Mielenkiintoiset shootit ja haastattelut

[Jack DiBiase]

Richard Fliehr on elänyt elämää täysillä. Kyllä se aina jonkun 40 vuotta kaupan kassalle istumisen voittaa. Okei, p**ka ihminen, voi-voi, se ei muuta sitä tosiseikkaa, että "Nature Boy" Ric Flair on kovin ikinä.

[Inkfish]

Kyllä Ric FLair osa homman ja on kovin ikinä

[Kuunlento]

Jim Cornetteltakin puskee kohta uutta shoottia ulos, hyvä sillä luulin tyypin kokonaan lopettaneen. Aiemmin kun uutisointiin, että hän pitää taukoa tästä ranttaamisesta. Tätä odotellessa.

Hän on henkilö jota voi kuunnella monta tuntia putkeen. Tosin ainoana kritiikkinä se, että välillä tuntuu, että Cornette valittaa jobberin lailla, joka ei saanut pushia tai kuin koulukiusattu kakara. (Esim. Jim suuttuu Kevin Dunnille ja haukkuu hänen hampaitaan, aika halpamaista)

[Darien Fawks]

http://www.gerweck.net/2011/09/01/video ... stin-more/

CM Punk vartin videohaastattelussa. Mielenkiintoista juttua.

[Darien Fawks]

http://www.gerweck.net/2012/05/11/video ... %E2%80%8F/

Mielenkiintoinen Kingin haastattelu. Kertoo muun muassa siitä, millaista on työskennellä Colen kanssa.

[Darien Fawks]

http://www.mixphiladelphia.com/pages/So ... e=10114180

Ja vautsi vau, miten hieno Codyn haastattelu! Hienon hieno mies!

[Darien Fawks]

http://www.mixphiladelphia.com/pages/So ... e=10114180

Ja vautsi vau, miten hieno Codyn haastattelu! Hienon hieno mies!

No comment, jätkät? Koodi kertoo muun muassa, kenen idea oli tuoda vanha Intercontinental-vyö takaisin.

[Merovingi]

Gangrel tarinoi Luna Vachonista ja Owen Hartista.

Lyhyt, 10 minuutin video, joka kannattaa katsoa. Gangrel vaikuttaa kyllä todella mukavalta tyypiltä ja mies ihan herkistyy videon aikana. Katsokaa ja ihmetelkää Owen Hartin kärsivällisyyttä!

[Goner]

Tässä haastattelussa on pari aihetta, joita ei aina ymmärretä täällä niin hyvin kuin toivoisin. En ole aiemmin osannut ottaa niitä puheeksi kunnolla, enkä ota nytkään, mutta laitanpa ainakin luettavaksi. Eihän niitä kovin tarkasti käsitellä tässäkään, mutta onpa ainakin jotain. Tarkoittamani aiheet ovat siis painiuutisoinnin historia ja painin suosio eri aikakausina. Gary Mehaffy haastattelee Dave Meltzeriä:

Q. When did your interest in pro wrestling start?

When I was in fifth grade. Basically, all the kids in school were watching wrestling every Saturday afternoon that I was hanging out with, so I ended up watching wrestling with them. That’s kind of how it started. I became a pretty big fan pretty quickly, but most of the kids were in those days – it was nothing unusual.

Q. Who were the main guys that you were into at that stage?

The wrestlers here, it was San Francisco Wrestling that I first saw at the Cow Palace, Roy Shire Wrestling, were Pat Patterson, Ray Stevens, Superstar Billy Graham, Paul DeMarco came pretty quickly (after that)…..I’m trying to think who else. Pepper Gomez, Rocky Johnson and Peter Maivia were here. Tony Parisi was here…..The first show I ever saw was Pat Patterson, Billy Graham and Paul DeMarco against Ray Stevens, Peter Maivia and Rocky Johnson in the main event. Those were the top guys here at the time and a lot of the big names came through over the next couple of years. The territory was very strong, the Cow Palace was very strong.

Q. You started a newsletter in your teens. What led to you coming up with that?

I don’t know honestly! It was just something I did. I was already doing a newsletter on baseball at the time and it was just something I did to occupy my time, and then I sent a copy to Jim Melby who did a fan club column for Wrestling Monthly or Wrestling Review – I think it was Wrestling Monthly – and he put it in and I got a bunch of subscribers out of it and that’s pretty much how I got started.

Q. Subsequently from there what led to the birth of the Observer itself?

The Observer came years later, it was when I was in college. When I was in college, in my journalism class, pretty much most of the guys in the class were wrestling fans and I was a wrestling fan – although territorially wrestling had died and the local wrestling here was the AWA which was not that popular, it never really hit in San Francisco. They used a lot of older guys, and those older guys were legends in Minneapolis, Winnipeg and Chicago and those places, but when they brought The Crusher and Mad Dog Vachon here, along with Baron Von Raschke, they were old men so the people here couldn’t relate to them at all. Even with Hogan it was never that big here, but my friends were all into wrestling from their childhood and they would always ask me questions about it because I was pretty knowledgeable about it at that point, so I started doing the Observer because I was talking to them and trading tapes with people at the same time from other territories. I would be writing letters to those people and I figured that instead of writing ten different letters to ten different people in the same part of the country I’ll just basically write a newsletter. That’s how I got started.

Q. Obviously nowadays in the internet era it’s slightly easier, but how difficult was it maintaining the newsletter back in the early eighties?

It wasn’t like I could make any money out of it in the early years, but it was fun! Wrestling was pretty popular in those days and it was pretty interesting with all of the different territories. There was a lot of wrestling to watch and it never got boring with so many different ideas, so many different people and so many talented guys. It was incredibly time consuming to keep up with and but it fun at the same time.

Q. There’s the talk that in the mid eighties you contemplated pulling out of the newsletter because you were fed up with the scene at the time? Was this right and what had soured you on……

It wasn’t so much that, as much as I got a job with a soccer magazine and I didn’t figure I could do both at the same time. What I did was……the old Observer was a magazine thing that would come out every couple of weeks – it used to be monthly, but there was so much news that I ended up doing it every third week – and I didn’t think I could do it any more while doing the soccer thing, so I said I was going to stop doing it but I still wanted to keep in contact with certain people, so I would do a weekly letter to people that was 6 pages, and that got so popular, and actually more popular than the old Observer, that I never actually stopped. I figured I would stop when I got the soccer job, but it just changed the Observer for the better, so it worked out better that way!

Q. Mick Foley has gone, public is one way to put it, with crediting you with helping him get his foot into the mainstream wrestling door. How influential do you think you were with the Observer in helping get guys notoriety?

In the eighties, a lot, because everybody read it. Now, who’s to say? I don’t really know. In the eighties it was the source of information and everybody read it.

Q. How did you manage to convince some of the bigger names in the industry to give you “insider” information? How did you build up those relationships?

I was on the phone all the time with everybody. It wasn’t as hard as people think, as far as that goes, because wrestlers in those days were going from territory to territory and there was a lot of bullshit that got spread, and the one thing that I did was that I was able to get how the business was doing in different parts of the country, so it was valuable to the wrestlers. Some of the wrestlers had a closed mind towards it. A lot of the promoters didn’t like it, but some of the promoters did. From very early on, most of the promoters were getting it and a lot of the wrestlers were getting it. It was like – who was in what territory, what business were they doing, what territory was up, what territory was down, who were the new, young guys that are good, things like that. It served a purpose because the wrestling magazines were looking at wrestling in a very different way than they do now and than the Observer did. It was about who was making money and who wasn’t, but when Vince took off, which was actually pretty quick after the Observer started, it was where was Vince doing well, where was Vince not doing well, who was hanging on by a thread, who was still flourishing. Wrestling changed drastically from 1984 – 1988. The product from 1983 compared to 1988 was virtually unrecognisable with the differences in the big picture. With the death of the territories and the rise of the WWF and to an extent the rise and fall of Jim Crockett Promotions and Bill Watts and the AWA, and the death of the other companies, it was just a period where something big was happening every day. There’s never been a more………there’s been bigger news stories but there’s never been a bigger news worthy period than that time, from late 1983 – 1988, when all the moves were being made by Vince, and then by Crockett, and then Crockett had to sell. It changed the whole face of the industry everywhere, really.

Q. I was going to ask this in a little while, but I’ll just ask it now. Do you think we are still seeing the effect nowadays of the territories systematically being killed off?

Yea. We’re feeling the effects of everything that happened. From the effects of the territories going down – although that was an inevitability, it would have happened no matter what – but the one where we’re feeling the effect the most was the Turner company, WCW, going down. It changed the industry in a way that it’ll never recover, because the stakes of getting in are too high. They were able to compete to a degree, but you can’t do it now because you’ve got so much catching up to do and the business has changed and the fan base has changed. The fans of an era where they were wrestling fans, that era has gone. Right now you have fans of the WWE version of wrestling and if it’s not that some people will watch TNA on television, but very few will pay for it. As far as independents go, yea, you’ll get your crowds at independent shows, such as they are, but it’s very limited unless it’s a big deal on a national stage. But WCW going down changed wrestling in a way that I don’t know if it will ever fully, recover isn’t he right word, but the effects will be felt forever.

Q. Jumping back for a little second. You were talking a week or so ago on one of the Observer radio shows with Bryan about how the irony was that Vince was talking to you at one stage in the eighties and was telling the guys to make sure that they weren’t. Were they many of the guys who were afraid of talking to you in case it was obvious that info was coming from them?

