Loss

I don't know that those types of fans existed, because while they got heat on PPVs, Rey Misterio didn't really get over huge consistently until 1999 when he feuded with Nash, and guys like Benoit, Malenko and Guerrero were over at times and not over at other times. The crowd was there for the NWO, to a point where it bothered me when both the fans and announcers ignored ongoing good matches. Jericho was very over in 1998, but that had nothing to do with his ability in the ring, and Juventud Guerrera was pushed as a joke and thus perceived as one. Guys like La Parka, Silver King, El Dandy, Ultimo Dragon, etc, I don't think brought in any viewers at all. At least not until 1999. I agree that by 1999, Hogan, Nash and company were no longer pulling the numbers, and more weeks than not, whatever guys like Benoit and Misterio were doing were getting the ratings in their quarter hours, usually second only to Ric Flair's segments as the highest-rated on the show. When I talk to casual fans about WCW, the one consistent thing they say is that there were way too many luchadores hanging around. I realize that those types of fans are always going to exist, but this has been a consistent, across-the-board thing.

Right, that was the point I was making, was that he credits the ring work with playing a part in WCW's success, when it didn't. Otherwise, the cruiser matches on TV would have had far more heat. I didn't word that properly.

Then, we could get Shawn v X-Pac, and Shawn v Nash, and then Scott Hall can come in to help his friend even the odds, but turn on him so they can do Hall v Michaels. Whatever. And they can always do HHH v HBK one-more-time-we-really-mean-it style!

Dave Meltzer was on LAW last night and apparently said that HHH is pushing to get Kevin Nash and Sean Waltman to return to WWE and join Evolution.

There's no criteria more objective than money drawn actually. It's going to be Hogan or Austin with no mystery if we go that route. If we just look at overall impact, it's going to be the same. With ringwork, Austin could win, Benoit could win, Bret could win, Michaels could win ... there are more odds-on favorites. Still, if there are differing viewpoints, I want to hear them, but I still thing ringwork may be the best way to do this, unless there are objections. Or, we could do "favorites" and everyone just vote for their personal favorites in every category so we determine NMB's favorite WWE guys, but that's a little too open for my liking, because some smartass will come in and try to push HHH to the finals just to troll. Or maybe not. That's why this thread is here, so we can talk it over.

http://s3.invisionfree.com/New_Millennium_...hp?showforum=20 This is the new tournaments subfolder. It's also at the very top of the wrestling folder page. We'll get this started.

I think we should all find a consensus on how we're going to evaluate the choices before we start naming names, so we're all in tune with each other. So, what do you think? Money drawn? Impact? Ability in the ring? Speaking skills? A combination of all of the above? I personally would rather just go with ability in the ring, but if someone has a viewpoint otherwise, please share it.

WWE gets off on treating people like shit to see if they can take it, and if someone comes into the business who already has a lot of money, they get heat for flaunting their wealth. That happened to Big Show as well. This sort of carny bullshit is going to continue until the locker rooms are unionized, and that ain't happening anytime soon.

Wrestling is insane. All of these road stories are just wild. I don't think I could ever get into wrestling simply because of the ribs. The lies on top of that are kind of a problem, but they usually take the ribs way too far. Was there any particular reason he chose this week to cover Billy Robinson?

