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NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.

AITA for being unhappy about a free vacation?

USA Today article

'Looking down their nose at you': GameStop frenzy showed a fresh contempt for hedge funds. Why do Americans hate them? Updated 2:25 pm EST Feb. 11, 2021 In the middle of a pandemic and slow economic recovery, Americans think they’ve identified their Wall Street villain: hedge funds. Their nemesis is summed up in a few searing images: a hedge fund manager who makes millions betting that the subprime mortgage market will collapse, without warning them. Or another relaxing on a yacht as the economy tanks. Years of anger culminated late last month when a group of angry small-time investors on Reddit took on a few of those firms in the GameStop “short squeeze” frenzy. That spurred millions of others to join in, as their effort to drive up the price of a stock perceived as undervalued soon shifted to a campaign to “Stick it to Wall Street." They used the "squeeze" to rally the share price and make profits for themselves while forcing the hedge funds who had bet it would fall to buy it to prevent greater losses. What are these funds, and where does this resentment come from? Hedge funds, known for using higher risk investing strategies, are private investment vehicles that typically wealthy individuals use to get higher returns. They control more than $3 trillion in assets globally. They've angered many Americans by gutting companies such as former American retail icon Sears, causing layoffs and engaging in questionable financial practices that contributed to the near collapse of the U.S. financial system in 2008, experts say. 'This is life changing': Meet the Redditors behind the GameStop saga “Most people see it as guys in suits looking down their nose at you,” says Adam Bixler, 28, an active user on the WallStreetBets Reddit forum, whose members led the charge against the funds. “How I feel is probably how a lot of people feel when thinking about the financial crisis and the massive wealth inequality that exists in this country.” Radio Shack, Toys ‘R’ Us and Payless ShoeSource, along with mall-based retailers such as the Limited, Wet Seal, Claire’s and Aeropostale faced further financial woes after hedge funds and private equity firms loaded them up with debt. A fight is raging in the stock market: Should you worry about your 401(k)? Where to get vaccines: CVS, Walgreens to begin delivering COVID-19 vaccines on Friday “The idea that you can crack open a hedge fund like a piñata and redistribute all this money to people in the form of a short squeeze is very appealing,” says Bixler, who lives in Boonton, New Jersey, and works as a product manager for a company that makes software and tools for the advertising industry. “These are the stimulus checks that everyone wanted.” Proponents of hedge funds say the firms identify and support distressed industries such as retailers and newspapers. These funds are owned by groups of big investors pooling the savings of millions of unionized workers, such as teachers and firefighters, who count on hedge funds to grow and protect their nest eggs. Even so, hedge funds are viewed as vultures by many Americans. Kaysha Apodaca, an emergency room nurse in Dallas, was furious last summer when she lost thousands of dollars after CytoDyn, a biotechnology company she owns, was hammered following a negative report from a “short selling” research firm, about one of CytroDyn's drugs in clinical trials. The post with the research was later pulled. This year, Apodaca thought she missed the opportunity to jump in and buy GameStop or AMC, so she supported the Reddit campaign against hedge funds by investing a few thousand dollars into shares of Nokia, another beaten-down stock discussed on the forum. “I hate hedge funds. Even if this goes to zero, I’m OK with it. I’m not selling, just to prove a point,” Apodaca said. “Hedge funds have unfairly made money off retail investors for years. Now they’re getting a taste of their own medicine.” For Iris Findlay of Orlando, Florida, joining the movement was a way for Americans to show their strength in numbers. “I’m definitely not OK that there are so many billionaires hoarding their wealth while people are struggling, especially during the pandemic,” said Findlay, 31, who is disabled and retired from the Air Force. A large portion of hedge-fund assets are owned by institutional investors, such as pension funds and endowments. Hedge fund research has been critical in exposing an array of accounting fraud scandals in recent decades, including the one involving energy firm Enron. “Hedge funds do play a very important role in the financial ecosystem, but at the same time, they have a PR problem,” says Andrew Lo, a finance professor at MIT Sloan School of Management. They are an easy target, experts say, because some high-profile managers' massive wealth offends Americans who struggle to make ends meet. Michael Burry, founder of Scion Asset Management, is an investor whose billion-dollar bet against the housing market was chronicled in Michael Lewis' book "The Big Short." He personally collected $100 million and made $750 million in profits for his investors. These managers “are seen as multibillionaires that really don’t care about the public good and are focused on enriching themselves and their investors,” Lo says. “But I think that’s a caricature, especially given that hedge funds now have become much more institutionalized as pension funds and endowments are investing in these financial vehicles.” Who do Americans blame? When asked who was the “most in the wrong” in the trading mania that set off one of the biggest short squeezes in history, nearly half of Americans polled said it was either hedge funds (27%) or online brokerage Robinhood (22%), according to a Harris Poll survey conducted Jan 29-31 that was given to USA TODAY exclusively. Just 8% said it was the Reddit retail investors on the WallStreetBets forum, who angered hedge funds that had bet GameStop's stock would remain low. The small-time investors used the forum to help drive up the prices for shares such as GameStop, theater chain AMC Entertainment and several other companies. Many respondents were angry that hedge funds were shorting stocks – betting that the share prices would fall – of companies that average people use and love, according to John Gerzema, CEO of the Harris Poll. “This wasn’t just an attack on a few weak companies,” Gerzema says. “These are companies that are a part of middle-class America and ordinary people’s lives.” How did these funds begin, and how did they grow into such big villains in the minds of so many? What are hedge funds? Hedge funds are financial partnerships between a professional fund manager and investors who pool their money into the fund to earn active returns. Hedge funds can be traced back to the 1940s when Alfred Winslow Jones, an investor, sociologist and former Fortune magazine writer, created a "hedge" by “shorting" stocks he thought were poised to fall. The "hedge" was meant to reduce risk and protect against market fluctuations. It was unconventional at the time but remains the basic strategy for these funds. Hedge fund strategies today are more diverse and run the gamut of extremely risky to fairly conservative. There's another theory about the origin of hedge funds, and this one is connected to a more beloved figure. Some people credit the founding of hedge funds to Benjamin Graham, a mentor to Warren Buffett and the author of "The Intelligent Investor" – the bible of everyone who loves Buffett's method of investing. Buffett, one of the world's richest people and a folksy inspiration to small-time investors, argued that Graham managed a fund with a "hedge"-like strategy in the 1920s. So you made a bundle on GameStop: Get ready to pay the taxes How did hedge funds evolve? Hedge funds have gained in popularity over the past two decades after many of them delivered hefty outsize returns in either up or down markets, an attractive selling point for savvy investors. Some of the world's largest hedge funds include Bridgewater Associates, founded by billionaire Ray Dalio; Renaissance Technologies, founded by billionaire Jim Simons; and Pershing Square, run by Wall Street billionaire Bill Ackman. They have historically charged much higher fees than mutual funds, which are professionally managed funds that invest in stocks, bonds or money market instruments. Since hedge fund managers are nearly always paid a performance fee, or percentage of the gains they create, they have a strong incentive to make money for their investors. For the hedge fund managers to earn performance fees, their investors have to make money first. Hedge funds charge an expense ratio and a performance fee. The common fee structure is known as two and twenty – a 2% asset management fee and a 20% cut of generated gains. How did they become villains? While many Americans lost money during the depths of the financial crisis, some big-time investors did astonishingly well, including those who predicted and profited from the buildup and collapse of the housing and credit bubble in 2007 and 2008. For those Americans who had their livelihoods upended in the financial crisis, it left a bad taste in their mouths, experts say. “They’re associated with ruthless financial institutions that are out there to make money and not care where it’s coming from,” says Itay Goldstein, a professor of finance and economics at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. A big winner from that time is billionaire investor John Paulson, a hedge fund manager who netted $20 billion in profits when he bet against subprime mortgages at the peak of the credit bubble in 2007. In general, short sellers keep stock prices in check by voicing their opinion on where they believe a stock is valued, says Dennis Dick, head of markets structure and a proprietary trader at Bright Trading in Las Vegas. “I’m concerned with this public image that ‘evil short sellers are betting against America’ and that it’s ‘un-American to short stocks,’” Dick says. “It’s not like every short seller is making bets against America. They’re making calls on whether a stock is overvalued or not.” GameStop: Reddit ran a 5-second Super Bowl ad in honor of WallStreetBets, GameStop stock volatility The hedge fund industry has faced a rough stretch in recent years and underperformed the broader stock market but produced its best return in a decade at 11.6% in 2020, according to data provider Hedge Fund Research. Some received a boost from shares of technology firms and companies that focused on goods that people used when stuck at home during the pandemic. Americans who don’t invest directly in hedge funds still receive a benefit from the returns that hedge funds generate, according to Daniel Smith, a partner at ACA Compliance Group, an advisory firm for financial services. Of the $4.5 trillion in state and local pension plans, about 6.9% is allocated to hedge funds, according to data published by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. ”Hedge funds help secure the retirement of more than 26 million teachers, firefighters and other public employees by helping pensions navigate all market conditions and meet long-term financial obligations,” says Bryan Corbett, president and CEO at Managed Funds Association, a hedge fund lobby group. GameStop and questions of power The rollercoaster involving GameStop, Reddit and Robinhood has prompted Capitol Hill’s harshest criticisms of Wall Street in years. Several prominent lawmakers on Capitol Hill have warned of such moments, cautioning that companies and hedge funds have too much power. One of these lawmakers, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is well known for her disapproval of Wall Street, called on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to address the dramatic swings surrounding these companies. Warren wrote in a letter that it is “long beyond time for the SEC to act” and asked it to investigate the rallies in GameStop, AMC Entertainment and others that “have seen huge shifts in their share price driven by similar internet reading schemes.” "These wild fluctuations are just the latest indication that many private equity firms, hedge funds, and other investors, big and small, are treating the stock market like a casino, giving little consideration to the companies, communities, workers, and consumers that may be affected by these risky bets," she wrote. The House Financial Services Committee will hold a virtual hearing Feb. 18 regarding “recent market volatility” involving GameStop and the other companies. According to Politico, the CEO of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, is likely to testify. GameStop-Robinhood stock revolution: Not a secure retirement plan Does the movement have legs? Questions have been raised as to whether the populist movement threatening to disrupt the financial system will be sustained. It’s too early to tell, experts say. “It has the potential to gather momentum. It depends on whether we see other related episodes in the next few weeks that show the same kind of patterns in the financial markets," Goldstein says. "We live in a period of so many unusual things going on that it will probably take the edge off this event." Hedge funds such as Melvin Capital Management took the brunt of losses from soaring stock prices of GameStop and other heavily shorted stocks. Others made a ton of money on the rally, including Senvest Management, which had a profit of nearly $700 million, The Wall Street Journal reported. “Is it sticking it to Wall Street? Only temporarily, but in the long term probably not,” Goldstein says. “At the end of the day, the sophisticated financial institutions will find ways to recuperate and make money out of this.” Lo of MIT agrees. “This incident highlights the growing dissatisfaction, distrust and dislocation that many people feel with respect to the financial sector,” Lo says. “It suggests that people are sick and tired of being disenfranchised and being pushed around by large financial institutions.” Contributing: Savannah Behrmann

