Matt D

I was watching the 2008 Smackdown NWO Elimination Chamber the other day and Cole kept calling the "steel" area outside the ring but inside the chamber "The unforgiving concrete!" he caught himself once and turned it into "Concrete-like....ground," but then did it again at least two times after that. It was funny.

I think the Shawn/JBL feud was praised fairly well at the time, though a lot of that was just how different it was from everything else WWE was doing. No one "bought" it, but people looked forward to see where it was going.

Does anyone know the approx. dates of Frey's WCW reign/run. I know it was in 92 and I know it couldn't have been that long because Watts was in by the summer, no?

I know I've seen talk that WWE in 2010 has almost as many viewers as they did during the late 90s boom, and the ratings are lower due to changes in the system or the number of homes that have cable or what not. Is that just smoke or is there something to it?

I actually saw more than my share of FCW over the last year or two. I lament that it's not being posted online the week after anymore. I thought Barrett was excellent as part of the 3 man announce team down there, for what it's worth. On the other hand, Otunga was super green; from what I saw of Young he was pretty green (though he didn't really have much chance to show off in the tag team with Jackson). Likewise Tarver. Slater'd been around for a while. I don't know much about Gabriel's overseas experience. But I don't think any of them had a ton of experience either on TV (past FCW which isn't exactly edited the same) or working big for the guy in the cheap seats. I could be wrong on that.

I get that, but the narrative ended up being was "no. they can't, but it doesn't matter anyway." They refused Miz. Jericho crashed into Cena when he was at the height of his restored babyface power. Edge and Cena bickered and Edge ate a fall because of it. Edge and Jericho beating on Cena almost cost WWE the match. Miz ran out and KOed Bryan and THAT almost cost WWE the match. And Cena came through anyway. It was a bit wishy-washy. Morrison got a fall. Bret kicked some butt and softened someone up for a fall. It's not like the WWE team failed Cena like some people on DVDVR are saying. The Faces did their part. Even the heels TRIED to do their part, right up to the point where there were miscommunications. Then they acted like heels. Even Miz would have done his part if they just embraced him. So I'm curious what happens next. I still think that they did a great job of getting a fresh, hot summer angle out of a bunch of guys who are super-green, can't talk, and aren't ready for this stage yet.

Basically, you guys summed it up. Though, with Hogan, I always feel that you shouldn't look at his matches relative to the rest of the card, but instead look at them like badminton to tennis, something close to pro wrestling but that is really its own animal. Compare (face) Hogan matches to one another, basically. In that regard, the heavily produced matches that he had between 89 and 91 are really interesting to watch because they all have slightly different (and really, building) narratives, probably because they were so heavily worked out by Patterson or whoever, which is really just an educated guess of mine having watched them and having watched Hogan house show matches from the period. They keep building until they come to a head with the This Tuesday in Texas Taker match (which is all about Hogan avoiding the choke). I'm not saying they have deep storytelling but they do have distinct storytelling. You just have to look at the Hulk Up as something the heel knows is coming, like it's a video game where if one player's character takes enough damage he can use a super-combo or something. That's probably not the most convincing way to put it. I have a lot harder time being engaged by Flair matches than I did before hearing John's theories a year or two ago (and then having them basically confirmed by Flair himself). Things just bug me that I barely even noticed before, because they're on my mind. Granted, I also look for storytelling over "excitement" a lot more than I did when I was younger and a Crusierweight/Northeast Indy nut, which means I might just be making things up in my own head a whole lot. At some point I want to rewatch a lot of Bret Hart matches all at once, because from what I've seen in watching a lot of 88-92 or so, he does a lot of his big spots, but he really changes up HOW and WHEN he uses them. Or more accurately, Flair uses his big spots. Bret uses his big moves, but he uses them to create different spots and to achieve different narrative ends. I could be way off on that, though, or he could do it a lot less as the decade goes on. I'm not sure. It's just something I've noticed a bit in what I HAVE watched.

It just seemed weird to me after hearing some of the Flair shoot stuff over the last few years where it became blatantly obvious that Flair's views on putting a match together just weren't... how do I put this? They were very distinct and did not fall in line with with a lot of people on the boards I frequent feel and/or may have attributed to Flair. This sort of seems a case of that.

Would Flair really care about exposing the US crowds to the Japanese style?

Neither here nor there, but coming back to watching wrestling last year, I was floored by how over Jeff was in the late spring/early summer.

I have no idea who they would have partnered him up with though. Terry Taylor/Ron Garvin as the Bushwhackers?

