Mad Dog

I've always struggled with WWF TV in the pre--Raw era. It just never clicks with me for a lot of reason. The slow pace of the matches, the promos are too cartoony to me and I don't like the cut in promos during matches. But I feel like I need to get over this and really dig into the tv from the 80s more. So I'm starting with Superstars and Wrestling Challenge from the start and seeing where I get with it.

I've said it more than once but it amazes me the simple things he gets wrong. Like, common knowledge things he gets wrong or doesn't know. I always use it but he and Bill Simmons were talking about Curt Hennig and Bret Hart. Simmons asked why Bret Hart essentially took Hennig's place in 1991 and Shoemaker said he didn't know when someone who wasn't an idiot would have said that's when Hennig fell into injury problems.

There was a Raw recapper that used to clock how much time HHH was on screen during that really bad period from 2002-2003 and I think he was averaging over 35 minutes per episode of Raw.

I believe George H.W. Bush was a regular at the Houston matches.

I'll throw out there that HHH/HBK killed Columbus as a city for several years with their god awful HIAC match. I've had more than a few hardcore fans say that was the last straw for them with live WWE shows.

Gillian Jacobs from the Community is a regular at PWG shows.

Luke Perry was on Bill Simmons podcast maybe a year and a half ago and went into like a 30 minute side conversation about how he was driving by some gymnasium one night in the 70s and the doors opened and he saw a glimpse of Kevin Sullivan beating the shit out of someone and was hooked on it ever sense. Robert Kelly talks about wrestling on his podcast all the time.

See, the problem I have is that I don't make progress unless I'm watching on my television. So DVDs just make more sense for me even though I have hard drives full of stuff.

Okay, got some years in. Next question, do I need to keep notes on who the champs are or should I just roll with it?

Is Pro Wrestling This Week worth getting as a DVD set?

I'm going to defend him on one front. If Vince dies and the WWE goes tits up with HHH at the helm, that might not be his fault. Vince kept that company around because he was a legit crazy person. I don't know if his successor should necessarily take all of the blame if they can't follow that act.

That Goldberg situation is pretty damning evidence against him. They finally get Goldberg over in the Elimination Chamber by just having him destroy everyone and then HHH pins him and cools that off. Then Goldberg gets the belt and won't step aside for a Goldberg/Kane program that I think would have drawn money. There's also Eugene and the Spirit Squad. The Spirit Squad was their entire mid-card future that they had spent years training and he chewed them up and spit them out in a month,

As I get more I'm going to organize by show. My entire SMW run is in that book and there's still some room. I don't know how I'm going to do my JCP/WCW stuff. I'm thinking maybe a notebook for each show.

I agree with that. Flair//Steamboat at the Clash was just under an hour and it doesn't feel like an hour.

They were piled in a giant plastic bin.

I finally got some really nice CD notebooks to put my wrestling collection in. I've spent the day organizing and putting all my DVDs into these binders. Nice space saver.

My theory has been that most of them rave about those matches because they think they're supposed to. I think for some of them they need to justify the hour they spent. That's not everyone but I do see it crop up in certain groups.

A lot of matches that Liger jobbed in the 90s for were really short. Prime example is he jobbed to Ultimo Dragon in less than 3 minutes at the J Crown Tournament. That was like my 3rd ever puro tape and I was super disappointed when Dragon beat him so quickly.

All of those Ring of Honor scrambles from 2002-2006.

Did he sing for you guys?

Gavin is hit/miss for me. I love him sometimes and other times he annoys me if I'm in the wrong mood. I think it might be when he's doing play by play that he bugs me a little more.

I think he's more ready now than he was at even Mania. I still think he needs about six months but I thought he made leaps and bounds as a worker during the Evolution feud.

GMC is the best overall but no one announces a new champion like Howard Finkel does.

I admit, I don't watch a lot these days. I do go out of my way to watch Shield stuff. It seems to me that this is about 6 months too early for Reigns. From my view, Reigns has been one of the most protected guys in the ring since probably Goldberg. He was doing tags and six mans with two great workers who were making sure that he never had to do more than he was capable of. I watched those six mans with the Wyatts and those were awesome but if you think of great moments in those matches it was because of things Rollins/Ambrose/Harper/Wyatt did. It felt like Reigns was set up to do some cool shit and Rowan was just kind of along for the ride.