Dark Side of the Ring

[cad]

Guessing that the Duggan reference is to this.

[El-P]

They just need to do an entire Dark Side about Vince. Which they won't ever do. The last episode actually kinda awkwardly tried to tie up Black Saturday with the TKO debacle, as if it was "ironic" or something that Vince would get outed of his own company "kinda like the way he outed the Georgia promotion"... yeah, really did not work at all, and just seemed to indicate they would never go more in details about the Vince story. 

Really enjoyed the Sandman episode, a real cool look into the insanity that was ECW. At the very least, Sandman owns up to the fact he fucked up, that's more than a lot of workers do. It's amazing him and Raven are still alive when you really think of it. Something that wasn't talked about, is that it seems like he's sober now, or at least that's the impression I got from the Mania week-end show where he made his entrance : he did not drink a drop of beer, he only served the audience. Good for him if that's the case.

Anywoo, this was overall a good season with some really interesting episodes (the Sherri Martel one was excellent too), although I wish they would tackle some of the big subject. You know which ones.

[Dooley]

Haven't seen anything here about the death of WCW miniseries, so apologies if this is in the wrong place. 

The first 2 episodes were mostly rehash but episode 4 did a really good job of painting a great picture of the corporate meddling and undermining of WCW, and Stu Snyder pretty much admitting the fix was in on WWF's purchase.

The only comment I have on episode 3 was that the little woman walked in while I was watching it. She had no idea who Vince Russo was but asked "why does he always sound like he's lying?"

[sek69]

I have zero interest in that show, not because of anything they do wrong, but it gets so frustrating seeing people who should know better pretend there's not the obvious answer of "Eric gave Hogan too much control and Turner execs were clueless".  Eric wanted to be one of the boys so badly he either didn't seem to notice or didn't care Hulk was that-doesn't-work-for-me-brother'ing the company into the ground.

[Dooley]

I'd learn more towards the business side than the creative, as bad as it got. They had interviews with Turner execs who weren't  even in the WCW part of the company and the WCW really dId feel like the unwanted part of the Turner empire.

[The Thread Killer]

I saw all four parts of the series and I thought it was really good, although some of the episodes were much better than others. I also think the general reaction to the series on Twitter and by some people in the so-called "IWC" has been borderline hysterical, because the series dares to challenge the established narrative about the demise of WCW, so of course they are desperately trying to poke holes in it.

That book by Guy Evans about the demise of WCW that came out a few years ago really opened a lot of eyes to the truth regarding the corporate machinations behind WCW and it's place in the Turner corporate structure. Guy Evans did so much research and got so many executives to go on the record, that you really can't question his facts, and unfortunately a lot of those facts contradict the widely held beliefs which had been floating around since the sale of WCW to WWE.

I have even seen some ridiculous claims that this series was an attempt at "image rehabilitation" by Eric Bischoff, which is hilarious. It's The Rock's production company that was behind this thing, and although I hear he and Bischoff are friendly, it's not like Dwayne Johnson is going to go to all the trouble of producing a four part series just to try and salvage the reputation of a guy who is pretty much retired from the Pro Wrestling business, aside from his podcast.

Trust me, I despise Vince Russo and what he did to the Pro Wrestling business, and I would have loved to blame him for what happened to WCW.  And although he certainly didn't help things any (especially by booking WCW in a way which was pretty much guaranteed to scare away advertisers) you can't even lay much of the blame over the demise of WCW at his feet. As much as I'd like to.

The facts are pretty simple.

From the moment Ted Turner bought Jim Crockett Promotions, there was a sizeable contingent of executives within the Turner organization that were vehemently opposed to Professional Wrestling being part of their portfolio. The biggest proof of that is the fact that Jim Herd and Eric Bischoff have both given in depth interviews where they describe pretty much identical experiences dealing with the resistance from Turner corporate when it comes to WCW. And Herd and Bischoff have never met, or even spoken to each other before. And I don't think they have much nice to say about each other, from what I recall. But they both had to deal with the exact same shit from the Turner organization.

Add to that, the fact that WCW had a rotating cast of so-called "Pro Wrestling people" who were put in charge of WCW and proceeded to fuck it up royally. George Scott and his infamous decision not to promote Clash VI, which ended up costing him his job.  Dusty Rhodes and his infamous "F you, I'll bleed if I want to" booking which cost him his job.  Bill Watts and his infamous interview which resulted in Hank Fucking Aaron of all people wanting him fired.  Ole Anderson...being Ole Anderson.

