Sean Liska

I swear I remember reading something in the Observer about Laurinaitis losing his executive title and reporting to HHH, but I have no idea when this happened or which back issues to look through. I thought his EVP Talent Relations title was only for TV at this point.

This happened a long time ago, I remember seeing it in the Observer. It doesn't seem to mean anything.

I think this is pretty much dead on. They put over who they like and the guys that became big stars later on in their company/territory. And yes they pretend that WCW didn't exist before Nitro started airing. By all accounts no one in the WWF paid much attention to WCW before the MNWs The History of WCW DVD did 25 minutes on the Crockett era, which wasn't even technically WCW. They do emphasize guys who their audience will recognize, but I don't think it's a big deal to throw a bone to the casual fans.

A History of Mid-South DVD could be great. Watts has done other projects with them in the last few years, so I would assume they could get him. I will absolutely take DiBiase and Duggan breaking down their feud. Not sure why they would need to do any re-writing of history on a Mid-South DVD. I'm sure JR will tell the story about the oil markets collapsing and Crockett not knowing what to do with the brand. From a fan perspective, if you wanted anything from the Watts library you would have it by now with how available it's been, so not a big loss there.

It seemed to be the plan at one point but he keeps getting new movie roles, so I'm not sure he would have the time now.

Here's an example from looking at an old Observer. On 12/14/98, Nitro did a 3.97 against RAW. That was worth 4.4 million viewers. Last year when Rock came back, the go-home Mania show did a 3.84 and that was worth 5.89 million viewers. I believe it fluctuates depending on how many people in each home are watching, but you can see the trend over 14 years.

The public face of American MMA has now done several videos accusing Dave of being a mouthpiece for their competitor, questioning his credibility in front of thousands of viewers. Has the "Dave Meltzer Stuff" thread been so eventful that this is somehow not worth of a mention?

Dana White did an interview with Ariel Helwani where he accused Dave of being a mouthpiece for Spike and Bellator, being given UFC ratings numbers by them to write negative pieces in the Observer. We all know how crazy that is. I do have to admit to enjoying this a little bit after all of these years of hearing about how UFC is doing pro wrestling better than pro wrestling.

It's not hogan that changed. It's us. Part of it is the footage that's available. I didn't have access to every NJPW TV show from 1982-1983 back in the 90s. I had no inclination to spend the money to build a collection of 80s WWF house shows considering the general quality of work. Now you can go on YouTube and DailyMotion and find tons of Hogan house show matches. And there's a lot of good ones. Classics on Demand has also opened up matches that weren't available.

I would not argue the Mania 5 match as a great match, but I would strongly argue for some of their house show matches from 1986.

This question was asked on the Observer board by the author of this blog discussing whether Hogan or Cena is the better in-ring performer - http://www.wetalkwrestling.com/?p=740. I think it's too interesting of a topic to go to waste there. This is a tough one for me because I think both guys have been way underrated for most of their careers. I'm of the opinion that Hogan was pretty great in the 80s. When I watched the 82-83 NJPW seasons, I found myself looking forward to his matches and thinking they were some of the more consistently smartly worked ones on the set. Watching 80s WWF house shows made me appreciate the way that he gave the fans a fast-paced match that told an effective story and always sent them home satisfied, especially after seeing how horrible the undercards could be. He could have legitimately great matches like the Savage or Bossman ones. Everything he did tended to "look" better than Cena. But it's tough to argue against Cena's track record of legitimately great matches, with the Lensar one this year being the latest example. Changes in in-ring style have put him in a position to have more "great" matches than Hogan, and he's delivered. Could he have gotten a satisfying 20 minute main event out of a blown up Ultimate Warrior? Was his Mania match with Rock as good as Hogan's with Rock when Hogan was already broken down? I feel like Hogan was a more solid performer, but Cena has had more great matches. Thoughts?

The live RAW events are the biggest gates they have, bigger than house shows. I think USA picks up a lot of the production costs, although I'm not sure how much.

