JRH

Mike Awesome definitely should have stayed in ECW. Sure, they still would have gone under, but without the baggage of the comedic WCW gimmicks he had, he could have at least have had a better reputation as a power guy who also had surprising agility, as he was, he was damaged goods and never went anywhere in the WWF. Going back even farther, even though he was successful in WCW, Hacksaw Duggan would have been better in more of an ambassador role for WWF, only wrestling occasionally, being a hype man for shows (the guy could capture an audience pretty well), doing commentary, working backstage, etc. Maybe Lex Luger's superpatriot gimmick would have worked better if he had some loose alliance with Duggan, maybe even doing some pass the torch thing.

As someone who started watching in 1990, 1995 being "old school" makes me feel kind of older than I already am.

Now, I dont really mean tag matches, but all of these matches with 3,4, or more wrestlers at once. It was a good novelty when it started, and there have been matches where that format works, but it's gotten way too overused now, plus it seems like a way to protect certain guys (while also making the guy who gets pinned essentially a third wheel). If anything, they should at least save them for PPV/PLE and leave them off weekly tv.

I get the feeling that Gene and Bobby were let go since they wanted a "younger" look for their announcers, and those two did look kind of "old".

I have no interest in Goldberg vs Gunther, but I have to admit that retrospective music video was pretty epic.

It also made it to the Hart and Soul dvd set.

What was WCW Cyber Ring anyway?

To be fair, you could say the same about the 90s boom. Sure, Austin, Rock, Goldberg, Foley, and maybe Chyna got mainstream recognition, but it's not like anyone outside of the fanbase knew about Undertaker, Kane, DX, The Hardy Boyz, Edge and Christian, The Dudley Boyz, Chris Jericho, Eddie Guerrero, Kevin Nash, Rey Mysterio, Ric Flair, DDP, or any of the other top stars of that era.

I think it's just because wrestling is now more accepted as a legit form of entertainment as opposed to just "that fake stuff". I'd argue it has to do with the whole superhero boom as well, since wrestling has always essentially been a live-action comic book (though WWE still hasnt completely embraced the whole "shared universe" concept, something that AEW does do), so the wrestlers are now seen as the equivalent of Marvel or DC heroes or villains.

Oh it dates back long before then, they'd actually show kids dancing to Jive Soul Bro back in the late 80s/early 90s (though it was so funky it's kind of hard not to dance), despite Slick and his guys being heels.

Being on a free service also gives it an advantage over AEW (HBO Max) and RAW (Netflix).

While this is kind of referring to another forum, I might as well ask since its an important part of IWC culture, is there a complete archive of the Death Valley Driver Video Review out there? The forum main page doesnt have nearly enough, and it was a good way to discover obscure stuff and even different takes on well known stuff.

Wow, now this is obscure:

Well. I guess we're finally getting the serious R-Truth, er, Ron Killings, we all wanted in the WWE.

It's been done, Brock had the Jimmy John's logo on his tights, and before that, Randy Savage had Slim Jim-themed tights.

I've said it elsewhere, but the amount of advertising around the arena and even on props like the MITB briefcase is getting to be way too exceessive. It's almost as if WWE has become the live-action equivalent of a merchandise-based cartoon, only much less subtle.

So getting back to SNME a bit, there's a debate going on if Jesse going after Damien Priest for simply exiting the cage through the door was essentially him crapping on the finish or just true to Jesse's character.

Lesser known giants (including footage from WCW Prime and WWF SuperAstros): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW9GTbRK2oQ&t=1s

I've posted this elsewhere but this just came to my mind, for Cena's final match, no matter who he faces, the special referee should be Kurt Angle. He's still on good terms with the company and it would be a good way to go "full circle".

The Hulk Hogan/Giant Gonzales confrontation:

Possibly Mexico?

Sabu's 1993 dark match:

I was impressed by R-Truth's interview. After years of comedy, it's good to see that he can pull off serious promos too.

To be fair, it was all behind a paywall (there's also Benoit stuff on Netflix).

Another issue is that they're skipping over shows that had Chris Benoit. Now, I have no problem with them cutting out his matches, but why get rid of the whole show? Given the format of wrestling, it's not like it affects continuity if they removed his matches.