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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:03 pm 
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Good Lord, that's hideously unfortunate.

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:07 pm 
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Oh my...

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:08 pm 
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She literally explodes off the screen

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:11 pm 
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:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:12 pm 
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Keeping Score wrote:
CM Punk @CMPunk

Ladies and gentlemen. I give you....Urn Anderson.


Image

:lol: :lol: :lol:

That is great

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 1:14 pm 
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You know what's crazy? Arn really hasn't aged. He looked like an old guy even when he was still young.

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2013 2:20 pm 
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Keeping Score wrote:
CM Punk @CMPunk

Ladies and gentlemen. I give you....Urn Anderson.


Image

:lol: :lol: :lol: Outstanding

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:34 am 
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X-Pac wrote:
I put on some spandex, started rough housing with some dude and yadda yadda yadda, I need surgery to repair my torn anus.

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 11:58 am 
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Krazy Ivan wrote:
X-Pac wrote:
I put on some spandex, started rough housing with some dude and yadda yadda yadda, I need surgery to repair my torn anus.


:lol:

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Thu Mar 28, 2013 1:56 pm 
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too lazy to sort out the irrelevant stuff...

Punk is not scheduled for house shows after Mania and the European tour. He’s currently not booked in May, nor is he advertised on the Extreme Rules PPV. There is suspicion he’s hurt worse than anyone is letting on, because everyone is denying any injury. There are reports of this having to do with frustration or burnout, and more nagging hurts that need rest than a major injury.

With Punk out, at this point both Lesnar and Rock are scheduled for Extreme Rules, which is surprising to put both on a “B” show given the cost. With the long break between Mania and Extreme rules (six weeks), on 5/19 in St. Louis, maybe they think the time between shows will allow them to get a surprisingly big number.

In his role as Saturday Morning Slam commissioner, Foley is going to be at almost every Tuesday taping going forward. He can take weeks off and pre-tape the week before, but as it turned out, he’s scheduled a three-week U.K. comedy tour (his longest period straight on the road since the late 90s) at the same time WWE is there so won’t miss the U.K. tour.

The autopsy on William Moody (Percy Pringle/Paul Bearer) listed his death as being due to a heart attack. Moody was suffering from an upper respiratory infection, and had been hospitalized with a blood clot in his leg at the time he suffered the fatal heart attack. The cause of the heart attack was supra ventricular tachycardia, or SVT, which is a having a dangerously high heart rate. SVT is usually not fatal when treated, but it was not discovered because the warning signs are similar to heartburn and anxiety and it often gets ignored. Michael Moody, his son, said doctors told him that his father had the heart issue for a few weeks.

TMZ also had a story noting that the sons of Moody were at the 3/11 Raw show and the angle where Punk hit Kane with the urn and stole it was run through his two sons who gave their approval, stating their father would have approved of it.

Glenn (Kane) Jacobs on the death of Moody, said, “He was an integral part of my early years as Kane. Without Paul Bearer, there wouldn’t have been a Kane, because he was such an important part of the story. Also, we traveled together for a few years, so it was a loss on a personal level for me as well. He came back and managed me in2010 when I was world champion which was really cool–again against The Undertaker. Just like everyone else, I was a big fan of Paul Bearer and Percy Pringle, and all of the other names that he went by. It was a tough loss for everybody. We went to the viewing and what was really amazing was there were flowers there from all over the country, really, all over the world. It was nice to see an outpouring of affection from fans all over the place.”

Foley, who was managed by Bearer as Uncle Paul, during his feud with Undertaker, noted that he was doing a comedy show, I think in Louisville but I could have the city wrong. He tried to get a flight to the funeral, but it was looking like it was impossible, and then just decided to make the drive to get there.

Austin outright said he would not be at WrestleMania this year. “I’ve had many questions concerning WrestleMania 29,” he said. “The decision has been made that I will not be at WM 29 and that’s the bottom line.”

At WrestleMania, all the VIP autograph sessions with the perceived biggest names (Punk, Flair, Undertaker, Cena, Kane, HHH, Orton, Sheamus, Show, Mysterio, Michaels and Bret Hart) are all sold out.

The reality competition TV show “Hero,” that Dwayne Johnson just filmed the season of in Panama while missing the past few weeks of Raw, debuts on TNT on 6/6, in a Thursday at 8 p.m. time slot, meaning it goes head-to-head against the first hour of Impact. Johnson is both the host and mentor of the contestants on the show, as well as one of the producers.

Johnson also won at the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards for “Best Male Buttkicker,” which is from his role in “Journey 2 The Mysterious Island,” and not having to do with being WWE champion.

