sek69

I always seemed to gravitate to the heels, Randy Savage and the Horsemen were the coolest guys in the universe to 1987 me. It didn't help matters that the WWF kept pushing Hulk as a moral babyface with the "prayers and vitamins" stuff, and I kept thinking what a dick he was to his friends all the time.

So it would seem to be a tip-off that the Network numbers are going to come in low if they already are planning to cutting 10% to please Wall Street, would it not?

They would add episodes of Saturday Night and were starting Worldwide and I think Mania (one of the WWF 90s B-shows) a few months before the service was shut down. They would also be doing themes every month and once in a while there'd be never before seen matches in those too.

So my wife recorded the WWE/Scooby Doo movie off of Cartoon Network and for some reason it's retitled Scooby Doo! The WWE Mystery! and all references to Wrestlemania are changed to "Superstar Mania".

The Russo fiasco wasn't the main reason but it was definitely a factor. Felt that having Bellator go from weekly to monthly shows probably caused a change in thinking TNA was necessary to help promote them every week. Also that there's probably only a handful of people who would have a chance to get spots in ROH or in Japan.

So Dave mentioned there were 3 big stories coming out, one was the WWE Network numbers, we now know the second was TNA getting dropped by Spike, what would #3 be? Sting officially signing? Gina going to UFC?

That has to be a record of some sorts, has one person ever killed two different major promotions? For all the "LOLTNA" stuff, they were a nationally televised promotion.

I've been getting that impression for a while, given the push for it would barely be considered half-ass until the last week or so. The YouTube stuff especially makes no sense, since the biggest potential market would be lapsed fans from the Attitude Era. Right now none of that stuff is on the network (other than PPVs), and if you want to see the TV that led up to what they do have you have to go to YouTube to see it.

It seems the plan is to add a lot of stuff in August/September when renewals come up. Bryan made a good point on one of his shows where if WWE had content that appealed to people other than PPVs on a monthly basis they wouldn't have to panic when renew time comes up every six months.

Agreed, considering Vince doesn't like to push guys he doesn't think could win fights for real.

I'm imagining Vince going on in his 80s announcer voice about how MANLY Bryan is for doing this while Hunter kicks rocks while muttering "so what, I would have caught BOTH robbers". In fact, he should say that in his next troll promo on Raw.

Say what you will about TNA, but EC3's theme has been an earworm in my head all day today.

Neither did Krusher Krushchev, the gimmick was Uncle Ivan turned a good Minnesota boy into an evil commie.

Someone asked the question in the WO mailbag to Dave if Vince really expected such an obnoxious character to get over as a face, and apparently he did since Vince loves Elvis and thought everyone would cheer for the guy. Speaking of 80s WWF fans rebelling, the story on Demolition is Randy Colley got replaced as Smash because people recognized him as a former Moondog, but somehow no one noticed Smash 2.0 was Krusher Krushchev with hair?

I don't think Neville is bad at all, but I can just see Kevin Dunn savaging him when he gets called up because of his look.

I remember the Road Warriors being acknowledged as NWA International Champs on Saturday Night TBS shows in 1987, I believe they even had the belts with them. I recall being surprised a Japanese title would be recognized on US TV (I wasn't quite smartened up to how the NWA was world wide in those days).

...and really, how surprising is it given his history that we're saying that about a company still being run by Vince?

I tend to agree with others here that regardless the logistics of WWE turning Cena, I just don't see the company as its being run now having the testicular fortitude to make lasting changes. They're too tied in to toy sponsorships and fear of stockholders bailing to do anything that's going to rock the boat too hard.

My wife is dyslexic, and she has the habit (especially when tired) to get the words in her sentences backwards when talking. Over the years, my brain's kind of adapted and I just hear the words in the correct order no matter if that's how she said them or not. Reading the long Observer pieces gives me the same effect.

Yeah but they also act like having established top acts is a limited resource. It's not like they'd have to start jobbing out Cena if they decided to push Cesaro. Also the idea that they can beat the US and IC champions non stop and it won't matter to the fans because they have belts to keep them over. The IC belt hasn't meant a thing since Rock and Austin traded it, and the WWE version of the US title has always been a joke. The last time you could argue it had any meaning was during Cena's initial push, and even then that was because he incorporated it into his gimmick with the spinner deal.

I'm puzzled at WWE's apparent belief there can only be so many pushed guys at a time. Why should they keep guys like Cesaro and Shamus on ice in case shit happens with their established top guys? It would seem the more established stars they have the better it would be for business. I guess that doesn't fit with the "Brand uber alles" philosophy they have to keep guys from getting too successful and leaving.

I'm not sure how much can be attributed to sour grapes, but I seem to recall a couple of ex WWE guys inferring or straight out saying Cena had a hand in their depush/dismissals. Seems kind of odd he would wield his backstage power on random midcarders and not when his girlfriend got shoot kicked in the face on Raw that one time or any of the instances where they script him to do cringe inducing bad comedy promos.

I was referring to the attitude about not wanting how to learn to work their style. It comes off like he thinks he's too good to have to spend time in NXT when better wrestlers than him grin and bear it knowing it's the price you pay to get WWE paychecks. I'm sure they didn't drop that on him once he got in the door, it's not a secret they want guys to spend some time there before hitting the main roster.

That seems to happen when he takes significant time off, only for it to slowly creep back on once he returns. It is amazing though how well he's held up being a giant in the business considering he's a year older than Khali and has spent a large portion of his career being much heavier.

Was there any legit heat between those two? There were times when they were doing commentary together where it seemed that JR was getting pissed to the point I thought they were about to get into a fist fight on live TV.