Dylan Waco

Give me a few days

What's funny about this line is that one of the stock criticisms Kris, Will and I all had watching the ECW footage for the set was that good matches never got to the point of being great because they were too SHORT.

I can say the exact same thing about Spike Dudley. Happy now ? You can say it, but would you actually troll yourself into doing it?

08-10 you were pretty much guaranteed a very good match on every show, often times more than one. Probably the most underrated "run" in recent memory.

93 is a poor year over all and I won't defend it. 95 and 96 I would rather watch ECW than WCW or WWF though SMW was clearly better. 96 I'd rather watch ECW by a massive margin over the big two and those were not bad years for WCW or the WWF. I think the best matches are just as good as the best matches in the bigger promotions and the week to week tv is more interesting. I could absolutely see why someone wouldn't be an ECW fan, but of the stuff I have heavily indulged in over the last couple of years (AJPW and Texas Sets, Portland and AWA stuff for pending sets, SMW) I enjoyed ECW as much or more than all of them.

I'm trolling myself here Matt.

"ECW doesn't age well" is an argument that doesn't age well

Not many people are capable to work an exciting 30 minute main event period. And I don't think he ever claimed he could (nor anyone else for that matter). I found Raven matches more enjoyable than most stuff on ECW, certainly more enjoyable 15 years later than overrated "technical" demonstrations of Eddie vs Dean, or nonsensical wankery a la RVD, or horrible boring brawls a la Duds. Way more fresh and more fun to watch. Yes there was ton of bullshit, but it was fun bullshit that worked. Just me (litteraly, since I'm probably alone to still enjoy Raven as much as I do). I bet I could name three thousand wrestlers better than Raven. If I was restricting myself to wrestlers just based on 90's work I could hit a thousand. Even if I were to give him extra points for his career - much of which was carried by Stevie and the other underlings - I don't see how he's a top three hundred U.S. talent for the 90's.

About six miles tops from my mother-in-laws house which means I'll definitely be going as my cost will essentially be gas travel to and from NJ.

I actually have liked a fair amount of the USWO I've seen

This basically the APA's gimmick albeit in a jokey way more often than not

I actually like the Martel v. Zhukov feud, but you ideally want your champion working someone more credible. Then again you do note it was only in Winnipeg and Martel seemed to be strongest there so he may not have needed a better opponent

Are you going by the local promos? Verne had a stake in the St. Louis office. When Vince paid to get the NWA promotion's TV deal, the NWA promotion ran off a block of WCCW, AWA, and Central States TV with local St. Louis promos. I knew Verne had a stake there. He ran a random show there in 84.

I can't imagine any of those shows doing shit at the box office

The Bruiser could have been cajoled by Verne for a limited stake the AWA gates in the town. It's not like he was pulling down anything on his own. Verne was willing to run in other areas with established territories. I still don't know what the story of him running St. Louis in 84 was. I assume that was after Vince swept in there?

I can't find any record of Verne ever running Detroit. Really crazy in hindsight as it was a close town to his base of operations and one he might have actually had a reasonable degree of success in.

Angle/production wise I'd put the AWA behind Memphis/WWF/WCCW, though it had more good stuff than people give it credit for. In ring I think it was better than WWF and WCCW by a wide margin. Memphis is tougher because I'm heavily biased toward that style but when all is said and done I think the top fifty of the Memphis Set and the top fifty of the AWA Set are going to be very comparable in quality. I'm guessing here, but I suspect 86 might actually be the year with the most matches on the AWA Set when all is said and done. I would not be shocked to see the overall top ten include a half dozen matches from that year. Kind of crazy that while Rome was burning the quality of the in ring product was so high.

Midnight Rockers came around after the fall was already virtually complete. I don't know if they ever worked in front of a crowd of 5k in the AWA excluding WrestleRock. Verne could have presented them wonderfully and it wouldn't have mattered - the ship had already sailed. I'm not sure that the momentum could have been kept up, but I think the major errors were made starting in March of 85 and the point of no return was probably late August of 85 when they booked Alaska/Boston shows in subsequent weeks after having a really good house show run right before hand in their normal loop towns. I just finished watching stuff from the TCS era and while I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, I don't think it was anywhere near as good as the tv that was taped at the Showboat. Part of that was the talent pool, but I don't see any argument for the TCS era tv even being close to the Showboat era tv. The announcers in the AWA pretty much always sucked after Okerland left.

