Dr. Darin Davis » Links

Best of 2011

Darin Davis — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:00:34 +0000

At the start of each year, I put together a post of what I felt were my best articles for the previous year. A lot of things were going on in the past year, many out of my control, that kept me from motivating myself to share some stories that I had been meaning to share. They also kept me from even watching a lot of wrestling in the last half of the year, and from starting a few other projects that I wanted to get to. I will share them eventually, hopefully in 2012.

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Below are the my best articles for the year 2011, listed in chronological order. If you didn’t get a chance to see them when they were first posted, you may want to check these out.

Previous articles are always available through the Archives box on the right, the Category selection, or the Search box.

End of One Road, And the Start of Another: On Saturday Jan 8th 2011, Brody Hoofer went against longtime rival “Playboy” Pete Huge in a loser leaves MIW (and pro wrestling) match. I give my take of that night and how I was fortunate to be asked to be the referee.
Brody Hoofer Interview: A reprint of the interview conducted for the Upper Midwest Wrestling Newsletter back in 2000, where Hoofer answered questions about the business and his goals as a pro wrestler.
The Rock and Roll Address: An account of one of Buck Zumhofe‘s locker room speeches at an independent wrestling show.
WWE “No Wrestling” Policy: One of the WWE’s publicists gets upset with a website because they imply that the WWE is a wrestling company. Apparently corporate wants them to be thought of as anything but.
TNA- Please Call Us Wrestling: Playing off of the previous story, TNA started verbally emphasizing on their broadcasts that they are a wrestling company, and proud of it.
Austin Aries Gets “All Worked Up”: Austin Aries shows up on an episode of a series called “All Worked Up” where they were focusing on the security personnel for Ring Of Honor.
My Wrestling NDA: The (unwritten) non-disclosure agreement that was put in place when I entered the wrestling business, and some of the exceptions to the rules.
Al Pabon Dies at 46: Some sad news about local wrestling personality Al Pabon, who died in 2011. I note one of my first dealings with Al after getting into wrestling.

Best of 2010

Best of 2010

Darin Davis — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 11:00:17 +0000

At the start of each year, I put together a post of what I felt my best articles were for the previous year. The year 2009 was a pretty good, with quite a few items to select from for the “best of the year” list. The year 2010? Not so much.

Between work and other things (mostly work), I haven’t done a lot of writing on here, and what I have done was not exactly the type I set out to do. Yes, this is a wrestling site and I wrote about wrestling, but the best thing I could do is share personal stories about my time as a pro wrestler that you won’t hear from any of the traditional wrestling sources.

I will try to do a better job sharing more of these stories in the coming year.

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Below are the my best articles for the year 2010, listed in chronological order. If you didn’t get a chance to see them when they were first posted, you may want to check these out.

Previous articles are always available through the Archives box on the right, the Category selection, or the Search box.

WWE: Don’t Call Us Wrestling (Jan): The WWE has spent at least the last several years, maybe the last decade, telling anyone who would listen that they are an entertainment company and not a wrasslin‘ company. Wrestling is apparently a dirty word.
TNA Monday Night War (Jan): TNA Wrestling had a live 3 hour broadcast on Monday Jan 4th, in direct competition with the WWE‘s live Monday Night Raw program. I describe the Good, the Bad, and a few that are On the Fence.
Invisible Wrestler (Feb): I usually don’t go for the stuff that requires a huge “suspension of disbelief“, but once in a while something comes along that I just have to share.
TNA Towel: 2, Believability: 0 (Apr): On a Monday night on TNA Impact, we got to see the TNA BloodyTowel ™ used again on a broadcast. Now I have to add another clause to the footnote of my answer of one of the most often asked question by casual or non-wrestling fans: Is the blood real?
TNA Waves the White Flag (May): After a few months of trying to compete head-to-head with Monday Night Raw, TNA retreats back to Thursdays.
TNA Should Add Bloody Towel to Roster (Jun): Since the towel has now gotten more air time than TNA president Dixie Carter, I figure TNA should just add the thing to their official roster.
The Highs and Lows of Monday Night Raw (Jun): The birth of NXT (high) and one of the most embarrassingly awful series of skits with the actors from the new A-Team movie (low) all in the same episode of Raw.
Bigger Stronger Faster* (Jul): I rarely review movies here, but this was an exceptional documentary about the use, abuse, and propaganda of steroids. You may remember the filmmaker’s brother, Mike Bell, as an occasional jobber for the WWE, and for his death a few years after this documentary was filmed.
Final Match Rating Results (Jul): In July of 2009, I started collecting some data about the wrestling programming I was watching. What I was measuring this time was the number of matches per hour, and the quality of those matches as judged by a simple rating system. These are the final results after one year.
Final Wrestler Stats (Aug): I also have some Final Wrestler Stats. I used the same data to see who my top wrestlers were based on a simple match rating system.
Wait ‘Til Jumbo Gets Here (Sep): Quite often something seemingly unrelated triggers a memory that I decide to share on this site. Here’s a story from about 15 years ago…
My Wrestler Rankings vs. PWI 500 (Oct): I compared the list of wrestler rankings based on my data (see August above) to the PWI 500 for the year ending June 2010 to see if there was any correlation.
Line, Please (Nov): Comments on the Piper’s Pit segment and a supposedly leaked script from Monday Night Raw a year before, which implied that all of the wrestler promos were scripted by the “creative” dept.

