JRH

Wrestling shows held outside. Love the atmosphere of those shows. EDIT: Bright colored ring attire. It doesnt work for everyone, but when it can be pulled off well (the usos, savage, etc), it offers a unique look.

I was watching an episode of Wrestling With Wregret where the host was pointing out that there were never any "smart" (ie, highly intellectual) or "rich" (think million dollar man) characters given to faces. It made me wonder, are there any characterizations that are strictly for babyfaces or heels? Since the 90s we've seen characters that one would think would be a face get over as heels (ie, kurt angle: amateur champion), and we've seen heelish characters get over as faces (val venis comes to mind). Bear in mind, this isnt really about the crowd causing the character to become a face or heel, its more about how the character is initally portrayed (otherwise i would have used undertaker and austin and the nwo as examples of heels who got face pops).

Here's a truly obscure one. The 80s comic "Whisper" had an issue where the main character was in a fight in a hotel room. On the tv was a WWF program (not a fictional wrestling federation, but the WWF itself), and while you never saw the screen in the comic, the commentary could be "heard", and it related to the fight happening in the comic. I have no idea which issue it was, not to mention it was a pretty obscure comic to begin with, but i found it neat.

Does anyone think that home video had a big part to play in the popularity of pro wrestling in the 80s? Not just the WWF videos, but other promotions as well. For the first time, it was easily possible to see wrestlers/promotions/storylines that fans may have just have heard about, as well as seeing the early years of certain wrestlers. Along with the rise of cable, this had a big impact on the expansion era IMO.

The Nasty Boys first wcw theme from 1990. It was a cool bluesy rock tune that cant be found anywhere on youtube. Also, i've been looking for a version of the instrumental version of Girls in Cars for a while with no luck.

If you think about it, it shows how ECW had its pulse on popular culture compared to WWF and WCW, at least music-wise. Around the 1993-97 time frame, WCW was pretty much using anthemic hair metal-sounding theme songs (Man called Sting, American Made, Pillman's 1995 theme). While i like that type of music, it wasnt exactly setting the world on fire at the time, and WWF themes, while having some iconic ones from that time period (bret's second theme, sexy boy, diesel blues, razor's theme, austin's second theme) was either doing gimmick-based themes (yokozuna's "Japanese" theme, hunter's classical music theme) or incredibly generic songs (123 kid and austin's first theme come to mind). Meanwhile, ECW was using themes that were both popular at the time and likely well-liked by the ECW audience.

Actually, wrestling video games are a good entryway too. I myself got into wrestling thanks to the old Wrestlemania NES game (yeah, i know, but in 1989-90 it was considered good). Hogan, Andre, and Savage were mainstream and known to me, but i wanted to learn more about Honky Tonk Man, Ted Dibiase, and especially Bam Bam Bigelow, so i started watching the weekly show and getting old tapes to fill in the gap. Find a game with classic wrestlers thats not too complex (no overly complicated button combos to do moves), and it may lead to the child wanting to know more about the wrestlers in the games.

Its a dark horse canidate, but how about Larry Zbyszko? Obviously not as a headliner, but he could be one of the more minor inductees. I've seen him as a talking head on some WWE documentaries so he must have a good relationship with the company. They could just emphasize how hot the bruno/larry feud was in the video package to educate the fans, and have Bruno induct him. The only problem is that the majority of his best work was in the 70s, and the WWE HOF is starting to de-emphasize their 70s stuff (aside from Bruno of course) to focus more on 80s-00s wrestlers.

KOTR 1994. People mock it for Art Donovan and Piper/Lawler, but there are some real gems on this show. Not just Kid/Owen and Bret/Diesel, but i liked Razor/Bigelow, Kid/Jarrett, and Owen/Tatanka as well. Also, i watched No Mercy 2004 a while ago and was shocked at how much i enjoyed it. It came during a really weak period for Smackdown, yet i was entertained by the whole show, even JBL/Undertaker. While i would never put it in a best ppv of all time category, it was an enjoyable enough show.