Paul pushed them to the brink, the fell apart ("they couldn't continue at that pace"), and Paul pitched them overboard ("replaced them") to push someone who could. Which isn't what Paul was doing, or what was happening to Paul. Other than the fact that he had to keep coming up with people to push because the wrestlers left. Honestly... does anyone think that Chris, Eddy, Dean, Rey, Psic and Juve left because they couldn't keep up with how Paul was pushing them? Or because of the $$$? When Austin passed through ECW, did he leave because he couldn't keep up? Or $$$? Set aside Foley's worked reasons for leaving. It was the cash potential of the WWF he left for. And on and on. John I've received my copy of the book and am almost finished with it. Will have more thoughts in full later, but did want to mention something. When Snowden goes over the ECW portion of the book, he doesn't completely illustrate Randazzo's painted picture of ECW. Randazzo paints it exactly the way John does... Paul pushing the ECW name over the wrestlers out of the belief/knowledge that the wrestlers who worked for him weren't guaranteed to stick around.

It would certainly be an interesting idea. Obviously, a lot of work would have to go into putting together such a site, compiling biographies, figuring out what were the most important matches of each wrestler's career (not just from a star rating standpoint), and other such info. It wouldn't be too hard to actually gather the info, but such a site would take a lot of work to put up. I found it pretty neat that allmusic.com had a page about Sly Fox. I would hope such a wrestling site would include a page about, oh, let's say, Outback Jack.

What's missing from the Coliseum VHS of the Wrestling Classic? Are there entire matches missing, or are the ones on the tape clipped? It's been a long time since I saw the Wrestling Classic, but I do remember that they cut out entrances and some introductions for wrestlers during the tournament matches. There may have been a couple of clipped matches, but I don't remember for certain if any were.

Very good summary by Dave about why Wrestlemania IV just wasn't going to draw the numbers that WM III did, regardless of whether or not the Clash had aired the same night. Tournaments. by themselves, just don't draw fans. When WWF did that Wrestling Classic PPV, they were smart to put Hogan vs. Piper in a title defense, and when King of the Ring became a regular PPV, they again made sure to schedule a title defense so they'd have something to draw the fans. The WWF kind of booked themselves into a corner than year, with DiBiase not getting enough response to acutally hold the title, even as a transitional champion, with Savage being kept in Hogan's shadow and nobody else available who could be a credible threat to Hogan.

WWF/E has done with wrestlers who use their real names before. WWF/E has traditionally done that (trademarked real names) as it prevents the employee from doing any promotional stuff without WWE's permission, so long as they remain a WWE employee. I have no idea what the actual outcome of the situation with Bruno is, but I do believe that now, whenever WWE trademarks somebody's real name, they can't tell the person he/she can't use that name outside WWE once they are no longer with the company.

To put the 175 counts into perspective, when Dr. George Zahorian was convicted, it was on 11 counts. I would suspect Astin had more clients than just Benoit and the other wrestlers who have been mentioned as clients. It's possible his client list goes beyond pro wrestlers.

Raschke was the manager of the Powers of Pain. SummerSlam was his first televised appearance, I believe, but given the way they taped Superstars, he likely appeared at such a taping before SummerSlam. The Four Horsemen DVD has Blanchard discussing what led to his departure from JCP (money) so who knows if he and Anderson would have jumped if they believed they were being paid well by Crockett. And although JCP was in Ted Turner's hands as WCW by November/December, who knows if Big John Studd was wanted by WCW when WWF brought him back in November/December.

With regards to the whole "MMA is pro wrestling" debate, I think a couple of the examples Dave tosses out have more to do with what is featured on a pro wrestling _show_ and not what would be considered a pro wrestling _match_. The bikini showdowns Dave brings up are not what anybody would consider pro wrestling matches, but they have been part of pro wrestling shows from time to time. Same thing with the "20-minute interview" segments and the backstage skits, although nobody would ever declare those to be pro wrestling matches. Dave seems to be combining the "show" and "match" elements to define an entire "package" as what "pro wrestling" is. When the counterpoint should be to distinguish the "matches" from the rest of the "show" to better illustrate the point as to why MMA/Pride matches are not "pro wrestling matches" even though one might be part of a "pro wrestling show." Of course, I haven't been to Wrestling Classics for a long time, so I have no recollection regarding how the rest of the discussion went.

