Al

In hindsight, I think turning Sgt. Slaughter heel was a good idea. He was always better in that role. The problem was making it an Iraqi sympathizer angle. I started watching wrestling in Dec. 1990. Within the first 18 months I watched Earthquake squash Damian, the Undertaker lock the Ultimate Warrior in a casket, Papa Shango's voodoo antics, Jake Roberts' snake legitimately biting Randy Savage's arm, etc. I could blame cartoonish angles but they've been going on as long as I can remember. I think honestly I simply outgrew it. I'm 30, engaged, I don't enjoy the same dramas and entertainment most people do. In a way, wrestling hasn't changed as much as I have.

It's reality television. By definition it's going to be awful.

That's more or less the character he played at Wrestlemania XIX.

On the last Monty Python documentary, one of the Pythons (I think Terry Jones) told the story about buying the master tapes from the BBC to prevent them from being wiped as well. Gotch/Hackenschmidt. Was that ever taped? If it was, was it the victim of nitrate deterioration?

The brutality of Nickelback would overwhelm the HIAC concept.

Didn't Crockett do War Games in the Orange Bowl?

Plus Santino nearly landed on Barrett's broken arm when he was tossed.

The Ziggler bump was ugly stuff to say the least.

Doesn't Raven strike you as a person who could've been held back a lot?

We need to see the return of a cell phone toting manager ala Paul E. Dangerously. Except instead of hitting his opponent with the cell phone, he gets distracted playing Words With Friends and misses the matches.

Slaughter always worked better as a heel. I honestly think Vince had the right idea turning Slaughter heel and feuding him with Hogan. The Iraqi sympathizer angle is where it went south. I think Backlund would've held the title before Vince found a better option. Likely JYD.

2 1/2 hours of wrestling seems improbable to fit within three hours. Wrestlemania III as a point of comparison had 87 minutes of in-ring action. Wrestlemania X had 91.

Minami Toyota vs Kyoto Inoue Is this how you all feel watching Davey Richards matches?

Definitely an interesting idea. I'll come up with my list a little later. To me, no matter how good the matches are it would be hard to maintain fans' interest with a series of 25-30 minute mini-epics. At some point I would need to list some 5-10 minute matches.

2007, the limo explosion show. I was there live.

It strikes me just how difficult it is to micro-manage a company as huge as WWE.

One guy who hasn't been mentioned is Sheik Adnan. Thoughts on him?

Even Andre though. He really only wrestled in WWF full time in 1988-1989. The rest of the time he would come in for a few months, usually for a specific feud, and either tour or recover or whatnot. It's hard to book a monster type character over a long period of time. He either eventually beats everyone on the roster, or you beat him and his mystique is done. Mark Henry, yes you can build him up, but eventually he has to come back down again.

Yeah, Undertaker is more of who you'd want out of that role. Or Harley Race for that matter. As far as wrestlers' court, I hear the same stories from professional baseball players. Usually to handle minor indiscretions, the money goes into a pot and funds some party or some expense of that nature. I think Dirk Hayhurst in his book had a story of a kangaroo court.

Here's a McMahon interview with Fred Blassie and Stan Hansen. Hansen is effective in getting his character over but he's stumbling a bit. Fred Blassie gets him on point, getting Hansen on point to build towards a big match.

I think there's some validity to having an enforcer or two on your roster.

Big Show definitely would've been better off in the territorial days, where he could've traveled from place to place and not become stale. It's very difficult for a wrestler like him in this era.

Heenan is my absolute #1. Garnered so much heat in the AWA that he really only had to wrestle once a year. And fans would jam the building to watch him get his comeuppance. Cornette/Sherri/Jimmy Hart had great runs of five years or so. Heenan had about 15 great years as a manager. What about territory era managers? Red Berry is in the Observer Hall. Crybaby George Cannon comes to mind as well.

The Clash VI match.

Ricky Steamboat vs Ric Flair This is the kind of match that kayfabe wrestling needs. A match to point to and say, "if wrestling didn't have the gimmicks, the outside interference, the brawlers, this is what a great match would look like." Then when the heels come in and take the purity away, they generate heat. It's a standard bearer as a match, kind of incomparable to anything else presented in American wrestling. You like it or you don't, but it's hard to present it against a match like Magnum/Blanchard on its merits. Whether you think its the greatest or not is more a philosophical discussion than anything else. Jushin Liger vs Naoki Sato This is the match Tiger Mask and Dynamite Kid wish they had. The Steiners vs Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki Not the greatest match of the year, but it's solid and it presented what it promised. It sold the Steiners and their style quite well and got them over as a major tag team.