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Not 100% certain if I could pinpoint it. There was a comment by Dave as far back as Feb 1990 with the Flair-Luger (subbing for the injured Sting) where Dave mentioned Luger worked better as a heel, but was good in the match. There were other positive comments about Luger in later Clashes and PPV's that year, though not the regular ones he'd gotten as a heel the year before. Pretty clearly some point during 1991 saw the sheet readers turn a bit. He finished 6th in the Most Unimproved, which isn't a massive turn... but not a positive. He wasn't Flair, and he got turned back heel to be the anchor of WCW after Flair was fired. Not a great role to be in. I seem to recall his defenses at Havoc and on one of the Clashes (I want to say Rick Steiner and Simmons) were pretty okay. Bash: Luger vs. Barry *** Havoc: Luger vs. Simmons ***1/2 Clash: Luger vs. Rick **1/2 Luger came into the November Clash match banged up from what Dave called an blown spot earlier in the week with Zenk. He didn't recall crap on the match too much, saying Lex was off, it was a booking clusterfuck, and that they were in a crappy spot after the hot tag title change and hot Sting-Rude angle earlier in the card. But I suspect this is the time frame where the sheet fans started thinking less of him. Earlier in the year was the match with Spivey (credited to Spivey for making it hot by doing a lot of shit, but Lex was willing to let him) and the tag match with Sting against the Steiners that followed the same mode. I suspect this was due to Lex main eventing things like the Bash and Starcade in 1988 and the two PPVs opposite Flair in 1990 that did buyrates that look impressive in hindsight, but really weren't shit at the time give the clearance of WCW. My recollection is that Luger outdrew Sting opposite Flair by miles in 1988. 1990 was such a mess that I don't know if the data is useful. For why I think things changed, see above. It stayed changed because Lex seemed to show few moments in the future of wanting to work much. I think WON readers could have been forgiving to Lex if he turned it around... or sustained turning it around. Lex wasn't thought of as the Warrior, and since he made his bones in the NWA/WCW, I think there would have been some praise if he turned it around. There may have been moments (did he have some title changes with Bret that were surprisingly okay?). But there wasn't much there. If I were *Vince* and was looking for a successor to Hogan who wasn't another 6-5 juiced out of his mind guy, I would have taken Sting. Not saying Sting wasn't juiced big time. He just didn't wear it like Warrior or Warlord or the Road Warriors or Lex. I think Sting would have been perfect for the WWF as a replacement to Hogan, working a bit different style of booking. Hogan in the era pretty much needed to be undefeated. I think with the evolving number of PPVs, and the booking around them, you needed a little more flexibility with the belt as the 90s dawned... and Sting with a strong promotion behind him could have withstood dropping the belt and re-starting a chance without it. Would give one more flexibility with opponents than one had with Warrior or Hogan. You could run a Hennig at a Sting if the promoting was done right. Against Hogan, no one bought Hennig because of the size gap. For WCW, as an anchor face between the two, I would have to take Sting. As a heel, of course Luger since Sting couldn't work heel at that point. The problem with both is - What do you do with them? Beats the crap out of me. Sting was better without the belt than with it. Luger was better as the eternal credible US Champ than as World Champ, and I don't think that ever was going to change. The company was loaded with Catch 22's. Flair was the best "world champ", but it was clear by 1990 that there wasn't anything left in that tank in that respect. One can say that he was the best in that role, but if he's not drawing and you don't have any fresh faces to run at him who might draw, then it's a waste. The sadder fact is that the rapidly deminishing fanbase, very few anymore who would pay to see house shows, were largely Flair Fans to some degree. Flair Fans, or Flair "Haters" in the sense that he was a heel they cared about. So not having Flair was going to shot yourself in the foot, at least initially. There really wasn't anyone they could steal to put in that role that would turn the company around. DiBiase had spent so many years as the Million Dollar Man that I'm not sure folks would be the old heel Ted (who they didn't know) coming in to be World Champ opposite Luger, Sting, Pillman, the Steiners, etc. Rude came back from the WWF an improved worker, and with loads more comfort working promos and angles. But getting pushed instantly to the World Title in 1992 with Luger leaving... I think too many people remembered Warrior kicking his ass. Getting slotted in as US Champ opposite Sting and Steamboat helped reset the minds of the fans on him, but I don't know if it made them think he was World Title material. When he finally got Gold, it's not like it ment anything to the fans. Hennig... Hart... I don't think stealing them would have given the promotion a Flair replacement. There really wasn't anyone inside the promotion for the role. Kind of a fucked spot to be in. One of the reasons Vader was so "effective" one he got on a role - he was a different beast. Spinning it around in the other direction, I don't think the company had any other faces that were at that moment going to get over more with their fan base than Sting and Lex were. The company was in a pretty brutal spot. I think one could have one "better" than what they did through much of the 1990-94 era, but I'm not sold that it would have been big box office. It would have had to entail heavily rethinking the product and business. John

