Loss

Have you seen any pre-WWF Bravo? This is asked by someone every time you say that, but I haven't seen you respond yet. I may have overlooked it.

This is all just chickens coming home to roost. They have a good idea. They have made too many mistakes in their past to get the outside help they need to capitalize on it. They're paying for their mistakes.

Yes, that is one of the other four.

Lawler vs Spinks exists along with four other Lawler/Snowman matches worked in the same style. They'll all make the 1990 yearbook.

I liked Rude/Austin/Eaton vs Sting/Steamboat/Bagwell from Pro on 1/18 better. Also, Rude/Austin/Arn vs Steamboat/Windham/Dustin on the 4/4 Pro. The only "great" multi-man match from the DA era is the 8-man from the 2/22 WCW Saturday Night.

I have enjoyed quite a bit of SMW, especially in 1995. I encourage people to get the new set and not let any of my criticism make them think it isn't worth their time. But I do still think these things are worth discussing. Cornette's on screen role is I think my biggest problem with SMW. I'm not fond of how strongly he positions himself. He doesn't sell as much as I think he should for wrestlers. He does sell for wrestlers and he takes bumps, but he's a non-athlete taking shots from a professional athlete and living to tell about it a little more than I'd prefer. He gets right back up. He also interjects himself in things like the Snow/Unabomb team for reasons I don't understand, because Snow was coming along as a promo and the feud was doing well without his involvement. I don't think he did it for ego reasons. That's not really Cornette's style. I think it's more that he's a control freak and thought doing it himself would be better than trying to convey to someone else what he wanted. But he booked himself too strongly. There's also the lack of clean finishes. I understand wrestling was different in those days and it wasn't so much a case of screwing fans out of a winner and loser. But that's partially a copout, because Mid South had plenty of clean finishes, probably proportionately way more than SMW. The matches often times felt overbooked, with too many ref bumps and run-ins. I mind screwjobs much less than most, but I still thought it was excessive. If you can get past that, there are some great things worth checking out. Buddy Landell did some of the best promos I have ever seen, especially one where he talked about his addiction to drugs and alcohol in the build to the Michaels match at Superbowl of Wrestling. It's a GOAT promo. There's a Cornette promo at home in a neckbrace walking through a series of upcoming house shows that's so perfectly done and textbook that I think it should be studied by new wrestlers. The Rock & Rolls/Snow & Unabomb feud is one of my favorites and produced some of SMW's best matches, angles and interviews. I absolutely loved it. I have never seen Kevin Sullivan used as well as he was in early '93. And no one in wrestling history has been more suited for their role than Bob Armstrong was suited to be SMW commissioner. I have seriously become a huge fan of his just based on his SMW commissioner role alone, and I would consider him worth the price of admission.

Iron Sheik's name being tossed around doesn't give me hope. Since Dave did his "Here's why I don't think the Iron Sheik is funny" explanation a few years ago, I have had trouble laughing at his act.

I think it's more of a case where the "modern" fan hasn't really ranked him until recently than it is that he wasn't well regarded at the time. I don't know that he was ever viewed as one of the best in the business, but going on stuff like old WONs and McAdam's tape comments, he was definitely well-regarded.

I remember the heat being way more than you'd think for that match considering how it was laid out, which I'd attribute to the Rock job. That's what I meant by Helms benefitting from the banana peel job. He also did a run-in the following week to attempt to save Michaels and Booker from a heel beatdown, which was pretty high profile angle involvement for him, even if it was the booking equivalent of lip service.

I think what differentiates it from other similar non-jobs top guys have done is that it did get a few weeks of build, Rock showed ass for him on the promos in the buildup, and Hurricane was at least mixed in with the top guys for a little while afterward -- working HHH, Jericho and Flair at various points over the next two months and even doing a (failed) run-in to try to save Booker and Michaels from a HHH/Jericho/Flair attack. Hardly torch passing-type stuff, but it did benefit him a little. I do see the point, though. It wasn't a strong, clean job in the sense we normally think of one.

I agree with that. I don't fault guys so much for their feelings on Rock. I am more shocked that most wrestlers don't pay attention to house show attendance and PPV buys, and that they use the Internet to determine what is and isn't working. Eek.

They should be using Rock's match with Cena as a chance to totally re-define WWE -- new look and logo, new guys being pushed all over the card, a new philosophy, a unifying theme to the show and so on. That's what they did with Tyson, and that's why they were able to sustain the initial attention. Rock/Cena may pop a number (although I by no means think that's a guarantee), but it's a false high and they'll be exactly where they were. We're really going to see how bad of a position WWE is in after Mania when Rock/Cena is a thing of the past, Undertaker and HHH aren't regulars again, Jericho is gone, etc.

Wrestlemania is sold to cities now as a package deal, hyping that they can pump a lot of money into the local economy. It doesn't make sense not to do the show in a major market at this point.

But what was "again" a reference to? It implies that he was the victim of a show destroyed by mother nature once before.

He may believe it, but that's not why he says it. Cena is like Hogan. He doesn't shoot.

Yes.

CM Punk has complained. Hard to tell when he's working and when he's not, though.

I know him as an early 90s Tri-State indy guy, but I'm not sure if that's his best claim to fame or not.

Probably not a good idea to link to my list. I'm not sure I stand by those. With the yearbooks, I am re-evaluating all of that over time. I'm not sure how much value it has at the moment.

The black and white match at the beginning of the WWE opening is from 1901, and is Roeber (not sure first name) vs August Faust. Before that clip rolled out, I think Stetcher/Caddock from 1/30/20 was the oldest match believed to exist on tape. Pretty interesting. Not sure about Gotch/Hackenschmidt. I don't think it exists. It may have been filmed, though.

I agree that a slow path to the top is best, because you condition fans to see him at that level and slowly make them want to see him at that level. The question is: would WCW have done that if he stayed? I don't think they would have. There's the famous story where Bischoff told Dave exactly how he saw Jericho.

It took a few years for the WWF to get it right with him too, but the biggest difference is that Jericho got to work with HHH and Rock within his first year in the company, and with Austin not too long after. Even if he had stayed, I don't see Jericho doing programs with Hogan, Nash and Goldberg in WCW.

Yes, when they played the 9-1-1 call on Confidential.

I think it's more that because of the company's typical portrayal of women, people are quick to point out these things. I'm not sure the segment would have been questioned as much if WWE had a better track record.