Mad Dog

I liked when Dibiase did guest commentary in Mid-South. It might just be a WWF thing as they tended to create shitty announcers. It could've been the gimmick too. Speaking of Mid-South, Ernie Ladd was great when he got behind the mic. I always thought TNA should've given Kevin Nash the color commentary spot. I always found him really entertaining whenever he got in the booth.

Since I've been subjected to him a lot. I'll throw out that Piper was a very shitty color commentator. I was never big on Savage either. I will give the Honkytonk Man some credit though. He's a little annoying but he's surprisingly solid as a commentator while still working within the confines of his gimmick. Of course, I could be missing out on how awful he is because Piper really takes the attention off of him.

Rhodes Family vs. Dibiase/Virgil has been really interesting because Dusty was cutting some really great promos. As I mentioned earlier. Slaughter is getting a promo or two a week on Superstars and a promo on Wrestling Challenge. This is mixed together with special interview segments with Mean Gene and being a regular in the squash matches. He's on both shows every week and sometimes appears more than once on the show. That's a crap load of tv time considering how the WWF tended to spread guys out. It's wearing me out as an adult that knows how the storyline goes. I can't imagine sitting through it when it was actually happening.

I thought the Slaughter/Hogan main event was a really overlooked gem. Slaughter isn't the problem. He's getting a last big run and working hard, it's the angle and amount of tv time that's the issue.

Has Sean Waltman ever successfully pulled off the Rocker Dropper in the match or does everyone power out of it to set up a transitional spot?

I believe so. He seemed to become the real Dusty Rhodes after she was out of the picture and having Dustin around seems to have really motivated his promos.

I know he storyline refused it because Rogers faked an injury during their match. As for why it wasn't officially recognized. I've never actually found the reasoning to that. I know the NWA was really touchy about the kind of match that the belt changed hands on. I know they did something similar with Killer Kowalski around the same time period. The NWA tended to get pissy if the match didn't have 2 falls in it.

Also, heading into the Rumble. Dusty seems to have said "fuck it" and he's wearing less polka dots and cutting more NWA style promos. He's actually been cutting some fucking great promos heading into the Rumble. They really stand out because they come off as real when surrounded by all of the other cartoon bullshit the other wrestlers are spouting.

The Slaughter stuff is tough to get through because they just had him plastered all over television. He's getting 1 or 2 promos a week on Superstars and a match or promo on Wrestling Challenge. And they're mixing it up with special interviews and even more crap like that. It really wouldn't be so bad if they weren't cramming it down people's throats. It's also weird, in hindsight, that he won the WWF Title. He really feels like a side note to the Savage/Warrior stuff going on heading into the Rumble.

Did Slaughter even draw as the top heel? I remember even as a kid not caring at all about his feud and being much more engrossed in the Savage-Warrior storyline. I think Wrestlemania VII did decent numbers. It's hard to say as it's a really weird time for the WWF. There were a ton of guys left from the late 80s on the roster that were just kind of useless by this point. They've been going over the guys in the 91 Rumble and probably about 22 of those guys will be gone by the time 1993 starts.

I've been watching the 1990/1991 television for whatever reason lately. The Sgt. Slaughter angle might be the most tasteless thing a wrestling promotion has ever done. It just seemed to drag on forever and Slaughter got way too much mic time. I'm heading into the Rumble and he's talking about how he's going to be a hero in Iraq and stuff. And the worst part is, I know it's going to get worse once the Hogan/Slaughter feud starts.

Oh the actual topic. TNA had the awesome LAX/Styles/Daniels feud going right into Russo's takeover. 2005 and 2006 were actually pretty good years and they had a good run when Raven showed up in 2003. The product took a huge dive the second Russo showed up for his second run though.

He appeared on one web episode. And WSX featured fake exploding devices at ringside. Looks like Bret Ernst and Kris Kloss were the announcers. They were terrible. The ring announcer was also a POS as he was more interested in getting himself over than anything else.

