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Saw that the next episode was only part of the show and pretty short so I went ahead and watched it. The date on this show is 9/13/86. This must cut off early because there is only 20 minutes on this. Tom Pritchard lost the fall in the loser leaves town match between Golden & Tom vs. Intern & Steve Armstrong so now he's back under a mask. He cuts a promo that he's Dr Ben Casey and not Tom Pritchard. He challenges Intern to a match where they both take off their masks before the match and the winner gets to stay and the loser is gone FOR. EV. ER. First match is "The Thumper" Frankie Lancaster vs. Kevin Sullivan. Frankie is gonna die. Frankie gets tossed out about 5 seconds into it and gets tossed into the ringpost, the time keeper's table, then gets hit with a chair. Then they go back in the ring and Sullivan puts him down with the "Mongolian" Sleeper. Some jobber runs out and Sullivan puts the Sleeper on him. Frankie tries to help that guy and then Sullivan puts him back in the Sleeper. He leaves them both laid out. After the match Jimmy Golden wants to talk about "that pink powderpuff, Tinkerbell" saying that if he fought him and Fuller they wouldn't be here. Street is out there and he says they're too busy hiding behind each other to fight. Which they immediately do. Street asks if their cuddling is allowed on TV. They switch back and forth between Golden holding back Fuller and then Fuller holding back Golden so Street says if they've got something going on they can continue this some other time and takes off. I am definitely ready for more Street vs. Fuller/Golden interactions. Of course once he's gone Golden starts talking about all the things he'll do if Street ever talks like that to him again. Local promos:Fuller cuts a goofy promo about Kevin Sullivan looking into his crystal ball and telling Fuller the future. He saw Intern gone, Steve Armstrong bleeding on a stretcher and The Bullet without his mask. Next match, which is going to be OUR main event because I only have half this show, is Despina vs. Ladies Champion Debbie Combs. This is actually pretty good. WAY better than I expected going in. Debbie Combs takes two nasty bumps that you will see below. After the match we see a video of an interview she did with Gordon earlier in the day. She's heard a lot about Miss Linda and she wants to set her straight. Aaand that's all I got because the feed cuts off. I'm just sure I missed some great Roy Lee Welch promo

I haven't seen any Andre vs Killer Khan from the US, I don't know if any of those matches are on tape. I know that they had to wrestle a lot though because I remember seeing a cover talking about Khan breaking Andre's ankle in those back issue ads of PWI. I did see a match from them in Japan where Khan played the underdog babyface and it was AWESOME. One of my favorite matches that I have seen from Japan.