I don’t know. I’m sure there were. In those days it was more of a running gag. I think now people are probably more afraid than they were then. The guys now – and this is not a knock on them, it’s a product of their environment – are a different breed of guys. It’s just different. It’s not better or worse, it’s just different. Before you had a lot of people who had a lot more confidence. I won’t say it was a confidence in their ability, they had that too, but they were from a different and they were independent guys. Now, they’re paranoid guys. There was always paranoia, but it’s a different level now. There was a feeling that if you were talented and a promoter didn’t like you, then screw ‘em, there’s 25 places to work! Now, even if you’re talented, it’s very easy for you not to have a job and not have ANY job. There’s no comparables to go somewhere else if you don’t like it here. It’s more of an environmental difference, but they guys are different too. I just noticed that when WWE changed percentages on what guys got paid at house shows, in the last couple of months, it just wet by and nobody complained and nobody said anything because they are afraid to say anything, whereas before it you’d had something like that you’d have had guys walking out. Guys walked out over one payoff. When they were a main event on a show and they thought they’d got screwed on a payoff they’d walk out and go and work somewhere else. You’d see territories go down because of that. It’s just a different era of business, it’s changed.

Q. There have been a few famous incidents involving the Observer – one involving Hogan burning a copy of it on PPV (World War III). Did you find that funny or frustrating?

I thought it was funny when he did that. I remember that night, talking to people in WCW, we were all laughing about it. It was just a weird night. He (Hogan) was trying to say Savage didn’t have an arm injury and there’s one arm half the size of the other, and the finish of his match is the armbar on the bad arm, and Hogan going “Well, The Giant isn’t going to win” or whoever was going to win, who was the guy who was originally going to win and it was changed, I think to Savage or something, and actually in the Observer it said Savage was going to win, or something along those line. The whole thing was just hilarious. (Hogan saying) “Oh, yea, me and Savage have been working the boys, he was never injured” and one of his arm’s half the size of the other!

Q. Do you find any competition or hostility, which might be the wrong way to put it, between yourself the likes of Wade Keller or Mike Johnson etc?

No, not at all. Mike Johnson works really hard, and I’m sure Wade Keller does to. I’m not in contact with Wade Keller at all, and I’m not in contact with Mike Johnson a lot, but on occasion I am, but I don’t think about it or anything like that.

Q. Do you think it’s easier or harder these days to get a five star rating on a match?

I don’t think it’s easier or harder. I think that there’s a formula to matches that’s a little bit different than in the past, but I dunno. You’d have to go back year by year. There’s never a lot, except perhaps that All Japan era in the nineties, when those guys were just so incredible and innovative and things like that. It’s never been easy to get a five star match, in my mind. There’s a couple every year, maybe.

Q. What led to the Observer Hall Of Fame becoming what it is?

It was an idea I’d been kicking around for a few years, and it just was the time to do it. I would talk to different people, like Thesz and stuff, about different guys, and I think that WWE had half-assed started one, and WCW had, and they were all so political, and I thought maybe we should do one where it’s not so obviously political. People argue that it is, but compared to WWE’s and WCW’s it wasn’t at all. For a year, or a year and a half, before the first Hall Of Fame issue I’d been talking to people on who should be in and who shouldn’t. there were a couple who should have got in he first year who didn’t, maybe there’s one or two who got in who shouldn’t have, but I don’t think there’s any outrageously bad people in there at all. You can argue there are people who should be in there who aren’t, and I think there are people who should be that haven’t gotten the votes myself, but when I look at the list it’s not like there’s a James Dudley or a Koko B Ware or anyone like that.

Q. Or Pete Rose!

Pete Rose, yea.

Q. How do you decide who votes, etc?

It’s hard to say. Kind of just the people who voted last year! (laughs) Every now and then there’s some new people come in.

Q. What led to you incorporating MMA (UFC especially) into the Observer?

It was from the beginning. Pancrase, which preceded the UFC, was all pro wrestlers. It was considered pro wrestling in Japan. No-one knew really what it was, but today we would consider it mixed martial arts. In those days, it was just a different style of pro wrestling. UFC did not bill itself as pro wrestling, but the first show had Ken Shamrock, who was a pro wrestler, and Gerard Gordeau, who was a pro wrestler. Then Dan Severn came in, and he was a pro wrestler, so covering it just seemed like the natural thing to do at the time.

Q. How frustrated are with what you see in the business today? Even in the last couple of days we’ve had Randy Orton’s 60 day suspension. How frustrated are you when you see things like this still happen?

Things like that are inevitable because you’re dealing with human beings. I’d be frustrated if I was on the writing team of the company, or if I was working for the company, because he’s a key guy. For me, when it happened, I felt bad because I don’t like to see it but I wouldn’t call frustrated the word it was just that that was the news on that day. It didn’t shock me. I don’t know if it proved that they’re willing to suspend a top guy, but they’ve suspended Jeff Hardy when he was on top. I don’t think that it’s incumbent on the guys to know………the top guys either should be clean or know how to beat the test, and I think there’s a little bit of both going on, and I guess it would surprise me in the sense that you’d think that Orton at his age and the stage of life he’s in – he’s not 23 anymore – that he would be smart enough – because a lot of the testing is IQ testing – to not do anything that would get him caught at this stage of the game. I don’t know all the details of what the test was for. It’s not like some of the other ones, where I did know right away. I don’t know how long ago the test was, if they were going back and forth on whether to suspend him……there’s so many things that come across in drug testing, not just in WWE, but with everyone’s drug tests. With WWE it’s all private and secret, so you don’t know it’s going on, but in UFC because of the commissions you know exactly what’s going on. You see all those weird things where a guy fails a test and then claims he took a contaminated supplement, he claims he was doing it for injury rehabilitation and things like that. Everyone’s got a reason, not always, but usually. People come up with reasons when they fail a test, and then they’ve got to go and examine those reasons and I most cases they’re usually excuses. Then it’s just a question of do you believe those excuses or not? That’s what happens.

Q. This question might be, unfair could be the wrong way to put it – and I have my own thoughts – but who do you think is possibly the worst wrestler you’ve ever seen?

Oh, god, the worst one I’ve ever seen – that’s a hard one! I don’t know. There were certainly a LOT of really bad wrestlers that I saw over the course of my life, but I don’t know if I could come up with a worst…….Some of the people who were thrust into a national scene right away without adequate training are usually the worst. Then there are guys who weren’t maybe the worst, but they never really got good and they were around for years and years and were always terrible. You’ve got a little bit of both. Some guys the light never clicked. A lot of the worst wrestlers would be guys who had great looks or great physiques and got chance after chance but just never got the wrestling end of it. Those type of guys would be the worst wrestlers, because they’d keep getting chances, or the son of a promoter, like Mike Von Erich, who wasn’t the worst wrestler I ever saw, but was certainly a very unconvincing main eventer.

Q. Conversely, the best? Again, this may be unfair given the variety of styles.

There are so many differences between time and culture and place that to pick out a single best is hard, but I know that Kenta Kobashi is probably the name that I would say as far as at his best I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone better. His championship reign from 03-05, when he was really past his physical prime, was one of the great championship reigns that I ever saw. Certainly the best in the last decade or so. All the names that people will brig up – Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels, Jumbo Tsuruta, all of those type of guys. Buddy Rogers, I’m sure, by the standards of his time was fantastic. Ray Stevens…….I finally saw some sixties Ray Stevens. Even though I grew up with Ray Stevens, by the time I saw him he was already past his prime. When I saw him (on tape) he reminded me of Shawn Michaels, the Shawn Michaels of his time. He was certainly up there. Some of the guys now – the Japanese guys now seem a little bit more technically ahead at the top level. But I mean, hell, Bryan Danielson is a fantastic wrestler. He doesn’t have the main event feel of a Kenta Kobashi, not even close, that aura that a superstar has, but as far as technically working, he’s fantastic, and he is a star. When you talk about the whole package Kobashi had that, Michaels had that, Flair had that. Ric Flair had that at in INCREDIBLE level. Ray Stevens had it. They’re the guys that I can think of off the top of my head, that had the aura of a superstar and they were fantastic workers and they had the respect of the guys that they were in there with.

Q. If you were starting the Observer from scratch today, would you do it?

Probably not. It’s a different era. Maybe, I don’t know. Who knows? Would I now be a fan of this wrestling at ten years old? Maybe I would. It’s impossible to say. Would I be a fan of something else? I would have done what I did, whether there was wrestling or not. I would have done baseball or football or basketball or something, that was gonna happen. Wrestling was almost, I don’t wanna say an accident, but it happened to be the one that had the hole, where something needed to be done and no-one was doing it and that’s the one that I got a reputation in, but if it wasn’t for that I’d have been writing soccer or something, or NFL, I don’t know what, but I’d have been doing something. If I was that age, I’d be doing something, but what and where? I don’t know. One of the differences also was at that point when I was young was to write for the hometown newspaper, that was the goal! That doesn’t exist anymore. There is a hometown newspaper, but I think that people can see now that that is an anachronism from the past, and those things are dying off. What would I want to do? Would I want to do that now or would I come up with some other type of job that would be better? Who’s to say? It’s a hard question to answer

Q. I can see the difference. I teach 10 and 11 year olds, and in teaching you see some kids who are really into it, but almost year on year it’s less – but that’s probably to do with the staleness of the product and how hot wrestling is perceived to be, compared to 5 or 10 years ago.