1. How big of a WCW fan were you during the company's actual run? I was a WCW Fan before there was WCW. The WWF was the "enemy" back then. 2. Are you a bigger fan of WCW now or then? Probably then. The 80s Crockett set and a 90s WCW project will be interesting in terms of whether it ages well for me or not. 3. Best Year/Period for WCW If we're counting from when Turner bought out Crockett, then 1989 of course. In the 90s, there was the period of brief hope around Fry as boss and the Dangerous Allience. It's odd in highsight that we all thought Watts would be a savior to take it to the next level, but he pretty quickly ended what a lot of us liked. 4. Best World Heavyweight Title run Flair runs from the buyout to 07/07/90 and Vader's runs from 07/12/1992 to 12/27/93. Flair wasn't really the same after getting the ball back from Sting, and at the time I found all of his big singles matches (the two vs. Fujinami, and the ones vs. Eaton and Steiner on the Clashes) to be pretty disappointing. I don't know if there's enough other stuff to salvage that period. The only thing of any note that pops up on CMPunk's list is: Ric Flair vs Brian Pillman WCW Sat 4/13/1991 13:24 Don't think that's enough. He was fine in the War Games, but I've always thought Pillman and Windham were the stars there. It's a bit of a cheat to go back to July 1992 for Vader, but it did give you a preview taste of Vader on top in WCW. The Sting title change was very solid. He was perfectly fine in dropping the title to Simmons. Also get his King of Cable stuff that way. 5. Best United States Championship run A cheat would be Barry from the buyout to 02/20/89. That's one thing were really should date exactly - when the buyout happened in 1988. It was before the Clash and Starcade of December 1988. They had been negotiating for ages on it. Anyway, Barry had the matches with the MX (with Flair), Bam Bam, Luger in the title change, and the Flair & Barry vs. Steamer & Eddy... along with some other stuff mixed in there. Short, but nice. But as odd as this seems so many years after the fact, I'll go with Luger's long run with the belt from 02/20/89 to 07/14/91, broken up by a couple of weeks of Hayes having it (that title change was a blast) and the two months Hansen had it (dittos). I don't know how I can explain it... but the title meant more in that run that it ever would again, and Luger felt like the best muscle head worker at the time (excluding guys like Rude who were a different beast). I'm not sure if that's going to hold up... frankly I ended up finding Hogan's stuff in the WWF more watchable than I thought I would. But Luger at the time seemed to be a decent top heel opposite Steamer, surpringly against Rich, against Pillman, when he turned back face he had a run opposite Flair, also had the fun match against Spivey. A lot of that was the opponent being good, but Luger seemed to hang and bring some stuff to the table. He seemed to be working harder in that stretch than the rest of his career, perhaps inspired by competition from/with his friend Sting for the top spot. 6. Best Tag Team Championship run Midnight Express 05/19/90 - 08/24/90 with the US Tag Titles. You could really stretch this back to the US Tag Tourney in Feb with their matches against the R'n'R and Pillman & Zenk, and extend it to their Havoc match against Morton & Rich. One nice last run of a great team, most of it in the middle of the US Tag Title picture at a time when it looked like it would be a cool rebirth of the titles. 7. Best Television Championship run This will be interesting to watch. Someone really should do a TV Title set, which would be a shitload of matches and feuds going back to Tully winning the title in April 1985. Arn's long run from 01/02/90 to 05/19/91 struck me as disappointing at the time. Lots of solid stuff, but nothing that really grabbed you. It's possible that it will age well, as I'm really happy with "solid" these days. Austin had his long run from 06/03/91 to 09/02/92... but at the time I just didn't go ga-ga over it. Austin struck me as a pretty pedestrian bumping heel, with everyone coming up of that type in that long era (from Hennig in the AWA to Shawn in the WWF to Austin in WCW and later Trip) seemed knock off of Flair rather than a truly new and exciting type of a heel. It's one reason why Vader was so exciting once he became a great worker - he was wildly different from the standard bumping heel we were getting fed, though ironically he was a great bumper for his size... he just avoiding