Johnny Guitar

Darnielle was a regular at the Olympic Auditorium as a kid, and Chavo was his favorite wrestler. He's also written odes to Ox Baker and Greg Valentine. How mainstream-over in the UK is comedian Jack Whitehall? He's a big enough fan that he's actually gone through training. Jack Whitehall is pretty mainstream over here in the UK. He definitely falls into the love or hate category, but people know who he is for sure.

Yeah, we've talked about this before and it was one of my drops on the early Titans shows, The Wu-Tang definitely watched the Vince Sr product circa 78-81. Method Man mentions Bob Backlund quite a few times. Elsewhere GZA name checks Ivan Koloff. Masta Killa calls out "Chief Jay Strong". Rapper's name dropping wrestlers could easily create a 20 plus page thread

Jarrett is a good to great wrestler. He was just way overpushed above his station in WCW and TNA. I think Eddie Ellner summed up Jarrett the best when asked if he could be World Champion. Paraphrasing here, "he's the Tito Santana of his generation. Good enough to be IC or tag team champion, but not the main guy". Jarrett was a decent IC champ and in a company that was not booked by Vince Russo, him and Owen could of/should of have been great chickenshit/dick head tag team champs fighting Edge/Christian, D'lo/Henry and The Hardys.

I never said wrestling was a real sport. I said it was presented as a real sport to the fans. No need for insults I'm not insulting you. I'm disagreeing with you. You called him crazy. Also, you're missing the mark here. He's speaking about presentation. How wrestlers presented as mixture of heroes and villians within their sport. Even tho the audience knew the distinction between pro wrestling as sport. And the layers of seriousness within pro wrestling. As an aside.. Jarret's Memphis, much like the WWF(E), has always taken heavy knocks for it's cartoonish presentation. What about the Frankenstiens Monster in LA or the wrestling bear in multiple territories? None of that could be considered a serious sport in presentation, and they all took place without any involvement from Vince Mcmahon, Jack Pfefer was exposing wrestling as a massive con and making a ton of money from it long before Vince was even born.

Although it may have been from orders from above. Johnny Ace's stint as head of developmental saw the system that Jr set up pretty much burned to the ground. There might me some exceptions, that progessed in that era, but for the most part, he's been deemed as a total failiure. He's the man that signed the wrong, one legged wrestler. Regardless of what you think of HHH's abilities or politics. He's at least seen a need to hire or train some talented individuals that have potential and or buzz around them. Not all of them have paid off, Sin Cara & Kharma. But there is at least the perception that someone in WWE's hierarchy is thinking about the future.

And when Barnett came back after WCW closed, he was one of the guys suggesting that they push Cena as a top guy when Vince and co didn't see anything in him and were going to release him.

Plus The Hardy's real push came after the ladder match at No Mercy, which was after Russo had left. So Chris Kreski probably deserves some props for how they turned out. As far as JR signing guys like Edge, Christian, Val Venis etc. They may have been working indie's/Mexico, but they weren't really on anyone's radar, except for the most hardcore fans. The top indy guys at the time were people like Reckless Youth, Ace Darling & Devon Storm who were working the North East independents. Its not like JR was cherry picking the top independents at the time.

I know its not a very original pick and he's already been mentioned, but anything by Jake Roberts. The stereotypical non wrestling fan's view of wrestlers interviews is some ripped to the gills steroid monster screaming and shouting. Wether heel or face, Jake is always very cool, calm and collected and comes across as a guy you could meet in real life in a pub/bar. Albeit absolutely terrifying regardless. I think his best stuff is the 1991 heel run. In or out wrestling, its one of the best personifications of evil I've ever seen. They always say that reality makes the best angle and to this day part of me thinks that Jake Roberts may be legit evil. To tie in to that feud/angle. It also featured the one of the most spectacular mental breakdowns/promos ever caught on camera as Randy Savage ( a man who's grip on reality was tenuous at best) finally waves goodbye to the goodship sanity at Tuesday in Texas. You mentioned Austin 3:16, but I think Austins best mic work was in ECW Name of worker: Steve Austin Promotion (and year): ECW 1995 Link to promo: Why you think it's great: Austin had a legit reason reason to be pissed. No one could have forseen how big he would end up being, but it was clear that he has earned and deserved a main event run/spot by 1995. Any Bret Hart promo. I know he's not considered a top mic guy compared to others, but as Loss and Pete F3 have noted all his promos came across as a shoot because he believed in himself and came across as a real person in an unrealistic world. Any Ric Flair interview. Flair crossed the spectrum in his promos, from humble babyface to arrogant heel and all points in between. Regardless i don't think I've seen any wrestler portray that level of confidence that Flair exuded, regardless of which role he was portraying.

