Log

I loved Mysterio talking about teamwork. Pro wrestling is one of the most back-stabbin-est businesses there is. At least Morrison helped that girl off of the rope thingy.

While you're totally right about Demott really not ever being much of a player, that really doesn't have anything to do with how effective he can be as a trainer. Let me preface this by saying that I really don't know of anyone who's done anything after training with Demott. He may totally suck for all I know. I'm just saying that there are numerous examples in sports of guys who weren't that great of players being great coaches. Tony Larussa only played a handful of games in the majors, but is one of the greatest baseball managers of all time. Bobby Knight played college basketball but never went pro, yet he is one of the greatest coaches ever. I agree with most of what you posted. Just remember that this is a reality competition. Doing squats on the top rope (or doing most of the shit they do) doesn't really have any bearing on whether or not someone's going to be a great wrestler. But it does make for good tv. Everything done on this show is for that purpose.

There is a crop of high school (or so) aged kids that "discover" The Beatles, Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Doors, etc. every single year. A friend of mine's 6 yr old is a huge Beatles fan. They're pretty much timeless.

Wow. There was a LOT going on in this issue. I never realized what a turning-point year '88 was. Dave's thoughts on Vince were pretty dead-on. This paragraph in particular would apply to many today.

WWE needs to do some serious training with guys to show them the difference between "I'm pissed" and "I have to poop" when it comes to facial expressions.

At least they got some decent-caliber celebrities (and George Lopez) for the Rock's birthday stuff.

How long 'til Karma is Santino's girlfriend?

I'd say Raven fits these two pretty well. He was a moderately successful wrestler who has convinced people that he has a great mind for the business despite him never booking anything that made a dime.

Not just a woman, the same thing is done with guys missing their family (wives, kids, cancer stricken parents) all the time. Pretty standard reality show trope. If someone is being eliminated and the shows editors haven’t already given the character a story arc, they need to give the audience a reason to care, so last minute they have the person talk about their family. “Contestant mentions family=contestant going home” is a reality show cliché. It is such a cliché; that at this point the reality shows that have become efficient streamlined machines (Top Chef franchise, the Abrego but not the Salsero produced Vh-1 reality shows) use contestant talking about missing their family as a red herring to throw off audience. Yeah, I forgot that there was just a dude on this season's Ultimate Fighter that quit to go see his daughter. My wife loves to try and figure out who's going to be eliminated on Top Chef just based on how featured someone is on an episode.

There's a woman on every single competition reality show (Top Chef, etc.) that talks constantly about missing her kids. Then, when they are kicked off, they act like that's what they wanted all along, just to get back home. Mrs. Fairplay saw that she didn't have a chance in hell and bailed.

This the same guy who claimed that the booking of the Flair/Kerry cage match was horrible. It's obvious he doesn't know his ass from his elbow. He's right. It's not like it led to anything memorable or anything. What the hell was this guy's reasoning on that statement?

I now want to see a feud that ends with the wrestlers agreeing to disagree. Like, they are having it out in a promo and one guy is all, "I guess I see your point. I've done some hurtful things to you, and I apologize." And then that's it.

I always wondered why, when the ratings were as high as they were during the "boom", there weren't advertisers lining up for wrestling programming. The reason I heard somewhere, is that although the shows were getting lots of viewers, they still had too much controversial content for advertisers. Apparently, they don't like the idea that something offensive or distasteful could be happening on a show and then cut to a commercial, and there's their product. They feel it adds a negative connotation to what they're selling.

The thing is, that no media outlet is going to follow any of that shit. If some news station is running some fluff thing on their morning show with a WWE "Superstar", they're still going to call him/her a wrestler and call what they do wrestling. A couple of years ago, people from Yum Brands (that owns KFC, Taco Bell, and sponsors the Kentucky Derby) called all the media outlets in town and demanded that we refer to the Derby as "The 135th Running of the Kentucky Derby Sponsored By Yum Brands" every time we mention it. As you can imagine, that got a good laugh, and was ignored.

Lawler has worked that match with Jimmy Hart and a half dozen fake Jimmy Harts. He's never made it go that long. My sense from watching it was that they didn't want Lawler v Hart but rather wanted to do rich man's Zbysco v poor man's Bischoff. I also get the sense that this is how they wanted to do Coach v Austin. This is how they lay these things out. Is Patterson no longer with the company? Wasn't he the dude who would've layed something like this out in the past? Who was responsible for some of the better non-wrestler/wrestler matches of the past (Bigelow/LT, Mayweather/Big Show)?

Let's see...Knees so bad he can barely walk, broke from living a lifestyle that leaves him no choice but to keep wrestling, drug addict, dead, forced into retirement from injuries, former drug addict, gimp arm from injuries, dead. Yeah.

Not to derail this thread, but why is that? Just curious.

This pretty much encapsulates why Russo is so bad. I love wrestling. I am willing to watch just about any wrestling out there. I will buy dvds, I will search youtube for certain matches, but I will not watch TNA which is on tv for free every week.

I was thinking during the Cole/Lawler match, that WWE is really missing Pat Patterson right now. He is gone, isn't he? Hasn't he been responsible for laying out a lot of the "non-wrestler" matches in the past? Also, count me in on liking HHH/Taker. I told one of my friends that it was kind of like the wrestling equivalent of a Michael Bay movie. They started with the explosions within the first two minutes. There was a bit of a story, but nothing too deep. I like the route they're going with the streak being the only thing keeping UT going, while killing him at the same time.

I understand that, but it's odd to me that they wouldn't get in a brawl of some type or at least have words. Also, how does Rock have the authority to restart matches? (I'm asking these questions more because I didn't see the show and can't really follow how things happened from any recaps I've read than I am because I'm complaining about what they did.) Rock was the "host" of WM, so that's how he had the authority.

So, they basically put The Rock over Miz and Cena to end the show. He's got to be sticking around, right? Vince is a lot of things, but not stupid. Surely he wouldn't have that ending without more Rock to come.

Sixteen years later, and he's still doing the same thing in TNA.

Piledrivers have been too dangerous for the longest time in the WWF. I remember once Lawler saying perhaps in an interview that when approached by someone over the safety of the piledriver he was going to take that he said he couldn't guarantee the safety of it though his oppononet probably wouldn't be injured. We wouldn't want Lawler injuring Cole's neck at Wrestlemania so this is a good decision. He should take notes from Angle in the WWF/WWE and modernize the strap pull down spot. Angle revolutionised this spot by adding a fake tease with it and than doing the real pull down the strap spot later on in the match. He made it cool and the way he incorporated it into his matches with perfect timing, intelligence and brillinat creativity should be studied by all wrestlers in how to engage a crowd. Lawler was doing that fake tease 30 years ago.

I've always had a soft spot for the first Clash. I was grounded by my parents for something I did at school (can't remember what). My punishment was that I couldn't watch wrestling. On the day of the first Clash, my parents went somewhere and I had a babysitter. They didn't tell her about my punishment, so I got to watch the show. I switched between it and WMIV on scramble-vision. I was so happy to have got away with that one.

What was up with that? Did Andre and Vince have a falling out before he died?