Matt D

Harts/Demolition at Summerslam 88 was an awesome match though. But I think I've made that argument enough this year. Anyway, I love the idea that they did a Tag Tournament for November Sweeps. That seems like such an crazy idea now.

I completely and utterly believe Dave not figuring out why Jake was over.

When you hit the post-Summerslam one, could you let me know what he thought of Harts/Demos? He had to hate the Brother Love segment though. I guess it didn't hurt in getting Duggan over but yeah.

Back to the fingerpoke of doom, I thought the whole rationale behind that at the time was that they were going to get some sort of show on NBC/ABC/CBS, one of them, and the suits at the network wanted the belt on Hogan. Nash, shortly thereafter, said (and hell if I know where. These aer ten year old memories) that he gave in to the pressure to book it that way because it was the only way for him to get the belt and be both a WCW and WWF champion, which is such a great weird kayfabe but not answer to that.

What about Superfly Sivi Afi? Surely he didn't get over as desired or is that too early.

I've seen enough stuff from that era to assume that the fans REALLY wanted the faces to get their hands on Davis. Is that inaccurate?

So I do an exercise bike here at home for maybe four nights a week for an hour at a time and I watch stuff on the laptop while I do that. And I've spent the last 9 months or so mostly filling that time with pure nostalgia. I've been watching everything I can find online and streaming from WWF from 89 or so on. (I started watching as a 9 year old as a kid in Fall 1990). There's a huge chunk of stuff on dailymotion. I just watch everything I can find in order: Superstars, PTW, the MSG shows, the SNMEs, the PPVs, from start to finish. I guess I've never entirely got over the Benoit stuff (yeah, I know. Boo hoo for me) so this is the most harmless stuff imaginable and I find it all really easy to enjoy. After years of just watching one random pimped match after another, it's nice to see things in context. There are only a couple of guys from the roster at that point that are really terrible and they're sort of worth watching because they're so bad. And there are tons of guys I'm happily surprised about even if it goes far against internet conventional wisdom or how I felt as a kid (when I only liked small, fast guys with lots of moves basically). I basically stopped watching as a kid for 5 years by 1993 or so, so all of that stuff is going to be new for me, more or less. I plan on going up to Mania XIV which should take me a few more years. At that point maybe I'll go back to Wrestling Classic and fill in the gap, or maybe there'll be more WCW out there or maybe I'll just get that Dangerous Alliance comp and relive the rest of my youth before looking for GWF season sets or something. I also watched most of last year's ECW on hulu and a few of the new Superstars. I enjoyed the heck out of ECW. I'll also watch any FCW episode which has Dusty announcing.

It's never Lupus.

I suppose I could see him coming in to give some rub to the Harts. They should really have Jim Neidhart in their corner already anyway, in the Bob Orton, Sr. Chavo Classic, Larry The Axe Hennig role. I think he'd be really effective, especially because he's not that tall. Nattie isn't exactly a great talker.

Forgive my lack of knowledge here (as I started getting into wrestling a little later; for instance I remember getting frustrated because GWF was preempted for the MLB Expansion draft with the Marlins and Rockies as a kid), but who was the Snowman that you mention at the end?

I'm not really participating in any WCW polls right now because while I'm watching a lot of wrestling lately, I'm totally avoiding the the second half of 1993 WCW through first half of 1994 WCW, because I've seen very little of it, as it was during a period where I wasn't really following wrestling and it's one of those things I've always saved for a time that I really need it (likewise reading The Big Sleep or playing Dragon Quest VI),you know, some great personal tragedy. If that makes any sense, BUT.. I did watch the Clash with the Wellington/Benoit vs Liger/Pillman match for the first time in a few years last month and found that match really disappointing. The spots/moves aren't even as interesting as the ones in the mess of a Silver Kings/Freebirds match later in the night and there's just no story at all to the match, or at least not one that I could pick up on. They just toss out moves and spots and it gets frustrating to watch after a while because it really never develops and given who was in there you really wish it would. For what it's worth, that whole Clash was a little frustrating from an announcing standpoint as Jesse and Ross hadn't really figured out how to click yet. Jesse would set Ross up with a line and Ross would just pause for a moment and then continue to call the action.

