Loss

Shane is not taking over. Stephanie is. The thinking in the company is that even if she's not the best writer they have now, she has to learn what she's doing at some point since she'll be the big creative force when Vince is gone, so it's a sacrifice worth making.

I believe Flair faced Baba in his first tour of Japan as the world champion in October of 1981, and the match made TV, but not Classics years later. That may be incorrect, but I believe Herb Kunze had a listing for it at one point.

Ric Flair faced Barry Windham at Crockett Cup '87. What matches did you watch? Yeah, Dave Hebner was in the NWA, and Koloff wearing the brace is just like Kobashi having his knee taped up in 6/9/95, depending on which match you're talking about. I only remember him wearing a brace at the '87 Great American Bash.

I don't understand what this sentence means.

It's been tried in other areas; let's give it a whirl here. Sometimes, the threads that veer off topic and go all over the place are the fun ones, so let's just see where this goes.

Right. I'm not a huge fan of the claw myself, but counting it out of a match completely is similar to those who hate Taue's nodowa because they don't think it looks credible. The claw is put over so strong in this match and sold so well that it works. I wish Windham could have found a way to make it work better when he turned heel in '88, because I really feel like his work suffered a little bit during that time period because all of his matches were built around the clawhold. This thread is all over the place and I love it. We need to start doing a wrestling version of "Comments That Don't Deserve A Thread".

I just realized there are no Flair matches listed there. EDIT -- I see that you mentioned that. There's a lot of 80s talk on various boards lately, so I'm hoping it's something that can be extensively covered and pimped, in all areas. Too much of the footage from that decade is stuff that's either been talked about as being great when it's not, was great in the time period but isn't now, hasn't been talked about at all, or is surrounded in urban legend but doesn't exist on video (i.e. Last Battle of Atlanta/Luger v Steamboat in Philly).

Speaking of Jumbo/Von Erich, if you were doing the top five matches AJPW had in the 80s, would that match be part of it? I know it would mine, but I still need to watch the Jumbo/Tenryu matches and more of the Choshu invasion stuff.

I was just wondering what you all hope to see accomplished with the last three draft picks to each show, or at least who you predict the defectors will be. At this point, all I can think is that either the person who wins one of the title matches at Vengeance will jump to Smackdown. So, of those guys, who do you think is the biggest possibility? HHH Batista John Cena Chris Jericho Christian There could very well be more than one person from that list jumping, but at least one is jumping. I think we can safely rule Christian out, as far as winning the title, because if they wanted to put him over, Jericho would not have been inserted in the match. The Christian/Cena feud will also probably still have steam after Vengeance, even if Christian takes the fall, so I think he'll stay on RAW. Any predictions on where they might go with Summerslam for Cena? I think the possibility of him facing whoever *doesn't* take the fall in the three-way being who he faces is strong. Jericho is also a longshot, but I've read some speculation that he'll win the title and immediately jump to Smackdown, which would be far too cool to actually happen. Jericho jumping to Smackdown as a heel, however, is the best thing that can happen to his career at this point, because he legitimately stands a chance of being either the top heel or near the top. We may also get the Jericho/Eddy dream team feuding with Rey/RVD. I'm thinking more than likely, Cena retains, and either way, I see him staying on RAW. I think we can now rule out the Undertaker switching shows, as they seem to be going toward another program with Orton. Taker also has his share of heels he's never done extended feuds with on SD, specifically Eddy Guerrero and possibly Chris Jericho if he jumps. Some have said Charlie Haas needs to go to RAW. Fuck that. I don't want to see Benjamin feud with Haas; I want to see Benjamin feud with Angle. That's possible now, and it's the feud Shelton needs to shoot him to the top. I'm hoping it's a large part of the reason Angle was moved. HHH is someone I would have suggested will end up on Smackdown, but that seems to be where they're sending his castaways (Benoit, Orton) and the only fresh feud he'd have on that show would be with Rey Misterio. I'm thinking he'll most likely stay on RAW for that reason, take the title off of Cena sometime this fall, and Cena will win it back at Wrestlemania 22. That means, most likely, Batista is going to Smackdown. It will be very interesting to see how he fares without HHH around. I also have a feeling Shawn Michaels is going to end up on Smackdown, and Shawn/Eddy is another program that hasn't been done that has appeal. So, I'm thinking the shows end up like this when it's all said and done as their top guys. RAW HHH Cena Angle Benjamin You can do singles and tags off of those four for months, and with Benjamin and Cena in the mix, it at least makes it seem fresh. I also don't think they would be wasting Angle/Batista on RAW next week if they had any plans of keeping Batista on the show. Smackdown Michaels Orton Jericho Undertaker Benoit Guerrero Rey Batista JBL Big Show Smackdown may still end up as the stronger show when it's all said and done.

Hammer, for a VERY brief period in early 1992, wasn't horrible.

Everyone has a price for the million dollar man.

Easily. What really puts the exclamation point on that for me is that Diesel loses the match to Bret at Survivor Series '95, and that match does so much more to put him over than defeating Shawn did at Wrestlemania XI. That match, in some ways, was the death of his run.

