Johnny Sorrow

Thanks man, that fucking ruled. I can picture the Alabama Junior Heavyweight Championship belt being found in some hillbilly's barn during an episode of American Pickers. Was Gary Royal related to NWA Jr. Heavyweight Champion Nelson Royal?

"Be Careful?" Why? I just watched that match for the first time in years and years as it's on the new Cage Match DVD that fucking rules. Shit, Piper not only "just doesn't get whatever the hell Warrior's doing.", he basically shits all over the guy, especially in the first few minutes. It's great.

My watching was pretty sporadic by that point and I never saw the Jive Tones. But between this description and them getting mentioned recently on one of the DVDVR/ Segunda podcasts, I really want to see them. That finisher sounds fucking sick, and I always liked Pistol Pez/ Shaska.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but do ya really think the "fans in Bloatsburg" who took the time and spent the money to go to a house show would NOT pick up the phone and buy SummerSlam? I'd imagine those fans were the ones still buying WWF shows unless something better and hotter was available to spend money on to watch at home on a Sunday night. Possibly the week before? WCW Hog Wild was the first PPV with the NWO as a unit and Hogan as a heel for crying out loud. I'm just saying that WCW kicking ass is more likely the reason SummerSlam didn't sell more PPV's than "People saw house show matches."

I have never seen heel Norman, so now I'm curious to see how he worked. You make it sound like he was WCW's version of Doink. He was a decent enough worker in Calgary, so let's see. I have the same kind of shared memory with my father about Royal Rumble 93 and Guy Hauray making fun of Bob Backlund. And my father also uses some Eddie Carpentier lines from time to time. By "WCW's version of Doink", do you mean "gimmick that initially was cool but many people just remember it as stupid because of where it went?" Cause Norman and Doink have nothing besides that in common.

Oh hell yeah. Sheamus is fucking awesome at everything. His promos rule, his character is great as you never think "He's acting", and he's fucking great in the ring.

Here's an instance of weird WWF rules for a match. I just got the new Cage Match DVD and so far I've watched the awesome Backlund/ Patterson match that I haven't seen over 20 years and now it's the legendary Snuka/ Backlund match that I just realized...I never saw. I read about it, I may have seen the ending, but I've never seen this legendary match. Anyway, here's the weird thing. At the start Vince announces that normally, a man can win by going through the door or over the top. But since Jimmy Snuka's skills are such that he can "leap over" the cage, (and it actually isn't a tall cage but come on.. ), so Arnold Skaaland made sure the rules were that a man can win only by going through the door. That makes Backlund look like a bit of a pussy. (Granted, most escape the cage matches make whoever wins look like a little like a pussy, IMO) I guess it can be looked at as "Skaaland outsmarted Albano", but my first impression was negative. Granted, at this point Vince was ready to get rid of Backlund and this match really started Snuka's face turn, especially the missed splash. Oh and besides all that, the match is fucking awesome. Edit: HERE'S a wacky one from this DVD! Sammartino/ Zybysko is on and they have Striker and Matthews doing commentary. Josh is lost and bored, and they keep having Striker give history lessons. So Josh asks Matt what other notable matches were on the card. Matt mentions Backlund and Patera beating the Samoans for the tag belts and IC Champ Ken Patera fighting Tony Atlas. No mention of Hogan/ Andre until they go to the studio where Josh says something like "Here's how big Bruno/ Zybysko was! Hulk Hogan fought Andre The Giant and it was on the undercard!" Like someone told them to not mention Hogan when they did the voice over, but then in post production they said, "It'd be dumb to not mention it,,,but don't put it over." They also mention it being PWI's "Match Of The Year" and put over the mags as being how fans before the net got their news and PWI was the number one magazine.

Really? I have a hard time believing that the fanbase that would have ordered the PPV were following house show results. The net wasn't something everyone had, and even less had subs to the Observer or the Torch or whatever, and hell...the PWI mags results were always 3 months late. Wouldn't the same general kids audience for WWF still have gotten their folks to get it? Shit, I ordered it and I wasn't a kid, I was 26 and I had no idea about house show results. But back to the "kid" thing, wouldn't it seem more likely that a lot of fans were choosing between WWF and WCW at the time and choosing WCW? I'm just saying, off the top of my head I'm thinking WCW was kicking some ass at the time. I most certainly could be wrong. And Taz didn't have a fall from grace. The guy's neck was fucked in ECW yet he managed to get the bigtime contract, debut big, wind down his career, and get a commentary gig for a long time.