V drew an insane amount of buys. Certainly in relation to the size of the PPV universe at the time and until at least the end of the Attitude era in was in the top 10 of all time. VI's buyrate was considered a disappointment and was outdrawn by Summerslam that year. Its also worth pointing out that the Skydome sold out that year before the main event was announced, so VI was at least going to draw a good house regardless of the main event.

I've never been too bothered about watching wrestling "live". My fandom has always been on "tape delay" so to speak. I can't remember when we started getting the PPV's live in the Uk, but whenever it was it was the only time I was up to date on a par with US fans as far as being current. WWF TV was always at least a few days behind, and in the early days, weeks. Certainly enough time to seek out spoilers if you knew where to get them. I never got to see WCW "live" at all and ECW was always weeks after the fact, so in some cases I always knew what had happened or what was coming.

These are fantastic. Keep up the good work. Can't wait for the next installment.

Regardless of WCW's booking and business. Alot of people perceive Sting as a genuine star and the main drawing angle for if he ever jumped ship to the WWF is that he would work with the top guys. Had he shown up anytime between say 1992 and 2002, fans would of expected and wanted him to work an angle with Savage, Bret, Shawn, Taker, Austin, Rock or HHH (depending on the time frame). Working with anyone else would have been perceived as a letdown. I think you're right that there is more to be gained for the future with Sting working Rusev, Harper or Bray. But none of them are really seen as the elite core of guys. Although they should be. So Sting working his first match with them might be seen as below expectations. I think theres also a problem in that even if Sting worked with those guys that no one has any faith in WWE's follow through in making a star. Lets say Harper beat Sting at Wrestlemania, ala Vader/Sting at GAB'92. Alot of people would expect to see him jobbed out in the following months thus rendering the whole thing moot and another thing in the long list of WWE fuck ups and wasted opportunities,.

I agree that we were never going to get beer drinking, bird flipping Stone Cold Steve Austin in WCW, but if he'd hung around I don't see why we wouldn't have at least gotten a rougher, tougher version of Stunning Steve Austin in WCW. That promo he cut on Ricky Steamboat at Fall Brawl 94 is pretty much prototype Stone Cold. Plus gimmick change or not. Austin was already losing his hair it was only a matter of when he would take the plunge and cut it all off. Personally I think that even if Bischoff hadn't of fired him, Austin would have gone to the WWF in 1996 when his contract expired. He'd pretty much hit his ceiling in a Hogan run WCW and after 5 years with the company may have felt it was time for a change. If he had stayed the only real role I can see him in (based on what actually happened during that era) is in DDP's spot, as the long time WCW guy who steps up to fight the NWO. That,s also pretty much the same role I think Dustin would have been in if he'd stayed too.

War Games from Fall Brawl '98

I want to work my way through all the year books. How would I go about that?

Bret. vs Flair at Royal Rumble 1993 and Savage at Wrestlemania 9. May not have drawn gangbuster numbers. But would surely be better than Razor & Yoko. Could have properly established Bret as the Ace and we could have gotten 2 classic matches from it.

Yep, on the previous Nitro Sting was given his nWo colors and he didn't budge, so there was nothing clear enough to make Scott Hall jump on Sting. The psychology as all over the place during the match, with Team WCW and Team Piper fighting among each other without even trying to gang up on the nWo once, which made them look kinda stupid. Luger making three guys submit in like 30 seconds was too much, although the pop it got was amazing. The Rodman stuff and the Sting angle at the end was MONEY though. From a kayfabe point of view. I can see Flair and Arn telling Benoit, Jarrett and Mongo that everyone in the match were the enemy, and to take them out. As The Horsemen were an island onto themselves.

Always find this interesting. So many of my friends stopped watching in 93. So many of the guests we had on stopped in 93. I was hoping some of these patterns would emerge ... Wrestling was so out of tune with popular culture in 1993. Hip hop was massive with stuff like Cypress Hill, Wu Tang Clan and Snoop. And the WWF's answer was Men on a Mission. Vince was pushing the superman Lex Express, when superman Arnold was having his first box office bomb with Last Action Hero. Meanwhile The X Files was on the rise with anti authority every man Fox Mulder. Wrestling just wasn't providing anything that would really appeal to a teen/twenty something demographic, despite having the people/talent to do so.

