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Mark Henry as Rick Ross

Well, if he's going to be like that about it, I wouldn't buy it for him.

Welp.

This is the greatest video ever. http://youtu.be/VarB6DFGCjU

SHUT THE INTERNET DOWN. This wins. Also was that Halloween Havoc 2000 ad supposed to be in reference to something in particular? That was when my interest in WCW was at an all time low but I cant remember anything futuristic or historic or whatever about that show.

Llub Eht YnnhoJ doesn't spell "killer," you fucking liar!

God the whole THEY FINALLY WON A WORLD SERIES AT HOME!!!! shit really needs to go away. Because those other two championships meant shit

Big draws don't generally suddenly happen in the wrestling industry. They're built up. The complaint is that WWE is doing a pisspoor job at building them. Punk's and Bryan's momentum were both killed by Triple H inserting himself into the program.

Yes. I wrote an article about NASCAR a few months ago. Fox and TNT inked their deal w/NASCAR when the sport was hyped as becoming the new American pastime. That didn't happen. At all. NASCAR's live attendance has completely tanked to the point where they don't announce figures anymore. (The excuse is that a lot of publicly traded companies own NASCAR venues and publishing those is advanced guidance, which is a hilariously lame excuse.) The reason for this is twofold: 1) When it was trying to become the new pastime, they put in stadiums in a lot of cities that didn't have any history of racing -- Chicago, Phoenix, LA, etc. They had some success at first but then the fad ended. In order to stage those races, though, they had to take events from elsewhere. So a lot of their small tracks in their southern core were dismissed. And that leads to 2) Their core fanbase is the white, rural/southern, working-class. This demographic was largely hurt the worst in The Great Recession -- all those Sun Belt construction jobs vanished and haven't come back. North Carolina is the essential capital of NASCAR and their blue collar job base shrunk by a giant amount and hasn't returned.Their TV ratings have completely tanked since they signed their first big deal in 2005. They're down almost 50%, in fact. But they still just signed a crazy deal despite the absolutely terrible ratings and demographics hardships. And they still inked a billion dollar contract.The answer is because of programming. Fox and NBC have new sports ventures and need live programming. The WWE is a different venture in that it can place its shows on sports networks AND strictly entertainment networks. NASCAR had pretty much four competitors for its product -- and two of them, Turner and ESPN, were already soured on them -- and drew a 10-year deal. The WWE has more options for broadcasting, is live, and has a decades long history of being one of the most-watched cable TV programs. Aside from football on ESPN, Raw usually is the most watched cable show of the week. That's an historic track record of ratings that any advertiser would want. Even if the ratings aren't what they were in the 90s (or even down from a few years ago), it doesn't matter. They're usually number one every week and they can appear on either USA/Spike/NBC Sports/Fox Sports/etc. without anyone blinking an eye. The WWE is the only national game in town for wrestling. It's an internationally known brand. It has changed its marketing and programming to avoid controversy. It broadcasts live and has a dedicated that has followed the product for decades. The fanbase is nationwide and not dependent upon one region. And it's a product that's built-in to have its audience "grow up" with the product -- like us, you get hooked as a kid and stay with it for years. The production values of the company are amazing. They're going to sign a ridiculously huge deal. It's a great television product.

CURSE YOU PERRY THE PELICAN!

"The celebrity buyer of TNA you ask? That's right you guessed it, Frank Stallone."

Well, I wouldn't call myself a celebrity or anything, but it's true that I found some change in my couch and I hope you guys are ready for missile dropkicks and a heavy dose of Sid every Thursday night!

... I'd hit that.

You know, if I was a billionaire, I'd buy the thing and give the blasted thing to EN090 there for being the damndest TNA fan there is.

I can't wait for TNA to be bought and they acknowledge it on-air. What this company needs is a new authority figure angle. That'll catapult them into the big time.

Sure, but you're the idiot that thinks Captain America was boring, so we all safely ignore your opinion on super hero movies.

Welp, here's one last Hallween treat for ya'll...hopefully everyone knows who this Jack-O-Lantern is...

Had my second child today. It's a boy! Little Landry and momma are doing great.

This should be Henry's new gimmick. Rolls to the ring in a maybach.

Phil literally just wrote that he was in the Schindler's List camp.

Ryback with a first-round shutout against Davey Richards.

