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My understanding is that it went as follows: - Russo was insisting that they needed to do something surprising - Schiavone sarcastically said "why don't we put the title on Arquette, that'd be surprising" - Russo took the sarcasm as a legitimate suggestion and ran with it Considering how sarcastic Schiavone is and how earnest Russo is, I think that's the legitimate chain of events.

The level of delusion from Vince Russo and Eric Bischoff during this is just Trump levels of what the fuck. Bro bro bro if you look at the first three months after I got there we had good storylines. Did you? Really? Are you sure about that? Now I’m wondering if maybe the “Who Killed WCW” moniker isn’t so much about building to who killed it, or an admission, but rather showing the audience by way of these interviews that if you want to know who killed WCW, it’s these morons and man-children that we’re giving most of the interview time to. Just listen to them and their level of delusion and idiocy and vanity and then listen to the short clips of the actual executives with professional experience in the TV industry. The contrast is stark. I just kind of walked away from that third episode thinking, ok, I get it now, they’re showing the audience in a subtle way that it’s Bischoff, Russo, Hogan, and Nash who killed the company because just listen to the lunacy that comes out of their mouths. They’re all bickering and pointing the finger at one another, but that bickering and finger pointing really just exposes that they’re the problem. I don’t think too many will get that and the fourth episode will show it was Kellner who made the call to cancel it, but the company was dead long before then. It would almost be better if they did the Last Dance thing and had Bret or Sullivan or Siegel or someone else that’s somewhat rational and show them being given an iPad showing what Russo and Bischoff were saying and then have those guys react and point out if you want to know who killed the company then just listen to the words coming out of Russo and Bischoff and Nash. But that won’t happen because the Rock is such a politician that he’ll play nice. I would say fuck it, it’s my documentary, I got their participation and permission to air their interviews, and now I’m going to show how other people in WCW that weren’t idiots react to what those guys were saying in their interviews. Essentially the Michael Jordan saying Isaiah Thomas is full of shit moment.

Still looking for that job that will pay me millions of dollars to stop doing it and go away.

Nobody gave a shit about work rate in W*ING and it was awesome. Monster masks > move sets. None of them have to be good, they just have to be a step above sucking and they're all far better than that.

Them adding late two bangers I really want to see (Claudio vs. PAC and Nyla vs. Statlander) is really exciting, the whole card looks good. I hope my seats aren't low enough that I'm on TV as I'm not an overly vocal fan (of anything) and I don't want to look disinterested even if I am thoroughly entertained on the inside.

Her name is Yoshimi, she's a black belt in karate. Working for the city, she has to discipline her body. Well we're another week closer to Forbidden Door and time to fight to see who else gets on the show! Cause she knows that it's demanding, to defeat those evil machines. I know she can beat them! Here's what's on tap tonight: Oh Yoshimi they don't believe me, but you won't let those robots defeat me.... Such a shame the Acclaimed are jobbing on Juneteenth. Oh well, at least MJF is back to curse on live TV! Enjoy the week!

That was an extremely fun Dynamite from beginning to end.

That's a hard "No" from me. Maybe I'm getting more prudish as I get older but I'm not a fan of shirts with swear words. It just looks trashy. Someone wearing that would embody every stereotype of wrestling fans out there.

Monty Williams, Hall of Fame coach at the bank.

I actually think there are moments when the fingerpoke could have worked. WWE did something similar a year prior when Shawn Michaels laid down for Triple H for the European title as a means of sticking it to Commissioner Sgt. Slaughter. WCW probably figured they could do the same. The problem is that WCW went about it completely the wrong way. Aside from advertising a rematch from their big PPV and hyping it up, and then not delivering it, WCW had been in a habit of not delivering matches they advertised, or if they did, they were underwhelming DQ finishes. If they had actually delivered clean finishes for months beforehand, this would have hit different. If the match was advertised from the start as Nash vs Hogan, it would have hit different. Instead, it was a swerve on top of a swerve to a fanbase that had been swerved repeatedly for years. It wasn't some big tide-changing thing. It was the straw that broke a lot of backs.

