Dylan Waco

If Lawler wins who does he wrestle at Mania? Miz in a rematch? That seems a waste. The most logical guy would probably be King Sheamus but the booking has killed Sheamus dead for the last few months. Cena v. Lawler is not appealing to me at all and I am a huge fan of both guys. Punk v. Lawler would have been awesome but Orton v. Punk is set in stone and there is no good reason to write that off so that a guy who is not going to be a long term champ can have a name opponent at Mania. I would have loved for Lawler to win but from a booking perspective it would have been utterly senseless.

Jericho v. Taz with the corrupt judokan as the ref was a good angle as was Taz v. Paul Varlens with Saturn kicking Varlens head in on the finish. Mike Enos v. Chris Jericho is an awesome Nitro match that is probaby the second best WCW match of Jericho's run.

God fuck to hell the idea of Barrett in the Mania main event I'd rather watch Buck Zumhofe matches from here to eternity.

I have no clue why people would not like this ppv unless they just hate WWE style or want every ppv to be a surprise. Lawler winning would have hurt Miz more than it would have helped anyone else even though I would have loved for him to win.

I agree with this. Goldust could have been a fun challenger and a program with Michaels would have been good, but I think the gimmick was too over the top to carry the company. I agree that he was NEVER going to be the face of the company but that is entirely different than asking whether or not he could have become a legit champion.

I thought that was an incredibly good ppv. If you were looking to be surprised you were probably pissed. But I thought every match was at least decent, the Christian return was fun, there were some really awesome individual performances in the Chamber matches (Drew Mac, Rey, Morrison who I am usually down on, Punk, Sheamus) and Lawler v. Miz was seriously incredible.

As we discussed last night I think two big things hurt him. The first was Hall's homophobia. If Hall works with him and the program gets hot it is possible that Dust beats him clean in a blowoff before Hall leaves for WCW. I think the fact that he worked Piper in such a high profile match says that the company had a lot of faith in him as a character but in some ways that match was sort of the high water mark of the character. If he had won a big program with Hall he would have had more momentum. Another thing that hurt him in my view was Foley getting over as well as he did working a sort of personality disorder style gimmick. yes it was a wildly different gimmick but the framework of the gimmick was similar and I think in the long term in order for Goldust to have maximized potential they needed to be really explicit about the various faces of Dustin and not in the horrible gimmick killing way that they did. I'm not saying there wasn't room for two characters like that on the roster but it would have been hard to execute well and I think it is something that Vince would never do anyhow. Goldust did get a run of house show maches against Shawn that I remember getting pretty mixed reviews at the time. Shawn's reign really suffered from a lack of credible and interesting challengers and you get the feeling that he would have been a lot better off working Goldust in a multi-ppv program than DBS but I doubt Shawn would have been willing to make it work for reasons not disimilar from what we saw with Hall.

I had no memory of Arn working this late in 96 or in 96 at all really.

Flair's worst year was probably 03 or 04. I think for both of those years you could make the case that he was the worst wrestler in the World.

That six man is one of the best matches in WCW history.

