Matt D

That Arn/Windham match is awesome. I was disappointed when I was the only person who seemed to give a shit about it in the WCW poll. The tag is cool as well. Just curious, what from 91 wcw did you put over it?

IT'S THUNDERCAGE 91. WHAT THE HELL Morton, Taylor, Rich vs Zenk, Rhodes, Big Josh. ... has anyone actually seen this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zeyz5Z6ViD8 When I found that pretty awesome Windham vs Arn match two weeks before I was surprised. When there was a pretty good Windham/Simmons vs Enforcers match the next week, I was glad. But my mind is just boggled by this. EDIT: SURREAL match. It reminds me a lot of the Luger/Windham match from GAB. The cage is teased 2-3 times with blocked cage spots. It's used a couple of times for the heels to try to escape. York tries to bribe the guard to open it as a subplot to the match. Once Taylor uses it to steady himself for a nice top rope splash. There's a really fun transition with all four guys fighting on the top rope, hanging on to the cage. Three FIPs. Morton and Taylor being dickish heels. A decent enough if relatively heatless finish. And ONE, ONE spot where a guy goes into the cage. At the very end. Very weird.

I still kind of want people to explore Kevin Sullivan. I don't know how much credit to give him for what he did in Florida with the Missing Link and imparting a more "Sports Entertainment/theatrical" overlay upon wrestling. I don't know how Sullivan vs Dusty drew. I don't know how Hogan vs Dungeon of Doom drew. I don't know how much credit to give him for NWO as a booker. I don't know how successful he was as a 70s babyface or how he did as a pre-satanic heel in Memphis. I don't know where else he booked. I know he gives himself credit for a lot of things (including convincing Hogan to go heel). But yeah.

They could honestly run Sheamus vs HHH one more time and give him a little more of that rub. Call it a rubber match.

He's big in Germany.

Is anyone (past the one guy who won't back things up) actually arguing that Sting should go in? I know I'm not. I'm just arguing that it FEELS like he should go in.

Part of me sees Ziggler vs Miz for the World title.

Certainly the first War Games was Sting Related. Since it was all about what side he'd be on.

In this case, I was mainly thinking about 97 since people were downplaying his influence there given the fact he wasn't working house shows, etc. That might be somewhat counterbalanced by merch sales. In general though, I agree with you. He did show up on a few house shows as a run in at the end but not a ton certainly.

Do we know anything about Merch? Anecdotally I knew a lot of people who had Sting shirts or what not in high school.

1.) Dusty's pretty hilarious on it since he knows no one is paying attention (save for the two weeks Bischoff is on with him which is then equally funny for his restraint). 2.) You get a bunch of fun random tags. 3.) It's surreal to listen to Solie announce this late in the game, sort of like hearing Monsoon on those int'l shows in 97-98.

I really like the 95 C shows, for what it's worth. I have a feeling you probably won' be watching Prime when you hit 95, so it doesn't really matter, but still.

That's an interesting concept. I wonder if it's true. ... Anyway, Sting was probably the #3 babyface in the US in that period. The other two happen to be in the HOF, and if one goes further down the list, you'll find a number of "top" babyfaces from that era below Sting that are also in. It is an argument that splits both ways. It's tricky, and that's why I framed it as I did, as an emotional thing. Personally, without looking at numbers, I'd be tempted to suspect Taker (92-98) as higher. Even when he didn't have the belt, he shared that #1 spot with Bret most of the time. Boy did he have some shitty guys to feud with a lot of the time though. And Savage is probably a compelling case. He was basically the biggest draw for Summerslam 91 (or at least Dave thought so at the time), then he had high profile, memorable (and I think decently drawing) feuds with Jake and Flair, basically got Razor over as a top level heel, and he was even used in Early-mid 93 as an anchor on house show cards vs Doink and Lawler. More than that, he was considered invaluable to Vince as a top announcer on Raw, Superstars and Mania 9, not to mention the very public charity work he did in 93 (which is spotlighted all over TV that year) in order to help shake some of the scandals of 92. Macho was the go to guy for that. Late in the year he had the Crush feud which rode things out til Mania X. And we've talked plenty about how he drew vs Flair in WCW in 96 before the NWO came in.

I think, in our head, Sting is the guy who is "the second biggest babyface in the US from 90-98." And that's probably not even true, but it's an emotional thing. And it's very hard to argue against that, even with all the numbers in the world.

Sting wouldn't have held Vince up for a payoff at Summerslam 1991. Granted, I always find the idea of WCW getting Warrior after that way more interesting than Sting being in WWF in 1992.

Honestly, I just wonder what hilarious gimmick WWF would have given him? I think they would have made him a trucker or a lumberjack.

Honestly, I think the Christian series was helped, not hurt by all the matches, because Christian is so good at building off of what's come before and switching up his moveset, counters and placement, organically to craft evolving narratives.

I think JBL makes Cole way better, for what it's worth. The talk about Rugby last night gave Cole his most entertaining line in forever. "I saw the movie about Mandela." Also, I think I just saw the first Full Nelson Suplex Heenan ever called in a Steiners vs Spicoli/Guy who looks like Spicoli match. He called it the "dreaded nelson toss" and it was awesome.

Brodus is just getting the classic WWE humbling depush. So's Otunga for what it's worth. You get highlighted for a while and then you get shoved down the card so you don't end up with a big head like Brock.

WCW had so many hours of TV at that point that he had to be announcing something. I wonder if he announced on any of those right after that show. Dusty Rhodes NWO hypeman sounds pretty great.

I actually like the second of the three matches better than this. It has more solid limbwork and selling and less outside distraction.

Ken Patara for WON HOF

I didn't see much 2007, but I did see 2010 and it amazed me the way they dealt with Cena in Fall 2010. It'd be little things. Like when Wade Barrett would order Cena to FU Orton, they'd go out of their way to NOT do that. He'd get him up and then Barrett would tell him to put Orton down again so he could do it. I found that really striking and endemic of the entire angle. The way he'll give up title shots to guys like Ryder or Ryback. There are a thousand little things that are completely intentional. They can't not be.

Really, he's more like Wristlock Holmes. He wants to get to the bottom of the mystery!

Like how I'm worth having despite all my drawbacks for what I bring to the table, like an understanding of "for all intents and purposes" which i used to think was "for all intensive purposes" before someone yelled at me on DVDVR a few years ago and I got embarrassed.