Marty

I don't know if "skanky whore" is equivalent to sexual fantasy, though. Cena slapping Steph's ass (with Steph wanting it) is different than Chris Jericho cutting a SummerSlam promo about Steph sleeping with the captains of the football team, baseball team, basketball team, hockey team, chess team, water polo team and the foreign exchange student. You, Phil and Lee did a pretty awesome Workrate Report on the first One Night Stand, with Beulah getting babyface reactions for saying that Lita (after her big promo) was finally having more stuff come out of her mouth than in it. When Trish was babyface, she was everyone's dream. When she was heel, she cut a Monday Night Football parody sketch with Shelton Benjamin calling her the biggest slut on RAW. There's the difference, IMO. I'm surprised no one mentioned Molly Holly yet.

Not arguing with you on the overall point, John, as you're right on Knoxville's career versus Rock's, but Rock did lead The Scorpion King, which did in the same ballpark as the The Game Plan domestically, and was even better in foreign theatres too. Like I said, you're right on the overall point, though. After The Scorpion King, though, any movies he was the lead in were in the $30-50 million range until he did The Game Plan.

Didn't figure it would happen the way it did. I thought they were going to set up CM Punk with another title feud with Randy Orton, and maybe eventually move on to Jericho, as he got red-hot as a heel. At the same time, lord knows how much faither Vince has in Punk anyway, and Jericho may be a long-term heel champ that they have in mind until WrestleMania. It's not like he doesn't have opponents (Shawn, Batista, Punk, Rey) so fingers crossed that it's booked better than that other run of his.

Correct on Genius->Heenan. Genius was used as a JTTS afterwards. However, Coach didn't take on all of Heenan's stable. The only other ones in that stable were Haku and Barbarian and they both went off on their own, I believe. Coach managed both Perfect and the Beverly Brothers.

Undertaker (especially during his initial days) didn't exactly yell into the camera.

Who are all the guys who went through the Blue Bloods Training Camp with him in 2002: Ace Steel Chris Hero Brian Danielson Colt Cabana CM Punk EZ Money? Frankie the Face? anyone else? Didn't Jimmy Jacobs go through that camp as well?

And here's the trailer:

If we're going by Loss' definition of 94/95 or so being the actual start of the 90s... - The Road Warriors fall into the non-survivors category. When they came back to WCW in 1996 and to the WWF afterwards, their act was passe and their abilities deteriorated. They tried to re-model themselves slightly in 1998 to no avail. - Vader falls into the non-survivors category as well, although he was marred by bad booking in both companies moreso than anything else. - On the flip side, if Brian Pillman was around much, much longer than he had been and hadn't been in the car wreck, he would've been a star heading into the new millennium. The Loose Cannon act completely revamped his act, gave him a lot of attention in early 96, was perfect for ECW, and would've been perfect for the Attitude Era of the WWF. Heck, since Austin was on his way to leading the company into that era, no doubt Pillman would've had some main event time in there. This is a lot of "if, if, if" for sure, but Pillman without question was someone who transitioned himself very well with the changing of the times. - Because I agree that things changed around 94/95, I disagree that Rude falls into the survivors category that much (since his push was before the beginning of transition), although I don't know if I'd call him a non-survivor. He was pretty much a non-factor when he became a non-wrestler and a mouthpiece. His time in ECW isn't exactly remembered by most people, D-Generation X didn't exactly miss a beat when he left for WCW, and I don't remember too much during his WCW time. He was just kinda there.

Just my own humble opinion, but I think the draft -- specifically, a certain someone who was on RAW forever and is now on Smackdown -- has only helped Jericho. What's amazing is Jericho got to take him and Cena out along with Cade, and that particular someone never got his heat back on Jericho like he normally would've in the past. Jericho's looked tremendous, but the booking of him may have never been stronger than it is now, at least with the WWE. Heck, I can't remember him having anywhere near this level of an advantage over Michaels in their 02-03 feud.

This wasn't vehicular manslaughter, but Hogan ran over Taker's bike with a semi in 2002. Also, Taker took Hogan for a ride by dragging him with his bike. I think that was beforehand as well.

The only criticism I have of Matt's very brief mentioning of Martina and her two children is that he almost defeated the purpose of not "violating the privacy" of them by reminding everyone that the kids are fatherless, as well as bringing up whether their love for Chris "meant enough to convince him to curb his maniacal touring schedule or stay faithful". It's not violating their privacy in the absolute worst ways possible, but it is opening up old wounds, which, granted, may or may not be read by them specifically. That being said, just mentioning that they were a loving family for Chris is enough. I do think Matt's tone had the best of intentions there, and was not him patting himself on the back. Just a case where less is more. I received the book on Friday and just finished reading it today and my opinion falls along the lines of Bob's: A well-written book where one should look at the whole rather than the sum of its parts (due to some of the parts being inaccurate stories that were mentioned earlier). The overall message is what should be taken into account. I agree that more concise dating and noting of Matt's interviews with various people could've been detailed, and much mentioning of other books gave this book an opportunity to use even some parenthetical notation, but much of that is minor, and I understand if Matt was rushed to a deadline if he had no chance to include that. The only other thing is Matt has the occasional inconsistency, specifically of viewpoints, with the obvious one being whether Chris was a hard-working, honourable worker in a fucked-up business, or just stupid, but I'm not sure if that is necessarily a criticism so much as Matt capturing both sides. And even then, capturing both (arguably extreme) sides may be him showing how fucked up the business is. In conclusion, I'm glad I got and read the book. It's something I think all fans should have the opportunity to read. It may not be the perfect book, but the message should at least open some eyes, regardless of whether some stuff mentioned is accurate. I do find myself agreeing with Meltzer about whether the book will truly leave a short- or long-term impact.

