Marty

BTW, Scott Keith's an idiot, but you guys all knew that. He mentions on his blog that he believes Super Ninja is Keiji Mutoh. It's actually Shunji Takano who's Super Ninja in the tag match listed. They did a good job choosing odd gems for this DVD like the World Class match, the phantom title switch, amongst others that the DVD feels kinda incomplete without the Beware Of Dog match.

True, Batista's got him beat on the scummy part of it. Bret, from what I've read, seems more numerous than a lot of other guys in that category, though, because he truly used women as a substitute to other drugs and mentioned that he did take steroids, but "only" from '85-'89. Batista, on the other hand...

FWIW, the Screwjob match in its entirety was on the Best Of Confidential Vol. 1 DVD.

After reading a third of Bret's book, Batista has nothing on Bret as far as running around on a spouse.

Slight correction: They were simultaneous, like Homer Simpson's.

If the mystery cowboy turns out to be Stan Hansen, I don't think I'll ever stop laughing.

I've never seen the Legends roundtables (are those a 24/7 thing only, because I don't get 24/7). I was referring mainly to DVD releases. My theory is that they stopped using that line, just because it'd contradict a lot of things they've presented (the AWA drawing big in outdoor ballparks, etc.). Then again, contradiction wouldn't exactly stop them, would it?

Not trying to defend them, but WWE hasn't used the "Vince took wrestling out of smoke-filled bars" talking line in years now. All that talk changed when he started purchasing videos and began profiting from them.

They rarely update that DVD page. Remember the original summary for Mysterio's upcoming DVD, and how it listed Benoit as one of his rivals featured? It was still up there, well after the late-June events (even with all the WWE.com editing, which, granted, they were lazy with anyway) up until a link was up at Shopzone for the set. No one either noticed or cared to make mention to them about it. KOCH's (in Canada) page has it scheduled for December 11, but that could change. They also had Austin's scheduled for August, but certain events likely altered that, too.

Whether he is or not, it'd be pretty ballsy of them to do a Kiss My Ass Club segment in Iran...

Ah, that makes sense, espcially with Vince buying the Florida footage well after the WCW library. (Thanks for the reminder.)

Pardon the confusion, but this raises some questions: Bob Geigel owned the St. Louis territory when he sold the offices to Crockett, right? So, was the video library not part of the transaction? Or did Geigel not purchase the library from Muchnick originally? Just a bit strange to me since Crockett absorbed St. Louis, so I figured once Vince bought the WCW video library, that would've included St. Louis, which included Wrestling At The Chase. Am I missing something?

True, but it was the earlier performances of Shawn Michaels and Mick Foley that made the Hell In The Cell gimmick such a strong draw. Yeah, I think the HIAC is kinda like Wrestlemania, in that it's a draw on its own, to an extent. HHH has managed to position himself to be THE guy as far as HIAC matches go. (4 of the last 5 HIAC matches involved HHH, with the only other one being Armageddon 2005 between Taker and Orton. Funny part is that it was a December PPV, which is traditionally supposed to be one of the lowest drawing shows for the company, but it ended up doing a 0.73 buyrate, higher than any December show they've had since 2002 and also the second-highest non-Rumble/Mania/SummerSlam/SurvivorSeries PPV of that year.)

That part of the Michaels report sounds pretty vague. Is it Alvarez crediting Michaels for his work this year? Or is Michaels praising himself?

Funny that you mention the macho mindset, as Chris Nowinski was on TSN's Off The Record, and defended the WWE's response that they had no knowledge of Benoit having concussions. Nowinski's response was that the WWE, much like other sports organizations, don't have actual doctors on hand for that type of analysis, and instead just have emergency doctors who'll send you to a hospital ASAP whenever necessary, which is where you may receive the prognosis of a concussion. It's then up to the performer to report to his organization about his condition, should he choose to. He actually said that they DO have doctors, but they should specifically have neurologists. Yeah, that's what I meant. It might be something that'll come up at Congress to, and be part of any regulation on wrestling, that is a neurologist at WWE events. My main issue with that is we need more doctors in hospitals, not at wrestling events. Especially with greater health issues surrounding the baby boom generation. But, it makes me wonder: If they threw that in, and WWE is unable to comply, for whatever reason, what will happen? Heavy fines? Wrestling being outlawed?

Funny that you mention the macho mindset, as Chris Nowinski was on TSN's Off The Record, and defended the WWE's response that they had no knowledge of Benoit having concussions. Nowinski's response was that the WWE, much like other sports organizations, don't have actual doctors on hand for that type of analysis, and instead just have emergency doctors who'll send you to a hospital ASAP whenever necessary, which is where you may receive the prognosis of a concussion. It's then up to the performer to report to his organization about his condition, should he choose to. I think this is where the personal choice/personal responsibility debate will open up again, because Nowinski leaves you with the impression that Benoit chose not to report his condition to the WWE for fear of being taken off the road, less money, etc. This might not necessarily fall under "macho mindset", but WWE not knowing about Benoit's condition falls more on Benoit, albeit one can definitely argue the labour conditions and how they influenced his choices.

It's all related to the Benoit murders though. Mike Awesome received no press when he died, that was prior to Benoit. Not sure who the third one is right off, was that Bigelow? That would be James Fawcett aka Devil Bhudakahn.

