So, imagine like 7 years ago someone predicted...

CM Punk will be in the WWE but Vince McMahon would not be and fans would boo the Rock announcing he would be in the main event of Wrestlemania because they wanted Stardust to main event instead.

Pretty crazy when you think about it.

Its amazing how much has changed since.

In case anyone still takes Dave Meltzer seriously at all, you probably shouldn't.

Dave Meltzer has had some questionable takes in recent years. Also, he tends to report backstage news that is dubious in its source. If it doesn't come true, he will just say plans changed. But, this time he kind of got caught with his pants down a bit.

Dave Meltzer recently reported on a backstage segment where Triple H and the Rock got in each others faces, and teased a possible Wrestlemania match between them. This was puzzling and nobody seemed to recall such a segment on TV or anywhere on the internets.

The segment in question was apparently one from Smackdown in TWO THOUSAND AND FOURTEEN with HHH and the Rock. It seems that this was the segment he was referring to and he thought it happened today. And, I mean... the Rock has aged reasonably well, but that was 2014.

This calls into question how critically Meltzer is evaluating tips and sources he hears. There are also a number of other things he's gotten blatantly wrong here, such as a supposed ban on non-CMLL Mexican wrestlers in AEW on any show where CMLL talents are used, Tommy Dreamer becoming the head of TNA creative, and other stuff.

It's always been best to take what Dave said with a grain of salt, but maybe it would be better to use a whole packet these days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0wBJoVBlPI

That's a name I haven't heard in a long long time. Meltzer has been around at least 25 years.

Anyway, speaking of people to listen to - I quickly found that Vince Russo is suffering from some sort of personality disorder - I'm not sure which one, but it's clear. Some days he's in love with some element, and then like 4 days later he'll be on a hate rant. A few days ago he was saying he didn't watch the product and considered it for kids, but loved the business of the wrestling industry. Then later, he was saying he absolutely hated the wrestling business, that the only reason he still has anything to do with it was for the paycheque, that he hated the fans, and he hated people who got into the stories and assumed that they all believe it's real.
This smells like Borderline Personality Disorder to me - probably the main symptom is that someone sees everything in black and white loving adoration or hate, and will switch back and forth (often) on the most trivial triggers. It's more highly diagnosed in women than men, but I think its because of the perception of masculinity where BPD symptoms seem synonymous with various cultures of masculinity, while with women such symptoms are immediately viewed as hysteria or something wrong. So, Vince Russo videos, it's hard to figure out which Russo you're gonna get.
I do agree that wrestling has Marks today, but they don't believe what happens on the show is real, they believe that the action all happens in the writers room, that there's a lot of battles going on. IMO - being that I've been involved in creative businesses for nearly two decades now - they likely have plans and backup plans for when people get injured. WWE has a huge amount of director/producer type staff, and a creative hierarchy that would make all this fairly easy. Since at least the CM Punk era about 10-15 years ago (and probably spanning back to Matt Hardy-Edge) they've been working the audience by making it look like corporate interference is messing with the storylines audiences want - and to keep the fire going, someones they don't give the audience what they want and other times they do.

Evil Russo (on the darker side of the borderline) is correct on one thing, the WWE does manufacture what the audience wants. But what he gets wrong is where the he believes the audience thinks the conflict is happening. Russo thinks the audience believes what happens in the ring is real. But the audience is ~97% smart to that (the other 3% are young kids), he believes the "We want Cody" chants are because the audience believes the matches were real and that Cody earned it in competition. Russo's wrong on that. The audience knows the story is scripted, a good chunk of them see the conflict as being corporate Rock (or other people up there) pushing his agenda, and changing the story they set into motion just a few days earlier. That's the conflict the audience was reacting to.

Think of the story inside the story.
On the highest level, WWE is writing the story of the fictional writers room and corporate maneuverings.
On the next level, they are writing the story that occurs in the ring.

Almost everyone (aside from the kids) knows that what happens in the ring is scripted. It's hard to get real heat outside of a Smark audience, but having these stories is still very important.
The heat is all generated on the level of the fictional writers room and corporate maneuverings, because most people do believe that's real. It's also very easy to make that look real... especially after the AEW stuff where it actually was real :D

Anyway, to illustrate how WWE works there audience these days:

On another note, I've listened to a bit of Jim Cornette and these are my impressions of him:

1. The guy is the result of a highly intelligent person dedicating their life to pro wrestling. He is probably the most intelligent podcaster/creator I've seen relating to pro-wrestling, and maybe by a large margin. At least the most articulate.
2. He has a great sense of humour, and him and Brian Last banter and arguing can get kinda hilarious, and Cornette, in all his anger and bullishness knows when Brian has got the better of him.
3. I do think that Cornette has some opinions about certain things that he saw from the wrong angle, the one major example I can think of here is his opinion as to why the popularity of WWE dropped at the end of the Attitude era. He assumed it had something to do with Stone Cold Steve Austin turning heel, and completely misses the changing culture of the world at the time. WWF Attitude was one of the core shock TV shows along with South Park and Jerry Springer. Around 2000 to 2003 or so, the shock TV industry became very saturated and the audience was shrinking at the same time, moving toward reality TV--shows like South Park adapted into a more story driven stuff. WWE dipped a toe into reality TV, but it felt more like a "We can do survivor stuff too!" rather than an inherent element of the show like the shock value wrestling was. In other words: WWF Attitude ran its course. I don't think Cornette quite understands this, because Austin going heel was actually kind of awesome, and I think most people loved it.
4. The guy is angry all the time, he loves being angry, he's especially angry when he's happy. He is one of those guys who seems to be his wrestling gimmick in real life.
5. He hates Vince Russo... and I'm not just saying that glibly, he sincerely hates the guy.
6. Generally I disagree with him on opinions about wrestlers, but at the same time the ones he seems to dislike the most are the ones I'm generally not a fan of, and the ones he seems to like the most are among my favourites--at least when it comes to mens wrestlers.

