SorceressKnight

I think that the story was: It was always going to be 3-on-1, Jericho vs. 3 legends, and the legends were all supposed to be wrestlers who worked at Wrestlemania I. Jericho merely realized Jericho was a better choice than one of Vince's and got him in it. As far as for new episodes...I'm not sure about the source, but I think I might have heard somewhere that the directors may be planning an XPW one for Season 3- and if that one's done, it could be very good.

The more interesting question to me for this new generation of child fans is less "which wrestlers do they idolize as the GOATs" (every generation will revere their main eventers), but rather, given how poorly WWE handles midcard/lowercard storylines, "What wrestlers will be part of this generation of children's Boy Stable ?" Even past the thought that I always believe "your Boy Stable would be closer than you think to who your favorite wrestlers would be", but it's more interesting with such a weak midcard/lowercard which out-there choices the kids of this generation would gravitate to without being told.

The problem is, that it's already oversimplified: We're through the looking glass for both. There's no way to stop the Great Depression from happening- it's hopeless, utterly hopeless. Too many mistakes were made before this point, and now a Great Depression from COVID is as inevitable as the sun rising tomorrow. At least if the medical solution takes priority- even if there's a Great Depression, you're still standing, walk forward. Find some odd jobs. Take a less exciting job still available. Learn a trade. Get hard enough to commit crimes if you have to, at least jail has a warm bed and three meals a day. By focusing on the economy before the medical solution, you're not fixing the economy- you're getting to the unsavory answer of "if we elected a businessman who promised to lead the country like a business...what's he going to do when the answer is making layoffs?"

It can be a lot of things. You cover up crime after crime for someone, eventually the price tag goes high enough that you have a lot of money they owe you for keeping them out of prison. Heck, it just seems to make more sense if Tamina is only still running around because she makes minimum wage to work in WWE, the rest of her salary goes to paying off what Snuka still owed Vince.

More than likely, it'd seem like the same as a lot of "they probably took the move a million times safely, but on this case, their bump card just ran out" thing, if that's the case.

For some other What Ifs: What if La Parka realized Pentagon was injured in their match in 1996? Pentagon gets a neck injury from a back body drop. La Parka doesn't realize it and makes the injury worse until the ref pulls La Parka off. Pentagon nearly dies, the medics revive him. Pentagon's career is ended in an instant- and because of how AAA treated it, all of Pentagon's relatives instantly jump to CMLL and refuse to ever work for AAA again. Cut to the modern day and your potential changes: This stuff doesn't occur, presumably Pentagon's family are still willing to work in AAA. Years down the line, when Octagon Jr. makes his debut and needs a rival, then lucha libre nepotism would mean that when giving the Pentagon Jr. gimmick to someone, that'd mean preferential treatment for who gets the gimmick goes to Pentagon and his family. As is also common in lucha libre, it's pretty easy to figure that, when giving the gimmick, the family chooses to bypass giving the gimmick to Pentagon I's son and instead give it to the best prospect in the family, his nephew, Brillante Jr. (La Sombra/Andrade.) End result of that: Los Ingobernables does not form in CMLL (and because of that, Los Ingobernables de Japon does not form in New Japan either.) Dark Dragon misses out on getting the Pentagon Jr. gimmick, so the Lucha Bros remain AAA midcarders. MAYBE Fenix or Dark Dragon get picked up for Lucha Underground, but it's much less of a slam dunk that they do...and even if they do, Dark Dragon does not become the breakout star of Lucha Underground (meaning the Lucha Bros don't get the buzz they get in America enough to also be big parts of the indies and then AEW), and presumably 'Pentagon Jr." remains the breakout star of Lucha Underground, and thus it's far harder for WWE to lock up Andrade (and if they do eventually get him, it's far after his signing then and he's a much different performer.)

Honestly, this is the problem with the gouging laws as well- because we're also seeing from the big runs that letting the store gouge a little bit can hopefully prevent gouging on the secondary market. Yes, it's a bad thing for hand sanitizer to go from "2 bucks for a small bottle" to "6 bucks for a small bottle", or toilet paper to go from "15 bucks for a 20 pack" to "40 bucks for a 20 pack", etc...then keep the price at the low amount, have scalpers show up and buy the whole stock- then go outside the store and say "give me your car, your house, and ten minutes with your wife and daughter, and I'll give you one bottle of hand sanitizer. Oh, you don't want to? Suit yourself...guess you just killed your family and I'll get all of that when you die anyway. Oh, I didn't tell you I had the sniffles today...oh, no matter. If you had hand sanitizer, you'd probably be fine...but no, don't bother paying. Let them all get it."