Referee Jack Doan, 40, was released recently. He had been with the company for 21 years, starting as a ring truck driver in 1991 and quickly becoming a referee. There was no singular reason. They like the referees on camera to look young, so a lot of the referees when they get older (Earl Hebner was the exception being an institution, plus the loyalty over Montreal until they found a reason to get rid of him) are phased out. There were things said that they wanted Doan to get into better physical shape a few months ago but nobody had any real idea why the decision was made past the age thing.

Regarding the movies that involve pro wrestlers this past week, The Call (WWE Films/David Otunga) was No. 4 at the box office doing $8,900,935 in its second weekend for a two-week total of $31,105,056. It will end up being both the most profitable and most successful WWE movie ever. Spring Breakers, which featured Jeff Jarrett in a few scenes, was No. 6 this past week, its first week of major release, doing $4,858,944, which made it profitable as a low-budget movie. Snitch, with Dwayne Johnson as the star, was No. 10 at $1,885,200 and after five weeks it is at $40,297,749. Dead Man down fell to $306,090 in its third week and is at $10,611,958, so it will be a major money loser.

Some notes regarding Twitter ratings that Nielsen is going to do starting at some point soon. Because the primary purpose of TV ratings is to give advertisers data on who and how many viewers are watching, Twitter engagement is considered something they don’t care about. Now, they are going to rank them because if they don’t, somebody else will, and there are already Social media rankings for television shows. While there are three day and seven day DVR ratings tacked on, most advertisers, because of the belief that people watching on DVR are most likely to skip commercials, rely on the first rating that comes out. That measures live viewing plus DVR viewership until 3 a.m. the night the show airs.

In last week’s issue, there was a major mistake on a WWE signing. The Australian wrestler they signed is not the son of Dennis Cometti, who works as Mark Silva, but Matt Silva, whose real name is Matt Adams, from Melbourne. Matt Adams, who is a 6-foot, 230 pounder described as a Chris Benoit style wrestler, is in his early 20s and has been wrestling for six years. A deal was made for him in October but wasn’t announced until last week because of all the paperwork involved. Matt Silva worked for Riot City Wrestling and Melbourne City Wrestling, as well as throughout Victoria, and was one of their top guys. Mark Silva is a big powerlifter type from Western Australia.

Several sources have noted to us that due to the cost of running Madison Square Garden, that WWE is going to lose a ton of money on the show even with a sellout crowd doing the Hall of Fame there. It was more symbolism and something HHH pushed hard for, because the building meant so much to the fans in New York and the wrestlers. It’s not just about Sammartino because they opened talks with Sammartino before they had MSG and they closed the deal with MSG before they had the deal with Sammartino. There was the feeling Madison Square Garden should be the site because of the company’s history there. Plus, if Sammartino wasn’t there, Mick Foley was going to be the lead inductee, as they were also pushing for Bob Backlund. Foley used to attend matches there growing up and Backlund sold out more events in MSG than anyone but Sammartino.

It becomes even bigger with Sammartino, since he won the title on May 17, 1963–50 years ago, from Buddy Rogers, in the old Madison Square Garden. With the exception of the occasional stadium show, his biggest title matches were in the building, including his first title loss (1971 to Ivan Koloff), his second title win (1973 against Stan Stasiak), as well as the night he suffered the broken neck that nearly ended his career (1976 with Stan Hansen) were all in the building. Sammartino also noted his picking up Haystacks Calhoun (May 21, 1960) as the moment that really got him over as a rookie was also in MSG. He noted that he has not been in the arena since the last time he wrestled there, which was July 12, 1986, when Sammartino & Tito Santana beat Randy Savage & Adrian Adonis in a cage match main event. That would have been the 138th time he main evented in MSG (including championship matches, main events when he wasn’t champion, and matches during the reigns of other champions when he would be brought in and essentially the shows would be promoted as double main events). That’s more than double anyone else in history, although obviously if he had 138 main events, the idea that he sold the building out 187 times as is being promoted and used everywhere, is not accurate. WWE is promoting the Hall of Fame in some places as Bruno’s 188th Madison Square Garden sellout.

Regarding the Hall of Fame, Arnold Schwarzenegger has agreed to induct Bruno Sammartino, which gives WWE the big-time celebrity thing they’re looking for. Schwarzenegger and Sammartino were friends from the late 60s when Joe Weider brought Schwarzenegger into the U.S. from Austria to be his big star. Sammartino judged at least one Mr. Olympia contest in New York that Sammartino won when they were held in New York, and the two also judged major contests together. Schwarzenegger already gave a speech inducting Sammartino, likely similar to the one he will give, in a private ceremony for the International Sports Hall of Fame earlier this month in Columbus, OH. The press release WWE sent out said Schwarzenegger was in attendance for a number of Sammartino’s main event matches. It has been widely expected that Lita will induct Trish Stratus. Recently, Stratus asked people on her web site to tell her who they think should induct her, and she said that Lita won by a landslide and that she feels that’s a good choice. Mick Foley announced Terry Funk would induct him. For Booker T, the most obvious pick would be his brother, even though they haven’t always been on the best terms. The name rumored for Bob Backlund was Maria Menounos, as the two know each other and it also fits WWE liking to get that celebrity rub. Donald Trump would likely be someone of Trump’s choosing.