I'm 37. I don't remember how old I was when I first started watching wrestling. My dad watched World of Sport every week and I was there to watch it too. I loved Pat Roach, because he was in Auf Wiedersehen pet and hated Fit Finlay and Miss Paula. Me and my dad met Giant Haystacks in a supermarket in Selby once. I started crying, and in hindsight he broke character to make me stop. So i always cheered for him over Big daddy. Like alot of people in the Uk. My first exposure to american wrestling was when they showed WWF in the World of Sport time slot in 1987. I was completely blown away by it. 20000 strong going ape for Savage/Hogan in MSG was a world away from wrestling in Preston town hall. My Aunt & Uncle moved to Bruni that year. Which showed WWF, so my cousin would tape all of it and bring it back with them when they came home to visit. I saw Survivor Series 1987 about 3 weeks after it happened. Which is probably more than alot of people in the UK could say at the time. I picked up my first copy of PWI in 1988 . I couldn't believe that there were all these other wrestling companies. I had to know more about wrestling. The Apter mags really shaped my views on wrestling as a kid. We got Sky in 1989 so I was able to watch whatever WWF they were showing and my ITV region, which was TVS, started showing WCW that year. The first episode i saw was a post GAB episode that showed the highlights including the Flair/Funk post match. From there until 1993 I was a die hard fan. Watched anything I could. Brought the mags. The lot. Went to SummerSlam at Wembly with my cousin and we nearly got our heads kicked in for cheering Bret. Summer 1993 I'd read a copy of Superstars of Wrestling, which in hindsight gotten its info from the observer. So when it was obvious that Bret wasn't going to wasn't going to get the belt back. The Blondes were being split up, Cactus was going to get his revenge. (Basically my favorites were going nowhere). I tuned out. Although turning 16 and being a teenager that year and all the stuff that goes with it played a part in my growing disinterest it. I came back with a vengance in 1994. I discovered Powerslam, which basically opened up my world to tape trading and I was finally able to get hold of stuff I'd been reading about for years like Mid South, Memphis, New Japan plus ECW. From there on out I was your typical tape trading smart mark until 1998. As wrestling exploded in popularity I just wasn't really feeling it. ECW had peaked the year before. Memphis had closed. WCW was going of the rails, as was Japan and the WWF was succumbing to Russo's vision. What i had envisioned as wrestling wasn't really happening. 1999. I'd saved up for years to travel the US and this was the year I went. You all know what wrestling was like that year. Don't get me wrong. it was cool to finally go to MSG, the ECW arena etc, but I felt years too late. Watching WCW go down the tubes was depressing, as was ECW going out of business. Not that I hated the WWF, because they've done loads of stuff that i've liked. But when they did stuff I hated there was always something else to turn too. I finally turned out as a regular viewer in 2002. My fandom today consists of reading this board and watching old stuff on youtube and dailymotion. mainly JCP/WCW and the territories.

My abiding memory of this match is Arn delivering a picture perfect spine buster to Shawn. Although Heenan had taken a lot of punishment and humiliation from guys over the years. None of it had been in such a high profile setting as this, where the whole fanbase could see it. So this match really feels like Bobby's comeupance for years of back stabbing and trash talking,

Monty surely gets a pass just for being in TNA. They've never made any stars, and have severely diminished the star power of everyone one who has ever worked for them.

The Renegade is a solid pick. As clueless as WCW management was. Even they realized he was terrible and killed his push, and when you think of all the mistakes that company made, That's saying something. The best thing Erik Watts was involved with is the match at SuperBrawl 3 against the Blondes where he is booed out of the building.

I really enjoyed listening to this. I think you guys had some great ideas. I really liked the idea of a 2 day King of the Ring tournament. Its the kind of thing they can do, and should do, now with the network. T

I don;t feel it took a nosedive, but I think the IC title took a big hit in 1995. As you all know. Up until that point. Nobody had done the three peat with the belt. There should have been some mileage gained for someone being billed as the first 3 time Intercontinental champion. But by years end end not only had 3 men become the 3 time IC champions. One of them had become the first 4 time IC champion. And none of the guys involved really benefited from it, due to poor promotion.

The Good: In ring wrestling makes a comeback across the board in North America. WCW has a banner year in ring. WWF pushes Flair, Savage, Bret and Micheals, who all deliver for the most part. Bob Backlund returns to the surprise of everyone and Vince decides to acknowledge other companies. Smokey Mountain debuts with wrestling how you remember it. USWA has the Moondogs feud. The Bad: None of the above really draws, because the public perception of wrestling goes in the shitter, thanks to the sex and steroid scandels. The Ugly: Papa Shango wasn't the worse character ever created, ( see Baron samedi). But how he was portrayed was a step too far and turned alot of people off.