I think the Flair shootfest that happened in the last year or two proved that he had some very specific thoughts about wrestling and psychology and they don't necessarily sync up with, at the very least, what a lot of other people around here think. Also, I know that at the very least Michaels goes on in his book about how much Arn and Tully taught them. (end of page 137, if the link works). http://books.google.com/books?id=whe0idKbG...ion&f=false .... of course, he doesn't appreciate just how great (and smart) Demolition were in their first MSG match with the Rockers right before the face turn and just complains that they didn't sell the Rockers' offense enough, so maybe that entire chapter is suspect.

Neither here nor there, but they had to put Paul Bearer with Taker in order to make him LESS scary with the kids, right? Because he was terrifying with Brother Love at his side. You would just see the looks on the faces of the kids. Brother Love seemed to become something else entirely when he was no longer the self-aggrandizing grating interviewer and instead this religious zealot who controlled this undead golem of doom.

It's funny because of how much Flair would go on after joining WWE about how they gave him his dignity back after what WCW was having him do in 1999 and how thankful he was to them.

The best thing about Slick is the stuff he shouts from outside the ring. I think Fuji was a lot more effective than he got credit for. He was Worst Manager of the Year for many years straight in WON. I really ought to put together a list of 90-91 WWF matches I think people should see at some point.

I've seen almost everything available online from 90/91 in the last year, and there are a lot of really good matches no one talks about, but I do often think that my standards were warped considerably due to primarily watching a whole lot of 90/91 WWF and little else for a year.

*The* best is a bit of a stretch, but one of the best, agreed. Savage didn't carry Warrior alone, she was the second best worker in the match. She was awesome against Tenryu at the Egg Dome too. Loss, unless you're being 100% sarcastic you've just made the biggest P.O.S. statement in wrestling message board history. The contrasting opinion thing can die now because Loss you've just won. I'm tired of the whole "I show up at the board every few months to criticize you all for not agreeing with Dave Meltzer on every single thing" act from you. That's not even a "contrasting opinion", Sherri got plenty of praise for her work at the time. I have no problem with you disagreeing with me or anyone else here and explaining why, but it's wrong to attack someone's motives for having an opinion, even if you do think it's the craziest thing you have ever read, which I suspect it's not. Sherri won WON Manager of the year in 91 and did she ever deserve it. Anyone looking for spotlight stuff from her ought to check out the SNME match between Savage and Neidhart right after WM 5, the Warrior/Savage cage match from MSG right after Royal Rumble 91 where she dies to let the Warrior have revenge, and the Matador/Dibiase match from late dec 91 which was a MANAGER CAM match and fairly amusing.

Oh crap, I'd have loved Valentine as a horseman, even if it was a few years too late. I can't get enough of suit-wearing Valentine from the top of the 80s.

For me, buying into that statement actually sort of makes MMA seem fairly haphazard and pointless.

The Bees were faces by August 88 right? The idea of a Face vs Face Bees/Stallions match at that point is just mortifying.

Warrior has to hold the record: getting fired after holding up the company for more $$$ on a PPV, then getting fired after the PPV. Amusingly enough, the opening to Superstars was still "warrior themed" for at least a month or two after that.

It's a bit of a numbers game too. There's 8 of them. The biggest faction in the WWE right now has three guys (and Serena) in it. I don't think there's been a WWE faction consisting of more than four guys in ages (spirit squad maybe, which again, were a numbers game), and even four is rare. They can just walk down the halls crushing mid-carders.

Taker used it early on off the ropes, but it was really more of a choke drop sort of thing. The one Sid does to Virgil in the lead up to WM 8 is almost completely one-handed without using the other hand to help lift/support. It's NUTS. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x40zf5_si...ale-wolfe_sport All the stories from Bruno's book make the "Don't touch the little guy!" comments more funny for some reason.

It's pretty astounding how over Sid was as a face right before Royal Rumble 92. There's a squash matched taped right the rumble where the crowd is just molten for him. Equally amazing is how little heat he got after the heel turn when they paired him with Harvey. He'd be putting jobbers on stretchers and putting Hogan bandannas on them and breaking Virgil's face and the fans were just sitting on their hands. I saw Sid in a casket match against Taker when I was 10 or so. Actually, I'm not sure if I saw it or if we decided to leave early to beat traffic. It's all a bit of a blur. Edit: This might be the squash I'm thinking of: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4f2c1_si...ike-casey_sport It was filmed before Rumble and aired the week after it. Funny cartoony Repo Man promo there too.

It bugs me on some level that there was never a payoff to Jake turning on Warrior. Does anyone know if Jake attacking the Savage/Liz wedding reception only to have Sid intervene was planned from the get go or was a last second changed after Warrior held Vince up for money?