Comments that don't warrant a thread

[MikeCampbell]

Watts says that they told him to keep the losses under a million, and he cut them down to about $400,000.

[Loss]

I didn't dislike the Watts run so much as I did not understand why they got rid of K. Allen Frey when he had really handled the loss of Flair very well, and they had some momentum building.

[Marty]

I didn't dislike the Watts run so much as I did not understand why they got rid of K. Allen Frey when he had really handled the loss of Flair very well, and they had some momentum building.

Simply because they weren't drawing, period. As Jim Cornette pointed out, WCW had a mindset of wanting to draw big money *tomorrow* instead of building towards drawing something in six months time. It happened with Frey, but it also happened with Watts too (who had slashed the rather high contracts that Frey increased previously).

 

I'm torn on Frey's era, personally. On one hand, the wrestling was great, the angles were interesting and, given time, all that might have made money. On the other hand, Frey did go overboard with the contract increases that it makes me wonder if they could've made money under those conditions. But I think he suffered from the same WCW mindset that Watts, and anyone else from that time if they worked for WCW, would've suffered from.

[Loss]

Frey's approach was to open the wallet by getting big names/fresh faces not with the company to create a strong heel stable, and also to build up a strong light heavyweight division using international talent. Sound familiar? It sounds a lot like a direction that worked for someone else running the company when it got greenlighted.

[Bix]

Frank DeFord NPR editorial on wrestler deaths.

 

Meltzer, I believe, is the most accomplished reporter in sport journalism.

And then Dave soiled himself.

[khawk20]

Is this where I can comment on the Brody book written by larry matysik?

 

If so, let me state that I hated it.

 

I'm convinced Matysik wanted to fuck Brody...More taint-licking than a public rest stop on the highway to gaysville.

[Jingus]

Imagine, if you will, that in the last decade, 186 men who had played major league baseball died before they were 50 years old. Imagine that in that same time, 435 men who had played in the NFL likewise died before they were 50.

It would've been helpful if the reporter would've listed the actual death figures for baseball and football here, in order to get an accurate comparison. And since Meltzer's list includes guys who never stepped foot in the WWE, you'd have to go past just the MLB and NFL and count players for minor-league teams too. (I'm not just being snitty, I really would like to know what those figures are.)

[sek69]

According to the Smackdown spoilers making the rounds, Chris Masters again gets berated for being small (he shows a pic of himself as a teenager to convince Vince he could be his son and Vince's reply was "you sure had a scrawny neck then").

 

Wasn't Masters the one who got all fucked up mentally after getting small from cycling off roids?

[Tim Evans]

I'm shocked Masters is still employed. He's a benoit waiting to happen I tell ya.

[sek69]

What's worse is they seem to be purposely goading him into a mental breakdown.

[Al]

Imagine, if you will, that in the last decade, 186 men who had played major league baseball died before they were 50 years old. Imagine that in that same time, 435 men who had played in the NFL likewise died before they were 50.

It would've been helpful if the reporter would've listed the actual death figures for baseball and football here, in order to get an accurate comparison. And since Meltzer's list includes guys who never stepped foot in the WWE, you'd have to go past just the MLB and NFL and count players for minor-league teams too. (I'm not just being snitty, I really would like to know what those figures are.)

 

Let me state for the record that I respect Frank DeFord as a writer as much as anyone in sports.

 

I'm going to create a list for MLB for comparison's sake. It will include players who played in the majors at least one game, died before their 50th birthday, and died within the last ten years. I'll have results hopefully later in the day.

[Loss]

I am glad that the number 65 is getting more press now. It's a fair number, and the problem of early deaths in wrestling is big enough without having to exaggerate it or misrepresent facts. The facts are scary enough.

[Al]

Took less time than I thought. 34 MLB players in the last ten years. Quite a few of those are from accidents (Cory Lidle, Josh Hancock, Andujar Cedeno, Steve Howe, Mike Coolbaugh), foul play (Dernell Stenson, Ivan Calderon), or cancer (Dan Quisenberry). Ken Caminiti is the only notorious steroid user on the list.

[Loss]

Unintentionally funniest wrestling headline of the week:

 

Notes From Bob: We're 10 Years Old!

[Guest *FH*]

Unintentionally funniest wrestling headline of the week:

 

Notes From Bob: We're 10 Years Old!

oh shit don't tell feinstein

[Bix]

http://www.georgiawrestlinghistory.com/new...7/08/23/01.html

 

New Book Describes Predatory Behavior of Jim Barnett

 

In a book by Shannon Ragland recently released by Set Shot Press – the Thin Thirty – is a detailed look at the University of Kentucky football team, focusing mostly on the first year with Charlie Bradshaw as head coach. However, it is the claims of a four-year stint where legendary wrestling figure Jim Barnett provided numerous members of the team with perks in return for sexual favors.