The social media stuff COULD work, but the reason it doesn't click is because somehow, wrestling has fallen into one of the many traps Russo fell into with WCW: They truly believe that every wrestling fan is part of the IWC and so intertwined in the IWC they spend their entire day on the Internet reading every single modicum of wrestling related news/media and know about everything going on in wrestling. This would be fine since a lot of fans ARE enough in the IWC they at least know the important happenings going on on social media/etc. right now, but even then, the big problem for this is that WWE doesn't recap the things they're using for a storyline onscreen on television. Like Russo in WCW, they assume "Well, we don't need to explain why these two are so mad at each other on TV that led to this fight- everyone KNOWS why they're mad at each other already, they all saw the Tweets about it". Only problem: Not everyone DOES know, and if you're making this the crux of a match, you kind of have to tell everyone why it's happening. Again- WWE, at its core, is a kids' show at its heart. Having people look at all this expanded universe product to get the real story they see onscreen is making fans do homework...and that guarantees you'll turn off people watching, because there's NOTHING a kid hates more than having to do homework.

Same point there as for Caruso: Mauro works for so many other places besides WWE that, if it was him, then other, larger outlets would have disclosed it was him. Again, even beyond the "WWE.com puts announcers/interviewers on their roster page" thing, The fact WWE can keep the worker's identity private inherently means that the worker only works for World Wrestling Entertainment and does not work for another media outlet- and many of the announce team/interviewers work for other outlets. If it was the case one of those announcers/interviewers contracted it, the other outlets that they work for would also announce they tested positive for COVID...and if that was the case, either the other outlet would confirm "it's this person who did it", OR the fact WWE and this other place confirmed they had a positive case would lead wrestling fans/journalists to realize "WWE and this other outlet confirmed a case with the same details at the same time" and put two and two together.

...well, I wasn't WRONG...

Using how WWE.com would define "on the roster", WWE.com's roster page says wrestlers, managers, and announcers (PBP, backstage interviewers, and ring announcers) are roster members. Refs are not on that page. Presumably from that, it'd point to a referee being the one. The speculation for Charly was based on the fact she posted things saying she was under quarantine- but having said that, many other people in WWE posted they were under quarantine since then without a claim of problems. Even if this was a case she was an announcer, it is pretty obvious Charly is NOT the one for a very glaring reason: In addition to working for WWE as an announcer, Charly Caruso also works as an announcer for ESPN. If it was her, that would presumably mean ESPN would also put out a similar statement, if not say it was her much like other TV networks have been saying when one of their announcers caught it.

Honestly, the rise of wrestlers who do comedy spots does seem like it, and it's less a result of "indy wrestling gets over with the "smart" Interweb crowd and more the fact that at this time period, indie wrestlers are savvy enough to know that just getting over with that "smart" hip Internet crowd is a good start, but honestly, that crowd isn't enough to REALLY succeed. Using the last few years of wrestling- compare the Okada/Omega series to Joey Ryan and you see the example. The Okada/Omega series is incredibly critically acclaimed, and a large number of modern Internet fans believe they're the greatest wrestling matches in history. And as a result, those matches are widely beloved and watched hard- by modern smart Internet fans, but outside of that audience, it's not like Okada/Omega made a huge ripple outside of the wrestling bubble. Joey Ryan vs. Danshoku Dino was a perfectly good comedy match, but not as good as Okada/Omega was as a match...but Joey Ryan debuting the penis suplex? That shit genuinely went viral. Modern smart Internet fans watched that suplex hit. So did less hardcore fans on the Internet. So did casual fans. So did non-fans. Likely, So did your mom or your grandma who never watches wrestling. That is a whole world of difference, and likely led to the rise of comedy. A serious worker can put on a very good match, but will have to work harder in the ring to get popular inside the wrestling bubble...basically working twice as hard to get half as much, at best. A comedy worker will separate themselves from the pack enough to get booked whenever they want once people have heard of them...but, if that comedy worker can see one of their spots in a match go viral? After that, they can punch their own ticket- get booked any and everywhere they want, and be relatively sure they'll draw a bigger crowd than just indie fans (just from non fans who wouldn't go see a good indie card, but might consider going to see that guy do the thing.)

