Dave Meltzer stuff

[cm funk]

I was wondering if someone could C&P or summarize the highlights of the Shawn Michaels stuff (about him leaving the company in fall of 93) from the last Observer back issue. I've heard some explanations for it over the years, but I'm interested to see what Meltzer said about it at the time.

[kjh]

God it is hilarious listening to Dave & Chico get so angry at the RAW show last night.

Their rant was inspired by Todd Martin's Raw Report:

 

Barrett wanted to know if he rehires Cena whether Cena will keep attacking. Cena said he may stop attacking Nexus but won’t stop attacking Barrett. He vowed to get Barrett either way and make his life a nightmare. What did Barrett even do to Cena? Make him get coffee? Cena’s the one who cost Barrett the title. Cena’s the one who is attacking Barrett’s friends every week. Cena’s the one who flagrantly ignores the stipulation he was supposed to be held to. Cena’s the disingenuous prick who cries about having to abide by that stipulation one week and then laughs about not honoring his word the next. Poor Barrett really is the face here. Shame on John Cena.

Yes, Cena did cost Barrett the title, but only after the whole of Nexus beat down Randy Orton crippling his knee. Clearly he deserves the title.

[Loss]

Didn't Nexus cost Cena the title to Sheamus a few months back? And there was that whole show up at ringside and gang up on him and everyone near the ring thing.

[Jingus]

Bruno was good in most of the matches that are available of him at his peak.

Your mileage may vary on that one. Bruno usually tended to work an extremely formulaic match, even by Main Eventer In New York standards. He knew exactly what his audience wanted to see and could drive the MSG crowd into an unholy frenzy, of course. But compared to the top guys in other territories, well, Bruno's stuff looked awfully phony. I know he had to be extra-careful in the ring because of his crazy caveman strength, but his offense could often come off as being ridiculously light. If you grew up in a territory with guys like Johnny Valentine or Jack Brisco on top, it's easy to see how Bruno's wacky theatrical style could seem faintly ridiculous in comparison. I don't wanna bury the guy, he could certainly change it up when he really had too; the one-hour draw with Baba is a good example of that. (And being a Baba mark, I'm hardly in a position to knock anyone at that time for having can't-break-an-egg offense.) But I understand if someone with a less heat-drawing, more movez workrate-oriented attitude would find Sammartino very underwhelming.

[Ditch]

"Not Jack Brisco" is a long, long ways from "not good". JYD as a draw was never a good worker. Bruno wasn't world-class but he wasn't BAD.

[Jingus]

I'm not saying he was bad. He was certainly a master of the relatively narrow range of psychology he employed, getting a hell of a lot out of frequently not doing very much. Somewhere deep in my tape collection I possess two full VHS comp tapes of nothing but Bruno matches, six hours apiece in gloriously grainy EP mode, that I actually paid money for. I'm just laying out the reasons why I'd understand if someone else wanted to make that argument. Some folks just can't stand watching the sort of worker who is flagrantly pulling their punches and often barely making the most ginger of love-tap contact, which describes quite a few workers from that era besides just Bruno.

[jdw]

What's the match listing on the Bruno set?

 

John

[KrisZ]

--Dana White's quote which I don't know what this says: "This dude (GSP) is a billion times more famous than any other athlete that's ever come out of Canada, including Wayne Gretzky."

 

--And even more from Dana White will be on-line after 11:05 p.m. Pacific time on CBC's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight at http://www.cbc.ca/strombo/videos.html

 

--On that show, when asked about Brock Lesnar and Undertaker, White said that Undertaker called him up to apologize about the incident just recently, that he had no idea it was happening or why, that he thought there was bad blood between the two (I will promise you on this, that's not the case), and that he will not let Lesnar do Mania because he doesn't want to blur the lines between real and fake. He said a lot of the WWE guys are fans of UFC and he gets along with Vince McMahon, and that they are a show and his stuff is real and they are not competition. I don't know, if some TV show asked for Lesnar to be a guest playing the role of a fighter, would White nix it saying that he doesn't want the lines blurred? I wouldn't allow it either if I was in his shoes, but blurring any lines wouldn't be the reason. Did it make any difference to the sport of boxing or careers of Holyfield and Mayweather when they did WWE matches in recent years?

[Loss]

Dave should stop lobbying for Brock to be on the Mania card. It's annoying, and a little inappropriate.

[jdw]

GSP > Wayne Gretzky

 

That's funny.

 

John

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Dave should stop lobbying for Brock to be on the Mania card. It's annoying, and a little inappropriate.

