Comments that don't warrant a thread

[KrisZ]

Yeah I would normally agree with that but Rock is a huge UFC guy and goes to all the big shows so this isn't some guy doing the rounds.

[rovert]

A feature film on the life of Mick Foley, based on his autobiographies, will be produced by Union Square Agency along with Jeff Katz, Michael Braverman and Barry Bloom, with Christopher J. Scott directing. Scott and Foley will write the story.

Lets hope it is as good as the Jesse Ventura story.

[Jingus]

Weird choice for a writer/director. Scott's never made a narrative movie before, he's a documentary guy.

[rovert]

I wonder which Special Guest referee slot the story ends at?

[Stuttsy]

Jesus Christ, that Rock interview is the biggest Non-story ever. It was Duane Johnson at an MMA show being interviewed by an MMA reporter. He plugged his movie and put over the show he was plugging his movie on by saying the stock answer of "I'd have considered the UFC if it had been as big as it is now!"

 

If Roller Derby suddenly hit huge and was on PPV and was the big thing you'd have Rock saying "I'm plugging my movie and I'd have considered Roller Derby!"

 

I read his awful book. He, and most guys in wrestling historically wanted to play in the NFL more than anything, if you're gonna go with the "What real sport would I have wanted to do" deal.

"Reporter" is being really generous, that dork came off as about the least credible so-called reporter I've ever seen.

[Sean Liska]

Ariel does a solid job.

[rovert]

Anyone ever hear the Bobby Heenan story that WCW format sheets we never stapled correctly so the announcers didnt know which page was next etc? I dont know why but that totally bemuses me.

[rovert]

Anyone ever hear the Bobby Heenan story that WCW format sheets we never stapled correctly so the announcers didnt know which page was next etc? I dont know why but that totally bemuses me.

Sorry to double but Id read this on PWInsider:

 

Bobby Heenan was brought up on last night's The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman and Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) were discussing conservative talk host Glenn Beck. And Letterman noted that Beck was really just Bobby "The Brain" Heenan... "He just shows up and tries to stir up trouble." Soon thereafter, they went to commercial and the bumper card was a picture of Heenan. When they came back, Letterman showed a picture of Beck. He then pulled up another picture of The Brain. While obviously different people, Letterman's staff had found two very similarly posed photos. Thanks to Mike for his help

I would love to see this clip.

[Bix]

Vye did a really good FanPost at Cageside going over the TNA talent mistreatment issues.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Anyone ever hear the Bobby Heenan story that WCW format sheets we never stapled correctly so the announcers didnt know which page was next etc? I dont know why but that totally bemuses me.

Sorry to double but Id read this on PWInsider:

 

Bobby Heenan was brought up on last night's The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman and Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) were discussing conservative talk host Glenn Beck. And Letterman noted that Beck was really just Bobby "The Brain" Heenan... "He just shows up and tries to stir up trouble." Soon thereafter, they went to commercial and the bumper card was a picture of Heenan. When they came back, Letterman showed a picture of Beck. He then pulled up another picture of The Brain. While obviously different people, Letterman's staff had found two very similarly posed photos. Thanks to Mike for his help

I would love to see this clip.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQEgGpoIIw

[rovert]

Anyone ever hear the Bobby Heenan story that WCW format sheets we never stapled correctly so the announcers didnt know which page was next etc? I dont know why but that totally bemuses me.

Sorry to double but Id read this on PWInsider:

 

Bobby Heenan was brought up on last night's The Late Show with David Letterman. Letterman and Jon Stewart (The Daily Show) were discussing conservative talk host Glenn Beck. And Letterman noted that Beck was really just Bobby "The Brain" Heenan... "He just shows up and tries to stir up trouble." Soon thereafter, they went to commercial and the bumper card was a picture of Heenan. When they came back, Letterman showed a picture of Beck. He then pulled up another picture of The Brain. While obviously different people, Letterman's staff had found two very similarly posed photos. Thanks to Mike for his help

I would love to see this clip.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zQEgGpoIIw

 

Appreciated

 

Bobby Heenan got a bigger response than I would have thought here.

[Guest Paul Kersey]

Vye did a really good FanPost at Cageside going over the TNA talent mistreatment issues.

 

Interesting piece.

 

I do have a question about the Rob Terry chair outrage though, and I guess I'll ask it here instead of in the comments there. Why is ONE unprotected chairshot cuase for outrage? Is the logic that a promotion booking one (or allowing a wrestler to take one, I remember Jesse Neal getting in trouble with TNA for taking one at some point) will keep doing so, and re-escalate? Otherwise, I don't see what the big deal is. I'm skeptical of Terry's build being natural, and I would worry that will have a worse impact on his health.

 

It's kind of rough to watch something like old Mike Awesome matches & not think that you're watching a guy die, but to jump on TNA over A chairshot just seems to be piling on.

 

Don't consture this as TNA apology either, because I damn sure can't defend their other habits.

[rovert]

Vye did a really good FanPost at Cageside going over the TNA talent mistreatment issues.

 

Interesting piece.

