thebrainfollower

If you need someone else I'd be happy to help. I started collecting Coliseum Videos in the early 2000's and that later evolved into general collecting but my favorites are WWF house show matches from 84-87. To your point about how homogenized things become look at how few other opponents Randy Savage has from WM IV - Summerslam 88. An SNME with Gang, Two Superstars matches, and that's about it. All one guy even though the feud had clearly run out of steam and was beginning to draw less.

Is their 87 MLG match out there? Having a real hard time finding that one.

I think there's some potential in looking at WWF house shows from that period. To me, what we think of as the WWF didn't begin all at once. The talent roster shows up throughout 84-86, the PPV doesn't debut till late 85 (and is a footnote at best that year), the TV look we know doesn't appear until late 86. To me it's not really until WM III that you can point and say "THAT'S the WWF I remember. I suspect that's particularly true of Parv as well. So about 16 Bob shows left and only about 16 months left with him as champion. Did not know there was that much quality footage of 83 out there. I look forward to it.

I'm wondering how much more WWF is left. My memories of watching 83 (not at the time) was that it was a real mixed bag, with Backlund getting almost no new challengers. I've heard various people theorize that was done on purpose to cool Bob off and lay the groundwork for Hogan, but I have my doubts there. In either case we're about 18 months away from where the Titans originally intended to finish things off. Which probably limits the number of WWF based shows to, about half a dozen or so? That's a shame. If it wasn't intended as a joke Johnny but a real point as to why the Wizard wasn't being used more, okay I understand. I think your delivery (and we're both stage actors) on Titans is that EVERYTHING is sort of a cool relax, just chilling Johnny Fever approach. Which is fine for a wrestling podcast, but when things like cancer or AIDS or lynchings or the Holocaust might be brought up, can very easily cause people (including your co-hosts, based on their clearly flabbergasted replies) to not get what you were going for. I'd like to hear if any of you think Vince should have gone with Snuka instead of Bob in 83, ignoring Snuka's later mental and legal issues but as a draw. I don't think he would have, but I also don't think he COULD. My understanding is that Vince SR had control over the booking of MSG and the world title until the final payments were made and that wasn't until late 83 or early 84.

I get that. I'm just saying in general it showed very poor taste and I took offense, much like my analysis of Vince-Stephanie offended you. In general cancer jokes are not a great idea.

That's okay. Yeah I meant on the board not on the show. The remark was on the show and it just seemed out of place and in poor judgment but that's that.

I'm not quite sure what the point is here. They're mid carders. Meng was a guy who looked big and bad but jobbed far more often than not and the Barbarian was lower than him in the pecking order by far. I don't think Meng was demoted because of heat against Hogan. We tend to really love the FOF, heck they might make my top 25 tag teams, but they were a priority to absolutely nobody in WCW. They were where they were in WCW and no one ever intended to make much more out of them than was done.

Called me out on a board for a remark I made about Vince and took great offense to it. If you're going to set that sort of standard no problem. Please avoid jokes about cancer then if you set those standards for yourself was my point because that deeply offended me, that's what I was saying to Johnny.

THAT remark by Johnny Sorry. Wow. Just wow. If you're going to call me out for what you feel is undeserved amateur psychology of Vince McMahon, that was darn insensitive. I grew up watching my mother battle cancer twice. I agree the Muraco-Snuka cage match isn't that great. I compare it a lot to Tiger Mask-Dynamite Kid matches, something that you dream about seeing and then you do and go "well great moment yeah, but that was IT?"

If there's a better way to end 2015............I'm,too much of a wrestling and Titans nerd to prefer it!

My earliest wrestling memory I can ID is Tito in the hospital bed vowing revenge on Greg Valentine. Got 4-5 year old me (depends on the date) interested enough to keep watching. Tito was my favorite singles wrestler for my first two years of viewing and he holds up even better than I expected. Possibly top 35 or so for me.

