Mad Dog

The fact that Sting has to compete with the likes of Edge and Batista for votes really makes me sad.

I think as far as television goes, Luger beating Hogan on Nitro to win the WCW World Title in 1997. That moment, to me, stands out more 14 years after the fact than anything I've ever seen in wrestling. The fact that Luger lost the belt 6 days later? Doesn't matter. That moment to me is the perfect wrestling moment. They built to that moment and made you want to see it and they delivered it in the way you wanted to see it. Everything about it was great. Luger fighting off the nWo, PeeWee getting a measure of revenge by not calling for a DQ, the way Hogan sold the forearm and then the Torture Rack, PeeWee just flipping out as he called for the bell, the way the crowd went absolutely crazy, the match calling and the end celebration to the show. It still gets a rise out of me watching it.

I was always under the assumption that Bret didn't draw but he never really hurt the gates either. He was just kind of there and wasn't a good or bad thing at the time for the WWF. On the other hand, the company took a giant dive with Michaels as champion in 96. That was always how I saw things. I'm going to defend Diesel as champion though. His reign worked when he was facing guys like Hart and Michaels for the belt. It was when they started throwing "generic fat guy of the month" at him that his reign really derailed. I kind of feel like he gets a really bad rep on the internet. I feel had his challengers been more compelling that his reign would've done a lot better. He has over, he had good matches with capable opponents and I think he was a sensible face champion. I think he got screwed over with having to face Mabel on the third biggest show in 1995 as no one was buying Mabel as a challenger. The Sid feud didn't help either.

Vol. 1 has, I believe Savage piledriving Morton or Gibson through a table in Memphis. That was a highly enjoyable match.

I think the double hour long time limit draws with Colt Cabana and Nigel McGuinness in the same weekend is where people seemed to be tired of the reign and you could feel that they wanted someone else with the belt. On a side topic with RoH. I think CM Punk's reign hurt the company a lot. I tend to think there was more value in Punk leaving the company having not achieved his ultimate goal would've made the title look better than a wankfest of a hot shot reign as a thank you. But really, if you look at RoH as a whole. They did Samoa Joe right and they kind of did Aries right the first time, past that most of their title reigns have sucked for the most part. But my main point is that, I think ultimately someone holding the belt too long can be worse than not holding it long enough. I think the belt looks better when the title changes when the reign is still really hot instead of the reign completely losing steam. I disagree about Morishima slightly. I think the 8 months were an issue. Had he held the belt for a month, he wouldn't have been as exposed as being a bad champion. I think someone not ready for the belt can survive short term with the belt. Had Morishima won the belt, had a defense or two and then lost it to someone else in the span of a month, I would think differently of the reign. When you put the belt on a bad choice and then proceed to run with it for 8 months, you really drive home how much of a bad choice it was.

Morishima's reign felt like it lasted for years honestly. He was a style clash to everyone on the roster and his matches were usually a downer. So I would call it a long 8 months. The same with Danielson. I think the last 4 months were dragging and people just wanted to see him drop the belt well before he did. I think there are more issues to a long reign than that. I think there are certain points where someone needs to win the belt with how a feud is going. Case in point, Goldberg in 2003. He needed to win the belt at Summerslam, not the next PPV. He won it a month too late and it hurt his eventual reign because of that. That can become a byproduct of the long title reign.

I would tend to agree with that. But Gabe also has a fetish for Japan and I could see some of it coming from that too.

I think RoH has been very guilty of the "too long" title reign. I think Bryan Danielson held the belt far too long and needed to lose it to Homicide about 4-6 months before he did. Nigel had no business holding the belt for as long as he did and it hurt the company overall. Morishima was also a disaster from a number of points and held the belt too long. RoH under Gabe was guilty of length = quality and most of their reigns came to a crawling end instead of hot title changes.

I probably dust it off once a year just to listen to Meltzer and Cornette. I bought the couple of SMW DVDs with them on there as well. There are some good matches mixed in but you're really just there to listen to them. Highly recommend it.

I don't think the hotshots have really devalued the title that much. You have to look at the Rey/Cena reigns as fake reigns because they essentially were. So it has really just been Cena-Punk-ADR this summer. But short term hotshots can work, it's when you do it over a long period of time that it really hurts things. For all you know, ADR could hold the belt for 6 months and no one would remember the belt hopped around a lot for a 10 week period.

