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A trip down 2020 memory lane

As we wrap up 2020, I like to look back on this year's community pennystock picks as a fun retrospective. I encourage anyone to comment and share their experiences as well! I'm a big believer that going back and looking at historical trades as a method to continue to evolve as a trader. Things like price action, conviction, research and entry/exit points are all critical in becoming a better stock trader.
This post ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated, and there are a few more stocks I wanted to include here that won't fit into my original post. So I'll probably follow up this post with a comment below with a few more pennystocks that were hype on this sub that I bought and learned from.
This post will follow the following format:
Here are a few of the rides I was on in 2020:

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Overall Verdict

2020 hasn’t really been an easy year for any of us. We have suffered plenty, many of us have lost several loved ones, the Earth has been attacked by numerous natural catastrophes in the past few months. However, we cannot stop believing that better things are coming. All these might start with the launching and finding of our new favourite online gaming site – Whamoo Casino. Their impressive gaming selection will definitely help us ease the pain we got from last year’s traumatic experiences. Let’s hope for the best. Let’s be optimistic. Let’s win!
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Kahuna Casino Online Legit:

Question , has anyone usaed kahuna online or know if it is a legit online casino, I've had my doubts about using it, but it seemed a little odd how they are asking for to much information for withdrawals.. someone please let me know- i don't really care cause it was a small amount of money.

Is it legit or a scam is all I want to know.
submitted by jay-yabishya to onlinegambling [link] [comments]

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[TIMELINE] Analyzing The Past to Predict the Future - Everything We Should Consider on the Road to GTA VI

[TIMELINE] Analyzing The Past to Predict the Future - Everything We Should Consider on the Road to GTA VI
[QUICK MOD NOTE] This post was originally posted by Lenlfc on GTAforums, original post here. ALL CREDIT GOES TO HIM FOR ALLOWING ME TO DO THIS. It's extremely detailed and extensive, but it also gives a full look at previous leaks and speculation about GTA V, RDR 2, and the upcoming GTA VI. It's well worth your read if you're at all interested in speculation and leaks for GTA VI, considering it has a lot of information about how Rockstar has done things in the past, and how they may do things with GTA VI. It also has all of the confirmed information we have for GTA VI, like everyone has been asking for. Enjoy!
LENLFC will also be updating his original GTAForum's post often when new, reliable information comes out that is worth adding to his timeline.
TL:DR: This is very long. Please don't be mean if you think I went too far. I just wanted to be as detailed as possible, and compile as much evidence and proof as possible, so we can work out the most accurate and likely scenario. I've never done anything like this before. So please be kind.
Hi. So, Red Dead Redemption 2 has come and gone. Feels like forever we waited for it. Hard to believe it released almost 4 months ago. It's that time when many of us will start looking forward to the next Rockstar game. I have been on this site since the first leaks for GTA V popped up online. In that time, I have watched fairly quietly, barely getting involved. I've read a lot, and enjoyed it all, but never actively helped out. I want to warn you all that this post will be pretty lengthy, and as I'm not a regular poster, my formating or writing may not be the best. But I'm a big fan of Rockstar Games, and have a weird fascination with remembering small things. So I wanted to try my best to compile everything we know about how Rockstar go about making their games, what they have done in the past and do some crazy conspiracy theory like deducing to try to predict when, where and how we can find clues to GTA VI, and when they may announce or release it.
Firstly, I'd like to credit and thank Dan Dawkins. Many of you may not know who he is, but long story short, he's a journalist, and back in July 2011 he wrote an article in the magazine PSM3. In the article he predicted many things about GTA V (some correct, some incorrect) he researched all the available data and pooled it together, and used that to speculate about GTA V. That was a massive influence on me growing up, on how to speculate responsibly and use common sense to work out where a game or series may go next. So thank you, Dan!

FACTS

Now, onto the main topic. What do we know about GTA VI? Not a lot. Dan Houser recently said that they're thankful they're not releasing GTA VI while Trump is in office. While he's never actually quoted as saying they won't release it while Trump is in office, I think journalists used that for a catchy headline. But the point remains. GTA is heavily based on British satire of USA. The current political climate makes it very difficult for them to do this. If we take it literally, GTA VI won't release until 2021 or 2025, depending on how long he is in office. Unless I have my dates wrong. I'd be willing to bet they had 2021 in mind. However, my personal take on this was that Dan simply meant "thank god we're not releasing GTA VI in 2018" And knowing it'l take them years to even release their next game, Trump will no longer be President.
We also know Rockstar Games will make another GTA. And that is about it. If there is anything else concrete, that we know, that I have missed please let me know.

THE PAST

GTA V TIMELINE
Here's where we start digging and look to the past, what Rockstar has done before and try our best to work out their timelines and how they go about things. Now, in order to do this, I'd like to begin with GTA V, as that is when Rockstar Games transitioned into the one big game every 5 years, as opposed to the game every year studio.
April 20th 2009 the first ever build for GTA V was created. I'm not sure if this is when development officially began, or just the date of the first build. Either way, I doubt there is much difference. They were busy working on TBoGT at that point, having just released TLaD 2 months prior. This was discovered from the Build Log. I will go into detail on this later. However this wasn't discovered until 2014, I just thought it was worth putting here to stamp the timeline.
The earliest rumors for GTA V began on July 26th 2010, with reports of Rockstar researching locations in and around Hollywood. Rockstar declined to comment on this, saying they don't comment on "rumors and speculation". To this day we still don't know if this was legit, or otherwise. However the game did end up being set in Los Santos. So it was either true or coincidentally correct.
Next came the domain name leaks on February 25th 2011. That date might be off by a couple of days, but the original GTA V Leak Topic has it dated to the 25th. (Fun fact, this is the leak and topic where I signed up to GTAForums!) Very GTA sounding website names. After GTA IV introduced the internet to us, it was no surprise to think GTA V would expand on that, and the domain names registered sounded right out of a GTA game. This was proven true, as the websites did appear in game.
On March 8th 2011 more fuel was added to the GTA V fire, when the codenamed "Rush" casting call was leaked online. Like the website, they sounded like something out of a GTA game.
This was further expanded on the 29th of March when Take Two put out a private casting call, further hinting at development on GTA V being well underway.
October 5th 2011 In an Asked & Answered article, 2 users asked about the next GTA, with Rockstar replying with the following
“When are we going to see a new GTA????? #bestgameever” - received via Twitter“When's the new grand theft auto coming out?” - received via Twitter
Big, big shout to all Grand Theft Auto fans worldwide who we know are anxious to hear about what’s next for the franchise but we don’t have any news at this time.All we can say is, right now, we’re focused on our next upcoming releases which are Max Payne 3 as well as L.A. Noire for PC, Red Dead Redemption Game of the Year Edition and Max Payne for mobile devices. When and if we have anything to report regarding the Grand Theft Auto franchise, you know that we’ll do so here at the Newswire or on our Twitter or Facebook.
And then it happened. GTA V was officially announced on October 25th 2011 at 12pm BST, linked below.
https://twitter.com/RockstarGames/status/128788090969001984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E128788090969001984&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fgtaforums.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcore%26module%3Dsystem%26controller%3Dembed%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2FRockstarGames%2Fstatus%2F128788090969001984%3Fs%3D20
This announcement came only 20 days after saying the above on October 5th 2011
This goes to show that Rockstar can say one thing, then surprise us weeks later.
The first trailer then debuted on November 2nd 2011
Everything past this point, until release I feel is not relevant to this discussion. It is more to do with post announce schedules and marketing, and when to expect news or updates or trailers for an already announced major game. If this topic does well, I could add it, or put it in a spoiler box so it's optional detail. Otherwise the next points worth talking about come into play upon release, and where Rockstar go after this.
September 17th 2013 GTA V finally releases. We rejoice.
October 1st 2013, two weeks after the launch of GTA V GTA Online launches.
This is where it gets interesting and complicated. We know now that their next game was Red Dead Redemption 2. However, Rockstar weren't finished with GTA V. Many people claim that Rockstar stopped caring about their fans and gamers, citing images like these
You can actually pinpoint the year Rockstar discovered microtransactions.
Now, I bring these up, as it is important to understand just how Rockstar now operate. Love it or hate it, but GTA Online has allowed Rockstar to not release games as often. Allowing them to work on one game as Rockstar Studios, where they all work together, instead of separate teams, like Rockstar North (GTA) and Rockstar San Diego (RDR) for example. The income from GTA Online has seemingly allowed them to spend 5 years working on Red Dead Redemption 2, perfecting a masterpiece. Allowing them to make the game they wanted, and allowing them to take all the time necessary to innovate and make a living breathing world even more so than GTA V did.
Some time in January 2014 the GTA V Build Log was found. Apparently it was on the game disc, and dedicated fans dug into the files and found it. I bring this up, as it reveals some key interesting details. such as the date of the first GTA V build/when GTA V development began. This is important as we can use this information later to try to work out when they may start their next project.
Throughout 2014 Rockstar were hard at work developing the PC, PS4 & Xbox One versions of the game. I don't know how much work that would be, but they weren't simple upres versions of the game. They included new features and plenty of big enhancements. The PC version was delayed into 2015 for added polish. And leslie Benzies took a sabbatical on September 1st, for 17 months.
The next key detail to note is from January 2016, I think. Leslie Benzies leaves Rockstar North. I feel this is important to note, as it could have delayed a lot of Rockstars plans, as a lot of staff left with him, Rockstar would go on to deal with a lawsuit which could only be an unnecessary distraction. There was a topic here on GTAForums discussing it. Needless to say the whole situation was pretty shady and the details don't really matter too much.
Rockstar had also planned single player DLC for GTA V, multiple datamines suggested 3 packs, as well as Ash735 on Neogaf confirming this. We can take this with a grain of salt, but if it were made up, then it's a pretty dull and uninteresting thing to make up.
They had also promised Heists for GTA Online, which was quickly becoming very popular. I personally believe (And this is where speculation begins) that the SP DLC was the unfortunate victim in all of this. They HAD to get the next gen versions out, as if you're launching an online game, you can't rely on players sticking with old consoles when the next gen consoles launch only 2 months after GTA Online launches. They had to get Heists out, which were promised before the entire game even released. More so than the SP DLC, which was just a closing line on a Newswire article, albeit multiple times. And development on their next game ramping up, going into full production, combined with the restructuring of Rockstar North due to Leslie Benzies leaving... SP DLC may have been an unfortunate victim.
Article 1
Article 2
Article 3
GTA V launches on PS4 & Xbox One on November 18th 2014
PC version launched on April 14th 2015
Rockstar Games are now done with development on GTA V, now solely focusing on GTA Online updates, in terms of Grand Theft Auto
April 3rd 2014 Thanks to @EVOLUT7ON for bringing this to my attention. In a Q&A with DJ Whoo on BallerStatus, he allegedly reveals he will be in the next GTA, which will be in Liberty City again. BallerStatus. And thanks to iNero for his topic.

RDR2 TIMELINE

August 2013 Roger Clark's first day on set, for Red Dead Redemption 2
Roger Clark: "My first day on the project was in August of 2013. With the context of this particular installment, I was the first to come on, apart from Rob and Ben who worked on the previous chapter."
4th September 2014 Rockstar San Diego start hiring for next gen consoles. They allegedly went on a hiring spree for an upcoming project. Which we would later find out to be Red Dead Redemption 2.
December 11th 2014 Actor Jorge Consejo posts a selfie on Instagram, wearing a typical mocap or performance capture suit. However it doesn't match the one used in GTA V
September 2015, [Original Source] Rockstar started hiring for more jobs. They seem to relate to a stealth based game, but so far they haven't released anything that would indicate what they were hired for.
Then the leaks start happening...
November 29th 2015 An ex Rockstar employee hints that RDR2 is their next project. The infamous “Really, Dumbass. Really? Two“ comment by Danny Ross, on Reddit. Archive of actual post
April 13th 2016 the map for RDR 2 leaks on NeoGaf. This was unprecedented. The map for a huge open world Rockstar Games game has never leaked online 6 month before the game was even announced. Link to the map.
October 18th 2016 Rockstar finally announce Red Dead Redemption 2, after teasing in the days leading up to the 18th.
July 27th 2017 Stuntman, Tim Neff's online resume leaks that he worked on RDR2 and GTA VI. He denied involvement in RDR2, but claimed he worked on GTA V, and that it was a mistake. He also had personal instagram photos from Rockstar San Diego, with captions strongly suggesting he was there for work. He denied it, saying it was just a photo taken outside that anyone could take. He quickly removed them. He was not credited in GTA V, but by RDR2's release he is indeed credited in RDR2.
Friday September 29th 2017 A reddit user posted a thread mentioning a recent leak which had been deleted. I do not know the date that it was originally posted. But it was over a year before the game released. And was entirely accurate. these leaks will serve a purpose later on.
December 25th 2017 GTAForums User @Jabalous brings to our Attention the actor Jorge Consejo, his previously mentioned Instagram selfie, and his CV/Resume. Which mentions min being in GTA 6, playing the role "The Mexican" (Featured).
CGI meaning motion capture work, etc.
In April of 2018, I'm not sure of the date, maybe the 18th? The article has since been removed. But I copied the article into a notepad file. Trustedreviews.com published an article based of a memo and some notes about the game. They claimed to have received this information in August 2017, but didn't post it due to fears it was fake. It wasn't until Rockstar released a screenshot that matched one that they had also received that they decided to publish this information, now believing it to be genuine. Here is an image of the text copy of the article (reddit formatting issues)
November 1st 2018 Rockstar sue TrustedReviews for £1M Essentially proving the leak to be true. Although the game itself proves it to be true, it's interesting that Rockstar sued for that much. Or sued at all.
January 6th 2019 Rockstar start hiring for next generation
Rockstar's career opening page - Credit to @el carlitos for that one!
-----------------------------------------------Unconfirmed Speculation-----------------------------------------------
January 30th (Specific date still debatable) Film Florida have guest Leah Sokolowsky on their podcast. She briefly mentions a recent change in her work
Recently as you're aware we've had a change in the types of productions that are coming to our state. So I've also been very fortunate to get a large client that has hired me to arrange basically site tours and visits. It's uh digital media company. And I've signed an NDA so I can't disclose who it is. But they've been exploring various areas of our state, and of other states in the south east. And I've been planning and arranging those visits for their personnel and that's been kind of a very interesting expansion of what I normally do, as well.
Here's the link to that quote.
It's suggested this is Take Two Interactive/Rockstar Games, as a reddit user claimed on October 6th 2019 scouts were looking around his area, and asked for permission to take photographs of the building. Which was later followed up by a photograph of an alledged document/contract as proof on October 8th 2019
-----------------------------------------------End of Unconfirmed Speculation-----------------------------------------------
February 13th 2019 VP of product development Jeronimo Barrera departs Rockstar Games after 20 years. This might not seem anything significant, but it's one of his quotes that I think it very important.
"If I had stayed at Rockstar it would have been more GTAs, more RDRs and less of this other stuff going on out there right now." While that is nothing concrete. It does indicate that Rockstar will be working on Red Dead and GTA for the foreseeable future. That won't surprise many of us, but it's just a little detail that gives us hope that GTA is next, and not another franchise like Bully, L.A. Noire or Max Payne, for example.
April 18th 2019 a former Rockstar India employee has mention of creating vehicles for GTA V and upcoming GTA 6 in his artstation resume Thanks to ApolloThunder's post.
Now those are the most important details I feel. Now I may have missed some other details people might find important. In August of 2017 the stunt actor Tim Neff was involved in a alleged leak for RDR2 & GTA 6. It was quickly 'debunked' Although many believed there were holes in the methods used to debunk it. And his removal of Instagram photos taken at Rockstar San Diego was suspicious to many users. I do not believe it holds enough water to use it as any evidence. But we can use it to speculate.
July 9th 2019 Jorge Consejo likes and quotes a tweet about him being in GTA 6

Now We Use All This Information to Speculate

The first clues we should look for are reports of Rockstar scouting locations. We know from articles and or interviews that Rockstar take thousands of photographs when creating their worlds, so any reports of Rockstar Staff i researching locations should be a very good indication. However, they can be very secretive.
Same goes for Rockstar or Take Two registering domain names or sending out casting calls. So far we've heard nothing of the sort. again, we don't always hear these things. I don't recall hearing anything about casting for RDR2 at any point between 2012 & 2016.
Combined with the fact that Rockstar only just released RDR2 4 months ago. I think it's pretty safe to sat development on their next game hasn't fully begun yet, or will do very soon. If we look back to the build log for GTA V, they created the first build on April 20th 2009. pretty much one year after GTA IV released. By that logic the first build for GTA VI would have been created in September 2014, right? Well, considering they had to work on the next gen and PC versions for so long. I'd wager they started much, much later. We know that these days Rockstar operate as Rockstar Studios, all working together on one game at a time. But if the NeoGaf user is to be believed, pre production for GTA VI began in 2012, which is actually entirely believable. As Rockstar began work on RDR2 almost immediately after RDR1. "In early 2011, Dan began chatting with Rockstar San Diego about how Red Dead Redemption 2 would look and who the characters would be. Late that summer, he says, he had a “broad outline and rough flow of the game defined.” By fall 2012, his team had completed rough scripts for many of the game’s missions and started doing read-throughs on video conference calls with directors of game play, art design, and animation from Rockstar offices around the world. " Source
Now, unlike Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto is not a game about specific characters, like RDR is with John and Dutch's gang. So It's safe to say after GTA V, the Housers did not sit down and come up with scripts or ideas for GTA 6 revolving around those characters. But never say never. They could use this as an opportunity to bring back Michael Franklin & Trevor, working of some of the ideas for the Story DLC for GTA V, instead of scrapping it entirely. For the first time ever, GTA could be a direct sequel using the same protagonists. This however, I believe to be incredibly unlikely. But I thought it was worth mentioning.
So, they've finished RDR2. What Are Rockstar doing now? I believe they're hard at work on the PC version of the game. Many people don't believe it will release on PC, citing the fact that RDR1 never released on PC as evidence. I don't believe that is fair, as we know RDR1 was a mess, and was in such a bad state that they were lucky to release it at all. Rumours and alleged leaks stated the game was a coded mess, and they weren't willing to go through all the hassle of porting it to PC. We also know PC games typically have a high paracy rate, and Rockstar aren't fond of spending all that development time and cost on such an effort for little reward. Here's a clip of Lazlow talking about releasing their games on PC, and joking wanting to make their money back first. It's from 2010, right before RDR1 released. I think he was making a joke, but hiding the truth in there. Which leads me to believe that RDR2 could come to PC, but in order to make their money on that, also release it on PS5 & the Next Xbox, like they did for GTA V. Considering the gap between GTA V on PS3 & 360 and GTA V on PC (19 months) we could see a similar gap with RDR2 on PC. If that is the case, we could see a PC release in May 2020. At which point next gen consoles would likely have been announced, assuming Sony repeat their February reveal as they did with PS4. Or soon to be revealed at E3 a month later. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that they re release on Next gen with native 4K on PS5, higher frame rates, or other enhanced features. Next gen consoles will be backwards compatible, but if they want to keep RD Online going, a newer version with higher player counts could be a good option.
Speaking of next gen consoles, until specs are set in stone, I don't think Rockstar will announce anything. Dev Kits are allegedly being sent to some developers right now. Sony first party studios are already working on PS5 games. Guerilla, for example. I'd wager Sony's relationship with Rockstar is a good bet to think they have them, too. So, what does this mean?
Well, let's look at when Rockstar announced RDR2. 18th October 2016. 18 months after the PC release of GTA V, 3 years, 1 month after the initial release of GTA V. Lets assume they stick to a similar pattern, both GTA V & RDR2 were announced in October. It could be a good bet for what month to expect an announcement. However, GTA IV was announced in May 2006, with Peter Moore's infamous Tattoo. So...
Now let's look at when Rockstar started hiring for RDR2, which was September 2014. It took them 2 years to announce their next game. And they had the base map planned out within 19 months. We just don't know when the photo of the map was taken, just when it was leaked to the public (april 2016). But we do know Rockstar always start with the world. For GTA V, that discussion started as GTA IV was wrapping up – almost five years ago – although the latest game has been in full production for just three years.
“It comes from the idea first,” Benzies tells us in his office at the studio.
Where is it going to be set is the first question. Then that defines the missions; you’re doing different things in LA than in New York or Miami. The map and story get worked up together, and the story is a basic flow of how it works out so you can layer the missions in. Source
I think we can safely say that Rockstar already know where the game will be set, and Aaron Garbut is already hard at work at creating a concept of a map. If he hasn't already.
Based of that information, I'd say Rockstar are hiring for their next game, which will be PS5 and Next Xbox exclusive, Likely to be GTA 6, and will need 2 - 3 years of development before they are able to reveal it with a trailer. Putting the game at a 2021 - 22 reveal, with a 2023 - 24 release. I do believe the upcoming generation, and Rockstars desire to outdo themselves every time will only slow them down. Their games take so long to develop, and I can't see them putting out GTA 6 in the same timeframe as GTA V, from GTA IV. More likely to be similar, if not longer than GTA V to RDR2.

The Leaks

Remember when I said the leaks would serve a purpose later on? I find it highly suspicious that Rockstar had leaks as substantial as they had for RDR2, when they never had anything to that level before. They are usually incredibly watertight. So let's speculate as to why...

The Benz.

Isn't it strange how such a long time influential figure at Rockstar North was fired, and then leaks start popping up for their next game? It's no secret that there was more to his firing that we initially thought. Things went really bad between The Benz and The Housers. I think when he left the company, and many of his staff left, too. A lot of disgruntled employees may has decided to spill the beans on their next game out of spite. The entire game map leaking 6 months before the game was even announced, Epilogue spoilers down to finite details such as building a house or birthing a foal? Way too specific, and that's never happened for a Rockstar game before. I just find that suspicious.
So, why is that relevant to GTA 6? Well, it may end up not being relevant at all. But then I remembered the leak from last year, that stated GTA 6 was set in Vice City. Back then, I didn't believe it at all, as it was way too detailed for a game that wasn't even announced, and wouldn't be announced for at least 2 more years. Likely double that. Plus why did they choose The Know? And an anonymous source is always suspicious. But hey, nobody would be dumb enough to give their actual identity if it were legit.
But then I started thinking a while ago, at how detailed the RDR2 leaks were, and maybe, just maybe the person who tipped off The Know was legit, and the info was based of what was in pre production from 2012 [Unofficial Source]. The more I thought about it, I realized that Vice City, with the concept of crossing the border to South America is a simple enough concept that could have been decided upon during pre production (the world is the first thing they decide, remember?)

Why Vice City

2 reasons why it's starting to feel like a likely location. Reason one, GTA Online. They introduced businesses and gunrunning into GTA Online, and a lot of people enjoy that stuff. Vice City would be a great location to create content around that concept. I don't believe Rockstar would pick a location based on what would make Online popular, but after GTA Online's huge popularity after GTA V, they'd be stupid to ignore it. Reason 2 was the quote Dan Houser gave about not releasing GTA 6 during Trumps presidency. Again, I believe it's taken a little out of context, but it's his words about satirising America is what caught my eye.
"Both intense liberal progression and intense conservatism are both very militant, and very angry. It is scary but it’s also strange, and yet both of them seem occasionally to veer towards the absurd," Houser said. "It’s hard to satirize for those reasons. Some of the stuff you see is straightforwardly beyond satire. It would be out of date within two minutes, everything is changing so fast." Source
Then there was this quote from Leslie Benzies, also covered in The Knows video:
IGN Source
Any chance that Vice City might return in a future GTA?
It is always a possibility. There are a few references to the city in our current-gen GTAs so it is part of that HD universe, and it is certainly somewhere we would love to revisit. However Vice City, perhaps more than any other GTA game, was as much about the era as the setting. Miami in the 1980’s is so iconic it would feel strange to revisit the city in a different time period.
exploring grand theft auto vice citys lasting impact on gamer culture with rockstars leslie benzies city cover. Of course at some point we would like to have one big world containing all our cities and let the player fly between them and revisit their favorite areas, and in that context reimagining Vice City would be very interesting.
So according to Rockstar, albeit someone who is no longer at Rockstar, it would be strange to go back to Vice City in a modern day setting. If you combine that with what Dan Houser said about parodying America today, and how difficult that would be, is it possible that the next game could be set in the past? Again, combining those quotes, with alleged leaks, and the possibility for fun and exciting gameplay and Online experiences... Vice City is an incredibly likely setting.
The only problem is GTA 6 going into pre production in 2012. If the location was decided upon then. It would either be a happy coincidence, or they may have changed the location. Or, it never was Vice City, and this speculation is clever, but ultimately wrong.
One key piece of information is the Neogaf user, who allegedly states that it WON'T be Vice City. Citing that production notes going around when he still worked there stated possible locations and concepts. And that it is likely one of the 4 options listed in the quoted thread.
Small town gta - tight stories, scheduled characters, ridiculous levels of ambience, every home interior modelled. Every building enterable. More realism - if your wanted you are on the run for a while.
Vegas 1970s- CASINO?
Somewhere snowy - chicago/detroit
Mexico City
You have to consider that what they may have decided in 2012 changed, due to the popularity of GTA Online. They could have chosen a smaller, more detailed interactive world. But due to Online, decided they needed a larger world. Or the location wasn't right due to modern politics and ability to satarise, etc.
I do think GTA could return to the past eventually. Sam Houser has an incredible knowledge of pop culture, and is very intelligent. It would work well for them to go back to an older setting for a GTA game again. That isn't proof of that, or even a solid reason for them to do a prior setting. His knowledge can be used in any setting, past or present. But it's an interesting piece of information to think about.
Another possibility is Dan's words were as simple as GTA 6 won't release while Trump is in office, and therefore GTA 6 will be set in the present day, but by then the political climate may have settled down, or they think/hope things will be different by then, and what they choose to parody will be easier. i don't know.

How about Las Venturas?

For the past few months, I've been thinking about the possibility of GTA 6 being set in Las Venturas. It's one of the locations mentioned as a possibility by @Ash_735 It's also a location that would be quite large, although not hugely diverse. However creative freedoms could solve that. If they return to a past setting as theorised. Then Las Venturas in the 70's or 80's could be seen as a pretty cool option. Like a lot of people, I'm a fan of Joe Rogan. Recently he had a guest on his podcast, Bob lazar. Whether you believe him or not is irrelevant. But he tells some interesting stories about working near Area 51, and working on alien UFO's. that really got me thinking... Wouldn't that be a perfect location for Rockstar to have some fun with? GTA V and RDR2 both featured UFO easter Eggs. There was a lot of mysteries tied to Mt. Chiuliad and Fort Zancudo. Can you imagine Area 69 returning, and what Rockstar may do with that? Now I fully understand that saying they may do a certain location, based of nothing other than easter eggs is a bit silly, but what else do we have? However, it does tie in with the notes (Vegas 1970's Casino?). Before RDR2 we never believed Rockstar would create a game, and build of a previous games map. After RDR2, we now know it's possible. I'm still not convinced they'd do it with GTA, as the GTA series is always an island, whereas RDR1 was a landlocked location. However, it is possible, however unlikely that they could build of Southern San Andreas and go east to Las venturas.
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Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Sept. 25, 2000

