El-P

Hell, judging by ECW's product, Heyman was totally burned out of ideas by late 98. An how much did Tod Gordon actively contributed to the creative aspect of the shows back then ? I've heard interviews in which he's said to be 50% responsible of ECW's booking. I know it's an accepted fact (myth) that Heyman is a creative genius, but doesn't Gordon deserve some credit for ECW being as ground-breaking as it was ? After he left, quite frankly, it didn't take long for Heyman to be drained out of good ideas. By the time they got on TNN, the booking was awful. Nah, Tod never did anything with ECW before Heyman took over and never did anything interesting with his indies after. ECW's creative definitely wasn't as good by 99, but you also have to factor in the talent losses. It's a lot easier to be a great booker when you've got Mick Foley as your lead heel cutting brilliant promos every week, rather than when you're trying to somehow coax Justin Credible into being a compelling figure. And it's not like he pushed Credible at the expense of better guys, the roster was just drained. It's too bad ECW didn't last until the indy talent explosion a few years later. I dunno, I heard Sandman giving credit to Gordon for putting his character together, with the cigarette and beer drinking entrance for instance. Before Heyman I though Eddie Gilbert was doing all the booking. And I never saw the "creative genius" in Eddie Gilbert. I never saw much of anything in Eddie Gilbert actually, despite years of pimping. In 1999 ECW still had Jerry Lynn, RVD, Sabu, Credible (who was much better than he ever was given credit for), Tajiri (who was great), Super Crazy, Corino, FBI, Dreamer, Lance Storm, Candido for a while, Raven coming back... In 1995 you also had shit workers in the roster, 911, Public Enemy, Gangstas which were FF material for me every time. No, to me the booking was the killer, it was unimaginatve, sometime derivative of what was done in WWF/WCW at the time. There was enough talent to to something really interesting.

Hell, judging by ECW's product, Heyman was totally burned out of ideas by late 98. An how much did Tod Gordon actively contributed to the creative aspect of the shows back then ? I've heard interviews in which he's said to be 50% responsible of ECW's booking. I know it's an accepted fact (myth) that Heyman is a creative genius, but doesn't Gordon deserve some credit for ECW being as ground-breaking as it was ? After he left, quite frankly, it didn't take long for Heyman to be drained out of good ideas. By the time they got on TNN, the booking was awful.

Yep. Some amazing stories. And Bruno seems to be the opposite of "bitter" indeed (I got the same impression from his shoot interview with Cornette). One of the most interesting wrestling people I've heard.

An alternative reality ? Ok, this makes it even worse.

Can't help to think about Cornette's hilarious impersonation of Dunn. He's right on the money. Also, I never saw that NXT program before. So, that is what WWE is about in 2010 ? Scary.

That made me laugh a bit.

Yep. I listened to it. The thing I never knew is that Eddie was such a big star in his days. It's a huge news in Montreal apparently.

Controvery creates cash. Or not. Sometime somewhere, Mr. Carter will pull the plug, I don't see why this thing is still going on.

I want to hear this !

Sad day yesterday, as Edouart Carpentier passed away at 84 years old. He was basically the reason why I became a wrestling fan. His enthousiasm announcing the matches is what sold me on wrestling. I still have tons of memories of him and his little catchphrases and idiosyncrasies. He was fun as hell. Since the youtube era I was able to watch a few of his matches, and he seemed very inovative for his days. Anyway, without you, I wouldn't be there talking about wrestling like I've been for the last 10 years, and I wouldn't have been a wrestling fan for the last 20 years. So long Eddy...

Jeez, that "Kids of all ages Stand Up for WWE" is... I have no word, really. They have no shame. And they don't realize they're being really fucking ridiculous. And the comments on the video are mostly... not kind to this shit. I don't care at all about the WWE and its product, but I admit this whole debacle entertains me quite a bit.

I always got a kick out of Andre being announced as "Grenoble, in the French Alps", and I thought this might sound very exotic and mysterious to american hears. Usually foreigners are happy to get a city at all, in case of Japanese it's usually Tokyo even though they don't come from there. So to have the name of a middle-size city like Grenoble being announced at the MSG was kinda cool to me.

It doesn't? *looking through the window* No, it doesn't. Sorry... It's still a beautiful city, especially if you only visit it, but living there for the last ten years, my take on Paris is that it's dirty, old, people are downright rude and it's expensive as dirt (not quite as London, but still). I wish I would learn german to leave this place and live in Berlin, which is the coolest city in the world. Still, sometime I ride a bike at night and I realize that yes, it's a beautiful city and I understand its aura. I realize I'm lucky to be in a place so many people wish they would be. Still, I would be glad to move at this point. End of the grumpy french guy minute.

Europe seems like a strange concept indeed. Remember Frenchy Martin ? The monocle, the beret, the baguette. Yeah, because we french people look like some 19th century bourgeois. The killer was that of course, Marin was from Quebec, and Quebecers are a lot closer to US people than French people anyway. La Resistance, same deal. I guess the thinking is : they speak french, they are french. Well, people in Africa speak french too... They probably think Paris looks like what they see in "Amelie".

Really ? That never struck me at all. Plus his name was Paul E. Dangerously, which isn't exactly Jew sounding. Well, of course, the category that is stereotyped the worst is women though. Especially since the Attitude Era.

Interesting indeed. Although there haven't been much, if any at all, stereotype heel jewish gimmick that I remember of. Thank God for that too, I can't imagine how offensive that would have been. Worst offenders are mostly black, gay and whoever with a middle east origin (be it arab or not, wrestling doesn't make a difference anyway) stereotype. Latino's have had their share, but it was not as bad usually, and most of the Luchadores working in the US are just regarded as this special kind of masked wrestlers instead of latino stereotype, which helped. The only jew wrestler that I remember making a statement about it was Horowitz, with the music theme and the David star on his trunks, but even that was all there was about it.

Anybody thinks the RAW following the election will be a riot ?

Estimated at $50M by the time its done. John Amazing waste of money. WCW level waste.

Ok, how much money has been sunk into this Linda-for-governor project already ?

I always liked oddball outdoor settings, so I used to enjoy Road Wild quite a bit. It had a sleasy charm to it. Harlem Heat beating the Steiners, Benoit and Malenko working a NJ junior 30 minute draw, all that was bound to work in front of *that* crowd... Not to mention Jay Leno... How much money did they lose every year with this ?

Man, Terry Runnels hasn't aged gracefully either...

Probably the most significant worst booked big card ever. It was a can't miss big show, it was easy as hell to book this and make it a grand event. Sting thrashing Hogan and winning cleanly, without Bret being involved. Giant beating Nash clean. Larry Z. beating Bischoff's ass. The undercard nWo guys could have some wins, and you leave the people happy, the grand days of the nWo are behind, new chapter. Of course, it was a reset to status quo. What was worse is that basically one year later, reset again. Two years in a row they fucked it up when it was so easy to not fuck it up. Goldberg beating Nash clean despite Hall's intervention. How hard was that ?

Of course, but we know how Nash actually does things when he gets his way : heel Nash gets its heat, build the heat, the babyface really never gets back at him, and worse of all, Nash acts cool to get babyface reactions from the fans, hence killing the babyface for good. I love how Kevin Nash of all people is explaining how to draw money...

Jeez, Nash is stupid.

It's still pretty disgusting when you think about it. Wrestling fans have accepted it as a normal thing, but I think that aspect of the work, to a non-wrestling fan, would pass for very primitive and crass. Why not use fake blood to give the illusion of bleeding with a little color ? Not saying that I'm shocked about it, but when you look objectively, it's pretty dirty to do that to yourself. Porn is obviously much more sleazier though.