Shatter_Machine

I was driving around today at work thinking this exact thing. Gang was a great monster heel in World Class and Mid-South, but he was content to squash jobbers and lay down for Hogan by the time he got the to the WWF. I imagine that he would have been an HUGE draw as an opponent if he'd been there in 85 or 86. Sika was in his early 40's and was slowing down pretty quickly; Killer Khan was also 40 in 1987, and 40 back then was a lot older for a wrestler than it is now. Khan retired right after his run with Hogan, so at least he went out on top.

As is my tendency, I dug a little deeper and looked at Hogan's defenses during the first reign. He had a steady diet of really solid opponents from 1984 through mid '87, then it became a parade of stiffs. In 1984, he had defenses against Masked Superstar, Iron Sheik, Paul Orndorff, David Shultz, John Studd, Tiger Chung Lee, Afa, Sika, Greg Valentine, Moondog Rex, George Steele, Bob Orton, Kamala, El Canek, Jesse Ventura, Mr. Fuji, Roddy Piper, Nikolai Volkoff, Terry Gibbs, and Brutus Beefcake 1985: Johnny Rodz, Tatsumi Fujinami, Beefcake, Piper, Orndorff, Ken Patera, Orton, Don Muraco, Studd, Volkoff, King Kong Bundy, Valentine, Randy Savage, Rusty Brooks, and Terry Funk 1986: Orton, Bundy, Savage, Muraco, Moondog Spot, Adrian Adonis, Orndorff, Hercules, and Kamala (most of this year was split between Savage and Orndorff) in 1987, it starts okay, with Hercules, Kamala, Orndorff, Bundy, Andre the Giant, Harley Race, Orton, and Savage, through August, then in the middle of the year, it just falls off the table with One Man Gang, Killer Khan, and Sika. There's more matches with Bundy, and a few with Ted DiBiase and a one-off with Butch Reed, but it really looks like they were just totally out of guys for Hogan to go up against by the time he lost the title. They had Rick Rude, who wasn't ready, Bigelow wasn't ready, and Hogan had beaten everyone else in the company. What were they going to do, turn Hillbilly Jim heel?

Dude, There wasn't anything underwhelming about Hogan's ring work during that first reign, especially the first year. I would say his ringwork was good until you hit 87 and he got really formula. I know when I watched a lot of house shows from this era he was in the best or the second best match of the night. There were good matches with Muraco, Savage, Orndorff, Bundy, Orton and even random TV stuff with Johnny Rodz. The Piper matches always disappointed but I put that on Piper more than I do Hogan. I guess "underwhelming" was the wrong word. It's just that I've always felt that Hogan, even before he got settled into the formula, was a little to kick-punch for my liking. I've seen a tiny bit of his early 80's Japan stuff, and he was just so much better there. (I know everyone says that, I just felt the need to point it out again, because maybe that horse is still breathing a little.) He definitely worked to the level of his opponent when he was there with Muraco, Savage, Orndorff, and the rest. Piper had a tendency to drag him down, but the charisma was able to overcome the sub-par in-ring product. It was the same with Studd, Bundy, and even Andre. I don't think Hogan was bad in the ring by any stretch, I just will never be blown away by his technical prowess. He told great stories in the ring, at least until he started constantly telling the same one over and over again, and to me, that's what made his first title reign probably the best ever.

I'm a huge believer in Hogan's first title run. He proved that overwhelming charisma could overcome underwhelming ring work and make a shitload of money. Harley Race's five reigns as NWA World Champion from February of 77 until June of 81 in which he dropped the title for a total of 21 days. Savage's I-C title reign in 1986-87; HTM's from '87-'88.

For the most recent Attitude Era unseen match set they would use a combination on some matches of fancam and pro shot. Kind of cool. it surprises me that they'd use this stuff, because of their tyranny about footage showing up on youtube in the past. It's cool that we can see it, but I'm just shocked that they'd deal with people who recorded stuff "illegally".

I'd include the Fritz - Bundy angle from when Fritz retired, and maybe the Precious - Sunshine switch. Throw in some of the Flair promos and add it to what everyone else has said, and I can't think of anything else to add from the glory years.

Since they found The Last Battle of Atlanta, I would hope they have, as a start: Koloff winning the title from Bruno (don't know if there's footage) Stasiak winning the title from Morales (same) A complete version of Backlund's title win over Graham (this was on an ancient CV, and possibly the history of the WWE Championship DVD, but I'd like to see the whole thing) The Savage - Bad News Brown match after Savage's heel turn in '89 where Bad News got the babyface reaction

There's a lot of good Mask-Dynamite matches out there, but this is certainly not one I would search out. I got the Highspots Tiger Mask comp a while back, and they packed it with Dynamite Kid matches, including this. I think the crowd heat (what there was of it) is mostly anger about them just going through the paces.

Is this the match where Dynamite breaks the bottle on the ringpost to attack him with? They keep ringing the bell and restarting the match and without English commentary, it's super hard to follow.

I'm so tired of the bait and switch (or this case bait and bait and bait) with Nakamura.

I think everything they do is a way to try to get Roman over as the #1 babyface in the company. Job Jericho to Samoa Joe? It's a way to make all Samoans look stronger. Stronger Samoans means that Roman looks better. It all makes sense if you stop and look at it this way.

I think they put Braun over Roman to "build some sympathy" for Roman. Nothing else has worked, so why not try the guy who fights through injuries to defeat an unstoppable monster? It might actually have had some legs if he hadn't beaten him clean in the middle of the ring a month and a half ago.

It's hard to fathom the TV rating that this drew (87? Holy shit!). I feel like the crowd really made this so much more enjoyable, because it's a whole lot of grappling and not much else. (Somehow when I copy and pasted this from Word, it removed all of my apostrophes. How annoying.)

1957.10.13 JWA at Korakuen Stadium, Tokyo Lou Thesz (Champion) Vs Rikidozan They work a pretty good pace early on, but theres no way they can keep it up. They go to the mat for a bit, and Thesz works a short-arm scissors. This being the 1950s, they spend a LOT of time on the mat. Rikidozan works a leg lock in the middle of the ring, but Thesz wont give up. Thesz eventually makes the ropes for the break, but hes in a bad way. He does a great job of playing the heel, constantly backing away from Rikidozan, wrestling very defensively. Rikidozan takes him down with a hammerlock and works that on the mat. Thesz eventually escapes that, but Rikidozan takes him back down with a body scissor. They work some spots around that, including a near-fall. Thesz takes a shoulderblock and goes down for a four-count, but they come back to neutral. Rikidozan takes him down with a headlock, and thats the hold they work around for little while. Thesz attempts to murder him with a STIFF AS HELL backdrop suplex, then he gets a full body ride for a couple of near-falls. Thesz tries like mad to hold his shoulders down, and Rikidozan uses a damn near superhuman effort to keep them up, eventually reversing. They go to neutral again, and Rikidozan takes him over with a headlock again. Thesz tries the backdropper again, but Rikidozan blocks it and takes him down again. Very nice callback to earlier. Lather, rinse, repeat. They go to standing, and Rikidozan just NAILS him with an elbow and a chop. More headlockery, but Thesz gets a rollover into a cradle for 2. And again. When Rikidozan counters back to sitting, Thesz lifts him and drops him on his spine and rolls him back over. Rikidozan manages to escape and he gets an Indian Deathlock. Thesz reverses into a press, which Rikidozan reverses into a press. This has a very amateur feel to it, like if pro wrestling was a legitimate contest, this is what it would look like. Riki takes him over with the headlock, which gets a big pop. I swear to god, this match is about 37 minutes in, and it has been about 30 minutes of Rikidozan having Thesz in a headlock. Thesz takes him down and gets a keylock, so at least theyre changing things up, I guess. Rikidozan reverses that into a keylock of his own, and hes got Thesz on the mat. Thesz is almost to the ropes, and the film jumps a bit (WTF, its almost 60 years old, I can live with a few seconds missing). Thesz worms his way to the ropes, then begs off. Hes great, yelling at the officials at ringside. I always thought of him as such a gentleman and awesome technical wrestler that I never realized how awesome of a heel he was. He was never the best heel, mostly because he was around at the same time as Buddy Rogers (who he wrestled circles around), but he certainly held his own. Rikidozan goes back to the keylock and holy shit this is going to a time-limit draw with no falls on either side. Thesz makes the ropes again, we break again. Back to standing, and Rikidozan shoots him off the ropes and hits a press slam (!) for 2, but Thesz is in the ropes. Chops back and forth, and Thesz is down in the corner. And then along the ropes. He runs, and gets in some cheap shots. Rikidozan fires back, and they start trading forearms and chops. Rikidozan slams him for 2, and Thesz apparently has to answer the 10-count. What a bullshit rule. The bell rings, and we have a time-limit draw. It was mind-tinglingly boring, but cool to see Thesz in his prime (although Im thinking this was definitely on the downside at least of that) and way cool to see Rikidozan at all. Im thinking the date I have is incorrect, because Cagematch.net has the time limit draw with no falls as 10/7/57. I will leave it labeled as-is, because thats what it is on the DVD. (*** ½ 60:00)