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE:
199119921993199419951996199719981999
1-3-2000 1-10-2000 1-17-2000 1-24-2000
1-31-2000 2-7-2000 2-14-2000 2-21-2000
2-28-2000 3-6-2000 3-13-2000 3-20-2000
3-27-2000 4-3-2000 4-10-2000 4-17-2000
4-24-2000 5-1-2000 5-8-2000 5-15-2000
5-22-2000 5-29-2000 6-5-2000 6-12-2000
6-19-2000 6-26-2000 7-3-2000 7-10-2000
7-17-2000 7-24-2000 7-31-2000 8-7-2000
8-14-2000 8-21-2000 8-28-2000 9-4-2000
9-11-2000 9-18-2000
  • The Delaware Supreme Court ruled against the USA Network in their appeal to prevent WWF from accepting the Viacom deal. The decision makes it official that WWF is moving to TNN next week and ends the 17-year WWF/USA relationship. The appeal process has been lingering for over a month and because of it, USA, Viacom, WWF and ECW were all pretty much paralyzed and waiting to see how things turn out. But now that it's all finalized, ECW's final TNN show will air on 9/22 and the first Raw on TNN will air on 9/25. It doesn't give Viacom much of an opportunity to promote the move. They had set aside $7 million to promote Raw's TNN debut but because of the lingering court proceedings, they kept having to delay it and now there's almost no time. On Raw's final show on USA, Jim Ross mentioned repeatedly that this was the last episode on the network and plugged the move to TNN (and hyping that Austin will be there live). But that's pretty much it so far. During the next few days, you can expect Viacom to bombard all media outlets with as much promotion as they can cram into the short amount of time, but it's going to be impossible to promote it as much as they'd hoped to. And considering they're moving from the #1 rated network to the #15 rated network, they need all the promotion they can get.
  • Needless to say, this all gives WCW a golden opportunity to put their best foot forward for Nitro on 9/25 and hopefully gain some much-needed ground (in case you're want spoilers for next week, Russo uses this opportunity to make himself the WCW champion). In the short run, Raw's ratings will almost certainly fall, but in the long-run, being with Viacom is going to be hugely beneficial to WWF. As for ECW, this opens the door for them to continue negotiations with USA. They desperately need a TV deal, on a strong network, and most importantly, they need outside financial support if they are going to survive. Having a TV deal is useless if you can't afford the production costs. As mentioned last week, ECW missed payroll and has had to cancel several house shows due to the financial crunch they're under.
  • Also this week, TNN announced that it's renaming itself The National Network (instead of The Nashville Network) and will be moving its base of operations from Nashville to New York. They're planning to debut a new logo and target their programming to a more diverse audience. Dave recaps the history of WWF on the USA Network, dating back to 1982 when they aired monthly WWF MSG shows. Then WWF got a weekly show called All-American Wrestling on the network in 1983, which then became Prime Time Wrestling and Tuesday Night Titans, the creation of Raw in 1993, the Monday night wars, and now to this.
  • There was a frightening moment at WCW's Fall Brawl PPV with Paul Orndorff suffering a stinger that left him motionless in the ring. The good news is that it was only temporary paralysis. He was treated and released from the hospital that same night. It was reminiscent of the injuries suffered by Droz and Buff Bagwell in recent years, but fortunately for Orndorff, it didn't end up being as bad. There was immediate suspicion that the whole thing was a work, which Dave thinks is a pretty sad reflection of WCW these days. When Orndorff went down, everyone else in the match basically panicked and continued working the match on the other side of the ring, taking bumps that kept jarring the ring, all while the EMTs and trainer were trying to tend to Orndorff. Finally, almost 2 minutes after he collapsed, referee Charles Robinson finally took charge and ordered the match stopped. The match was scheduled to go several more minutes and run-ins were scheduled, but it all got scrapped when Robinson ended it. The injury happened when Orndorff tried to piledrive Mark Jindrak but Jindrak didn't go up correctly for the move. Orndorff had to deadweight lift him and when he did so, his hamstring went out. He completed the piledriver but landed awkwardly, causing something with his neck and spine to jam up and that was it. Dave talks about Orndorff's health problems over the year, specifically his arm injury that caused his right arm to atrophy severely and never recover. He retired twice before due to health issues (87 and 94) only to return both times when he probably shouldn't have. (This was his final match for 17 years. But it looks like he came out of retirement last year and worked a 6-man tag match at an indie show in Canada. But otherwise, this Fall Brawl match was the end of the road for Orndorff).
WATCH: Paul Orndorff injury at Fall Brawl 2000
  • This whole thing brings up questions about Nitro this week, which has a match scheduled between Booker T and Vince Russo. Just a few weeks ago, Russo suffered a concussion during an angle and has been dealing with headaches and such ever since, and it's probably not a good idea for him to be in the ring. They could probably work around it, but Dave thinks it's bad enough to have untrained people in there doing moves anyway, much less ones who are already injured. Dave notes the recent example of Kurt Angle wrestling on Smackdown 2 days after getting severely concussed at Summerslam, which he never should have done and led to him getting another concussion because you're always more susceptible to further concussions during the period after suffering one. Russo has openly claimed to have had 3 concussions in the last year and has only worked about 6 matches. If that's true, he probably shouldn't be in there taking bumps again. But maybe they'll book something safe that doesn't require it. Either way, Dave is just concerned about the overall safety of all these guys.
  • Oh yeah, other notes from Fall Brawl: crowd was 8,600 although only about half of that (4,311) was paid, the rest were freebies. Dave notes all the excitement people in WCW had last week when the Nitro rating was higher than usual, and points out how it obviously didn't mean dick when it comes to ticket sales. TV ratings are nice but it's a vanity metric. The real numbers that matter are the ones that make money. Ticket sales and PPV buys. And, well, those are still horrible. There was a guy in the crowd facing the hard cam who was seen constantly throughout the show wearing a Destroyer mask. Destroyer was a famous wrestler back in 60s and 70s who wore a red and white mask. Anyway....turns out that was the real Destroyer (real name Dick Beyer), just sitting in the crowd at a WCW PPV at 70 years old, still doing his old gimmick. Kevin Nash cut a promo earlier on the pre-show claiming he was hungover from hanging out at the bar last night and essentially telegraphing that he was going to lose his match (he did). Right after the Orndorff match, Shane Douglas cut a pre-match promo saying Kidman would be joining Paul Orndorff at the hospital. Even his partner Torrie Wilson seemed to drop her TV smile and give him a "what an asshole" look for that one. The scaffold for the scaffold match was way wider than any other ones before and the area underneath was padded and safe, but Torrie still seemed legitimately terrified up there. After Madusa took a bump off the scaffold (which the crowd booed because it was clearly gimmicked for safety), the announcers also tried to compare her injuries to Orndorff's injury earlier in the night. Dave is just disgusted. Torrie never took a bump off the scaffold, which was the original plan but she refused, and good for her Dave says. It would have meant nothing for the match anyway. Negative 1 star. They did a segment with David Flair beating up a mailman in his yard and Dave says the whole segment was actually hilarious and more interestingly, it was all David Flair's idea. ICP did commentary on Vampiro's match again, which once again was funny. Mike Awesome came out with former child actor Gary Coleman. There's been a lot of news stories lately about Coleman working as a security guard for $6 an hour these days, so at least WCW probably didn't have to spend a lot to get him. Naturally, he got involved in the match and it was hilarious because he knew he was going to take a guitar shot from Jarrett. So he had a hat on with a towel folded up in it to cushion the blow. But during the chaos, his hat got knocked off. So just before the guitar shot, he picked up his hat, calmly put the towel back in, put it back on, and took the hit. Goldberg vs. Scott Steiner was a shockingly good match and Dave gives it 4.25 stars. And of course, Booker T won the title from Nash in the main event.
WATCH: Fall Brawl 2000 highlights
  • We get the usual long obituary for Professor Toru Tanaka, one of the biggest heels of the 60s and 70s, who died at age 70 in California. Dave recaps his career and of course, he was a Hawaiian who got booked as a typical salt throwing Japanese heel. Worked for WWWF feuding with Sammartino, won titles in all the territories, etc. He also tells an interesting story from 1977 when Pat Patterson returned to the San Francisco territory after being gone for 8 months and was supposed to face Mr. Fuji in a show that ended up drawing 12,000 people. But Fuji had a falling out with promoter Roy Shire and left the territory 2 weeks before the match. So Shire brought in Tanaka and put him under a mask and tried to pass him off as the real Fuji. The crowd didn't buy it and the media got ahold of the story and started claiming fraud and the athletic commission got involved. Shire nearly lost his promoter's license but he claimed he didn't know and thought it was the real Fuji under the mask. Tanaka and Shire were both fined but the commission seemed to buy the story (others backed it up to protect Shire) and let them off with just the fine. The real Fuji caught all the heat and was legitimately banned by the commission for life from wrestling in California, but that was overturned in 1984.
