JHawk

There are actually a couple of stories in the new Observer (10/14--the Roy Shire bio) talking about how Shire once fined Watts and Ray Stevens for being seen together...outside the territory where nobody would have found out anyway.

FWIW, Mike Johnson said that Taker-Punk was scheduled to go on last but Taker requested to move it to the opener because he wasn't sure he was capable of a PPV-quality main event in the shape he's in. Which, of course, makes Taker winning the title even sillier in retrospect, especially since there are more ready-made face challengers than heel challengers on SmackDown. Combine that with the fact that Batista's apparently Taker's next opponent and they haven't exactly pushed the idea of him as a heel yet...I need that Patrick Stewart facepalm picture right now. As for Punk's supposed "burial", Punk got an awful lot of offense in on Sunday night for somebody who's being "buried".

Holy fuck I need to find a way to come up with 45 bucks and get in on this. This would be murder to sit through the Japanese commentary, but everything I have seen is awesome and there is some stuff I've been dying to see mixed in with it.

Raw and SmackDown are seen as almost separate promotions in Meltzer's eyes since they both are touring brands, and logically since Edge main evented SmackDown as its champion there's an argument for him being the top heel of the brand. Edge moved to SmackDown in May 2007 and has been pretty much main eventing non-stop when healthy ever since.

Was that even technically a WWF tour? Half of them weren't even in the WWF at the time.

Finlay is from Northern Ireland. Does that count?

There's one for Cornette's Collectibles, but his wife runs it. His wife also has a personal Facebook, but Jim himself doesn't actually have one.

While I'm admittedly not that familiar with British wrestling, knowing Johnny Saint's reputation I would like to hear arguments from people familiar with him and Steve Grey on that one.

A wrestler's "look". WWE is certainly guilty of this. Not that we shouldn't be able to say "so and so has a great look", but look at guys who didn't have a good "look". Guys like Dusty Rhodes, Dick Murdoch, and Adrian Adonis wouldn't so much as get a job as enhancement talent today because "they don't look like a wrestler" despite, in Dusty's case, being so charasmatic it's hard to hate him and, in the case of Adonis and Murdoch, being able to outwork a majority of today's WWE roster.

The AWF and Einhorn's IWA would definitely be interesting articles, but I'm not sure how much info is available on the IWA outside of what's already at steelbeltwrestling.com

If I have my numbers correctly, Graham sold out MSG 9 out of his 10 defenses in the arena in an era where that meant something. Goldberg was the biggest draw WCW had during what was their last big year, and the fact that his loss and the subsequent finger poke of doom are what started the downward spiral of the company, I'd say it's safe to say that, at least for that year, he was a solid draw. But in my opinion, one amazing year does not make someone HOF worthy. If we go by one peak year, they'd have to start letting guys like Joe Charboneau into the Baseball HOF

It seems like IWA-MS closes down every year as we approach the Ted Petty Inviational. I probably won't believe the promotion's actually dead until I'm dead.

The Sunday Bloody Sunday show in February, which was a sellout of nearly 4000 in 1994, only drew about 1100. While those are perfectly acceptable numbers for an indy today, a nearly 75% drop in 12 months time is usually a pretty good indicator that business is down. Would the Super Bowl of Wrestling really have helped them keep afloat? With all the outside talent and the WWF influence, I can't imagine that card turning much of a profit.

Not to nitpick, but Bruno did appear at ringside as a manager at WMI and was in the battle royal at WM2. Definitely the next version (if there is one) needs more "legends" and less lower rung wrestlers. I'd love to redo the Savage-Steamboat WM3 match (or redo the WMIV tournament match for match).

So this is out officially coming this Tuesday. Anybody have it preordered or plan on picking it up at launch?

SMW vs. USWA worked while it lasted because both sides were winning key matches. Honestly, the angle should have breathed new life into SMW

05/04/81 if it's the one I'm thinking of. John If it's the Alley Fight it's 5/4/1981. Or it could be 4/6/1981 which is the forgotten but still very good regular singles match between the two that set up the Alley Fight.

And yet Russo still has a job. Can I apply for TNA booker?

And a pole match that didn't end with somebody climbing the pole. You know, the only way to end the match. Sad that I could probably do a better job of booking TNA at this point.

Beth wrestled on Raw, but she didn't take a bump. Take that for what you will.

While I haven't bought the DVD from goodhelmet yet and haven't seen this specific match, there is a match between these two from Philly in 1983 available that is also along these lines. I generally love the matches these two had together.

So Angle is pissed that his wife left him for/cheated on him with one of the wrestlers, even though it's no secret he cheated on her on numerous occasions first. How about neither of them have any power, we get Russo and Dutch out of there, and we bring in somebody to book (not write) the promotion to where people might actually want to pay to see the PPVs.

If you notice in matches where both are done, usually the heels have completely switched out, while when the faces do it usually both faces are still in the ring when the referee turns around. So the referee is most likely to believe the heels did tag since they've switched out, but since both faces are in the ring the referee can't really believe the tag was made.

They were going to have Race pin Flair clean in a non-title bout or two and set up a loser leaves town match. Flair would get a cheap win in the loser leaves match and Race would return under a mask as the Midnight Rider. Crockett bought the promotion before the angle was carried out and scrapped it. Why does that sound familiar?