By Bruce Mitchell, Torch senior columnist

Updated Wednesday, Sept. 27 - 3:43 p.m.

The following is a transcript of a brief excerpt of this past weekend's two part, two hour Bruce Mitchell VIP Audio Update...

THOUGHTS ON VINCE RUSSO IN TNA:

-He's a guy who doesn't learn. He's a guy who has supreme confidence in his ability to book a highly rated show. It amazes me. He’s a proven failure - even in TNA. He did well with Vince McMahon in the WWF. There's no doubt about it. In WCW, he got his control. Yes, WCW was damaged at that point, but he had a lot of talent to work with. He got to do what he wanted to do, and very quickly you saw he really didn't understand what the business was about. And what he thought the business was about was hot-shotting things to get ratings. He's also a guy who when he's not booking it, he's not watching it. When he's not watching, you don't know what your talent is, you don't know what to do with it. When he sees talent, he judges it by what kind of corny gimmick he can give it and what kind of shocking thing he can do to get people's attention. It's been two years since he's been in TNA and the wrestling business is all shocked out. It's a function of how desperate TNA is. It's the wrong thing.

-Jeff Jarrett is Vince Russo's guy. He pushed him in WCW. He wanted him to be the top guy. In the WWF, he tried to push him into a feud with Steve Austin, which Austin turned down. In TNA, I have no doubt he's going to take care of Jeff.

-TNA has had problems ever since ECW showed up. They are one more step down the ladder for fans. The ratings are tanking.

-I think what it was back in that day, I think he was of the age that he was a WWF fan and a Howard Stern "I wanna see hot chicks on TV, I wanna see the crass stuff." He represented that WWF fan that Vince was losing because he was still going with the Duke "The Dumpster" Droese days where every WWF wrestler had an occupation. Russo wanted more violence and more sex. But times change. He really got exposed in WCW. He hot-shotted all the time. He had a little success in raising ratings, but he doesn't understand that TV - particularly for TNA - has to be a promotional vehicle to promote matches on PPV. It's amazing, but he has never understood that basic, fundamental job of being a booker.

Updated Sunday, July 19, 3:53 a.m.

Dark Knight Dumbos

So I'm browsing through the new WWE Maxim ripoff at the newstands, you know, the magazine for people who are interested in WWE Superstars but not too interested. One of the innovations is a section of other media that the cool editors at the cool WWE magazine reccomend, you know, the usual, CDs, movies, books and so on.
 
Their comic book choice is a painfully obvious one: The Absolute(ly over-priced) Edition of The Dark Knight Returns - Frank Miller's seminal recasting of Batman, the most famous comic book of the last twenty years. If you're a comic book fan at all you know it. If you're not, well, pay attention to the Batman part.
 
The short review even featured a few panels of Batman in action. Oh, and it helpfully sent readers directly to the Dark Knight's publisher:
 
Marvel.com  
 
That's right, the comic book experts at WWE who recommend comics for WWE readers think Batman comes from the Mighty Marvel Bullpen, the home of Spiderman, the X Men and the Fantastic Four, and not DC, where Superman Returns. Maybe Vince needs to give some of these people time off to go to the movies. These idiots did this twice in three paragraphs, so it's not like it was one typo either.    

I invite you to e-mail me at brucemitchell@pwtorch.com .
   
Updated Sunday, June 19, 1:53 p.m.

ECW One Night Stand Review

The live fans made this show - every heartless, callous, dumb one of them. They want it so bad, they want ECW to be real, not the McMahon's newest toy, and the ones who want it so much make the very best marks, in the real meaning of the word - the victims of a con. Conman Vince McMahon directed his Roper, Paul Heyman, to give the suckers what they wanted. He did, just don't look too close.

I hated Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio, the sight of two guys putting their life on the line just to get out of giving a finish. I liked the Kurt Angle-Randy Orton match better the last time time I saw it on Smackdown.