I don't mind the shill and it keeps me from double posting with these reviews. The date on this show is 9/6/86. Show starts off almost immediately with Kevin Sullivan vs. Tim Horner. Sullivan is in the ring first and goes outside to attack Horner before he's even in the ring. The ref calls for the bell with both guys outside the ring and I'm starting to get really annoyed at how much they ignore standard wrestling rules. Sullivan throws Horner into the rail, the steps, the timer's table, just completely beats the hell out of him. The ref makes counting motions during all this but he might as well just be jerking off. Horner makes a small comeback before the ref finally decides to assert himself and get between Horner & Sullivan in the corner, allowing Sullivan the chance to kick him low and take back over. Sullivan tosses him outside and then hits him with a chair. This is a thorough beating. Horner is busted open & Sullivan sets the timer's table on it's side and throws Horner into it. Sullivan tries to drop the heavy ass ring bell on him but Horner smartly moves. Somehow Horner starts to make a comeback after all that and throws Sullivan into the ring post and then back in the ring before Sullivan kicks him low again and ends that. The beating goes on and on until Horner makes a comeback that the ref tries to fuck him out of again so Horner shoves the ref away but then Sullivan gets him in the tree of woe and pulls out some kind of belt and starts choking him with it. The ref goes over to stop him and Sullivan shoves him away which is NOW grounds for a DQ. After all that beating Horner wins by DQ. Sullivan keeps beating on Tim Horner and shoving around refs until Frankie Lancaster makes the save with a 2x4 and runs Sullivan off. This was one of the worst referee jobs I've ever seen. Starts the match while both guys are outside. Does an endless count while both guys are outside the ring. Doesn't go anything to try and break up Sullivan's cheating but as soon as Horner takes over he's there to interject himself between them to force a break. Doesn't DQ Sullivan for using a chair or a table even if it's outside the ring. Doesn't DQ Horner for shoving him.Doesn't DQ Sullivan for using a belt to choke Horner. DOES DQ Sullivan for shoving him. Not totally his fault because of the booking but it made him look completely inept. Brad & Gordon are at the desk and Brad cuts a promo about Jerry Stubbs trying to injure people and injuring his brother Scott. They show a replay of Stubbs doing an atomic drop on a chair on Scott (which you can see in GIF form in my last review) Brad promises to get revenge for Scott and take the Continental title back. Then we get Brad squashing a jobber with Stubbs on commentary. FINALLY a Roy Lee Welch sighting! He's at the desk with Solie and Sullivan who I feel should not be out there taking up the King's interview time. Roy is unhappy that CCW is promoting a U.S. Junior Title match and listing Horner as the champion and not him. Gordon ignores the man's valid complaints to talk to Kevin Sullivan about an upcoming match with Frankie Lancaster. Sullivan pretty much says that Lancaster has no business getting in the ring with him and he's gonna kill him. Frankie does a poor rebuttal to that. Gordon tells Welch to go to Bob Geigel if he has a problem and Welch says he might go higher than Bob Geigel