C.S.

This is WWE's style. The first PPV challenger is always some lower-tier throwaway. Even Dude Love fell into that category. People would be bitching just as hard if Sheamus were given this spot. That would feel just as unimportant and predictable. I'm glad Orton didn't get it. That would have been the most boring option of all (not ring-wise, but story-wise). If you ask me, this is better than most because at least Kane and Bryan have a ton of actual history.

From the Torch: http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/WWE_News_3/article_77901.shtml I'd prefer full HOF shows, but this is certainly better than nothing.

I never got into him, but I'm not sure that's entirely his fault. I only saw his WWF gimmick, and he was treated literally like a jobber at times. (I don't mean the JTTS treatment where he was still a star - I mean Brooklyn Brawler/Jim Powers levels of jobberdom. He even teamed with no-name "preliminary wrestlers" on Superstars or Challenge a few times. Jim Brunzell was eventually put in the same position too.) As a kid, I knew Koko wasn't a "threat" so I had no reason to invest in him. I also thought his "High Energy" team with Owen was lame and bland - a pale imitation of The New Foundation (Owen and Anvil), which I absolutely loved at the time. When he was announced for the WWE HOF, I scratched my head and wondered why. In retrospect, I understand it more now.

What's the story there? Why would one botched movie derail a taping for an hour? Was there a bad injury? Anyway, I feel the same way you do about those teams, except I think I liked the Bevs more than most. I wonder why they never got a huge push. When they first came in, I remember Gorilla Monsoon really hyping them up in commentary.

I haven't watched the full Legends of WrestleMania panel yet - can't stand the format compared to the old Legends of Wrestling roundtables - but did Ted specifically mention the Japan match, or did he just mention *a* match, and then footage of the Japan match played? If so, Ted could have been referring to the better one, despite what the footage would indicate.

There goes my next planned threads for the Beverly Brothers, the Natural Disasters, and the Quebecers. I'm kidding...I think. Dennis Knight and Mark Canterbury had three very different gimmicks in two federations and were around for the majority of the '90s. I think it's a worthwhile discussion. Not everyone can be "the best ever," and I think The Microscope would get boring if that's all we discussed. With that said, I thought Tex and Shanghai were a fun midcard heel team and Southern Justice at least had potential, but I'll admit I was never a fan of the pig farmer Godwinns gimmick.

I won't say one person's life meant more than another, but the fact is, Warrior as a wrestler did mean more to WWE TV programming than Viscera. That can't really be disputed. Also, with Warrior appearing at the HOF, WM, and Raw, he's basically being treated the same way an active talent would. He wasn't on the roster, but he died a day after appearing on a string of shows, so for all intents and purposes, it's more or less the same situation. Active talents who pass away have always gotten more of a tribute than people who haven't been there in years. Obviously, with the Network, they have more time to create specials, etc. now. I think the same thing would have been done for Owen and Eddy if the Network had been around back then.

Am I the only one who hates the Legends of WrestleMania format? Empty comments, followed by clip, more empty comments, another clip, rinse and repeat. The older Legends of Wrestling roundtables had a much looser format and were far more interesting.

In all fairness, there's probably still money to be made with traditional PPV. Whether ROH makes any of it is another story entirely...

I noticed that last night too, and it's about time. I'm very happy.

Was that a fair assessment, in everyone's opinion? I don't remember him being anything special. But the "worst"? I don't know about that. ESPN wouldn't hire crap, would they? Considering how bad WWE announcing is, I wonder if Grisham was held back by the "talk about everything except the match" style, being yelled at from the headset, etc.

Is Renee a lifelong wrestling fan? That may determine her decision to stay or go.

I tried watching it last night. Kept kicking me off (Roku). Hope that's fixed by now.

adds more fuel to the fire that the whole thing wasn't the plan from the start. Don't know why he would schedule the wedding for the Friday after Mania if he knew he was getting such a huge title push On the Bryan Network special, Brie (I think) mentioned it was because post-Mania is the only period they have "time off."

My bad. I thought you meant a LoW show about Andre. My confusion came from hearing that a couple of episodes were put up and taken down very quickly. Hopefully Old School will eventually be fully searchable. LoW wasn't until recently.

But if he did that, people would rake him over hot coals for "burying" young talent. Major Catch-22 with a side of BBQ.

Because Andre was taken down for some reason.

