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JR's Blog: JR's Sunday Blog..Q&A's Updated..Cole/JBL Twitter..UFCOnFOX7 Thoughts..OKC Thunder..Order JR's Today!

Posted: Apr 22nd 2013 By: CMBurnham

Beautiful Sunday here in Norman, Oklahoma and hopefully where ever you may be as well. Let's Grill! Obviously I'm not booked on the current international tour and my "talents" (Thanks @KingJames) aren't needed for the two, London TV's. I'm sure that the live crowds will be on top of their game but will they be as raucous as the RAW crowd the day after WM29?

@MichaelCole and @JCLayfield are busy promoting their various projects in London today including the @LayfieldReport and their You Tube show. I admire their ambition and hope that they continue to be successful. The King, of course, will arrive into London on Monday morning, take a nap, most likely, broadcast RAW and then take the first flight back to the USA Tuesday morning. Wham, bam , thank you mame.

I wonder if the trio of Cole, Lawler and JBL are the new, full time RAW broadcast team? If so I think that it helps the three hour broadcast and I've never been one to embrace a three man broadcast booth in WWE or elsewhere within the genre but I do like these three and the job that they do. I'm still not wild about three man broadcast booths in the NFL or the NBA but they seem to work in the slower game of baseball. I encourage you to follow Cole and JBL on Twitter as they keep everyone updated on their various projects.

I filled in for Jerry on the last UK trip in the fall of '12 as I recall and always have a great time there. We have so many loyal fans in that part of the world that they always make me feel great when I'm in their country. One year, I think the year that I flew over and kissed Michael Cole's feet after he had been 'Knighted," I arrived at the same time that the London Marathon was taking place. Our hotel was a couple of blocks from the starting line and allegedly 250,000 people or more were within a few block area of our hotel. So, traffic was blocked off for miles and I walked with someone pulling my roller bag for approximately three miles through the marathon fans, with my black hat in place, taking more photos than one can ever imagine. It was quite the ordeal and certainly a unique way to wake up after flying 8 hours or so.

What's the over/under that me kissing Cole's feet on the night that he was Knighted won't make air Monday night? I'm great with all that if only they would mention our products which are sold on WWEShop.com.

Of course, after weaving/walking our way through thousands of people, I get to our hotel and my room isn't ready so the hotel manager offers to buy me breakfast but, unannounced, decided to join me for an impromptu Q&A session. That lasted two hours but I ended up with a nice room and a full stomach which equated to a timely nap.

Our distributor in the UK area of the world, @americansoda is offering FREE SHIPPING within the UK until Friday on the JR's Sauces Package at http://www.americansoda.co.uk. This is a limited time offer so if you reside inside the confines of the United Kingdom I'd encourage you to consider pulling the trigger on this great offer.

Great job by @UFC and @FoxSports Saturday from San Jose on #UFCONFOX7. The San Jose crowd really helped the show. This was a solid, exciting card from start to finish that kicked things off with an awesome fight between Jordan Mein and Matt Brown. These dudes fought each other like they owed each other money and gave the show a superb beginning. One can't underestimate how important the opening moments of a broadcast are whether it be WWE or UFC, etc.

Some fans got restless during the heavyweight fight between Frank Mir and Daniel Cormier because, I'm assuming, their styles contrasted so drastically to what preceded them and what was expected to follow in the main event. Cormier is going to be problematic with any heavyweight or light heavyweight if that is where he finds himself. Cormier's short, has a low center of gravity, great balance, heavy hands and an amazing, amateur wrestling background that includes Oklahoma State University and the Olympics.

Benson Henson and Gilbert Melendez, who was the local favorite by a mile, had a helluva fight that actually could have gone either way in my novice way of observing their fight. I thought Melendez had won the fight but picked Henderson to win in Saturday's blog.

The crowd was indicative of what you get more often than not when there is a clear cut, fan favorite vs. an adversary who organically assumes the role of a villain. There may be a thin, gray line between good and evil in sports but when the audience declares their vocal allegiance to one fighter over another it makes the process that much more exciting and entertaining.

