so was the JBL/Foley debate any good

[OssMan]

I dunno, if you watched it was it worth watching

also what were some of the issues discussed

[BigDaddyCool]

Yeah, what up with that?

[Innovator]

I watched the debates on ABC News NOW through Comcast.net's stream between the two at University of Miami. Stephanie started things off with some WWE PR speech about Smackdown the Vote and how important the youth is. Same stuff she and Linda have said before.

Foley is a Democrat, supporting Kerry.

Bradshaw is a Republican, supporting Bush.

The crowd seemed somewhat left leaning, but not so much that it ever seemed lopsided. It's hard to say and I'm basing this on the pops to the responses.

FIRST SEGMENT:

The format was question: Foley answered, Bradshaw countered, Democrat student countered response, Republican student countered Democratic response.

The moderator was cheesy.

The two students on the forum were ill-informed and did not speak well in front of the audience. The girl was just horrible and lost her composure many times. The guy was more confident but was hard to follow at times. Sorry that I don't have their names.


Now on to Foley and Bradshaw.

I find it hard to believe that anyone would expect that Bradshaw would be as articulate as Foley, so I won't go into much depth comparing the speaking styles. It's not really fair, Foley is more articulate on RAW and Smackdown than Bradshaw, and it carried over into the debate.

Foley was quite well informed. He had statistics, historical and current references, and was able to say more than just Democratic talking points in his responses to the questions. His speaking style was well paced, deliberate, and strong. He seemed in good control of the situation, and confident in his delivery.

Bradshaw was not as informed as Foley. I can't truly blame him on this. He is on the road more than Foley and may not have been able to research things as in depth as Mick. Bradshaw was very energetic in his delivery, however. His arguments seemed somewhat hollow. His statements were not very clear or developed. There were a lot of cheap shots and low blows used as filler, and at times he seemed somewhat arrogant. Even for cheap crowd pops. At times he seemed to be just regurgitating talking points from FOX News. However, he did truly seem to care about the questions based on education and the problems with proper funding for it.

Overall Mick seemed to win if you rate speaking ability and clarity of message. However, I don't think that Bradshaw is truly the proper type of opponent for someone with his skill. As far as message goes, its hard for me to grade it.

END OF FIRST SEGMENT.

Public Service announcement from John Cena. Word.

SECOND SEGMENT

The second segment saw two current Florida congressmen join the forum, State Sen. Dave Aronberg (D) Florida, and State Rep. Marcelo Llorente (R) Florida. For the most part they sound like all other partisan politicians we've heard so far. Very little original content, rehashes of things Bradshaw and Mick already said, and regurgitations of Democrat and Republican talking points.

Mick and Bradshaw then got to ask one question for each of the congressmen.

This was supposed to be a brief question, but JBL talked and talked and had almost no sort of question at the end of his comment, it was something about military strategy. Aronberg did his best to reply but it was sort of hard since there was no clear question. Bradshaw interrupted and said he wasn't answering the question, Foley stepped in and said JBL got to ask a 5 minute question and he needed to have patience and get a 5 mins response. Overall, it was a poor question that lead to a poor response.

Foley asked Llorente a question that was somewhat big too, but he used the first part to somewhat educate the audience on the background about his question. He then went on to ask where Bush is coming up with the figures that Bush says he is going to use to pay for everything considering that we are in big deficits. The response from Llorente was decent, but nothing spectacular. Overall a better response than Aronberg, but he had a better question to deal with.

END OF SECOND SEGMENT

Shelton got the next PSA. Bling, bling, yo.

THIRD SEGMENT

Third segment was crowd interactive time! Crowd got to pose a question, and then state who they wanted to answer it.

Bradshaw was a real prick here and cut off the girl asking the first question, since she was attacking Bush, asking if she had a time limit. The crowd booed this and his reply was "I'm a bad guy." The response by Llorente was good and articulate. Not bad for being put on the spot. Foley responded to Llorente, jabbing that his answer was dull and hurting the ratings. The crowd was somewhat mixed to this. He then said we have what he would call a "Suck It" precedence. His arguments compared Bush to DX and that the American people will demand more of the President, as WWE viewers demanded more of the wrestlers and characters.