They're starting the live TV shoot earlier, but is it confirmed that RAW's going to tape delay? They're probably just going to tape another TV show before RAW.

I don't believe that Dave Meltzer of all people would believe that, he's been on top of the wrestling deaths story for decades.

Nothing can ever compare to the Invasion. It should have been the biggest angle in the history of the business, and it somehow caused WWE business to crash. The Invasion PPV is still the biggest non-Mania show in history by a healthy margin - that's how high the interest was.

He's playing 2004 WWE Heel Brock Lesnar instead of 2010 badass UFC Brock Lesnar, and that leaves a lot of money and interest on the table.

I remember loving the Joe-Styles match from the December 2005 PPV. I was actually at the show and it was a really dramatic David-Goliath story.

It really is crazy that Teddy still has a significant spot in 2012. His career looked like it was over in 1996. Great run for a guy that started out by holding on to wrestler's ring jackets at the old TBS Crockett tapings. I feel good for him and hope this Mania thing isn't the end of his run. I just looked him up on Wikipedia - is he really 64 years old? So he didn't even start until he was 38?

Which, in itself, is kinda sexist. Such an attitude implies that women are incapable of defending themselves. That may be true of your average battered housewife, but female wrestlers are portraying characters who are supposed to be badass warriors. Is it too difficult to believe that, say, Cyborg couldn't knock the shit out of plenty of male MMA fighters in her weight class? Yes, I think think it would be fair to assume that she could not.

He's a lot different, though. He smiles all the time, which the old Rock never did. He's referring to himself in the 1st person a lot. He doesn't really have any of the edge that he had at his peak, or even for his first promo back in Anaheim last year. The old Rock was about berating and bullying people mostly. His first night back was like the old Rock, but the last few weeks have been more like Hollywood guest star Rock, which is still entertaining but not the same.

There's a million things to look at when comparing WWE business to other eras. TV ratings are down for everything except for the NFL because of how many channels there are, internet, video games, etc. Attending a live event has never been more expensive - it can cost $90 to get a good lower deck seat for a PPV nowadays. PPV prices are crazy high, $55 is a major investment for 3 hours of entertainment. WWE gives away a lot more on TV than in other eras, hurting PPV business to a degree, but they make a killing off of TV rights and use the star-powered TV shows to tour in foreign countries where they charge a ton of money for tickets. But the bottom line is still that the company makes a bunch of money, Vince is obscenely rich, and the main guys are all riding around on tour buses. So it's not really worth worrying about.

It's a fun match. Comparing it to Misawa/Kobashi is crazy, so immediately strike that thought from your head, but it's really good. There's a lot about the modern puro style that's driven me away from watching it in recent years, but I'm really enjoying the current NJPW product They have a roster of fun characters and a lot of the matches are well put together. It's not just strike exchanges and no-selling and guys killing themselves to get a pop. The crowds are even noisy now. I actually preferred the Akiyama/Omori match this year, I would recommend that one too. And I know how crazy it sounds to be pimping Omori matches in 2012 as worth going out of your way to see.

WWE's success still depends on having TV, and USA's success with original programming is putting the pressure on them to stay at a certain level considering their difficulties with ad dollars, so they're always going to be worried about ratings. It's a different world than the days of syndicated weekend programming.

But WHY does it have to happen at all? Can you explain that, logically for me? Remember that WWE is a publicly traded company too. I don't really know. But when you have Punk and Danielson as champs, Smackdown delivering good matches every week, and great hype for the Taker-HHH and Rock Cena WM matches, I don't get quitting WWE because of a gimmick that takes up a minute of the four hours they put out each week. But I'm a big fan of the current WWE product, so it would be harder for me to give up on it.

The Natalya thing took about 30 seconds, whereas the Sheamus-Ziggler, Big Show-Henry, and Bryan-Orton matches took more like 45 minutes and was all really good stuff. I haven't found it too difficult to fast-forward every time I see a backstage skit that looks lame.