Also worth noting that the Monday Night Memories song is awesome. Couple of other 95 thoughts that are sort of out of the box. I would not go balls to the walls for J.T./Hack match but it is a personal favorite and a fun look at ECW house show insanity of the era. The Mikey matches I would all push pretty hard for as they give you a look at a guy who was legitimately great in the ring at that point. The SMW stuff is either the best stuff or the most important stuff from the year or both. Mikey Whipwreck v. Steve Richards - FanCam 10-27-95 This was pretty great. Match is really broken down into three parts. First part is Mikey getting the best of Richards with armwork. They will come up for a high spot here or there but Mikey is controlling him and Richards can't get a break or get free of him. The second part is Richards control segment. This is bridged to very well by an epic top rope bump from Richards and a great Mikey plancha. Richards cuts off this run with a power bomb but sells a bit before coming back to offense. As usual Mikey makes a good rag doll and Richards does a good job throwing him around with some suplexes. Mikey's hope spots are very well executed and believable as are the nearfalls. Final segment of this is Mikey's attempted flurries of offense building to the Richards finish. In particular I thought the spot with the missed splash looked great and I enjoyed the sit down on the powerbomb. Superkick came out of nowhere and it really seemed like a last gasp for Richards. Both guys came out of this looking like a million bucks. I'm probably not doing this justice, but this is one of the better ECW matches I've seen from 95. Maybe the best Richards match I've ever seen period. Shane Douglas v. Mikey Whipwreck - ECW 2/3/95 I love this match and voted it super high in the SC poll. This match is all about cocky vet Douglas underestimating a reluctant opponent in Mikey. Shane pisses off Mikey and Mikey shows him how scrappy he is and it makes a great match. The crowd explodes early every time Mikey hits an arm drag or a dropkick and his plancha was really great as he actually disappears off screen on impact. He works over Shane's arm which Shane does a good job of selling. Shane has to make his comeback off of a dirty rope break and then when Mikey tries to speed it back up he drills him with a nasty powerbomb and then a face first suplex on the apron outside the ring. The camera angle does not do the match any favors at this point, but you can see Shane holding the title up in Mikey's face and holding him at bay on the floor. Shane slams Mikey around and then stands over him slapping him in the face and talking shit. Mikey comes back with a serious of low blows and I really love it as there is a progression as he goves from straight punch, to punch from behind, to reverse atomic drop, to atomic drop. He starts reeling off spots and there is a really great string of nearfalls with Mikey hitting an awesome dropkick, followed by a crossbody for insanely hot nearfalls that crowd loses it for. Shane ends up catching Mikey coming off the ropes with a suplex and then climbs to the top but he eats a big boot when he comes off before a brief rope running exchange that ends with Douglas hitting the belly to belly. I overrated this on initial viewing but it is still a very good match with flashes of greatness. Hack Myers v. J.T. Smith - ECW FanCam 9-15-95 Hack comes in and stiffs J.T. and has him reeling. J.T. ends up firing back with some stiff chops and Hack says fuck it and returns that favor and then drops a fucking nasty knee drop off the second rope to J.T.'s head. J.T. turns the tide with a spinning leg lariat. J.T. is great in this throwing down a chair in contempt, yelling at fans, et. Hack chases J.T. down and punches him in the face but Hack gets tossed into the crowd. Sweet spot where J.T. just gets chucked into the crowd wildly. They brawl to the back of the building where J.T. cranks up for a lariat but ends up taking a back body drop on the floor. They brawl some more and J.T. gets Hack down on the ground and hits a fucking frogsplash off of a lunch counter onto Hack. They end up back at ringside where Hack breaks a pan over Smith's head and then piledrivers J.T. in the ring for a nearfall. J.T. hit a sweet tornado DDT for a nearfall and then goes out to jaw at some fans picking up a chair on the way back into the ring. Naturally Hack gets the chair and fucking kills J.T. with a chair shot that wraps around his head. J.T. comes back yet again and is getting utter hell from the crowd who he proceeds to shit talk over the house mic. J.T. does an awesome spot where he sets up a dive on Hack then flips into the ropes instead and flips off the crowd. Hack pulls him out to the floor and they go back into the crowd. Hack pelts J.T. with some shit then hits a brainbuster back in the ring for a nearfall. J.T. pulls the ref in on an avalanche splash attempt and he gets wiped out. J.T. goes to the tights and hits Hack with a foreign object and gets the fall. The finish was not that well done but I loved the rest of this despite the relative lack of long term selling. Post-match J.T. falls off the ropes onto a table which was awesome. Raven/Stevie Richards vs. Tommy Dreamer/Mikey Whipwreck (5/13/95) This is a great match and another example of Mikey being awesome in 95 (I actually think you can make a strong case for him as the best wrestler in the States that year). On top of taking some huge bumps and ragdolling around this is a rare case of someone making Raven look good as well. Plus