and use his political connections. He IS Ronald Reagan's favorite wrestler after all. Dirty White Boy is in the ring waiting for his opponent...Roy Lee Welch? Roy Lee Welch trolls the crowd coming out to Also sprach Zarathustra (Flair's theme) which I have not heard him come out to before and I'm pretty sure the crowd thought it was Flair based on the way everyone is craning to see who is coming out once the music hits. This is kind of an odd heel vs. heel match with both guys giving clean breaks but threatening not to. Welch finally cheats but taking DWB down with his hair while having an armbar on him. It turns into a battle of cheating with Welch winning. Even Welch decides to annoy me this episode by doing a LOONG nerve hold. Roy starts to fake a knee injury again and DWB is having none of it and kicks his leg out from under him. Welch pulls something out of his trunks and they do the old "duck the loaded punch, pick the guy up for an atomic drop and then get hit with the foreign object" finish. Adrian Street is with Gordon and they are talking about a "recent match" with Randy Savage who signed with WWF in June 1985. Then they show 5 minutes of Street vs. Savage from Memphis. I have absolutely no idea why they are doing these segments showing old Street matches like they're recent. Gordon then asks him if there is any truth to the rumor that he got into a locker room "scuffle" with Jimmy Golden and Robert Fuller. He says that rumor can't be true because Fuller & Golden are still alive and well. He doesn't want to talk about that, he wants to talk about Gwendolyn Cuddly (his name for Wendell Cooley) challenging him to another match. He calls him the Pink Panther so I assume Cooley did lose that match where he'd be painted pink. He says it will be his LAST chance and he doesn't want any stipulations he just wants a straight wrestling match. Cooley is with Freddie Miller and he talks about how he's going to win but I can't pay attention because Miller has a spaz out moment that distracts the hell out of me. The main event is a non title match between Robert Fuller & Jimmy Golden vs. steve Armstrong & a mystery partner who the turns out to be The Bullet. Fuller & Golden throw a big hissy fit about it. Fuller & Golden try and get out of the match but the ref tells them they signed the contract and the match will take place. Bullet kicks Golden's ass and Fuller is very reluctant to take the tag. Fuller gets the same and tags back out to Golden. Bullet tags out to Steve who promptly starts getting his ass kicked. Bullet gets back in and puts Golden out with a sleeper while Steve Armstrong keeps Fuller from breaking it up. Show ends with Bullet & Steve making fun of Golden for going to sleep. Fuller cuts a promo in the ring while Golden does his best job to lay there and look dead. Bullet wants a tag title match. I don't want to get negative in these reviews but I didn't care for this one too much. The way the refs here just ignore the rules has been bothering me for the past few shows. Plus I really don't want to see Kevin Sullivan in this territory when they have such good heels like Fuller, Golden & Roy Lee Welch who can cut promos without using all that mystic bullshit as a crutch. I'll probably be taking a little break from Continental and getting back to watching 1986 Memphis and come back to this in a couple weeks.