For those who haven't seen it, Jonathan Snowden gave his thoughts on the book at a review at WO.com.

If a pro wrestling students is being unruly and refusing to cooperate with anything, then the veteran might be justified in punching the student in the face. And while some people may not approve, they could understand why it was done if the student was unruly and truly acting out of line. But punching a student in the face when said student is being cooperative and not actng unruly is, in a word, wrong. Like Bix said, if you want to learn how to deal with pain in wrestling, you take bumps, because that's what you are supposed to take in a pro wrestling match. During a match, you do not take actual punches in which the person delivering the punch intends to injure you. And no, I'm not surprised this stuff happens. But just because I'm not surprised doesn't mean I'm going to declare it's justified, because it isn't.

I'm not going to say that what is in the book has to be "absolutely true." But I will say this: The claims that are being made by the sources quoted seem to be more serious than the "Dave banged Debbie Malenko" rumor that was brought up. Example: Dean Malenko being accused of still supplying Eddie Guerrero with steroids and painkillers when he was supposedly "clean" is a pretty serious accusation, especially given the talk that Dean was one of the guys who was concerned for Eddie's well-being at one point. So it's a pretty serious accusation to make toward Dean that he would be doing this sort of thing. On top of that, I think just about everybody who is currently working for the wrestling business would never admit that Dean did any sort of thing, regardless of whether it was actually true or not. So I would assume whoever told Randazzo that story is somebody who was in the wrestling business, but is now out of it. Hence, he isn't going to be thinking of the mindset of "protect the business" or "don't sell out the boys." This doesn't mean that it, and everything else in Ring of Fire "must be true." But when John talks about how so much in this business is about the work, I would argue that starts to end when somebody gets out of the business and decide he is done with the business for good. At that point, he has no reason to keep the work up because he no longer has any reason to "protect his spot in the business."

Kind of like the Lesnar suit, no? And thanks, Bix, for keeping the thread alive. I went through it a few days ago and it's great. I would assume it went into limbo because Jim Ross wasn't updating his blog?

The problem with most people in general is that, when they get their own images of a person and worship the ground that person walks on, they will always be in denial that said person could possibly do anything bad, no matter how strong the evidence may be. There were people in denial that O.J. Simpson could have possibly killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, and people in denial that Michael Jackson could have possibly molested a young boy. They may have been found not guilty in the particular criminal cases they were tried for, but there is still plenty of evidence to show that both Simpson and Jackson are screwed-up individuals. That doesn't mean, though, that we have to simply dismiss everything else they did. I still listen to Michael Jackson's music and appreciate his talent there. I just don't put it on a pedestal and believe that, because his music is good, that he can do no wrong no matter what. It's the same way with Malenko. I respect his wrestling talent and he was very good at what he did in the ring. But I don't put him or any other wrestler on a pedestal and think of them as a "hero" or "role model." Some people do that, though. And those are the people that are always going to have a problem accepting that Malenko could have possibly done something that was, in a word, wrong.

Not that this is news to anybody here, but going through that DVDVR thread makes me, at times, shake my head about how some wrestling fans still want to live in their world of denial. I'd upload SLL's Benoit Apologist Bingo, except I'm at work and I saved the image on my home computer.

I'll have to remember to look for it when I go to Borders next time.

The real problem with Austin's heel turn was the way they built to it. They never hinted that Austin might side with Vince McMahon, they just did it out of nowhere and, the next night on Raw, Austin just told them he didn't have to explain his actions. So fans had no incentive to boo Austin. Had WWE built to it better, it might have worked. Instead, it was a case of WWE saying "we want to do this and we don't care what the fans think" and the result was a heel run that failed because fans never bought it in the first place.

