The Unknown Poster

Shane definitely met with Dana with the intent of being involved in UFC after he quit WWE. If I remember (without looking it up), Shane wanted an ownership stake and UFC did not want to have any other owners involved. There was an issue of valuation too. Shane is very rich but to gain enough UFC stock to make it worth it, would have cost him a lot of money and I think what Shane wanted in valuation was different then what UFC wanted for valuation. It never went anywhere either way. WWE is a much broader company in terms of revenue streams and profitability. They make more money now than the attitude era. Although they lost money last year due to Network costs. They are on pace for potentially their most profitable year in 2015 and if not, certainly in 2016. Television Rights fees are a lot higher than during the attitude era. They did a lot of cost cutting in 2014 to meet their goals also. If the Network continues to gain traction, they will be infinitely profitable for the forseeable future.

Simply put, because there is no objective test for depression, suicide, or any mental health struggle and a history of anything does not predict future behaviour. That being said, I don't know everything about him so I don't know if the professionals supporting him had a reasonable expectation that he was a danger to himself or others and should have done something to prevent him from flying. They have to be careful about reporting too because it could just make people less likely to seek help if they feel their doctor is obligated to report back to their employer. I think the obvious solution is regular mental health review requirements by the airlines and then they are in a better position to determine flying fitness. In this case, his doctor did order him off work. The question will be was it due to the reported vision issues or mental health issues?

Maurice said "it was not a hard decision" in regards to starting goalie. So who starts?

Thanks for the link Bigg Jay. if I recall that Shane/Dana meeting ended up being the end of discussions. Im certain I recall Shane being interested earlier too, when UFC was for sale. It was certainly no coincedence that as soon as Shane quit WWE, he looked into UFC. The rumour was he would put a significant amount of money in to become a minority owner but I think UFC balked at that idea. Shane would have helped them grow internationally but they ended up not needed him. I still think Shane will return to WWE one day. If Vince was to die in the near future, Steph and Hunter might have to swallow their pride and ask him back because shareholders are not overly comfortable with Hunter as the heir apparent right now.

When it was on the verge of bankruptcy. It never got beyond the stage of trying to convince Vince to look at it. Vince wouldn't. He got further along with pride but again, Vince had no stomach for it. Punk told the story recently of him and Vince talking about UFC, back when Punk wanted to corner someone. He said Vince was disgusted by it and said he heard they were going to let women fight (women were already fighting) and thought it was just a terrible awful thing. Its probably to be expected since Vince grew up in the business controlling the feud's and outcomes and building the "fights" he wanted and UFC takes away that control. Plus, Vince has shown he has never really been in touch with trends. Its why he wouldnt allow Brock to do a UFC fight while under contract to WWE - he doesnt get money and he cant control the outcome. Vince thinks losing in UFC would hurt your draw in WWE (It doesnt) and even though WWE is a work, he likes guys that are tough. For example, a few years ago Batista and Booker got into a shoot fight and Booker whooped him. Vince almost pulled a planned title run from batista for losing a real fight. He was dragged kicking and screaming into the "attitude" era by Shane and Bischoff forcing his hand. He dropped the ball to the tune of potentially hundreds of millions of dollars when he bought WCW and to this day still feels he has to crap on it. He doesnt watch NXT. He's out of touch. Using Ronda Rousey will be all Hunter/Steph's influence and the fact the boys all marked out for her when the Four Horsewomen were backstage in the past.

Wwe actually helped promote UFC PPV's back in the shamrock days. But that was before it was sold Brawl For All was a total flop. I liked it but fans in general rejected it.

No one in true North said five years. They only said the plan was draft and develop.

He wanted both at different times. couldnt convince vince.