Talks are continuing with WWE Films regarding funding and producing the Sammartino movie that Scott Rosenfeldt (“Home Alone”) is behind. Over the past week, they both released a trailer for the documentary, a pitch by Rosenfeldt pushing the major motion picture and what a good story it would be for potential investors (said to be a backup idea if talks with WWE films don’t come to fruition), and a lead score and music video for the movie, a song called, “I’m strong like Bruno Sammartino.” Rosenfeldt, who has been working on the project for years, calls it a passion project. The script has been completed, which covers his entire career, his comeback in the 80s, as well as his return to a hero’s welcome in 2010 in Italy.

Some notes on David Kreizman, one of the head writers with Ed Koskey these days. Kreizman was a veteran soap opera writer who won a daytime Emmy Award in 2007 when writing for “Guiding Light.” He’s also written for “General Hospital,” “All My Children,” and “As the World Turns.

The company has actually taken to the criticism of bad creative on Del Rio, looking at hiring a Hispanic Telenovela writer who will be responsible for the creative content and scripts and developing storylines and characters to target specifically Hispanic crowds. Of course, there is the natural problem with a Hispanic character program writer and English character writer, but at least they hopefully in hiring someone who knows the Hispanic sports culture that they’d understand why you wouldn’t script Del Rio talking about how the U.S. is the greatest country in the world and how he was born in Mexico and made in the U.S.

Sin Cara wasn’t cleared at TV last week due to the concussion he suffered in his 3/11 match with Swagger, so he remained out of action this week .

Ken Shamrock, 49, has been calling WWE wanting to come back but there hasn’t been any interest shown and he really hasn’t gotten any response.

Jericho was on Observer radio and mentioned that there were a number of different ideas thrown at him for this year’s Mania. There was a mixed tag idea at one point, but the plan when he left for Australia as noted here was going heel against Ryback. When he came back from the Fozzy tour, Erik Pankowski told him there had been a change of plans, and he was going to face Fandango as a face. He admitted at first he wasn’t happy, but at this point the way everything has worked out, he’s excited by it, particularly after working with him and watching some of his matches. Essentially, he’s been put in a position to give Fandango instant credibility as a pushed star. Jericho will be taking at least some time off after Mania for a few weeks of touring with Fozzy from 4/13 to 4/28. The deal he came back for was through Mania, but they have an understanding that he’d like to work when other projects aren’t going on, and at 42, isn’t looking at long periods away from wrestling. When he came back this time he negotiated his deal with HHH and not Vince, who is now pretty much the head of talent. Aside from two dates the first week of August, Fozzy has nothing officially scheduled after the European tour. Regarding going to NXT last week, he said he specifically asked to work with Wyatt, because he likes his style and loves his gimmick, which he came up with on his own. He estimated he’s be a main roster star in a year and major star in two, and also praised Adrian Neville for his match with Cesaro, and said Emma, who does the Elaine on Seinfeld bad dancing gimmick, would get over instantaneously with that gimmick on the main roster.

Flair was scheduled for the final segment on Raw on 3/23. He was flown into Philadelphia and was there. Early in the day, someone backstage actually asked me if something was wrong with Flair because they thought he looked unhealthy. Flair’s left leg was badly swollen, and after undergoing tests the next day at a hospital in Charlotte, it was discovered that he had another blood clot in the left leg. That was the same leg that he got the blood clot in four weeks ago in Japan. He was checked out by WWE medical officials who saw the swollen leg and sent to the hospital in Philadelphia. He ended up going home and replaced in his segment by Booker, who they were lucky was there a day early since he wasn’t booked on the show. In Japan, he was advised against flying back but he did it on his own, saying he wasn’t going to miss a series of big paying autograph shows he had over the next week. It wouldn’t have been as a big a problem as Philadelphia to Charlotte is a short flight and the real bad risk of flying with a blood clot is on flights that last four hours or more. He was diagnosed by his doctors in Charlotte with the blood clot on 3/26. He was not admitted to the hospital, but given medication they hope will quickly dissolve the clot. He is expected to make his next personal appearance, which will be on 3/29 in Hagerstown, MD. They had to be very concerned about him to send him to the hospital because Flair wasn’t booked to do anything physical on Raw, just to sit in a chair and ask a question. In typical Flair fashion, he was insisting he was fine and felt the WWE doctors overplayed the situation and made it come across as worse than it was, and couldn’t understand why they didn’t have him do the segment since there were no plans for anything physical.

