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Well that's a pot of contradictions

Everything was played up as a big deal back then though. From the opening matches all the way through to the semi and main events. As you've already said, Owen wasn't in the main events anymore by 1998, nor was his work or character (and standing of both) as good as it had been, which was my original point.

Being put with new comers in mid card matches? How does this fight the argument his star power had dropped?

I have a lot of love for Owen Hart, but anybody who talks about him missing his opportunity for a world title run in the late 90's are deluded if you think of the climate at the time of his death and afterwards. Owen's peak as a star was 1994 / 1995 with a fine 1997 also. He simply wasn't the same in 1998/1999 on his own merits, forgetting about the influx of talent that came in and shone.

Yeah, that upload wasn't what I thought it would be at all. I was led to believe it would be a low key discussion between two friends. Instead it was an over produced introduction piece to a new audience.

From the description I saw on Twitter, it seems to be some sort of conversation piece between Heyman / Styles which could be fun.

I logged onto the Network after hearing of that ECW special with Heyman / Styles on Twitter, but I couldn't see it. Is it up yet?

Absolutely. Watching it now and so far so good (up to WM17). Once the recap of the last episode was done with it (I believe that was the 296th time I've seen the beer truck footage) it get's going nicely. It feels great to have a far less covered time frame highlighted with all of their polish.

I've always said AWA Martel and 90's WWF Bret Hart had some strong similarities. If you watch Martel work bigger men such as Michael Hayes or Stan Hansen from those days it's very similar to the plucky underdog who fights to hold his own (and then does) which Bret Hart was in the 90's. I'll give the edge to Hart though; when he made his comebacks he looked more intense and believable from where I sit. Also worth noting those two have a very similar mindset to the art of wrestling and what that is which is ironic to this topic considering they were both badly hurt in WCW in what they felt were big men being too stiff, ignoring the art of making it look as real as possible but always on the safe side.

New Blood Rising trumps that for me.

That doesn't work, because the thumbtacks were under the ring and clearly planned to be used (that was the "surprise" that Foley had promised beforehand). Not to mention Austin / Kane would have then been planned to be an awfully, awfully long match built around a man in a mask in a first blood match. Let's face it, everything went to plan.

RINGS introduced me to Randy Couture. I'm pretty sure the "brand" is still around in some capacity in Japan, or it was a couple of years ago albeit with an entirely new team behind it with no resemblance to the original couple of incarnations.

There is no way he wasn't meant to go through the cage. After being thrown off the thing and going back up, what were they supposed to do, just climb down?

Watched the new Goldberg episode of the Monday Night Wars which was yet another revisionist piece of history. These things are all made nicely, but they're like sports cars with dodgy engines. The narrative harped on about Goldberg being incapable of having a good lengthy match whilst ignoring what was perhaps Scott Hall's last ever great match at Souled Out 99 which was a belter as well as the Fall Brawl 2000 match against Steiner which was brilliant. These are just two examples off the top of my head, but to say Goldberg couldn't work is laughable. When he was booked right, he could produce something excellent. It also failed to note how WCW booked Goldberg better than the WWE did with their insistence of booking Goldberg against his strengths (there's precedent in them covering post 2001 when it suits). There was a general air of claiming people were not clambering to see Goldberg's short explosive undefeated act and grew tired of it which wasn't the case. Trawling through the archives to find a very quiet pocket of fans chanting "Goldberg sucks" in late 1999 doesn't exactly prove anything. The reality is, the character was still hot after the Starcade 1998 defeat. Goldberg remained one of the biggest stars until the very end of the promotion. The problem was the general booking of the character and all of the nonsense that was going on at the time. I can give you first hand accounts of being at Nitro tapings in 2000 and Goldberg getting by far the loudest ovations of the night.

Meh, at least it was different.

I've seen some mental debates over the years from indy fans arguing the toss (or fighting over crumbs) about the attendances of their shows, going to extents of literally drawing on photos numbers over individual heads in crowds from different angle. "See, I told you it was only 150 people."

How many times has Dave appeared on WWE programming? I know he was a talking head on one of Foley's home videos around 1999/2000 time, I can't think of another.

WCW gave him a generic History Channel commercial track for a theme and the WWF gave him that pseudo-Bond music. What's your point artDDP? WWE could have given him Sean Connery as a manager; what does it matter when you're coming down the ring to wrestle on Heat with no real direction or light at the end of the tunnel. What I will say in defence of Malenko in the WWE is; of the four Radicalz he was the one who seemed to fit in and feel settled the most at the very start.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrbg7m_jimmy-hart-shoot-interview-1996_sport Excellent little interview from the great Jimmy Hart from 1996. It starts off a little slow but he eventually let's his guard down.

I liked the cruiser weight episode that's just gone up. Unlike other episodes I've ragged on here, this one wasn't an overly familiar story to hear with some nice footage and rarities. Plus I always get a kick out of Dean Malenko "being held back" in WCW thus his wanting to jump to WWE, whereas in reality he was a far bigger star in WCW.

Ugh, I just give up moaning about the booking of these two now. It's got to the point that it's beyond tiresome. You could book them in a "Poochi Went Back to his Home Planet" match at this point where the loser would legit be strapped to a rocket and sent off Earth and I wouldn't show interest.

I've always said this. I've heard Vince really wanted a "giant" with Andre being phased out and he wanted to renew interest in Studd, but still. DiBiase SHOULD have held the WWF belt within the past year as he was knocking it out of the park on all levels. By the Royal Rumble he had lost some steam and it would have been a great win for him. I think being the last from last man in the Rumble is never a good thing, he probably would have been better getting eliminated sooner to boot. Come next Wrestlemania Dibiase was working Beefcake and Studd was a referee. Oh, and I can't be the only one who thought...

They should just send Rey Mysterio out at #30

The stink has set in to the extent it's yard sale moonshine