J.R.'s Family Bar-B-Q

After traveling and visiting such illustrious airports the past 7 days or so including Oklahoma City, Chicago O’Hare, Manchester, England, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha, and Memphis it is good to be back in Norman, Oklahoma….the original home of J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q.

Last week started with 23 robust hours in the UK which saw the King and yours truly spend more time traveling to get to the Birmingham Raw than the total time we spent in the UK. A helluva trip to say the least but that’s just the way it is when one attempts to balance OU Football and international travel all in the same weekend. Thank goodness I have no issues “napping” on an airplane.

Last Friday morning started at 4 a.m. with me heading to the OKC Airport for a flight to DFW connecting to another flight to LAX for a THQ video game appearance, which was a great time…..while it lasted, which was 2 whole hours and then it was back to LAX. That flight on Friday afternoon took me to Minneapolis and on to Des Moines, where I stayed Friday night and traveled to Ames, Iowa for the OU-Iowa State college football game on Saturday. Luckily for me, one of my friends took his plane to Ames and gave me a ride back to Oklahoma after the game which was a real blessing.

Then, Monday morning I was up at 4 again and off to DFW from OKC and then back north to Omaha for Monday’s final Raw, prior to this Sunday’s PPV, Cyber Sunday. Another 4 a.m. wake up call had me on a 6:30 a.m. flight out of Omaha Tuesday morning thru Memphis to OKC. Glamorous life, eh?

The Sooners are off this weekend which will allow their bumps and bruises to heal and to prepare for the stretch run which will hopefully see them win the Big 12 again and put themselves in a position to play in a BCS Bowl Game, preferably for the National Title on January 7. Naturally, January 7 falls on a Monday so there could be a mild conflict there for yours truly if, and that is a huge if, the Sooners are able to run the table, get a little help from some other teams losing along the way to earn their way into the National Title Game in New Orleans.

My friends ZZ Top are in concert down at the River Wind Casino near Norman on tonight and I will be attending that show with the Mrs and a host of friends, including some of the Sooner coaches, to see the “Little Rock ‘n Roll Band from Texas” tear the house down. If you have never seen ZZ Top in concert I strongly suggest you make a point to do so as they are American Classics to say the very least. Plus, Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill can talk wrestling as well as any hardcore fan I know. J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q has been providing ZZ Top with all our sauces for their current tour’s catering and will restock their shelves while they are in our neighborhood this week.

I have not heard any updates as I write this on the medical condition of Lex Luger but I certainly hope he is improving.

When asked here on the site if I would ever be interested in promoting wrestling live events or fan conventions I have always said no without hesitation. After the nightmare that occurred recently in San Francisco, my lack of interest to ever promote the product as an independent promoter is more prominent than ever. From what I read and from what I hear the weekend had to be a real “train wreck” for virtually everyone involved. Why wrestlers don’t finalize their “deals” before they leave home is beyond me, as is for wrestlers who agree to terms and then perform the old, proverbial “hold up” on the promoters before the event. When one steps back and looks at this entire chain of events, it is quite honestly a sad state of affairs for all involved and certainly doesn’t do the business any favors.

Great crowd in Omaha Monday night which, as always, helps any broadcast. The folks in Nebraska even cheered “Boomer Sooner” when yours truly was introduced, which was really nice of them. Current Husker football coach, Billy Callahan, would have been the biggest villain in the house if he had been on hand in Omaha Monday night.

The voting for Cyber Sunday is rocking along I am told and I expect a ton of votes to be cast as the week progresses. I hope that there are some big time surprises thanks to your votes for Sunday’s PPV event. Jeff Hardy fans have a great opportunity to put young Jeffrey in the main event against WWE Champ Randy Orton if enough votes are cast in Hardy’s favor. And what about the Kennedy fans out there? Will Mr. Kennedy receive enough support to get the nod over HBK and Hardy vs. Orton?

If Mick Foley wins the special referee distinction against The Undertaker, will Foley don a flannel, striped referee’s shirt?

Nice to see Harry Smith, officially to be called D.H. Smith, finally debut in the WWE. The son of the late British Bulldog is a big, 6’5”-260, young man who has a great aptitude for the business. Just as all young wrestlers, D.H. will have to work on connecting with the fans, which is never automatic or easy for a rookie. Hell, some veterans still have issues creating an emotional investment with the ticket buying public. One thing is for sure in the wrestling business, if a wrestler cannot get the fans to “care” about them, the wrestlers career will be short lived and unproductive. I thought D.H. had a nice debut and look forward to seeing him compete as time goes by and to see if Smith can step from his father’s shadow and cast his own “foot print” in the WWE. D.H. definitely has athletic skills, however his biggest challenge may be allowing his personality to evolve and that will simply take time and the patience by all involved. Speaking with him in the locker room area, I can already tell that the young lad is more extroverted than he was when I first met him many, many years ago. I definitely believe D.H. Smith has the potential to be a main eventer for many years to come.