I would suspect it has much to do with which wrestlers are smarter about how to pass the tests, even if the testing process is flawed. I recall when the Benoit murder/suicide happened and the discussion about testing procedures for steroids and other drugs came up, somebody wrote to Dave Meltzer about simple ways people can beat tests, such as eating certain foods prior to the tests. Another part to consider is _how much_ somebody is taking. A wrestler who takes steroids every week is more likely to get caught than the wrestlers who uses them, say, every other month.

Touching upon something that Res wrote about "fans want to see big moves," let me do this to put it into perspective. Kurt Angle got criticized for doing his suplex off the top rope by popping up, running quickly to the corner where his opponent was on the top rope and then immediately suplexing him off. Now what happens if the opponent goes to the top rope with Angle slowly coming to, then just as his opponent is up top, Angle lunges to the ropes and swats the top rope to crotch his opponent. Angle then pulls himself up and goes to the corner, climbs to the second rope, his opponent then fires a shot at him. Angle then exchanges shots with his opponent until Angle gets the better of him, then he hooks up the opponent and does his top rope suplex. The second scenario makes the high spot more meaningful because you built anticipation to the spot taking place. Fans may say they like high spots, but whether they admit or not, they are more drawn into matches in which anticipation is built and their emotions are tugged at, and the same fans who say "I want to see high spots" are likely the same people who are popping louder for the babyface who properly times his comeback and does it by throwing punches and then following it up with a clothesline.

Flashy offense has its place, but it really needs to mean something in terms of the match storyline. Look at Bret Hart vs. 1-2-3 Kid, which Loss broke down elsewhere and did a good job of doing so. The highspots Kid used were all about establishing that the aerial game is his domain so it's what he'll go to as much as possible. And I have always found the notion that people who use more impressive moves in a formula match somehow makes it better. It's about the execution of the formula, and somebody who does fewer moves but knows how to execute the formula is going to get more reaction from the crowd... and likely a better match... than somebody who knows more moves but isn't as good at executing a formula or doesn't want to. Or as I've often said about the wrestling business: It's not what you have that matters, it's what you do with what you have.

Tag team formulas with the face in peril work because they get the fans to believe that the face in peril has obstacles to overcome. That's what it's all about... get people to believe the face has the odds against him and they'll get behind him. It's the reason I generally roll my eyes at some of the latter stuff with Steve Austin in which he's able to overcome a three-on-one beatdown just by dropping people with Stunners... it may get the fans popping, but his long-term value is hurt because it's apparent that Austin almost never had the odds against him. Turn it around so Austin succumbs to three-on-one odds often and he gets his payback when he confronts one of these guys in a one-on-one match and you'll get both a louder reaction and his value extended. Regarding John Cena, although I have not watched current WWE programming, it seems to me the real problem is that, when they start to stack the odds against Cena, he overcomes them a bit too quickly. I'm not saying he should drop the title every month and then regain it, but after a one-year title reign, if he drops it to somebody and has to spend some time chasing the guy who took it from him, that extends his value and gets more people to rally behind him. I know people will draw the comparison between Hogan and Austin and how their charcters were different, but their ultimate goals were the same... do what they believe is best for humanity. In Hogan's case, it was standing for the American way. In Austin's case, it was standing up to a boss who didn't like him. Compare Batman and Superman... people like to say that Batman became more popular because he was a "darker" character, but he was like Superman in that he wanted to do what was best for humanity. His approach may have been different from Superman, but the underlying motive was the same. And if you think about it, the decline for both Hogan and Austin was the same. Hogan became perceived more as the guy who was stooping to the level of a heel (see 1992 Royal Rumble, with the ending clearly a spot in which he thinks more about himself ) and his popularity waned. Austin may have still been getting "What?" chants and pops for the Stunner, but when he's just dropping people with Stunners for no particular reason, people have less reason to go pay to see him because he's standing more for himself than anything else. You can dress up your hero any way you want... but if he doesn't really act like a hero, the fans won't buy into it for long.

Just wanted to say that I really liked SLL's writeup and that it certainly fits with how I feel about things. I'll have more to say later when I have a chance to write more in depth.