 

I do have a question about the Rob Terry chair outrage though, and I guess I'll ask it here instead of in the comments there. Why is ONE unprotected chairshot cuase for outrage? Is the logic that a promotion booking one (or allowing a wrestler to take one, I remember Jesse Neal getting in trouble with TNA for taking one at some point) will keep doing so, and re-escalate? Otherwise, I don't see what the big deal is. I'm skeptical of Terry's build being natural, and I would worry that will have a worse impact on his health.

 

It's kind of rough to watch something like old Mike Awesome matches & not think that you're watching a guy die, but to jump on TNA over A chairshot just seems to be piling on.

 

Don't consture this as TNA apology either, because I damn sure can't defend their other habits.

 

It was a few days(?) after Chris Kanyon's suicide as well as chairshots are bad mmm kay.

[Tim Evans]

I hope AAA and Konnan get the same backlash for chairshots.

[sek69]

All these stories about TNA make me wonder if Dixie isn't more like Vince than people realize, only with better social skills.

[Sean Liska]

You always hear people say that Dixie is a nice person, but I don't see the evidence. I don't really care about the Knockouts stuff from a moral perspective, since they can do whatever they want with their talent budget, although it's clearly bad business to offer no money to the only TV ratings draws they have.

 

But it's remarkable to me that they allow Abyss to go out every month and find new ways to mutilate himself while no one in the crowd cares. It's disgusting. Of course the Terry chair shot is another example. Vince McMahon has done much more over the past few years to protect his performers with the bannings of chair shots and piledrivers and a toned-down style in general.

[Jingus]

The chairshot thing was indeed overstated. What so many people seem to either be ignorant of, or just ignoring, is that the vast majority of concussions tend to happen on simple things like spots gone awry. There's plenty of ways to bounce your brain around in your skull. It was much more likely that doing the fuckin' diving headbutt every night is what pounded Benoit's cerebrum into silly putty, not the one or two unprotected chairshots per year he took. Most of the biggest pain pill addicts tend to be guys who were big bumpers or otherwise put wear and tear on their whole body, not just the brain. We certainly don't have much conclusive evidence that the rare occasional headshot does much measurable lasting damage, as long as it's not like an "aw shit, Goldberg just called superkick" level of force involved. Sure, Mick Foley and other 90s hardcore guys often appear to be a senile old men nowadays, but that's inevitable when they were out there soaking up chairshots every single night for years on end; and they were doing plenty of other dangerous shit like constant big bumps which doubtlessly took its toll.

 

And don't mistake this as apologizing for godforsaken TNA. I'm not saying that headshots are a good thing, and in today's nightmarish atmosphere of ever-increasing premature mortality among the boys we need to be taking every precaution possible. We probably shouldn't be doing those anymore, except perhaps outside of something the level of a Wrestlemania main event or something else where there's a sizable reward for taking such a risk. But focusing exclusively on the chairshots as the main threat to wrestlers' health seems like having a burglar inside of a house which is burning down, and sending cops but no firefighters.

 

Also: Paul Heyman thinks chairshots are "unconscionable". PAUL HEYMAN. What balls, man. He's the one guy who was most singlehandedly responsible of starting the trend where guys don't put their hands up.

 

 

However, the stuff about the pay scale is hideous. I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was THAT bad. Their women's champion literally had to keep a job at the local shopping mall just to make a living. I can understand if they think that a fairly young and inexperienced rookie isn't worth a six-figure salary, but to not even offer a living wage to full-time employees is beyond ridiculous.

 

And if they charge that much for indy bookings, suddenly all that money which Ian Rotten owed them makes a lot more sense. I thought TNA just grabbed their 25% of whatever, but according to the info here it seems like they might be demanding an obscenely high price for their talent. Which would be great if the talent got their fair share, but I doubt they do, since their booking fees was supposedly one of the big reasons they finally pulled out of the red and into the black a couple years ago.

 

At the same time, I wonder if some of their workers might simply not be reporting some of their indy bookings. When I was announcing for Tony Falk's little Nashville promotion, we brought in Jerry Lynn on a regular basis. I sure as hell know that Tony's cheap ass wasn't paying any booking fee, Jerry only took such a low-paying gig because it was twenty minutes away from his house and Tony is an old friend of his. Then again, considering that Tony is also close with guys like Jeff and Dutch and probably knows Dixie too from working the gorilla position at the old Asylum shows, they might have just known Tony has no money to pay them and quietly gave him a mercy pass on the fees.

 

 

Finally, we've all covered how Dickensian it is to force someone to pay for their own medical care when they suffer an injury on your god-damned national television show. But that's something which merits mentioning as often as possible. Christ, that's evil. Even WCW and ECW didn't do that shit.

[tomk]

So reading the cageside seats piece and I really don’t see anything particularly appalling (or damning by wrestling standards).

 

--They didn’t pay their women much of anything and treated them like they were interchangeable even though they were the highest drawing segments on the shows? Playboys big draw is the women too, they’re not going to run pictorials on nothing but the same three women all year either. Christy Hemme being paid $150,000 is far more damning than women’s champ getting $300 per show.