He's being disingenuous in pretending not to see the difference between a wrestling show and any other TV show. Whether it makes sense of not, there is a big difference in public perception between if Brock appeared on, say, CSI and if he appeared at Mania. Dana has stated that his goal is to make UFC the biggest sport in the world, bigger than the NFL, and though we know that's not going to happen, it's certainly not conducive to that goal to draw any more comparisons to the largely-reviled WWE organization. Dave knows that sportswriters were calling Mayweather a disgrace for wrestling and some were calling for LT not to be inducted into the football hall of fame for doing a match. To compare it to boxers wrestling isn't a fair comparison because boxing already has the respect of the public. UFC is still in the "trying to be taken seriously" stage, and the last thing Dana should want for his growing sport is to have his biggest star moonlighting on wrestling shows.

[Sean Liska]

That's Dave's point, though. Dave said he wouldn't let Brock do it either. But not because it blurs the lines of real and fake, but because of the stigma of pro wrestling. He was just saying Dana's explanation isn't telling the whole story for why Brock shouldn't do the show.

 

"I wouldn't allow it either if I was in his shoes, but blurring any lines wouldn't be the reason."

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

He didn't say anything about the stigma of pro wrestling. That may have been what he was getting at, but he didn't say it. My impression was that he wouldn't have allowed it because they're competitors.

[Sean Liska]

He didn't say anything about the stigma of pro wrestling. That may have been what he was getting at, but he didn't say it. My impression was that he wouldn't have allowed it because they're competitors.

I think he was saying that too. His point was that it wasn't just because Dana was worried about confusing fans with fake/real, which we seem to agree on.

[Victator]

Dave should stop lobbying for Brock to be on the Mania card. It's annoying, and a little inappropriate.

I wish it would happen. Only because I'll actually be there live.

[Johnny Sorrow]

GSP > Wayne Gretzky

 

That's funny.

 

John

That's not just funny, that's insane.

[Death From Above]

It's not really news Dana White is full of shit, so it's not like I can say much about the Gretzky quote that doesn't write itself.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Make of this what you will, but the ongoing UFC Report was titled "UFC 124 live coverage from Montreal: Is Koscchek As Hated Tonight In Montreal As Shawn Micheals Was In 1997" to "UFC 124 live coverage from Montreal: One guy beat the other guy up and now we move on" after the show ended.

 

Now, it's probably just a joke...but that really comes off as " UFC 124 live coverage from Montreal: Real Sports Happened"

[KrisZ]

There were some jewels in that coverage as well.

 

Pat Audinwood vs. John Makdessi

 

Audinwood is out to "Tom Sawyer" by Rush. 28 years ago this month that was the entrance music for one of the most famous pro wrestling matches of all-time (Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair December 25, 1982 Reunion Arena Dallas). And in 2038, absolutely not one person alive will remember it from this match.

After watching the commercial for the January 1st show, they should rename is UFC Bragging Rights. On that night, UFC becomes WWE in October and playing the role of UFC is College Football.

It was funny reading the WON hype and guys like JR & Heyman on Twitter talk about this like it was pro wrestling and how it would be best for Koscheck to either win or put on a good enough performance to bring it back for more money.

[rovert]

Rogan was on a serious ok lets drop the Pro Wrestling stuff kick last night. Before, during and after stating that it was all strictly hype.

[KrisZ]

With all the Undertaker stuff going on I think Dana may want to have a conversation with guys like Meltz & Chico about their constant MMA = pro wrestling.

[kjh]

Speaking of that, this was what Dave Meltzer had to say about K-1s Grand Prix tournament on his latest radio show:

 

I hope that when I get home I've got that K-1 tape, that's all I can say. I asked for it to be taped ... Many times I've gone on the road and I asked for something to be taped and when I get home it's a blank tape ... But hopefully this one won't be the case cos I was reading that thing and hearing about that Peter Aerts Semmy Schilt fight and I really want to see it ... Here's another one, like K-1 OK, K-1 cannot book because it's a shoot OK? And they booked the best storyline as far as like a one night tournament that anyone's had in a long long time. I mean like WWE could do this with any of these things and I will grant you that the Jerry Lawler Miz booking of that match was really a hell of a deal and they did essentially something similar to that where you had the world champion go in with a guy whose 40 and shot but the sentimental favourite and he won, you know, but then afterwards he took so much punishment in winning and then he went against Alistair Overeem who is the big heel and you know Alistair pretty much took him apart because Alistair had the easy road to the finals and Aerts had two wars. But I mean just as a one night event from a story standpoint I havent seen it, I'm just reading it going this is frigging brilliant and you know so I can just imagine actually seeing it.

[kjh]

Dave should stop lobbying for Brock to be on the Mania card. It's annoying, and a little inappropriate.

I wish it would happen. Only because I'll actually be there live.

Unfortunately Brock's more likely to be fighting for UFC the night before.

[Bix]

Does Dave really not have a DVR?

[Eduardo]

Does Dave really not have a DVR?

Yeah, I'm kinda amazed that it seems that Dave still uses VHS tapes. Some of the K-1 stuff he said doesn't really jive with what actually happened, but it was a pretty amazing sight seeing Aerts take out Schilt at like 3 AM.