goc

At this point, people can say what they want about a good booker coming in, but it would have taken YEARS to rebuild WCW to the point of really competing again. They had no one fresh that was ready to move into the main events, so you were pretty much stuck with rotating line-ups of Hogan, Luger, Sting, Sid, Nash, Flair, etc. I guess you could try to build around Goldberg again when he comes back from injury, and maybe try to build a new monster heel while he's out for him to slay on return but I don't think they could have ever got him back to his peak. Losing Eddie & Benoit really hurt. Along with losing Jericho & The Giant earlier. They'd lost 4 guys that had potential to be true main eventers. The Giant could have been one through his whole stint there but they killed him to make him an nWo member. They only really had Booker T & Scott Steiner left as fresh guys to move up, but they could have had a lot more.

Were the fans really supposed to buy some young punk like AJ Styles beating real stars like Sting and Kevin Nash? It just wasn't his time yet, he wasn't even 35 then!

Coming as a guy who LIVED for wrestling magazines as a kid, I can't even imagine what the audience is for them now. The internet pretty much killed my need to buy anything but PWI Almanacs after 1996 so I'm not sure who is still buying them in 2013. Especially at $5 an issue.

I actually think the Bodydonnas wasn't that bad of a gimmick. They had Sunny, they got title reigns and they weren't any more silly than The Godwinns or Smoking Gunns. It wasn't a serious time period in the WWF, and they were probably the best team of the period. Could they have done better as a more serious team somewhere else in 1995? I'm not really sure. I don't think they'd have fit in ECW at the time and don't see them doing much better in WCW's tag division either.

Just re-watched Curt Hennig vs. Nick Bockwinkel (6/14/84) Hennig thinks about a handshake early but instead giving the "up yours" signal to Bock. Bock gives a few clean breaks to sucker Curt into a beating a few minutes later. Nick really lays into him and then tosses him outside. He keeps cutting Curt off from getting back in the ring with some stiff shots while arguing with a ref that seems to want to draw attention to himself. Curt starts fighting back with some nice punches of his own on the apron. Eventually Curt goes to work on Nick's arm after Bockwinkle misses a charge into the corner. The arm work feels a little long, but at least they kept things moving and Curt starts really yanking on the arm once the fans started to get restless. They brawl and trade abdominal stretches until Nick winds up tossing Curt back out of the ring. He works another long KOTM sequence, with a lot of arguing with the ref about having until the count of 5. The finish really sucks with Nick pulling Curt into the ring from the apron once Curt starts fighting back and pinning him with his feet on the ropes, with the whole thing looking really botched. Good match with a crappy finish. Curt looked really good in this. On DVDVR, someone commented they were disappointed it was more of a brawl than a wrestling match, but that's what I liked about it. They both really laid their shots in, and I felt the weakest part of the match was in the middle with the arm work and the abdominal stretches.

I intend to rewatch quite a bit of AWA over the next few days so I will revisit some of the Curt Hennig stuff that I don't have much written down. It could all just come down to the fact that I like Hennig a lot better in brawls, and that wasn't what he was doing in a lot of his singles matches.

I kind of agree with the premise that Samoa Joe's size and look is more detrimental to him than Bryan Danielson's or CM Punk's. In the indies he's the big guy to everyone else. In WWE? He's not big enough to be seen as a threat based on his size and he's definitely not small enough to be an undersized underdog.

In their usual tag matches I find myself annoyed by Bobby Fulton while not really caring about Robert Gibson one way or the other. Robert is a really boring singles wrestler from what I saw in SMW. But Bobby Fulton blew me away with his one match on the AWA set. He and Jackie wrestle a really green Destruction Crew and Bobby holds the whole match together, has really great looking punches, does his best to cover up some miscues and does one of the coolest counters I've ever seen when one of the Destruction Crew tries to powerslam him. Based on that one performance being better than 1 night from Robert Gibson and I'd have to go with Bobby Fulton. If you'd asked me a month ago, before I'd ever seen that Destruction Crew match, I'd have taken Robert Gibson.

