Dooley

Well, if DAVE said it... I'm not sure why people jump on Bruce for not burying the company. The whole thing is a glimpse inside of the thinking of the office at the time. You're going to get the defense of ideas that seem horrible in retrospect. That's the whole idea.

The Rumble match was so much of an afterthought that they were calling it the "rumble royal" on TV up until the weekend of the event.

Yeah the one thing this scenario doesn't take into account is that Sheik still had to make it out of the building.

That spot was the first time I'd ever seen the young bucks. I laughed. But I've never been a "wrestling is serious business!" guy.

The idea that John Cena is a bigger star than Conor McGregor is quite possibly the silliest thing I've seen on the internet in 2017. Think of the ground that covers. How deep in the wrestling bubble can one be? Conor just competed in one of the biggest money fights of all time. It dwarfed any of Floyd's numbers against anyone except Pacquiao. He's on the cover of GQ. TMZ covers him like he's a fucking Kardashian. John Cena is the biggest name in wrestling and to most people on the street, he still may only get a passing recognition as "oh yeah, he's the wrestler".

I enjoyed Henry having a match against Taker on Superstars in 95. I've never dug anything Phineas/Mideon did, other than his Mankind impression.

Not to mention that Dave's MMA opinions are generally terrible.

The "Titan Sinking" book alleges that Tunney was going to testify against Terry Garvin in a sexual assault trial. He was talked out of it, but Vince still considered it a betrayal.

I believe Vince promised Sid the Mania slot, I've never seen anything that makes me believe that Vince put it in writing. WM8 was strange in a lot of ways. If Hogan-Sid is your desired main, why not make it for the title? If Flair-Savage is going to be underneath anyway, why put the title there and make it look "less than"? If Hogan-Flair is delivered to you on a silver platter, why not take it? If Hulk is going to bail shortly after, you still have the option of sending the folks home happy at WM8 and then having Sid/Flair/whoever beat Hulk at MSG or the card of your choice. I think Hogan and Flair had good chemistry as opponents, with Bash '94 being my personal fave of theirs. There was a reason WCW kept running that match into the ground, people still enjoyed it. While there may have been a "feeling out process" in their early WWF matches, I don't see how they couldn't have come up with something good for WM8 if they knew that was their endgame. The story about Vince pulling the plug based off of the first couple of matches and what they drew never really clicked with me. What are the other situations where Vince has given up on a main event heel after a couple of house shows? Even Hennig got a full house show run to prove his mettle, and business for those shows was widely considered to be disappointing.

The story I remember is that Vince thought he was getting Yoko as one of the Headshrinkers but Afa pulled a bait and switch on him. How many people would really be aware of that though? The USA was in a general hysteria about the Japanese affecting the US economy at the time, so having a big "Japanese" heel was typically jingoistic.

I prefer the 88 version, despite the clumsily executed double turn. While 88 may have the Conuistadors lasting the entire match, they were largely non-factors. 87 had the Young Stallions as seemingly the focal point of the match. Way worse IMO. 87 also had the Harts getting revenge for losing the WWF belts by eliminating Strike Force ....which the camera missed.

Bruce Prichard wasn't a fan of Kreski, saying something along the lines of "apparently he had a board in his office that no one ever saw". No one's really been able to explain to me what Kreski did that was so great either. Perhaps he had good organizational skills, but he seemed to be a cog in the wheel. What are you referring to here? Regarding the topic at hand, Vince laps just about everybody. Baba may be the only one who comes close.

I thought Hogan took more exception to Russo saying he was bald than anything else.

Each time one uses the word hypothetically in the same passage their douchiness factor goes up.

At no point were Heyman or a Heyman consortium in the running to buy Strikeforce. Those two things don't seem incongruous to me. It's well acknowledged that Heyman was able to get guys with limited skill sets over in the ECW environment. A lot of it was also Heyman's ability to read pop culture or counter-culture or whatever you want to call it in the mid-90's. I don't know that he was able to do that afterwards. Heyman was also notorious for carefully managing his message with the dirtsheets and making sure his POV got out through Meltzer or the other websites. I don't know how critical those websites were of parsing Paul's statements as opposed to just being happy he was a source. It didn't hit my ear so much that Bruce was jealous as much as was it was him in "don't bullshit a bullshitter" mode. Not unlike the Russo episode.

I don't think Hogan would have ever left WCW until the bitter end just because the money was so ridiculous. Even meeting with Vince in '97, Vince told him flat out that he couldn't match it. Not just base salary but ridiculous PPV money and merchandise slants in his favor (in addition to acting gigs on Turner properties). Even when business turned around for Vince, I'm not sure he would have offered Hogan that same deal. Creatively, I don't think Hogan would have jumped in 97 or 98. 97 was WCW at their hottest, and business was still really good in 98 although the cracks were forming. By 99, I'm sure Hogan saw the writing on the wall and would have entertained an offer to jump and be Vince's corporate foil for Austin or whatever, but he was still making that money brother.

Just rewatched this recently. Everyone's hit the high notes already. One thing that jumped out at me and buggedme about this match was Shawn Michaels. It's like the entire time that he's out there us spent trying to out-Flair Flair. It's particularly noticeable on things like Von Erich hitting Flair with the discus pinch and Flair taking a Flair flop. Immediately after, Shawn takes one and does a cartoon bump that wouldn't be out of place in his Summerslam match against Hogan. I know some have praised his performance, but for me it just showed a guy that couldn't understand that not everything is supposed to be about him.

Just want to add that TalkMMA is a wholly unreliable source. He's been known to run with "news" that any random Twitter account DM' s him without bothering to ask anyone involved if it's true or not.

For me, 86-89 Barry Windham was about as good as it gets.

AJ, you may have been the only one. This gimmick had 80's written all over it. It might have gotten over if the feud they teased with the other Samoans who "wanted him to come back to the street" had gone forward, but alas no. As it stood, it was a fat guy in bright colours carrying Nancy Reagan's message a decade later and constantly losing.

Bruce has never come off as poorly as he did when discussing the Austin/Hall beer-pouring incident on that episode.

Dibiase is champ for a year, feuding with Duggan and Savage. Hogan comes back at WM5 to reclaim the title to the chagrin of Savage, who figures he should have got the shot at WM instead. The tension builds and we get Hogan-Savage at WM6 instead of 5. interesting to think what would have happened to the Warrior in this case.

Blackjack Mulligan and Barry Windham deserve a mention.

I know literally nothing about the situation, but Mauro' s been difficult to work with everywhere he's been. Those jumping to his defense solely because of the JBL stories out there may be missing something.

vs Savage from SNME in '89 IMO.