being an overbumper like Bam Bam. I'll be interested to see how I like Regal's run of 09/19/93 to 09/18/1994. Honestly it did nothing for me at the time. But I did come to like Regal a lot more later, especially his run in 1997. I wonder if Booker's series of runs from 12/29/97 to 07/13/98 will end up looking the best. The Martel stuff was surprisingly watchable. There's the Benoit series that dominates it. I don't remember the Fit Finlay series, but I can't imagine that sucked. I tend to think this was a pretty good run... maybe it will age okay. 8. Best Cruiserweight Championship run Dean's run from 05/02/96 to 02/23/97. Rey had a four month run in there, and Dragon had a month. But Dean was the anchor on the "rudo" side, and Rey was the face anchor. This also may not age well... but I think there's a lot of stuff in here that may age better than some of the more spotbu stuff as time went on. I never was a big fan of a common way Dean would work with Rey - utterly dominate him for 13 minutes and then let Rey try to cram all his moves into 2 minutes. I liked Dragon's work with Rey at WWIII where while Dragon dominated, Rey got brief runs before Dragon cut him off and took control. On the other hand, Rey really sold like a motherfucker for Dean's control. Anyway, this was a period where a lot seemed possible... even as we knew that there were forces aimed at holding them back. 9. Best feud Flair-Steamboat in 1989... I guess. Or Vader-Sting. I enjoyed the Dangerous Alliance vs. WCW Faces feud a good deal, even though I thougt Paul spent most of the time trying to get himself over more than his heels. 10. Most Underrated Feud Probably the Dangerous Alliance vs. WCW. The problem is... it didn't draw. 11. Best Angle or Storyline nWo, which includes Sting going into the rafters. It went on way freanking too long. But it did its job early. 12. Most Underrated Angle or Storyline The Alliance. 13. Best Booker To a degree that Flair team in 1989 to early 1990. I don't think any of the bookers were really that good. Part of that was outside forces impacting the bookers. 14. Wrestler who had the most surprising run Luger's heel run in 1989. Book turning into a singles performer. 15. A worker they could have done more with Tommy Rogers. He was with the company when Turner bought it. He was let go. 16. The worker who's most synonymnous with WCW for you Flair, for better and worse. 17. The point where Flair got old He actually started to feel old in late 1989, if I had to point to anything it would be the I Quit matches with Funk. I think part of it was having the book as well as having to carry the main events... it just seemed to age him. As far as time passing him by, that was the case when he returned to WCW from the WWF. Vader on top, and Ric doing the same old shit, just made Ric look pedestrian. 18. Best Face Steamboat. Less for his work opposite Flair, but overall through the years. Excellent singles face, and terrific tag face. 19. Best Heel Probably Hollywood Hulk Hogan. An absolute master on so many levels. Vader was great. Rude was a very strong heel. To a degree it's sad that WCW was so down in the period because guys like Vader and Rude in their WCW primers could have drawn a lot against super over faces in super over promotions. They just really had "it". The MX & Jimbo turned back heel for a short run before leaving, and of course were great. I think Hall & Nash were pedestrian heels. I think without Hogan, or someone of that level in that role pulling it off that well, the whole thing would have run its course by Starcade 1996. The Outsiders really weren't drawing big before Hogan's turn. Frankly no one else could have done it. Hall & Nash didn't make their opponents look good, and often made them look bad. 20. Most Underrated Face Barry gets more credit for his face run prior to 1988 than after returning to WCW. Prior to the knee injury, Barry was a excellent face when working as a face. 21. Most Underrated Heel Barry. He gets more credit for his heel run in 1988-89. He was a very effective heel after coming back and before 22. The worker who was most effective whether they were heel or face Barry was the most effective one who flipped back and forth. Eddy was better flipping back and forth in the WWF. 23. A worker who turned (heel or face) too many times Lex was always the answer for this. 24. Favourite Commentating Pairing Ross & Cornette. Not that we got it very often. 25. Lasting Memory of WCW Rodman laying his head on the turnbuckle in San Diego. John