I'm late to the game and haven't watched as much as Loss of the WWF/WCW stuff (or at least I doubt it). But I did participate in SC polls for WWF and WCW where I would venture to guess I watched as much or more than anyone else participating. And I've watched all the ECW and SMW recently. I think Loss hit most of the obvious U.S. names for 95 but I really think Mikey Whipwreck deserves to be on the list. In fact I think I could make a case for him in the top five as he had really great performances against Richards, Douglas, and Sandman in singles action and some really great tag performances as well. I'd also rate Smothers higher and I disagree on Flair. He had his moments in WCW to be sure, but I don't think he was even one of the three best guys in WCW - I'd put Pillman, Alex Wright and Arn above him without much thought.

Maybe everyone here does now and I'm sure any intelligent person who's paid attention to the facts always has. But I don't feel like this has been a long standing truism. The narrative of Hogan leaving for Vince leading to the AWA tanking I don't necessarily disagree with, but I have seen plenty of times even recently where this is mixed up for "Hogan left, business shit the bed, AWA pathetic until it eventually faded away." I'm not really interested in discussions about whether Verne could or would have "survived" in the broad sense - I think that very unlikely for a multitude of reasons. I think it is more interesting to think about whether or not Verne could have maintained a profitable base for a few more years had he not made the errors he made and how that would have effected Vince. Is it hard to project or guess with any degree of accuracy? Yes, but in running through the results and watching the tv it is startling to me how much Verne contributed to the destruction of his empire.

Hansen v. young Vader, a pair of matches v. Hennig, the Slaughter handheld, and Blackwell match at Battle of The Bay all have very strong shots. I would venture to guess all of those will be on. There is another Slaughter match I would fight pretty hard for and a third boot camp match that I liked but was disappointing and expendable if need be. Martel match from SuperClash will definitely make it as an EXTRA though I'm not sure it will get on as a match. There is also a brawl with Martel I haven't seen yet that set up the title switch in the Meadowlands which likely has a good shot if the word I've seen on it is any indication. Hansen really wasn't around long so I'd say six or seven matches is a very good haul.

This is a guy who thinks that WCW was unsalvagable the moment Thunder was announced.

A big part of the problem is that he shouldn't have been challenging Zhukov, Hayes and Garvin in extended programs (actually I think some of those programs did good in Canada, but you get my point). If they were set on Martel as the ace, they should have done something to get him more credible challengers. I honestly think if they had been booked right both Superstar with Adnan and Larry Z could have been quality challengers at that point for programs. Certainly better than Zhukov, Garvin or Hayes. I also think they would have been better off running face v. face if they were dead set against turning anyone.

It will be something alright. Anyone else watch the ppv last night? It really wasn't terrible

I think that's a really good comparison actually and not one I had ever thought of. What really amazes me is how poorly Blackwell, Sarge and The Roadies were used for most of 85. None of those guys could take down Vince, but that is a solid base, especially when coupled with the other names I already mentioned. Even in 86 when they booked Blackwell v. Hansen it popped attendance in a huge way in SLC and was solid enough to main event Denver twice. There was a lot more to work with and a lot more momentum than that in 85. I like Martel and think he worked hard as a champion, but it seems to me that they should have taken the title off of him sooner and perhaps tried to build a real feud around that belt. Not sure how much it would have mattered, but you could see Sarge or Blackwell as champion drawing in a heated feud or two even against lesser talents. I would guess that Blackwell or Sarge v. Bock could have done very well and it may have been easier to integrate guys like Larry Z into the main event scene in that scenario as well. It's not really knock on Martel and I think he's sort of been given a bad rap for booking and promoting decisions made by Verne. Still you would think they could have done something more with the talented roster they did have which honestly is nowhere near as bad as you would expect for a territory that had just been raided