Hawkeye12

Always was impressed with Paul Orndorff. Even after his bicep injury, he stayed well proportioned. Ultimate Warrior also should be in the conversation.

Technically he is the boss so he could do that, but if they were going to that they'd just have him announce before the show he was in. But I'm just picturing them showing him and Steph watching backstage throughout the match, getting increasingly frustrated until he finally heads there himself and tosses Axel, or whomever is 30th, out of the way to take it into his own hands. He could threaten to fire them I suppose if it was a babyface, but having Axel get screwed again is better for continuity.

I think Axel will get number 30, but HHH will jump him and take his spot to try and get to Reigns when he still hasn't been eliminated. Then Axel keeps his gimmick another year and they find a way for HHH to enter (and probably win it) without having to announce him being in beforehand.

Definitely didn't have UPN here at home, or at my college (both in Iowa) in the early years. During Summer 2001 when I was home, during the Invasion I found it at midnight on one of our local affiliates. Maybe it had been there the whole time and I just didn't know though. I honestly had never heard of UPN until Smackdown started.

Patera was in the Giants documentary, on behalf of Big John Studd. He's on the Hogan-Piper Rivalries episode too IIRC. I mentioned him previously as a potential candidate, could have Mark Henry induct him as a fellow former Olympian strongman.

I never cared for the Dungeon much back then (although I'm a fan of almost every member of the original group individually), but I've grown to really enjoy the stuff. The week by week introductions of the characters with Sullivan and King Curtis were actually kind of cool in retrospect. And it all served as a vehicle to push the Giant anyway, which worked incredibly well. The colorful guys were just garnish and they really didn't last long in the main events, really just the Wargames and even that was all about Giant destroying Hogan to set up his debut and also kickstarting the Luger-Savage feud. And I liked Luger's role in the Dungeon once he turned heel but stay allied with Sting. Probably gets a plus grade from me now in hindsight. It was still good enough to beat the WWF in those early MNW battles. And the image of the crazy misfits charging to the ring in the middle of the Mall of America will be an image that I'll never forget!

It'll be Big Show & Kane. How about a Booker/Goldust reunion? At least makes for potentially entertaining promos between the sides.

With Cena and Sting out, I wouldn't mind seeing Undertaker and Kurt Angle one more time if he's done with TNA by that point.

I think it was the last 1990 episode on there. It's supposed to be Angel of Death vs. Billy Joe Travis in an instrument on a pole match, but Angel claims injury and has Tim Talltree, dressed like a jungle savage, take his place with the awesome backstory that he found him on an island and he can climb trees faster than anyone lol.

Anybody know who the Boogeyman is from the USWA episodes? Thinking Tom Renesto/Tim Talltree from the previous 1990 episode?

Probably not the biggest, but I always wanted to see an Austin-Rock-HHH triple threat match, but they switched up that night at Survivor Series 1999 when Austin needed off and I don't think it ever happened. Hogan-Austin and Sting-Undertaker for WWE, and Goldberg-Savage for WCW are ones I'd have personally wanted to see but were never really positioned to happen.

Yea but what is bad about that? I never understood why that was apparently some big no-no, it was one of the most iconic matches in history and it's not like people didn't know Warrior beat him. Hogan's point in the interview was that dredging it up meant it took some of the heat out of the build-up. Yea but that's just Hogan bullshit. I've seen that before he says something like "why would they want to see us wrestle again you already told them you could beat me?" which would essentially mean Hogan thinks no one ever wants to see rematches. Ever. It wasn't so much that he brought it up since it was based on the past match, but he said he wasn't back to beat him again because that was too easy and no big deal since everyone else already had too. Yes, top heels lose three fourths of the time one way or another, Flair did it for years, but nobody ever came out and pointed that out quite like that. It was just an odd direction for him to go. Not even sure Warrior did it with that intention, but it came off terrible how he just dismissed Hogan as not even being a challenge on the very first night.

With all the Starrcade events being available in the PPV section, even the ones that predated PPV. I hope to see Crockett Cups and Superstars on the Superstation get added too. I'd like to see the Japan Supershows and Kollision in Korea added as well. And the Turner releases of the Great American Bash show's pre-1988.

It was definitely GDTV the first two or three weeks. And they've acknowledged that Tom Green was a plan for it on some of their talking head shows before, I think it was even Russo that mentioned it. But I still bet even that came after Goldust left, it's just been so long they don't remember how it actually started anymore. Chaz's "mother"/girlfriend was Marianna.

Honestly believe that Andre was basically justified in his feud too. AND DiBiase was. I covered this in great detail on a show once. But essentially Tunney screwed him. Orndorff too. When you watch the build to it, Hogan is just a total asshole and Paul comes off as totally right to be pissed at him. Since the Network launched I think the biggest revelation is that Hulk Hogan should have been the heel in almost every feud if we used actual logic and not wrestling logic. Remember he pulled Sid out of the ring when he was eliminated in the '92 Rumble? Sid did absolutely nothing wrong, and Hogan acted like a petulant child when he didn't get his way. He is supposed to be our hero. Flair, who we are supposed to believe was the heel, fought tooth and nail to overcome humongous odds to win the match, and we're supposed to boo him. Sid specifically sat back and then only chose to dump Hogan, that's still acceptable enough in the case of the Rumble. But then he chose to taunt Hogan and talk trash afterwards (not mentioned during the live Rumble for whatever reason and then noted in the redub) instead of actually trying to win. If that was real sports, yes, Sid is most definitely an arrogant "heel". And that's more childish than Hogan responding IMO. Doesn't mean he can't still be "cool" to some though. Think Terrell Owens scoring the touchdown against the Cowboys, but then standing on the star against Dallas and acting like a jerk. Sure everyone that hates the Cowboys likes it just like Hogan-haters are glad Sid dumped him, but it does make him the bad guy in the situation. And George Teague taking a cheap shot at him is perfectly acceptable comeuppance (and then Emmitt Smith responding in kind when he scored later), just as Hogan grabbing Sid was. Again, celebrating victory is fine, taunting is not, and then hubris rightfully cost him the match and Flair still won.

