Mad Dog

I liked him as champion. He was a victim of booking to a degree. Like when he won the belt, the focus almost immediately shifted to Bockwinkel being pissed at Zbyszko for costing him the championship instead of champion Hennig. And the feud with Greg Gagne really hurt the heat for his reign. No one was buying Greg at that point and while their television matches were fairly good, Hennig looked a little ridiculous bumping and stooging for Gagne at the time. I liked the Wahoo feud. The matches were good considering how awful Wahoo was on AWA Television at the time. Hennig's promos were pretty good for the AWA but Larry Nelson could really suck the life out of a good promo at any given moment. God, I hate Larry Nelson.

Their title reigns are so different though. Martel was the champion of a viable promotion that had a fairly deep talent pool and had a working relationship with All Japan. Martel was working with the likes of Jumbo, Hansen, the Freebirds, Garvin, Bockwinkel, Brody, etc. Hennig on the other hand was the last superstar in a promotion that was literally cobbled together from guys that needed a place to go between NWA and WWF runs and whatever viable talent they could get from Texas or Memphis at the time. Hennig was working with Wahoo, Kevin Kelly, Rich, Gagne and a lot of guys like that. Martel was better as champ but he had more chances to succeed in the ring than Hennig did. Hennig's biggest flaw as the AWA Champion was that the AWA didn't have anyone of the same starpower to challenge him for the belt.

I had to dig quite a bit to find singles matches on DVDs. In the Best of 94 DVDs I found singles matches against Tamon Honda and Ryukaku Izumida.

I think Kerry was maybe a step above luggage. But boy, if he was in there with a bad worker, you were in for a really shitty match. And once you hit the mid 80s, he was hit and miss with good workers too. There are some matches where he went out there and you could just tell before it even started that he was majorly fucked up on something and it was going to be a rough match. Him flirting with an invisible woman during a match and I think there was a Lawler match where he cut himself open before the match on his razor blade by mistake. He was pretty brutal to watch by the time the AWA was running those Dallas shows in 88.

It looks like Slinger has one SMW appearance as his only notable U.S. appearance. Looking on IVP, if you look at the 1994 Best of All Japan set, it looks like he was in a few singles matches that year. It looks like he made a little noise in the Asunaro Cup Tournament. Looking it up, he finished third in that tournament.

I journeyed through Youtube and went through a lot of the first nWo year. Some thoughts: Luger beating Hogan for the title on Nitro still gives me goose bumps and it's like being in 1997 all over again. To me personally this might be the most epic title change I've ever seen. Sting coming out at the end of Spring Stampede and absolutely destroying anyone that came within 5 feet of him is still awesome. The way he just fucks Hogan's world up and they cut put right as he drops Hogan was absolutely brilliant. The crowd reaction at Bash at the Beach is still surreal. They seemed legit outraged at what Hogan did and I'm surprised they didn't riot. Hogan also doesn't get enough credit for that first promo he cut with the nWo. I enjoyed the Guerrero/Syxx ladder match quite a bit.

Your opinion of Hennig will change greatly if you watch more AWA footage. Do you get ESPN Classics? They constantly play AWA shows. Hennig was great as champ. They literally had no one for him to wrestle and he was having watchable matches with absolute dogshit in the ring a lot of weeks and having some pretty good matches when he got in there with Greg or Wahoo. Martel had a good 98 but he really only wrestled maybe 7 or 8 times on television. Hennig did have a good run with Barry Windham in 1999.

Rick Martel or Curt Hennig: Hennig. I think Martel was a great tag team worker but I have always felt he was lacking something as a singles wrestler. Hennig on the other hand essentially carried the AWA through 87 and 88 despite the complete absence in the promotion. If you watch the old shows on ESPN Classics you can just see he was head and shoulders above everyone else in the promotion. He then had a successful run in the WWF as a top heel for several years and turned that into a successful manager run. Also, it tends to get understated but IMO he was tag team of the year with Barry Windham in 1999. That team was just astonishing in how quickly they meshed and I always felt they had a little something more than Benoit/Malenko and Raven/Saturn. Mikey Whipwreck or Spike Dudley: I don't like either guy that much but I'll take Whipwreck. I found Whipwreck to be entertaining in the ring. I've never found Spike Dudley entertaining in the slightest. Nick Bockwinkel or Buddy Rose: Bockwinkel. He was the only man that made the AWA Title seem like a big deal and his run from the late 70s to the mid 80s as champ was really great. I bought the Wrestling Gold set several years ago and he had three or four legit great matches on there. He had a really good match with Brody on there, a good match with Lawler and he carried a really green rookie Magnum TA to a match. I always watched a Youtube match from the early 90s from the UWF where he had a really solid match with Billy Robinson and he was probably pushing 60 at the time. I would count Bockwinkel as a genetic freak that actually got better the older he got. Michael Hayes or Kerry Von Erich: I've watched a lot of WCCW the last 5 years. I understand why David and Kevin were over and consider them to be good workers for the most part. Kerry... what to say about Kerry. Kerry could go out there and not fuck up and let a superior worker make him look good. That's about all I can really say about him. Hayes, I think Hayes was horribly boring in the ring when he wasn't teaming with Gordy/Roberts. He could be a good brawler on occasion. Hayes could talk his ass off though. I remember when Brody first showed up to team with Kerry against the Freebirds and Hayes cut this fucking brilliant promo where he was nearly in tears he was so afraid of Brody. Despite being boring in the ring, I think he was far more capable in the ring than Kerry was. Dick Togo or Great Sasuke: Dick Togo by a mile. Sasuke was spectacular in the ring but when I think of Sasuke, I think of him blowing big spots in big situations. I think of him blowing the spot against Liger in the Super J Cup. I think of him cracking his skull open in the J Crown. I think Togo has actually gotten better since he's gotten away from M-Pro.