Vince does not like UFC. Thats well known. He considers it barbaric. He doesnt get it. He did pitch Dana a match between the two of them a few years ago though. As with most things with Vince, his mind changes all the time. He does not consider UFC competition and he's very wrong about that. UFC is huge competition to WWE in a business sense (Pay Per View dollars) and a creative sense (male demo gravitating to the more "real" and "cool" product). Shane McMahon tried to buy UFC years ago and Vince didnt see it. He's repeatedly said how UFC cant control their outcomes so they cant reach their audience in the same way and yet the popularity of both proves that wrong. If I recall, Steph didnt know who Rousey was the first time they met. Hunter is more knowledgable but not a big fan. A lot of the boys are though. Vince wouldnt let CM Punk be a corner guy for a UFC fighter a couple of years and it caused a lot of heat. They didnt want to be associated. They rarely mention UFC and in fact, when Brock came back it took a long time for them to allow "UFC" to be mentioned. They relented when it became so obvious that talking about Brock's UFC accomplishments. Even last night, did they mention UFC even one time during Ronda's segment? Part of Brock's negotiations with WWE were about doing UFC. Vince would never allow it. Brock came down to the last six days of his contract because he was playing UFC against WWE. Vince didnt want a UFC event in MSG featuring Punk AND Brock. I guarantee Ronda would not quit UFC to go to WWE over something as trivial as Dana not letting her do worked fighting. She makes more money in UFC than she'd make in WWE with a far tougher schedule. The irony to this is, UFC turned the corner when they aired The Ultimate Fighter several years ago. The Network had to get Vince's permission to air it after RAW. Vince thought it was no big deal and gave the okay. TUF kept a large number of RAW viewers, which were the desirable male demo and the rest is history.

All I will say about Buff is this, if anyone here would go into next season with a pending UFA like Buff, they are nuts. Chevy would have to have a pretty good indication they can re-sign him to take that risk.

Oh I know she has appeared on WWE TV but not in a physical role. And she is under contract so dont think for a second that UFC doesnt have a say. UFC has been very careful about any connection with wrestling in the past because they dont want any accusations of rigging. Having one of their biggest stars doing worked MMA moves probably isnt an ideal situation. But Dana seems like a pretty cool guy. Roles reversed, Vince would not be as accomadating. Then again, Vince things UFC sucks.

Sting actually did join the nWo Wolfpac. And he was with Hogan, Hall & Nash in the Millionaire's Club. But the involvement of nWo to save Sting was goofy. They went out of their way to bury Sting which was the issue to me. Deserves better. Word on the street is every legend who can bump is being thought of for a match. They want to sell 100,000 tickets and even last night it wasnt a sell out so they have their work cut out for them. Rock vs Hunter wont cut it. Rock & Ronda vs Hunter & Steph is better. Brock vs Austin? Sting vs Taker (double retirement?). Im still surprised Dana White allowed the Ronda Rousey involvement. I wonder if WWE had to concede something to them in return...(Punk footage, Brock appearance?)

probably hit the co-pilot and incapacitated him. The issue was that they were descending too fast and couldn't have pulled up in time. This was the same situation as the fourth plane that crashed on 9/11 - the passengers stormed the cock-pit but it was too late as the terrorists put the plane in a nose dive. Apparently the A320 doesn't allow you to do that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKBABNL-DDM Its not impossible I suppose. But again, we're talking about man vs man when one of them is intent on crashing the plane. He would have to attack and subdue the co-pilot quickly enough to prevent the co-pilot from doing anything else to hasten the crash (like bank the aircraft upside down). obviously, from the time the Auto-Pilot input was entered, there was time to recover but the co-pilot chose a rather "slow" method to crash. One method of recovering from a stall is to nose-down so it would surprise me to learn the A320 was not able to nose-down at a greater velocity than the co-pilot utilized in this case. I guess my point is, in an imperfect system what is the best way to handle this? It hasnt been reported if either pilot was armed. My curiosity is, was the co-pilot planning to do this "no matter what" or did the opportunity presented by the Captain leaving cause him to do it? Had the Captain remained in the cockpit would the flight have landed normally and perhaps the Co-pilot would have thought better of it and everyone live happily ever after? We'll never know. But again, in Egypt Air, both pilots were at the controls. Plane crashed. In the Fed Ex incident, only the fact there were two pilots saved them as one of them engaged in a severe fight for several minutes while the other, terribly injured, landed the plane. The easy answer would be a return to three-man flight crews. But technology doesnt require it and passengers wont pay for it. I read one suggestion that called for an over-ride on the security keypad if one of the pilots and a senior attendant or two entered their unique code. Another option to this would be an over-ride kept off the plane that when a crew member radios for it, it is provided. Not perfect. Rare situation. No easy answers. Certainly, if I was on this plane I'd like to have a fighting chance (like the passengers of the Penn plane) so I can understand your point. Heroic efforts of the Captain to break through the cockpit. Sounds like he did all he could.

