Cox

The problem is, do you think Vince would be willing to offer a cut of the WWE Channel to cable and satellite providers? He has battled with the industry in the past, once having pulled his PPVs off of DirecTV until they were willing to offer him a higher cut of profits. I don't get the feeling that Vince would play nice enough to offer a cut of the network to cable providers, and he would have to in order to get clearances on this (look at the NFL Network, which is still not on major cable systems in the Northeast).

Does Bryan Alvarez count? From this week's Figure Four Weekly... I was not aware that Wrestlemania was a Mixed Martial Arts event.

Is the difference in perceived quality between these two Rockers/Brain Busters matches REALLY worth discussion? I mean, it's a WWE compilation DVD, who cares? If anything, the two out of three falls match is probably slightly more memorable since it continued the "dissension in the Heenan Family" storyline that concluded at Wrestlemania when Andre turned babyface. But...I can't imagine that this first SNME match between the Rockers and the Brain Busters is so much better that it makes any sort of difference on the DVD on the whole. Nobody is going to say "Well shit, this DVD doesn't include the right Rockers/Brain Busters match, fuck this DVD." It's just a way to fill 7-10 minutes on a DVD set.

It's weird, because even as far back as a year and a half ago, Flair was the biggest jobber on Raw. I mean, he was teaming with Carlito going nowhere, and then the god awful feud with Carlito that just seemed to bury Flair further. I mean, it's arguable that for a few months, Ric Flair was the lowest guy on the Raw totem pole, and it wasn't even like they were building him for the retirement angle because this was before Austin had pitched it. The rehab for Flair was really a time period of about six months, from when they started the "Once you lose, you're fired!" storyline until Mania. Just goes to show what a good six month period can do for a guy.

From last week's classic WON: Ewwwwwwwwww.

Which is in turn just a set up for the continuation of the Angle/Jarrett feud.

I really get the feeling that Jim Ross is incredibly lost in the modern world. He seems to have the mentality of an 80 year old only in a 50 year old's body. I mean, even the tiniest of art house films are released on DVD. Movies with $5 budgets are released on DVD. Did he really think, considering the relatively smaller success that groups like RF Video had in the late 90's in releasing shoot interviews, that a behind-the-scenes look at the biggest wrestling company in the world wouldn't gather some sort of audience on home video or DVD? I mean that just seems implausibly unrealistic unless you are completely and hopelessly ignorant of modern society.

More from Alvarez:

Bix oughta get a kick out of this one...from Alvarez's write-up on the Gabe situation: Suddenly, so much of what was wrong about ROH makes total sense. Keep not believing in road agents, Gabe...

And as it turns out, it's going to be Adam Pearce anyway.

That probably has something to do with it. I mean, Meltzer would always talk about how Gabe saw what happened to ECW when they tried to get too big, but that was when ROH was still able to make a profit on DVD and live event sales. Dave has talked about how DVD sales have leveled off, and live attendance seems to be down (Edison did around 250 last night, Danbury didn't do well either on Friday, plus the canceled Florida shows) so I have to wonder if Cary was insistent on pushing forward to avoid losing money. Plus, like I said...business hasn't been strong of late and somebody has to take the blame. Either way, expect Gabe's entire E-Mail to Meltzer explaining the deal to get published word for word this week in the WON, with Meltzer talking him up as the Booker of the Year getting fired 11/12's through another sure Booker of the Year award (even though business has been in the shitter).

Foley broke his wrist on the WCCW scaffold too - it was in his book. Yeah, I'm not blaming the Powers of Pain or anybody else for balking at taking a scaffold bump, the whole idea of a scaffold match seems crazy since it's impossible to have a good one, and incredibly likely somebody gets hurt.

Well, most internet arguments about drawing are lame to begin with, but this one has the added benefit of not being true.

See, what I don't get from all of this is, how could a blind man know the difference between change for a $20 and change for any other bill anyway? I don't know if the texture of the bills is any different, but wouldn't a one, five, and ten all feel the same?

Among American candidates, I am somewhat surprised that Rey Misterio Jr isn't getting more support - to me, he is the only "slam dunk" on the ballot at this point. I mean, I'd support the MX or Murdoch getting voted in, but Misterio not getting votes despite so many positives for him astounds me.

Yikes. What's even crazier is that since the boys didn't get paid for TV, that means they were working as many as four times a night for as little as $25 (maybe more for the headliners).

It would have been interesting if they could have dropped the 90 minute live show, because from the looks of things, Jarrett was trying to set up a clear #3 promotion, and with the ESPN slot, they might have eventually had designs of challenging WCW for the #2 spot (since WCW was far from a sure thing in the early 90's). I wonder how history would have been different had they gone in that direction, as clearly the weekly territory was dead by this point, but USWA would continue to run Memphis weekly or close to it until they closed down.

It's DOI, they probably consider anything bigger than a backyard fed to be "prominent."

Big Show was trained by Larry Sharpe at the Monster Factory before going to the Power Plant, so I don't count him as a Power Plant guy. Jamie Noble was trained by Dean Malenko, not a Power Plant guy. Jimmy Yang was a Power Plant guy I forgot since he really wasn't cut from the Power Plant mold.

I don't see what's so bad about this. There may not be anything bad about this per se, but it is probably an excellent example of why, in all of the years the Power Plant existed, what with national television exposure to attract students and what have you, that the only star wrestler it churned out was Bill Goldberg, and I think the only wrestlers currently active on any sort of national basis are Chuck Palumbo and Mark Jindrak.

Nothing says "WCW" more than Villano IV almost dying because nobody believed he was hurt.

From today's classic Observer on F4W.com: Wait, so those matches actually took place? I thought it was just one of those things that IWCCW hyped forever on their TV but never actually happened.

Oh man Ron Wright is great, how can he say he's weak on interviews? He did the same gimmick in SMW, only in a wheelchair, and he needed to manage top guys in order to make money for an operation. It was the most politically incorrect thing ever - we were supposed to hate Ron Wright because he was crippled! I was disappointed when Dirty White Boy turned face in SMW, because it meant the end of the Ron Wright gimmick.

To be fair, he was also booked against the only WCW wrestler who WWF fans really liked, Kidman, who wrestled like a babyface even when he was supposed to be a heel.

Getting both F4W and the Observer online, and in a way in which the Observer isn't dated by the time it arrives in the mail, make this a really good deal. Throw in the WON archives and I'm sold. I was a lapsed subscriber who is giving this a try. Besides, I'm often ridiculously bored at work, so reading the WON will definitely help pass the day.