I wouldn't be surprised if Dave hadn't seen an Arn match since he retired.

From the Grizzly Smith Obit:

 

Bill Watts, in his book “The Cowboy and the Cross,” noted that George Culkin, McGuirk’s long-time promoter in Mississippi, went on his own and brought in Smith as booker after Watts and Smith had a falling out over money. The territory wasn’t drawing and Smith was broke. Watts would send Jack Curtis Jr., one of his promoters, to Smith each week and give him $400 in cash to stay as booker for the rival promotion, figuring it would keep Smith working there and his booking was so bad at the time it would bleed Culkin dry. After the promotion folded and Culkin, who was politically connected locally, ended up as Watts’ promoter in Mississippi, Smith was hired as a road agent by Watts. Besides carrying out Watts’ orders at the show, because he was like a father figure on the road to so many of the wrestlers who would confide in him, his job was to report back to Watts on all the gossip among the talent so Watts would always know what was going on.

I've always fucking LOVED that story and I don't care if it's bullshit. Bill Watts as some "Micheal Corleone Of Wrestling" is just awesome shit.

That's how the War of Georgia ended in 1974, Jim Barnett put Ann Gunkel's booker Tom Renesto on his payroll to intentionally book All-South into death and he did it exceedingly well.

Stories like that are the reason that the rumors of Vince McMahon having Russo or Nash book WCW into the ground never seemed that insane to me, even if I didn't think there was anything to those rumors.

Is it really a suprise that Dave Meltzer thinks AJ Styles is a better worker than Arn Anderson? Dave loves him some fast paced matches with a bunch of high spots

Are you suggesting that Dave is watching Arn with 2010 eyes?

Nah, Dave would probably rate early 80s Tiger Mask above Arn too!

Werdum (14-4-1) was knocked down in an opening flurry, but had no idea he had even taken a punch or of anything in the fight prior to locking on a combination triangle and armbar leading to what will likely go down as the most famous tap in the history of the sport.

Sorry Dave, but if a tapout didn't take place on a UFC event, it will not go down as the most famous tapout in the history of MMA.

Dave living in his own world again where WWE & UFC actually care this much about each other.

 

There were two vignettes during the show with Alberto Del Rios. If they ever make him world champion, they’d better not screw with UFC or else we’ll be seeing that clip of Cro Cop kicking his head off his shoulders more times than that Petey Williams kicking Mark Coleman’s brains into jelly when Coleman was in Pride.

Yeah, because WWE showed all those clips of Lesnar losing when he won the UFC heavyweight championship.

 

I just got the irony of having a man whose old ring name means 'two faces' play a patronizing 'honest' man. I bet they came up with the gimmick by reading his Wiki page.

I think the odds of Alberto Del Rios ever becoming world champion are so slim it's not worth bringing that possibility up. Anyway, I thought WWE had already screwed with UFC, but I suppose we're just meant to forget that Dave said anything about that and it never happened. The Vince Dana relationship and Dave's reporting of it is weird. I think both want to officially pretend that they actually don't care much about each other with Dave having to pretend too, but their actions at times suggest otherwise.

Bryan Alvarez getting so angry on the latest Observer radio show about MMA fans getting violently angry about rankings on message board forums is amusing.

Bryan Alvarez getting so angry on the latest Observer radio show about MMA fans getting violently angry about rankings on message board forums is amusing.

God damn that was the most painful WOL I ever listed to.

 

20 minutes of examining every aspect of Brock vs. Carwin when they spent all week telling us MMA is just a fluke and wins and loses don't matter.

 

Then 10 minutes of crying about what people say on MMA message boards.

 

Followed up with more whining about how MMA rankings are pointless yet NXT rankings are worth blowing a gasket over. I guess a TV-PG children's show's rankings are important but not the rankings of a supposed real sport.

I love how they don't think that there should be rankings in MMA because wins and losses don't matter but your value of selling tickets should mean who gets a shot. If that was the case guys like Fedor would've never got a shot.

Bryan Alvarez getting so angry on the latest Observer radio show about MMA fans getting violently angry about rankings on message board forums is amusing.

Yeah that was awesome. He keep being adamant about how much he doesn't care about it (and he shouldn't), yet seemed SO seething and ANGRY and kept the conversation going.

 

For fucks sake... they're getting all Captain Queeg over the freeking rankings/ratings. This from guys who've been saying Wrestling X is the best in the world for the past few decades, or a certain match is worth Y snowflakes. Before either of them toss out that their own rankings are subjective:

 

A. No Shit

 

B. Don't forget how defensive, argumentative and dismissive you get everytime someone questions your ratings of a wrestler's quality of work or the snowflakes you hand out

 

C. You published a book on the Top 100 Wrestlers of All-Time and got more than a bit annoyed when folks questioned the rankings in it (despite being invited in the book to "Let the debates begin).

 

D. All of the fucking above

 

Looks... folks rank and rate shit. It's what we do. It's what Dave has done since the *first* issue of the WON ever. Ranking and rating shit makes for #1 bestsellers:

 

NY TIMES BEST SELLERS: NONFICTION: Sunday, November 15th 2009

That puppy is 700 pages that mix rankings/ratings with loads of history. Christ... did Flair ever go #1 on that list, let alone with 700 pages of material.

 

Anyway, they need to get over their rolling the ballbearings on Rankings/Ratings. It's what we all do. It's what they do in their professional lives.

 

John

You mean like Dave would rank wrestlers in the Observer every season.

He ranks stuff in any WON where there are star ratings handed out.

 

John

Yeah but back in the day his individual rankings of wrestlers would actually get picked up major newspapers as the official rankings of pro wrestling.

Damn... I forgot about that.

 

John

Someone at another board pointed out that for Yahoo's UFC 116 countdown show, he showed up dressed like THIS:

 

 

Yes, he owns what appears to be a shiny corduroy pimp suit. And he wore it to work.

For as much time as he's spent around wrestlers, you should be grateful he isn't sporting a fanny pack.

 

"Dave, may I just say. You look FABULOUS."

 

 

Seriously, that suit rules. If I'm doing a UFC countdown show, I'd want my incredibly informed, yet somehat eccentric analysist to dress like that.

That suit does make me smile, I must admit.

That suit is fantastic. Dave is styling and profiling.

I always pictured Dave as just this quiet unassuming guy in jeans and a T-shirt, not wearing an awesome flashy suit like that.

 

The fact that it's a double-breasted jacket buttoned up all the way makes it even more awesome.