goc

I was NOT a Bunkhouse fan in my younger days. Thought he was one of the more boring guys in WCW and seeing him on Saturday Night or whatever the Sunday evening show was meant it was time to play with action figures. I haven't revisited his Bunkhouse Buck days, but Jimmy Golden in Southeastern/Continental was an AWESOME heel. Very underrated promo guy: (ignore the title, this starts with a great promo from Golden)

He'd make shitty matches entertaining by being Gorilla Monsoon, not necessarily by calling them shitty. Same thing with Dusty on Saturday Night. Dusty wouldn't have worked on Nitro but he was perfect for Saturday Night and even less relevant shows like Prime because the guys in the ring weren't involved in any storylines he needed to get over, and didn't have any character motivations he needed to explain. He was just there to be entertaining as Tony beat you over the head with what's going to be on the next PPV while Jim Duggan wrestled Michael Wallstreet for the 50th time.

I don't. Jerry Jarrett didn't even seem to, as he and Lance Russell have both told the story that Jerry told Lance not to hype every house show the same way, and to only act excited about the ones he was really excited about. He wanted Lance to retain his credibility.

I'm late to the party, but I think back in those days the announcer definitely should have been trying to entertain the audience. That's why so many people still remember Dusty's color commentary so fondly. Because Saturday Night was usually a boring, pointless show so having Dusty there helped you get through the likes of Roadblock & Disorderly Conduct.

Johnny Valentine DID work as a manager after his accident. At least for a little while in Joe Blanchard's Southwest. I watched some Southwest a while ago that had Johnny Valentine managing Buddy Roberts who was working as Dale Valentine, Johnny's younger "brother"

I really think leaving the Monday Night Wars until re subscription time was a huge mistake. They should have went heavy on Monday Night Wars stuff from the very start and been hyping original content as the hook to keep you past the initial 6 months.

Kane obviously Directed a stage hand to put them there. EDIT: Titus is the most wasted talent in all of wrestling.

That was a really stupid segment. If Brie Bella died in the womb then how could Nikki be famous for being a moderately attractive woman with a twin sister?

I am sure some people are going to hate on the idea of Goldust being a heel now, but I am interested to see where they take the team as heels. They should really get more bizarre and do some "mind games" with the Usos.

I could see a TNA invasion of NXT.

It's worth getting off Friday to deal with 2 months of football. Easily. They already have to deal with MNF and it's not like it totally cannibalizes their audience so there isn't that much to worry about.

Do you think a separate Juniors division is still a good idea when we know that these days fans (at least in the USA) are willing to see juniors as credible threats to heavyweights? Rey's title reign would have gotten over if he hadn't been booked like shit. Daniel Bryan would traditionally be a Junior division wrestler. It depends on how many you want to have on the roster competing with the heavyweights. One Rey, or one Daniel Bryan is special but I don't think it would work if we're also supposed to buy Evan Bourne, Tyson Kidd, Sin Cara, Justin Gabriel, Primo Colon all being viable threats to the heavyweights all at the same time.

I don't think it has to always be the top program. There are times when trying to force that when there are matches that are more important end up hurting the title, far more than not having it as THE main event. Look at how little people cared about HHH/Jericho when they forced that World Title match to go on behind Rock/Hogan which was clearly the match that had the most fan interest going in. That match was never going to tear the house down, but it would have done much better going on 2nd or 3rd to last and letting Rock/Hogan close the show.

Sam Houston is the worst you can do? I willingly watched all the Five Star Wrestling from 1990 I could find which was essentially the Grizzly Smith presents the Sam Houston & Rocking Robin hour w/a lot of old Mid-South guys like JYD, Akbar, Landell (the only real highlight) having stints before finding something better.

I'll find an awesome Nightmares match to throw in as #5 to try and force you to seek out more.

Even just a token way to ask them questions so they can thank you for your interest and tell you they are currently evaluating what to put on The Network next is better than nothing at all.

Let's do the note of shame idea. I'm going to need you to rewatch Regal/Zumhoffe for me. This comes with a caveat that you can't use ridiculously long matches as a punishment. 20 minutes should really be the max even if they feel like hours. I'm going to have to put some Wrestling from the Olympic on youtube and make you watch ancient John Tolos being called by worst announcer ever Jeff Walton.

With all the replays and recaps that they do, they really should just steal from the territory days and have one of the people involved in the footage talking over it with Michael Cole, Renee Young, JBL, Lawler, whoever. It's a lot more effective way to put over the replay and have some of that dreaded character development that WWE seems to have forgotten how to do.

