Sidebottom

I worded that bit wrong Childs. I wasn't trying to say he was marketed specifically towards black youth (i.e solely) rather that black youth was a prime demographic, and to your point it was that time frame where there was a lot of cross over with white audiences in terms of style and culture across the board. Oh, for clarity I'm certainly not saying Virgil the wrestler was anything special, but there was a connection with the audience at the time of his face turn which I think they could have done more with. He was essentially presented as just an athlete. His "too legit to quit" talk was pretty urban for the early 90's WWF.

Agreed, watching it now and it's brilliant.

Jordan appealed to all races as a sports icon, for sure. He transcended barriers at a very different time. But the fact is, he made MILLIONS being marketed into the above, specifically being marketed to black youth. Growing up as a black youth in the 80's / 90's, I can personally say from my experience at least that there wasn't a strong black role model in wrestling for me on television. I was more of a WWF fan than a WCW fan, although I did see some WCW, including Ron Simmons winning the WCW world title, which was awesome. In WWF you had the butler, the voodoo man, Saba Simba, a barbarian... it's not something I necessarily noticed as a youngster, but it's something I think about with hindsight.

Childs, yes I did explain why, you chose to call it a bizarre link. Good for you. Do you understand the influence Jordan had towards a lot of young black people in America in the late 80's / early 90's. What is so bizarre about providing that audience (or trying to tap into it) a black star kids can root for? Bruno appealed to a race, Pedro appealed to a race...

What the hell did Virgil have to do with Michael Jordan? Nothing. And I explained why I would have marketed him that way in the post you quoted.

Say what you want, but he was over with the crowd after he went babyface. I was surprised they didn't tap into to Michael Jordan prime and appeal and try and market him to appeal to black sports audiences. Virgil = The Michael Jordan of the WWF. It could have been, I'm deadly serious.

I love the Mankind match from Shotgun in 97 for what it was, a 10 minute match similar to the matches Bret had with JPL which would incorporate a more wild aspect at times. Being a throw away television match in early 97, both were protected with a lame non finish though. I would have loved to have seen babyface Bret work a proper programe with heel Mankind in 1996 / 1997. You have to believe they would have created a classic or two.

Table for three with Dolph / Daniel / Ryback is infectiously pleasant to watch. When the guys were cracking up at the end I had a big smile watching them too

Nah, his DVD did good numbers with little promotion. A lot of fans (myself included) still love Goldberg. Anyway depending on how you rate you're top wrestlers (I tend to go for the total package: draw, matches, influence, promo) Goldberg did amazing business in a short span, he had some cracking matches in that time (Hall at Souled Out, Steiner at Fall Brawl, Raven on Nitro) was involved in some great angles (Bret Hart in Canada comes to mind, although that was mostly Bret being awesome), and of course you have to mention that Nitro match with Hogan for the sheer spectacle. I would have liked to see Goldberg in more of 2001 WCW with it's stripped down booking approach: that would have really benefited him.

But for the record, he likely wouldn't make my top 100...

It's interesting to think where he would have gone had he kept his weight to 1992 levels. He was well regarded in the company with management and peers and always had a great spot on the card up until his disastrous face turn (didn't he turn heel again, for like a single episode of Raw against Shawn in 1996?). Heel and in shape Yoko against Austin, Foley and Rock would have been interesting f the character got an "attitude" adjustment with those changing times.

Has the vault content been down for anybody else? Either I get the video unavailable at this time message, or worse, the dreaded buffering play. All modern content plays fine, I never have an issue with the "live" stream for example.

Outside of the Bryan match, I just don't see when he's delivered in a singles setting. Loved the character based upon early impressions but since then its been too much True Blood jibberish as opposed to anything I can sink my teeth into. Hopes were high but it has failed to deliver. This, entirely.

Any examples? Sorry only just seen this. From memory there was a tone of him feeling as though he was held back at certain points in his career and that he could have been used better to garner a bigger Spanish audience.

Where was you when I was ordering my sandwich?

Any reaction is a good reaction, I am a firm believer of that. It's silence and indifference that kills.

I'm having trouble accessing archive newsletters. I tend to read them on lunch breaks with a sandwich and all I got was a "page not found" message. Not an enjoyable way to eat a sandwich.

Yikes.

This ain't makeup!

I've been watching a lot of early 2000's indies lately on another tape / DVD sort through. Lot's of 3PW shows. What a fun little promotion while it lasted.

Imagine if a family member was hit by a car and suddenly died. That's shocking. You couldn't help but talk about it. Now imagine that family member was VERY SLOWLY dying from a disease...

If he was going to go anywhere in 1998 (from a creative standpoint) it should have been ECW. He knew this, and he pushed hard for it but Heyman didn't return his calls.

Add me to the list of those who enjoyed Easy E and JBL, it was a engaging watch.

I'm a martyr for the board and I watched it for my sins (I'm just a sucker for the new uploads really, no matter what they are). Unless you really want to see Scott Hall jump the rail, Rey Mysterio get spiked into a trailer or Jericho read his list of holds again, avoid.

If anyone's interested at this point in time, there's DDP hosting a Top 10 WCW moments under "Originals" uploaded just now.