It's all speculation. Only person who said it could be FOX is a guy in this thread. If it was Fox it would be primarily tv driven, but if they could do live dates that make money they would do it. And if someone semi-competent was in charge of booking dates and promoting them they could make money. TNA is so weird when it comes to house shows. They run in places like Miss, Louisiana and Texas often and draw shit crowds, yet still book shows there. Maybe because talent could drive and didn't have to be flown in, I don't know. They've always drawn better in places like NY/NJ, Philly area and Chicago. I'm sure the reason they didn't run those places more is the price of booking the venues and flying in talent, but it's better than drawing flys in the bumfuck south. As far as TNA controlling the indy booking rights of their talent and taking a cut of it, it's one of the worst moves they've ever made, and that's a long list. For what they pay the people who would do indy gigs, and how little they book them on shows, that's shameful. Especially given the fact that a lot of guys could make more with indy gigs than being paid by TNA minus the cut they take. It also probably cost them a lot of credibility and talent that might have potentially been looking at them as an option. It's so widely known the way they screw over talent at this point that only people who have no shot at being hired by WWE look to go there. All the best talent now just waits it out for the chance of a WWE tryout.

They were all trying to be the first to POWERBOMB KIDMAN before he even existed. They all failed, obviously, because YOU CANNOT POWERBOMB KIDMAN!

Credit to Kharma for dropping so much weight, but has she, in fact, lost the one thing that made her special in wrestling?

Those are some Paul Orndorff breasts.

Wait, can we also count the Billy and Chuck theme here and make it five? I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but "YOUUUUU LOOOOK SOOOOOO... GOOD TO ME" was almost like hearing the glass break at one point. It was an automatic insta-pop from me.

I'm pretty sure the New Orleans Pelicans new mascot is one of the buzzards Bray Wyatt tells us to follow.

Given his post-wrestling tendency to beat up senior citizens, sucky attitude may have been putting it mildly. I believe he's a hairdresser now. You're thinking of O'Haire. Which really goes to underscore Jae's point that the initial Jindrak-Billy Gunn comparison sucks, since none of you can tell him apart from the others. I was talking about O'Haire. If he hadn't been a crazy dick (even by wrestling standards) he'd probably be main eventing. Yeah, but you're not telling us anything... we don't already know.

Oh yeah, well, you know I read, like, a story too, you know and it said Fuck you guys.

WHAT. THE. FUCK .

The Rosetta Stone as a pumpkin carving. Seriously.

GODDAMN IT I THOUGHT MATT MORGAN WAS MARK JINDRAK. You see? I never confused Billy Gunn for anybody.

Here's what I'm picturing TNA bidding process to be. Sadly, Randy voted how much he thought the promotion was worth.

Yeah, I cannot see any good coming from Goldberg beating Ryback. Just pay him whatever to make Ryback look good. How long is Brock's contract for? It seems like he is not the big draw they hoped him to be. He's had good matches, but they don't seem to translate well to a larger audience. I am curious about this though: SummerSlam 2013: 296,000 SummerSlam 2012: 358,000 SummerSlam 2011: 296,000 SummerSlam 2010: 350,000 SummerSlam 2009: 369,000 SummerSlam 2008: 477,000 SummerSlam 2007: 537,000 SummerSlam 2006: 529,000 I still think it is partially because of poor booking. Bryan went from comedy tag team champ to #1 contender really quickly. Now it is all about Show/HHH/Orton. So it did nearly an identical number to 2011, after 2012 halted the downward slide. Maybe it's just a case that they hadn't killed off Brock's drawing power yet, and he pushed the show up last year, but has fallen off this year? Cause you take 2012 out of there, and 2013 manages to hold steady with 2011, after years of steady drops. *shrug*

Jesus fuck, I hate leftists.

An awesome card. Hope Chandler/Alvarez lives up to the hype. Gonna be hard to surpass that first fight.

Good 'ole J.R. killing time while waiting for someone (Joel Watts?) to finish putting together a highlight video he needs to narrate.

CURSE YOU PERRY THE PELICAN! Is Doofenshmirtz working on a TNA-buy-inator?