Using Jeff Jarrett as an example of someone who could carve out a spot in 1999 WWF is closest to the example of Dr. Death- because even at the time, the big problem with Jarrett was he was not over. At all. He could not draw heat if the arena was on fire, and couldn't get anything resembling a crowd reaction until "put him with Debra and put Debra in a really low-cut top, then have Road Dogg make a quick one-liner that Jerry Lawler can say ad nauseaum for the next decade" and "that's still not working? Have him beat up women, the crowd might hate that" could make crowds...vaguely, slightly give a shit about him. Now, if you're assuming WWE could have given Dr. Death a valet with really, really large breasts as well in order to try and jury-rig a crowd reaction to him, it's possible...but even if they did that, that does not necessarily mean Dr. Death would click on the roster.

Well, even then that's the big weakness. Outside of the fact that "upon closer inspection, Jaxson Ryker is still TAFKA Gunner", on paper the Forgotten Sons would possibly have more of a chance. Steve Cutler was never BAD, per se- forgettable as hell, but never good or bad enough to make you take notice either way (which, combined with how long the was in developmental, is perfectly cromulent for "okay. Go to the main roster, sink or swim")...and even beyond that level, there's at least a fair reason to believe Wesley Blake could genuinely be a diamond in the rough (Blake and Murphy were a solid team, with neither one of the two being noticeably better than the other, and since Buddy Murphy's managed to do very well since going to the main roster, it's not implausible to assume Blake could be pretty good on the main roster as well.) Indeed, if it wasn't for Gunner sinking the whole thing, it's "fair enough."

Even with all of those, whether it's a "the network tries to boot them" or "the network tries to alter the terms of the deal", even if McDevitt couldn't beat the WWF for that name in the past- if this went to court, even though NBC-Universal and Fox have far, far better lawyers than WWE, it wouldn't matter, because Lionel Hutz would be able to destroy USA or Fox if they tried to go after this. The second Vince makes it clear "This company forced us to break quarantines that local governments forced into place and told us to break local laws in order to film for them", NBC-U and Fox would be doomed.

Even that's a big difference. Workrate-wise, Dr. Death could have fit in- even if he was past his prime in the ring, it's not like 1998-99 WWF was known for its incredible workrate (and Dr. Death at 50% was better than a lot of Russo Era WWF workers at 100%.) Character-wise...I still don't see it for Dr. Death. Even if Big Boss Man's gimmick could be tweaked enough to fit well in the Attitude Era, that comparison still doesn't work in Dr. Death's favor. Big Boss Man may have been a relic of the cartoony era- but unlike Dr. Death, Big Boss Man was tweaked from "evil prison guard" to effectively an "evil security guard"... ...and that minor adjustment meant that Attitude Era Big Boss Man couldn't have been more in Vince Russo's wheelhouse. One of Russo's pet lowcard angles: He's always been enamored with the concept of "let's have wrestlers get in angles where they fight members of the security team", which has gone further to "Let's put a couple of developmental guys as ringers for the security team so that we can have the security team actually wrestle in matches (R+B Security in WCW, Red Shirt Security vs. Black Shirt Security in NWATNA)" , and as far as "Russo tried to convince WWE's head of security Jim Dodson and WCW's head of security Doug Dillinger to become wrestlers". By contrast with Dr. Death- Steve Williams did get fired from WWF, and he did end up in WCW under Vince Russo. We saw Russo's big idea for Steve Williams as "have him be Oklahoma's attack dog and beat the crap out of luchadors and cruiserweights for him." It didn't work in WCW, and if that's Russo's bright idea for Dr. Death, it probably would have worked FAR WORSE in WWF if Jim Ross is there to say "no, Oklahoma is NOT going to be a regular character." Russo may be an idiot, but having said that- it was Vince Russo in the WWF. Vince McMahon seemed to like Russo until he chose to ask for more money and jumped ship, and if that's the case, Russo wouldn't be the first clueless idiot Vince McMahon kept around because he personally liked them and he wouldn't be the last.

The first book ends roughly around the time he returns from Bell's Palsy at Wrestlemania 15, so I'd assume the second book follows the time after that. (This also is a benefit for reading the first book and could make it less disappointing to a lot of people here on DVDVR: if you want to hear about promotions that comparatively get very little play in books, because it goes very in-depth through his time in Houston and Mid-South, this is the book for you.)

