Jingus

If your opponent retreats to the floor, stay in the ring and wait for him to return. Do not chase him outside. It never ends well.

They were kicking ass in spring of '99, when Rey had lost his mask and seemed like he was suddenly hellbent on re-proving that he was the greatest worker in the company. I remember the three-way with them, the Horsemen, and the Flock from Slamboree being one hell of a fun sprint.

Did Doring ever do anything worthwhile, besides standing there as a boring create-a-wrestler-template contrast to the awesomeness that was Roadkill? I don't remember anyone at the time giving a shit about Danny, that team was over entirely to the hard work and surprising agility of the angry Amishman.

They would've been much better served if this team had existed in some other era. WCW 1995 was a black hole for tag teams. Most of the Blue Blood's matches were against the Nasty Boys and Harlem Heat; I doubt that Kawada/Taue '95 could've gotten a good match out of those fuckers, let alone poor Regal and Bobby while stuck in an ill-fitting gimmick as spoiled fops.

Is there any match on the entire card that isn't a rematch? Everything on here feels like it's been done to death. Well, except for Kane/Rollins; and who the hell are you even supposed to cheer in that one? Seth is a neutered joke of a champion, but Kane is far from being a sympathetic character himself.

Considering that Brock was a much bigger PPV draw in UFC than he ever was in the WWE, I'd say he definitely had more mainstream crossover appeal once he returned in 2012 than when he left in 2004. Of course, the buyrate pattern of the WWE over the last few years has been so chaotic and random, it's hard to say exactly who's drawing exactly what. And there are some fans who care about being LEGIT~!, but thankfully they're a small minority. If you want to experience their awfulness, go to any Youtube video featuring one of the leeeegiiiiit rasslers and you'll see dozens of assholes all bitching and moaning about how Brock would kill Cena in a real fight.

I still don't see how Sting's physical condition was that great an indicator that they'd end up having a shitty match. Yeah, Sting was a lot skinnier than before; but hell, Hogan did some of his career-best work in Japan in the early 90s during the steroid scandal, when he looked like the incredible shrinking man with 24-centimeter pythons. They made the decision to cut his legs off before Sting even got a chance to look like shit in the ring. Especially since a large part of the shittiness was due to the fact that Hogan ate up 90% of the contest, pummelling Sting like a punching bag for most of the match. That's the polar opposite of how this match was called; and it's all on Hulk, he was the veteran and the champion and the heel and the guy with creative control, so he was definitely the one to call the match. Having the not-fast-count and then the nonsensical Bret Hart referee shenanigans just took a match that was already bad, and made it even worse.

The way Hogan's creative control was said to be structured, he couldn't simply insist to be the one to end the Streak and have it handed to him without any choice on the booker's part. Hogan had veto power over everything inside of his own personal storylines, but he didn't have carte blanche to demand just anything in the world that he wanted. "I want to be the one who beats this undefeated champion" wasn't within the jurisdiction of his creative control's power. Thus, he had to make the deal with the bosses in order to get his win back. But by the time the Fingerpoke happened, Hogan had clearly changed his mind (and I think was already contemplating turning babyface again, which started happening just weeks later). Goldberg might've been in the post-Road-Wild photos with Leno... but he wasn't the one actually appearing on the Tonight Show; that honor went to Hogan/Bischoff/DDP. Like others pointed out, Goldberg barely had any actual angles or built-up opponents during his entire tenure as champion. Half of his televised title defenses were against total jabronis; I mean seriously, "Scott Putski: World Championship title contender!". Even more damningly: where the hell was Goldberg on the PPVs during his title reign? At Bash at the Beach and Road Wild, he was stuck in meaningless midcard matches while Hogan played with celebrities in the main. At Fall Brawl and World War 3, Goldberg didn't even wrestle a match. This leaves Halloween Havoc (where he was treated as the B-plot in a buildup focused on Hogan/Warrior, and the match was cut off by time restraints and went dark on many cable providers) and Starrcade (where Bill was pinned, losing the championship, his Streak, and his special aura all within the span of a single three-count). That is NOT doing everything you can do in order to get a guy over. Compare that to the WWF, which made damn sure to keep Stone Cold in the main event of every show (with the SurSer98's tournament-final main event being the only exception, and they were using that to build up Rock as the new #2 guy).

Why should Generico have ever worked heel? Absolutely everything about that guy, his gimmick, his working style, his comedic tendencies, his look, his name, all of it says "lovable babyface-for-life". And his career unmasked hasn't lasted long enough to let him do anything other than his initial gimmick. Give the WWE time, they'll turn him eventually, and then we'll see if that ever should've happened.

For the pro-Crusher crowd: which specific Blackwell matches would you say ranked above Vader's highlights such as the '96 Inoki match, '93 Flair match, the feuds against Sting, Yamazaki, Foley, and the various AJPW heavyweights that Big Van rocked the house with?

And the late 80s. And the late 90s. He was a big enough deal that the company trusted him in the main event of the first Clash of the Champions, going up against Wrestlemania IV. And he remained a big enough deal that the company gave him the "lifetime achievement award" spot on the final Nitro, main eventing against Flair (which is extra ironic because he wrestled Flair on the first episode of Nitro, six years beforehand). He main evented five different Starrcades (and went over in all but one of the matches). You're pretty severely downplaying him by categorizing his tenure as "the early to mid 90's".

The dirtsheet guys would frequently mention that Rey's merchandise was consistently the second-best seller behind Cena's, didn't they?

Nope, that was weeks earlier. The weird thing about Big Show's reign is how they damn near kept booking him as if he had never won the belt. He just continued feuding with the same non-world-championship-level guy that he'd already been feuding with, while HHH and Rock went off to do other stuff. People keep mentioning the Fingerpoke, but I think it's equally important to look at just how insanely bad that entire reign was from beginning to end. Firstly, Hogan promptly went six weeks without defending the belt and didn't even wrestle at the next PPV. In a title run that lasted about two and a half months, he wrestled a grand total of four matches (I know, this is standard for Hollywood Hogan in WCW; but it's still goddamned terrible and an inexcusable way to book your champion). And was his first feud was with: 1.a pissed-off Goldberg trying to regain his title? 2.A newly-elevated DDP who took advantage of the last few months of main eventing to go after the big belt? 3.A non-stale dream opponent like Bret Hart? 4.A new star on his way up like Booker T? NOPE, of COURSE not! We're just gonna have him feud with Ric Flair again. And worst of all: in the middle of the feud, they made the absolute-batshit-fucking-insane decision to attempt a double turn with these men. Despite the fact that Hollywood Hogan had just "won" the title in the lamest and most reviled title switch in the history of wrestling, despite the fact that he was still doing the same NWO awfulness every week, they really thought that they were gonna draw with this guy as a BABYFACE. Despite the fact that he beat the shit out of Flair's young son, and then nonsensically got that young son to turn on his own father, Flair was still somehow portrayed as the bad guy in this storyline. Finally, it all culminated in that audience-insulting "first blood match", which was so poorly executed that the intended angle of a crooked referee and a double turn instead came off more like an utter clusterfuck in which nobody in the ring nor in the back had ANY idea of what the hell they were doing.

I think JBL's run is much more fun in hindsight (with our current appreciation for bumbling heels that stooge their asses off) than it was at the time. Back then, most of the IWC seemed to really despise that particular reign. Especially since it came out of more nowhere than any RKO; one month he's the same old Acolyte that we'd seen for the past five years, the next month he's suddenly doing a Rush-Limbaugh-meets-JR-Ewing gimmick. And then he's immediately handed a world title feud on a silver platter without having done practically anything to earn it or establish himself as being on that level. And then he beats Dream Workrate King #2 for the belt which all the fans had been so shocked and ecstatic to see get put on Eddy in the first place. And then he holds the belt for-fucking-ever (when we were already sick of long heel reigns, with Hunter's stupidly superdominant tenure as champion so fresh in our minds) and also mostly has a bunch of mediocre matches with the likes of Taker, Booker, Angle, and other guys whom he simply does not mesh with on a stylistic level. Eventually, but it started when he was still Hollywood. In a deja-vu-soaked rerun of what happened the previous year, Savage won the belt at a PPV and then Hogan promptly swooped in to beat Randy the very next day on Nitro. Then somehow he ended up in a feud with Sid and a freshly-turned-heel Nash, and that's when the red and yellow made its return.

Which time? Because that shit happened TWICE in one year. Goldberg's title reigns were all pretty poorly handled. The US title got vacated when he won the world belt (which was done with NO buildup). And once he was world champion, WCW had absolutely no idea what to do with him; he kept squashing guys, but now he was squashing them in title defenses. The likes of Scott Putski and Al Green can now accurately claim to have challenged for the world title on Nitro thanks to this bullshit.