From the 10/28/96 Nitro ... Steven Regal v Juventud Guerrera This was about as good as an overbooked three minute match could be. You have Sean Waltman popping up in the middle of the match to talk about how great he is, you have NWO picketers in the crowd and in the ring, you basically one steady chain wrestling sequence that lasts about 2:30. It's nice the way they flow from one move to the other, but it doesn't really matter, does it? Meltzer always seems to try to paint the picture that the undercard played a part in WCW's success in the late 90s, but it didn't, and if this match doesn't explain the company's downfall in bite-size format, I don't know what does. Jeff Jarrett v Ricky Morton No heat, sadly, because this was a fine match. It goes a couple of minutes longer than the previous one. Morton is as fundamentally sound as he ever was, but his charisma is just not there anymore. Jarrett has it in spades here, but he is still being positioned as a guy who acts like a heel and wrestles like a heel but sides with babyfaces in feuds, and I think it confused the audience until they finally gave up hope on getting anyone to cheer him. Jarrett would top himself the next week on Nitro against Benoit, in a match I'll get to tomorrow, but this is a nice effort, with Morton determined unrelenting on Jarrett's arm, despite every counter Jarrett can think of to get out of it. Jarrett finally starts working toward building to the figure four. His first attempt comes without softening Morton up, and it almost costs him the match, as Morton gets a quick inside cradle for a 2 and 7/8 count. Like the match above, about as good as it can be given time constraints and total apathy from the audience, who is more preoccupied with playing with the new cool toy. Rey Misterio Jr v Jimmy Graffiti This is a nice collection of Rey's trademark spots, but that's about all it is. Graffiti can keep up if nothing else, he's a good catcher for Rey's daredevil moves, and he even busts out a couple of his own, most notably his somersault off the apron. There's too much obvious cooperation at times, which drags the match down, and again, there's not really any heat. Nothing special. Chris Benoit v Eddy Guerrero Man, this Nitro was the master of delivering matches that look excellent on paper and chopping them to shreds, overbooking them, or assigning weird roles for the wrestlers when they actually do work something out decent. In this case, you have wrestlers aplenty at ringside, a three-man announce crew more focused on Sting's new face paint, and two wrestlers who are selling injuries from the night before -- for Benoit, it's his shoulder; for Eddy, it's his ribs. That selling is admittedly nice and is probably the main high point of this match. They do still manage to portray intensity and desire, but it's probably the worst I've ever seen from Benoit/Guerrero, in a time period where both were still in their primes ironically enough. I don't blame them, I blame the overbooking, but the point still stands. From the 11/02/96 WCW Saturday Night ... Chris Benoit v Chris Jericho So far, this is the best match of the bunch. Jericho takes it to Benoit like he means it for the majority of this match, and Benoit goes out of his way to put over Jericho's offense and make him look sharp. Benoit is still selling his shoulder injury from Havoc, and Jericho zooms in on it, applying a Fujiwara armbar and even shoulderblocking his shoulder, in a cool, inventive spot. Every time Benoit tries to fight back, Jericho gets the best of the exchange. He also lands a very nice dropkick. He almost gets a win off of a backslide, which is an incredibly smart move in terms of strategy, but no dice. Nick Patrick is refereeing here, and this was smack dab in the middle of his evil ref angle, so he overlooks Woman interfering and gouging Jericho's eyes, giving Benoit the opening to plant Jericho with the powerbomb and hook the tights for the win. It's almost like Benoit wanted to lose this match, because he gave Jericho every possible out that he could. Fun match that's a little too short, but they make tremendous use of the time they have. Rey Misterio Jr v Dean Malenko Dean is the one calling spots here, and it shows. Instead of facing Rey The Daredevil, he appears to be pushing to face Rey The Mat Wrestler, and he is on offense most of the time. To his credit, he pulls out some cool moves while doing so, such as the gutbuster, a backbreaker, a powerbomb and even the stretch plum, but Rey has to fight for whatever he gets. Toward the end of the match, Rey does get a chance to get up off of his feet and starts stringing together some nice highspots to create false finishes, even if the match has no heat whatsoever. The tide turns when he reverses Dean's electric chair into a rana, knocking Dean out so he could hit him with a nice tope. Tons of moves are here from both, but Dean made Rey wait too long to bust them all out, and despite this match being short just like all the others, it feels like it went an eternity.

(1) I unpin this to make room at the top of the page. (2) You say you wish I wouldn't have done that because you just transcribed those promos. (3) I say I wanted to do "I Just Copped" since it was getting less activity, but that I didn't want to offend you. (4) You said that would be better. (5) I do it. (6) You say I should have left this unpinned after telling me I should repin it. (7) I just give up trying to figure out what's going on. Things will just be like this for now, I guess. I'd just prefer not to have more than three topics pinned to the top of the page, and that's all I was trying to fix. Nothing more.