I'd probably go with Diesel myself. Their KOTR '94 and SurSer '95 matches really hit the mark.

Try to think of someone else for "surprising" for Foley if you can, Helmet. The idea behind that is "most surprisingly good".

Not my favorite wrestler, but I think he's the most fun person to do this with. EDDY GUERRERO Best opponent: I'm going to go with Chris Benoit. Some have suggested that they've never been able to meet their own standards against each other, and not every match they've had has been great, but I can't think of anyone Eddy has had more good matches against than Benoit, both in singles and in tags, and in multiple companies. Worst opponent: Diamond Dallas Page. As good as Page was getting by late 1996 or so, I expected the matches he had with Guerrero to be excellent, but they never quite met at the same level. DDP actually had better matches with Chavito. Most surprising opponent: JBL, hands down. Bradshaw simply hasn't had matches anywhere near that level against anyone else. Most disappointing opponent: Chris Jericho. Maybe it's because they've rarely had the opportunity to work in singles matches, but on paper, that match has always looked better than it's ever really turned out. I dig the Fall Brawl '97 match, but I still think it had the potential to be better. Dream opponent: I think Owen Hart and Eddy Guerrero could have had some outstanding matches.

I don't feel dirty about taking anything from that board, since Kawada~! is the one who thought of it over there, but this could be fun. Take your favorite wrestler (explanations are much preferred) and pick the following: Best Opponent Worst Opponent Most Surprising Opponent Most Disappointing Opponent Dream Opponent

I don't know how reliable all this is, but nothing seems terribly farfetched. I can understand why they want to re-sign him, but Shawn Michaels is 40 years old. How long does he plan on making this comeback last? Is he still going to be wrestling at 50? Wasn't the idea originally for him to come back for a small handful of matches? Reid's been in trouble quite a bit lately. I'd assume that's what it is. Matt Hardy would probably be a much bigger attraction working the indies and he may even make more money doing so than working WWE. He's already committed to some dates that I don't know if he'd back out of. That said, Edge/Hardy, if they could both keep their cool, would be an enormous program at this point, and with Lita no longer seeing Edge, it may be easier for Matt to work with them. *laughs for obvious reasons* We all know what "bulked up" means. Winner of HIAC jumps to Smackdown remains my prediction. That bitch seems to pop out children constantly, and over a long period of time too. She's like Kelly Rippa; every time Dean Malenko's name is mentioned, it seems like his wife being pregnant is mentioned as well. As I said yesterday, woohoo! Rock. On. I just really hate what has happened while she has been out though. I think turning her face would kill a lot of momentum she's gathered as a wrestling character, and not just a pretty face, but it's going to be hard for her to ever be more hated than Lita is right now. So what do you do, especially since they're the only women seen as stars and as a result, they probably don't need to sit on the same side of the fence. Are those Kurt Angle rumors still going around? Where did they start, and have they been squashed? That doesn't surprise me, but I'm still waiting for a real preliminary buyrate that isn't reported by 1Heyman and doesn't come out the very next day. When domestic business is down, that seems to be a constant. I've never seen him, but I've heard good things. Hopefully, he'll fit in well in WWE.

You know, every once in a while, Keller can rock it.

Nash joined the booking committee in September of 1998 and took over completely by November after Hulk Hogan "retired", which was a work on the locker room to trick them into trusting Nash as the anti-Hogan. Bischoff not only condoned this, but helped orchestrate it, and he had a very tough time getting his wrestlers to trust him again afterwards. Wonder why. The cruiserweight division was totally fucked up in the time you mentioned. They were trying to appease Jericho by pushing him as a heavyweight toward the TV title, since he had a renewal upcoming, but they offered him roughly half of what Scott Steiner had just renewed for, and Jericho felt that at that point in time he was a far bigger asset to the company than Steiner, considering that he was better in the ring and on the mic and more over, and things got really weird after that. They didn't really have a direction to go with the smaller guys at that point, the ones who usually saved the PPVs, because they didn't have a new heel set up to replace the departing Jericho. Not that the match quality when Jericho was cruiserweight champ wasn't a dramatic downslide from the work in 1996-1997 anyway, but he had gone over everyone cleanly without them trying to build anyone else up. When the cruiser division lost focus, the good matches became more and more rare. I think WCW's death was actually a combination of a lot of things, and Eric Bischoff, Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash and Vince Russo were the key guys in tearing it down, each in their own special way.

It was a reference to Kevin Nash blaming the downfall of WCW on corporate America. HHH wouldn't be above doing the same.

Not to act like a Dave Meltzer magnet, but if Benoit and Guerrero got in a legit fight, who'd have the upperhand? It's obvious Benoit's a badass, but Eddy's no slouch himself, and has a strong amateur background.

I can't even make it past the poll question and the title of that thread. My God (no pun intended).

1 - Good for Samoa Joe's career finally seeing some direction, although I don't know how much longer TNA plans to last with no house shows and no TV to promote their shows. 2 - Interesting question, and I don't know the answer 3 - Expect HHH to use this as an excuse for having something to do with WWE's downfall if something ever happens and WWE goes out of business in 15 years or something. 4 - Woohoo!