Rock and Cena are both booked on “The Today Show” on 4/3, the Wednesday before Mania.

Jericho’s black left eye on Raw this week was because he caught one in the match with Swagger on Smackdown taped 3/19 and the bruise hadn’t gone away.

After CMLL and AAA both did the big crowds last week, WWE, which had stayed out of Mexico for a while after disappointing crowds on the last tour, has booked a September tour. The feeling is part of the reason crowds have been up is less violence and a better economy.

Booker T is doing a second autobiography, which tells you that the first one probably did well. His first largely covered his life until getting started in pro wrestling. This one, called “Booker T: My Rise to Wrestling Royalty,” will cover his wrestling career.

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:33 pm 
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Backstage News on Why Vince Is Pushing Fandango, Chris Jericho and Mark Henry's WWE Futures
By Marc Middleton
Apr 2, 2013 - 8:54:25 AM


- Fandango is getting a spot on WrestleMania 29 because the character is Vince McMahon's new pet project. Vince is said to be a big fan of the gimmick and the arrogance that comes with it. The idea at WrestleMania 29 is for Chris Jericho to make the Fandango character stronger. Vince is really behind the success of Fandango.

Regarding Jericho's WWE status, the two sides are talking about what he will be doing with them in the future. He was originally scheduled to finish up at WrestleMania. The belief within WWE is that Jericho and WWE will continue to have a part-time relationship.

- There has also been talk about Mark Henry leaving WWE after WrestleMania 29. Word now is that WWE and Henry are on the same page. Officials are very happy with Henry's work since returning and he will most likely staying with the company


Paul Bearer’s Sons Comment on Last Night's RAW Closing Segment
By Marc Middleton
Apr 2, 2013 - 3:16:54 PM


- Michael Moody, son of the late Paul Bearer, commented on Facebook about the closing segment from Monday's RAW which saw CM Punk pouring ashes all over The Undertaker.

He wrote:

"If anyone is wondering, yes WWE did come to us wanting approval for tonight's storyline. The way it was presented to us was ok. Seeing it on screen was a different story. I don't even know what to say."

Michael's brother Daniel also commented saying:

"Totally different."

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Tue Apr 02, 2013 4:22 pm 
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Vince to Make "Big Reveal" on Friday Night

The WWE announce team noted on Raw tonight that Vince McMahon has posted the following on Twitter, promising a "big reveal" on Friday night, and Michael Cole put over that it has to have something to do with WrestleMania

Vince McMahon ✔ @VinceMcMahon


Hello @WWEUniverse! The Chairman is now on @Twitter. Get ready for #BigReveal on Friday night. In the meantime…#RAW


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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
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All VInce's big announcement could be who Sings America the Beautiful, according to reports.


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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
PostPosted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 4:58 pm 
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reents wrote:
All VInce's big announcement could be who Sings America the Beautiful, according to reports.


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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
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Michael Cole Talks About John Cena Turning Heel, 3-Hour RAW's & More By Michael Bluth Apr 3, 2013 - 5:58:10 PM

Busted Open satellite radio show with Michael Cole Host: Dave Lagreca, Doug Mortman, and Mike Riker Airs Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on Sirius 92 and XM 208 from 2-4 ET Visit Facebook.com/bustedopen for more information

On his start and his rise in WWE: "I got off on the wrong foot here in WWE for a bunch of different circumstances. Number one, I came from CBS News, so I came from outside the business. And this is back in 1997 where it’s still the 'good ol boy' network, where if you weren’t brought up and didn’t pay your dues in the wrestling industry you had no business being here. Jim Ross is a guy who dedicated 30 years of his life to this business. He started as a referee, building rings and morphed his way into becoming an announcer and he had paid his dues, as most of the guys had. So I came in in 1997 and I was first employee that was ever hired by the company that was an announcer. I came from CBS Radio. I had been a wrestling fan but I had never been involved in it in any aspect. So I come right out of the blue and start doing shows on WWE. So there was immediately a backlash from the true hardcore fan. 'Who is this guy? How can he be talking about a product that I've watched for 25 years; I've never heard of him. He’s not from the business. He’s not from the industry.'