Except that Bryan misses the point: The Vast Majority of Wrestling Fans left watching wrestling in the period he's pimping: 2002-2007. It's pretty clear that the vast majority of wrestling fans thought so highly of the current product, world wide, that they... you know... stopped fucking watching. That's not even getting to the fact that the vast majority of fans probably think that Hogan vs. Andre was a great match. What Bryan is doing is projecting/forcing a small subset of Fan (along with Inside The Business) Opinion onto another subset of Fan Opinion. The vast majority of wrestling fans don't give a shit about what either of our subsets have to say. John

To a degree that, but also he had the ongoing Boxing vs. MMA vs. Wrestling as his key story of the year (except for Benoit and dope), along with that state of the art HBO stuff. John

Wow. I'm sure we're missing something. Here's one *month* of All Japan TV in the 90s when it comes to ***+ matches: 04/04/93 Kawada vs. Misawa (Carny) ****1/2 04/11/93 Hansen vs. Misawa (Carny) ***3/4 04/18/93 Williams vs. Gordy (Carny) ***3/4 04/18/93 Kawada vs. Taue (Carny) ****1/2 04/18/93 Misawa vs. Kobashi (Carny) ****3/4 04/25/93 Kawada vs. Kobashi (Carny) ***** 04/25/93 Hansen vs. Taue (Carny) ***3/4 04/25/93 Gordy vs. Misawa (Carny) ****1/4 That's not exactly far and away the best calendar month of AJPW TV of the 90s. They had at least three other month with 5 ****+ matches in them. The 8 ***+ matches isn't special at all - they had eight months with 9+, peaking with 11 in March 1992. If one wants to stick to calendar months, rather than gerrymandering a starting and ending point within months to get the best result, in the five month periods from Jun-Oct 1990 to Nov 1992 - Mar 1993 (the end of one hour TV), All Japan had more than 10 ****+ matches in every period except for Jul-Nov 1990. That's 42 periods. They peaked with 17 in two five-month periods in 1993, and hit 15-16 in eight other period from mid-1992 to mid-1993. 10 is a *low* baseline. In additon to Jul-Nov 1990, All Japan got as low as 10 four other times. Of those 5 with 9-10, four of them were the consecutive the periods ending Nov 1990 (the one with 9) through Feb 1991. This was as the Jumbo & Co. vs. Misawa & Co. feud was shaking out and the Kawada-Taue feud was just firing up. The other was Sep 1992 - Jan 1993 which was dragged down by (i) injuries hurting the tag league, (ii) Gordy's OD, and (iii) the Hansen-DiBiase team not really being up to snuff in their push leading into the tag league (entirely due to time passing Ted by). Just didn't have the gaijin sides contributing their share of ****+ matches. When you're looking at ***+, the promotion had 30+ for every five month period in that run with the exception of Oct 90 - Feb 91. They were over 40 in two five month periods, and at 39 two other times. They were doing this with a program that ran about 55 minutes a week. They never had a month without a ****+ match, and only five months from Jun 1990 to Mar 1994 where they had *just* one. Their average was 2.57 ****+ matches a month. At their best, they'd roll out 5 in several months. Again, just a 55 minute weekly TV show. I'd add that while Meltzer eventually lost his mind in handing out snowflakes, and a good chunk of it started in 1993, he tended to cut a lot of slack to US matches relative to Puroresu matches in this era. I like the MX vs. Southern Boys matches that he gave ****3/4 a good deal. But other than being a fan of the MX and Jimbo myself, I don't really think it was better than a lot of NJPW or AJPW matches from that year or 1991 that were rated down in the ****1/4 range. Your typical "rolling out of bed" AJPW 6-Man main event in the 90s would have gotten 4 1/2 if it happened on a WCW PPV with the Steiners & Pillman vs. Arn & Eaton & Windham... and might just get 3 3/4 on tape from AJPW. Part of that was because "we'd seen this before" and rated a better one higher in the past. But much of it was because the standards were different, and the expectations were higher. So while I might argue with some of Dave's snowflakes from this era, relative to the US there were more than fair. John