Once again Kevin Nash made him look like an idiot in this one. I love the part of him talking about "You take the blood bath and run if after the Fingerpoke of Doom and tell me what really killed WCW" . To use a baseball analogy, the Fingerpoke of Doom happened when the game was 1-1 and the bases are loaded. The Kevin Nash bloodbath happened when the game was 7-1 in the 7th inning and half the crowd left the stadium So wait we are now telling me Tony Shiavone is the one responsible for David Arquette for winning the title. Is that something people have talked about before? That is such typical Russo that he wants all of the credit for Arquette winning the title but wants none of the responsibility of coming up with it

We're also getting Kris Statlander vs. Nyla Rose in a women's Owen Cup match.

Honestly getting the Blitzkrieg gimmick and almost immediately dying to a blown spot is incredible commitment to the gimmick. Mad respect.

I thought it was weird that they announced tournament matches before brackets so I went to look up the wiki. They haven't even announced full fields yet!!! WTF AEW. I'll never understand why Tony is so slapdash with the tournaments. This one is for WEMBLEY WORLD TITLE SHOTS. You had Danielson in a video package announce he was entering, same with Pac. I guess Claudio did one I missed or don't remember. I remember the Shingo one but I don't even remember him mentioning the Owen Hart Cup, just that he was coming to America (I assumed for Forbidden Door) That's 4 men announced for an 8 man tournament that starts today with no brackets. For what's basically their WM title shot. Why didn't the entire roster want in? Why the fuck is Shingo, who I love btw, in this thing at all??? Why were there qualifiers for the TNT ladder match but not this? WHY DOESN'T JOE WANT HIS TITLE BACK???? sigh

Here’s Big Cats last match

I actually missed Raw last night because our TV company fucked up. Waited to catch the Hulu version today. Its pretty condensed at half the length of a normal Raw. Dug what i caught of the matches, particularly the MITB qualifiers and Bron/Sheamus. The Priest/Seth segment was actually solid and I liked them just pushing forward to an agreed title match with no bs. The Liv/Dom hijinks were amusing. Was happy to see Otis finally turn on gable though it doesn't quite feel full stop yet. Hopefully they don't backtrack too much. Gable/Creeds as IC & tag champs needs to be the endgame. The final segment with the Wyatt Sicks/6 debut was done well though maybe a bit too far in terms of murdery. The biggest issue Bray ran into with the Fiend and even the Mr. Rogers-eque gimmicks were that they went way too far down the supernatural rabbit hole. Hopefully this is more of an extra creepy Wyatt family than anything else. Now onto NXT with my tv working properly today. The Battle Royal was solid fun. Only complaint was Joe Hendry's elimination. That really should have been saved for later in the match for an actual heel. Roxanne/Lola vs. Jacy/Jazmyn vs. Lash/Jakara was pretty solid. Action was nice with some neat chaotic moments and everyone having a bit of shine as it went on. The post match celebration felt right with Roxanne getting a shot in early as Lola has already proven herself an untrustworthy partner in the recent past. Lola even smirked knowing she has Roxanne's attention. Kelani/Mia was pretty nice with both women showing solid chemistry and looking good in general. The finish with Jaida's appearance was predictable but well done. The Wes/Oba segment was alright. Just glad we finally have a single smatch set up between them. Could easily end up Oba's best match yet. Should be a nice test for him regardless. Fallon/Carlee was fine. Still not digging Carlee though there is nothing wrong with her per say. Liking Fallon as a heel though I wish she would go the next step and change her music as well. I'm ok with Wendy Choo randomly popping up and choking people to sleep. Good Brothers vs. Chase/Ridge was decent. The finish was a surprise. I liked the follow up backstage with Duke revealing nothing. Curious to see where they go with it. Thought the setup Page/Evans earlier was good, and the match itself was good as well. Dug all the back work Page busted out knowing Evans' ribs were fucked up. The post match brawl was alright though it seems to be setting up more of a 4-way than the the currently booked Trick/Je'Von. Most of the matches tonight were solid with the 3-way tag, Kelani/Mia, and Page/Evans being standouts. Enjoyed many f the segments and thought they moved a lot of stories forward. Next week looks like fun with Arianna/Sol, Tavion/Damon, and Tony/Nathan set up. Also its been interesting seeing more TNA involvement. Looking more and more like that rumored crossover show between NXT and TNA may actually become a thing. Pretty solid episode overall.

