Loss

Andre the Giant & Cien Caras vs Alfonso Dantes, Herodes & Sangre Chicana (1981) Cool to see Andre do all of his trademark spots, and the guys on the other side take some really fun bumps. Andre using Cien Caras like a sword is hilarious. Nice novelty pick. Not something I’d really go to bat for, but a super fun match, if only for seeing how other guys work with Andre. Feels like a way to introduce Andre to the territory, whether that’s what it was or not.

Really young in 1983-1984, so I don't remember specifics, but I liked wrestling then. Definitely a week-to-week viewer from 1987 to about 2007, when the Benoit murders caused me to check out for a while. It probably became a lower priority in my early teens for a couple of years. Still was a huge fan of old stuff, but could go months without watching without feeling like I was missing anything. I couldn't watch current WWE at all and by the time I could, I didn't enjoy the presentation anymore. The yearbooks lured me back in, the first one being released in late 2010.

The Netcop has mutated.

Tom Zenk.

The idea that Edge wasn't a "chosen one" in WWE is laughable. They were trying to make him a top guy as early as 2002, and as a tag team, he and Christian were pushed in TV main events against the top singles stars of the time.

A wrestling match HoF, that would just be circular arguments as it's purely based on someone's perception unless we are taking things like how much a match drew at the gate and other tangible data. Yes, and this thread has no circular arguments based on perception.

I don't think I deserve a HOF ballot. I'm far more interested in match quality and booking/working theory than I am wrestling history. That's not to say I don't enjoy wrestling history. It's just not something I'm nearly as interested in as talking about the quality of matches. Now, a wrestling match HOF I could absolutely get behind, and that could be really, really interesting.

It's being mentioned specifically because it's something Dave values as important. It's a (possibly misguided) attempt to work within the existing framework.

It matters to me a lot. It can make a good match great and a great match a classic. It can also really ruin a match that would be good otherwise. There are plenty of outliers and exceptions in both directions, so I don't think I can make a blanket statement though. Figuring it all out is closer to art than science.

This is really a fantastic post that I think anyone who throws out "What about Buddy Rose and Bill Dundee?" should really check out and think about. The people who are in on work alone are smark darlings. If you want to make the case for Buddy Rose or Bill Dundee to HOF voters on work alone, rather than pointing out undiscovered great matches or pointing out specific things you enjoy in their performances, it's better to point to WON star ratings and remind people of praiseworthy things said by hardcore fans about both guys *at the time*, or to positive things other wrestlers have said who have worked with them. I don't agree with that, but it's the system in which the HOF exists. I do think Buddy Rose has a case even within that way of approaching the debate (Curt Hennig famously approached most ideas presented to him in the WWF by asking what Buddy Rose would do in this situation), but as has been mentioned by a few people, people take their personal experiences into HOF voting when they probably shouldn't. Also, how we define "great workers" and how people within wrestling define "great workers" varies. Someone who had some great output, but had a rep for working too stiff, or not calling spots loudly enough, or calling spots too loudly, or not leaving themselves open enough when taking strikes, or causing a freak injury has no chance of going into the HOF based on work. We separate that from performance and output. People inside wrestling don't. None of this will change until Dave changes his mindset on watching old footage and re-evaluating workers with modern eyes. It's a major blind spot for him. He seems to think wrestlers only work matches for the here and now audience and that it doesn't matter what a match looks like years later because standards change all the time. However, he also mentions frequently that wrestling changes all the time and that he has to keep up with those changes to stay relevant. Setting aside bootlegging and tape trading, a change has happened with retrospective DVDs, YouTube and 24/7. I'm curious how wrestlers see it, but I don't think when the Undertaker has a match at Wrestlemania, he's not wrestling it in a way that he wants remembered positively years from now. It's part of his legacy, and WWE markets old footage now. The "here and now" argument regarding who wrestlers are working for may have been relevant at one time, but it isn't anymore, and I really do think Dave would benefit from changing his paradigm and also encouraging his readers who may see it differently to do the same.

Wrestling needs another Hall of Fame like I need a hole in my head.

I like Terry Taylor more than most, but some would argue Terry Taylor. Remember, someone can be good and still be boring. Shane Douglas would be my other pick. If he knew how to make his point without going on and on for a half hour, maybe he wouldn't be so bad. The Godwinns are boring.

Glad someone else said this. I'm with you there Loss. Dreading sitting through GAB 92 agian for this reason. Oh Parv, Oh Loss. I loved there WCW run in 1992 and feud with The Steiners. I also loved their match vs. Misawa and Kawada in Jan '93 for the tag straps in AJ. I did too. You should see their other few dozen matches.

The Steve Williams and Terry Gordy tag team. They are fine as singles wrestlers. If you like long front facelocks, this is your team.

A good idea only if a valet named Melon Collie manages a guy named The Infinite Sadness.

This refers to the period between Andre handing the belt to DiBiase and Jack Tunney stripping him of it. DiBiase was WWF champion on house shows in the interim.

They bought into the work and truly thought these guys were showing up after trying to put the company out of business and rob them of a livelihood. People say Paul Heyman brainwashes, but Vince ain't too shabby.

The presence of the camera should ALWAYS be explained. Wrestlers should not arrive to a show after it starts.

