Bob Morris

I do remember a Raw match from its early years where Bret faced Headshrinker Fatu. I recalled it to be a pretty good match, but it's been a long time since I've seen it. Of course, I imagine it helped that the match was televised (hence Bret was motivated) and Fatu at the time was generally willing to make his opponent look good.

I actually wouldn't mind a TNA match comp just to see how well any of their "best matches" have held up. Of course, that means you have to rule out most of Impact, as the "best matches" were on PPV. As far as the TNA history lesson, what else can be said but that TNA is the case of a promotion that had so much potential, yet kept making all the wrong moves, but through it all, the money mark kept feeding it. Sounds a lot like WCW prior to the Monday Night Wars era, if you think about it.

The one thing that is important to remember about the Monday Night Wars era was that, while WCW was taking a sizable lead in the ratings race, they didn't have that much of a lead in the PPV buyrate or house show department. They were producing must-see TV, but not as much with must-buy PPVs or tickets, unless it was a Nitro taping. One of Bischoff's biggest downfalls was getting so wrapped up in the ratings war that he neglected to ensure things were properly built for PPVs.

Yeah, they could have picked another Harlem Heat match. I know they had several with the Steiner Brothers and surely you could find a better one to pick. I am disappointed that Steiners/Nasty Boys didn't get included. That's quite an underrated match, IMO, and from the time frame in which the Steiners were on a roll. Not sure why they pulled LOD/Money Inc. as the match to feature LOD, unless they were trying to work Money Inc. into the DVD. But regardless, that's a forgettable match.

I'll just add my compliments to Loss for an excellent summary about Flair. I do feel some of Flair's work in the early 90's is pretty solid, although it doesn't quite compare to his 80's work. But he did have his share of good matches in his first WWF run. He was starting to lose steam when he returned to WCW, but with no attempts to find new opponents to work long-term programs with, aside from the "usual suspects," it was tough for Flair to feel challenged or motivated. He seems to pretty much say so himself given the rut he was in when he returned to WCW.

And WO.com has reported this as well.

Yes, and at that point, it just seemed Hogan was arrogant enough to think he could get away with any spot and the fans would cheer because it was Hogan. It was one of the reasons he wore out his welcome quickly with that 1993 return.

Speaking of Hogan not being virtuous, what always bothered me about that was how Vince McMahon and Jesse Ventura, when paired together, would have their commentary regarding Hogan become nothing more than petty arguing with one trying to up the other. In watching the SNME DVD, I found their commentary with each other to be all right to start, but then get progressively worse. One has to wonder if Vince and Jesse were getting tired of each other at that point. Vince's commentary in general wasn't as good when they started pairing him with Bobby Heenan more often, but the back-and-forth banter came off less like arguing and more like the two just bouncing material off each other.

I think during that 1995 run they were testing out a heel turn for him, IIRC. But yeah, he always fought a little dirty and acted like a jerk to a lot of faces. One of my biggest "outrages" growing up was during the 92 Rumble and Sid throws Hogan out. Hogan is complaining and goes back to eliminate Sid. In the original commentary that was on the PPV, Monsoon was actually speaking out against how Hogan was acting. Later, on TV, when they showed the ending of the Rumble, they had gone back and redone the commentary so Monsoon was talking about Hogan being robbed. Yeah, I had heard that the fans actually boo'd Hogan in the original, though I have yet to see the PPV recording. You can make out just enough of the booing on the Royal Rumble DVD. I have always felt that WWF believed that they could always condition the fans into always rallying behind Hogan no matter what. The problem was, when you watch that Rumble match, both Hogan and Sid are getting loud face pops when they come out, thus telling you the fans like them both. In order to get the proper reaction, you need to book it so it becomes absolutely clear that Sid _did_ screw Hogan. The way they did it, it didn't work because fans knew in the Rumble it's "every man for himself." Compare that to the first Rumble aired on PPV. Ax and Smash faced each other to start and established it was "every man for himself" so when it was down to Hogan, Savage and Bad News Brown, fans didn't instantly believe Savage got screwed when Hogan went to eliminate Brown and Brown took Savage with him. They would have expected Hogan and Savage to fight each other if Savage hadn't fallen out and so nobody believed Hogan was screwing anybody over. Back to the 1992 Rumble, I have always believed the proper ending to get people to believe Hogan got screwed is to have Hogan taking it to Flair, turning to Sid and offering him to join in, and Sid simply motioning to Hogan he can have Flair for himself. Then allow Flair to bump around a bit for Hogan, then Hogan tosses him but Flair saves himself. As Hogan leans over, Sid comes up behind Hogan, eliminates him as Flair slides back into the ring, then laughs at Hogan as he "allows" Flair to eliminate him with no resistance. I would have said Sid could just step over the ropes and eliminate himself to give the match to Flair, but with Savage having hopped over the ropes earlier and Heenan having to cover for him that you had to be thrown out by somebody else, Sid stepping over the ropes wouldn't have worked. At any rate, the point is to book it so that Flair and Sid are in cahoots with each other, thus Hogan is truly screwed, and when Jack Tunney books the Flair/Hogan match, Hogan proclaims he wants to even the score with the man who screwed him out of the belt to begin with, and thus Hogan/Sid is a natural and fans will happily cheer Hogan because the storyline is laid out so that it makes sense to cheer Hogan.