Im not sure what his argument is. The cases of an authorized person being locked out of the cockpit are far fewer than reports of people trying to gain access (or heading in that direction). Alot of this security if designed to give anyone with nefarious intent a reason for second thought. For example, sky marshals. They arent on every flight but they could be and if you intend to cause trouble, you dont know which flight has an armed marshal. A secure cockpit door makes it very difficult for someone wanting to gain access to do so. Same thing with the change of thought process with passengers. There will never be another hijacking in North America of a passenger plane for this reason - passengers were "trained" to comply. Now they are trained to attack. You'd literally have to fight every passenger on a plane before even thinking about trying to get into the cockpit. If I recall, one of the 9/11 planes, the pilots had the cockpit door locked and secured and the hijackers were able to gain access by threatening to kill an attendant (and then did kill her I remember correctly), prompting the pilots to open the door. This will never happen again. And ofcourse, worse case scenario, the pilot could be armed with a weapon himself. Im not sure I see the argument against secured cockpit doors. In the EgyptAir disaster, the captain did return to the cockpit. The plane still crashed. What would the captain have done had he got through the door?

Well Id rather have an unbreakerable door that inconveniences the very rare scenario of a suicidal pilot when the co--pilot is locked out then the more likely scenario of a terrorist or general nut trying to access them. Although now that pilots can carry a weapon, the threat of being shot in the face is always there for anyone trying to gain access to the flight desk. This incident raises a ton of questions and I dont know what the answers are. This pilot supposedly was treated for suicidal tendencies years ago. He battled depression. He was ordered not to work and had a condition (believed to be related to his vision) that would result in him never flying again. The knee-jerk response is "why didnt his doctor inform his employer" and one could make the case that in occupations like this, doctor's should be compelled to report. But if that was the case, you create the potential for people to avoid getting medical attention for fear of their employer finding out, even if the medical situation isnt as troubling as this case, we all know there exists the potential for an employer to mis-use that info. I've heard people say there should be a mechanism to take command of the flight from the ground. Again, this creates the potential for a very negative situation. I think we have to chalk this up to a perfect storm of events that are thankfully rare.

