The Unknown Poster

The first time? Nah that propelled the Monday audience forward and changed the business forever. Everything that came after fame from that. A more realistic approach. DX. Mr McMahon. WWE going public and becoming an empire. In hindsight it was mostly a one trick pony. But living through it, it was groundbreaking (even though it was a rip off of a Japanese angle)

Kevin Nash might be the worst booker in the history of wrestling.

I hope this guy has an agent. Lol

Well I mean, he HAS to lie at this point. But I am curious as to whether he, his dad, their advisers and lawyers think anyone is buying it or if they really understand that they are throwing whatever they can at the wall and hopes something sticks to keep them out of jail.

Larkin's #2 pick for Art Ross is Scheif. leading to this fun exchange:

Yup. And Peter Mansbridge says he's good. Who are we to argue with Peter Mansbridge? I think its very arguable that had we received "league average" goaltending and didnt have such terrible luck on D (Trouba's hold out then injuries) we would have made the playoffs. We're older and better this year. Every single player, with the exception maybe of Toby (lol) should be as good or better than last year. Goaltending will be better than league average. D will be a lot better, barring catastrophe. Maurice certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt as far as seeing this thing to its logical conclusion. To fire him now would, in my opinion, be unfair considering he was tasked with coaching a young team and, at times, a less than prime time team.

The boy blunder

Whats interesting is, everyone assumed it was If that is even a spoiler at this point. Because of But, what threw suspicion on it was that Oh well. I think it still has double meaning.

I would agree. And his new contract has little bearing. Had he entered this season as a lame duck, it would mean they were not comfortable with him so the hook might have come sooner. But with no cap implications with coach salaries, if the Jets want to fire him, they will.

Thats actually the definition of a lame duck. The only thing less than a one year contract is no contract. And yes, sadly, people like you and me are not in pro sports. Thats just the way it is.

One has nothing to do with the other. You handcuff your coach if you let him be a lame duck. Either fire him or extend him.

Here's far more information about GFW/Jarrett than anyone probably cares about...but its interesting! Courtesy Dave Meltzer Yesterday, Global Force Wrestling announced that Jeff Jarrett, who was running the wrestling end of GFW and is part owner of the company, was taking an indefinite leave of absence from the company to deal with personal issues. According to those close to the situation, the personal issues aspect of the story is legitimate and the public story is accurate. It was clear that the decision was not something he knew about in advance because he sent out a tweet that morning talking about going back into the office to start a day of work. He was scheduled to host a party for the company staff at his home that day, which ended up being canceled. However, others in the company were aware of the decision for at least a week. There were a long list of reasons involved that date back several months including a screaming match with Bob Ryder at a television taping. Although issues between the two were settled quickly, it was said the situation was very bad when it happened. Another was Reby Hardy's admission of receiving unprofessional drunk text messages revolving around her going public on the Broken Hardy intellectual property conflict. The messages had gotten around to some in the company. It appears the breaking point had to do with Jarrett's behavior at this year's TripleMania. Jarrett was said to be not in shape for wrestling and stumbled down the ring steps (although, he wasn’t the only person on the show who had trouble with the steps), doing little wrestling in his match. Ed Nordholm, Executive Vice President of Anthem Sports & Entertainment, was on the trip and made the call to remove Jarrett. A Potential Sale Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated reported Wednesday that with Anthem losing significant money, sources close to the situation say Anthem is ready to pull out of running a wrestling company and is ready to sell. Sources in the company denied that, but that type of story is also always going to be denied until it happens for the obvious morale reasons, and also because even those at the top would not be in the loop on a sale. As noted in the Observer Newsletter last week, the company's inability to get a new U.S. television deal is hurting them because it’s clear the company can’t grow financially while on Pop TV and their current situation doesn’t appear to have any other way to make money. After testing the waters with three house shows in the Northeast (one of which was canceled and neither of the others drew well), no future house shows are on the schedule, nor is anything past the television tapings in November after Bound for Glory. The creative has improved under Jarrett, particularly the quality of the show stemming from the last television tapings. Most of the damage was done prior to his return, but the new storylines haven’t led to any kind of a ratings increase. In the big picture, that’s a moot point with GFW having signed with Pop for another year, ensuring they have television. However, they aren’t going to be able to make any serious money off it. So, from a business standpoint, things will remain tough. WWE's interest Barrasso noted the value in selling to WWE, which would acquire a tape library that could be used for the WWE Network and other projects since it contains footage from WWE main roster talent like A.J. Styles, Samoa Joe and Bobby Roode. When Dixie Carter was in talks with WWE in the past (denied to those in the company at the time), it was about selling the tape library as WWE had no interest in anything outside that. An added wrinkle is that the intellectual property the company claims ownership to includes the Broken Hardy gimmick, which would remove any obstacles of the Hardys using the gimmick in WWE. It isn’t clear who else would be interested in buying their assets, although just a few months ago, musician and former TNA creative member Billy Corgan was interested in taking over the company. Because all the paperwork on the GFW merger with Impact Wrestling hadn’t been completed, any sale talks would be regarding the Impact Wrestling name and not the GFW name. However, the feeling is that, for the time being, it makes no sense to do another public rebranding so the GFW name will continue to be used on television. Who's In Charge? The creative side of the company for the time will be led by John Gaburick, who was in charge under Carter, along with Scott D’Amore and Sonjay Dutt. Gaburick being in charge of wrestling is interesting since there was a lot of heat and criticism from when he was in charge in the past. All the key people on the creative end were either brought in specifically by Jarrett (i.e, Dutch Mantell and Jim Cornette) or those who are longtime friends of his. Jarrett had been on television doing a feud with American Top Team head Dan Lambert, although when Alberto Rodriguez (El Patron) was suspended, the pre-taped television wasn’t changed when it hit air. Jarrett was also scheduled for a package that was put together before he was let go with he and Jeremy Borash commenting on the recent Sexy Star situation from TripleMania. If the Lambert angle even lasts past Bound for Glory, it can be easily transferred to Cornette as the GFW authority figure since that’s also been pushed on television. However, that could change depending on what happens with Cornette and Mantell. One company source said the decisions regarding both men were up in the air, and in the case of Cornette, there was at least a feeling of downplaying or not having an authority figure going forward. If authority figure angles are done away with, that changes a lot of the creative direction. Similarly, the future of Karen Jarrett and Bruce Prichard are up to the new creative team. To complicate matters, Karen was working in the office and whether that continues is also up in the air.

