Matt D

I would like to see Parv talk about Tony Danza for 3000 words. I would like Johnny to talk about Welcome Back Kotter next.

They turned Hughes with JYD

And the stuff that was good, like the nose-breaking angle with Steamboat stumbled into the stalking Madusa angle.

Do you ever look back and then see where we are now and wonder what the hell happened?

There were a lot of quick changes in direction too. Watts didn't really let things finish well before switching things about. I wish we had a long run of Arn Anderson challenging Sting, for instance. As a kid, the switch to Watts really turned me off. Flying Brian was my favorite wrestler at the time and I was really into the Dangerous Alliance.

It's hard to tell from the TV who was successful or not since from watching it you'd believe that almost every guy was getting over, especially Master G and Snowman. When exactly did Reed turn face. Snowman vs Jake was June 86 and I thought it was after that, but it's been a while.

With Reed, wasn't he sort of the last resort? He was a heel (and a great JYD foil) until all the other guys failed, and once he turned face Vince pretty much snatched him up? Or is my timeline off in my head?

We were doing so well too

If Johnny was a wrestling character, he could absolutely manage the Ding Dongs

Does that first Superdome show sync up with first WWF shows in various areas from the era before numbers quickly dropped?

He wasn't just an ethnic hero, he was a folk hero.

And for the love of god did Watts ever try his hardest to replace Dog.

Can Vader be Chris Farley?

Luger wasn't a full timer at that point. I think Rock's wrestling more in 2013 than Luger did in 92. Oh wait he had the Chono Tokyo Dome match too.

I've been too swamped to listen lately (also: Steve Regal), but you're getting into interesting territory again so I'll try to catch up.

I think to a casual audience HHH vs Brock II is a bigger draw than Mark Henry vs Brock. A lot of the casual nostalgia audience they're trying to draw see Henry as a joke still or a big boring fat guy.

If it's Khali, then I send him out there dressed like a mummy to dance and I give Neidhart a Luna Vachon gimmick.

Khali could totally be the Yeti. He could wheel out legless Kamala, blame Taker for it, and drive poor Parv from watching wrestling forever.

I want Punk to have a Ministry of Darkness using the urn to summon his own version of the Dungeon of Doom. I'll be satisfied with nothing less here. This Mania build is shot to hell anyway.

Actually French Politics can be really interesting. You often get a massive ton of power in one party which can lead to sweeping changes like in 1981 with Mitterrand which lead to a crazy nationalization of everything and then kind of an embarrassing retrench a few yeas later. And yes, in a lot of ways the Front National is the most interesting thing of all.

My best guess: Ratings instead of crowds?

They did these with EVERYONE. My favorites were probably Big Josh for the sheer ridiculousness of Borne saying it, the Freebirds for their delivery, and Dangerously, since he talks about it framed with kids wanting to some day join the Dangerous Alliance.

Valentine/Slater vs Steamboat/Windham - WCW Pro Chicago July 25 The whole show is online and it's awesome. It's the last time ever that Valentine ever did anything meaningful I think, and I love it. Valentine was being booked as a surprisingly strong mid-carder, having just gotten a pinfall over Pillman after his brief US tag title run. He's allied with Slater and Barbarian. It's supposed to be a six man tag: Slater/Barbarian/Valentine vs Dustin/Windham/Steamboat. Dustin's being interviewed at Ringside and Valentine comes out to insult Dusty. Dustin goes NUTS on him but Barbarian and Slater come out and Valentine hits three huge elbow drops as they hold out Dustin's legs on the floor. Windham and Steamboat make the save. Due to Dustin's injury, they make the six man a straight up southern tag with Valentine/Slater vs Windham/Steamboat and it's actually really good for what it is (a 10-15 minute WCW 1992 C show main event). Long FIP on Steamboat with lots of hope spots and cutoffs. Windham finally gets the hot tag in and goes to town but Barbarian comes out and the thing breaks down completely. He slams Steamboat on the floor and the numbers game wins out on Windham. Then Dustin runs out, limping and they make it a six man again. He gets a super hot tag and clears house til they take out his leg. We get all sorts of shenanigans with a towel and figure fours, and missed tags until it finally ends with Dustin putting on a figure four of his own and eating a top rope Slater kneedrop behind the ref's back. This was a massive amount of fun, in part because it's so random and forgotten and in part because it was Steamboat and Windham in there with two experts.

When they get one right though, it's awesome, because you get this weird amalgamation of 3-5 entities that just should not exist together.

Will's match. To me, the best part about the PR I've seen is how well they utilize the gimmicks at the center of the gimmick matches. I'm not a violence junkie. I'm not a vampire. But if i'm watching a gimmick match, I want the gimmick to matter, and I want it to matter logically. Well, there's no real way they can't make this gimmick matter; look at how high up the scaffold is. Look at how that thing rocks. Look at how they're not afraid to take bumps on it. Holy crap. The story is real simple. Invader #3 is stronger in every way. He'll bite, punch, stomp, and keep going back to a front facelock for control. Chicky comes back with low blows and eyerakes and tries his own punch/kick/stomping. One guy dangles his legs off the side. The other one dangles his legs off the side. Invader breaks out a suplex and a snap mare and this crazy dropkick. Chicky does some great rabbit punches and bleeds a lot. It ends with Chicky thinking he's won it but Invader hanging on and them then reversing the hanging on spot, but it doesn't go nearly as well for Starr. His bump is ridiculously terrible looking. Just a straight down feet first jamming. This was a really logical match because it almost couldn't not be. At the same time I've seen some crummy scaffold matches and this kept things moving and there was an incredible sense of danger at every point. Every stomp was amplified by it to a huge degree and I think they realized that. The couple of big spots they did (Dropkick, suplex, slam position) would be next to nothing in any other match but here they were nuts, but none of them seemed out of place or overly sensational. The finish worked because of Chicky's bleeding. I could totally buy that he looked down and couldn't see the ground well. They were that high up. Learning from my mistakes of last time I watched the singles match and Stick on a Pole (pole on a stick?) matches that are available too. That helped me have some context and I actually liked the "on a pole" match a lot. I guess it has a bad rep, but it was another match where they were really working the gimmick and jockeying for position.