Cross Face Chicken Wing

I don't mind that so much. I think if you allow athletes/wrestlers to give opinions on their peers off the record or via secret ballot, they'll be mostly fair. Anything said publicly is a different story.

How much should we care what other wrestlers think of other wrestlers? I mean, if you listen to athletes in legit sports talk about their colleagues, everyone sounds like a hall-of-famer.

So tonight I plan on watching Disc 8 of the AWA set on my iPad at the gym. This is a real busy gym, with a lot of hot soccer moms and college chics. I've never watched wrestling at the gym before. I'm hoping nobody calls security.....

I've got a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card burning a hole in my pocket. It's been a while since I've read a wrestling book. I've already got the book on Montreal wrestling pre-ordered. Any other recommendations for wrestling books that have come out in the last couple of years? Edit: I'll be more specific. Are these any good? The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels by Greg Oliver Andre the Giant bio by Michael Krugman Larry Zbyszko's autobiography Shooters: The Toughest Men in Professional Wrestling by Jonathan Snowden Legends of Pro Wrestling by Tim Hornbaker

I'm finishing Will's Buddy Rose comp and Don Owen absolutely cracks me up. Every month he gets mad at two wrestlers for having too good of a feud! He comes in the ring or to the interview stand and basically hollers (with plenty of stuttering and stammering) that he's sick of Wrestler A and Wrestler B (usually Buddy Rose) fighting all the time and that this next match will be the last match between these two so he can get back to regular business. I know Owen was just trying to hype things as a legit sport, but I wonder if anyone in the audience ever wondered why Owen got so mad that Wrestler A and Wrestler B (usually Buddy Rose) were having such a great feud and generating interest in his product.

*Raises hand*

You won't see many prominent athletes embracing gay marriage or equality for homosexuals until it's accepted as a marketable issue. Civil rights, advocating for veterans, advocating for the mentally disabled....those are all issues that everyone now gets behind and it helps an athlete build his personal brand. Michael Jordan said that "Republicans buy shoes too" back when someone asked him why he doesn't take a stance on certain issues. The same can be said about homophobes. I think the tide is shifting a bit. You're seeing some non-prominent athletes supporting marriage equality and tolerance. The Minnesota Vikings' punter, the guy from the Ravens.....Their intentions seem genuine, plus it has gotten them some good publicity that they otherwise would have no chance of getting. If the bigger names start seeing the image-building benefits of supporting marriage equality, they'll eventually get braver and say a few things about it. But yeah, a locker room is not the first place to go if you're looking for open-mindedness about marriage equality. I'm sure Flair would gladly do a few ads supporting gay marriage if you paid him enough, then met his shakedown demands for a couple extra bucks right before the cameras started rolling. Maybe he doesn't give a shit about social issues and just doesn't like paying taxes. Speaking of Helms supporters, it always cracks me up when Bob Caudle gets Steamboat and Youngblood confused during the Final Conflict cage match. I guess they all look the same to him. I wonder if the WWE locker room would poll much differently than the general populace on gay marriage at this point? I know, having covered the NFL and MLB, that the athletes in those sports tend to be not so progressive (though we did have a Ravens player emerge as a leading spokesman for the Maryland ballot initiative this year.)

Sounds like it's the Chiefs who want to play the game. I would too if I were a player or coach. Totally different circumstances than Over the Edge. I wrote this about football and pro wrestling after Junior Seau committed suicide: http://jerseyal.com/GBP/2012/05/06/survivi...all-deprived-9/ Not sure how it applies to the tragedy from Saturday, but it's another step in the wrong direction for a sport that once seemed invincible.

