flyonthewall2983

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

And he had cache with the old JCP fans who remember him feuding with Ric Flair, announcing with Gordon Solie, and the chain match with Greg Valentine.

He told Bad News Brown he'd beat Hogan and push him as a face champ to get a bigger black audience.

I'm pretty sure it got no mainstream coverage like we're seeing today with ESPN covering WWE occasionally. I remember when WCW made a big deal out of having ad space in USA Today, so any coverage of that magnitude would have been well-trodden ground by the time the bell rang between those two.

First wrestling show I'd ever watched too, except mine was the first of the two episodes on Fox, so I never saw it in it's heyday. I put the Clash of the Champions shows in a similar regard to you guys because our cable system wouldn't have WCW PPV's regularly until almost 5 years later. I've watched several of the old-schol SNME's in the meantime. My major criticism is how much more animated Vince and Jesse were on commentary compared to the PPVs.

I would counter that it worked (for the short time it did) because the dynamics were reversed, where Piper was the face and Hogan the heel.

Honky Tonk Man's tights pre-WrestleMania III, a blue and purple spandex suspenders and pants combo. You can see him in them in the SNME battle royal just before WM.

It must not have taken long. That long hiatus in 1994 did the company no favors as far as drawing power. And when he came back he was almost more of a featured attraction than he was before.

Bash At the Beach that year was very loaded too from what I remember. Flair/Piper, the end of the Benoit/Sullivan angle, and of course Dennis Rodman's wrestling debut, which probably got the company it's most legitimate press coverage that year.

It's pretty clear that from at least '96 until the end there was one big show in WCW and it wasn't on PPV. I'd like to do a comparison of the PPVs from the first two years that Raw was on the air, to the first year of PPV's when Nitro was on the air, and I bet you the WCW announce crews would name-drop Nitro a lot more.

It probably seems like it was an afterthought because as soon as the match was over Savage was forgotten, as it went right into the Piper feud.

I love reading these, Joe. You're doing an excellent job.