flyonthewall2983

I've seen the Chris-Kevin Baltimore match where they went into the bathroom several times in the 90's and 2000's and maybe a few times after 2007. I do remember watching the matches they had the following year at SuperBrawl and Bash At The Beach live, but have not watched since but remember them as particularly brutal. Hard to say how much, but given what we know now if those two matches were total shoots I would not be surprised.

Sad to say all of my memories of her watching wrestling as a kid invariably involved Chris (and getting a glimpse of her ECW run in the Apter mags), but seeing the old footage from Florida and the time in early 90's WCW really hammered how special she was. It is admirable how she threw herself into motherhood, seemingly done with wrestling herself and content being close to his friends and their wives.

I remember watching a lot of CNN and MSNBC (I would have watched Fox if Vince McMahon went on Bill O'Reilly which was briefly rumored. Vinny Mac snapping on BillO would have been glorious to watch) for updates and interviews. I probably watched more wrestling on cable news than I was WWE or TNA programming at the time. The amount of ignorance and hidden contempt towards the business was infuriating but I couldn't stay away. Major respect to Chris Nowinski. The discoveries he helped make which made the public at large more aware of CTE, not only turned the discussion slightly away from all the easy "roid rage" stuff being tossed about, but it could have legitimized the physical toll of something people were easy to assume was "fake". He almost walks into frame heroically after all the cable news shit and the buzzards flying around the Benoit house.

Sounds very likely, from the way Chavo put it.

Steph/Hunter vs. Ronda/Kurt

I never heard them before but I shouldn't be surprised. Why he never got a job in WWE after WCW folded makes a bit more sense now. Bastard. Dean Malenko has Parkinsons? I read that in one of the comments, not that I'm taking it as gospel but he did seem to tremor a little during his interview.

Watching Vickie was really tough. She's such an amazing person for having gone through all that and to have survived it, whether through faith, family or the bond she has with who is left. Lots of open wounds here, and it's commendable that they are telling the story the best way they can. Did Nancy's sister make those allegations against Sullivan before? I vaguely remember that some of the things she said on podcasts were of some controversy.

Really?

Watched this last night. I like the commentary for this too, I think Ventura was always a big mark for Flair so it was kind of cool that he'd be deferential to him even as a babyface during this time. He pretty much calls it down the middle, like he did for the Hogan/Warrior match or even as he did for Hogan/Andre at WM III. For something with literally no heat between the two going in, they made the most of it. Flair telling Nick Patrick to shut up a few times was a nice touch, not really heelish but just pure annoyance. Sid being wrenched in towards the finish let the air out of the balloon a little for me, but honestly he was okay on the mic, except to harp on the fact Flair was too old (an obvious shoot in retrospect).

I read somewhere on Twitter that Davey Boy's daughter said WWE told her the ceremony would take place around the time of SummerSlam

If the inevitable happens, they'll probably wind up moving this whenever they reschedule WM. It would be nice if they did it at one of their facilities, just for the employees and production crew. Something more intimate like the ceremonies in the 90's and in 2004 would be a nice change, and a surefire way of preventing stuff like what happened to Bret last year repeat itself.

Vince's big head must have watched Live Aid and thought he could do something like that better, and in one more city. The fact he never tried it again, even with the advances in that kind of technology in the 3+ decades since speaks to how much of a production nightmare it was.

So is the season cancelled?

The battle royal is the only match from that show I've ever enjoyed. I also liked Piper's promo that is only on the Coliseum Video release. It must have been a real chore to watch live on PPV.

More episodes coming Monday

The Von Erich story would make for a better movie. It'd have to be a long one (maybe up to three hours), but either a mini-series (or a "limited" one) would be prone to using deaths as gimmicks for each episode I feel. I honestly don't see it happening, while Kevin is alive. If it were, it would probably be shaped around the Christian angle and be made like some of those things passing for movies that churches promote (and you occasionally see guys like Shawn Michaels or Sting in). Brian Koppelman, who now runs Billions for Showtime, almost had something set up at HBO about 80's wrestling and went as far as interviewing Vince for some reason. I think the best basis for a series would be the Monday Night Wars, but perhaps fictionalized to a degree to free up creative license to utilize so many of the real-life tragedies and comedies that went on behind the scenes in the 80's and 90's.

Someone made the comment on reddit yesterday that they felt if Savage had the spot Hogan was given in 84, the WWF would be no less a success than what it became. I conceded that it was interesting but made the points that Hogan already had a rub from being in the Rocky movie, being a top face for Verne, as well as being familiar with the people in the WWF from his earlier time there. Savage was only established in Memphis by 1984, and to my knowledge didn't spend any long amount of time anywhere else before going to New York in 85. I find this an intriguing possibility for a few reasons. Randy had the same kind of intensity and ability to do stuff off the top ropes and in cage matches that Snuka had, with the added attraction of being able to cut a hell of a promo. He could have gotten over with that NYC crowd the way he would later, but when it was less geared towards Vince's vision I could see the persona getting over without the flash and hype WWF would be known for later.

I watched the men's Rumble cold last night, and really liked it. Brock was impressive and if he wanted to shut those up who said he had no stamina, he certainly did that to me. It's not Flair in 92 great but it was an effective gimmick which helped the match. I was never a big Edge fan but I like that he's getting one more run, and he looked great in there mixing it up with the newer guys.

I'm sure that could be a whole episode by itself

Luger's legacy to a lot who might not see him in the light some of us do here is showing up on the first Nitro, screwing over Vince and overall indicative of a guy who went into business for himself. The way I see it, that return to WCW revitalized him from a performance and character standpoint. He thrived more running with the established talent like Hogan and Savage as well as the guys he came up with like Sting and those he came up under like Arn and Flair. I've heard Flair in shoot interviews put over their matches in 1988, emphasizing his conditioning and ability to break out his strength towards the end of long matches. It's nice for me to hear Arn put him over like this because I remember the Halloween Havoc 96 match between the two and how awful it was seeing Arn stretchered out. It's no wonder he felt that way about Hogan too. He got to see Hulkamania at it's absolute peak nationally in 88-89, and maybe had a bit of envy for the guys who took the big boot and leg drop every night. I remember the two or three matches they had in 1996 on Nitro being very good actually, and in hindsight is shocking seeing Hogan put him over.

It probably turned the conventional thinking on Jake around and as a result he wound up being one of the most over faces in the company for four years straight. So (between that and the failed attempt at a program with Hogan) what might have been perceived as a failure wound up being in their favor. Now applying that to Arn and Tully, it probably wouldn't have worked at all, so I see the overall point with regard to the discussion spurned on by the story he told about the Young Stallions. They had a hierarchy and routine down pat by 1988, after a few crazy years of the road schedule ping-ponging across the country, so anybody thought of as throwing a wrench in the plans maybe deserved getting the third degree from the established talent. Getting back to Jake, it's a shame he never stayed in WCW long enough to have a feud with Arn over the DDT. Jake popularized the move and could take it from anywhere but Arn elevated it's use, especially in the 90's as a singles wrestler.

Barry Windham/Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Austin/Steve Williams Halloween Havoc '92. You could probably do a compilation of just great tag team matches from this era