"Then I wasn’t even able to get my feet wet and pay my dues here before Jim got sick with his bout of Bells Palsy. So when Jim got sick, all of a sudden, now I had been in the company for a year and they throw me now onto Monday Night Raw and PPVs and I was clueless. I had done sports before, so I knew how to go out and call action, but this business isn’t just about calling action. It’s about telling stories. It’s about understanding the psychology and that was all foreign to me. So for four or five months I’m trying to fill the shoes of this legend who had been sick and I was thrown into that spot so there was a horrible backlash at that point. Rightfully so because I wasn’t ready for that spot. I shouldn’t have been in it. And then third, Vince Russo at the time who was our writer decides that this is great, let’s make JR the bad guy; let’s make him the heel and have him attack Michael Cole's character.

"It obviously turned out bad because I ended up being the bad guy because the perception was both within the storyline and in real life is that 'here's this young, punk kid coming out of the news world to replace the guy that I grew up with.' It would be like some guy from a local news station stepping in to replace Walter Cronkite on the news. I had all these things against me and when JR came back fans were like, 'thank god, this Cole guy sucks, he shouldn’t be here,' and I stuck it out. I had seen so many things in my life covering news from wars and so many horrible things that I couldn’t let this stuff affect me. I had a wife and family and that’s who I loved and who I cared about and this other stuff was like, 'whatever, I’m not going to let these people affect me,' and I continued to move on and I went to do Smackdown and I did that show for 10 years, which was, to me, an incredible run, and finally in 2008 got drafted to Raw and the rest is history. I don’t have any regrets at all. I thought and I still think that I earned that role. People still to this day can’t stand me for replacing Jim Ross, and they think that JR and I have a terrible relationship because of the storylines that we've done, but we don’t. Jim and I are actually real close and we do have a great relationship and Jim's been a great mentor to me and here we are today."

On the pressure during the Monday night wars: "There was a ton of pressure. I was in over my head, and I'll be the first to admit that. I had been in warzones around the world and never felt the type of pressure that I felt in those few months leading up. Then I had to call Wrestlemania on top of it all, except for the main event, which we brought Jim back for, but it was an extraordinary amount of pressure which I wasn’t ready for. But I always try to look at things from a positive standpoint; that really prepared me for what was coming over the next few years here in WWE and really becoming the voice of Smackdown and becoming the solid guy on that show and moving on to Raw and where I am today."

On dealing with the multitudes of different fans: "This day and age people don’t understand the amount of pressure that’s on us as commentators to serve so many masters. First off there’s the hardcore fans, like you guys are, who have been watching for 20 or 30 years who want their old school wrestling. They want you to call a wrestling match; they want you to call every single hold, so you've got to please that. You've got to try to do your best. You also have to please your kids who are 50% of your audience and your women who are a large part of our audience too, so you're talking about different stories when it comes to those demographics. We're obviously in a PG era now, so you can’t get away with a lot of things you could get away with 15 years ago. The other thing is we're inundated with social media and I get tweet constantly during the show; 'hey Cole, shut the heck up,' 'stop with the twitter, stop with this and that.' Our company wants to be in the fore front of social media. That’s our company’s goal and our objective. I have to do that, I work for WWE; I need to do what they want me to do. Does it get to be too much sometimes? Yeah, of course it does. I think we do a lot of things in excess, but that’s what we want.

"So when I’m talking about what’s trending worldwide or when I’m talking about what somebody said on their Twitter feed earlier today, I know guys like you who want your wrestling are probably saying, 'geez Cole, shut the hell up, enough already.' But then there's kids at home going, 'oh my god, I’m going to follow Vince McMahon on Twitter, this is an exciting day.' So you’re trying to please so many masters and you’re never going to please everybody. So all you can do is try to do the best you can, try to be entertaining, try to tell a good story, try to explain to your audience what's going on and on top of all this, especially this time of year, we have such a new audience especially when you’ve got a guy like Rock, who’s the biggest movie star in the world right now and he’s got the number one movie in GI Joe, you have a lot of new audience members watching this show every week now because of guys like The Rock or because of Undertaker's back or because Brock Lesnar the MMA crowd may come in, so now you’ve got to try to explain what’s going on in our soap opera every week to fans who aren’t watching on a weekly basis. We have to do it in ways that don’t insult guys like you who watch every week and know the stories and background of these guys. It’s a terribly difficult job, but I love it. The challenge is amazing and the criticism is great because I learn a lot of times from the criticism. I’ll read my Twitter feed and a lot of the fans out there have great suggestions and great ideas that I’ll try to bring into the show the following week."