AEW debuts in Cardiff, Wales for Dynamite/Collision on August 21 leading in to All In

Every time I hear these guys talk about their vision for the company and they bring out the "We're doing something that's popular in other genres of TV and entertainment to bring in the casual fans" I can't understand why they think it's going to work. It happens today too. The casual fan is a dragon they're all chasing and just like with drugs, you never quite reach it.

The match against PAC would be a good time for Claudio to bust out the UFO, which I don't think he's used since his last run in ROH prior to going to WWE.

https://preview.redd.it/zrgsapfsvh7d1.jpeg?width=1164&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=892da80f93049e657d7172c56885194f6ebd8338

Yeah, supermodels aren't my type either. Otherwise I'd be the all time leader in dating supermodels. My argument against Cobb, Gwynn, and Ichiro is based purely on the fact that the object of the game is to score runs not to get on base. Aaron, Ruth, Mays, and Bonds all played to score runs. No matter how great you are at hitting, you'll lose points on your average producing runs. Musial is the best baseball player no one ever talks about as the best baseball player ever. He's absolutely worthy of the conversation. Pujols is probably the next best player no one mentions. He was terrible for about a decade, and still ended up with 3384 hits and 703 homers. That's how good his prime was. He's Hank Aaron if instead of being great forever he was incredible for half his career and average for the other half.

Hell, I remember when Mosley seemingly killed Easy off citing Wasy's age becoming a problem. Of course he brought him back because Easy is to Mosley what Conan was to Howard (i.e. he can't ignore the call of the character). If we do get an Easy TV show the casting of Mouse will be interesting James

I was going to log in to post this, but only to point out that AEW is doing a bang-up job in keeping the New Japan continuity of "Okada has never had any good merch" going. Good lord.

I hope Claudio giant swings PAC over the top rope.

Cobb was great, and an incredible hitter, but his lack of power keeps him off of my list. Aaron is my greatest hitter of all time because he was the best hitter for every situation. Not only is #1 all time in total bases, he had 8 individual seasons he was #1. Both Aaron and Cobb have 15 seasons in the top 10, but Aaron was top 5 in all but one. Cobb also played against lesser competition. Aaron isn't just #1, he's #1 by over 600 bases. He's the most consistently excellent hitter who has ever picked up a bat. No one was better day-to-day for a longer time than Hank Aaron. He is remembered as the Home Run King, but he's 3rd all time in hits, first in RBIs and finished his career with a .305 average. His ability to not just hit, but to hit for average while being the best extra base hitter ever is why I'll take Hank Aaron over any other hitter in history.

Jim Ross compare modern wrestler to wrestler of the past without race or ethnicity playing a part challenge (impossible)

Trajan Langdon as a team president makes me feel fucking old. Then again, I realized the other day that I'm practically the same age as Jayson Tatum's MOM, and she has a fucking kid old enough to be someone I cheer for. Blink of a damn eye.

Wonder how many really great Willie Mays plays were lost to time because MLB didn’t realize for a long time that they really should film their games

https://twitter.com/The_MJF/status/1802835632718331945 Happy Pride month. Love is love.

Looking forward to Claudio Castagnoli vs. PAC the most.