But set that aside. I'm really more interested in this "five month" thing since it really isn't too clear where he's pulling that from. Does he star rate TV matches on his own? Any F-4 sub able to pull the number of 3+ and 4+ matches he handed out for Raw for whatever period he was talking about? John

Who has the list of 4*+ matches in each WWE brand (split apart since they're treated as seperate brands) from 2003-2007. Bryan seems to have a problem counting "five years", since 1990-95 and 2002-2007 actually are six years. In addition, who has the 4*+ matches from TNA for the same period? John

I know that. But he's also talking about "high end matches" and ****+ matches elsewhere. John

It is worth keeping in mind that it's about 100% likely he's intentionally trolling with his comments. John

What five month period is he talking about? Since he's talking about "Weekly Television Show", he's limiting it to one show. Since he's talking about Shawn, it clearly means Raw. Since he's talking about weekly TV, it means leaving the Raw PPV matches off the table. So what are the matches in question? What are Meltzer's ratings of those matches? How about one just lists everything on Raw that got ***+ in that period, by air date and rating. John

Hard to see the Fragile X story being planted by the WWE. It's a pretty obsure thing, and I don't know who in the WWE Brain Trust could pull it out of their ass to create a plant. Instead it looks more like what the WWE would typically do - grasp onto anything that pops up to try to point the finger elsewhere. They have a track record of being reckless, hasty and stupid in that regard, at times not even slowing down to think about it or check the facts. I do agree that the origin of the story is odd. Perhaps one of the gifted writers who will be doing a book on Benoit will do a little investigating on it and track down what really led her to say what she said. John

Flair was talking out of his ass. Fans celebrated rather than rioted. Probably all the blow that Piper and Ric were doing at the time making them paranoid and delusional. John

Meltzer was odd in including selected Boxing data in his Year End data review. Buyrates are included. "Gates" aren't, though I suspect he has the gate data for the big boxing matches of the year (or could get them easily). They also are left off the attendance list as well, though I haven't paid attention to see if any of them drew 15K+. John, who hasn't even tried to wade into the Flair Fan piece yet...

I thought the period between when he initially went out and the period he got worked on was rather substantial? The tumor was discovered June 29th and he had the operation July 6th. I'm no doctor, but I worked in a hospital for four years. I spent a lot of time in the operating theatres. Administering anaesthetics to drug users is not easy. It's easy. Happens all the time in hospitals all over the country, all over the world every day. John

Celebs who've been loaded have been geting surgery for years. Hell, normal people who have been taking painkillers for years get surgery all the time on the issues that are causing them to take the painkillers. Trip, Benoit, Rey-Rey, Eddy... where does the list stop of people who got surgery in the middle of long stretches of taking shit? John

Using juice in "moderation" is a bit like using smack "recreationally". A work. John

Since there wasn't any good documentation on Chris using juice and HGH until he was, you know, a literally rotting corpse... all of our discussions about his usage going back more than a decade and a half was nothing more than guesswork and no on truly knew anything. Life would be easier to be agnostic about juice and performancing enhancers. But I can't pretend to be that stupid. John

Boatloads. I think most everyone has known that. John

Actually, the WWF gave Anvil notice that he was going to be let go. The WWF was cutting back on running three shows a night to just two. That meant a chunk of the roster was going to be let go. Not really 1/3rd of the roster, since the "C" shows tended to have a smaller card and go into small towns. But a number of guys. Anvil was one of them. The WWF changed their minds on parts of the program, and Anvil was kept. John