rainmakerrtv

I guess I'm one of the bigger Windham fans out there, so I might as well weigh in. I find it hard to figure him being called "overrated" as such, because most opinions I have read rating him highly have I think a fairly accurate grasp on the phases of his career : He was awesome in the "classic" mid to late 80s period, ending when he left for the WWF to become the Widowmaker. Widowmaker didn't really get a lot to do, he had a decent match in all Japan with Jumbo, came back to WCW and kind of spun his wheels for a while. He got back on track with the feud with Doom, then picked up speed after that and was pretty much on fire through the feud with the Dangerous Alliance up until the heel turn. Apart from a few spots such as the great matches with Scorpio, he wasn't overwhelming in that run up until the match with Flair where the injuries finally caught up with him and he took time off. After that, he was pretty much a spent force apart from a few sparks such as the Hennig tags or the Corino match. Everybody who praises him acknowledges which were the strong periods in his career and which were the bad, including the man himself. I always considered Barry's comments about himself being "overrated" were not so much "I was never as good as people thought I was" but rather "I know how much was expected of me but I don't feel I achieved as much as I could have". Yes, there are long bad stretches in his career, but the good parts are so good and there are so many great matches, I feel ultimately he is worthy of the praise he gets.

I seem to recall Austin selling the knee injury for some weeks afterwards.

I remember shuddering watching it at the time, but now look at it as some classic enjoyable WrestleCrap .

I didn't mind ole Van Hammer ... his gimmick was weak and he came off a bit obnoxious, but he had some skills, was carryable and always tried. I remember rooting for him when he finally got his win over Cactus ... and right after that he got squashed by Sid.

This is is a match I've watched a fair number of times over the years, I watched the first broadcast on PPV, a few things stood out for me this time 'round : * I know it's hard for perfect execution in a battle royal, but there were a surprising number of badly botched moves, notably an horrific Shawn Michaels superkick where Flair took it in his hands that were held out a foot from his face but he sold it anyhow, I think this one was Flair's fault. * was it just me, or was the mic under the ring amped up extra loud? any time anyone was slammed or ran across the center of the ring, there would be a huge boom. * I was interested to see if this would have the original sound or the post-match remix where they switched the boos for Hogan and cheers for Sid, hard to tell, the reaction was kind of muted from the way I remember it but the crowd seemed to be clearly on Sid's side. No matter what they might have done to the sound to try to change the story, it's quite clear from the background shots that the crowd was visibly on Sid's side.

Sigh, nice thread we had going here , once upon a time.

Tying into that, can anyone think of an incident before the 92 Rumble when the crowd loudly turned on Hogan's dickery? I did read of an incident where Jake hit him with the DDT in the Snake Pit and the crowd chanted "DDT! DDT", but I think they were more cheering the move than turning on Hogan.

My strict policy is that, barring an out and out attempt on your life, you don't hit a woman ... *ever*. It doesn't matter how big she is or what she is doing, you never kit her.

Time was, I hated Hansen because he was such an effective monster heel. Today, there are few things in wrestling I enjoy more than watching him just out and out destroy someone with a lariat. The one could possibly go on the all time Hansen highlight reel.

Satanico!!!!!

This is something I was thinking about on another mental tangent started by my post in the "Most Historic Night" thread about WrestleMania III and the changing of the guard in the WWF babyfaces (and heels, for that matter), but would have taken that thread too far off topic. Please bear with me while I indulge in some rewriting history fantasy booking : So it's Wrestlemania 2 in the main event : Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy in the steel cage. Only now something goes horribly wrong. When giving hogan an Avalanche or a big splash, Bundy lands wrong and legitimately cracks several of Hogan's ribs. They finish the match, but Hogan knows something is not right. Over the next few weeks, his ribs just get worse. Perhaps at this time Hogan, contemplating his career, gets interested in making movies. Maybe they make No Holds Barred 2 years early, perhaps he is the one who gets the offers for Hell Comes To Frogtown and They Live instead of Piper, who knows? Bottom line is that Hogan is gone some time after WM2, not for good but definitely for a while. So they switch the title from Hogan to , say, Piper ... Bundy and Heenan ambush Hogan before the match and interfere throughout to cheat the Hulkster out of the title. So now Piper is the transitional heel champ. So who is the babyface who rises up to challenge and become the new flagship WWF champion? Ricky Steamboat is a strong possibility. A very sexy choice for top face, cool gimmick, good looking, great wrestler, I know a lot of my friends at the time were Ricky Steamboat fans. But Steamboat had just spent the past year getting the crap kicked out of him by Don Muraco and had a thoroughly meaningless match with Hercules at WM2. Steamboat didn't have a lot of momentum at this point (the later Jake Roberts feud would kickstart that back into high gear towards the run with Savage). Another likely choice would be Paul Orndorff. Hogan's best friend going out for revenge and taking the belt is a great story. But again, his momentum had somewhat cooled at this point after the first burst of his face turn, and his match with Muraco at WM2 was pretty miserable. It would be the later Hogan feud that would relight the fire under him. Andre the Giant? Andre was heading towards back surgery, and anyway I just don't see Andre having the disposition to be a working travelling babyface world champ. JYD? I recall he was well liked by the fans, but not really taken seriously. Ditto Hillbilly Jim, who never really got his mojo back after breaking his leg. Tito Santana? The blue collar, working man, People's Champ, but I don't think people would have bought him with the big belt. Point being, if something had happened to Hogan at this point in history, an accident or severe injury or whatever, they didn't really have anybody in the position of near the top babyface to pick up the torch in his absence. Second level guys, friends of Hogan, but nobody who they could see the fans getting behind as top guy. They were lucky that when Hogan did take time off in 1988, Savage was in position to take the reins (even though the initial plans were supposedly for Dibiase to win the belt at WM IV, the change from Dibiase to Savage was sparked by Honky Tonk Man being upset at the plans for Savage to get a huge push after taking the IC title while he was left by the wayside), although this was probably not so much luck as planning. One option they might have tried could be keeping the belt on Piper for a while, either have him being chased by the other babyfaces in succession, using his status as a firebrand heel to feed the storyline of who will shut this loudmouth up while the WWF decides who they ultimately want to elevate; or turn him babyface and feud with the Heenan family, who will gloat how they were the ones who really took out Hogan and now they want the belt for themselves. Anyhow, thoughts?

