thebrainfollower

That was the event. You had lunch with him there before the show. Was set to buy tickets early this am when I checked 411 Is that the MWF show? He is a big part of their promotion. Went to a show a couple years back when they made him President. We went to Kowloon's after and ran into him, very nice guy...very laid back. Sad to see him pass. Rest in Peace, Paul!

Being the biggest old school Taker mark around I'm pretty distraught right now. And a sad and purely selfish coincidence, he was doing an indy show in my area Saturday where you could grab lunch with him before the show and chat about his career. I was going to meet him for the first time. RIP Uncle Paul.

There'a thread somewhere in the megathread archive about interesting things said on boards that quotes Vince's drug issues as well as how his system of yes men and his daughter have become barriers to reality and actually made improving the company impossible. As far as his relationship with his father goes, I don't have any proof, just the playboy interview amongst other things and the sense that Vince viewed his dad the same way he views Shane, as too conservative and not ruthlessly aggressive enough to be truly worthy of respect. Vince's dad basically denied Vince his boyhood dream of being a wrestler. The Million Dollar Man, Mr. McMahon and JBL are all ways of dealing with that rejection without being able to face it. I've heard Vince and many many of his minions claim he has not taken a vacation since Wrestlemania I all the time. Vince's dad also basically abandoned him to a mother Vince claims sexually abused him. There's no way that didn't leave deep scars. I work with kids who have been through the same things and can see the results. If Vince sees his job as to keep his ratings up he's a failure. Raw's ratings have halved in the last 12 years. And yes I agree there have been no breakthrough mega stars. But that's because Vince doesn't want them. They might leave him like Brock Lesnar. Ever since then they really haven't cared about giving anyone the chance to become the next Steve Austin or Rock. Because such a person might leave them (Vince's motive), gain enough power to see what a moron they are and be able to do something about it (Stephanie and the writes motive) or challenge their unquestioned supremacy (HHH's motive, Taker's too to a much lesser extent given he works once a year now). If people able to do that don't exist or don't actually do anything about it (John Cena may or may not have told Vince he's senile and past it, but he hasn't quit the company or even shown the balls of Zack freaking Ryder by voicing his views) then things remain as they are. Forever. Which they will until WWE falls on its face 10 years after Vince dies and whatever the heck might rise from the ashes succeeds it. Assuming MMA doesn't just swallow up pro wrestling and we go full circle back to 1890 again.

Why do I think Vince McMahon doesn't want the WWE to outlive him? Because then it's HIS. all his. Not even his dad (who from everything I've read, he hates deep down) but his. I enjoy pre-attitude era WWF and there's a handful of people I can watch after that that kept me interested till about 2006. I've got 100 plus Coliseum Videos, more WWF than any other territory on my pc for footage, 50 or so DVD's, used to collect the toys for twenty years, love the card game, held an eight year subscription to the magazine, have owned 10 plus video games, you name it I was a huge fan. I'm probably one of the bigger fans the WWF would have on this board. And I think Vince McMahon is a cocaine addicted sociopath who's been taking out his childhood frustrations and letdowns in a multinational company for the better part of a decade. With perceived competition Vince could keep his demons in gear. But from everything I've read, the moment WCW became his he went over a legit deep end from which there's no return. He's a man whose attitude to children is ignore them and use a nanny to keep them busy. He's a man who has never, ever taken a vacation in 25 years. He's a legit nutcase in my opinion who, like Nero, won't be happy if Rome doesn't burn down with him. And that's why I think deep down he wants the WWE to fail after he dies and has been (probably subconsciously) doing some of the stupid things he has in the last decade.

I don't think deep down Vince McMahon wants the WWE to survive him and I think this is one way of achieving that goal in a broader context on some subconscious level. His creative peaks (Hogan, Austin) are THE peaks and nothing will ever surpass that ever, just because. But that's a roundabout way of avoiding your broader question. I think the moment that acknowledging the past became okay was the moment they no longer had any competition. After that who cares? You want to make money off Hogan DVD's and classic action figures? Sure why not. There's no real danger of those older guys biting you back, because what can they do and where can they go? No one has ever gone to TNA and made it even remotely serious competition and no one will. You look at when the DVD's of older superstars started to come out. The first was Hogan's in 2002. The year after WCW went under. The DVD market had been around for a few years prior to that and there had been nothing that old school prior to that. The Hall of Fame had been dropped after being a minor, minor footnote twice in the 90's and now it's a pretty big deal. The reason the attitude era guys are still treated as the way there are is simple, HHH is nearly in charge and Undertaker is seen as the greatest legend in company history by them. Trust me if Hogan had stayed around the same thing would have happened to Austin and Rock in 98 as happens to say Punk and Bryan today, but fortunately he and his friends had gone. Acknowledging the past is a great thing. But letting it dominate the future is suicidal. Imagine if the 3 biggest matches of Wrestlemania had been Hogan just narrowly defeating Bruno Sammartino, Piper getting squashed by a returning Gorilla Monsoon and Chief Jay Strongbow coming out of retirement to end the evil menace of Paul Orndorff once and for all? If someone had suggested that card to Vince in 85 he would have been fired or laughed out of the room but that's basically what we are getting for a Wrestlemania this year.

