SteveJRogers

A little hard to do with all Beatles, but here is a go... Please, Please Me Compilation of bits featuring some...sleazy activities, could include some guy love stuff as well. Rubber Soul A compilation of matches featuring wrestlers wearing rubber in their gimmicks. Revolver Compilation of skits featuring firearms. A Hard Day's Night Compilation of some of the longest recorded matches in history. Help! Matches featuring face interferences at the end, also emphasis on face in peril into the hot tag. Magical Mystery Tour Comp of the supernatural element in pro wrestling. Yellow Submarine Compilation of wrestlers whom wore yellow or some sort of nautical gimmick. Let It Be Compilation of final matches and moments for tag teams, stables and even promotions.

FWIW, I would hit up a baseball game in Atlanta. I guess it would be WAY too early to catch a REAL FOOTBALL game as that is a hotbed for college football. As well as some big NFL franchises, but for the most part College Football is King in the south.

So, I'm looking at Solie.org's title histories site for the NWA National Heavyweight Title and come across this: Strikes me as a bit funny given that while not as big as it is today, but the information superhighway was still pretty darn big in 2000 that is would be hard to kayfabe away title changes in matches that didn't occur! I mean, its one thing for the 1979 Rio de Janerio tournament to declare the first WWWF IC champion when the only real coverage would be whatever local paper prints results of events, so the "wink wink, nudge nudge" is easy to play when your in a time and "place" where results would be hard to transmit from. But today, or well 14 years ago, one would think it would be harder with record keeping (even in Rio today), and world wide information transmission of just about anything you want to find out to kayfabe something that didn't happen.

Someone trolled the nWo page on Wiki to include them, Kevin Nash and John Cena (don't ask) as the next nWo incarnation.

Think we can add; -Going over a red hot Punk at Night of Champions 2011 for no discernible reason. Which incidentally would be Punk's last PPV loss until Royal Rumble 2013. -Pulling a goodbye speech after losing to Brock at SummerSlam that just proved that after all these years he still isn't anywhere near being over as a "beloved legend" the way he and the WWE constantly push him as. -Slamming Flair and Foley one more time after said speech for leaving before embarrassing himself. -Inserting himself in just about every "hey, we got Bruno back, in the Hall and we are doing DVDs" stories. -Not jobbing a career threatening match to Brock Lesnar at WM when everyone knew that was what he SHOULD have done. -Putting himself over Curtis Axel, making Axel look weak in his repackaged debut.

Caught the Punk led Nexus vs Cena feud from 2010-2011 in various YouTube clips...so I almost want to caption this "Okay Punk, here's a dollar to replace that damn diet soda from 2010!"

Yup, that's the one. Caught it on a YouTube video that was a compilation of Flair vignettes and matches that went from Flair's debut to winning the 1992 Royal Rumble.

So I'm watching Flair-Hogan from MSG from a...Superstars taping? It's obviously in between Survivor Series and Tuesday In Texas. But anyway, the Big Gold Belt issue had been resolved and the belt had been returned to WCW, but for the storyline purposes Flair is still dubbing himself "The Real World's Champion" and the belt he is holding is blurred due to Jack Tunney declaring that it shall be blurred out for television. Anyway, it happened to have been a tag belt, so I wonder what the reaction in the stands was, well clearly fans must have figured WCW got the rights to Flair's belt back, to Flair hoisting up a tag belt the same way he and Bobby Heenan had all those months with the Big Gold Belt? Must have been a "why bother guys, just for the TV audience" type of response.

Oh this era on WTBBP should be LOADS of FUN! = There is one problem though with the correlation with comic books, and while I'll agree that following pro wrestling can be like following a comic book, the "continuity" of comic books is made official by the publisher, or by whomever is writing that particular character at the moment. For example, the stories of the Silver Age Batman in the 1950s were pretty much left to the dustbin of history as being childish fluff. Until a writer named Grant Morrison decided to smush some of the goofier elements into his run on Batman in the late 2000s through today. Hell, Morrison took a completely out of continuity graphic novel instance of Batman impregnating the daughter of an Eco-terriorist, and creating a character for his run out of it. And probably the most famous Batman related one, Alan Moore did a graphic novel that was NEVER meant to be involved in continuity, it wasn't an Elseworlds (what DC refers to an imprint that tells stories of its characters out of traditional elements), and it wasn't an Imaginary Story (what DC referred to those type of stories during the Silver and Bronze Age), but it was a simple graphic novel one-shot story. In it though, Barbara Gordon, the then former Batgirl (she retired from costume heroing shortly before this) was shot in the spine by The Joker. Several creators took this though, and ran with it as a new way to tell Barbara Gordon stories with her as a wheelchair bound hero, eventually a computer whiz at the head of a DC Universe wide network for Batman and other heroes under the name Oracle. But in terms of wrestling, and as Loss said, especially in the age of information and with supercards and PPVs being on video and whatnot, it is hard to keep retcons from becoming part of cannon the way a comic book publisher can. Though, I will give you this though, there are examples of this in non-scripted sports: NFL: The National Football League tends to treat it's history as starting once the Super Bowl started in 1967 and the merger of the NFL and AFL was pretty much in motion. Everything else if you believe the NFL sanitized history was akin to playing in smoky Bingo Halls and VFW Halls! NHL: There is a sense, well maybe here in America, that modern NHL history starts with the Oiler dynasty of the 1980s and the rise of Gretzky. NBA: Bird & Magic...need I say more about pro basketball in America! The only major team sport that acknowledges and treasures it's past as an ever flowing history is Major League Baseball.

