Boondocks Kernoodle

WCW claiming Bash at the Beach '95 drew 100,000 fans when it was closer to 10,000.

I felt they should have banned the diving headbutt 15 years ago when there was a lot of speculation that Benoit's use of the move contributed to his neck damage. It's dangerous and it doesn't look that impressive. I believe that if everyone on the current WWE roster was to take the same eVox test that Bryan took, we would see similar results in a lot of them, which is why I expect the official WWE position, initially at least, will be that it is an unproven test and that Bryan chose to retire on the advice of Dr. Maroon.

If it was just the barking, that would be one thing, but Trish crying and stripping while Vince angrily yelled at her to take her clothes off to the roaring applause of the crowd is one of the creepiest things ever broadcast on wrestling TV.

This is from Meltzer's review of Beach Blast '92: Regardless of that, I think the Steiners could have won the tag match. Doc and Gordy were going to beat them on the Clash airing couple of days later (though it was already taped) and then again for the titles, so they could have withstood the loss, I think.

It was Sacred Heart, though in the 80s he did claim to be a Harvard graduate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCKhrOyHzzM Still waiting for the Axl-Beatty match

It's not that obscure since all the early Raws are on the Network, but Jimmy Snuka's 1993 return was always strange to me. It was announced in advance as a one-night-only return, so he wasn't coming in for a run, though he did also work the Intercontinental battle royal (aired next week but taped the same night). He also worked an MSG show that same week (inexplicably against Brian Christopher, who was years away from joining the WWF roster). But why? He had only been gone for a year and a half, not long enough for him to become a nostalgic figure. And bringing in an old star for a one-shot appearance on TV just wasn't how WWF operated at the time.

Also, babyface Steve Regal in early '93. Steve Armstrong as the WWF's Lance Cassidy.

Jim Neidhart in '93 WCW. Never had a program, never made PPV, but I do remember him being interviewed in WCW magazine.

Tony Schiavone going into business for himself and refusing to promote the upcoming ECW house show during Mike Awesome's debut on Nitro, thus violating the terms of the deal with Heyman that allowed Awesome to make the jump to WCW. Scott Hudson even tried to set him up ("Doesn't he have some kind of title defense?"), but no, Tony had to stick up for what was right. Ended up costing WCW an additional six-figure payment to ECW.

I'm not going to shit on the finish too bad but they only let Seth and Brock work about 9 minutes before the Taker run-in. Cmon man. I think Taker goes over at Summerslam, and I suspect that's why Seth didn't pin him here. Brock shouldn't lose two straight.

In retrospect, WWE really missed the boat by not having HHH bring the injured Lucy to the ring and having her claw Jericho's eyes during their match.

Well no, you don't have to always put the title on last, especially not when there's also one of the biggest dream matches in wrestling history on the same card. But HHH-Jericho might have had a better reception if Jericho hadn't been portrayed as Stephanie's lotion-fetching errand boy, if he hadn't been booked as unable to beat the likes of Rikishi without cheating, if HHH hadn't jobbed to Kurt Angle twice in the month leading up to Mania. I believe those were factors as well.

