It's par for the course with Bruce.

I've never understood how people take his word like it's the Gospel.

Used to have no real opinion of Bruce until the past couple of years.

For someone who understands the "mind of Vince" and meant to act as a filter, he's just as dumb or bad as Vince is when it comes to creative stuff based on the stories he's told over the years, his terrible booking while in charge of WWE creative these days, and opinions other have about him online.

Also supposedly he's the reason why people had big issues with the second season of Dark Side of the Ring because he got his grubby hands all over the direction for it.

Him defending Austin dumping beer on Scott Hall who was a recovering alcoholic was the most ridiculous thing I've heard on a podcast.

I got the timeline of In Your House PPVs and WCW monthly PPVs off. Bischoff started the hotshotting. Vince was forced to play by Bischoff’s rules short-term. Sure.

That still doesn’t excuse his use of Big Show though. Especially if his worth was diminished like you think it was. If that were the case then they still could have used him part-time and built him as a special attraction. Because he was worthless, right? You’ve gotta throw Rock and/or Austin on every show but Show was an un-repaired WCW cast-off. Not having to put him on every show could have been a luxury.

I feel like I remember you arguing that Brock jobbing constantly wasn’t a big deal and doesn’t hurt him in the long rung.

The fact that you don’t think a poor 2 year stint in WCW in the late 90s could not possibly be overcome in 20 years is odd.

I can understand the logic behind what Destor is saying here. In a competitive setting, it makes the WWF look weak as shit if a big shitty wrestler from WCW comes over and starts beating all your guys. I have no doubt he could have been used better at certain points. But he isn’t someone you build around in 1999.

Monthly PPVs saved the WWF in 1997. That point should be re-emphasized.

He didn’t have to come in and beat all the top guys from the get-go. You build him up.

Austin was jobbing to Hacksaw Jim Duggan before leaving for WWE. It didn’t exactly mean he was ruined for life.

They’re not exactly the same circumstances. The Giant was seen on top and had been fucked around with on top. And a time when wrestling was cool. Vince has always been reluctant to bring in guys who were presented poorly in one promotion to push them to the top in another. The exceptions are when he thinks he can make a new tier of fans off a guy (Hogan, who wasn’t used poorly, but wasn’t made the guy), eventually Austin. Pretty much everyone else gets pounded into dust to make the WWF/E look bigger and badder than whatever “bingo hall” they came from.

Plus, Big Show was letting himself down at this point in time. He was not in great form.

Agreed that you could have used him more creatively. Make him the bodyguard lackey for someone or have him beat nobodies on his way up. Sure. But they basically stole what they could with the guy immediately. Possibly because they thought he might wash out.

When Big Show came to WWF his first match was with Austin. That was HUGE. But he lost. It was a huge deflation of the balloon. If he'd have beaten Austin even with help from The Corporation, they would've set up a huge program for after Mania. He also should have had been booked at Hell In Cell with Foley instead of Taker/Bossman, and won cleanly. WWF absolutely botched Paul Wight from the beginning.

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His loss wasn't a clean one though, numerous chair shots to the head were part of it, and even then he was up immediately after the pin so not as weak looking as it could have been.

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It was a loss though. Clean or not, you were instantly handicapping yourself needlessly by having him come in and job night one.

And I’m not saying he should have beaten Austin either. Austin shouldn’t have been jobbing. A bullshit non-finish (which was pretty common at the time) would have been better. Otherwise, if you can’t come up with a good finish that doesn’t fuck things up long-term, to quote Jim Cornette, just don’t book the fucking match.

He isn’t really much different to anyone else in recent times. They come in, it’s stop-start, flip-flop, until nothing they do really means anything anymore.

His potential was massive, but he wasn’t a special case. It’s just the way they do things.

I remember at the time knowing he was signed for 10 years to a big deal like a million a year. It was a great time for WWF... And they would have never put a WCW guy over Austin like I suggested, but yes just don't book the damn match. Could've been a tag with Wight & Rock vs Austin and Mankind and they could've done some kind of dq BS and still had the same result.

is AEW pretty much WCW without Billionaire Ted's money?

It’s not even TNA!

TNA were signing a still excellent Kurt Angle and Christian, as well as a much younger Sting.

AEW are signing a 61 year old Sting and encouraging him to get in the ring, an immobile 50 year old Big Show, and letting a heavy, past his prime Jericho dictate what he and others do on the show.

I don’t really understand the buzz about AEW. I feel like it must be because it is still relatively new and people are hopeful.

Their roster isn’t a patch on what even TNA had though and they look to be making the same mistakes.

That is pretty much all true.

TNA was let down by its booking most of the time. The booking in AEW is very Russo-esque in its own right. Would anyone be shocked to see Miro kidnapped by ninjas next week and never have it explained to them?

Tony Khan is spending the money in the big names of yesteryear that Vince isn’t willing to break bank on any more. He hasn’t actually gotten anyone significant in their 30’s or 40’s since Moxley and Jericho, and that is before they started generating content.

There own show... if a guy from Poland is telling you your English sucks you need to think about your life.

You're right, it's not TNA. If it were TNA all the older talent would be in a stable together and have all the titles. Instead, AEW tends to use older talent as managers or pair them with a younger guy or stable of younger guys. It's an easy and smart way to help get newer talent over, which they have done really well with.

The buzz for AEW is because it produces the best wrestling show overall each week. Dynamite tends to fly by and is mostly chill. Unlike WWE, there isn't any robotic commentary and over-scripted promos that come across as inhuman. Anything can almost happen on Dynamite, you never know what to expect.

lol "the Buzz". They've been doing the same numbers for over a year

They had a lot of buzz that one time the NBA gave them a lead in, it was overwhelming bad buzz, but it did happen lol.

And no, Smackdown is the best wrestling show of the week.

A few weeks ago on one of Cornette’s podcasts, Brian Last made a good comparison explaining why he prefers AEW to NXT. Neither one is very good but NXT is the crazy person who is just sitting in the middle of a padded room, staring at the floor, whispering to himself and rocking back and forth while AEW is the one running around, shouting insane things and throwing shit on the walls. Neither is sane but the latter is certainly more fun to watch and less likely to just lull you to sleep.

Wight's debut was more of a shock than Christian Cage's

You’re not going to get any defence of WWE out of me, it’s woeful. I just think that AEW isn’t changing anything. You can talk about the managers and what way they are using people, but Sting went over a guy in his twenties last night and he is 61 years old.

Christian and Big Show will be in the ring in no time and winning matches too. There aren’t any standards. Jericho just wouldn’t be allowed on WWE TV looking like he does. That mistake last night was another example. Jon Moxley said he got away from WWE to get away from doing hokey shit, and last night he had his friend lie on his face as sparklers went off.

TNA had excellent matches too and they had a far better roster with far better wrestlers on it that AEW do.

People are welcome to enjoy what they enjoy, but they have to be open to the suggestion that, for the majority, this still isn’t what wrestling should be. The buzz is from hardcore fans that like it better than the trash WWE serves up on a regular basis.

if you need to mention WWF to defend or lambast AEW your argument sucks. just wanted to throw that out there

Good thing I didn’t NEED to then :D

I’m not sure if I understand the logic on this myself. Paul Wight is nearing 50 and won’t be able to work full-time. He also doesn’t have the star power of a Bill Goldberg, Undertaker, or Lesnar where he can have random “one off” matches to draw in fans. Will be interesting to know what dollar amount and term AEW signed him to.