KrisZ

Ask him about working the Mid-South taping in August 1983 where the Roadies had to sell for Duggan & Magnum then play stooges for DiBiase in his loser leaves town match Duggan which was right in the middle of their superpush on TBS. Basically what was it like going from working TV for Ole to TV for Watts. Also how serious was the talk of them supposedly moving to Memphis in early 1984 but Ole nixing the idea.

Jericho just posted on Twitter that Jinsei Shinzaki is living in his car after his house and restaurant was destroyed in the earthquake/tsunami aftermath. That is terrible.

Bill Apter posted tonight that he is starting a 1wrestling.com HOF with Bruno as the 1st inductee.

Yeah you are right well there is Bob Uecker though.

Well it is the celebrity wing and at least he worked in a match unlike William Shatner.

It's amazing how out to lunch they can be sometimes.

Josh Gross reported this.

Welcome to pro wrestling circa 2001.

It's going to be interesting to see how a WWE Studios film does without an actual WWE guy in a leading role.

Hollywood Reporter brings this.

Flair/Savage needs some love here.

Dave Lagana's Twitter feed is constantly entertaining in the wrong way at times and these tweets about Sheen on March 2nd is a prime example. @mariamenounos how awesome would it be to see @charliesheen confronted by @steveaustinbsr at Mania? http://ow.ly/46D9z # @espn_michelle Is this a match you'd like to see in #WWE - @charliesheen vs. @steveaustinBSR http://ow.ly/46BT7 #IWantWrestling @arielhelwani I know this is a match you could get behind - @charliesheen vs. @steveaustinbsr - http://ow.ly/46BLU #IWantWrestling @cmpunk think of the promos you could cut on @charliesheen if he showed up for mania http://ow.ly/46BuW #IWantWrestling @charliesheen - you need to be #winning at Wrestlemania with @steveaustinbsr http://ow.ly/46B4V #IWantWrestling

Mike is exactly right, that was going to be the blowoff for Magnum/Nikita and for Magnum to move on to winning the NWA title.

Flair vs. Garvin was the original plan for Starrcade 86 before Magnum's crash so they called an audible after that and put Nikita in the spot because Magnum/Nikita was the scheduled Starrcade match as well. Starrcade 87 should've been the culmination of the NWA/UWF feud if that had been booked worth a damn with the NWA/UWF unifying their major titles on the show.

Tenryu's standing during the early internet years was hurt by leaving All-Japan in 1990. I remember lots of people bashed SWS & WAR especially WAR which the talking points for WAR was that it was the wacky indy promotion that ran these oddball 6-mans and was the home of Ultimo Dragon. Even back in the early DVDVR days the guys loved WAR but it was more of a "fat guys working their ass off" way rather than a "Tenryu is fucking awesome" way. Tenryu got lost in the shuffle among the AJ heavies, NJ juniors, & UWFi peaks of internet love. In fact look at the Best of 90's Japanese Indy results to gauge the Tenryu opinion at the time Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ric Flair - SWS (4/18/92 - 2/3 Falls) - 39 Genichiru Tenryu vs. Great Muta - WAR "Crush Night" (10/11/96) - 27 Nobuhiko Takada vs. Genichiro Tenryu - UWFi (9/11/96) - 20 (0-0-1) Atsushi Onita vs. Genichiro Tenryu - FMW 5th Anniversary Show (5/5/94 - Cage Bomb Death Match) - 13 Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ric Flair - SWS (4/17/92) - 3 Genichiro Tenryu vs. Shiyna Hashimoto (6/17/93) - 2 The highest ranked Tenryu match was 44th and in the New Japan version of the list the Hashimoto match from the G1 was ranked 13th with a couple of others very low on the list. IMO, the Tenryu rebirth of love didn't begin until he started feuding with Muto in All-Japan in 2001 and it grew from there plus when the All-Japan 80's set gets released to the public, it will explode.

What made Tenryu in the 85-86 years was the feud he had with Choshu as their matches were superior to the ones Jumbo had which at that time was a big revelation. Jumbo still had great matches with Hansen and was terrific in the tags with Tenryu against Choshu/Yatsu but the fact that he couldn't have a definitive singles match against the hottest wrestler in the country while Tenryu had 6/22/85 and 9/3/86 to brag about. Tenryu had great momentum going into 1987 and once the trigger was pulled on his turn, he had basically already surpassed Jumbo as a worker which for sure was no knock on Jumbo but it is a testament to how great Tenryu was.

Tenryu from about 78-81 was working here in the territories going from Shire, Amarillo, Georgia, JCP, with some others like Texas & Florida sprinkled in between. Tenryu looked good for his experience in the GCW TV matches he had and I haven't seen any of his JCP work where he teamed with Mr. Fuji but once he returned to All-Japan in 1982 and specifically 1983 is when you could see how good Tenryu was and how great he could be.

II was a much bigger name than Bob plus he worked for WWF over a year and a half from 84-86. I got zero issues with Bob going in just surprised a little he got in over other bigger names from GCW if they were going that route. Bob never even held the Georgia Heavyweight Title and was never really the top face there. If we are going GCW names then Tommy Rich would definitely be above Bob as well.

Mr. Wrestling II would've been a better choice plus they have more footage of him than Bob.

I've been lurking in this thread and it is a tremendous thread but a name that hasn't been mentioned at least I don't think it has been here but is a name that if you talk to guys that was around from the 50's - 70's is Ray "The Crippler" Stevens. Stevens is a case where we have basically ZERO footage of him in his prime and from all the stories you hear he was just this fantastic worker who could do it all. Flair, Heenan, Bock, and lots of others have called him the greatest but us as fans of the last 30 years really have nothing but his later career to reflect on.

Mr. X at the Mid-South tapings circa 1982-84.

The Road Warriors became legends in Atlanta it makes absolute sense for them to go in here.

I think it's also worth mentioning that he wasn't booked particularly well during his05-07 peak. It wasn't just the post mania HBK feud that made Cena look like shit or the jobs in 08...but the build to Mania (which originally was supposed to be HHH getting his mania win back before he went down) didn't do Cena any favors. Then after HBK goes down , there is an Orton feud where the bookers have the difficulty of trying to figure out what to do since they have to "save Orton" for HBK's revenge comeback. The Lashley match; where Lashley started to earn his reputation as being back stage "uppity" since he asked to turn heel while the bookers wanted to keep it face v face, etc. In theory Cena should be the easiest guy in the world to book: Build up a heel then feed him a heel. They've rarely done that, which is ridiculous. I can pinpoint the exact night that did John Cena in and that was the first One Night Stand PPV against RVD. That crowd exploded the anti-Cena stuff that was starting to bubble up.

Eddie Graham was doing some shady dealings in real estate and it caught up with him.

Yeah they turned Valentine babyface after Starrcade which wasn't the best idea and he was miscast through his last few months there. The Steamer retirement angle lasted through his All-Japan tour of February/March then came back for two matches with Flair in Greensboro in March/April which he returned full-time after the April match.