Stuttsy

To me Sapphire is, was and always will be one of the most random things that ever happened in wrestling. So she's kinda up there in my book. Clarence Mason and Ahmed Johnson returning in Russo-era WCW was weird and random.

Man, Eaton & Koko were actually really good too.

Eaton & Condrey Eaton & Lane Murdoch & Adonis Hawk & Animal Samu & Fatu

Adnan is weird to me. If someone told you in, let's say 1988 that Adnan Al Kassie was going to be in the main event of Summerslam in 91, that would be weirder to me than saying Mustafa would be. Slightly off topic but imagine if someone had told you at an NWA show in 1988 that referee Teddy Long vs. Sheepherders flag bearer Johnny Ace would be one of the featured feuds heading into the 2012 WrestleMania.

My buddy and I have been doing the Wrestling With Optimism podcast for about 15 weeks now. We try not to be too smarmy, too douchey, too know-it-all or too negative. Here's a little bit about us: We spend a lot of time talking about 80's wrestling, current era WWE and the North Carolina independent scene. If you'd like to give us a listen here's how: WWW: http://www.wrestlingwithoptimism.com ITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wrestli...ism/id630820321 STITCHER: http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/wrestling-with-optimism

I just want to say I think this is dead on and for me personally this perfectly sums up a years-long argument that I've never quite been able to articulate as to why the Bulldogs just plain were not my cup of tea. They were good for sure and fun to watch for sure but I prefer that southern style of working and the southern style teams: Eaton & Condrey, Lane & Keirn, Ricky & Robert, Tully & Arn, etc. In previous conversations with friends I've described the Bulldogs as being "too Japanese" but in future conversations about them I am going to pull from this description because I think you hit the nail on the head as to why I didn't love them like some others did.

Yeah but I would imagine WWE locker rooms now are practically churches compared to what he's seen. I agree with this. I interviewed Jimmy Jacobs for a Highspots project 4-5 months ago and he said all the guys he knows who are there talk about how the road is boring nowadays - nobody parties at all, they just play with their iPads and watch movies and stuff like that.

Would love to see Danny Hodge go in. Freebirds and Roberts are great choices for New Orleans. So is Godfather. I think DX or at least the Outlaws will go in also. Can't pass up the chance to merchandise DX beads and big floppy DX hats.

Was this the Beast in question?

Bobby Eaton & Stan Lane (babyfaces) vs. Rick Rude & Mr. Perfect. Also PG-13 vs. the Briscoes.

Can I just say I am so happy to have recerntly remembered this place exists after spending several months lamenting over what a troll-filled cesspool the DVD board has become.

I have always looked at it like this: A gimmick is not necessarily a worker. Kamala is a gimmick. His matches may not hold up when his workrate or whatever is analyzed but it wasn't his purpose to have "great matches." Kamala was designed to beat up jobbers on TV so you would pay to see him fight JYD, Von Erichs, Hogan or the Undertaker. He drew fairly well, I don't know of him breaking any records or anything but he did okay, I'd say he served his purpose. Plus he looked fucking scary and awesome. He's always been on of my guilty pleasure favorites.

I grew up in a small town 20 miles from Greensboro, 50 miles from Raleigh/Durham and we got pretty much everything: Superstars, Challenge, Spotlight, Pro, Worldwide, World Class, UWF, Pro Wrestling This Week, GLOW (and alter PWOW), PWF Florida from '89 and even a group called Southern Championship Wrestling out of Georgia. In fact because we lived close enough to pick up the stations from both markets, a lot of times we could watch the NWA or WWF syndicated shows twice if we wanted to.

I think one aspect that no one has really touched on yet is how much the current generation is held in contempt for failing to produce a new mega star of Rock or Austin levels. Cena's obviously the closest but even his popularity is a pretty big drop off from the days when an animated series on MTV decided wrestling was so cool that they needed Stone Cold as a regular weekly character. Sometimes this contempt manifests itself through subtle, passive aggressive mentions of how great Michaels and Austin and the Attitude era were, as referenced in the original post. But sometimes it manifests itself in the form of downright hatred, to the point that watching the show you can almost imagine Vince screaming at the current guys that they are all worthless nobodies. I don't know how big a part the contempt for the current crop of guys plays in this, but I firmly believe it factors in.