I compare Bischoff's WON HOF credentials to Marvin Miller's credentials for the Baseball HOF. Without Miller's work in eliminating the reserve clause in MLB, the game would be vastly different today. Without Bischoff going w/ Hogan as a heel and coming up w/ the NWO, wrestling would be vastly different today. Some might argue that baseball and wrestling are actually worse off today because of Miller's and Bischoff's actions, but I think those people are wrong. Yes, both Miller and Bischoff are mainly known for doing one thing, but that one thing made such an impact that it altered the course of baseball/wrestling forever. If I had a vote, both Miller and Bischoff would be in the HOF. Miller has a stronger case, though, IMO. My problem with putting Bischoff in is that his "peak" as a promoter is incredibly short. In many ways promoters have had a more difficult time getting in, in my view because of the fact that people remember the negatives (i.e. the companies dying) and the positives get obscured by those broader failings. It took a long time for Roy Shire to get in and he was a clear Meltzer favorite. Jim Crockett Jr, Don Owen, Jerry Jarrett, Ray Fabiani and others with clear promoting positives aren't in. We could argue that Bischoff's peak was bigger and more substantial than any of those men - but all of them lap him in longevity. Hell Carlos Colon laps him in longevity as a promoter and drew some huge houses on shows he promoted and he can't get in. It's not just promoters either. If we are being really generous we can give Eric four years as an HoF level promoter - who is in the Hall of Fame for four years or less? Sayama maybe. Perhaps The Rock. Maybe Foley though I suspect most people would factor in his pre-WWF career as a worker and things like the KOTM show if they were being honest. Angle, but just about everyone here views him as a mistake pick. There may be others, but the point is the number is very, very small and none have the negatives of Bischoff. I wouldn't reject Bischoff out of hand as a candidate, but there are guys with peak runs of similar length and more positives before and after their peaks that aren't in and may never get in. It's hard for me to see how ATM Eric merits inclusion, before JYD. Normally I hate people that play devil's advocate and argue positions they don't necessarily belive in themselves, but I'm going to do that right now because I'm genuinely curious about people's responses: Sure, Bischoff's run was short, but he helped forever change the course of wrestling. Isn't four years of making history more impressive than 25 years of just doing decent business?

Wouldn't putting Sullivan in over Bischoff be like the football HOF putting in Bill Parcells' offensive and defensive coordinator over Parcells? (Sorry, I really like my sports analogies).

I compare Bischoff's WON HOF credentials to Marvin Miller's credentials for the Baseball HOF. Without Miller's work in eliminating the reserve clause in MLB, the game would be vastly different today. Without Bischoff going w/ Hogan as a heel and coming up w/ the NWO, wrestling would be vastly different today. Some might argue that baseball and wrestling are actually worse off today because of Miller's and Bischoff's actions, but I think those people are wrong. Yes, both Miller and Bischoff are mainly known for doing one thing, but that one thing made such an impact that it altered the course of baseball/wrestling forever. If I had a vote, both Miller and Bischoff would be in the HOF. Miller has a stronger case, though, IMO.

I remember going to my video store when I was young and always seeing this VHS next to all the WWF PPVs. Once I finally made it through all the WWF PPVs, I rented Lords of the Ring. I was already addicted to wrestling, but watching Lords of the Ring put me over the edge. It felt like I had graduated and proceeded to the next level.

If only Nate Silver was into pro wrestling.....

Independents are typically republicans who refuse to admit that they're republicans.

Brock Lesnar could charitably be described as a football washout and I don't think there are many who have trouble accepting that he could still kick most football player's asses anyway. Football, fighting, and wrestling all require different skill sets and I think most fans who know at least a little about all 3 will understand that. I think this is getting close to degrading Michael Jordan's accomplishments as a basketball player because he washed out in baseball. C'mon dude. Seriously?

Sure. But it sounds second rate to me. I don't want to get behind the guy who couldn't cut it in football. I want to get behind the guy who makes me believe he could kick any football player's ass.

I'm about as big an overall sports fan as there is. When I hear Ross constantly talking about a guy's football career, I keep wondering why he's not playing football if he was so good at it. I'm probably over thinking it, but I don't think always talking about something a wrestler failed at in a previous life is any way to get a guy over. Mentioning it when a guy is first introduced? That's fine. But then move on and tell me why this guy is an awesome wrestler instead of reliving some gridiron glory days like Al Bundy. Again, I know I'm over thinking this.....but to me, if your market research shows that your fanbsse is knowledgeable about real sports, that's all the more reason to not constantly talk about a wrestler's failed attempt at succeeding at a real sport.

He was continuing the tradition of that era, whether it was still true or not. Like many things, it eventually became outdated. That said, the idea that playing up the credentials of a wrestler is a bad thing is ridiculous. At least under the traditional wrestling model, which is where Jim Ross said most of these things, the lies they have to tell audiences in wrestling are a lot more believable and effective when surrounded by as much truth as possible. I don't get how washing out in football can be viewed as a credential. It's all in how you present it, I guess.