The second crowd question was a hard hitting on to the republican student representative, and seemed that the kid asking was doing so to tick this guy off on a personal level. A SHOOT IN A POLITICAL DEBATE, OH THE DRAMA! His response was ferocious (sp?), if rambling. The democratic response cam from Aronberg, and was somewhat arrogant.

Third question was to Mick and the student wanted to know how a first time voter can get info that is not just sound bites. Mick said she needs to get news from multiple sources (TV and print) and then take what she can from everything and come to her own conclusions. Mick did a bad impression of Vinnie Mac firing Bush. Bradshaw replied saying she had to decide for herself saying that anyone who states they are a die hard republican or democrat are saying they can't think for themselves. According to his earlier statements, JBL just stated he can't think for himself. He then stated the first presidential debate Thursday is going to be dumb and that it is to processed and controlled. Trying to tune viewers away from the debates and to Smackdown? Hmmm?

Question 4 was on defense, and why things are safer for use with Bush? JBL had a wise crack again on the student who asked a serious question and got a bigger boo this time. Not very classy JBL. He had no idea what he was talking about here, talking about killing bad guys and things. Foley responded sounding like Dick Cheney. The crowd is now officially on Mick's side.

Question 5 was for Foley, wanting to know about how he felt about Democrats feeling threatened with Nader getting on ballots and using lawsuits and whatnot. Foley said Nader makes sense but now is not the time to vote for him, there are more important things on the line, and if he gets in office he will have no pull in Washington to get anything done. Foley asked if that was a good answer, she said no, and so he tried to clarify. Saying intimidation was the reason why. JBL replied by saying Ralph Nader is an idiot, again heeling the crowd. Boos are really heavy now and Foley says this is more heat than he gets in the ring.

Things ramble from here and I lost interest.

END OF SEGMENT

Final question was a roundtable posed to everyone. I didn't really pay attention since the question was about what the most straight forward thing they wanted to hear in the debate on Thursday.

Overall, JBL looked like a dolt, and by the end came off as a real pr**k.

Foley looked smart.

So, everything that people thought was going to happen happened. No real surprises.


credit PWInsider.com

[Innovator]

Heres another one, minus the political stuff

Credit PWInsider.com

VINCE MCMAHON COMMENTS ON ORTON'S STORYLINE BEING RUSHED, TABOO TUESDAY CONCEPT; MORE FROM THE FOLEY-JBL DEBATE

George Dafnos, who attended the Mick Foley-John Bradshaw Layfield debate last night, sent in the following report and thoughts on the debate, as well as the post-debate banquet:
I just wanted to offer my non-political thoughts on the debate last night. It was held at the my alma mater, the University of Miami (GO CANES!). About 30 minutes before show time, they opened the doors. WWE were giving out 4 different t-shirts with the Smackdown Your Vote logos on them. In the lobby, there was also one of the 25 original copies of the Declaration of Independence on display. While waiting for the debate to start, Linda McMahon was seen walking around backstage speaking to several people. About 100-150 people attended the debate. I talked to a few people to gauge their interest in WWE and most people said something to the effect of, "I used to watch it, I haven't in a couple years though. Is the Rock still around?" Then when told Bradshaw was WWE Champion, I got the best responses. I received mostly, "Yeah, right." "Are you kidding?" "...and that's why I don't watch anymore".

Before the debate started, the moderator, Jake Tapper, an ABC News Correspondent, told the audience that although questions will be allowed from the audience, they must be strictly on the topic of politics and not on the content of Monday Night RAW. That drew some boos. Then Tapper informed us of the 3 topics to be discussed: the economy, the war in Iraq, and education. He then introduced Mick Foley and WWE Champion John "Bradshaw" Layfield (no belt).

The debate proceeded to begin with the usual WWE intro video that comes on before their programming. Stephanie McMahon was introduced and gave a short speech on the importance of voting and how important the 18-30 vote is. Man, Stephanie has lost A LOT of weight. She looks phenomenal now. It was unbelievable.

