Scott, just listened to your P2B podcast. Good stuff, kudos. The guys briefly talked about rumors of Jim Ross writing a book!?!?! Have you heard any info on this? Is it in the works? This would be fucking tremoundous...He seems like he would be bitter enough and have enough financial stability to write a legitimate, tell all book. Chances we ever see this?
Also, if you could ask JR and Vince ANY question while they're on truth serum, what would it be?
The JR book has been rumored for a while, although Meltzer doesn't think it'll ever actually happen. I'm guessing the various non-disclosure and legal reasonings would leave the bodies buried where they are, so to speak.
As for the second question, you tell me. Call it a question of the day.
JR doesn't seem bitter to me.
ReplyDeleteFor Vince I'd ask him the same question I would ask all super successful people if I knew they had to tell the truth. "What was your biggest mistake?" The answer guys give for PR is rarely, if ever, what the actual truth is. For someone who's been in business as long as Vince is, it probably isn't even one of the usual suspects (Montreal, Invasion, keeping the show going after Owen), it's probably something we don't even know about.
ReplyDeleteI said this in another thread, and it coincides with what you were talking about on the podcast...did you ever have any long term plans of turning WCW into a sustainable, profitable entity? Or was it always in your mind to hate fuck it to death.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Even if he didn't actually resign and was in fact 'fired', he had to have seen the writing on the wall for a while. He survived Watts and had a long run with the rotating bosses at WCW, and was fired and re-hired by the WWF/E several times. By now, the fact that pro wrestling is a harsh business and often treats people badly shouldn't be a surprise to him.
ReplyDeleteYou don't think the multiple firings and having to deal with Vinces alleged put downs for years built up any bitterness? He's said all the right stuff publicly, but I'd be shocked if he was slightly bitter. It's only human nature
ReplyDelete'Also, if you could ask JR and Vince ANY question while they're on truth serum, what would it be?'
ReplyDeletede these pants make my ass look big?
I think if he was truly bitter he would have quit and joined TNA or some other company a long time ago. "Slightly bitter"? Yes, possibly. Bitter enough to complain about Vince to his close friends when there are no cameras or microphones nearby? Very likely. Bitter enough to write a tell-all book that trashes Vince and jeopardizes any future relationship with the WWE? I doubt it..
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to just jump to a secondary promotion and accept the huge salary slash when you're in that position.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he'd ever go full scorched on Vince, just because I don't think it's his personality, but I think he'd give a more straightforward book then most. If he's financially stable and has no desire to go back to WWE, I think he could divulge a ton.
Yeah, I agree. I think he'd write a book that would be critical about certain issues. I think it would strike a tone more like Jericho's 2nd book or maybe Bret's book; he wouldn't pull his punches about something he felt strongly about, but I don't think he'd write a book with the intent of trashing anyone or settling scores the way Flair seemed to in his book.
ReplyDeleteIf anyone was going to try and start a national promotion, I would give Jim Ross a blank check and have him get it started.
ReplyDeleteNot a question for either guy but for you the blog. What happens if Jim Ross gets Eric Bischoff's job in WCW. He was trying to get it before he left.
ReplyDeleteIt would have been more of a straightforward "wrasslin" promotion. Would have been successful ans stable but probably wouldn't have experienced the highs of the NWO era stuff, nor the lows they suffered either.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. It would have been a lot like what Watts was doing in 92 but JR wouldn't have been as backwards thinking at Watts.
ReplyDeleteThe Bill Watts WCW era was good but had some pretty major flaws. The no jumping off the top rope rule for example.
ReplyDeleteA rule i miss is the no punching with closed fist rule. No one ever got dq'd for it, but it worked for psychology espec. for the heels. Also no throwwing someone over top rope.
ReplyDelete"Vince, I have tied you up and injected you with a truth serum. I am now going to ask you one question... and that question is.... have you ever thought of your daughter Stephanie whilst having sex?"