Well...I like it more now that i've slept on it than I did at the time. I have a tendancy to look at it bit different being a booker myself so I sort look at why they did things and how they did them. For example: Sting vs Hunter. My God was this stupid. But...if Hunter is bring programmed with Rocky for next year in Cowboys Stadium, then he needed to come out strong. But knowing that, they should never have a) put him versus Sting booked it the way they did. Rest assured, this was all ego. It was WWE once again forgetting that they won the war and own WCW, it was them thumbing their nose at Sting for not coming over 14 years ago. it was booked completely wrong. When Sting began negotiating with WWE over a year ago, it dragged on because WWE did not see him as a big deal and thought their fans wouldnt know him. Hard to believe, but true. They ended up signing him to the video game deal first and played a Sting video package on RAW as part of the game. Fans went nuts...until the video game logo appeared and then they boo'ed like crazy when they realised it wasnt a "Sting is coming" hype package. That convinced WWE that he was over. They didnt trust him to cut a promo which makes no sense since he's a great promo. They had Hunter burying him as the last remnants of WCW, a promotion they bought and buried 14 years ago. Talk about not giving an angle everything you can. When Sting was finally allowed to speak he immediately said he was not there for WCW because "that would be ridiculous". He spoke for 20 seconds before Stephanie of all people came out, in high heels so she was as tall as Sting, and verbally decimated him while he stood there and took it. At WrestleMania, the announcer went on and on about how terrible he was, what a loser he was etc etc. If the heel buries the face and then wins, it means everything he said was right. "Sting is a loser and Im going to prove it by beating him"...and then he beats him thus proving Sting was a loser. They clearly didnt trust Sting to have a match even though he was in great shape and moved around very well. It was all smoke and mirrors. The psychology of the runs made no sense. DX helps Hunter...ok. nWo helps Sting?? Does WWE not even know the history? Sting's biggest thing in that era was being the guy that fought the nWo. In fact, in hyping WrestleMania and the stupid WCW angle, WWE put over that Sting fought the nWo, lost and was here because he wouldnt let it happen again. Not to mention both groups interferring were well known Hunter buddies. made zero sense. HBK delivering the superkick...when you have one face side with a heel against another face and it's not a heel turn, it just cuts down the face being kicked. The hand shake at the end? If the booking cut Sting's balls off, the handshake was Hunter taking those balls and putting them gently into a clear glass display case and placing them on his mantle. It was symbolic of Sting "quitting" and aknowleding that Hunter was better. He got hit with a friggen sledgehammer, he should be angry not resigned to defeat. It was insulting to old school fans who remember WCW and Sting. It almost ruined WrestleMania for me. Funny that Hunter beats Sting but bumps and sells for a woman (which he should have but still interesting) because he knows the clip would be played all over SportsCenter. Hunter might have a massive ego but hes a damn genius when it comes to keeping himself over. Reminded me of when he worked Booker T at Wrestlemania and spent weeks burying him as someone who couldnt win because he was black...and then beat him to prove the point. That aside...the main event was very very good. Brock is a monster and should be booked like on. WWE put themselves in a very bad position by insisting up until the last minute, that Roman needed to go over. I would have preferred Brock retain and in fact, I said to my buddy beforehand that I'd still have Seth cash in...and lose. Keep Brock as a monster. So I was a bit disappointed in the outcome. But in retrospect, it was a rare example of when WWE executes genius-level booking. Brock is still the monster, Roman took the beating and gained sympathy & and respect, and Seth took the title giving them a strong character and really good worker on top. Not sure what they do with brock now. I would have set up Brock vs Rock for next year's WrestleMania which is infinitely better than Rock vs Hunter. But if they think they can do a mixed tag with Ronda Rousey, more power to them. That was one of the very best moments because there is political animosity between WWE and UFC, mostly on WWE's side. Dana White is cool with WWE but Vince hates UFC. So I was shocked that Ronda was allowed to do what she did. I would have had her kill Steph a lot more. Again, Steph gets over verbally and ends up showing very little ass (giving in to her opponent) in response. Then again if doing that match, wouldn't Brock make a better partner for Ronda? Oh well. Undertaker looked better than he has in a couple of years but the match was boring. Bray Wyatt had injured himself earlier in the day though he didnt seem overly bothered by it. It's just the nature of Undertaker now that his matches are going to slow and plodding. And Bray is over-rated. Ladder match was okay. A bit too car crash-y for me but the right outcome. Cena vs Rusev was the right outcome for now and Cena did a great job of turning the fans to his favour. I mean really, if you cant get a face reaction against a good heel waving a Russian flag... Divas were good. WWE has trained fans to not care so repairing that will take a long time and I dont think WWE has the patience to do it. WWE fans believe Ronda Rousey will kill you but they run to the pisser when the Diva's champion comes out. All in all, a very entertaining WrestleMania and RAW should be even better tonight.

The team is far from perfect and not being able to clamp it down has been a repeated issue. Probably more psychological than anything. If they make the playoffs, you watch, it will come back to haunt them at some point.

It's because Darren had his magic pavs pin covered up.

Glad I watched WrestleMania. . Darren Ford should have too. Tuesday is another day.

Well. I have to say as much as I hated the finish the main event was great and ingenious booking (even though I disliked the result). Kicking myself for not considering it since I actually booked the exact same thing on one my shows once!

Can't chiarot be assigned to the A prior to the season beginning without clearing waivers

They have to switch one RHD to left or minutes will be hard to come by. If they can do that tjeu have amongst the best top four in the league. And of the bottom two is some combo of Stuart, Chiarot, postma, morrissey...we're doing pretty good. No idea how Chevy will work it out. Could hide chiarot in AHL for awhile. Buy some time.

There are issues between paramount and cbs both of which are owned by Viacom. Oaramount licenses the original series characters from cbs. It's sort of a mess really.