That Bret-Dynamite match has a knee drop spot that makes me cringe to this day.

Jerry's bitter "Christ" on learning there's more Dynamic Dudes to come was the highlight of the episode if not the entire series. I want to watch him watch Dudes matches now. And then go to the pub to rant about it to anyone willing to listen.

If I was only able to watch one final wrestling match this would be it. I'm not saying from a technical standpoint it's the greatest match of all time, but it's certainly favorite. This is the moment where Vince McMahon succeeds at "transcending" wrestling and becoming just flat out great entertainment for anyone. My mom cried at the post match. I showed Savage's Mania matches from 2-7 to my then gf years back and she lost it too. It's just the greatest moment in the history of our sport. And if ANYONE predicted the Warrior would be the only one still alive involved in this 20 years ago they would have been locked up sadly.

That Mania match is my all time favorite match so yeah it gets my vote as well. Let's move onto someone more random - Haku. Best match - MSG 1987 2/3 falls vs. Strike Force

You know what I second that actually.

Okay I'll third the Vader match and suggest we move on to....Vader himself.

I've got to disagree completely with you there Dylan on this match at least, not 80's WWF in general. Arn and Haku basically defeat the Anvil and the Rockers 3 on 2 before going down to the Warrior. For them to dominate ala the NWA heels given these odds would have stretched credulity to the breaking point. You have Haku who I and my friends basically viewed as the heel version of Koko B Ware, a guy who might get in some offense here and there and win a rare squash of his own, but never ever beat anyone of note. And you had Arn Anderson, who had just dropped the tag titles and didn't even have his partner with him. He would be disoriented and out of focus. For them to do as well as they did impressed the heck out of me as a kid, but anything more would have been way too much. Survivor Series 89 PPV version was a Christmas present from a friend (He made me a copy). It was my only wrestling tape for nearly a year. I must have watched it twice a week for a year and to this day, I can do most of the commentary verbatim from memory, which scares the heck out of my fellow viewers.

For what it's worth in a recent blog entry Scott admits Austin winning the title at Final Four was total BS on his part.

I'm Rob, 33 year old fan from North Central MA. The earliest memory I have of wrestling is my dad and I watching a match on TV. I THINK it was WWF and featured two long haired blond guys, one in green the other yellow and my dad commenting that this was a better match than was typical for TV. I would guess Hogan vs. Valentine except that was never on the tv show. Timeframe would have been late 84 so maybe Windham took on somebody? I got into it via the Rock and Wrestling cartoon and my earliest memory I can place is watching the replay of the Bulldogs beating Valentine and Beefcake at WM 2. That's what hooked me as a fan, as I have vivid memories of the Savage-Steamboat injury angle and Andre-Hogan confrontation at Piper's Pit. I was a hardcore WWF fan and stayed that way for a long time. We didn't get cable until 1993, and I was not allowed to watch SNME as it was on too late so my only viewings were Superstars and Challenge as well as the Main Event shows. We went to a few random house shows in Worcester and Fitchburg until my dad's arthritis kicked in and times got tough for us. We did have a Betamax VCR and my local store had all the PPV's up to Royal Rumble 89 and a bunch of random tapes (oddly enough the ones Jerry Von Kramer wanted the most, Macho Madness and Best of the WWF 17 we had 2 copies in Beta and 3 in VHS). They also had one WCW tape Starrcade 90 so I might be the only wrestling fan whose first Ric Flair match watched was him as someone other than Ric Flair. I stayed a fan through the dark ages as my friends left. In the summer of 93 we got cable and a VHS VCR. Allowed me to catch up on tons of PPV's and even a few JCP tapes. I would watch WCW Saturday night ever now and then but stayed a diehard WWF fan until Bobby Heenan (check out my user name) came to WCW then I watched both regularly. Stayed a fan throughout the Monday night wars and only stopped paying attention around 2002. But I was and am such a huge Trish Stratus mark I stayed watching Raw until she retired mostly to watch her segments. Not just her look but the fact that someone who looked like that actually cared enough to become a very good wrestler overall as opposed to say Stacy and Torrie. I started going online in the fall of 98 at college and discovered Scott Keith and various other online people like CRZ who definitely had an impact on my opinions as a fan. My favorite wrestlers to watch are probably Arn Anderson, Ricky Steamboat, Bret Hart, Undertaker and Trish Stratus. I would argue the best of all time for me to watch are Flair, Bockwinkel and Lawler. I think there is, and should be, a huge distinction between what you consider the best and what you consider your favorites. I watch Raw every now and then if my friends are watching it and catch the occasional PPV but nothing keeps me interested. I did one indy show as a heel commentator and busted out every Heenan, Ventura and Cornette remark I could. Funny thing is it got so much heat the promoter came to me halfway and asked me to end the show getting laid out by the babyface champion, which I did, doing a 360 off a headbutt. My two favorite matches are Royal Rumble 92 and Warrior-Savage at WM VII.

Who was in charge of promoting the NWA/CWF Battle of the belts cards? Sounds like a dumb reason to ask but I just got all 3 cards as PC files, and want to decide whether to put them in my JCP/WCW folder or CWF folder.

Would War Games 96 count? Been too many years since I last saw it to remember Scott Hall's contribution but looking at his teammates you would have to assume he did a lot for the heels. Unless fake Sting was a better worker than I remember.

I'd say Beefcake was over from the Honky program to the injury and that's about it in a long career. He could have decent watchable matches with the likes of Perfect, Savage, Rude, Martel and Dibiase. Other terrible workers, I mean did anyone in WWF actually watch El Gigante matches before they brought him in to face UT? Was George Steele any better in the 70's? Why the heck was WWF pushing Hillbilly Jim into a feud with Andre in 89? Did anyone think that would work?

Only short clips shown on Championship Wrestling after the change. Something to do with the tape getting damaged and only partial clips were preserved, or something along those lines. I searched pretty thoroughly for the full match and it does not appear to be out there. My dad was there at the Garden that night and told me a few years later when I became a fan that it was a very good match, bordering on great. I compared it to Savage-Steamboat which at nine years old in 88 was the best I had ever seen and he replied "nowhere near that great"

Rarely. In six mans he wrestled and a few times when Crush missed shows but other than that I don't think so. End of the road for Ax.

The first PPV I ever saw was this live, but school was the next night so I was forced to go to bed after this match. So this was technically the main event for me. And made me a lifelong Bret Hart fan. Watching it again it's nowhere near as good as it seemed when all I had ever watched was WWF at that point, but I still think it's a great WWF match and a very good match anywhere. Anvil's final victory celebration over a victorious but near unconscious Bret is a great moment and erases the fact the LOD more or less won this match for the Foundation.

If I were forced to book 88-89 I'd probably have the Demos come out and distract the POP who go out and brawl like crazy with them. Dino gets pinned clean as a sheet by the Warrior and Perfect gets murdered 3 on 1 until he's finally had enough and gets himself counted out. 89 you have Hogan, Beefcake and Dusty all hurting from 2 different post match attacks. Earthquake puts Dusty out with the sitdown splash early. Beefcake gets isolated and pinned with the Savage elbow. 4 on 2, Warrior again manages to pin Bravo, but Earthquake attacks him after that and they get counted out. Hogan fights off Savage and Perfect for a while until a ref bump, Zeus returns to do another number on Hogan. Ref catches it and disqualifies Savage for it but a completely exhausted beaten and bloodied Hogan gets perfect plexed and pinned to avenge Perfect's humiliation from the previous year. And that MIGHT cause Hogan-Perfect to draw a lot better cause darn it Perfect pinned him and that didn't happen often.

With a young Vince Russo as special referee I'm pretty sure this match has happened in Jim Cornette's nightmares. Luger, Bret, Keith, Bruce, Kid, Jannetty, Doinkwhackers, and Doinks on a Mission vs. The Heavenly Bodies.

Great show so far, Jerry's attempts to shill Sean Mooney was great. BTW wouldn't Bill Alfonso's referee run qualify as a stick to the rules to drive fans nuts gimmick or was that more just a heel ref gimmick?

Tape trading or talking about El Dandy?

Dang nab it El-P now you've made me want to track down this Nitro from a tape trader. I'd like to suggest each member of this board try to work in the phrase "Who are you to doubt El Dandy" in a non-wrestling conversation just to see what happens.