I was watching Mutoh win the IWGP Title from 2008. I really hated the booking decision to do it but I love the finish to that match. He keeps hitting the Shining Wizard and can't get Nakamura down for the three count. He finally says "fuck this" and backbreaker, moonsault, new champ.

I think he took over as booker around the time the Dark Patriot showed up.

He's really up or down with that. He did that first NOAH tour around his initial TNA run and got a big head. That's when he started burning all of his bridges and whining about doing jobs and selling. I'm actually surprised he lasted in the WWE as long as he did.

The MTV guys essentially screamed through everything. "OMG A HEADLOCK... NO WAY!!! THIS IS THE GREATEST THING EVER!!!" Wrestling Society X might have been the worst thing ever.

Even worse than Bruno or the MTV guys?

I said it before with David Crockett. He wasn't good but there was something genuine about what he was saying that made the product so much more believable. Especially when some of the guys on WWF broadcasts were beyond awful at that point. He was certainly better than Ray Stevens of either Gagne on the AWA shows. I just don't see why he was so bad.

The contributions of Bobo Brazil are really being glossed over in this thread. I mean when he showed up black wrestlers weren't even really allowed to face white wrestlers. He came along and got so popular that promoters eventually changed that. He also came out and wasn't a stereotype either. He stood up toe bad guys in such a way that looks of faces don't do. He also refused the NWA World Title in 1962 in a phantom reign.

I find that David Crockett takes a little too much flak from people. He's not the best but there's something genuine to his commentary that a lot of other announcers miss. I really enjoy the Ross/Cornette team when it gets together. The older I get, the less I like Bobby Heenan as an announcer. He really only worked with Gorilla Monsoon if you ask me. He can really get out of control if the other announcer doesn't play ball with his jokes during matches. And even with Gorilla during Wrestling Challenge, they could really go off the rails and forget to call the action here and there. The only time he was good without Gorilla was during the nWo. He really came alive with the idea that Hogan validated what he had been saying about him since the Andre feud. It was always an interesting subtext to the nWo days. JBL was probably the best color commentator the WWF has had since Ventura left. I didn't see him mentioned but I loved Stevie Ray's brief stint on Thunder in 2000. He was terrible but some of the shit he would say was hilarious. My friend and I still use some of the Stevieisms like "fruitbooty" and suckas gots to know".

I find that match even more amazing considering the fact that Low Ki complains about selling for people now. The way he sold for Killings during that match really made it a good match. I think it gets overlooked a little because it happened during that dead time where they had a few more shows before the restructuring that changed up the roster and such.

I always found the regular three way to be better than the ladder match. I'm sure it didn't considering it probably doesn't even hold up against the AMW/XXX matches or some of the Ultimate X matches either. I also like the 5 way elimination they did around week 5 or 6 where the order you were eliminated in was the contender you were. Then Styles proceeded to defend against some of those guys. There's also a couple of good Flying Elvises matches that I know I'm missing that were entertaining. As a side note. Jimmy Yang as Elvis was more entertaining than he had any right to be. It's also sad seeing the potential Siaki had early on and realizing he fizzled out pretty quickly.

The matches still stand out to me from this era: Styles vs. Lynn vs. Psicosis vs. Ki Styles and Lynn vs. Rainbow Express Styles and Lynn vs. Devon Storm and Slash Styles vs. Lynn vs. Ki Styles vs. Lynn vs. Ki - Ladder Match Ki vs. Red S.A.T. vs. the Flying Elvises Killings vs. Lynn I and II Killings vs. Ki Killings vs. Jarrett I and II And there's probably several matches in there that I'm not remembering. The Ron Killings push is really amazing to go back to. He gets brought in as pretty much an afterthough high-end mid-carder and he goes out and cuts that discrimination promo around week 5 or 6. Then his music hits the next week and the crowd just absolutely exploded for the guy. For all the dumb shit they've done, this is the one time they did something right. They tossed their plans out of the window and put the belt on the guy that the crowd wanted to see.

I hated the Tim Horner stuff. He was an awful promo and they practically had him kissing babies on the side of the road to try and get him over.