puropotsy

I do plan on checking out Will's Butch Reed comp at some point to get a better opinion on this. And The Rock should also be counted so perhaps it is between he and Aja. I haven't seen enough early Rocky Johnson but what I have seen is quite good, especially some matches I saw of him under a mask as Sweet Ebony Diamond. And Scorpio is awesome

June 23, 1997 Monday Night Raw Owen Hart defeated Hunter Hearst Helmsley and Goldust in a three way match for Owen's Intercontinental title. Owen was my favorite wrestler in 1997 and this IC title reign was some of my favorite work from him. I haven't seen this match since it aired but remember it just seeming like a great example of how much steam WWF was picking up at the time. Three-way matches were still a fairly fresh concept in WWF at the time and all three performers were clicking. I always loved Owen's off-the-top-rope dropkick which ended with in a flat-back bump and remeber it being fantastic in this match, with him hitting it on both opponents at the same time iirc.

More and more lately I am thinking Terry Funk should be considered the greatest of all time. I always would have said Flair before but looking at Funk's career he was great in so many ways in so many places and eras. And he talks about the business with more intelligence thatn just about anyone. ONe of my future orders from Will is probably going to be the Funk set just to re-affirm this in my mind, and also becaus it will be awesome.

There is so much great stuff on the Dustin set from 1992 that I'm hesitant to suggest more but the third match in the series between Dustin and Cactus Jack was really good. The first two matches did not have a finish and it lead to this being a falls-count-anywhere match. They brought a lot of intensity to this and both guys were really on for it. Rick Rude vs Rick Steamboat in the Iron Match at Beach Blast is pretty much must-see in my opinion. The end section when Steamboat was catching up and then overtook Rude on falls was really heated with Rude working his ass off to get the idea of the face over. I've always been a fan of the Brian Pillman vs Scotty Flamingo match and the Sting vs Cactus Jack falls-count-anywhere match which are also from that show. Foley wrote in his book that this match with Sting was his favorite match for years, I think until his ppv match with Michaels in 1996. And regarding Pillman-Flamingo, it was just a fun title change that really put over Pullamn missing a bodypress onto the ramp and banging his head as the turning point of the match. There are obvious suggestions from 1992 like Liger-Pillman from Superbrawl, Bret-Davey Boy from Summerslam and Flair's Royal Rumble win. Liger-Pillman was possibly the best U.S. match that year, at least mainstream, and Bret-Davey was both good and important. The Rumble was a classic Flair performance but might take up a lot of room on the set if it was included.

If Roddy Hogan is the guy from Detroit, I saw him at the first Detroit ROH show. Cornette laughed when he saw him and said that he'd been around so long that his Social Security number was 1. A lot of the fans mentioned above are ones I would mention, especially the kids from Wrestlemania 7 during the Savage and Liz reunion. One classic fan moments would be when Punk returned to ROH for Unscripted II and OWNED a guy who yelled "You sold out" at him. Punk said he may have sold out but that guy still spent $30 of his parents' hard-earned money to come see him. He then ran him down some more before coming out to shake his hand. The guy went for it and Punk pulled his hand away faking him out, causing the crowd to lose it.

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. Why would you have Goldust winning the belt? What would it accomplish? And why wouldn't you choose one of the other options available at that time? I didn't say I would have him win the belt. The issue to me - more so than the actual question of whether or not he could have been champ - is whether or not he was booked in such a way to maximize his talents and the character itself. I probably would never have given him the belt, but then I probably would never have given Shawn the belt either or a lot of other guys for that matter. I think giving Goldust the belt at the time is questionable, but having had him headline a pay-per-view like Mankind did would have been really great. And the gimmick was fantastic at the time. I really liked him quoting movies early on, especially the night after he won the Intercontinental title from Razor and they had a promo with him quoting Judy Garland from "A Star Is Born" with "They like me! They really like me!" It was a creative gimmick that was really attention-grabbing and he was a really good worker. The biggest problem was that they didn't book him to allow him to work, they went with screw-jobs. As far as what Goldust did after the Venis feud, he did win the Intercontinental title from Venis (the feud was basically over already) and then dropped it to Road-Dogg and was then in the 4-way for the IC title at Wrestlemania 15. The last thing I remember of him in WWF after that was the Owen tribute show. I believe he was gone shortly after and then appeared in WCW in the fall of 1999.