that picture needs 50,000 likes

Enzo/Big Kass vs. Rusev/LaFort -- Enzo' pants in this are the nightmare of what every dipshit I went to high school with wore down the shore. Total trash. This was really short as Rusev took out Kass, Enzo and LaFortin that order with some running body block. He then hooked Kass in the camel clutch as the sultry, mysterious blonde walked out. Glad Rusev gets a big singles push because he's really good. But this attack was a bit weak. He should have tossed some dudes like a maniac. AIDEN ENGLISH/dude whose name I forget -- This was so friggin' great. Regal declared that he had a "mancrush" on English and spent the entire commentary talking about Shakespeare and various musicals w/ Renee. My man Aiden (REAL TALK -- He's a real-life comedy nerd and we've crossed Intenert paths elsewhere) had a great entrance, as usual. Nice, tight competitive squash.His finisher is now called The Director's Cut, which I like a lot. Post-match, he sang some more and was pelted with red roses from the crowd! Regal gave him a standing ovation as he wiped a tear from his eye. Get him in a feud already because this gimmick rules it. PAIGE/SUMMER RAE -- Nice little match furthering their feud. The end was a bit off as Paige hit a not-so-clean Paige Turner after they traded a few near-falls. Still, not a bad match at all. Post-match, Sasha Banks (kicked out earlier fro ringside) came out to attack Paige. Emma ran out for the save but then accidentally clotheslined Paige. They had a stare down afterwards.ADRIAN NEVILLE had a promo in there somewhere about his feud with Corey Graves. I pretty much just ignored it to look up NBA highlights for a bit.LUKE HARPER cut a promo (!) on Kassius Ohno. It was in the horror movie style of the Wyatt Family. He held the lantern and called Kassius his "playtoy." Super creepy and sinister and disturbing. I hope the big show gives Harper some mic time. As you may have seen elsewhere, I am a total mark for The Wyatt Family. My one gripe about them is that the announcers don't even bother trying to explain what he's saying. It IS sorta hard -- I'm of a relgious bent so I pick up on a lot of the stuff where Bray believes himself to be the Messiah as we enter the Book of Revelations. And what's also awesome -- Bray's last NXT promo was a face turn promo where he essentially revealed himself to be Jesus The Liberator. Even his first intro promos touched on this when he talked about the working class being lied to. Bray's here to bring down the machine that oppresses the exploited classes and we should believe in him as he fights for justice for us. But the WWE can't really flat-out say "This dude is a cult leader who thinks he's the reborn Son of God" because they'll get some pressure from religious organizations and that's just a total headache they understandably don't want. Harper can be that bridge, maybe. He's the follow of Bray and maybe he can decipher the riddles. Anyways, he's having a match w/ Kassius next week and it should be friggin' awesome. Two stiff, mean dudes clobbering each other. CJ PARKER/TYLER BREEZE -- This was fun and why I love NXT. Neither guy is all that great of an in-ring worker. But they both worked as characters and the match had a great story. Parker's pissed that Tyler scalped his nasty ass dreadlocks. Breeze will do absolutely ANYTHING to not get touched in the face so he can preserve his selfie-pics. They worked the match largely around Parker's anger and attempt to get at Breeze but Breeze using his heel cunningness to get the upper hand. Parker won with The Third Eye facepalm strike. I love that name -- super prog rock. It'd be great if they made Parker less Deadhead/Phish doof and more into a prog rock fan. I think that's what the world needs and wants. Parker then went to cut Tyler's hair post-match but Breeze rolled out of the ring in defeat.Also: Can we just have EVERY SINGLE WRESTLING SHOW FROM HERE TO ETERNITY be announced by Regal and Renee? They are so awesome together. Regal adds in his great wrestling acumen while Renee fills in some great details -- "Can we just talk about Breeze's furry cell phone cover?" "Parker was on a two-week juice purge." They have awesome chemistry together. They're a little flirtatious but Regal also confides in Renee stuff like "An old girlfriend of mine reached out to me on Twitter. She's a confectioner." It has a total unique weirdness. I love the relationship so much. Renee clearly admires Regal professionally. Regal respects her as well and, being he's a man, is attracted to her but also married. They both know this and aren't afraid to address it but have a warm, professional relationship.and will keep it there. They're adults and acting like grown-ups. Seriously, I bet the old-hands like Regal or Tensai or whoever absolutely love working with Renee. She's so enthusiastic and really great at the backstage role. She knows how to add to things and compliment the workers (like her "Are you really this big of a tool?" looks at Bo Dallas) but keeping them front-and-center. Her stuff in the announce booth is really sharp, too. It's really perfect -- she says these great, weird funny things about whoever is wrestling and it adds to their characters and the reality of this fake world we get to watch. She's really one of the stars of the developmental system.

Am I the only one who finds her more attractive now than 10 years ago? Is she the only person in wrestling who has aged well?

Sticky Fingaz is a terrible actor but he was great in Onyx so suck it.

Buck up, St. Louis, there's always the Blues. Speaking of Buck, I'd gladly trade 3 more years of McCarver for no Joe Buck ever again.

So... a jackhammer?

When senior proms go horribly wrong. Or if you love the Venture Brothers, a true love affair.

had to get it just right, had to hedge with the "about." i would LOVE to see the table he's checking in his head during that "uhh"