I don’t think it’s any colder than it was five years ago. If you’re talking about 2001, then there’s a world of difference. That period from 1998-2001 was a huge, huge period. I think that was as big as wrestling ever was in my whole lifetime. When I was a kid, like I said, in school every kid, when I first started, we only had 1 hour of wrestling a week. Later we had other hours and some stuff came from other territories, but we would never miss a wrestling television show, the 1 hour a week that we had. It was must see and every kid watched it, and on the playground everyone knew who everyone was, at least the guys in the territory. Did they know guys from other territories? No, but that’s a different thing. I know with my son, the difference between him at his age – he’s the age I was when I started watching wrestling – and there are kids who are wrestling fans that are his age, but they’re more casual, they don’t know everyone. I know one of my son’s friends who’s a big wrestling fan and I threw some names out at him and he didn’t know who HHH was or who John Morrison was. He knew John Cena and Rey Mysterio. It was like, wow! We knew who the job guys were and he doesn’t even know who HHH is. A lot of the kids do know who John Cena is as far as a name goes, but most of them are not wrestling fans and they don’t watch it regularly like we did. I can tell from that that the interest of wrestling among kids is nothing close to 40 years ago at the same stage. There’s a lot more things to do. I don’t think the interest in baseball or football is the same either. Everyone could name the baseball players and the football players and I know my son doesn’t know the names of too many baseball players or too many football players or too many basketball players. I don’t think he knows any, honestly. He knows the names of a few wrestlers. It’s not just wrestling, I think that because there are so many options between television and other forms of entertainment that the dominant thing that everybody knows and everybody does doesn’t exist. It’s not like at 11.30pm the whole country is watching Johnny Carson, who was a talk show host here, or when Ali fought everybody shut down everything that they did. We would listen to the radio, because you couldn’t even watch it unless you went to close circuit theatres, and we would sit there all huddled around the radio, listening to round by round descriptions of Muhammad Ali fights. When Mayweather fights, as big as it is, that doesn’t exist. You don’t get kids on my street huddling around a radio or anything, and they weren’t watching the Pay-Per-View of it either. Floyd Mayweather is not close to as big as what Ali was. The Superbowl is probably the one thing that exists in that way. The World Series isn’t really as big either, but the Superbowl, that’s the one were it feels like everybody still watches. It’s the only one.

[Koshceck]

CM Punk Q&A at Wizard World Comic Con 2012 ~15 min takana ja ihan jees kamaa. Tällä hetkellä kertoo lempiottelustaan ja kuinka sopi humalaisen Samoa Joen kanssa 60-minuutin ottelun. Kommenteista päätellen tuossa puolentunnin paikkeilla puhutaan uutis-topicissakin keskustelua käydystä uudesta vyöstä.

E: 30 min katsoin ja katson loput joskus toiste. 30 minuutissa mm. Kuinka Punk aloitti, Daniel Bryanista, Punkin tulevasta DVD:stä, signaamisesta, lempiottelu, strippiklubille ajautuneesta FCA-matsista, Ravenistä, tatuoinneista, Rey Reystä, Eddiestä, Laurinaitiksesta ja toki Comic Conissa kun ollaan, supersankareista.

[Japeet]

WDBJ7.com has an interview with Daniel Bryan, which was actually conducted a couple of weeks ago as they mention that he is celebrating a birthday, when WWE did a Smackdown taping in Wilkes-Barres, PA. Some comments:

Whether he finds the road schedule too grueling: "I don't really feel like it's that grueling. The most grueling part to me is waking up at 6 a.m. to take a flight because it's hard for me to get back to sleep. As long as I'm not flying, it's not grueling for me at all. I enjoy being on the road. I'm a gentleman of the road!"

CM Punk's comment on the last PPV that Vince McMahon would not believe that Punk and Bryan would be competing for a world championship: "Oh, I think one year ago he would have said that. One year ago, he would have been like, 'Daniel Bryan's going to be in a WWE Championship match at a pay-per-view? [Incredulously] No! Against CM Punk? No!' [Laughs] I'm absolutely certain that's correct. The 10-year time frame is a little longer than it should have been. He could have said a year ago and been accurate."

Being called a rookie on NXT after all the years he spent on the independent scene: "See, I don't have a problem with being called anything as long as people treat me with respect. I felt like when I got to WWE, all the wrestlers treated me great, but coming from independent wrestling, you really have to prove yourself more to the office than anybody else because I don't look like your prototypical WWE superstar. I don't have a lot of the qualities they look for in a WWE superstar, so it's [about] going out there and proving that you belong there. At first, it took me a long time to be able to do that. I felt like only in the last six, seven months, I've really proved to the people on top that I really belong here."

Who his current 'road wife' is: "Right now, my road wife is the Ryback [Laughs] and Cody Rhodes. We don't have any particular good road stories because I feel like we're kind of boring. We just kind of drive to the next town. But what me and Cody really like to do is make up stories about the Ryback and then spread them amongst the locker room. For example, yesterday, we were working out in a gym. He was doing kettle bell snatches with only 35 pounds. You look at him, and you'd think, 'Oh! This guy is way stronger,' but he was lifting this kettle bell and he couldn't control it, and it hit him in the eye and now he's got a black eye. That story spread throughout the locker room all day yesterday. One thing that we have really gotten into is crushing apples with our bare hands. We like to give the Ryback a lot of crap because he's the only one among the three of us who can actually do it. [Laughs] We only think it's just because of cheating and stuff like that."

http://www.wdbj7.com...8567,full.story

[Show_Stopper]

Vanhoja AOW-podcasteja tullut tässä taas kuunneltua, ja Chris Heron loppukevennys aiheutti pahalaatuisen hihittelykohtauksen:

[Mr.Perfekt]

Tulipa tässä katsottua Life and Times of Mr. Perfect. Vaikutti todella symppikseltä tyypiltä. Omasta mielestäni yksi WWE:n parhaista viihdyttäjistä koskaan, ja niinkuin Jericho dokumentissa sanoi, yksi parhaita painijoita WWE:ssä, joka ei koskaan voittanut päämestaruutta.

Kaikkien Hennig fanien, miksei muidenkin, kannattaa kyllä kys. pätkä katsoa. Kertoo hyvin... siis täydellisesti, Curtin päivistä AWA:ssa, WWF:ssä ja WCW:ssä. Sen puolitoista tuntia voi käyttää paljon huonomminkin.

Valitettavasti hänetkin kuolema korjasi liian aikaisin. Olisin paljon mieluummin häntä kuunnellut color kommentoimassa kuin esim. Bookeria. Kuvitelkaa nyt; JR, King ja Hennig.

10.2.2013 on surun päivä, meinaan silloin tulee kuluneeksi 10 vuotta Hennigin kuolemasta.

[Saimou]

Bookert ehti tähän jo viitatakin: semipitkä ja kiinnostava Kevin Nashin haastattelu. Nash kertoo mm. kuinka bisnes kuoli vanilla midgettien noustua mestareiksi, ja kuinka hän pitchasi Vincelle Stone Cold -gimmickin. On se hieno mies.

Säälittävien kääpiöiden ininää asian tiimoilta:

Chris Jericho, who was close friends with both Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero, took to Twitter responding to comments Kevin Nash made in a Grantland.com piece where he noted that neither should have ever been at main event and that the "business died" from the point they celebrated at the end of Wrestlemania 20 as the top champions of WWE.

Via Twitter last night, Jericho wrote:

"Funny how @realkevinnash says wrestling “died” when Benoit and Guerrero were champs-Yet the worst year for WWE biz was 95 when he was on top"

"Hope @realkevinnash doesn’t tear his quad tweeting! #typicalbigman #nwothirdwheel"

Nash responded, "Once again the puppet master pulls the marks strings .Knew Jericho was a closet mark.First one eliminated on a bullsh** sing show...REALLY!!"

A number of wrestling personalities have taken to Twitter to respond to the remarks Kevin Nash made during an interview with Grantland.com about Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit being the "death of the business" when they were moved to the main event position and held the top titles in WWE.

Roddy Piper responded, "I love all the real deal boys in biz. Fact, I’m one of the smallest. Fact I out drew almost everyone. Fact,Without ALL the boys, I’m nothing."

MVP wrote, "Kevin Nash is right. Smaller guys don't draw. I mean who would pay any money to watch itty bitty guys like Mayweather or Paquiao? Let the record show, I LIKE @RealKevinNash he's always been cool to me. I just don't agree with his opinion. Doesn't mean we're hostile. I'm not upset at all. I just sarcastically expressed a difference of opinion. Nash has always been real cool to me."

Eddie Guerrero's brother, Chavo Guerrero Sr. commented, "Nash remain a f— moron idiot just because he was a freak and bigger than normal people he stll has no clue wt a wrestler .. entertainer or worker is my grandson that i am training now cld have a better match than him, idiot i can take his fat ass down now .. cant do a promo and if u saw his last promo in WWE with punk punk punked him he had no clue wt a waste of body maybe .. maybe his a syncronized wrestler diesel my ass.”

[Japeet]

Mielenkiintoinen haastattelu Michelle McCoolilta. Käsittelee monia asioita bäkkäriltä, pari hauskaa on the road -läppää, sekä Michellen, Victorian ja Melinan saamia sanktioita liian hyvistä painiotteluista.

Michelle McCool recently spoke with MichelleMcCool.net about her relationship with TNA Knockout Tara. Here are some highlights.

In General: “I don’t even know where to begin when I talk about her! I can barely say her name without laughing hysterically –the girl is crazy! I mean, she makes Tommy Dreamer’s ‘Top Ten,’ maybe even ‘Top Five,’ maybe even top, I’m not sure, crazy person list! Let me tell you: that is an accomplishment! She’s a trip. There is not a dull moment with her.”

Traveling Sisters: “I rode with her a lot — me, Torrie and Lisa. We definitely have stories: from going to the wrong town, hot dogs at the gas station, accidentally leaving my hotel door open in a very creepy, creepy hotel, to people coming into the locker room and… Nevermind! I can’t even tell that one!”