What the ECW marks saw was the old-time sickie stunts, the neckbreaking, flesh burning, head breaking, unrealistic garbage that the real ECW used to substitute for work. The best match on the show, Tommy Dreamer & Terry Funk vs. Edge & Mick Foley, was also the worst, a capitulation by two legends in this business that they no longer have what it takes to captivate an audience without sick, business-killing, sacrificial masochism. I'm glad Terry Funk went out with a lot of heat, but one of the greatest workers ever couldn't get a reaction unless it was hardway.

The reaction to John Cena was hilarious in its complete hypocrisy. Cena isn't a great worker, but he's better by far than any of the ECW alumni who are getting a few extra paychecks out of the deal, and he's not far from Rob Van Dam. He was also the biggest star on the show, judging by a crowd that was more into him as a heel than RVD as a face.

McMahon couldn't help leaving his fingerprints on his handiwork, not the sign of a good con. Big Show played Cruiserweight Bully. Edge, not RVD, beat John Cena. JBL made fun of the marks and no one stopped him.

The grin on Heyman's face was that of a grifter who knows he pulled it off for one more night. The con didn't work unless everyone else buys in the way the marks did tonight, and that has to start Tuesday,

Updated Sunday, June 4th, 9:28p.m.

The Greatest Match I've Ever Seen

I just watched, hands down, the greatest pro wrestling match I've ever seen, the Dragon Gate Do Fixer/Blood Generation match of Dragon Kid & Genki Horiguchi & Ryo Saito vs CIMA & Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino at the Ring Of Honor show Supercard Of Honor in Chicago Ridge, Il on March 31st. I've seen most, if not all, of the best matches, internationally and domestically of the past three decades, and this one beats them all. It's state of the art.

As this match gets seen by more people you're going to hear half smart internet critics criticize it for being a spot-fest. Ignore them. They'll be dazzled by the spots, as you will be, because they're faster, more spectacular and more precise than anything ever seen in this business. This match, though, is much more than spots.

It builds, one jaw dropping sequence at a time, pulling you into the story of the match, the battle between these two Dragon Gate gangs, Do Fixer and Blood Generation until one of these wrestlers makes himself to the biggest crowd in ROH history (1,600). This thing will have you cheering, and pumping your fist, when you're not holding your head in grateful awe. It's exciting as all hell.

The match is availble now on DVD from Ring of Honor at ROHwrestling.com.

How To Get Your Dream Job;

Interested in the posting over at WWE.com about the opening for a personal assistant for the Chairman of The Board, Vincent K. McMahon? Looking for a way to ingratiate yourself with Great Man that doesn’t run the risk of getting you escorted off the premises before he can offer you the job?

Here’s what you do. Go to the drug store and buy a yellow highlighter. Then, go to your local Borders’ book store , look in the Media section and find a book called Prisoner Of X by Allan MacDonnell from Feral House. It’s Mr. McDonell’s tale of what it was like to spend 20 Years In The Hole At Hustler Magazine working for Larry Flynt. Turn to page 230 and start highlighting as soon as you see the name Ted Turner. The lurid tale of what Turner did with his wife, Oscar winner “Hanoi” Jane Fonda, an unidentified brunette and a camera crew is sure to put a smile on your prospective employer’s tight, well tanned face. You may not know it, but Mr. McMahon has been waging a one sided feud with Mr. Turner for over twenty five years.

Don’t read the rest of the book of the book, which describes what it was like to be on call twenty fours a day attending to the demented demands of a megalomaniac who ruled over a hillbilly entertainment empire that, no matter what he did or how much cash he amassed, gained him nothing but contempt from the outside world. It’ll just upset you.

I invite you to e-mail me at brucemitchell@pwtorch.com .

Updated Thursday, May 18, 9:32 p.m.

Was It Good For You Too?

It’s been said good wrestling storylines are like good sex. (Well, I know Kevin Sullivan used to say it.) Shawn Michaels and Triple H’s long slow build to a shattering DX reunion fits that really, really tightly. You make ‘em want it, but if you do it too fast she gets all moody (Why do you think they call it a quickie? I’ve been under a lot of stress lately. There’s this new blog thing and...)

