Loss

How would you book Mae Young joining Raven's Flock?

A lot has changed since then with the rise of social media. I think Hogan can expect a similar fate to Paula Deen.

Just imagine the publicity if this had been Molly Ringwald. (That's an inside joke aimed at myself that hopefully long-timers will get.)

Being out of the spotlight doesn't mean people will forget it ever happened.

The social media mobs seem to be laughing at WWE's response for the most part since it's so transparently hypocritical.

I agree with this. I feel like a more progressive (I don't mean politically necessarily) company would own their history and commit themselves to a fresh outlook where they strive to not repeat past mistakes instead of just trying to sweep it under the rug. Maybe you could get away with that if it was someone else, but not if it's Hulk Hogan. It's delusional for them to think they can distance themselves from him at all. They can say they do, but the perception will always be there.

Usually, celebrities sue the National Enquirer to save face as a matter of public relations, then quietly drop the lawsuit after the attention from it has died down. That has become standard operating procedure. If they were losing in court all the time, they wouldn't have lasted this long.

Not to mention the whole Shelton Benjamin's Mama thing. It's timely to mention WWE not using his real mother because she wasn't stereotypical enough.

I haven't seen Shelton in OVW, but I wonder if the same is true there in the opposite direction.

Anyway, my thoughts on this were a better fit for Twitter than here since there was the potential for crossover discussion that's bigger than wrestling. If you want to engage me on it, hit me up there @prowresonly.

Yeah it is funny all the people on my Twitter posting all the racist stuff the WWE has done in the last 30 years. So many Roddy Piper half black face pictures Just because people are posting about it doesn't mean they find it shocking, really. In fact, I think the hasty decision to remove Hogan from everything is the same short-sighted, unsophisticated response I'd expect from them. But people can still be criticized for expected behavior.

Dave explained a while back that a guy like Bryan really can't eliminate stuff and tone down his style, because he has to re-prove himself every single time he has a match in order to justify his spot. If he did, Dave thinks the line would then be that he's not going all out and he'd suffer for it.

The accidental buildup of Daniel Bryan going into Wrestlemania 30 was such a perfect set of circumstances that could never really be duplicated. Even though it was mostly happenstance, it resulted in a three-month period where being a wrestling fan was awfully fun. Going farther back, I'd throw out the build to the Rock & Roll Express vs Heavenly Bodies match at Bluegrass Brawl '94. Both sides did some great promos, with my favorite coming from Morton, as he said he'd get too choked up if he didn't think about what he wanted to say first, so he read a letter he wrote to his fans. That's such a great idea for making sure all the key points are hit in a promo that I wish would be used more often. Hogan-Sting was intended to be blown off within a few months and ended up being an 18-month storyline that didn't have the best payoff, but the match was built up beautifully. Flair-Vader at Starrcade '93 was mentioned. Anyone arguing Flair should have had "one last run" in the latter stages of his career couldn't have expected an outcome better than what we got here. The year-long build between Hogan and Savage that culminated at Wrestlemania V was an outstanding piece of business. The Final Conflict build in Mid Atlantic was also great stuff.

I think it's important to remember that good wrestling is a series of reactions more than it is a series of actions. That's not a statement about workrate; it's more of a statement about the purpose behind everything. Just like it's true that people pop for signature spots, unexpected directions and moves that are established as match-enders in non-shoot style wrestling, it's also true that the best shoot-style matches are the ones that are a reaction to the norms that surround them. The crowd doesn't pop randomly -- they have been trained to pop for certain things. That their reactions don't make sense to a novice is actually a compliment, because it's a credit to how great of a job RINGS did training its audience. I can understand watching something like Han-Tamura and not thinking much of it when your points of comparison are more traditional pro wrestling. It doesn't really fit that mold. You're not going to see knife-edges or collar-and-elbows because those are associated with traditional wrestling that everyone knows is "fake". The genius of Maeda was creating a company (UWF and later RINGS) that really was worked, but they were able to convince people at times that they were real. Even now, there is sometimes debate over whether a match was a work or a shoot. So if you look at what has traditionally been pro wrestling's most basic guiding principle, to make people believe, this is a style that accomplished that in spades. Imagine a company debuting in the United States that wanted people to think they were real even though they were worked. With the Internet, such a thing is less possible now than ever, so for argument's sake, pretend it's happening in 1982 or 1983. There were great things about the typical NWA and various territory styles for sure, but they would have to stay away from quite a few things that were staples of those styles if really wanted to distinguish this new promotion as the real deal. That's the mentality from which RINGS evolved. Also, with regards to the low-end matches in these companies, I think it's a necessary evil in many ways. None of these groups ever had weekly television, but more than that, they were selling a style to the public that doesn't exactly sell itself. I think they needed to establish what a "normal" match looked like in that style so they could exceed that normal when the situation called for a classic match. At its core, all pro wrestling is about conditioning fans to react in the desired way. Booking, ring work, interviews and promos ... it all plays a role. The joy of shoot style is in its heightened sense of audience manipulation. I won't deny the manipulative genius of Vince McMahon, but it's also fully transparent and most people see it for what it is. UWF, UWFI, RINGS and PWFG successfully blurred the line. I don't think there's a binary here. Both are equally valid. It's just a very different approach.

Kevin Nash once said in a Torch Talk that he subscribes to URB Magazine. What other magazines (or blogs) do you think Nash reads regularly?

- If 1985 Ric Flair is working a house show in a dry county, how does he spend his evening? - What do you think was Randy Savage's preferred brand of peanut butter?

The Undertaker's attempts to do a live embalming of Austin in a horrible RAW. Also, the best thing about Juventud's run was it coming out that his travel partner was Bob Orton.

Reminds me of JCP moving Starrcade out of Greensboro.

No way does WWE want ROH getting their hands on him. They would probably pay him not to work.

Of course, right now, there is so much excitement over NXT that they can probably fill small buildings without his help. But if attendance starts to dwindle down the road, it's a great ace in the hole.

I don't think they would either, although when they are attempting to do well in smaller buildings to justify exclusives locking out ROH, he could be quite valuable.

I still think that for all of their attempts to appeal to channel flippers, Kane and Big Show are the worst guys to be on television with that being a goal.