sek69

Based on HBK's promo, they seem to have decided to cheer him.

True, but at the same time it was a refreshing return to the old HBK which was a breath of fresh air over the boring face HBK.

Waylon Mercy would have worked then too, had Spivey's knees not exploded. I agree, it would be huge if done the same way now. You could make the point that Chris Masters is proving the Narcissist gimmick wasn't too bad as well.

Undertaker - I always felt Taker gets a raw deal from the smart crowd because he spent the prime of his career matched off with some of the worst workers in pro wrestling history. Frankly, it's a testament to his ability that he was able to become a huge star when he was feuding with guys like Mable, Yoko, and Giant Gonzalez. Arn Anderson - Probably the best tag team worker ever, he was able to work well with an amazing variety of partners. I don't think I've ever seen a bad Arn Anderson match, and that's not something you can say about a lot of people. Juventud Guerrera - It's almost enough to make you cry to think where he'd be if he didn't quit messing himself up with drugs. I hope he stays straight with this WWE gig he has now, he's got that silly-but-not-too-silly personality that's made for getting over WWE style gimmicks. Keiji Muto- The Steve Austin of Japan in the sense that he had two distinctly separate careers: A high-workrate early half, and the more brawling second half. Like Austin, the brawling second half seemed to be his biggest success period.

"Whaddya gonna do, fire me?" - that was classic.

How funny/sad is it when HBK can do a better shoot-style promo than people in a storyline based on real-life events. Not to mention the face pops he was getting for saying what most smarks think about Hogan. Heel HBK > Jeebus Lovin' Babyface HBK any day of the week. I even marked for him bringing back the "lays down for no one" catchphrase. The only thing that could top this is if Hogan comes out next week and cuts a promo mentioning all the times HBK lost his smile and had to give up a title. If both guys are willing to play ball, they could out-shoot the real life storyline.

Yeah but to my knowledge Rick Rude didn't go around telling everyone in earshot how much he disliked the McMahons.

All of a sudden Batista's the shits now because he had a crappy match against a crappy opponent. HHH = teh genius

What I want to know is how does this crap get on PPV?

Didn't he sign a deal with WWE in order to be on the ECW PPV?

I heard that not only was there an extra feature of people goofing, but pretty much everyone interviewed for the main feature saying how dumb the Warrior was. I tend to believe it since Warrior had the nerve to actually demand Vince honor the contracts he signed, then actually changed his name to Warrior so Vince couldn't keep him from using the name. We all know how forgiving Vince is towards people who got one over on him, and Warrior's steadfastly refused to return to WWE to kiss McAss so I wouldn't be surprised to see the DVD be a burial job.

It's amazing to watch when you consider the time. When you hear Gordon Solie sound like a clueless WWE pretty boy announcer because a guy's doing moves *he's* never seen before, you know that's someone special.

Bubba Ray Dudley is one of the most underrated bumpers, IMO. The way he takes bumps flat backed with his arms out makes every move sound devestating.

You'd think an outing like you describe would get someone more work, but knowing WCW they probably didn't appricate someone showing effort in a prelim match.

Steve Keirn was in WCW in 1994? My brain swiss-cheeses a lot of mid 90s wrestling but I don't have any recall of that at all. Was he mainly on the B shows?

They don't want JBL to job outright because Vince is a mark for the character. They're basically taking the risk of damaging Batista as a main eventer just so Vince can plug his alter ego back in the title picture whenever he wants.

I'd really be disappointed if the Warrior DVD was nothing but people goofing. Yeah he's a nutball but at one point the company thought enough of him to put him over Hogan (when that still meant something big) and make him their champion.

According to people posting on SK's blog, the Warrior DVD is basically a giant goof with everyone saying how much of an idiot the Warrior was and a whole feature of people making fun of his mannerisims.

The only way I'd consider this as offensive as the original segment is because they brought back the "terrorists". Otherwise it's still not even the same ballpark. It's not even the first time they've done that this year, remember when they did the spot where Big Show threw Angle off whatever backstage and he had blood splattered around his head? They can't even kill a character off creatively anymore.

Jeez.... a 2 minute cruiser match, Benoit jobs, your hot new tag team jobs to a midcarder and a fat old guy, Christian jobs again, the "terrorists" come back, and the main event ends in a non-finish. It looks like WWE worked long and hard to ensure no matter what kind of wrestling you like, you'd hate this PPV.

When they moved from USA to TNN, wasn't there a fuss made about how TNN was seen in fewer homes? If this is still the case, then WWE in theory should get higher ratings if more people can see them. I would think we'll probably see more DVD releases using the footage they own, since it usually makes money and it justifies the money spent on obtaining the footage in the first place.

I picked up Mike Graham's The Best of Classic Championship Wrestling Vol. 1 yesterday and this gem was on it. This match is notable of course because it's one of the first US appearances of the man who would go on to be much better known as the Great Muta. By the way (although it should be obvious), this Prince Iaukea isn't the one who was in WCW, he's the son of King Curtis Iaukea and bears a close resemblance to Taz with hair. The first thing you get in this segment is a lengthy (and meandering) description of what exactly a ninja is by someone who's name escapes me at the moment who was challenging for the National Title. Hearing some barely coherent southerner lay out the finer points of being a ninja is unintentional comedy gold, and the look on Gordon Solie's face when they cut back to him is priceless. You could tell every fiber of his being wanted to ask the guy what the fuck it was he just said. After a brief moment where Gordon asks an offscreen producer if they should take a break or go to the ring for the match (and why that couldn't be edited is beyond me), we go to the introductions where we see the Ninja looking much like Bruce Lee with his black karate gi pants with matching belt. Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat 1 = Mutoh in this matchup. On to the match itself, it starts off as a standard wrestling match of the time, lots of mat work and jockeying for position, with a suplex thrown in for no obvious reason than to allow Gordon to add one of his famous "soo-play" calls. However when the Ninja reverses a whip to the turnbuckle and busts out the backflip elbow to the corner you can almost hear every jaw in the arena drop. Prince rolls out of the ring to get his bearings and the Ninja follows him out with a bodypress to the floor, which was nuts for what was basically a jobber match in 1986. The match goes back to the ring where the Ninja hits a backbreaker and goes up for what Mike Graham described in the intro clip as the first moonsault in US wrestling. He actually doesn't hit it very well, but its enough to finish and with that the landscape of wrestling changes. All in all, it's a match not unlike the hundreds of other matches on NWA programming betweeen two undercard guys. Once the Ninja starts busting out moves no one's ever seen, it makes you wonder why it took til 1989 for him to get into a major US promotion.

Much like the footage of Superstar Graham's hip surgery, the Beefcake footage was shown uncensored on the first airing then censored with the big red X of doom for every other subsiquent showing.

Networks didn't have a problem with Ron Bass shredding Brutus Beefcake with spurs (which was hardcore for, when was that, 1988?) nor did they have a problem with Hawk's suicide angle or for Taker symbol-fixion'ing Austin.