The first time I've heard about "betting" on PROFESSIONAL SCRIPTED WRESTLING back in the early 2000s my response was: Okay, so if you are an unscrupulous person who knew a few well connected people, couldn't you have it arranged to have like Crash Holly be the WWF Heavyweight Champion for a day (like win at a house show, lose it the next night or something), and cash in (the post on the forum was concerning odds to become champion that particular year)? I mean, it's like betting on how a storyline is going to wrap up on your favorite TV show, comic book or whatever ongoing serialized fiction thing that you follow.

Concerning the Tyson bit, oddly enough he'd be set in Feb/March to be an enforcer or something involved in a match on a Saturday Night's Main Event. Shortly before the taping, he lost to Buster Douglas, whom the WWF scrambled to get into Tyson's place. Doesn't shock me that JCP would at least try to reach out to him at that point as he wasn't yet the sideshow, and convicted rapist, that he'd be in the ensuing decades. I guess he'd be better at doing something than Joe Frazier was!

BTW, funny thing related to the Ding Dongs, I forget whom the story is about, and I doubt it's Heard since this is from a time when Ole & Arn were teammates (unless they reformed when the Horsemen reform later in the year when Arn returns). Well, the story goes that this guy was throwing out ideas for "kid friendly" fodder tag teams, I guess as a precursor to what the Ding Dongs were, and one of them was wrestling hunchbacks. With the premise that they could not be pinned. Ole simply said "Put them in with me and Arn, and I'd make them tap with a spinning toe hold." Needless to say that ended that idea! Perhaps they saw what the WWF was doing with the Bushwackers and thought they'd jump on the "give the kids something to have a little fun with" sort of characters.

2 - Wrestlemania 17 was the first time it was acknowledged and Wrestlemania 20/21 was when it became a big deal. Interestingly enough, the first time I recall it being discussed on a WWF program was on an 1998ish (may have been 1999) edition of the Byte This internet show (kind of a proto vidcast/podcast). Howard Finkle was on and he threw it out there as a trivia answer about the then longest currently active winning streak at 'Mania (ton of turnover obviously). To be fair, streaks in non scripted sports rarely get spotlighted until they reach some sort of achievement of rarefied level of accomplishment. And that was what, 8-0 at that point? I'd say that would be about when the media and sports themselves would be appropriately pumping up a legit streak of its kind.

Psst...Mark Henry won the World Title for a while in 2011. Though I think WWE would point out the Reys, Eddies and Del Rios (with slight nods to Great Khali and Yokozuna) to point out diversity among the WWE or World Heavyweight title lineages.

Four words, World Champion David Arquette!

Cheers 200th episode had a special roundtable discussion and series retrospective either before or after it, with the cast moderated by John McLaughlin of the Sunday Morning political round table panel show The McLaughlin Group. Before it they did a cold open with McLaughlin (an actual Boston native) walking onto the Cheers set as Woody is tending bar. Woody kind of recognizes him, when told about McLaughlin being a talk show host wonders if it's one of those shows that stops female wrestling matches. Pretty sure the character was thinking a Jerry Springer like show.

Quick question, and this is quite some time down the road for you guys, but have you thought about how to cover the "Internet Pay Per Listen" events that happened around 1997-1998? I wouldn't be surprised if the shows can be found...ehem...by certain means on the interwebs.

Listen to a podcast called Wrestlespective cover the Starrcade 2000 Main Event. They go through the entire 2000 World Heavyweight Title lineage just to show how fucked up the promotion had been that year. Not even sure how Chad & Parv will make it through the 1999-2001 years! Though that's just the PPVs/special shows, so it's a little easier to take =

I liked it. What can I tell ya? Here's something I don't like. Mania is in New Jersey, not New York. This whole "NY/NJ" stuff is fucking horseshit. I LOVE NYC, always have. But Mania is in Jersey, period. Fucking typical Jersey disrespect. The HOF ceremony is taking place in MSG, which last I checked is still in New York. Plus NYC has more of a cache than billing your top event as just in New Jersey. That's why the Giants and Jets don't bill themselves from Jersey and no one ever accused them of disrespect. The Super Bowl in 2014 will also be in MetLife Stadium and the the host city is also referred to as NY/NJ.