I started the process tonight of going through my VHS tapes and figuring out what I want to keep, since I'm getting them all converted to DVD in coming months and in installments. So I just grabbed the first tape I saw and took my chances. In this case, it was a four-hour Memphis comp from 1985. Tomorrow, I'll go back to watching DVDs, the next day VHS and so on. I figure it's the only way I can get both done at the same time. Standout matches: Jerry Lawler v Randy Savage - Mid South Coliseum They don't actually show anything of the match but the finish, but the post-match angle is glorious. Savage gets DQ'd for his manager, Tux Newman (a good talker but a total Bobby Heenan ripoff) interfering for the DQ. Lawler tries to even the score and Savage attacks him from behind. He brings a metal plate into the ring and piledrives him on it multiple times, and puts his AWA Southern title around his arm and drops the big elbow twice. Lawler is stretchered out, and throughout this tape, Savage would both gloat about it and lose his mind and randomly attack other people as well. My God, he was an awesome character in his heyday. Koko Ware & Norvell Austin v Brad & Bart Batten - from TV Nice little five-minute match that sees the established PYTs give the Battens just enough to make it interesting, but not so much that they look weak, since they're the ones headlining shows. Koko Ware is awesome not just here, but on this entire tape. Norvell isn't a bad worker either, but it's obvious Koko is the best of the two. He's really great at creating movement and excitement in the ring, all the while wrestling a very believable, somewhat stiff style. He and his partner also have the heel tag team schtick down pat -- they tease babyface comebacks to enormous pops (especially for a studio match), double team constantly behind the ref's back and they even focus their offense -- both work over the neck of Brad with a front facelock, swinging neckbreaker and Koko's finisher, the brainbuster. For what's essentially a squash, they keep things mighty fun, and even build to a hot tag to brother Bart. Terrific, if abbreviated, tag team wrestling. Cyclops v Davey Haskins - from TV This is a crap match, and I only mention it because Cyclops is billed as a masked wrestler from Greece. He also wrestles unusually slow, doesn't sell a thing and uses the pedigree as his finisher. You don't think ...? Fabulous Ones v Eddie Gilbert & Lanny Poffo The Fabs still weren't a "great" tag team for their time, but I like them more after watching all their matches on this tape again, and they did have their moments, this being one of them. As good as Lane and Keirn are, Gilbert and Poffo are heel Gods, though. The match starts out with the energetic faces schooling Poffo with elementary stuff like headlocks and armbars. Pretty typical, right? Eddie Gilbert gets tagged in and says "fuck this shit!" and punches Steve Keirn in the face 13 times, without slowing down, until he has him where he wants him. Now THAT'S dedication! Lots of the typical ref distracting and cheating, and Lanny Poffo even pulls out a moonsault! In Memphis? In 1985? Yes. It doesn't connect though, and just when you think Keirn is finally going to make the hot tag, Eddie Gilbert cuts it off because he is a huge asshole that likes to mess with vulnerable people. He gets in a great vertical suplex, but misses a top rope kneedrop, finally giving Keirn the opening he needs to tag in Lane, and when he does, the building erupts! All four end up brawling in the ring to a point where the referee can no longer control the match, so he throws it out. To my joy, Gilbert and Poffo even do the Dusty Rhodes-trademarked CLUBBERIN' (four fists on one guy) on both Fabs. Really nice match, although a little too fast-paced to maximize some of the better work. *** Randy Savage v Bart Batten Savage is a brilliant heel and this match acts as a showcase for all his offense. He jumps Bart before the opening bell and the poor guy never even gets his jacket off. When his brother Brad tries to make the save, Savage demolishes him as well before finishing off Bart with the big elbow, although it may be the medium-sized elbow since he does it from the middle rope. Fun, three-minute squash. Koko Ware & Norvell Austin v Fabulous Ones Koko takes a hell of a bump at the very beginning of the match where he lands directly on top of his head after a monkey flip. OUCH! Both of the faces work Norvell's shoulder over, and then proceed to debut my new favorite comedy spot -- Stan Lane walks to the other corner of the ring, where Ware is standing, and starts poking him in the chest. Problem is, since Norvell is dead center in the ring, he had to step on him to get there. Ware doesn't even notice this and decides to go back to Lane's corner and do the same thing, but he ended up stepping on his own partner again. This got a tremendous reaction, and Koko sold it so well. Austin finally comes to his feet to try to get out of the hold, but realizes that when he stands up, he's right between both Fabs, so he freaks out and lays back down, going to plan B. Another great spot! Koko finally enters the match again and looks awesome doing it. He immediately connects with a great dropkick and a beautiful high knee, leaving Lane as the new face in peril. When Koko is in, the pace picks up so dramatically that it's hard to keep up, as he starts working over Lane's shoulder to get revenge for his partner, nailing him with a picture perfect shoulderbreaker. He then trolls Keirn in the corner so he can hit Lane with manager Tux Newman's cane for kicks, and uses the sitdown splash that Vader always used to counter sunset flips. Nice build to the hot tag, which sees Lanny Poffo run in for the DQ. This is so worth seeing. The PYTs aren't quite as polished as the Midnight Express would be, but the spirit is still very much there, and the frame of mind needed to be a great heel tag team certainly is. If Austin was on Ware's level, the sky would have been the limit. ***1/2 Randy Savage v Jerry Oske Joined in progress about 27 or 28 minutes in, and the match goes less than 31 minutes, so not much footage is here. That's a shame, because Savage looked to be carrying Oske to something great. I don't know what happened to Jerry Oske after this, for the record. It's obvious that Savage just didn't blow up, because he's still moving at his usual fast speed, and the last few minutes are loaded with false finishes. I hope one day I find this in full. Savage drops the AWA Southern title here, as he's WWF bound. Jerry Lawler & Bill Dundee v Bruiser Brody & Kareem Muhammad The size difference between Dundee and Brody is quite baffling. Nice brawl in structure, but the execution does lack something, moreso from Muhammad than the other three. Lawler works face in peril, and is tremendous at gathering sympathy, but the heels don't know quite what to do with what they're given. Mayhem takes over when Brody gets frustrated with the ref trying to control him and he gives him his trademark big boot. Fun in spots, and the build is nice, but the way they get there is a little uneven.