In defense of this, considering the unconditional release of "they could sign today if they wanted to" factor, this seems less like a Fuck You out the door and more a practical thing on both sides more than anything: From all signs before this, The Revival's contracts expired at the end of April (MAYBE if WWE REALLY wanted to give one last "Fuck You" to the Revival, they could have said "no, Dawson's free to go, but Wilder was injured during the contract and so we're adding three months to his deal- he can't leave until June", but by this release WWE didn't do that.) If WWE DID institute a no-compete clause, it would just expire when the contract expired originally, not 90 days after (so for a modern example, on February 28, WWE couldn't have gone to Matt Hardy and say...well, looks like this is goodbye then. Your contract expires March 1, and it's over with..we can't change your mind, you've chosen AEW. Okay, goodbye...SIKE! You're fired! That means you can't sign with AEW until June 1!" If they tried, the no-compete would last until...March 1.) AEW's taped a month + in advance, so their show is in the can, they can't appear on AEW television for a month as it is...and by the time AEW tapes again, The Revival's contracts would have already expired and they'd be free to show up on those tapings anyway...so really, holding The Revival to a no-compete would be pointless. They can't show up next week on Dynamite or Impact (and NWA is showing classic Houston episodes instead of Powerr during this time),, by the time Dynamite or Impact start taping The Revival's contracts will be expired and they could show up for the taping anyway, so there's really no purpose to the no-compete on either side. Hell, with that, WWE releasing The Revival like that with no non-compete is not only not a Fuck You to The Revival, it is actually doing them a BIG FAVOR, if you think about it (since The Revival can't wrestle on AEW television- but it is conceivable The Revival can send some debut videos to AEW and AEW could splice them into Dynamite until the next taping- AEW can't have them wrestle until the next taping, but they CAN now legally put in the videos to say "Look who WE GOT!!!!" and get fans hyped up for it.)

Still a disappointing show for WWE. WWE has a state of the art training facility that can make great new talents and polish up top stars very well, with very good success for a wrestling school. It runs a number of shows in Florida that fine tune gimmicks and helps polish new stars to get them ready for a more national audience. And then you have NXT- their finishing school for developmental stars, a popular show that can make big cult followings for talents and get people truly ready for the next step to make them as big of stars as they could possibly be. I guess what I'm saying is...there were many, many checks and balances in place that should have made it so we would never have to say the words "WWE Superstar Gunner", and yet somehow, here we are.

He was a legit All-America, but even at the time that was 20 years before the Brawl for All (and 20 years where he had been beaten down.) It'd be closer to saying that, for example, Dolph Ziggler would be likely to win a modern Brawl for All because he was a good amateur in college, also about 10-15 years before that. With Janela, it's hard since Janela is okay as an indie wrestler, but what makes him so big is that: There's critically acclaimed bookers on the indies, there's big name workers who were draws as wrestlers and also were able to book- but Janela may be the first true booking DRAW in pro wrestling. Like, even more than seeing Janela on an indie card it might be good- but if an indie card was sold as "We gave the book to Joey Janela for this show. He won't wrestle, but he's going to book it like one of his special events", that would be a bonafide draw to get people in the door. EDIT: As far as Hunter with Evolution, the problem sometimes is he was almost TOO GOOD at the Horsemen pastiche, in a way. Like, instead of taking guys in the current WWE and running an angle like Flair could have worked with them in his prime, he had a bad case of sometimes trying to choose people who were close to the Flair cosplay he wanted to do that month instead (like, for the most blatant example, giving Bubba Ray Dudley a huge push for about a month solely because Hunter wanted to feud with a big fat babyface so he could pay homage to Flair/Dusty.)

Brock Lesnar has a big glaring weakness in his diverticulitis-riddled gut, there was reason to believe Lesnar may or may not have been ducking Bobby Lashley in MMA for why UFC never brought Lashley in, and the guy who had Lesnar's number in Cain Velasquez is also in WWE. Are you SURE about that?

Even if that's the case, it tied to why I didn't buy Brawl for All as a Viceland documentary beforehand. Just by the "it didn't benefit anyone and several people suffered serious injury" thing, it's still just...a lowcard tournament at its core. What inherently makes Brawl for All so much more of a dark moment in wrestling history than, for example, the WCW Hardcore Junkyard Invitational? Just like Brawl for All, it was a lowcard storyline/angle/match series that was a stupid idea from bad creative, there were a number of people who had nothing better to do involved in the match (and like Brawl for All, had a number of people who'd go on to bigger and better things [Lord Steven Regal, Fit Finlay, Hugh Morrus]. Just like Brawl for All, a number of wrestlers suffered serious injuries in it- with some of them even more brutal injuries than Brawl for All (like Fit Finlay nearly losing a leg in the match). Like Brawl for All, there's at least one modern big star outside the major promotions in it (Brawl for All has PCO, the Junkyard Invitation had L.A. Park in it.) It had someone we knew "Dark Side of the Ring' could get as a talking head in Hak (who we know could come in as a talking head since Sandman was literally a talking head on last week's New Jack episode.) Heck, the Junkyard Invitational even had more performers who are no longer with us in the match- Junkyard had Public Enemy and Silver King, Brawl for All onhad Steve Williams and Road Warrior Hawk.