option trading service review - Option Alpha

This is a long review about Option Alpha. I tried to post this on Investimonials but that website was glitching so here it is on Reddit. I'm not riffing here on Option Alpha but trying to provide an unbiased review to the community. Hopefully this helps someone make a better decision before they part with their hard earned money.
A lot of people are getting into options, whether its theta gang or long directional option trading. My warning to everyone is that don't necessarily fall for option trading services/rooms specially when they don't list an accurate trade log and PnL account performance.
This review below here is more applicable to the Theta gang option traders/option sellers so if you are a option buyedirectional optional trader than this review won't apply to you.
Here is the TLDR - At the very best if you want very low single digit annual returns while taking huge risks and want to take the headache of making 100s of option trades, spend tons on trading commissions and subscription fees ($100 to $300 per month), waste time making option adjustments and then create a tax headache paying short term capital gains tax rates (your highest income tax bracket) on profits and filling out IRS forms at the end of the year then this is the service for you. Also the return on your time spent understanding option alpha and then implementing its strategies is negative.
Normally I would not write reviews unless I thought that subs were getting ripped off. Let me start of by saying that I don't think Kirk (the founder of Option Alpha) is running a scam per se, but he is basically bilking gullible subscribers who are very new to options trading and have been sold the dream about option selling as the ONLY proper way to make money in options.
This service is a total waste of time for the individual investor. The last few years the returns have been flat after all these trades (basically up a few % or down a few %). This is before accounting for option commissions, and taxes (selling options ie. premiums are always taxed as short term capital gains at your highest income tax rate so you get no benefit vs holding stocks or buying options over 1 year) and subscription fees. Accounting for all this basically makes this a negative return. In fact I think it is better to buy a balanced Vanguard index fund or VTI etf and just Dollar cost Average into that every month vs using this system. Atleast with VTI you can expect to make 6% over the long term. The simplest strategy which is to buy VTI etf will beat Option Alpha over the long term with fewer headaches and invested time and energy.
Let start of with the good stuff first. The option education videos are free, extremely well made so that even total beginners can understand option selling. Kirk is a gifted teacher and explains everything in simple language. If you are a complete beginner than these videos will help. Things I learnt that are useful - adjusting losing positions and how to beta hedge. However they don't get deep into the intricacies of options that professionals worry about.
The education is totally biased towards option selling strategies. They try to sell the Option Alpha system (where you are a net seller of options) to the subscriber as basically running a an insurance business or creating your personal casino where you make 100s of trades ever year to eke out a small premium for taking on the risk. They then go on to basically sells you the system as being better than buying and holding ETFs or stocks over the long run and - how option buying doesn't work 80% of the time and how buying and holding stocks is riskier than selling option premiums. This is all good in theory. But in practice it reminds me of this quote - "In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.". In reality, what they don't talk about is the fact that the success of option selling relies on harvesting variance premium in the option markets (historically around 3% or so). Unfortunately in recent years the variance premium has at times declined to negative levels. The sign for VRP can flip positive to negative for different underlyings and is not always positive every single month of the year. So making money with this system is basically entirely dependent on luck. Atleast the stock market tends to grow over the long term with earnings growth and GDP growth, but there is no guarantee that this will be the case with variance premiums which could be permanently arbitraged away by option sellers and brain dead option selling strategies such as Option Alpha. Option selling has to be done smartly or not at all.
The basic system is this:
Naively diversify by selling wide Iron butterflys/condors (this is the bread and butter trade about 80 to 90% of all trades) or credit spreads (about 10% to 20%) on these sector ETFs - SPY, TLT, XOP, XRT, EEM, OIH, FXI, XLP, XBI, GLD etc. Sell options about 30 to 45 days to expiration. I say naively because whenever markets crash everything goes down together so infact naive diversification is really di-worsification. Never have more than 5% of risk in any one ETF. They like to start out trades with a 1% to 2% risk per position and then scale in as adjustments are and will be needed. Good luck following this strategy if you have a small account as you will be taking greater risk. Then do this every single month or so without regard to broader macro conditions or IV levels or trend. Doesn't matter what EEM is doing or FXI is doing. Does Option Alpha look at price action, fundamental analysis, news flow, macroeconomics etc or anything else at the individual ETF level? No it doesn't appear they do. If and when positions move against you (which they regularly do) then waste time adjusting your positions and tracking credits to prove to yourself that you did make a tiny profit. They try to center the strikes as the underlying moves with adjustments and additional scaling in positions but honestly it doesn't work over the long term.
At the end of the year after 100s of trades (6 to 10 etfs x 4 (assume butterfly or condor) x 2 (opening and closing) x 10 (every 35 to 45 days) = assume 600 trades per year not including the adjustments and additional scale ins that will be needed), subscription fees (between $100 to $300 per month), broker commissions, pay short term capital gains and then waste additional time filling out dozens of pages of IRS forms with the 100s of option trades all to make a small single digit low annual return if lucky. The thing to understand is this, with option selling you generally risk $3 to $4 for every $1 of gains. So you can have 3 winning trades and then the 4th one will blow up profits. To counter this, they will show you how to make adjusting trades (only one side of the butterfly is underwater, so the whole position can be adjusted) or scale in so that strikes are centered around current underlying price. Even after adjusting which is not a guarantee of profits, the overall the results are just extremely lame. If you refuse to adjust positions it will be impossible to make any profit with this system. This is not to say other option selling strategies don't work (there are some that can work but they require a true edge) but its just that Option Alpha doesn't work. The free Theta gang on reddit or discord probably does a better job than OA.
As such there is nothing even remotely proprietary about Option Alpha. There is no edge. Because there is always a risk that all positions can simultaneously lose money in a crash as all assets trade downward, so Option Alpha advises that only use 40-50% of the account value for option selling and keep the rest as cash as a hedge against blowing the account up. Recently they advised having a 1% long VXX calls positions to hedge black swans/market crashes which I think is an improvement over the system of past few years.
I personally think that selling this system to gullible retail subscribers is extremely irresponsible. You can argue that option selling has a place within pension funds or other entities that have a lot of money who need yield income tax free and who have a proprietary system with an edge that can makes better risk adjusted profits but Option Alpha is basically gambling and praying for profits. If selling options is so good, how come I have not heard of a single Hedge fund that only does this with 100% of their capital? There were some crooks in Florida who blew up one fund that was selling energy options (you can look up Optionseller.com on google - website is defunct now). I'm not saying Option Alpha is pursuing similarly risky strategy since these are all defined risk trades and they do ask to hold 50% in cash. But it is conceivable that you can lose 100% of the amount you have put into selling options - that is the other 50% of the portfolio under a true black swan scenario. Maybe making adjustments etc will save the portfolio but its not really a guarantee. Btw the stock market can never goto zero. We can get another market crash and yes it could take a long time to recover but it can never goto zero (the businesses underlying these stocks have real value unlike options/derivatives). With stocks you have time to sell even with a 10% gap down overnight. Options will get blown up much faster.
This strategy is not at all the best way for the individual investor to invest. The only market where this system works is even Implied volatility is high ( so that you get extra compensation for selling time decay) and the market moves sideways. However in practice the market is either steadily marching higher and IV is low, or IV is so high (that you get a decent premium) but the market is rapidly moving in either direction so you will endlessly keep adjusting positions or keep taking losses. Options are complicated instruments and if you don't understand vol skew, statistics and probability, option greeks properly and can't backtest with good data than it is literally gambling and praying for profits. There is a real risk that naive option selling can blow up accounts. Option selling only makes sense in certain market regimes and only when done smartly. To tell retail traders that they should trade this way all the time for the rest of their life is extremely irresponsible.
Here is the thing. What I'm mad about is that Option Alpha has spent all this time very aggressively marketing this system and spent the last few years trying to develop an autotrading platform. It has been recently launched in Beta mode if you upgrade to lifetime membership for $2000-$2500. My hope is that the autotrading system will work and not blowup accounts due to software glitches like the Knight Capital software glitch fiasco in 2010.
I think they know these strategies don't work. The website claims that there have been 200k people who have signed up. I think at any given time they have 1000s of subscribers who come and go. If we assume 4000 subscribers per month at avg of $100 per month is $400k per month or $4.8 million per year. This is better than a lot of smaller hedgefund managers. For Kirk's own account, it appears that he trades a $300k portfolio, but his main source of income is selling Option Alpha subscriptions and doing real estate investing. How come his account is not millions of dollars now after almost a decade? But still around 300k? The simple reason is this doesn't work and instead he invests his income from Option Alpha subscriptions into other things/real estate investing etc.
The founder of OA has institutional experience trading and as such I would have expected him to focus on improving trading performance, creating new strategies, backtesting etc, interacting with members, rather than selling snake oil promises.
There isn't enough skin in the game. Option Alpha has forums where members can talk to each other and there are probably some legitimate strategies there (none are based on the Option Alpha) developed by members. But the OA founder has been completely AWOL last few years. Zero participation. Zero time trying to refine or improve his strategies on Option Alpha. They could have hired professional optional traders or even subscribed to institutional level stuff to help them out but no they have been focused entirely on making money. There are other free blogs and similar option newsletter services which also trade condors and butterflys which have shown much much superior results, however OA refuses to adapt their strategies or spend any time engaging with members. The focus has been on scaling the business and selling promises about the new autotrading system.
I think the founder has realized that this Option alpha is going nowhere and so has decided to pivot into autotrading. Gullible retail investors have been financing the build out of this service it seems.
Want another proof of what I'm saying? You can sign up for free membership and see the performance section. First the performance section does not tell you the performance from one year to the next. The only thing you can see is the meaningless numbers such as avg profit and loss on different option selling spreads and win rate. It is impossible to reconstruct PnL performance from these metrics. I think this is very misleading. Even Motley Fool shows their performance for their $100 per year newsletter. Almost any good newsletter and or trading/membership service shares performance/trade log for the past few years. If this is just about education then charge only for educational videos and don't have trade alerts and monthly membership/weekly elite calls etc.
Another note on some of the enhancements they up-sell on the website. The tools are almost totally useless. The backtester sucks. The scanner sucks. The forum is basically impossible to use properly.
The research reports (each priced at $400) are not worth the money.
Let me summarize the technical indicator report - use commonly used oscillators that everyone knows already at a medium term time-frame and buy at oversold condition and sell at overbought condition. I mean C'mon everyone already knows this. Does Option Alpha appear to use this research - nope!
The profit matrix report will tell you that there is no limited-loss option selling strategy that produces a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) above a low single digit return. Not a single one. This is not surprising since the variance premium per academic research is around 3 to 4%. Shouldn't this be disclosed to regular subscribers instead of asking them to pay another $400 bucks?
Covered calls research report - sell short dated deep OTM calls. Viola! There is no actionable information in these reports. These reports are a few years old and the information is not updated. The reasonable price for such reports should have been $20-$30 not $400.
You can even find REITs or dividend paying stocks that have a higher yield than than option alpha strategies.
In fact I'm not even confident if Option Alpha has used proper back testing methodology and not made mistakes. You will learn more spending this money on a proper backtesting website that professionals use. Even Seeking Alpha and Reddit have better options strategies articles for free. A lot of academic research is available for free. Tasty Trade has similar trade ideas for free. The bottom-line is that Kirk is not a skilled trader. And has made no effort to improve or adapt to the market environment the last few years. All effort has gone into growing the business and up-selling membership with very aggressive sales tactics. He is a master salesman so be careful. Its really the case of the blind leading the blind.
Just blindly sell options every month without any edge and charge big money for it without any real view about the direction of the underlying or IV.
Just to be clear I do not have unrealistic expectations from a newsletter service/system. If I'm subscribing to an expensive service than I expect that I should have a reasonable chance to make greater than 10% on my account annually. I'm not expecting 100% nor even 20% - just a reasonable 10% to 20%.
The best thing about OA is the free educational videos and the podcast. Use that and skip the paid services. Time will tell if the new autotrading pivot will work well and I would suggest waiting until it is proven to work.

The timeshare presentations in Nevada are gettimg out of hand...