Loss- I think you and a lot more members of this board have a ton more wrestling knowledge than I do but I still have to debate a few things. If it was so matter of fact that they switched from Dibiase to Savage because of Vince being worried about Savage shooting on HTM and just wanting a heel to play placeholder for Hogan until WM5 then how do you explain the 10/87 SNME. That episode was filmed in 9/87 which would suggest there were plans for Hogan/Savage from that point. I don't doubt at all that they promised Dibiase the belt or that HTM refused to job to Savage. It just doesn't seem right that there weren't plans for Hogan/Savage after the SNME from October. Because after that SNME, they never were together again until Wrestlemania, were they? Was it really played up as a big thing between October 1987 and February 1988? As do I. But that is still where he was being booked. It's possible Savage wins the title from HTM and has a very short run with it before dropping it to someone else. I think Savage would have just been a placeholder challenger until Hogan got back to reclaim the gold. They ended up building up Savage as Hogan's equal (well, as close as anyone else could be to Hogan's equal), but I think that's because they were surprised that Savage got over on top as well as he did. Not that they were down on him in any way, but more that Hogan was so head and shoulders above everyone else that the idea of someone else drawing well probably genuinely surprised them.

Yes, but this is a rightly accepted fact. But the question is not whether interest existed; rather, to what extent did the mental image of WWF v. WCW match reality such that there was more than 3 months of sustainability given that only Flair, Hogan, Goldberg, and Steiner mattered - and Hogan and Flair were going to be short-term draws at best whereas Steiner had interest but proven drawing power, and WCW did a great job of killing Goldberg's. So the WWE's booking strategy in order to justify that increase in talent costs would have depended on presenting bought WCW as close to 1998 WCW. I claim, perhaps wrongly, that the WCW brand was so stigmatized by that point that the invasion angle had n long-term viability and as such it was wiser to introduce WCW top attractions incrementally rather than suffer from those overhead costs at the expense of WWE midcarder acts like Jericho who could someday draw. To another poster, the Radicalz were out. Eddie was fired at the beginning of the year, Benoit was out mid year, Malenko had retired, and no one cared about Saturn. I'm not sure it could have worked with just any names, but I think you're misunderstanding the argument being made, which is that the intrigue of WWF vs WCW was in the concept of promotion versus promotion more than Wrestler A versus Wrestler B. WCW wrestlers coming through the main entrance and having entrance music and a pre-produced Titantron video accompany their run-ins was not the element of danger that was needed that could have made this work. Lance Storm and Booker T as they were used of course weren't going to create a buzz. Lance Storm and Booker T laying out Steve Austin, The Rock and Undertaker with baseball bats, tear gassing the locker room, destroying the RAW set, buying television time to brag about their attacks, going on a massive winning streak and taking all the WWF titles? We don't know if it would have worked, because it wasn't tried. But no matter who was signed, that was the type of booking that was needed to make it effective, which tells me bringing in the big names would have been a waste of money, because they didn't have the balls to book outsiders that strong anyway.

When he had the belt for two weeks on house shows. For whatever reason, he was blamed for the poor houses. Vince also attended all MSG shows so I think this shadow run was Vince's calculated risk knowing that taking the belt from his ace was a huge risk. Hogan was taking time off. He needed to drop the title. It was a matter of how they were going to do it, not if they were going to do it. "Taking the belt from his ace was a huge risk" implies it was a purely creative decision they would have made even if Hogan was sticking around full time. They made it out of necessity.

Because if you suppose DiBiase gets the belt, it raises more questions than answers. As far as DiBiase as champion, WO reported he drew poorly in CA and did the worst MSG house in ages. I don't think this shadow run was accident. Vince wanted to see whether DiBiase could replace Hogan. The numbers didn't pan out. So he put the title on Savage instead. It doesn't really. (1) DiBiase came in with huge hype and a strong push. (2) Hogan was taking time off and needed to drop the title. (3) They needed a heel to keep the belt warm until Hogan returned. (4) Savage was not at all involved in the title picture with Hogan, Andre and DiBiase until after the SNME, when the HTM thing happened. (5) Vince promised Savage the title so he wouldn't shoot on HTM on NBC for refusing to job to him. (6) The brackets were announced and later changed to accommodate the changed decision. All they did was switch from DiBiase holding the title while Hogan was out to Savage holding the title. Week-to-week, real time reporting corroborates all of this. And of course, the Savage thing was the best long-term storyline in the history of the promotion and did monster business, to a point where even with the huge success of Wrestlemania V, they probably still had another few months of juice in the angle. So it worked out better in the end. What am I missing?

How can DiBiase's "shadow title run" be conclusive enough to be proof of anything? It lasted all of a week. Anyway, it was what was reported at the time. You can choose to believe it or not, but there was week-to-week reporting and people who were involved have also pretty much described it how it was reported. Whether it seems unlikely or not, no one has ever said it was untrue, so I don't understand the skepticism. Wrestlemania was still building its brand at this point, and the idea of a heel winning wasn't a departure from WWF norms on the big show, because that show had no real norms to speak of just yet. I see no reason to not believe things went down as they have always been reported in this case. Out of character for what WWE normally did or not (they were taking the WWF title off of Hogan for the first time, so it's not like there was previous standard operating procedure for this), there has never been anything reported to the contrary. What more evidence is needed?

With Hogan taking time off again during the summer of '89 (although not as much as in '88), and with Randy Savage a hot heel, I do still think they should have had Savage go over in screwy fashion at WM5. I understand why they didn't, but I think they had something special that was blown off too soon.

I moved all of the Invasion talk to this thread at El-P's request. Please continue the discussion there. Thank you.