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It's total bullshit. Both Raw and Nitro had plenty of long matches (usually main events) which went through at least one commercial break during Vinnie Roo's tenure. The match after KOTR 99 when Austin regained the belt from Taker, for just one concrete example. As usual, Russo is just blatantly inventing a bunch of obvious lies in order to provide imaginary backup for whatever his current idiotic opinion is. Has anyone with less intelligence, less talent, and less credibility EVER been handed so much power in the wrestling industry, and gone on to have such a depressingly large influence on the business?

 

You could maybe argue Bischoff or Dixie Carter.

 

Although, I do not think TNA has had any meaningful influence on wrestling, and Bischoff at least has always been a decent sales/shill guy.

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Dixie's had practically zero effect on wrestling as a whole. She's mostly just continued the goofy status quo in TNA and not much else.

Bischoff at least has his share of legit positives, even aside from his sales abilities. He pretty much single-handedly invented modern wrestling television. He was the one who popularized (on a national level) wrestling in primetime on weekly live TV, tyrannical heel authority figures, outside invaders, gang wars between a variety of massive factions, and big matches given away on free TV. Yes it was all done before by (insert much-more-obscure wrestling promoter here) and has all become pretty stale by now, but it was an immeasurably huge deal at the time and livened up an industry which at that time was damn near dead and buried.

What's Russo got in comparison? His style of Crash TV was obsolete and mostly abandoned like fifteen seconds after he left whichever company. (Even Lawler eventually stopped shrieking about puppies.) His biggest lasting contribution to the business is having The Rock refer to himself in the third person, and he doesn't really have any other examples even THAT relatively important.

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more Russo

 

Of course Russo singles out El Torito for criticism.

 

"We never had a 2 segment match" - we noticed

 

Russo's scientific process for the Val Venus gimmick? "this guy looks like a porn star"

 

Pretty neat coding by Austin on the "Didn't want to work with Jeff Jarrett" story

 

Also came up with the idea, and execution of the Montreal screwjob.

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more Russo

 

Of course Russo singles out El Torito for criticism.

 

"We never had a 2 segment match" - we noticed

 

Russo's scientific process for the Val Venus gimmick? "this guy looks like a porn star"

 

Pretty neat coding by Austin on the "Didn't want to work with Jeff Jarrett" story

 

Also came up with the idea, and execution of the Montreal screwjob.

 

If only the Taker would have found out.  We would have been saved years of terrible wrestling writing.  

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Yes, it is odd to split away mid-match for something, but wrestling fans want to see good quality wrestling, and that is a rarity in a single segment match.

 

It would be odder if every single match just so magically happened to end by each scheduled commercial break.

 

Not necessarily. It's not like any of the other major sports cut away in the middle of a play in order to go to their scheduled commercial break-- they wait for a stoppage of play which in theory, wrestling's equivalent would be after said match.

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Yes, it is odd to split away mid-match for something, but wrestling fans want to see good quality wrestling, and that is a rarity in a single segment match.

 

It would be odder if every single match just so magically happened to end by each scheduled commercial break.

 

Not necessarily. It's not like any of the other major sports cut away in the middle of a play in order to go to their scheduled commercial break-- they wait for a stoppage of play which in theory, wrestling's equivalent would be after said match.

 

 

I would say that the closest equivalent would be auto racing in that regard. You can't stop the action for a commercial break. 

 

Wrestling has no built in round system or anything that would cause a natural break so a commercial during matches makes sense. 

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I'm catching up on these.  Listened to the first Vince Russo and not sure if I can handle a second.  BRO!  Not to beat a dead horse around here, but man, if only Ryder had come around in a Russo company.  Zack's accent screams success!

 

The Court Bauer one drove me nuts at points.  It felt like every single thing that dude was bitching about was no longer valid.  Work rate?  It's better than it's ever been.  Promos?  They're better than they've been since Attitude.  Cartoonish characters?  Wait, has this guy ever even watched WWE/F?  How the fuck is the guy who invented Umaga complaining about shit being cartoony?  Then he compliments Sheamus and implies that Orton should have ended the streak, which is just the shittiest idea ever.  And he seems to really believe that that boring garbage they were putting out while he was writing - and the years afterward - was better than what we're getting now.  His whole schtick was a messy clusterfuck, some dumb smark with a bunch of stupid talking points that never change.  Every time he made a good point, like about the weakness of creative teams and how Steph has fucked everything up, he followed it with something terribly stupid.  You could tell he was annoying Austin the whole time. 