I would imagine Flair due to longevity. And Flair was still around and important in WCW at the time when they were really hot in 96-98 so it's not like Foley gets an edge just for being a big part of the Attitude Era.

I know that Monsoon worked for Carlos some as a wrestler too. I watched some early Puerto Rico the other day and he and Haku were there doing an interview to build up a tag match against Buddy Landel and Terry Gibbs.

The date on this show is August 30 1986. We start with Gordon Solie and Kevin Sullivan. Sullivan talks about how he was sent by The Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller to take care of The Bullet. Gordon wants to show Sullivan a video of what happened to the last guy sent by The Stud and we get Dutch Mantel in the locker room, cutting a promo about how he has everything he owns on his shoulders, getting ready to leave the territory because of The Bullet. (I hadn't mentioned this previously, but an ongoing subplot of the Welch/Horner storyline has been whether or not Dutch Mantel has the Junior Title. The last we see of the belt in that video of Horner going into the heel's locker room is Dutch holding it, so there's a good possibility they'll be going back to this video of Dutch leaving with his bag) So anyway, Sullivan has Bullet's mask brags about how in his first night here he already took the mask off The Bullet. Then he does a lot of rambling about his time in Singapore and how he can see into the future and blah blah blah. Sullivan is good when he talks about his opponent or things going on in the territory but he quickly turns into a terrible promo once he starts with his mystic shit. First match of the show is Jerry Stubbs defending the Continental Title vs Scott Armstrong. This is a pretty good match but the finishing stretch is really some of the worst refereeing I have ever seen. Scott Armstrong tosses the ref aside on a rope break. While the ref is recovering, Stubbs atomic drops Scott on the top rope. The ref recovers and does not DQ Scott for throwing him. Stubbs goes outside and gets a chair and then sets it up and atomic drops Scott on it. That looked like it hurt. The ref does not call for a DQ for using a chair. Brad Armstrong then runs in to save his brother and NOW we have the DQ. What the fuck? Good match until the really goofy booking. Next up is an almost 5 minute long music video for Fuller & Golden. It starts with them being chauffeured to the arena where there are waiting cheerleaders to "Smooth Operator" and then going inside the arena. At that point we get a video of them in the ring to "All Hell's Breaking Loose." Then we get them leaving the arena and getting back in the car to "Smooth Operator." You'd think if you were going to dedicate 5 minutes to a music video it would be of a babyface act, but whatever. Jerry Stubbs cuts a promo about how he got rid of Scott Armstrong, and now he's going to have to get rid of Brad again since he didn't do a good enough job last time because he's already back. Brad is sick of Stubbs trying to injure people and he is going to get his revenge. I guess I should just mention that Continental does a lot of these "dueling promo" type deals where one guy is in the ring with Freddie Miller (usually the heel) and the other is at the desk with Gordon. Next match is Bullet vs Kevin Sullivan and I'm surprised this is Kevin's first match on TV. I expect copious amounts of bullshit. Sullivan throws something in Bullet's eyes before the bell and immediately starts kicking his ass. Bullet manages to comeback and put Sullivan in a figure four. Robert Fuller runs in and attacks him to cause the DQ. That was less than a minute. They start trying to take off Bullet's mask and fucking Solie says "They are trying to make good on a promise to Ron Fuller to rid this area of Bullet Bob Armstrong" KAYFABE GORDON! Bam Bam Blaten (Who?) hits the ring to try and save Bullet and gets his ass kicked too. I about die laughing from Kevin Sullivan backhanding the ref when he tried to stop him from choking whoever the fuck this Bam Bam guy is. Finally Tim Horner runs in with a chair and clears the ring. We're back from commercial and Fuller & Sullivan are at the desk with Gordon. Sullivan has black stuff all over his mouth so I'm guessing he spit mist at Bullett instead of throwing something in his eyes. He calls it the "Bile of Asia" He calls Tim Horner an errand boy, not a general, and Horner is going to pay. Tim Horner & Bullet are in the ring with Miller. Horner promises he is going to be watching Bullet's back and Bullet is going to get rid of Sullivan. Tony Anthony squashes another jobber and then we get Gordon Solie talking to Adrian Street. Street has won back the Southeastern Title and for some reason they are talking about him beating, in Street's words, "fairy boy" Terry Taylor for the Mid-South TV Title. Well he did do that, but in September 1984 not August 1986. They show the video of him kissing Terry Taylor and rolling him up for the win. Street is going to turn his Southeastern Title back pink very soon. And Wendell Cooley too, because he and Cooley have a match where if Cooley loses he has to be painted pink. He will turn the Wildcat into a pretty pink panther. Cooley is in the ring with Miller and he calls Street a drag queen. He isn't afraid of any stipulation to fight Street. They do a little stealth edit on Cooley's promo so he must have gone too far running down Street as less than manly. Main event is The Intern (Johnny Rich) vs. Dr Tom Pritchard. Pritchard jumps him before the bell but Rich makes a comeback pretty quickly. Intern puts Pritchard in a sleeper hold so Pritchard grabs the ref and pulls him forward to drive his head into the Intern's chin. I kind of liked that spot but it's another one of those "Why is that not a DQ" moments. Jimmy Golden comes out and give Pritchard something. Pritchard loads his boot and hits an Enziquiri on Intern for the win. Steve Armstrong comes out to argue with the ref about it and it turns into Golden & Pritchard attacking him. Pritchard goes to hit Steve with whatever he had in his boot and Steve ducks so Golden gets taken out. Intern gets up and he and Steve clear the ring. Show ends with the two teams hyping up the "loser of the fall leaves" match between Golden & Pritchard vs. Steve Armstrong & The Intern.

