JerryvonKramer

What is interesting to think about is if Rude jumps back to WWF in 1994 and has a title feud with Bret Hart. Or a bit later there could have been an interesting "battle of the sexy boys" type feud with Shawn. Thinking about it, Rude vs. Bret is something of a dream match, did it ever happen?

This is a question for KrisZ or anyone else who might know. I've been looking through a lot of early 80s Georgia listings recently and there's something I don't get: Ted DiBiase, Mr. Wrestling II and several other guys all seem like they were working Georgia at the same time as they were working Mid-South. Looking at just Ted's schedule from 80-84, it was so brutal that I questioned the accuracy of the results. In November 83 he's meant to have worked vs. Fuchi in Tokyo (AJPW), Tommy Rich at The Omni (GCW), Harley Race in for the title Kansas (St. Louis? / Central States) and then Duggan in Houston (Mid-South) in the space of a week. That date in 1984 where he faces Magnum TA twice on the same day (5/27/84), once in OKC and once in Tulsa is followed by a date for SECW in Birmingham, AL vs. Bob Armstrong. He's working GCW dates that same week. I am trying to get a picture of how Georgia worked as a territory because other guys who were working MidSouth (JYD, Wrestlng II) are on these cards as well as guys like The Freebirds (who were in Texas?) and Ken Patera (Mid-Atlantic?). DiBiase though looks like he worked GCW and MidSouth about 50/50 all through the early 80s, while still doing St. Louis shows every month and working All Japan tours when they came up. Are these results right? Some of them don't look humanly possible. Can you shed any light on this Kris?

Barry Windham?

I just read something about Regal that intrigued me. That when he won King of the Ring, he was still RAW GM and according to Wiki started having delusions "like King Lear". Is that true? And if so, is it as awesome as it sounds?

How much prestiege should one attach to being "King" of the WWF? Was it more prestigous, for example, than being European Champion would be down the line? Was it on par with being TV champ in NWA / WCW or less than that? Did Savage elevate the "kingship"?

Reckon you could make some sort of argument that Hogan in 96 was bigger than Hogan in 93.

Don't ask why or how, but this is my hypothetical 1-disc "Best of Mike Rotunda" comp. 1. US Express vs. Dream Team 08/10/1985 WWF MSG 2. Mike Rotunda vs. Doug Somers 04/28/1986 AWA 3. Mike Rotunda vs. Rick Steiner 12/26/1988 Starrcade NWA 4. The Varisty Club vs. The Steiner Brothers 07/23/1989 GAB NWA 5. Captain Mike Rotunda vs. Iron Sheik 07/071990 GAB NWA 6. Mike Rotunda & The Natural Disasters vs. The Big Boss Man & The Legion Of Doom 11/27/1991 Survivor Series WWF 7. Money Inc vs. Natural Disasters 10/13/1992 Challenge WWF 8. Money Inc vs. The Beverly Brothers 04/12/1993 RAW WWF 9. Money Inc vs. The Steiner Brothers 08/16/1993 SummerSlam Spectacular WWF 10. IRS vs. 123 Kid 08/30/1993 Summerslam WWF EXTRAS: - IRS decks Beefacke with a briefcase - Tax tips with IRS #1 - Tax tips with IRS #2 - Tax tips with IRS #3 - IRS wins Battle Royale on RAW and then Ted pays him off Are there any really obviously better Rotunda matches that I've left off? If so, what?

Good call. I say: Terry Taylor.

I went and looked online for an automated transcription programme that can turn .mp3 into text, lol. Doesn't seem like that's something you can get easily.

Dick Murdoch and / or Barry Windham were both really young. And Harley Race.

Good point also. I just went and had a little look on http://www.cagematch.net where you can filter out the house shows per year per worker. Dusty was even beating guys like Rick Martel and Akeem only by DQ or CO. There's a threshold above which guys just didn't get pinned on TV, and below which they did. Having run a few searches, the gatekeeper of this threshold in 1990 was:

Have had reports that the link wasn't actually working, so try this: http://www.sendspace.com/file/csqu1e

Someone re-upped them all here: www.infinitecore.ca/superstar/index.php?threadid=78739

Back in, and now up to 1978. Flair is finding his way onto the cards now and, in a nice bit of trivia, has a match where he goes over Tully Blanchard. DiBiase is also breaking in and a great story about how Dick Murdoch helped him get over. One little tidbit: Muchnik never booked Abdullah the Butcher because he thought he was a "circus act" and believed -- as Matysik does -- that a riot will actually decrease the next few gates, not boost it because families won't want to bring their kids to that. Interesting. But the tidbit is that Abby would write letters three times a year to EVERY promotion with photos saying "book me, I'll help draw for a month or two". He said they had a portfolio of dozens of these letters he'd sent. They never booked him. Apparently he did this to every promoter in the country, and I'm guessing the world given some of the places we knew he worked. I've never heard that story about Abdullah before.