 

-The situation with TNA as booking agent asking for ridiculous fees from indies, is an interesting story. And well since no one else does a similar “you can work the indies but have to be booked through us” type of operation…is actually interesting. But it was pretty clear from the start that this would be problematic.

 

-Rob Terry doing the chair shot Big Bubba Rogers/Meng angle is surprising because I didn’t think there was anyone in current management who would be familiar with that type of old school angle. It’s an angle you do once and then sell big.. and it requires that the rest of the show isn’t filled with unsold stunt wrestling.

 

-Not paying for medical costs is scummy but the whole point of the “independent contractor” scam is to avoid paying compensation benefits.

[Bix]

So reading the cageside seats piece and I really don’t see anything particularly appalling (or damning by wrestling standards).

 

--They didn’t pay their women much of anything and treated them like they were interchangeable even though they were the highest drawing segments on the shows? Playboys big draw is the women too, they’re not going to run pictorials on nothing but the same three women all year either. Christy Hemme being paid $150,000 is far more damning than women’s champ getting $300 per show.

 

-The situation with TNA as booking agent asking for ridiculous fees from indies, is an interesting story. And well since no one else does a similar “you can work the indies but have to be booked through us” type of operation…is actually interesting. But it was pretty clear from the start that this would be problematic.

These go hand in hand. The women are having trouble getting indy bookings because TNA is charging much more than most promoterswill pay so as to get the booking fee. You'd think that the TV exposure would help them get indy bookings, gigs doing empty arena headscissor videos, etc, but the cost is prohibitive. Plus, we're seeing wrestlers stay off house show tours because they're not making enough to cover their expenses, and really, nobody in a national promotion should need to have a day job. Hell, there's at least a handful of indy wrestlers who do well enough that they don't need day jobs.

 

-Not paying for medical costs is scummy but the whole point of the “independent contractor” scam is to avoid paying compensation benefits.

Not in a national promotion. WWE always pays for medical costs associated with on the job injuries. WCW did. Jamie Noble's WWE firing several years ago came from attempting to take that as far as possible by claiming that the cyst/abcess/whatever he got from shooting steroids was a work-related injury.

[Sean Liska]

Interesting quotes from Nowinski about WWE's concussion policies from ProWrestling.net. I didn't know about them limiting bumps during wrestling school. That's actually pretty forward-thinking and a nice move. Also interesting that he's talking with Vince after some of their public comments.

 

"Former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski discussed the head trauma issues in professional sports with the Philadelphia Inquirer, and recalled a long talk he had with Vince McMahon on the matter last week."The WWE interestingly had a more advanced program more quickly [than the NFL] six months after the Chris Benoît tragedy," Nowinski said.

 

"They instituted neuropsychological testing. They've had it over a year now. They have pre-talks with new hires on concussions and CTE. They limit bumps in their wrestling school, repetitive falls on your back." Nowinski noted that WWE does not advertise their head trauma policies and said it's likely due to liability reasons."

[rovert]

Interesting quotes from Nowinski about WWE's concussion policies from ProWrestling.net. I didn't know about them limiting bumps during wrestling school. That's actually pretty forward-thinking and a nice move. Also interesting that he's talking with Vince after some of their public comments.

 

"Former WWE wrestler Chris Nowinski discussed the head trauma issues in professional sports with the Philadelphia Inquirer, and recalled a long talk he had with Vince McMahon on the matter last week."The WWE interestingly had a more advanced program more quickly [than the NFL] six months after the Chris Benoît tragedy," Nowinski said.

 

"They instituted neuropsychological testing. They've had it over a year now. They have pre-talks with new hires on concussions and CTE. They limit bumps in their wrestling school, repetitive falls on your back." Nowinski noted that WWE does not advertise their head trauma policies and said it's likely due to liability reasons."

That is interesting as it kind of dampers the whole deal Meltzer and Alverez would complain about in regards to FCW having some few rings relative to the number of trainees.

[Jingus]

Yeah, the "tens of thousands of bumps over the course of a career" thing is really the silent killer of wrestlers in the long term. I once heard a doctor describe every simple back-bump as the equivalent of being in a low-speed car wreck. Ever been in one of those 10-mile-per-hour wrecks? It won't kill you, but it will sure jar you and maybe whiplash your head a bit. Now imagine doing that possibly dozens of times in a row, against something a lot harder than your cushy car seat.

 

This would also explain why they were so quick to cut Nigel, if they have some fancy neurological testing system in place for the new hires nowadays. That would probably disqualify lots of the more hard-hitting younger wrestlers who've racked up enough concussions. Note to self: never head-butt the ringpost.

[MikeCampbell]

Kurt Angle talks about that in his RF Shoot Interview. Bump training from Dory consisted of something like 300 per day, and all the guys would be an agony at the end of it.

[Bix]

And Bryan Alvarez thinks that the flat-back bumps are not a problem.

[sek69]

Isn't the reason lucha guys can work into their 60s (or 70s depending on how old guys like Canek and Mil really are) the fact that they take bumps to the side/rolling instead of flat on their back? Flair had to bump that way due to the back injury and he made it through pretty much his entire career without a serious injury.