Forgot to mention my favorite Stan Hansen thing. In a shoot interview, he was asked "what would you say to your fans out there?". Paraphrased: "I didn't wrestle to get fans. I wish I could spit tobacco on you". Somewhere in the interview he seemed resentful that he had fans because he was always a heel. Understandable back then.

This. That match between Hansen and Andre is from September of 1983.

There is a video on YouTube that shows all the times Andre has been slammed. I think most of them were in Japan, but I think there was a Hpgan one from his first stint in the WWF.

Jim Ross did an excellent podcast with him about 1 1/2 years agp. I recommend it if you are interested.

Edit* the "him" I referred to was Stan Hansen

Anyone can slam a 450 pound guy, but he was 800 pounds when Hogan hoisted him up ot the top of the Silverdome and came crashing down to the earth with him.

yeah, but which side did he come down on?

I'm sure when it was time, Andre said, "slam me, hoss".

If he spent more time in the WWWF/WWF/WWE, I'm sure he would be. But he spent little time there. He "broke Bruno's neck" and I think he had a Backlund run in the early 80s, but that might be it.

Anatomy of The Lariat

From SD...

Your wrestlemania build.

So basically everyone from the very bottom of the roster up to Owens is approximately equal in wrestling ability in storyline.

I think they can get away with this because the average fan is so myopic that just about any wrestler can win 1-2 somewhat important matches and they will believe the wrestler might be treated as an important main eventer going forward rather than a midcard win trading time filler despite all the history to the contrary.

Serious question, but where did it go wrong for tna?

Hogan

WOO WOO WOO, WE KNOW IT

TNA was too much like a blend of WWE and post-prime WCW from the start. For awhile, sure, they had WWE beat on overall in ring work. But Jerry Jarrett ran Memphis wrestling, and Memphis was the territory most like Vince Jr's WWF, even more similar than WWWF when Vince's dad ran it. Then Dixie took over, and she had to rely on others for outside guidance, and a lot of people were giving her bad advice, to say the least.

If they would have done more to differentiate themselves from WWE and WCW 2000, they may have done better. As it stands, it was like the only big beverage company in the country was making cola, and they tried to make another cola instead of making coffee or juice etc.

Interesting story...apparently jerry Jarrett was primed to take over as interim top dog in the event Vince served jail time for the 90s steroid scandal

I think I heard that same story from Meltzer. I'm not surprised because Jarrett ran his companies like a comedic soap opera with corny characters and one super guy at the top like Vince tends to do. A lot of good stuff happened in Memphis, sure, but people like Gordon Solie and Kevin Von Erich who prefer a more serious wrestling product were embarrassed to work there.

The Jarrett's didn't run TNA for long and when they did it was probably the worst promotion of all time. Just go on their youtube channel and watch their first ever show, it's ridiculous. This is a screenshot from the show, this team is called The Johnsons.



Panda bought TNA around a year after they started and it was basically Dixie's dad giving her something to do. She had no idea how to run a wrestling company and put all her faith in Russo, Jarrett and Ryder. They did what moorobot said and tried to make it a mix between WWE and Jarrett/Russo era WCW. The company's main focus was around Jarrett and ex WCW/WWE stars with the X-Division supposed to be a midcard cruiserweight clone. The X-Division blew up and they managed to create some stars out of it like Styles and Joe and then Christian came over from WWE. Then Angle came and it started a wave of old WWE guys that started getting more attention than Styles and Joe etc. Despite that TNA started to turn a profit. Then she spent that money on Hogan and Bischoff and basically gave them control of the company.

They drained all it's money with their own salaries along with terrible business decisions and left a graveyard. All the old WWE/WCW guys were gone by that point and TNA was broke so Dixie started lowballing all her home grown talent like Joe/AJ and they just left too. She didn't even attempt to re-sign guys like Lethal, Kaz and Daniels. Now she's left with the Hardys and ex NXT guys.

The Randy Savage stuff I'm able to find on YouTube from his Memphis (pre-WWF) days is tremendous though.

I kind of feel like TNA got dicked around a lot by being on a new channel every year or so and feeling like they had to reboot the whole thing and bring in recognizable names. And since they couldn't afford current stars for the most part, those recognizable names came in the form of guys in their 50's/60's except for guys WWE didn't want that bad.

My favorite period of TNA was when they were doing the weekly PPV things for the first few years. It seemed that it got a little worse once they got there first national TV deal (FOX I think?) and rebooted. Then again when Hogan came in and they rebooted again.

For some reason, it seemed to me that AJ was the one who got screwed whenever they changed TV and rebooted as he was either at the top of the card or champ and they felt they needed to go with a more recognizable name.

PS - They had a pretty funny segment on the Edge and Christian show where they did Will They Talk About It with AJ and mentioned "the company he wrestled for from 2012 to 2014".....Will They Talk About It? NAH!

I found this interview from Angle interesting.

http://www.pwinsider.com/article/100...-more.html?p=1

1 - He seems pretty contrite.
2 - He seems like he might finally have his **** together.
3 - He's 47? It's like he ages 3 years per years.
4 - Of course Gable would be the natural fit with him. Gable is almost exactly a young Kurt Angle.

My perception is that some of the recognizable names were brought in due to network pressure. They spent big money on these guys, then felt that obligated them to push the big names hard instead of building them up in order to feed them to TNA originals. There was a familiar pattern of veterans brought in as faces pandering to the fans and getting a cheap pop by saying that they chose to come to TNA, only to turn heel within a year, when they should have been brought in as heels who were an obstacle to homegrown stars who could prove their worth by eventually overcoming the proven veteran.

I have no idea if this is a new podcast or from his previous interview. But WWE just posted this on their youtube channel today.

Austin asked McMahon why Cesaro isn't getting pushed. Answer: he doesn't connect with the WWE Universe. Guess he doesn't realize whose fault that is.

I haven't really paid attention to it before but has Vince's eyebrows always been like that?

Hah never noticed that about his eyebrows either.

That Vince clip is from his previous(and only) interview and rustled quite a lot of jimmies. The "maybe because he's Swiss" line rolled a few eyes. That interview is where the brass ring meme came from. I know he's interviewing his boss but Austin was too tame in that podcast.

I can't work out what we did wrong?

We put him in 50/50 booking in the undercard while we let the top of the card be filled with old guys with no future and part-timers who don't even care about the WWE.

That's a surefire recipe for success.

He still didn't get over? Must be because he is Swiss.

With Cesaro coming back after WM, could WWE have posted this on their youtube channel yesterday as the beginning of a Cesaro push?