Links for February 2010

Darin Davis — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:48:30 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of February 2010.

StuntGrannie: WWE Kills Survivor Series — Vince McMahon announced during the stockholders’ conference call today that WWE would no longer use the Survivor Series PPV name, stating it has “outlasted its usage” and is “obsolete.”
The Geek Revolution: Farewell, ECW — The last episode (ever) of ECW aired on Feb 16th. The promotion has been ECW in name only, but they still could have done a better job with the last episode.
Joe Montana’s Right Arm: The Many Faces of Flair — With the passing of his 61st birthday, take a look at the many faces of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair.

As I run across things, I’m also going to be adding them to my Delicious bookmarks page (http://delicious.com/drdarindavis). You can also find the last 10 of them on the right side of the page towards the bottom.

Links for January 2010

Darin Davis — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 05:30:15 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of January 2010.

Rantables: First Annual Golden Rantie Awards — Rantables takes a look back at the previous year in pro wrestling.
Rant ‘N Rave: Bret Hart Returns — The biggest wrestling story of the month, and possibly the year.
Cultural Learnings: Excellence in Execution — A look at how the “Montreal Screwjob” transitioned into current storylines.
SharpShooting: Hogan & Russo on Impact, Why a Monday Night War Won’t Work – The world, TV viewing habits, and the ways we access programming are different from what they were when the last Monday Night Wars were happening back in the ’90s. Chances are that head-to-head won’t make a difference.
Continental: Wonder Women [of the WWE] — I wrote about this in length already (WWE: Don’t Call Us Wrestling) so I have nothing more to add here.
A Bar So Low We Can Step Over It: Why Hulk Hogan is a Moron — Hogan and Bischoff’s idea of “change” is to bring back WCW.

Best of 2009

Darin Davis — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 11:00:59 +0000

Below are the my best articles for the year 2009, listed in chronological order. If you didn’t get a chance to see them when they were first posted, you may want to check these out.

Previous articles are always available through the Archives box on the right, the Category selection, or the Search box.

Birth of the Doctor (Jan): The story of how my doctor gimmick was born (yes, it’s just a gimmick)
Aaaaaaaaagh! (Feb): One of the funnier moments from wrestling training camp. The hardest thing about going over the top rope backwards is not screaming.
TNA Boneheads Volume 2 (Feb): Some of TNA‘s “great” talent decisions were getting rid of Petey Williams and Sonjay Dutt. Yeah, right.
Never Say Never (Mar): After more than 7 yrs away from the wrestling business, I ended up in a battle royal (correction: a Royal Rumble) at Robert’s Sports Bar in Mounds View, MN. How did that happen?
“Playboy” Pete vs. Dr. Darin Davis (Mar): Video of a match between former tag team partners that took place back on Mar 25th, 2000.
The State of Pro Wrestling Today (Apr): My take on Jim Cornette‘s rant about wrestling storylines and the team of writers responsible
The Dummy (May): Fond memories of one of my old training partners. The one that never complained about being stiffed.
TNA Adds More Has-Beens to Roster (Jun): I get on TNA a lot because they have the most potential and talent to put on a wrestling product. Adding the likes of Shane Douglas and Raven didn’t sit well with me.
Do You Know Who That Was? (Jun): A case of mistaken identity.
TV Viewership Stats Wrapup (July): Wrap-up of some stats on TV matches that I kept track of for a year (July 2008 thru July 2009)
Don’t Mess with the Ref (Jul): If you’re thinking about storming the ring after a few beers– think again. You probably didn’t consider the referee as a factor.
Raw Guest Hosts Not About Ratings? (Aug): The WWE Monday Night Raw guest hosting idea was not about ratings. At first I thought it was just to collect some publicity $$ from the marketing machine of whatever the guest celebrity was trying to plug. But it turned out to be more than that (see further below)
Darin Davis, D.D.S (Aug): Remember the time a promoter didn’t want me to do the procto gimmick? I certainly do. More than 10 mins notice would have been appreciated.
WWE + Talk Show = Raw? (Sep): Yep, the Raw guest host idea is about creating a new equivalent of a talk show circuit for celebrity publicity tours, not ratings.
More Fun Than a Figure-Four Leglock (Oct): With your North Carolina Education Lottery winnings, you can take a trip to Space Mountain. Wooooooo!
It’s WCW All Over Again (Oct): TNA = RMS Titanic, Hogan + Bischoff = Huge Iceberg. Bring them together and you get a big disaster with many casualties.
Dear Santa, Please Bring Me A Ring Bell Alarm Clock (Nov): Too late for Christmas, but my birthday is coming up…
Another Crack at TV Wrestling Quality Measures (Nov): Another year-long tracking of some TV wrestling match stats to see if I can see any trends in the quality of the programming. Tracking actually started in July, but I didn’t post anything until November.
Do You Want Your Wrestling Back? (Dec): Prompted by Jim Cornette’s Contract with Wrestling Fans, I add my $0.02 to the mix and ask for my wrestling back.

