El-P

Agreed. But Kudo was praised heavily by some. To me at her peak she was one of the best wrestler in the world. And I would be remiss if I didn't mentionned while I get the occasion, which doesn't happen much, how much I loved Bison Kimura and her stiff brawling style. And I always thought was sexy as hell too.

The ending of the show redeemed that awful segment. Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Morton vs Terry Taylor & One Man Gang was not only a good TV match, but it's the beginning of Morton's heel turn, which is gonna be really fun. Taylor steals the show each time he's on TV, he's bumping all over the place and makes a fool out of himself, and looks really good while he's on offense. And One Man Gang was still really good in 91. I understand how annoying the push for Dustin must have been at the time, although he did have tons of potential, but still, it was transparent as far as why he got pushed so much. They also handle Mr. Hughes really well, having him just standing in front of guys and never back down nor actually hit anyone. That's how you build a character. I love the York Foundation. Too bad Terri was dressed like crap most of the time.

Forgot about Droz. Me and my bad exemples. But yeah, Bradshaw was white, big and an office stooge. And a locker room bully.

Bull Drop Inn. New segment with Dus-tay. With Jason Hervey. Whoever he was. And yes, he looks as tall as 4 foot. First guest : Rapmaster PN News. Proceeds to put over Dusty. Of course. Yo baby yo baby yo. It was worse than I ever thought it was. Jason Hervey is dancing. Dusty is rapping. This was *UGLY*. Fucking UGLY. And then, Barry Windham is distracted by a giant rat (Pillman). Fuck, Dusty's booking is already going into the shitter. Thank god, Steve Austin debuts on the same show. Had no idea he wasn't managed by Lady Blossom at first.

Not the point. He could have left, was made an offer, and stayed with Vince. Loyalty matters. This is true. Whether you see him as a valued performer or not, the company clearly did. D-Lo Brown was pretty loyal too. He also got the option to go to WCW after he got himself over with WWF crowds. He stayed loyal. When did he become a world champ again ?

You don't say. My version of Superbrawl had about half the undercard edited out. So no Terry Taylor match yet again (sigh), and for the laughs no debut of Oz nor Johnny B. Badd. Grrrr... I hadn't seen Luger/Sting vs Steiners in a long time, and my recollection was that it was quite overrated. Well, I was right, and even moreso than I think I was. The opening sequences with Luger and Rick are really good, and you feel the match is going to build and build. Nope. They just go into a spotfest, and not a great one. Seriously, it doens't hold a candle to the Tokyo Dome match against Hase & Sasaki, which is already way overated if you compare it to about any big tag match from NJ that year. The Steiners had much better bomb throwing matches with Doom the previous year, I can't figure why this match has been pimped for years as something special. And as of May 1991, I still don't feel Sting at all. When will this guy turn into a good worker ? Meanwhile, Arn & Bobby Eaton had a very good match. You feel they could have done more, but I guess the goal was not to work a world title level match either. Eaton is awesome, and as great as a face than he is as a heel. Great selling. Windham vs Pillman is about as great as a 6 minute brawling match can go. Windham looks like a contender for best wrestler in WCW thus far this year. Butch Reed vs Ron Simmons was good, and you can tell Reed is laying out the entire thing for Simmons. Flair vs Fujinami was yet another really good match, but at point Flair just does embarrassing stuff as he forces Fuji into cliché Flair spots, and you can see the lack of communication or understanding. But overall, very stiff, strong selling, a few good nearfalls at the end. Although of course Fuji didn't get over and the stupid jingoist fans were chanting USA at babyface Fujinami. Well, maybe also the fact that it was a rather smart-ass audience, chanting for the Freebirds, and singing Goodbye to Sid who was leaving for WWF. Jim Ross was at time pretty mediocre I thought this night, being overly excited and overselling the tag match, and talking about Fujinami's "karate kicks". Well... Ross & Dusty just isn't a very good tandem. I miss Paul E.

I wouldn't put him in my top 10, but yeah, Rich was gold in this role.

Gotta love Scott Steiner. He found his niche too late in his career.

In no order : Jim Cornette (obvously) Paul E. Dangerously (obviously) Bobby Heenan (obviously) Sherry Martel (how many matches did she improve dramatically ?) Woman (great presence in ECW with the Sandman, one of my favourite duo ever) Jimmy Hart (Memphis baby, no matter how lame his Hulkamania days were) Gary Hart (really underrated) JJ Dillon (4 Horsemen) Francine (yeah, she was that great in ECW at one point. You would just want to bitchslap her. Biggest cunt ever.) Liz (probably more for aesthetical reasons than anything else, as she didn't do that much outside of being part of an incredible and historical outfit, then looking ridiculously hot in WCW).

