Cox

I think as long as they have two touring brands, they'll have two World championships. They will need something to headline for each tour.

Is this the last Sting vs Vader match?

One thing that I noticed in the later years of SMW is how the Rock 'n' Roll are handled. After the Bodies leave, the Rock 'n' Roll feuds almost seem like offshoots of Ricky Morton vs. somebody...Morton vs. Chris Candido, Morton vs. New Jack, Morton vs. Eddie Gilbert, Morton vs. Al Snow. Robert Gibson more and more feels like he's only along for the ride, and that all of their feuds sprout from the fact that Ricky Morton has a problem with one member of the other team. It almost feels like Cornette loses whatever little faith he might have had in Robert Gibson to begin with and it's up to Morton to carry the entire feud on the Rock 'n' Roll's end.

I love the story about how the Poffo family won't accept an induction of Randy Savage into the WWE Hall of Fame unless Angelo and Lanny are inducted too. I can understand them pushing for Angelo, but even with Koko in the Hall, Lanny would easily be the worst guy in there. What an awesomely carny thing to do. I hope it works.

I remember even as a punk 15 year old kid who didn't know shit about wrestling, I hated this match for most of the same reasons Loss discusses above. WAY too much focus on cage escapes when the two of them wrestling could have had another terrific match like Wrestlemania X. I haven't seen it since I was 15, but even though my tastes have changed, I can't imagine my opinion on this one will have changed much at all.

I remember watching this match with my sister, and after Tatanka turned, she looks at me and sadly says "But I liked Tatanka!" So at least somebody was swerved by this.

They don't own Memphis, and likely never will, as most of those tapes are gone. They also don't own smaller territories like Continental or Portland. But they do own all of the major ones, and even some not-so-major ones like Smoky Mountain.

This promo feels really sad to me. We all know that Eddie Gilbert wanted to be Jerry Lawler more than anything in the world, and knowing that not only does Eddie Gilbert never quite become Jerry Lawler, but winds up quitting the USWA again within a few weeks never to return, and winds up dead less than a year later...I can't help but feel really, really sad when I watch this promo.

Somewhere in East Tennessee, they're still waiting for Jericho to return.

Every time I see the term IWC, I think of Krone Meltzer. And that's kind of what I think of the term - it's a term used only by 15 year old kids on the internet complaining that their Randy Orton scoops went ignored.

The worst part was when Piper kid inexplicably turned babyface at the PPV and seconded Piper in the match against Lawler. At least, I remember it seeming inexplicable at the time - maybe they did some sort of throwaway line or story that I don't remember where Lawler turned on him.

Dallas...Dallas...and didn't they run a show in Georgia once? And...Dallas.

I just think Cornette didn't know how to book main event babyfaces. Tracy Smothers was booked pretty badly too. Dirty White Boy was mostly booked well, but Brad Armstrong was kind of a flop as their top guy (at least in part to being presented as a quasi-jobber in WCW for the past 4 years, but still). When Bob Armstrong is the best protected top babyface in the history of SMW, in a company that has great workers like Smothers, DWB, and Armstrong, you know Corny has a problem booking a strong babyface ace.

Eh, I think it's hard to blame the booking for Lee bombing so bad. The booking was undoubtedly bad for sure, but at the same time, Brian Lee was never going to set the world on fire as a babyface ace. Lee's only assets were size and look, and those weren't going to help him in a territory where size and look weren't all that important. SMW was a brawling territory and he was a top babyface that couldn't brawl. Look at the top babyfaces that did work (Smothers, Dirty White Boy) and you see two guys who could brawl and who were much more successful than Lee. Granted, Smothers and DWB were also booked horribly at times, but still.

Weren't Rude and Steamboat brought in under the last days of the Herd/Petrick/Rhodes regime? I don't think Frey took over until '92, and Steamboat and Rude were both in WCW by fall '91.

I wonder how their careers would have been different if Sting wound up in the WWF and Ultimate Warrior wound up in WCW? Warrior was destined to flame out either way, and probably wouldn't have worked out well with higher workrate standards in WCW, but maybe he would have gotten better with the standard so much higher to push him. Conversely, Sting would have been in a company more likely to use him properly, and might have taken off for WWF put into the Warrior spot where Warrior had failed, but also probably would not have become as good a worker as he did working for WCW, and may have been just as likely to fade in Hogan's shadow as Warrior did.

I really liked when Garvin popped through the territory, because he probably had the best looking offense out of all the babyfaces in the territory around this time. His matches with Orndorff are where I turned a corner on Orndorff, as before that I thought his work was inconsistent.