Links for September 2009

Links for December 2009

Darin Davis — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:00:14 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of December 2009.

Heelzone: Doctor’s Orders: Go For It TNA — Doctor Chad Matthews looks at the state of TNA wrestling and decides they should “Go for it!” against the WWE.
Ring of Honor: Jim Cornette’s Contract with Wrestling Fans — This is posted at the Ring of Honor web site, but originally came from Cornette’s site (you’ll need to look in the archives for older postings). I wrote a related article about this in a recent posting (Do You Want Your Wrestling Back?)
My Take Radio: My Take On: Future Rise of Current WWE Stars — The host’s opinion on which current WWE stars will likely be future Super Stars.
Yellow Fatty Bean: When the WWE Jumped the Shark (1999) — YFB thinks the WWE jumped the shark back in 1999.
Missouri Wrestling Revival: Baron Von Raschke Gets Inducted into the St. Louis Hall of Fame — “And that’s all the people need to know…”
ProWrestling.Net: Bret Hart Reportedly Signs Contract with WWE — It was a rumor when I bookmarked it, but by the time of this posting it is confirmed that Bret Hart will be the WWE Monday Night Raw guest host for Jan 4th 2010.
The Buzz! By Mike Schaffer: Hulk Hogan – Whatcha Gonna Do? — Will Hogan be able to drive TNA to be “the biggest wrestling company in the world?”. I had my own opinion at the time of the announcement (It’s WCW All Over Again).
Idea Girl Consulting: Bobby “The Brain” Heenan Day in Milwaukee — Video of the mayoral proclamation and Heenan’s acceptance
Exploder Bomb!: Reigniting the Monday Night Wars — Thoughts on TNA competing with WWE on Jan 4th.
ProWrestlingWorld: As 2009 Draws to a Close — A look back at 2009 in wrestling
Rantables: The HIV of Wrestling — A controversial title for sure. “..if Hulk Hogan is the cancer of wrestling, Hornswoggle is the HIV…”. I agree with the statement if not the analogy. It’s good that a little person can get work in this economy, but I think trying to shoehorn him into storylines hurts the product.
Cartoons and Comic Books: How to Fix the WWE — A lot of great points here about what is wrong with the product. I couldn’t think of anything to add myself, other than having more or longer matches (more wrestling per hour).
WrestleZone: Big Update on Daivari/TNA — I already commented on this in a separate post (Sheik Bashir Gone from TNA)

Links for November 2009

Darin Davis — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 05:00:53 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of November 2009.

