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FEBRUARY 2019 WRESTLING DISCUSSION.


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I'm sorry, if you actually even give the slightest bit of credence to " I was supposed to die in a plane crash and come out on a ghost on wires " as a Bischoff idea , let alone being something that was actually discussed...you might be insane. I'm not judging. Mental issues are serious and nothing to joke about. I hope folks who believe that seek out the help they need, and embrace it.

Now, if he's just mixing up Bischoff and Russo, I totally buy it.

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With Halloween Havoc on the horizon, Bischoff hoped to supplement the card - which featured DDP challenging Goldberg, Kevin Nash facing Scott Hall, Bret Hart squaring off with Sting, and Hollywood Hogan meeting the Warrior - with an attention-grabbing angle like no other. “It was probably October 20th,” begins TBS President Bill Burke. “It’s like Tuesday…we’ve got Thursday Thunder and then Halloween Havoc is over the weekend or something. I come to work, and I get a message from Terri Tingle - the head of Standards and Practices - that says, ‘have you talked to Eric’? “[Terri said], ‘he’s got an idea that I’m not so excited about. I said, ‘no’, and now he wants to talk to you’. “So I said [over the phone], ‘Hey, Eric, I heard you got an idea’.”

“He said, ‘yeah…here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna leak it on the Internet…” “Remember Eric was a pilot - he had his pilot’s license. “So Eric goes, “we’re gonna leak it on the Internet that I died in a plane crash with…” “I wish I could remember the wrestler. It was a medium-level wrestler. “He goes, “we’re just gonna leak it out, and no-one’s gonna know if it’s real or not. Then, he and I are gonna come back as ghosts at Halloween Havoc, and we’re gonna kick everybody’s ass!’ “I was like, ‘huh. Well, y’know, we generally don’t deal in death…I mean, we’re gonna say that Eric Bischoff died?’ “He said, ‘yeah’. “I said, ‘well, Eric, you’re also the guy who is President of WCW. So [in reality], we would have to do a press release…’ “He said, ‘no press release’. “I said, ‘what if somebody calls CNN’? “He’s like, ‘we’ll say…we can’t comment until they’ve notified…next of kin’, or something! “I said, ‘ok, Eric…we can’t tell CNN…that’s like the most respected - at least then - the most respected [news outlet]…we can’t do that! And I don’t think we wanna deal in death. I’m really sorry - I’m with Terri on this one’

 

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Grasping at straws, Bischoff went back to his creative well, modifying an idea that had previously been rejected. “He wanted to be on an airplane that got lost,” recalls Schiller. “He would fly in to Mexico, his plane would disappear and there would be a search for him. “I said, ‘no, Eric, we can’t play around with the FAA. We can’t do that’.

 

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Grasping at straws, Bischoff went back to his creative well, modifying an idea that had previously been rejected. “He wanted to be on an airplane that got lost,” recalls Schiller. “He would fly in to Mexico, his plane would disappear and there would be a search for him. “I said, ‘no, Eric, we can’t play around with the FAA. We can’t do that’.

Creative well? More like throwing shit at wall.

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"I picture myself (at WrestleMania)...but again....we became so strong and we're featured but the more you hang around, the more you're forgotten. It doesn't matter how good you are. I think I'm good. It doesn't matter what I do. It kind of ends up the same thing."

I think this is the most depressing of all the things Rusev said. So many people have said the truth about him, this guy makes everything work. Angles and stupid shit that would have killed most guys, Rusev takes that ball, runs it for a touchdown and spikes that sumbitch. Let's be honest, there's no way Rusev Day should have actually been a thing but by god him and Aiden struck gold. Bare minimum they should have been tag team champions but good lord what a missed opportunity.

I don't know when his contract comes up, but he needs to get far, far away from WWE. NJPW, ROH,AEW, wherever, go somewhere and show WWE what they missed out on. Rusev is a fucking huge star waiting to happen, it's just a damn shame it hasn't happened already

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2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I wouldn't put anything past WCW given some of the shit that saw the light of day.

Case in point:

WCW let Scott Steiner bring a tiger to the ring once.

Now, stop.

Go back.

Breathe.

And read that sentence again.

WCW let Scott Steiner bring a tiger to the ring once.

Virtually nothing was beyond the pale down there

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2 hours ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

Now, if he's just mixing up Bischoff and Russo, I totally buy it.

Its easy to tell it's not a Vince Russo idea. It has a setup and a payoff that are separated by time. Vince would write it to have the plane crash on the way to Vegas, have the announcers talk about it in the opening segment, and have Ghost Buff come down during the first match.

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19 hours ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

I'm not sure how far Rusev would have been pushed anyway, but I suspect most of his problems come from Lana. She seems like a nice person, but one who attracts drama while trying to further her career. Things seemed to start going downhill for them when she tipped off TMZ about their engagement when she had been put in that romance angle with Ziggler.

