Elsalvajeloco

Keyword: teen. More importantly, that's also the era where you have people starting to veer off course in protest of characters specifically the Hulk Hogan and Dusty Rhodes of the world. Small kids weren't giving Dusty shit. It was the older teens and adults who tired of his act by then. Secretly, that probably contributed to the problem that people have now. That was a product of booking every top babyface as the hero that conquers all. However, it's what made those guys stars to begin with. Also, I am not sure if Flair counts as a heel until mid to late 80s. He was very much a tweener up until that point where he's doing heelish shit, but David Crockett is giggling like a school girl in awe of Flair being so ridiculous and over the top. So are people suppose to boo him? Jimmy Cornette is talking about how Baby Doll has been on more street corners than the Atlanta Constitution. What are we suppose to do with that?

There is the story of Glenn Kulka breaking his leg during a WWF house show before a match w/ pre Jackal Don Callis. He got injured jumping off the ropes after climbing them to pose to the crowd during his entrance. I think they had big plans for him cause of his look too.

Listen: If someone attacked you randomly in the street, whether you're able to defend yourself or not, you're not going be like "well, this person is clearly misunderstood and needs to be given a second chance". The reality is you're going to get the authorities involved and start singing to the police like Shirley Caesar. I think most people are judging the stances of good and evil off of (1) a society where YMMV given the issue so the line between crybaby and righteous person is very thin and (2) you're grown so you no longer have the obligatory western film white hats vs. black hats view of life. At one point, unless you somehow unlike the rest of everyone else was super mature as a kid, you booed or cheered the parties you were suppose to as they intended you do. As your world view changes, that shit disappears fast. If you see someone one as an asshole, there is very little they can do to get you back on their side. Pro wrestling still works on a very archaic system of good and bad guys even when they did a whole bunch of characters that had shades of gray with varying amounts of success. Either you rock with the good guy or you don't. Either you see the bad guy as terrible or you don't. It still doesn't change that pro wrestling only works on that system. Now if you have a more pessimistic view as a ten year old, I would be really worried.

Well dummy...don't follow em on social media. Solves that.

Well, it helps that Kerr and Dwayne share a similar facial structure. I think that might be the easiest part to achieve regarding recreating the documentary.

It use to be prevalent everywhere, but what is where some Japanese wrestlers just refuse to have surgery until they've done irreparable damage to themselves? And it's bizarre in that they pull wrestlers for more minor injuries or illnesses. Yeah, I understand you might be out a good while but you also run into the reality to doing serious long term and possibly permanent damage if you do nothing. You're creating a catch-22. The promotion needs you, but I think they would like you at 100% or as close to it as possible.

I really suggest people take a look at Nicolas Dalby vs. Randy Brown.

Oh if someone would have made a domestic violence joke on Stephanie, Nick Khan would've tackled that person off the stage like a Secret Service agent protecting the President. They don't need that shit with the Janel Grant lawsuit going on. That would have brought an abrupt halt to the proceedings for the afternoon.

Keep in mind though, this is a bunch of guys who don't have a variety of options. After about the first slew of ECW stars cycled out, the last 3 years of the promotion is about seven or eight really talented guys, some good hands who might do well as midcarders in the WWE once the company goes away (see: Tajiri), and then a whole group of people whose main accomplishments after ECW goes away is working either XPW, CZW, or ECW reunion shows. It's either the indies or bust, really. Even then, at that point in independent wrestling, there is a strong chance you won't get paid or shorted anyway. This ain't for example, Don King where boxers kept signing with him through the 90s and 2000s after he had a litany of different issues ranging from paying guys to freezing them out in the 70s and 80s. While there was a half dozen or more promoters sharing space on HBO for several years, Don got to have Showtime all to himself and all the dates he wanted to put on some rather mediocre shows outside of some really loaded PPV cards. Plus, I mean, who was going to push some of those guys like Heyman was going to? Justin Credible had the Kliq connection and was still enhancement talent for the better part of four years until he went to ECW. Sabu was persona non grata in ECW, but because Paul was willing to take him back and also cause Sabu kinda made him persona non grata with the other major promoters, he had to mutually agreed to come back to ECW. There are a variety of reasons and circumstances of why Paul was able to do what he was doing not dealing with cult of personality. It's a really the same way with a Global or Smoky Mountain. You're getting guys who washed out of the major promotions, young guys who need the reps, guys who are on their very last chance with some of them being extremely desperate, guys who are just bodies so anything they get is probably more than what they deserve, and also guys who have potential but no one can see it yet. Another thing is Paul allowed about anything to happen. Shit, I just watched the New Jack thing with Chad Austin last night. In no other promotion really would assaulting someone like that be acceptable and you get to come back like nothing happened. Yes, Paul is extremely charismatic. However, he had to do a lot of those things and have a certain characteristic cause outside of being a booking genius and carnival barker, he didn't know how to be a real responsible wrestling promoter. A lot of things happened on his watch that if it happened now, there is no way he would get the props he has gotten or be as beloved. He got to be a promoter when a guy like Paul Heyman could be a promoter just like Herb Abrams got to be a promoter when someone clearly out of his gourd even w/o drugs could be a promoter and put like 300 people in the then brand new MGM Grand Garden Arena. God bless him cause Paul on paper should compete with the likes of Vince and Turner and through his accomplishments eventually get the financial backing to compete at that level. In actuality, he stood no chance cause of his shortcomings.

