Johnny Guitar

SuperBrawl III. Cactus/Orndorff, Benoit/Scorpio, Rock n'Rolls/Bodies & Vader/Sting are all good to great. Plus there's the return of Ric Flair, the debut of Davey Boy Smith and the end of the Erik Watts push as he is booed out of the building.

Fantastic! Thank you for putting that together Alan. Powerslam was my bible from from 94 to 99. It opened up a whole new world of wrestling for me. I couldn't wait until the last Thursday in each month when my copy arrived in the post (in a plain brown envelope) and remember being fucking ecstatic when a new batch of tapes I ordered arrived. Rob must have got a few grand of me over the years. Listening to the podcast. I'm surprised by how small the hardcore fanbase in the UK was during those years.I thought it was much bigger. My one regret is that I never really made an effort to properly integrate myself into it. I bought the mag and tapes, but it never occurred to me to try and contact anyone to meet up at shows or cons. Regardless. That was a magical time period for me which Fin, Rob and John played a huge part of and I thank them dearly for it.

Cardio/physical fitness. Flair and Bret have made up now. Thank god. But even when they where at odds. Bret always put over Flair as the most psychically fit wrestler he'd ever worked with.

ECW on home video and PPV often came across as sloppy, disorganized and nonsensical. Heyman's real strength was as an editor. Because as TV show where it could be edited down, shuffled around and had the promos and music videos added, it came across a 100% better. Its a shame that throughout its history ECW never became a viable finical option for most wrestlers if they had interest from WCW or the WWF. A viable third option would have been a massive boon to the industry in a ton of ways. Plus from a purely selfish standpoint we could have gotten a longer run from Austin and possible runs from Flair, Savage and Bret.

Holy shit, I never knew that, that's outstanding. Drug testing was only done at TV's. So Tuesday's, after the Smackdown tapings was coke night, as everyone would have enough time to get it out of their systems before Raw.

That is very similar to me. PWI was great for filling out wrestlings history. I picked up my first copy of PWI in 1988. Looking at the rankings page, that there were all these different companies blew my mind. You're mention of finding WCW on late night ITV is one of my favorite childhood memories. After a year of reading about WCW, the first episode i saw was an edition of WCW Main Event that recapped GAB 1989. They showed the Flair/Funk post match, which was draw dropping in contrast to the WWF and UK wrestling that i was used to.

Like Jerry said. I really think they did open your eyes up to the fact that there was a bigger world in wrestling outside the WWF. I think Loss once mentioned that everyone is taught pro wrestling. And that is what the Apter mags did for me. They ragged on the WWF, but acknowledged that there were some great wrestlers there, who were kind of held back from their full potential. They praised JCP/NWA/WCW, but acknowledged in a kayfabe way, that things weren't run right. So as a kid I was hoping for a meeting of the minds so to speak from both companies.

They should book The Shield members like The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Reigns is Eastwood/Blondie. Rollins is VanCleef/Snake Eyes. Ambrose is Wallach/Tuco.

I was trawling through Dailymotion and I found this... http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1r01p5_hollywood-blondes-rick-rude-vs-ricky-steamboat-sting-2-cold-scorpio-wcw-house-show-05-06-1993_sport Not the greatest match ever, But it's a fancam from a house show, so it's rare, And it features a bunch of guys we like.

Early 90's Scott Steiner wasn't ready. Flair may not have bought his A game to that match at the Clash, but neither did Scott.

Because between 1984 and 1994 the wrestling landscape had changed completely. It had. And by 1994 the landscape had changed again. Luger and Sting and completely washed out as headliners.

Why? Dusty looked like shit and he drew more against Flair than those two did. I like Sting and Luger, but Dustin was a better worker

For me Corino was the highlight of the last 2 years of ECW. He improved leaps and bounds as an in ring worker despite not often being put in a position too. And blew everyone away character wise and on mic work. He promo he cut on Dusty about killing JCP was superb. What should he have looked like? Although he might have gotten some favorable booking from his Dad in 1991. But he over came that spectacularly 92 -94 through sheer hard work. Him and Austin fought for the TV title at Halloween Havoc 91 and the US title at 93. Them fighting for the world title at HH'95 seemed inevitable This fucking guy!

