Matt D

You've never heard of Only Child Magic? At the least, she would have had a nice collection of toy ponies.

Hey, welcome to the other side, Goodear.

Thanks a lot for reading. Some of these things you just never kick. I'm not even what I thought of Cornette. I think I saw him in GWF. OR, you know, I actually knew him from the 91-92 Apter mags the most. I had an old one about him and Stan Lane heading off on their own. I had no idea who he was before that.

Ok, I am about 35 minutes in, and I'm going to raise a question, or a thought, mainly because I don't have time to listen to the rest until tomorrow. You guys may raise this point later on but if we're thinking heavily about WCW's performance during Sting's period on top in the early 90s, and why a lot of people don't penalize him for it, I do have a theory and I think it's worth talking about. Let's put nostalgia aside for now. That's hard. A lot of us were into Sting at that key period. Instead, let's think about this: What did Sting do during that period that caused WCW to fail. Alternatively, what could have Sting done better to cause them to succeed? When you look at the end of Hogan's run on top in WWF, you can see things he may have done poorly. When you look at Hogan early in WCW, the same. Or the failure of the NWO towards the end. Alternatively, you can see a ton of things that Hogan does successfully in his key runs that you can attribute towards the success of the companies he's in. Causality stemming from his performance. What did Sting do wrong in 1991-3? He was consistently over with what crowds were in those arenas. They seemed hugely excited to see him. Listen to the reaction he gets at Beach Blast or vs Vader or even vs Johnny B. Badd.in the Clash I just watched. This is the period with the series with Vader and Rude and Cactus Jack, like Andy said. He was pretty giving in a lot of ways, putting some talent like Bagwell under his wing and he sure helped to put Badd over in the match that I saw him in. And those were just younger guys. He more than put over Rude and Vader to get them established with the fans. Was he an amazing promo? No but he was an enthusiastic one and he seemed to connect with the fans that were there. It's hard to hold those years against Sting because we do what we do: we analyze, and in analyzing, I don't think we can find a ton of things that we think he did wrong or even a lot that we wished he would have done better. Therefore, maybe it was other factors? Now, this is just then. One thing we're seeing out of the 98 yearbook so far is a lot of people disappointed with him that year. I'm just talking about this 90-93 period. Yes, he didn't draw, and therefore, he obviously didn't connect with enough fans, but why? How? It's not an opportunity thing, necessarily, or a counter-factual that keeps people from holding this against him quite as much. I'm arguing here, or at least suspecting, it's because there isn't a fast and easy list that we can come up for on this specific point. We can't find the causality in Sting's performance or his existence that led to him not being a success, and instead see lots of things he did right or well or that looked like they should have been successful. That's where the "opportunity" element comes in. That's why people think Sting might have been successful if only... because the flaws that caused him not to be aren't immediately evident in his performance in this period. People have a hard time finding qualitative reasons to explain the quantitative realities. The same is sort of true with Bret Hart during this down period, no? In some ways, it's almost easier to spot what Bret could have done differently or where he was deficient than Sting, even (But that's another, parallel argument).

I think we can combine them with nostalgic geeks who cheer for Daniel Bryan but don't watch football?

I think that we MIGHT be moving away from that as Wrestling starts to appeal to a geekier hipster audience? Though I guess they're just the ones who do Fantasy Football?

A swig of coffee for the working man?

it's like listening to Solie in 95 talking about the Dungeon of Doom.

I think there was Value in Verne/Greg in 1991, but that value would almost solely be as a scout.

It made the Punk series pretty brutal for me since Punk was really bad at hiding it too.

The start of his heel run is so great. Then he got injured for the stupidest reason ever in 80.

He had Malaria which ended his early career. This is what he looked like before it.

At the time, that might have been the right call. They needed to make a splash. Going back to the "give it away on TV" well over and over was another story.

I was being a dick, yes. I like "the world's second best Bill Dundee" memphis Danny Davis a lot.

The tricky part is finding something that's bad but not so bad it's wildly entertaining.

Nightmares, huh? You mean the ref Danny Davis right? Because I just found a twelve minute match from the Spectrum with him vs Sam Houston.

I was planning on being kind. But forget that now. Fine, note of shame it is. Has anyone seen Zandig and Van Hammer vs Jun Kasai and Wifebeater?

One frustrating thing about WWE as opposed to other forms of media in 2014 is that there's just no way to ask a question like "Will the gaps in WCCW be filled?" I don't know if it's because of the carny background but there's just no access.

Slowly making it through. Couple of thoughts on the Mid-Year Awards ---- 1. Global was a major promotion to me as in, during 1991, it was a big part of my life. You could watch WWF on the weekends, but Global I watched on ESPN every day when I got home from school. I tell the story about how pissed I was when it was preempted for the MLB expansion draft, and I was in to baseball that year too. 2. Sherri was also amazing in her role as being the person Warrior could get revenge on between the Rumble and Mania, especially in the cage match at MSG, which ends up really uncomfortable. The manager cam match was vs Tito at the beginning of 92 and it's frustrating because I think it's the only taped singles match between the two of them during that mini feud and we lose it all to the manager cam stuff. 3. Hogan's a really fun choice for Most Improved, Chad, though I do think he had a pretty good 1990 too. 4. Virgil on the other hand, I don't think got all that much better until 1992. He has some really great jobber matches that year where he just demolishes guys.

Goc is the only one to step up so it's going to be me vs Goc. What are the stakes? A note of shame where the loser reviews in detail 5 (easily available) matches picked by the winner? You could toss five Davey Richards vs Eddie Edwards matches at me if you were an ass, or something interesting or outlandish or whatever. Or do we want to put a moderately priced comp on the line here? Put something up.

Dustin, on Jericho's podcast the other day, said he wasn't mad at Bischoff for screwing him in 94 since he made it up to him later. I guess this is the evidence of that.

Thanks a lot. I remember looking at your show reviews back all the way back in 2010 when I was working on the Demolition Project and they were definitely useful at the time. I don't envy you proofreading whatever comes out of my head though. I type faster than I think. That said, I do have some ideas for Halloween Havoc that I'm looking forward to trying to crack.

this company doesn't have the balls to let their champ be off TV and PPV for 3+ months. He's totally dropping the title and it's highly likely it's back to Cena.I'd say highly unlikely. I feel like we should put some kind of wager down here. Me and Russellmania vs the mighty KrisZ and Mr. Zoo before any more Raws hit so there's no more "tenor" to pick up on. I think Cena wins it back at NOC (to then lose immediately to Rollins, but that's beside the point) and that they did all of this just to pop the renewals for the network.

Generally, unless they're going to give us stuff that's completely and totally unavailable, MSG matches or dark matches from before tapings that we've never seen before or territories where they have far more footage than has ever been revealed, I'd much rather have original programming. I love the older stuff, but if I want it, I can get it. I'd rather have something that is new, either to the tape trading community or to the world. There is a near infinite amount of wrestling on youtube that I haven't seen. I'm not looking for more territories on the network if they're things that I can see for a relatively small expense on my schedule and more easily.

At the very least, the Lumberjack match decision wasn't made in ignorance. Ambrose talks about it for a few seconds or so on the Shield special.