WCW could have died right there...and almost did.

Face it, by the time Eric Bischoff had his turn in the chair, there was no way Turner corporate was going to ever let another former Pro Wrestler run that company again. They had tried too many times and fucked it up too badly. I know a lot of fans look back at some parts of the late 80's/early 90's in WCW with great nostalgia because of the in-ring product. And so they should, and I'm one of those people. But apparently the company was still losing money hand over fist. So if Eric Bischoff hadn't taken over, who could have done it? Bischoff took over, and he succeeded very briefly, and then he proceeded to fuck it up due to being arrogant and having a lack of knowledge about how to run a Pro Wrestling company from a creative standpoint. You can't argue with that.

Problem is, the latest revisionist history is the claim that: "If Eric Bischoff hadn't lost all that money, then the Turner organization never would have wanted to cancel or sell WCW...so it's his fault." Which is a great theory, if you ignore the fact that WCW was a money loser for Turner from pretty much day one. Not to mention, Fusient Media offered Turner 67 Million Dollars for WCW. The Turner organization could have washed their hands of having to run WCW and all the headaches that came with that, all they had to do was give Fusient 4 hours of TV time a week, and cash the check. Instead, they sold to WWE for pennies on the dollar.  Why? Because they hated Pro Wrestling. They always hated Pro Wrestling, they didn't want it on their TV networks and with Turner being pushed aside after the AOL merger, they no longer had to have Pro Wrestling on their network.

The real eye popping revelation was Stu Snyder and Brad Siegel pretty much admitting on camera that they colluded to sell WCW to WWE, which of course cost Turner 67 Million.  My favourite part was when they asked Snyder if they had colluded on the sale, and Snyder said "No" while he was literally nodding yes and smiling from ear to ear. I had no idea that the guy who was the President of WWE at the time of the WCW sale was a former Turner executive who was dealing with a guy on the Turner end of the deal that was a personal friend of his!

They only briefly touched on the fact that Vince McMahon and WWE are the only company in history who were ever able to successfully monetize Pro Wrestling through advertising dollars and merchandising.  WCW sold a shit ton of nWo shirts, but if they had half a brain they could have made millions more, but their merchandising sucked. (Sound familiar, AEW?) Even at their height, when WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings, they were never really able to translate that into increased ad revenue, because as we all know, 90% of companies don't want to advertise on Pro Wrestling shows. And the blame for that falls on Turner corporate, not Eric Bischoff.

When this series was first announced, I wondered why they were even bothering. Lord knows this story has been told by WWE ad nauseum. But in the end, I found the series enjoyable because they did manage to show a different side to the story. Plus...the level of deflection by a lot of the participants was outright hilarious. Kevin Nash still trying to justify the "Finger Poke of Doom." Bischoff trying to blame Turner corporate. Russo being Russo and making a giant ass out of himself. (The highlight of which was his claim that he was a more talented promo than 80% of the WCW roster?!) And of course, Bret Hart continuing to spew venom at Goldberg, Bischoff, Russo and pretty much anybody else he could think of.

It was entertaining, and I was legitimately impressed with some of the interviews they managed to get. But at the end of the day, I don't think anybody is going to get their mind changed. There are fans who want to pin the whole thing on Bischoff (and/or Russo) and won't hear any argument to the contrary. And the actual people who were involved seem just as invested in sticking to their own versions of the story.

[dawho5]

Back in the day I blamed Bischoff almost entirely.

Now I think there was a lot going on.

First, Starrcade 1997 started all the dominos falling.  And for all of Bischoff's whitewashing, you don't throw away a year and a half angle because Sting comes in not looking excited.  Not saying he wanted to or didn't object to Hogan's decision.  He probably did, but unlike Russo understood the legal ramifications of "creative control".  And since Hulk is is friend he doesn't necessarily hold it over his head.

Nash over Goldberg, Bischoff actually won me over on that.  Goldberg was most certainly not going to keep squashing the main event guys.  How do you make that work?  His admission that the booking after and surrounding it might have been better went a ways towards my acceptance there.  Maybe make the guy an attraction at PPVs and the Nitro before the PPV.  Might pop some ratings when you need them too.

Nash defending the FPoD as a "surprise" is all well and good.  Not all surprises are good and I would bet even Bischoff (who seems to have engendered that idea of surprises in the first place) would agree.  And the whole "Nash as booker because Eric was tired" thing is iffy at best.   Not as reality, but as a good idea.  There needed to be more of a process in determining that succession.  It also speaks to certain wrestlers having Eric's ear a little more.

