sek69

I can only imagine having a dad who was also your boss and pushing you to be flawless Christian heroes had quite an effect on the Von Erich boys.

Sonya was fantastic in that segment, the only downside was the camera was zooming in so tight on their faces to capture the EMOTION it exposed the funeral home level of makeup they have the women wearing for TV.

It sometimes gets overlooked because most of it didn't age well, but Russo was such a breath of fresh air for a company that was still being booked like an 80s promotion well in to 1996. They needed someone who wasn't and old school rasslin' guy to come in and shake things up/give fresh perspective, and for better or worse he did that. I honestly believe that's why he ended up with the opinion of old school wrestling he did, his job was to drag these dinosaurs into modern times, and I'm sure he got a lot of resistance over it. In the end, Russo was the wrestling version of a "system quarterback". He believed his own hype and thought all of the WWF's success was due to his brilliance, and got exposed badly in WCW (and everywhere else after that). It shouldn't erase the fact he did what he was originally brought in to do. Also yes, Russo is a trash person with trash opinions. No argument. That's hardly an exception in this business. It's not an excuse or a defense, it's just what it is. He''s a guy who did what he was brought in to do a job, did what he was supposed to do, and then let his ego take over. And like most things from the 90s in wrestling, it aged about as well as a loaf of bread.

I feel bad for her because not only the murder stuff, but the wife he beat to the point of being unrecognizable was her (and Deuce's) mom. I can't imagine what she witnessed growing up.

Tino had too many strikes against him: being in developmental forever, getting a major injury, and being 36 years old without an indy pedigree to overcome Vince's age phobias.

I get that, and I don't disagree, but at the same time I'd be willing to bet Russo's far less likely to keel over from a stress induced heart attack too. Jim internalizing everything he sees as an attack on the business isn't healthy no matter how correct his point might be.

I hate to ever have to defend Russo, but he seems way more self aware than Cornette does these days. He still sticks to his guns over poor decisions he made, but his "it's just wrestling, bro" take is way more normal than Corny threatening violence on everyone.

Not to mention 3 months of shows where the only title being defended is the X title.

It seems like ROH is paying people as well. I saw tweets from ROH folks saying they got checks for shows that didn't happen. Apparently they also got the green light to run shows in Florida if they wanted to and chose not to.

Also don't forget Fink was often the target of bullying for no other reason than being a really nice guy who had a childlike love of wrestling. If you needed something else to toss on the "WWE is shit" pile. On a positive note, I remember seeing a video a while back of who I'm assuming was a friend of Howard's wedding reception where the wedding party all entered like wrestlers and Fink announced them all coming in. It was a perfect encapsulation of the guy, having a blast in a kind of geeky environment doing what he did better than anyone who ever lived. And yes, even at a reception intro'ing random people he was still the GOAT.

Pretty sure no one who works directly with WWE is unionized.

Unless it's backstage folks like agents/writers, that sounds like an extremely large cut for Smackdown. For as shitty as the other cuts were, the guys who were cut were largely folks not being used and of the ones who were being used you had Rusev who was in a contract dispute and Gallows/Anderson who were playing the Revival game of turning down offers to stay until WWE hit their magic number. The only guy being used who got cut was Rowan and his mystery box being revealed anticlimactically as a cartoonishly fake spider could have been taken as a write off. Looking at the list on Wikipedia that shows the current SD roster, I don't see anyone who really falls into that category other than Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel. Maybe Mojo too, I suppose it depends if the Gronk thing was a one and done for Mania or not. As far as NXT goes, Dave mentions in the new Observer that anyone who appears on NXT TV is probably safe since they're seen as the line of defense against AEW. Anyone in NXT who doesn't appear on TV or only does the Florida loop is probably throwing their phones out the window at this point.

As much as I agree, that's easier said than done for many reasons: 1. The nature of pro wrestling, and WWE specifically, means the wrestlers are conditioned to always fear for their spots. That leads to an understandably selfish mindset which would be hard to shake when it comes to trying to convince everyone to band together. 2. I'm sure WWE is no different from any other major company and floods everyone with anti-union propaganda, not to mention the top guys are in the tax bracket where it's in their best interests to not unionize and those are the ones who would be needed to make any attempt to unionize stick. 3. Tying points 1 and 2 together, it only takes one top guy (like Hogan did in the 80s) to stooge out to management and the whole plan goes down the tubes. So yeah, for like 85% of the roster forming a union would be the ideal situation. Unfortunately you'll likely never get the other 15% to go along with it for political and financial reasons. Could you imagine a mid card guy going to someone like Taker with his Blue Lives Matter shirts and Braun with his "just try not being poor" routine and attempting to convince them to unionize?

Is Lars on the injured list still? There's probably some kind of financial trickery where someone injured can be made to not count against the books.

It's always been a weird thing for me, being a fan of wrestling. I made my peace with wrestling being a shit business full of shit people early on, coming of age in an era where nearly everyone was coked up and banging ring rats of questionable legality will do that. I think it was when Brody got murdered that you kind of have to mentally separate things. Now certain things I still feel icky watching, like Benoit matches or Invader being pushed as a babyface post-murder in WWC. To me it's the wrestling equivalent of a Woody Allen movie. You can't really deny the artistic qualities involved, but it just feels wrong supporting something made by someone who's fucked up like that. It would be nice to distance yourself from all the scumbags out there producing entertainment, but the truth is to be able to do that 100% you damn near have to be Amish. The movie industry is full of people who make Vince McMahon look like a choir boy, and the recording industry was and still is built on the idea of screwing the artists as much as possible to gain all the money. It's very Matrix like in how once the knowledge is out there about how the sausage is made, it's very hard to go back to enjoying it as the same mindless entertainment it was before. "Ignorance is bliss", after all, and WWE's platitudes about putting smiles on faces comes off like trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Greatest ring announcer and also the one who came up with the name "Wrestlemania". You can probably count on one hand the people in wrestling that no one has a bad opinion of, and Howard was definitely one of them.

Lotta folks had that "well he was a nice guy around me, so he couldn't have done bad stuff" mentality. That's frequently a coping mechanism used to try to mentally deal with your friend/co worker/spouse being a monster and you never realizing it. It was also kind of surprising when they were talking about Buddy Rogers, they didn't mention his wife was friends with Jimmy's first wife (not the one on the doc) and they saw her get beat up so bad she was unrecognizable. That was one of the reasons Buddy cut ties with him, along with not wanting to get pulled over with Jimmy holding coke.

Was the cruiser tournament taped in advance? Otherwise it's pretty weird to have him still be in it after getting let go.

It's weird seeing Sugar Dunkerton on national TV.

I'm sure they'll make a big production of whatever cut they take, then make it back a hundredfold by selling some stock when it rebounds.

I would give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's trying to go the Hunter route to ingratiate himself to management, but goddamn does he say some galaxy brain level shit way too frequently for that to be the more likely route. I can only imagine the amount of strained eyeballs in the locker room from rolling them at this idiot.

"Won't someone think of the company" at a time when they just purged people during a pandemic is a line I thought even he wouldn't cross, but I suppose those McMahon boots taste mighty good.

You would think as long as companies have womens' matches there would be a spot for a veteran who can help the newbies.

Speaking of Japan, reps from pretty much every wrestling company met with the government today. I couldn't even begin to imagine US companies doing that without backstabbing each other before they even get in the door.

Will Ospreay mentioned to watch if any UK guys get cut, since the government there apparently has some sort of program paying 80% of people's wages if they lost their jobs now. It smacks of something WWE can use to basically unload the NXT UK payroll to the government until things change.