That's barely a step above Russo's condescending dismissal of a world championship as "the prop". I don't really disagree with their point though. Personal issues draw more money and get people more interested than chasing a gold belt. There are a hell of a lot more people who can relate to someone wanting to beat the hell out of their boss or wanting revenge over a friend's betrayal than people who can relate to chasing a championship. I've had bosses that I didn't particularly like, but none that I really wanted to beat up. I don't doubt that Stone Cold gave vicarious thrills to a lot of boss-hating fans but I can tell you that for me, a middle schooler at the time, I would have cared much less about that storyline if the championship wasn't involved. The spirit of competition and the desire to win are pretty much the key values of American society, for better or worse. Anyone who ever played high school sports, or was on the debate team, or was in a spelling bee, or tried to get a high score on Ms. Pac-Man knows that. If championships aren't that significant, then why did 25 million Americans watch the womens' soccer finals last week? They sure don't tune in for every game in those numbers. 15 million watched the final World Series game last year. 23 million for the last game of the NBA finals. (The Super Bowl is such a spectacle in and of itself that I won't count it here because a lot of people do watch it for the commercials, or just because it's the biggest event on TV.) Why is Mayweather the biggest draw on PPV? Why are almost all the biggest UFC shows headlined by title fights? I know it's wrestling, not a real sport, but I do believe there is enough evidence to prove that a championship is a draw when it is treated as a big deal. In real sports that's easy, because there's either one champion a year or the best athlete wins it. In wrestling, it's more complicated, but it's not that hard. Not every feud can be a heated grudge between two guys who want to kill each other. If you do that every time, eventually people will stop caring. But when it's established that every wrestler wants the championship, that's it's very difficult to attain that championship and that only the best wrestlers can win it, that there are material benefits for winning it, and that the championship very rarely changes hands, the fans will care more about championship matches. And that's what it's all about, getting them to care. That's not to say that the title is more important than the wrestler. Even when the title is presented as important, you can't just put a belt on an unover wrestler and expect it to get them over. But when a wrestler gets over, putting a belt on them, when it's handled correctly, can get them more over. We've seen this happen too many times for it not to be true. Was the idea that "the title is just a meaningless prop" ever a piece of conventional wisdom in the wrestling business before Russo started spouting it in all his interviews? Because I was about 14 or 15 when he started saying it, and of course I always knew wrestling was fake, but up to that point I had never thought that the championship wasn't important within the fictional universe of wrestling. I thought that the title was a big deal. All my wrestling-loving friends did too. In '98, the fans went crazy for Austin beating HBK for the title, Goldberg beating Hogan, Mankind beating Rock. (The last one happened in '98, but aired in '99, dont correct me!) But in '99, all of a sudden, titles are meaningless because Vince Russo said so. That doesn't hold up to close scrutiny in my opinion, and it's also not consistent to view the title as a prop when one of the pillars of Russo's ratings-drawing philosphy was frequent title changes. I view the handling of the championship as the Pascal's Wager of wrestling: even if it turns out to be true that the championship is just a prop and fans are only interested in personal issues, promotions should still act as if the world championship is very important and handle it accordingly by limiting the number of title changes, only putting it on wrestlers who are already over, portraying the champs as huge stars who are famous and make a lot of money. If they do this and it the fans are indifferent to it, then the only real loss is whatever ratings gain you would have gotten out of frequent title changes. If, however, the title is important and you devalue it by hotshooting title changes or giving the belt to Jack Swagger-types who aren't over to that level, it could lead to the fans becoming indifferent to your championship matches. And I don't know if anyone has noticed, but most PPV main events are for titles! (That is, when there's a champion who wrestles more than four times a year!) This post was quite TL;DR and not all that well-written, and I don't mean to imply that goc has the same view of the belt as Vince Russo. But my overall point is that it's easy to make the fans care about the championship when you just take a wrestler who the fans love or hate and give them the belt and match them up with top opponents and have them win a lot. People come into wrestling fandom with the idea of the importance of championships already ingrained into them because in our culture there is a tremendous amount of social conditoning that lets us know that sports championships are a very, very big deal. That conditioning is a free gift to wrestling promoters from the sports world. Why try to beat it out of the fans?

Ashley Hudson had a very brief run in 2000 WCW as Daffney's boyfriend Ozzy Rooles.

Given that Sting had just made his ill-advised heel turn in September, Goldberg-Sting for the title should have been the Starrcade main event and probably would have been if not for Russo coming in and changing everything. I also would have set up Hart-Hogan (face vs. face) as the other main event for Starrcade, preferably with Hart going over although it really wouldn't be a big deal if Hulk felt he had to win. I don't really have any more creative suggestions for this time period, though I do have a bunch of ideas for WCW starting at the April 2000 point where Bischoff/Russo returned that have been floating around my head for the last 15 years or so, and maybe I'll post them in the fantasy booking folder one day.

The Benoit tribute Raw, too.

I thought the "Adam Copeland is feces" line was just something Matt wrote on the internet. Did he ever say that in a promo? If so, not good, though I do remember Stone Cold once replying to the Rock's assertion that he was the "super species" by stating that Rock was the "super feces," but he pulled it off.

I predict that within a few weeks we will see a backstage segment where Axelmania and Macho Mandow annoy HHH with their catchphrases so he books them in a handicap match against Rusev as "punishment." The new Mega-Powers will introduce "Miss Lana" (dressed up just like Liz at Summerslam '88) before the match and the finish will be her tearing off her dress to reveal a tame swimsuit, distracting 'sev long enough to allow Mandow to roll him up and score an upset win!

Beach Blast '93 was indeed the last two-hour PPV home video. I rented Fall Brawl and Halloween Havoc and they were both full-length.

I'm not sure if this should go in here or in the confessions thread, because it makes me look like a piece of crap, but I have always wished that we got the Vince funeral show that never happened because of Benoit. Obviously, moreso than missing the show I would prefer that Benoit hadn't killed anyone. But I was pumped for that Raw, dammit, and it probably would have been one of the most memorable editions of the longest-running weekly episodic show on TV. I know the show was supposed to end with Daniel Beck of the Federal Investigation Commission arresting Linda for Vince's murder, but who knows what other wackiness we missed out on? What a tragedy.

Meltzer says the plan for next year is Rousey vs Steph in a singles match. My suspicion is that HHH wants to have a self-conscious epic with Rock and doesn't want any shenanigans getting in the way.

Smart of her to quit after earning her Mania payoff. And without letting Nikki get her win back!

I'm not bothered by HHH's "internet fans" comment, nor do I think it was a particularly calculated heel move, but I do like to imagine that he thought to himself "haha, I owned them" as he said the line and then was later greeted with several high-fives from wrestlers and members of management backstage as they complimented him on the sick burn he just laid in on those marks.