On calling the Raw of Jerry Lawler’s heart attack and turning face: "First and foremost, Jerry and I are great friends. We're real close. Jerry and I have known each other for 16 years now and people may not remember but when Smackdown went on the air Jerry and I were its first team for a couple of years. We worked together every week, plus I worked with Jerry when JR was sick. So I worked with Jerry for years and years, I had his first WrestleMania match, but what people remember about our relationship up to the point of the heart attack was the fact that I was a bad guy and he was a good guy and I disrespected his dead mother in the ring and I dragged up stuff about his family's past and all part of the angle, which by the way was all Jerry's idea, he signed off on it, but that's what they remember. So 90% of our audience thought we hated each other. Which I guess means we're doing a great job. But Jerry and I were real real close. The night that it happened in Montreal, I'll take you through the story, Jerry had a match, which is neither here nor there, and he came back to commentary and we were calling, I can’t even remember what the match was at this point because everything is a blur, but I do remember, Jerry and I don’t look at each other when we do the show, I have a monitor to my right which I watch and Jerry has a monitor to the left which he watches, the only time we ever really look at each other is when we have an on-camera or something like that, so in the middle of this match I heard Jerry snoring and I thought he was doing like I used to do when I was a heel, especially back in the NXT days, I thought he was making fun of the match in the ring and I thought he was snoring because the match was boring.

"So I chuckled because I thought that’s what he was doing and then I looked over to Jerry to my left and Jerry was laying down on the table, his head was down, and he was literally snoring. At that point I thought this obviously isn’t good, he looked blue. So I jumped up, first thing I did and I’ll never forget this is I hit my mute switch on my box because I was screaming for the doctor. Luckily we had Doc Sampson at ringside. So I’m screaming for the doctor, 'Doc, doc, Jerry needs you,' and I hit the mute switch I think out of instinct but I’ll never forget, I remember doing it because I knew something serious was happening and I knew that his family watches the product and I didn’t want them to know at that point what was going on because I thought that if it was me I wouldn’t want my wife or anybody in my family to learn about what was happening from live television. So I hit the mute switch and Jerry at that point I grabbed him to try to hold him up and then he fell out of his chair and then the doctor luckily was there. At that point I just went into instinct mode and I just started calling the match that was going on in the ring and didn’t reference anything that was going on. Then obviously we went to commercial break and during the break they hauled Jerry off in a stretcher and all that. So I’m down at ringside and I’ve got to do the rest of the show for an hour, I had no idea what’s going on. I've got my producers and Triple H and others telling me and giving me updates in my headset which I would come back on the air and say, 'hey, this is the latest we heard,' and so on and so forth and then at about 10:30 eastern, about a half hour before we went off the air, I remember somebody came in my headset, I can’t remember who it was, and they said, 'Michael, you need to prepare for the worst.' I’m like, 'ok,' and they said, 'you need to be prepared to deliver the news.' So at that point I knew what they were talking about obviously.

"So now we had stopped doing commentary out of respect to Jerry, so now I’m sitting out there with 18,000 people surrounding us and millions at home, no one knowing what’s going on, and I didn’t either, and now I’m sitting there going, 'ok, now how am I going to deliver this news to millions of people around the world' and 'what am I going to say' and how am I going to say it and how am I going to keep myself composed, and all that is running through my head and then almost like it was scripted, and I hate saying that because of the business we're in because it wasn’t obviously, but when we went off the air on Raw we had got an update that Jerry's heart started beating on its own and I was able to deliver that news going off the air and that was such an emotion moment.

"I remember after we went off the air, I went to the back, Jerry had already gone to the hospital, I went back to the locker room and called my wife and I said, 'did you what’s going on?' And she's like, 'oh my god, I did,' and at that point I broke down because I think it all just hit me there. I think it’s the news background. I think its ones of those things, you're trained. I have seen a lot of atrocities in my life over the years in Africa and Bosnia and places like that and I think you’re just trained, but this obviously different because it’s a real good friend of yours that it happened to on live television and I realized that I had a service and that was to update the fans what was going on with Jerry. Then at that point, we thought he was going to pull through and obviously he did, thank god, and now he's still a pain my ass like he is every other week, but it was just an awful time.

"I remember on Wednesday, two days after it happened, I was actually in the gym at my home in Texas and I got a phone call from Jerry's girlfriend, Lauren, and she said, 'Michael, I’ve got somebody who wants to talk to you,' and it was King. I was like, 'Holy cow, King, how the hell are you calling me two days after you basically died on national television?' I guess he had been reading some of the press and stuff and he said, 'Michael, I’m so sorry.' I asked why? He goes, 'well, I killed your heel heat.' So I guess he had watched stuff that was said and everything else. So after that I became baby face. I think it was the right time, the heel run had run its course, I think it went on much longer than it should have. So what had happened was the company collectively said, 'if we're going to turn you this is the time to do it.' Since JR had been taken off Raw and I became a heel, the one thing I thought the company was missing was that straight guy who was able to deliver the show the way that it needed to be delivered, like the Jim Ross and the Gordon Solie's, Gorilla's, they didn’t have that voice of reason in the booth. This was the perfect opportunity to allow them to do that and as a company we collectively said, let’s run with it, and we did. It’s been fairly successful. I still have a lot of detractors out there, a lot, but it’s getting a little bit better.