Make up your damn mind. Or better yet, don't. I'll do what I want and you'll accept it and smile in the meantime. Glad this is settled.

Repinning.

Well, I wanted to unpin "I just copped", since little is posted in it, but I didn't want to offend you.

Hogan always gets weird reactions. People either typically boo or ignore him if he's shown on the Jumbotron, but they go crazy when he's there live. I'm not sure what the difference is.

As long as WM keeps doing big numbers, they'll think that they don't need to change anything, sadly.

They probably would have gone over 1,000,000. Do you think Angle/HBK played a part in the number at all?

I'm absolutely shocked. I guess Backlash will tell us if Batista was a draw or if the Wrestlemania name was just an enormous draw this year. Ditto JD for Cena. Although, they've already hurt Batista somewhat, and he's not as strong as he was before Mania.

It's a double-edged sword. If they're just "playing a character", then WWE should just completely stop caring about maintaining kayfabe outside of the show. Enemies on television dramas aren't restricted from traveling with each other, and they're not told to stay in character in public at all times either. At the same time, I personally wouldn't be offended by them crossing that line because I know it's a show. The problem is that even though the average fan knows it's fake, he doesn't watch it in the same way he watches a movie or a TV show. The dynamic is a little bit different, so the rules are a little bit different. Wrestling is just weird all the way around, and Vince has struggled with corporate identity for a long time. Vince says what they do is not a sport, yet JR refers to the competitors as athletes on WWE television. So which is it? He came out and admitted wrestling is fake to avoid commission fees, but why hasn't he pushed to get the wrestlers recognition in the Screen Actors Guild? I know the answer to all those questions; it's because Vince has always been about convenience. Until he goes one way in full or the other, he's going to be limited in what he can do without causing a public outcry.

The gimmick also ran its course in record time. They could always do an angle on the night of the draft where they're having a 10-man tag. Say, Hassan/Daivari/Conway/Dupree/Grenier v Regal/Taijiri/Michaels/Benoit/Jericho, as an example. They somehow manage to all get Michaels alone after the match and are about to do something really horrid, like put an American flag over him and burn it, or something equally tasteless, and Conway thinks they've gone too far and tries to talk them out of it. They seem to agree, and he turns his back and he gets ambushed. Do this *after* some of the draft picks have already been announced in the evening and Dupree has been traded back to RAW. Grenier and Dupree start teaming again, and Conway comes out of the crowd the next week during a match they're having and levels them both with chairs. Eventually, La Res beats him down again, because the numbers just start getting the best of him. He finally finds a partner in Shelton Benjamin and they team up for a while against La Res and dispose of them. After that, start a slow burn dissension in the team turning either guy heel, and you have a new program to work toward.