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McArthur is shockingly pretty good here going toe-to-toe with Bischoff--he has the make-up of a true fan getting the chance to cut a real promo. Really cool Crash TV-style layout here as we go from the Hogan promo directly into a gearshift angle.

Hogan Wood by numbers. Intrigue at the end of the segment, as Bischoff is informed that the Horsemen are outside.

Sting cuts a decent fiery promo but Warrior then shows up to grind this segment to a halt. This crowd is NOT impressed. Sting just leaves and it's assumed, I guess, that the tag match is on.

I have no idea what JR is even trying to say. Why is the matter a "non-issue"? The last sentence doesn't explain.

I'm between Loss and Zenjo here. It's a good match with some good spots near the finish, and some neat sequences like Akiyama and Taue dueling it out on the apron, but "good" is all it is. The Holy Demon Army's control segments in the first half are shockingly below-par and this sort of feels like a reset button is being hit on Akiyama's push.

Yeah, not good timing with that cover. It's not really my scene either but that's a good collection of heavy metal talent, though the songs all look like covers.

Jericho has sincere words for Brian Hildebrand, who went back into the hospital being unable to keep food down this week due what was initially believed to be leftover scar tissue from his previous stomach cancer operation, but as we know now, turned out to be something much worse. Jericho has words for Greenberg and convinces Nick Patrick to count him out when he doesn't show up.

Things can change a lot in 20+ years. That said, Ross was quick to try to cover for the company when the Yellow Dog referred to "Johnny B. Gay" at the '91 GAB, so he was clearly cognizant of the issue before whatever this was, if it even had to do with gay people at all.

"I still don't understand why I'm supposed to respect him for this. It doesn't take courage to take on a task too big for you to handle, in spite of all the experts saying that could not possibly succeed at this level in that amount of time, and predictably fail at it. There is nothing courageous or honorable about this, he deluded himself into thinking all of the critics were "haters" who were attacking him personally when in reality most of his detractors were right on the money. It's like if I have a dream of being a great computer scientist one day, so first semester of freshman year I take 400 level CS courses without doing any of the prereqs or having any previous background in math or science whatsoever. Instead I just used my connections to skip ahead of any of the normal barriers that would prevent me from doing this. Who cares, I did some precalc during the summer, anyone who doesn't think I can do this is just a hater. Not trying is the real failure, etc. So when I get a zero on my final do I get credit for just showing up? That doesn't make me brave, it makes me an idiot who ignored expert advice. The real lesson here, when you strip away all of the hero worship should be that having passion is not enough. Greatness takes years of hard work and dedication and most people can't skip steps. Don't take shortcuts. But fuck that, none of that feels heartwarming the way that "millionaire succeeds in his dream of making 6 figures by getting rolled over and punched around for 2 minutes" does."" --Some guy on reddit, who summed it up much better than I can.

This was essentially Billy Crystal fantasy-camping it up with the New York Yankees, except if it took place in a regular-season game. Who are these people who are "orgasmic" at Punk losing? Are they posting here? Are they spreading outright misinformation or spurring a potential side discussion here? If not, why are we bothering with them?

July 4 of '82. Maybe things are different because they may not have had plans to air the match afterward, but if they taped the Ole turn in '80 and they taped the Last Battle of Atlanta in '83...

Yeah, almost anything from before about 1981 that didn't air on AJ or NJ Classics, or any JWA stuff that hasn't been released somehow already. JWA is absolutely crawling with major matches that aired on TV that haven't been seen since, including incredibly rare footage of guys like Danny Hodge in their prime.

Different times. Things had changed from the Old West-type days of truly independent contractors, but wrestlers still had some semblance of leverage back then. In particular, the Roadies could have simply sat out the remainder of their contracts, which expired in June, and waited for big-money offers to come from New Japan or WCW (with Herd out and Jim Crockett back in power, Dave said they were likely to get signed if they wanted to jump).

That quoted piece was from the Observer reporting the title switch. The story given to the attendees was that Jack Tunney had decided that the Disasters had gotten enough title shots and switched the match around. But the story later on TV was that Jimmy Hart double-crossed the Disasters and engineered the switch in challengers himself, prompting the Disasters face turn. Naturally with the change in direction, there was no way to air the footage even if they had it.

Hawk was in fact suspended around this time, but I don't think I buy that story. I went back to re-check details in the Observer, and Dave reports that in fact they did tape the match, despite LOD's requests that no cameras record the bout. " The match lasted 11:49 with the finish coming with Hawk on the top rope about to give DiBiase a clothesline. Sensational Sherri (who won't be managing DiBiase & IRS as a team so I'm told and will strictly work as manager of Shawn Michaels who will be getting a big heel push) distracted referee Earl Hebner, while Earthquake and Typhoon rolled down the aisle. Typhoon hit Hawk with a chair and he fell into the ring and was pinned by DiBiase."

The Money Inc.-LOD title switch definitely happened, but it was in Denver at a routine house show. It's possible that ringside footage exists like it does for the Mountie title win, but it never aired on WWF TV if it did because of a.) a request by LOD, and b.) the finish being unusable, since it involved the Natural Disasters interfering and costing LOD the match, which went against the change of direction the company went with for WM8--when they went to babyface Disasters vs. Money Inc. instead of Money Inc.-Slaughter/Duggan and LOD-Disasters in a street fight. It's possible that the footage simply wasn't catalogued since it wasn't going to make air. Now, what should be in there somewhere is the first Money Inc.-Steiners title change, since that was a dark match at a Challenge taping and not at a house show. A full or nearly-full version of Ric Flair vs. Jack Veneno is a must-include for a list like this. People have been searching for that one for years--one guy on CrazyMax claimed to have gotten it but was later revealed to be a scammer.

It's the atmosphere. The heat and "look" of 1998 BattlArts absolutely sucks most of the time, with quiet crowds in Memphis Power Pro-worthy buildings. I had similarly superficial reasons for not really getting into PWFG.

Doesn't appear that the whole show is online. I found the main event and the AJW match from a simple Google Video search and there may be more out there on a match-by-match basis. The All-Japan 6-man is in the Google Drive AJPW archive.

It also put the kibosh on a sequel in 1996, which would have been headlined by Muto vs. Misawa with Muto having agreed to do the job. It's a pretty great card with a main event that could generously be described as underwhelming. The AJPW and AJW matches are two of the better matches for those promotions in that year. The W*ING six-man is a lot of fun, and a lot of other "fall out of bed" good matches from most of the other promotions. Also, Ryuma Go fighting hillbilly aliens.

I swear to God they *did* bring Dick out of the mothballs for at least one show. I think he announced some home videos from '92 before they had a TV show. And man, if you're annoyed by the King of Philadelphia stuff *now*...

I can confirm that my father suspected the POP might be the Road Warriors, though he wasn't 100% for sure and decided they weren't after seeing them 3 or 4 times. We didn't know they worked Crockett, much less their facepaint status or lack thereof there. It also wasn't until he took the paint off and changed his look that we identified the Barbarian as probably being a South Pacific islander.

Last I heard Dave didn't even take OTC supplements anymore. jdw has been pretty emphatic about him not using steroids or anything else. Edit: "Lately"? Dave's been pounding the steroid drum for 30 years.

How did he have a "job for life"? Why was he taking tickets in a Knoxville theater for years?

I haven't gotten to this yet for context, but wasn't he allegedly a domestic abuser when married to Penny Banner?

Stan Stasiak was from Quebec but not Montreal Ivan Koloff was from Montreal, though.