I would say Vince (McMahon, that is) has always been the guy that people think or maybe thought Paul is/was. Both could get their guys to run through walls, but Vince was able to extend his runs when his company was on the brink of collapse multiple times commercially and critically and also get people to believe he cared more than he actually did to the point he can never do any wrong. Paul was always going to have a job in pro wrestling because if anything, he has the gift of gab and that is always going to be valuable in any era of pro wrestling. However, that don't really separate him from Cornette, Jake Roberts, Tully, Dusty, Bischoff, and a bunch of others who have had nine lives and manage to always find work. As long as Paul continues to want to do something onscreen, they will allow him to do it. However, once he showed his ass up on Raw next to Jim Ross unannounced and then subsequently was willing to work in Vince's writing room, the Paul Heyman that captured everyone's attention throughout the 80s and 90s no longer existed.

This would be for the Heyman portion, correct? I am not arguing that end as much as saying Heyman built a lot of his credibility on being the guy with his with his finger on the pulse. I think once Heyman's rep started to take hits, it became extremely untenable what he was doing. Instead of allowing him to become more powerful like an actual politician, it just became parody and fodder for shoot interviews and wrestling fans. A person who is somewhat transparent is able to wield that power for greater additional use. Paul went from excellent on screen performer, booking "genius", and the greatest outlaw promoter ever to just excellent on screen performer. Heyman had a playbook of five or six good plays. Once he ran through all of them, that was it for him.

START POLITICS/ If Clinton was fully transparent, he doesn't win in 92 cause black people wouldn't have fallen for the ruse. END POLITICS/ But seriously, I dunno if Heyman is transparent. At least not during the ECW days. Just like Bischoff, I think people need to separate Heyman: the performer and Heyman: the promoter or at least divide up his career into sections.

The Backlund run in the 90s: The happy-go-lucky stuff was okay but it didn't really resonate in an ironic way it was probably suppose to. He turns heel, and it works to a degree until the Diesel title change. Then it's a rapid decline from there. Like sharp. How he survived the 1995 roster culling towards the end of the year, I do not know. He has a match (probably his last as a full time active wrestler) with Savio on WWF Superstars in late 95 that is probably one of the worst in modern history. I am assuming that when both guys walked back through the curtains after the match, they probably thought they were gonna get their walking papers right then and there. Either that or Vince and the creative room at the time probably had a closed door conversation about phasing Bob out. Mind you, that's after he has a pretty damn good tag match with Owen against Bret and Davey Boy on Action Zone early in 1995. I am assuming between then, Bob just lost all confidence as there was no clear endgame on what he was suppose to do. Also, losing his title in like ten seconds off TV made it seem like he was just a mid carder and getting the title was just an angle to advance the Bret/Owen storyline. The WrestleMania I Quit match w/ Bret was terrible, but some of that can be contributed to Piper's incessant butting in asking the competitors if they quit even when it doesn't call for the ref to step in. In short, that run probably should have been a year and some change tops. However, it definitely overstayed its welcome.

HEY I WAS TOLD IT WAS GONNA BE SCRIPTED!

If you see some of IG (or YT) stuff where the upper portion of her face is unmasked, you probably would know her out in public by some distinguishable facial features if she was just walking around. It appears that she was does on regular basis in Japan. And surprisingly (and I guess thankfully), there is not anything I've seen where someone took a picture of her without a mask on.

It's not because they're both Jews, but he is the literally the hip hop Paul Heyman. Except he probably pays people on time and is somehow more divisive.

I guess this goes here: I am at work and this morning I choose to listen to yesterday's episode of Gil's Arena, which is Gilbert Arenas' basketball show as opposed to the rest of his content which is anything but basketball. DJ Vlad was one of the guests on the couch. I didn't expect him to bring up the whole Booker T/ Swerve ordeal. I definitely didn't expect him to mention the Chasyn Rance stuff. That shit caught me off guard. Vlad's platform is pretty big itself. Now, he is going on other big platforms to skewer Booker T.