I've always found a resthold more effective if you are doing more than just applying it and leaving it at that. For an armbar, you work the opponent down to the mat and drop a knee to the shoulder and that drives home the point you are working the arm. As for chinlocks, there are those who will spend time working the neck and use the chinlock to further work it over. And there are those who, when keeping the chinlock applied for a longer period of time, will find a way to "drop weight down on their opponent," so to speak, to make it clear you're trying to put your opponent away. I agree with what has been said that restholds are bad when they are just used as an excuse to rest. I think the real problem is that, at some point, fans were conditioned to believe that the action has to "keep going" and thus if you go to a resthold, it's an immediate strike against the match, regardless of whether said resthold is being incorporated to tell a story during the match.

Roller Games! I had no idea anyone else on the planet remembered this! My only exposure to roller derby. Loved it. I remember watching Roller Games as a sophomore in college. They even had a pinball game we played all the time. Ah, good times.

Must be a slow news day if we are allowing guys to debate as to whether TNA is bad or good. And is the guy behind the "bad" perspective one of the regular columnists? If so... ugh.

The talk about having a face chasing a heel in a territory is fine, but I'll say it again: Flair was set to drop the title to David Von Erich with the idea that David was the guy who could hold the belt for the long term. How well David would have done in that spot is purely speculative, but that was still the plan. After the title switch and back with Kerry, they started looking again. Supposedly Magnum T.A. was the guy, but once again, the guy they looked at was no longer wrestling. The whole idea behind who got the NWA title had little to do with "money is in the chase," even if the theory was something promoters bought into. It was regarding who the majority of promoters believed was the guy who could carry the belt and do good business against whoever was the top guy in a particular promotion.

We may very well have our next myth to debunk. At any rate, I do remember in the Meltzer WC posts thread that Verne offered to put the AWA title on Hogan and Hogan turned it down given that Hogan also worked New Japan, while Verne had an agreement with All Japan, and Hogan didn't want to give cut of his Japan earnings to Verne. Assuming what Dave said is true, one has to wonder what Verne's mindset was... if he believed he could send fans home happy without having to actually let Hogan win the title, or if he thought the constant reversals would be along the lines of "the money is in the chase" with his ultimate intent to put the title on Hogan once and for all. Either way, it was flawed thinking because fans can only tolerate so many reversed decisions.

No, he didn't have a title chase per se. I meant more along the lines of how ratings were higher during the early days of The Streak, and were steadily dropping once he got the belt itself. The Goldberg stuff definitely goes back to the botchery Jingus referred to earlier. After Goldberg won the title, he wasn't treated like the top guy, they just kept picking people at random to trot out against him. The win definitely generated a huge crowd response (unlike Sting's title win, where people couldn't make heads or tails of it), but like Sting, the follow up was badly executed.

Is this really a fair comparison for illustrating your point? DiBiase with the title at house shows was both brief and so close to the event on NBC happening that most of the tix for those shows would likely have been sold already. Not disagreeing with your point per se, just with this being used as an example of it. DiBiase was one example I thought of off the top of my head where I've seen some people say he should have won the title and let Hogan chase him (and supposedly, the original plan was to let DiBiase win it at WM IV). It may not have been the best example, but I don't exactly see the evidence that DiBiase would have been a strong draw, even if he's just holding the title until Hogan completed No Holds Barred and would regain it upon his return.

In response to S.L.L., I don't think the myth of "the money is in the chase" comes from Hogan hatred and Flair love as it does from the Hogan/Sting example of WCW 1997, where they positioned Sting as Hogan's nemesis in February and held off all the way until Starrcade in December to do the payoff match, giving WCW one of its best buyrates in the process. Of course, what people forget is that the build saw generally little interaction between Hogan and Sting, and every time it happened, Hogan and the nWo were freaked out, where as Hogan and the nWo tended to treat others as an afterthought. What people forget about Flair's lengthy title run is that the NWA had guys in mind to take the belt off Flair to see how well they could fare as the next champion. They had David Von Erich in mind at one point and we know what happened there, and the Kerry title win was just done to give fans a feelgood moment. As far as Hogan goes, the only wrestler where evidence _might_ suggest he could be the champion and still draw is Roddy Piper. But Piper isn't touted by certain smarks because he wasn't this "great worker" whereas DiBiase and Hennig are touted as such, regardless of the fact that evidence shows business wasn't as good when DiBiase was parading with the World title for a couple of shows or when Hennig was challenging Hogan. And another point on "the money is in the chase" may be that it applies to smark hatred for John Cena. But from reading reports and show reviews, it seems more like it has to do with how Cena is booked, in that often fans aren't given a reason to rally behind him. Case in point: When they did the angle some time ago where Randy Orton attacked Cena's father, I read reports about how Cena was getting far more cheers than boos, thus indicating fans who would normally boo Cena had found a reason to get behind him. But again, with Cena, it's not that he should be chasing more often... it's that he should be booked so fans are willing to get behind him. This was done plenty of times with Hogan in the 1980s, hence why he kept most of the fans behind him.

