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Serious question: Am I missing anything by not reading the Observer every week and just listening to Dave's podcasts with Bryan Alvarez? It feels like Dave covers all the important stuff in the business in his audio programs and you get virtually identical reporting in the newsletter every week.

Weren't the Insane Clown Posse on a Disney label until someone found out what their music actually was?

Hogan played a coward all year and then when the bell rang he kicked Sting's ass for twelve minutes. Sting shouldn't have had a chance to get blown up. It should have been a quick squash, and Hogan losing so definitively would have added to the NWO dissent angle they ran in the spring of 1998.

I hope that's the title of the program.

At that time was Vince thinking WrestleMania would be an annual thing?

Maybe they're trying to get in on a bankruptcy proceeding so they'd get a cut of the sale of the streaming rights? Didn't Vince give ECW loans he knew Paul couldn't pay back just to get first dibs of the assets when it got to the eventual bankruptcy proceedings? I seem to recall something like that being written in the Observer at the time. Maybe the Fight Network sees whatever money they gave TNA as a down payment on buying up the scraps later. But what value do TNA scraps have? ECW had a rabid fanbase that wanted anything they produced and Vince could make money off the name. Outside of TNAMecca there really aren't many people clamoring for anything TNA. Fight Network could wind up with a tape library that WWE may want one day but what else?

And everyone has to make sure to stand in the center of the ring and face the hard camera during every pose and rest hold. None of it looks natural.

So TNA basically used Billy for a few months to keep them afloat until the suitor they really wanted came along? Why anyone sees any value in this company is beyond me.

I wonder when he'll do his first post-WWE shoot interview. "I was booked to win it that night in Denver and have a PPV rematch with A.J. where I'd drop it back but [insert unpopular wrestling figure] killed it that night."

With the amount of injuries in the last two years or so can anyone really say the WWE style is a good thing anymore? The conditioning stuff at the Performance Center led to a rash of shoulder injuries and their big-time match working style has even more wrestlers getting hurt. Then you add in the NXT method of putting experienced workers in with guys hired based on their physiques and it leads to catastrophe. Why do so many have to toil away in NXT when Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson--who were likely known by a very, very small percentage of the Raw audience--allowed to leapfrog developmental and go straight to cable TV?

My guess is the finish to Goldberg-Lesnar II will be some sort of nonsense to further build to the Shane-Brock match in Orlando. WWE doesn't have to deliver clean finishes anymore in the post-PPV era and the Shane stuff at SummerSlam leads me to think they are hoping that people will be interested to see what sort of crazy bump Shane will take at WrestleMania XXXIII.

It came off like a Smackdown taping with a PPV main event as the opener, which was fine except they charged PPV ticket prices.

To be fair, her lukewarm reaction could be because she changes from face to heel seemingly by the week.

I attended this live and there really wasn't much to report. There were quite a few empty seats in the lower bowl area, which was surprising because this was a brand-new arena that was only open to the public for about five days. Ticket prices weren't bad, though. The heat for Dolph-Miz was nuclear in person and it was fun to be a part of. The triple-threat was fun but being able to see the third guy just sitting there, outside the ring waiting for his cue took me out of the moment somewhat. This also happened during the Rhyno-Slater tag match. In both matches the crowd picked up on it and tried getting various "Dean is sleeping!" and "Rhyno's sleeping!" chants started. The crowd was pissed when Alexa announced Becky wouldn't be there. They did not play the pre-show promo announcing this so it was the first most had heard of it. Right after the PPV ended they gave us the "Thanks for coming" announcement. No dark angle, dark match, nothing. Luke Harper ripped the top off the announce table and everyone started buzzing thinking there would be a table bump but then everyone just walked out.

The shows have been pretty great for the most part. So obviously no one wants to talk about it. Why don't you create this week's thread and actually discuss what was great about the show? This.

That may not be entirely far off. He brought a clipboard to BOLA instead of a tablet or something.

Both No Mercy (Smackdown PPV) and an NXT house show are coming to Sacramento in October. I bought a ticket to both. A decent seat for NXT costs as much as a cheap seat for the PPV. I'm going to have a blast at both.

Wasn't Vince's issue with Beyond the Mat that Blaustein was going to use his personae to sell the film and Vince wouldn't get any money from it? The Rock was red-hot at the time and was in all the advertising for the film.

When Dave talked about all the photos he took at BOLA I couldn't help but wish he had an Instagram for stuff like this. He probably has some really fun, wild, rare, and historic photos he could share. I tweeted him about starting an Instagram during WrestleMania weekend but he no-sold it.

Dave cut a promo on people like me and I think, with time having passed, I feel I made a big deal out of nothing. Maybe I would have watched the prelims later but whatever.

Raw this week was mostly painful to sit through and Smackdown was not that bad but had its painful moments. Whenever I actually find time to sit down and watch a full three-hour Raw I get shit like the New Day-Gallows & Anderson skit and it leaves me wanting to just watch clips of the shows on YouTube.

You didn't mention what Punk's theme music was.

Handwaved AXS as soon as Mauro left. I have no interest in Ross doing "his thing" with New Japan. I love Mauro, I get that some people don't, but he and Barnett were the perfect pairing for modern New Japan. It hasn't been as much fun or even "must-see" for me since Mauro left.

Wade Keller has said lately that one criticism of Seth in NXT was that he works too fast and is too concerned with getting all his spots in.

I just don't like Stephanie because whenever anyone shows any potential for getting over she's booked in a segment with them where she basically walks all over the character and in some way reminds them they'd be homeless without WWE's generosity. Okay, Johnny is right about one thing: Chris Jericho is the best professional wrestler alive right now. Jericho gets it in an old-school way. While Kevin Owens is witty and you can't help but laugh at his quips Jericho is trying to be as obnoxious as possible and seems completely natural.