Sean Liska

Last year's Mania was way up from the previous year just based on the idea that Rock was going to be doing a run-in, so it's not crazy to think a match with Cena will mean a lot. Another thing to remember is that Rock's schedule is devoted to Mania for the next 5 weeks. He's advertised for almost every RAW, and I would assume he's going to be able to do a lot of press appearances for them and hopefully get the word out to the very casual fans that don't watch every week.

Yeah, apparently Vince broke down into tears in mid-ring last summer because he was devastated over losing his RAW GM powers or something.

It's an interesting story with HHH being conflicted about whether he's the corporate guy now or whether he's still the ruthless in-ring guy. I also liked Shawn questioning whether the bluster was all a front due to him being afraid of Taker. There's a lot to dig into over the next few weeks. HBK is advertised for several RAWs so he's really going to be involved, maybe he'll end up being the ref this time.

Dave keeps dropping hints at the Observer board, including saying that Spike likes to be owners and not renters, implying that they're going to somehow own whatever wrestling promotion is airing on their TV in the fall.

That's how things were back then. The NWA was the same. AJPW was brutal. That's why I get annoyed when people complain about RAW not being 2 hours of 15-minute matches with clean finishes like "the old days", when those days never existed.

It's just a way to keep the issue on people's minds before they go to the hard-sell after Elimination Chamber. It's not the primary method of hype.

Rock is scheduled to appear in-person at 4 RAWs heading into Mania, so it will be interesting to see how they build the match. The hard sell hasn't started yet.

How come Dave doesn't have a personal Twitter handle? I have to think one of the main reasons he doesn't is because he doesn't want to expose any of the boys tweeting him in public which could bring them heat from the office and possibly ruin a good source for the Observer . That said Dave has never really been on the forefront of technology it seems and maybe I'm totally bit off-base on my theory why he doesn't do Twitter. He's said that he would be on it if he had more time.

I would say he was a damn good worker in the 80s. That wasn't a view that I would have held a few years ago, but I've watched a bunch of old stuff and feel that way now. I watched the entire 1982 NJPW TV season a while back, and a lot of the smartest, most heated, and most well-structured matches on it were Hogan matches. I also watched a lot of 1980s WWF house shows. While the undercards are mostly as terrible as advertised, Hogan would usually come out and save the show with fun, satisfying main events. I don't know that Savage had a better opponent except for Steamboat. The Mania carry-jobs with Andre and Warrior were fantastic too.

Again, with Punk and Danielson as the champs, how rigid can they be about body types? I do agree that the over-scripted feel of the show is a problem. I think it goes back to Vince being a control freak. The Attitude era was unique in that way for him, because he's always been a perfectionist. The old SNME shows were way scripted and produced.

He's talking about Japanese entertainment doing big-league business over here. Anime isn't exactly Pixar. Video games are probably the best counterpoint.

Cena and Edge faced each other in the opener of a draft show when they were champs.

He's almost 70 and has Punk and Danielson as his champs. He's doing a better job staying in touch than many promoters before him.

The funny thing is I'm sure that punching JBL elevated Joey in Vince's eyes.

We still don't really know how Rock went from saying last January that he would never wrestle again, to committing to another match by April. I don't know how much of that was Vince talking him into it.

He also doesn't get credit for what he pulled off with Mania last year. WWE got over a million people to order the PPV based on some vague idea of Cena and Rock having a physical confrontation. He's going to get two huge Mania buyrates out of one feud. It's really smart stuff.

Not that I don't think Vince is a genius but I always take examples like those as proof that the ppl in charge of other companies were just really dumb more so then Vince was really smart. WWE likes to spin the tale that they crushed all their competition to reign supreme but really they were just lucky the other groups imploded from within due to incompetence. My point is that there is no such things as a base audience that will always watch. Wrestling died in many territories before national promotions revived the areas. WCW had a huge audience and they all stopped watching. People always under-sell WWE's accomplishments by saying that they have a big captive audience that will watch no matter what based on old accomplishments, but there is no such thing. So when they do well, they deserve credit. Having small declines over the course of several years isn't that big of an indictment. Business could completely collapse at any time if they put on a show that people don't want to watch, and they've avoided that for a long time.

Why not? I mean, if you want to judge it purely as a popularity contest then yeah ofcourse WWE crushes Chikara but really WWE wins that comparison by default. They have a built in mega audiance of which a large portion is pretty loyal and constantly watches no matter what but WWE hasn't really grown this year in any positive way. This under-sells how difficult it is to maintain an audience. WCW had a huge built-in audience in the late 90's and they lost almost all of them because they put on a product that people didn't want to see. Same with 80's JCP, modern CMLL, early 2000's New Japan, etc. The fact that WWE can put on something as big as Mania should give Vince an easy edge.

Yeah, it's not a big deal. The intrigue is whether Lauranitis is going to be pissed enough to screw over Punk despite the job review hanging over his head for the next day. They tried to end the go-home show with a big segment to give them momentum. Maybe they could have approached it differently, but seriously, settle down. It reminds me of everyone going nuts because Cena and Rock touched before Mania, and they did OK.

What about Spike wanting to use pro wrestling to help their investment in Bellator?

It certainly sounds like TNA isn't safe, but I don't know what Spike would replace them with outside of starting their own company.

Cryptic Dave.

Dave posted this in a thread about TNA's future on Spike. "Spike wants to keep pro wrestling. They like the tie-in for Bellator which they own. Aside from that, things could get very interesting in the fall."

Austin should get some "Best Interview" votes based on his Tough Enough elimination sessions.

Didn't he used to cover Cowboys games?