Comic books, much like soaps, aren't exactly doing huge business. There are only 2 comic books that even sold over 100,000 copies last month. That's the kind of storytelling that keeps the old fans and kills any new ones.

The thing about Curt is that he WAS adaptable but it just feels like his comfort zone was so far away from the best he was capable of. That 10 minute brawl with Hansen is the only match I've even considered for my #1 on the AWA ballot. I love Hennig in that match, he comes across as such an ass kicker. But you very rarely see that Curt, even while he was babyface in AWA. After watching the AWA set I am honestly not that high on Curt Hennig. There's too much stuff to make you realize how much better he could have been. That Hansen brawl is my number 2 I think this is an interesting take, because I haven't heard anyone else express this opinion. I am wondering if anyone else feels this way. Also interested to hear more about why you think Curt was so weak in the AWA I don't really think he was "weak" but I just was not that interested in the majority of his singles matches. And I felt like in the tags with his dad, Larry really overshadowed him with how much he could connect with the crowd and the charisma he had as a babyface. It's weird to say that since he's in my #1 match and the 1 hour draw will be somewhere in the top 10, but the rest of the stuff I look back at my notes and just see "middle of the pack" or "boring." The idea before the AWA set came out was the it would make people see Hennig as one of the very best in the world during the time period. I didn't walk away feeling that way.

The thing about Curt is that he WAS adaptable but it just feels like his comfort zone was so far away from the best he was capable of. That 10 minute brawl with Hansen is the only match I've even considered for my #1 on the AWA ballot. I love Hennig in that match, he comes across as such an ass kicker. But you very rarely see that Curt, even while he was babyface in AWA. After watching the AWA set I am honestly not that high on Curt Hennig. There's too much stuff to make you realize how much better he could have been.

Grew up watching soaps sometimes with my grandma, and the WORST thing that WWE has taken from Soaps is that long drawn out zoom in on a character's face before changing scenes.

I really wish there had been a 2nd season of Ring Ka King...

I honestly think I could watch TNA and like it if they had better announcers. But I refuse to listen to Tenay. It's kind of disappointing how they've tried to get rid of pretty much anyone connected to Jeff Jarrett but kept Tenay around.

Soaps aren't cheap to produce and the ratings have been on a steady decline for YEARS. I don't think they struggled too hard with that decision, tbh. The TV landscape in the U.S. has changed dramatically since the "heyday" of Soaps. The viewing audience for day-time TV isn't what it used to be either, with a lot more women working than back in the 50s when they started as a prime vehicle to sell household products to women. That's how they got the name "soap operas" to begin with.

I'd say Soaps, even though they're almost a dead genre, would fit this criteria.

The most likely answer is someone we probably wouldn't think of. If Backlund hadn't been the guy chosen, would his career have been memorable enough for him to get thrown into a discussion like this?

I think AJ is really good, but I'm not sure if the standard "TNA should have build the company around him" line really fits. He should have been a bigger part of the company at times, for sure, but I really don't think he can really carry it all as the "ace."

I have the exact opposite opinion and think he was much better as a heel commentator, especially when he and J.R. were more argumentative instead of being very buddy buddy like they were in their later years.

Whaaat? I could see this argument if we're talking about the running hugs that Edge used to do, but some guys do it really well. Roman Reigns spears have always looked good from what I've seen. Big Show's are kind of hit and miss but I think that has more to do with how big his opponent is, like not trying to kill anyone too small to really take it.

Yea but that skit had the payoff of Ferrara almost getting killed by a Doctor Death suplex.

I can't see Jake wanting to play a heel or WWE wanting to portray him as one when he has such a positive and inspirational story to tell.

I wonder how quickly excitement at being told "we're going to give you Heyman as your manager" went away once he found out he was going to get bitch slapped by HHH and surely be made to look inferior in their match tonight.

God forbid they give the guy a good name. It's better than Michael McGillicutty but not by much. Oh what the fuck is Triple H doing out?! I guess we need to see him wrestle Lesnar again so they can be sure to get absolutely nothing out of the millions of dollars they are paying Brock.