this is the debut of Fonzy as evil rule enforcing ref so it belongs on the set even if you are foolish and think the match sucks Shane Douglas vs. Marty Jannetty (2/25/95) This is the best of Shane's matches v. "name" talent which was a running theme of this period in the company. Jannetty really was a great wrestler and I'm sure Loss will go to bat for his SB of Wrestling match v. Snow from 95 as well. The Thugz v. PG-13 - Volunteer Slam IV 5-19-95 Pre-match dueling Smothers/Ice mic work was unsurprisingly excellent. PG-13's pre-match ritual is so ridiculous it's a sure fire heat getter in and of itself. They haven't even locked up and Ice is flexing and strutting around the apron, jumping down argue with fans, graabbing the mic and shit talking the infamous old lady, et. DWB runs over and hugs her which gets a huge pop as Dundee flips the fuck out. Wolfie armdrags Tracy and of course PG-13 go into a ridiculous celebration. Tracy wins the next exchange and of course PG-13 flip out. We are now nearing five minutes in and there have been all of two successful offensive moves and this is still awesome. Pace finally picks up with Smothers clearing the heels out with dropkicks and PG-13 dropping to the floor to call a timeout. Thugz taunt them by doing the Fargo Strut. Now Wolfie is talking shit on the house mic. Ice gets bested in an armwringer exchange and ends up getting double chopped to a big a bump before retreating to his corner yet again. Holy Shit DWB's mocking of PG-13 dance is fucking hysterical. Ice gets into a criss cross with Anthony and ends up jumping into the arms of Wolfie to avoid a right hand. They both flee in terror, while Anthony makes the homophobic hand wave gesture and the crowd breaks out in a massive "faggot!" chant. Cool double drop down spot with PG-13 running into each other and taking each other out. Dundee grabs the mic and says the official is biased and they are leaving. Then he's calling Anthony "fatboy" and telling him if he doesn't play fair this time he's going home. Wolfie comes in and they end up working a pretty standard control segment, before Ice breaks it up with a knee to the back of Smothers, followed by an over the top clothesline bump. Smothers takes a crazy guardrail bump that almost knocks out the front row. Smothers is really good taking a beating here and I'm impressed as his ability to sell so convincingly for two guys that were being off the charts comedic just three minutes earlier. Crowd is almost frantic in their support for Smothers at this point as the heels are bringing out all the tricks to work him over and stir up shit. Really cool spot with Ice getting caught in a desperation sunset flip off of a rope running spot but Curtis is distracted by Wolfie in the corner. This is followed up shortly thereafter by an ever better spot with Tracy avoiding a corner splash but getting caught by a running clothesline from the apron as he tries to make a full escape. Ice takes a huge corner bump on a really excellent teased hot tag as I was certain Smothers was going to get DWB in. Heels attempt the same spot with the missed corner charge/clothesline but Smothers ducks and they take each other out. Smothers catches Ice coming off the top but still can't fight to the corner. Finally hit hits a double DDT and then sells for a few seconds before making a huge leaping hot tag. DWB in and he is cleaning house. Bucksnort Blaster bu the ref misses the fall and PG-13 use the hubcap but Smothers breaks up the pin. Thugz use the hubcap for the pinfall. Randy Hales complains about the hubcap use post-match and Curtis reverse his decision. Besides the lame Dusty finish this was a tremendous Southern tag, with all four guys looking great. Bob Armstrong/Terry Funk v. The Gangstas (Texas Death Match)- Volunteer Slam IV 5-19-95 Funk is out of the back with his flaming branding iron and is chasing The Gangstas around ringside trying to burn them while The Bullet and Cornette keep them from getting in the ring. Armstrong and Funk immediately run at The Gangstas and not twenty seconds in Funk piledrives Mustapha on a table. Holy shit Mustapha's head leaves a huge indention in the table. Funk then props it up on the scaffolding and hurls him into it. Faces take the first fall but Mustapha gets back up. Holy shit, Funk goes into his classic boxing stance! D-Lo and New Jack surf a table into the ring and they blindside Terry with it and end up picking up a fall. Funk gets bumped into the mangled table again and New Jack stands on it and him for the next fall. Funk is really selling his ass off here and I am loving this despite the shitty layout with the falls coming to quick. New Jack hits his crazy diving clothesline and Cornette ends up blindsiding New Jack with a racket though it ultimately doesn't mean much. Funk is lunging for the hot tag and then Mustapha comes in and is clubbering Funk and honestly it shouldn't be any good, but Funk's weeble wobble selling is so great and man when he falls into the hot tag the crowd is amped. Armstrong is briefly in charge, but gets kicked in the balls by New Jack who then jaws with Funk before Bob takes a fall. Funk dumping water on Bob in between falls and hand clapping to get the crowd going was great. Then he comes in off the tag and starts knocking dudes out with the tennis racket. Funk takes another fall after getting hit with a foreign object and The Gangstas finally get their hands on Cornette. Armstrong comes in behind the refs back and piledrives New Jack. Somehow this results in a double countout spot with the