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JR's Blog: Wednesday Update...Interesting Week For Many

Posted: Oct 29th 2009 By: CMBurnham

Thanks for stopping by our site and spending a few minutes. These opportunities to communicate with you are cathartic and I hope that you enjoy my ramblings and personal opinion. I am often amused at how my opinions are interpreted on other sites but that's another story for another time.

Business has been steady in our on line store thanks to many of you who are hanging with us in support of what we are trying to build. That means a lot to us, I can assure you.

So, without further ado, let's get to an another addition of BBQ'ed Random Thoughts....

Hulk Hogan is ALL over the news this week which re-establishes the premise that Hulk is one of the greatest, self promoters of all time...BROTHER! Now, that isn't necessarily a bad thing as any independent contractor who is entrepreneurial in spirit such as a pro wrestler has to have the ability to promote one's self in order to survive over time. Hogan is an old school guy, in many ways, so "keeping one's self over" is nothing new and many guys have raised that skill to an art form but none better than Hulk.

Hogan makes big news this week launching his new book, talking Australian tour, and briefly mentioning TNA on what I saw of his Larry King appearance Tuesday night of which "Ol Lar" phoned it in. Thank goodness for Larry's producers and their questions. No, Mr. King, Laila Ali is NOT Muhammad's wife, she's his daughter.

It amazes me that many fans are so obsessed with "Monday Night Wars" and one brand over taking another, etc type discussions. Firstly, I do wholeheartedly agree that competition is great for every business, without question. But every company that spends more time ragging on the "competition" or fixating on putting another company down is not focusing on their own brand. Today's wrestling business needs to simply focus on how THEY can improve what THEY do and not seemingly and endlessly focus on the "other guys" whoever the "other guys" may be.

The bottom line, in my view, is how is the product being made better for the fans who pay the tab, watch the shows, create the ratings, buy the swag, etc? All of us who sell products in our various walks of life should always keep our consumers first...keep our creative simple and not on overload...and provide consumers with "new."

Continuing to refine the creative direction and developing new, hot stars should be every wrestling company's top priorities. At least, that's my take on it. Short term solutions don't solve long term problems.

Matt Striker will join Todd Grisham as the new Friday Night SmackDown broadcast team beginning this week. I am anxious to hear the duo at work and will be anxiously awaiting their show on MyNetworkTV this week. One never knows, this may become the new, young "it" team in WWE and time will tell as their chemistry evolves. I communicated with both guys on Tuesday and really hope that they do well. All TV producers love youth and look and these two young guys have those bases covered plus they are talented.

If you haven't been watching some of the ESPN movies recently including the story of the USFL and lately the Ali-Holmes story, you're missing something good. Wrestling could learn from these simply told stories that establishes a compelling theme or themes and whether intensionally or not creates a protagonist and an antagonist which, personally, makes the production easier and more enjoyable to watch.

BTW...I did agree with Hulk that pro wrestling needs to put more individualism back into the game and allow talents to explore the bounds of their abilities which will facilitate finding new stars quicker and, at the same time, eliminates some wannabes from the process. Instincts is more of a vital skill than the ability to memorize.

Got a nice email this week from former WCW wrestler Lash LeRoux who is no longer wrestling but is establishing an amazing art business. Lash's artwork is as good as I have seen in many years and I hope to collaborate with him on some projects here on our site. God really blessed this young Alabaman with some amazing artistic skills.

If you have the time, check out my last WWEClassics.com feature on the Spoiler. Don Jardine was the Spoiler and he was awesome long before Miz. Big, athletic masked man with the uncanny ability to tell a story even with his face covered. One of the great, all time masked men in wrestling.

I've been watching a great deal of wrestling on TV....WWE 24/7 Classics on Demand on Cox Cable has been garnering ample time, but I wonder what the process is these days with providing talents their ring/wrestling names? Wow.

Got a great email from my old umpire school roomie Tim McClelland who is still the best MLB ump in the game and who was embroiled in some controversy during the MLB ALCS. Tim is one of the most honorable, talented and dedicated umpires in the game and a man I consider a great pal since 1976.

We went through another battery of tests yesterday which was one of my more challenging days physically with all the running around seeing a variety of doctors. I do not have the test results back but hope to hear something in a day or two. We are in the process of trying to eliminate issues that could be causing my problems which gets a little dicey when one doesn't know and is told to "be patient."

A friend emailed me and asked if I thought that Steve Austin was going to join Hogan on Hulk's latest venture. The question was somewhat amusing and as Gorilla would have said, "highly unlikely." That may be putting it some what mildly in our PG rated space. I want to make it clear that isn't something that I spoke to Steve about but I feel somewhat certain that my assumption is accurate.

I'll be on the radio today in Houston at 5 central time on AM1560 The Fan with Sean and John talking a little OU football and college football. You can hear it at www.am1560thegame.com.

We'll blogging on WWE.com later today on the Smackdown page.

Thanks, again for stopping by and for the continued support of our business which includes FREE SHIPPING on many packages.

Boomer Sooner!

J.R.

Tags: Jim Ross, TNA, WWE, WCW, Spoiler,