Johnny Sorrow

Then they fast track a guy like Mason Ryan up to the main roster because he looks like Batista, while Daniel Bryan is made to look like a goof who's afraid of girls and he doesn't even get his entrance on TV most weeks despite being US champion. Bryan was shown to be feeling sorry for the Bellas and is "with" Gail Kim. Ryan is Punk's enforcer, not a title contender.

I myself can't speak to stuff around 88-92 as I had more or less stopped watching wrestling outside of the occassional show on TBS or Saturday morning flipping around. But Hulk Hogan being on any show before then lent a feeling of "AWESOME, HOGAN'S ON TV WRESTLING". It didn't matter who he was wrestling. And I had fallen into a "Hogan stinks" phase right as I stopped watching wrestling religously during that time. But it was always a big deal to see him on TV. He was almost never on Saturday morning TV, so when he was on SNME, or even MSG it felt big time.

According to Caurt Bauer, the push to make Rey champ the first time came from the writers and such, with lots of resistance from Vince but he did it. Vince didn't do it because of Eddie, he did it cause the writing staff convinced him to do it. And yes, he then had Ray lose a lot. But what about Ray's recent reign as World Champ? That wasn't about Eddie and Ray's still small.

That's pretty much dead on, dude. The only Hogan match on Saturday morning I remember was vs. Rusty Brooks or Dusty Wolfe or some other jobber. Anytime Hulk Hogan was on TV wrestling anyone was a big deal. Shit, if you're gonna pull the "out of nowhere" card...then Hogan/ Volkoff from the second SNME is the king of that arguement. I was 15 and thought "Nikolai? Fuck it, it's a flag match vs. Fucking Hogan".

The Mike Graham thing was the Freebirds, who were faces in Florida, turning heel by Buddy Roberts coming in and saying some shit about "His Dead Daddy" right after Eddie killed himself. I remember the Apter mags being disgusted with it. I myself love it, cause nothing in wrestling offends me. edit: Oh, yeah. The Stephanie shit after 9/11. See, that didn't offend me as much as I was thinking "Holy shit, what a stupid thing to say." And I'm almost positive it's not on the Smackdown DVD set. The Vince in the ring declaring the terrorists haven't won cause WE'RE PUTTING ON A SHOW bit is, but if you're gonna call out Vince on that, then there's about a few thousand shows/ plays/ comedy troupes/ whatever who used that line.

Here's where House show stuff played into things. Hogan/ Muraco was a HUGE program at MSG. It followed the typical three match formula at MSG, but for those of us on the East Coast who got MSG network and the local promos, Hogan/ Muraco was a major fued. Seriously, local promos for this had Muraco/ Hogan as THE major fued of the year. And then it seemed to us the blow off match was on SNME, where Bundy attacked Hogan. And then Muraco got Orndorff at Mania 2 in a match me and my pals thought was gonna rule and it stunk.

Yeah, same here. I watched all of the other stuff more or less but I've never seen Georgia outside of youtube clips and reading about it in old Apter Mags.

Hot Commodity was probably my favorite short lived stable ever, now that it's been mentioned.

This led up to my biggest disapointment with the whole NWO angle. I was salivating to see the Four Horsemen take out the NWO, and despite the awesome start...they just made the Horsemen look stupid. I got that it was going to have to be Sting who finally "saved the day", (and they fucked that up, too), but when they just had the NWO consistently beat up and make the Horsemen look dumb I got more interested in watching McMahon try everything to get back on top.

This. Still the most douche-chill inducing thing ever on WWE TV, especially her looking like she was coached to say how grateful she was to Vince. Now, THAT was truly awful and hard to watch. As far as the HHH/ Owen thing goes..that's still putting wrestling shit ahead of "say, how would I react if someone I worked with died at work, even if we didn't get along?" And I'm sorry, but "His crying looked fake" doesn't hold water. Unless you've seen the guy cry before, how do ya know how he cries? And sure, they popped the crowd with Austin giving Owen a toast. When I was watching it live it came off to me as "I'm doing this to show that past shit is beyond me, and past wrestling bullshit doesn't matter.

See, I always have a problem with this talking point, no offense. Who's to say HHH and Chyna's tears were a put on? How could anyone know that? It's just a projection of HHH hate onto a real life situation. And as far as Austin goes, it's as simple as " They had him do a toast to Owen" to end the show, and having him do an interview like everyone else was probably something he wasn't comfortable with. It's known the guy isn't comfortable with death, as evidenced by how he didn't go to Pillman's funeral, despite them being great friends. I seriously doubt Austin was thinking, "Sorry he's dead, but he broke my neck so fuck him." And no one there was thinking anything about fucking Chono btw.

That's funny that you say the 84 Hogan matches meander. I always prefered those Hogan matches as they always came off as him not dominating, but in fact getting his ass kicked for a long time with a hope spot here and there until he was a bloody mess, and THEN doing his comeback. The guys he faced then being Studd, Schultz, Valentine...who else? I know they had him dominate the Sheik in all rematches. Granted, I haven't watched a lot of those matches in a long time, and while typing this I realize I'm listing matches from the first Hulkamania tape. I watched that over and over when it came out, so my opinions and memories are a bit skewed.

The quick answer is cause Jesse and Vince had the falling out over the Union issue. Jesse had already become mayor of some small town, and took the offer for the money and probably to stick it to Vince by showing him that he can do what he wants.

For me it was Heenan holding up Big Gold at the end of a Saturday morning Wrestling Challenge show and saying Flair's name. I wasn't really watching wrestling much at the time and had just flipped onto it while looking for something to watch. It totally blew my mind, and led me to start watching again. So the debut that was most memorable to me was the debut of a belt and a name.

Dave on the latest Radio show "judging" the Ali vs. Inoki match by who ACTUALLY won more rounds is hilarious. "They called it a draw, but they didn't really know about leg strikes back then. I'd give Inoki at least 10 of the twelve rounds" or something like that. I'm paraphrasing, but that's funny.

I was watching this right now from this "The History Of Undertaker vs. Mankind" DVD set I bought about 4 years ago. I love this match. At the time, I was just starting to not hate Undertaker as much as I did for his first few years, mainly due to him starting to evolve the style he used. (Upon reflection, I like old Taker a lot more now than I did back then.) But I still fucking hated Paul Bearer at the time and thought he was just annoying and stupid. And even that changed a few months later when Bearer turned on Taker. And it's not exactly a clean win for Mankind here as Bearer "accidently" smacks Taker with the urn to set up the pinfall. It's a killer brawl here, and you see Taker's wrestling style evolve during the freaking match! It's so cool. What I loved about the Taker/ Mankind feud, (and at first I hated Mankind as well because I was all, "Just have him be Cactus Jack...stupid Vince", but I warmed up to him fast because he was still the same guy and they had him kicking Taker's ass like no one else ever had done. I totally loved the fact that there was a guy who was Taker's Arch-enemy who was just as badass as he was and even creepier and totally crazy. To me, Undertaker's "#1 nemesis is and always will be Mankind. Oh, and Goldust being a major part of the first feud is just extra great.

That, and as far as myself goes...I think all that Art Bell type shit is garbage. I DO like the "local legends" and stuff like that. Hell, I was a suscriber and contributer to the "legendary" Weird NJ magazine.

From the latest Classic Observer from November 1993, USWA section: PLEASE tell me Memphis did a gimmick where Raper was a DeadHead.

The best thing ever is now Alverez seems to want to be Art Bell.

Going back to this, how exactly was Memphis "not really wrestling"? It's clear that Dave's "point" is that he enjoyed Memphis Wrestling as it's own entity, but it's not "really" wrestling. Let's see. It had good guys and bad guys pretending to fight in front of sold out crowds. How is it not "really" wrestling? edit: I get the Ivan Koloff thing. He beat Bruno in 1971 (?), had a great career down South, and then in the mid Eighties had a resurgance as part of team that drew big against Dusty, Magnum, Flair, the Road Warriors, and the Rock N' Roll Express. And a side note, I always thought Ivan looked small on TV but the first time I saw him live back then it blew me away how huge the guy was.

I gotta tell ya, I watched this PPV live and I don't even remember Heenan saying "YEAH, BUT WHOSE SIDE IS HE ON?" At the time, it was just a chaotic scene on TV and all the announcing wasn't registering all that much. I think the whole "BOBBY HEENAN RUINED IT" shit is a result of people re-watching it over and over as well as people reading what Heenan said and going back to watch it again to this day and saying, "Hey, he DID say that!"

OK, so help me out here. Back in early 87 when me and my pal first discovered the Observer, we'd read the Memphis reviews, and all the matches got like "one star- two stars" except for a series of matches between a young Jeff Jarrett and a partner I can't recall and Pat Tanaka and I THINK Paul Diamond that Dave was giving out "four stars" to. Who was Jarrett's partner? I'm pretty sure none of these matches are on the DVDVR Memphis set.

Coming from the thread re: Larry Matysik on the radio show, they had said something about Lawler being on the list of Top 50 Ever from the recent WWE DVD being ridiculous. In the thread, a couple of guys made the point that Lawler most definately belonged on a list like that. Dave's response: What the hell? I know Dave isn't the biggest fan of Memphis Wrestling, but come on, man.

The first one I recall seeing was on a Saturday morning show, and it was him in full makeup and wig with a fake Hollywood sign and setting behind him and he was quoting movies while introducing himself.