flyonthewall2983

Bret Hart, and if we're talking behind the scenes he might be a case where that was detrimental to him and more specifically other guys on the card because he was willing to take a hit in his paycheck to be the champ. Bob Backlund maybe? I don't know enough of the minutiae of that timeframe, but I can't imagine that he had an ego problem about being outshone on the card by other matches and angles. I watched that Pat Patterson doc the other day and he's in it, proudly saying their matches together was the first time MSG was sold out four times in a row for the same match, and that doesn't happen because Bob got his hand raised at the end. I don't think Hogan should have lost at all in that first reign. The company needed to establish themselves, and having one guy on top during that time was necessary to keep the faith during that time they were taking over the country. Besides that they needed a guy who was in lock-step with Vince about going into people's territories. Piper had a real problem with that.

The horror stories of those overseas trips, never cease to amaze me. While everything else from The Plane Ride From Hell is pretty disgusting, I have to say I was really sad to read about Curt Hennig. Here's a guy who had so much talent, not just as a worker but as someone who co-opted himself into "sports entertainment". It's almost understandable that he was not willing to pass the torch to some degree, and maybe the company could have done a better job valuing his talent while pushing him towards being a mentor to Brock.

It's just on Davey Boy Smith

The first episode of Icons, on Yokozuna, is pretty good. Production-wise it's very good and it's clear they are modeling it a bit more on the Andre HBO doc. No voice-over guy, with some brief external information just shown as text, and not so crazy on the editing either. I don't know what the scheduling is on these but I hope Luger's episode is next as there really isn't any other episode I'm excited for. It's clear they are trying to counter what Dark Side of the Ring is doing to some degree, but I can see this being a really good program in the future for them.

Ric talked about another Charter flight in his first shoot interview that I really want to know more about, where they were experiencing extreme turbulence and landed in Russia with everyone stuck inside before having to lift off again.

I'm sure that played a role too, with a bit of grandstanding by having shows in the three biggest cities in America (well, technically two). The worst thing about the Valentine/Earthquake match from VII is that they cut down on time so they could interview some dude in a suit with silly hair.

I liked it, but I feel like they skimped out on fleshing his story out a bit more. I take it this has a lot from the doc about him before, Accepted?

The first two stand best as curios of where the company was in terms of transitioning from a regional company to a national one. A lot of trial and error, especially with the 2nd one, as how to really pull a big show off. Hulkamania running wild in NYC with Cyndi Lauper and the Rock & Wrestling era was the birth of the vision. WrestleMania 3 is the realization of it, and also the beginning of Vince wanting to make the company bigger than any one star. The booking of WrestleMania 1 is a bit odd to me in that they didn't have more blow-offs, specifically Santana/Valentine which was a hot feud. I get that they teased it quite a bit in both of their matches, but it's disappointing that one had to open the show and the other had to work the Junkyard Dog in light of the classics they had in that arena. 2 is a bit of a hard watch, mostly for the guest commentators. They rectified this by having Bob Uecker yuck it up during two matches at 3 and 4. And while it comes across okay on video, it's my understanding the live feed was a bit of a clusterfuck, not having mastered the satellite hookup. I can imagine Vince watching Live Aid thinking he could do the same thing but across 3 cities, his ego not anticipating the problems even that show had putting it all together. About the only match with rewatchable quality is the battle royal, something I doubt they could ever pull off again.

Tito Santana beat him in Spain too

Interesting parallel to their 1987 and 1992 matches, with Davey Boy still in the Bulldogs in 87 and Dibiase already tag team champ with IRS in 92.

Did Ted Dibiase and Davey Boy Smith ever have a singles match during DBS' singles run from 90 to 92? Feels like a natural fit for house shows, or maybe the odd Prime Time taping.

https://variety.com/2021/digital/news/wwe-network-peacock-exclusively-streaming-1234890954/

I thought Bruno Sammartino would have outlived him

The way Vader put it, that's kind of what happened. I can't help but feel that whole situation would have been avoided if Harley Race was still in WCW. He could have been effective in calming down both guys before things ended up the way they did.