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re: Court Bauer

 

I can't take him seriously after watching MLW. I realize he's probably gotten better or smarter since then and that this is completely irrational but nothing about MLW told me this guy should be in charge of booking or choosing the creative direction of a company. I say this as someone who loved MLW, it was instrumental in me getting into indy wrestling, but I don't think very highly of him as a creative.

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He was basically a kid who stumbled into his first creative gig, right? With no real experience, no "growing up in the business" advantages which most successful bookers/promoters seem to have. Heck, he's only a year older than me. I sure as hell wouldn't have been capable of running a successful wrestling company when I was 22 years old, either. (Probably still couldn't run one now, but that's another subject.)

And really, for an in-over-its-head indy company, MLW did pretty damn well for itself. Sure, it only lasted for two years; but a little-known fact is that most indies don't even last THAT long. And they certainly don't manage to get themselves on TV and/or home video, and they practically never manage to attract such an entertainingly bizarre variety of talent from around the world. MLW had this sort of WAR-like "why the hell not?" quality to it which made it really fun. "We're gonna book Bryan Danielson versus Teddy Hart. Why? Because I WANT to, that's why! And muthafuckin' Julius Smokes will be the color commentator, JUST BECAUSE I THINK IT'LL BE COOL." It's like a show run by Ian Rotten with MUCH more money and much less, well, Ian Rottenness.

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I'm catching up on these.  Listened to the first Vince Russo and not sure if I can handle a second.  BRO!  Not to beat a dead horse around here, but man, if only Ryder had come around in a Russo company.  Zack's accent screams success!

 

The Court Bauer one drove me nuts at points.  It felt like every single thing that dude was bitching about was no longer valid.  Work rate?  It's better than it's ever been.  Promos?  They're better than they've been since Attitude.  Cartoonish characters?  Wait, has this guy ever even watched WWE/F?  How the fuck is the guy who invented Umaga complaining about shit being cartoony?  Then he compliments Sheamus and implies that Orton should have ended the streak, which is just the shittiest idea ever.  And he seems to really believe that that boring garbage they were putting out while he was writing - and the years afterward - was better than what we're getting now.  His whole schtick was a messy clusterfuck, some dumb smark with a bunch of stupid talking points that never change.  Every time he made a good point, like about the weakness of creative teams and how Steph has fucked everything up, he followed it with something terribly stupid.  You could tell he was annoying Austin the whole time. 

 

 

At the time, I felt that Orton going over Taker was the right call to make. Orton hadn't been completely "made" at that point. He had that terrible baby face turn and really needed something big once they abandoned Orton the face in favor of a more interesting heel Orton. Keep in mind, the streak was not "THE STREAK" at that point. It was highlighted, but I felt that Orton match was the beginning of what was a pretty incredible run for Taker. 

The only not great matches from Orton until the end were:

 

Mark Henry

Triple H (WM 27)

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I'm catching up on these.  Listened to the first Vince Russo and not sure if I can handle a second.  BRO!  Not to beat a dead horse around here, but man, if only Ryder had come around in a Russo company.  Zack's accent screams success!

 

The Court Bauer one drove me nuts at points.  It felt like every single thing that dude was bitching about was no longer valid.  Work rate?  It's better than it's ever been.  Promos?  They're better than they've been since Attitude.  Cartoonish characters?  Wait, has this guy ever even watched WWE/F?  How the fuck is the guy who invented Umaga complaining about shit being cartoony?  Then he compliments Sheamus and implies that Orton should have ended the streak, which is just the shittiest idea ever.  And he seems to really believe that that boring garbage they were putting out while he was writing - and the years afterward - was better than what we're getting now.  His whole schtick was a messy clusterfuck, some dumb smark with a bunch of stupid talking points that never change.  Every time he made a good point, like about the weakness of creative teams and how Steph has fucked everything up, he followed it with something terribly stupid.  You could tell he was annoying Austin the whole time. 