Sorry Khawk your reply came as I was posting. Thanks for the excellent response. He seems to have a lot of 84 stuff.

Put me in the don't like Bill Watts camp. I don't want my wrestling commentary brought by Fox News sorry. This guy spends so much time promoting his world views we're lucky he didn't try to run a "black wrestler gets thrown out of the concession stand and turns heel" story at some point in Mid South. Same reason I am not so big on JR when he begins to blather about college sports. I already know wrestling is run by a bunch of people with opposite world views than me. I can live with that. Just don't shove it in my face, just talk about wrestling darn it. Watched the January 15th 84 AWA episode right after that one. Is there anything Buck Zumhofe ever did worth checking out?

This is a great great idea for a thread. I watch a lot of random wrestling on yt/dm and always have questions about it for the experts here, but never want to start a whole thread to do so. This guy has a ton of 84 AWA. Are there any specific episodes from that run to look out for? In general it seems a blase show.

There's nobody I really can't stand that's not fairly typical. HHH Chyna Sid (particularly for the laziest match I have ever seen at an indy show. The likes of Torrie Wilson are Misawa and Flair combined compared to Sid's efforts that night) Stephanie Other people that annoy me Stevie Ray (as a wrestler) Scott Norton Bob Backlund (I go with Parv mildly on this) The Steiner Brothers (if they are either losing and sulking or abusing opponents) Brody That's about it to be honest.

First impressions matter. I first saw Snuka's 2nd WWF run where he looked cool and won the occasional squash match but that was it. My abiding memory of him was being crushed by UT at WM. But obviously Snuka had about a year as the most popular babyface on WWF TV and that's no mean feat considering it came during the end of Bob/start of Hogan. Great athlete with some amazing blood feuds and liked the tag stuff I've seen from Japan and Crockett. Also liked his heel stuff in ECW for his age. God awful promo.

What does everyone think of the Scott Keith opinion that the Barbarian was a guy with a great look and could execute some amazing offense but seemed to have no idea how to actually put a match together? I like the guy but he has no chance with me.

Only saw his WCW run. He got turn off the TV heat with me for how selfish he seemed to be in the ring. Now I get the whole "big star in Japan so he couldn't look weak in the US" but all I saw was this nobody who wouldn't sell. I guess I'll watch some of his Japan stuff.

There's no way they're transitioning to Sasha Bailey that fast. I'd be surprised if that happened in WWE before WM 33. Charlotte-Sasha, Nikki-Charlotte, Sasha-Nikki are all more likely if they go the route of a singles match. Doubt Austin is every wrestling again.

Savage yes sort of. Muraco no that was just in MSG and a handful elsewhere. Nothing on TV to set it up though

With the Owen match I think there' still a part of Bret playing that he doesn't want to be there and do this. That it's a blood feud for Owen but not Bret.

My selections are guys that actually were tag teams at some point rather than "guys who teamed up every now and then". Though Ric and Arn have some nice stuff together as a team in 96 that's some of Ric's last really good stuff IMO.

Flair, Lawler, Funk, Negro Casas, El Satanico, Bock, Savage, Bret, Jumbo, Misawa, Liger and maybe Tenyru and Arn are fighting for my top ten spots right now. Tag teams I finished. Top 5 are both Midnight Expresses, Arn and Tully, Rock and Roll and the Rockers.

Yes I like those more. I don't think it's studio wrestling I hate per se as Memphis was mostly studio stuff.

Nice analysis Parv. It's a very wide variety of programs by WWF standards and none of them were referred to at all on WWF TV except local promos. They weren't feuds at all they were just random matches. Even the Piper thing is so brief as a feud, ditto Bundy. I would argue that Hogan's first real true, month plus long, went in all the major markets and was nearly exclusive was Orndorff and that's nearly 2.5 years into the run! Gotta assume a lot of this was spread the Hogan money around to various opponents because once he comes back in 88 he works with far far far less people per month.