Matt D

... and by appeal to them, I kind of mean "toss a lot of money at Stacey Kiebler for an angle with Batista."

This is weird, but, and I get that there's probably not a TON of overlap between the new Total Divas fans and Guardians of the Galaxy but if Batista starts to feel like a STAR, I'd probably try to use him to appeal to them somehow.

I know that we don't usually do these for ones on the Observer site itself, but there's so much stuff in the lead story here, and stuff I've never even heard of before, that I want to rewrite some of it out. My tenses are going to be all over the place and I apologize for that. The story is that Vince is coming out "Guns blazing" against the Turner Empire. In the past 7 days he: -Filed a complaint with the FTC claiming that TBS has been enacting a "systematic plan to destroy the WWF so it can achieve a monopoly." He did this on 2/8/1996, attacking the Time-Warner merger, it seems, since that was a hot topic with a lot of eyes on it. Dave didn't have the exact details and FTC claimed not to have a copy of it. He said it wasn't a single action, but lots of different things: Nitro being put up against Raw, the shows starting a few minutes early/ending a few minutes late "unprecedented" in television in 1996, alleged contract tampering with WWF performers, snatching syndicated time slots from WWF using CNN Headline News as leverage, eating into profits by charging less for ad time to steal sponsors from the WWF, name calling on TV, and fabrication of stories about the WWF on the WCW hotline. The contract tampering mentioned Diesel, The Bushwhackers, and Jean Pierre Lafitte (there was a paragraph on that later). -Took out a quarter page ad in both Weds and Thurs NYT Financial sections claiming that Turner had a vendetta against WWF and warning the stockbrokers about it.WCW only responded with a quote in the Wall Street Journal saying the FTC thing was without merit. -Had McDevitt send a letter to Bischoff demanding an apology for comments on Nitro that WWF had caused a power outage in Lakeland during the 2/5 show. Bischoff had to apologize on air which he did begrudgingly. He was also forced not to talk about WWF on air which was apparently frustrating to him since he was about to do a "full court press." -Writing a letter to Turner complaining about blading. Which is kind of awesome: "Dear Ted: Since there has been no response to my repeated request and you and your pro-wrasslin' company stop the practice of self mutilation, I can only assume based upon the last two weeks of Nitro that the practice of self mutilation (slicing oneself with a razor blade) is not only condoned but encouraged. As you know, Hulk Hogan has been bleeding all over the place the past two weeks. There have been numerous references on your wrasslin programming that this weekend's double cage match will be so violent that one opponent will be "bleeding to the point of no recognition." This encouraged practice of self mutilation is disgusting, violent, potentially infectious and completely contradictory in everyway to your testimony before Congress in June of 1993 and contrary to your 1995 participation of "Voices against Violence." Notwithstanding numerous unprecedented predatory practices against the World Wrestling Federation, if you continue to promote self mutilation, I hope your stockholders hold you accountable for this unethically, guttural, potentially unhealthy practice." Dave says that this is looking pretty desperate especially considering that buyrates are up and Vader is coming in and the babyfaces are starting to draw and are pretty deep over in WWF land, but that Vince thinks he's fighting for his life again, and he's worried about the summer more than the spring (which makes sense given what would happen with Hall and Nash). He also says that on paper, WWF seemed way ahead on everything but ratings and that by going on the attack like this, the public perception would be that WCW was actually ahead. Dave does a lot of compare/contrast here between what Vince claims WCW had been doing and what he did himself ten years before, something that Vince at the time claimed was totally different. He said he wasn't trying to put people out of business back then, just survive and grow himself. There's plenty of listing of Vince's "sins" (like Survivor Series 87 and Rumble 88 and buying out the time slots and raiding the talents. There's some fact checking too as WCW claimed that WWF were under cutting them on ads, but "a third party" said otherwise. He also looked at Bret's blading vs Davey Boy back in December, which was suspect at the time but I think Bret's admitted to since. Dave spent a paragraph on the Billionaire Ted skits, saying that Vince claimed these were the only way he could legitimately air his grievances, because if he did so openly, it would turn off viewers. So he could use them to inform and entertain, and he could make he public aware of what sort of person Turner really was. He claimed that Ted had a vendetta against him since Vince would never let Ted buy in. He also said that Vince wanted to move Raw to a time period not up against Nitro (Monday night at 10 PM for instance). IF so, Dave said WCW would just expand to two hours anyway, which Vince said he actually wanted, since it would water down the WCW product and help him win. WCW thought Vince would be hurting himself by a move to 10 because they'd lose the kids and if they expanded to two hours then they could show 15 minute matches instead of 5 minute ones. Contract stuff: Diesel claims to have been offered a 3 year 750K per deal through an intermediary (Hogan wanted to bring him in as a heel, says Dave). Most expect him to take it given his age and how he has a family. Other people say it's 450K Bushwhackers offered 120K per a piece but were still under WWF contract (WCW didn't know). Vince wouldn't let them out. Lafitte seems like tampering. Not out til 7/7 but everyone knows he's jumping. He does his negotiation through Rougeau. Overtures towards an unhappy Razor (shrinking paychecks and unhappy with the Goldust feud). Vince said that Lex was under contract when he jumped. Luger said he wasn't. I think it's come out as a handshake or verbal deal no? Pretty interesting stuff all around, especially so early into 96, well before the NWO was a wisp of a dream. If there is a FTC complaint I think that'd be really interesting to look at, especially Vince complaining about a potential monopoly considering how the War and and how close TNA is to the brink.