I was a big fan of Bray in general, as I like weird characters and outside the box shit. But for those offended, the reason some fans are immediately like "this isn't going to work" is the cinematic spooky killer faction hasn't worked in WWE in 5+ years and honestly even outside WWE is extremely hard to pull off. For a few reasons. First, its hard to have both on the same show. Its difficult to structure an event where one minute Chelsea Green is complaining about management in the back and the next minute two people are dead in Gorilla. Wrestling is mysterious but its a huge gap between "Adam Pearce can't control Bron" (normal storyline) and "people are running around the back murdering people" (not normal storyline). And to somehow combine it onto the same show, they had the problem with Bray's gimmick post-original stable and the same problem persists. The other issue is once the bell rings, in the end these guys are normal wrestlers. So either they have normal matches and its weird that one minute they are leaving people bloody and the next are doing Irish Whips, or they go full Fiend and they are invincible and spit black goo and use giant hammers and its even more weird. Its just really, really hard to pull off and again this isn't WWE-specific but something all promotions struggle with. Lucha Underground arguably did it best but they were a niche bizzaro world show where their entire vibe was spooky weird so it usually worked. As a fan, I am hoping it works and somehow HHH figures out something Vince couldn't but I don't think fans that are skeptical are coming from a place of just being a "hater" but just looking at past history and not being optimistic.

Re: Gable's use on Raw... my gut feeling is that there is a reason he was the one backstage victim they made 100% sure to get a clear shot of. I would not be shocked if he uses this as a "I was there for you Alpha Academy guys when you were at your lowest, where were you when I needed help?" guilt trip to sucker them back in. I've also watched enough WWE over the years to recognize a "just lost a title program and are a few steps away from your next push taking effect (in this case joining up with the Creeds) so you can eat a solid loss or two now" deal, I am pretty sure he's gonna be fine. ...I mean, assuming he is still alive and that wasn't his corpse >_>

So, is Nick Castellanos more Beetlejuice or the Candyman?

--Hendry gets the biggest pop the NXT Arena has seen since Undertaker last August, and goes out in 90 seconds. I cracked up at the bullshit chant. Decent battle royale over all. --I never want to see the "everyone hangs out in the women's locker room gossiping and recapping exposition only to collapse into a swarm of bickering" segment again. There has to be a better way! --don't lick that thing, Jacy. You don't know where Cody kept it for the last decade. Still think Lola/Roxy could be pretty good, and I like that Perez isn't afraid to make it weird as "paranoid champ" works so much better this way. --looking forward to Wes v Oba with Wes out of the picture if he loses, that stip is easy to use in heightening the drama. --sad to see them pushing Nathan and Axiom toward a seeming breakup. --Tavion had been a face on LVLUP, so this is the second week in a row with a super casual heel turn that Vic and Booker don't bother to mention --Kelani/Michin was fun as hell. Kelani's gonna make it. --Carlee is still pretty green but she has potential. I was surprised to see Kendal come out as her second since last week on LVLUP she switched from a costume that complemented Carlee's to new black gear. I still maintain that if she can find a voice, Kendal has more upside since there aren't really any other women in WWE who work an amateur style. --that hype video for Izzi did more for her as a personality than anything she's ever done, right up til she says "NARPs," which is clearly something someone wants to make A Thing and now she's gonna have to say it in every promo. You can tell, because as she explained what it stood for, it appeared on screen. Also "Grand Dame" would work SO much better than "Great Dame" --the double Bouncy Cutter was simultaneously pretty silly and rad as fuck. Solid main. --dammit, I meant to get on Discord but got busy catching up on a massive church scandal near my family (not their church)

If you extended the territory era into the Indy era, Lawler v Dundee prob counts for both.

Dude I'm balls deep in the Turtles of Grayskull stuff. It's still coming out and I finally had to get to the point where I'm not just buying every figure (they're repeating characters and doing some kind of boring ones). They're pretty dope figures. Turtles are in a WEIRD place where every major toy company is/recently was doing Turtles in some way. Mattel with WWE and MOTU and probably Hot Wheels, Hasbro w Power Rangers and Transformers, Neca, McFarlane, Super 7, Loyal Subjects, Funko, and even old school Playmates. There's legit a price point and style for everyone.

Justin Timberlake was arrested yesterday for a DUI in the Hamptons. And let's just say, if you're as rich/famous as JT is and in the damned Hamptons, you need to be fucking *egregious* with your intoxication for them to have actually arrested him. Britney keeps on winning.

Meaning it was probably Bill Hicks.