Actually, Long said in his first interview that Norman was a childhood friend. I just don't see the link between pimp-dressed former crooked referee Teddy Long and a fat psychopat. Long eventually ending up with Doom made much more sense to me at least (although I liked Doom with Woman better). Well ok then, that makes even more sense if they were childhood friends. I'd guess that they grew up and one guy became a referee and the other went nuts and ended up in the nuthouse. I'd guess that Norman had no one else so Teddy stepped up and became his POA in order to use his old friend for his now nefarious purposes. Now as soon as Norman went face I had no use for him. Also, my Old Man looking over his newspaper and seeing "Norman The Lunatic" on TV had him laughing his ass off at the whole thing. It's a memory we still share to this day and bring up to make each other laugh.

Man, I LOVED Norman the Lunatic. The idea that Teddy Long found a maniac in a mental hospital, became his POA, and used him to fuck people up is awesome.

Goth-y David Crockett saying "The Russian Nightmare....has come true." would rule.

I always found Ross' "real sports" references lent a sense of, "Hey, Joe six pack and guy who makes fun of wrestlers..these guys are real athletes" to things.

Oh, the Year End Issue with the Awards? Shit, that was my favorite. I loved the "fan awards" which could be really funny. The first examples of "smarky jokes" would be in there.

Jesse and Monsoon were awesome together. There was no "bullying the heel announcer" thing going on, and they always had more of a mutual respect relationship. Especially on the televised MSG Cards. And really? "Bullying the heel announcer" is a bad thing? Monsoon and Heenan were like a comedy team and it worked great. Did anyone ACTUALLY feel BAD for Heenan when Monsoon would goof on him and call him out on his bullshit? That's crazy. I liked Jesse in WCW alot. I thought Ventura and Ross were a lot of fun together to be honest. Jesse turned down the more cartoonish "the heels are always right" stuff he'd do with Vince on SNME and was more like he was with Monsoon. I loved Tony when I discovered Crockett wrestling, and I always enjoyed him until around 98. Oh, Jesse's finest and funniest commentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5md5FW3nUg

Jesus, at this rate people are gonna be disappointed if Chavo doesn't end up floating face down in the Hudson river with a bullet in the back of his head.

I imagine Barry Windham as a guy who'd think it was a giant pain in the ass to have to adapt to another style.

The Rock is seen as a samoan. I know it's absurd anyway, since there's no such thing as race, but that's the way it is, he's really more seen as part of the samoan family than anything else. The Rock is seen as Samoan as a part of the wacky wrestling Samoan family deal. Only hard core wrestling fans see him as Samoan. Hey, he ain't white and he was/is one of the biggest stars ever in pro wrestling. That should be good enough for people debating his DNA in relation to his fake fighting belts.

Has Punk ever said he won't take a Tylenol? I'm thinking the serious painkillers that often turn into an addiction amongst wrestlers are something he avoids.

Exactly. Those were the big four. Sports Review Wrestling was always the "red headed step child" of the line, but I remember it being my favorite one.

I distinctly remember the WON saying that moving up the draft was a panic move in response to Edge's retirement. Speaking of which, they're now reporting that Hero and Castagnoli had WWE tryouts and they both went well. This ought to be interesting, since we all know how much the WWE loves tag teams and guys who made names for themselves outside of the WWE machine. Yeah, CM Punk, Sin Cara, and Danial Bryan are just being buried. edit: Sorry, that came off douchey. Still though..

To bring this all back home, considering Punk is friends with lots of other wrestlers, many of whom probably do use painkillers, and probably read his twitter shit...don't you think that Punk's tweet was just a joke?

So is cocaine. Granted, novocaine doesn't have any euphoric effects, but they're in the same class of local anesthetic. Novacaine also doesn't get you as speedy as a jackrabbit, get you horny as fuck, and make you into an asshole. Sorry, as someone who had a bit of a coke problem a few years ago, the comparison is sorta ridiculous.

Why doesn't the Rock count? Not black enough?

Well, someone had to to replace my beloved Tony Garea in that role.

Wasn't Horner doing the whole, "Job guy who beats other job guys" deal in WWF at this time? Because for a really, really long time those guys would get in some offense against the "stars" on TV. (That clothesline from Horner totally looked like Barry gave him it as act of mercy, though)