As to all of the other wrestlers complaining about that, I don't buy it.  You put Konnan or Booker in Hogan or Nash's shoes they would have had their own biases that ran towards selfish.  They are not at fault for WCW going down, but that's a matter of circumstance.  Most wrestlers defended their top positions well past the point of sanity.  I'll go on record as saying that maybe a guy like Bret is different.  But not many would be.  Sting maybe as well.

The Bret/Goldberg thing is silly.  Bret had to know he was getting in with a guy who was not up to the normal standards he was used to.  And he had to have heard how stiff Goldberg worked.  Protect yourself.  Goldberg should have known better than to throw the kick, which is probably not where the real issue came from anyway.  You do what you know how to do, don't start throwing out new stuff randomly.  Especially when it was a surprise to the other guy!  And Bret continuing to wrestle after didn't do him any favors either.  He's not 100% wrong about how things were handled in WCW.  He's just not accepting his part of the problems he is still experiencing.

Russo came long too late to kill WCW.  It was on it's deathbed already.  He still sucks, but it's not his fault.

The whole David Arquette thing was just a horrible idea, but it's clear that Nash and Bischoff never really respected the NWA World Heavyweight Title and that's their prerogative.  I disagree, but there's no way to make somebody understand that if they don't.  I believe Nash when he says he didn't care after a certain point.  My guess is he saw the writing on the wall and started doing stuff to amuse himself.  I don't love him for that, but he's not wrong about Goldberg and the need to end the streak.

Honestly here's the timeline for me.

1. Hogan gets a creative control -laced contract to come in and revitalize business.

2. WWF stars come in and the NWO deal starts, shooting the business up to the moon.

3. Slowly Bischoff learns how to manage it, with the help of some pro wrestlers who may or may not have an agenda.

4. Hogan decides not to go down clean.  He did it before this, hard to believe it didn't happen again.

5. The WWF has started to take some of the ideas used to beat them and adapt them to their own purposes.  As WCWs momentum slows, WWF is surging forward.

6. WCW starts trying old tricks and new tricks (Bischoff freely admits he went to the well too often on the NWO) to no avail.

7. WCW gets desperate and hires Russo, who now has no filter.  This was never going to work, but it accelerates things.

8. Corporate finally gets their way and there is some shady stuff involving the sale.

[cad]

17 hours ago, sek69 said:

I have zero interest in that show, not because of anything they do wrong, but it gets so frustrating seeing people who should know better pretend there's not the obvious answer of "Eric gave Hogan too much control and Turner execs were clueless".  Eric wanted to be one of the boys so badly he either didn't seem to notice or didn't care Hulk was that-doesn't-work-for-me-brother'ing the company into the ground.

When I think of Eric Bischoff's style of leadership, I think of stuff like taking someone off TV for half a year because they noshowed a TV taping. Firing a worker to stick it to that guy's friends. Keeping someone off PPV for months at a time because they were agitating for a higher spot. Breaking up a tag team to make them less over, for the purpose of diluting their power backstage. Those morale sapping locker room speeches when he would tell the wrestlers that none of them had ever drawn money (Hogan/Savage/Piper excluded), or that whoever wanted to quit was free to do so. Throwing or spilling coffee on a guy, whatever the story was there. Keeping the wrestlers in the dark on storylines as his way of working the boys. Telling someone that if they didn't re-sign right there on the spot that they were losing their title that night.

Most of the stories about Bischoff paint him as an imperious leader who had no desire to treat be seen as his employees' equal. He was tight with Hogan, DDP and Ernest Miller, probably some other guys, but I don't know how many ex-WCW workers would cross the street for him today.

[fxnj]

The series seemed rather biased to me towards Bischoff's viewpoints. It glosses over how toxic the politics backstage were when it came to creating new stars. The decision to end Goldberg's streak is defended on the grounds that Goldberg was cooling off and he needed to go into chasing the title again, but no time is spent on how badly he was booked in the space leading up to his loss and afterwards. They mention Goldberg's title win over Hogan and Bischoff gets a chance to defend the decision to put it on network TV, but it's not brought up at all how Goldberg only got 1 PPV main event in the time between his title win and Starrcade.

The Millionaire's Club vs. New Blood storyline is also mentioned and defended, but the series doesn't bother going into why that storyline is badly remembered (crowd being expected to cheer for the old guys over the new guys). The claim that Turner was offloading expenses from their other properties onto WCW's balance sheet is repeatedly made with no evidence, but they also fail to mention all the ways that WCW actually was wasting money, doing things like a KISS concert.