I don't know. The big problem with Bobby or Corbin being the Dr. Death of a new Brawl for All is that they each have legitimate fighting credentials to their name (Bobby as an amateur wrestling champion and MMA standout, Corbin as a former Golden Gloves champion). What made Dr. Death the Dr. Death of Brawl for All was that he didn't- Williams had no real legitimate fighting credentials to speak of, but he considered one of the biggest legit badasses in pro wrestling for so long that people just assumed "well, Williams is like King Badass, of COURSE he'll win the Brawl for All!" Heck, that probably says that there couldn't be a Dr. Death in this Brawl for All for better or worse, since there's not many "that guy's just a bad mutha..." in pro wrestling, especially around WWE level. Most of the people who could be considered now have some legitimate chops- be it in MMA, in amateur wrestling, in some other fighting art...and even in the case of people like, say, Aleister Black or Daniel Bryan who have no legitimate chops to speak of, even those guys are known to have trained in a martial art in their spare time enough so they may not be likely to succeed in a real fight, but it's not like it'd be hopeless either.

In addition to Butterbean's work as a premiere four-rounder boxer, that still doesn't tell the whole story: The big appeal of Butterbean, as said, was not just "King of the Four Rounders", but that Toughman competitions were getting a strong underground movement in the 1990s- and Butterbean was the face of Toughman competitions. This is VERY IMPORTANT, because the Brawl for All, at its core, was a Toughman competition tournament. It basically used similar rules to Toughman matches, and for all intents and purposes that's what it was. That needs to be mentioned, because this wasn't "Bart Gunn fought all the WWE's baddest in Brawl for All and won-let's put him in a boxing match with a tomato can". This was the '90s Toughman equivalent of "Bart Gunn won a Golden Gloves boxing tournament with the WWE roster- let's put him in the ring against Lennox Lewis!" And honestly, this difference ties into @sabremike's claim that "this was a terrible decision and it ruined everyone's careers- even at the time that ties to this "nope, everyone's career was ruined except JBL, the guy it was made to punish" thing is also unrealistic. Even bypassing "well, Bart Gunn ended up having a good run in Japan", looking at the careers of the other, non-Bradshaw competitors in Brawl for All: Bart Gunn: Won Brawl for All. Didn't do much of anything. Gets knocked out by Butterbean and is fired. His WWF career ended over it. Brakkus: Got a career ending injury from Brawl for All. Career ended over it. Savio Vega: Got a injury that ended his WWF career- but even that's a grey area. Savio was circling the drain in WWF anyway, and when he left the company he was able to bounce back, resuming his career in Puerto Rico where he's a living legend (and his MLW run brought him back to the States). His WWF career ended, but at the same time it's not like you can argue it was THAT BIG a setback for him either. Steve Blackman: Blackman got injured in the Brawl for All in 1998. In 1999, Blackman did nothing much of note- but being fair, that likely had less to do with the Brawl for All and more to do with "Steve Blackman wasn’t very interesting at the time, and there really wasn't much you could do with him." A year later, Blackman shifted his character to "Blackman’s the only sane man surrounded by all these crazy people…and did you SEE the martial arts stuff this guy can do with hardcore wrestling?", and he became a star. Blackman escaped the situation better off, albeit it taking a couple years…but honestly it probably would have taken that much time even if he didn’t wrestle in Brawl for All (because again, Steve Blackman wasn’t very interesting, and it wasn’t until Head Cheese formed that WWE made that work for him.) Marc Mero: By this time, he was already a failed experiment and nothing was going to save him. It was 1998- he was firmly "Sable’s Husband" by that point, and his guaranteed contract was close to expiring at the time making Mero not a going concern (and since Mero bombed hard for people with a guaranteed deal, it's not like WWF would have kept him anyway.) He was circling the drain anyway. Brawl for All may not have helped, but it's not like it was the cause of his woes either. Henry Godwinn: By this time, the Godwinns gimmick had run its course, and it was hard-pressed to assume two hillbilly pig farmers would be able to live in the Attitude Era. Throw in that Godwinn was about to retire anyway due to a neck injury he suffered before Brawl for All, and he was close to circling the drain…and EVEN THEN, they repackaged the