Matt D

I'm going with Ricky and Robert. Shawn has a tendency of letting his ego get in the way of things (not often but enough) and Ricky realized more than anyone in the history of wrestling that the better you make your opponents look, the more it means when you get the advantage on them.

Did he ever get the chance to? Was he just content in his fiefdom? Were the bigger players just uninterested in him or did he just come along at the wrong time?

Can Knobbs fit through the door of a dive bar right now?

I contacted him through FB when I had to get a fact checked for what I wrote about Buddy in 79.

One reason why i never seriously get into these discussions is that I always lean towards the novelty stuff. With Hart, I swear the first thing that comes to mind isn't Memphis but him coming up with so many songs. With Koloff, I immediately wanted to know who he trained. With Wahoo, you hear so much about him teaching guys the ins and the outs of the business and serving as a mentor and helping guys get jobs later and what not. Hell, with Patera, I mentioned there'd be no Flair without Patera. I am useless to meaningful conversation here.

I realized I had never seen Royal Rumble 1988 so I'm watching that. I actually quite liked the Rude vs Steamboat match though i don't think Rude was 100% there yet. I was disappointed by Glamour Girls vs Jumping Bomb Angels but thought that the best performance in the match was EASILY Judy Martin.

To me a lot of Okerland is how much he actually "produced" the guys he was interviewing during those marathon sessions and whether people think that those local promos actually drew people in to shows in 1984-5-6-7 or so.

Who innovated the heel color role? Piper in Mid-Atlantic?

Now I want Regal to accompany Bryan to one of his matches vs Orton to help fight off the Shield only to turn on him since Bryan is getting what Regal never had. They could have a great little two month feud to tide things over before the December HHH match to earn the Rumble spot that I (and apparently no one else) seem to want to have happen.

You know, Dustin really never main evented for any length of time. I think he had one In Your House vs Taker main event, a War Games and Thundercage over in WCW.

It means a lot more if you watch the two matches previously. They pull spots and counters and even themes from the earlier matches.

I do not know about Eaton. He had the king gimmick in memphis briefly, main evented vs Bill Watts and had the Clash match vs Flair. It isn't Hogan level or anything but three runs in three territories is notable.

I'll go into this more tomorrow but part of my love for Gorilla (And I understand the knocks) is because he reminds me of my late grandfather so I can kind of get that.

Big match feel is the WORST

Actually, yeah, I won't make my own list but i was surprised to see Caudle so high. There are guys who I am excited when I find out they're commentating something (Cornette is one) but Caudle is someone I'm always disappointed about.

Does Rip Rogers count? He main evented the Maritimes, Global, Poffo's ICW maybe? Wherever that Adrian Street feud was?

how do we define main eventer? One main event program (Morton, who might have had more if we count Mid-South)? Multiple main event programs with different people? Over different years?

Bix sparring with the crowd over the announcers was great entertainment. Was there a reason you didn't rate Heyman? I didn't see an explanation there and he is one of my favorite color guys. Was it lack of longevity? That's the problem with Bock too. I've been thoroughly enjoying Bonnema. Any thoughts there? I really love Bill Watts as an announcer too.

What's the cut off date? Because after 91 or so, the answer is almost everyone. Hall, Nash, Austin, Foley, Dustin, Jarrett, etc, etc. Maybe not Mero.

You are a scholar and a gentleman. I know you've held off on the Colossal Connection MSG match and are kind of dreading it but I really enjoyed it. I'll post my thoughts for whenever you get to it. I'll also post my Twin Towers write ups later. I know you didn't like the one match you saw of theirs, but I think it's some of the best babyface Demolition stuff in part because they don't eat them alive. SOMEONE earlier in this post thought they gave them way too much actually, because they wanted more of a LOD style match. Actually, forget that I'll just post this. It has MOST of the reviews until the DVDVR archive comes back: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/demolitionproject.htm

Big Bubba is the answer to that.

Honestly, the Polka Dots help his mythos. Steamboat being the one behind the Dragon costume is much more confusing.

Piper vs Rip Rogers popped up on youtube this week. I suggest everyone check it out. It's only 7 minutes or so but I think it's great. There's also a Battle Royal with Piper from later in that same night where you can really see what made him special in 1980. The promo in between the two is very solid too.

Sarge really doesn't get credit as a worker. Dave hated him in 90-91 when he was really working his ass off and obviously his earlier runs are his earlier runs.

I think Luger's WWF run is hugely underrated. He was very effective in there vs Bret/Perfect/etc as a heel and I think everyone who went through the 93 year book (if you read those posts) talked about how well built Summerslam was. They just didn't pull the trigger.