  • The current plan for AJPW's Triple Crown title is to hold a tournament soon, which is expected to be won by Toshiaki Kawada, who will then defend the title against NJPW champion Sasaki in a title vs. title match at the Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show. And the plan from there is for Kawada to get the surprising win, since most people don't expect NJPW to book their champion to lose to AJPW's champion. But the way Riki Choshu (NJPW booker) sees it, AJPW is pretty much doomed and he's not too concerned about them as competition anymore, and he's well aware that this inter-promotional feud is the only thing keeping AJPW alive right now. But there's still money in an AJPW/NJPW feud and they want to prolong it, so Kawada will have to win. The idea is to keep Kawada strong because NJPW loves the gimmick of a strongly booked outsider coming in and shaking things up. In the past, that person has been Naoya Ogawa but Choshu is tired of the headache that comes with dealing with Antonio Inoki and Ogawa because Inoki is intent on making Ogawa an unbeatable superman and NJPW can never get him to put anyone over. Choshu is pretty much trying to do anything he can to get Inoki's influence as far away from the company as possible. So the idea is to keep Kawada strong and milk this angle for all it's worth.
  • New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman officially signed into law the bill to regulate so-called "extreme wrestling." The bill bans children under 18 from attending extreme wrestling shows. It also adds an athletic commission tax to promotions running extreme shows, mandates an ambulance and 2 doctors must be on hand at every event, and even though it's a state law, the city officials where the show is to be held must specifically give permission for the event. This bill doesn't affect ECW, which was categorized as one of the 3 major companies which are exempt from the law. The bill is a not-so-subtle effort to drive Jersey All Pro Wrestling and Combat Zone Wrestling specifically out of the state, JAPW in particular. They're planning to still run shows but will be forced to get rid of bladejobs, no more light tubes or thumb tacks or barbed wire, etc. JAPW owner Frank Iadeavia has said they are considering legal action. But at this point, if they want to continue to run shows as they have, they're going to be forced to leave the state of New Jersey to do so.
  • Raw did well in the ratings again, facing stiff competition from the Olympics and Monday Night Football. But they had one segment that was a major bomb. Mick Foley came out, cutting a promo once again trying to get George W. Bush and Al Gore to appear on Smackdown for a debate. The segment was right before the main event and caused a full 700,000 homes to change the channel, which is an unheard of drop for a Raw episode. That led to the Rock/Undertaker main event that followed to be the lowest rated Raw main event of the year.
  • The Wrestling Observer Hotline has been officially killed off. 1-900 hotline numbers have been dying anyway and the numbers were down and Dave says more importantly, he needed to stop because he's so busy with the newsletter and the Eyada online radio show and wants to concentrate fully on those and the daily hotline stuff took up too much time.
  • Motoko Baba threatened a lawsuit against Nippon TV over their decision to drop AJPW and start airing NOAH instead, and due to the lawsuit, NOAH currently isn't airing on NTV, which is a major blow for the fledgling new company. In the meantime, Misawa has started negotiations with TV Tokyo, which is another one of the major networks in Japan.
  • Former WWF and ECW wrestler Nicole Bass made headlines after being arrested in New York after getting into an argument with someone on a street corner. It turned into a fight and when the police tried to break it up, she allegedly bit one of the cops. Bass was one of several people arrested.
  • Notes from OVW: Jim Ross did announcing on some of the shows there this week, because he was down there scouting talent. Shelton Benjamin is showing a lot of promise and Jim Cornette says Benjamin is progressing even faster than Kurt Angle and believes he's guaranteed to be a big star. Brock Lesnar still hasn't debuted on TV there yet but Bob Orton's son Randy Orton recently did. They're also strongly pushing Leviathan (real name Dave Bautista) and Jim Cornette predicts he will headline Wrestlemania within the next 5 years. (yup, exactly 5 years later in fact)
  • Ed Farhat, better known as The Sheik, is said to be in very grave condition. He's down to 150 pounds and can only communicate through blinking his eyes or lightly squeezing if you hold his hand (he ended up living another 2+ years after this. His Wikipedia page says he was working with a biographer and did extensive interviews before he died, with plans to have a book on his life released. But it says the interviews "provided a highly explosive look" into the business and as a result, the interviews and draft of the book were sealed at the time of his death and to this day it's never been released. Interesting. When I originally wrote this up a few months ago, I tweeted Dave about this and he responded saying he didn't know anything about it either. I'd love to find out more.)
  • The latest revival of Stampede Wrestling is in bad shape. They have no more shows scheduled and have only done 10 shows in the last few months. Their TV show has been airing old tapes rather than new episodes lately.
  • Ken Shamrock broke his silence on his recent PRIDE loss to Kazuyuki Fujita. Shamrock pretty much blamed himself and admitted he wasn't in proper shape to fight and said things happened which contributed to him not having time to train properly (he doesn't go into detail but I think Dave mentioned something in an earlier Observer but I can't find it right now. But I think Shamrock was going through some personal shit around this time. Something like a divorce or a custody battle or something. That doesn't get mentioned here, it's just something I vaguely remember reading awhile back, I might be wrong).
  • Nobuhiko Takada has announced he's going to face Igor Vovchanchyn at next month's PRIDE show and that if he doesn't win, he'll retire. Takada had a reputation as a shoot fighter from his years as the founder and star of UWFi, which was a worked shoot promotion. But then he started doing real shoots and it's been bad news ever since, including 2 high profile losses to Rickson Gracie. He's had a couple of wins, but they were worked matches. His real MMA fights have all been losses and Dave says the real fighters in PRIDE have pretty much no respect for Takada as an actual fighter. He doesn't like Takada's chances next month (indeed, Takada gets punched into submission in the 2nd round. But he still didn't retire).
  • Notes from Nitro: the building was mostly full, with not that many freebies. But only because it was a small arena that only holds about 5,000 people. It was also in Canada and the crowd was pretty much only there to see Lance Storm (who ended up jobbing to Jim Duggan in an undercard match) and Bret Hart (who wasn't there at all). They hated Goldberg with a passion, probably due to the Hart stuff, and booed him mercilessly.
  • On his personal website, Mark Madden apologized to Lou Thesz for his comment on Nitro last week where he joked that Lou Thesz beats up women. Madden said he was only joking and that he has a ton of respect for Thesz.
  • Pamela Paulshock apparently injured her ankle doing an angle on Thunder last week. Dave thinks it's bad enough when they have untrained wrestlers in there getting hurt, but now untrained ring announcers are getting hurt too.
  • WCW is pitching an angle for Vampiro to team with singer Billy Idol in a feud against Mike Awesome and David Cassidy, of Partridge Family fame (Never happened but.....yeah. That was a thing evidently).
  • Dave only has a couple of thoughts on this week's Thunder: he begs someone in WCW to PLEASE send Major Gunns to get acting lessons. He also wants someone to save Mike Awesome from a gimmick worse than the Red Rooster. And finally, I guess there's been a lot of commercials for the new Meet The Parents movie and Dave thinks it looks funny.
  • Various WCW notes: DDP is likely being brought back soon, though Kimberly won't be. Nitro Girl Spice was released. She was being groomed to co-host WCW's Saturday morning show, but then the show got canned and they didn't have anything else for her. And after being world champion for a couple of months, WCW has finally decided to start making some Booker T merch. Seems like a good idea to finally get around to. The Harris Twins taped segments for both the Maury Povich and Jenny Jones shows, no word on what they are or when they'll air. Goldberg will be on an episode of The Daily Show this week. Gene Okerlund is expected to be given a grumpy old man gimmick where he swears a lot.
  • Next month might be a surprisingly good month for WCW ticket wise. They have shows in Australia that are expected to do big numbers because Australia is so starved for wrestling that even WCW can do big business there. And they have a PPV in Las Vegas which will do good because the casinos are buying up a lot of tickets to give away.
  • Kevin Nash and Scott Steiner are reportedly being total team players right now, because there's concern that a regime change could come at any time (a lot of people are pushing for Johnny Ace to replace Vince Russo) and they're basically being on their best behavior until they see who their next new boss might be. The only person right now who's really stirring up shit is Goldberg, who is said to be openly pissed about pretty much everything and isn't shy about expressing it (yeah, even Goldberg has since admitted that he was frustrated and probably wasn't very pleasant to be around back then).
  • Scott Hall is expected to return to Nitro next week. Brad Siegel reportedly gave up on fighting with Nash about it and is willing to bring Hall back. Siegel and Hall spoke last week and Hall was basically told this is his last chance and if he fucks up one time, he's gone for good. Of course, Scott Steiner has been told that a dozen times in the past, so you know how that goes (Hall doesn't end up coming back. Not sure if it fell through or Dave got bad info or what, but it never happens).
  • They held a Miss WCW Pageant in Las Vegas last week with Carrot Top as one of the judges and of course there was a bikini contest. Nitro Girl Chae ended up winning over Torrie Wilson, Major Gunns, Baby, Chiquita, Midajah and Stacy Keibler. Pamela Paulshock was supposed to be in it but no-showed due to her ankle injury (there's some good catty drama coming out of this in the next week or two).