Saying Konnan's worst all time puts him in the company of guys like Nathan Jones, Brutus Beefcake and Heidenreich. He may not be good but he's certainly a more capable inring guy than any of those three. Besides, he was more lazy and out of shape than anything. If you go back to his AAA work, he's not great but he's in shape and capable.

I can't find my disc with a month of episodes. I have no clue where it fucking went. Guess I'll just keep an eye out for it.

I agree. I think once they started things like the VooDoo Murders stable and such that they had largely saved the promotion. But the early Mutoh years were rough and there was a ton of bad blood towards him for how he was booking and such. How about NOAH as a promotion? They went from challenging New Japan as the top promotion to being in shambles in a matter of years because they failed to build new stars for the future. Really, NOAH hasn't been the same since Misawa died.

The 95 G-1 Climax was the first heavyweight puro stuff I watched when I started getting into that stuff. I've watched about everything from 1995 that Mutoh did because he was just that good that year. The Flair match from that same tournament was great and I liked the Austin title defense from around that summer too. I love that Hashimoto match too. That was the perfect final to the tournament and really capped off what a great year he was having at the time.

No. I think he gets a pass because it was health related. I think Terry Gordy under the same guideline doesn't take heat for his post coma work.

I've got some: Road Warriors or Demolition Eaton/Condrey or Eaton/Lane Steiner Brothers or British Bulldogs Mil Mascaras or Konnan

Oh, you're right. Hashimoto won the Triple Crown as a freelancer didn't he. I'm not really comparing his WCW run. Just that he was unmotivated. We'll just have to disagree on this. I think Mutoh was terrible with a few shining moments post 1995. I can rattle off tons of stuff in the early to mid 90s but I honestly couldn't tell you a good Mutoh off the top of my head other than his Dome Show match against Chono in 2000. I mean 1995, I don't remember seeing a bad Mutoh match. That was probably the last truly great Flair match I remember seeing when he and Mutoh fought in the 95 G-1 Climax.

He had several. He was great in 1995 and then largely sucked until 2000 when he shaved his head and debuted his new offense with the Shining Wizard. Then he went to All Japan with Hashimoto and KaShin (is that right?) and largely had the company going in a horrible direction until they settled into being the no. 4 promotion and found their own voice as a company. He's remained a star throughout but there are clear ups and downs to his inring work. I mean there are some brutal years with him in the late 90s where he just didn't give a fuck. I mean look at him in 2000 WCW. Can you believe that guy turned into the guy you saw a few months later?

How about Mutoh. He went from having a career revival in 2000/2001 to destroying All Japan with bad booking and being on top of the company in the span of about a year. He actually has 2 or 3 big fall from graces really. He had a really hot 1995 as the IWGP Champ and then fell of a cliff in 1996 due to his laziness.

Gorilla seemed to keep Heenan under control better than other announcers. Heenan always seemed more on track when he was announcing with Gorilla and I think it was because Gorilla played ball with his humor. When you get Heenan with Schiavone or someone else who doesn't play ball, he gets desperate for attention and starts derailing the show with his attempts at humor and his gimmick.

One of my discs disappeared from the move last year. Of course it was the next episode I was going to watch. Guess I'll start over at episode 1 and hope it turns up before I get back there. I'll have to go check my parents house, that's the last place I remember seeing the disc. I have episodes 33 and 34 but I don't have the ability to duplicate DVDs anymore. Sorry, wish I could help.

He had 4 or 5 variations of his figure in the line. The first being a mail order figure.

I believe they were mad that he went and did the G.I. Joe thing on his own and he was also making some noise about unionizing as well. As far as his G.I. Joe figure went, that came out in 1985 and was a mail order only figure.

I've watched a lot of 80s wrestling television the last 5 years or so. For being the most popular promotion, the WWF had by far the worst television to sit through in my opinion. The squashes were slow and plodding, they dubbed interviews in with all of the matches and the wrestlers tended to cut generic promos rather than do interviews. WWF television also used to be more predictable and seemed to just lack energy. I've found Crockett, WCCW, Memphis, Georgia and Mid-South/UWF all to have far superior television in almost every aspect but production values. The only shows that were completely worse to me than WWF were Florida and the AWA.

He had a title match with Stan Hansen in early 86 if I remember correctly. As for the AWA fucking it up, that's really just par for the course with them. Verne was probably less likely to push him hard due to his popularity. They could barely handle pushing the Rockets and Stan Hansen correctly. Asking them to do it right with Sarge was too much. Hansen/Slaughter was a big miss. They teased Slaughter/Brody in 86 right before Brody left.

Oh, Nash is full of shit when it involves himself. That's always been his biggest weakness when it comes to how he views wrestling. He thinks way too highly of himself.

He was great at Bound for Glory 2006 during his X Division Invitational. He was putting guys over and even got a crack in at the WWE for hiring the wrong one legged wrestler. I know it's popular to hate on Nash but I love hearing him just talk about wrestling. He really has a great mind for the business when you take him out of the equation. There was a shoot with him and Waltman drunk off their asses and he was just ripping the WWE to shreds about how they were using Sheamus. He was so drunk he was slurring his words and he was making total sense.