Odd one, but I always HATED Stone Cold Steve Austin's knee braces. I know Austin's character was supposed to be professional in the ring at all times, so wearing over sized jeans or something would have taken a bit away from his character more so, but I don't know, something about "The Toughest SOB On The Planet" using one, and eventually two knee braces whenever in a match or doing something physical in a segment (usually sure sign that he wasn't going to do much physicality was when the braces were off) seems a bit odd for the character. And don't get me started on the fact that the braces became part of Austin's look on his action figures!

I was going to say, it's more to get a nice whiplash effect. You just made the guy dizzy with the quick fireman's carry, then boom, knee to face (chin, whatever).

To be fair, I wonder if the selection of an "era" for the Horsemen rather than the group as a whole was more due to Chris Benoit, and not a longstanding feud with Ole Anderson. And like Johnny said, it's more of an opinion that the Horsemen were at their peak in 1988, even with the short tenure of the Flair/Arn/Tully/Windham lineup, as opposed to their beginnings with Ole. I think your point would be valid though if they went with a Nitro era Horsemen lineup (but then again the 800 Pound Canadian Gorilla is there for all different incarnations of the lineup during the Monday Night War era) since, while they were still a hot stable, no way could anyone justify any of them as the definitive Horsemen lineup. I think a better example of revisionism is something like trying to make it seem that Steve Austin's feud with Bret Hart happened instantly after KOR '95 (Austin 3:16 promo) when Austin was spinning his wheels for a couple of months before the anti-Bret stuff and Pillman stuff started up. Another would be the extent that Triple H was punished for the "Curtain Call." Yeah, the booking of KOR was changed, but he wasn't off television or getting squashed consistently by jobbers the way the WWE history wants you to believe at this point. He was jobbing, but he was on TV and he was in decent matches.

Interesting comparison for how different the booking of both promotions were. Lets see how many times the Heavyweight title changed hands on the biggest show of the year: Starrcade; 1983 Ric Flair as a face 1987 Ric Flair as a heel 1993 Ric Flair as a face 1995 Ric Flair as a heel 1997 Sting as a face 1998 Kevin Nash as a face 6 times. Okay, 4 times a face has been booked to win, then again the last time Nash would turn heel soon after and the Fingerpoke of Doom switch with Hogan would happen. Ditto the Sting change where shenanigans caused the title to be held up. But other than 1983 it never seems to be used as the "star making vehicle" or major blowing off of a wrestler finally getting the best of his opponent that Wrestlemania has been. Yeah there have been more Wrestlemania's than Starrcades, but even when Starrcade was still around the WWF was using it differently: Wrestlemania; 1988 Randy Savage as a face (title tourney of course) 1989 Hulk Hogan as a face 1990 Ultimate Warrior as a face 1991 Hulk Hogan as a face 1992 Randy Savage as a face 1993 Yokozuna as a heel 1993 Orange Goblin as a face 1994 Bret Hart as a face 1996 Shawn Michaels as a face 1997 Undertaker as a face 1998 Stone Cold Steve Austin as a face 1999 Stone Cold Steve Austin as a face 2001 Stone Cold Steve Austin turns heel at the match finish 2002 Triple H as a face 2003 Brock Lesnar as a face 2005 John Cena as a face 2010 John Cena as a face And to be complete about it, the WWE World Title (which has it's heritage from the WCW's Big Gold Belt) 2004 Chris Benoit as a face 2005 Batista as a face 2006 Rey Mysterio, Jr. as a face 2007 Undertaker as a face 2008 Undertaker as a face 2009 John Cena as a face 2012 Sheamus as a face A heck of a lot more "send the fans home happy" title changes and character defining moments it seems than Starrcade had.

I'm not entirely sure that the Flair/Arn/Tully/Windham lineup as "THE BEST HORSEMEN LINEUP EVER" is a WWE revisionist history though. I've seen that lineup highlighted as being the best era in places years before the WWE purchased WCW and the Horsemen legacy. Probably in part due to Arn/Tully being seen as a more regarded tag team than Arn/Ole (or any permutation of the Horsemen tag team entrant). Perhaps that is also due to Arn/Tully's time as The Brain Busters in the WWF as well, exposure in one of the hottest eras in WWF Tag Team history probably helped their legacy as a team. Could also be due to the US title that Barry Windham had during his Horsemen run, that the original lineup never had, by that point had been elevated to the secondary title while the Television Title both Arn and Tully would have in 1986, and Tully would hold for most of 1987 can be seen as a lesser title. After Nikita defeats Tully in August of 1987, I don't think the Horsemen control it ever again (correct me if I'm wrong, I know Arn holds it a bunch more times in the 90s, but I don't think ever again as a member of the Horsemen). So, it's really partly because at one time the Horsemen control all three main titles during that time frame of 1988, the World title, the US title, and the World Tag.

Hey the Braves actually won that night! From the great Retrosheet.org