“...and walk away with a trip to beautiful Las Vegas Nevada! Enjoy a complimentary 5 day 4 night stay at any MGM casino resort all on us! No nonsense, no gimmicks. Just a bit of your precious time! Call today!”
Yes. A vacation extravaganza all on the arm. Courtesy of the Hibou Timeshare Corporation. All it cost was your time and cooperation for a timeshare presentation. Simple enough yes? I wish I would have realized how much better a couple of overtimes would have served me, than taking myself to that horrid building.
I was living in Phoenix AZ with my parents. Still half way bullshitting my final semester at college. I’ve got to be honest, I was checked out. It was summer..I was going to graduate and I had these final two classes in the bag. I could have failed my finals and still walked out with a C. Yes but that kind of luxury came at a price. My social life was the casualty in all of this. While I did have a tight knit of pals, my attendance to social gatherings were...well..less than punctual. I was usually doing work for one of my advanced classes. If not that, then I was pulling a shift at either of my jobs. Yeah..you could say I gave up the glamour of late night pizzas, puking in my friends car and hooking up with a random ASU frat sluts for a heavier wallet...except I was paying everything out of my own pocket. My gas, insurance, cell, college. I wasn't exactly hiding cash in the walls. My parents worked hard but..never did make a living to give me and my siblings an extravagant lifestyle. We were grateful though.
So when I heard that AD of how I could get a long needed vacation to party central Las Vegas, all for watching some BS timeshare I knew I wasn’t going to buy into, you bet your ass off I made that call. The phone only rang once before I got an answer,
“Thank you for calling the Hibou Timeshare Corporation, how can we help you?” a voice rang through the phone. The voice sounded shrill and sickly.
“Hi, I'm calling about the vacation in Vegas? Says that you need people for a presen..”
“Yeessss.” the voice interrupted “The timeshare presentation, well...we would be so honored to have you”
“Uhh..yeah...anyway I’d like to sign up? Is there a form online or do you take the information here?” I said..now feeling a bit tense.
“Well I'll tell you what...pack your things for the vacation. When we are finished presenting..we can send you on our way to Vegas. We just need..a bit of your time.”
That was that. He gave me the address, date and time of the meeting. The area was in a place called Amargosa Valley in Nevada. Luckily it was just about an hour away from Vegas. Before we parted ways on the phone, the operator said something...he said something that should have been a MAJOR red flag.
“Okay then, you’re all set...we will see you July 28th at 4:30pm. Not a moment later” he laughed
“Oh..and..one more thing, if you have some more specimens like yourself that might be interested in the free vacation...bring them along. They’ll all receive the same prize and you will receive $100 cash for every person you bring. We look forward to presenting you, Austin. Good day.”
I never gave him my name.
Still, my young dumb brain didn’t hear anything past $100 dollars. So I rounded up a few of my best pals and we were set to meet the reps over at the timeshare. The days leading up to the trip I couldn't get a hold of myself. It was so exciting. My first real vacation in...i couldn't remember how long. I longed for this type of adventure with my friends. We packed a truck full and set off to Amargosa Valley.
I brought Luke, Larry and Adam. We’d been friends since the 3rd grade. We all moved to AZ from different parts of the country that summer, so being new kids we naturally ganged up together. Luke was from Texas..we called him Tex. Real big guy. Loved to work out but definitely was a bit of a boozebag. Larry was from Ohio. Quiet in public but probably the loudest of us all. Always had some political conspiracy to talk about. Then Adam..Adam was interesting. He was from Florida...or Georgia...or Nebraska. Adam never could keep it straight about where he was from. He always had some sort of story and backtrack about where he’d come from. I personally thought he was probably from another part of AZ and just wanted to fit in...so we humor him and let him be the nomad of our group. I myself was originally from California...things got pricey so we made the move to blistering AZ.
That was my crew. No matter how long it had been, we were always as tight as ever. The ride was filled with laughing and gags. Stops at fast food joints and all around bullshitting. Yes it was an amazing time just driving there, we couldn't wait to get on with the meeting and head down to Boozeville USA. As we approached our destination...something felt off. Amargosa Valley had been a bit of a ghost town the whole drive. A gas station here. A small outlet there...but otherwise unpopulated. When we hit our destination we were met by a Chrome building. Smack center in the middle of the highway. As we parked at the only stall..we all took a look at each other.
“Well this is...odd.” Luke said plainly.
“Yeah man...are we really going there?” Adam shook out. Barely containing his fear.
“Look guys, I know it looks weird. This place is really clean and bright in the middle of a dusty desert but c’mon. It's like what...an hour of our time? Within 2 hours we’ll be on our way to the dopest guys trip ever.” I said...selfishly.
The guys all agreed. We got out, locked the car up and walked in through the sliding glass doors. The cool air hit us like a wave. Each of us breathing in the refreshingly cold air. The inside of this lobby..was also immaculate. Chrome everywhere. Right down to the sofas and chairs. A woman came from around the front desk.
“You must be here to be presented. I see you brought more specimens! What a joy! Will you gentlemen please follow me?” She said.
Specimens. Ugh. Her tone. That word still makes me shutter.
Me and the boys looked at each other..all with the same should we do it look on our faces. Maybe it was the cold air enticing our sweaty brows. We’d been a poorly AC’D truck for a couple hours. Or maybe it was the ice cold drinks she presented in front of us. Whatever the case we followed her through a door behind the front desk and were met with a grand auditorium. It looked as if it could hold maybe 50 people. And all they had was me and my knucklehead friends. As we sat down, sucking down sodas and waters, a mans voice came over the intercom.
“Welcome my friends to the Hibou Timeshare Corporation presentation. Today you will be examining the lifetime of these vessels. Determine whether or not you think they are a smart investment and make a choice if you would like to partake!” I recognized the voice. It was the same shrill tone that I set up the appointment with.
“Now my dear friends, it's time to sit back with your favorite drink...and listen..”
With that, a large projector screen came down from the celine. An old timey countdown began winding down.
BEEP3...BEEP2...BEEP1
From what I can remember, I heard the screams of something...unnatural. A scream so high tone that I felt as if my ears would burst with blood. I tried clasping my hands over my ears but to no avail. The screams were too overpowering. As soon as it started, I passed out.
I awoke looking at the lights on the celine. Unable to sit up. I could tell I was bareass naked on a metal table. I moved my head, the little that i could to see Adam next to me on another table. Naked as the day we were born. He was encased in what looked like a light purple energy field. Looking more in depth, I too had this field in front of me. Before I could speak the tables raised up. Bringing me upright. Bringing me face to face with Tex. To the left of me..Larry. “My friends, I present to you: Terramite 99-0 specimens.” a voice rang out. The same voice from the auditorium.
“They are..of the male species. Strong. Cunning and above all loyal...if raised properly.”
“HEY, you bastards. WTF is this! LET US GO!” Tex cried out. Before he could continue, the energy field tightened around him. Tex let out a scream that will haunt me for the rest of my life. The smell of burned flesh and hair filled the area. I would have puked had the horror of seeing my best friend being burned alive wasn't keeping my attention away from the smell. When the field lifted, Tex was stripped down to the muscle fibers. Hair burned down to the scalp. Tex convulsed until he finally relaxed into a hanging position on the table.
“Now see..specimen is now sedated. Reduced to a weaker position. With the energy field keeping him contained and the Auto-Reversal Time Warp engaging, we can have this specimen back into working shape immediately.”
There was an electrical hum in the air. As before my eyes, Tex’s skin began to heal. His hair growing back. And all burns subsiding. It was as if nothing had happened to him. He still hung in limbo, but we could see the breath return to his chest.The rest of us let out bits of gasps of horror and astonishment.
I could see Adam crying a bit in the corner of my eyes.
A figure appeared from behind me. A tentacle graced my shoulder, not even phased by the force field. I caught sight of the creature. It stood around 7foot tall. Skin that looked human but a head that was elongated. No nose. And eyes that were black as coal. It had two tentacles for hands. I could not see its feet, as it was covered by a long gown.
Larry screamed in anger. “Your...your...a...a…” he managed to get out before the creature silenced him.
“Shhhh….I am...a salesman is all. Now my friends I will demonstrate the life cycle of the Terramite 99-0’s.”
With that, Larry's forcefield began to hum. Right before my eyes Larry began to get...smaller. Not in stature necessarily, no, but in age. He went from being a young man..to a teenager..to that kid i met in 3rd grade..to an infant. His cries were extremely loud. Unaware of the horrors around him. At that moment I could hear Adam's field begin to hum.
“Please no! Please!” Adam begged.
“If you will direct your attention to our third pod:”
Adam then began to scream as he went from a young man..to middle aged man...to retirement age and finally...to a decrepit old man. Hair as white as snow. Wrinkled beyond recognition. Each breath looking to nearly be his last.
“From birth to the declining ages of 70 and beyond the Auto-Reversal Time Warp pods are the perfect tool to use when training your armys, your children, your slaves. Imagine...never having to replace workers. Never worrying if your training methods or punishments might go too far. Never losing a prisoner to death. And though the Terramites look to be difficult to control, I can guarantee their cooperation once put through the proper training.” The creature said. Full of glee in his dead eyes.
Between the crying of baby larry and incoherent babbling of old man adam, the room felt like it was spinning. Just when I thought things couldn't get any stranger, the rest of the lights came to life. The room we were in were surrounded by seats, similar to the ones we sat in. However, sitting in these seats were ghastly creatures of different varieties. Some looked like the salesman creature. Others were ogreish. Large bodied creatures covered in a film of slime. Some of them even looked human. It was the eyes though...their eyes were a teal color with white pupils. Many many creatures looked up me and my friends. All of them began clapping their hands and cheering in unison. The claps were deafening. The cries of the baby felt as if a baseball bat was ramming my head. Adams babbling was terrifyingly disturbing. And Tex...hanging there. Eyes rolled back into his skull. I couldnt imagine the hell he began to feel. At this point I wondered what awaited my fate. The clapping stopped abruptly.
“Oh...Austin...yes, well if you want to know what fate awaits you just shut your eyes. Shut your eyes and quietly count back from 3.” the creature said...was he reading my mind?
Suddenly the urge to close my eyes overtook me. Almost as if I had no choice, I began counting down. 3….2….1….
Everything went black. I wasn't sure if i was alive or dead...or somewhere in between. I saw nothing but black for what felt like a lifetime. And in an instant...I heard that same shrill scream. Only this time I could not cover my ears. I couldn’t feel my body but I felt an unimaginable amount of pain. As the scream grew to its peak, I slammed my eyes open. Trying to catch my breath.
I was back in the car...we were all back in the car. The engine was on. Shitty ac blasting. The others were still out. I sat up in my seat. Not wanting to move too suddenly. The sun was beating down on us. I looked over at the time on the dash…July 28th 4:34 pm. I reached into my shirt pocket and I found several vouchers for the MGM hotels in Vegas along with $300 dollars. I also found a card that simply read “Hibou Timeshare Corp. would like to thank you for a bit of your time”
The boys came too. All feeling rather groggy.
“We all fell asleep huh?” Adam laughed. “We here?”
They didn't remember a thing. Not one thing. Not going in...not the reception area...not the freaky timeshare presentation...not one bit. I lied...i told them that while they were sound asleep, we arrived a little earlier than expected. The presenter had an emergency and left our vouchers at the front desk and apologized profusely.
“Wow, what a gentleman!” Tex laughed. “We definitely owe it to him to sit through another timeshare, probono.” Larry added.
I think it's safe to say that I will not be returning to this or any other timeshare. As I drove away I could see the building disappear in the rear view mirror.
So if you’re traveling deep within the southwest of the United States and hear an ad for a free vacation that's too good to be true...do yourself a favor..turn off the radio, call into work and ask for some overtime..because nothing is ever given for free.

Persistent Check Casher

Math and data to maximize scratchoff wins.

Here are the highlights from this week's installment of APOCALYPSE 2020.

