kjh

I think it must be remembered that we knew a lot less about the situation than WWE management. They had knowledge of his recent bizarre behaviour, the strange excuse for missing the house show and his final text messages. People don't send those type of texts late at night if they're about to be accidentally poisoned or be murdered by an intruder.

Also, it shows that for the moment at least they're protecting Punk.

I thought the irony of that statement was backing Bret over Shawn doesn't seem like such a stupid move in hindsight given that: 1. Shawn was pretty beat up, his drug problems were getting out of control and he only lasted a couple more months before his back was thrashed. 2. Shawn caused more of a stink about dropping the belt than Bret did while having a career threatening back problem. 3. WCW was bound to implode and tossing Shawn into the mix was going to cause a lot more problems than Bret did for them.

What comes naturally to them is to protect the business at all costs, which often involves some form of cover up or lying.

It's probably worth adding "or the most honest or the least delusional" to the end of that sentence. I also think it's pretty irrelevant what the plan was at different points during the week, what matters is what they ended up doing.

The Capitol Punishment number came from PWInsider, Meltzer says it's much lower than that on the board. (173,000)

Do we really think they needed to put the title on a Mexican to draw a sellout to their second biggest PPV show of the year?

I still get a paper sub, as I would find it difficult to read the whole thing in one sitting on the computer.

I guess the reason Dave hasn't changed the newsletter format much is that he still has a significant number of subscribers that just get a paper copy or get both. But I agree that they're costing themselves a lot of exposure by the format of their stories being randomly pay walled or lumped into one news update. Those stories don't get picked up by search engines like Google News, which must cost them a lot of hits.

But the last World Of Hurt was "THE BEST TELEVISION SHOW IN THE HISTORY OF TELEVISION", rovert. Holy hyperbole...

Bryan seems to be just parroting what Dave said on Wrestling Observer Radio, John. It's a bit silly to say on the one hand "they change their minds constantly", yet then say "I'm sure they won't change their mind this time", as if one Mexican tour would outweigh everything else.

I agree for this to work as more than a short term business boost, Punk needs to go on a pretty lengthy title run with Cena, Rey, ADR, Miz, etc all chasing him, so fans believe this is a real deal elevation of Punk as a star. I don't get the sense that's what WWE plans to do, but they could always change their minds and run with it. Unless he's really taking off after SummerSlam and they've got a good idea to bring him back just as hot.

The problem with having him return at Survivor Series is that it would be overshadowed with the return of The Rock.

I think the best Punk can really hope for is a solid Edge-type or Chris Jericho-type sustained headliner role, as the family will always be the real stars while they're still on TV and he doesn't fit the mould of the type of guy they'd build the promotion around. Anything else would be ice cream bars on top. For all John's talk about how WWE creative ruined the angle, according to Meltzer their original idea was much worse than this (he wouldn't divulge what that was, but I guess it may have involved Del Rio stealing the title from Punk somehow), so I suppose we should be thankful for what we got. It sounds like they're booking on the fly worse than ever, leaving key decisions to just before they go on the air. Apparently they went back and forth several times over who would win the title tournament and lose the belt to Cena.

Mike Benoit - "I am watching the NFL concussion lawsuit and I am considering organizing a class action lawsuit against the WWE."

I don't think UFC's papering is the best indicator that interest is down. Dana White is hurting himself at the gate because it's become so well known that he'll give away tickets if the building doesn't sellout. Hardcore fans are flying to events around the country without tickets because they know they'll be easily able to pick up one for free. For someone who spends so much money attempting to combat piracy, it's ironic that he lets so many people in for free to his events. TV ratings are clearly down. PPVs down too, though a large part of that can be attributed to injuries. I think the base number that they're guaranteed to draw for any old PPV show is starting to decline though.

They'll be very lucky to do 750,000 buys for Silva vs. Okami in Brazil. Belfort was easy to market as a KO artist. Sonnen had a big mouth and only drew 600,000 with Anderson. Okami tends to win by dull decisions. I don't think Silva vs. Okami has the right dynamic to do a huge number.

I was amused by Babinsack's review of Hooker. Basically he felt free to rip the book because he had to pay for it.

Odds on Bryan being worked by Cary Silkin/Jim Cornette/Delirious about 50/50.

I wonder which one of those women will become Bret's fourth wife?

I'll go one better, Keith. Some of the biggest marks are the ones who are in the ring I was grouping in-ring performers with others who may be found backstage.

One night tournament's tend to do mediocre in the ratings. Moreover, Punk not being there hurt a lot. The pattern was a good (but far from great) opening quarter with people tuning out over the next couple of quarters and not coming back till the overrun segment, which did very well.

If you Google Ric Flair, it's the second site that comes up.

Yeah, but I'm still surprised by how much Punk has gotten away with. On Monday he mentioned WWE's falling stock price and the fact that they only get mainstream press when someone dies. How is Vince OK with that? I think JDW owes me an apology. Heels lie Bix.

Meltzer mentioned on a recent radio show that within WWE opinion on Punk's shoot promo is split between those that love it and those that hate it, so it isn't surprising that we got Cena doing his regular schtick in that segment. The people who aren't down with Punk's shoot promo are probably the same people that love scripting comedy for Cena.