"It was weird too because, I hate that it happened under these circumstances, because I really would have liked to have that face turn and done something like save somebody in a match or one of those cool things you always dream of. This is quite the way I wanted the face turn to happen, but I’m also glad it happened this way because I think it added some legitimacy to what I do. But it was cool to actually get tweets and messages of support from fans when for 15 years 90% of what you receive is 'you suck', 'I hate you', 'you’re the worst ever', and you just don’t respond to that stuff, you just become callous to it, it’s just like, 'ok, they don’t like me'. But I’m still here and I’m still on the air."

On his favorite announcing combination/preferences: "From an ego standpoint, I take pride in the fact that I’m able to do all of it. We don’t get a chance to toot our own horns a lot but from an ego standpoint, and you have to have an ego to be in this business or any business. You have to have confidence. I take pride that I can do it all. One of the things that I’ve said about my career is that, love me or hate me, the one thing that I’ve been able to do that I don’t think anybody would take umbrage with is the fact that I have been able to work with anybody they’ve given me. When I was on Smackdown, I worked with Jerry Lawler, I worked with Tazz, I worked with Mick Foley, I worked with Jonathan Coachman, I worked with JBL, I worked with Paul Heyman, I've worked with JR, I’ve worked with Josh Matthews, I’ve worked with Todd Grisham, Matt Striker, I’ve worked with everybody and I’ve been able to pull it off. So I take pride in that.

"Three man booth over 2 man booth? It depends who I’m working with. I love the three man booth with Jerry and John. JBL and The King. Love it. Then I’m really able to be that straight on host and direct the traffic. John's your heel, King's your baby face and I’m able to be that guy that delivers the information which is the role that I cherish because I think I do that well.

2 man booth, I love working with King and I love working with John. So any combination of those right now is preferable to me. I think the 3 man booth works a little bit better on Smackdown than it does on Raw because Smackdown is a show where there's not as much social media involvement, the matches are much longer. Raw you get three or four minute matches and social media so it’s a little easier to navigate a two man booth on Raw with all the stuff you have to get in as opposed to Smackdown. I think that out of all the partners I’ve worked with I think that Jerry Lawler and JBL, either together or separately, have been my favorites."

On 3 Hour Raws: "I was actually excited initially and then when I sat through it for about two months I was like, 'oh my god.' The worst thing is, and it’s nothing to do with the guys in the ring, because they’re busting their humps every single time, it’s the energy level. It’s really, really difficult. Your mind really starts to wander. You get past 10 o’clock eastern time and your mind really starts to wander. So you’ve really go to focus on the task at hand. PPV's are weird; to me a three hour PPV goes by like that because its just concentration, you've got two other guys working with you to help carry the load, I don’t know. For some reason the three hour Raw seems real long, but then other days, like last night in Washington DC for the go-home for Wrestlemania, that show flew by. I looked at my watch and it was quarter to eleven. I was like, 'holy cow, where did the show go?' Then there's other days where it's like 10:15 and you’re like, 'oh my god, how do I stay awake? Get me another Red bull.' Again, it’s nothing to do with what’s going on in the ring or anything it’s just mentally trying to stay focused and alert for that amount of time on live television. Smackdown is different. You can go out there and screw around and you make a mistake you can fix it if you have to. On Raw, you’ve got to watch everything you say. Its complete concentration.

"A lot of times the audience goes through peaks and valleys too throughout the show for three hours. The live crowd is up and down. So you have to try to get them going and get them up there. That’s your job as a commentator, make every match and every superstar and diva interesting. It’s difficult to do but it can be done. The thing about 3 hours is coming up with creative and different ways to say things, say different stories. How many times can we say The Rock's going to be here tonight? Ten times you’re promoting it a show; you’ve got to try to come up with a different way to say it each time. There are a lot of things that go on that just a guy watching at home doesn’t realize. Tweaking ways you say things and trying to drive you guys in the right direction on certain characters and giving background on guys and there’s a lot of work that goes into this. Following Twitter, social media, oh my god that stuff is nonstop."