ReplyDeleteWhy would you want to know?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't waste my question on that as I'm almost positive I know what the answer would be.
ReplyDeleteDid Savage bang a teenaged Stephanie?
ReplyDeleteTo Vince, What is the most shameful thing you've ever done?
ReplyDeleteTo JR, What was the humiliating thing Vince ever did to you?
See but I think that's wrestling. I think JR is a little more inside than we all lead on, ya know? in a fake sport, he holds the most credibility, so if you want cheap heat, humiliate the guy you care about. Remember when Austin beat him up? That was brutal.
ReplyDeleteI think a JR book is impossible. Unless it's like 1000 pages I think it'll feel like a let down. That said, if JR wanted to hook up with WWE for a series of shoot interviews with footage and commentary on a given subject, like a video podcast, THAT could be something worthwhile.
ReplyDeleteI'd hope anything JR does would be done independently from wwe...wouldn't want him pressured or his stuff edited in any sense by the WWEs agenda.
ReplyDeleteEh, I think the WWE A) cares about money more than protecting themselves, and B) Has a pretty decent history of not gutting books or opinions, if Foley's stuff is to be believed, anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you might as well ask "Have you ever owned a wrestling company?" if you're going to throw softballs like that!
ReplyDeleteA proper JR tell-all book (which I don't think will ever happen) would be the best possible wrestling memoir outside of a completely honest one from Vince McMahon (which is CERTAINLY not happening). It would be gold not just for the backstage dirt but also for historical accounts and whatnot. I don't know much about wrestling from before 1997 (aside from random PPVs I watched on VHS as a teenager) but even I would be interested in hearing JR's stories from back in the day.
ReplyDeleteAs per questions to Vince and JR:
VINCE: Mr. McMahon, these modern three-hour Raws seem to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?
JIM ROSS: Explain the nature of your relationship with Vince McMahon - why he treats you the way he does and why you put up with it for so many years?
That JR question isn't in judgment of him, I just find it such a curious relationship and it's played out on television for us all (for the most part) for 15-odd years now.
How in the blue hell did Jerry McDevitt keep his job for so long?
ReplyDelete"I can't believe I actually pushed Daniel Bryan for a few weeks after Summerslam! Good thing I remedied the situation immediately and rebooked Raw around that hot young act, the Big Show."
ReplyDeleteJR doesn't seem too bitter since frankly, he's one of the few in the wrestling business who seems to have an edge over McMahon and the WWE. Ross "won" in the sense that he's universally recognized as the best wrestling announcer ever (or at least of the last 20 years) and thus no matter how many times the company has tried to replace him, they keep crawling back to him when one of their other hand-picked announcer experiments fails. Make Coach the lead guy on Raw for most of 2006? JR comes back in the end. Shift him to Smackdown in 2008 and eventually move him off TV entirely in favour of Cole? He's still personally asked by HHH and Undertaker to call the final stretch of Wrestlemania 27 and then the HITC bout at WM28.
ReplyDeleteIt wouldn't surprise me that part of the reason Vince so often mocks JR on television is because this "country announcer" is the one guy he can't bury.
Getting heat for shit not on TV...I don't think Vince is working us that hard.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely. He and Rock are pretty much the only guys so universally respected.
ReplyDeleteI never he said he couldn't be bitter, I said he doesn't seem bitter. Plus he made millions of dollars doing what he loves.
ReplyDeleteFoley's books were not published by WWE. None of the great, honest wrestling books were.
ReplyDeleteWWE publishes shit like the godawful "Rock says" and "Unauthorized history of DX" books.
Letting them have final edit is cancer to quality.
I don't know that people would be all that interested in watching the University of Oklahoma football team wrestle each other every week.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rTzJIxBHKc
ReplyDeleteFunny story... I once for some ungodly reason went clothes shopping with my first wife. She tries on pair after pair after pair of pants determining that each makes her ass look fat... after a while I told her that if EVERY pair of pants makes your ass look fat... maybe the fault does not lie with the pants.
