flyonthewall2983

I can see the case for Motörhead (rather then just Lemmy) getting in, and Trips using it as a platform to say they should be in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame (which they should). If the story is true that Vince, Sr. rejected doing something with Kaufman before Memphis did, he'll definitely never get in. I doubt Ali will get in either, as his family might object.

Hope Vader is inducted this year, especially after the news of his poor health.

What started to alienate me was the amount of programming that began to accumulate for both WWF and WCW in the late 90's. 1997 was the peak year of the Monday Night Wars as far as I'm concerned, but it was also the first year both companies had major PPV's every month of the year. Through the sheer luck of having PPV scramble, I was able to watch/hear in on stuff, but more importantly there was Monday nights. And that was fine. The eventual additions of Thunder and Smackdown! threw me a little bit (especially as my county didn't have UPN, we had to hear about Smackdown! results), and a malaise started to sit in that I think can happen with a lot of teenage fans. I think if I'd been 5 or 10 years older, I probably would have moved on from it completely by then. Of all the things I hated about the attitude era, I think the empowerment of the audience was the worst thing to come out of it. First it started with annoying memes ("What!", "You suck" to the tune of Kurt Angle's music), then later on when the "let's go Cena/Cena sucks" thing happened, I hated that too. But that's obviously more critical to what we're talking about here because it affected the perception of him by everyone over a certain age, who longed for the kind of vulgar everyman Steve Austin was. Not someone who I think is probably the purest babyface character I've ever seen. Both of those things combined with the slavish attention people draw to social media (for what it's worth I post sometimes on SquaredCircle and in my experience it's not all as bad as it seems), has definitely been the major factors in alienating me from the current product. Equal to that for me would be not having a viable and palatable alternative like WCW was in the 90's. And as heavily critical as I can be of him, these are things that aren't inherently Vince's fault. He saw the need for more television because his company was getting hot again, and he of course can't control the fans, hard as he seems to try.

The Dibiase episode had it's moments, but it missed a few critical points about his run, especially the Jake Roberts feud. Conrad bemoans that he worked Brutus Beefcake in the third match at WrestleMania V but failed to mention his interference in the Jake/Andre match that lead to a feud that ran for a year long.

Show is done with according to the official Twitter

I really wish they would come back to the Midwest. I was frankly surprised that they didn't come to Indianapolis, especially after it hosted one Super Bowl.

I heard something about studios not being impressed enough with her acting ability enough for these projects to have gone forward.

People are bringing up Tyson in comparison, but she didn't chew anybody's ear off which is all anybody could talk about regarding Tyson in 1998. Those same people are forgetting that Tyson was originally going to ref the Hogan-Savage match on NBC before Buster Douglas ate his lunch in Japan.

I'd say it's somewhere in-between. He's never badmouthed Vince or Pat, and does toe the line a bit on issues. But the value he brings is that he puts you in the mindset of McMahon, and delves a little deep into the relationships with talent, both in the ring and out.

Couldn't agree more. Racism and sexism were arguably much worse in the territory days than it is now. I thought it was quite moving and appropriate this year when WWE re-named the Women's title. I don't know how well the women are portrayed in regard to that move since then, but I at least liked that through that they recognized that the "diva" moniker wasn't altogether cool with people.

And I think he voted for Trump.

^ That is awesome. Hope you killed it that night Speaking of Albano, was he any good in Wise Guys? I only bring it up because I saw a clip of it in the De Palma documentary.

I'm more interested if a company can truly compete with WWE on the level that WCW did in the 90's, and what would be necessary to do so in order to avoid the traps TNA and others have fell into.

I wonder if they would have turned heel if they stuck around. With the Steiners coming in in 1993 and having those two feud around the horn would have been cool. Hell, I wonder how their fortunes would have changed if they came in as heels.

I think it's the one show on WWE Network that has Ricky Steamboat's original theme music (Alan Parson Project's "Sirius") left intact.

I watched a little of the Monday Nitro I attended in 1998, the show after that year's Souled Out PPV. It was the first time they had the Nitro Parties. It looks so cringey now, seeing the Nitro Girls and Okerlund in the middle of a college frat.

It's funny because ESPN did essentially run hit pieces on wrestling during the Attitude Era, and would highlight the portrayals of those things on television and their effect on kids. But it all had the mindset of Disney eating sour grapes over the fact that wrestling was kicking Monday Night Football's ass in the ratings.

The song doesn't even fit. He was best known as a heel.

Hasn't the standard been 90-second intervals since 1996-7? Bruce Prichard talked about how they felt having it be every minute just made it too quick. I'd think an 80-85 minute RR wouldn't be too bad if it's going to have that many guys in it. I'm intrigued by the idea. You could literally have 30 men fighting it out at one point.

This week's episode was quite good. Interesting hearing about all the work that went into promoting the '97 Royal Rumble. That was an exciting show for me because the PPV scramble was so low we decided to tape it on VHS, so we got it basically for free.

I don't think living in the Vince bubble allowed much anyone to have perspective. Hall and Nash at least had the good sense to realize that their family and financial needs were more important than everything else. Bret and Shawn may have felt they were under-utilized for so long while the lumbering beasts like Hogan and Warrior were allowed to be the faces of the company, and that being in their place at that time meant that they had to fight hard to keep those spots. Add to which, this is Bret's legit family business and I'm sure with regards to Shawn's behavior he played over and over again in his head what his father would have done if he were in Vince's place. I believe Vince allowed Montreal to happen, in part because he had some passive-aggressive misgivings about the possibility of losing Bret to WCW in 1996. Almost as soon as they had him back on television, the Hitman character morphed into this guy going down a spiral of jealousy and resentment. Granted you had Steve Austin slowly building momentum towards being the top guy (at the time, you could argue he was the single most interesting character on either WWF or WCW programming), and the seeds of the Attitude era being planted that Bret couldn't ever find his place in. Maybe those things were allowed to happen because the idea of Bret just even talking to Bischoff was enough to make Vince feel like he was being spited. Not to psychoanalyze it too much, but it's an insecurity that clearly speaks to the fact that Vince grew up in a hostile, abusive environment.

Just starting to watch Twin Peaks. The guy who plays James looks like the forgotten Steiner brother.

The flippiest guy of all back then was Lex Luger

Wasn't there a reliability problem with Butch? I heard that being cited as to why he didn't win the IC belt from Steamboat in '87, and some of his runs later in WCW attested to that a little.