Hawkeye12

Can they even play his real theme at this point? Or is it one of the songs that's been edited out of the Network?

Glad Hillbilly is finally going in, memorable character from the Rock n Wrestling era. Need King Kong Bundy in now from that era too.

I really enjoyed Jarrett's babyface title run in TNA, including the Raven match, and also the MMA stuff with Angle later. I never cared for most of his WCW run, although his ladder match with Benoit at Starrcade 1999 may be my personal favorite match for either guy. His stuff with Owen and Debra right up until the Chyna match was good. Having watched 1995 RAW again, he really felt like one of the top guys in the company during that period, even though he was kept in the IC title picture. Hardest part watching him in that era is his awful ring outfits and gear, it'll make you blind!

Undertaker-HBK for the retirement match is already mentioned and probably my favorite too. HHH-Steiner at the Royal Rumble, not sure what the song is at the end but was a good choice.

I've never seen the Royal Albert Hall video, so looking forward to that one. Unusual Matches was one of my favorite tapes back in the rental days, although I've seen it fifty times since I copied it back then.

I guess the Master and the Ruler of the World isn't quite as powerful as he thought he was!

No offense, but this post at this point in this thread makes your user name seem VERY ironic. Yep, I kind of dropped the ball on this topic I like that Omni '89 list if for nothing else to see Muta's TV title win over Sting. 1990 Omni gets a rare Hogan appearance vs Perfect and also a Dusty return in a mixed tag, FOUR Flair-Luger matches and another tag, LOD/Steiners vs SST/Doom cage, Steiners/Nasties cage, Doom/Windham/Arn in a cage, two Sting-Flair rematches including a Dusty finish plus odd stuff like Harley teaming with Windham and Arn in a six-man replacing Flair, Bryan Adams teaming in Demolition before he'd even been given a name, and Randy Colley getting to headline with Sting as that night's Black Scorpion. Such an odd hodge podge of nostalgia for me from my first full year as a fan I'd be happy with it.

I'll go with MSG 1984, Hulkamania's first year vs Sheik, Orndorff, Studd, Schultz, Valentine, some good Andre stuff like the tag match where he gets bloodied, Piper-Snuka (although Tonga Kid later), Slaughter-Sheik, Brawl to End it All with Richter's title win, Adonis/Murdoch as tag champs who I really enjoy, Santana-Valentine, and even an Inoki appearance sprinkled in and the end of Backlund's run vs Valentine.

RIP. One of my favorite wrestlers back in 1989 when I first got into wrestling beyond just seeing it on TV from time to time when my dad was watching, he debuted at the Fall Brawl Clash where Flair got the bag put on his head. Imagine my surprise the first time I rented WM3 and he was getting a tag win in the opener having never known he'd been in the WWF, let alone a likely tag champion had he stayed around.

I don't care who wins the Bray vs Matt singles feud, but if it leads to the Wyatts vs Hardys at some remote location preferably for WM (think Goldust vs Piper), I'm all in. Just make it better than the House of Horrors match with Orton.

For Vampiro either the human torch match vs Sting or the Graveyard match vs the Demon. Any of the boxing matches, Badd vs Flamingo, Badd vs Arn Anderson or Piper vs Bagwell. I'm sure there are more but those are what I remember. Savage vs Rodman The Ding Dongs debut (but getting destroyed and unmasked by the Skyscrapers later makes them ever debuting worth it!) The Dungeon of Doom skits certainly fit Wrestlecrap, in fact I'm not sure they didn't make up most of the original website, but those are guilty pleasures of mine.

Hogan paid to send Reid to rehab when he almost died the first time.

I actually like this match itself better than Savage/Warrior, it's the Elizabeth angle added on that makes that more special. The Adnan mistake kind detracts from it, but the story they told was great. Wrestlemania 7 is probably my second favorite WM behind 3.

Tenta was definitely a guy that you wouldn't want to mess with. Stevie Ray's recent interview when he talked about Tenta wanting to kill Arn Anderson was pretty hilarious because it was so out of character for him. But it's a credit to Tenta's professionalism that he'd later work with Kitao again AND put him over in a match five years later.

