flyonthewall2983

I saw this on 24/7 years ago. I'd never seen an Eddie Gilbert match before but knew of him, but didn't know he worked with the lighter guys back then.

I don't know if they would have drawn much, but I think there were a lot of potentially awesome matches left behind once Vader left WCW. He could have had real solid programs with the likes of Tenta, Meng and The Giant. And who knows what could have happened with him once the NWO got in the picture. Better than him trying to work around a dying Yokozuna, and being bitched at by Bret and Shawn.

Maybe you could do two shows, one about the most scummiest thing not involving Vince, and another psycho-analyzing Vince.

I'm still holding out hope for Haku.

Mike Love puts a lot of heels to shame here.

It's too bad their potential as a tag team was never fully explored, either here or in WWF in the early 90's. I think by '96 they seemed more like a tag team than ever.

Motörhead for the celebrity wing.

Purely in the wrestling bubble but it would have been cool if Jake Roberts stayed in WCW long enough to feud with Arn Anderson over the DDT.

I remember hearing that Austin was tapped to host a few years earlier but it fell through.

For pretty much most of '95 my attention was dwindled or non-existent. It wasn't until I read a year-in-review at the beginning of '96 when I saw how much had changed, namely that WCW got a show on Monday nights. I think if that major shift had not happened, I probably never would have gone back to it.

I really doubt Roma will come on as he's said some pretty derogatory stuff about Ric in shoot interviews before. Same with Sid. I would bet WWE would let Arn come and do his show.

I've watched that episode. Him and Mr. T did the skit with Billy Crystal that's kind of lived on, but that's basically it.

I vividly remember the image of the sword piercing the ring canvas.

Anything he would have done would not have been enough. It was really down to someone like Austin or Rock to drop in their lap for something to really happen. It was individual personalities that connected with the audience that began the long road to victory over WCW and pop-culture relevance.

Greg Valentine actually returned to the WWF at the end of 1993, he was one of the hooded knights in the match against Bret Hart's team if I recall. Then he showed up briefly again for the Royal Rumble the following January. He left at the beginning of '92 and spent a good deal of time in WCW that year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6MCjp4FyME

First time I remember hearing it was on one of the syndicated shows right after the Royal Rumble.

Was Barry Darsow in the March '87 Battle Royal or was it still the Moondog guy in Smash makeup?

No, it was a press conference.

The original plan was to pay off what happened at WM IX at SummerSlam.

Isn't that 58,675 really?

I liked it. But bear in mind that I was 9, and I really only knew Hogan through watching old tapes which I enjoyed watching as much, if not more than the product at the time. It's also a big reason why I would prefer watching WCW eventually, because I got to see these guys every week. One reason he was MIA was because he went to New Japan in May for the match with Muta, and brought the belt with him. I can imagine that that didn't go down well with Vince because they had no deals with NJPW at the time and WCW did. Even at such a young age I had an inkling he'd end up in WCW when I saw that PWI cover with him and Sting on it. Hogan was probably skeptical about "passing the torch" again, which is reasonable enough if you consider what happened the last time they tried that. It's got to be a major source of the bitterness Bret has about him now.

They wanted him to win the belt there because the shows at the Garden were still a big deal for the company.

I really wonder if they even gave much thought to building up one PPV as their WrestleMania at all. I'll reiterate my feelings that once it took off, the whole company hinged around Nitro. And that they only hyped the PPV's if they had a Rodman or Leno they could build it around for legit press. One has to remember that it wasn't WCW directly making money off the PPVs, it was Turner. So maybe there was less impetus on putting the kind of emphasis Vince did around WrestleMania.

Abraham Benrubi as Gorgeous George