I read somewhere on Classics someone talking about how Ron Fuller and Bob Armstrong were rivals pretty much FOREVER, and if they were both babyfaces at the same time you could almost count on one of them turning heel soon. How accurate is that?

Have Titus O'Neal or Darren Young even been on TV since Elimination Chamber?

Loved Bob's promo in that first video. I really like how the heels in Southeastern don't think of themselves as bad guys and spend a lot of their promos putting over how virtuous and upstanding they are while their babyface opponents are low down cheating scum. Roy Lee Welch has been doing an outstanding job of that in the stuff I've been watching from 1986.

If you want to work in WWE, yes. That's not new.

I didn't mean so much just the turn itself, but more of the entire run. Just that little video of him and Platt has him doing really good heel promos.

The Bob Armstrong heel turn is the number 1 thing that I wish I had footage of that I don't. The only other thing I've seen other than that video of him as the ref is this video of his problems with Charlie Platt. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvX6iP0cRPs

The date on this show is 8/23/86 and the last one was 7/19 but I think that can't be right because the show starts with Dutch Mantel vs. The Bullet Loser Leaves Town. No pre-match dancing from The Bullet, this is serious business. They have a pretty lackluster brawl until the ref gets bumped and then Jerry Stubbs runs out and attacks The Bullet. Another ref runs in and counts as Dutch sits on top of Bullet but Bullet rolls him up for the win. Dutch is gone. We get another video from soon to be here Kevin Sullivan talking about Bob Armstrong's kids being the weakness that Sullivan will exploit. Sullivan is tired of talking, talk is for lovers and he and Bullet aren't going to make love, they are going to make war. Tommy Rich & Steve Armstrong squash some scrubs then Fuller & Golden cut a promo on them. Fuller's tired of Rich stealing his special boot, wearing it & hitting him with it. They have an 8 man cage coming up with Kevin Sullivan & Tom Pritchard vs. Bullet, Rich, Steve Armstrong & The Intern. Jerry Stubbs wrestles a jobber and finishes the match by doing the old suplex a guy in off the apron but turning it into the Brainbuster. Then MY MAN Roy Lee Welch comes out with his crown, who Gordon mistakenly calls the "self proclaimed King of Wrestling" which Roy quickly corrects. I'm positive the date on this is wrong now because Gordon asks him about the title being in his bag last week when Horner went into his locker room and Welch says it's obvious someone planted it in his bag. Then they show a replay of Horner getting his ass kicked and thrown out of the heel locker room. Welch maintains he had no idea that was in his bag, he doesn't have it now, but he IS still the champion. Roy wants his belt back. Local promos for an upcoming show in Montgomerry has Horner cut a pretty good local promo about Welch, Stubbs maintains that his letter from Geigel was legit and Welch promises to beat Tim Horner. Tim Horner vs Adrian Street is the main event this week and I'm excited because Roy Lee Welch drops in to do guest commentary. He can't believe Continental has said he must return the title by the end of the month. He doesn't have it. He doesn't want to have to use his politcal connections. Solie blames Horner's troubles in the match on his eye injury and Welch takes full credit, he did all the damage to Horner himself and personally removed him from the locker room. Once Horner makes his comeback, Welch leaves and goes down to the ring. Welch trips Horner as he's running the ropes and then Street splashes him for the win. Horner goes out after Welch and kicks his ass until Street jumps in it and Welch & Street do a 2 on 1 until Wendell Cooley makes the save. Nothing really gif worthy on this week so I'm not going to force it. Not a bad show, but not too much happened.

You still watched the PPVs on your TV didn't you?

I just don't think star ratings and buys have a whole lot to do with each other. Night of Champions 2013 could have been the best PPV ever from a match quality standpoint, but if they have the same finish in the main event, the buy rate for next month's Battleground would still be down due to the shitty booking. I just don't think there are that many people looking at a card before ordering trying to decide whether there will be enough snowflakes to merit a purchase.

I already watched HHH/Austin a few days ago and have the match written up. I was working on making a thread for it Sunday night when I got a call asking me if I could work Monday morning so I went to bed and forgot about it. I'll start it Sunday just to keep the week time frame nice and neat.