No. If a wrestler is over in front of a small crowd, then is he really over? Sandman used to get huge pops at the ECW Arena and was probably as over as anybody in the history of the company...are we going to make a case that Sandman belongs in the Hall of Fame? Being able to pop a crowd in and of itself is not enough to build a Hall of Fame case. Instead, point out how Sting's "overness" led to bigger crowds, higher buyrates, etc while the ace of WCW from '90 to '94, and again from '97 into '98.

Ideally, you'd like somebody to have better credentials than, "He's better than the worst guy currently in the Hall of Fame," but would have merits all on his own to stand behind. What is the realistic case for Sting that you can't make for dozens of other candidates that will never make it in? I'm not necessarily anti-Sting, but what is his case beyond he's probably a better candidate than Kurt Angle?

See, I had no problem with Horner's promos until he was pushed as the main event babyface. He's not a good promo at all, but he's passable if he's your midcard bland white meat babyface. It only becomes a problem when they tried to push him as the top babyface in the territory, and thankfully that doesn't last too long because Tracy Smothers started with SMW right around the time of Horner's big push. And yeah, Bob Armstrong basically cutting Brian Lee's promos for him during all of the stuff with The Master definitely helps things a lot.

After the buyrate came back so poorly for Cena vs Lesnar, I don't think so. In fact, I think Vince has to be doing a jig. He got his one job out of Lesnar early, and now he won't have to pay him $5 million if he goes back to UFC when he won't be worth anywhere near that for him. If it turns out Lesnar does go back to UFC, I think that absolutely justifies Cena going over, especially since as it turns out, Cena vs Lesnar was not the huge money match people thought it would be. They knew this was a possibility and made sure to plan for it.

Between this, "White Ligntning", Dixie Dy-no-mite with the confederate flag all over his face, how close was SMW from having a bunch of Klan members ? Woops, the Harris Boys and their SS tatoos are coming soon, nevermind... Seriously, WTF was Cornette thinking having a nazi jobber ? I'm really enjoying the Heavenly Bodies vs Fantastics feud. Tons of great brawl sequences, really feels like Mid-South. With the barb-wire cage match coming up at Fire On the Mountain, that feeling will only get stronger I guess. Bob Armstrong is a great TV character, and superb talker. I also really warmed up to Caudle, and Dutch Mantell is just hilarious and a tremendous color man. Why was he not given a good role in WWF or WCW is beyond me. Brian Lee is clearly not doing much for me as the ace of the promotion. He's okay but not very good at anything. Can't wait til we get more of DWB, I'm enjoying him more each week. Tim Horner is a guilty pleasure. Such a horrible promo, but such a solid worker in the ring. Dixie Dy-no-mite is an annoying gimmick, and I feel like the lesser of the Armstrong is under the mask thus far. Ditto Killer Kyle, I just don't care for the guy at all. Jobber doing a third rate Mr. Hughes gimmick. Danny Davis is still a good worker, but his looks is just bad, again, looks like a jobber with these thights. I wish they would do more with him though. I did not care one bit for Jimmy Golden vs Robert Gibson, but turning this into a tag feud will get things better. The era of Brian Lee as the ace of SMW is coming to a close quickly. I actually think he was a LOT better in the feud with Sullivan, but by the time I thought he had kind of turned the corner as a babyface, they wound up turning him heel, since they had Tracy Smothers. Oh well. I liked Scott Armstrong a lot more once he dropped the Dixie Dynomite gimmick. He cut some good promos without the hood and he and his brother Steve were a good undercard team. I think they felt like they had to have him masked while Bob was commissioner, so we get the gimmick, but I don't think playing a character like that played to his strengths. I actually really liked the Golden/Gibson feud, but I'm an unabashed mark for the Fuller family, so that is to be expected out of me. That said, Robert Gibson isn't much of a singles wrestler and Ricky coming in helped him out a lot.

Not sure I buy that. Wrestlemania 2000 and Backlash 2000 were in the same billing cycle as well, and Backlash did an amazing buyrate for the return of Steve Austin, and Austin wasn't even wrestling. If this was a main event that captured the wrestling audience's attention, they would have bought the PPV. They didn't.

...which is probably the main point of the suit anyway; to keep Matt Morgan and Alex Shelley (among others) from going back to WWE.

I remember as a 15 year old kid, this might have been my favorite match of all time. At this point, Cactus Jack was probably my favorite wrestler in the world, so seeing him win a title was pretty awesome, plus the match was a great brawl that I probably watched over and over again, as I had an illegal cable box as a kid so I watched and taped all of the PPVs around this time. I haven't seen it in years, but this match will always hold a special place in my heart.