Dooley

"We've already got their money, brother."

Casio seems like he'd be a fun guy to have a beer with, which doesn't always translate to good podcast host.

Punk definitely got curiosity buys in his first fight, although he was on a pretty stacked card. Then....the curiosity was satisfied.

Feels a little harsh. Calling it "faking a heart attack" seems like it's a Fritz Von Erich deal. In real time, it came off as a stooge spot that lasted all of two seconds before an eye poke. It wasn't Fritz or even Flair on Nitro in 98. It's the natural evolution of the medium. Rasslers used to bitch to dirt sheets, then it was video shoots a la RF/KC, now it's podcasts. In the future, we will have an immersive VR experience of an old midcarder detailing how the office held them back.

Timeline seems a bit off there, but I get your point. Also, do check out the Vince tirade against the charges and Phil Mushnick on superstars if you haven't already. But it's a new face on the same old machine, if I understand it correctly.

So, is the consensus that Vince is just shifting positions to avoid the heat like the steroid trial?

Never liked him going back to the Greenwich blueblood days. Foley made him look like a million bucks in 97 and early 2000. Then had the single biggest overrated year in wrestling history that actually had people,arguing he was the reason for the crowds and not Rock. Parlayed that into being on TV every waking second of Raw giving boring promos and blah matches. Finally ran me off as a regular fan with the Katie Vick angle. Never watched regularly after that. Only the good die young.

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I used to be able to get classic wrestling from a certain xtreme place. The site doesn't appear to be working for me now. I had a kickass ratio too. Is it just me or is there a site problem?

Why put an almost 60 year old Terry Funk over Nash in 2000?

Crush's initial face music was great too. I remember playing Royal Rumble on the SNES and just letting that loop for a while.

Didn't Austin tell a story of how he sort of worked Bret into thinking that, because if Bret was the one holding the blade he would be the one who got any heat over it?

The Bret-Iwen angle was actually Bruce's idea, with Bruce casting himself in the Owen role. Bret eventually got Vince to change it to Owen because he knew Bruce would screw it up. Bruce may have been just planting the seeds for that angle here.

Would that have more to do with Minnesota being the AWA home base rather than a comment on Hogan's drawing power? WWF had a tough time cracking established "opposition " towns initially.

This may be the first thread on the internet I've ever encountered that suggested a celebrity isn't sharing *enough* on social media.

Really interesting stuff there from Herd. Sounds like he was in the JR/Johnny Ace position where he was implementing the calls from the top, but got blamed for everything wrestlers didn't like. Also interesting how most of the most outlandish stories/ideas attributed to Herd were BS. Did he specify what time he was negotiating with Savage?

I'd lend an ear to the Jim Herd piece.

Savage vs Steamboat from Toronto in Feb 87. WM3 was fantastic, but this was the angry stuff. my childhood self is still screaming at it.

Agreed. The HOF is so much better without fans.

The last thing he needs to do is spread himself even more thin. Most of his shows are on cruise control at this point. Bruce, I can forgive because of his schedule. The only one I still really enjoy is Bischoff because of his habit of going off on tangents about the minutiae of the TV business side of things.

Well, for Halloween Havoc that works right?

That line was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. It's awesome in that it still vexes me to this day.

I thought the Owen episode was a great way to end the season. It did a great job of filling in the story from Owen's wife and children's perspective rather than just a "wrestling" one. Martha seems very intelligent and centered, as do her children. She's taken a tragedy and tried to build something good from it. I admire her strength. Hopefully this will quiet the segment of fans who spew vitriol in her direction and try to speak on behalf of Owen's kids, but I doubt it. What caused the rift between Bret and Martha? I thought they were on good terms after the suit against WWF. My memory is fuzzy, but i seem to remember a story from around that time from either Martha or Bret talking about the rest of the Harts' behavior during that time and it was something along the lines of the family thinking about everything they were doing in terms of a wrestling angle. They could be a "heel" to Martha in the summer, and turn "babyface" again by christmas. This is another one of those situations where Vince's (and by extension the company's) "circle the wagons" attitude against any enemy either real or perceived drives one crazy. Jeez, even Nixon eventually said "mistakes were made". I too would like an answer as to why KCPD didn't immediately seal off the arena as a possible crime scene. Maybe like with the Snuka case, cops don't care because it's just rasslin'.

I think one of the issues with Conrad is that he's just spread himself too thin. Doing 5 podcasts while still running a successful mortgage business plus married life means some things are going to get squeezed for time. Bruce in particular has a very demanding schedule too so for STW it becomes a case of "ok, let's just get through this."

I actually enjoyed the Abrams episode much more than last week's Schultz episode. It was heavier on levity, but that was to be expected given the subject matter. It seemed like the overarching theme was this guy who basically came to the show with nothing was able to grift his way into a semi-serious promotion that had A-level talent, a deal with a major cable network and being able to run the MGM Grand based on nothing but charm and flashing a little initial cash. That's something. I don't know if it says more about the low barriers of entry to pro wrestling or how much charm Abrams could portray, but it's definitely something. In a business littered with small time con men, Herb at least had the audacity to go big

Each his own. I found Schultz to be as carny as carny gets. It was an episode where it felt like EVERYONE involved was working the producers. Here's the Morton Downey episode for anyone who hasn't had a migraine today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wqK_HD0rps