Bananas and Male Genitalia: “My favorite story: You know, we always have one of those silly Halloween costumes, we always know we’re gonna end up in some type of costume for Halloween. It never fails and they never tell us until the week before, so we’re normally out buying costumes on the road. I think it was during the year she was the Sumo Wrestler — everybody remembers that! But, I was at the mall and I saw this costume and it was a… giant… male… genitalia. It was huge. It blew up: from head-to-toe, and all I can think about is Lisa. I remember sending her a text saying: “I dare you to wear this!” She said: “OMG, I’ll totally do it!” So I bought it, brought it to TV and we had a rehearsal that afternoon. No, wait! It was the year she was a banana! So, we go through rehearsal without telling anybody, and right before we come out, she puts on the male genitalia costume and… I literally about wet myself. It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. The boss’s face, the boys’ faces. Needless to say, we shouldn?t have even had a rehearsal, because it was pointless after she came out in that. And she was also told that she better not come out in that later. So, she ended up coming out in a banana suit — which is just as great. She just lives to make people laugh.”

Wrestling Lisa’s Last WWE Match: “People always ask me what I whispered to her at the end of the match, and I’m always surprised that I didn’t get in trouble if apparently everybody saw me whispering in her ear — which is not a good thing. But, I just remember saying: “Sis, I love you so much and I can’t thank you enough.” That was just truly an honor. She’sdefinitely a legend in the wrestling business — and in her own mind, and she’ll tell you that! Just totally joking, I say that with love. We had a production meeting that day and I just remember getting up and saying: “In the business, you’re lucky, at best, to have a couple of true, good friends. But, for everybody else to like you…that’s unheard of.” That was the case for Lisa: she was friends with everybody. And I’m not just talking about Superstars and Divas, from crew, ring to catering, she knew everybody by name and she was friends with them. That’s just a testimony to her character.”

Friends Forever: “Just yesterday, I got a text from Lisa and she just cracks me up. She always makes me laugh. She’s incredible and you know you’ve found a gem when you can find somebody like that. She makes the best out of life, she lives life to the fullest, she’s always smiling, always being goofy — she lightensup the room and lightens up the mood. Obviously, she’s a great wrestler, but more than that, her personality just shines through. She is crazy in the best, most awesome way… ever.”


Formation of LayCool: “It all just kind of happened. They randomly put Layla and I together in some match, and we were pretty good friends at this point, but we weren’t near as close as how we ended up before I left. When we went out there on camera, Vince just saw something that he liked. He liked the dynamic of us together and that literally was it. As far as coming up with the name, it was just during the time the media was joining everybody’s names together, like Brangelina. So we thought: why not? We’re just as cool as these other celebrities, or so we thought in our own minds of course, so we said “let’s come up with something!” We spit them in half, came up with a bunch of different combinations and ultimately ended up with LayCool.”

LayCool Chemistry: “So, they kept putting us on camera together and somehow I guess you just have a connection with certain people; we just fed off of one another. We couldn’t be completely different: she was this cute little petite fireball, full of energy, funny as can be — and then you have me: this amazon, this more serious, more athletic character. It was where opposites attract. I can’t tell you how happy I am for them putting us together; to not only build this character, but to build this bond — this friendship.”

Growing Together: “When we got together, she had just come off dancing on ECW with Kelly and Brooke, and didn’t really do much in the ring. You all know how much she’s grown as an in-ring competitor. She grew, as we both did. I give her all the glory in the world for helping me with my character and mic skills, and all of our promos. I’m just so thankful for her.”

Backstage Animosity: “It can be a pretty stressful environment backstage, there is a lot of drama that goes on when it comes to the girls working together, especially fighting for storylines. With our character, it was already controversial to begin with, so that was a touchy subject. You never knew what they were going to give us, feelings would get hurt — obviously, we didn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but that was our character on TV.”

Art Imitates Life: “I can’t tell you how many times we’d be sitting around backstage doing something stupid, and then we’d make a storyline out of it. We’d be like: “Oh! We could use this!” We just bounced off each other, and that’s where our best work came from. We were given bullet points not scripts, per se, and we could just do whatever we wanted.”

LayCool vs. Piggie James: “We were always trying to think of something where it could backfire on us and make us look foolish. You know we’d sit here and dish out all of this stuff — but somebody’s got to stick it to us! I think what put us on the map was, sadly enough, the Piggie James storyline. I’ve said it a gazillion times: I give all the credit in the world to Mickie James. True professional. She was a true professional in the ring, in the pre-tapes… so many times we’d get the script and I’d get a pit in my stomach. We didn’t want to say the stuff, so we’d apologize beforehand. But, she always sucked it up — and I know it was hard. Even though those things aren’t true, obviously, she’s beautiful and not overweight by any stretch of the imagination. But despite all of those things: we all still have feelings. That was really tough, but Vince loved it, the writers loved it — and that was all because of her. I don’t think anybody else could have pulled that off. All the credit in the world to her.”

Last Match: “My last match; going out against her in the loser leaves. I wouldn’t want to do it, at that time, with anybody else. It was hard! You’re sitting here trying to be serious, but you have all of these emotions inside that are just ready to out. I was thinking: “Man, this is my last match. Here I am with my best friend.” It was tough. But that is definitely a day I’ll neverforget.”

A Lifetime of Layla: “She’s just funny. She’s always chipper, she’s crazy — she’d be the first to tell you that I’d be the first to tell her that she is legitimately nutso half the time. But that’s why I love her. She was always who she was, I was always who I am. We just clicked. There’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for that girl. We’re still dear friends to this day, and that is a friendship that I can honestly say will last a lifetime. I wish her nothing but the best. Y’all keep cheering her on because she deserves every ounce of it.”


Teaching Nattie how to “Wrestle”: “Apparently, something got all over the Internet about me trying to teach her how to ‘wrestle’ and all of this other stuff — which was completely false, as many things on the Internet are. But word got around, and there was nobody around the ring at the time, so it was just one of those things where ‘who felt the need to go to the Internet and start this stuff?’ It was just kind of shady. It was just kind of unspoken… there was a little bit of tension there. I don’t know if she thought I did it, or if she did it. A couple weeks went by, we sat down and talked about it and actually became really good friends.”

Working with Nattie: “Obviously, she’s a great worker. That’s beyond words. She’s constantly showing up to the ring — you know when Nattie’s in the building, because she comes running down the ramp, slides in the ring and tries to leg-pick or take them down in some form or fashion. Which is awesome!”

Storyline with Nattie: “So, it was pretty late in my career, right before LayCool broke up. She was definitely fun to work with, a total team player. She would come up with stuff she’d want us to use. She’d be like: “Hey! Why don’t you say this about me?!” And we’d be like… really? We did her dad’s goatee thing, and she showed us all of that. She gave us other way on how to impersonate her dad, her or Bret. She was the one feeding us material, just showing us the type of business she’s willing to do. She knows what’s good for the business and knows that it’s just a character on TV.”

Tables Match: “Our program ended at TLC. Fit Finley came up to us and told us we had a table’s match, and we told him to shut up — we didn’t believe it. We were always told that WWE didn’t want the girls to wrestle like the guys, your punches can’t look too good, and you can’t do punches or kicks, all of these guidelines, so we definitely didn’t think we were going to get a Tables match.”

Rehearsal for TLC/Near-death experience: “We had rehearsal the night before the pay-per-view, put some ideas together, go through some stuff — and oh, my gosh! You can ask Nattie: I’ve never had a near-death experience in my life until that night. It was so super-scary. I remember I was going to pull Nattie up in the corner for my Faith Breaker, off the top turnbuckle. Somehow, I go to pull her up, and we both tumble over the outside. All I’m thinking about is protecting her, but I’m looking down and my head is about to land on the apron and I’m about to break my neck, literally. My toes are curled over the top rope, just so that I can hold onto the both of us… I can see in slow-motion, Randy Orton, who was at ringside, is running over to help. Fit is across the ring and can’t help, and Arn Anderson was there — literally, we almost died. It was absolutely terrifying. But did it stop us from doing it? No. We figured it possibly couldn’t happen twice… right?”

Fighting for Nattie: “I remember fighting like crazy for Nattie to get the spotlight in that match, because not everybody was fighting for that. I thought: she’s the one that helped us; she’s the one that we were picking on during this whole storyline. She should be the one that pushes us through the table, she should be the one that gets her hand raised — she should be the one that puts LayCool to shame. She deserves this. And it was like, this hard, hard battle. That was her moment and I don’t think it would have been fair for anybody else to take that away from her or for anyone to try and take that away from her.”


Michelle McCool Talks About Maria's Ditz Gimmick

n General: “I don’t have one bad thing to say about her — she’s great! All the years that we were there together, which was pretty much both our entire careers on the road, not one altercation. Not one difference. We just got along. That all started through the Diva Search. Obviously, neither one of us won, but I remember watching RAW a few weeks after the Diva Search ended, and King was on commentary. He mentioned that one of the cast offs was going to be making their debut on RAW, then they opened up a magazine — and it was Maria! I got so excited for her, because her dream was coming true. She was one of the few [contestants] that actually followed wrestling, and she made no qualms about wanting to be an announcer. I just thought that was awesome.”

Life’s A Ditz: “She ended up with the ditzy gimmick for a while, but people don’t realize that she’s not ditzy — she’s actually extremely smart. Business-wise: she’s very savvy, and I admire that about her.”

Working with Maria: “She was on RAW for most of the time when I was on SmackDown, but there were several cross-over shows where we did get to work together — before she eventually moved to SmackDown when she got drafted. She was a fun babyface to work against; she can sell like crazy and the fans always got behind her. She was that underdog, and she was cool. She was all about business. She got it: she was willing to make sacrifices. She understood what some people can’t always understand; she understood that as a babyface, she was going to get beat up. She’d end up being able to return the favor, but she was never one to be like: “All I’m doing is getting beat up!” So, she was fun to work. I really enjoyed working her.”