I know a little bit more about this time period now, this apparently was not a Fuller promotion. This was the time period where Jim Barnett was running the Knoxville territory and used some of the Georgia stars like Tommy Rich, Ole Anderson, Stan Hansen to supplement the core group. I'm trying to also get some footage that I didn't even know existed of the time period where Flair & Mulligan ran Knoxville after Barnett sold it. 4/5/80 Les opens the show by letting us know that The Great Mephisto was find $500 for throwing the fire at Ron Slinker. He says a lot of people, himself included, think that was too small of an amount. He also lets us know that Steve Travis has won the Mid-America Title. Our first match of the show is Don Diamond's wrestling debut in the area vs. Rick Connors. Video quality is pretty rough here. Don Diamond looks kind of green here but he hits a really nice gutwrench suplex for the finish. After that Les Thatcher tells us about the matches on May 5th in Hazard, Kentucky and Dutch Mantel cuts a promo on Troy T. Tyler and Brett Sawyer while smoking a cigar. Good stuff from the Dutchman. Steve Travis pops in to tell us he can't stick around for the whole show because he has to head to Chattanooga right now to defend his title but he'll be back next week. Then The Matador & Bob Polk talk about the $500 fine to The Great Mephisto. Matador complains that if he'd have done it then Matador would be under the jail. They show the replay with Matador, Polk & Les talking over the footage. Polk says Mephisto's lawyers argued that it was something that Ron Slinker brought into the ring and since Jerry Roberts didn't show up to present the other side of the argument, they settled on the $500 fine. Troy T. Tyler comes out and Polk says that there is going to be a tag team title match between The Matador & Troy T. Tyler vs. The Manchurians and if The Manchurians lose then The Great Mephisto has to shave his head. If The Matador loses the fall then he must unmask & Troy T. Tyler has shave his head if he loses the fall. After a commercial we're back at the desk with Les Thatcher, Don Diamond, Ron Slinker & video problems. They talk about the upcoming cards & the return to Hazard on May 5th. Ron Slinker says he is going to make Mephisto pay for the fireball. Last week looked like a makeup job but this week Slinker has a legit goose egg under his eye which is a strong commitment to the angle. Don Diamond cuts a somewhat awkward promo talking about wanting to face The Manchurians with his partner Steve Travis. The next match is the big tag team title match with all the stipulations between The Matador & Troy T. Tyler vs. The Manchurians. This is a good match with Troy T. Tyler dominating at the begining before getting posted and busted open. He finally makes the tag to The Matador but eventually Matador also gets in trouble. After Mephisto hits Matador in the back with his cane, Troy Tyler leaves the corner to go after Mephisto. Matador gets to the corner but finds that Tyler isn't there. He sees him on the outside and starts yelling at him. Tyler gets back in the corner only for Matador to shove him and then bring him over the ropes into the ring! The Manchurians watch in their corner as The Matador hits a powerslam on Tyler and then one of the Manchurians run in and splash him for the win! Immediately after Les talks about how unfair this is that now Tyler is going to have to shave his head. Les wants to try and explain this situation to The Matador that Tyler didn't abandon him. Troy T. Tyler comes to the desk and Les tells him he doesn't think Tyler should have to do this when Tyler grabs the clippers. The audience chants no. Tyler says he promised if he lost he would shave his head. He doesn't know what just happened. But his mamma taught him not to lie and so he'll do what he said he would. Les is outraged and it sounds like the audience is also as Tyler shaves his own head. We go to commercial with Tyler cutting his hair. After commercial we come back to a completely bald Troy T. Tyler. He says this was like coming home and finding someone else in bed with your wife. He didn't leave The Matador, The Matador left him. We get a promo from a bloody and bald Troy T. Tyler about coming after The Matador and this is REALLY good stuff. Next match is The Beast from South America facing the debuting Bobby Eaton! This wasn't a complete squash but definitely a showcase match for Bobby Eaton who is working as a babyface in short trunks which isn't something I've ever seen before. Eaton wins with an airplane spin into a Samoan Drop which is a pretty easy way to modify a Samoan Drop into something more so I'm surprised I've never seen more of that move. After the match we Troy T. Tyler back out with a towel over his head along with Ron Slinker & promoter Bob Polk. He says Matador is the Judas of professional wrestling. He is going to black both of Matador's eye, bloody his nose, take off his mask and show everyone HIS bald head. Tyler says he could have took off and run from the studio today like The Matador did to avoid shaving his head, but he's a man of his word and