 

In addition, Lonnie Winters and Rock Hudson were also apparently involved. Though no names of victims of what many remember as predatory behavior are revealed, it is suggested that lavish events were held at Barnett’s home, where he would recruit the latest recruits, so to speak.

 

It is said in the book that these incidents, as well as gambling, all came to light in 1962 when Bradshaw opted to make certain it all went away quietly, as he was concerned that it, compounded by the UK basketball points shaving scandal nearly a little more than a decade earlier, could destroy the school’s athletics program completely.

 

Notables from Georgia also included throughout the book are Leeman Bennett and Homer Rice, who were both assistant coaches at the time. The book also says Bennett was one of two coaches who knew about the Barnett connection to the team, but suggests he kept quiet assuming it was “boys being boys”.

Excerpt:

 

The author had me with pages 110-112 of the page proofs. There was not a chance in the world I wouldn't read every line of the book after eyeballing this passage:

 

August of 1959 in Lexington, Kentucky was like any other August in the Bluegrass. It was hot and sticky, a warm blanket of Ohio Valley humidity meeting anyone who stepped outside.

 

New in town the second week of August was a real Jim Dandy, a man of means, a worldly man of old money. This man about town, well-dressed in three-piece suits and driving a brand new convertible Cadillac, was just cruising the streets of Lexington looking for talent. So new in town was Jim, along with his partner, Lonnie, that they were still living in the Lafayette Hotel. They’d find a ritzy place before long, but for now, the hotel would do.

 

Jim’s real name was James Barnett, Jim being born on June 9, 1924 in Oklahoma City. Barnett, the Jim of Lonnie and Jim, attended Classen High School in the city, graduating in 1942.

 

Jim was not material to fight World War II. For all his life, Jim was openly gay. He didn’t hide it. He didn’t promote it. He just was.

 

The War finished, Jim enrolled in October of 1945 at the University of Chicago where he studied theater. Jim would always have an intrepid interest in the arts and a knack for putting on a show. While at Chicago, Jim managed the school newspaper, the Chicago Maroon and through that publication, Jim met a man that would change his life.

 

Fred Kohler was a prominent promoter of professional wrestling (the staged grappling kind with men in colorful short pants) in Chicago and he published a magazine known as Wrestling as You Like It. In 1949 Jim went to work for the magazine as a deputy editor. He was soon a road manager for Kohler, handling wrestlers that were under contract. It was good money, Jim making thousands of dollars a year on each wrestler, the promoter taking a 30% cut.

 

Becoming a promoter in his own right in 1956, Jim and Kohler purchased Indiana Wrestling in that year. Moving to Indianapolis from Chicago and taking up residence in the Claypool Hotel, their wrestling empire began to grow.

 

Jim and Kohler soon had a falling out, but Jim was firmly entrenched in the business and began to branch out across the Midwest, promoting wrestling in Detroit, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Hammond, Louisville and even Lexington.

 

A genius of this wrestling, the always-behind-the-scenes and exiguous Jim revolutionized the industry. Up and until that point in televising wrestling, a mobile studio was brought directly to the arena and a portion of select matches would be broadcast. It was cumbersome and expensive.

 

One day when there was no mobile studio, Barnett had an elegant solution and as such solutions always are, it was so obvious. Jim simply set up a wrestling ring in a TV studio and the nature of broadcast wrestling was changed forever.

 

The money started to roll in hand over for foot. The method of its making was a bit unsavory, oversized men in orchestrated grappling, but the money was green and it spent just fine. It served Jim and his grandiose ideas about himself well.

 

Jack Brisco, a famous wrestler from that era, described Jim as unforgettable and erudite, portraying himself as one who came from old money, as if he was a character brought to life from a Noel Coward play. Jim would greet wrestlers warmly with the same line, “My boy, how are you today?”

 

This image was important to Jim and he told people that he was heavily invested in television stocks and that his connections in show business were extensive. While his money came from wrestling, that struck Jim as a little too common. He told people his money and he had a lot of it, had come from a $750,000 inheritance from his father.

 

Jim’s money flowed freely, whether it was for lavish tips, paying $100 as a tip for a ride to the airport in Cincinnati, to the fine clothes, liquor and other vestiges of high society. He and his companion, Lonnie Winters, taller and slightly greying, cut quite a figure cruising Lexington in their convertible Cadillac with their fine clothes and their deep pockets.

 

It wasn’t just things that Lonnie and Jim wanted to buy.

 

They were purchasing people, these predatory men, and they were looking for boys to buy. Strong handsome boys that played college football, the impressionable and vulnerable ones that could be enticed.

[kjh]

That makes Jim Wilson's claims in Chokehold with regards Jim Barnett a lot more believable.

[Bix]

Especially about his friend Jason at Kentucky State who was gay for pay for Barnett.

[sek69]

Was the fast-count-that-wasn't at Starrcade 97 a legit screwup or something more nefarious? I always heard Hogan somehow got to Nick Patrick and convinced him not to do it, which sounds like BS but then crazier stuff was going on in WCW. Also it doesn't seem like someone like Nick would screw up the most important part of the match and make everyone involved look like a choad.

[Jingus]

Personally, I think it was the nefarious one. I think Hogan just either convinced or coerced or bribed Patrick into making the regular count instead of the planned fast one. Patrick is too good a referee to randomly forget the called finish in the biggest match he's ever officiated. And then afterwards everyone said it was just a mistake, in order to avoid the heat.

 

A lot of "mistakes" like that seemed to happen in Hogan's favor all the time. Remember Halloween Havoc 98, when the Goldberg/DDP main event didn't air because they went past their satellite time? But the infamous Hogan/Warrior II sure as hell did at semi-main. This wasn't the first time Hogan hadn't been in the main event on PPV, he'd done two throwaway tag matches on the undercard earlier that year (and won both of them of course), but it was definitely the first time that Hogan in a high-profile singles match was placed lower than the main event on a pay per view. And oddly enough, this match went longer than any other Hogan match in contemporary memory and the last thing people saw wasn't the first main event between two guys who were not old WWF stars, but instead was Hogan getting that one elusive job back. It could've been a coincedence, but it was a hell of a coincedence.

[Loss]

So Cena went over last night, which I think surprised everyone. I actually think that was a great booking move, because they can have a rematch next month and probably do pretty well with it, whereas if Cena were challenging Orton, there wouldn't be the same intrigue because everyone knows title runs are long these days in WWE and a belt won't change hands after a month.

 

I am really sort of tired of WWE formula booking where they basically do the exact same cards for 2-3 PPVs in a row (way too many rematches), but in the confines of that formula, Cena going over was a good move.

 

I haven't read anyone's reaction to the finish anywhere, but I'm assuming there's lots of complaining.

 

With Undertaker's return and HHH and Rey heavy in the mix, the upcoming show will probably do fairly well, especially if people think Cena is going to drop the title.

[Loss]

A few items of interest in the latest F4W:

 

* It was implied that the company actually frowned upon Kennedy speaking out against the media because they felt he was going into business for himself to make himself look good with the office, and that he came across as "delusionally asinine". This may or may not have something to do with him suddenly doing several jobs right after that appearance.

 

* Michael Hayes thinks the problem with wrestling today is that no one lives their gimmicks. He is a HUGE fan of Teddy Hart because he does, and thinks he reminds him of himself during his World Class days. He wants to bring in the Harts as heels, but he's alone in thinking that because most people think because of the Hart name, they'll be babyfaces by default coming in. They want Bret to do an angle to help get them over, but don't have their fingers crossed on getting him to participate. Jim Neidhart has made it clear he is more than willing to work an angle with them.

 

* Foley wants to be on TV more, but Vince is against it, because he thinks Foley was a big deal in 1998, but doesn't click with today's fan at all, which is the exact line HHH has had against him for months now.

 

* Booker T is about to renew his contract and wants a verbal agreement as part of his renewal that he can sit in at production meetings. He knows he's working HHH for the foreseeable future, and wants to be in there so HHH will not badmouth him. He was also very upset about his territory getting passed over as a developmental territory, with Steve Keirn in Tampa instead getting the nod. It's said Johnny Ace is praising them, despite the whole area being a mess, because he likes being able to go to Tampa regularly and party with his friends.

 

* Dusty Rhodes wants Jerry Lawler in ECW really bad. Vince wants to split JR and Lawler up as an announce team, but Kevin Dunn is against it.

[Al]

* Foley wants to be on TV more, but Vince is against it, because he thinks Foley was a big deal in 1998, but doesn't click with today's fan at all, which is the exact line HHH has had against him for months now.

It's not that Foley can't connect with the fans. The problem in my view is that after they did the three faces of Foley and the retirements, they opened up Mick Foley as a person too much. Foley himself as a character doesn't ring the way Mankind or Cactus Jack did.

[MikeCampbell]

Maybe it's just been too long since I've seen him, but did anyone else think that Rey looks to have put some weight on when he came back last night?

[Cox]

He definitely looked chubbier and less defined. I assume a combination of the Benoit murders and Mysterio's name being linked to so many steroid probes both before and after probably had something to do with that.