Elsalvajeloco

I am not going to go down the rabbit hole because that's much much larger discussion that can span pages, however, I would simplify it and say that Vince especially at the time was a genius at elevation, not creation. He can elevate people like no one else can/could. He had the platform and after learning from Dick Ebersol and vastly improving the overall TV production as a result, he had some know how. However, once he had went through all the territory guys and applied his coat of paint to them, he could no longer just plug and play. He got badly exposed, but his rebirth in the late 90s saved his ass. He got to be a "genius" all over again. If you were the GM or owner of a major sports franchise, Vince ain't the guy who will build stuff from scratch. He is the head coach you get when you have a team ready and built to win now. When it's time to rebuild again, you get rid of him cause that's not what he does. If he does stick around, it's going to be like Belichick his last few years in New England where he's hiring his kids and also hiring people on offense who have no expertise in running anything offensive. It's going to be an absolute disaster.

God bless the late Brady Boone, but much like the older Hector Guerrero we saw in WCW, he had the agility of a P.E. teacher with two repaired hips. Then again, we've been spoiled by guys who are so graceful in the air that it looks to too choreographed. Also, look at the background with all the reactions of the fans. Imagine you're at one of those marathon WWF tapings and this guy rolls out there. You would be questioning your life decisions much like the balding brown jacket clad man right in the middle.

Okay, that makes some sense. However, why not make him good ole Portuguese American Pete Polaco like Bruno Sammartino was Italian American? Also, the character was a soccer player but I am guessing PJ not knowing how to actually play soccer meant we never actually got see him in vignettes with a soccer ball. Why not find some guy on the indies who knows how to play soccer? That way...when you're in certain markets where soccer/football is played, you can trot his ass out there. The more answers we get, it just leads to more questions. How much weed was Bruce Prichard smoking back in the day where all this made sense? He had to be baked EVERYDAY.

Brady Boone's Battlekat! Re: Jockstrap In 1996, when Stone Cold was on commentary, he called it out specifically which was one of the first kinda breaking the fourth wall things in WWF history. Then, going against the myth perpetuated by Bruce Prichard and others about that Vince was always portrayed as just a commentator pre-Mr. McMahon, heel Jim Ross also in 1996 asked Vince on commentary something to the effect of, "That jockstrap thing...was that your idea, Vince?".

I am looking at the story cause I don't recall PJ ever explaining why the character had to be Portuguese. It was because apparently they wanted to make a splash with the South American market. Two questions here: 1. So why not make him Brazilian? 2. Does Vince not know that Spanish is spoken in most South American countries? It's weird cause you can tell WWF/E at certain points wanted their own Jushin Liger/Tiger Mask type gimmick for kids so they can sell a ton of merch, but despite having a budget and production out the wazoo better than literally everyone in the business, they never really were able to concoct something on that level. The closest they ever got was Rey, and Rey had already been a big star in that gimmick for literally 9 or 10 years prior to ever coming to WWE. All they did was literally put the mask back on him.

Between 1991 to 1996, WWF was batting well below the Mendoza line in terms of new gimmicks.

Repo Man IIRC was all Darsow's idea. He (Darsow) legitimately believed it could work. It's funny cause at some point Vince did a complete 180 and let guys essentially come up with own gimmicks based on their background or upbringing or hobbies (TL Hopper, Skinner, The Stalker just to name a few) and Vince and creative services would just flesh out the rest.

Now that former UFC/MMA fighter, adult entertainer, and parent of a mass shooter Aaron Brink is no longer with us, maybe he can adopt his stage name: Dick Delaware.

Top pound 4 pound sweat producer though. You ever go back and watched those Raw episodes from some small ass venue in like White Plains or upstate NY with an IRS match? Even though he sat in restholds for like 90% of the match, he would sweat so much you could see through his white dress shirt. And those matches were usually only 5 or 6 minutes max. However, in those tiny venues, the ring lights being right on him made him perspirate a tiny body of water. Imagine he was actually doing stuff. He might self combust.

Oh, it's like crack in the 80s and the 90s down here. To me, it's good but not that price for a goddamn cookie good. Luckily, all the instances I've ever ate one is people bringing a box or two to work.

Yeah, McGuirk and Prichard make sense on commentary even though Bruce is absolutely horrendous (he even admitted as such). They're both from that part of the country with Bruce actually being from Houston and having worked for Boesch. The fact that Doherty did commentary and also got to have a brief squash match on the very first SNME show makes me believe Pete Doherty must have had the first intel on Vince McMahon. There is no other explanation.

One of the craziest things I've seen in my lifetime is a few years ago a video came out of some possibly deranged older white woman who got literally uranage'd/hit with the Rock Bottom in the parking lot by a teenage Popeyes employee over some disagreement about 79 cent corn. Let me tell you something...if my life gets possibly ended, it won't be over a shitty side from Popeyes. I can tell you that much is true.

As someone who loves Popeyes (sorry Craig), I am sorry they had to catch that stray.