  • So the deal with Konnan is....pretty messed up, actually. He had tricep surgery a few months ago and has no business back in the ring yet. But WCW cut his paycheck in half so....he came back and he's wrestling. But here's the problem. The doctors still haven't given him a medical release yet because, well, they're doctors and he's still fucked up. They're like, "Dude...no." Anyway, because he doesn't have his medical release, WCW is still only giving him half his pay. But they're still allowing him to wrestle. He's hoping to get a medical release this week so he can start getting full checks again. Dave just thinks this whole policy is so screwed up on so many ways.
  • Disqo Inferno has been bringing out some plastic duck to the ring called the Disqo Duck. (I should stop for a second and explain something for the younger readers. R&B singer Sisqo had a HUGE hit called "Thong Song" around this time and WCW, in their infinite wisdom, capitalized by changing the spelling of Disco to Disqo.) Anyway, the duck is fucking stupid and apparently at Nitro this week, Konnan literally handcuffed himself to the duck backstage to try and keep Disqo Inferno from taking it out to the ring. Someone had to try to save him from himself.
  • Jeremy Borash will be doing announcing at this week's Thunder tapings. Dave says there's a lot of heat here because Borash is close to Vince Russo, so he's getting a lot of chances to do things like commentary even though he hasn't really earned it yet and hasn't shown any real aptitude for it. Dave says if Borash ends up replacing one of the main announcers on Nitro, there'll probably be a meltdown.
  • Steve Austin and Debra got married last week in Las Vegas (fun fact: same wedding chapel Triple H and a drugged out Stephanie McMahon got married in. Funner fact: also the same wedding chapel I got married in).
  • The plan for Sunday Night Heat, now that it's moving to MTV, is for it to be more of a humor and skit type show, with a lot of Tom Green-style humor (oh man, 2000 was such a weird time). They want to bring in musical guests and celebrities for it and will do a lot of the stuff from the WWF New York restaurant as well as at MTV's Times Square headquarters.
  • Notes from Raw: a lot of the show was built around trying to seemingly bury Kurt Angle, by turning him into a goofy heel character and implying that he's gay. They showed a lot of footage of him crying at the Olympics and had Triple H make fun of him and all that stuff. Dave thinks it's a pretty weird thing to do one week before the biggest match of Angle's career (he's got a No DQ match with Triple H at next week's PPV) and sure didn't do him any favors for people taking him seriously. Hugh Hefner was on to plug Chyna's upcoming Playboy appearance and Dave thinks it's nice that Playboy and WWF could come together again in the interest of making money after all the nasty legal issues they had with the Sable fallout. And finally, Steve Regal debuted.
  • Since we were talking about WCW's injury policy, Dave decides to let us know what WWF's policy is. A WWF wrestler that is out with an injury receives their downside guarantee. WWF contracts give you a guarantee (say, $300,000 per year for example) but you can make a lot more money on the road because everyone gets a cut of house show gates and PPV revenue and whatnot. So if you're injured and not on the road, you won't get all that extra money, but you still make the $300,000 guarantee. Of course, that leads to the same incentive for guys to sometimes come back before they're ready, because they're losing money by being at home, but from everyone who talks to Dave, there's not nearly as much pressure from the WWF to hurry up and come back as there is in WCW.
  • Various WWF notes: Big Boss Man will be out for a few weeks after having his knee scoped. Grand Master Sexay needed 14 stitches in his ear after getting legit cut from the belt shot on Raw. Tori should be back in Oct. or early November after shoulder surgery. Billy Gunn should be back in a few weeks. Road Dogg's wife had surgery for a collapsed lung so he's out tending to her. Davey Boy Smith was in a motorcycle accident last week and Dave says if you know how many times Smith has been in and out of the hospital this year, it would scare you to death.
  • Four different wrestling promotions have videos in the Billboard Top 20 charts....and none of them are WCW. Of course, WWF is all over the charts with their various releases taking up 12 of the 20 spots. ECW has videos at #5 and #7. XPW, which currently isn't running new shows and doesn't even have a building to run shows in right now, has videos at #12 and #19. And Insane Clown Posse's JCW promotion has a video at #13. All that, but no WCW.
  • Kurt Angle and Taka Michinoku worked a UPW show in California along with a few other WWF developmental signees who started out at the UPW school (I decided to look it up and see who else of note worked that show: Franie Kazarian, Simon Dean, Rocky Romero, Mike Knox, Vic Grimes, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, and John Cena were all on the card. 2000/2001-era UPW had a ton of future stars come through the doors).
  • One of the XFL teams is already moving before it even starts. The San Jose Demons have now been renamed the San Francisco Demons and will be playing in San Fran after negotiations with Spartan Stadium in San Jose fell apart. Dave thinks it might be a bad move. San Jose is a wealthier community with a large population and their hockey and soccer franchises do huge business. San Francisco already has a major team in every sport and he doesn't know if a B-level football team is going to draw as well there as it would have in San Jose. He also notes that in the spring, the weather is a lot warmer in San Jose at night than it is in San Francisco, and California isn't exactly the type of place where people want to sit out in the cold weather at night and watch football games. This isn't Green Bay or Chicago where freezing to death for football is almost a tradition (the cities are, like, an hour apart so I can't imagine the weather is that much different? Although I guess San Francisco is right there on the bay so maybe wind? I dunno. Anyone from the area care to chime in?)
  • A New York newspaper reported that Vince McMahon tried to stop VH1 from airing an episode of "The List" because the show featured appearances by Kevin Nash, Booker T, Scott Steiner, Sting, and other WCW stars. VH1 is owned by Viacom, which now owns 3% of WWF's stock and McMahon decided to try to throw his weight around and get the episode canned. Didn't work and it actually was one of the highest rated episodes of the show ever. But he did succeed in getting VH1 to agree to not air reruns of that episode. A WWF spokesman responded to the story, saying, "It is highly unlikely that took place. It's not something we would do." But of course, you'll note that they didn't outright deny it and the idea that Vince McMahon wouldn't do something like that is laughable since he has a long history of doing exactly that sort of thing.
  • The Slam! Wrestling website wrote an article criticizing the WWF policy of not allowing wrestlers to do interviews with other websites without company approval because they see all other websites as competition to their own WWF.com site. The article noted they had an interview with Gerald Brisco awhile back and Brisco told them he could talk freely about his pre-WWF years but if it has to do with WWF, he'd have to clear it with the office. Jim Ross responded on his WWF website column, saying not a single interview request has come across their desk from any other wrestling websites. Dave talks about when the policy was put in place and says WWF told him he could still get anyone he wanted to interview on the Observer website, but he would need to go through the office first. Since that time, Dave says he's talked to wrestlers who agreed to appear, but when he tried to get it cleared by the office, it stalled and has been pending approval ever since with no answer sooooooo......
  • WWF is wanting Big Show to drop down to 400 pounds. At his heaviest in WCW he was 505 and currently weighs a legit 480.
  • Someone writes in with a conspiracy theory. He thinks Shane McMahon's death-defying fall from the TitanTron at Summerslam was done to prove a point given the upcoming Owen Hart wrongful death lawsuit, with the idea being that the WWF side can point to it as an example that, "See! Even Vince McMahon's son is sometimes asked to perform stunts like this and they're usually done safely." Dave responds, saying that normally he'd think that's reading too much into things. But the day after Summerslam, several people in WWF as well as a couple of legal experts he talked to all had basically the same theory and said they wouldn't be surprised if it gets brought up in the trial. But time will tell, Dave says.
  • Dave Lagana writes in, talking his experience working on "Friends" and talking about how most TV shows are written by writing teams and how stories are crafted in TV writing rooms and so on and so forth. Basically, it leads to the one big question every writer, booker, and performer should ask themselves: how will the audience react to the long-term story? Not how loud the momentary pop is or how much you were able to swerve the audience with a surprise that doesn't make any sense, etc. The point he's trying to make is that Vince Russo is doing literally everything wrong and he has no idea how to write television. He's also pretty fed up with Russo's constant everything-is-a-shoot booking, where they openly acknowledge scripts and bookers and shit in every segment. He's not the only one.
  • Lots of letters talking about what a total trainwreck WCW is. Russo isn't the only problem. From management to marketing, the ball is being dropped everywhere. None of the stories are coherent. Characters change gimmicks or go from face to heel from week-to-week with no explanation, fans have no idea what's happening. Wrestlers themselves are out of control backstage. Merchandising is dead. Basically, the ship is sinking and the worst part is that nobody seems to care. Everyone is just drilling more holes in the ship. Even when they luck into something that works, they always manage to fuck it up immediately. So there's all that. But also, a lot of piling on Russo from a lot of people who think he's killing the company.
MONDAY: Raw debuts on TNN, Steve Austin returns, ECW not yet cancelled on TNN after all, WWF Unforgiven fallout, and more...
submitted by daprice82 to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Apr. 3, 2000

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUS YEARS ARCHIVE:
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1-3-2000 1-10-2000 1-17-2000 1-24-2000
1-31-2000 2-7-2000 2-14-2000 2-21-2000
2-28-2000 3-6-2000 3-13-2000 3-20-2000
3-27-2000

★★ READ THIS THREAD ★★

★★ Be The Match ★★

  • WCW has made the decision to bring back Eric Bischoff and Vince Russo in a last-ditch effort to save WCW. The decision has been in the works for about a month and people are already doubting whether or not the two can co-exist with each other. Dave recaps what led us to this point. First, the group of Bill Busch, Kevin Sullivan, JJ Dillon, and others pretty much pulled the coup last year that got Bischoff canned and Russo was hired soon after. But once it became clear that Russo desperately needs someone to filter his insane ideas, those people also pretty much forced Russo out in favor of Sullivan as the head booker. But the company continued free-falling under Sullivan. Bischoff and Russo had been in talks with Brad Seigel and pitched an idea where they would lead competing factions of older and younger wrestlers fighting over power for the company. Bischoff tried a similar angle to this last year but it never got off the ground because, aside from Ric Flair, none of the older wrestlers (like Savage, Hogan, Piper, etc.) wanted to be portrayed as "old" and didn't want to be forced to put over younger stars that hadn't established themselves. Bischoff was officially hired back into WCW as the head of creative on 3/22, but due to the company losing so much money on his watch last year, he was not given control over the business end of things. Bill Busch informed Siegel that he would quit if Bischoff was brought back, and he made good on his word and walked out when he was told. Bob Mould, a somewhat famous musician who has also been part of WCW's creative and management team, also quit when he heard the news. Kevin Sullivan has been told he's essentially being sent home to sit out the rest of his contract and he no longer has any power either. Sullivan has argued that he was handicapped after inheriting the mess Russo and Bischoff left behind, plus the injuries to Goldberg and Bret Hart, and while that's true, Sullivan never really made any major changes either and it was clear things weren't going to improve with him booking.
  • The initial idea was to cancel this week's TV tapings and shut down for a week and then return on 4/10 with a fresh start and new storylines. But they ended up not cancelling the tapings and as a result, this week's Nitro is expected to be the lowest rated in the show's history. There was also talk of shutting down for several weeks and cancelling next week's PPV, which Dave thinks might not be the worst idea so they can take the time to slap a fresh coat of paint on the company and basically reboot. But it doesn't look like that will happen either. On Nitro this week, the announcers played it up big, labeling Russo as the man who turned WWF around and Bischoff as the one who turned WCW around several years ago and literally calling them the geniuses responsible for the current pro wrestling boom. Dave says you can't argue with Bischoff's initial success. He took WCW, which was in the red for about $6 million per year and turned it into a $200 million dollar company by 1998. But even at their peak, it was clear WCW had no future because they built around stars who were past their prime and never had a focus on creating future stars to sustain that success. WWF capitalized on that failure and by the end of 1999, WCW was back in the red again, way worse than they were before Bischoff took over. After a series of dumb, expensive investments (KISS, Master P, Megadeth, Dennis Rodman the 2nd time, etc.), losing stars like Chris Jericho, and continuing to rely on old 80s relics, and blowing through millions of Turner's dollars with nothing to show for it, the company lost faith in Bischoff's business judgement. At one point, Bischoff just turned the whole thing over to Kevin Nash as the new booker, who seemingly had no interest in doing anything other than pushing himself and his friends, which sunk the company to even further lows.
  • As for Russo, it's true that WWF did pretty huge numbers during the time he became more involved in creative and when he left the company, he did a good job of convincing everyone that he was the genius behind WWF's turnaround. But within a few months of his departure, it became clear just which Vince deserved the credit for WWF's success. WWF never missed a beat when Russo left and TV ratings and house show business continued to increase (and keep in mind, WWF hasn't had Austin or Undertaker for the last 6 months either, plus McMahon has kept himself off TV until recently also). Meanwhile, in WCW, when Russo took over, the company just skidded further off the rails. Russo did play a major part in pushing WWF to move away from the failing family-friendly approach. But really, they pretty much just copied Paul Heyman's formula so...ya know. To be fair to Russo, he seemed to be the only person in WCW who realized how badly the company needed a drastic change and he really did try to push new people like Benoit, Bagwell, and Jarrett to the top. But then he brought back Piper, brought in George Steele and Jimmy Snuka, and booked dangerous angles like the one that got Goldberg injured. He came in with a lot of hype and ratings initially went up a bit out of curiosity, but they quickly plummeted again. He booked a tired rehash of the Montreal Screwjob finish at Starrcade, rendered all the belts meaningless, booked absurd screwjob endings to nearly every match on TV and PPV, and essentially booked the company like a monkey throwing his poop at random. As a result, WCW has now fallen behind ECW in both PPV buyrates and live show attendance and TV ratings have continued to plummet.
  • Here's some cold hard numbers for those Russo supporters out there who still, somehow, defend this guy 20 years later: when Russo took over WCW in Oct. 99, they were averaging 4,628 people per show. By January (his last month in power), average attendance was down to 3,593. Nitro's ratings in Oct. 99 were averaging 3.08. By January, the average was....3.10. Oh, you say! But that's higher! Yes, on paper, 3.10 looks higher than 3.08. But the reality is, during that time, Nitro went from three hours back down to two. On paper, that should have led to a significant increase in the average. If Nitro was still three hours, that 3.10 would be equivalent to a 2.9. So even though it looks like ratings slightly increased on Russo's watch, they actually went down. The loss of that third hour gives the illusion that they didn't. Oh and in Oct. 99, the Halloween Havoc buyrate was 0.52. In January, the PPV buyrate was 0.26. TL;DR - by literally every single metric, WCW business got worse under Vince Russo. But hey, it got even worse since he left, so...take solace in that?
  • Quick note just at press time, it's been reported that they will announce the XFL will air in prime time on NBC due to a deal between Vince McMahon and Dick Ebersol. The two men were business partners back in the 80s and put together Saturday Night Main Event. If this ends up being true, it would be huge for both the XFL and WWF and is expected to play a part in WWF's new TV deal. More on this next week.
  • With Wrestlemania just around the corner, Dave takes a long in-depth look at the biggest annual show in the business. He starts by talking about the 3 biggest annual events in wrestling. NJPW's Jan. 4th Tokyo Dome show has been the biggest wrestling event in the world for much of the last decade since starting in 1992 because NJPW was the biggest and most successful company. But NJPW is struggling these days and WWF has surpassed them as the top company. WCW has Starrcade, but the only year that show was ever the biggest was in 1997 (Sting/Hogan) and never really reached the heights of Wrestlemania or the Tokyo Dome show. From here, Dave recaps the entire history of Wrestlemania. Risking it all on WM1, the Mr. T and Cyndi LaupeMTV crossover promotion, the 3-arena debacle of WM2 (where 2 of the 3 arenas weren't even sold out), WM3 which is the most historically famous wrestling event ever and all the folklore surrounding that ("While the 93,173 number is a work repeated so often even those who should know better believe it's the truth. According to Zane Bresloff, who promoted the event, the actual number in the building was 78,000, but the event did sellout weeks in advance and it is realistic to believe the potential if the building was larger could have been 100,000 tickets," Dave says and I'm sure that won't lead to a tired ass discussion in the comments.) The next 2 WM events at Trump Plaza, which were held because Trump paid for them, hoping to do the same kind of business that major boxing events usually do. But the crowds sucked because they mostly weren't wrestling fans, they were high rolling casino comps. Dave also takes a moment here to detail the history of WWF and Jim Crockett running shows against each other's major events to attempt to hurt them, like Vince creating Survivor Series solely to try to hurt the 1987 Starrcade buyrate, and how Crockett retaliated by airing Clash of the Champions on free TV against WM4 and so on and so forth for the next couple of years. Then there's WM6 with Hogan/Warrior, the WM7 drama with the venue being changed due to low ticket sales and turned out to be a huge flop on PPV. WM8 with over 60,000 fans except a LOT of them were papered and it flopped on PPV. WM9 with Hogan returning to win the title, but it didn't help business and he refused to put Bret over later that year. WM10 with 2 of the greatest WM matches in history, WM11 with Lawrence Taylor, WM12 with the ironman match, WM13 which had the Bret/Austin classic but was the moment WWF hit the bottom of the barrel with the lowest WM buyrate ever, WM14 with Mike Tyson and the crowning of Austin as the new top star which did record business, and finally WM15 which mostly sucked but ended up being the biggest money show in wrestling history...until next week when WM16 inevitably breaks that record. Anyway, Dave goes into more in-depth recap of each Wrestlemania here, but you already know the stories on most of this so I...actually have no idea why I just wrote this big ass paragraph.
  • Last year's Wrestlemania featured Austin/Rock main eventing and broke a bazillion records. This year's plan was originally to do a rematch, with the roles reversed (Austin as heel) but Austin getting injured screwed that up. This year's WM is still expected to become the biggest money grossing event in the history of professional wrestling. As for this year's plans, it's still up in the air. As of a few weeks ago, the plan has always been for Rock to win the title, essentially his coronation as the new top star and face of the company. But that may not happen anymore because Rock is scheduled to film The Mummy 2 movie and will be out for a couple of months soon after Wrestlemania. It's not in the company's best interest to build toward Rock's big moment for an entire year, only to have him win the title and then have to lose it again a month later. The company is pushing the idea that Foley will win and that's what they want everyone to believe, for the big feel good story. Dave thinks the only chance of Triple H retaining will be if Foley turns heel and helps cost Rock the match. Usually a heel retaining the title at Wrestlemania seems like something they'd never do, but Triple H (who was only supposed to be a transitional champion to begin with) has been a huge success as champion and has become a legit main eventer and top star. And Big Show pretty much isn't even in the discussion. Though for what it's worth, Dave says Big Show will probably become the tallest wrestler to ever headline a Wrestlemania, so hey, that's something! Of course, in kayfabe, Andre The Giant was billed at 7'4 (he wasn't) so even though Big Show is legitimately slightly taller than Andre was, they can't admit that without breaking the Andre mystique.
  • Despite all the huge paragraphs above, they're really only 2 stories. I guess this is a slow week because Dave writes huge pieces about a former WCW jobber turned boxer who was exposed for fixing his matches and all the legal issues with that. And then he writes a big historical piece about Frank Gotch that stems from a letter someone wrote the week before. All really interesting stuff, but none of it newsworthy at all.
  • Ratings news, Monday stuff is still the same. Thunder ratings reached a pretty horrible low and bottomed out with the main event of Hulk Hogan vs. Dustin Rhodes doing a terrible 1.91 rating. WWF Sunday Night Heat did a lower than usual rating because the Oscars were on. ECW did a pretty bad rating for the 2nd week in a row and was actually close to their all-time low, which isn't good news and kinda surprising since just a few weeks back, they were reaching all-time highs on TNN.
  • Dave recently ran a poll on the radio show, asking fans which was better*: Wrestling With Shadows or Beyond The Mat? With 37% of the vote, Wrestling With Shadows wins, compared to 21% for Beyond The Mat. The other percentages were people who haven't seen one or the other. What say we, Wreddit?
  • AJPW pulled a huge surprise in their annual Champion Carnival tournament. Jun Akiyama, who was expected to easily make it to the finals of the tournament, ended up losing to Takao Omori in a 7 second match in the very first round. It's the shortest match in AJPW history. It's a single elimination tournament, which means Akiyama has been eliminated. Dave isn't really sure what the plan is here, but it damn sure makes the tournament hard to predict now. He speculates that this means Steve Williams will probably end up in the finals against either Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, or maaaaybe Vader (Williams didn't make the finals either. It ended up being Kobashi vs. Omori, because AJPW apparently decided to strap a rocket to Omori and try to make a main eventer out of him. Prior to this, it looks like he was just sort of languishing in the midcard).