ReplyDeleteShe wasn't as happy with me as you might expect her to be.
One of may favorite moments from Wrestlemania 28 is after JR called the HitC match with Cole quiet most of the time... in the next match Cole in his heel phase... said something about someone being useless and King said something to the effect of "Michael you showed us what useless was when JR was out here" probably the best shoot comment in ages because it hits the nail on the head... JR doesn't work for ages, comes back for one fucking match and puts everyone else to shame.
ReplyDeleteI'd wager it was a joke son.
ReplyDeleteI was gonna say I'd ask Vince if he every directly said "Take steroids" to one of his wrestlers, but I figure Vince is clever enough to know how stupid that would be to do and it would result in a No, sooo...hmm, maybe "Was Montreal a work?" or "Really? A necrophiliac angle? What were you on and is it still available?". A runner-up would also be "So, that tanning salon chick...did you really show her pictures of yourself naked? Bro, that's dope"
ReplyDeleteI'd ask JR how many times he's caught Lawler "slapping his Kaufman" under the booth during the late 90's.
Question to JR: Explain everything that is entailed in being v.p. of talent relations.
ReplyDeleteQuestion to Vince: Why are booking meetings (excuse me, production meetings) so top secret?
You get to ask any question and you come with ones that can be answered with google?
ReplyDeleteI could care less about what JR has to say about anything, but I do have a few questions for Vince. I haven't read the comments, so forgive me if I'm repeating something that has been mentioned already.
ReplyDelete-Really now, what is the deal with Savage? Did he really fuck Steph, or at least try to?
-Why do you hate Jeff Jarrett so much? All he did was ask for the money that was owed to him, people have done far worse and you brought them back.
-Did you REALLY, as a guy that owns a fucking WRESTLING COMPANY, think you could start a football league and compete with the NFL? Like, were you high when you came up with that shit?
-How do you feel about MMA? Never mind the business aspect of it, are you a fan of the sport in general?
-What did JR do to piss you off?
-And finally, what, if anything, do you think you could have done to try and prevent the Benoit murder-suicide?
JR actually talked about this on Austin's podcast actually. Basically said that the majority of the humiliating ideas came from the booking team as they figured JR was so over, particularly in Oklahoma, that if they needed guaranteed heel heat that was pretty much the only way to do it. I think they specifically referenced Austin's beatdown of him while he was chatting about this too.
ReplyDelete"Were you in consideration to take the WWF title from Flair back in 1992?"
ReplyDeleteOne Saturday in 1991, I didn't work out. Biggest regret of my life!
ReplyDelete"During sex WITH Steph or sex with someone else?
ReplyDelete....Yes."
"Yo, what up with yo face, bitch?"
ReplyDelete.
.
.
...I'd ask Vince that.
It might be...but still, why would anybody want to know?
ReplyDeleteLike...I know it's jokes, but parental incest is still seriously a creepy topic, and the way serious wrestling journalists bring it up is incredibly unsettling.
I've thought about some questions... but if I'd wanted to know the truth, I wouldn't watch wrestling in the first place. ;-)
ReplyDeleteVince hated Jeff Jarrett dad...Once Jeff did the money/China thing, it just gave Vince the excuse he wanted to hate jeff, IMO
ReplyDeleteExcept Vince used Jerry Jarrett to pick up a wrestler bound for TNA.
ReplyDeleteI think Vince mocks JR because JR has no backbone whatsoever, and agrees to come back to the WWE constantly despite being humiliated constantly and fired more than that. Vince likes people who stand up for themselves, and JR doesn't.
ReplyDeleteFoley's first few books were absolutely in collaboration with the WWE. He just asked to write them himself.
