Mad Dog

This really makes me hate wrestling all over again.

Wait, I didn't have to use the Flash player link that someone dug out of the HTML code last time? It was showing up for everyone who logged in? All of the Benoit tribute spots topped off by a Benoit chant and Davey Richards garrotting Kevin Steen was...something. I didn't watch but if that's true, fuck Richards and fuck every fan that chanted that.

Along these lines, whear do ppl stand on ranking older wrestlers who there just isn't much footage available of? Personally it's not something I do (else i'd have Zoltan Boscik in my top 20 or something ) but I have known several fans that would. It depends. I've worked with a lot of guys over the years that went to all of the same shows in the 60s and 70s. If they were all to praise the same guys as being good workers, I might feel comfortable ranking them off their opinions.

My problem with Michaels is that it all goes to hell once he does the kip up. Nothing gets remembered, he never sells any of the match that just took place. That just bugs the shit out of me. Hogan and Sting would go back to selling if their comebacks failed. If Hogan missed the leg drop, he usually lost because that was all he had. If you survived the Sting onslaught he went back to selling everything. Hogan getting bloodied and Hulking Up was epic, Sting having enough and no selling was awesome, Michaels kip up was groan inducing most of the time. To me, Michaels as a top level guy will always be summed up in Sid getting massive cheers for giving Jose Lothario a heart attack and then beating Michaels for the title when he was supposed to be the company's ace.

I would take Dusty over Shawn easily. Better charisma, more compelling in even bad matches, better logic and he sold beatings better. I haven't actually watched Dusty for awhile. I remember really loving him when I was knee deep in 1985-1986 NWA a couple of years ago.

Looking out of breath and being blown up are two different things though. I start huffing and puffing really quick when I exercise but I have good stamina, I just start sucking wind really quick.

I've said it before but I would take Sting's body of work over Shawn Michaels due to the internal consistency of Sting matches and I tend to think that the Sting/Vader matches is better than Shawn's best stuff. I also think Sting/Meng is a better underdog beats the unstoppable monster from a logic stand point than most of Shawn's underdog vs. unstoppable monster matches. With that said, in a top 100. I could safely see him in the 40-75 range depending on my mood and whoever I'm forgetting at the moment I would make the list.

NWA Hollywood is having a fairly successful television run in California right now as well.

Yeah, I did some research on Buddy Rogers' reign last year for a debate. I don't remember all of the details but I'm not sure if he ever even defended the belt before the Sammartino match due to his heart condition.

When I watched 1985 JCP, I found Nikita to be one of the most compelling guys on the roster. I loved his promos and I could watch hours of him beating the shit out of some helpless jobber. There's one squash he did where he just ran over this chump in like a minute and covered him and had this wild look on his face and he was hissing. It was just a great moment for what an animal the guy was.

Flair's reigns weren't particularly good or drew well?

Michael Cole is pretty much the reason I don't watch Raw or Smackdown. I got the itch to watch last year and I last about 5 minutes before I couldn't take Cole's nonsense anymore. He literally didn't shut up the entire time. I actually agree that David Crockett is better in large doses. If I go away from that time period and come back, I always have an adjustment phase with him. Once I get used to his style again, I enjoy his energy and enthusiasm. I'd like to throw Jay Sulli out there as possibly the worst announcer ever though.

One of the Wrestling Gold DVDs has a pretty good match with Adonis and Orton for some World Title that lasted for all of 2 seconds.

I loved the gimmick of the U.S. Champion being the default No. 1 Contender for the World Title. It made the belt seem more important. I've even crafted angles in fantasy booking around that idea more than a few times.

Yeah, I think Randy Orton and HHH are prime examples of giving the belt to someone to get them over. I think that theory falls apart because to get them over with the belt, you ultimately sacrifice someone that should have the belt. I go back to that Royal Rumble match where the crowd just totally deflated when Orton beat Hardy to retain the belt. I think that was a perfect example of sacrificing someone that should have the belt due to people caring about them in favor of trying to get someone over with the belt. I view secondary titles as the height that a mid-carder can achieve or a test run for a future World Champion. Tully Blanchard as U.S. Champion was a mid-carder achieving his height of singles gold success, Magnum TA was a future World Champion getting a test run with a belt. I think now the belts are just there for something to do. You win the IC belt and lose it and then it never matters or builds to anything ever again.

I think the ability to have two sets of tag titles died when Bischoff ruined the WCW tag team division in 1998. My post is more about theory than practice really. Some companies can't even handle a World/Tag/Secondary set up these days.

I disagree. If you can have two singles champions in your promotion then why not have two tag team champions? There are teams I wouldn't necessarily put my top tag belts on but should get a run. The Fantastics are a perfect example of that to me. I wouldn't make them my top tag team in a national promotion but they were a good team and I think make for a perfect secondary title tag team. It all comes back to booking. If you can make two sets of teams compelling at the same time, then why not have two sets of champions. I think WCW pulled it off well for a long time.

Killer Kyle, no pun intended here, really kills me on a weekly basis. I've never seen a guy that wrestles the exact same match on a weekly basis where he gets outsmarted and looks like a raging dumbass at the hands of jobbers. I found him increasingly hard to take seriously as he jobbed week 1 and gave too much to nobodies every week.

I think Money in the Bank is a bigger problem in the WWE than having two World Champions. I don't think two World Champions helps matters but I think smart booking could overcome having two World belts. I think where the WWE has gone wrong is with the fly by might title changes that can happen anywhere. The title history of both belts has been littered with guys winning the belt in short matches after the champion has gotten beaten up and it's devalued the belts as a result. Jack Swagger, Dolph Ziggler, the Miz, etc. all make the championships lesser because they held it. But that's all a product of booking too. Are those guys forever remembered as World Champions? Has it changed their career even as they came down the card? That hurts the belt a lot too. I remember when I first started to watch WCW in the 90s. They talked up guys and their former belts all the time. Renegade was a fucking jobber and Tenay talked about his Television Title reign every time he showed up on tv. That sense of history made the belts more important. Now it feels like being a champion only counts if it was within the last year. That sense of history isn't there and you don't feel like someone was forever marked because they won a fucking belt at some point in their career.

They ruined that formula when they had that Road Dogg/Godfather/Goldust run of champions with the IC belt. I disagree. More titles equals more fun to me. I thought the World/U.S./TV/World Tag/U.S. Tag was the best format for belts. I think both formats can be done correctly and incorrectly. If you look at the NWA in 1985 they had a shitload of belts but they were all focused on and seemed important. Ric Flair was defending the World Title from Koloff and Dusty, Magnum TA and Tully were going at it for the U.S. belt, the RNR had the Russians and Midnights to deal with, the Andersons were fighting a lot of makeshift face teams, Terry Taylor was pinballing trying to capture a belt. Good booking makes any title setup work.

I wanted to throw in the Rockin' Rebel breaking a surfboard over the head of the Sandman on 4/20/93. Cool angle.

1904-1920, maybe. Even back in the 30s there were multiple belts. The Midwest Wrestling Association had a world title and it ran mostly out of Columbus.

He's old here but I got a laugh out of it when it happened originally.

After watching Chikara's High Noon, how is RoH owned by a media company, has a tv deal of some sort, more money and a bigger fanbase and Chikara's product consistently looks better and has better production values? How can a rinky dink little company owned by a single man have a product that looks more big league than a company that has a money mark behind them?

I like Poffo a lot but I've seen Gorgeous George footage and he was really at a different level to Poffo. I mean, he would have a guy spray down the ring with perfume before he would wrestle and people hated him.