Horner didn't get over because he was a terrible promo. Brian Lee was pretty awful too but Horner just sucked at it. They tried really hard with Horner too. They were stopping short of him saving kittens from trees on the early shows. He was kind of over but other faces got over with a lot less. I mean Dixie Dy-No-Mite was probably more over than Horner after an appearance or two.

There was no crowd reaction because that was the 1st or 2nd tv taping and no one was really over yet.

OVW did a hilarious bit with the Tolands and taking the OVW Heavyweight Championship belt everywhere. I think they even went to a McDonalds with it. I always loved that about lucha libre and how ridiculous it was that one the luchadores would be at a restaurant or some place and he'd be wearing a really nice suit and his mask. It makes sense, still funny though.

I have to be honest, I don't like him. It's weird to say since you can't see either guy's face but Mistico just has a lot more charisma than Hunico does.

That looks like a coke or meth diet to me.

I was going to add the Slaughter/Patterson Alley Fight for a big match in 1981.

I think the real problem for Cena is the incompetence of the booking of their mid-card. Umaga is his biggest feud because Umaga is the longest the WWE got behind an act that wasn't a main eventer and really made sure they got over correctly. They didn't do anything to bury him before that feud. But look at some of the things they've done. They teased Cena vs. Christian, the fans responded really well and it never happened. MVP started making some progress as a heel, he got moved to Raw and buried. They botched Swagger. They don't get behind Kane. They had Edge job at several points that hurt him in the long run. There's just a huge list of challengers and potential challengers for Cena where you can point to specific moments and say "this is why their feud wasn't as big as it could be." Cena is really a miracle product when you look at all the things they've done to screw him since he debuted.

It doesn't help that they rushed Sin Cara to the main roster. They should've known that lucha doesn't translate well to American style because the logic and pacing are completely different. What good is having a developmental system if you're too impatient to make sure a big time investment like Sin Cara can actually work with your roster. He was really set up for failure from day 1.

I think Edge was probably his biggest and best opponent during his big run on top but I don't feel like they ever went full tilt with that program. They seemed more content to force him to work with Randy Orton constantly and Orton really wasn't that over during the bulk of his stuff with Cena. It really amazes me sometimes that Orton is where he's at today. He's really a mini-HHH in the way that they had to go to extreme lengths to finally get him over enough to justify his push.

That's what annoyed me about the Rock stuff earlier this year. Rock was allowed to do whatever the fuck he wanted out there and they were still hamstringing Cena every chance they got. Cena doesn't need scripted promos. Let him fight Rock on even terms so your full time guy doesn't look like an asshole out there.

I tend to agree. Though it makes them look stupid that they hired Mistico and he fails a drug test 4 months later. Maybe they should test before the contract gets signed. On that note, there's a rumor that Kharma was pregnant when she got hired.

Someone on another board I post on made an interesting point. Sin Cara and Kharma were the first big HHH hires and both blew up in the company's face. Just a fun little side note.

Who has though? I mentioned in the previous post, I've seen him lose the belt to Koloff on a shitty handheld where I couldn't even see what was going on. I've never come across any other footage of his title reign. Almost everyone that talk about Sammartino's first reign are basing it off of being 8 years long and have probably seen even less of it than I have.

My problem with the Bruno Sammartino reign was that it was for a territorial company. Granted, that company had Boston, New York, Philadelphia and D.C. on their regular stops. So he drew some huge houses along the way but if you look at his contemporaries in the NWA you see guys that literally traveled the entire world. I think as far as contemporary reigns go, Dory Funk Jr. and Jack Brisco had a higher level of prestige and even the last Lou Thesz reign is more important. Now, granted, I'm biased. The only footage I've ever seen of the first Bruno reign is a handheld of him losing the belt to Ivan Koloff. I have never run across any other footage of his reign while I have seen several defenses from various NWA champions from the late 50s through the 60s. That effects my outlook on it a lot. As far as WWF reigns go. Hulk Hogan's first reign is more important. He changed the landscape of wrestling with that reign and I don't think you can really take away from that. Or say a regional championship reign was a bigger deal than that.

I'm not defending Keith but he is a WWE fan that dabbled in some WCW on the side. The Bruno stance would make sense for his worldview. Plus, a lot of people think that however incorrect it might be. I don't think that it's the wildest idea in the world, no? It depends on criteria. I wasn't necessarily agreeing or disagreeing. Just that it makes sense for someone that is WWE centric to hold that opinion on Bruno. I tend to not think his was the greatest reign ever but I don't think it's a totally ridiculous view. Wasn't Backlund an overall bigger draw at MSG than Bruno?