 

 

At the time, I felt that Orton going over Taker was the right call to make. Orton hadn't been completely "made" at that point. He had that terrible baby face turn and really needed something big once they abandoned Orton the face in favor of a more interesting heel Orton. Keep in mind, the streak was not "THE STREAK" at that point. It was highlighted, but I felt that Orton match was the beginning of what was a pretty incredible run for Taker. 

The only not great matches from Orton until the end were:

 

Mark Henry

Triple H (WM 27)

 

 

*GrumbleGrumble* Wrestlemania 27 was the best match of the whole run, maybe the best Mania match ever *GrumbleGrumble*

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The strangest shows get syndicated and popular in the strangest places. A recent episode of the Hollywood Babylon podcast revealed that cohost Ralph Garman is apparently best-known in England for some incredibly obscure Playboy Channel comedy show he worked on years and years ago.

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I'm catching up on these.  Listened to the first Vince Russo and not sure if I can handle a second.  BRO!  Not to beat a dead horse around here, but man, if only Ryder had come around in a Russo company.  Zack's accent screams success!

 

The Court Bauer one drove me nuts at points.  It felt like every single thing that dude was bitching about was no longer valid.  Work rate?  It's better than it's ever been.  Promos?  They're better than they've been since Attitude.  Cartoonish characters?  Wait, has this guy ever even watched WWE/F?  How the fuck is the guy who invented Umaga complaining about shit being cartoony?  Then he compliments Sheamus and implies that Orton should have ended the streak, which is just the shittiest idea ever.  And he seems to really believe that that boring garbage they were putting out while he was writing - and the years afterward - was better than what we're getting now.  His whole schtick was a messy clusterfuck, some dumb smark with a bunch of stupid talking points that never change.  Every time he made a good point, like about the weakness of creative teams and how Steph has fucked everything up, he followed it with something terribly stupid.  You could tell he was annoying Austin the whole time. 

 

 

At the time, I felt that Orton going over Taker was the right call to make. Orton hadn't been completely "made" at that point. He had that terrible baby face turn and really needed something big once they abandoned Orton the face in favor of a more interesting heel Orton. Keep in mind, the streak was not "THE STREAK" at that point. It was highlighted, but I felt that Orton match was the beginning of what was a pretty incredible run for Taker. 

The only not great matches from Orton until the end were:

 

Mark Henry

Triple H (WM 27)

 

 

In truth, I remember being convinced that Orton was going to win that match and I was kind of pissy about it.  I really hated everything involved with Raw at that point, though, and was still only really enjoying Smackdown.

 

Listened to the second Fluffy ep.  Gabriel Iglesias is nothing I can stand to watch as standup, but the first podcast he and Austin did was fantastic.  This second one was okay, but maybe because of Austin forgetting to record the first 1:10.  Poor guy sounded absolutely heartbroken.  But I did like the vibe of "this is what it would be like if some regular wrestling fans got to shoot the shit with Austin about wrestling."  The story of GI drunk texting Austin about Punk was fantastic.

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Listened to the second Fluffy ep.  Gabriel Iglesias is nothing I can stand to watch as standup, but the first podcast he and Austin did was fantastic.  This second one was okay, but maybe because of Austin forgetting to record the first 1:10.  Poor guy sounded absolutely heartbroken.  But I did like the vibe of "this is what it would be like if some regular wrestling fans got to shoot the shit with Austin about wrestling."  The story of GI drunk texting Austin about Punk was fantastic.

 

 

I'm on board with you about the first episode with Gabriel. The two of them sitting there, shooting Patron and the shit was just great.

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Crazy about Owen, and how it was never even really planned.  Makes the story that much sadder.

It's also complete bullshit.  Everything came out in the lawsuit: Vince didn't like how long it took Owen to get out of the harness on TV so he asked if they could get someone who would use a quick release of some kind.  The usual rigger said no, it's too dangerous.  Worried that they'd find someone who would do it, he asked his assistant to offer to do it the safer way at cost.  WWE turned HIM down and found a rigger who would use a quick release snap shackle.

 

WWE effectively had to pay nothing in the settlement because what wasn't covered by insurance was paid for by their own lawsuit against the snap shackle company (they marketed it for stunt use even though it wasn't safe/approved).

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