Carnage Chronicles: Wrestling 101 — Jerry Jarrett writes about how the “Art of Professional Wrestling” has been lost, and comments about what has happened in TNA since he started it in 2002.
I hope he’s right about Hogan and Bitchoff (intentionally misspelled) “turning TNA around”, but I doubt it. You can read my thoughts on that in a previous post (It’s WCW All Over Again)
City Pages: Hulk Hogan Interview — City Pages interviews Hogan about his book and how his life is going down the crapper.
Stunt Granny: Ric Flair Getting Married Again — WTF? Flair is getting married for the fourth time. Maybe he should listen to some of his shoot interviews first, where he talks about some of his previous wives bleeding him dry in divorces.
The Inno View: “I Respect You, Bookerman!” — A look back at Brian Pillman
WrestleZone: Hogan vs. Flair in Australia — Three pictures from the Hulkamania tour of Australia featuring Hogan & Flair. I really figured Flair would stay retired, but I guess he has to save up some cash for his next divorce.
Missouri Wrestling Revival: Welcome To Wrestling – Former Harley Race Wrestling Academy instructor Matt Murphy is writing a series of articles about the insides of pro wrestling. They include topics like training, creating characters, booking, and running TV. There are 11 chapters so far, but the link above is for the first one. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to navigate from one to the other except to do a search for “chapter” (or something similar).

Links for October 2009

Darin Davis — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 04:30:49 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of October 2009.

Team Hellions: Shane McMahon Quits WWE! — Shane is not going to be a “lifer”? Apparently came as a surprise to everyone, including family.
TNA Wrestling: Hulk Hogan Joins TNA Wrestling — You can read my thoughts on that in a previous post (It’s WCW All Over Again)

Hard to believe there were only two stories over the whole month I thought were interesting enough to mention. I probably spent less time looking for stuff while preparing for the site move. Or maybe it was just a slow month.

Links for September 2009

Darin Davis — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:30:55 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of September 2009.

Rantables: #42 The Week In Review 8/24 – 8/30 — I agree with pretty much everything he has to say in this one.
The 450 Splash: Dixie v PPV — Dixie Carter thinks that monthly TNA PPVs are not a good idea, but it’s not clear if she thinks they are too often or not often enough. With TNA talking about producing a new weekly show, and now talk about “shaking things up”, this can’t be good.
Heelzone: Angelina Love Released By TNA — Sounds like this all due to visa issues (she’s Canadian, eh). Hopefully they’ll get this resolved quickly and get her back on TV. Oh, wait… this is TNA we’re talking about.
Heelzone: Jeff Hardy Arrested — … after a search of his residence yielded 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 Soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine and items of drug paraphernalia. The timing on this seems kind of suspicious. Did someone tip off the cops right after he left the WWE?
The Burning Hammer’s blog: WWE and Monday Night RAW — Another person that thinks the WWE product, especially the Monday night show, is not as compelling
No Cash Back: Women’s Wrestling Sucks? — A video compilation of some high impact women’s wrestling. That first leap from the rafters is insane.

Links for August 2009

Darin Davis — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:00:18 +0000

Below are links to some wrestling-related blog entries & articles that I found interesting during the month of August 2009.

Stunt Granny: TNA makes some creative changes; still sucks. — Lost Dutch Mantel, but Russo is still there
WWE.com: Ricky Ortiz Released — WWE cuts loose another one from the roster. I wasn’t a fan of his.
Rantables: Dropping Like Flies — Discussion of the recent injuries in the WWE and what “Creative” might do about it.
Rantables: #38 — Really, Vince? — Discussion of McMahon‘s frustrations with the company’s “inability to create new stars.” While I’ve never been a fan of Eugene, but I agree that Vince still tries to promote the big “muscleheads” over the smaller guys with the talent.
The 450 Splash: Another WWE Release — Goodbye Eugene. Hey, I was just talking about you…
WPXI.com: Kurt Angle Arrested/Kurt Angle Is Innocent — I bookmarked this story back on 8/16/09, but by the time I put together this post the headline on the site had changed from “Wrestler Kurt Angle Arrested“, to “Attorney: Kurt Angle Is Innocent“. Why wouldn’t the update have been filed as a separate story? Maybe by the time you read this, the headline will be “Kurt Angle Cleared of All Charges“, or “Jeff Jarrett Sleeping With Kurt Angle’s Ex-Wife“.
Variety: WWE Added to Talkshow Circuit — Oh, boy… I’ll comment on this in a separate post when I get around to it. The WWE wants to be one of the stops on celebrity publicity tours, in between Letterman, Conan, and Regis & Kelly. On one hand it seems like a brilliant idea. On the other hand it can only lead to problems because it makes the product worse tailoring the show to the celebrity.
Stunt Granny: Vince Wants His Own Cable Network — With a library of over 100,000 hours of programming, Vince McMahon wants to start his own basic cable network to showcase it.
Wresting DVD Reviews: The Rise and Fall of WCW — Review of the latest from the WWE. Sounds like there are a good set of matches, but the documentary part tends to “rewrite history” and leaves a lot to be desired.