Credit: Wrestling Observer While still being an overwhelmingly successful number, the live gate for the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor superfight failed to break the record that Mayweather had established against Manny Pacquiao. The Nevada Athletic Commission confirmed today that the gate for the August 26th fight was $55,414,865.79, falling short of the $72,198,500 in ticket sales generated by Mayweather vs. Pacquiao. Mayweather-McGregor now slots in as the second-highest gate in Nevada history, with 13,094 tickets sold and 137 complimentary tickets distributed. The T-Mobile Arena was set up for 17,698 people, but high ticket prices contributed to the event not selling out despite substantial interest in it. There were 16,219 tickets sold for Mayweather vs. Pacquiao at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in 2015. Whether Mayweather vs. McGregor broke the North American pay-per-view record should be known soon. Showtime's Stephen Espinoza has said that it's tracking to do in the mid-to-high four million buy range, which would be around the 4.6 million mark set by Mayweather-Pacquiao. Dana White previously claimed that the Mayweather-McGregor PPV did 6.5 million buys internationally.

I watched Daredevil season 1 and Agents of Shield for a season or two but I got tired of them, to be honest.

Some rampant speculation about Star Wars is making the rounds. They had brought on a new writer to re-write Colin's script just last month. It sounds like Leia factored heavily into a Kylo redemption arc. But LucasFilm doesnt want to recast or CGI Leia. So... they tried to re-work the script. I'd suspect that either Colin was opposed to the new direction or even the new writer was having trouble making it work. The speculation is, the redemption arc wasnt working without Leia. Rian Johnson is top of the list to take over. Which makes sense since he's already working there. It will be interesting to eventually hear how the story changes after Carrie died. How do you replace the key role her character was to have? Do you essentially move Luke into that role?

Im not advocating Maurice as coach of the century. And I dont want to make excuses. But he also tok on some bad teams including the Hartford Whalers when they were being sold and relocated, a young Hurricanes team which went on two win two division titles, a conference title and, of course, a Cup final. They had no offense and sucked following the cup run. They re-built on the back of drafting Staal. He then coached a horrible Leafs team. He went back to Carolina where he led the team to another conference final, losing to the Pens (who won the cup). And in Winnipeg where the Jets have been re-building since they got here. So is Maurice a "winner"? No. Has he won? Yes. Im not ready to write him off yet. But regardless, looking at it from a business perspective, if you're lame ducking your HC, then fire him. If you're not going to lame duck him, you sort of have to offer an extension. I dont know how much "Winnipeg" factors in but if you want to lure a successful coach here who would have multiple offers, how do you get him here? So, when you consider the big picture, it makes sense. And ultimately, its only money. Which we have lots of. If the Jets suck, Maurice will get fired. The Jets management arent ready to write him off yet. They would know better. Ill defer to their judgement in the short term.

Oh, well thats good then. We can lock the thread. You have spoken.

Its funny because the majority of coaches who have won have also lost. So the idea that there are genius coaches that are just always amazing, I dont think thats true. There are examples of coaches that were written off that came back to lead teams to success. Coaching is only one aspect of success or failure. I like Maurice. I dont think he's the type of coach that takes a bad team and wills them to success. But I also dont think he takes a good team and makes it bad. The Jets either have to fire Maurice today or give him an extension. Its bad form to have a lame duck head coach. You just dont do that. A two year extension would be great. Three, I could live with. More than that and Im hoping for the best.

S you'd be happy today if Chevy and Maurice were both fired?

The gf has a friend who is a nurse in an ER in Winnipeg and I had her ask about this. She said firstly that the Utah nurse was way more pleasant than she would have been to the police. She also said she was not sure what the laws/rules were here and that in the majority of cases where police want blood here, its for DUI's and the patients are conscious and give consent. She said she HAS denied police requests for access to hospital-run toxicology, telling them they cant have patient info without a warrant. And the police always comply.

Isnt he only on a one year deal now? So you want to extend him when he's a free agent? If the Jets value Maurice, thats a very bad idea. Thats not a commentary on whether they SHOULD value him. But if they like him, they cant let him play out his contract.

I like "nerdy" things. I like Star Wars and Marvel and Star Trek. But I agree, the fascination with building lego is weird to me. Its a kids toy that has been up-charged to the point grown adults think its an adult hobby. Its putting blocks together. For what its worth, the guys I know into Lego are actually gay and gravitate towards each other. So its a closed lego group that is self-supporting in many ways. lol

I sort of assumed this when there was talk months ago, that they'd announce shortly before the season. When it hadnt come yet, the speculation was Maurice was on a short rope. But I just dont think that happens much. You cant have a lame duck head coach. I definitely approve of Chevy's work thus far so his extension is welcome. Will be interesting to see what Maurice gets because the Jets HAVE to win this year or really, they HAVE to make a change somewhere. And you dont want to face making a coaching change with a guy who has 3+ years left.