Bix

What John said. The newly available info (especially the interrogation transcript) only bolsters that. By the way, are there any accounts of if Snuka was always like this, whether it was before wrestling or before drugs? Unless he's been through an overdose or two I don't think that can really explain just how out there he is.

I still watch Pawn Stars because the stuff is cool and they do a good job giving historical context to it (well, less so since Sean Rich stopped appearing as arms & armor expert), but the scripted side stories are really awful. I don't mind the stuff they have to do for production reasons, like having the store closed for segments they shoot, but the ongoing story lines...ugh. Oh, and some early eps have transactions that became obviously fake later, like Ron Dale selling them a Coca Cola machine that they took to his brother Rick Dale to get restored. If you've seen American Restoration and catch that rerun, that's when the show starts to feel too fake. The worst thing is when shows air footage that's clearly out of order, because then you don't even have the continuity of traditional scripted programming. Celebrity Rehab got especially bad at this, as did the most recent season of The Joe Schmo Show.

The one thing I hate about this angle is that Madusa was already a heel aligned with Rick Rude. Even by Sting standards, he's pretty dumb here.

There are no gaps that could account for him quitting to work on the docks. Maybe he considered quitting, but he was constantly working, and Super Destroyer and GCW (because of Ole thinking he was took hard to book) runs aside, was always pushed fairly heavily.

It makes enough sense to me, it's the one Misawa-Kobashi match you can figure the most people on the west have seen. Didn't it even air on The Wrestling Channel and/or The Fight Network?

Gagne, Geigel, and Race were both part owners of St Louis. Pardon my ignorance, but if St. Louis wasn't a territory, what was there to own? The St. Louis Wrestling Club, which ran the TV and house shows. Even after Vince took over Wrestling at the Chase on KPLR, they still ran house shows off local promos during a block of AWA, WCCW, & Central States TV that aired on a smaller station.

Gagne, Geigel, and Race were both part owners of St Louis.

Starrcade, not Race.

I don't know about global warming denial, but having lived through a major nuclear disaster I can tell you I will never take activists at their word ever again. Having lived through a major natural disaster that nobody saw coming until a about 3 days prior BECAUSE IT NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE...huh?

Gary Hart claimed in his book that Hogan was never booked on the show and that it was some weird Apter mag thing.

So only foreign guys who worked on American soil count? Does that also mean that any Japanese wrestler who worked in the US but not for WWF, but then worked on those co-promoted Tokyo shows in the early 90s would be disqualified? Did Jumbo ever work for WWF outside of those shows? Also, by that proviso and the mention of Thesz, this is ALL TIME. New Jack is there but Gorgeous George doesn't make the grade? The criteria is convoluted, it's something like: Wrestlers who might have feasibly worked for WWE but never did It's not even true, anyway. Santo regularly worked in the US (mainly in Texas). Rikidozan worked in the US at times, too. Jumbo is one of those guys who technically doesn't meet any of the criteria because he worked both an MSG shot early in his career and in that tag match w/ Haku vs Martel & Perfect at the Wrestling Summit at the Tokyo Dome. Gorgeous George died right as the company became the WWWF, which it seems like they use as the threshold and not Vince Sr. starting or taking control of MSG or anything like that.

Jerry, I'm going to put this as nicely as possible: You keep arguing with people about stuff they tend to know much better than you and get indignant when called out on it. I think it's great that you're trying to watch as much older wrestling as you can and want to participate in discussions here. I really do. But you're basing your theories on random conjecture that you've come up with from watching old matches devoid of much context. Please read as much good historical stuff (Observer features, some of the better books like Bret's, Gary Hart's if you can find it, Stampede book, St. Louis book, all of the Greg Oliver/Steve Johnson books, etc) as you can to figure out how all of this fits together before you start throwing random theories at us and defending them for seemingly no reason other than that they're your theories. How the (W)WWF picked champions is from a completely different booking philosophy from how the NWA board picked champions and how various bookers (at the time Dory Funk Jr. assisted by Gary Hart, Ernie Ladd, & Wahoo McDaniel) booked Jim Crockett Promotions. Weekly and biweekly house show territories (most of them) worked a lot differently from monthly house show territories like the (W)WWF and AWA. Superdome Spectacular shows are not a great indication of how Mid-South was doing as a whole or even how the regular weekly New Orleans shows did. And so on. If you have questions than, again, that's great. Ask away. But please, please try to learn about the context of everything we're discussing before you start coming up with seemingly random theories. It's getting really frustrating to deal with.