babyfaces winning. The action in this was really great but it suffers from ridiculous layout and a senseless finish. Still it should make the yearbook without question. Jerry Lawler v. Dirty White Boy - Super Sat Night Fever 1-28-95 Lawler relentlessly shit talking an eighty year old lady in the front row and nearly getting her to hop the guardrail was so great it almost pisses me off as you fear the match can't live up to it. Then Landel comes down and sits ringside after shaking Lawler's hand. More shit talking from Lawler and Buddy gets involved and gets chased around the ring by DWB with the old blue hair that went after Lawler pelting him in the head with something at point blank range. Lawler loses the first couple of exchanges via punch and ends bailing to the floor and getting relentlessly taunted by the old bitty which is so god damn great. Lawler ends up hiding on his knees behind Curtis after another punch from Anthony. Lawler then complains about a hair pull on a back body drop of all things while Buddy shit talks over the house mic from the timekeepers table. Lawler complains about another hair pull and DWB pleads his case while Lawler goes to his tights which begins the foreign object game. Of course Lawler is the master of this and Mark Curtis is a really great playing off of him and the crowd as Lawler shifts the gimmick all over to avoid discovery. Lawler ends up popping Anthony off of a test of strength spot and it just goes from there with Lawler working the gimmick every chance he can and Curtis just missing it time after time. Budro ends up handing the title to Lawler who sits it in the corner and bashes DWB's head into it while Landel distracts the ref. Anthony ends up making a come back in the corner and Lawler takes a face plant after a turnbuckle series. DWB hits the blaster and Landel rings the bell claiming the sixty minute time limit has expired. Curtis "fires" Landel as time keeper and they go to a finish with a ref bump, Buddy interference and a Lawler pin. This had some small edits and suffered a bit from a lack of depth, but watching Lawler interact with the SMW crowd is such a treat Ricky Morton v. Al Snow (don't have the date on this) This was a really really good tv match. Snow starts off early taking bumping in an almost panicked fashion for Morton and fleeing to the floor. Unabomb loads up his glove and Snow takes over with a shot that bust Morton over. Snow smartly walks Morton over to the camera to showcase the cut and then they go into the ring where he works over Morton. I am not a huge fan of roll up exchanges, but the roll up exchange in this is really awesome as they do a spot where Morton blocks several Snow punch attempts leading to a backslide that looks perfect and then follows up shortly thereafter with a great looking sunset flip that Snow takes almost like a spike powerbomb. Morton's facial expressions while Snow works him over are really great as well and he does a good job selling for some of Snow's weaker looking shit (namely kicks). To be fair Snow brings some really cool offense in this. Morton takes an insane header bump into the corner at full speed as a cut off spot and then Snow kills him with a nasty urange, a nasty twisting backbreaker and a later a really cool looking leglock. Morton's selling is typically great throughout. The height Snow got on the missed springboard moonsault was insane and he took another spike like headbump off of a Morton headscissors. Morton ends up winning after Unabomb goes to load up Snow's glove and Morton cuts him off at the pass and decks him with it. I can't imagine that there are a whole lot of SMW tv matches better than this. Buddy Landel v. Tracy Smothers - Super Sat Night Fever 1-28-95 Lots of early schtick from Buddy with Tracy playing off of it really well and doing everything he could to get the crowd involved. Loved Budro sticking out his chin for Tracy to pop only for Curtis to jump in between them. Also really liked the countering of the various limb work with Smothers getting chucked to the floor and Tracy breaking up an early figure four. All this built to the first really big spot which was a simple slap delivered by Smothers that Landel sells so fucking awesome as he sort of teases a Flair flop before essentially passing out in the corner. This leads to a great chop exchange and Smothers ends up going for a figure four with Landel kicking off. They have really milked a little for a lot but that is what made SMW so great. There is another great mat exchange in this which is really simple back and fourth between Buddy and Smothers working from headscissors to headlock with Buddy cheating to gain his advantages and Smothers eventually snapping and peppering him with rights. They spill to the floor and there is an incredibly great strike exchange where Smothers fucking chops Budro in the face and Buddy fires back with some great rapid fire punches and then Tracy comes back with some more shots and it is awesome as fuck. They get back in the ring and Tracy goes for a corner charge which he misses for a big bump and eats a corkscrew elbow for a great nearfall. Budro misses the second corkscrew attempt which sets up a hot babyface comeback from Smothers. Finish is cool as Buddy goes to the tights for a foreign object but drops it after a back elbow. Smothers gets into it with Curtis about it and tries to use it for himself but while he is arguing Buddy retrieves a chain and decks Tracy for the finish. This was a great match, with great build, a great crowd and every spot meaning something.