Well, indeed, WCW hired everybody and anybody at the time. Still, Poffo was hired as a favor for Randy. And Powers was hired to be a competitive jobber. It's not like they got all TNA on them back then and pushed the guy because he was "ex-WWF" (in the case of Lanny, they sure could at least put him on TV, but that's WCW retardation). And would Bradshaw getting snacked by WCW at any point in 96/97/98/99 have changed *anything* for WWF ? Of course not. He was a complete non factor.

All your posts on JBL make it sound like you just want to be contrary. You liked him when no one else did. Then hated him when everyone else liked him. That doesn't make you right. Well, I realize it may be the impression I'm giving, but that's not the case. I enjoyed Bradshaw in 97/98 because I was getting in to puro at the time and liked the fact Bradshaw was working stiff. Then I got bored by the the time he was in the Acolytes, then quit watching. Then heard about a single push. Was interested in watching his big matches since I enjoyed him before, was extremely underwhelmed by his work and his gimmick. That's it. Now, you can believe I'm trying to be a contrarian for the sake of it, I know it's not the case, so I don't give a flying fuck about it. As far as "making me right", whatever. I just don't get the 2004 Bradshaw love, that's all. At his worst, Bradshaw sucked. He was a plodding stiffness mark and third rate Hansen clone. At his best, Bradshaw was pretty good as a stiff fucker with some redneck charisma and good moveset for a guy his size. I wish he had worked in Japan at some point, he would have fit there. I'm actually curious about his few John Hawk matches in WAR. Some random stuff there.

Hum.. Hansen... "Oh, you're trying to beat the shit out of me ? Ok, where's the eye socket... ok, there."

Ditto. Well I liked him when nobody cared. I remember really enjoying his match with Jeff Jarrett at NWO 98. I don't remember who told that story, but here it is. When Vader was doing his left/right barrage in the corner, if you got with the rhythm, it was harmless. So what Vader did was break his own rhythm so he could punch you good. So whoever this guy was got the stiff treatment, punched Vader in the face as a reply, and next time around Vader softly stayed in his rhythm and barely touched the guy.

Not really. I know some people loved the Bradshaw push in the mid00's. I enjoyed Bradshaw back in 97/98. Then got bored because a third rate Nise Hansen only goes so far. Then watched back his "big push" matches, saw that the guy was worse than 7/8 years before, that his gimmick worked wonders (sarcasm) on the WWE audience, that he took part in two great matches thanks to Eddie Guerrero. Essentially, Bradsaw is to the WWE in the 00's what Johnny Ace was to AJ in the 90's. Except Ace at one point brought more to the table than Bradshaw ever did (and I don't like Ace). Now, as far as his commentary years, I'm filling a blank, not familiar with it. He may have been great at this, I can't tell.

That's laughable. How many guys worked their ass off during years and never got any chance at being headliners ? Please. It's not like Bradshaw had any value at all to WCW. Justin Hawk, Blackjack Bradhsaw... yeah, like Bischoff would throw big money at an aging stiff cowboy guy who was a mediocre worker low on the undercard. Bradshaw was an office stooge, that's why he finally got a push. Just accept it. Won't change anything to the work of him you enjoy. I enjoyed DDP's push in 96/97 a lot and I know why he finally got it (that said, he was a much better worker than Bradshaw and got himself over as hell, while Bradshaw's matches were getting crickets when he got pushed).

I disagree with that assessment of Vader. A lot of the interviews I've seen where people talk about Vader is that he just worked a certain way and that was beating the hell out of you in the ring. Of course, you could beat the shit out of Vader in return and there would be no issues. He was unlike JBL in the sense that he was a big softie backstage. He wasn't out to take liberties on guys and he wasn't out to hurt anyone. When he broke that jobbers back he went backstage and cried about it. He wasn't backstage fucking with guys constantly like JBL. I don 't know, most interviews I've heard categorize Vader as somewhat of a bully in the ring, taking advantage of people he could beat up. Of course that doesn't mean he wanted to injure people. Agreed about being a softie backstage though, the same people said Vader was a sensitive teddy bear. So yeah, Vader just isn't in the same category as JBL, who was a plain asshole from all acounts. Plus he was a great worker, while JBL, well, not very good.

I thought you stopped trying to be a smart alec. I stopped watched WWF programming in 1999, only watched a few big matches up intul 2001 Then in the mid 00's, mostly because of the GWE poll, I revisited the post 00 era, watched most big matches there was to watch. I thought I shouldn't have to explain it.

Holy shit John !!

I can't even fathom the idea that 1999 would be the golden age of anything. WWF was the shit in 99. The nadir of Russoism. It's the year that made me quit.