I loved this pay-per-view. The disagreements on the outcome of Lawler and Miz is pretty easy to solve in my mind. Lawler winning would have been really great. But so was Miz winning. If Lawler had won, the only booking from there that would have made sense was to lose it to Miz next week on RAW after building it up tonight and then going with Miz vs Cena, or perhaps building to Lawler vs Miz at Mania. I don't see who else Lawler could have headlined against as champion. Cena vs Miz is strong to me, with some history going back two years to when Miz first came to RAW. I think Miz should have been champion going into Mania last year, but he has been really strong as champion. I don't see him as the Honky Tonk Man. HTM always retained his title by DQ rather than winning with an unclean finish. Miz would be more comparable to Flair who would always make it look like his opponent was going to win but then pull it out at the end, often through interference. I am not saying that Miz is Flair, I just see that as a closer comparison. The use of Lawler to put him over was perfect for me. As far as the atmosphere tonight, I think they would have had the same atmosphere in December or January and could have put Lawler over then. But with a month to go to Mania, unless the titel was going back to Miz, this wasn't the time to do it. As far as the line-up for Mania goes, Cena and Edge are two of the biggest names from the era of the past five years. Having them facing off with two up-and-comers at Mania is perfect for bridging to having new main eventers. It would be nice if there was a situation where both winners at Mania were going to be the up-and-comers but I don't foresee that. I feel that this is setting up to be the best Wrestlemania in four to six years, depending on your feelings on 20-23.

Dylan and I were chatting about Goldust and whether he could have had a push to World Title level in 1996 WWF. He was pushed really hard initally with the gimmick being showcased. I can't imagine the gimmick being any hotter than it was at Royal Rumble 1996 given how long he had been in at that point. From there, Hall wasn't really willing to work with him further which could have hurt his momentum. He had a high profile match with Roddy Piper at Wrestlemania that year but was pretty much comedy from that point forward. Perhaps if he had continued to be put over people strong, and even still losing the IC title to someone like Ahmed Johnson, he could have been pushed to the point where he would have done well as World champ for a couple months, being the one to win it from Shawn Michaels instead of Sid at Survivor Series. The gimmick was creative enough and controversial enough to really grab some attention. People I knew that year had just started watching wrestling again and were saying that he was their favorite (at least until the big Steve Austin push at the end of the year). And the visual of the belt from that era with the gold outfit would have been cool too. What do people think? I know that there were outlying influences such as Dustin being injured as well as developing some addictions at that point but do people think it could have worked from a booking standpoint?

I don't think anyone really needs me to suggest this, but Austin's work from ECW should definitely go in. His promos really were trend-setting from that point forward and from what I recall the matches were pretty good 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. That would be correct, it was from the Havoc pre-show One thing that I think would need to go on from WCW would be the segment where Flair has all the "Little Stingers" with him in order to convince Sting to team with him against Arn and Pillman. Sting was hesitant, but all the little kids in Sting make-up were saying "Come on, Sting" and Flair was saying "Come on, do it for the little stingers". Sting kept saying that he couldn't trust Flair based on history but finally gave in, saying that if Flair crossed him he would basically kill him (not in those words, but kinda...) Of course, when they had the match as soon as Flair tagged in, he strutted across the ring and then strutted right back and punched Sting in the face. Predictable perhaps, but the image of Flair with the little stingers is priceless. The next year I told my buddy about it and we were laughing for hours. I haven't seen the Flair vs Arn match from Fall Brawl in years, do people think it holds up?