Godwinns into Southern Justice after Brawl for All. Not only did Godwinn end up better off, he did so even though his in-ring career was coming to a close, AND as a smoking gun there: They managed to make Henry Godwinn have this post-Brawl for All second act by successfully repackaging Mark Canterbury into a badass bodyguard, even though he lost with a relative whimper in the first round. He came out better off. Droz: After the Brawl for All, they helped kick the LOD storyline of Droz replacing Hawk into overdrive, which in the process led to Droz getting a fairly good push and regular role on TV. We'll never truly know how big or how small that storyline for Droz would have ended up being due to the freak accident that happened, but it did look like Droz was a rising star in WWF, so it's fair to call it Droz being better off afterwards. Road Warrior Hawk: Got injured during his bout. Ended up worse off after Brawl for All…but was it the fault of Brawl for All, or was it the fault that Hawk was going through some problems with substance abuse at the time that would be a far more likely reason for him ending up worse off? Occam’s Razor dictates it’s more likely his drug/alcohol problems caused his career to go on the downswing than Brawl for All. Bob Holly: The Brawl for All first round match ended the New Midnight Express, which allowed Holly to go off for repackaging, which led him to gain the Hardcore Holly gimmick which revitalized his career and turned him from "likely on the chopping block in 1999" to have a career for ten more years in the WWE, made him suddenly an important midcarder for the first time in his career and in the thick of the Hardcore/IC/Tag title reigns. It even eventually got him a World Title match at Royal Rumble 2004. Bob Holly ABSOLUTELY escaped Brawl for All better off. Quebecer Pierre: The Quebecers were the lowest team on the totem pole in 1998. They were already borderline jobbers and Brawl for All wouldn’t change much. He was circling the drain before it, he was circling the drain after it. Even using "well, PCO is a big indie star now, so he could have been more at the time" is a bad argument, because PCO wouldn’t be PCO without being a grizzled veteran doing insane stuff he should not be doing in his fifties. Even if you assume he could come up with the PCO gimmick in 1998 ,it wouldn’t have been as awesome in 1998. Steve Williams: Came out of it worse than before. Not really his fault- that was JR being in love with anything involving Oklahoma Sooners football and talking up Williams too much- but it sucked. (Even then, as we've talked about, it seems highly unlikely Dr. Death vs. Steve Austin would have been the gangbuster feud that the rumors were saying. Even if it would just be a non-big 4 PPV match for Austin otherwise, the fact Dr. Death’s WWF action figure is one of the most notorious pegwarmers in WWE action figure history makes it clear that Dr. Death was not capturing WWF fans' imaginations at the time, even independent of Brawl for All, and considering how white-hot WWF was in 1998-99 otherwise...no. Even a non-Big 4 PPV match with Austin wasn't likely in the cards for Dr. Death. Shit, I'd assume it'd be a struggle to keep fans from tuning to Nitro if they made Austin/Dr. Death main event an episode of Raw at that time period.) Godfather: Before the Brawl for All, he was a throwin for the Nation. Afterwards, he managed to develop the pimp character and become a big part of the Attitude Era, become a memorable star, and eventually become a WWE Hall of Famer. Yeah, I’d say Godfather escaped better off. Dan Severn: Came out worse off, but was honestly a failed experiment anyway due to his lack of charisma. Maybe if Severn stayed in the Brawl for All, presumably won due to his legit MMA chops, you have the case "not only could he have won, I would actually bet on Severn to beat Butterbean in the WM XV match- and suddenly you’d have a chance of things opening up." 8-Ball: DOA was circling the drain by this time period. Brawl for All didn’t help things…heck, it might have HURT things in the long run (since most of the Harris Brothers’ having a career past that was based on being identical twins- if 8-Ball did so much better, eventually it probably would have hindered them as a unit.) Scorpio: Same as Hawk. Didn’t come out of Brawl for All better, but it’s far more likely the result of Scorpio’s drug problems at the time than Scorpio’s performance there.

In defense, DID CM Punk really work for IWA-Mid South? If you're not being paid for your work, it's just an elaborate way to say you have a hobby...and if CM Punk's straight edge, presumably Ian Rotten couldn't pay him the way he'd pay everyone else. QED, CM Punk wrestled for IWA-MS, but he didn't "work" for them, per se.