PeteF3

They also call the uncensored, international version of the Ron Bass-Brutus Beefcake angle together. One team I don't think we ever got, even though they overlapped in WCW, was Ventura & Solie.

The switch to taped after-the-fact voiceovers started with the same TVs the Event Centers did (after Mania 4). Before that, commentary was live-to-tape in the arena. Not sure about the intros, though.

The Event Center started with the first TVs after WrestleMania 4. Lyons and Rougeau did the ones for Canada (and Lyons did local interviews for Canada as well). And yes, the Event Centers allowed the wrestlers to cut one generic promo for most markets while Mooney did the grunt work (but at least got to sit down while doing it). On some occasions you would get market-specific promos: New York, Boston, and Canada mostly, or if a market was getting a unique match (Hogan/Boss Man vs. the Powers of Pain comes to mind). If there was no upcoming house show in the market, you'd get wrestlers cutting generic promos putting themselves over, or Event Centers for the upcoming PPV. This also applied to the Event Centers that aired on cable. Around Mania 9 there's another shift: Mooney leaves, and around that time Gene mostly goes back to doing the Event Center and Gorilla starts doing Update. In the summer of '93, in an attempt to drive up house shows, they switch from the Event Center to "Face to Face" with both wrestlers in the match or feud cutting promos on each other, or having an actual conversation with the host. Gene did this up until his departure and then it was taken over by various folks including Joe Fowler and J.R. I think this lasted for a year or so before getting replaced by Live Event News which was essentially a dressed-up Event Center (with more graphics and background music).

Conversely, wrestling and movies, being cheap escapist entertainment at the time, actually did very well during the Depression (and movies did very well during the Great Recession).

Also, much is made of World Class' production values but their team's most underrated facet was their ability to make the dingy, rat-infested Sportatorium look like a classier arena than Madison Square Garden.

I believe Watts was planning to move his base to Atlanta if he'd gotten the full TBS deal. Honestly, I think the only other major contender to go national successfully based on markets would be Verne, and he'd never have a national vision. But he had Chicago, he had the Bay Area, he had in-roads in Canada, he had two other good-sized markets in Minneapolis-St. Paul and Denver, and if he'd had the foresight to try to seize upon L.A. upon the closing of the Lebell territory, like had with San Francisco, then he'd really have something. But as much as the AWA is underrated as a wrestling product, it didn't have the consistency or compelling storytelling of Mid-South, Memphis, Crockett, or post-expansion WWF.

Meltzer vigorously debunked that figure. It's a good figure but not near $4.5 mil/year. Tokyo Sports is about as reliable as your average Apter magazine.

And it was the other way around--Puder did a number on him. This other guy got a few wins on Sunday Night Heat and was apparently someone that Stephanie McMahon was weirdly really high on, seeing him as a future star.

Where is it being reported that Copeland was hurt? It seemed to me that injury angle was a way to get Garcia into the TNT title match without Copeland having to do a job. It seems like if he were hurt to the point of needing to be written out, he wouldn't have wrestled a full match first.

Maybe Kris and Bix are oversimplifying, but the narrative on the Between the Sheets podcast is that the UWF and subsequent NJPW feud drew great in Tokyo but didn't draw so great in the non-Tokyo markets.

I...don't think Hangman was selling at the end of that match.

Regardless, Meltzer has an absolutely brutal week. In one issue of the Observer he had the CMLL-AEW policy mess, he named Tommy Dreamer as the head of creative for TNA which PWInsider and SRS both raced to debunk, and then somehow in his Smackdown recap he recapped a backstage segment between Rock and Triple H from like 10 years ago that was making the rounds on Twitter for some reason. Somehow Triple H looking 10 years younger (when many including Dave himself have pointed out how much he's aged recently) and Stephanie's presence didn't tip him off that this was old footage.

"So...come crawling back, eh?" Evidently Cody "lost" QT's number at some point.

Fightful reporting that Okada is AEW-bound.

I could be horribly naive and gullible but that announcement sure sounded like he had something in mind for that show besides just Mone's debut. Hell of a show. Aside from the Undisputed Kingdom shit which took up like 30 seconds, it was a no-bullshit combination of good wrestling action, storyline advancement, and a hot angle at the end.