he's coming after The Matador's booty. We come back to commercial with a sitdown interview of Harley Race by Les Thatcher. Race denies having anything to do with Austin Idol injuring Tommy Rich. They replay the footage of Idol & Race injuring Rich. Race says that when injustice occurs it doesn't require that two men be allies to work together to try and stop it. Les asks Harley if Austin Idol is a traveling companion of Race, which Race dismisses as a ridiculous question. Then says that he barely can pay himself much less have Austin Idol on his payroll. They show some arena footage of Rich vs. Race that is really terrible quality but Race talks over and it brings up how Tommy Rich is using illegal closed fists and the referee isn't even so much as warning him. He says if there is any alliance it's between Tommy Rich and the referees. Then we see Harley get tied up in the ropes and as the ref goes on the apron to get Race out of the ropes, Rich runs in for a dropkick but Race gets out of the way so the referee takes the dropkick and flies off the apron. Race says if he'd have done that to the ref he'd have been disqualified "Thatcher don't live in a pretend world of all right and justice." Once the referee is out we see a masked man run in and do the figure four with a belt that we saw Idol do before. Race says he has no idea who this guy was. Then we see Troy T. Tyler run in and clean house and then we see Les & Harley at the desk again. Les says he thinks the masked man was Austin Idol and Harley says he likes to buy nice things, like the gold rings he is wearing he doesn't want to give his money away to someone else to do something that he can do himself. Immediately afterwards we get a promo from Austin Idol talking about how he had an injunction against Bob Polk that they were NOT supposed to show the footage of Idol injuring Rich. Idol says he's fired his lawyers. He says that Polk and his greed to fill the Knoxville Coliseum will be the ones held responsible for what is going to happen to Tommy Rich. There is so more funky music to bring us back from a break and Les Thatcher is sitting at the desk with The Matador. Les says he thinks that The Matador should have had to unmask today instead of Tyler shaving his head. Matador says Tyler is an idiot, he didn't have to shave his head & Les says that Tyler is a man of his word. "Well if he's a man of his word, come take this mask." Now we go to a taped interview with Les Thatcher and Brett Sawyer. They talk about the 2 out of 3 falls match with Dutch Mantel where Dutch won the first two falls but Sawyer challenged Dutch to match where Sawyer would get $500 if he lasted the 3 minutes remaining in the time limit for the would be 3rd fall. Sawyer made the time limit but never got his money. Dutch comes out to tell Sawyer he isn't paying him anything and starts poking Sawyer in the chest so it quickly turns into a brawl. Dutch gets the better of it and its up putting the banned "Cobra hold" on Sawyer on the floor. Terry Taylor & Don Fulton (Eric Embry) come out and start helping Sawyer out when Dutch kicks Sawyer in the back and sends him down again. Fulton gets pissed and he and Dutch end up in the ring brawling until Killer Karl Kox runs out and attacks Fulton! Kox lays Fulton out with a brainbuster which sends Ole Anderson running out to clear the ring. Immediately after Les says that despite all the confusion there is one match left on the show, Killer Karl Kox vs. Terry Taylor. They barely get introduced before Kox attacks Taylor. Kox ends up with Taylor in the brainbuster position but Ole runs in and pushes him over on top of Kox while the referee employs great tunnel vision to avoid it. The match continues with Kox throwing Taylor over the top rope to lose by DQ. Ole takes off his shoe and comes back in the ring to beat Kox over the head with it. Les lets us know the upcoming cards coming to our area and then talks to The Greap Mephisto. He says that most people think the $500 fine was just a slap on the wrist. Mephisto sticks to his story of Slinker bringing the "mysterious capsule" into the ring with Mephisto picked up and it blew up in Slinker's face. He says the $500 was an injustice, his men don't have to cheat or use foreign objects. He shouldn't have been fined at all. Les asks Mephisto about Tyler shaving his head. Mephisto says he thinks it "almost showed the fighting spirit the Arabs have." Then Les and ring announcer Alan Williams wrap up the show and welcome us back next week.

Guilty Pleasure - Santino .I honestly never got tired of Santino and really wanted them to do more with him after that Elimination Chamber match that ended up with him and Bryan at the end. He got enough different partners/love interests over the years that I felt he never got too stale. Guilty Displeasure - I am really not that high on Dean Ambrose. He's the least of the 3 Shield members to me, and not close to 2nd.

I don't think they are going to stop using him, I just think he's going to move into the "Undertaker on Smackdown" role where he's more of a featured attraction guy than the every week, in the title hunt guy.