WATCH: Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori - AJPW 2000
  • Oh hey, in the very next paragraph, Dave breaks down the next tournament matches and wonders whether AJPW may end up pushing Omori to the finals in order to try to make him a star (yup).
  • Speaking of Kobashi, he blew his knee out last week and doctors have told him he needs surgery. As anyone who follows AJPW and Kobashi in particular knows, he's naturally ignoring that advice and continuing to wrestle. Because Kobashi.
  • Shawn Michaels will be returning to the ring next week for his own TWA promotion in Texas. Michaels is billing it as his final match, coming out of retirement to face Venom for the TWA title. The match is said to be a "bunkhouse brawl" instead of a regular wrestling match because Michaels has said his back can't stand up to doing a normal match.
  • A website called TokyoPop.com is going to start airing live matches from FMW online (that seems like it would have sucked with 2000-era internet technology. Anyway, TokyoPop.com still exists. It's an anime/manga site).
  • Dave recently caught up on some Memphis Championship Wrestling and gives his thoughts on some of the people there. K-Krush has good charisma (that would be R-Truth). Bobcat looks like every other blonde valet (she's most famous for being the Godfather's ho that won the hardcore title). Blue Meanie has lost so much weight that he doesn't even look like the same person. Lance Russell is still an incredible announcer. So on and so forth. Anyway, Dustin Diamond (Screech from Saved By The Bell) appeared yet again, continuing his angle of being obsessed with the Kat which once again led to Screech getting beat down and doing a stretcher job.
  • ECW has a PPV scheduled for next month but have not yet picked a location. Heyman wants to run the show in a new market because the first-time crowds are usually the best. Heyman had negotiated with the Mandalay Bay casino and hotel in Las Vegas to do it there, but the talks fell through. Both Jerry Lynn and RVD are expected to be back from their injuries by then.
  • Notes from the most recent ECW TV taping: Dusty Rhodes came out with 2 strippers who flashed the crowd, but of course that won't air on TV. Cyrus made fun of Mick Foley's "retirement." And the show ended strangely. Sandman and Super Crazy were beat down after the main event and left laying. And....that was supposed to be the end of the show. But the crowd was expecting to be sent home happy and didn't leave and kept chanting for Sandman (who was helped out of the ring, selling an injury) and Raven (who was at the show but didn't work due to illness). Heyman called an audible and sent Mikey Whipwreck out to tell the crowd to leave, which led to Raven making an unplanned run-in to give him a DDT, which is about all he could physically do. Then, with Raven in the ring, the crowd began chanting for Sandman to come back out, so Raven went with it and called for him to come out. But by this point, Sandman was already in the showers and thought he was done for the night and he legitimately didn't want to come back out. Ultimately, he did and he caned Raven to send everyone home happy, but he was upset about it and he had words with Heyman and Raven immediately after backstage.
  • New Jack and Tommy Dreamer will be appearing together in a small role in the CBS TV drama Early Edition.
WATCH: New Jack & Tommy Dreamer on Early Edition
  • Every angle done on WCW TV this week was meaningless because the company is starting over with a clean slate in 2 weeks under Bischoff and Russo. Spring Stampede takes place on the 16th and there are no matches planned as of yet and there won't be until 6 days before the show when WCW resets. Word is Russo will be doing most of the writing. In an interview with 1wrestling.com, Russo said he hasn't watched a single second of WCW TV since he was relieved of his duties back in January.
  • Notes from Nitro: it was the spring break show, so the crowd at least seemed to be having fun which is a break from normal WCW shows. Someone in the front row had an "I wish I was at Raw" sign that somehow never got confiscated and was there for the entire show on camera. At the very beginning of the show, a woman in the front row flashed Gene Okerlund, leading to him saying, "Young lady, you're very proud of those, aren't you?" on TV. DDP made his big return and pretty much just plugged the Ready To Rumble movie. Sid Vicious missed the show due to a shoulder injury. Dave can understand not wrestling with an injury but Sid is the WCW champion, and Dave thinks he should at least show up and cut a promo or something. But then again, nothing in WCW matters right now until Russo and Bischoff reboot it anyway. Sting and Luger fought onto the beach all the way to the ocean. And to his credit, Hogan did a promo during the show where he really put over Vampiro as the wrestler of the future and later in the main event, he worked against The Wall and allowed Wall to no-sell the leg drop. So kudos to WCW for finally making an effort to push some new people, even if it all gets wiped away in 2 weeks.
  • Notes from Thunder: the show drew 1,700 paid fans. Literally 24 hours earlier, Raw sold out a different arena in the same city for Raw with over 12,500 paid fans. Lots of rumors were going around saying Bobby Heenan had been fired, but he was doing commentary on this show, so obviously that wasn't true. Chris Candido is already doing jobs to Chavo Guerrero so he clearly isn't getting any sort of push after debuting just a couple weeks ago. And no real storyline progression, just tons of hype about what the future for WCW holds under Bischoff and Russo. WCW is basically in a holding pattern right now and nothing matters until the reboot.
  • Hogan appeared on another radio station doing an interview where he buries everybody. He said Bret Hart is in Canada and "can't remember what WCW is." He said DDP was out injured with a broken fingernail and said WCW needs people who will crawl through broken glass with one arm in a sling to sacrifice and get in the ring. He said Kidman needs to start training like Torrie Wilson. He did praise Vampiro again though, so Hogan seems to like him. Anyway, WCW head Bill Busch was on WCW's live internet show and admitted that Hogan has full creative control in his contract and also said that he still has 6 guaranteed PPV main event matches in his deal.
  • Tammy Sytch is expected to make her WCW debut at the Spring Stampede PPV.
  • Variety ran a big story about some marketing changes that WCW is making. New hires to take over various marketing jobs, new marketing strategies and promotions that the company is planning to run, etc. Dave says that's all well and good, but nowhere in the article did it mention the idea of maybe putting on good shows that people want to see. All the marketing geniuses in the world can't save a product as terrible as WCW is right now.
  • Brad Armstrong will be out of action for several months with a knee injury suffered in the dumbest way possible. For some reason, before a show, Armstrong was goofing around in the parking lot with Juventud Guerrera and Psicosis and they decided--just for shits and giggles--to do the ol' famous wrestling angle of hitting someone with their car. You know, one of those dumb "you drive at me, I'll jump up on the hood like the stuntmen do in the movies" type of things. So.....they did it. And now Armstrong needs knee surgery because of course he does (that was pretty much it for him. He never wrestled in WCW again and in fact, he didn't wrestle anywhere for another 4 years before returning to the ring in 2004 and working indie shows periodically until 2011. Died a year later).
  • Les Thatcher's Heartland Wrestling Association have signed a deal with WCW to act as a developmental territory for them. Power Plant wrestlers will go work shows for him for a little while before debuting on WCW TV.
  • Various WCW notes: Mexican wrestlers Halloween and Damian are joining Sonny Onoo's racial discrimination lawsuit against WCW. Although with Bischoff returning to the company, Dave expects this lawsuit to ultimately disappear. Christopher Daniels starts with WCW next week. Dave thinks he has a ton of potential. Some people within the company are pushing for Shane Douglas to return. Konnan's suspension ends this week so he should be back soon.
  • The legal red tape behind the scenes on WWF's new TV deal is still being sorted out. The FCC is expected to allow the Viacom purchase of UPN to go through, which will mean Viacom will own 2 networks (CBS and UPN) which used to be against the law but that's being changed now. Those in the TV industry pretty much believe this to be a done deal. The news has boosted WWF stock up to $17.31 per share (as I write this, WWF just announced the new FOX deal for Smackdown, which boosted the stock up to damn near $60 per share)(10/24 update: currently $80.64).
  • The Rock was on Jay Leno's Tonight Show recently and movie critic Roger Ebert appeared also. Ebert told Rock that he has talent and told him to get into acting and get as far away from wrestling as he can. Rock laughed it off and said he was working on it.
  • Notes from Smackdown: it was in San Antonio and a tag team called American Force 2000 worked a dark match. The team consists of two trainees from Shawn Michaels' wrestling school, Spanky and American Dragon. Lots of cool high spots but they weren't very fluid and screwed some stuff up. They also hyped up the Shawn Michaels vs. Venom match next week in TWA for the live crowd.
  • A lot of the WWF wrestlers are using new entrance music right now to promote the new WWF Aggression CD. It's basically rap remixes of everyone's theme music and Dave thinks it sucks because the fans don't know these songs. So now even when the Rock is making his entrance, the crowd doesn't pop because it's an unfamiliar. Luckily it's temporary and they'll go back to the real versions eventually. Speaking of, WWF The Music Vol. 4, which was released 6 months ago, is still hanging on in the top 200 charts. It's at #152 this week and sold over 10,000 copies. In 2018, any album that is still moving 10k copies six months after it came out would be the best selling album of the year.
  • WWF claims they have enough money set aside to fund the XFL for at least 3 seasons. They're hoping to expand to 16 teams by 2005. WWF has once again emphasized that they will own all the teams and aren't interested in outside investors. They also again promised that this is going to be legit and the games won't be fixed. Advertisers are said to be hesitant, because they don't have a lot of hope that this whole XFL thing is going to succeed.
  • Shawn Michaels is said to be itching to get back on television in the WWF, but right now, they have no interest. Business is booming so much these days and they've attracted so many new fans in just the last year or two alone that Michaels isn't considered a top star anymore and WWF doesn't feel the need to use him in any way.
  • USA Today ran a story about Mick Foley's alleged last match coming up at Wrestlemania. Foley was quoted as saying, "I was much more successful and, going over my taxes now, obviously a lot more profitable being more of a comedy character in 1999 than I ever was being the King of Hardcore. If I'd known I could make more money making people laugh than making people wince, I'd have done it a long time ago." He also said that if it hadn't been for Austin getting injured, he would have retired last year. He said he hated going back on his word so soon after he retired and says he spent 20 minutes trying to talk Vince McMahon out of bringing him back for the match. But ultimately, he admitted that the money was too much to turn down. "It may take some people a while to forgive me, but not as long as it would take me to forgive myself if I didn't do this. Realistically, it's probably going to be the most money that I've ever made. So 15 years from now, when everyone has forgiven me, my kids' college will be taken care of." But Foley super duper swears this time that Wrestlemania will be his final match. "By leaving now, I'm probably giving up on the most profitable year in my career. But I was named after Mickey Mantle. I grew up hearing about how Mickey Mantle stuck around one season too long. I didn't want people to make the same comments about Mickey Foley."
FRIDAY: Wrestlemania 16 fallout, XFL/NBC partnership, Vince Russo gives interview full of bullshit, New Jersey attempting to ban extreme wrestling, and more...
submitted by daprice82 to SquaredCircle [link] [comments]

Social Casino craps??

Why do the popular USA based social casinos not offer craps! I love the game and really want to play more but need legit practice and watching others play helps me a lot. I'd love an online craps game that was multiplayer. If one exists someone point it out to me! :)
submitted by rhuian to Craps [link] [comments]

Visitor's Guide to Red Wings hockey at Little Caesers Arena 2018-2019

It’s the second season of hockey at Little Caesers Arena (LCA). Many fans are still making the trek to the new arena for their first time to watch the Detroit Red Wings play. This is my second version of this guide help out visitors looking for some information from locals. I hope you find it helpful. Suggestions welcome!
submitted by spoonyfork to DetroitRedWings [link] [comments]

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