That's just insanity if you think about it. They had more proven top guys than any wrestling company in history, spreading that star power out a bit would have helped both shows instead of featuring everyone, all the time. They were at critical mass at this point, signing Bret after what was a really hot year for him in the WWF, only to do what they ended up doing with him. This makes me wonder if Spike and CW questioned WWE when did their brand-split 4/5 years later. As far as the NWO job squad, I think it was effective for a little while, essentially having their own security force so faces wouldn't get at Hogan, Hall or Nash so easily. But, as you said, it did jump the shark at this point.

I'm breaking this off from a discussion in the WWE Network thread about Goldberg, but I'll reiterate that I think they are a bad idea. Everybody has to lose eventually, and it's one thing to have a hot streak but to come in from the cold and stay entirely without a L could mean disaster. The one guy who comes to mind for me is Tatanka. He was a mildly popular babyface in 92 and 93, and had some decent matches, and was made on this undefeated streak. They never went anywhere with it until Yokozuna squashed him and he was replaced by The Undertaker at the Survivor Series. When he came back, he steadily went down the card, except for a mildly interesting heel turn and feud with Lex Luger. Anyway, can someone make a better case for them?

Would this development be worth opening up that thread again?

That makes very little sense. So the NWO just fights each other every Monday night? Seems to me the better idea would have just been to put the most over guys on Nitro and everyone else on Thunder, to make it a show where talent has the chance to get over instead of being trampled by the bigger names.

From the sound of it, Goldberg never would have worked as a heel. Both in theory and very likely if you asked him, too. I mean they tried, but I don't think he ever fully bought into doing it. As far as Andre goes, I get the sense that him being undefeated was basically a secondary issue to the attraction. I'm sure it was almost an unspoken thing among promoters to make sure he didn't lay down for a three count, but it wasn't something they belabored in promoting him. Easier said than done with a company that was already red hot, with guys (some rightfully, some not) thinking they were responsible for things being where they are. They could only know what they lost once they did. Jobbing everyone out to him could have been more feasible if they found Goldberg before they had Hogan, and right when Bischoff just came into power. In that anemic situation the company was in in the early 90's, would he have been as huge? Probably not, but the company could have had a fighting chance to rise above with a roster of talent that they didn't need to steal from the WWF. Getting into daydream booking here but imagine in that scenario if they put Goldberg in Flair's place at the end of 93, or maybe extend Vader's title run into the next year. A younger Goldberg with Vader in perhaps his very physical prime, would have been a hell of a match.

If he figured out "You don't know what you don't know" 20 years before things might be very different

He sent out a pretty cryptic tweet around New Years, and it sounded like he had a really rough year. Just to be a fan for a minute, the person I feel bad for in this story is Diamond Dallas Page, because he should have been the one to end the streak. Considering the fact that Bill suffered for some of the bumps he took in that Halloween Havoc match, it feels like they could have called an audible and given DDP the win to end it early. I personally feel that winning streaks can be as detrimental to someone as it can to get them over. It was so WCW that they didn't figure out the endgame for that aspect of his character until Nash did. It's even killed people for Vince. Tatanka was fairly popular, but he went down and down the card once they ended his undefeated streak, not really rationalizing as to why to give it to him.

Bobby Heenan marking out for Goldberg during that whole run might have been some of his best mic work. And some of his calls on this night were on par with his Rumble '92 performance.

Ric Flair had a pretty funny story about calming Greene down backstage at the GAB '96 because Scott Hall introduced himself and apparently made a joke that Greene wasn't sure how to take because he wasn't one of the boys. Funny because the entire NWO angle could have been ruined right there if Scott came out for the Bischoff interview with a black eye or noticeable limp.