Agree Brain that Flair was very "bitched out" in WWF, but that was his MO. Protected as in "not pinned on TV". Check how many pinfall losses on TV guys like Ted and Rude had in this two year stretch to guys not named Warrior or Hogan. I haven't looked, but my guess is less than 5 between them.

True I guess, lol at that pic.

Agreed

I've seen listings with the 77-8 stuff on it elsewhere and more than what Cornette has. shoe might be able to shed more light.

Have a hard time buying Barbarian as a main eventer based on his stuff with Simmons in 1992.

OJ - are you watching that on the Cornette Garbage tapes?

Thinking back on this, the idea of there having to be four is probably quite arbitrary and is being driven by the analogy. There could be three. Back in the 70s and early 80s, they always had the 3 wise men, Albano, Blassie and Grand Wizard. For all intents and purposes, they played the "anchor" roles I've outlined and there was a CONSTANT conveyor belt of heels coming through from each of them. To an extent: Heenan replaced Grand Wizard, Slick replaced Blassie and Jimmy Hart replaced Albano (tag specialist). We think of Heenan as the number 1 manager, but the others did bring threats against Hogan. Slick brought the Twin Towers. Hart brought Earthquake (and Dino Bravo! lol). There was also Mr Fuji but he is mostly an undercard manager until Yokozuna. There are all niggling specifics though: in general I think the broader point still stands ... It's more useful to think about WWF from this timeframe in comic-book terms with a superhero taking on a rogue's gallery than it is to think in terms of "number 1 heel". Some super villains are more prominent that others, some are one-shots, some are constants.

It's at times like these where I just love this place. Awesome info Brick. Also, the Florida connection explains why him and Solie are such big buddies.

How about this scenario: someone mentioned the idea of DiBiase winning the tournament through a DQ or CO. What if everything played out exactly the same way, but the ref DQ'd Savage for Hogan using the chair. I don't know if you can still do the Mega Powers explode angle, but Hogan and Savage would have an instant reason for rivalry if Savage takes it badly. Have Savage win over Ted at Summerslam -- Orange Goblin runs down to celebrate -- maybe puts Liz on HIS shoulder or something wildly inappropriate -- and Savage doesn't want him there. So it's a weird angle where Hogan wants to be Savage's friend, but Savage still resents him. Then, at Survivor Series, Hogan and Savage are put in the same team vs. The Million Dollar Team (let's say Ted, Andre and Twin Towers -- BEEF!) and there you do the full heel turn with Savage and Hogan as the last two faces vs. all four heels. Savage decks Hogan with a chair and lets the heels beatdown on him. He does an elbow drop from the top with a chair during this. Liz is aghast. Keep that burning through promos till Mania 5. It's not Mega Powers, but in the timeframe they could have done something like that. Looks like Undertaker is definitely one. I have a vague memory of someone saying that Terry Taylor was considered to play Mr. Perfect -- probably Taylor himself in some shoot. Perfect "seems" like a Vince / booking concept and Hennig was not doing that character before WWF. I still think even after MDM that the concept before the worker was not the norm. The thing my mind always goes to is that scene from Beyond the Mat with Vince going on about PUKE. That seemed very much spur of the moment and would count as a case of him being given a worker and then thinking of a gimmick. Likely that worked like that most of the time. IRS has to be a concept first -- Vince was facing tax issues and wanted to make a point about it. Rotunda had never played a part like that before and it's likely that if they didn't hire him at that point that someone else would have been given that role. The gimmick stuff is actually about copyright too. Vince wanted to own intellectual rights to all the wrestlers. He can own Irwin R. Shyster, but not Mike Rotunda. It's the 91-4 characters where we'll find most examples. I mentioned Doink, does anyone know the story behind that one? With the copyright stuff -- I just thought of Ed Leslie. He could never go by Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake in WCW OR do the gimmick. How did Brutus become the Barber?