He was mostly stuck in two-minute-specials during the Attitude era, which cut way down on what he was able to do out there. Which is sad, because I thought Shamrock was the polar opposite of Sakuraba: a shitty shootfighter, but a pretty fun rassler. I don't remember ever seeing Undertaker sell harder for anyone else's offense than in their match together at Backlash 99. His feud with Owen was really neat, especially the "lion's den" match at Summerslam. Shamrock was much better than average at putting on interesting performances in odd locations, everywhere from weird miniature pseudo-octagonal cages to inside a circle of parked cars to inside the Dungeon at the Hart house. And aside from Taz, he was really the first guy to popularize modern MMA elements in professional wrestling. We can certainly thank him for getting over the concept of "tapping out" in the first place.

Has he done much worth watching in New Japan over the past couple of years? Because in his UWFI matches that I've seen, he was competent-but-forgettable for the most part. Sakuraba is maybe my favorite shootfighter ever, but I've never seen him do anything in worked matches which made me think he was a great rassler.

I think he's talking more about the tendency of Bob's big-money matches to have indecisive finishes, or the number of times that Bob himself got left laying. Bruno might've taken less of the match, but he usually looked stronger in the end.

-Savage vs JYD in the tournament finals of The Wrestling Classic. -Savage/Zeus vs Hogan/Beefcake in No Holds Barred: The Match/The Movie. -Rick Steiner vs Arn/Paul E. at Bash 91. -Wrestlemania 9 counts, because both Yoko/Bret and Yoko/Hogan COMBINED went less than ten. -Undertaker vs Underfaker at Summerslam 94. -Diesel vs Mabel at Summerslam 95. -Giant vs Luger at Great American Bash 96. -Luger vs Savage at Souled Out 98. -SnowStorm vs DougDido at ECW Living Dangerously 98. -Sting vs Giant at Great American Bash 98. -Nash vs Savage at Great American Bash 99. -Goldberg vs Sting at Halloween Havoc 99. -The six-man tag main event at November 2 Remember 99. -Rhino vs Super Crazy at Living Dangerously 2000. -Booker T vs Nash ar Fall Brawl 2000. -Goldberg vs Kronik at Halloween Havoc 2000. -The four-way title match at WCW Sin. If the WWE's done any really short title matches in the 21st century, I just can't remember them. And I'm sure TNA has done a whole bunch of sub-ten-minute mains, but I am NOT gonna waste my time looking up all that shit.

I'm not sure how you couldn't see Kawada as a heel in the mid-90s. His super dickish behavior during most of the Misawa/Kobashi tag matches? He and Taue would repeatedly do every single bit of cheating that Baba's booking at the time would allow. And what about him repeatedly using poor Akiyama as a target for bitchslapping practice? Hard to see repeatedly slapping a helpless opponent across the face as being anything but the most contemptuous show of disrespect.

If he does do that, he's far from the only one. The Rule of Three is one of the most common tropes in all of narrative storytelling, including wrestling. Plenty of matches end with finisher-kickout-finisher-kickout-finisher-pin: Brock beating Taker at Mania, for just one example.

I didn't understand the finish back when it happened, and still don't understand it now. Since when does a world title change hands on a referee stoppage?

One who often gets sadly forgotten: Tajiri. He's mostly remembered as a buncha kicks and mist, but he had a whole bunch of other tricks in his bag. And hell, even with just kicks and mist, he could still manage to vary the way he was delivering them enough that he could literally work a fifteen-minute Kicks-&-Mist Match and probably never do anything the same way twice. Yep, Souled Out '98. And generally, Raven's best matches have almost always been when he's actually having to take a rare beating from someone with a lot of offense, and isn't allowed to waste time by eating the other guy's lunch or doing a bunch of convoluted Sportz Entertainment smoke and mirrors.

Maybe you're right, I just never noticed it.

I went back and rewatched it; and yeah, there were fewer actual powerbombs than I remembered. I think the number of times Kawada tried to go for the move is what was making me remember more of 'em than what actually happened, he was failing to get it twice for every time he actually hit it. They did? In a dozen years of discussion about this match, this is literally the first time I've ever heard anyone mention that. And is the psychology really that clear-cut, considering that Misawa soaked up a bunch of other finishers during the match from both of his opponents?