RavishingRickRudo

Line of the Week.

Maybe they are going to negotiate footage for a Eddie Guerrero DVD?

That''s fucked up, lol. These writers are too nerdy for their own good. SJ, ya boy got played. I would like it to turn out that Sayid was really just a Radio Shack employee that made up all the stories about being in the Republican Guard. Though I do like how Hurley and Sayid were hangin, since Hurley was one of the first guys to talk to Sayid in the pilot.

My inside sources have told me that he, because of his company losing money hand-over-fist,l is looking to sell New Japan to the WWE.

That was one of the worst things I have ever skimmed through and then stopped reading because it was too fucking retarded and made my brain weep.

Odds are the countdown isn't big at all. LOST has this habit of putting in things in the preview (Hurley and Sayid getting a signal, Sun getting kidnapped) that aren't the focus of the show. MAN, I wish the LOST writers booked and wrote wrestling. That heel turn was fucking awesome, and Charlie doing his dirty work and all the conflict between Locke, Jack, Ana Lucia, and Kate.

Edge: You were nothing but a transitional champion. Foley: Oh diss. Well, you were a transitional champion too. Ha ha. Edge: Oh no you didn't Foley: Oh yes I did Edge: Grrr, I'll show you Foley. I will prove I wasn't a transitional champion by beating you. Foley: And I will prove... that... um... you ARE a transitional champion, like me, by, um, beating you. *Ronnie Garvin runs in and does the Garvin Stomp on Lita*

Wow, you're fucking stupid.

That's the thing, when I think of Foley and Edge, I think of Commish Foley goofin around with Edge and Christian. That doesn't really get the blood boilin.

Though I think very highly of Mick Foleys abilities to get people over, since Foley/Orton had at least one moment that made me actually believe it was real (however short that moment was, still a very rare thing to do esp. in the WWE), I really can't see Foley bringing anything like that out of Edge. Why would the two hate each other?

Oh come on, that's an insult to men... putting Harvey Whippleman up there... a disgrace!

The south park episode where Cartman goes back in time for a history project in the midst of a pro/anti war debate in the town where the resolution is "having your cake and eating it to" (where there is one side to favour war, and the side to be against it which shows a balance and a certain goodness in American life) may be appropriate in this instance when it comes to the WWE and allowing Foley to speak out against the angle.

While I haven't given up on TNA, my interest in them certainly declined after 2 specific realizations. One was that Sting was the Big Surprise. I like Sting, but if that is their idea of something huge, I don't think their head is in the right place. The other was Team Canada. Team Canada continues to get pushed at some level despite being glorified jobbers. So what you'll get is 2 wins for every 3 losses, or vice versa. It's ineffective. And the only reason that is happening is because they are Scott D'mores boys and he has leverage when it comes to booking, and he is just lookin at keepin his boys in the spotlight no matter what. I think TNA needs to have a rule that says those who are booking and writing the show have no role on the show. Because when I see stuff like JJ and Team Canada getting a certain focus of the show because they are in power, there is little to no hope of that ever changing because the power isn't going to change. Where it particularly hurts is that Team Canada and JJ don't interest me in the slightest and really aren't up to the standard of current television characters. It's hard to book just for 2 or 3 guys, no doubt. Giving some guys a focus of 20 minutes, writing for 20 minutes, and having the rest of the roster get pissed because they are not getting used and are not getting paid. That's probably a big reason why TNA doesn't or can't go this route and instead decides to throw everything on screen and hopes something sticks, and continues to push for 2 hours on SPIKE. But if they don't know how to effectively use 1 hour, how can they use 2?

No idea. Maybe he just likes JR, he seems to have a very high (and ill-founded) opinion on him. Whatever his reasons, it doesn't come off in anyway that CC is looking for a job with the WWE when he says the stuff like I posted.

How does this sound like Chris Cruise looking for a job? It sounds more like Chris Cruise trying to convince the WWE to bring JR back. Well, it's not so much "sounds like" as "most definitely is". People are really fucking stupid.

