Loss

I should have told you guys to bypass Flair vs Nikita. When I made the first wave of recommendations, they were more to balance out historical significance and good matches. It's not a match I love either, it's more that I think it's the best of the Flair/Nikita feud. Starrcade '86 is a match I don't like at all, so I do like this one better.

TBS was exclusive to cable for me. Most households had cable available from my understanding, but considering that wrestling tends to have a lower income audience and paying a cable bill may not have been a priority, I can see the promotions being hesitant to put all the big stuff on cable for a long time.

Listening to the show now. Just to throw this out, until the 90s, most of the big angles and marquee matches were on the syndicated shows, because most households didn't have cable.

It's working, thanks.

This links to the Starrcade '89 show.

I keep it a secret partially because I'm gay and people assume that I'm into it for the idea of seeing sweaty men roll around, which usually manages to make me pretty mad. It's also a safe way to avoid the "Don't you know it's fake?" conversations and even worse, the guy who thinks he knows everything about wrestling because he can tell you that Kane used to be Dr. Isaac Yankem. The first time someone told me that, he also got into a long debate with me where he tried to convince me that the Rock/HHH ladder match at Summerslam '98 was a shoot and I just threw in the towel. I'd just rather not. I live within walking distance of Wrigley Field and I'm surrounded by gays, hipsters, yuppies and Cubs fans, so I'm not sure where wrestling would fit into my social circles anyway.

I may or may not have gotten sucked into Days of Our Lives in the last few months.

I originally read this very quickly and was wondering if Damien Sandow was playing chess with the one-hit wonder group that had the song "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

It is exactly what it is. Over the past few years, I've watched the entire TV product of both ECW, SMW and WCW (almost). The only logical follow-up for me should be to dwelve into TNA. Either that, or going into wrestling rehab. Please reward yourself by watching good WCW years 1996-1997. You've gone all around it, but haven't covered the good years for whatever reason.

Sure there's value in watching complete shows. I just don't want to be the one to do it. I'll let someone else pick all the good apples from the tree.

You have to bring this up again? Things have been so peaceful.

In the beginning, NWA Main Event was intended to be a show to draw television ratings, while the Saturday Night show was intended to be a show to sell house shows. Marquee matches given time were placed on Main Event, and the wrestlers were supposed to get payoffs based on the ratings, which never came to fruition due to Crockett's cash flow problems.

The two-parter with Jim Ross is quite possibly the best podcast I have ever heard. Pretty amazing listen that I'd highly recommend.

The last part is the key part. Wrestlers have historically tried to convince people that what they are doing is actually real. That doesn't happen in film. That's the difference -- the deceit.

Even that's not entirely true. They still want wrestlers living their gimmicks in public to a degree. They got rid of Serena because she was drinking publicly all the time while in the Straight Edge Society. Guys in a main event program against each other don't typically travel together. Wrestling is more open than it was at one time, but it's still not 100% open. And they use the word "entertainment", not the word "fake". Every sport is a form of entertainment, so to a casual observer, that distinction doesn't really mean much.

Because actors don't try to keep kayfabe when they're not on television. It's not that wrestling is worked, it's that it's dishonest.

Life is too short and there's too much good wrestling out there. I have seen enough bad wrestling in my time to last me a lifetime. There's too much good out there that I haven't seen to sit through an entire show. The idea of doing so is almost painful. I'm also a guy who will happily delete all the filler from albums in iTunes. I like singles.

I dropped Dave a line about the latest Babinsack column. Why is this guy still allowed a platform?

How is the 80s TV watching going?

He did get a deal around this time, yes.

Steroid scandal. Hogan took time off, thinking he could come back and his image would be okay.

Gagne, Geigel, and Race were both part owners of St Louis. Pardon my ignorance, but if St. Louis wasn't a territory, what was there to own?

They should run an angle where IRS singles out and targets Zeb Colter.

I was about to say HHH! Shawn Michaels, Kevin Nash and Eric Bischoff are also good choices.

Might as well tackle this too. What are your favorite matches to air on this ultimate WWE B-show? Keep in mind that they ran most of the matches so many times that mentioning it without a date doesn't help much, unfortunately.