From being potentially a victim of vehicular homicide to committing voluntary manslaughter in a matter of moments...life comes at you fast.

I think you may be overthinking it just a tad bit just because: 1. There are too many platforms (and I definitely mean too many) for different entities to go to and survive, if not, thrive in today's world. For WWE to have an actual monopoly, they would have to do the equivalent of a LF, CF, or RF covering the largest outfield in MLB by his damn self or a DB trying to cover 4 or 5 WRs at one time. It's an impossibility. I somewhat begrudgingly agree it won't stop them from trying, but it's still an impossibility. In this lifetime or the next lifetime. Too much ground to cover, and it's only going to get bigger. That and pro wrestling itself is not big enough or in demand enough in any market including the United States where people (networks and the like) would want it the quantities of the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, etc. by one singular entity. Hey, maybe somehow crazy shit happens and it gets there one day. Point remains though it ain't going to be today, tomorrow, or the next day. Pro wrestling is just big enough where multiple businesses with one predominant company can do well enough that hundreds and hundreds of folks can be gainfully employed. That's it. 2. WWE, just like UFC, has been on a mission to wipe out all the competition for 20+ years. Guess what? Anytime one company disappears, four or five pop back up. All those companies go away? Seven or eight pop back up. It may not be in the spots where they're most needed or specifically replacing the old ones especially regionally, but they serve the endgame purpose needed usually: cultivate and develop talent and give them valuable reps. It wasn't until about ten years ago (coincidentally coinciding with the start of the class action lawsuit) that UFC stopped directly targeting competition. Why? They figured there was no need cause everyone else IS their developmental. You get rid of your developmental system, then when people get to you, they probably won't be ready for the next level. Vince try as he might wasn't successfully doing it just cause WWF/E was never on an island to itself. There were always people who either had the same amount of money as Vince or way more than Vince. The latter always pissed Vince off so he made himself the perpetual underdog, when in actuality he could always pick and choose when he was the cruel master or when he was good guy fighting the dastardly villain. It's the same way here with some of the buzzwords and verbiage as you likely notice from the old days except it's no longer Vince having to respond to Turner and WCW putting belt to ass in terms of ratings and buyrates. WWE is under immense pressure getting paid a bunch of money and on the largest platforms possible for visibility, and they have to respond in kind and show they're doing actual work to prove that they deserve to get those huge rights fees, sponsorship dollars, etc. They cannot sit back, relax, and just try to skate by. To be fair, it's going to be the same way with AEW cause they're getting paid too and expecting to get paid a lot more in future years. However, I am not sure if ANY of these moves have a direct correlation with what goes on with their competition to the point where any party needs to be concerned about what's going on. When Tony Khan is ready to move on from AEW, we will likely know. If the parent org for WWE decides, you know what? We can get significant value selling off different pieces, then, we will know. But until then? No one is going anywhere. The indies and some of these lesser companies now international...they've always been in flux. Just not enough to notice, on the verge of going out of business, or being in rough enough shape where it's probably the right move is to sell. Anything that's not the tippy top (i.e. WWE or AEW or CMLL or up until recently, New Japan) is like water. It takes the form of any container it's in. The unofficial job of those companies has always been to bend to the will of the demands of the industry. It not spelled out so explicitly. It's just that now that WWE or AEW or whomever is directly involved, then it seems like a cause for concern. It likely isn't. You will still be watching and loving wrestling in some shape or form (perhaps not as passionately, but YMMV). We have seen wars being raged and fought for decades, and people are still watching wrestling. For better or for worse.

Hey, if you kiss enough ass.... I mean look at Brian James.

There is about less than 1% of that happening. Man, I thought freebasing died in the 90s. Guess not.

Or...follow me now...it will be a giant money pit since they don't understand the actual economics of regularly running Mexico and they will reverse course inside of 3-5 years.

...except AAA couldn't make money for themselves.

I would think the reason why they purchased it was to try to fight some type of proxy war and spark a promotional war in Mexico, but you didn't need to purchase a dying promotion when you can just try to sign away CMLL's best talent when their contracts expire as you would now. Or just wait for the promotion to die. Tony's company has a relationship with the bigger company, but his inside track and inroad isn't that advantageous. They're not trying to build a presence in Mexico outside having talent appear on CMLL shows. This Arena Mexico show might just be a one off just to say he did it much like the Dome show was earlier this year.

It has to get settled first. If it doesn't go to arbitration, it could take years before the dust will settle. Vince might not be around then.