The 3rd week in July in the Southeastern Gulf Coast Continental Championship Wrestling Federation starts with Gordon Solie and Tim Horner at the desk talking about Roy Lee Welch having stolen the U.S. Junior Title. They show a video of Tim Horner going into the heel locker room to get it back. He goes in Roy Lee Welch's bag and finds the title but then ends up getting his ass kicked by all the heels and tossed out of the room. Wildcat Wendell Cooley defends the Southeastern Title against the Dirty White Boy. Decent match made more entertaining by Adrian Street doing guest commentary. Finish comes with Cooley being whipped into the ref (he seems to have a problem with taking out refs) and then Linda coming down and giving Dirty White Boy a crutch which he uses to KO Cooley.The ref counts the pin for DWB but the crowd protests so he goes to find Linda hiding under the ring and then reverses the decision. Scott Armstrong comes out to talk to Gordon and I'm wondering why anyone let him go in front of the camera with those big goofy glasses on. He talks about how his brother Brad is now out with a knee injury courtesy of Jerry Stubbs, who also has taken back the Continental Title. Jerry Stubbs comes out with a signed, notarized letter from NWA President Bob Geigel that says Scott Armstrong is banned from using the Superkick. Scott and Stubbs have a match that's all built around Stubbs complaining to the ref when Scott loads up for the Superkick. Then Scott ends up hitting it and the ref just scolds him instead of calling for a DQ so...wtf. During the match Solie has someone call Geigel to find out about the letter, and they find out that Stubbs' letter was a forgery. It didn't even stop him from using the move for one match so I'm not sure what the point of this angle was. I think the match ends in a double countout because they end up just brawling down the aisle and the match ends. After commercials, Scott is informed by Gordon that the Bob Geigel letter was a forgery and the Superkick is legal. Scott says that's the best news he has heard in a long time, which I find questionable since his Superkick was illegal for all of 15 minutes. Scott's rematch with Jerry Stubbs is going to be a Falls Count Anywhere match for the Continental Title. Stubbs says he never signed a contract and won't put his title up in that kind of match. We aren't going to find out if that happens because I have a 1 month gap and my next show isn't until the middle of August. Next match is a 6 man Steel Cage match with Fuller, Golden & Pritchard vs. The Rich Cousins (with Johnny as The Intern because he lost a loser leaves match) and Steve Armstrong. Match ends when DWB comes out and gives Pritchard an ether soaked rag which Pritchard uses to put Intern out. Pritchard then sticks the rag down the front of his tights which I find very problematic. Heels wear out Rich's knee and leave the faces laid out in the cage. We get a video from Kevin Sullivan who is coming in to the territory to take out The Bullet. And speaking of guys coming in to take out The Bullet, they are already building up a Loser Leaves match between Dutch Mantel and The Bullet, so I'm guessing Dutch's run here was all of about 2 or 3 weeks. I'll just go ahead and assume he's gone by the time I get to the next show in August. The show ends with my man Roy Lee Welch at the desk with Gordon. He corrects Gordon when he calls him the former U.S. Junior Champ and he tells everyone he has a recorded phone call he wants to share. It turns out to be an obviously fake Ronald Reagan putting over Roy as he and Nancy's favorite wrestler and that as far as the White House is concerned, he's still the U.S. Junior Champion. Roy Lee Welch: U.S. Junior Heavyweight Champion, King of Rasslin and Ronald Reagan's favorite wrestler. I really hope this feud isn't over when my footage picks back up towards the end of August.

