Hegs

I just rewatched Flair Hogan at MSG. Not great but Flair came off stronger than WCW 94. Thee 94 series were better matches overall. Has Hogan ever given his perspective on the Flair WWF run?

I think part of the disappointment especially in drawing houses was Flair needed a 1984 type Piper build up to traditional WWF fans. In the South people didn't want to see Hogan manhandle and leg drop Flair. They definitely started right with Flair getting some wins, even if screw job over Piper and winning the Rumble.

I heard somewhere that Vince had Wrestlemania mapped out months in advance. JJ discussed Syd being the plan from the time he was signed. I think if they kept Flair strong with the title on him and Hogan came back after Summer Slam and chased for the title, the program and Flair's run might have been more memorable.

I just listened to JJ Dillon's podcast about Flair and Hogan in WWF. His take was it underperformed and that they didn't have great chemistry in the ring. What's the consensus? Bad chemistry bad booking or both? I don't think that Vince knew what to do with Flair other than the Royal Rumble win. He could have kept belt on Flair at Wrestlemania and slowly built to a big Hogan Flair match at the following Wrestlemania. I didn't necessarily think they had bad matches from what I saw from MSG. The WCW matches were too lopsided to be beyond average.

When you and Bix were talking about WWWF face turns, Gorilla Monsoon immediately came to mind.

I'm in the completely turned off camp. If you're going to put Brock over by ending Undertaker's streak, don't have him squashed by another guy who could care less about wrestling or the fans. He did this solely as a vanity match so his wife and son could see him "beat" an NCAA and UFC champ plus a huge payday. Great way to tell the fans all the guys you see every week suck and a guy with a 2 year career who hasn't stepped foot in a ring in 12 years can beat the part time monster who was beating everyone in the company in 90 seconds. If they're setting up a Wrestlemania rematch, I for one am not interested.

Flair, Funk, Lawler, and Savage. Savage did give me some pause because I wasnt a big fan of his interviews.

I still listen and enjoy parts of the show. I do the same thing if Stern has a celebrity interview for the most, pick and choose. Between this podcast, between the sheets, Flair, Pritchard, Austin, JR, Exile on Badstreet, etc theres literally not enough time to listen to everything.

I miss Bix on the show as well. The last few episodes I've been skipping the top 10.

If Raw was cut down to 2 hours I think it would stack up better against Smackdown. They have to throw some filler in to stretch the show to 3 plus hours. I still am dumbfounded by Ambrose. If this Cena slump is intended to go somewhere, I kinda get it, but to have Ambrose be the recipient? Have Wyatt avenge his Wrestlemania loss, kill the company's biggest hero and have Cena rebuilding himself. Turn Ziggler and let him do it. Instead, Ambrose with his nonexistent selling and even worse offense tearing through the whole roster. Ambrose should be booked like the Bushwackers not Hogan.

I agree. I cant stand Ambrose but AJ's getting a great match out of him.

I remember the pure hatred between Rich and Sawyer-the attacks during matches and interviews. You would never see those 2 debating for 15 minutes at the beginning of the show. I'm happy I finally got to see the match after all this time. For some of the newer fans, I'm sorry there isn't some context for them. I also wish Gordon was doing the announcing. I thought some of Ole's work overshadowed Rich and Sawyer.

Over on wrestling classics they're talking about it as a fact. http://www.wwenetworknews.com/2016/09/03/exclusive-full-content-listing-for-upcoming-hidden-gems-wwe-network-collection/?wt=2

Other than Scott Hall, Joe Scarpa to Chief Jay Strongbow was 2 career guy.

I don't know if you would call it a stable, but Teddy Lang's group in WCW consisting of Joey Maggs, Craig Pittman, Jim Powers, Bobby Walker, and Ice Train was directionless and appeared thrown together for no apparent reason.

Now that he's The Guy, I really don't get it. After a Wrestlemania squash andcthe horrible Asylum match, you give the guy the title? I really cant think of a worse world champ in WWE/WWF history.

The Hogan match was on one of the Coliseum videos. The Schultz Piper v Andre Snuka match at MSG was pretty good too.

September 20, 1986 That episode was 8/23/86. I prefer the later one with:R&R & Dusty vs MX & Bubba (bunkhouse) A Landell squash Magnum vs Nikita, 2/3 Falls I remember that one too. I had a small window of access to the world wides living in NJ but they ran for a little bit on a UHF station. The bunkhoyse match involved some powder if I recall properly. Was the Nikita Magnum match the finals of the best of 7 or Magnums rematch?

There was an episode of JCP Worldwide in 1986 that had MX v RR,a Nikita Magnum best of 7 and Flair v Dusty. Not sure of the date but that's hard to top.

Captain Lou. His interviews were hysterical, his cheap shots the best and his wrestling was horribly entertaining. Ive watched Butcher Vachon's wedding 100 times mainly because of Albano and to a lesser degree Blassie. Hated it when they turned him face.

Kris Are you thinking of Robins theme on Stern? It was hard to tell from your description

Bix- Gorilla always said Ken Patera retired him. They had a match at the Spectrum, which Gorilla lived a few away minutes from, so it was kind of his hometown area, where the month before Gorilla said if Patera beat him he would retire. I don't think it was a tv angle but I wasn't watching so religiously back then. Patera hit Gorilla with a foreign object and pinned him. I think he might have only wrestled one time after that but was one of the few who never re-entered the ring. He would put Patera over on commentary even into 84-85 as the guy who retired him or "put the nails" in his coffin.

I do get Owens. While he doesnt fit the body mold, neither did Dusty, Lawler or Foley. But he, unlike Ambrose, doesnt look like I could beat up. While I understand some of the spotfest comments, he does have subtleties in his matches, like punching someone in the head while they are trying to suplex him, which to me would be a natural reaction, which seem to bring logic into the match. I cant think of too many guys the spotfest comment doesnt apply to today. All in all, I find him to be a throwback to the 80s NWA style I grew up loving.

I did have the original slammy's on tape but unfortunately I taped over it around 1989 when I started consolidating my collection. Piper's slammy broke and he got really pissed off and Vicki Sue Robinson from the original turn the beat around performed Grab them Cakes with JYD. I did save the entire War to Settle the Score.

Terry Funk did bale out after WM2- Was he one of the wrestlers who was complaining about the travel?