It's still just good journalistic practice to make sure that what you're reporting is actually true. Sadly, that tends to be less and less common in this day & age (looking at you, Rather). And every time someone makes a dumb "demoted from horsemen to raw" faux paus, we all have to hear ad nauseum from the smarks about how that person knows nothing about wrestling and all of their points are thus invalid. Well, yeah. It's just that it's a very, very minor problem in the grand scheme of things. Seriously. It's like reporting about how Pat Sajak was involved in a serious car accident, and bringing up how he's been the star of Family Feud for years and years. Or, more similarly, it's like reporting how a soap opera star was seriously depressed, while linking some sort of depression storyline that they were involved in into the article. Not saying Orton article is true or not, but as S.L.L said, stuff like that is very minor.

Yeah, I'd say it's the most casual of any possible Meltzer fanbase that vote on those polls (which are meaningless anyway). I'd say Hennig winning this poll is a result of the WWE bringing back his history in various ways (Hall Of Fame induction, AWA DVD, possible Hennig DVD, etc.).

These were all already on the 619 dvd, and anyone who's a big enough Mysterio fan to buy the new disc already owns that one. I'm sure the ECW matches are otherwise available too. I only counted six matches that haven't already been released on commercial video in some form. Why does the WWE do that? Instead of digging up obscure forgotten gems, they tend to put mostly the same collection of big matches on their DVDs over and over again. It's not like their tape library is too small for them to produce some unseen material that nobody except the couple dozen people who watched Thunder that one night have seen. I counted 14 that haven't been on previous DVD releases. The Psicosis ECW match was on one of the Pioneer sets back in the day. Not sure about the Juvi match, as it wouldn't shock me if it's the same match that was on another Pioneer set but (in classic WWE fashion) they fucked up the date. Anyway, I've never seen the Rey-JBL match that's listed, but am looking forward to after reading Phil Schneider's review at Segunda Caida. S.L.L wrote the review not me, it is a great match though Stupid error on my part, especially since S.L.L is mentioned in the title. Nice write-up, S.L.L, and apologizes for my own mis-credit.

I too am disappointed that the 06/23/05 Smackdown match isn't on there. These were all already on the 619 dvd, and anyone who's a big enough Mysterio fan to buy the new disc already owns that one. I'm sure the ECW matches are otherwise available too. I only counted six matches that haven't already been released on commercial video in some form. Why does the WWE do that? Instead of digging up obscure forgotten gems, they tend to put mostly the same collection of big matches on their DVDs over and over again. It's not like their tape library is too small for them to produce some unseen material that nobody except the couple dozen people who watched Thunder that one night have seen. I counted 14 that haven't been on previous DVD releases. The Psicosis ECW match was on one of the Pioneer sets back in the day. Not sure about the Juvi match, as it wouldn't shock me if it's the same match that was on another Pioneer set but (in classic WWE fashion) they fucked up the date. Anyway, I've never seen the Rey-JBL match that's listed, but am looking forward to after reading Phil Schneider's review at Segunda Caida.

The results and photos pages were old pages that they never bothered editing. However, even more hilarious is the photos page of the greatest SummerSlam moments listed so far. All the ones of Orton are just, well, of Orton.

Thinking about all the news Orton has been involved in reminds me of a comment Loss made several years ago during the TSM days about HHH and the news that was reported about him. When HHH was heel, the "HHH is holding so-and-so down" was HEAVILY reported. However, there was a time (I believe late '03/early '04 but I could be wrong) where the company was somewhat leaning towards turning HHH face. The news you heard then was how HHH spent hours in the tape room studying Flair, Bockwinkel, etc. (the stuff the so-called internet fanbase loves to hear about) To some extent, I think this applies to Orton. Whether the stuff reported is accurate or not, it helps that Orton is heel. On top of that, a lot of the stuff is simply reported through Meltzer, Keller, etc. This is different from RVD, whose arrest got into the public papers (plus, one of your top babyfaces being arrested is never good). *FH* mentioned hidden agendas in news getting out, and it makes me wonder if those with hidden agendas have more power than we may think, and are making sure certain news gets filtered in order for certain reactions (even if those on the internet might still make up 5% of the total fanbase, tops). I think this is a big reason why we never heard stuff about Benoit until after the murders. Dude was an upper-tier babyface from late '02 to the present, and any aggressive nature reported wouldn't exactly blend well with his babyface character (especially since Benoit's character lightened up a little from '04 to the present; you saw him smile to the crowd more, play to the crowd, etc.). Throwing guys out of locker rooms for "misbehaving" or forcing other wrestlers to do hindu squats isn't the worst thing in the world, but it doesn't mix with clean-cut, hard-working, smiling Chris Benoit we saw on TV the past 4 and a half years or so.

On top of that, Arn's charisma alone makes his recap of all those angles very interesting to listen to. I think all of the original Horsemen were fine on the stick, even Ole. In fact, his promos such as that "lecturing father" type promo of Ole's that's about a half an hour into the documentary (the one where he predicts that Dusty will retire in 1986) are a nice contrast to Ric Flair's over-the-top charismatic promos (I also just really, really like that promo ). While he's nowhere near a top favourite of mine, Ole's becoming one of those guys I'm rediscovering and appreciating a lot more than I used to.

Simply because they weren't drawing, period. As Jim Cornette pointed out, WCW had a mindset of wanting to draw big money *tomorrow* instead of building towards drawing something in six months time. It happened with Frey, but it also happened with Watts too (who had slashed the rather high contracts that Frey increased previously). I'm torn on Frey's era, personally. On one hand, the wrestling was great, the angles were interesting and, given time, all that might have made money. On the other hand, Frey did go overboard with the contract increases that it makes me wonder if they could've made money under those conditions. But I think he suffered from the same WCW mindset that Watts, and anyone else from that time if they worked for WCW, would've suffered from.