The second week of July starts with some new faces as Dutch Mantel debuts as a friend of Jerry Stubbs who has come in to fight The Bullet. Dutch cuts a funny promo talking a bunch of trash about The Armstrongs. Then Dirty White Boy Tony Anthony debuts beating up some poor jobber who looked barely trained. Tim Horner comes out in what might possibly be the worst, cheapest looking homemade "White Lightning" T-shirt I've ever seen. Gordon shows a replay of last week where Roy Lee Welch took the Junior belt and they talk about Welch saying he doesn't have it because someone stole it from his locker room. Horner isn't a good promo but I did like his line saying Welch better give him back the belt because he won't like it if Horner has to go to his house to get it. Roy Lee Welch is now wearing a crown and says he's not the self proclaimed King of Wrestling, everybody has declared him the King of Wrestling. He doesn't like being called a thief because you can't steal what is yours. He never lost the belt it's his. But he didn't steal it, and he doesn't have it. Frankie Lancaster has his revenge match against Jerry Stubbs and Lancaster puts on a helmet at the start of the match and the ref just pretends it isn't there. Gordon says as long as he doesn't use it offensively it's ok to which Lancaster immediately uses it to headbutt Stubbs in the stomach leaving Gordon to hem and haw about whether Stubbs ran into it or Frankie hit him with it, deciding that Stubbs ran into it. Why they switched from Les Thatcher and Charlie Platt to Gordon Solie I'll never know. Anyway, Stubbs ends up getting a chair and hitting Frankie over the head with it, but it's no sold because of the helmet. They never said this is a No DQ match so I'm having a real problem with the helmet and chair use in this one. Stubbs ends up taking the helmet off of Lancaster and the ref runs in to make sure Stubbs doesn't use it as an offensive weapon. Now it matters. Stubbs hits a Brainbuster and then goes for a 2nd one which causes Brad Armstrong to run in to save and cause Stubbs to win by DQ. This would have worked a lot better if they'd have just run a No DQ match and have Brad Armstrong run out to stop a post-match beatdown. Now we get the match hyped up last week of Wendell Cooley vs. Adrian Street with Linda handcuffed to Cooley's brother. I haven't been real high on Cooley but he throws some great uppercut punches. cooley actually looks pretty good in this match. This gets really overbooked when Street shoves off a Cooley bulldog and Cooley takes out the ref. Then Linda hands Street a crutch which he uses to beat up Wendell with. Wendell's brother tries to come in the ring but Linda is holding him back and Street hits him in the throat with the crutch, then takes the handcuff keys from the ref and uncuffs Linda. It all breaks down from there and I have no idea what the official finish even is, as they immediately cut from that to a Robert Fuller, Jimmy Golden & Tom Pritchard promo. Fuller is claiming he has an injured foot and is crying about Tommy Rich & Steve Armstrong taking off his special boot during their match in Birmingham. They show tape of it while Fuller cuts a great promo putting over how much of a fighting champion he is to go to the ring with an injury and how low down and dirty Armstrong and Rich are for taking off his boot. Fuller is obviously the greatest competitor ever for winning the match and pinning Tommy Rich as a one legged man. A local promo for Montgomery has Gordon with Tommy Rich & Steve Armstrong talking about a 6 man tag Stretcher match where if you revive on the stretcher before they take you back to the dressing room, you can come back. I wish we had tape of that, but I say that about a lot of the stuff I see them talking about on the local promos. Wendell Cooley come out cuts a promo talking about his brother being hurt and challenging Adrian Street to a Bullrope Match. This was actually not bad and I might be becoming a Cooley fan. Main event is Dutch Mantell vs. The Bullet and I am endlessly entertained by Bullet's dancing during his "Bad To The Bone" entrance. The match is nothing to write home about. It ends in DQ when Jerry Stubbs runs in and attacks Bullet. Dutch grabs his whip and then he and Stubbs hang Bullet over the ropes with it. Bullet's friend Bob Armstrong's son Steve makes the save.

As bad as crowd reaction was at The Rumble, I actually think the way it played out will work out better for them in the long run than if they had gone with Bryan winning The Rumble outright. Then the crowd wouldn't have focused all their anger on Batista and Bryan wouldn't have a hot feud ready to go after WrestleMania.

I feel like that is only going to increase if he wins the title at WrestleMania. I just don't think the character is going to work very well as the Champion. Great underdog to chase the title, but what do you do with him after he wins? They pretty much are going to have to screw him out of the title shortly after having him win it and have him chase Batista for a while.

Having watched 2002 Brock Lesnar recently, I'd put him at #1.

Heels do not need credible wins. They just need their bullshit wins to be booked creatively enough that it puts heat on the wrestler and not the booking.

I am willing to concede the point to you having watched a couple more promos from him. When I wrote that I'd really only seen him cut 1 which wasn't very good, but I've seen him cut 2 more since then that were much better. He's definitely not The Bullet but he's miles ahead of Cooley & Lancaster that's for sure.

http://gulfcoast.prorasslin.net/ This site has a lot of clippings for cards from the 70s. I just clicked on one at random and was interested to see a Ladder Match for the Alabama Title in Dothan, Alabama in 1975. I also am amused that looking at some of the other clippings it seems like they used The Yankees as their masked heels instead of calling them Assassins or Invaders or the usual schtick. http://gulfcoast.prorasslin.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/5-30-75.jpeg