The Randy Couture fiasco in the UFC is a truly unfortunate matter for both the athlete and the company for which he worked. When I first heard of this major MMA development, I felt as if I was watching the movie “Groundhog Day” as the matter sounded all to familiar from my days working in wrestling administration. In my experience when wrestlers have a “falling out” or a “parting of the way” with the company with which they are working, it is most often the result of money or creative direction. Couture seemed to be the star attraction of the UFC and the former Oklahoma State University Wrestling All American appeared to be making some big money as well. Perhaps Couture felt he was under paid and under appreciated which most likely was a mindset put in Randy’s head by someone not affiliated with the UFC. I question why the UFC did not have Couture under a long term contract because even after his fighting career is over Couture could be a long term asset for the UFC company in a variety of ways, especially doing public relations, promotions, and training more stars of tomorrow. I hope Couture has made the correct decision, as he is an amazing athlete who is a credit to the MMA industry, but it seems he may have been listening to the “wrong people” which has happened in the wrestling business MANY times by wrestlers who allowed their friends, agents, managers, wives, girl friends, bottom feeders, etc to talk them out of good business deals and into pie in the sky deals that, more often than not, seem to be better fertilizer than fact. Bottom line, from my perspective, is that I hope for Couture’s sake that he has made the right call for the right reasons and that at the end of the day he is happy with his decision. The MMA world is not unlike pro wrestling inasmuch as it is incumbent upon them to create new superstars, which is the absolute future of both MMQ and wrestling and cannot be emphasized enough by both entities. Come to think of it, the same can be said for the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball and the movie and television business.

Candice Michelle dodged a major bullet Monday night when she took a nasty fall off the top turnbuckle and landed essentially on her head and shoulder, resulting in a broken collar bone (clavicle). Collar bones usually heal in 6-8 weeks at which time the hard working Candice will most likely be back in the ring working hard to improve her game. Candice not sustaining a serious neck injury was a minor miracle.

I really enjoyed the intensity of the tag team main event on Monday Night Raw and would love to be able to see more action like that on the WWE’s flagship broadcast. The live audience got into the tag action and the HHH/Umaga brawl more than anything else on the show…hands down. Athleticism and physicality will never go out of style inside a wrestling ring and the more the better for this old school, dinosaur.

Where in the hell do the “Undertaker retirement” rumors come from?? We seem to get an inordinate amount of fan comments regarding this matter, that is baseless. I could certainly see ‘Taker not wrestling as often as he once did, just like any one else with The Deadman’s ring time, but the words “retirement” have not been uttered by him in my many conversations with the future Hall of Famer over the past several months.

Since some have asked, Jim Herd….the former head of WCW….was a controversial individual but I never found him to be a “bad guy” as others have positioned Herd. Was Herd a “wrestling guy”? No. Did Herd make some ill advised business decisions while running WCW? Yes. Was Herd the scourge of the earth as some wrestlers say? Not in my opinion. Go back to what I said earlier about wrestlers two primary sources of problems, money and creative direction, and you can most likely surmise why some athletes did not like Herd. I had some great times with Herd when we were “off the clock” but I certainly did not agree with all his business decisions and I had my share of confrontations with him, but that doesn’t make Jim Herd a bad guy by any means. Many “wrestling people” have made an ample amount of bad decisions throughout the years, but that is simply a functionality of making business decisions in general. I know that I have damn sure made my share of less than stellar booking, creative, and hiring decisions in my day, but I refuse to believe that those decisions brand me as a bad person.

With the WWE returning to Washington D.C. this Sunday for Cyber Sunday, I am reminded of a WCW PPV I helped broadcast featuring the infamous “Robocop” appearance. Fans often ask me my memories of this event held at the D.C. Armory way back in the day and I can assure you that it was not one of the stellar moments of my broadcasting career. The entire storyline made no sense and the concept was ill conceived at best. That matter was simply a case of WCW attempting to out WWE the WWE with the inclusion of a non wrestling facet to the event’s presentation. To describe the Robocop fiasco in a word would be…forgettable.

Next week after Cyber Sunday and the Philly Monday Night Raw, which is always a fun night in the City of Brotherly Love, yours truly is heading down to Orlando to do some promotional work on Wrestlemania 24. Lots of great things are being planned but ‘Mania ‘08 and doing promotional work is something I enjoy doing so perhaps I will see some of you there as I know I have a public appearance with Lilian Garica on the evening of October 30.

Our new J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q facility is coming along nicely in Moore, Oklahoma and looks as if it will be open in March or April of 2008. We hope to build at least one more J.R.’s Family Bar-B-Q in 2008 as well with the exact location still TBD.

We have some great, custom made gift baskets for you that make great gift ideas for a wide variety of your gift giving needs. These will be in our store this weekend. I hope you will keep them in mind, plus we still have some copies left of our autographed J.R.’s Cookbook which continue to sell well. As always your business is greatly appreciated. Look for our vintage WSB radio shows to be made available here on the site coming soon. Business is picking up and we are thankful for our many opportunities.

We will have fan feedback coming your way soon so be sure and check back with us.

BOOMER SOONER!

J.R.