The debate started with Foley and his student partner debating with Layfield and his student partner. Without giving any political talk, I'll just say that both men came off very informed and intelligent. The only wrestling references that came up were a DX reference by Foley, a threat to bring out Flair (A huge Republican) by Layfield, and Layfield pleading with Foley at one point to "not bring out that damn sock". The only heat Foley received the whole night was when Layfield disclosed that Foley was an alumnus of arch-rival Florida State University.

After the debate was over, there was a banquet in the lobby where the Superstars mingled with the audience. You could just go up to them one-on-one and shoot the breeze for a while. There were only about 30 audience people attending the banquet. The WWE people in attendance were Mick Foley, John "Bradshaw" Layfield, Christopher Nowinski, Mark Henry, Stephanie McMahon, Linda McMahon, and Vince McMahon. Kevin Dunn was also seen walking around backstage. My thoughts on the individual people when I talked to them:

Mick Foley: Very cordial. He asked my girlfriend if she enjoyed herself. She got a kick out of that. He made an effort to meet every single person there.

John Layfield: Much taller than I thought. Nice guy. It was his decision, though, to not have the belt at the debate, not the WWE's.

Christopher Nowinski: I asked him how he was feeling, with all the concussions lately. He said he's feeling a lot better and hopes to try to come back wrestling within the next year. After I talked to him, my girlfriend proceeded to hit on him by telling him how cute he is. (Great....)

Mark Henry: If you think he's big on TV, he's even bigger in person. He would take pictures with several people with his hands over their necks. Nice guy, but he seemed like he was out of place. It didn't seem like he wanted to be there.

Stephanie McMahon: Lost an incredible amount of weight. Looks more like the Stephanie from 4 years ago, just a bit older. Great personality.

Linda McMahon: Would hold lengthy conversations about the voting issues with people and had no desire to leave until everyone had their questions answered.

Vince McMahon: Unbelievable to meet him in person. Awesome opportunity to ask him a few questions. I let him know that I went to Wrestlemania XX and he asked me if I had fun there.
I then asked him about the Taboo Tuesday concept and he said, "Well, I don't know what to think yet. Hopefully, it'll go smooth. But since it's up to the fans, it's all up in the air for now." Although I was skeptical about the voting process, after speaking with Vince, I genuinely think that the voting will be on the up and up.

I then mentioned the fact that the "Randy Orton being kicked out of Evolution" storyline was very rushed and could've been drawn out a bit. He just smiled at me, nodded his head, almost in agreement, and said, "well, yeah...just stay tuned. We've got some stuff planned with that." Overall, he was a lot nicer than I thought he'd be. Great guy.

Each WWE person stayed until every audience member got to talk to them about anything and they each signed many autographs and took many pictures. Very respectful night overall and obviously, for a great cause.

[aaaaa]

I just watched the video from WWE.com and it came across pretty good. They did use a little less strict system compared to the actual Presidential Debate, but it made it more relaxed and enjoyable than being so uptight.

Foley & JBL had some good lines in their statements. They covered some topics that mean something to us so I say WWE did a nice job putting this on.

Finally, I can't wait to see a "JBL is a Master Debator" sign at an upcoming WWE Event. (You know someone will have it!) :rofl:

[Corkscrewed]

LOL.

Foley seems more articulate and convinced than Kerry (though Kerry did do a lot better tonight in his debate).

FOLEY FOR PRESIDENT!!! :D

[sensai86]

I just watched the video from WWE.com and it came across pretty good. They did use a little less strict system compared to the actual Presidential Debate, but it made it more relaxed and enjoyable than being so uptight.

Foley & JBL had some good lines in their statements. They covered some topics that mean something to us so I say WWE did a nice job putting this on.

Finally, I can't wait to see a "JBL is a Master Debator" sign at an upcoming WWE Event. (You know someone will have it!) :rofl:


:y:

[Gerard]

:rofl: