sek69

Wonder what the deal was with Harley Race randomly showing up on the first NWA episode of 1986 scouting Magnum TA and never coming back.

Mid South episodes were never on Classics on Demand as best I recall, and neither were the AWA on ESPN shows. The only AWA tv that made it before were studio shows from the 70s.

Just watched the December episode of Mid South and nearly spit my drink seeing the next match coming up would be Ted DiBase vs young up and comer Shawn Michaels.

They've been adding more NWA episodes too, I hope they finally figured it out.

Knowing these were taped at like 10am Saturday makes everyone wearing sunglasses (and Arn's tinted eyeglasses) while doing promos that much funnier in retrospect.

I wonder if there's anything to the theory that the New Day are basically ribbing the creative team by doing everything you're not supposed to do in WWE. They play to the crowd, make eye contact with the camera, frequently seem to be ad-libbing (ie: Kofi during their country music skit saying "this isn't my character, I really think country sucks"), and Big E still using the Preacher voice from the original horrible version of the gimmick.

So tonight's NXT was all about how "WWE Corporate" wants Eva Marie to be the Women's champ and stacked the deck in her match vs Bayley, only to have her beat the odds and win. It was amazing to see, it's as if they're trolling WWE pushing Roman.

Perhaps I'm in the bubble here, but I wonder if the NWA Classics service might have poked someone in WWE to realize there's an audience out there willing to pay for classic stuff. You'd have to figure just dumping the already converted stuff would attract older fans to sign up, and any sub you get is basically free money without having to buy more libraries or pay to produce more shows.

Ratings do matter in the sense that USA likes to brag that they're the #1 cable network and WWE ratings were a large part of that. If WWE's ratings sag to the point where USA loses their bragging point, WWE loses a lot of steam when it comes time to the next renewal time.

Flair showed up for an interview later in the show with a t-shirt saying "I do it with FLAIR" in a font not unlike Charlotte's current merch.

Main event of the 1985 episode is pre-Horsemen Flair and the Andersons vs Terry Taylor, Ron Garvin, and Pez Whatley. Great stuff.

Yes, which is why it was so mind boggling it wasn't on the network.

Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii...... That was my absolute favorite thing of the old VOD Classics, I still have the run they had there on DVD. From the relaunch after buying time back from WWF to right around the end of 1987. It was after the UWF buyout as Sting just started showing up when the service ended.

So it looks like standing pat with the same "champ is a toady for the Authority" story just earned them the lowest Raw ratings in 20 years. It's getting pretty amazing how completely paralyzed this company seems to be right now. It's like WWE is a turtle that someone flipped over and they are unable to get back up.

If he hasn't he should since they've done precisely jack shit with him. He must not have shook the right hands backstage since he went from getting hype videos to debut his character to becoming a jobber in record time.

I've noticed that NXT has hit some kind of hipster backlash where now it's cool to hate on Bayley and like Eva for purely contrarian reasons. Also NXT crowds are bad now because they have fun and chant things instead of sleeping the whole show like Raw crowds.

IMO if anything there's not enough outrage over a billion dollar company being so spineless as to not even take ownership of their tastelessness completely and having to throw an employee -excuse me, Independent Contractor- under the bus. That's the key to me, it's not even that shocking that pro wrestling would exploit death, but they half ass it like they half ass everything else.

It's almost charming how Dave expects outlets like ESPN to have any journalistic integrity in 2015, especially after they just cleaned house and shitcanned most of the people who would have done the kind of work he expects out of them.

WWE statement: Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooow. Implying she not only came up with the idea but "strongly advocated" for it is some next level bullshit.

Wow, someone on the WO board posted a blurry pic of what looks like AJ Styles....

He's there.

So in the "how can they possibly make this worse" department, WWE is going to release a press statement on the Reid issue by basically saying they're sorry but it was Charlotte's idea. As in her own father didn't feel she had enough tenure to refuse storylines, but somehow she can suggest something tasteless and no one in WWE had any power to stop it. As a wise man once said, give me a break.

...or maybe they don't like her because she sucks at wrestling and at least one point WWE was planning on fast tracking her to be the top woman in NXT. But yeah I'm sure it's because the fans are dumb marks.

The only heel I would add to the list would be Undertaker in the Austin era, and he was a clear second fiddle to the Corporation then (until they merged, which is a whole other kettle of shit).

The Miz and R-Truth were warm bodies put across the ring from Cena and the Rock, hardly top level heels.