While there was no full on Orndorff style attack, Tugboat did go immediately after Hogan in both the Royal Rumble and the SNME Battle Royal preceding his becoming Typhoon, complete with harsh words between the two.

Kayfabe. Plenty of examples of Hogan being a dick as a person, I'm looking for examples of him being a dick as a babyface character.

Yeah, that grab assing at Summer Slam was way over the line. John His tendency to refer to Liz as "our manager". Excuse me, you may be teaming with Savage but since when is she your manager?

I think it's safe to say that every time one of Hogan's best friends turned on him, he had it coming. He didn't return Orndorff's calls, he was condescending to Andre in that whole trophy mess, he pawed Savage's woman and tried to take away the limelight during Savage's victory celebrations. It's a wonder he was able to get any friends at all after a certain point.

I've often read how Hogan was the worst "sportsman" of any babyface champion for his needlessly dickish behaviour in his matches. While I do recall him often whalloping the hell out of Sherri Martel, and Jesse Ventura complaining about his cheating in front of the ref early in a match and it being glossed over by the other commentary, I am having trouble remembering too many specific instances. The most notorious moment of the crowd turning on him would probably be the Royal Rumble, where he eliminated Sid Justice from the outside and the crowd booed him so intensely that they switched the boos and cheers in post production. Can anyone give any particularly egregious examples of dick behaviour by Hogan as a supposed babyface? I am of course talking about examples in matches and interviews, not backstage stuff.

ugh Anyone ever recall anybody ever defending the Hardyz?

Oh sure, I admitted I was going on a tangent, I knew what you meant ... he didn't "just KO" the guy, as you said. I was just waxing (pseudo-)eloquent on the Spider-Man fighting style.

Just a bit of a sidetrack, was just thinking about the significance of Wrestlemania III. While much is rightly made of the significance of it as the first supercard of it's time (national broadcast, clash of the titans main event, workrate classic in Savage vs. Steamboat, storyline capper in Piper vs. Adonis), I've been thinking recently of its significance as marking the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of the first half of the Hogan Rock 'n' Wrestling Era. One aspect of the card that is often forgotten is the significance of the Brutus Beefcake run-in during the Adonis/Piper match, marking Beefcake's babyface turn. It was an odd sort of passing of the torch from the outgoing Piper to Beefcake, who would parlay the rub he got from saving piper into his new Barber gimmick. Hard as it is to remember now, Beefcake was one of the most popular babyfaces of the second half and his turn could be seen as the point where the second level below-hogan babyfaces of the first half would be phased out or pushed down the card (Steamboat, JYD, Tito Santana, George "the Animal" Steele, to a lesser extend Hillbilly Jim), and the rise of the babyfaces of the second half (Beefcake, Jake The Snake, Hacksaw Duggan, later the Ultimate Warrior). Similarly, most of the old guard heels were gone or fading away (Big John Studd, King Kong Bundy, Muraco, Orndorff, Iron Sheik, Adonis), clearing the way for the heels of the second half who would be showing up over the next year or two or rising from the ranks (Rick Rude, Honky Tonk Man, Ted Dibiase, Mr. Perfect, Big Boss Man). The Hogan vs Andre match could be seen as the climax of the first half of the Hogan era. Hogan had spent the time since he won the belt in high profile feuds with usually monstrous heels (the notable exceptions being the sneaky Piper and the turncoat former best friend Orndorff). For the "biggest wrestling show ever", the main event was all of those feuds rolled into one : Hogan defending the belt against his former best friend, a huge "undefeated" legend backed by the devious Weasel. After that, for the next year Hogan would have runs with more monster heels (One Man Gang, Killer Khan, Bundy again) that never really caught the popular imagination, until Andre eventually came back and took his title. From then on, Hogan would go into a cycle of not having the title, taking some time off to make a movie, moving back into the spotlight to eclipse the current title holder, taking back the title, and then doing little with the title before losing it again. Similarly, Steamboat's victory over Savage was the capper of his WWF career, a glorious revenge victory that saw him win his only WWF gold. His title reign would be cut short and he would be gone after the next Wrestlemania. Piper and Adonis would both be gone after WM III (although Piper would return a couple of years later). In hindsight, there is an overall sense of the changing of the guard. Anyhow, just some thoughts.

Sorry to go off on a mild tangent, but here goes ... don't know about the Blob, but Spider-Man often took on huge guys much stronger than he was (Rhino, Ox, Juggernaut) by using the most likely little man vs big man strategy, what I call the Bugs Bunny defense : using speed, agility and cleverness to dodge around and tire out the bigger man until he gets mad enough to make a fatal mistake, then capitalize on it. And even when he beat the Juggernaut, it took a lucky break and he took an horrific beating doing it.

Although this particular match is not on it, which I would figure is because it had not been unearthed at the time that comp was made, given how incredibly thorough it is.

And my first nominees would be Dick Murdoch and Buddy Rose.

I am appalled that I did not catch that one before you did.

Normally, yes, but is seemed to come out consistently whenever he said the Narcissus/Narcissist . It made me think of Wallace Shawn trying to say his own name.