ReplyDeleteJR will never join TNA. And it's a shame, because Vince respects people who don't kiss his ass. If he can walk over you and push you around, you're expendable. If JR went to TNA and helped them out, you can better believe Vince would hire him back with a ridiculously lavish contract.
ReplyDeleteI think JR is over rated. He gets a lot of praise for the talent he brought in when head of talent relations, but anyone competent would have done exactly the same. The wealth of talent around at the time is what made the Attitude Era special, not the bloke who signed them. Besides, by all accounts he was a bit of a cock when running talent relations, especially where Austin and Steve Williams are concerned. Jeff Jarrett holding up WWF for money owed was under JR's watch. As was the plane ride from hell. Also what about the piles of crap he signed like Mantaur?
ReplyDeleteHis commentary is good (not as good as his old WCW days), but again I think it's fondly remembered because of what was happening in the ring and that he was eventually replaced by someone sub-par. JR had to scream and yell like a used car salesman to make his points. Gorilla Monsoon could accomplish the same with one softly spoken line.
I suspect McMahon doesn't like JR as he carries himself as the second coming of Bill Watts and is a grumpy bastard with an attitude problem. Wasn't there a report of him turning up drunk to do a seminar at a high school several years back?
Don't get me wrong, I think JR is good at what he does, but he's not the messiah.
I grew up in Norman OK so we knew the Ross family. His mom and pop were real sweethearts but Jim was self centred, arrogant, grumpy and entitled. Not a nice guy sadly.
ReplyDeleteVince doesn't like Jim Ross because Ross is the one person who can see right threw Vince's bullshit and Vince knows it.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that. If JR is as wonderful as everyone says then he wouldn't have been fired three times.
ReplyDeletequit down voting me, fat ass
ReplyDelete'Vince hated Jeff Jarrett dad.'
ReplyDeletejerry jarrett was in line to run things if vince went to jail in '94, though
yeah, JR has always struck me as a bit of a prick at times. he has this arrogance about him and sort of talks down to fans a lot when answering questions
ReplyDeletehe also didn't come off very well in 'beyond the mat'
Maybe I'm wrong on this then...didn't they then have a big falling out?
ReplyDeleteI want to hear the answers to those questions straight from them. Secondly, I'm not really interested in where the bodies are buried.
ReplyDeleteAwesome... I never knew I was a way serious wrestling journalist *Thumbs up*
ReplyDeleteJR has answered that question thousands of times.
ReplyDeleteCollaboration perhaps, but they were not published by the WWE in house.
ReplyDeleteYeah, cause I guy like Vince would never let a world class talent go more then once
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that Vince isn't a cock. Just that JR is probably also a cock.
ReplyDeleteRoss told a story on Austin's podcast about his dad handing him a hammer and a garbage bag full of inbred puppies. Sounds like good folk.
ReplyDeleteQuestion to JR-What's Sean Pendergast REALLY like?
ReplyDeleteQuestion to Vince-why do you hate derby so much?
I'm not one to piss on the legacy of Dirty Dave, but I've heard other reports where published journalists seriously talk about Vince and Steph in that way...
ReplyDeleteI dunno, the writing of it almost seems like they WANT it to be true.
Fair enough, though I'd still like to hear the entire truth come straight from his mouth. While I doubt he's told outright lies, I doubt he's as honest as he could be.
ReplyDeleteThanks... the Dirty Dave legacy is all I have...
ReplyDeleteAnyway I make the odd Vince/Steph incest accusation on the blog mainly from a segment before the Steph/HHH marriage angle around Feb 2002 on Smackdown I think, where Steph is showing off her wedding dress and Vince just leers at her seemingly staring at her enhanced bazookas which came off as horrifyingly creepy. That and the fact that I have a weird fascination in wanting to believe that Triple H is in fact Vince's love child and Vince encouraged Steph to wed him in order to keep the McMahon bloodline pure just like the Lannisters and Targaryens from GoT!
Okay...you get a thumbs up for the Game of Thrones reference.
ReplyDelete