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JR's Blog: Friday Random Thoughts..New Offers Now in Our On Line Store..Finally, Football!

Posted: Sep 4th 2010 By: CMBurnham

It's football time in Oklahoma! Kickoff is Saturday at 6 p.m. on PPV against visiting Utah State. Football weekends in Norman are always a blast. Our Webmaster got our new offers and some nice tweaks to the on line store made this week so check 'em out. I think that the new, 'Sampler' is a particularly excellent value. Let's kick this grillin' off....

After our Legends of Wrestling Roundtable taping on Wednesday night Sgt. Slaughter was hospitalized in Stamford after becoming 'light headed.' The cause of Sarge's discomfort was low blood level which was addressed and he should be good to go as I write this. Sarge was in great spirits Wednesday night after receiving medical care but was kept overnight for observation which is the norm for a matter such as this. Bottom line is that the WWE Hall of Famer will be fine after a few scary moments.

BTW...Sarge was excellent on the two shows when discussing wrestling families, he talked in depth about the Gagne's, Vachon's, and Hennig's, that I recall, and also had some strong opinions when talking about overachieving and underachieving wrestlers.

Sarge actually introduced me to Chinese food back in about '74 or '75 when we both worked for Bill Watts' Mid South Wrestling. Ironically, my first Chinese food experience was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana which is known more for gumbo than fried rice. We never had Chinese food growing up as a country boy in rural Oklahoma.

Our new 'Sampler' is a hot item that sells for $28.88 and allows you to sample every thing that we produce plus get some unique, authentic autographed items.We also pay for the shipping in the USA.

I'm a proponent of unifying titles in pro wresting. Too many titles waters down the product in my view. When decision makers were still wrestling they would often create meaningless titles to appease egocentric performers or to enhance their own egos.

We've updated the Q&A section of the site which took several hours earlier today. Lots of questions and comments. I invite you to check them out.

Counting down the days until Lesnar vs. Vel?squez for the UFC Heavyweight title. I sure wish I could be there but it falls on an OU football game day and a guy has to have his priorities. I will be in Columbia, Missouri the day of the Lesnar fight on October 23 before flying up to Minneapolis for a WWE PPV the next morning as it now stands.

Thursday's 'Daily Oklahoman' newspaper, www.oknews.com, featured a photo of yours truly on the front page of the sports section regarding the Oklahoma football announcing position that will be vacated when the legendary Bob Barry, Sr retires after this school year. Many have jumped the gun on speculation on this matter. Don't think that I wouldn't love to have that personal, dream job which is one that I've embraced for years but the process to replace the man who will always be the voice of OU football has not commenced. No matter who is hired I will always be a Sooner fanatic and still plan on attending every game, home and away, for the foreseeable future. This will be a coveted role for any broadcaster who has college football in their DNA. BTW I first listened to Bob Barry, Sr broadcast when I was 9 years old on a small, transistor radio long before the days of ESPN and virtually every Sooner game being televised. I am a product of a radio generation and guys like Jack Buck, Harry Caray, and Larry Munson have always influenced my work and ability to tell a compelling story.

The next season of NXT featuring the Divas should be interesting TV and will definitely be a different presentation. I've always wondered how WWE would do producing a one hour TV program featuring Divas only. Just a personal idea but interesting nonetheless.

We still get lots of questions regarding my thoughts on PG rated wrestling shows on TV. I am still of the belief that PG wrestling will work especially when one's objective is to appeal to families. TV 14 excludes many families from watching programming that is TV 14. If one is a male who's in the 18-34 demo, such as UFC appeals to, PG ratings can be perceived as a negative but are they? Good TV is good TV which has always been my philosophy no matter the rating. I do know that products that appeal to entire families and not one primary demo offers companies many more opportunities to mass market their brand to a variety of sponsors, etc. It just so happens that usually the energetic, young male demo is the most vocal.

Others have asked if WWE would do better if Friday Night Smackdown was always a 'live' show. I don't have a definitive answer but my thoughts are probably not. This assumption is based on the fact that too much credence is put on internet 'spoiler' information making the viewing decision for the fan. I think that the internet, although a vital aspect of information flow, still has such a small audience when compared to the entire TV universe that it has minimal affect to the casual, TV viewer. If the programming is compelling and episodically produced, folks will do all they can to either watch it as it airs or via DVR, etc.

Friday Night Smackdown will be live in OKC on Friday October 1 which is the first night the show will air on Syfy.

Some of you have emailed me about 'discovering' our archived material which is ample since starting this site in 2007. We have some unique plans for utilizing the archived blogs and Q&A's in the future. If you haven't taken the time to read some of this material I suggest that you check it out.

Because I was out of town three days this week, I'm behind on forwarding our 'JR's Main Event Mustard..Sweet and Spicy' product but it is still on the front burner. I still think that we are 60 days from having it available.

Speaking of travel, I realized, again, that I don't miss that aspect of being a wrestling broadcaster. Sure, I miss the adrenaline rush of doing live TV and interacting with the fans but getting there and then getting home is a challenging piece of business.

One emailer asked if I thought that there would ever be a 'Legends PPV' and I don't think that it would be marketable or be a compelling in ring product. The best example that I can provide is the 'Gimmick Battle Royal' WWE promoted a few years ago at Wrestlemania and was a comedy presentation. Generally we want to remember our favorites as they were in their prime more often than not and seeing some of the active 'Legends' engage in wrestling bouts, I feel, would be a let down. That's why I love WWEClassics.com and WWE 24/7 because I can see guys that I loved to watch perform when they were generally in their primes.

Interesting conversations ensued when the topics of wrestling underachievers and overachievers were discussed Wednesday evening at the Legends Roundtable taping. I assume that it will be November or December before these shows air but they certainly will be something with which to look forward. And no, I'm not going to go into any details or provide any specific 'spoiler' info on who may or may not have been thrown under the proverbial bus during those 'debates.'

Hope that you're following us at our Twitter account @JRsBBQ as we now have close to 60,000 who do.

Our on line store is open and we're ready to ship you some primo, tail gate products or unique gift ideas. Thanks for stopping by and paying us a visit. Please visit www.wwe.com as my weekly ramblings will be live there soon.

Boomer Sooner!

J.R.

Tags: Jim Ross, Sgt.Slaughter, WWE, Bill Watts, MSW