Based on my (admittedly non-WWE) experience, that is pretty right on. We've done a yearly Rumble at CWF Mid-Atlantic since 2001 and that's pretty close to how we "script" ours. Here's numbers 1 through 5 from our legit run sheet last year as an example: 1 – Chase Dakota 2 – Jason Miller (Miller starts on on fire, hitting all his big stuff, including getting Chase on apron once or twice, who barely survives) 3 – Chet Sterling (Chet comes in and it appears that the tide will turn, but Miller quickly reverses whatever they do and gets BOTH heels in peril and continues getting over with all his power stuff.) 4 – Joe Black (The tide finally does turn in favor of the heels the second Joe gets in. This is the 90 seconds for the heels to hit any signature stuff - that’s realistic to do on Miller - before #5 gets there.) 5 – Mark James (Mark James bumps all the heels, saving Miller from the 3-on-1, then Miller & James together eliminate Chet, leaving Miller/Mark James vs. Chase/Joe Black) If it helps you guys visualize the flow of things: Dakota is a junior heavyweight heel who watches too much Dragon Gate, Miller is a Barry Windham-esque ass kicking babyface, Sterling a smarmy stooge junior heavyweight heel, Black is a power wrestler and Dakota's tag-team partner, James is an ass kicking journeyman babyface.

So based on Raw would we say Henry is working with Ryback and Shield with Orton, Sheamus and Big Show? If that's the case I'd say the guys who definitely make the show but aren't yet accounted for are: Jericho, Miz, Dolph, Kane, Bryan, Cesaro with Barrett, Kofi, Truth, Sandow, Cody on the outskirts, could go either way. Jericho vs. Miz and some three or four way tag with Kane/DB defending against the rest, presumably?!

Here's one that was held 2/19/11 from CWF Mid-Atlantic in Burlington, NC: CWF Mid Atlantic Heavyweight Champion Lee Valiant defeated "the 1st" Ric Converse w/ William L. Cross six falls to five in sixty-minute Iron Man Challenge title action in Sudden Death Overtime to retain the title (1:03:50) Same group also does an annual Survivor Series themed show with 8 man elimination tags, an annual 30 man Rumble and occasional Ciberneticos. I will check if any of them have gone more than an hour, I know there are some at 50+ minutes.

I agree. It's been the virtual definition of a nothing year but Cena is still the franchise player so he kind of wins by default.

If she's wrestling on 1/8/2012 that really makes me wonder if there are plans for her to do the Chikara joshi shows in December, or if at least they'd make a play for her.

For anyone curious where he is now, Carl Styles runs small indys in western North Carolina a few times per year, occasionally using Tracy Smothers as his top name.

It's obviously on a far smaller scope than any mainsteam major wrestler, but I feel like Colt Cabana is really the champion of this on the indys. He goes above and beyond to market himself, merchandise himself, network and keep his name out there.

Surprised no one has mentioned the two out of three falls match with Muta from WCW Saturday Night in 1992. A really great, fun match.

Dude- he thinks everything is a work, period! This goofy motherfucker thinks a bone sticking out of someone's arm might be a work? Hang it up, Dave.

About this, Bischoff has said several times, including the Essential Starrcade DVD if I recall correctly, that he never personally viewed Starrcade as the biggest event of the year. On the DVD he says some bullshit corporate mumbo jumbo about PPV buyrates not performing as well in December due to the holidays compared with other times of the year, although strangely enough I am pretty sure '97 performed pretty goddang well. But basically Bischoff didn't feel the same sense of nostalgia for the Starrcade name/brand as some of the older tenured rasslin' people in the office. I also want to say in one interview, or maybe a website blog, that he outright said Halloween Havoc (which Bischoff took on as a bit of a pet project, particularly trying to do good numbers in Vegas to impress the big wigs or something like that), Road Wild (another Bischoff pet project) and one more (maybe Souled Out? Bash at the Beach? One of those, I think) were all higher priorities to him than Starrcade. I don't remember the source but I swear I remember reading that.

It seems to be that they think the hometown guy getting a pop, when he "isn't supposed to" somehow drastically throws off the continuity of the show from week to week. So they try to globalize the show/product/brand as much as possible so that nobody's hometown matters unless they tell us specifically that it does.