He did, but that was 15 years ago and unless someone is scanning old issues of Powerslam and posting them on line that's not doing much for Smack2k. There's probably not as much about them as you'd think. Although I'm willing to be proved wrong. TWA was this super indy dream match promotion. They ran quarterly shows, loaded with famous names that weren't under contract to WCW or the WWF. They got alot of coverage in the sheets and the Apter Mags. Mainly for how wild the shows were in comparison to WCW and the WWF. But the Cactus Jack/Eddie Gilbert feud was a stand out and resulted in both men getting job offers to return to WCW and the Owen Hart/Takashi Izuka match, genuinely blew people away at the time. TWA went under in early 1992, promising a match between Buddy Landell and Buddy Rogers! And from their ashes rose ECW. Except it wasn't the ECW that you would think. It was the local philly guys, Sandman, JT Smith, Johnny Hotbody etc and old washed up WWF guys like Don Muraco and Jimmy Snuka. The first year of ECW didn't really get any coverage. Because it was the very definition on unremarkable indy. The first ECW thing that got some sort of meaningful coverage from the sheets and the Apter Mags was was the Terry Funk/Eddie Gilbert Texas Chain Match. The WWA never got any sort of meaningful coverage from the sheets or mags. There might be some dream match i'm blanking on, but if there is, any buzz was down to the participants and not the fact that it took place in the WWA

I think a big shift in crowd behavior occured when WWE started playing the live feed through the titantron during Raw. When it was first introduced it was used to show the, at the time modest entrance videos, and occasional backstage skit. During the matches it just showed the WWF logo which meant that all the fan focus was directed towards the ring. Once they started showing the live feed through it and fans realised that what was on the tiantron, was what the home viewers saw. There was a massive increae in signs and people acting out for the camera

I noticed you've got one of the Fabs/Moondogs matches on the list. I don't know which one it is cause they had a bunch, but the blow off where Jackie Fargo comes back to replace Steve Keirn is tremendous.

As you've got Wargames 87, 92 and 94 on the list. You need to include 91 as well. It told a great story and had stand out performances from Brian Pillman and Barry Windham. The Eddie Gilbert/Cactus Jack series from TWA in 1990/91 needs to be represented. It got alot of press at the time. Got both men job offers from WCW, although Gilbert turned them down, and really was a precursor to ECW. Speaking of Cactus. There needs to be one of his matches with Sabu on there. As that was the hardcore dream match at the time. Also if you're going to put the Broad Street Bully Brawl from Slamboree on. Then you really need to include the Falls Count Anywhere Street Fight from Spring Stampede. That match really did blow people away at that time and was the the talk of the wrestling world. And the matches work as a pair I know you want to limit it to NA with a few exceptions. But Funk/Onita as the most famous Bomb match and the KOTD match tournament as the peak of that stuff maybe warrent a mention.

That was a very interesting read. Good work Loss.

I sought out the Hardcore Heaven match today and it was one of my favorite hardcore matches I've seen in recent years and definitely my favorite of his in ECW. Nothing contrived or overly transparent. Believable violence (heck Corino separated his shoulder and broke his nose in the match) and one helluva blade job. Heel Corino 2000 was great and he was building momentum and recognition the right away. I've always felt him going face and winning the title (in an absurd match concept) was a bad move. Corino and Tajiri were the brightspots of ECW's last year. The promo where he trashed Dusty Rhodes for killing JCP and cutting Magnum's brake lines was tremdous. Heyman should have let him build on that.

Thanks to wrestling I have a better grasp of American geography, than i do my own country (The UK).

Vince promoted a card next door in Tampa the night before. The reason he didn't promote cards in St Pete was that Tampa had a bigger arena. Thats true. But I live in the UK and no real access to the hotlines or the sheets at the time and even I knew that Sid was leaving. It was one of the worst kept secrets. Even the Apter mags were reporting Sid's departure.

There really wasn't any deal until WCW decided to launch Nitro. Monday was considered just another night. Although some areas, like Memphis placed a higher priority on it because that was the day of their biggest show. Prior to the Monday night wars, Saturday was probably the wrestling day, for most of the country.

I think this was the year that alot of people tuned out for a variety of reasons. The booking was terrible, which alienated alot of fans, both hardcore and casual. Austin retired and The Rock left pretty much for good, which was also a MASSIVE blow. Personally this was the year that I gave up.

I always thought the Gas Mask Suplex was cool looking, and brutal from a kayfabe point of view. As you would be able do some serious damage to the neck and jaw, before you flipped them over.