It was before Hogan arrived, around March '94. They did have a tag match vs. Arn and Steamboat that's on youtube.

Gang and Sasaki was actually taped at Starrcade 1995. I'm guessing they just wanted the belt back in the US after blowing off the angle with New Japan at the PPV, and also allowed Sasaki to save face at home by claiming he didn't really lose it. Clearly the WCW "Board of Directors" reviewed the tape and agreed with the original decision, recognizing Gang as the official winner

One I always hated, trying the sunset flip on Muckan Singh/Norman/Bastion Booger to set up his sit down finisher. Those poor jobbers just couldn't help themselves I guess, maybe they always thought they'd be the one to flip him over lol.

Actually when DDP had first talked to Malone and took the idea to Bischoff, Eric wanted to do Hogan/Rodman vs. Savage/Malone. But since DDP put the match together, both outside the ring and then training the NBA guys, he did eventually get his deserved spot in the matches. And Savage was injured the month before, so worked out that way anyhow. Goldberg was supposed to team with Kevin Greene against Hennig and the Giant at Bash at the Beach also in his own celebrity tie in, before they switched them to singles matches when he won the belt and spread out Hennig and the Giant as challengers instead.

I liked all of the first four and watch them often. Women's match in '87 was great, the Bigelow run but Andre still surviving, the 10 on 10 tag team at '88 and the next step in the Megapowers exploding to end the night, Jake using Damian to get the heels out of the ring in '89, Bossman bloodying Dusty after losing, and then 1990 with the debut of the Undertaker and DiBiase-Bret to end it (first time I saw Bret as a potential singles guy), a brief Hogan-Barbarian showdown to end their match (closest to a singles match they ever had!), and Tito surviving and making the grand finale. Even the Visionaries all surviving was a first time for a whole team.

Considering they used a Karl Malone aisleway run in (complete with diamond cutter IIRC) during the Goldberg title win at the Georgia Dome, ensuring Bill's win got mentioned when they showed said highlight on every sports show, and then had him do a run in post Road Wild main event to destroy Hogan and Bischoff and to get in all the pictures with Leno that appeared on all the mainstream shows and in newspapers (even wearing his title belt the entire time!), I haven't a clue where he was buried or had his legs cut out under him. In fact, I'd argue they made sure to put him over to the largest audiences outside of Nitro that they possible could as quickly as they possibly could. It was strapping a rocket to the guy and putting him into the mainstream from the very night he won the belt until he was on the cover of magazines within months! I'm not sure how so many smart wrestling minds over the years have ignored that stuff but it never gets brought up. They couldn't have bent over backwards any more to help him achieve his superstardom and "make" him.

I never bought the "Hogan only put him over to get the win over him", largely because if that WAS the case it would've happened. Never heard Nash mention it either and you would think he would know. And then recently I watched a shoot with Kevin Sullivan, and he said he had an idea for a whole angle where Hogan would end up coming back and getting the first victory over Goldberg. Hogan would lock himself in seclusion studying the Goldberg match, and they'd show training vignettes with Hulk going back to his Japan "shooter" roots, while being mocked by his NWO brothers for his obsession behind his back, and then Hogan wins the rematch when Goldberg misses the spear in the corner and knocks himself out. Then they'd have the rubber match and both come out of it babyfaces together against the NWO (like Rock at WMX8). It was a pretty well detailed long term angle, and he said he pitched it to Hogan and he was open to doing it. But Bischoff and others didn't like it so it never gained any traction. If they didn't even have Hogan beat Goldberg with a pretty great angle like he presented, I can't imagine Hogan beating Goldberg was ever something that was supposed to happen. I do think they'd have rematched on the NBC special in February 1999 based on the Fingerpoke, but unfortunately that didn't happen when the NBA strike ended. Same with Raven and Roddy Piper that was dropped about a week after it started on the Nitro vignette when they knew the show wasn't going to happen.

I remember a few years back when Sting did a conference call with TNA, he mentioned never having a problem with Hogan coming in to be the top guy because that was best for everyone there. But he did have a problem with Savage coming in later and jumping him as well. He admitted he was given some creative control from that point forward. That likely quelled his worries a great deal and likely made him eager to stay there from that point.

The plan at one point during the Fall was to do Hogan-Hart at Starrcade '99, so definitely some truth to that, but Russo came in and obviously plans changed. Bret returned to TV at Fall Brawl '99 and shook hands with Hogan and Sting IIRC before their title match. By the time Hogan was back in February, Bret was done so the best they settled for an angle was Hart laying out Hogan at the end of a TV (can't remember if it was Nitro or Thunder but they cut off the air before showing what happened as a cliffhanger for the next one).

I think DDP was held back because of his friendship more than he was ever pushed because of it. He had to have Nash and Hall go to bat for him when he did get over specifically because Bischoff didn't want anyone thinking he was pushed based of their history together. Thankfully timing worked out perfectly and anyone complaining about DDP by 1997 was either jealous or burying their head in the sand because he didn't "look" like a superstar deserving of the reactions he was getting. And of course, his matches were always near the best on any card with a wider variety of opponents than most.