I think it would have worked if they'd loaded the rest of the card up, and not gone with some of the garbage that was on the commercial videotape. (I know that some of it was highlights from other locations and dates, but they put some serious junk on that tape. Thank God there's only about five minutes of that Luger - Koloff U.S. Title switch.) I think if you're going to have all your singles champions in one match, then you need to push the team aspect to its utmost and feature tag matches up and down the card, while still breaking it up with good, long singles matches to prevent people from getting burned out. Based on the talent available at the time, they could have kept the War Games and moved the rest of the card around to make it more enticing to order. There's a ton of great ideas on the tour, including what might be the earliest teaming of Steve Williams and Terry Gordy that I've seen (7/18/87) against Eddie Gilbert and Dick Murdoch. I would have moved the War Games to the end of the month instead of leading off the tour with it to build interest, and I think I might have done something like this, taking only names that I see worked the tour: War Games (Flair/Blanchard/Anderson/Luger/Dillon Vs Rhodes/Koloff/Hawk/Animal/Ellering) NWA Tag Titles: Rock N Roll Express © Vs Sheepherders US Tag Titles: Midnight Express © Vs Lightning Express Texas Death Match: Steve Williams Vs Dick Murdoch From there, I'd take the mid-card guys and fill in random singles and six-man matches, using guys like Barry Windham, Sting, Eddie Gilbert, the Freebirds, Paul Jones' goon squad, and so on. Maybe put Barry Windham against someone other than a totally useless (at this point) Rick Steiner for 10 minutes, like Eddie Gilbert or Chris Adams. They didn't do a lot of ten-man tags back then, but they could have fit a bunch of guys in like New Japan does on their shows by doing Hayes/Roberts/Gordy/Garvin/Garvin Vs Manny/Barbarian/Steiner/Koloff/Jones or somesuch. This is just off the top of my head with out a whole bunch of research.

He'd have to have a real passion for wrestling to want to do it. He made pretty good money in the NFL, and was in the league long enough to pile up some nagging injuries. I'm sure he saw what being on the road all the time did to his father, and I wonder if he'd want to put his family through that, especially if money wasn't really an issue?

Good. I hope it doesn't stop there. WWE deserves so much shit for this. It reminds me a lot of the sexual harassment culture that started coming out last year at Fox News.

Anyone else get the feeling with all the surprise moves (and by that I mean not letting us know beforehand who's moving and just having them show up) that they're trying to recreate the "anything can happen" feeling of the Monday Night Wars tm era?

Mauro comes off as being a bit of an undeserving martyr in this because everyone hates JBL. JBL might be the worst announcer that WWE has, outside of Byron Saxton (and now they're together, joy.) and I think that he was made to feel a little inferior by Mauro's popularity and dedication during his year or so with the company. I knew when Mauro signed with WWE that his tenure would not be long, because either Vince would get tired of him, he would grate on people, or he would self-destruct. I didn't think that it would be a combination of the latter two. Based on all the stories that I've come across, Mauro has had his battles with mental illness, leading to him creating a lot of his own problems, and needling JBL about something that he had to know wouldn't fly with the corporate higher ups was another classic case of a bi-polar person being willfully self-destructive. My guess is that nothing will happen to JBL, because nothing ever happens to JBL. If he didn't get fired for doing the Nazi salute and goose-stepping in-ring in GERMANY, bullying someone until they sit out the rest of their announcing contract is a relatively minor offense, in the grand scheme of things.

Hi. I'm Sean. I discovered this board after becoming a more regular podcast listener when a new job put me in the car for 5-6 hours a day. It's a really great alternative to places like Wrestling Classics or Kayfabe Memories, which are full of crotchety old bastards who just hate on everything they see instead of seeking out different things to watch. It's like being on a damn Facebook group moderated by my drunk uncle. Huge wrestling fan since about 1983 or so, when I was a wee lad of about 6. I followed mostly AWA, WWF, and Georgia as a kid since they were on cable where I grew up. When I moved to Pennsylvania in 1986, I was pretty much limited to WWF and NWA on TBS, although I did watch AWA on ESPN when it was on. I later fell in love with World Class thanks to the reruns on ESPN. I was the kid everybody made fun of in middle school and high school for being a wrestling fan, but I didn't care. I had a "Hulk Rules" shirt as a kid, and I'm not ashamed. I used to set up a huge arena in my basement and have matches with all my action figures when I couldn't watch on TV. I had a collection of LJN figures that I bought on Ebay as an adult. Started fading out of watching in about 2002 after Hogan beat HHH for the title and drifted in and out of fanhood for a long time, until I caught New Japan on AXS and got hooked again right away. I got into American Indies, Japan, and more recently, some British stuff. Can't get into ROH for some reason. I was fortunate enough to have a friend that was liquidating his entire DVD and Blu-Ray wrestling collection after digitizing it, so I've got a bunch of Chikara and PWG to go through. My wife is very tolerant of my hobby, although if she has to sit through another 7 hour PPV, she might not be. I own autographed photos of me with the Road Warriors, Ric Flair, and I was once able to meet Lou Thesz when I was in the Navy. I've got a couple of championship belts and I've been to about 250 live shows, mostly independents and local promotions. I once went to a Halloween party as Roddy Piper and it got me laid. I totally understand why WWE signs old stars and then has them lose constantly. Someone has to lose. I don't blame Hogan for anything. He made money for everyone he ever worked with. I don't dislike Vince McMahon, but I wish he'd take his f'ing kids off TV. I can't, for the life of me, understand the appeal of Chris Hero. I can't wait to interact with all the people here who share the same level of passion that I have for wrestling.