Now, to go on a tangent about that last point: I'm probably a slightly bigger fan of women's wrestling because the women tend to be more expressive and often flashier - and its still somewhat new to WWE, as I always felt companies like FMW and ECW did womens wrestling so much better in the past, it was Japanese women's wrestling that really caught my eye when I was younger - and I also really liked the stuff in ECW (yes, I know, I was a teenager! At least I didn't say XPW) because it felt more energetic, more real, and with stakes that mattered. I think that they're a bit more negative on women's wrestling that I'd like, I don't agree that the women's wrestling isn't in demand, but rather that the writing is still not quite there outside of their top stars. When the writing is like Rhea, Charlotte, Becky, and so on, then people like them. But you're not getting story lines like The Bloodline with women's wrestling - there have been times (albeit, brief times) when wrestlers like Becky, AJ Lee, and Asuka were the most popular wrestler in the world. IMO, it's the stories, you can see with certain wrestlers that move from NXT to RAW/Smackdown (in the past) and the story isn't there for them in the way it was in NXT, and the audience is dead. Gargano and Ciampa were two of the favourites in NXT and they'd get the audience going nuts - personally, I was always looking forward to the next step in their storyline - but they come to RAW/Smackdown and have these little programs with little/no continuity, and the audience is dead. It's the bland storytelling. But also, I think that in order to get people behind them, they have to do something show-stealing in the ring. Becky getting her "face broken" was a career making moment - Asuka kicking peoples face off - Rhea Ripley is excellent in the ring, that's why people are invested in her storylines and love her even when she's evil.

Anyway, so far I like Cornette's material the best. I'm familiar with him from the past as I've come across a video here and there from his channel every now and then over the years.

Cornette is incredibly intelligent and is also kind of a weird guy, so it's the perfect storm for a podcast host. He's kind of like Hank Hill is with propane. He takes the business seriously in a way that even most of the wrestlers don't. I don't necessarily agree with his take on what wrestling should be in the modern day, but I think it's much closer to what I'd like than what a lot of internet wrestling fans would prefer.

I don't really think he views Stone Cold turning heel as the cause of the attitude era dying. I think he feels that it's more like the fingerpoke of doom of the attitude era. It wasn't the whole problem, it was just a moment that crystalized it. And I think there is some truth to that. Most fans seem to agree that Wrestlemania 17 was kind of the peak and it went downhill from there. Obviously everyone knows wrestling is fake, but you still kind of bought Stone Cold as a real, if exaggerated, version of himself. And when he turned heel, it was just kind of a reminder "oh yeah, he's just doing a character". The heel run really didn't work, although it didn't help that it was probably building towards a blow up between him and HHH which never happened due to injury. And, then the botched invasion happened, and he turned face soon after.

There's definitely a bias against women's wrestling. Not necessarily sexism, just not what he likes, and he's often primed to dislike it. 

As for Russo, he was the right guy at the right time. He had the sensibilities of a teenage boy at a time when the little Hulkamaniacs were hitting puberty and Jerry Springer was the hottest thing around. Maybe it's because people pull out the dumb shit he says more often, but I've yet to see him say anything intelligent or insightful. And, a lot of the stuff he says is just plain dumb. For example, he thought Rhea should stay as the generic blonde she was when she debuted. And while she definitely looked hot back then (and does now in a different way) it's obvious that her current presentation is much better for the wrestling world.

On the subject of Cornette and Russo, this is Russo's pitch for a women's wrestling promotion. This is something a grown ass man wanted to put on TV and put his name on. Tbh I could see where working with someone like this would get irritating. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEbMKUC-61E

"Which group would protest this first?" made me laugh :D

I could easily see this as a fictional South Park or Terence and Phillip wrestling federation.

I'm even more convinced now that Russo has Borderline or something related.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and predict that the winners of the chamber matches will be Becky Lynch and Sami Zayn. I know hes not in the match. I said what I said.

Edit: Right on cue injury angle to Lashley. Maybe he won't be able to compete in the chamber... If not who can replace him...

Yeah it looks like it could go that way.

But I think what will happen is that Priest might cash in his briefcase and take Seth's title tomorrow.

So it will likely be Priest VS Sami at WM.

If none of that will happen, it will be Drew VS Seth.

Well looks like I was wrong. Wonder why they did an injury angle with Lashley then. Looks like Drew vs Seth at Mania. Maybe Sammy will still wriggle his way in. Either way, will be a good match.

Rhea vs Nia was surprisingly decent.