Dooley

In the interests of minutiae, it's McGwire.

Wasn't he filming Santa With Muscles or one of his other straight-to-DVD opuses? I can't find the Bischoff interview on youtube at the moment, but it was when he was on Off the Record in '97.

None of Bischoff's actions seem to bear that out.

Bischoff said in a TV interview that Luger was the original plan, but then they felt that would be too predictable. Apparently up until a couple of days before the event, the plan was to have Sting as the third man. Hogan then read the tea leaves and inserted himself into the angle. Hum… Sullivan said many times that Hogan was the number one idea and Sting the back-up plan in case Hogan refused at the last time. Both he and Bischoff said it took a lot of work and persuasion to have Hogan agree to turn heel, as most of his entourage was getting in his ears saying it would be bad for his career. So I don't believe Hogan throwing himself in the angle at the last moment. Nash has said the same thing about Hogan inserting himself into the angle. When did Bischoff say that it took a lot of work for Hogan to turn heel? He doesn't seem like the kind of guy to push Hogan to do anything. Also, Hall and Nash have both said that the "invasion" storyline was just a way to get them in the door and not thought of as the massive storyline it became. One would think if the plan was a Hogan heel turn from the get-go that it wouldn't have been initially thought of that way.

I love how on the Warrior DVD, Hogan said his big problem with the segment was that Warrior said that he had beat him. Why wouldn't Warrior reference that when the whole selling point of Warrior in WCW is for a Hogan rematch? (and politically, for Hogan to get his win back)

Bischoff said in a TV interview that Luger was the original plan, but then they felt that would be too predictable. Apparently up until a couple of days before the event, the plan was to have Sting as the third man. Hogan then read the tea leaves and inserted himself into the angle.

The part I didn't understand about this was that it was supposed to be Sid sending a message to Diesel by attacking his "friend" Razor. Had Diesel and Razor been presented in kayfabe as anything other than bitter enemies at this point?

We'll need to hear him say "I think unicorns are kick-ass" to be sure.

Do we know what for?

For the same reason Earthquake, The Nasty Boys, Honky Tonk Man, and so on were offered deals? The Bushwhackers were friends of Hogan?

I thought it was Razor that signed with WCW first, then Diesel? Also interesting that WCW offered the Bushwhackers a deal in '96......why? The FTC complaint just comes of as Vince being desperate, petty and hypocritical.

"Hulk Hogan refused to go along with Russo’s plan that saw a ton of run ins and Hogan beating everyone off." - I know it's Russo, but that's gotta be a typo right?

Dillon's just the set-up man for the crowd reactions here. These are great and are accomplishing exactly what they're supposed to.

Hart-Lawler was good in '93, but by '95 they were into the "kiss my foot match" territory and Bret feuding with Lawler's dentist. Flair-Savage seems like a solid pick thought, especially up against Axl/Ian and the rest of a weak field. S'plain.

My favorite part of this is when DX are done swearing at each other, HBK opens his mouth like he's going to keep going and then just sighs. For some reason, that strikes me funny.

I wouldnt have thought so. It would look bad on WWE's image having the biggest & most popular name in wrestling losing to a boxer. Referring to Tyson in '90 as just "a boxer" shows a fundamental misunderstanding of just how huge Tyson was at that point.

You're kidding, right? In 1990 a Hogan-Tyson match/shoot/whatever would have done killer money.

It's remembered mainly for this Norm MacDonald joke when co-star Courtney Thorne-Smith was on Conan:

Giving Heyman $50K a year or whatever it was isn't propping up all that much.

From this week's Observer. God, let this get off the ground. His gym is in Mississauga, which is a suburb of Toronto. Technically, it's "Battle Arts". http://www.battleartsacademy.com/

Whatever happened to Al Isaacs anyway? Dude was CERTAIN Yoko was joining the Hart Foundation any day now.....

Got a good few ideas for candidates and situations to put on trial, but yeh, this is something we're going to do every few shows. As a quick point to explore, what were the peaks and valleys of Triple H in terms of effect on business? The Batista Mania 21 buyrate comes to mind as part of the positives, but how much or little do you credit him for various 2000 buyrates, and beyond Loss' 2002-2003, do you feel there are any other obvious failures? I've said this before, but HHH's supposed "great" 2000 is one of the great white elephants of the wrestling industry. Rock was far and away the top star in the WWF and the anchor at the time. He was on magazine covers, appeared on songs with popular and respected artists and even spoke at the Republican national convention. HHH just happened to be the head of Vince's corporate goon squad at the time. In a larger sense, the main feud in WWF at that time was Rock vs Vince, the same way it had been Austin-Vince prior. The best comparison for Rock-HHH is Hogan-Kamala. Hogan-Kamala did boffo business at the time and set some gate records. But who were people going to see? They bought tickets to see Hulk Hogan, Kamala just happened to be the beneficiary of being his opponent when Hogan was red hot. Looking at HHH's main programs of 2000. You have the Foley matches with Foley killing himself to get HHH over and the added drama of Foley's retirement saga; Y2J where Jericho got really hot but had his legs sufficiently cut out from under him at the end; ditto Kurt Angle; and then Austin's return which was nowhere as hot as it should have been. If you have to point to things like the Taka match (as some do) to prop up HHH's 2000 then you're really digging. 2000 sowed the seeds of the next couple of years where anyone who worked with HHH came out much worse than they did going in. It's Hogan in 95-esque.

Really? Guys who wear masks or face paint, or are savages from distant islands or jungles, or evil foreigners who compete strictly to spite America (or wherever you're from), or glamour boys who insist on the ring being sprayed with perfume before competing....who ALL magically seem to bounce off the ropes, all of that screams real to you? Pro wrestling's always been kind of absurd, That's half the fun of it.

But people don't buy into it. They go because Wrestlemania's fun and in that particular case, people like chanting "YES!". Not because they think the good guy is actually going to beat up an evil-doer. Seriously? Going back to Gorgeous George and even further back, pro wrestling has always hand a "wink/nudge" relationship with its audience.