Maria The Wrestler: “Everyone always said that she wasn’t a wrestler, and that she shouldn’t do this or that. I think it’s all about working together and working on people’s strengths — instead of trying to expose their weaknesses. I think that’s just what you have to do.” [...] “We didn’t have a long stint together, but she was really cool. She was a good worker, a hard worker… she was committed, and I was sad to see her go. I don’t know that we’ve seen the last of her, and I hope to see her again. I miss her — I think she’s going to do big things.”

Making The Transition: “I turned heel on Maria, and when I turned, I gave her a pretty good beating. She took it like a champ, an absolute champ! I remember Arn Anderson always used to say: “You can’t be a heel! I don’t want it, why are they turning you; I don’t want you as a heel!” Then, he ended up coming back to me and saying: “Why were you ever a babyface — you should have always been a heel!” Maria helped in that. You always want that one person that if you’re gonna make a turn, you’re gonna want to make the biggest impact possible — which, at the time, beating down Maria was making the biggest impact possible.”

Diva Search And Beyond: “I knew I liked her in the Diva Search, but then I remember watching her in the DVD, I don’t remember which one it was, but anyway, she ended up giving me a shout out. She was saying something about my body, and how cool she thought I was, and I was like: “Alright, I knew I liked this girl.” The friendship formed and the friendship hasn’t ended. I don’t think that it ever will.”


Coming Up: "I guess Melina and I came in around the same time, because her guys are the ones that put me out with their finisher so that I could train at Deep South [Wrestling] for a little bit longer. We've started around the same time in WWE, but obviously she's been in the business longer."

Melina's Reputation: "Throughout her career, she may have had some run-ins or problems with a lot of people backstage. Personally, I was never one of them. All of the things that she supposedly had done or whatever issues were going on, I was not a part of that. So, I didn't have a problem with her. That's not my business -- I try to stay out of people's business, if it doesn't personally affect me, then I don't really need to get into the drama!"

Working with Melina: "So, I never actually had a problem with Melina and we worked a lot together. When she came to SmackDown, we worked a program together. We had a match at the Pay-Per-View, Night of Champions. There, we put a mark on things -- we totally got in trouble!"

Punished For Being Good: "We got in trouble for our match at Night of Champions. We got in trouble for our match being quote-on-quote "too good... for girls." So, I don't care how much I get in trouble if that's what I'm getting in trouble for. It started where I dropped kicked her on her slipt-entrance to the mat -- crazy, crazy bump -- which she was always game for. The crazier, the better! We always worked well with each other, always wanted to come up with something different; some new way to come out of her moves, get into one of my moves, something you don't always see the girls do."

Pushing the Envelope: "It was that day [Night of Champions] I was like: "could you not tell anybody, but do you think we could do a DDT on the barricade?" And she was like: "Ohhhh! Yeah!!!" -- Not even thinking twice about it. We kind of hid it all day, even though we did ask our agent for approval, I think it was Fit -- which is no secret that he was always fighting for the girls. We just made sure that we can stand up and get our balance, but we never actually did the bump. She was the one who was going to take the huge bump, and there was no doubt, no hesitation, that she would make it look ridiculous -- and it did! [During the match] She finally takes the bump, it looks sick, pops off -- up to that point, that was the best match I've ever had. We had the pay-per-view, we had time, I was really proud of that match."

Big Time Trouble: "The next day, one of the agents came up to us and was like: "I can't believe y'all did that! You have no idea! We were all backstage, scared to death!" We were like: "...What? We know how to safely bump. We wouldn't do anything that would put either one of us at risk. We're totally fine! If the men can do it, why can't we do it?" He said: "It looked too good! You can't go out there throwing punches like that, or taking bumps like that -- that looks better than some of the guys! You can't do that!" Finally, I remember Chris Jericho, who was by the ring, hears all of this going on. He said: "Look, if the guys can't follow what the girls are doing, then the guys need to step it up! I thought it was awesome. They did great. And it's not their problem that it looked that great!" I was like... "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Because out of respect, we can't say anything, and here comes one of the boys -- Jericho, of all people, sticking up for us!"

Trouble before: "Off topic, But Lisa [Tara/Victoria] and I got in trouble before, too. After finishing our match, Lisa comes into the locker room, and I've already changed, I'm in my business/casual, ready to leave the arena, and she comes in and says: "Get dressed! We have to go out there and do the match again!" I'm like: "What?! You're always joking, always ribbing..." She goes: "No!! I swear!! The punches we threw on the turnbuckle, we can't throw them -- they look too good!" So, we went out and we had to re-do our whole entire match. That's just like me and Melina getting in trouble."

OK. One Backstage Altercation: "I've never personally had a problem with her, but towards the end of my career, there was one little incident. People wanna know: this is the "juicy, juicy details" of the Michelle and Melina problem! We were in the locker room and it was one of those Halloween deals. All of the girls were dressed, and literally ten minutes before we're all going out, nobody has a clue what is going on. Nobody is giving us finishers, nobody has no idea what is going on. So, we're bouncing ideas, and I remember it was me, The Bellas, and Melina... I can't remember who may or may have not been in there. I do remember throwing an idea out there and it was Brie or Nicole who said, "Yeah. That sounds like a cool idea," then there's Melina, who just kind of rolls her eyes and huffs. Her back is to me, but I'm like: "Melina, if you don't like the idea, just tell me what you want to do -- I'll do it. I don't care." She says: "Nope. That's fine." So I say: "Well, we're in a room full of mirrors. The next time you want to roll your eyes, you might want to kinda not do it in a room full of mirrors." That's the biggest problem I've ever had with Melina! Isn't that just awful?! ...I hope you can hear the sarcasm in my voice. It's the silliest thing ever, obviously. We got over it, but it was kind of humorous. So, that was my only Melina run-in right there. Honest to God, nothing else between us... but a bunch of good matches."

[Japeet]

Hemmetin mielenkiintoinen Michael Colen haastattelu. Aiheina mm. Uran alkuajat, kolmentunnin Raw, lempiselostus sekä Kingin sydänkohtaus. Lukekaa ihmeessä.

On his start and his rise in WWE:
"I got off on the wrong foot here in WWE for a bunch of different circumstances. Number one, I came from CBS News, so I came from outside the business. And this is back in 1997 where it’s still the 'good ol boy' network, where if you weren’t brought up and didn’t pay your dues in the wrestling industry you had no business being here. Jim Ross is a guy who dedicated 30 years of his life to this business. He started as a referee, building rings and morphed his way into becoming an announcer and he had paid his dues, as most of the guys had. So I came in in 1997 and I was first employee that was ever hired by the company that was an announcer. I came from CBS Radio. I had been a wrestling fan but I had never been involved in it in any aspect. So I come right out of the blue and start doing shows on WWE. So there was immediately a backlash from the true hardcore fan. 'Who is this guy? How can he be talking about a product that I've watched for 25 years; I've never heard of him. He’s not from the business. He’s not from the industry.'

"Then I wasn’t even able to get my feet wet and pay my dues here before Jim got sick with his bout of Bells Palsy. So when Jim got sick, all of a sudden, now I had been in the company for a year and they throw me now onto Monday Night Raw and PPVs and I was clueless. I had done sports before, so I knew how to go out and call action, but this business isn’t just about calling action. It’s about telling stories. It’s about understanding the psychology and that was all foreign to me. So for four or five months I’m trying to fill the shoes of this legend who had been sick and I was thrown into that spot so there was a horrible backlash at that point. Rightfully so because I wasn’t ready for that spot. I shouldn’t have been in it. And then third, Vince Russo at the time who was our writer decides that this is great, let’s make JR the bad guy; let’s make him the heel and have him attack Michael Cole's character.

"It obviously turned out bad because I ended up being the bad guy because the perception was both within the storyline and in real life is that 'here's this young, punk kid coming out of the news world to replace the guy that I grew up with.' It would be like some guy from a local news station stepping in to replace Walter Cronkite on the news. I had all these things against me and when JR came back fans were like, 'thank god, this Cole guy sucks, he shouldn’t be here,' and I stuck it out. I had seen so many things in my life covering news from wars and so many horrible things that I couldn’t let this stuff affect me. I had a wife and family and that’s who I loved and who I cared about and this other stuff was like, 'whatever, I’m not going to let these people affect me,' and I continued to move on and I went to do Smackdown and I did that show for 10 years, which was, to me, an incredible run, and finally in 2008 got drafted to Raw and the rest is history. I don’t have any regrets at all. I thought and I still think that I earned that role. People still to this day can’t stand me for replacing Jim Ross, and they think that JR and I have a terrible relationship because of the storylines that we've done, but we don’t. Jim and I are actually real close and we do have a great relationship and Jim's been a great mentor to me and here we are today."

On the pressure during the Monday night wars:
"There was a ton of pressure. I was in over my head, and I'll be the first to admit that. I had been in warzones around the world and never felt the type of pressure that I felt in those few months leading up. Then I had to call Wrestlemania on top of it all, except for the main event, which we brought Jim back for, but it was an extraordinary amount of pressure which I wasn’t ready for. But I always try to look at things from a positive standpoint; that really prepared me for what was coming over the next few years here in WWE and really becoming the voice of Smackdown and becoming the solid guy on that show and moving on to Raw and where I am today."

On dealing with the multitudes of different fans:
"This day and age people don’t understand the amount of pressure that’s on us as commentators to serve so many masters. First off there’s the hardcore fans, like you guys are, who have been watching for 20 or 30 years who want their old school wrestling. They want you to call a wrestling match; they want you to call every single hold, so you've got to please that. You've got to try to do your best. You also have to please your kids who are 50% of your audience and your women who are a large part of our audience too, so you're talking about different stories when it comes to those demographics. We're obviously in a PG era now, so you can’t get away with a lot of things you could get away with 15 years ago. The other thing is we're inundated with social media and I get tweet constantly during the show; 'hey Cole, shut the heck up,' 'stop with the twitter, stop with this and that.' Our company wants to be in the fore front of social media. That’s our company’s goal and our objective. I have to do that, I work for WWE; I need to do what they want me to do. Does it get to be too much sometimes? Yeah, of course it does. I think we do a lot of things in excess, but that’s what we want.

"So when I’m talking about what’s trending worldwide or when I’m talking about what somebody said on their Twitter feed earlier today, I know guys like you who want your wrestling are probably saying, 'geez Cole, shut the hell up, enough already.' But then there's kids at home going, 'oh my god, I’m going to follow Vince McMahon on Twitter, this is an exciting day.' So you’re trying to please so many masters and you’re never going to please everybody. So all you can do is try to do the best you can, try to be entertaining, try to tell a good story, try to explain to your audience what's going on and on top of all this, especially this time of year, we have such a new audience especially when you’ve got a guy like Rock, who’s the biggest movie star in the world right now and he’s got the number one movie in GI Joe, you have a lot of new audience members watching this show every week now because of guys like The Rock or because of Undertaker's back or because Brock Lesnar the MMA crowd may come in, so now you’ve got to try to explain what’s going on in our soap opera every week to fans who aren’t watching on a weekly basis. We have to do it in ways that don’t insult guys like you who watch every week and know the stories and background of these guys. It’s a terribly difficult job, but I love it. The challenge is amazing and the criticism is great because I learn a lot of times from the criticism. I’ll read my Twitter feed and a lot of the fans out there have great suggestions and great ideas that I’ll try to bring into the show the following week."

On calling the Raw of Jerry Lawler’s heart attack and turning face:
"First and foremost, Jerry and I are great friends. We're real close. Jerry and I have known each other for 16 years now and people may not remember but when Smackdown went on the air Jerry and I were its first team for a couple of years. We worked together every week, plus I worked with Jerry when JR was sick. So I worked with Jerry for years and years, I had his first WrestleMania match, but what people remember about our relationship up to the point of the heart attack was the fact that I was a bad guy and he was a good guy and I disrespected his dead mother in the ring and I dragged up stuff about his family's past and all part of the angle, which by the way was all Jerry's idea, he signed off on it, but that's what they remember. So 90% of our audience thought we hated each other. Which I guess means we're doing a great job. But Jerry and I were real real close. The night that it happened in Montreal, I'll take you through the story, Jerry had a match, which is neither here nor there, and he came back to commentary and we were calling, I can’t even remember what the match was at this point because everything is a blur, but I do remember, Jerry and I don’t look at each other when we do the show, I have a monitor to my right which I watch and Jerry has a monitor to the left which he watches, the only time we ever really look at each other is when we have an on-camera or something like that, so in the middle of this match I heard Jerry snoring and I thought he was doing like I used to do when I was a heel, especially back in the NXT days, I thought he was making fun of the match in the ring and I thought he was snoring because the match was boring.

"So I chuckled because I thought that’s what he was doing and then I looked over to Jerry to my left and Jerry was laying down on the table, his head was down, and he was literally snoring. At that point I thought this obviously isn’t good, he looked blue. So I jumped up, first thing I did and I’ll never forget this is I hit my mute switch on my box because I was screaming for the doctor. Luckily we had Doc Sampson at ringside. So I’m screaming for the doctor, 'Doc, doc, Jerry needs you,' and I hit the mute switch I think out of instinct but I’ll never forget, I remember doing it because I knew something serious was happening and I knew that his family watches the product and I didn’t want them to know at that point what was going on because I thought that if it was me I wouldn’t want my wife or anybody in my family to learn about what was happening from live television. So I hit the mute switch and Jerry at that point I grabbed him to try to hold him up and then he fell out of his chair and then the doctor luckily was there. At that point I just went into instinct mode and I just started calling the match that was going on in the ring and didn’t reference anything that was going on. Then obviously we went to commercial break and during the break they hauled Jerry off in a stretcher and all that. So I’m down at ringside and I’ve got to do the rest of the show for an hour, I had no idea what’s going on. I've got my producers and Triple H and others telling me and giving me updates in my headset which I would come back on the air and say, 'hey, this is the latest we heard,' and so on and so forth and then at about 10:30 eastern, about a half hour before we went off the air, I remember somebody came in my headset, I can’t remember who it was, and they said, 'Michael, you need to prepare for the worst.' I’m like, 'ok,' and they said, 'you need to be prepared to deliver the news.' So at that point I knew what they were talking about obviously.

"So now we had stopped doing commentary out of respect to Jerry, so now I’m sitting out there with 18,000 people surrounding us and millions at home, no one knowing what’s going on, and I didn’t either, and now I’m sitting there going, 'ok, now how am I going to deliver this news to millions of people around the world' and 'what am I going to say' and how am I going to say it and how am I going to keep myself composed, and all that is running through my head and then almost like it was scripted, and I hate saying that because of the business we're in because it wasn’t obviously, but when we went off the air on Raw we had got an update that Jerry's heart started beating on its own and I was able to deliver that news going off the air and that was such an emotion moment.

"I remember after we went off the air, I went to the back, Jerry had already gone to the hospital, I went back to the locker room and called my wife and I said, 'did you what’s going on?' And she's like, 'oh my god, I did,' and at that point I broke down because I think it all just hit me there. I think it’s the news background. I think its ones of those things, you're trained. I have seen a lot of atrocities in my life over the years in Africa and Bosnia and places like that and I think you’re just trained, but this obviously different because it’s a real good friend of yours that it happened to on live television and I realized that I had a service and that was to update the fans what was going on with Jerry. Then at that point, we thought he was going to pull through and obviously he did, thank god, and now he's still a pain my ass like he is every other week, but it was just an awful time.

"I remember on Wednesday, two days after it happened, I was actually in the gym at my home in Texas and I got a phone call from Jerry's girlfriend, Lauren, and she said, 'Michael, I’ve got somebody who wants to talk to you,' and it was King. I was like, 'Holy cow, King, how the hell are you calling me two days after you basically died on national television?' I guess he had been reading some of the press and stuff and he said, 'Michael, I’m so sorry.' I asked why? He goes, 'well, I killed your heel heat.' So I guess he had watched stuff that was said and everything else. So after that I became baby face. I think it was the right time, the heel run had run its course, I think it went on much longer than it should have. So what had happened was the company collectively said, 'if we're going to turn you this is the time to do it.' Since JR had been taken off Raw and I became a heel, the one thing I thought the company was missing was that straight guy who was able to deliver the show the way that it needed to be delivered, like the Jim Ross and the Gordon Solie's, Gorilla's, they didn’t have that voice of reason in the booth. This was the perfect opportunity to allow them to do that and as a company we collectively said, let’s run with it, and we did. It’s been fairly successful. I still have a lot of detractors out there, a lot, but it’s getting a little bit better.

"It was weird too because, I hate that it happened under these circumstances, because I really would have liked to have that face turn and done something like save somebody in a match or one of those cool things you always dream of. This is quite the way I wanted the face turn to happen, but I’m also glad it happened this way because I think it added some legitimacy to what I do. But it was cool to actually get tweets and messages of support from fans when for 15 years 90% of what you receive is 'you suck', 'I hate you', 'you’re the worst ever', and you just don’t respond to that stuff, you just become callous to it, it’s just like, 'ok, they don’t like me'. But I’m still here and I’m still on the air."

On his favorite announcing combination/preferences:
"From an ego standpoint, I take pride in the fact that I’m able to do all of it. We don’t get a chance to toot our own horns a lot but from an ego standpoint, and you have to have an ego to be in this business or any business. You have to have confidence. I take pride that I can do it all. One of the things that I’ve said about my career is that, love me or hate me, the one thing that I’ve been able to do that I don’t think anybody would take umbrage with is the fact that I have been able to work with anybody they’ve given me. When I was on Smackdown, I worked with Jerry Lawler, I worked with Tazz, I worked with Mick Foley, I worked with Jonathan Coachman, I worked with JBL, I worked with Paul Heyman, I've worked with JR, I’ve worked with Josh Matthews, I’ve worked with Todd Grisham, Matt Striker, I’ve worked with everybody and I’ve been able to pull it off. So I take pride in that.

"Three man booth over 2 man booth? It depends who I’m working with. I love the three man booth with Jerry and John. JBL and The King. Love it. Then I’m really able to be that straight on host and direct the traffic. John's your heel, King's your baby face and I’m able to be that guy that delivers the information which is the role that I cherish because I think I do that well.

2 man booth, I love working with King and I love working with John. So any combination of those right now is preferable to me. I think the 3 man booth works a little bit better on Smackdown than it does on Raw because Smackdown is a show where there's not as much social media involvement, the matches are much longer. Raw you get three or four minute matches and social media so it’s a little easier to navigate a two man booth on Raw with all the stuff you have to get in as opposed to Smackdown. I think that out of all the partners I’ve worked with I think that Jerry Lawler and JBL, either together or separately, have been my favorites."

On 3 Hour Raws:
"I was actually excited initially and then when I sat through it for about two months I was like, 'oh my god.' The worst thing is, and it’s nothing to do with the guys in the ring, because they’re busting their humps every single time, it’s the energy level. It’s really, really difficult. Your mind really starts to wander. You get past 10 o’clock eastern time and your mind really starts to wander. So you’ve really go to focus on the task at hand. PPV's are weird; to me a three hour PPV goes by like that because its just concentration, you've got two other guys working with you to help carry the load, I don’t know. For some reason the three hour Raw seems real long, but then other days, like last night in Washington DC for the go-home for Wrestlemania, that show flew by. I looked at my watch and it was quarter to eleven. I was like, 'holy cow, where did the show go?' Then there's other days where it's like 10:15 and you’re like, 'oh my god, how do I stay awake? Get me another Red bull.' Again, it’s nothing to do with what’s going on in the ring or anything it’s just mentally trying to stay focused and alert for that amount of time on live television. Smackdown is different. You can go out there and screw around and you make a mistake you can fix it if you have to. On Raw, you’ve got to watch everything you say. Its complete concentration.

