DR Ackermann

Was Fujiwara the first person to defeat Sayama after he started using the Tiger Mask/Super Tiger gimmick?

This sounds like an awesome project. We're talking strictly in-ring, right?

Flair was much, much, much better at going out and just having a random match. Just arbitrarily going by Flair( age 40-41) in 1990 and Bret Hart (age 35-36) in 1993 because that's what I've been watching recently, Flair kills Bret. I haven't seen any of the WWF's 1993 TV shows besides RAW but I only have 5 of those left to go for the year and I have only made it through half of 1990 WCW's highlights, but Flair, was having awesome TV matches, even against people like Tom Zenk, whereas I haven't seen a single good Hart TV match. His work on the PPVs has been good though. At the same time, Flair's TV matches have been as good as or better than Hart's PPV matches. You could argue lack of quality opposition, but like I said, Flair had a great throwaway match with Zenk.

More people identified with Austin's rebel character than the Rock's. From my experience there were a number of wrestling fans that didn't like the Rock at the time whereas it seemed like everyone loved Austin. Also Steve Austin was the guy bringing the (non)fans in so that they could eventually become fans of the Rock.

Kind of beside the point, but what is the deal with Murdoch and the KKK? I thought his KKK affiliation was a myth? Dusty Rhodes himself has said that Murdoch had nothing to do with the Klan and that he wasn't a racist. I figured he would know, but a part of me felt like maybe he was just whitewashing the truth to justify his friendship and praise of Murdoch.

I'm almost positive Steamboat/Savage has to do with it being so extensively planned out.

I believe the modified ones censor minor things like blurring out the middle finger.

That's a great point. One spot that always stands out to me is from one of his matches with Michaels in '08. I think it was the first or second one. At some point Jericho goes for the lionsault and Michaels get his knees up, but Jericho is expecting that and counters it into the Walls of Jericho. He basically just does a lionsault into a Walls of Jericho. Its so stupid.

Rick Rude and Jericho. I thought Rude was boring and Jericho was a great wrestler. After watching a lot of 1992 I learned to appreciate Rude a lot and would even go so far as to say he was the best wrestler in America that year. Chris Jericho on the other hand is someone I bought into as a kid as this great wrestler because he did some cool moves. I always liked the bulldog as a move but even then I felt he did it poorly. Over time I noticed he did a lot of moves poorly and part of that is because he has never known his physical limitations. I stopped watching wrestling for a few years and when I came back I realized Jericho was just this massively overrated worker who didn't even have good execution. I can't even stand him as a promo now either.

Coincidentally sasori-gatame means scorpion hold...

I'm only 30 minutes in but on the scorpion deathlock, it was the sasori gatame in Japan and in brets book he says konnan tought him the move. I think it was pat Patterson that suggested he use it.

What happened with 12 year old Will & Jim Ross?

Yeah, why would you say that you don't like Bret because he's a dick but give Vince a pass? I'd call Bret whiny and bitter, but Vince is way more of a dick than Bret.

The people who are saying Vince McMahon was in the right coincidentally seem to be the ones who know the least about the details surrounding what actually happened.

The I Quit match was discussed in the "Matches you must love. But don't." thread and I was one of the people that was down on it. I haven't finished the podcast yet but after listening to you guys talk about it I finally went back and watched it again. I was so wrong on that match. It was excellent.

With that said, there were times I thought he was awesome and was willing to defend him and other times when I couldn't stand him.

Sometimes it's difficult to realize that everything isn't black and white when making critiques. Rating Monsoon as a 'good' or 'bad' announcer would be difficult because he's good at a lot of things and bad at others. Instead of averaging out the pros and cons and assigning him some rating like 'great' or 'awful' its best to just talk about what he was great at and what he sucked at doing.

After all those posts and not a single reply from you, I started to wonder if you were just stirring the pot.

I don't like Bret at all, he's whiney and arrogant and i disagree with him on lots of things but he didn't do anything wrong in the situation. He was willing to lose to Shawn, he was willing to lose to Austin, just not in that place at that time. He was a team player who lost every other time they asked him too. He even lost to Hunter on RAW by DQ that year.