It's also worth noting how much the company was moving away from tag teams, which were an essential part of the undercard until then. In late 1990, the Rock'n Roll split because of Gibson's injury, The Nasty Boys left for WWF, the Midnight Express split with Lane & Corny leaving, the Samoans left a few months before, then in early 1991 Doom split. At this point the tag team roster was down to the Steiners, who had no one left to feud with, so they got Luger & Sting at Superbrawl, The Fabulous Freebirds and the Young Pistols, whose name change apparently hurt them a bit, as they are nowhere as hot as they were in 90 as the Southern Boys. And yet they still have the US tag titles floating around which was odd since they could have get rid of it after the Steiners vacated them. Really, 1991 is the first year where the tag team division didn't seem as important as it was before.

March - April 1991 is really carried by two things : _Brian Pillman feuding with the Horsemen. At some point, you get a very good Pillman vs Windham / Arn / Flair match or even a fun Pillman/Gigante vs Windham/ Anderson on every TV show. The bad thing is that Pillman is jobbed out. Sure, he comes off like a valiant underdog, but he doesn't get much in term of wins and gets a beating from the Horsemen every time. _The York Foundation. First you get Taylor and aspiring Landell vs Eaton/Z-Man in various single and tag matches, then Landell sadly gets fired and you Zbyszko takes his spot, which isn't bad but not as great. Eaton gets to feud with Arn so the York Foundation moves toward Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Morton. Taylor is gold every time around. Funny to see Dustin & Alexandria York at this point. Lot of good TV matches and fun stuff every week. The Flair vs Gigante feud quickly goes nowhere, as Gigante is programmed with Sid (who eventually leaves WCW), leaving an interesting angle in which Arn & Barry allude to the fact they want to get more single titles, teasing an eventual Horsemen split. Would have been pretty fun to see Flair feud with these two at this point. The Doom split really didn't deliver much in term of follow-up. I guess they didn't want to put much spotlight on Reed who was leaving anyway.

Well, I dunno about Waltman, but Francine sure did.

It's too bad, but it was stupid on their part, Gangrel was a great character and a solid enough worker. Have Luna cut the promos for him, and that's it. He didn't need to talk. That's why managers were needed, to back up workers who couldn't cut promo, but they were in this "everyone has to cut promos" era which sucked. From the interviews I've heard from him, Dave Heath was a shy, humble guy who wasn't particulary self confident. Add to the fact that Luna got in trouble with Sable at the same time, and Gangrel was doomed. To me he was much better in the ring than Edge, and had a much better character too. I was very disapointed about the way things turned out for this guy, he deserved better. And I can't forget the story of Luna coming back to the dressing room after making useless Sable look like a million dollar and being ignored by the entire locker room while Sable got all the praise, and feeling like shit and wanting to cry. She mentionned one guy who came to her and put her over big, but I forgot who it was. Luna was another sensitive hard working girl who deserved way better than she got. Shit, Luna & Heath were good people, I guess that's why they got fucked. Owen Hart You're right. Thanks ! It says a lot I think. FWIW, Raven also said multiple times that Luna was a sweetheart of a girl.

It's too bad, but it was stupid on their part, Gangrel was a great character and a solid enough worker. Have Luna cut the promos for him, and that's it. He didn't need to talk. That's why managers were needed, to back up workers who couldn't cut promo, but they were in this "everyone has to cut promos" era which sucked. From the interviews I've heard from him, Dave Heath was a shy, humble guy who wasn't particulary self confident. Add to the fact that Luna got in trouble with Sable at the same time, and Gangrel was doomed. To me he was much better in the ring than Edge, and had a much better character too. I was very disapointed about the way things turned out for this guy, he deserved better. And I can't forget the story of Luna coming back to the dressing room after making useless Sable look like a million dollar and being ignored by the entire locker room while Sable got all the praise, and feeling like shit and wanting to cry. She mentionned one guy who came to her and put her over big, but I forgot who it was. Luna was another sensitive hard working girl who deserved way better than she got. Shit, Luna & Heath were good people, I guess that's why they got fucked.

I think because at some point, it became fashionable to like Bradshaw. People on the IWC went crazy for his heel personna and all of a sudden Bradshaw was an Internet darling, which I never understood. And that comes from a guy who enjoyed Bradshaw in the ring since the mid 90's and thought he was rather underrated. But Bradshaw got a main event push for one reason only, he was a stooge to the office. The great matches with Eddie are Guerrero's masterpieces. Never got this late Bradshaw love, while it was obvious at this point that this guy : was a mediocre worker; never drew shit; got a push because he kissed the office's collective ass for years; bombed as a champ; was a big unprofessionnal bully. Of course you can argue that Vader was a big bully too, and you'd be right.