BillThompson

60- man battle royal from WCW World War III '95. The concept and execution of this match makes for a terrible viewing experience, Regal facial expressions during the intros aside.

I'm not sure if I can provide any examples of him being great in a match, because his ability to blend into a match was part of his greatness. That's what I most took away from Young; though he could bump great and sell great, he almost always made everything he did as a ref seem organic or right within the contest of the match.

Did anyone ever figure out what was up with Ahmed Johnson's arms? He didn't have triceps or biceps, he had what looked like daggers poking out of his skin. Was this from the uber tight pads he wore, or was Ahmed just some sort of mutant that could grow shivs out of his arms?

Taken as a whole, is Halloween Havoc '95 considered one of the worst events in wrestling history?

I've been listening to a lot of old eps lately, and I really dig the show. However, am I the only one who doesn't find the "stories of the road" funny? Sometimes they are, when the guys Austin's interviewing are recollecting innocent ribs or mishaps and such. But, listening to Kevin Nash talk about driving drunk as if it's a funny story is hard to stomach, and really speaks to some sort of arrested adolescence that pro wrestlers seem to have and I can't relate to or condone.

I know I've been piling on Shawn Michaels a lot lately, but I don't think there's a more pathetic face than his "I'm sad and emotional" face. I just watched him pull it out during the segment where he forfeits the IC title to Dean Douglas, and the face he keeps making that is supposed to be ad looks more like he's taking a very consternating dump.

Had Shawn bothered to continue selling the excellent leg work from Razor, not botched the finish three separate times, or not incorporated one too many of his ridiculously contrived spots (like the Irish Whip into the corner where he decides to launch himself and splash the turnbuckle so he ends up laying across the turnbuckle) I could see this being better than WMX. But, those things exist, and they heavily detract from the match, in the end making this a pale imitation of WMX and a match that falls just short of actually being great.

Shawn's face turn in mid-95 is regarded as pretty terrible right? I mean, he berates his bodyguard, said bodyguard then turns on him. In that scenario the bodyguard should be the face, yet somehow WWF came out of that pushing Shawn as the face.

For me the proof is in the pudding, Trips just needs to accept it. I recall very few people buying him as a legit world champion at the beginning of 2000. Then Foley goes out there and makes Trips look like a complete killer and legit world champion, and Trips runs with what Foley set up. I think it's silly of anyone to think that Foley is solely responsible for Trips having the run to success that he did, but he does deserve credit for helping propel Trips to heights he hadn't yet achieved and in making Trips seem legit.

Actually, the small guys are always portrayed as catching the bigger guys in either quick submissions or pinfall attempts. That's been the MO of the small guy for as long as I can remember, and especially in the last 20-30 years. As for the rest, I think your view is narrow and limiting. Big, small, it doesn't matter one iota as long as a guy is booked to look like he can beat anyone on any given night.

I've seen him wrestle more than enough on NXT, I don't think the guy has anything going for him. He has terrible timing, his strikes look really bad, no charisma, no aura of truly being a power wrestler to fear, and his move selection leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, the guy can't even decide whether he wants his finisher to be a bad looking Camel Clutch or a bad looking Steiner Recliner. Rusev is a terrible gimmick being played by a guy who can't talk or work.

Did the arrival of Hogan to WCW really kick off the sniping between them and WWF? I know that previously you'd get the occasional veiled reference from JR about how WCW/NWA was where real athletes came to fight, not bodybuilders. But, it seems like in 1995 WCW started kicking things into overdrive, flinging jabs at WWF on every PPV and talking up their product as the place to be in wrestling, etc.

It's the way of the business though, wrestlers caring way too much about stuff that doesn't really matter. It's like a high school locker room where the kids never age mentally as their physical bodies erode away.

They have to do something to make a Rusev segment worth watching.

He needs to be kept as far away as possible from anything having to do with the term GOAT. WWE's terribly commentary team ruined that ever being used for Bryan in a way that isn't condescending.

Or the fact that Bret was literally in the hold for 9 minutes before the towel was finally thrown in. That worked on every level though. It gave Owen the time to convince his parents, it showed how insane Backlund was, and how insane Bret was for not just tapping. There wasn't a thing wrong with how long Backlund held Bret in that hold, it fit the match and the storyline perfectly and made for compellingly great wrestling.

Watching some mid-90s WCW, specifically Hogan hitting people with a chair. I remember at the time thinking that it make Hogan look like such a wuss, the way he would daintily hit someone with a chair. I still wish Hogan had just never picked up a chair, ever, but, looking back at it how much do you think Hogan's opponents are happy he hit them the way he did as opposed to full force like most others? Lots of concussions and late in life brain injuries were probably held off because of Hogan's wussified chair swinging.

Meltz in general seems to really dislike Backlund. I just watched Backlund/Hart from Survivor Series '94 and it's totally the Backlund show as he's great and makes everything about that match great. Meltz, however, greatly disliked the match, and I'm not sure if he ever gave a specific reason.

That would be great, and something I've been saying they should do. But, isn't this the same company that doesn't even offer DVDs of any of their stuff that happened before like 2009?

I think my main issue with this move is that it's really not a step forward at all. At best it's lateral movement, and hearing RoH try and pump this up as a great move or something historic is so off that it's kinda cute.

The 97 Rumble had a really good mini's match, and Mascarita Sagrada was around for a lot in 1997 I think.

I've been working on a side project where I'm compiling as accurate of a list as I can of wrestling moves and the names given to them by various wrestlers throughout the years. Looking through wrestlers on Wikipedia and I nearly spilled my drink on my computer when I read the Wiki shenanigans that are the final sentence of the intro bio for Mickie Knuckles,

Me too, but I wish they'd take it further and bring back the AWA and ECW belts and start a sort of J-Crown thing, I love that stuff.

If you mean worst as in unintentionally great, then yes! :-) Oh yeah, I had fun with how awful he was. Highlight had to be when Luger makes his appearance. Savage and Monsoon go on and on about Luger and him being an all-American, etc. After about three minutes of this there's a minute of silence and Donovan finally chirps in with, "who's the guy in the American flag shirt?" I love how Donovan asks pretty much in every match " How much does this guy weigh?". You can tell Monsoon really gets annoyed and just stops acknowledging him after a while. Savage to his credit does tolerate him it seems. Savage does, up until the point when Donovan tries to equate IRS missing a Crossbody and flying outside the ring as missing a trap block. Savage's response of "Exactly like it, except completely different!" about caused me to do a spit take.

The simple answer is, you keep sending both guys back out there. For the money Lesnar will work more dates, and if he is champion he will work more dates. All they have to do with Bryan after he loses the belt is have him go out there week after week and keep winning. The more he wins the closer he gets to Lesnar and the more that fans will want to see him get his rematch.