Not necessarily, Ole was briefly able to get Piper blackballed by most NWA promoters when he walked out.

No, both Vinces hated it because the look that helped him get the belt was gone. Switching to Karl Gotch style bodyweighht exercises and calisthenics from weight training made his physique less impressive and I guess the rest came from there.

The whole point of the switch was to put the belt back on Flair at Starrcade so it works best with a former champion who won't be tarnished by the fairly short reign or some other national star. So...umm...heel Tommy Rich? That would actually be kind of awesome.

Since I can't bring myself to watch Impact, how has TJP been as Suicide so far? I tend to prefer his masked work (especially in more of a "character" like El Bombero) since he's better at broad body language than facial expressions. Knowing how hard trying to get a job in a national promotion has been on him financially (he ended up homeless when he went to FCW), I hope was able to swing a fairly favorable deal at least WRT control over his bookings. Definitely will check this show out for the women's match at least.

Is Jeff G. Bailey's (then?-)girlfriend still around? She used to sell/trade a bunch of unedited (and maybe some completely unaired?) Wildside stuff. I specifically remember the Briscoes match as being something where she had a much longer version than what aired on TV, as well as matches where blown spots got edited out. Do we know anyone who bought tapes from her?

But think about how fun it would be writing ridiculous shit to make Stormfront look bad/worse.

I'd have to look again but I'm pretty sure John is my remembering my first post which had some kind of typo and not the subsequent correction. Dave was sure he heard it before it became an Internet rumor.

And if anyone wants to see it, it is also on ClickWrestle for a dollar: http://www.clickwrestle.com/pro/87902/cm-p...s-chris-hamrick

Punk's head smacked the floor at the TNA PPV that week. At the start of the IWA show he comes out to apologize to the fans because he can't wrestle. His opponent, the debuting Hamrick, says he's fine with doing a nice scientific match so Punk doesn't have to worry about his head. Punk agrees. During the match, Hamrick goes for...I think it was a Merosault, but slips on the springboard, catches his foot in the turnbuckle, and blows out his knee. It looked nasty. They take forever to help him out of the way, Punk tells him not to be a hero and to just let everyone help him out, and finally they have have ready to go. Then he bolts towards Punk and Yakuza kicks the back of his head. The match keeps going from there and it's all awesome.

Plus I think it would do well in yearbook context because you get to see the TNA match.

I'm finding myself agreeing with soup but I'd argue for Punk vs Hamrick as a must-have, especially with the promos earlier in the show that set up the shenanigans surrounding it and a clip of the TNA match where Punk was injured 3 days earlier since that plays into it.

I'm an Ashkenazi Jew and I'm pretty sure I would.

Plus, remember: Vince Sr. wanted a "Jack Brisco type," a handsome clean cut guy with an amateur wrestling background. That's how he got Backlund, he was someone who fit the mold plus he wasn't in demand. Of those listed so far, I'm not sure anyone fits other than maybe Keirn, and I can't remember if he actually did amateur wrestling. Roop didn't have the look they wanted, not then and not even when he was younger. If we're disregarding amateur backgrounds I think Keirn, Brunzell, Gino, and maybe DiBiase (since he was still sort of a blank slate, especially where nobody knew of his dad), are the clear best picks of who's listed above. You don't even need to market Gino as an ethnic hero, and he was a really handsome and charismatic guy. I feel like there have to be some obscure also-ran former amateurs we are forgetting, though.