*****. Virus Rates
Looks like the rates have been continuing to grow linearly for the last two weeks nationwide. Right now about 2500-4500 people are dying each day due to CV-19. That is roughly one 9/11 each day. Total US deaths exceed 35,000 and it is really not clear to me that we have reached the peak based on the CDC/ John's Hopkins data sets.
Total cases are at 700K and we are adding 100K every 3 days. That puts us on track to hit 1 Million cases before the end of the month.
Sweden has been running an interesting "herd effect" experiment where they have no shelter in place and everything is open. People, of course, are being cautious and wearing masks, but the comparison to Denmark and Finland (their next door neighbor) shows pretty well the comparison in approaches. Sweden has 1400 deaths compared to Denmark's 380 and Finland's 82.
Florida reopened their beaches last night and they look like normal. So, it looks like we are about to run the same experiment as Sweden. Should be interesting to see if we get a step function up in FL cases in 2 weeks or so. No clue what to expect.
I really do not have an opinion on what is the best approach right now. I am pretty sure that opening up Wyoming is VERY low risk, but it seems like opening up NY, SF, Houston, Boston, Miami, LA, etc may not end well.
*****. Economy Update (Not Stock Market)
We added 5.2 Million new Unemployment Claims this week. Everyone was celebrating that the number was lower than last week, but the problem was that the ancient COBOL systems were down for good Friday and so that only was 4 days of processing claims. So, the daily rate actually has continued to increase. We are running about 1 Million new claims per day. EVERY DAY. And that has no reason to abate. We are over 22 Million now and will likely be over 28 Million by the end of this week and over 34 Million by the end of April. I just read a Forbes article that makes a case that we are at 18% total unemployment. At the worst point in the Great Depression, we hit 24%. So, there is a good chance we will exceed the worst levels in American History.
30% of renters did not pay rent for March. Businesses are expected to stop paying rent on commercial property starting in 13 days on May 1. This will start putting a lot of pressure on the real estate sector and could lead to the first round commercial and consumer foreclosures and forbearance. June will probably be a bloodbath.
The PPP small business loans are fully depleted. Apparently of all the businesses that applied, only 3% were funded and now there is no more money. Interestingly, most hedge funds were able to secure forgivable PPP loans.
Only a small percentage of people got stimulus checks. I found out this week that foreign nationals that worked briefly in the US in 2019 got checks.
Airlines were bailed out this week and rewarded for overleveraging for the last 10 years to buy back stocks. 2/3 of the bail out is just a grant - free money. 20 Billion dollars.
Hedge Funds have been largely bailed out either through the Fed pumping the market back up or through direct bail outs. The direct bail outs for hedge funds are the equivalent of $12,000 per US citizen. This is a bail out for the top sliver of wealthy that were over exposed in hedge funds and now will be solvent while the rest of the country suffers.
There is talk of more legislation for more stimulus dollars. Early reports are that this round will get more resistance and will not pass as quickly, if ever.
The first bread lines are starting to emerge.
**** Stock Market Update There is only one real story here. The Fed is illegally buying stocks through brokers. They literally gave themselves permission to create unlimited money with no reserves and use this to buy stocks. Look at the last hour of trading on SPY on Friday. That is absolutely market manipulation.
So, at this point, the Nasdaq is only 15% down from all time highs. AMZN and NFLX hit all time highs this week. S&P and DOW are not far behind at 20% down. That is barely correction territory.
I see a lot of FOMO (fear of missing out) traffic online this week. People are going all in because they do not want to miss out on this historic V shaped recovery. I hear about people buying "YOLO" calls with their stimulus check while chanting the mantra "stocks only go up". For now, maybe they are right. Maybe the Fed keeps printing through the election to make sure we get another 4 years with Donny. I can't help but wonder if we can continue to flood the market with $30-50 Billion per day of stock purchases. And who owns all these stocks now?
I am sure as hell not ready to bet against the Fed, but I am also not willing to enter this completely manipulated casino.
So, all I am doing is daily swing trades. I make 2-3 trades per day after I see an index consolidation and then literally flip a coin, buy a 3X bear or bull index and quickly set a stop limit. If it goes the wrong way, I lose $50. If it goes right, some of these rallies or drops generate a quick $1000-2000 and then I am out. I am averaging about $1000 per day doing this and that's fine for now and something you can only do with big volatility like we have right now.
******** So Cantyoudobetter, What's Next ?
No one has a clue. I am taking my cues from Warren Buffet right now. He says: “Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful” I see a lot of people out there being short sighted and greedy. The temperature this week is:
The virus thing was a hoax or maybe almost over
The market is going to the moon
We will be back to normal very soon
Don't miss out
What I see is a nearsighted society that can only focus on one thing at a time. Everyone can only see the virus problem and think that once it is behind us, we are going to be bigger and better.
I can't see it. All I see is 28 Trillion of debt. Rich people getting bailed out for making risky bets. Small Business bankruptcies. Poorly run businesses getting rewarded for running their businesses poorly. Record unemployment that will not come back quickly. Consolidation of our economy into a few mega businesses.
I wonder what the unemployed masses will do in a few months when they realize all the money went to the rich and left the rest of society with a huge hole.
Anyhow. Sorry this is so negative. It seems like we should be happy that things are getting back to normal. I just don't see it.

The timeshare presentations in Nevada are getting out of control

“...and walk away with a trip to beautiful Las Vegas Nevada! Enjoy a complimentary 5 day 4 night stay at any MGM casino resort all on us! No nonsense, no gimmicks. Just a bit of your precious time! Call today!”
Yes. A vacation extravaganza all on the arm. Courtesy of the Hibou Timeshare Corporation. All it cost was your time and cooperation for a timeshare presentation. Simple enough yes? I wish I would have realized how much better a couple of overtimes would have served me, than taking myself to that horrid building.
I was living in Phoenix AZ with my parents. Still half way bullshitting my final semester at college. I’ve got to be honest, I was checked out. It was summer..I was going to graduate and I had these final two classes in the bag. I could have failed my finals and still walked out with a C. Yes but that kind of luxury came at a price. My social life was the casualty in all of this. While I did have a tight knit of pals, my attendance to social gatherings were...well..less than punctual. I was usually doing work for one of my advanced classes. If not that, then I was pulling a shift at either of my jobs. Yeah..you could say I gave up the glamour of late night pizzas, puking in my friends car and hooking up with a random ASU frat sluts for a heavier wallet...except I was paying everything out of my own pocket. My gas, insurance, cell, college. I wasn't exactly hiding cash in the walls. My parents worked hard but..never did make a living to give me and my siblings an extravagant lifestyle. We were grateful though.
So when I heard that AD of how I could get a long needed vacation to party central Las Vegas, all for watching some BS timeshare I knew I wasn’t going to buy into, you bet your ass off I made that call. The phone only rang once before I got an answer,
“Thank you for calling the Hibou Timeshare Corporation, how can we help you?” a voice rang through the phone. The voice sounded shrill and sickly.
“Hi, I'm calling about the vacation in Vegas? Says that you need people for a presen..”
“Yeessss.” the voice interrupted “The timeshare presentation, well...we would be so honored to have you”
“Uhh..yeah...anyway I’d like to sign up? Is there a form online or do you take the information here?” I said..now feeling a bit tense.
“Well I'll tell you what...pack your things for the vacation. When we are finished presenting..we can send you on our way to Vegas. We just need..a bit of your time.”
That was that. He gave me the address, date and time of the meeting. The area was in a place called Amargosa Valley in Nevada. Luckily it was just about an hour away from Vegas. Before we parted ways on the phone, the operator said something...he said something that should have been a MAJOR red flag.
“Okay then, you’re all set...we will see you July 28th at 4:30pm. Not a moment later” he laughed
“Oh..and..one more thing, if you have some more specimens like yourself that might be interested in the free vacation...bring them along. They’ll all receive the same prize and you will receive $100 cash for every person you bring. We look forward to presenting you, Austin. Good day.”
I never gave him my name.
Still, my young dumb brain didn’t hear anything past $100 dollars. So I rounded up a few of my best pals and we were set to meet the reps over at the timeshare. The days leading up to the trip I couldn't get a hold of myself. It was so exciting. My first real vacation in...i couldn't remember how long. I longed for this type of adventure with my friends. We packed a truck full and set off to Amargosa Valley.
I brought Luke, Larry and Adam. We’d been friends since the 3rd grade. We all moved to AZ from different parts of the country that summer, so being new kids we naturally ganged up together. Luke was from Texas..we called him Tex. Real big guy. Loved to work out but definitely was a bit of a boozebag. Larry was from Ohio. Quiet in public but probably the loudest of us all. Always had some political conspiracy to talk about. Then Adam..Adam was interesting. He was from Florida...or Georgia...or Nebraska. Adam never could keep it straight about where he was from. He always had some sort of story and backtrack about where he’d come from. I personally thought he was probably from another part of AZ and just wanted to fit in...so we humor him and let him be the nomad of our group. I myself was originally from California...things got pricey so we made the move to blistering AZ.
That was my crew. No matter how long it had been, we were always as tight as ever. The ride was filled with laughing and gags. Stops at fast food joints and all around bullshitting. Yes it was an amazing time just driving there, we couldn't wait to get on with the meeting and head down to Boozeville USA. As we approached our destination...something felt off. Amargosa Valley had been a bit of a ghost town the whole drive. A gas station here. A small outlet there...but otherwise unpopulated. When we hit our destination we were met by a Chrome building. Smack center in the middle of the highway. As we parked at the only stall..we all took a look at each other.
“Well this is...odd.” Luke said plainly.
“Yeah man...are we really going there?” Adam shook out. Barely containing his fear.
“Look guys, I know it looks weird. This place is really clean and bright in the middle of a dusty desert but c’mon. It's like what...an hour of our time? Within 2 hours we’ll be on our way to the dopest guys trip ever.” I said...selfishly.
The guys all agreed. We got out, locked the car up and walked in through the sliding glass doors. The cool air hit us like a wave. Each of us breathing in the refreshingly cold air. The inside of this lobby..was also immaculate. Chrome everywhere. Right down to the sofas and chairs. A woman came from around the front desk.
“You must be here to be presented. I see you brought more specimens! What a joy! Will you gentlemen please follow me?” She said.
Specimens. Ugh. Her tone. That word still makes me shutter.
Me and the boys looked at each other..all with the same should we do it look on our faces. Maybe it was the cold air enticing our sweaty brows. We’d been a poorly AC’D truck for a couple hours. Or maybe it was the ice cold drinks she presented in front of us. Whatever the case we followed her through a door behind the front desk and were met with a grand auditorium. It looked as if it could hold maybe 50 people. And all they had was me and my knucklehead friends. As we sat down, sucking down sodas and waters, a mans voice came over the intercom.
“Welcome my friends to the Hibou Timeshare Corporation presentation. Today you will be examining the lifetime of these vessels. Determine whether or not you think they are a smart investment and make a choice if you would like to partake!” I recognized the voice. It was the same shrill tone that I set up the appointment with.
“Now my dear friends, it's time to sit back with your favorite drink...and listen..”
With that, a large projector screen came down from the celine. An old timey countdown began winding down.
BEEP3...BEEP2...BEEP1
From what I can remember, I heard the screams of something...unnatural. A scream so high tone that I felt as if my ears would burst with blood. I tried clasping my hands over my ears but to no avail. The screams were too overpowering. As soon as it started, I passed out.
I awoke looking at the lights on the celine. Unable to sit up. I could tell I was bareass naked on a metal table. I moved my head, the little that i could to see Adam next to me on another table. Naked as the day we were born. He was encased in what looked like a light purple energy field. Looking more in depth, I too had this field in front of me. Before I could speak the tables raised up. Bringing me upright. Bringing me face to face with Tex. To the left of me..Larry. “My friends, I present to you: Terramite 99-0 specimens.” a voice rang out. The same voice from the auditorium.
“They are..of the male species. Strong. Cunning and above all loyal...if raised properly.”
“HEY, you bastards. WTF is this! LET US GO!” Tex cried out. Before he could continue, the energy field tightened around him. Tex let out a scream that will haunt me for the rest of my life. The smell of burned flesh and hair filled the area. I would have puked had the horror of seeing my best friend being burned alive wasn't keeping my attention away from the smell. When the field lifted, Tex was stripped down to the muscle fibers. Hair burned down to the scalp. Tex convulsed until he finally relaxed into a hanging position on the table.
“Now see..specimen is now sedated. Relaxed into a weaker position. With the energy field keeping him contained and the Auto-Reversal Time Warp engaging, we can have this specimen back into working shape immediately.”
There was an electrical hum in the air. As before my eyes, Tex’s skin began to heal. His hair growing back. And all burns subsiding. It was as if nothing had happened to him. He still hung in limbo, but we could see the breath return to his chest.The rest of us let out bits of gasps of horror and astonishment.
I could see Adam crying a bit in the corner of my eyes.
A figure appeared from behind me. A tentacle graced my shoulder, not even phased by the force field. I caught sight of the creature. It stood around 7foot tall. Skin that looked human but a head that was elongated. No nose. And eyes that were black as coal. It had two tentacles for hands. I could not see its feet, as it was covered by a long gown.
Larry screamed in anger. “Your...your...a...a…” he managed to get out before the creature silenced him.
“Shhhh….I am...a salesman is all. Now my friends I will demonstrate the life cycle of the Terramite 99-0’s.”
With that, Larry's forcefield began to hum. Right before my eyes Larry began to get...smaller. Not in stature necessarily, no, but in age. He went from being a young man..to a teenager..to that kid i met in 3rd grade..to an infant. His cries were extremely loud. Unaware of the horrors around him. At that moment I could hear Adam's field begin to hum.
“Please no! Please!” Adam begged.
“If you will direct your attention to our third pod:”
Adam then began to scream as he went from a young man..to middle aged man...to retirement age and finally...to a decrepit old man. Hair as white as snow. Wrinkled beyond recognition. Each breath looking to nearly be his last.
“From birth to the declining ages of 70 to 100 Terran years…the Auto-Reversal Time Warp pods are the perfect tool to use when training your armys, your children, your slaves. Imagine...never having to replace workers. Never worrying if your training methods or punishments might go too far. Never losing a prisoner to death.” The creature said. Full of glee in his dead eyes.
Between the crying of baby larry and incoherent babbling of old man adam, the room felt like it was spinning. Just when I thought things couldn't get any stranger, the rest of the lights came to life. The room we were in were surrounded by seats, similar to the ones we sat in. However, sitting in these seats were ghastly creatures of different varieties. Some looked like the salesman creature. Others were ogreish. Large bodied creatures covered in a film of slime. Some of them even looked human. It was the eyes though...their eyes were a teal color with white pupils. Many many creatures looked up me and my friends. All of them began clapping their hands in unison. The claps were deafening. The cries of the baby felt as if a baseball bat was connecting with my head every second. Adams babbling was terrifyingly disturbing. And Tex...hanging there. Eyes rolled back into his skull. I couldnt imagine the hell he began to feel. At this point I wondered what awaited my fate. The clapping stopped abruptly.
“Oh...Austin...yes, well if you want to know what fate awaits you just shut your eyes. Shut your eyes and quietly count back from 3.” the creature said...was he reading my mind?
Suddenly the urge to close my eyes overtook me. Almost as if I had no choice, I began counting down. 3….2….1….
Everything went black. I wasn't sure if i was alive or dead...or somewhere in between. I saw nothing but black for what felt like a lifetime. And in an instant...I heard that same shrill scream. Only this time I could not cover my ears. I couldn’t feel my body but I felt an unimaginable amount of pain. As the scream grew to its peak, I slammed my eyes open. Trying to catch my breath.
I was back in the car...we were all back in the car. The engine was on. Shitty ac blasting. The others were still out. I sat up in my seat. Not wanting to move too suddenly. The sun was beating down on us. I looked over at the time on the dash…July 28th 4:34 pm. I reached into my shirt pocket and I found several vouchers for the MGM hotels in Vegas along with $300 dollars. I also found a card that simply read “Hibou Timeshare Corp. would like to thank you for a bit of your time”
The boys came too. All feeling rather groggy.
“We all fell asleep huh?” Adam laughed. “We here?”
They didn't remember a thing. Not one thing. Not going in...not the reception area...not the freaky timeshare presentation...not one bit. I lied...i told them that while they were sound asleep, we arrived a little earlier than expected. The presenter had an emergency and left our vouchers at the front desk and apologized profusely.
“Wow, what a gentleman!” Tex laughed. “We definitely owe it to him to sit through another timeshare, probono.” Larry added.
I think it's safe to say that I will not be returning to this or any other timeshare. As I drove away I could see the building disappear in the rear view mirror.
So if you’re traveling deep within the southwest of the United States and hear an ad for a free vacation that's too good to be true...do yourself a favor..turn off the radio, call into work and ask for some overtime..because nothing is ever given for free.

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Feb. 8, 1988

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
• PREVIOUS •
1987
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82


1-4-1988	1-11-1988	1-18-1988	1-25-1988
2-1-1988	•	•	•

The wrestling war is, for all intents and purposes, over. The war between the territories, the ongoing collapse of the territory system, and Vince McMahon’s rise is certainly the biggest story in decades, and at this point the war is over and Vince McMahon has won. Sure, the fighting is still ongoing, but even if JCP can recover from their troubles, the gap between them and WWF is there and it’s just going to keep widening.
The biggest story of the week is that WWF has announced its ppv schedule for the next year. March 27 (Wrestlemania IV), August 29, November 24 (Survivor Series), and January 15 (Royal Rumble). Four ppvs doesn’t look like a big deal, just capitalization on the market trend. But it’s going to have a major effect on Crockett. Crockett had been planning ppv shows in early April (Crockett Cup), July (Great American Bash), and November 24 (Starrcade). With WWF’s new calendar and the exclusivity clause in their ppv deals requiring no competing wrestling ppv events 60 days before and 21 days after their shows and the success of Survivor Series and Wrestlemania IV (presumed for that one - Dave expects Wrestlemania IV to be the biggest grossing ppv ever to this point), WWF is putting the squeeze to Crockett. And in doing so, they’re killing any chance Crockett can compete and break into the ppv market. Long-term, ppv is going to mean live gates will be completely insignificant (like it already is in boxing - and hey, in 2020 we have seen the prophecy fulfilled). Because of ppv, Dave expects Wrestlemania IV to gross as much as every other American promotion will gross for the entirety of 1988, combined. Hence why the gap is wide and will only get wider, and JCP will never catch up. JCP’s going to try to counter, and the apparent move will be to shift those events to prime-time WTBS live (or very recently filmed, like a Saturday Night’s Main Event) specials all built as major cards. Starrcade probably will not be among those, Dave figures this will help.
WWF’s Royal Rumble came out the clear winner against the Bunkhouse Stampede Finals. The Rumble drew an 8.2 rating and was seen in 3.2 million homes, which is twice as many people as when Georgia Championship Wrestling’s show on WTBS was big several years ago when this wrestling war was getting started. It’s the highest rated show in the history of the USA network, and the encore broadcast on Monday drew a 4.8 rating (a regular episode of Prime Time Wrestling in that time slot usually draws a 2.9). All this means that the repeat showing of the Rumble was probably the second highest rated show on cable during the last week.
PPV numbers take longer to get, but it’s possible to make some sense of preliminary reports for the Bunkhouse Finals. The show was likely profitable, purely in terms of money, but the reaction was strongly negative. Early reports estimate the buyrate at 4%, which tells us that if given a fair shot at ppv, Crocket could be profitable with a ppv line up. That’s also encouraging for Crockett, since the card wasn’t strong and the show didn’t have the best heat, but those things may be moot now that WWF has a full year’s schedule set up. Big props to the JCP broadcast team for how well they sold the ppv in advance, because ppv and closed-circuit purchases are majority (90%) last minute, as opposed to house show tickets which are typically bought well in advance.
Wrestlemania IV is expected to sell out by the time this issue hits you. Yeah, Dave. By 32 years now. Anyway, about 14,000 seats went on sale to the general public on Saturday and all but a few thousand were sold by the end of the day. The highest price was $150. It’s funny to Dave that despite the crowd discrepancy, WWF may make as much off 14,000 tickets for Mania IV as they did selling 90,000 for Mania III (The April 3, 2000 issue is the earliest I can find for when Dave revised his view of the numbers for Wrestlemania 3). Anyway, the Convention Center is home to Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, and Donald Trump is using Wrestlemania as the centerpiece of a weekend-long event designed to attract vacation families to his casinos, including a Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine concert in the adjacent Convention Center ballroom. So I guess we can put Donald Trump down as the innovator of Wrestlemania weekend. WWF claims Wrestlemania will be available in up to 9 million homes on ppv, and if the show gets a similar buyrate to last year’s then we’re talking around $15 million on ppv, $1 million live, and probably $4-5 million at closed-circuit.

Watch: Dave Meltzer talks about Bresloff telling him 78,000

The employment status of the Rock & Roll Express, Michael Hayes, and Steve Williams with JCP has significantly cleared up. The Rock & Roll Express were fired at the Bunkhouse Finals. On January 23, they were asked to do a clean job to Warlord and Ivan Koloff in 12 minutes. Koloff’s been a low card guy recently, and they have been main guys for years, so instead they did the job in 12 seconds (Ricky Morton laid down and let Warlord pin him). Then they flew to New York for the finals, and Dusty learned what happened (he was not at the show on the 23rd) and fired them on the spot. They could be heading anywhere, though WWF is doubtful due to their size. Michael Hayes was fired last week following an incident. He was teaming with Jimmy Garvin and feuding with Ric Flair on the most recent tour; those spots have been taken by Ron Garvin and Sting, the latter of whom is having an accelerated push as a result. Hayes is expected back at World Class, though he did send a resume to WWF. As for Steve Williams, he stayed an extra week in Japan and missed the Stampede. He’s in a contract dispute with Crockett over whether the money he makes in Japan counts against his guaranteed minimum pay from Crockett (Crockett says yes, Williams says no, you’re not paying it so it doesn’t count toward the minimum you are paying him - corporations are not your friends). Williams has disconnected his phone and is out of communication.
Cable ratings for wrestling in the fourth quarter of 1987 dropped from the the third quarter. The World Championship Wrestling show dropped from second to eighth overall, and WWF’s All-American Wrestling surpassed it at seventh. Prime Time Wrestling, formerly ranked third, fell to tenth, while the Sunday WTBS show dropped from tenth to twentieth. AWA on ESPN dropped out of the top 20 (it was number 19 in the third quarter). Some of the drop probably comes from the change in how ratings are gathered (enter the Nielsen box, or “people-meter” as it’s known at this point). There’s controversy about this whole way of gathering ratings, as detractors believe that the boxes ensure shows that appeal to women will receive higher ratings than they would get otherwise. Regardless, wrestling shows across the board dropped about 10% in the ratings in the fourth quarter.
New Japan’s “Martial Arts Olympic” event in the Tokyo Dome has some hoping it will surpass Wrestlemania 3 for biggest live gate ever. They’ve sold tickets at as much as $220 for ringside and sold out those events, so there’s a chance they could if they price right and sell out. Dave’s been told that Inoki vs. Koji Kitao has the potential to double the gate of Inoki’s matches with Leon Spinks and Masa Saito (each over $700,000). If they can get Taue, that’s probably the best opponent they can get for Inoki to ensure a big draw. I think last week he may have written All Japan, but he's very clear this is an Inoki idea this week.
Speaking of Inoki, New Japan recently did a tour in Italy. The big show was January 24 in Rome and drew 8,000 fans. New Japan actually airs on tv in Italy, and Inoki was the big draw, and he pinned Badnews Allen in the main event. Shane Douglas won a battle royal on the show too. These are the first “western-style” pro wrestling matches in Italy since WWF did a show in Milan back in October.
Jake Roberts was on Ellery Queen mystery magazine’s cover this month, and Muscular Development did a cover story on Jesse Ventura. The Ventura article is excellent, but mostly about his life and training regimen, and not to do with wrestling.

Jake Roberts on the cover of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

Genichiro Tenryu won all the major awards in Japan. Tokyo Sports named in MVP of wrestling, and Gong Magazine and Weekly Pro Wrestling gave him the equivalent. He beat Riki Choshu in Gong’s annual popularity poll as the most popular Japanese wrestler (Maeda came in second, so pressure there for New Japan to bring him back). Chigusa Nagayo placed 9th, the first time a woman has cracked the top ten of Gong’s poll.
Dave went to the WWF show at the Cow Palace on January 30. It’s his first live show since Japan, and the show drew pretty well, but not as well as you’d expect from a show with a battle royal in the area. The big news of the show were four no-shows: the British Bulldogs (Dave’s heard one of them collapsed at the airport and the other went to the hospital with him), Billy Jack Haynes (his health’s really bad and he’s missed a lot of bookings lately and folks are speculating his career is done), and Bam Bam Bigelow (scheduled to face Ted DiBiase, but he had knee surgery so no clue when he’ll be back). Due to the no-shows, the athletic commission ordered WWF to offer refunds to anyone who wanted them before the end of the second match. He runs down the card: Ron Bass pinned JYD, Ultimate Warrior pinned Harley Race. Warrior’s over big, but still sucks. Ted DiBiase beat George Steele by DQ and Dave alludes to last week’s decision to no longer call matches “abortions” and says “The only word to describe this match is one that has been banned from my vocabulary.” Don Muraco pinned Butch Reed in an okay match. The Jumping Bomb Angels beat the Glamour Girls to retain their tag titles in the only good match on the card (Dave gives it three stars). Noriyo Tateno pinned one of the Girls, Dave doesn’t identify her, saying “you know how it is with those people, they all look alike to me,” which is a pretty solid skewering of people who say that about the Angels and other Asian wrestlers, imo. Ted DiBiase won the bunkhouse battle royal to moderate heat. Hercules pinned Hillbilly Jim. Jim Duggan and Ken Patera beat Demolition and Mr. Fuji by pinning Fuji. Jake Roberts and One Man Gang went to a double countout.
By the way, the California state assembly voted 60-7 to reclassify pro wrestling as entertainment and not a sport. So that means once the bill passes the state senate, athletic commissions will have no power over pro wrestling in California, and wrestlers will not need wrestling licenses to work in the state (which was already a joke of a requirement - Dave got a print-out once of all 60 wrestlers licensed in California and major guys like Hogan and Steamboat weren’t on the list).
The lineup for AWA’s February 4 show, the last at the Minneapolis Auditorium before it’s demolished, has been announced. Curt Hennig defends the AWA Title against Greg Gagne in a cage match. The Midnight Rockers defend the tag titles against a mystery team (the latest announcement was Nick Kiniski and Kevin Kelly, but Kiniski was let go this week and they’re building to a face turn for Kelly). The rest of the card has Dick the Bruiser vs. Adnan al-Kaissey, Billy Robinson vs. Tom Zenk (particularly interesting since Robinson is in for a one-off but has a reputation as a shooter, as well as competing against Verne as a promoter sometimes, so there’s a chance he may go into business for himself), Wahoo McDaniel and Baron Von Raschke vs. The Nasty Boys, and Billy Jack Strong vs. Soldat Ustinov.
Adrian Adonis broke his ankle at the AWA tv tapings in Minot, North Dakota.He was getting whipped into the turnbuckle and stepped into a hole in the ring. He won’t be back for at least two months. Adonis has about 4 months left before he dies.
AWA released a song called “Superstars of the AWA.” Jerry Lawler and Jeff Jarrett were in it due to the increased swapping of talent between Memphis and AWA. I could not find the song.
Something Dave forgot to mention about the WWF battle royal in San Francisco. Technically there were 19 guys, but only 18 actually worked the match. George Steele came out about a minute late, walked around the ring for a few minutes without getting inside, and then just walked to the back with JYD when JYD was eliminated (JYD was the second out of the match). Dave guesses at George’s age he didn’t want to take the bump or something. Dave recalls a story he heard about an unnamed WWF “neanderthal character” who stalled outside the ring for a complete match, and when one fan yelled to “Get in the ring, you lazy bum” he retorted (despite his character not being able to speak English): “What do you think this is, the NWA?”
WWF Superstars tapings were held on January 26 in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Barry Horowitz and Steve Lombardi beat Lanny Poffo and Scott Casey, which set up the main event for the second hour of the taping where the Killer Bees beat Horowitz and Lombardi. Rick Rude and Ricky Steamboat had a match that ended in a big brawl that got Hercules, Harley Race, Jim Duggan, and Ultimate Warrior involved. The main event of the live show was not taped for tv, but had Hogan and Bigelow going over Andre and DiBiase (Hogan pinned DiBiase). Andre’s contribution to the match was one minute (of nine total for the match) in the ring, and a body slam to Hogan before almost collapsing. Commentary for this taping was not done live, but rather will be done in post-production due to the fact that they’re waiting for The Main Event first, since these will all air after that sets up the angles.
Dave hears that the decision on what to do with Hogan/Andre at The Main Event will be decided this week once his filming schedule is determined. If he’s available for weekends, he’ll stay champion through the summer. If not, then a title change will happen and DiBiase is the likely beneficiary.
[Stampede] Badnews Allen and Jason the Terrible were fined $200 and $300, respectively, by Calgary City Hall. This is in relation to their brawl in the audience on December 18 that led to a woman in the audience suffering a concussion.
Oregon will be holding a special show on February 16 as a Frank Bonema Memorial show. Bonema was the tv announcer from Portland who passed away in 1982 or 1983. They haven’t announced any matches yet, but Curt Hennig is supposed to defend the AWA Title against their Northwest Title holder at the time, and there are plans for a tag title match, a strap match, and a cage match.
The February 12 card will be the last card by Continental in Knoxville before Ron Fuller’s new promotion takes over the area from them. The situation with Alabama’s territory continues to confuse me.
Nobuhiko Takada beat Owen Hart on January 13 in one of the highlights of New Japan’s jr. heavyweight tournament. As of January 26, here’s the status of the tournament: Koshinaka leads with 34 points (7-1 record), Takada has 31 points (6-1-1 record), Hart at 29 points (6-2 record), Hase also has 29 points. Yamazaki has 24 points (5-2 record), and Yamada is 4-2-1 with 21 points. Kobayashi has 24 (5-1), Saito at 19 (4-4), and everyone else is negligible at the moment. The finals will be on February 7.
All Japan is pushing a big show for March 9 featuring Hansen vs. Tenryu. That will be a double title match, as Tenryu puts up the United National Title against Hansen’s PWF Title (Dave expects a double countout. Other matches will include Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Mask II, Baba and Wajima vs. Kimura and Tsurumi, and others.
Giant Baba’s been negotiating with the Funks and David Manning about getting All Japan on tv in the U.S. All part of his angling to help the promotions outside the NWA and WWF against the juggernauts.
AJW is building a big match for February 25, Dump Matsumoto’s retirement show. Dump and Yukari Omori (also retiring that night) will face the Crush Gals in a tag match. Also on the card will be a battle royal and Yumiko Hotta/Mitsuko Nishiwaki vs. Bull Nakano/Condor Saito for the vacant tag team titles.
AJW’s annual rookie auditions took place on January 17 in Tokyo. 1500 girls showed up, and seven were picked based on their performance in various athletic and endurance drills. Dave says this is one of the main reasons it’s ridiculous to attempt to compare joshi wrestling to any American promotion. Only the top half a percent in terms of athletic ability are chosen for training in the first place, and then “they train them like spartans from the age of 15-17 and by the time they are around 22, if they’ve even survived, they are better workers than virtually all the men.” And with the retirement age of 26, nobody stays on so long they feel stale. Then again, that level of training sounds kind of easy to become mega abusive from a 2020 standpoint.
Lots of rumor that NWA’s recent firings aren’t due to discipline issues but due to the company having financial issues. That’s the story those being fired have given. Michael Hayes in particular claims that he and Crockett agreed to a two year deal for $150k per year, but Crockett never signed it and when he pressured Crockett to sign (he wasn’t making money with the contract unsigned), and so he got fired for missing the January 23 show in Cincinnati. Even as Crockett’s financial issues become more and more apparent, they do seem to be recovering at the gate a little.
Unlike WWF, NWA’s weightlifting competition used legit weights. All four guys did 460 pound bench presses easy, then Paul Ellering called to move the bar to 600. Animal failed first, and they threw chalk in his eyes and he bled and was “taken to the hospital” and the whole thing came across well.
The road to Barry Windham joining the Horsemen (not that Dave suspects anything yet) continues as he and Luger are being pushed as a tag team. Meanwhile, Flair and Sting are set to feud.
Dave once again clarifies about Hawk’s line (because apparently he’s still saying it). It’s Neo Maxi Zoom Dweebies, not Neo Nazi Zoom Dweebies.
Crockett referee Jeff Goldberg writes in to correct the record on something. In the January 18 issue, a reader wrote in about the December 26 show in Philadelphia and said it looked like the referee screwed up the finish. Goldberg says he acted as instructed, and Flair would not have congratulated him later on if he had screwed up. He also says readers often blame referees for screwing up finishes, but that’s usually the wrestlers who screw up (or the finish is in fact supposed to look screwed up). Referees can be green just like wrestlers, but he’s proud not to be one of them.
Another reader tells us that his cable company had Bunkhouse Stampede, but Crockett did a LOLNWA. Crockett announced that Sammons cable would have the show on January 23 (day before the ppv). Except they didn’t air the announcement until 2 pm that day, had given no announcement ahead of that time, and Sammons closed their company office for the weekend at noon on the 23rd.
The longest letter this week is all about how Bret Hart deserves a bigger push. Brief version: Vince is making a big mistake by not pushing Bret as a singles star. Even the casual fans buy into him. He’s got promo ability, the ability to make a bad wrestler look good (very important in WWF), and he’d make a great opponent for Randy Savage after an Intercontinental Title change. Give it a few years, Jeff. You’ll get your wish and then some.
Crockett’s apparently going to keep two offices open. The Dallas office will be for tv production, and the Charlotte office will remain as the base for talent.
Mike Rotunda won the NWA TV Title from Nikita Koloff on January 26, then gave the Florida Title to Rick Steiner. Interestingly, Dusty did a promo referencing the Hogan/Andre/DiBiase title situation and said that in the NWA you can’t buy a title. Well, Dave points out, DiBiase offered $1 million to Hogan for the title, so that seems to be the going rate for the WWF championship for a year. Meanwhile, Rick Steiner got the Florida Title for free, which pretty accurately reflects the worth of that title.
World Class drew a crowd of 80 in Houston on January 26. No, you didn’t read that number wrong.

THURSDAY: Hogan drops the WWF Title (really the only big story next week)

Wrestling Observer Rewind ★ Mar. 4, 2002

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
PREVIOUSLY:


1-7-2002	1-14-2002	1-21-2002	1-28-2002
2-4-2002	2-11-2002	2-18-2002	2-25-2002

NOTE: I mentioned it in the first post of 2002 but a lot of y'all are aware that a few months ago, SaintRidley picked up the Observer Rewind reins after I stopped and started doing his own recaps from the 1980s. Well, he's been doing great work with it and he just finished posting the year of 1987. I went ahead and added it the Previously" section up there. ↑↑↑ Just wanted to make sure to bring it to everyone's attention.

It's been awhile since we've had major PPVs going head-to-head with each other, but it happened this week when WWA aired it's 2nd ever PPV live from Las Vegas, going head-to-head with PRIDE. Dave recaps the history of head-to-head PPV battles, specifically the WWF vs. Crockett war in the late-80s. How Vince McMahon created Survivor Series specifically to run it in direct competition with Crockett's first ever PPV, Starrcade 87. The resulting loss of needed revenue was a huge reason why Crockett eventually had to sell the company to Ted Turner and, in retrospect, set into motion everything that led to WCW's eventual death last year. He goes on to recap how Royal Rumble was created and aired on free TV to go head-to-head with Crockett's next PPV attempt, Bunkhouse Stampede. Then Crockett responded by creating the first Clash of the Champions and airing it against Wrestlemania IV. Not sure PRIDE vs. WWA is up there in the same league as that PPV battle. Which, to be fair, Dave admits it's not the same thing.
Anyway, the PRIDE show was among the greatest events of all time, one of the very few times in the history of the Observer that a show got a unanimous 100% thumbs up vote on the reader poll. It aired in Japan live and in the U.S. on a bit of a delay, with the matches edited in a different order. In Japan, the card was headlined by Vanderlei Silva vs. former UWFI wrestler Kiyoshi Tamura, which was an excellent fight that Silva won. In the U.S., the show was built around Ken Shamrock vs. Don Frye in the main event (in Japan, it aired 3rd from last) and the 2 men had an absolute war that should shut up critics who say both are too old. Shamrock lost a split-decision in a fight that Dave thinks should have legitimately been a draw. (This fight is considered to this day one of the all-time wars in MMA history. An utter slobberknocker. Neither fighter was the same again afterward and Frye has said that the damage Shamrock did to his legs in this fight led to him later getting addicted to painkillers). After the fight, Shamrock went over to ringside and hugged his girlfriend Alicia Webb, who you may remember as Ryan Shamrock. The girl that played his sister in WWF.

WATCH: Don Frye vs. Ken Shamrock - PRIDE 19: Bad Blood (2002)

And then there was WWA. A low-budget, amateur-ish event, marred by bad production and no-shows. Not that the crowd would even know, because most of the lineup was never even announced ahead of time anyway. The scheduled main event of Jeff Jarrett vs. Randy Savage didn't happen because Savage held promoter Andrew McManus up for more money at the last minute. Savage originally had agreed to work the show in exchange for a 30% ownership stake in the company, which was agreed upon. But three days before the show, Savage upped the ante, saying he wanted the 30%, plus an extra $50,000 in cash. At that point, they started haggling back and forth to try to strike some kind of deal. Ownership got pulled off the table and then Savage asked for a flat $250,000 fee to work the show. WWA turned that down and came back with a flat $150,000 offer instead. Savage turned that down and at that point, everything broke down. For what it's worth, a lot of the lower card wrestlers on the show worked for $300. Last second attempts to bring in Sting to save the show didn't work either. Road Dogg was also supposed to appear on the show but couldn't because of legal issues. Word is he got arrested 2 days before the show in Florida on a probation violation. As a result, the PPV was headlined by Jeff Jarrett defending the WWA championship against Brian Christopher.
The whole show was simply an embarrassment. The production was completely minor league and the crowd was totally dead for all these long matches with guys nobody cares about. The in-ring work was fine, but the booking often made no sense, with overbooked three-ways and 6-way undercard matches that ended up being more clusterfuck than match. It was also one of those Russo-type things where the commentary team made endless inside-references that only the hardcore internet fans would get. But then again, this show only drew hardcore internet fans anyway, so why not? They also constantly made reference to WWF, which came across as desperate and sad. In particular, Larry Zbyszko was given the chance to cut a meandering promo, challenging Vince McMahon to a fight over some unspecified grievance from 20 years ago and criticized them for having Chris Jericho as their world champion. Dave thinks Zbyszko was actually angling for a job from WWF by trying to start his own angle and says this promo was basically his job application. And he thinks it was pretty pathetic. Backstage, the disorganization was apparent and most even within the company saw what a mess it was and have already given up on the promotion as a lost cause. Dave said this PPV made it clear that nobody will be challenging WWF anytime soon.
Other notes from the WWA Revolution PPV: yes, in case you're wondering, that Japanese man sitting behind the commentary table all night who very briefly (literally blink and miss it) got involved in the Scott SteineDisco Inferno tussle was indeed NJPW star Hiroyoshi Tenzan and yes, they flew him all the way from Japan (and had him bring his ring gear just in case), only to have him do almost nothing and never be acknowledged on camera. Eric Bischoff was backstage, as a guest of Ernest Miller. Bischoff laughed off any questions about going to WWF but said the ol' "never say never" shtick. The crowd was about 2,800, most of them freebies and they were desperately giving away tickets in the casino before the show. During the first match, the building looked practically empty so they quietly began moving everyone closer to ringside to pack the area around the ring to make it look presentable for TV. Opening 6-way match featuring all the hottest indie stars was a sloppy mess, with too people flying everywhere trying to get their shit in and the cameras missing most of it. Bret Hart came out and cut a long, rambling promo before announcing Brian Christopher was replacing Randy Savage in the main event, to zero crowd response. By the 5th match, people in the crowd could be seen leaving, never to return. Jerry Lynn showed up, interrupting an Eddie Guerrero interview, at which point Dave mentions, oh yeah by the way, the WWF released Jerry Lynn 2 days before the PPV. Considering WWF has been talking about reviving the cruiserweight division after Wrestlemania, Dave doesn't know why they'd get rid of a guy who could be one of the best in the division. Anyway, yeah, this show sucked. Here ya go, enjoy.

WATCH: WWA: The Revolution PPV - 2002

WWF's latest investor conference call took place and wasn't particularly newsworthy, but there's some stuff to note. The new agreement with DirecTV is until August of 2003 and is under the exact same terms they were operating under last year, which means WWF gained nothing while losing an estimated $4.4 million in revenue over the last few PPVs. Following the brand split, WWF plans to run 16 PPVs per year, and increasing the price by an extra $5. Linda McMahon said Wrestlemania 18 has sold 58,000 tickets as of the time of the call, for a record gate of $3.96 million, breaking the record set by last year's WM. Dave goes through all the numbers and for the most part, in comparison to previous quarters, almost everything is down. Which is no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention because WWF is clearly on the downswing. Linda also said they're currently interviewing new writers and are hoping to double their writing staff, which Dave thinks is a terrible idea (and time has damn sure proven him correct). Finally, Linda was also asked how the purchase of the WCW library has benefited the company, which Dave thinks is an interesting question since revenues have declined since then and the Invasion angle flopped so hard that it killed any brand value the name "WCW" may have had. Linda talked about the value of the tape library but Dave points out that it's been a year and WWF has done practically nothing with that library (of course, in the end, they found ways to monetize that WCW library and it more than paid for itself).
In his first match as an official member of the AJPW roster, Keiji Muto lost the Triple Crown championship to Toshiaki Kawada in a match nearly a year in the making, before a sold out crowd at Budokan Hall. He hasn't seen it yet, but the match was reported to Dave as a near-classic (he ends up giving it 4.5 stars). The other 2 NJPW stars who jumped ship, Kendo Kashin and Satoshi Kojima, also worked their first official AJPW matches. Kaz Hayashi, formerly a member of Jung Dragons in WCW and who worked in WWF's developmental until asking for his release a few weeks ago, also debuted on the show and will be part of Muto's faction.

WATCH: Keiji Muto vs. Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW 2-24-2002

Obituary time for Swede Hanson, who worked primarily in the Carolinas and had a brief run in the WWF as a cult favorite babyface in the early 80s. Sadly, he passed away in a mental hospital because he had advanced Alzheimer's disease which made it impossible for his family to handle him and they had him put away. Jeez, that's rough. He also had a litany of other health problems. Dave gives an in-depth history of his career in the 60s and 70s as a heel in the Carolinas before talking about the WWF run. Vince Sr. brought him in as a monster heel to challenge Bob Backlund, and Dave thinks someone else must have backed out at the last moment or something. By this time (in 1979), Hanson was well past his prime and hadn't been a major star anywhere in years but he was a big dude and so they brought him in to face Backlund and they actually sold out Madison Square Garden with Backlund vs. Hanson in the main event (though Dave says Bruno Sammartino working the undercard sure didn't hurt). The match sucked and almost immediately after, he became a jobber in the WWF, but Vince Jr, on commentary, just loved to call him "Rawboned Swede Hanson" and the "Rawboned" nickname caught on. Vince said it with such gusto that Hanson briefly became a cult favorite jobber from it and the crowd turned him babyface at damn near 50 years old. It led to a brief career resurgence and him having a small role in the Backlund/Billy Graham feud for the title before he finally faded into oblivion.
Mark Henry won the "world's strongest man" competition at the Arnold Classic bodybuilding and fitness event. Henry has been out of WWF for the past 2 months training for this competition and the training paid off, with Henry capturing first place and making a legitimate viable claim to his "strongest man in the world" moniker. During the event, Henry became the first man in 50 years to cleanly press the 366 pound Apollon wheel weight above his head. In another event, he carried an 800 pound block of bolted together railroad ties up a 40-foot ramp faster than the other competitors. For his victory, Henry won a $75,000 Humvee and some other cash prizes. Over the same weekend, he also won another $1,000 in a contest where he was able to lift an inch dumbbell (which weighs 172 pounds) to his shoulder with one arm. There's a bunch of other weightlifting stuff here, but you might be surprised to find out....I dunno shit about any of this. I got winded lifting pizza to my mouth earlier. Mark Henry strong.

WATCH: Mark Henry at the Arnold Classic 2002

Another obit for former wrestler, promoter, and father of 80s valet Baby Doll, Nick Roberts who died of pancreatic cancer. Once again, a bunch of details and stories about someone I've never heard of in wrestling history that Dave somehow knows everything about. I know I've said it before, but these obituary pieces are some of the greatest reasons for subscribing to the Observer.
Masahiro Chono says he wants to take NJPW in a more serious, realistic direction. No sports entertainment gaga nonsense, they want it to be like a real sports product. So much so that, in his own match with Manabu Nakanishi at the last big NJPW show, Chono wouldn't even bounce off the ropes, saying that it's not credible and no one would do that in a real fight. Ah yes, Inoki's gonna love this.
FMW wrestler Kodo Fuyuki has said he plans to try to keep the promotion running after it was announced it was folding last week. FMW still has 8 shows scheduled for this month and Fuyuki said he plans to try to run them himself and keep the company going (no such luck buddy).
Japan Today, an American newspaper that covers Japanese news daily, had a story on Antonio Inoki battling diabetes. It says he was first diagnosed in 1982, which Dave says is right around the time Inoki's in-ring work dropped off considerably when he lost his stamina. The story said for the last 20 years, Inoki has eaten a ridiculously healthy diet and is in better health now at 59 than he was then at 39.
Dave said he got tons of positive feedback on the debut of RF Video's Ring of Honor promotion in Philadelphia. The show was sold out in advance, was well organized, and had several really good matches. They limited a lot of the mistakes that most indie companies fall victim to, such as too many matches, too many run-ins, too much mic work, too many guys trying to do too much stuff, etc. Steve Corino and CZW announcer Eric Gargiulo did commentary. Eddie Guerrero faced Super Crazy in an excellent match and the main event was a three-way featuring Low-Ki, Christopher Daniels, and American Dragon that Dave has heard rave reviews for. And thus, ROH was born.

WATCH: Highlights from ROH's debut show in 2002

Vic Grimes took the most insane bump of all time at an XPW event before 1,500 fans in Los Angeles. Grimes was facing New Jack in a scaffold match said to be at least twice as high up as the fall Mick Foley took off the Hell in a Cell. The ring below had tables stacked 4-high to break his fall, but Grimes ended up missing most of the tables when New Jack overshot him. Perhaps on purpose. Grimes missed all but the corner tables at the edge of the ring before coming down on the corner turnbuckles. After the bump, they tried to rush fans out of the arena since it was almost 1am and gave many the impression Grimes life was in danger. But he was surprisingly okay and was walking around backstage after, although he was definitely banged up. Grimes was really nervous about the bump earlier in the day, as you might expect and Dave says he's pretty damn lucky he didn't miss the ring because he almost certainly would have died if he took that bump straight to the floor. Elsewhere on the show, there was a match where porn star Lizzy Borden (wife of XPW promoter Rob Black) faced another porn star, Veronica Caine, in a match that was supposed to end only when someone was stripped totally naked. But right before it happened, the lights went out and the women were rushed out of the ring and when fans realized they'd been ripped off, they were so pissed the arena feared a riot. (Anyway, here's the bump and yeah....Grimes very easily could have died from this. No mention from Dave on the fact that New Jack also tazed him before this)

WATCH: Air Grimes goes long

Shane Douglas is expected to take over as XPW booker when his WCW contract with Time Warner expires next month.
Former WCW journeyman wrestler Chip Minton's primary career was bobsledding. He only wrestled in WCW occasionally while doing that, primarily as a jobber on the C-shows. Minton was part of the US bobsledding team in both the 1994 and 1998 Winter Olympics and was planning to compete this year, but failed to make the team. Soon after that, he failed a steroid test and has been suspended from the sport for 2 years.
Remember a couple weeks ago, it was mentioned that Roddy Piper was in a car accident but he was playing down how serious it was? Turns out....very serious. Piper suffered 4 broken ribs, one of which punctured his liver and nearly killed him. He also suffered severe back injuries and shattered his ankle. Piper was taken to the hospital and was near death but obviously, he managed to pull through and has still been making all his appearances for XWF in recent days. (Yeah I think in Piper's autobiography, he dedicates the book to the guy who saved his life by rushing him to the hospital and even says he was clinically dead for a few moments. Then again, Piper was like a lot of those old time guys and was prone to exaggeration, so who knows).
Eric Bischoff is teaming up with Mark Burnett, the producer of the hit show Survivor, to produce a MMA reality show called Skien. From Dave's understanding, it will basically be a reality show with K-1 kickboxers leading up to a PPV event. (Here's an article about it from Variety at the time, but this ends up going nowhere).

WATCH: Variety article on Eric Bischoff's new reality show

Notes from Raw: only one thing really notable, they filmed a segment at referee Tim White's bar The Friendly Tap. The bar really is owned by White and WWF pretty much always films angles there when they're in town (Providence, RI). This time, the skit featured the APA going into the bar to drink and the bar was filled by a bunch of gay men and drag queens (played by a bunch of wrestlers from indie promotion Chaotic Wrestling) while the APA guys acted all grossed out by it all. Then Billy and Chuck attacked them. Dave thinks this played on all the typical homophobic stereotypes and he seems pretty irritated by it. Anyway, among the wrestlers from Chaotic were Todd Sinclair (better known now as ROH's senior official), Rich Palladino (ring announcer for Beyond now) and John Walters (indie wrestler and former ROH Pure champion).
Next week's Smackdown hasn't aired yet but it was taped and Dave has details. Notably, this is the episode where Austin chases down the NWO and tries to shoot them with a net gun. Dave says this was a mess, with the gun going off but no net being fired from it and they'll have to fix the whole thing in post-production. It went horribly when they filmed it and it aired for the live crowd and it killed the crowd and basically forced them to improvise on the spot (on one of the Something To Wrestle podcasts, Bruce Prichard tells this story and how frustrated they were with this net gun being a piece of shit). This episode also featured Stephanie yelling at Chris Jericho for getting her the wrong hand lotion and Booker T and Edge feuding over a Japanese shampoo commercial. (Rock/Hogan was great, but man, the build for everything else at Wrestlemania 18 suuuuuucked.)
Prototype won the OVW title from Leviathan at the latest OVW tapings. After the match, they did an angle to set up David Flair as the #1 contender for the title. Prototype's only singles loss in OVW came last week, when Flair beat him, so there ya go (this video covers ALL of that. The FlaiCena match, the Leviathan match, the post-match angle, etc).

WATCH: Prototype vs. Leviathan for OVW title - 2002

Wall Street Journal did an article talking about the decline in Smackdown's ratings, saying they were down 28% from last year and down 42% from the year before that. The article blamed it on Smackdown changing networks. Here's the thing though....it hasn't. Raw changed networks in 2000. Smackdown has been on UPN since its debut. Also, UPN has grown overall in ratings while Smackdown has declined. So....no. It's just because the show sucks now.
Charlie Haas, fresh off returning to the ring and winning the HWA title after the death of his brother, tore his ACL this week. He just had surgery and will be out 4-6 months. Rough few months for that dude.
A Washington newspaper did a story on James Dudley, who you may know as....WWF Hall of Famer James Dudley and little else. On-screen, he's never really done much. But Dave says Dudley started working for Vince Sr. back in the 1940s, when Sr. was a boxing promoter, and was essentially his Vince Sr.'s driver and assistant. Dudley did a lot of odd jobs for the company during those early years, working ticket booths and stuff like that, but to most people, he was just kinda known as Vince Sr.'s limo driver. So when he was indicted into the WWF Hall of Fame a few years ago, it was a pretty controversial decision among a lot of people, given that someone like Bruno Sammartino isn't in, by the company's limo driver is. Anyway, before his death, Vince Sr. made Vince Jr. promise to take care of Dudley and keep him on the payroll. So for the last 18 years or so, even though he doesn't work for the company, Vince McMahon has continued to pay him a salary. He also bought him a new car as a gift some years back.
Billy and Chuck's recent tag team title win makes Billy Gunn the most decorated tag team wrestler in WWF history, as he's now held the tag titles 9 times (3 as part of the Smoking Gunns, 5 as part of New Age Outlaws, and now once with he and Chuck). The previous record was Mick Foley, with 8. (to the best of my research, if we're only talking WWF/WWE tag title reigns, that record is now held by Edge).
USA Network CEO Barry Diller took part in a lecture at Syracuse University and talked about losing the WWF to TNN. When asked why it happened, he responded, "Because I'm a dope." He said he didn't fight hard enough to keep the WWF and admitted the loss hurt, but also said it may have been the best thing for them in the long-run because pro wrestling doesn't really fit the direction they're planning to take the network. He said wrestling fans came for wrestling and left immediately after it was over and there was never any cross-over fans who stuck around to watch the next show or anything like that. He said they could never figure out what to connect wrestling to within the rest of their properties.
WWF held a try out camp in Cincinnati and reportedly, nobody was particularly impressive, including AJ Styles. The knock on Styles was that he's average looking and too small. Wrestler Sonny Siaki was said to be the most impressive, but he also rubbed people the wrong way with his attitude so probably not gonna make the cut this time. Matt Morgan, who was on the Tough Enough casting special last season got a tryout and since he has no formal training, he was pretty awful but he's big so Dave seems to think he'll get a chance anyway. The other one they were impressed by was a woman named Erin Bray, who was one of the final 25 picked for the original Tough Enough. But then some other contestants spotted her out on a date with one of the show's judges and they threw a fit, which resulted in Bray not making the final 13. Another wrestler, Travis Tomko, is a guy who has worked some indies and is a former bodyguard for Limp Bizkit ("Tomko, gimme a beat." "No.")
Rock was a presenter at the NAACP Awards and Dave thinks he looked pretty great for a guy who was almost murdered in an ambulance by the NWO a few days earlier. Cheeky Dave is just the best.
Speaking of, Dave throws in a random paragraph to backhandedly shit on Kevin Nash. For years, people in the business joked that Lex Luger made the most money with the least ability or drawing power of anyone ever in wrestling. Dave says it's gotta be Nash. For example, Nash is not wrestling and is only going to be in Hall's corner for the match at Wrestlemania (his knees really are giving him problems), but he has been promised that he's going to get the same type of payoff as if he was the guy in the match working with Austin in the semi-main event. Not to mention all the huge contracts he signed in WCW, or how he got a huge-by-WWF-standards deal here, plus got Vince to cave to almost all his other demands regarding schedule and bringing back Scott Hall, among other things. (I mean, while Dave is being kind of a dick here, I don't think he's really wrong either. When it comes to top draws in the history of the business, Nash isn't anywhere near even the top 10 or 20. And he's never exactly been a great wrestler. But since the 90s, Nash always managed to make sure he gets PAID like he's in that upper echelon. Nash is one of those very few wrestlers who isn't entranced by the fame or the fake accolades. He treats wrestling for what it is: a business. It's the way they pay their mortgages and buy groceries, just like you and me at our jobs. I love it. I laugh my ass off every time I hear "Brock Lesnar signed a huge new contract to only work 6 matches a year." Good for him. I hope he gets even more money for less dates next year. You should always know your worth and never let your employer take you for anything less. Nash has always been one of the guys to do that and he's probably going to die comfortably in a nice house while these other guys from his era are still clinging to fame at 60 years old doing $300 indie shows on crippled knees. Anyway, that's my soapbox). Dave seems to feel the same way and admits, love him or hate him, you gotta give Nash credit for being one of the smartest guys in the biz.
Fear Factor featuring the Hardyz, Lita, Test, Molly Holly, and Jacquelyn aired this week. First they had to climb up a rope ladder hanging from a helicopter over the river and they all made it up except Jeff Hardy who slipped near the top and fell (knowing Jeff, he probably purposely let go so he could take the big fall for fun). Lita also got eliminated for being the slowest one up the ladder. Next they had to chug a gross drink that included bile, rooster testicals, spleen, and some animal brains all blended together. Molly Holly almost vomited after one sip and was out. Jackie and Matt succeeded. Test refused to even try. So then it came down to Matt vs. Jackie and they had to walk across the tops of high poles and move flags around. Matt Hardy ended up winning the whole thing and won $50,000 for charity.

WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 1
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 2
WATCH: WWF stars on Fear Factor, Pt. 3

Sunday Night Heat is being converted into one of the B-shows like Metal and Jakked. Awhile back, they started airing Heat from the WWF New York restaurant but the production costs of that were high. So in a cost-cutting move, they're just gonna tape dark matches and throw them on Heat the same way they do those other shows, featuring all the nobodies that can't ever get TV time on the main shows.
As mentioned last week, Scott Hall has been taking a drug called Antabuse, which makes him violently sick when he drinks or even smells alcohol. It caused him to get sick after Raw last week when Austin poured beer all over him in a bit after the cameras were off. Hall has said he is clean and has been clean for awhile, except for the incident a couple weeks ago where he fell off the wagon. Others are skeptical and question if Hall only takes his medication on TV days and needless to say, there's some doubt here.
Everywhere he goes, Brian Christopher has been telling people he's coming back to WWF after Wrestlemania, but contrary to what he's saying, Dave says there are zero plans for that (indeed, it does not happen).

FRIDAY: More on WWA's PPV disaster, the landscape for any new promotion attempting to start up, WWF huge show in Japan, WWF loses appeal over "WWF" initials, Bret Hart given offer for Wrestlemania 18, and tons more...

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