 

She was absolutely justified in doing that.  Wrestling has a long history of sabotaging relationships via booking like this and Vince is a fucking sociopath.  I have no doubt at all that he booked her to be with Ziggler just for shits and giggles to see what it might do with her real life relationship.  If tipping off TMZ put the breaks on a dumb angle essentially designed to fuck with performers' real lives, good.

 

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2 hours ago, Technico Support said:

She was absolutely justified in doing that.  Wrestling has a long history of sabotaging relationships via booking like this and Vince is a fucking sociapath.  I have no doubt at all that he booked her to be with Ziggler just for shits and giggles to see what it might do with her real life relationship.  If tipping off TMZ put the breaks on a dumb angle essentially designed to fuck with performers' real lives, good.

For what it's worth, I'm not saying Lana was wrong in feeling the way she did. And you're right, WWE has a nasty habit of interfering with relationships--some writer tried to do the same with Miz because he had the hots for Maryse several years ago. Personally, I don't blame Lana one bit.

But from a backstage perspective, that was the death knell. Lana had been perceived as a force of nature in charge of a super athlete. She then was tracked to be a new Tawny Kitaen with Ziggler. But after that, they make the following choices:

** Take her off TV for more PC training as Rusev flounders with the League of Nations.

** They bring her back alongside Rusev, who wins the US title again but then gets his lunch served to him by Roman Reigns nearly every week. I think Rusev fought for and lost Lana's 'honor' somewhere along the way (I think someone backstage flirted with the idea of putting Lana with Roman onscreen, but that's just my take).

**  Rusev gets hurt, so they both go off TV. They bring her back to compete in-ring, but that goes poorly. She gets connected back to Rusev, but the spark is gone and we have this mess. Rusev Day was a massive hit, but had little to do with her and wasn't supposed to happen in the first place.

I feel bad for Lana. She had one of the most dynamic characters in recent years, and so much bad stuff happened that was beyond her control. Sadly, I think she fed into it and made things worse for herself. She's really unhappy and it's rough to see. Her post-Rumble promo was incredible in how raw and honest it was. She has really tried to improve as a wrestler and she was always good on the mic. For her and Rusev's piece of mind, they to find new pastures and reinvent themselves.

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4 minutes ago, Burgundy LaRue said:

I feel bad for Lana. She had one of the most dynamic characters in recent years, and so much bad stuff happened that was beyond her control. Sadly, I think she fed into it and made things worse for herself. She's really unhappy and it's rough to see. Her post-Rumble promo was incredible in how raw and honest it was. She has really tried to improve as a wrestler and she was always good on the mic. For her and Rusev's piece of mind, they to find new pastures and reinvent themselves.

Exactly this. WWE isn't all there is out there and given the dwindling audience, I'd argue that you can be seen as just as important everywhere else than in WWE. Hell, you can certainly make the same if not more money elsewhere.

Meltzer keeps bringing up Mojo and Gable as the two guys that need to leave WWE the most, but honestly it's Rusev and Lana. These two have so much natural charisma that to see them have their careers regularly upended is crazy. Go ANYWHERE else. Shit, show up at Bar Wrestling or Suburban Fight, go to NJPW, go to ROH, go to AEW, go do shit in Mexico, etc. These two can very easily blaze their own trail. They don't need WWE, but if WWE is where they want to be the most and if they want to be on top in WWE, then you have to show Vince you can make it without him for him to actually give a shit about you.

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Yeah, hearing them talk about it was incredibly depressing.  It's been said ad nauseum how somebody was held down for whatever justified or unjustified reason.  But this seems to definitely be the case and I feel for them.  I see no reason to doubt the issues that Lana had to put up with.  One thing she said near the end was how she has a difficult time learning due to some physical issue.  It's not very public knowledge aside from the podcast but it does explain why for all that she's improved it's taken so long.  And if she was really told those specific reasons for not being on Total Divas then that's a really shitty way to do it.

I don't know what their contract situation is like.  But as fun as it is to picture them in AEW or elsewhere I think they would fit best in New Japan.

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I don't doubt that, especially in the beginning. It's clear they saw Lana as the Sable to Rusev's Marc Mero, so it stands to reason backstage would think he was beneath her.

But Lana does herself no favors these days by saying Ronda Rousey doesn't bring in ratings and has done nothing to help women's wrestling. Women will be main-eventing WM because of Ronda this year. Bad-mouthing one of the company's biggest stars isn't the way to go.

Now if her and Rusev's contract are up soon, maybe they can tough it out a bit. But if their contracts are in place for a while, it's going to be tough for them. They're not going to get released barring a major scandal. 

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