flyonthewall2983

Jimmy Hart managed Flair a few times in WCW, it was a terrible fit. I could see it working if he managed Flair coming in to Memphis the few times he did. They kind of did that with him and The Undertaker, from about the time before Survivor Series until the SNME tag match with them/Hogan & Sid. How they had The Undertaker implicated in the Hogan/Flair feud, as well as being a part of the Savage/Roberts angle was interesting. One thing I'd definitely change, is to align Hogan and Savage together during this period in lieu of Warrior not being there. I think if Warrior was more of a team player during this time, he could have been the one in Sid's place during the whole time Savage was relegated to broadcast duty. Putting them together and tying in the new Savage angle with the already established program between Warrior and Jake/Undertaker, could have made for some interesting segments where they have this uneasy partnership because of their own history. Basically, it's what they did in 1992 anyway with the brief Ultimate Maniacs run.

Sports Illustrated on the upcoming ESPN 30 for 30 special on him. Really looking forward to this one, sad as I suspect some of it will be.

He missed the Rumble due to a leg injury.

I only learned recently that his last match was just like a month before he died. I'm amazed that he worked at all those final years.

My memory is that the IWC was going nuts for his coming to WCW. It petered out so quickly it was kind of amazing. I remember seeing him chase Hulk's nephew who of course had a job WCW by then, and thinking "we're not going to see him again". I remember hearing that Russo wanted to bring him back, turn him heel and have him feud with Goldberg.

With regards to WCW, they probably should have just picked up and settled roots elsewhere once they signed Hogan. Kevin Nash brought this up in his latest timeline, that they did several shows in Las Vegas at the time and that probably would have been the best option. If Turner and later Time Warner would have let them do this is another matter, as I'm sure there were people on the corporate side who wanted to keep it close. If I ever won Powerball and went all in on a promotion, I would base it out of Chicago. Mostly out of just pride of being a Midwesterner and that of the history of wrestling in places like Indianapolis, Detroit, St. Louis and Minneapolis.

I think Bryan was better at it, where Punk's bread and butter was being a heel. Cena has a little bit of it too. He dresses normally and he can be dead serious in his promos as he can be big and broad.

Kind of funny that Fight Club is being brought up. David Fincher was upset with Fox because TV ads for the movie were shown on WWF programming, and that the ads themselves marketed it more as an action movie. I watched it again recently, and it really feels like something of it's time now. In it's sort of hyper-driven pace it could resemble what the studio may have seen it as but it obviously went much deeper than that. The ideas expressed were clearly meant more for the 30-somethings like those who wrote, directed and starred in it, not the younger and maybe more ignorant lowest-common-denominator crowd Fox appealed to. Even I found much more in it in these recent viewings than I did when I was 17 and was blown away by it. Anyway, it's interesting that the idea of a working class hero in WWE would be nonexistent now. It makes me wonder how much of that was a hidden reason why Vince hated what he referred to as "rasslin'". On the surface it's admirable that he wanted to use his company to take the artform to a more universal level than just appealing to lower/middle-class Americans. How it coincided with the importance laid towards the kind of superhuman male identity being promoted in the 80's couldn't have been timed better. But inherent in that was that any identification with the audience was lost. For all of Hulk Hogan's charisma in his interviews (not to mention the way he could sell when he was in danger), all people took away from him was that he was just this big dude with a little bit of a cool attitude but made the image as important, if not more than the message.

I saw this... Unsure on whether or not I want to listen to Flair ramble though. Have you watched it? Not yet, for mostly the same reason.

^ No better proof of what it's like living in the McMahon bubble

Ric Flair, Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard shot an episode of Table For 3

Last I heard he had nothing very nice to say about her.

Has Waltman said anything yet?

Way closer. The WCW audience wasn't booing Hogan for lack of charisma or an awkward push. They (at least in the south where WCW was still heavily based) were booing the face of the WWF all those years the Crocketts and WCW until they signed him was the alternative to.

Are we just limiting this to Hollywood? Cases could be made all across TV, especially Gandolfini and Cranston obviously.

My choice would be Martin Sheen. Badlands, Apocalypse Now, Wall Street and his whole damn run on The West Wing. But especially the first two. If Terrence Malick had been more prolific, Sheen could have been for him what De Niro was to Scorsese.

I know, but the psychobabble he preaches couldn't have helped. And the bubble from the reality TV thing too.

I would sooner blame Dr. Drew for what happened to her than Vince McMahon.

Forgive me for generalizing, but was she ever on one of those Dr. Drew celebrity rehab shows?

This really sucks. She seemed much smarter than the headlines would have had you think. And she was a pioneer for women in wrestling, no two ways about it.

I think we can rule car accident out.

Just watched a bit of this on the Network. Michael Buffer's first night and he completely botches it when Flair and Anderson win, not knowing it's a 2/3 falls match and announces them as the winners and new tag team champs just as it cuts to commercial.

"Failed TV writer" is more impressive than "former ghost-writer of wrestling magazines".