I almost feel like this needs two separate topics in a way, because Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce in WCW were so different from The Godwinns in the WWF (and later Southern Justice, but they weren't really around long enough in that role). I realize this team pre-dates their debut in WCW, but I'm going to start with their time there because that's where I first saw them. Nostalgia may be fueling my opinions, but I remember Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce being a really fun midcard heel team during the era of WCW Saturday Night. Particularly memorable, for me, was their "crazy" (at the time) match against The Vegas Connection - DDP and Vinnie Vegas (Kevin Nash). Shanghai Pierce was masked at first, then lost the mask in an angle, but I can't recall the particulars. I always found it strange that one of the members of the team had a mask and the other didn't, but it was cool too. As a kid, Tex Slazenger seemed like the "leader" of the team to me. This is a point I'm bringing up for a reason and will come back to again in a minute. For whatever reason, Tex and Shanghai never won gold in WCW despite being one of the more "over" teams on the roster. I wasn't nearly as enamored with The Godwinns in the WWF, even though they were the same wrestlers. Chalk it up to the gimmick, I guess. Of course, Henry O. Godwinn (Shanghai Pierce) was a WWF singles wrestler at first. His most (in)famous feud was with Triple H in a "Hog Pen Match" at one of the In Your House PPVs. At some point, Tex Slazenger appeared as a jobber for at least one match on Superstars or one of those shows (maybe under his real name Dennis Knight, but I can't remember). Eventually, Tex debuted as the dim-witted Phineas I. Godwinn and reformed his team with the former Shanghai, Henry O. Godwinn. With Tex and Shanghai, Tex was the clear "leader" IMO. The opposite was true with the Godwinns. By virtue of having more WWF experience, Henry (Shanghai) seemed to "take the lead" this time around. Maybe because of that, or the gimmick itself, this incarnation of the team never really worked for me the way Tex and Shanghai did. Later on, they became Southern Justice under their real names, Mark Canterbury and Dennis Knight. That version of the team seemed cool as hell, but it didn't last long enough for anyone to really be able to judge it. If I recall correctly, Knight suffered a career-ending injury after taking a botched Doomsday Device from the LOD. Not sure if that is how the injury really happened or if that was just the storyline explanation. Either way, that spelled the end for Mark Canterbury's career. (Or did Canterbury come back for at least a short spelll to feud with LOD? I seem to recall that, but I may be confusing it with some other angle.) Knight continued for a few more years as a lower card singles wrestler - Mideon, Naked Mideon, etc. Overall, I'd call this team a mixed bag, but I blame it more on the silliness of their WWF gimmick than anything the wrestlers themselves did. Dennis Knight and Mark Canterbury were pretty solid and effective together in the ring, I thought. What did everyone else here think of their various teams and gimmicks?

For Roku users, a tip I found on Facebook: As you know, several of the Legends of Wrestling shows are missing from that section on Roku. But if you type "Legends of Wrestling" into the search section, ALL of the shows will come up. I've tried it and it really works. (This did not always work. I tried it before, early on, and nothing came up. But it does work now.)

I didn't know that. Either way, I can't hold that against Styles, because WWE commentary is the same way now and it's terrible compared to Styles's *ahem* style.

I watched the "infamous" ECW episode with the Sandman/Dreamer cane angle and Shane Douglas throwing down the NWA Title. I believe it was the first episode of ECW I ever saw. I was completely blown away at the time. Revisiting it 20 years later (holy shit!), it's still fun, but the production values were much worse than I remembered (not that they were ever great, even then) and the main event - while enjoyable enough - is certainly no classic (it wasn't one then either though). The highlights of the show - the Dreamer/Sandman angle and Shane's speech - still hold up. The Doink/911 stuff was and is fun, but gimmicky names like "Paul E. Dangerously" and "The Tazmaniac" really stuck out like a sore thumb. Of course, both of those would be changed going forward. This show marked the birth of "Extreme." Dennis Corralluzo and Tod Gordon both came across looking like shady carny promoters after the Douglas title throwdown. Heyman, oddly enough, always seemed much more "sincere" (ha!) and was a much better fit for the on-camera figurehead role. Also, maybe it's just over a decade and a half of hearing commentators talk about everything BUT the match, but Joey Styles seems amazing to me now. He actually focused on what was happening in the ring, called the moves, explained their effects, etc. It was probably Jim Ross Lite at the time, but it's a breath of fresh air compared to today's commentating style. Even more impressive is that he did it all by himself. Styles was and is a really underrated commentator. The only flaw I could really pick out for this particular show is that he seemed to SCREAM through everything. That might have been a byproduct of ECW's lousy acoustics though.

He must have liked it well enough, because he more or less kept it going with The Quebecers when neither of them really needed to be "mounties" at all. But they weren't mounties. Their theme music explicitly said so! LOL!!! I can't believe I forgot about that epic theme music. Thinking back on it, I really loved The Quebecers. They were smooth in the ring and entertaining out of it. Also, they beat The Steiners at a time where a win like that actually still meant something.

Well, Mountie did eventually spend a night in jail.

He must have liked it well enough, because he more or less kept it going with The Quebecers when neither of them really needed to be "mounties" at all. On WWF shows.

Agreed. DeMott - of all people - has no room to talk. Hugh Morrus as a name/gimmick was the drizzling shits. Maybe with a different name, it would have worked. He seemed cool enough in his WCW debut (on WCW Saturday Night) against Macho Man as "The Man of Questions" (a dumb name too, but miles ahead of Hugh Morrus or Hugh G. Rection). Maybe I'm guilty of taking these stupid Countdown shows too seriously, but every one of them (that I've seen) has been plagued by unnecessarily nasty potshots. It's one thing to lightheartedly poke fun at wrestling's silliness, but some of the talking heads are downright mean-spirited. Daniel Bryan, sadly enough, comes across as one of the smuggest assholes of the lot (I love him otherwise) - but he's far from alone in that. Edit: My stance on Bryan isn't because of this episode alone. He has come across badly in other episodes too.