The narrative that Jamie Kellner deserves all the blame for killing WCW remains highly suspect to me. Any kind of attempt from Bischoff to get time on a different network and why it didn't work out isn't mentioned at all. Can they honestly say that it would have been just as impossible for WCW to find a different network if they were still as successful as they were in 1998? If WCW's free fall ratings and buy rates played no factor at all, how could TNA have found a deal with Fox Sports a few years later, when wrestling was even less hot?

[The Thread Killer]

3 hours ago, fxnj said:

Can they honestly say that it would have been just as impossible for WCW to find a different network if they were still as successful as they were in 1998? If WCW's free fall ratings and buy rates played no factor at all, how could TNA have found a deal with Fox Sports a few years later, when wrestling was even less hot?

They never got the chance! AOL/Time Warner canceled Nitro and Thunder, which invalidated the written deal they had with Fusient. Time Warner then turned around and instantly sold WCW to Vince McMahon. It all happened in a week. Not to mention, let’s not forget that even WWE couldn’t get a TV deal for WCW, during the brief period they were considering running it as a second brand.

[dawho5]

I'd agree Bischoff is presented maybe more favorably than he might have been at the time.

If you had given me that kind of power when i was in my mid-30s I probably would have been more insufferable than I was, which is saying something.

Also, I've worked in a corporation for a while now.  If you find more than 3 or 4 people who actually care whtether or not you succeed and are willing to stick their neck out for you past a certain level you are very lucky.  Bischoff was a middle manager in a large corporation.  He never saw himself as a promoter or booker.  He didn't care about the history of the wrestling business.  All he ever cared about was how wrestling could make better TV.  That's what he felt his job was.

So I get the criticisms from a wrestling fan's perspective.  I have the same criticisms.  And I think there are parts he is perfectly willing to leave in the past because they aren't necessarily in his favor.  We all have those.

At the end of the day, with what WWF was doing at the time with the Attitude stuff I question if WCW could ever have beaten them at that game.  Turner would have had some things to say about that stuff going on their TV.  They would have had to go back to being second and maybe make some money doing a better in-ring show, but not really challenging the WWF.

I tend towards the corporate espionage theory, but how much of a degree it affected things may have been amplified?   That one will forever be unanswered unless Stu Snyder, Jamie Kellner or Brad Siegel decide they need to make a WCW deathbed confession.

I also think we'd still have made it to where we are today because of the influence of Japanese & Lucha Libre styles of wrestling was just starting to become a part of the DNA of young wrestlers.  Luckily a bunch of great wrestling from when I liked it was captured on video!

 

[The Thread Killer]

3 hours ago, dawho5 said:

That one will forever be unanswered unless Stu Snyder, Jamie Kellner or Brad Siegel decide they need to make a WCW deathbed confession.

In Jamie Kellner’s case it will definitely go forever unanswered. He passed away just last Friday of cancer.

[sek69]

Wasn't Kellner's deal that he just wasn't a fan of wrestling and didn't want it on his networks anymore? At the time they wanted to make TBS the comedy channel and TNT the drama one, and WCW programming didn't fit in that vision.

[NintendoLogic]

13 hours ago, The Thread Killer said:

They never got the chance! AOL/Time Warner canceled Nitro and Thunder, which invalidated the written deal they had with Fusient. Time Warner then turned around and instantly sold WCW to Vince McMahon. It all happened in a week. Not to mention, let’s not forget that even WWE couldn’t get a TV deal for WCW, during the brief period they were considering running it as a second brand.

The WWF couldn't get a deal for WCW because TNN had exclusive rights to all WWF cable programming. That was what killed Vince's first attempt to buy the company in 2000.

Trying to figure out who killed WCW is like investigating a plane crash. A disaster of that magnitude is usually the result of bunch of things going wrong in succession rather than a single culprit. 

[sek69]

1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

Trying to figure out who killed WCW is like investigating a plane crash. A disaster of that magnitude is usually the result of bunch of things going wrong in succession rather than a single culprit. 

This is the most accurate take on this imo. There were multiple levels causing this:

1. Turner had a conga line of bean counters running the company pretty much from the moment they bought it from Crockett.

2. Eric weaseled his way in charge through a combination of his expert level schmoozing skills and from being in the business and actually knowing how wrestling works.

3. His master plan was just to throw large amounts of cash at anyone who was well known in the WWF (and after awhile at some low level dudes just to be petty).

4. This plan actually works for a while because holy shit, the biggest babyface star of all time turned heel I gotta see this!

5. Eric seemingly has no ideas after that so he keeps the one thing that works going way past the expiration point and everyone gets bored by it, and the folks involved in that one thing do their damnedest to make sure no one ever gets in a position to challenge them.

6. When the young talent gets sick of this and goes to the boss, the boss sides with the old dudes which causes most of their young talent to quit and/or go to the WWF.

7. As such their product goes to shit,  Turner execs get tired of flushing money down the toilet, and cancels their TV.

 

I suppose that wouldn't make a very entertaining TV show though.

[dawho5]

Not only way past the expiration point, but letting it splinter only to re-form it pointlessly.

[rainmakerrtv]

The good thing (if you can call it that) about Vince Russo in interviews is that he is transparently a complete fucking blithering idiot. With his constant "Bros!" and pronouncing wrestling with 3 syllables, there is not much danger of someone taking him seriously. Bischoff is a bit trickier. Bobby Heenan neatly summed him up in 3 words : used car salesman. He is very polished in demeanor and speech, and far too much of what he said was put out uncontested. Case in point : the Disney tapings. He presents them as one of his early triumphs, but they were actually a terrible move (an audience of non-wrestling fans led to a very stale environment, it was for syndicated shows in bad time slots, and by doing them in blocks of 4 months in a couple of weeks it gave away title changes that were immediately leaked). The show opened and ended with him, and ultimately, he gets the last word and took no accountability.

[sek69]

My favorite "WCW tapes stuff way in advance" story was when the Freebirds lost the tag titles to the Steiners about a week before Wrestle War where they won them from Doom, giving them a title reign of -7 days.

[PeteF3]

20 hours ago, sek69 said:

My favorite "WCW tapes stuff way in advance" story was when the Freebirds lost the tag titles to the Steiners about a week before Wrestle War where they won them from Doom, giving them a title reign of -7 days.

That's not really that crazy, timeline-wise. The WWF never went so far as to have a negative title reign but they certainly taped stuff weeks in advance of PPVs for years. They also just didn't do title changes as frequently as WCW nor did they have as many titles. Had they stuck to that format it's not inconceivable that they could have done the same thing.

[sek69]

They would do marathon tapings for like Superstars and Challenge, but they rarely did title changes on TV  in those days so it had little risk of harm.

Them 5 hour shows of 99% squash matches must have been brutal to sit thru though.

[The Thread Killer]

13 hours ago, sek69 said:

Them 5 hour shows of 99% squash matches must have been brutal to sit thru though.

Having attended a couple of those shows back in the 80’s, I can verify to you that yes…yes they were brutal. At first it was exciting, especially seeing the talk show segments and stuff like that. But once you got into the middle of hour two…it kind of began to feel like a death march.

I will never forget one of the WWF tapings I attended, Dick Slater debuted as “The Rebel” Dick Slater. (I think this would have been 1986 or so?) I was excited because I knew who Dick Slater was from Watts UWF tapes. The rest of the crowd did NOT know who he was, nor did they care. I think we were into the third or fourth hour of the TV taping and I swear to you, you could hear a pin drop during his match against some enhancement guy. Then, on his way back up the aisle to the locker room, he held his arms out to exchange high fives with the fans, and nobody reached back. It was sad. I actually felt sorry for him.

[The Thread Killer]

On 7/2/2024 at 9:02 PM, rainmakerrtv said:

Case in point : the Disney tapings. He presents them as one of his early triumphs, but they were actually a terrible move (an audience of non-wrestling fans led to a very stale environment, it was for syndicated shows in bad time slots, and by doing them in blocks of 4 months in a couple of weeks it gave away title changes that were immediately leaked).

I don't think anybody would argue that the Disney tapings were a triumph in terms of the in-ring product, but they were unquestionably a smart decision fiscally, and in terms of improving the look of the product. Prior to that, WCW couldn't draw anybody to their TV tapings and they were apparently losing a ton of money on running house shows that nobody would come to. By cancelling all house shows and moving the TV tapings to Disney, they certainly presented a much glossier looking product, in front of actual people (even if those people weren't actual fans and were just there to get out of the heat, and had to be prompted to boo and cheer by applause signs, apparently.) Bottom line is, moving to Disney apparently saved WCW a ton of money and helped get them out of the red...so from that perspective I guess it was a smart move.

[The Thread Killer]

On 6/28/2024 at 2:50 PM, dawho5 said:

And for all of Bischoff's whitewashing, you don't throw away a year and a half angle because Sting comes in not looking excited.  Not saying he wanted to or didn't object to Hogan's decision.  He probably did, but unlike Russo understood the legal ramifications of "creative control".  And since Hulk is is friend he doesn't necessarily hold it over his head.

I never understood this either, especially when Bischoff covered Starrcade 97 on his podcast.  Bischoff claimed that Sting came in looking pale, with no tan and somewhat out of shape, and that during the production meeting he seemed distracted and disengaged, partially because he was going through a really rough patch in his marriage.  It was only later that I discovered (by Sting's own admission, mind you) that all that stuff is basically carny code for "Sting was fucked up on drugs and his wife had just found out he was cheating on her, and was getting ready to take him to the cleaners."

Supposedly, everybody loves Sting backstage. So nobody wants to bury the guy and just come out and say that he was fucking up. Compare his situation to how Shawn Michaels was acting before Wrestlemania 14, except Sting is nicer, and people actually like him. But by his own admission, at this time in his life Sting was into the whole sex drugs and rock n' roll aspect of WCW in a big way. So nobody wants to come out and say it (except Kevin Nash, who has had no problem mentioning it) that when Starrcade 97 came around, Sting was pretty much out of it.  I have zero doubt that Hogan saw this as an opportunity to pounce on the situation and hang onto the belt...but even Sting has been pretty transparent over the past couple of years that he was in rough shape during this time, and probably wasn't in any position to carry the company as the World Champion.

That's still no excuse for the ridiculously convoluted finish with Nick Patrick and the "slow count that wasn't really a slow count" though.  That was just some Hogan bullshit, which made everybody involved look really stupid. 

[The Thread Killer]

On 6/29/2024 at 3:05 PM, sek69 said:

Wasn't Kellner's deal that he just wasn't a fan of wrestling and didn't want it on his networks anymore? At the time they wanted to make TBS the comedy channel and TNT the drama one, and WCW programming didn't fit in that vision.

That was apparently a huge part of it.  Think about it, this dude turned down 67 million dollars just to wash his hands of WCW and ended up selling the whole thing for a miniscule fraction of that. There was literally nothing anybody could have said or done to keep Pro Wrestling on the Turner networks at that point. I honestly don't think Kellner or AOL/Time Warner would have kept WCW on Turner TV even if they were doing peak 1998 ratings and profits...because they still couldn't sell advertising for it, and they were convinced that Pro Wrestling was a white trash product that sullied the image of their brand.  That's what made Pro Wrestling returning to TNT and TBS all the more hilarious to me, years later.

[dawho5]

Going back to DSoTR stuff, I have gone through the end of season 3.

As a Benoit fan, his two episodes were super depressing.  Then I watched the Dynamite Kid episode.  So many thoughts...

1. If people were saying that DK was going to put himself in a wheelchair with his style at the time, this had to be common talk in the locker room when a lot of the younger, smaller guys were chomping at the bit to do that stuff.  And there had to be some of that same "you guys just want to stay on top" pushback from those guys.  I'd have to guess that smaller guys in wrestling (220-230 pounds or less) had beenfacing that issue for decades.

2. How many people had to try to warn Benoit about the price he was going to pay for what he did?  There is no way he didn't know by about 2 or 3 years in that he was going to destroy his body. 

3. Eddie as his best friend and the guy who had his ear did fail a bit in the sense of that last point.  Very likely because he had the same problems with not giving up on the dream.  Maybe it is better to have friends with different viewpoints that you really trust.  It's awesome when people back you up, but there is a point where you need some constructive criticism.

4. What kind of crazy stuff did Eddie talk him out of?  Don't answer that, I don't want to know.

5. End of the day, my belief is that a combination of CTE, his own drug and alcohol abuse, the enormous stress of trying to live in the world he did and succeed and an almost superhuman drive worked very much against Benoit.  Having drive is great, but you need to step back and look at things objectively too.  He was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for his chosen profession.  It made him great at that one thing.  But the cost was his physical and mental well-being, his life and any legacy he may have had beyond horrible.  Nothing is worth that cost.

In a way I think that the whole 90s wrestling style (which I loved at the time and is absolutely aesthetically pleasing as wrestling, was a horrific experiment for the people involved.  Dynamite Kid is one of the guys who inspired it and kudos to him for being a pioneer.  But there is something to the older styles that leave the workers room to have some kind of physical and mental well-being and still get over.  Not that wrestling has been overly kind to many wrestlers on the mental side due to all of the sleazy folks involved.