SteveJRogers

WHAT!? Is that your opinion of Murray's post-Ghostbuster work (which is quite substantial quality wise) or is that based on, like the Hughes/Ringwald/Cusak/Brat Pack flicks being held to higher esteem in the home video market/retrospect? If its Danny-Boy and/or Harold Ramis you are talking about...eh, okay, I can see Aykroyd and Ramis as examples of people who just had their careers go a different trajectory for whatever reasons and feeling comfortable with never reaching the heights again.

I'd love to see where both would be if they didn't stray from their "reasons for notoriety." I.e. if Tyson hadn't become such a train wreck with the rape, the arrest and some of the batshit stuff he's done and said since, and being someone that TV show and movie producers would bring in as a cameo or whatnot (BTW, Mel Gibson was dropped from Hangover II because of his antisemitic and off the rails drunken tirades rubbed the actors the wrong way, which is fair, but they'd rather do scenes with a CONVICTED RAPIST?) And if Hogan hadn't been bitten with that acting bug after Rocky III that really put him in "the popcorn pop culture" spotlight more so than being the right guy, right place when WWF went national/mainstream. Or if he went more low key with his acting roles (like Piper did and like Austin does) where he wasn't putting his name out there as a potential "big action/comedy star."

No, he's not. But he was on the cover of SI, hosted SNL, has made, and still today, has made scores of talk show appearances. I can see correlation between him and The Kardashians or the latest pop music "BIG THING" but really? NO WAY does an average American pop culture follower equate Hogan with an advertisement character who was in the zeitgeist for the appropriate Andy Warhol time.

Adam West in Memphis:

I will always use this story as the perfect example to illustrate how much Hulk Hogan = Pro Wrestling to the mass audience. I'm watching ESPN doing an NBA season opener report on the Bulls as they headed into the 1994 season, the first in the United Center. Now I've dropped off of following day-to-day wrestling at that point, but when the announcer stated that the stadium had opened in August with "a Hulk Hogan wrestling event" I did know enough that Hogan had parted ways with the WWF at this point, and assumed that the card was something he had promoted with others. It wasn't until I went to college a year later (September of 1995) that I realized WCW did not run shows through there in the summer of 1994, and the show the announcer was referring to was of course WWF's SummerSlam. A show that Hogan had not one bloody thing to do with! So there ya go, Hogan so transcends the sport, or at least transcended it at the time, that his name was affixed to it, even though simple research on the event would have revealed that he wasn't involved on that particular event. I'm sure one could be hard pressed to come up with another one like it, in terms of pro wrestling.

I like the Andre-Taker comparasion. I could see Callaway being farmed out to promotions during the height of the territory days the way Andre was. Thing is though, I'd bet when the non-fans ask about "Undertaker" its probably the 1991-1994 version of the character more so than any other version of the gimmick. And while that is true of the "yellow and red" Human Hot Dog Hogan, I think its more accepted that Hogan's gimmicks are more than the color of his garb. The non-fan isn't going to question why Hogan is wearing a black doo rag, blue Ed Hardy shirt and jeans.

Will Sasso was also on this week.

He was a bouncer. Maybe he just got very good at intimidation and using his vocal skills as opposed to getting into legit fights, especially if you consider a bouncer could be opening himself, and the establishment, up for some serious hot water if he actually did get into a fight as he was kicking patrons out.

That actually has my iTunes crashing because of cloud/match issues.

Been watching a few recent Royal Rumbles, but just watching one this will be quite apparent. As soon as the guy that tosses another wrestler over the top rope turns his attention elsewhere instead of making sure both feet touched the ground, the wrestler will be able to get back up without his feet touching the floor.

Right, and his soft core antics from his WWF run fit right in as family friendly fare!

Bret Hart in WCW=Willie Mays as a Met? WRONG! NO! NO! NO! Mays as a Met is more akin to Hogan's last WWF run. A better sports analogy would be Wayne Gretzky as a New York Ranger.

Re: MSG Curfew: A classic example of the complete OPPOSITE of Chekov's Gun is Jim Ross' play-by-play of the Morales-Koloff title switch on the recent History of the WWE Championship DVD set. It would have been one thing if the commentary was recorded live as it happened THAT night, but obviously this was a new track put down by Ross for the DVD, but he mentions the curfew of the era early on in the match, but A. never mentions the context, in other words what time the match started at as compared to whatever the curfew time was, and more importantly B. the curfew didn't even play into the finish of the match! Don't get me wrong, its a solid job by one of the best in the business, but its funny to hear a tidbit thrown in like that with no context or that would have an affect on the story of the match!

Can't wait until the show gets to the legendary IC tournament! In all seriousness, you should check out that April Fools gag WWE.com did where they created how such a tourney would have played out. And it was done in a serious way as well.