That concept is why sports teams play home games and few franchises play on 'neutral sites.' The home team equates to being the fan favorites while the visitors are organically the villains.

@UFC also continues to up their game with their pre fight and post fight broadcasts of which I enjoyed. @Sonnench aka Chael Sonnen is a natural born talker/salesman who reminds me of some of the best, former players turned broadcaster in their respective sports and of some of the great, old school, pro wrestlers who were golden on the mic back in the day of adlibs and organic passion when selling tickets was their only source of significant income. Sonnen has done infinitely better in selling the next UFC PPV where he challenges Jon 'Bones" Jones than has Jones which is unfortunate for all involved. Jones should not be pleased with the lack of effort that he has seemingly put forth on promoting a PPV that he is headlining next weekend.

One thing that I felt Saturday night was that Fox was seemingly "in a hurry" to get off the air and hit their top of the hour programming. Would Fox do that with a NFL game? Obviously not. When Fox places @UFC within such a rigid window it really limits the backstage/locker room interviews, the video packages to build the fights, etc. That takes away from the show as it somewhat lessens the emotional investment the fans/viewers need to make to insure that they return the next time.

One area that the MMA fighters of the future must master and make more of a focus is to be able, in an organic, natural way, to market their fights as more PPV's sold equals more money for all involved as a rule. Even if a fighter isn't getting a PPV bonus, helping the parent company get healthier financially is good for everyone in the process.

I used to tell WWE guys that it is our obligation to keep the goose that's laying those golden eggs we all cherish as happy and as healthy as possible. That concept puts one's company or team ahead of one's individual agenda.

WWE's business on this current International Tour has been stellar thus far with every event near capacity or sold out. Plus, from what I understand there have no significant injuries to report thus far. (Knock on wood.)

Good luck to Dwayne Johnson @TheRock on his upcoming abdominal surgery as a result of injuries he suffered early in his WM29 bout vs. John Cena.

Getting great feedback on the new, @RealMickFoley DVD especially on the documentary aspect of it and the extras. I'd highly suggest that you check it out as it was well produced and contains some amazing memories and reactions from some of the biz's biggest stars.

Love it (not) when I get Tweets and emails from some fans who want to know if I'm going to write a 'honest book' some day that dishes all the dirt that I know and ID where all the "corpses" are buried. It's amazing at what some folks thrive on..."dirt." If I do write an autobiography, it will be honest but if some are only looking for dirt and half truths, as I remember things happening years ago, I'm not likely going to want to go there. Why BS my way thru sensationalistic periods of my career while having no problems throwing people under the proverbial bus just to sell a few more books? That's not happening. If I can't be creative enough and tell MY story without being salacious or overly negative as many wrestler's books are then I will simply pass on the project.

It's NBA playoff time and @okcthunder are at home tonight hosting Houston. This is getting close to the time that the NBA starts playing defense more than merely the final 2-3 minutes of the 4th quarter. Hopefully the Thunder can get this series over quickly but I'm not sure what to expect as Houston has zero to lose, they're not supposed to win, and every thing to gain plus former OKC star James Harden is steering his own ship now in H-Town.

Happy things are getting somewhat back to normal in Boston after such a horrific week in 'Bean Town' as Gorilla Monsoon used to call it. I'm blessed and grateful that I got to call a WWE match in the old, Boston Garden and it was with Gorilla many moons ago. It was a bucket list moment for me as I loved the Celtics back in the day and follow them to this very day thanks to my pal and their radio voice @seangrandePBP.

Can you believe that friends and me are already making plans for our travel to South Bend this fall for the #OU vs. Notre Dame college football game at the end of September? Yep, I've got my priorities in the right place.

Have a great day/week and thanks for stopping by our site. If you have any questions then throw them at me at the Q&A section of the site. Thanks for supporting my family business with all our JR's products. We appreciate everyone's support.

Boomer Sooner!
J.R. @JRsBBQ