questions — page 2

​1.  I'd rather some guys get built up TOO strong because you can always use them to make other guys, but if you have a bunch of 50/50 dorks then no one draws money.  Building up one guy and making people wonder "How can anyone possibly beat him?" is how you draw money.  If you want to draw REALLY big money, you build up another guy who seemingly can't lose and then — follow along with me here — you match them up against each other and make people pay money to see which one loses.  Which is why I'd say…

2.  Brock v. Roman Reigns is the best direction to go if they can avoid fucking up Reigns' push until Wrestlemania. 

3.  I didn't see the show, but I would assume that "Because Vince McMahon" is always a good bet for stuff like that.  JBL is much better on Smackdown, I find.  ​

​1. They split the roster into RAW and Smackdown in 2002, and naturally wanted a World title for both sides.  Then finally this past year they were unified when Randy Orton beat John Cena, and they've been carting both belts around ever since.  

2.  That is correct, yes.

3.  No way man, the Michael Cole/Tazz/Matt Striker era was by far the worst.  At least JBL and Lawler know what they're talking about.

4.  He was selling bootleg merchandise out of the trunk of his car along with his brother Dave and got caught.  True story.  They've been working for TNA ever since.  

And yes, I do love the WWE Network.  ​

​1)  Because those shows predate the PPV era for WCW.  They only exist as one hour edited home video releases and random matches shown on WCW programming at the time.

2)  Because they suck and don't want to pay Rick Derringer a penny more than they have to.  Not that I blame them for trying to save money wherever possible, but it's annoying as a fan.  ​

​You Lee Marshall-ed me?  

1.  Adam Rose was a case where the guy in the role isn't great in the ring to say the least and wasn't developing any further in his old gimmick, so I think they just got caught up in the excitement at him actually getting over and then sent him up. That being said, he was literally only on NXT twice with the Rose gimmick before they brought him in, and both times they tweaked aspects of the entrance.  So really it never even had a chance to mature before the audience that it was intended for in the first place.  He's too old to keep hanging around developmental, so when they inevitably pull the plug on him on RAW that will likely be all for the character and the person, unfortunately.  But hey, they tried.  In the other cases, the disconnect is more between NXT's bookers and the soap opera writers of the main roster who don't understand how to get anyone over unless it's a Vince pet project like Roman Reigns.  They're almost better off going back to the old OVW system of developing guys as generic wrestlers down there and then letting the monkeys in creative come up with the gimmicks when they're called up, rather than spending a year honing a character like Paige and then doing everything the complete opposite when she gets to the main roster.  ​

​2.  Charlotte is a total freak of nature in a good way, but I wouldn't get too excited about the state of women's wrestling just yet.  ​

​Really, is this a thing we're doing now?  Because I'm not a huge fan of the metatextual stuff, but I'll give it a pass this time.  

I definitely did not think discussions would spring up outside of the wrestling topics, mostly because I live firmly in the bubble that WWE does and tend not to pay attention to the outside world.  My hopes for the comments were to basically create a sort of non-trolling alternative to what RSPW used to be, somewhere where people could hang out and talk wrestling without getting harassed, and I've tried hard to maintain that.  

I like most of the e-mailers and commenters, although I don't tend to associate one with the other unless someone notes who they are in the e-mail.  Usually it's pretty easy to tell who annoys me and they don't tend to hang around for long.  Except for Dougie, who for some reason manages to hang around for years.  

Overall I enjoy the feedback and I find it really interesting how much of a disconnect there sometimes is between the stuff I enjoy and the stuff you guys enjoy.  I also think you guys put WAY too much faith in my faulty and aging memory because I have to look up 90% of the questions in old WONs at this point.  Honestly, anyone who puts any kind of serious stock in things I answer in 10 seconds off the cuff is pretty misguided.  But as you have all discovered several times over the years, if I didn't enjoy doing something, I would quit without notice and then maybe come back to it years later and do a half-assed job of it.  So there's that.

1.  Totes magotes.  97 was an awesome time to be a fan, especially after the extended slog that 96 turned into in a lot of ways.  96 had some great matches and the birth of Stone Cold, but 97 was exciting and anarchic and just so DIFFERENT from anything else I had been watching before that.  And considering all the people here pining for the Attitude Era again, I'd say it gets lots of respect.  I really wish they'd start getting to the RAW is WAR era on the Network already, though.  

2.  Austin didn't particularly think it would be his last last last, but I think he's also said he wanted to make sure it was about Rock when he went out.  

3.  I think he'll be remembered as a great wrestler who pissed away his chance at immortality because of all the crazy.  If he had stuck around WWE and stayed clean, he'd be in the Hall of Fame by now and probably would have made millions off a Streak match.  

Because it's not just the WM payout, it's also the royalties from appearing on the DVDs and other documentaries, and documentaries about making the DVDs, and DVDs about making the documentaries, and all that stuff.  Kind of like how the Beatles would finance Ringo's future coke habit by throwing him a song on every album and thus guaranteeing him an income for the rest of his life instead of just cutting him a check out of the real songwriters' profits.