There was a Michaels/Lothario vs. Vader/Cornette match on Raw a little after SummerSlam '96 that ended with Michaels eating a Vaderbomb for the pin. I was almost positive it was a clean loss, but maybe I'm misremembering. This one?

I remember Tom saying that too, and it's perked my curiosity enough to research it, but I've yet to find anything.

Yeah, unless Cole did some comedy writing while doing his journalism degree, I'm not sure what his background is. My understanding is after his degree, he worked for several years in radio, first for a smaller radio station or two, before landing on CBS radio, then on WWF/E TV.

That's right and it's dedicated to me, All-American Jesse The Body!

I think the Bock draw is possible. I imagine the doc will be an hour and a half, roughly. Assuming the set will be two discs, that leaves you with roughly 4.5 hours of extras. The vignettes sek and I discussed just above won't take up that much time, and maybe someone will refresh my memory, but I can't think of THAT MANY Hennig promos anywhere that are eye-catching. That leaves a lot of time for matches. It may mean some things not being in chronological order (like the Jake set they did) but there's room for the Hennig-Bock draw. SuperClash II wasn't bad, but it's already on their AWA set, and they've made a point of avoiding overlaps the last while or so.

Good thread on a book I hope to read sooner rather than later, as well as the one at DVDVR. This review at Amazon may be the best review I've read of them all: http://www.amazon.com/review/product/15977...#R2R3JVCNQ5FKVF

They'll definitely do a Mr. Perfect documentary, as one of the reasons Ted DiBiase was around on Monday was to cut some interviews for that particular DVD. And yes, those vignettes were awesome!

I have my doubts the Starrcade set will come to pass, at least this year. WWE does not have it listed in their upcoming list: http://www.wwe.com/shop/dvd/upcomingdvds Also, KOCH Canada, which is the Canadian distributor for WWE DVDs, also doesn't have it: http://www.kochcan.com/05_catalogue/result...p;Submit=Search Considering it was planned for July 8, I'm thinking it got nixed for the Flair one, although I agree with something Loss has always said: they don't saturate the DVD market enough and probably could've released both. (I realize the Starrcade set is still there on Amazon, but that's the same site that still has the Savage and Sting DVDs too.) The SummerSlam Anthology is definitely a go.

Boss Man's face turn in early 1990 was extremely underrated. Ted DiBiase finally met his match: A heel (a big one too) who he couldn't buy, and he found that out the hard way after Boss Man returned the Million Dollar Title to Jake Roberts after he took it back for DiBiase. I really dug the slow build to being a full-fledged face, too, as Boss Man afterwards said that he hated DiBiase but that he still didn't care that much for Roberts either, because he still hated snakes (Boss Man was booked as special referee for a few house shows between the two, IIRC). After the DiBiase feud, Boss Man went on to a fun feud with the Heenan Family with some nice matches with Barbarian, Hennig, etc. Fun times.

The technical aspect I really dug about Flair's first set was how you could select the chapters individually (the particular matches) and once they were done, the program would go back to the chapter menu, which had the extras for each given match. This was really cool, because you could play certain extras before and after the match if you choose, to get a neat idea of the angles and such at the time. For example, for Starrcade 83, you could play Race announcing the bounty, Slater and Orton jumping Flair, Flair coming back with a bat, Flair announcing "a Flair for the Gold", the pre-match interviews, THEN watch the match, then play the extras right after. The Race match was the best one for this, IMO, but they did a fine job with all the others too. I still say it's the best WWE DVD release for that reason. No release they've ever done has captured the feeling of those old angles and storylines like that set did.

I wonder with the new WWE "get people talking with SHOCKING non sequitor moments" policy if JR knew ahead of time. He either wasn't told or he did the best sell job RAW has seen in ages. Him sitting there stewing was GOLD. I'm pretty sure it was a work. The exchange afterwards: Lawler: God, I missed you. JR: I was gone for only one match. Lawler: Yeah, but thank God you're back. or something like that sold it to me. Just felt like it was part of the program all along. That being said, yeah, JR's speechless selling was fun.

http://www.silvervision.co.uk/product.asp?pf_id=WWE1203

I saw that earlier too. I think the guy did a good job reviewing the documentary and capturing the uneasy feeling one can have watching it. But he clearly graduated out of The Scott Keith School of Reviewing Matches, in that any match designed to get a "Bullshit!" reaction is a bad match to these guys. Also, he gives the typical Scott-esque opinion of Michael Hayes all throughout the review. Of course, the guy's philosophy on reviewing matches is "you can only be as good as the subject matter. Except for Scott, who can rant for hours about the 1994 Royal Rumble Casket Match."