Anyway, every week Triple H gets closer and closer to giving fans what they need, then pulls out, I mean back, only to then slam his big ol’ sledgehammer right into the handsome young Shane McMahon’s ...head. The babyface turn has to, uh, come soon, though, since WWE already gave away the climax in its advertising for that June Charlotte pay per view whose name I forget.

Speaking of, you know, wrestling, did you see Paul London and Brain Kendrick pull down MNM’s pants last week on Smackdown to reveal the two young partners wear matching fluorescent blue bikini briefs? Wow, that was so gay. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen anything so gay on TV before. The Sopranos doesn’t hold a, uh, candle to it, not that I watch the Sopranos, it’s too slow, but I saw the clip on Imus. (Fake) Will and Grace was just a sit-com compared to those boys, they were just so gay.

It wasn’t gay like Rico or Adrian Street, yesterday’s stereotypes. It wasn’t gay like Billy and Chuck, you know, not believable. It wasn’t gay like Jim Cornette hugging Bobby Eaton, cheap heat. It wasn’t bang on the closet door gay like you know who doing homophobic promos. Who’s he fooling? It wasn’t gay like Goldust, what is? It wasn’t gay like all pro wrestling with all the underlying homoerotic subtext, blah, blah, blah. It was just gay, gay, gay, those two boys in their minks acting all false modest because the other cute boys in their theater (you know what they say about the theater) masks pulled their pants down. have no idea what Paul or Brian or M or M prefer in real life, it’s just they were so gay on Smackdown. The most butch person in the that ring was Melina.

I give WWE credit. They’ve made real inroads into the coveted Hispanic, kiddie, screeching teenage girl, overseas and poor people markets. Now WWE is going gay. Gay, gay, gay.

That is, if they even did it on purpose.

May 6, 2006 - 11:39 p.m.

Professional wrestlers struggling with the direction of their lives and careers ought to take one last thing into consideration. It's a wrestling tradition of long standing that, unlike their peers in Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NFL who are guaranteed by contract sixty percent or so of their sport's gross, professional wrestlers are paid a rule of thumb twenty five percent of the gate, and that's by the more honest promoters.

What kind of health benefit, insurance, 401K, or retirement plan could be funded for wrestlers with even part of that missing thirty five percent of the gross? What kind of traveling medical staff could be funded to watch over the health of the wrestlers? What kind of travel accommodations could be made?

How much more money would WWE generate with a healthier, more motivated talent pool that was augmented, instead of sabotaged, by an intelligent, competent WWE Creative and an intelligent, competent CEO?

How much more money would wrestlers make if some of that ninety million dollars expected to be paid in dividends to Vince McMahon and stockholders made its way into their pockets instead?

How many lives could be saved, families spared, and futures ensured if the McMahon family cared?

-Torch Newsletter column titled "March 2006 "

Hi! I'm Bruce Mitchell. Since September 1990 I've been, exclusive to the Pro Wrestling Torch , professional wrestling's longest running, meanest, smartest, and most controversial columnist. In an industry that rose a hundred years ago from a carnival of con men and still wallows in the geek show, I tell truth to power. I covered the most powerful man in the industry's felony drug trial on site in Long Island, N.Y., saw the current WWE champion in Tijuana from the Commission box when most promoters thought he was unemployable in the States, rode with wrestling's nicest double murderer through the backwoods of Kentucky and Tennessee on his debut tour ("So, what's the pussy like around here?" "Don't look at me. I don't live here."), watched Ric Flair win his last great World Title in his hometown from the front row, and saved reality TV's nadir, Jonny Fairplay, from drinking a Corona former WCW announcer Chris Cruise peed in.

