Robert S

Vince will never run a company that does not belong to him. If he sell, he is gone. Probably he will waste his money doing something like XFL run number 3 (this time fully financed by him). Or he'll try to convert as much money possible to coke and snort his children poor.

Is it a given that Roman does not not leave Mania as (double) champ? The only reason I see that he *should* drop the belt is that I don't see anyone who would be ready to be THE guy in a year, who would not be overshadowed by Roman (in a Warrior-Hogan 1990 way).

I would not be so sure. Any buyer would want to keep some of the wrestling people that are already in power, at least for the beginning. Or would you expect Jim Herd 2.0? Probably the sooner the sale happens the better for Uncle Trip (before he gets demoted to watchman of Titan Tower).

Like Cena refused to apologize for calling Taiwan a country?

All this reminds me that I finally have to watch the second (and third) season of Succession so that I know what the best mapping between Stephanie, Shane and HHH on the one side and Kendall, Roman, Shiv and Connor on the other side is.

Together.

Feeling bad for quoting an 8-year-old post, but I would almost tend to believe that because the spot looked so weird that the only other explanation would be that Vader had no idea how to do a senton (when he was jumping off he was even leaning a bit forward which I think you do if you try to gather momentum for a SSP). Anyway, this was a weird-ass show. In certain aspects I would even call it a success. They had a nice crowd size-wise (Wikipedia says 9.500 which sounds about right, I remember WCW claiming some insane number like 25.000), the crowd shots could have played great with sponsors (most people seemed to be in the 18 to 34 demographic). On the other hand, the product they presented was clearly not the right one for the crowd. They lost more and more interest as the show went along. Also, they not necessarily were into the presented faces, e.g. Paul Orndorff was the crowd-favorite in his match against the Renegade. Not sure if this was due people remembering Orndorff from 80ies WWF or if they just realized how much the Renegade sucked. In a way it was a 95 WCW card in front of a 97 WCW crowd. It would be interesting to know how much this show played into WCW going to Club La Vela for spring break in 97, 98, 99 and 01.

Let me put it this way: I would not answer my phone for the next couple of weeks if I were Karl Anderson or Luke Gallows.

All the coke he had to be doing in the last five decades probably did not help either.

A top rope Falcon Arrow to the edge of the ring apron is a pretty big no-no for me. That spot looked dangerous as fuck, no idea how, or rather if, you can do this spot safely.

He might be the best hot tag as well.

And as I am not able to edit my post above, here an original Don West baseball card shill:

I always thought that Federer was universally liked. Maybe the writer of that article is Serbian?

Are agents and producers independent contractors as well? I thought they fall in the "office" category, i.e. are "real" employees.

Looking at the detailed results, it's basically down to one voter group that Rocca & Perez did not get in this time. Among retired professionals, they were the top vote, among historians number two (behind the HDA), the reporters (which would have been my suspect for "messing up" the historical candidates category) still had them at number 7 but among active wrestlers, the are not even among the top 31.

I agree that with 80ies candidates slowly being moved to the "historical era" category, you screw up the whole category. I mean I personally have some feeling about a quarter or so of the candidates in that category w.r.t. thumbs up or down and I am by no means a wrestling historian. (the distribution of candidates seems arbitrary anyway, why are the Von Erichs, Tully & Arn, JYD and Slaughter modern performers while the Bulldogs, the Hart Foundation and the (Midnight) Rockers are historical candidates?) And I think it's time for my yearly rant about the shit show that is the "rest of the world" category. I doubt that there are more than ten people in that voter group who are qualified to judge candidates from Australia, UK, France, Austria, Spain ... at the same time. I suppose most of the voters are voting mainly on Brits (going by the fact that the only candidates in that group who traditionally do well are Brits).

It was even a stretch in 97 if I think about The Jackyl. Just having long hair does not make someone handsome, even by wrestling standards.

Pelé played in the US. George Best played in the US. Matthäus played in the US. Beckham played in the US. I am sure if you spent just a minute googling you would find a bunch of former football greats who played a season or two in the US in the twilight of their careers.

It would have been even better if Cole mentioned Great American Bash 89 instead of WrestleWar 92. At the 89 Bash, Paul E. managed the SST for the War Games match.

I thought I understood pro wrestling but the match layout of the main event was weird. I mean I get the storyline they want to tell, but the "faces win the cointoss, the heels have to fight from underneath the entire time but once there are enough people in the ring easily have the upper hand" booking made the faces look like the biggest jabronies. Sure, sometimes you have to sacrifice people but at least switch the women's and men's War Games matches if the men's version is just one big angle. Though the women's match also had its problems (like multiple women spending half of the period when their partner were getting beat up throwing stuff into the ring instead of helping them). I am also so beyond table spots in pro wrestling. More so if the crowd chants "we want tables" and you end up with the heels getting the tables into the ring. I did not watch Styles vs. Balor or Rollins vs. Lashley vs. Theory and Rousey vs. Shotzi was a mess full of blown spots.

I think the guy is called "Shunsuke". But of course the most fitting reference here would be Daniel Van Buyten, retired player from Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV, son of wrestling legend Franz Van Buyten.

Now Eddie Gilbert as Abdullah the Butcher...

I was more thinking further back, Africa, "Indochine" and the middle east (Syria, Lebanon) that have a HUGE effect on lots of conflicts or problem areas around in the world in the last let's say 70 years. But obviously many western countries make a lot of money from weapon exports (with the US contributing to about half of ALL arms exports - not surprising considering that 7 of the 11 biggest weapon manufacturers are located in the US).

Don't underestimate French colonialism, their effects on today's world are at least on par with what the Brits did.