Wasn't sure what you were talking about, so made my way over to check it out. Firsty, Hogan really dislikes (or disliked) Brutus' current wife Missy, he explained that on the stand in the Gawker trial, which upset Brutus and his wife. But if they ask you about your current relationship with Brutus, and he said she'd had a bad influence on things and they weren't close anymore, obviously you are going to tell the truth under oath. That seemed to be water under the bridge though, Brutus has spoken well of Hogan recently is always posting old pics with Hulk on his twitter (he did in the last two weeks even). But looks like Hulk hung out with Brutus' ex-wife Barbie, and his daughter Alana (his own God daughter) recently, and then his ex and daughter went after Brutus' current wife, telling her they hung out with Hulk and that Hulk hates her. Apparently Brutus' ex made public that Brutus hasn't seen his oldest daughter in seven years either and he didn't like them bringing that up. So it's really a beef between the two wives. Now Brutus is going to write a tell all book or something. Hulk made a tweet about him tightening the bandana and getting himself a good lawyer, which Brutus messaged a picture of Clarence Mason, which seemed like tongue in cheek responses to each other and kind of funny. Don't know where you got anything about Hogan making moves on Brutus' current wife or alienating him from his daughter, Brutus did that to himself a while ago if the seven years are true. Looks like the twitter battle between the ladies has been going on for quite awhile if you look at their feeds. Maybe his first wife that left after the parasailing accident was the sane one in his life lol.

Monster Mash Battle Royal on WWECW with Kane, Khali, Big Daddy V and Mark Henry.

The early cards for WM8 looked like Hogan-Flair, Savage-Jake, Undertaker-Sid, LOD-Natural Disasters in a street fight as the top matches. I think the tag match even made it into the WWF Magazine preview, but LOD dropped the belts and left beforehand before returning with Ellering at the actual show.

Thought Austin was supposed to work with Pillman.

That's an interesting counter to what I've always thought. I'll have to look at that. I do think TV ratings started declining pretty sharply after the double turn but again I'd have to check old Observers. The decline in ratings the last two weeks of March was just bad timing up against the week before and especially the night after Wrestlemania, they suffered from similar drops the year before too under those circumstances. Nitro had even bounced back up to a 4.4 the night after Spring Stampede when DDP won. They did a 4.1 the following week and THEN they started dropping, only hitting a 4.0 and 4.1 in Bischoff's last two weeks in charge.

They were March 19th and 27th, so I'm sure tickets went on sale beforehand, but IIRC they were two highly successful gates during a successful tour with Hogan-Flair on top (Milwaukee was in there as well). The Auburn Hills show drew 13K, can't find an attendance for the Chicago show but I remember the live reviews were pretty good at the time as the crowd was eating up babyface Hogan and booing Flair like a real heel should be booed. So the double turn worked with the live crowds it had a chance to play too. Then Hogan left for surgery a month later, and DDP got turned heel when he won the belt, so plans went awry pretty quickly by the end of April. Before you could blink, Hogan, Goldberg, and Hart (they'd set up the big angle on Leno with Nash but Owen died the night before it was to happen) were gone for various reasons, and Savage, Sid, and Rick Steiner were the top heels.

The two big houses WCW did in Chicago and Detroit both came after the double turn, so I don't think it was that, as much as injuries (and Goldberg holding out for a bit and Bret being gone after Owen died) that dug the hole they couldn't get back out of. Both guys were really over the next month after the turn, and the heat for the Hogan/Nash vs Flair/Goldberg match on Nitro the following night was one of the last memories that felt like a huge deal, but I don't remember what RAW ran against it. Being a couple weeks before WM15 I'm sure it was huge as well.

He was definitely a babyface in WCW when he arrived and then eventually against the NWO, but he was never a babyface before he became Big Bubba in JCP until Bossman turned face in 1990.

The story I remember is that Vince thought he was getting Yoko as one of the Headshrinkers but Afa pulled a bait and switch on him. How many people would really be aware of that though? The USA was in a general hysteria about the Japanese affecting the US economy at the time, so having a big "Japanese" heel was typically jingoistic. I get the Japanese heel part of it for the wrestling character, but I'm thinking more just about his name.. Akebono was a big enough deal that I knew about it, and I was an eighth grader that didn't follow sumo or even have any way of following sumo. I knew what the term yokozuna meant because of that, and wouldn't have ever known otherwise at that age.

Personally speaking, my brother and I are the only ones I know that subscribe for the older stuff. Can't convince the other friends in our age group to subscribe, even though they can watch the whole Attitude era all over again. The younger ones are about 7 years younger and didn't start watching until 2002 or so. Not saying the others don't dip into the older stuff from time to time, but it's usually something that pops up in a collection (they didn't watch WCW but had seen the Chamber of Horrors for instance). They do watch that camp cartoon, that pranked show, the ride along show and NXT for examples. I kind of wish they'd have a wrestling Jeopardy type show, even if it's the actual wrestlers as the contestants. Have Finkel or Okerlund host it.

I've always just presumed they created Yokozuna to capitalize on the publicity that Akebono had received earlier that year in becoming the first non-Japanese yokozuna. It just happened to be a perfect fit with the right guy at the right time.