PeteF3

That email was from Scotsman, if anyone remembers him.

Right, and that hotline plug came during the time when Flair was off TV, trying to fool fans into thinking it was he who was dead. I'm not sure about the Marella thing...I'm in the camp that that was just an awkward situation all around. I'd like to think that Vince had Gorilla's input and blessing on how to handle that. Forget kayfabe for a second--announcing that Joey was dead immediately and then having him on TV for 3 weeks just sounds morbid.

On the Buddy Landell Memorial episode of Exile on Badstreet, it was mentioned that Watts preferred his chicken-shit heels to be guys who *chose* not to fight, but could if they wanted to--he felt that being a coward strictly by choice drew more heat. About the only true wimpy heel he pushed hard was Cornette, who would understandably be excused from these rules. (As an off-topic question, does Cornette drink much at all? I've heard Cornette tell 9 million stories over the years and I recall precisely zero of them containing any sentence to the effect of, "I was hammered, and then...")

Not that toughness or legit skills don't matter, but in real fights, what tends to matter the most is who gets the first shot in. "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face."

If he had even an ounce of charisma he could have passed for a third Fabulous One.

I'm pretty sure the early-'90s Pete Sanchez was a different guy, but I could be wrong. Edit: Kelly brings up the possibility two seconds after I hit Post. The '90s Sanchez was a tubby guy with a darker complexion.

Maybe, but SMW aired in a number of non-"Smoky" markets for whatever reason. We even picked it up on a low-power non-cable station here in Columbus, Ohio.

Add Winnipeg to the Jake/Hogan market list--there's a Jake promo for it out there. The strongest evidence in favor of the DDT Snake Pit existing (which I know isn't really that up for debate) is that in the Providence promo, Ken Resnick makes mention of Hogan taking powder to the eyes on the Pit and gaining revenge on Jake by doing the same to him in the clip shown. And we know they *did* do localized angles on occasion, though the only others I can think of are Killer Khan misting Hogan on another Snake Pit and Hillbilly Jim taking down Andre with the horseshoe on the interview podium. But those aired in Boston and NYC respectively, which is why those are in wider circulation.

I think one of the big things holding these matches up is, "What's the finish?" That was certainly the case with Inoki-Maeda, and it doubtless would have been with something like Bruno-Andre as well. It's easy to book two guys together in a dream match, but the company will have to continue to make money going forward and it's not as easy to have a plan for where to go afterward.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3h9zzf I have little of note to say here, but I stumbled across this random episode of 1984 AWA the other day, and two things jumped out: At the 1:29 mark you get a rarity and hype for a match that I never knew happened: Bobby Heenan cutting a promo AGAINST Ric Flair. He was going to be in Harley Race's corner for an NWA title rematch in St. Louis. Seeing Bobby make fun of Ric's lifestyle and complaining about how he cheated to win the title is surreal--as surreal as the idea of Jesse Ventura kissing up to Hogan. Also at the beginning, for some reason you hear the World Class fanfare under Harley's promo.

There are definitely instances of Vader calling himself to get tossed around where it didn't make sense, particularly against Flair. Still, the vast majority of his WCW babyface opponents were guys who were pushed as believably being able to do that--the Steiners, Sting, and Davey Boy.

Of all the minutiae we get into on these shows, THAT'S something we're going to keep under wraps? A statement that's borderline-slanderous on its own?

Terrific segment that's built up to and sold brilliantly by Ross, Sarge, the Dude, and the announcers. Vince's reaction is great and it's pretty clear that they already have the MSG endgame in mind.

*Yawn* Seen it. Styles' silent shock at Beulah getting abused is old hat, too--that well has been gone to WAY too many times for it to actually get heat anymore. Same angle as last week except this time Sandman gets buried as well. Taz once again makes a save a day late and a dollar short.

Pretty sure the first brawl between the two was the week before, judging by James Beard acting like Travis is gone for good and Christopher wearing different tights. James doesn't look all that professional in his Vince McMahon workout pants. Dutch uses a loophole to bring Travis back into the USWA and that kickstarts a hell of a studio brawl involving Dutch, Doomsday, Travis, Christopher, and Lawler.

"HOW DID HE GET PAST SECURITY?" WHAT security, Michael?

Not a bad match, but not a result that was ever remotely in doubt. That's fine for Jun's level in '97, but it does bring to mind why he's getting a TC shot. I guess the lack of depth was really hurting AJPW at this point, because who are you going to replace him with? Albright again? Omori? Neither of those match-ups are all that inspiring. The bloom is not only off AJPW as a whole but it's really off Misawa as a worker--facially he looks like he's aged 15 years in the past 4 and while he's still good, this is yet another match of his that's sort of going through the motions. Akiyama showed more energy in his counters and his occasional big bombs than Misawa did for most of the match.

Wippleman was tight with Sid from their days in Memphis, and between that and the guaranteed WM main event clause Sid seemed to have more leverage in his contract negotiations than anyone in history until the big Bret Hart signing in '96. I learned a week or two ago that Big Bully Busick was basically brought in entirely on Sid's request as well.

Some of these segments seemed like overkill (we got like 3 or 4 different hype spots for the Undertaker-HHH match alone). I did like how they made a concerted effort to make the Friday Night Main Event show have a completely different "feel" from Raw.

Yeah, they did take care to have Marlena be the one to accept the stip, IIRC over Goldust's objections. Pillman cuts an innuendo-laden promo, that's actually about as racy as any Val Venis promo, since it's almost insulting to refer to these blunt-as-a-sledgehammer puns as "innuendo."

Some prescient stuff here as Austin accuses the same guy in the office of signing all of these get-well pictures.

Pretty sure we've seen Tunney in this exact office before. Footage follows from the Broken Skull Ranch itself, where Austin only wants to speak with someone of authority. He then reconsiders--I assume this is the segment where he shoots crossbows at the images of various WWF wrestlers and executives.

"This is the man who has defended the title more times in one year than Sting has even wrestled!" Check and mate to Mr. Bischoff! Hogan: "Riddle me this, riddle me that / Who the hell is Sting without the big, bad bat?" Hogan makes some other comments towards Sting that somehow feel more personal than the Arn stuff with Nash. This honestly felt more like a burial than the Horsemen parody, and then we get Dillon being embarrassed again just like has happened for his entire stint. Why ISN'T Sting here, anyway?? Hogan comes off as insecure and not entirely in a scaredy-cat heel way. Schiavone rips off his headset in disgust in a great moment.

There was also supposed to be a cardboard cutout or mannequin here to represent Benoit, which would have been pretty funny in its own right, but for whatever reason that didn't happen. Nash's Arn is so good that the first time I saw this, I actually thought it was Randy Savage playing the role until he got into the ring. He makes me laugh again right off the bat by talking about going into labor. I normally hate Clique humor and I've never liked any incarnation of DX at all, but I found this hilarious at the time and I think it works now. But it did need to end with the Horsemen either clearing house or at least precipitating a brawl--having security "hold them back" in the locker room was total weak-sauce considering how chaotic this show was every single week. Still, overall as a standalone segment, leaving the ugliness of the aftermath aside, this still works great.

Nitro was on a hot streak to end all hot streaks of course, but this is about as cool as Michael Cole dancing or trying to get a new catchphrase over. Still, this will go better than the WCW Amateur Challenge did. The kid's voiceover from the Clash plays over a Sting highlight video. Two well-done video packages on one night!