Champagne

Indeed. Every time Triple H is featured as a top tier guy, I die a little inside.

Terrific episode as usual. I'm already looking forward to your multi-part 89 shows. More great in-ring product that unfortunately failed at the box office. Your point about WCW being a horribly-run organization from day one is spot on. It's a shame too, since they had an ideal roster to build a wrestling company with IMO. Has a promotion ever had such obvious can't miss future superstars than WCW did at this point in Luger, Sting and Windham (and Rick Steiner to a lesser extent)?

That's a great idea!

I'd be interested in this. Sounds like fun.

None are nominated. Are they worthy for a top 100 GWE spot? I can't see a case for any of them. You're probably right. I just didn't want to be presumptuous.

Here's a few more to consider: Ron Bass, Black Bart, Bobby Duncum Sr. and Jr., Blackjack Mulligan and Blackjack Lanza, Scott Irwin, Billy and Bart Gunn, Sam Houston

I find the "me playing the game" style of update is the easiest, but I did enjoy your WON esque report.

Great work building up to this PPV. I've really enjoyed reading this thread and Grimmas WCW one. I might give it a try myself with another territory in 83.

I'm a 40 year old fan from the Great White North, near Calgary to be exact. My first exposure to wrestling was actually through the Rock N' Wrestling Connection and later the cartoon. I didn't really become a fan though until catching an episode of the WWF's syndicated show in late 87. I was hooked immediately and watched everything available on TV in the area (WWF, Stampede, AWA and TSN's Pro Wrestling Plus) and bought every issue of WWF magazine and the Apter mags. I rented VHS tapes of older shows from local video stores and talked about wrestling with my friends who were into it. My first live card was seeing a WWF show in the summer of 1988 headlined by Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Andre the Giant. A few months later, the Hulkster came to town and wrestled the Big Boss Man. In between I went to see Wrestlemania IV and V on closed circuit at the local arena. In early 1990, I got the Superstation TBS and was finally able to watch WCW after reading about the promotion for years. My fandom was such that I subscribed to the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Weekly Newsletter and I "watched" WWF and WCW PPVs by listening to the scrambled broadcast on my cable box. Wrestling's down period in the early and mid-90s coincided with my late teens and the various activities involved with that. My interest waned slightly but I still kept up on the happenings and checked out the major shows and PPVs. It was Hulk Hogan's turn that brought me back into wrestling full time. I was again watching everything I could and, after looking into Japanese wrestling, started watching Puroresu tapes. I even ended up taking a trip to Japan in 2000 to see the NJPW Jan. 4 Tokyo Dome show and All Japan at Budokon Hall. I tuned out during Triple H's reign of error, but have kept up with the current product by reading recaps online. I now get my fix by watching old matches, listening to classic wrestling podcasts and reading boards like PWO. It's hard to pick favourites, but I enjoy watching 89-90 Steiner Brothers, The Great Muta, Kenta Kobashi, Bret Hart, Randy Savage, Rick Rude, pre-accident Kerry Von Erich, fired-up babyface Rick Martel, modern Jay Briscoe, frequently injured Franchise era-Shane Douglas and grumpy old men Genichiro Tenryu and Ivan Koloff.

How about Rikidozan? He was Japan's first star in-ring performer. He created the first promotion in the country. He trained Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba.