thebrainfollower

Also Johnny did you ever attend any terrible cards like this live? My first card was Muraco-Valentine, Ware-Bad News and Rockers-Conquistadors along with a bunch of jobber matches but that was a small city like Fitchburg MA and even that I feel was a better roster than this card.

I share a birthday with Jack Brisco, Quick catch up Johnny. While Jimmy Hart did manage Greg Valentine and Dino Bravo, and at the same time, the New Dream Team was broken up by then. They did team together once against the Rockers in 89 during the Ron Garvin referee storyline but they never actually reunited as a team, Just a one off thing,

You guys are more than welcome. As to why this card was taped, I really have no idea. It's pretty random. The only thing I'm guessing is that they needed some footage for Prime Time Wrestling and were running low on lousy undercard matches nobody wanted to see. IIRC they re-aired quite a few matches around this time so it might have been a question of needing something. There were a few other cards from this arena filmed over the years. December of 1990 but that's a much better card for a 4k arena, with Dusty-Dibiase, Jake-Martel, Earthquake and the Hart Foundation. I've actually been looking for that card for years as it has the first competitive Undertaker singles match (with Koko) and I'm curious to see how it worked.

The bar on what people want for wrestling has changed a lot since the mid 70's. But at it's simplest they want to have a fun night where they see their heroes prevail. That has not changed. Say what you will but Bruno was booked a lot smarter than Roman Reigns today. And this ain't hard to do either. WWE has no idea how to consistently book a hero anymore. They have brilliance like the night after TLC and then they have the idiot booking of Reigns at the Rumble. I don't recall Orndorff beating Hogan in Feb 84 or Dude Love stopping the Austin title run in April 98 but maybe my memory is faulty.

I am not sure about that Loss. People not in WWE basically make a profit or a name on how bad WWE is by complaining about it. Then again those same people would have as much to say about a great product. I think we're really looking at this too much. Vince has lost it. He no longer has any idea what to do week in and week out to get a babyface over. It's been coming since Austin and Rock left and it's gotten worse with time. At the same time he's absolutely stubborn about who and what HE wants and doesn't care what anyone, even his own son in law who's his heir, really thinks. That's your basic problem. The booking of the Rumble undid all the good they did the night after TLC. JVK is right, the idea of Reigns being the next big thing is done. The best they can hope for is that he becomes the next placeholder champion until Vince drops dead and the rebuilding can begin. But I'm not sure WWE survives Vince so we may really be watching the beginning of the end. As far as WWE failing, I don't want to see that. But I'd like Vince to have a real moment, and have no idea if he ever will, where his ego subsides and he's forced to see what he's really become. His King Lear moment if you will.

So much so that I'm starting to wonder to be honest. I think Vince wants to push Reigns, but I'm honestly wondering how hard it is to manipulate Vince right now. He seems to be losing it. Watching that Rumble the idea was to make HHH the biggest star there and the biggest star ever given he will "draw" a 100,000 house. t

One legit complaint though, towards the end Parv is very hard to hear.

What happened? My network went out 2 mins ago

How many years in a row can Vince tank the Rumble? I have six in the pool.

Please don't let me neuter you Johnny. I overreacted

Thinking Nikki is more realistic in a triple threat than Becky. This seemed to be about moving on from her to be honest. Which is a shame as she is ready now it would seem.

Moderation as always correct is a fallacy OJ. By that standard it's no big deal to be mostly dead. Insert any Billy Crystal joke you like.

Listening to this INSTEAD of the Rumble lol

I sort of get Godfather but Jacqueline has me baffled. Not really that up on her Miss Texas stuff, but neither is anyone from WWE I suspect. She was lousy in the ring in WWF by diva standards too and not over in the slightest.

And honestly not to argue but I think it was Nikki carrying Charlotte, particularly in their 2nd PPV match not the other way around.

Effort and character work. She plays the alpha queen jock female dating the quarterback well. Feel she's as good a worker as any NXT girl in terms of what she brings if not "workrate" except Sasha and Bayley

Eddie's in my list too.

There's a WWF squash from around 87 even more brutal with Ware than this. I would legit have refused to go up for the ghostbuster if I were that jobber. Was Koko a tough guy? I've seen him treat jobbers like this at least half a dozen times and wondering if anyone ever tried anything with him.

Yes I did. I just returned home from a year teaching in Korea in 06 and actually watched Smackdown during the spring and summer of 06, which was the last time I watched WWE week in and week out for a long time as it aired.

I take your point Johnny and in Flair's case that's what happened, but I'd argue that first impressions matter. In my case for WCW by the time I started following it was really hit or miss TV and not where it had been even a year earlier. It wasn't until 1996 that I felt WCW caught up. And it wasn't until ten years later I got to see the really good stuff. Lawler is another obvious good choice, but I could at least see he looked older and just assumed he was past his prime. It wasn't until I got the Wrestling Gold set (I never was a tape trader as a teenager) that I saw how wrong I was on the King. The first Bruiser Brody match I ever saw was the Luger one around 2000 (again living in MA without cable really limited you in the 80's as a kid) and since I liked Luger that made me really dislike Brody. Mind you I haven't seen anything to change that view really.

Koko B Ware. Heaven help you if you take a liberty with the Birdman

Can you think of any of that style of woman who was really good at getting her proteges over and not herself? Woman maybe? Obviously Elizabeth but she didn't have the same style as Sunny obviously.

I kinda liked the last Boston card. To me it needed one more quality match (I'd love to have seen Terry Funk vs Randy Savage in 85 but I wanna keep both guys heels so that's out) to have been a really good card. I've got about 50 or so house shows if you guys need more but I doubt you guys are in need of footage. The October 1990 MSG show is really mediocre for the time and headlined by Dusty-Dibiase which I felt was not quite a big enough feud to headline MSG sadly. Other mediocre MSG shows would include IMO Feb 88, Aug 86, Oct 85 and particularly Sept 84 (though that is Bobby Heenan's WWF debut)

I'm not talking about a guy making his legit debut, or at least who's been in obscure indies not in your area and thus you'd probably have no reason to know anything about him For me I'm talking about Ric Flair and WCW, but anyone can chime in with anyone they want. I grew up in MA without cable. Had no idea when WCW Worldwide was on (assuming it was) in my area. Never caught WCW at all. But in the summer of 91 I went to a WWF house show that had Bobby Heenan announced Ric Flair was coming to the WWF. Now having a reason to care I went to the video store. We had Betamax still and there was one WCW tape to choose from Starrcade 90. Now I already knew Flair was the BS because I had a friend a few houses down who watched WCW and explained it. As a kid I didn't get that Ric Flair was playing generic wrestler I thought that was how Flair worked. And his first televised WWF match against Jim Neidhart didn't help. I thought, faster Greg Valentine and was done with it. Didn't get WHY my friend touted him as the GOAT even then and didn't see any reason to think differently until Royal Rumble 92. Likewise my friend mocked my WWF viewing for years and assured me WCW was better. We got cable in June of 93 and I remember being psyched for Saturday Night and............they showed the Beach Blast mini movie. So I wonder how stuff like that matters. 6/3/94 is another example as I think it's great, 5 stars but have never seen why it's the GOAT. Anyone else have experiences like this where a first exposure skewed your POV towards wrestler X (good skewing welcome too)

He ain't no Art Donovan for sure. Owen is someone I never truly appreciated until he passed. I liked the guy and thought he put on good stuff week in and week out but his only to me amazing standout match was also his break out match. My love of him has a grown over the years, especially rewatching the mid 90's. As noted above Owen always knew his role and played it well.