Hunter's Torn Quad

Vader was indeed meant to be in the Sid spot in the Shawn to Sid to Shawn WWF Title program Mankind was never going to win the WWF Title at Mind Games. That one got debunked here a while ago.

For reference, see him and Rey teaming together for some moves in the SS 4-Way.

How about the fact that Orton made the main event last week, when he wasn't even GM ?

Sabu is desperate for money, so it wasn't that hard for RF to pull off.

I think Christy shows the most personality and charisma of just about anyone on Raw or Smackdown. Clearly, she's having the time of her life out there, and it shows in how into everything she is.

I don't think the TSM servers can handle all the flaws in logic WWE have perpetuated.

On Raw in 1998, the main event was Undertaker and Kane against Rock, Mankind and Ken Shamrock. Right as the hot tag is about to be made, Earl Hebner, who is referring, starts screaming loudly to everyone, "45 seconds, 45 seconds", and lo and behold, Raw finishes about 45 seconds later.

There was a Raw six-man not too long ago, I think Jericho and Edge were on opposite sides, one was about to cover the other, and they were near the ropes, and one of them called out, "Get to the middle, get to the middle".

That Raw six-man with Hurricane is a bit of a surprise inclusion, because the finish got fucked up. As I recall, Nash was too late in making the save for a near fall, and the match had to end very clumsily. The official blame was put on the referee, though.

You can usually hear Kurt Angle calling spots in his matches. Shawn Michaels is also someone else who tends to call his stuff loud enough to hear, in particular a tv match with Ken Shamrock in late '97. Ted DiBiase very clearly calls a spot with Bret Hart at Survivor Series '91.

I believe Flair v Hogan was tentatively planned for WM VIII, but when it cooled off business-wise at house shows, that idea was scrapped.

I highly doubt Hunter was going to transition the belt to Undertaker at Backlash. For one thing, the big story of the time was Hunter's big comeback, and it would make him look real weak to drop the belt after so much was put into his comeback. Granted, he did that anyway with Hogan, but that was a special circumstance, and Hunter had no problems with it. I couldn't see him having no problems with it if wasn't a special case. And the main event being rebooked was purely down to Hogan's reactions live.

Hunter only had a short reign because Vince mistook Hogan's pops for him being over as a regular guy, when it was pure nostalgia. If Hogan hadn't been around, Hunter would have had a longe reign. Hogan's short reign was probably down to the fact that it did a lot of damage to the ratings, as they slid down real fast after he won the title, and it was never going to be a long run anyway, as it was just to cap off his comeback.

The thing to remember about HBK and how over he was during his first title reign, is that he was a horrible ratings draw, and he also was in the headline match, him and Undi against Mankind and Goldust, which might have drawn the lowest paid attendance to MSG ever, around 3,700. While you can partially excuse the ratings deal to the NWO, the fact is his persona was a huge turn-off to the male demographic, and that really hurts the ratings when that's your key demographic.

Re. MSG Sellouts: Bruno did indeed sell MSG out more times than Graham, but Graham sold out a higher percentage of his main events, but that was because he had less main events to sell out. I think I misinterpreted a line in the aforementioned Observer piece about Graham's MSG record, when it talked about Graham's last MSG sellout, which was for a match against Butch Reed in 1987. I actually e-mailed Dave about the top guys for MSG sellouts, for the actual figures, and here are the numbers for the top three: Bruno sold out around 45 of 127 main events Backlund sold out 42 of 67 main events Graham sold out around 19 of 20 main events I'm figuring that's the top three. Re. The Korean shows. Nobody really 'drew', as the people there were basically forced to attend, so it didn't really matter who was on the show, it was going to have a huge attendance.

I think Orndorff averaged around $30,000 a week during his program with Hogan.

I'm sure he had a really good record, but I highly doubt he sold out every arena he wrestled in in 1985.

For 1996, I did some checking, and HBK drew one sellout at MSG, for his Cage match with Diesel on May 19th 1996. On September 29th of that year, with Michaels and Undertaker taking on Mankind and Goldust in the main event, they drew a crowd of around 7,000, but the actual paid attendance was 3,917. I don't know for sure, but I think that may be the lowest ever gate at MSG. Just to add, HBK and Diesel v Bret Hart and Undertaker also sold out MSG on March 17th of that year, in the first MSG house show sellout since at least the mid-80's.

I don't know if HBK even drew one MSG sell-out during his run as WWF Champion. I know he headlined some really poor MSG crowds during his big run, like in the 7,000 range.

I'm pretty sure Billy Graham holds that record. I was reading the peices Metlzer did on the W/WWF Title, and he mentioned how Graham holds the record for MSG sell-outs while in the main event. Apparently, Rock was getting close, but because of his career, never quite made it. I think Graham's record is 19 sellouts out of 20 main events.

Funny; I just so happened to skim through an old Wrestling Observer earlier today and wouldn't you know it, it was the issue that covered Inoki's retirement show. Another crazy figure: it did $2.6 million in merch... And here is your shiny penny: And LT, yeah, those numbers are impressive, I just think the proper facts should be known if you're going to use them to make your point.

While we're throwing numbers around, the largest live gate in wrestling history was around $7m, and a shiny penny to the first person to tell me what event drew that gate.

Just for the record, Hogan v Orndorff drew around 61,000, and WM III drew around 78,000. The 93,000 number is a myth. Hogan's house show record in the 80's also gets overblown to a degree. Yeah, he drew some great numbers, but in a fair few places, he wasn't this super draw that some people claim. Not to mention that, for the most part, while the first match in the Hogan v ME Heel program drew well, the second and/or third matches didn't draw as good.

The best year, money wise, WWE did was in 2000-2001, when the in-ring product was at its peak, and was way above 1999.

What's Angle been doing to kill Smackdown? He convinced WWE to have Guerrero tap out clean at Summerslam, when there was no reason for such a finish, and it would have been better for some sort of cheating finish, so as to better prolong the feud.