rovert

Wrestling Is Fun draws fairly well. 400-600. I imagine the students work for little.

Watching Smackdown ahead of probably most of you guys. I'll just say it was the first show this year where I felt that Wrestlemania was approaching. Higher quality show and with extra though put into it.

Mainly using the term IWC non-ironically.

Good line but in fairness they did run shows. Quackenbush/CHIKARA partnered on all the Wrestling Is shows. Quackenbush has acknowledged them as CHIKARA shows both in the business and narrative/canon sense. A lot of those shows were genuine disasters as in drawing 17 people and numbers like that. The oldest and best drawing Wrestling Is: Wrestling Is Fun is the only one they are keeping. It will serve as their developmental promotion.

A rather ridiculous criticism when National Pro Wrestling Day raised nearly $8,000 for charity.

From all accounts he isn't talking. Cliff Compton referred to the CM Punk - WWE relationship as the Cuban Missile Crisis on the PWInsider site. Wade Keller said Punk isn't returning WWE's calls as of Tuesday. Wade also said Punk isn't confiding in the people he normally confides in. Wade made the very vague allusion to my ears to Punk not talking to Lars. You may or may not know the truth in that, Will I am just saying. Anyway I am surprised that you were surprised about the podcast. Yep. WWE could get really nasty really quick.

Like Mike Johnson and his post-ROH departure interview was leagues better than the Observer's however I thought his interview with Quack was very deeply unsatisfactory as it didn't really talk about the last year from a kayfabe or business POV. More just a discussion about the concept of it. As far as Quack had gone with the rumours is more or less the following: vaguely acknowledging them, stating they are false, stating his wife has always been supportive of his creative endeavours, pushing that there was a complete continuation of business as in he was working on Wrestling Is shows operationally and then pushing that it is business as usual with CHIKARA.

Depends what you mean by hard-hitting. Not the absolute emotional gut punch that Heroes of World Class was. GLOW is a lot lighter and human interest-y than Heroes but it isn't out and out fluff. Probably not worth watching a second time but I liked it.

The promo: http://www.wwe.com/videos/tom-phillips-int...n-31-2-26179139 Interested in people's opinions on it. I've read people say it was the best promo since CM Punk's pipebomb promo and in terms of delivery and emotion Mick Foley's (ECW) stuff. But I am on the other end of scale who thinks it is simply a whiny, cringey in places Millennial promo.

Mike Johnson always mentions the WWE Crusierweight show as a "thing" often in conjunction with WWE's interest in Prince Devitt. There was an interview with the graphic designer of the WWE Network logo. He said he did concept art for the Crusierweight show too. Wish I would doublecheck it but the name for the show was the reuse of an old WWE name. To my best remembrance it was WWE Livewire. But a lot of this information goes back 2 years - when WWE Network was going to be an actual channel so who knows.

What do people think of the idea of Prince Devitt bypassing development if (it seems more a case of when) he signs with WWE? Recipe for disaster? The logic behind it to me seems that they are high on his work and that he probably wouldn't leave New Japan & relocate from Ireland for non-main roster money.

CM Punk's last public comments: Terrible timing for Colt Cabana WWE seemed to be finally moving on him and wanted him to work on the WWE Network.

Jerry and Dave Brown today:

He is their Flair

Likely that he isn't in a Top 5 match after working so hard this year. Everyone should watch this interview from last week. He seemed very burnt out and non-motivated by Wrestling or his future in it: http://www.mmafighting.com/2014/1/24/53405...-network-ufc-on

Anyone get a weird half 1993 Bob Backlund/recentish Mark Coleman vibe off Batista?

Rey's 619 was booed at ECW One Night Stand too.

I found out privately that Sheamus is back tonight. So if he is starting a feud a Daniel Bryan then we've got a spanner in works.

Mick Foley promises to throw a brick at his TV if Daniel Bryan doesn't win: https://www.facebook.com/RealMickFoley/post...3?stream_ref=10 To add on to what Coffey said. WWE may also potentially damage Batista by making him a victim of a fan backlash if he wins over Bryan.

This side of the world. Daniel Bryan has overtook Batista in the betting: http://www.oddschecker.com/tv/wwe/wwe-roya...l-rumble-winner The odds work this way over here. If you place the bottom numerator you get the top numerator back plus your original stake.

Your point on the podcast about the CHIKARA shut down and Wrestling Is project poisoning the indy well is rather true.

With PWG it comes down how many PWG DVDs does one need. Gabe's booking this year was scary bad at points and at best in decisive. The Evolve title tournament Wrestlemania weekend was one of the worst booked one night tournaments I've ever seen. Haven't caught up with the January shows but wasn't it the case Gabe had like 5 number one contenders at one time?

Mike said that last week too but it got no traction. Meltzer seems to be looking into it too. Proving Russo is back seems to be internet reporter sword of Excalibur this week. The run in tastic main events and in particular the misogynistic Austin Aries-Chris Sabin-Velvet Sky angle seems to be the biggest indicators on screen. Dave Lagana supposedly sending out feelers to ROH and WWE/WWE Network is another.

I agree with W2BTD. A lot of the posters here are simply griping or acting like they have the one true view of Wrestling when in fact there's a wider world of fans than those simply here or on DVDR or whatever. Also Dave disagreed with a fair amount of the results. People simply aren't just cribbing. In terms of the indies what absolutely stand out shows have there been? ROH has just been ok they get to the point of finding their legs momentum wise then they don't follow up on that. PWG has suffered from talent departures and what I feeling a lessening of effect due the style and lack of storylines. I've shown New Japan stuff to a huge array of fans of different levels of interest in Wrestling in general and feedback has been pretty much universally strongly positive. You will get the odd complaint about the lack of English commentary but that can't be helped but that's it.