At no time in JR's era was the money in wrestling better than football.

I'm catching up on this thread, so I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I wanted to chime in on this issue. I hate it when announcers bring up real sports backgrounds. Nobody is going to choose wrestling over a career in football. The NFL is a much bigger deal than wrestling. More money, more fame, more credibility, more women, more everything. Whenever Ross (or any announcer) kept mentioning a wrestler's history in the NFL, it hurt the wrestler, IMO. "Hey, this guy wasn't good enough to make it in the NFL, so he ended up on WCW Saturday Night!" The college football background stuff didn't bother me as much, but it still bothered me. On the one hand, very few college players are good enough to make it in the NFL. I suppose it's fine if you end up wrestling. On the other hand, if he was such a stud in college, then what the hell is he doing wrestling the second match on Clash of the Champions? If you want to make a wrestler sound more legitimate, then talk about his wrestling achievements. If he has no wrestling achievements, just make some shit up or tie him to past wrestlers who did accomplish something.

I don't know FLIK but I am going to take a guess: He is upset that Obama got re-elected and is part of the crowd that wants to secede from the union. FLIK has been put in charge of establishing the language for this new Obama-less nation and that's how he wants where and there spelled.

Really? My old boss worked with Hubert and that's how he described him, so I guess I always use that phrase too. I guess it conjures images of preachers telling us that "we're all going to hell," but I mean it in a they were very passionate and outspoken kind of way....and maybe a little crazy, depending on your point of view.

If a Vince Senate victory somehow leads to a Vince/Mitch McConnell match at Wrestlemania, then I'm all for it! Rush Limbaugh as guest referee. Ann Coulter would be Vince's valet, but would turn on him, kick him in the nuts, and leave w/ McConnell.

Thanks to Hubert Humphrey and Paul Wellstone, Minnesota became known for not just its liberalism, but its pound-your-fist-on-the-table-and-get-mad-as-hell type of liberalism. Klobuchar, and now Franken, are changing that. Klobuchar is about as bland as you can get. No major legislation introduced. No dig-in-your-heels stance on a major issue. No firely language that riles up her base and angers conservatives. She does a lot of on-the-ground type of work throughout the state and really only searches for publicity when it's an issue she knows most people will agree w/ her on. She won her seat back w/ about 65 percent of the vote over a military veteran/tea party candidate. The hardcore libs were excited about Franken because they thought he'd be another Wellstone or Humphrey, a fire and brimstone style of liberal that will fight, fight, and fight some more. The conservatives, and many independents, were scared of Franken because they thought the same thing. Well, Franken has morphed himself into Klobuchar 2.0, and with the exception of a few outbursts about net neutrality, really hasn't stirred the pot. The hardcore libs don't seem to mind as long it keeps a republican out of the seat. Franken is also winning over moderates. Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty were thought of as possible challengers to Franken when he's up for re-election. Both of their stars have fallen considerably. Who knows what could happen, but JDW is right, Franken has chosen to take the senator-for-life path and right now that path appears clear of any roadblocks. I still think he might crank up the liberalism a bit if he gets re-elected and feels more comfortable, but we'll see. Another side note on wrestling and and politics in Minnesota: Scott LeDoux, the former boxer who ocassionally appeared as a guest ref or in some other capacity on AWA cards, was elected as a county commissioner in Anoka county back in 2004 (I'm 99% sure that was they year). Anoka County is a northern suburb of Minneapolis/St. Paul and is a conservative stronghold. County commissioner candidates don't run w/ a party affiliation, so I'm not sure where LeDoux fell on that spectrum. Anyway, LeDoux died in 2010 (again, 99% sure that's the year) of ALS and his wife took over his seat. She won re-election again this time around. Also, Klobuchar's father (Jim) was/is a sportswriter in the Twin Cities. I should do a little digging and see if he ever wrote about wrestling. If Vince ever did run, I wonder how smart Jim is to the business and Vince's many skeletons. A lot of the old sportswriters around here talk openly about the glory days of the AWA if you can get them going on it.

They're not. But they don't make him unelectable. With the right campaign, he's far more electable than Linda.