PG-13 and The Thugz had a few a good matches too.

The best Blue Bloods match that I can recall is v. Malenko/Benoit on one of the ppv pre-shows. I believe it was the pre-show for Halloween Havoc actually.

I forgot about Pillman/Badd. I like the tag better but those are neck and neck. Another 95 match from WCW that might be easy to sleep on is Wright v. Arn from Slamboree which is a very good match, with a very good finish. Actually I think either Wright or Arn were the best guys in WCW that year which is saying something. Also there is that Wright/Flair match from SN that I believe set the table for the brief Arn v. Flair feud

95 was a shit year for WCW and because of that I think it would be potentially easy to miss the Stars N Stripes v. Vader/Arn tag if you didn't know to look for it. I don't recall the date on it offhand but it was EASILY the best WCW match of that year. Here is a match that would for sure slip through the cracks if I hadn't just recently watched it. I'll include my review: > The Gangstas v. The Thugz (Street Fight) - SMW Charlotte Memories 5-20-95 No chance of this sucking as battle of underclass stereotypes is pretty much guaranteed to work on some level and really you are not going to find better example of Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan study subjects v. Senator James Webb study subjects than this. Racist rednecks v. black nationalist from the Ghetto - let's get er done. Thugz come out pissed off after a baiting New Jack promo and immediately get to it, with Tracy hitting dive shots to the floor with trashcans, leaping Confederate Flage shots, tossing New Jack into the tenth row, et. New Jack comes back by throwing an insane looking over hand that sends Tracy flying, then hurls him into a stack of chairs and just starts chucking shit at him. Jack tries to hit Tracy with a cinderblock but DWB blocks it at the last second. New Jack hits an insane leaping clothesline onto DWB on the floor. During all of this D-Lo is just tossing shit around. Tracy and Jack have color now and Smothers is really selling his ass off. Great punch exchange on the floor that starts with DWB and New Jack and escalates to all five guys. D-Lo gets tossed into the tenth row by Smothers. Mustapha tries to run away and Smothers darts after him and leaps on him sending him flying off camera. Back in the ring and there is more solid brawling and then Smothers gets dumped to the floor. D-Lo hurls a trashcan at head and then New Jack absolutely kills him with a leaping piledriver through a table. Holy fuck what a spot. Being economical men with their weaponry, D-Lo and Jack try and use the remnants of the table as a battering ram, but Tracy reverses and throws them both into it as DWB makes his comeback in the ring. D-Lo ends up accidentally frogsplashing Mustapha and Anthony pins him. Brawl continues post-match with New Jack and Smothers throwing each other into the crowd while men run over to protect their children from getting caught up in a race riot. They end up brawling onto a stage where D-Lo gets back body dropped. Thugz finally chase Gangstas to the back and Curtis raises their hands on the stage, while fans hold up the Stars N Bars. This is pro wrestling as hate crime which is pretty much the way it's supposed to be. Really a tremendous match, easily the best Gangstas match I've ever seen, and one of the best SMW matches I've ever seen as well. Actually I would make a pretty strong push for Severn v. Bobby Blaze from the same show as as a really fun mat sprint that was out of the norm for the promotion and the time.