19. Special Business Management Question: Kimberly Page refused to take bumps in the WCW wrestling rings, correctly pointing out that wasn't in her contract. Scott Steiner profanely abused her in front of her peers. Kimberly Page quit the company, ruining several months of on-air promotion. Her husband, Diamond Dallas, subsequently refused to work with Steiner. Steiner then cut a live, unauthorized promo on Nitro challenging Page's manhood. Page started a fight with Steiner during the show. Steiner responded by trying to pull Page's eye out, requiring several other wrestlers to pull him off Page. Page and Kevin Nash walked out of the show, despite being scheduled for a major segment later on. Who got fired?

A. Scott Steiner

B. Diamond Dallas Page

C. Kimberly Page

D. Kevin Nash

E. Mark Madden

-"Mitchell's Tenth Annual PWT Year In Review Quiz, January 2001 (Answer: E)"

I've had a WWF jobber named after me ("Bruce Mitchell has no place in the wrestling business" - Gorilla Monsoon) but didn't send a videotape to Request TV or carve a trench in a seventeen year old kid's head with a box cutter while his father screamed at me to stop, I've had a WWE booker write a two page rip job on me in Raw Magazine, did an interview segment for a now defunct tabloid TV show so scintillating it never aired, been jacked up at ringside by a four hundred pound bald headed babyface/mayoral candidate at an indy show, been hung up on by a CNN producer when I wouldn't take the side of the Lionel Tate debate she scripted for me, and had some nice things said to me by some nice people whose names I won't mention here because, well, that would be bragging.

I've never set foot in a wrestling ring, out of respect for what it cost all the ones who have.

Everyone of us who knows what the price is that the performers pay, everyone of us who pays money to encourage the business to stay like it is, everyone of us who makes excuses or shrubs their shoulders at the news of another death, at another career ending injury, at another stroke or heart ailment, at another screwed up neck, or at another pilled up disaster also bears the blame."

-Torch Newsletter column titled "The Culture of Death"

Even better, if you've ever read a column on a website, a newsletter, or a newspaper and thought "Who told that guy he should write a wrestling column?" you have me to thank. A generation of aspiring scribes fascinated with the business decided generating contacts and actually digging up the stories was hard work and what I do looks a lot easier. I've inspired more hack writers than anyone this side of George Lucas. More, if you've ever had a clown at the wrestling show block your view with a poorly spelled, inane poster at the exact wrong moment you can thank me and my friends for that, too, since we started (and perfected) the craze on Front Row Section D at the Greensboro Coliseum over twenty years ago.

I've been a serious wrestling fan since a buddy of mine told me to check out the blonde guy with the big mouth on WRAL TV and almost thirty years later I'm still doing it. In addition to a monthly long form column , I also write the Raw Mojo most Monday nights, a free form running stream of cheap jokes, snide cracks, obscure references, blind items, and tired rage on WWE Raw as it happens that goes out to VIP Email Express subscribers about an hour after the end of the show. I write a shorter "Michell's Memo" on weeks I'm not writing a feature-length column for the newsletter.

What ROH founder and owner Rob Feinstein got caught trying to do last week didn't happen in a vacuum. It's part of a long, sad tradition in the outlaw sport of pro wrestling, a tradition that has even more to do with power than it does with sex."

-Torch Newsletter column titled "Sex and Power"

Torch Editor Wade Keller hosts the weekend Mitchell Audio Update exclusively for Torch VIP ESub members, his chance to ask me convoluted, long-winded questions about the week's scuttlebutt then pretend to listen to my convoluted, long-winded answers for at least a couple of hours. Sometimes we argue, which everyone seems to enjoy. There's also the Bruce Mitchell Zone on the Torch VIP Message Board , where I "interact" with Torch subscribers who want to know what the hell I meant by the latest blind item in the Mojo commentary. There's also the Bruce Mitchell Column Library , which is missing that one about Brian Pillman. Coming soon, the Bruce Mitchell Key Chain ...

McMahon played it just right. The Monday Night Raw the day before the election there was Jerry Lawler, like Gore a native son of Tennessee, giving WWE fans the word.