On Cena's current heat: "I think there's a reason for that. Rock's fresh. He's not here all the time. Even during this run he’s missed a few Raw's then comes back then miss a few Raw's, so Rock's fresh. He's different and he's bringing in a ton of new faces to our product because he’s a movie star. Arguably the hottest movie star in the world right now. So he’s bringing in a ton of new faces. He's fresh, people watch him, people think it’s cool that a movie star is our champion. John is there every day. He's been there for a decade. He's in the trenches every single day. He's at every live event. He's on television every single week. He's at every single PPV. I think that there’s a familiarity there. I think that fans of our product who watch it religiously and don’t miss a show, follow the inside workings of this, I think that characters like John to guys like yourself can get stale. I think that’s what our fans vocalize. I don’t think its dislike for John Cena; I think they appreciate everything John does.

"John is the most wonderful human being on the planet. He's one of these guys, I'll preface this by saying he's one of my closest friends in the business, but John has not changed in ten years here. John is one of these guys who has never changed who he is when he became famous. He's the same guy that he was when he first walked in that door 10 years ago. He's the same guy that'll sit down in a lounge a chair and have a beer with you and put on some country music and shoot pool. He's that way today just like he was 10 years ago. John does so much and you cannot overstate what John does not only for this company but for the charity organizations out there. When you grant over 300 wishes and being as busy and in demand as John Cena is, that says something about the man’s character. Granting 300 wishes, you’re not doing that for publicity. The Susan G Komen for the Cure, we did the breast cancer awareness for the first time last year, that was all John's idea. John came to the company and said, 'hey, listen, let’s do this.' Next thing you know, we've got pink ropes and the pink ribbon all over the place and it was John's idea. He felt passionately about that. So I don’t think the fans, unless they’re idiots, which I don’t think our fans are, some maybe, but I don’t think it’s a dislike of Cena personally.

"I don’t want to see [a heel turn] happen. I love John how he is from a character standpoint. He loves the adversity. The one thing about John is that John will start out getting booed out of the building, whether he's in a match or a promo, I guarantee you by the end of the match the fans are going to be applauding him and standing on their feet for what he either said or what he did in the ring. No matter what happens Sunday at Wrestlemania, no matter what happens in that match with Rock, I guarantee you that there will be a show of respect for both Cena and Rock at the end of that match. They may boo Cena out of MetLife Stadium, which they probably will because it’s a New York crowd, but I guarantee you by the time that’s over there will be respect there."

On his favorite call’s/matches: "There were two that stand out. I’ve been doing this for so long, people always ask me, 'what was your favorite match?' 'What do you think of this rivalry?' I don’t remember. I don’t remember what happened two weeks ago sometimes on Raw that’s why I keep unbelievable notes in my iPad because I seriously don’t remember. We do so much programming, I call so many shows it’s hard to keep this stuff straight. But the one match that really stands out for me is the night, it was in February a number of years ago, I think it was No Way Out PPV, it was the night that Eddie won the WWE Championship from Brock and that call to me was my favorite, still to this day because I was real close with Eddie and I felt that that night when he won. This was really the crowning achievement for him. I lived through him with that. I called Mick Foley's first championship match. I was sort of thrown into that because that’s when JR was sick so I really didn’t know what I was doing. I told Mick the other day that I wish that it happened like 5 years later so I could actually know what I was doing when I called it. Mick said, 'hey, you did fine, it was wonderful.' But the Eddie-Brock match was one. Undertaker-Shawn Michaels was a very emotional one.

"Shawn and I over the years had become really close. I can tell this story because Shawn and I talk about it all the time, we've actually talked about it on a DVD; I couldn’t stand him when I started in this company. I could not stand him for a number of reasons. But when he came back from his injury we got to know each other and got real close. We both live in Texas. We have a lot of the same interests; we hunt, we fish together. Actually, I'm the voice of his outdoor show, Macmillan River Adventures, on the Outdoor Channel. Calling that match to me was very emotional. The third match was last year’s Wrestlemania between Rock and Cena. It was fabulous, tremendous match to call. Probably thinking about it now, probably the best match I’ve ever called was the one a few weeks ago when Cena beat Punk to keep his opportunity to face Rock at Wrestlemania. It was like a three or four segment match on Monday Night Raw. It was incredible match and obviously when the guys have matches like that it makes our job easier. I very rarely at this point in my career go back and listen to a match that I called. I just don’t do it. I've got so much stuff going on that I just don’t have time. But I actually went back and listened to that match and I was very, very proud of that work. I had both Punk and Cena come to me and say, ‘listen that was fabulous.' I think a lot of it has to do again with the fact that, remember how JR was Steve [Austin]'s guy and JR got really emotional because him and Steve were so close. I think a lot of that happens with John and I because I am close with John. It's just like anything else, when you’re emotionally attached to something, you’re going to be a little more into than you normally would. Plus that match was fabulous anyway. That was probably the favorite match that I've ever called."

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 Post subject: Re: The E till mania
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