"A lot of times the audience goes through peaks and valleys too throughout the show for three hours. The live crowd is up and down. So you have to try to get them going and get them up there. That’s your job as a commentator, make every match and every superstar and diva interesting. It’s difficult to do but it can be done. The thing about 3 hours is coming up with creative and different ways to say things, say different stories. How many times can we say The Rock's going to be here tonight? Ten times you’re promoting it a show; you’ve got to try to come up with a different way to say it each time. There are a lot of things that go on that just a guy watching at home doesn’t realize. Tweaking ways you say things and trying to drive you guys in the right direction on certain characters and giving background on guys and there’s a lot of work that goes into this. Following Twitter, social media, oh my god that stuff is nonstop."

On Cena's current heat:
"I think there's a reason for that. Rock's fresh. He's not here all the time. Even during this run he’s missed a few Raw's then comes back then miss a few Raw's, so Rock's fresh. He's different and he's bringing in a ton of new faces to our product because he’s a movie star. Arguably the hottest movie star in the world right now. So he’s bringing in a ton of new faces. He's fresh, people watch him, people think it’s cool that a movie star is our champion. John is there every day. He's been there for a decade. He's in the trenches every single day. He's at every live event. He's on television every single week. He's at every single PPV. I think that there’s a familiarity there. I think that fans of our product who watch it religiously and don’t miss a show, follow the inside workings of this, I think that characters like John to guys like yourself can get stale. I think that’s what our fans vocalize. I don’t think its dislike for John Cena; I think they appreciate everything John does.

"John is the most wonderful human being on the planet. He's one of these guys, I'll preface this by saying he's one of my closest friends in the business, but John has not changed in ten years here. John is one of these guys who has never changed who he is when he became famous. He's the same guy that he was when he first walked in that door 10 years ago. He's the same guy that'll sit down in a lounge a chair and have a beer with you and put on some country music and shoot pool. He's that way today just like he was 10 years ago. John does so much and you cannot overstate what John does not only for this company but for the charity organizations out there. When you grant over 300 wishes and being as busy and in demand as John Cena is, that says something about the man’s character. Granting 300 wishes, you’re not doing that for publicity. The Susan G Komen for the Cure, we did the breast cancer awareness for the first time last year, that was all John's idea. John came to the company and said, 'hey, listen, let’s do this.' Next thing you know, we've got pink ropes and the pink ribbon all over the place and it was John's idea. He felt passionately about that. So I don’t think the fans, unless they’re idiots, which I don’t think our fans are, some maybe, but I don’t think it’s a dislike of Cena personally.

"I don’t want to see [a heel turn] happen. I love John how he is from a character standpoint. He loves the adversity. The one thing about John is that John will start out getting booed out of the building, whether he's in a match or a promo, I guarantee you by the end of the match the fans are going to be applauding him and standing on their feet for what he either said or what he did in the ring. No matter what happens Sunday at Wrestlemania, no matter what happens in that match with Rock, I guarantee you that there will be a show of respect for both Cena and Rock at the end of that match. They may boo Cena out of MetLife Stadium, which they probably will because it’s a New York crowd, but I guarantee you by the time that’s over there will be respect there."

On his favorite call’s/matches:
"There were two that stand out. I’ve been doing this for so long, people always ask me, 'what was your favorite match?' 'What do you think of this rivalry?' I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened two weeks ago sometimes on Raw that’s why I keep unbelievable notes in my iPad because I seriously don’t remember. We do so much programming, I call so many shows it’s hard to keep this stuff straight. But the one match that really stands out for me is the night, it was in February a number of years ago, I think it was No Way Out PPV, it was the night that Eddie won the WWE Championship from Brock and that call to me was my favorite, still to this day because I was real close with Eddie and I felt that that night when he won. This was really the crowning achievement for him. I lived through him with that. I called Mick Foley's first championship match. I was sort of thrown into that because that’s when JR was sick so I really didn’t know what I was doing. I told Mick the other day that I wish that it happened like 5 years later so I could actually know what I was doing when I called it. Mick said, 'hey, you did fine, it was wonderful.' But the Eddie-Brock match was one. Undertaker-Shawn Michaels was a very emotional one.

"Shawn and I over the years had become really close. I can tell this story because Shawn and I talk about it all the time, we've actually talked about it on a DVD; I couldn’t stand him when I started in this company. I could not stand him for a number of reasons. But when he came back from his injury we got to know each other and got real close. We both live in Texas. We have a lot of the same interests; we hunt, we fish together. Actually, I'm the voice of his outdoor show, Macmillan River Adventures, on the Outdoor Channel. Calling that match to me was very emotional. The third match was last year’s Wrestlemania between Rock and Cena. It was fabulous, tremendous match to call. Probably thinking about it now, probably the best match I’ve ever called was the one a few weeks ago when Cena beat Punk to keep his opportunity to face Rock at Wrestlemania. It was like a three or four segment match on Monday Night Raw. It was incredible match and obviously when the guys have matches like that it makes our job easier. I very rarely at this point in my career go back and listen to a match that I called. I just don’t do it. I've got so much stuff going on that I just don’t have time. But I actually went back and listened to that match and I was very, very proud of that work. I had both Punk and Cena come to me and say, ‘listen that was fabulous.' I think a lot of it has to do again with the fact that, remember how JR was Steve [Austin]'s guy and JR got really emotional because him and Steve were so close. I think a lot of that happens with John and I because I am close with John. It's just like anything else, when you’re emotionally attached to something, you’re going to be a little more into than you normally would. Plus that match was fabulous anyway. That was probably the favorite match that I've ever called."

[Mr.Perfekt]

Ei nyt varsinaisesti painijan haastattelu, mutta Nancy Benoitin siskon haastattelu 6-vuotta tapahtumien jälkeen.

BENOIT REPORT: Chris Benoit would have died within one year of double-murder suicide, according to sister of Nancy Benoit; sister speaks out for first time - final conversation with Nancy, concussion vs. drug abuse theory, Foundation, more

Jun 30, 2013 - 4:39:48 PM
By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor


Sandra Toffoloni, the sister of Nancy Benoit, revealed in a new interview that Chris Benoit likely would have died within one year of the Benoit Family Tragedy in June 2007 had he not committed suicide. This is based on what Sandra was told about the condition of Chris's heart at the time of Chris's death after murdering his wife, Nancy, and their son, Daniel.

"The medical examiner told us after the autopsy that Chris was on his way to death within ten months," Sandra told Dina M. of The2Count.com in what is believed to be Sandra's first interview about the Benoit Family Tragedy from six years ago.

"His heart was huge, about three times normal size, and it was ready to blow up at any moment."

Chris's heart sounds similar to the condition of Eddie Guerrero, whose heart stopped one-and-a-half-years earlier in November 2005. Sandra, who established throughout the interview how close she was to Chris because they "bonded instantly," also confirmed that Chris was considering getting out of WWE at the time of the tragedy.

"Eddie Guerrero’s death in 2005 shocked us all, no one was prepared for that. It was devastating for Nancy, but it was devastating for Chris on a whole other level. Eddie’s passing came after a long line of huge losses and Chris was in a state of perpetual bereavement," Sandra said.

"After Eddie passed away, Chris and Nancy discussed the possibility of Chris leaving the WWE and starting his own wrestling school. As a matter of fact, it had become more than a possibility. A business plan had been developed and merchandise had been designed. However, the WWE was prepared to give Chris a big push and put him into another championship match (for the ECW Title) so Chris began training harder and pushing his body further."

Chris, who turned 40-years-old one month before the double murder-suicide, did "a lot of self-medicating," according to Sandra, to cope with the rigors of full-time wrestling, the natural aging process, and the deaths of his close friends in the wrestling business. (This was in the early stages of WWE's Wellness Policy, which was implemented following Eddie's death.)

"He had a serious drug problem, used a lot of steroids and was certainly not alone in that at the time," Sandra said. "The paranoia was a direct result of the abuse of steroids. The last two weeks I spent with Chris, we used to go to the gym and go tanning together. At some point, he began acting weird and I wondered what was wrong with him. He would find 30 different routes to drive to the gym which he never did before. This is not schizophrenia! This was a result of combining steroids with pain medication and, later on, alcohol. I had never seen him like this before."

Sandra offered her theory on what pushed Chris over the edge: "The final blow came in mid-June 2007, just a few days before everything happened, when Sherri Martel passed away (on June 15). That devastated Nancy just as much as Eddie’s death had devastated Chris. I remember my sister telling me, 'I don’t know how much more of this I can take and I don’t know how much more of this Chris can take.'"

It all adds up to Sandra believing things boiled over for the couple on June 22, 2007, including Sandra believing that Chris "lost it" as part of "'roid rage." She added that she believes Chris "never would have done what he did had it not been for the steroids and prescription drugs."

Offering perhaps the most-poignant remarks about the Benoit Family Tragedy over the last six years, Sandra described her final conversation with Nancy, which occurred on Thursday, June 21, 2007, one day before she was murdered.

"We talked about mascaras and she told me that I needed to get a good quality mascara for myself. We also talked about Daniel and how he was graduating from horse camp. We talked about David (Chris’s older son) and how he was growing. Nancy also spoke to me about her home improvement plans for the upcoming summer. Chris and Nancy were considering having another baby, but Nancy had said that she wouldn’t have one until I moved closer to them," Sandra said.