It wasn't a hard choice. The Smackdown Your Vote drive may officially be non-partisan, but pro wrestling is definitely Republican. Republicans are against government regulations. Pro wrestling is against athletic commissions. Republicans are against welfare. Pro wrestling is against insurance and pension, well, for the wrestlers. Republicans invade other countries. Pro wrestling invade other companies. Republicans are for "free enterprise." Pro wrestling is for "independent contracts". Republicans send other people's children off to war. Pro wrestling sends their own children into the ring.

McMahon's power grab worked. Several months later the U.S. Supreme Court decided to stop counting the votes in Florida. George W. Bush was the next president of the United States, and he had millions of WWE voters to thank for it."

-Torch Newsletter column titled "Why You Shouldn't Vote"

I also write reviews of virtually every WWE and TNA pay-per-view, and Ring of Honor releases, in case you didn't get enough reviews from the other half dozen Torch reviewers or on the Internet. I also participate in Torch Audio Roundtable Reviews of these shows, which only occasionally are actually longer than the shows they review and we've just started a Wrestlemania Audio Series where Keller, fellow columnist Pat McNeill, and I discuss every inside story we can remember from each event. We've done the first. WrestleMania III is up next. I can't wait for the Trump Tower Years, I've got something I've needed to get off my chest for twenty years about those.

It's been a couple of weeks now since these guys debuted on TV and except for some knee-jerk references to O.J., MLK, and Louis Farrakhan and a couple of phone calls from the NAACP, New Jack has been just another guy with marbles in his mouth who calls the SMW fans "rednecks and hillbillies." Yawn. How original.

Cornette seems to be approaching this gimmick with kid gloves. It might be that he is sort of a candy ass when it comes to this stuff, but it may just be that he has nobody to ask for ideas.

-Torch Newsletter column titled "Onward Cornette Soldiers, August 1994"

In eras past I hosted three days a week segments on the Wrestling Observer Hotline , a particular favorite of the Internet news thieves of the day. I've appeared as a guest on radio shows in several states. During a good part of the '90s I did a weekly wrestling show in Greensboro, N.C. as part of Andy Durham's nightly sports talk show on WKEW- AM, WPET -AM , and another station that went Disney that lasted until federal deregulation came in.

Want some examples? WWF, World Class, and WCW booking failure George Scott blew an estimated $600,000 in less than a year with the North American Wrestling Association. Herb "I.S.F." Abrams is probably lucky he is not in jail considering the trail of bounced checks and unpaid bills left in the wake of a UWF promotion that has lost at least three quarters of a million dollars. God only knows where a guy like that got that kind of money. Christopher Love, a very credible pervert wrestling manager in the ring, goes from state to state starting and folding promotions and then skipping town. Gordon Scozzari, a teenage kid, got his loot through an inheritance and promptly pissed away almost a hundred grand on a couple of shows "helped" immensely by wrestlers who took his money and then no-showed his card or by the name wrestler who charged him extra for an in-ring bump. Not one person present at this fiasco thought to take Gordon aside and suggest that maybe he might actually need this money to support himself. Joel Goodhart fed his huge ego and wasted an enormous amount of cash by consistently running shows where the expenses far outstripped any possible revenues. Eddy Mansfield squandered in Florida doing the same thing. His promotion is a non-entity, but at least he still got to go to Disney World. And these are just the big name bozos of the independent scene."

-Torch Newsletter column titled "Twenty Five Million Dollars, August 1992"

In the weeks and months to come I'll be updating this blog with current observations on world of wrestling. I invite you to e-mail me at brucemitchell@pwtorch.com .

We suggest these recent related articles...

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 10 (2000): Titled “Death of Hardcore” as Bruce discusses the apparent end of the Hardcore Wrestling era and also suggests what ECW must do to regain relevance

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 9 (1999): Titled “Children” as Bruce discusses Vince McMahon's marketing approach toward children and how he deals with controversy like a child would (with a great opening line)

25 YEARS OF BRUCE MITCHELL - DAY 8 (1998): “Stolen Moments” - Bruce lays out case for Flair as Greatest of All-Time as he dealt with locker room politics in WCW Nitro era