How was he sucking up for a job when his solution was to bring back JR? Styles has been pretty bad in the booth, IMO, and a lot of Cruises points were spot on. Coach and King are overwhelming him on commentary and instead of pushing through and letting his voice be heard, he's pulling back. He's being way too generous with his commentary. In ECW with Cyrus he was able to play off him because Don Callis was willing to play to Styles' strengths and work with him. Coach and King aren't going to do that as much, especially Coach. So what happens is you have 3 independant voices giving their perspective on the match with little banter in between. One guy says something, the other guy ignores it and says what he wants to say, the other guy ignores that and says something else. There is no chemistry here. Half of what Styles says sounds like he's being fed it, and the other half is just him calling moves, which anyone can do, really. Styles sucks at the hype-job, and whenever he is fed a line is is so obvious because it's simply something Joey Styles wouldn't have said in ECW, and in fact, is something Joey Styles would have mocked in ECW. WWE brought Joey in because he had credibility with the fans, and they are slowly taking that away every time Joey tries to convince us that Ashley is a wrestler.

Why not just look for Samoa Joe matches on YouTube? All having a big guy would do is expose all the lil guys that TNA has. Billy Gunn already towers over everyone fer chrissakes.

I love watching Benoit wrestle. I love watching Guerrero wrestle. That US title match was still a pile of shit. Can you reconcile the notion of wrestling being more than just a series of moves and moments? And for a discussion a few pages back, for HTQ and MGQ: What's the difference between great wrestling and great spectacle?

UFC pre-TUF got around 50,000-60,000 buys on average. Their biggest buyrate pre-TUF was 150,000 for Tito/Ken, which was considered HUGE. They managed to break 100,000 on a few occasions (Tito/Chuck, Ken/Kimo) The lower-end shows did around 35,000 buys. So yeah, Liddell/Couture III is projected to do nearly 7x the buy the first did (which did 49,000), and in just about 2 1/2 years. I'd say that's not bad Though I think 350,000 is a tad high. I'd say maybe 280,000, possibly 300,000. Anything in that range is still fantastic (300,000 x $40 = 12 million... let's say the UFC takes half that, that's $6 mil, plus about $4 out of the gate with some merch, let's say they keep $3 mil of that, that's $9 mil in revenue plus probably a mil or two in sponsorship... puts em around 10 mil in rev. Fighters pay would probably take up 750,000 (Couture and Liddels taking up half of it), and then you'd have other staffing expenses, so let's say 1 mil in total staff costs, and let's say another mil or 2 or 3 in whatever other costs would be associated with the event... that's like 5-7 mil in pure profit. Even if you want to cut some more off, they are at least getting 3 mil in profit any way you slice it. That's insane.

I think the main factor is the USA network switch matched with the Seasonal rise. Though I am open to the possibility of Edge and Lita being a main reason for the sustained (higher level) rating that has coincided with Edges elevation in conjunction with my first point. It certainly cannot be ignored. A possible theory to explain this is that there was an audience of perhaps .5 that was lost when RAW moved to SPIKE but whom were still wrestling fans, or looked back on their time watching wrestling fondly and were open to seeing what became of the WWE (or followed it despite not having the TV). This audience was already familiar with Edge as he was a strong presense on television up until the move, competing in TLC matches and him and Christian having entertaining skits with Foley at the time, but was not on enough to have the crowd get sick of him. So he was on enough to have the audience be familiar with him, to like him, but not be familiar with him in his new role as a main eventer. So there was still a freshness with that familiarity. Since Edge was doing unpredicable things like live Sex, feuding with two guys at the same time in Flair and Cena, and generally being very active and creating relative excitement, those viewers have been waiting to see what he does next and tune in to see what he does every week. Hence the strong opening numbers for the show and a slight drop for the second hour - most people stayed to see what would happen to him during the tag match later-on, some left because he was fixed in a match. Just a theory. I'm more of a wait and see kinda guy with ratings.

It doesn't make sense for matches to go long in this day-and-age where matches simply do not go long.

Has anyone mentioned the doctor putting the stethoscope to her fat suit and getting confused by whether he should pretend that's her actual body or recognize this large piece of black material and put the 'scope under it? Oh the debate over maintaining his characters integrity or hers must've consumed him.

Stu Harts Biography said something along the lines of Martha receiving 16 or 18 million and Stu and Helen receiving 2 million. There's no point of even discussing the matter of Vince's culpability. I am agnostic, but part of me wishes there was a God so Vince could be rightfully punished for all the shit he did in his life, and that a fair amount of time could be allotted for him in the special assraping torture room during his eternity in hell just for what happened to Owen Hart.

I think that, when booking for a national audience, the philosophy should certainly change and differs greatly from booking for a local audience. ROH books for a specific audience - the audience that shows up. This affords them certain luxuries, including rotating the top guys on a frequent basis because you know the audience is going to show up anyways. When you have a nationally televised show there is the certainty of someone flipping through the channels and seeing your product. And in that time they see it, there are several possibilities: A. They watch it for a second and then change the channel. B. They watch it for a few seconds and then change the channel at the next commercial. C. They watch it until it finishes (or until they see something they don't like) and then doesn't bother to watch it the next week. D. Something like B or C, but they do watch it the next week, repeating their viewing behaviour. E. Something like D, but they watch it infrequently afterwards, continually on the fence until they make up their mind. F. Something like D, but they watch it frequently and eventually becomes a full blown fan - incorporating it into their viewing schedule. The odds of someone walking by the arena and going "Hey, let's pay to see a wrestling show" are pretty slim. When someone goes to an ROH show, what are the odds they are doing it on a whim, that they will get up and leave if they aren't interested, that they have little interest in the first place, or that they will react in any way that's close to being similar to a TV viewer? When people go to ROH shows, they want to go to ROH shows. TNA is not ROH. IMPACT! has more similarities to HOUSE than it does to ROH, when it comes to finding its audience. This is where focus comes in. With a TV show -any TV, be it a wrestling show, a medical drama, a crime series, a sitcom- the focus needs to be there so when that person who is flipping through stops to see what's on, they "get it". When someone turns on TNA, particularly a wrestling fan, they need to see what TNA is all about in that single viewing. The best way for someone to "get it" is through specific, main, characters. It's easier for someone to "get" one character, because people can relate to each other. You don't see them cycling the role of Gil Grissom every week on CSI, you don't see them continually replacing Rory on Gilmore Girls. The lead cast members are the "anchor" for the viewer, the constant focus that will be guaranteed for them to see week in and week out. This assurance means that the viewer can put their emotions and their heart into a show and get excited and not worry about it all going away. Shows tend to die when their main cast members leave, because it's just not the same for the audience to see someone else in that role. And yes, that is potentially damaging for a wrestling company, however wrestling fans are more accustomed and open to a change in guard. But we're not really talking about booking for wrestling fans when we talk about TNA at this stage in the game, we're talking about booking for potential wrestling fans, and the most important thing in looking for converts is the hook and the anchor. (Luckily, when they *do* become wrestling fans, it may get easier for the once regular television viewer to accept a change on top because wrestlings structure allows for a more open door.) TNA needs to stop their current philosophy of "let's get every guy out there and try to get the light on all of them" and needs to adapt "let's put our best and most interesting guys out there and let's let the light shine brightest on a chosen few". That they aren't able to translate their TV numbers to PPV numbers shows how (un)interested the fans are in seeing the results of the storylines. My bet is most that do tune into the show (let's say 0.75 of them) are just doing so for an alternative, while the 0.35 that comes and goes represents what I'm talking about above when I talk about category E. They are on the fence. They are looking for a reason to stay and watch, but as the ratings flux shows, they haven't foudn it yet. And there's probably a lot more out there in terms of Bs and Cs that could turn into E's if TNA actually had a focus to share with the audience. Most TV shows have a A and B storyline. This is particularly evident in hour longs. They usually include anywhere between 4 to 6 to 8 characters. How many characters who were a focal point of the show? 20+? In most TV shows you'll see the characters on screen for the majority of the program. How often would you see TNA Wrestlers? 5 minutes at best? How can a television audience form a bond with anyone when it's spread so thin? A television model of an A and B storyline each week (you could allow a C storyline, which are not uncommon), with 8 characters getting the focus week to week would be an effective way of building shows and building PPVs. You bring up UFC, well, they don't sell their PPVs on the whole card, they sell them on the strength of 2 matches (or in the case of 57, just one), because that's all the fans need to get them to buy a show. The same can be said for wrestling. The WWE has *never* been good top-to-bottom, and often it only had one good thing going for them, and that one good thing was enough because that's all the fans really needed.

OH MAN, when Lorelai "snaps out of it" after she and Luke are discussing all the insurance stuff... that was great. "He's taken, Chris" "YOU KNEW?!" "Dad told you, didn't he?" (and everything leading up to it) I just didn't want that episode to end. This show is in a nice groove. It's gonna suck when Lorelai and Luke implode.