Bruce's book is totally insane. I cannot imagine anyone with even a passing knowledge of wrestling history not sniffing out most of the bullshit and even someone with no knowledge of history would be able to tell pretty easily that everything Bruce says about Bret is likely to be a hate filled lie. Among the things Bruce claims that definitely aren't true: He claims he worked a series of WWF house shows with his family members and they tore the house down working "Stampede" style until a road agent (Lanza IIRC) told him he was just a school teacher, that the matches sucked because of him and then demanded he basically stand on the apron and do little to nothing. Bruce claims that he complied with these demands, the matches got worse but Lanza complimented him for doing his job. The problem is no such house show run ever existed. He claims that he and Bret went down to Amarillo, TX to meet up with Dory Jr. and co. over the Summer and in the process tells an awesome Terry Funk rib story that I hope is true. Having said that he also claims that on the trip down they were chased out of multiple counties by violent redneck gangs who assumed they were draft dodging hippies. He claims Bret reached over his dying mother and attempted to choke his sister as their mother was literally expiring in front of them. He claims he ghost wrote Bret's Calagary Sun column for years. He claims that Smith Hart was in no way to blame for the missing gate receipts of the infamous Stampede tour to the Carribean. He claims he was given the book in Hawaii by Peter Maivia (this may or may not be true but seems hard to believe). He claims that he was offered the book by Vince's people only to be snubbed by Vince when flown in to discuss the terms. He claims that Shane called him about turning his new Stampede He claims that Whalen (who he regards as the best announcer ever which shocked me knowing Bruce's booking style) on air resignation after the Bad News innocent was an angle and disguise Whalen's departure to cover two Calgary Flames games. He claims that the WWE was about to bring him in to team with Pillman for a Badd Company reunion but Bret sabotaged it because he was angry when the children came in the ring at the end of the Calgary Stampede ppv (a ppv he claims was designed in part to set up an angle with him and Austin). He claims that he would have kept Pillman clean and thus implies multiple times that Bret was responsible for Pillman's death. He claims that Bret called him after Owen's death suggesting that McMahon had done it intentionally to punish Owen for Bret's problems with Vince regarding Montreal. He claims that one of Bret's columns (after Bruce quit writing for him of course) was responsible for Davey taking up drug use again and as a result Bret is responsible for the death of DBS. I'm sure I am forgetting other obvious or likely lies. The book is overflowing with bullshit

I like 19 better but 17 is still a great match. My big beef with 17 is the fact that I hate the finish even if it does make sense in the context of the match and within the storyline. I just hated to see Austin turn that way in Texas and I thought the chairshots came off as overkillish and actually a weak way to end the match. Obviously I am in the minority on that. I also I love Rock and think he is pretty much the ultimate big match wrestler in WWF/E history, but I wouldn't rate him above Cena when it comes to selling and I don't think he ever had a run as impressive as Cena 06/07. As an overall act he destroys Cena of course

There is an incredibly awesome Mike Jackson v. Barry Horowitz sprint from Florida

Taue going for the nodowa of doom from the apron to the floor on Misawa and then the camera pans down and shows Akiyama desperately clutching at Taue offering up just enough resistance to stop Misawa from being wiped out is maybe my favorite moment in any match ever.

Why use Cole in that role when Vickie is right there and is easily the most over heel in wrestling.

Greatest match of all time

I may rewatch it soon. I remember being stunned when I watched it a couple of years back by how unbelievably one sided it was. The Hog Wild match between the two was very good, more even and featured an insane dive from Rey - but somehow was not as good a match.

The Rock won't wrestle, but if I was booking WWE and could get him for a single match I agree that Miz is the ideal opponent. I actually think Rock v. Miz and Cena v. Taker as dual main events would do a great number.

I think the match is clearly worked as an extended squash to the point where I really have trouble seeing how someone could say it wasn't. Having said that, it was a VERY good match anyhow. Dragon had great offense and Rey was sympathetic. They made it work.

If he even makes the card it will almost definitely be in MITB