How is lying and breaking the terms you established the right thing you to do? I understand why Vince did it but that doesn't mean it was right in any way whatsoever. If a guy broke into someone's house to commit burglary and then the homeowner caught him and then the burglar killed the homeowner so he wouldn't be caught and sent to prison would you side with the burglar? He was just acting in the interest of self-preservation. Does that justify it?

I've been going through Monday Night RAW and the WWF PPVs in 1993 on the Network the last couple of weeks and here are some notes I took down after the first half of the year. As of July 5, 1993 in my WWF watching, Marty Janetty & Doink the Clown have been by far the best performers on RAW. The high point being their 2/3 falls match with one another in late June. Everything Doink has been involved with this year has been entertaining, his facial expressions are great and his in-ring work has been solid to very good. He is keeping the mid-card afloat. Janetty was fired after the Royal Rumble for showing up drunk and having a so-so match with Shawn Michaels who has yet to find his groove as a singles wrestler or as a heel. Since Janetty returned he has probably been the best wrestler on RAW. Bret Hart has made a few appearances on RAW but his wrestling has been decent, nothing spectacular. His work on the PPVs is a whole different story. On the big shows he is definitely the MVP. He got a pretty good match out of Razor Ramon at the Royal Rumble who wrestles like a rookie and not someone with the 9 years of experience he has. Ramon’s former tag team partner in the AWA, Curt Hennig has been disappointing as well. Aside from his match at KOTR with Bret Hart, Hennig has looked lazy in almost everything he’s done outside of his over-the-top and unnecessary bumping. Jim Ross came into the WWF right before Wrestlemania and since then the match quality has really stepped up. I wonder how much of that can be attributed to his influence on the product. Prior to his arrival nobody on RAW really stood out in the ring. The wrestlers who seemed to be having the best matches were Virgil and the Beverly Brothers. Their work wasn’t really anything special and they weren’t having especially good matches, but the three of them always seemed to work the hardest and have the most interesting matches. I don’t know if any of the matches would actually be considered good besides maybe one or two but they were definitely the standouts. 1-2-3 Kid just arrived and it looks like the wrestling is going to get better. Also it is worth mentioning how well Lex Luger has been playing his role in and out of the ring. He has been outworking and outperforming Henning and a lot of other guys. He carried Tatanka to a decent match at KOTR and I’m looking forward to how he will do in the main event after his face turn.

Does anyone know why the always show the PPV Kickoff shows after the PPV on the live stream instead of the other way around? Is it just so people know it's a replay?

Complaining about the multiple falls as being illogical is illogical in itself. There's such a thing as exhaustion and another thing known as pain. The more damage is done to your body the more pain you feel. So while someone gently tapping you on the shoulder might not normally hurt, it could actually be very painful after you were bashed in the shoulder with a baseball bat or shot with a gun. Exhaustion is similar. It has to do with your stamina. A jumping jack is very easy for most people to do. BUT, whenever you've done like a thousand of them then one single jumping jack is going to take a lot more effort than it normally would. Over time your body heals itself though, but in the moment after you've already been hurt enough to go down for a 3-count your body is really suffering and you're less likely to be able to withstand what you normally would. Complaining about a wrestler getting pinned after being hit with one move is ludicrous too. They're putting over the seriousness the encounter and that one misstep can mean the end. If you're unable to follow this match or buy into it because of its "unbelievabilty", then I don't see why you'd bother with wrestling in general.

I just watched this again and I like it even better. This is a more than a teaser, its an excellent match.

I loved Stan Hansen here. His selling was awesome. Hansen's close to putting away Gordy before he falls prey to a DDT. After kicking out Hansen won't leave the ropes and won't go toe-to-toe with Gordy, really putting over how close he is to being finished off. Every second he has to recover matters and Hansen expresses that perfectly. With his desperation roll-up and lariat he still never stops selling. I would love to see the whole match.