This will tell you something about how the TV Title was treated during the Nitro/Hogan/Bischoff era. There is a podcast called What A Maneuver, not to be confused with Johnny Sorrow's show, this is part of a conglomerate with an action films podcast and a video game podcast, where they've gone through the Raws, Nitros, PPVs/Clashes of a given calender year. Basically just the week-to-week flagship shows in a weekly format, last year they went through 1996 and this year they've been doing 1997. Anyway, they get to early September in 1996, and they are talking about how the TV title hasn't been seen with Lex Luger in a while, who was champion since March and rarely, if ever, defended it on Nitro or PPV since he was involved in the Hogan-Dungeon of Doom/Horsemen shit fest, stuff with the tag titles and the early nWo stuff. Well, I tweeted to them that Luger dropped it on an episode of Saturday Night to Regal on August 20th (not sure if it aired that night, or was filmed that date)! And yet it was never even mentioned on their flagship TELEVISION PROGRAM! BTW, that name for the WCW show should borrow from the late WWE YouTube series Are You Serious?, WCW Screws Everything Up!

There is a website that will convert a Soundcloud link into a subscribeable podcatcher link, but when I tried it on Parv's "groups" it kept subscribing to the main feed, and only had whatever is on the first page of Parv's full album as available episodes, which at the time (this past Friday morning) was this first episode of WWTP, and a handful of early WTBBP that Parv had uploaded onto the feed along with the WWTP episode.

Bit about WCW putting the Black Scorpion stuff in the credits reminds me of the story Nash says in his latest stop to Austin's podcast. A WCW merchandise rep showed Nash a design for an nWo shirt before they started coming out with the classic one. The only thing Nash said in response was: "We don't WORK for YOU!" IOW, why have WCW's trademarks all over the nWo's merchandise at that point!

Wade Barrett From the leader of an "invading" force with tons of TV time, feuds with John Cena and Randy Orton, the latter with the title on the line (in fact, Barrett with 5 PPV shots at the World or WWE titles ranks second all time to Davey Boy Smith's 6 for most title shots on PPV without ever winning either the WWE, World or ECW belts). To getting injured and repackaged with nary a mention of his past, in mid-card hell, even after winning the IC title, and finally doing a regular comedic bit on the WWE YouTube series The JBL & Cole Show called #BadNewsBarrett.

It's usually gets followed with "Andre died soon after." Yeah, nearly 6 years later! I'd say it is a mixture of staying too much in kayfabe and probably one too many shots to the head through the years. No clue, beyond steroids, about Hulk's drug or alcohol usage, but copious amounts of recreational drugs or alcohol, or both will do that as well!

Yeah, Boss Man had quite a bit of respect within the company for drawing so big on house shows against Hogan a decade earlier. Vince was a big fan. I guess it is less of puzzling signing and more puzzling use. I remember suspending my belief as a smarky teen and saying "... but Bossman was so mad when Heenan was talking about his mom" during the Big Show angle. Ha. Ha! I remember being upset that they didn't explain how Rick Rude was able to get Jack Tunney's ban lifted when he returned as Shawn Michaels' insurance policy nearly 7 years later. My favorite was when Mr. Perfect returned and no mention of his loser-leaves-town match against Flair was ever brought up! Of course just because one LOSES a Loser Leaves Town match doesn't mean one can't turn around and BUY the said town some 8-9 years later! =

Not quite sure where to put this, nor do I know of the respect/disdain level for early IWC icons messers Keith and Zimmerman around here, but Scott Keith and CRZ are slated to be upcoming guests on the P2B podcast.

Probably trying to hit on the "Steph is such a (insert favorite cunty celebrity) like Drama Queen Diva" angle by suggesting she was over acting a bit.

Or my favorite variation, partner goes for heel, heel ducks and the guy's partner gets hit and we have the misunderstanding, despite obvious evidence. Entire blood feuds have been based around this sort of shenanigan! Good example would be Shawn Michaels' heel turn at SummerSlam 1997 when he hit Undertaker by accident to give Bret Hart the title. It was never declared by Shawn that he did it on purpose, i.e. saying "Screw you 'Taker, if anyone is going to drive Bret Hart out, it's gonna be ME" but their feud was centered around Taker thinking Shawn purposely screwed him out of the title.

I could see that being true if the MiTB match was Miz' first match ever. But he went through all the paces, went through NXT, did the tag team thing with Morrison, was in the hunt for mid-card titles, etc. And as for what Nash has to say, didn't Diesel start as an "off the street" body guard? Even with the Royal Rumble booking that now bears his name and a run as IC champ and teaming with HBK, couldn't you kinda make the same case for him getting the title as quickly as he did?

The Miz since he has been one of the biggest jokes in wrestling since retaining the championship against Cena at WM XXVII. I mean he was ALWAYS a joke, but seems to have become even bigger of one in the last couple of years.