Ditch

So he would have been Best Possible Araya? Meanwhile I'd love to know how much Megane Super ended up blowing on wrestling, and how it compares to Panda Energy. Nothing will ever top Time Warner of course.

I don't understand how "I only met him once" helps her more than "I knew him well and am deeply saddened by his passing". Though I don't think it is ENTIRELY out of the question that she had little personal interaction with a midcarder. How often is she even at shows?

The polls seem to be narrowing a bit, which is really a worst-case scenario for her, like having a flush in poker while your opponent has a full house. It'll make her think if she just spends a couple million more... but that isn't going to make much difference at this point because she's already saturated the airwaves with her message.

That's clearly what they wanted. I was front row for it and even though the crowd wanted it because they're a bunch of ECW marks, it was such eye-rollingly stupid and OBVIOUS pandering. It completely ignores the CONTEXT of him throwing down the NWA title in order to elevate the ECW title, which just happened to mark a turning point for the company. Oh and the absurd "bring in Kea but he can't job so have him do like three draws with Vampiro, then Shane runs in for a one-fall 3-way lasting a minute and ending a 2002 tournament with a belly-to-belly". Argh.

Inoki vs Murdoch 6/19/86 is all kinds of great. Also, I'm in big-time agreement regarding where Flair would have fit best in Japan, with the exception that I'd rather have seen Flair vs Fujinami in 1987 instead of Waijima...

There was the February 10 Tokyo Dome where he was in the big draw on the card. But as far as AJ proper, yeah not much. NJ definitely had better things in mind by '89, I mean Choshu put Hash over at the Tokyo Dome!

Kawada was quite a bit smaller than Jumbo and Tenryu, plus he didn't do heavyweight style as part of Footloose. Thankfully, Baba gave Kawada plenty of chances, even despite the Tenryu/Hansen pairing.

I've read similar stuff, and have no idea what that means. What type of detail? What type of numbers? What specifically was she doing on the business side? It's a great stock answer to say Linda ran the business side and Vince ran the creative side, but in wrestling, the creative side is the business side because it is what drives the revenue, so then I'm again left wondering what her day-to-day responsibilities were. Making sure the bills get paid, probably some amount of handling the logistics, marketing, relationships with other companies, merchandise production... I mean there is a crapload that goes on with my family's tiny little business, I can't even imagine how much effort would be needed for WWE. Vince puts herculean amounts of time on the on-air and house show product, managing the wrestlers, developmental, and so on. Linda is more replaceable in the grand scheme of things but that doesn't equate to her being nothing more than Vince's Wife with a title.

Everything I've seen points to her running the detail/numbers type stuff while Vince took care of running the circus, for some time now. Relative to 'creating jobs', WWE certainly has way more employees than did the WWWF, but when one considers the industry as a whole and the many anti-competitive things WWE/WWF did over the years...

Who's Tom Cole?

Hamada as a ref? And Onita returning to attack him?!

WON: Shorter Vince McMahon: Linda isn't going to win so I'm not even going to try to police what I'm saying anymore. I mean... either he's a complete moron or he doesn't care. It's one thing to be in denial about steroid consequences, but why would you SAY IT?

7/26 WON references Vince having lost a ton of money on an Evel Kenevel show. Wha-huh?

That's not the sort of thing we're likely to see be made a big deal of. A little too 'inside baseball', and all she'd say is "what, because I'm a woman you don't think I'm qualified?". At the very least, the Blumenthal campaign would be unlikely to raise it, and the media probably isn't going to because it would require too much arcane WWE knowledge.

Rob Simmons seems to be un-conceding the GOP primary.

I guess, but the Japanese really could give a crap unless they're trying to make money. They somewhat police youtube (which has reach in Japan) but let Highspots and RF Video operate. PRIDE shut down Zero-One tape selling at one point but that was ages ago. All Japan Classics footage is probably near the bottom of NTV's priority list.

Wait, what?

He was a star in WCW and WWE pretty much to the limit of what politics would allow. Sells merchandise, consistently over across the globe and in every promotion, consistently good worker, and I'd say he has historical significance considering the way he MADE WCW's cruiser division. He's a ratings draw as much as anyone in WWE. It really seems obvious to me. I don't see, say, Jericho matching up with Rey. It would probably be easier for him to get in if he'd spent a couple years dominating Mexico. The WON HOF is endlessly frustrating.

George Gordienko? And in Japan? Huh? I think Williams is likely to get in. Lots of good cases, for instance Sasaki has a WAY stronger case than Hase. Rey Mysterio... Jr I assume since it's the US category. That's a no-brainer.

Someone's gotta put some of this footage online...

Yeah, PPV was so overburdened by NINE in one year. Heh. Also, note how much They Live did with 3m. Still looks good today. Even with 21 years of inflation it was done on the cheap.

Well said. Like, ECW doesn't match up with ROH even in the slightest if you did a best 20 matches, but a regular ECW show was often far more watchable than an average ROH show where everything is 15 minutes plus and the styles are so similar.

That is gospel truth right there.

I would love to hear about Bas' like 5 matches in 2002 New Japan but I doubt that will be much of the content. He has a great knack for pro wrestling.

'The WWE "is both her asset and her liability," said Dave Meltzer, editor of the Wrestling Observer, an industry newsletter. "If you look at it strictly as profit and loss, it's very positive. If you view it in human terms, it's negative."' "The workforce bears the entire risk of steroid and prescription drug abuse," said Irvin Muchnick, an author who follows the company and has been critical of its drug policies. "Steroid abuse is a function of standards WWE has set for talent." -from the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal