Dave Meltzer stuff

[kjh]

Dave on "Could Barry Windham have been the next big thing?":

 

Super talent. One of the best I ever saw and a big guy as well. If he was more aggressive and selfish in the ring, could have really been something in Japan as well.

 

He was missing something. He didn't have the charisma of Flair, Luger, Dusty or Sting. He was a superior natural worker than Flair but he didn't have Flair's drive (well, almost nobody did). He was so talented he was top 3-5 in the country just having fun. I remember in 1988 or 1989 when a lot of people thought he was the best worker in the business, that one veteran who shall remain nameless because they were good friends (we were all out together, Barry went to the bathroom or something) and said he didn't think Barry would be a long-time world champion for the same reason he wasn't playing tight end in the NFL right now, because where are you going to find a guy 6-6, 260 with that kind of agility and ability.

 

Barry was born in 61, so he'd have been 27 or 28 at the time. The book on him is that because he didn't have that desire (like Hart, Hennig, DiBiase, Flair, Shawn had) that they thought he was a guy who made it based on natural gifts, but those guys, because they don't train hard, usually end up gaining weight and getting injuries and when the athleticism starts to go, they aren't the same. About five years later, it was almost prophetic.

 

But as good as he was, he was never as a face a guy the fans were fully behind as the No. 1 face. He was never over like Dusty, Magnum, Steamboat, etc. He was much better as a heel as far as being over to the crowd, but he was not a heel who could carry the territory because his interviews weren't at that level. I think being "too pretty" made people think he wasn't tough.

 

Agree on Luger. As much as he was really conceited and all, he had something the first few years in the business. What hurt him was more rubbing people the wrong way. In the early years, Sting would get the giant pop, as would Luger, but you put Luger vs. Flair or Sting vs. Flair early on, even with the bigger push, Sting couldn't draw as well as Luger. But everyone liked Sting, and the crowds to me burned out on Luger when they turned him so many times, which in those days cooled you off. Plus, I think constantly paying to see Sting and Luger go for the title, never win, but also never lose, usually screwy endings, got old. WWF formula was better because you may get a screwy ending once or twice, but you always got finality to the world title program and moved on. With Luger, he was chasing for years, no finality and people just felt they'd seen it too many times.

[Al]

From the latest Classic Observer dated 5/10/1993:

 

"Col. Robert Parker (Robert Fuller) debuted doing an interview in the role of a heel wrestling promoter, claiming to be kin to Col. Tom Parker (Elvis Presley's manager). When I was a very young child in the 60s, I always thought The Beatles were way bigger than Elvis, but now in the 90s I've learned I was wrong. 20 years after his death, Elvis is still being used in wrestling angles while nobody in wrestling ever mentions The Beatles. "

 

Shame, cause a managerial version of Brian Epstein has potential.

[KrisZ]

Dave on "Could Barry Windham have been the next big thing?":

 

Super talent. One of the best I ever saw and a big guy as well. If he was more aggressive and selfish in the ring, could have really been something in Japan as well.

 

He was missing something. He didn't have the charisma of Flair, Luger, Dusty or Sting. He was a superior natural worker than Flair but he didn't have Flair's drive (well, almost nobody did). He was so talented he was top 3-5 in the country just having fun. I remember in 1988 or 1989 when a lot of people thought he was the best worker in the business, that one veteran who shall remain nameless because they were good friends (we were all out together, Barry went to the bathroom or something) and said he didn't think Barry would be a long-time world champion for the same reason he wasn't playing tight end in the NFL right now, because where are you going to find a guy 6-6, 260 with that kind of agility and ability.

 

Barry was born in 61, so he'd have been 27 or 28 at the time. The book on him is that because he didn't have that desire (like Hart, Hennig, DiBiase, Flair, Shawn had) that they thought he was a guy who made it based on natural gifts, but those guys, because they don't train hard, usually end up gaining weight and getting injuries and when the athleticism starts to go, they aren't the same. About five years later, it was almost prophetic.

 

But as good as he was, he was never as a face a guy the fans were fully behind as the No. 1 face. He was never over like Dusty, Magnum, Steamboat, etc. He was much better as a heel as far as being over to the crowd, but he was not a heel who could carry the territory because his interviews weren't at that level. I think being "too pretty" made people think he wasn't tough.

 

Agree on Luger. As much as he was really conceited and all, he had something the first few years in the business. What hurt him was more rubbing people the wrong way. In the early years, Sting would get the giant pop, as would Luger, but you put Luger vs. Flair or Sting vs. Flair early on, even with the bigger push, Sting couldn't draw as well as Luger. But everyone liked Sting, and the crowds to me burned out on Luger when they turned him so many times, which in those days cooled you off. Plus, I think constantly paying to see Sting and Luger go for the title, never win, but also never lose, usually screwy endings, got old. WWF formula was better because you may get a screwy ending once or twice, but you always got finality to the world title program and moved on. With Luger, he was chasing for years, no finality and people just felt they'd seen it too many times.

I agree with pretty much all of that especially on Luger. They dropped the ball turning Luger so quick after the Sting injury as they could have went another way for that Wrestle War PPV such as Pillman especially after the Saturday night match that was before the PPV or just had Luger still be heel going into the match then work into a face turn later. Even with the Sting injury, Luger wasn't the #1 face because they talked about Sting constantly on TV making it seem like Luger was the guy trying to defend his honor which was funny as it was only a couple of months earlier that they were side feuding.

[kjh]

Yeah, that's why I posted it. It was refreshing to hear Meltzer give Luger his due.

[kjh]

In the latest Observer Radio Show Dave Meltzer mentioned that he did business with Jim Herd after he left WCW. Anyone know what that was about?

[jdw]

The WON Hotline. Herd set up the business deal, and may have had a piece at the start. My recollection is that Dave eventually owned all of it, or the Mat Reports guy had a piece as well.

 

John

[Bix]

I thought Herd's hotline was a separate one and either turned into/served as the unofficial predecessor for the WON hotline.

[jdw]

I thought Herd's hotline was a separate one and either turned into/served as the unofficial predecessor for the WON hotline.

I think we're talking about the same thing. Herd was the business guy behind launching the wrestling hotline, with Dave and the Mat Reports guy (after he left the WCW hotline) as the lead draws. I morphed overtime into being the WON Hotline. At some point, Dave bought out / took over from Herd... though my recollection was that Mat Reports guy effectively had a piece as well. I wouldn't exactly say it was an unofficial predecessor. Probably close to the Minneapolis Lakers prior to the Los Angeles Lakers. One became the other.

 

John

[Bix]

While we're on the topic...

 

When was the hotline dropped, around the time of WO.com's launch? Was business dropping noticeably or was it just a matter of times clearly changing? Any idea how much of a problem it had with people disputing the phone bill?

[Ditch]

7/26 WON references Vince having lost a ton of money on an Evel Kenevel show. Wha-huh?

[Bix]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evel_Knievel#Snake_River_Canyon

 

ABC Sports was unwilling to pay the price Knievel wanted for the Snake River Canyon jump, so he ended up hiring Bob Arum's company, Top Rank Productions, to put the event on closed circuit television and broadcast to movie theaters. Then WWF Promoters Don E. Branker and Vince McMahon, Sr., were later said to be silent promoters of this event. Arum partnered with Invest West Sports, Shelly Saltman's company, to secure from Invest West Sports two things: 1.) the necessary financing for the jump and 2.) the services of Sheldon Saltman, long recognized as one of America's premier public relations and promotion men, to do publicity so that Knievel could concentrate on his jumps. Knievel then hired subcontractor and aeronautical engineer Doug Malewicki to build him a rocket-powered cycle that he could use to jump across the Snake River, to be called the X-1 Skycycle. Doug's creation was powered by a steam engine built by former Aerojet engineer Robert Truax. On April 15, 1972 the X-1 was launched to test the feasibility of the launching ramp. The decision was then made to have Truax build the Skycycle X-2 and have it take off and fly more like a rocket than a motorcycle.

 

The launch at Snake River Canyon was on September 8, 1974, at 3:36 p.m. MDT. The steam that powered the engine was superheated to a temperature of 500 °F (260 °C). Upon take-off, the drogue parachute deployed because the force of the take-off caused him to release the emergency hand trigger for the parachute. He probably lost consciousness, resulting in him releasing the parachute prematurely. The deployed chute caused enough drag that even though the skycycle made it all the way across the canyon to the north rim, the prevailing winds caused it to drift back south, into the canyon. By the time it hit the bottom of the canyon, it landed only a few feet from the water on the same side of the canyon it had been launched from. If he had landed in the water, Knievel would have drowned due to a jumpsuit/harness malfunction which kept him strapped in the vehicle. Knievel survived the jump with only minor injuries.

[jdw]

I think it was around the time of the launch of the webpage. Possibly a bit after. Don't know if business was dropping a ton: wasn't talking to Dave much when it was shut down. Don't recall it ever being a it cash cow for Dave, but it did okay business.

 

Don't think Dave ever had big issues with phone charge disputes.

 

One of the funny inside things was the giving out of the backdoor code by Georgie, who was calling in, and how it would magically appear on a certain website the next day. "People tell me..."

 

John

[Bix]

Was Georgianne doing a hotline segment or did Dave just give her the backdoor number? I remember hearing stories of Dave giving the number out to a bunch of people for whatever reason.

 

A related weird thing that happened during that period was someone on of the local NYC area "hotlines" giving out the toll free backdoor for the (at that point already several years old, no longer advertised anywhere, and presumably not functional in terms of giving out prizes at best) Bruno/Albano/Coach Kurt trivia line.

[shawmic]

Was Georgianne doing a hotline segment or did Dave just give her the backdoor number? I remember hearing stories of Dave giving the number out to a bunch of people for whatever reason.

 

A related weird thing that happened during that period was someone on of the local NYC area "hotlines" giving out the toll free backdoor for the (at that point already several years old, no longer advertised anywhere, and presumably not functional in terms of giving out prizes at best) Bruno/Albano/Coach Kurt trivia line.

One of the NYC hotlines gave out the backdoor code for the WCW Hotline around 96 and I swear that thing was still working even in 2000.

[jdw]

Was Georgianne doing a hotline segment or did Dave just give her the backdoor number?

Georgianne had a hotline segment.

 

 

I remember hearing stories of Dave giving the number out to a bunch of people for whatever reason.

I tend to think that's a work. Dave never gave *me* the code, and I got along very well with Dave and Bruce in the prime years of the WON Hotline. I never asked, but Dave was very giving with me. My first trip to Japan: sent him a fax asking advice on what hotels to stay at and how to go about getting tickets. Five minutes later the phone rang:

 

"I was thinking about going to those shows. Want to go with me?"

 

Probably hundreds of things similar to that large and small. That's just Dave: if you're a friend, he's pretty damn giving... very good, very nice person in that regards. Probably too nice if someone wants to exploit that. So I tend to think that if he were passing it around like candy, he would have tossed it to me at some point. We talked about his headaches with the Hotline on more than a few occassions. Though I think I had more fun talking to Bruce about the goofiness of the Hotline.

 

If he gave it out, he likely was very select. Georgianne, on the other hand... my recollection is that she gave it out a bit. And that may be where the "stories" came from: folks covering for Georgie. Dittos other people on the Hotline giving it out to people they knew in the business.

 

John

[Bix]

Once you told the Georgie story I had a feeling that's what it probably was, especially since it came from people who were good friends of hers that didn't like Dave.

[Bix]

I was looking at some old threads, and boy, the whole "There's another Ashley Massaro" thing reflects really badly on Dave with the benefit of hindsight.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Yeah, aside from the fact that the real Ashley fit the profile of that particular madam's employees (given her experience in Playboy) much more than some mythical "other Ashley Massaro," I wonder if Dave realized that he was suggesting that some innocent model might possibly be a prostitute.

[jdw]

I only vaguley remember the Ashley fuck up. Can you give us the cliff notes refresher, Bix?

 

 

John

[Bix]

Ashley is linked to a high-end escort agency by the FBI and Rolling Stone. Dave says there's another Ashley Massaro based out of Vegas who looks a lot like her and is often confused with her. Nobody was able to find a trace of her existence online. If she exists, Dave was implying she was a (literal) whore, but it became clear very quickly that she didn't and Dave never explained where the idea came from.

[Dan]

I remember Ashley declared that she would sue RS (and maybe even the FBI?) I wonder how that worked out?

[jdw]

I'm remembering... ouch... it was brutal.

 

John

[kjh]

From the file marked Dave Meltzer gets tetchy at a board member for not bowing down to his booking wisdom:

 

I wish the MMA clowns would go to boxing forums and explain why Oscar was past his prime and there were far more worthy opponents for Mayweather and how they sacrificed credibility for dollars, thereby ruining the sport.

 

Or how the NBA did its schedule specifically to get the Miami Heat on as many TV games as possible because the networks demanded it, even if the Heat don't have a good year.

[jdw]

Does Dave honestly think the Heat won't have a good year? Did he watch the team that Bron led to 127 wins the last two seasons? Hell, the Heat went 47-35 last year and made this deal:

 

 

 

LeBron James & Chris Bosh & Mike Miller & Juwan Howard & Zydrunas Ilgauskas for Michael Beasley & Quentin Richardson & Dorell Wright & Dorell Wright

 

While retaining seven players off last year's roster. Uh... yeah... they're going to be good. As a Lakers Fan, they worry me... and the Lakers are still at the moment the best team in the NBA. Any times you can worry the best, you are *good*.

 

So the Heat-Oscar analogy doesn't work beyond "they're draws". Oscar was washed up. The Heat are entering their peak as a franchise. Wildly different things.

 

John

[Dan]

Noticed at the F4W board. RE: Sonnen:

 

It's all a work.

 

You guys getting mad at him are like the people in the 70s who got mad at Ernie Ladd for calling the local African-American babyface an Uncle Tom.

 

When you study from heels, the idea is to piss people off. the problem was Anderson was unlikeable enough that he started out being a face when he was trying to be a heel.

 

And heels lie That's part of what makes them heels.

Hmm.