"They then suggested that a house be built for me on the acreage right by their own home. Chris was actually stoked about it. Nancy was hoping to travel with Chris on occasion if they could have someone close by to take care of the children. Once we hung up, Nancy called me back a little later to tell me that she had put some money in my bank account so I could do something for myself that upcoming Monday: get a massage, a pedicure, buy some mascara. This is how generous my sister was and that was the last time I ever spoke to her. She had no clue as to what was about to happen."

As for what happened the next day, Sandra said she subscribes to the theory that Benoit exploded because of the toxic chemical mix in his body combined with external life issues; she does not believe that head trauma from multiple concussions was the determining factor.

"The Chris Benoit I had known for a decade loved my sister so much that he would never – even in the worst episode of high spots – have hurt my sister this bad. I believe he totally blacked out," Sandra said. "I also believe that, when he came out of it and realized what he had done, he went out of his mind. He probably couldn’t believe what he had done to Nancy. He realized what he had done and medicated even more and drank and wondered how he would explain this to Daniel. He probably became so grief stricken with his own actions that he didn’t want to live anymore. I can understand him taking his own life, especially knowing he would get capital punishment if he were tried and found guilty of my sister’s murder.

"However, I can’t put a reason on why Chris killed Daniel. I myself am unable to have children and my sister and Chris always made me feel better about this fact by sharing so much of my nephew’s life with me. I was very, very close to Daniel. Chris knew I would have taken care of and loved that child with everything I had. I would have kept David and Megan in his life as well and he knew all that."

As for the concussion theory, Sandra said, "Yes, my brother-in-law had concussions, he hit his head for a living and I understand that. But way beyond that, he had a very serious drug and steroid problem... It can’t be told to me that this wasn’t the determining factor behind what happened. I wasn’t there that weekend, but I was during the last decade. Chris could have never done what he did had it not been for the steroids and prescription drugs."

Shortly after the double murder-suicide, Sandra helped launch the "Nancy and Daniel Benoit Foundation," which Sandra described as the result of sensing that Nancy was "moving me to action, in my head."

"Essentially what we aimed to do is educate parents and children in middle and high school levels about the adverse effects of steroid abuse on the brain," Sandra said. "As the foundation grew, I became more focused on student athletes because they’re the ones using drugs to enhance their performances. Our message to them is that if you’re really good at what you do and work hard at it, the win is a wonderful feeling. There is no need to stain your performance with knowing that you cheated. Above and beyond the cheating, these drugs are killing people and families of athletes. We want young athletes to know that you can still be the best at what you do, you can still be a winner by being clean and playing fair and working hard. On the foundation’s website, I have included pictures of my sister’s family because we want people to see the faces that steroids have destroyed."

Sandra also revealed that current WWE on-air star Paul Heyman has supported the Foundation and has been encouraging her to write a book about Nancy's 20-year wrestling career. If nothing else, the Foundation is trying to "come up with sufficient funds to create several Nancy and Daniel Benoit Scholarships."

As for how she and her family are coping with the deaths six years later, Sandra noted they are still grieving, while still trying to understand what happened.

"My parents are still very angry but they are in their 70s. I, on the other hand, have a lot longer to live with this than they do (God willing!). Holding on to this much hate towards someone will eventually hurt me more than anything else. I’m working toward it. I really am," Sandra said.

"I don’t want to be some old lady carrying hate and vengeance against someone for doing something, even for stealing my family from me. I just think it would be an unbearably huge weight to carry around for a lifetime. Hard to forget something that you can’t understand to begin with. Someday I’d like to at least find peace with it if I can’t even summon the forgiveness."

http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_ ... dC5UvlTBuA

[Japeet]

Jonathan Coachman was on ESPN radio and did a segment on wrestling. He said Chris
Jericho nearly beat him up backstage when he was tag team champion telling him to always
respect the belt. He talked about the 1997 Survivor Series, and mentioned that Bret Hart
thumbed Vince after. He said that 98% of wrestling groupies were nasty but that the ones in
Helsinki and Tokyo were not, and said the greatest moment of his life was in a story he can’t
share on radio in Helsinki. When asked if he could take Vince McMahon, he said he could,
since Vince is 67 (actually Vince just turned 68), and said he’s (As in Coachman, not Vince)
been trained by some of the toughest guys in the country. He said he’d pick Vince in a fight
with anyone else over 40. When asked how they picked the champion, Coachman said it’s
about who can earn the most money for the company, and he said Goldust had no shot to ever
be champion. Actually there was a time he may have. He asked if pro wrestling was real, who
would be the toughest wrestler of all-time. He said Angle. His version of the Angle and
Lesnar story is that Angle took Lesnar down no problem (nobody takes Lesnar down no
problem). Coachman claimed Angle was eating a sandwich, told him Lesnar was talking big,
Angle put down the sandwich and took care of business. It’s funny how that story has
evolved over the years. When asked if he would ever return, he said that he loved performing
but the lifestyle is incredibly self-destructive and he has kids. When asked if there was
anything suggested for him that he refused to do, he said anything that was proposed by Bill
Goldberg.

Laitetaan vaikka tänne. Woohooo Suomi!

[Merovingi]

Tulee mieleen, että se tarina liittyy jotenkin kuuluisaan Juventud-tarinaan tai vasta vähän aikaa sitten puhuttuun Orton -tarinaan..

[MR.Off Topic]

Can Diamond Dallas Page save wrestlings walking dead?

Mies, joka kävi DDP:n talolla kirjoitellut tämän jutun ja keskittyy aikapitkälti DDP:n, Scott Hallin ja Jake "The Snake" Robertsin ympärille. Kahden jälkinmäiseksi mainitun miehen elämänmuutos yritykseen ja DDP:n osaan siinä ja ylipäätänsä tässä käydään läpi tuon mielenkiintoisen talon elämää. Suosittelen. Voisi kokeilla DDP Yogaa, which ain't your mama's yoga!

EDIT: Unohin tämän, mutta kun olin sammuttamassa konetta huomasin, että muistioni oli auki ja sinne oli kopsattu tämä. Tai siis kohta laitan sen tuonne alle kunhan ensin kirjoitan tähän shittiä. Niin tämä oli Scott Hallin kommentteja muistaakseni ihan yleisellä tasolla hänen elämänsä laadun parantumisesta. Repesin tälle kyseiselle lainaukselle jokseenkin pahasti:

" I have documented brain damage from multiple concussions. I've got lesions. I think using Twitter, and making myself use words and type, I think it's helping."

[Mr.Perfekt]

Tässä tullut muutaman tunnin ajan katseltua John Zandigin SmartMarkVideo-haastista, ja rehellisesti sanottuna ei Zandig nyt niin kamalalta vaikuta kuin miltä IWC on saanut tyypin kuulostamaan.

Tyyppihän joskus 90-luvun loppupuolella ennenkö pisti CZW'n pystyyn sai kuulemma jopa tryoutin WWE'n kanssa ja samassa tryoutissa oli mm. Droz ja joku no-name Edge.

[cripler91]

http://www.wwe.com/classics/wcw/cody-rh ... w-26138473

[Japeet]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/958 ... r-triple-h

Oikein mielenkiintoinen haastattelu Triple H:lta. Paljon kulissien takaista meininkiä, ja ainakin osittain yrittää selitellä ja pyyhkiä maton alle egoilujaan. Oli totta tai ei, niin itselle ainakin jäi paljon positiivisempi kuva Tripsusta ja tämän työstä tuon lukemisen jälkeen. (Y)

[Mr.Perfekt]

AAA booker Konnan spoke with former WWE creative executive Court Bauer on this week's episode of MLW Radio and talked about WWE attempting to buy Mexico's AAA promotion back in 2007. Bauer talked about WWE's plans for international expansion in 2007:

"They went in there [Mexico] with big, big ambitious plans a few years ago. They wanted to do a lot of business down in Mexico and then obviously those plans scaled back and they haven't run in two or so years down there."

Konnan, AAA's matchmaker, offered an inside perspective on what took place during the negotiations between WWE and AAA:

"I know exactly what happened because we had to live through it. We had a meeting. I've never talked about this. We had somebody from WWE actually come and having a meeting with me and Dorian, who is the son of the owner. We had a meeting with somebody from WWE and they came and offered to buy AAA. He was really cool. He was like, 'We want to buy AAA.' Dorian was like, 'We're not really for sale, but we'll listen.'"

"They wanted to buy 51% of the company. I was like, 'Dude, do not do that because these [guys], the minute they don't like something, they're going to get rid of us.' I said why doesn't Vince just buy 50% or 49%? They said Vince doesn't like to go into partnership with anybody and doesn't want to be asking for permission for anything. I asked what would happen to us. They said, 'As you can see, we're having trouble running WWE as it is and we're trying to expand into Europe. We don't really know what we're doing in Mexico, so you guys would stay in power.'"

"We excused ourselves to go to the bathroom and I said that's BS. The minute we do something they don't like, they're going to change it and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't give them this type of power, which he understood. He told them we wouldn't sell that much of the company."

The new episode of MLW Radio is available for free at www.MLW.com and on iTunes (search: MLW Radio), along with episodes featuring Chris Jericho, The Ultimate Warrior, Mick Foley, Billy Corgan, MVP, former WWE writers and many others. New episodes of MLW Radio are released each and every Sunday night on MLW.com.

WWE siis yritti ostaa Mexicon #2 (?) promootio AAA'ta vuonna 2007 mutta Konnan ja omistajan poika eivät suostuneet promootiotaan myymään.

[The Jigsaw]

Michael Cole haastattelemassa Heymania.. Aivan loistavaa settiä Heymanilta liittyen Lesnariin, Coleen itseensä ja Cesaroon. Suosittelen katsomaan. Heti.