Wikpedia says that Adnan lies in Minnesota and is 75. It's your job to go interview him and do a paper about how an Iraqi and an Italian American became Native American superstars and how Strongbow was really terrible at it.

I saw that Ross was on Austin today and decided to listen to the Piper podcast with Samoa(n) Joe instead. I was thinking of turning NPR on actually.

If they could run Goldust/Stardust vs Henry/Show for the titles for a few months without putting it right on Henry/Show, I'd be pretty interested in those matches.

I feel like they should be putting up something else from the Federation era too, something like Tuesday Night Titans that really hits the nostalgia hard (at least until the matches start).

I am a civic minded gentleman and will accept any and all suggestions for what matches I am going to make goc watch when he loses the bet.

Even if you're putting Cena over at the PPV, I don't get why he's even able to walk right now. Aw, come on, don't have Luke Harper tap.

You've never heard of Only Child Magic? At the least, she would have had a nice collection of toy ponies.

Hey, welcome to the other side, Goodear.

Thanks a lot for reading. Some of these things you just never kick. I'm not even what I thought of Cornette. I think I saw him in GWF. OR, you know, I actually knew him from the 91-92 Apter mags the most. I had an old one about him and Stan Lane heading off on their own. I had no idea who he was before that.

Ok, I am about 35 minutes in, and I'm going to raise a question, or a thought, mainly because I don't have time to listen to the rest until tomorrow. You guys may raise this point later on but if we're thinking heavily about WCW's performance during Sting's period on top in the early 90s, and why a lot of people don't penalize him for it, I do have a theory and I think it's worth talking about. Let's put nostalgia aside for now. That's hard. A lot of us were into Sting at that key period. Instead, let's think about this: What did Sting do during that period that caused WCW to fail. Alternatively, what could have Sting done better to cause them to succeed? When you look at the end of Hogan's run on top in WWF, you can see things he may have done poorly. When you look at Hogan early in WCW, the same. Or the failure of the NWO towards the end. Alternatively, you can see a ton of things that Hogan does successfully in his key runs that you can attribute towards the success of the companies he's in. Causality stemming from his performance. What did Sting do wrong in 1991-3? He was consistently over with what crowds were in those arenas. They seemed hugely excited to see him. Listen to the reaction he gets at Beach Blast or vs Vader or even vs Johnny B. Badd.in the Clash I just watched. This is the period with the series with Vader and Rude and Cactus Jack, like Andy said. He was pretty giving in a lot of ways, putting some talent like Bagwell under his wing and he sure helped to put Badd over in the match that I saw him in. And those were just younger guys. He more than put over Rude and Vader to get them established with the fans. Was he an amazing promo? No but he was an enthusiastic one and he seemed to connect with the fans that were there. It's hard to hold those years against Sting because we do what we do: we analyze, and in analyzing, I don't think we can find a ton of things that we think he did wrong or even a lot that we wished he would have done better. Therefore, maybe it was other factors? Now, this is just then. One thing we're seeing out of the 98 yearbook so far is a lot of people disappointed with him that year. I'm just talking about this 90-93 period. Yes, he didn't draw, and therefore, he obviously didn't connect with enough fans, but why? How? It's not an opportunity thing, necessarily, or a counter-factual that keeps people from holding this against him quite as much. I'm arguing here, or at least suspecting, it's because there isn't a fast and easy list that we can come up for on this specific point. We can't find the causality in Sting's performance or his existence that led to him not being a success, and instead see lots of things he did right or well or that looked like they should have been successful. That's where the "opportunity" element comes in. That's why people think Sting might have been successful if only... because the flaws that caused him not to be aren't immediately evident in his performance in this period. People have a hard time finding qualitative reasons to explain the quantitative realities. The same is sort of true with Bret Hart during this down period, no? In some ways, it's almost easier to spot what Bret could have done differently or where he was deficient than Sting, even (But that's another, parallel argument).

I think we can combine them with nostalgic geeks who cheer for Daniel Bryan but don't watch football?

I think that we MIGHT be moving away from that as Wrestling starts to appeal to a geekier hipster audience? Though I guess they're just the ones who do Fantasy Football?

A swig of coffee for the working man?

it's like listening to Solie in 95 talking about the Dungeon of Doom.

I think there was Value in Verne/Greg in 1991, but that value would almost solely be as a scout.

It made the Punk series pretty brutal for me since Punk was really bad at hiding it too.

The start of his heel run is so great. Then he got injured for the stupidest reason ever in 80.

He had Malaria which ended his early career. This is what he looked like before it.

At the time, that might have been the right call. They needed to make a splash. Going back to the "give it away on TV" well over and over was another story.

I was being a dick, yes. I like "the world's second best Bill Dundee" memphis Danny Davis a lot.

The tricky part is finding something that's bad but not so bad it's wildly entertaining.

Nightmares, huh? You mean the ref Danny Davis right? Because I just found a twelve minute match from the Spectrum with him vs Sam Houston.