Cobra Commander

re: UFC vs Tyson/Mathis The fight was originally scheduled to take place on Showtime on November 4th at the MGM Grand, going up against Bowe/Holyfield 3 on HBO. Then Don King moved it from Showtime to FOX on September 14th. Then the fight was postponed after Tyson revealed an injury on November 1st. Then they moved the fight to December 16th on November 22nd. It moved from FOX to Showtime and from the MGM Grand to Atlantic City. Then the fight moved from Atlantic City to Philadelphia due to King's suspension in NJ, and from Showtime to FOX on November 30th. So anything going up against Tyson/Mathis had under 3 weeks notice of the fight being on free TV, and 4 weeks notice of the fight taking place on 12/16. So, it's possible that the Ultimate Ultimate booked itself on 12/16 before Tyson/Mathis. Tyson/Mathis drew a rating of 16.1 and a 28 share. FOX claimed that 43 million saw at least part of the fight card.

Not like Mabel in the Big Daddy V outfit (black tights, no shirt, and suspenders) fares much better in 1995. Mabel and King Kong Bundy are in a realm of guys that probably needed a cape in their entrance attire.

I'm gonna guess that the Mosque in the Coralluzzo story isn't a Shriners Mosque. "USA USA USA, Fuck you Shriners!"

For the record, the cast list for the Tuesday Nights Titans sketch... Rich Hall - Vince McMahon Pamela Stephenson - Cyndi Lauper Billy Crystal - Little Caesar and.. Alex Karras - Captain Lou Albano From the 2/2/1985 Alex Karras/Tina Turner episode. Before they had Hogan/Mr. T on SNL.

The list of rules for the St. Louis Jewish Sports Hall Of Fame (referenced in the show): So, yes, to be in the STL Jewish Sports HOF, you must be Jewish and associated with Athletics.

Korchenko was last seen as a cast member on Big Rig Bounty Hunters.

if Onita couldn't bring Larry Holmes over for a one-shot, what chance did Inoki really have? so.. off the top of my head.. 1980s boxers that had cameos in Japan... Leon Spinks, Trevor Berbick, Matthew Saad Muhammad in UWFI... and I think that's it... unless Iran Barkley or Gerrie Coetzee had a run in W*ING that i'm forgetting. Greg Page or Mike Weaver may have dropped in there. Also, weren't La Parka, El Dandy and Silver King around WCW after a purge of the luchadores? I think Dandy/Silver King got one of those syndicated show pushes as Los Fabulosos around the time that the company was getting sued by Oono (Ono?). Maybe they brought in other guys coincidentally to try and buttress the force of lawsuits.

Probably slightly more money in Moorer/Foreman than Moorer/Joe Hipp. Inoki vs Joe Hipp probably draws 150K in Pyongyang.

Foreman losing his last fight to Morrison made Foreman getting a shot more peculiar to some people. Although it was probably a "Michael Moorer wants an easy defense" thing and I don't know who they had facing Moorer in 95 before he lost to Foreman (and before Tyson got out of prison to butcher the non-Holyfield/Lewis parts of the division) Outside of Lennox Lewis for a few months in 1999/2000, the top 3 belts haven't been unified for 20+ years. But considering the HW ranks, not much of value has been lost through not having unified belts. Plus, it got John Ruiz 10 reigns with the WBA belt.

Boxing notes: 1) Foreman lost to Tommy Morrison in May/June 1993, and didn't fight until he beat Moorer in November 1994. 2) Foreman only won the WBA/IBF belts. The WBC broke off in 93 once Riddick Bowe madusa'ed the WBC belt instead of fighting Lennox Lewis. The WBA stripped Foreman quickly after, and the IBF stripped him since Foreman didn't want to fight Axel Schultz again.

could compare the 4 middle-order Toronto bats to the Four Horsemen too. Bautista - Ole Anderson Encarnacion - Arn Anderson Donaldson - Tully Blanchard Tulowitzki - Ric Flair

aaand.... presenting Jonny Gomes

if your week went all the way to October 20th, 1986, you could cover Roddy Piper rallying the Mets to victory in the 1986 World Series.

adding Social Media to the Raw vs Nitro era would have been amazing. So, the "Stone Cold turns fully face" thing that Kris pondered.. that sounds like a question of "when did Austin stop being a heel vs the Harts outside of the US", which means he didn't fully turn face until the screwjob ended any sort of USA vs Canada feud and Austin could be a face in every WWF market.

Wasn't Disco Inferno gonna be one of the big Gringo Rudos for Konnan's 1999 WCW Lucha show?

the WWE style is sort of an odd utopia. Without fail, main events start on time and end on time. There really isn't a state of chaos very often. They've kinda done things the exact same for a long time and I can understand how that could get old.

Washington Post article about Channel 56

you underestimate the appeal that DDP turned out to have with scruffy redneck women by 97/98. He got to that point thanks to some connections, but he did have some appeal to the target audience.

Was the "Chono and Muta were told to not overshadow WCW guys in 92" claim always bullshit?

Wasn't there a few randomly awkward "East Carolina" mentions on Raw over the years? also, I watched the Humanitarian of the Year segment from 98, and that was fun. Although it'd be even more swarmy to have a fake charity involved in the angle. Or break a plaque in the process too.

so, how did they not end up reenacting this for a segment in 1998?

and Lawler only started doing RAW in April 1995, and I forget when Raw switched from taping 4 weeks at a time to 2 weeks. I think the TV market specifics of 1995/96/97 cable ratings is lost to time. But i'd be interested to see how Nitro did in Memphis compared to RAW. Heck, it'd be interesting to see which TV/cable markets stuck to the WWF during the 52 week Nitro streak. Imagine all the social media-based analysis that could be done if the WWF and WCW battled in 2015. On checking Memphis 95/96 results, seems like they dropped from low-4 digits to high 3-digit totals around the debut of Nitro. But then again, the Memphis MSC attendance chart is probably a bar graph of sadness for most of the 90s. Not sure if there's any notable blips for Mondays involving a Lawler RAW match or whatever. Also, gonna note one flaw about the idea of moving Memphis/USWA weekly shows to Sunday night: Memphis had a CFL team on Sundays in 1995 and the Tennessee Oilers in 1997. Neither drew massive numbers (and to this day, the Tennessee Titans aren't the most popular team in Memphis), but if your base is 1000, some of them might prefer to attend a football game in Memphis instead of a USWA card.

Didn't Finlay basically emerge out of a 18 month/2 year long occultation period to win the TV title out of nowhere in May 98? I don't remember seeing much of Finlay before he randomly won the belt. As for Finlay getting over thru the Regal feud. Wonder how much they had to hold back on for the angle/build since they could only just imply British/Northern Ireland hostility. Obviously they can't directly say that Finlay is a Nationalist or much more than Finlay just having an interest in beating Regal's face into a heap.

Re: the end of some promotions after Nitro's debut (and as the business heated up in 97)... how long did Memphis keep running Monday Night shows after Nitro started? unless i'm confusing Memphis moving to a flea market with them moving off of Monday Nights.

Bix's telegram from Kabuki was a hilarious sort of joke too