Thing is though, over the last 30+ years, the Bible Belt has a sneaky population of Mexican-American people and Mexican nationals. So if you did decide to move to New Orleans and were tired of the local fare, you could find pretty good Mexican food. I think the argument though is if you don't give a damn about the local fare, why would need to go to New Orleans? Even though it's mad expensive, you can order the shit on Goldbelly and make it yourself. They give you the instructions. Otherwise, I am guessing there is a bunch of people across the country who consider Popeyes as New Orleans food much like Taco Bell is authentic Tex-Mex.

Paging Lawful Metal. Paging Lawful Metal.

When it comes to being "unique", you're going to have a bunch of cities claiming they did it "first" or are the ones who "innovated". When it comes to food, BBQ would be #1 with a bullet or 1a at the least. New Orleans is always going to have an argument with many cuisines just cause it's one of the first and oldest authentic truly American cities. However, when it comes to modern America where there are clusters of major cities near each other, people might take offense about the statement of there being a bunch of great BBQ around the country. Hell, you might even get shanked if you said something like that. You are going to have a bunch of people who say that the only great BBQ is in their city and their city alone.

Shit...you guys read my mind. As someone who was born and raised in the south, unfairly, all of my picks for best food cities would be the South with New Orleans and Houston towards the tippity top. That said, most folks' choices are going to be based on their food palate. Now that people are moving to different sections of country, it's essentially meaningless now. I live in Northwest Arkansas where the Walton family along with Tyson and other huge companies have set up shop. We have foods from almost literally every part of the country now. Shit, we've been getting an influx of Nashville food stuff just here recently. It's only going to grow in the next 5-10 plus years.

It's crazy how much value Jamie gained over that time when Bea was the former World of Stardom/red belt champ for a little while and was probably more in demand as a talent especially when she was dating Ospreay. I dunno if she wants to sign with AEW and be the Jannetty of the team.

It's a pretty big venue because the capacity went from around or just under 20k to essentially half of that. Plus, it has a fixed staged area. What's funny is Atlantic City has the Hard Rock, which has it's own arena named after Trump's late friend/business partner Mark G. Etess. Compared to the ancient stuff on the boardwalk, it looks brand new even though it's been around since the early 90s. Matter of fact, it was an added part of the old Trump Taj Mahal so it would be the OTHER venue still technically around. I know WWE did a house show post COVID there. I dunno why AEW chose the more spacious Boardwalk Hall over that. I guess just to say they ran a legendary building? This also tells you about how different the economies are around the country cause you would have thought some of these arenas would have been demolished decades ago. For example, the city of Memphis just will not demolish the Mid South Coliseum and it hasn't been used in almost twenty years. The Pyramid was only built in 1991 and lasted for about 15 years before it stopped being used in favor of the FedExForum where the Grizzlies play.

John Tenta was only like 37 or 38 in 2001, which would place him in the middle of the pack in terms of age on any today's non NXT wrestling rosters. That means he was in still in his late 20s/early 30s when he left WWF the first time.

So yeah, the actual venue is what was before and is now still called (Jim Whelan) Boardwalk Hall. It just doubled as the convention center for Atlantic City, which is kinda weird but whatever. Current unified welterweight champ Jaron "Boots" Ennis just fought there last month so it's still around. In four years, it would be 100 years old. I think it would probably be the 2nd oldest venue still actively hosting live events because there have been like at least 3 or 4 different iterations of Madison Square Garden. I think the oldest would be a stone's throw away in the Asbury Park Convention Hall, which is itself a century old. Both have hosted major wrestling events. The rest of the stuff Trump put his name on has all been since torn down. Matter of fact, I am pretty sure after that last Mania a couple years later, Trump was in dire financial straits. That pretty much meant that Atlantic City was in trouble too. That was when Atlantic City cause of those financial difficulties started to cede some of the major boxing events to Las Vegas. I think the last super huge megaevent in that era for Atlantic City was Holyfield vs. Foreman, which itself had a crazy story behind it. Trump was basically at risk of losing that fight and had that happened, it would have sunk him further (wouldn't want to see that happen, would we?). That fight was a license to print money even though it seemed farcical on paper at that point that Holyfield was fighting George Foreman. Here is a reporter's fact sheet from the official program he posted from when he covered the fight in 1991: Two things here: 1. It warms my heart to see Archie Moore's name when he (a) fought long enough that the beginning of his career was in the Great Depression and the end of his career coincided with the last year/months of JFK's time in office and life and (b) was born in the tee tiny county right next to the county where I was born in Mississippi. 2. Paying $100 for the nosebleeds in 1991 is insane. The next best seats being priced at $200 in 1991 is even more insane. Just stay at home and watch on TV.

Was this when Continental was really struggling to sell tickets? This absolutely sounds like one of those "shit, what's the worst that could happen? We actually draw fans?" ideas.

Well, I think it may be a cause and effect thing. The announcement IIRC saying there was a ban came immediately right after a taping, which the match posted above was taped. In the announcement, it specifically called out this match was the last time that blading/intentional blood would be permitted. Then, they walked it back. I think perhaps the performers involved apologized for going overboard and said they would dial back the heavy juice. That said, if you have limited performers, what else are going to do to make their matches somewhat interesting?

Turns out they didn't ban blading, but just want less of it.

To be fair, when business was down, Vince did ask Kevin Nash if he could fight fresh out of prison Mike Tyson.