Loss

I just read The Death Of WCW in one sitting. My God. It's heartbreaking to see that mistakes are repeated so many times in wrestling, especially when modern-day WWE is doing so many of the same things WCW did at their worst. Dave Meltzer said it best in the foreword when he said that far more people have copied WCW's less successful ideas since they died than they've attempted to copy any of their successful ideas.

I think Missy Hyatt is better in the spoiled, blonde bitch role than any woman ever has been, with Sunny/Tammy *possibly* being an exception by showing up in red-state crazy SMW and declaring her role model to be Hillary Clinton and making her first televised act be to file a lawsuit against SMW for sexual discrimination. Anyway, I've always laughed at the complaint people make about a Missy Hyatt or a Stephanie McMahon being too annoying. That's the DESIRED reaction, and in both cases, they've been part of successful (and unsuccessful because they were pushed too long) programs.

Christmas is traditionally a pretty historic holiday for wrestling, with the idea being that after a full day of family and sentimentality, people are going to want an aggressive form of entertainment that night. I was thinking a few minutes ago that it was 23 years ago now that Terry Gordy slammed that cage door on Kerry Von Erich's head and in the process set Dallas on fire as a wrestling city for the next 2-3 years. It's fascinating to me how quickly things can go well (and how quickly they can fall apart).

Wrestling has literally fallen apart at the seams since 1999. Look at how many top stars we had then and how many we had now. Look at WCW and ECW dying, and WWE going from a strong wrestling company to a joke. Look at all the wrestlers that have dropped dead or had their careers cut short by negligence and sloppiness. It's hard to blame fans for being jaded or cynical when so many bad news items for wrestling fans have occured in the past 5-6 years. I can still be surprised by a good storyline when it presents itself, so I wouldn't say it's been a detriment for me personally. When learning more about wrestling ever starts making me like it less instead of increasing my interest in it, that's the moment I'll stop watching completely. Some have already made that decision, and more power to them.

Bret agreed to work with them to avoid the burial DVD like Warrior got, which is what was in production. That is 100% true and has been confirmed by everyone involved. What Rudo is saying is that he thinks Vince insulting Bret on air is merely another way to goad Bret into coming back in a TV role, which sounds like Vince.

Me too. Also liked Luger/Windham v Arn/Tully better.

It wasn't so much the repetition of spots as it was that they used the exact same counters every time and there were so many moments the match went nowhere. I think Flair took a hiptoss followed by a dropkick at least three separate times, got slammed off the top turnbuckle at least twice, etc. I think the best part of the match was the way they milked the sunset flip. I think that's Flair's greatest credit as a worker -- he took a move as simple as Sting attempting a sunset flip and got great heat struggling to keep his balance, a heel nearfall holding the ropes for leverage, the ref got over for catching him and kicking his hands away and Sting got a VERY close two-count to finally close out the sequence. Awesome stuff. So a totally elementary wrestling move manages to get two hot false finishes, get the match over by showing the ref as a total enforcer and get Sting over by sticking to his game plan when Flair tries to sneak one by him. Very cool. Also, from Sting missing the Stinger splash in the last 5-10 minutes of the match to the very end, it was really awesome and heated.

Lelani Kai is awesome.

They could probably get a huge number of Joshi stars that have virtually no wrestling market to speak of right now, that while past their peak, would still seem fresh and standout here. They should make an effort to do this.

Exactly, and that's not even a standard Bret spot. It's one he's done a few times, but it's not an every match thing like Flair getting thrown off the top rope.

No MSG shows? Vince Sr. is rolling over in his grave.

Will things get better or worse? Do you see any new stars emerging? Will Edge's MITB gimmick be totally forgotten or will it be honored? Will HHH regain the gold? Will the drug testing have a severe adverse effect on the roster? Will The Rock, Chris Jericho, Brock Lesnar, Steve Austin or Bill Goldberg return? Will the gap between TNA and WWE close at all? Who will headline Wrestlemania? What will the big story of the year be? What do you think is the most important decision WWE will make next year? Let's discuss.

They aren't archived unfortunately. It airs Sunday nights from 8PM-10PM EST and isn't played again. Eyada had all the old shows archived on the website, which was much better.

Who is a likely candidate to book the juniors? Possibly Liger?

Is Choshu still returning to the booking position? And is that good or bad at this stage if it's true? EDIT: Previous post answered my question.

This would be the perfect time in wrestling for promotions the world over to band together and have a traveling world champ that defends in the US, Japan and Mexico, but the politics would be even more chaotic today than they were in the NWA days, so it will never happen.

Bret's comeback is a series of moves. Using the same offense for one's comeback makes more sense than going to the top rope, only to get slammed from the top turnbuckle in every match. Repeating offense is logical; repeating bumps is not. That's the difference between Bret and guys like Michaels and Flair who do stuff like the skin the cat and the corner flips in all of their big matches.

***1/4-***1/2, somewhere in there. Good match with great heat that legitimately made Sting a superstar, but how many times can you repeat the EXACT SAME SEQUENCES in a match?

The chiropractor is rumored to be killing business by squashing the undefeated, bald-headed Jewish chiropractor that everyone likes better.

I honestly don't understand how Styles and Daniels are considered better than Rob Van Dam, who everyone correctly regards as a spot machine.

That begs another question -- are there any other matches that you've seen from the 90s that you'd say are better than any of the matches listed here? Some of the next-tier great matches (i.e. Hansen/Kobashi 7/29, another AJ tag, Liger/Samurai, Tamura/Kohsaka, etc)? I'd personally say no, but I'm curious what others think. I know, for example, Tim has said that he thinks the 10/15/95 Misawa/Kobashi v Kawada/Taue tag is better than 6/9/95, for example.

Misawa v Kawada - AJPW 6/3/94 On a strictly surface level, I've seen better singles matches. I think I'd put Destroyer/Baba from 3/5/69 ahead of this (and every other match ... ever) comfortably, but putting anything else above it is pretty tough. Where this match succeeds like no other match in history has is in getting the match over, getting the storylines over and getting the participants over. Kawada is obviously determined, but as has been said many times, he was only the second most determined man in the building. Kawada's knee was injured in the 12/93 RWTL and he was still selling the injury by June, but Misawa had never taken the low road and gone for Kawada's knee ... until this match. Check out the crowd reaction when he does. There are plenty of things to love about this match, but I think that's my favorite aspect of it. More later.