No...Jeff is a harder worker than Luger ever was. Jeff is More over than Luger ever was and Jeff actually loves the business as opposed to Luger. Who would deny to people he was even in the business. What are you basing all of that on? All three points you listed are debatable, with the third one being based in nothing I have ever read or heard. The man liked the money but plainly had no passion for the business and kindly name me three good matches he had with someone not named Flair. Only three matches? That's not even hard. Off the top of my head v. Steamboat GAB 89 That was running purely off memory. I have no doubt I could find several others with little effort. You know what match surprised the heck out of me? Lex v. Mean Mark from GAB 90.

I've never seen face Rick Rood/Rude and I can't easily imagine it. What was that like?

There's one ep of WCW SN with Jake Roberts on Color and it was just awesome. He brought a ton to the matches. I wish there was more of that out there.

It's interesting how different announcers dealt with Jesse's points. Whenever he'd point out a double standard, Vince would just stutter and say something.. "Well, I guess we just have to disagree." or "That's not it at all!" And then not back it up at all. Tony just got steamrolled by him when they were together at PPVs in the late 80s.

What was that about Sarge singing a rock song?

Only if they make you hate them AND make you want to pay to see their comeuppance.

Can someone link me to this post,please? I don't usually take a look at that board. I've been watching all of the WWF SNME's and PPVs from 87 or so on, though most of that stuff isn't represented at all on the DVDVR list which skews to the first half of the decade in a big way., which is understandable but disappointing as I'd love to see commentary on a lot of the stuff I've been watching. It's funny. I'm almost sick of hearing about great matches and I'm at a point in my watching life that I sort of want to see middling ones and try to figure out what the mindset amd structure behind them was. I'm not sure if that even makes any sense. I still want to see someone talk about SNME Hogan/Genius though, which while by no means a good match, is probably both the more fun Hogan match of the late 80s and one of the ultimate representations of "Hogan the Bully" out there. But I'm curious to see all the other reviews. Thanks.

I've always been a pretty big fan of Calf Branding, myself. Is anyone using that? And it's more of a spot than a move but it really confuses me that the ten count punching in the corner, or the ten count head into all 3 turnbuckles aren't used much anymore. They're simple movies that get the crowd involved.

Didn't Dixie JUST debut on screen in the last month or two. Oh, somehow I can't see them pulling out anytime soon.

For what it's worth, Hogan was a tremendous bully during his run on top in the WWF. He was a poor loser, constantly let others do the work for him while he took the credit, and always made sure he had the last word whether he deserved it or not. But people, ESPECIALLY KIDS, love this. He's like Superman from the 50s, the whole "superdickery" idea, where Jerry Siegel always had Superboy/Superman playing jokes on people and being a general dick. Every kid secretly wants to be the bully and barring that, they want to cheer the bully or be friends with him, be one of his cronies. Hogan and Hulkamania was all about that. The board's been great over the last week or so, btw. Keep it up. Would this be the note to talk about Outsider angles and stables in general (I have a friend who insists the secret to a good stable is to have the Leader, the Enforcer, the muscle, the technical veteran, and the young upstart, with those catagories overlapping to make at least 3-4 people). Oh, and while I'm at it, Re: The Five Moves of Doom. I think this is more of a tool than anything else. It depends on how they're used. They can be used lazily, without adding much to the story done in the ring and just to kill time with action to lead up to the finish or they can be an integral part of the match and the story being told. A move that a wrestler goes for in every match tends to mean more than a regular move because the fans are conditioned to expect it. Presumably, it fits into the wrestler's gameplan somehow. I think I read an interview where Bret actually considered his 5 Moves of Doom part of his extended finish and something the crowd expected in his matches.

I think the most mindboggling thing there was the attempt to cast Heyman as Campbell's archtypical hero. Well maybe not THE most mindboggling thing.

Honestly, it's been years since I watched weekly wrestling and I think the only thing that could force me to get back into it would be a shift to heavily focusing on continuity and character development. It's never going to happen, though, thankfully.

If they ever bring him back in, they need to package him with Tom Zenk in the "Chavo Classic" type role.

If we're talking about things that we had completely wrong as a kid, I was very confused about why Razor Ramon's initial promos seemed to be talking about Jesse Ventura's pet name for Tito Santana.