Things I remember from this week's edition of AEW Dynamite: Either the crowd is hotter than usual or they figured out how to mic a crowd for once MJF vs Rush was a good time, the crowd heat helped there MJF vs.... Hechicero? Swerve and Ospreay have words and stare down menacingly Mark Briscoe would have cut amazing promos on TBS at 6:05 Eastern every Saturday in 1986 The 8 man was fun So the Bucks have the power to cut off microphones but not make matches? Okay Saraya interrupts a contract signing where Mariah May must pick a side Jericho was on TV but I didn't notice him MJF makes a save and we get a tease for MJF vs Ospreay in the future Claudio vs Pac looked like a fun time

Russo kept saying that he is producing a TV show. Many times I have told fans in Japan that I don't care much for US wrestling because it is a TV drama made for the people watching on TV, not the fans in the arena. In Japan it is a broadcast of a wrestling card made for the fans in attendance. Bischoff, Hogan, Russo, along with Vince top my list of most hated as is being discussed elsewhere (excluding murderers and child molesters).

His "12 inches of snow?"

Kox was, by all accounts, a decent, gentle man without a racist bone in his body (at least by the standards of a white guy born in the 30s), he just figured out a killer gimmick that could travel all over the world. Murdoch, on the other hand, was a real piece of shit. And if you want to make yourself sad go to Cagematch and look at the Kox/Murdoch matches that happened all over the south and never made tape.

This is the least I'm interested in of all three Forbidden Door shows so far. Shame as it's the annual AEW PPV I most look forward to.

Such love. That is incredibly sweet, especially for someone with... that... acronym as his personal handle. I wonder how his kid has dealt with it. That match is incredible, too.

Things I Remember from King of the Ring 1994: Of course one of the things people remember from this card is that Art Donovan was a commentator and he clearly had no idea what he was seeing. I'll hold back on noting all the things he said. It's like having your grandpa in the room. How they didn't just realize that Art Donovan should be the guest commentator for one match. Anyways.. the heels are arguing over which one will advance. Razor vs Bam Bam was a fun one with a bit of a banana slip finish. Mabel gets to cut a promo on Razor Ramon a year before his turn. IRS gets mic time walking down the ramp in multiple matches. This one had even more of a banana slip finish. Owen vs Tatanka is what it is. Jarrett vs Kid was fun. You can tell that maybe Jerry Jarrett is in the room if you have a postmatch beatdown with multiple piledrivers Bret vs Diesel was interesting and maybe a hint that Nash really could do some stuff even if Bret got all the credit. The boxing sequence was fun. Jim Neidhart was in Bret's corner and he runs in to get Bret DQed (more on that later) Razor beats IRS in some way that I forgot. Owen vs 123 was a memorable sprint that got only a few minutes and ruled Really the only parts of Headshrinkers vs Yokozuna/Crush I remember is the tandem headbutting and the finish Owen beats Razor after Jim Neidhart runs out and helps him. Owen becomes the King of Harts during the ceremony, finally killing off the Rocket nickname. Somehow Jerry Lawler vs Roddy Piper is the main event. The Piper promos before this one are Piper sending in home videos that probably cut down on the rambling. Jerry Lawler gets a line on Governor William Donald Schaefer that the arena barely sells. Art Donovan saying Jerry Lawler should have been a preacher is more hilarious than him saying 123 Kid looks like a boxer. This would have been an amazing matchup a decade earlier. Roddy switching the order of the They Live line. How is the scorned kid the second best micworker in this one. Meanwhile Piper is ripped for some reason. So he's not wrestling again for nearly 2 years after this one. Jesus this match is getting all the time Owen/Waltman didn't get. Jarrett's piledrivers to Waltman weren't all that great compared to Lawler hitting a piledriver on Piper. This match sucks and why won't it end. And it ends. That was a shitty match. Honestly most of the matches are better than the reputation of the card. The lows were lowwww.

Speaking of Utah hockey, they unveiled their logo and sweaters and damn talk about boring. The colors aren't bad. I hope that when they get a name they do something else

Master manipulators... using Sting's well-founded suspiciousness of Hogan's creative control and turning it against him to change the finish. "His head's not totally in it" "Not tonight, brother" Fuck off.