flyonthewall2983

The website hasn't been working at all today for me. Anyone else having trouble there?

His work looked good, but never stiff to me. He worked pretty much every top face multiple times while he was there which tells me he was a reliable hand.

I can't imagine a Hogan shoot would be of anything of value aside possibly entertainment. Then again that could be said for most shoots.

So who lost more this year, Vince or Sony?

The best thing for Hogan's heel turn were those two years of difficulty WCW had trying to convert their core audience to Hulkamaniacs. If he did stay with WWF and they tried the same thing around this time, it would have just looked desperate. It didn't even make a whole lot of sense for him to come back to them in 2002 as a member of the NWO, considering how quickly they turned him back. The latest WWE doc on Randy kind of sets the record straight (that they didn't get Vince to participate to set things right doesn't make it complete, but I'm sure he has his reasons) as to why he left, and more interestingly why he never came back. He wasn't unhappy with what he was doing in the broadcast booth and elsewhere (they talk a lot about the charity work he did, and how he seemed to give it 100%), but he really wanted to work a program with Shawn Michaels but they were in that "new generation" frame of mind, so that was nixed. And it would seem from watching it that he was personally offended by the "Nacho Man" skits, especially as it touched on Elizabeth in more than few of those segments, which I could hardly blame him for being that way. On the other hand, I can see how it might have not felt as personal to Hogan, I could see him as almost expecting some sort of backlash from Vince. But I think Randy felt truly betrayed by that, which isn't too hard to see given how heartfelt Vince seemed on this night.

Taker looked terrible in the last picture that was taken of him recently.

I bet Savage was originally thought of for the Jake Roberts angle Rude did that year, but Randy squelched it pretty quick for obvious reasons.

It's always been a week hasn't it? Or is this another laptop vs. other platforms thing? The weird thing about the schedule for me is the next day tab doesn't work, and I have to click one day ahead to get the previous day's schedule (click Tuesday for Monday's list etc.) Previously on the website it would only go forward to a few days.

Not sure if this has been covered, but their schedule runs a little smoother, and goes much longer than it used to. Right now I can see everything up to next Monday morning.

I hope they do too, as you said it makes a lot of sense, especially since they have multiple channels (not to mention Cinemax, which might come out as a separate app if this is as successful as we all think it might be). Their CTO has resigned since this has become public, as the "Maui" system he designed powered HBO Go, which they are likely steering away from now and the new app will take it's place.

I imagine they'll do more at some point, or that they have more than just what's in that sequence. In other news, HBO's new OTT service will be powered by MLBAM, who of course does the same for the Network. Should be interesting how it will compare with how the Network has done, considering that will likely go in more homes in it's first couple of months than WWE's has done up to now.

I hope they do one on Hogan-Orndorff.

Was there any underlying reason behind Andre appearing at Clash 20 in 1992?

Flair and Savage in WCW was better in 95, when they did the angle with Angelo. I wasn't watching at the time, but that was a pretty new angle to take, attacking someone's elderly father. And I've said elsewhere that I thought their match at that year's Great American Bash was better than their WrestleMania one.

That makes me wonder what kind of heat Randy Orton got when Mick Foley talked about his desertion on national television.

Just got into the Tony Schiavone interview last night and really liked it. I had kind of a sour opinion of him previously because of little things I'd heard in other shoots and of course the over-exposure he had for being the voice of WCW when they started to crumble. But he came across as very human and likable, qualities I thought were just part of his on-screen persona. Him describing leaving WWF and going back to Jim Herd's WCW is as exactly bad as I'd imagine as it was for him.

Mick Foley/Randy Orton. Foley had become this icon of pop culture (which he still is to some degree today), becoming someone audiences could relate to on as deep if not deeper a level than Steve Austin. For a young but impressive punk like Orton to tear him down really drew me in at a time when nothing else was, and maybe a time when they were still willing to let heels become genuinely hated. I don't have a blow-by-blow memory of everything, but I still think it's one of if not the best post-NWO angles ever.

The Clash of the Champions from 1989 that was near an Army base, that looked hot as hell, I think Jim Ross says at a couple of points it was in excess of 100 degrees inside the building. Quite a mix of drunk, sweaty grunts and redneck civilians. The event was sponsored by (I think) Coors, and JR does a good job a few times as a pitchman saying how much he'd like one a few times.

He'd gotten rid of the stache sometime in '89 actually.

So, almost like a "season"? I suppose, but it obviously wouldn't be like that year after year. Just something to reset the clock in a sense and make the titles mean something again.

Announcing teams that are constantly at odds with each other only exist in pro wrestling. That's more commonplace on cable news, and rarely to be seen in professional sports (aside from ESPN's own talking-head shows). Bobby and Gorilla were at odds yes, but they never seemed to put it above calling the action. Same with Vince and Jesse to a degree, but hearing them on some of those old SNME's felt very over-produced (I'm guessing that was the NBC influence more than even Vince's, it never felt like that on what I've heard when they did Superstars). To me there's no such thing as "too friendly" unless it leans too much into stuff that they or others would only get. That in and of itself is entertaining to a degree (Hall and Nash calling matches during those NWO b&w segments and on Nitro).

I had an idea a few years ago that after WrestleMania everyone is stripped of their titles, and everyone's ranking is down to zero and they have to spend the rest of the year building up rank leading up to next year's WM. The way I had it in mind, it would make the titles mean something again, virtually dedicate their entire year of programming as a way to lead up to Mania, and possibly be good television. I really like fakeplastictree's idea for the HOF. It's a rather stiff presentation, and I wish they'd just make it a smaller event for the Network. That sadly will probably never happen in the near future unless the money situation gets so bad that they'd have to, in which case they'd probably just scrap it.

Not with me. He never had a better broadcast partner in WWE than Lawler, and that goes the other way too. They had a chemistry that rivaled Monsoon and Heenan or Ventura and McMahon, but you can tell they had a rapport that went beyond just being professional.

I'll be interested in reading what you have to say. I think the most possible of your doomsday scenarios is USA/NBC dropping off, especially if Vince asks for what he did this year the next time their contract goes up.

Whenever I read stuff like this I always remember Bobby Heenan's quote about how twisted the world is and people expecting to tune in to watch Brutus Beefcake destroy Ron Bass' cowboy hat, or something to that effect. So much shit has hit the fan in terms of world events for the last decade plus, that it's too big for pro wrestling to even quantify and bring down to that level. And when WWE tried the blowback was immense (the "terrorists" attacking Undertaker after the London bombing). Even before that when Slaughter did the turncoat angle, it's amazing nobody was at least attacked publicly for it (in a physical sense, the critics sharpened up the knives and rightly so for that one).