Dave Meltzer reported in today's WO.com update that Paul London no-showed a scheduled debut at the TNA Impact tapings in a tag team with Amazing Red. No idea if this means TNA will considered the bridge burned or give him another shot.. given TNA's checkered history, I wouldn't be surprised if they schedule him again, but on the other hand, they may decide not to bother with him.

Part of me wonders if Cornette brought up WWE examples to make it look like he is talking about WWE, when in reality, he is also addressing TNA. He may work there, but it was common knowledge that he wasn't happy that Vince Russo was brought back within months of his (Cornette's) arrival. And Lord knows some of the stuff that has gone down in TNA in recent months fits what Cornette is talking about.

What it generally comes down to with Bret was that the formulaic, same-stuff match came about in his matches that weren't considered as good. Some of that would come down to Bret dogging it (as some say he did during house show matches) or a match in which there wasn't a lot of time given to it, so Bret seems to think he isn't going to bother getting anything out of it. But while Bret uses the same moves in his matches, it doesn't make them all repetitive. In the better matches he has had with Bulldog, Austin, Hennig, Michaels, Diesel and 1-2-3 Kid, I don't see the same formula being repeated, regardless of the moves being used. If we are talking about repetitiveness of moves used, Flair belongs in the same argument.

And regarding this whole "wrestlers know some things we don't know" deal, how many times do we hear Wrestler X talk about how much he liked to work with this guy or that guy? Or how much he can't stand working with this wrestler or thinks this wrestler is overrated? We see it all the time... so which wrestlers are right and which ones are wrong? Or should we not come to the proper conclusion that they are stating an opinion just like anyone else?

On the subject of "X-Pac heat," I generally try to listen to the tone of the crowd to determine whether or not the wrestler in questioning is getting "suck heat." It can be hard to tell sometimes, but if it sounds like the fans are frustrated rather than just taunting the heel. I remember the Prince Iaukea cruiserweight title push in 2000 WCW. He got a lot of "you suck" chants directed at him, where I got the vibe from the crowd that they just didn't want to see him wrestle. For those that point to the "you suck" chants Kurt Angle got, he got his during his entrance theme, done in time to the theme. That was a taunt. With X-Pac, I think it simply goes back to the fact that, much of the time, when X-Pac had a feud, he seldom got his comeuppance. Fans get frustrated if a heel doesn't get comeuppance and thus are likely to turn on him because of that.

Well, there is sometimes the debate as to which of the Razor-Shawn PPV ladder matches is better, the one at WMX or the one at SummerSlam 95. Otherwise, the only ladder match that really stands out for me was Rock/HHH at SummerSlam 98, although the fact HHH really was injured makes it hard to judge how good he really was at selling the effects of the match.

Vince McMahon, Vince Russo and Kurt Angle have all said nutty things, but nothing as nutty as that Hogan quote.

It was certainly interesting to watch a number of matches on the SNME DVD as an example of what was really going on. Hogan doesn't have five-star classics, but his matches are quite enjoyable. They do start falling into a formulaic pattern as time goes by, but that seems to be what most people remember. When a wrestler is clearly in decline, particularly when the business declines along with the wrestler, people tend to associate that as said wrestler not being good to begin with. There are those who point out about canned heat during the Warrior match with Honky Tonk Man and it suddenly becomes an example about how Warrior never deserved his push at all. Never mind that, if you look at the crowd, people are reacting to Warrior in the way you would expect for a babyface. And if I'm not mistaken, they put canned heat on that entire SNME episode, and for reasons I don't understand, because it really wasn't a dead crowd on that show. But anyway, everyone seems to remember more about Warrior's failure to draw as the top guy in the company, as opposed to being somebody who is expected to draw well enough on the "B" circuit, but not be the main draw overall. And, of course, we've gone over the Luger situation. What everyone points to the most is Luger's laziness and general disinterest in the business in the mid to late 1990s. It just seems to me with the workers aren't considered to be "the best" by a certain segment, that thus their entire careers should be thrown under the bus by simply point to the years they declined or didn't do so well as if it's evidence that they never were that good or popular to begin with. It probably also hurts for that certain segment to know that Michaels and Angle have failed to draw when put into the top spot of the company. Some of it could be blamed on booking, but a wrestler who is truly successful as a draw can overcome booking that isn't particularly good. Just ask Steve Austin and The Rock.