Matt D

David Cesaro.

Frankly, so long as they reply the transitions we miss, I'm generally okay with it. The flip side, after all, is not getting long matches.

What a fun little match. What a terrible crowd. No wonder Douglas hates Flair. It's kind of surreal how he'd go back and basically conquer Philly a few years later. Douglas/Steamboat were really good with their rapid fire shine offense. Tag team Specialists and all that. Sasaki and Liger just dismantle the knee. Liger popping the crowd with the figure four is kind of hilarious. Steamboat running around pumping up the crowd during the crab was great. Not even this crowd can resist buying into it. Douglas not selling his knee after the suplex before the hot tag is silly. It was a sort of dumb spot to set up the hot tag in general even if it had a snap. A neckbreaker or something would have been better, especially if he wasn't going to sell it well. I did like Sasaki and Liger kicking out the Slaughter cannon to transition into a second FIP. I wouldn't have given Steamboat a hope spot right after the spike piledriver either, but that's just me. I had a schadenfreude moment where I enjoyed Douglas missing his dropkick too much. Liger and Sasaki made one hell of a team. I could have used a bit of tightening on the selling though.

Austin's better if they can get him. He partially made his career on Jake and he's a much bigger name/draw/special event than Dibiase.

One thing I like a lot about this match is that it has a lot of clever little Bret Hart finisher flourishes. He kicked open the notebook a few times here, between the novel roll up out of the corner and the Lance Stormian roll into the sharpshooter. It's obvious that he really wanted this match to be good and was pulling out the bells and whistles for it.

I would think the more powerful claim would be "Dudley was the first African-American to run a major United States arena." which is what wiki claims. Vince inducted him himself. Were there any fan recordings of the HOF? I know they showed highlights on TV. I'd be curious to know what he said.

I guess this wasn't a thing until at least 95, no?

With a Meltzer-written article, it's definitely always a possibility. Personally, if I was Shawn, I'd be a lot less worried about Macho Man and a lot more worried about the Headshrinkers. It's more than possible that Dave had access to a booking sheet, right? Something like this: http://imgur.com/a/4Dr3E#1

Bix, I think someone should do an article on whether or not there's a correlation between concussions and wrestlers getting depushed in WWE over the last couple of years. I kind of think it should be you.

I'm never sure when you tuned out and when you didn't. Have you seen Christian's 09 ECW babyface ace run? I'm sure Eric or Phil or Dylan or someone else could speak on it, but it was a pretty impressive run. Christian's a guy who gets overlooked in a big way and I do hope we get him either in another tag vs Cesaro or in a singles match before the PPV. I'm also kind of wondering if they're not looking at Cesaro as a guy to put into the spot vs Sheamus at Mania now.

I'm never sure when you tuned out and when you didn't. Have you seen Christian's 09 ECW babyface ace run?

The Courtesy: PWI note on the Brazil photos was interesting. I'm not sure I've seen WWE use something like that before.

Obviously, what's come out since could be more accurate than 1994 information but that's pretty detailed info Meltzer was throwing out there.

I kind of want to start tagging notes that are part of the JVK vs JDW feud to try to make narrative sense of it.

I couldn't get anyone to touch this before: Shawn and Razor only went :17 long?

I actually really hope we get a Christian/Someone tag run this year. His skill at match layout and ability to switch up his face offense would make him just about perfect for a bunch of 2014 style wwe tag matches.

"Bob Armstrong worked against his sons Steve & Scott, who are heels in the local Peach State promotion, in a cage match on 5/30(/94) in Cordele, GA. Armstrong & The Blazers (R.D. Swain & Ray Lloyd) beat Scott & Steve with manager Mad Jack." I have no idea who Swain is but come on, that match had to be a metric ton of fun.

Was there any talk that Dolph and AJ split due to Punk?

The follow up then is whether or not the claims of Dudley's importance that have come up since are valid. Even Vince, in 1994, didn't try to sell him as something more than a "manager extraordinaire."

Kris, Does any of that peach state exist? I love the idea of Scott and Steve Armstrong as heels going up against their dad.

Meltzer was very negative on the James Dudley WWF Hall of Fame induction in 1994, taking multiple shots at it including this one after talking about Ladd going into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Hodge going into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. "Wonder if either of those Hall of Fames has inducted any chauffeurs lately?" I know the general sentiment about Dudley now is a lot more positive. Did Dave ever change his tune on this?

Around the time they were putting Flair with Miz, I was hoping he'd turn on him and go with Dolph as sort of a new Nature Boy thing.

What's the deal with Disco almost becoming Rockabilly. He seems a guy that the WWF would have loved. Had he just burned that bridge by 2001?

I really like the Halloween Havoc Flair turn in 1995. It's so inevitable. There's no stopping it. Yes, Sting's an idiot, but he's also aware of the possibility. He knows it's coming and the payoff isn't just a new Horsemen but the idea that Flair's gone too far this time and Sting is going to crush him.

And the way they do define Dolph is tricky. He wants to be the showoff and have the best "performance" of the night, which is kind of hard to fit into the traditional narrative. Is he like a ballhog in the NBA who wants to win, sure, but wants to score as many points as possible and get on sportscenter a lot in the process? It comes off too much as him wanting to have the best fake match of the night. I do think his act with Big E and AJ was pretty well framed but they admittedly botched that about as much as humanly possible.