Loss

Ric Flair v Scott McGhee - 04/15/84 - Florida territory Ric Flair v Scott McGhee - 05/04/84 - Florida territory Well, it's nice to know what it would have been like had Flair in his prime gone against 1993 Chris Benoit. Two excellent, fast-paced matches -- McGhee is actually really awesome and seems to be the lost worker of the mid 80s. His style is pretty much exactly like that of Benoit in '93, and it's cool seeing him finish Flair off in the 4/15 match with a German suplex into a bridge, a great spot for any era and especially for the US in 1984. The 4/15 match is a studio match played off as a huge upset with Flair talking about everyone else in the territory except his opponent prior to the match, and also giving the great line to a woman at ringside, "Do you know what three words a Floridian woman has never said to me? Where's The Beef. Whoo!" The 5/4 match is more competitive and is given a good 15 minutes and is completely non-formula Flair. There's not even any leg work. Really good wrestling all around.

Hogan, NWO, Cena, etc have all had hand signals the fans can do with the wrestlers. It's part of connecting with the crowd.

I think fans versus fans may be the new concept WWE has been looking for that isn't stale like the Attitude era. Cena splits fans, ECW splits fans ... they should be playing up both sides huge of all their storylines and maybe come up with hand signals or special slogans for one side or the other and really capitalize on this opportunity that has really fallen in their lap.

It sure does seem like lately, anytime a program starts to take off or a wrestler gets hot, they get injured out of nowhere. Maybe God didn't appreciate being false advertised for Backlash.

Next time Jim Ross has to perform sexual favors for a McMahon family member or take bumps off HHH on television, he has only himself to blame. I know I won't feel sorry for him again.

No, that would be The Great Muta, who had a 10-month run in the NWA in 1989 that was memorable enough that he'd still get a huge pop showing up in WCW 11 years later.

1990. February 10, to be exact, at a show co-promoted by the AWA, AJPW and NJPW.

They've dumb-lucked into a great gimmick for Booker T as a guy who wins matches without wrestling matches. But SD is hurting anyway, and now Rey and Angle are going to be on the shelf. I guess the plan is to move RVD there after ONS if he beats JBL, and I guess Batista will be back soon, but that means that everyone who was in the WM main event on the SD side will not be around for a while. Unfortunate.

Cena will eventually crash and burn without some major changes, I think. However, I don't think the booing is a detriment like most people seem to think. Sting just had a really long period where he was really popular, and he would have easily reached his potential with someone behind him who knew what they were doing. Cena has a promotional machine behind him that knows how to make stars.

I agree on Kernodle. One thing that really frustrated me is that he was treated as this out-of-nowhere underdog who didn't really have much of a career when Crockett started on TBS when just two years earlier, he was involved in one of the greatest tag feuds in the history of the territory and was consistently put in a main event position. How quickly they forget.

Watched some Kuniaki Kobayashi/Shiro Koshinaka match from NJ Classics last night. (I'll find the date later.) Kobayashi rocks, but Koshinaka is pretty horrible here. Nothing is more important to me than selling, and I love how Kobayashi creates the most perfect opening ever by grabbing his knee and laying on the ground, practically pointing at it, and Koshinaka doesn't even notice. So at this point, Kobayashi really takes charge of the match and says if Kosh won't lead, he's going to follow, and dominates the majority of the match. Laid out really nicely from that point, although I hated the flash pin at the end after Kobayashi was so dominant. I have a feeling that the match was supposed to go a different way, but that Kobayashi felt like he had to take control because his opponent wasn't up to snuff. Only barely a good match, which is a shame. Kosh fell in my estimation after watching this match, but I think even more of his opponent than I did before. Kuniaki Kobayashi is not really someone people talk about when ranking NJ juniors, but I like him because he didn't lay out his matches in the typical NJ juniors style way, with lots of aimless matwork early on that has no bearing on the final minutes of the match, which is too often straight nearfalls where all the selling goes out the window, and he also doesn't have that annoying Otani habit of applying submission holds and voluntarily letting them go. More of a main event-style layout with NJ juniors spots.

Yeah, I liked this one too. I think what I liked most about it is that the booking was really unappealing and the match seemed to want to fall apart, but both guys worked hard and salvaged it. Not a great match, but a really good one because of that aspect, and also because it's fun to see Flair as a babyface in WCCW, as I'm not sure that ever happened again before or after this match. Adams doesn't get enough credit -- I prefer Von Erichs/Dynamic Duo to Von Erichs/Freebirds as an overall feud just because Adams and Gino were such awesome heels. He also has the best superkick ever.

For the most part, the best talent in WWE works as road agents. You'd think every match would be great with people like that putting them together. And there was a rumor not long ago that Dusty was pushing for them to hire Barry Windham as well.

Matt Hardy has the best punch of anyone active on either show currently, and to my knowledge, he's never caused anyone an injury. RVD, on the other hand, is pretty well-documented in that area.

Sting was much better in the ring and was probably more over with the audience. Only difference was that until WCW hit a peak period in the late 90s, he was over with a much smaller audience. Cena, even now, is nowhere Sting at the peak of his popularity in 1997-1998.

Since only a few guys in WWE these days really know how to throw one properly anymore, I don't mind that they're phasing it out. I do miss stuff like Taped Fist matches and Bunkhouse matches that attempted to recreate the whole barroom brawl atmosphere, but you won't see that in WWE. Vince has always seemed ashamed that pro wrestling is primarily a redneck attraction, while that self-conscious disposition never infected a lot of other American companies in the past, and if anything, they embraced the fact that they were putting together a show designed to appeal to white trash, drunk rednecks.

Not to make light of this, as obviously, no one wants to wish him death, but I don't look forward to the photoshopped banners on message boards if it turns fatal.

Because no matter how much happens in WWE, nothing ever changes in WWE.

WWE lawyers haven't had the best track record lately. And they still have to deal with a possible wrongful termination suit from Dawn Marie too.

I'd rather them bring back WCW.

Yes, and shoe, the great thing about the Flair/Kerry series is that there's a reasonable case for all of those matches mentioned being the best one the two ever had against each other. That's a mark of a great series.

To me, their very best match was in Hawaii on 10/12.

Glad you enjoyed Flair/Kerry. I'll send you some more of their matches with the stuff I'm sending you.

Well, at least you admit you're selfish.