Marty

Masked Tom Zenk as Shane Douglas. Marty Jannetty as spirit rising Undertaker.

Yeah, and that's a much, much better choice than the Eddy match that was on the Austin DVD. I'm hoping they throw in the promos setting up the match, too. Eddy being frustrated at Rock because his kids "have posters of you and worship you" was awesome.

Oh, look everybody! http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=4671 Somehow, whoever was on Amazon thought that the list would stay intact, or believed it to be official, or whatever. But I don't buy that list being the actual one.

I think they'll induct Davey and Neidhart someday. Neither are really HOFers, but that doesn't really matter here. Besides, Diana Hart-Smith is on good terms with Vince, last I checked. Plus his son is working for them. I don't see why they won't induct Davey alone. Dynamite? Nuh-uh.

Re: Backlund. Didn't he turn down the WWE HOF because he thinks it's a joke?

I realize Windham's a Texan, but it wouldn't shock me if he's a last-minute addition this year, with WrestleMania being in Florida and all. (They're up to six inductions this year, as the Briscos will be inducted at the same time, so I imagine they'll throw in one or two more.)

Beat me to it. I think they'll go in next year. I thought that they were going to induct Terry this year, since the latest inductee was announced last night on ECW, but it turned out to be Eddie Graham. So yeah, Funk next year.

That sort of thing happens in dead wrestling towns like Ottawa (where I live). When the AAA baseball Ottawa Lynx played, before the first pitch was thrown, you'd hear "Time to play the game". Also, whenever something good happened (like the Lynx scoring some runs or whatever), because Lynx are a breed of cat, you'd hear the beginning of Sable's music.

Yes, Austin beat him up and tore off his shirt shortly after he turned heel in 2007. It might have been the week after he beat up JR in OK. Plus, as was mentioned DX gve him wedgies and pushed him around a lot in 97. I'm sure there have been other things that have happened but I don't watch SD! at all and haven't for years. But he certainly hasn't been beaten up more than Coach, JR, or even Lawler as far as the announcers go. Heidenrape. I think you mean 2001 regarding Austin's heel turn.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jeff. What a shame.

There was all the DX stuff in the early going of Cole's WWF run.

http://www.wwe.com/inside/industrynews/ http://www.wwe.com/inside/industrynews/6544892 (This falls under "WTF??" but the first link is a new "industry news" section, where the WWE is taking stories from other news sources, whether it be Business Wire or friggin' WrestleZone. The second link, even more baffling, is a WrestleZone story showing TNA's March Schedule, including Lockdown.) Hopefully most see this before it gets deleted (that is, if it isn't supposed to be on there; if it is, that's odd shit).

I can't WAIT to hear Cena's next interview, where he blasts Bret Hart for not wanting to do the honours in Montreal.

In addition to all that, he all of a sudden is last behind Big Show and JBL as far as recent returns go, as Big Show has a potentially very good story going with Mayweather, and JBL has had promos which outshined Jericho's (in my opinion) and has a new hot angle going on with Hornswoggle, Finlay and Vince. I can't see him doing anything at 'Mania besides MITB, which should be Jeff Hardy's to win this year. The only possible thing to redeem Jericho might be a sudden heel turn and then HE turns into the guy who ends Flair's career, but I think it's safe to say that's a long shot.

Amend that to say compilation. They don't go out of their way to edit him off full shows, but don't feel compelled to include him where they don't need to. That's a wise decision, IMO. Actually they do. Other than a few stray pics on the website and a few mentions of his name on 24/7, 99% of his existence has been removed from history. Well, the SummerSlam box set is supposed to come out this year and I believe Meltzer reported that they intend to keep the Benoit matches in tact. Compilations, OTOH...forget about any Benoit match in them.

Someone (likely the guy who e-mailed Meltz) forgot to mention that the much-beloved Hogpen match is an extra (same disc as the Terra Ryzing match).

Under the "true story" file, an ex-coworker of mine went to high school with Val Venis up here in Canada (so, yeah, not really from Vegas... ). Only thing he told me is, "he wasn't nearly as ripped back then as he is now; dude's on major roids".

Yeah, I don't get the Dos Hombres love either. Unless it's another way of them ignoring Shane Douglas. Happy that Bret-Austin SS96 is getting DVD treatment. Pretty good listing overall, but I don't get the Eddy match inclusion. Checking old recaps, it was a 3-minute match or so. If they wanted a 3-minute segment with Eddy, they could've thrown in that bar incident instead.

Interesting. Given that their long-term thinking was much greater back then than it is currently, I wonder how good the matches were and how much of a factor they were towards deciding on a program between the two. Thanks for posting this and the others, Loss. Great stuff!

Didn't know which thread to put this in, but... In case you guys haven't checked it out yet, try to track down a copy of this week's Sports Illustrated. The first story in the Features section, even before all the NFL Playoff coverage, is one about a kid who had started in-line skating at age 10, his father began injecting him with steroids and HGH at age 13 and today, the father is in jail as a result and the kid is suffering through a shitload of regrets. The wrestling part, you ask? Well, one "doctor" the kid saw wasn't even a licensed doctor and injected the kid illegally. The kid wasn't the only guy the "doctor" gave steroids too; according to the article, he has receipts from Paul Wight, Randy Poffo, Chris Benoit and Eddy Guerrero, which makes me think he dealt with them during their days in WCW. Well worth tracking down.

In perhaps the most shocking detail of them all, I just found out that HHH's set will only be 2 discs.

The Families DVD covered only a fraction of that. The McMahon DVD (Yes, I've seen it) had Hunter and Vince talking a lot more about their relationship, HHH's marriage with Steph, amongst other things. I think the funniest story was Hunter talking about playing pool with Steph against Vince and Linda, and beating them (albeit in flukish fashion) so often that Vince had to go outside and take a walk to keep from completely blowing a gasket. And, of course, there was the whole "Vince came back from two quad tears quicker than Hunter did with one" stuff. Hard to say. In the Managers DVD (yes, another obscure set I've seen), Chyna wasn't one of the featured managers, but they had a chapter on female managers, with Chyna being one of them. Hunter was interviewed and everything he mentioned about Chyna was praise. Then again, it was one of those DVDs where nothing negative was mentioned, or if it was, it was very brief. (For example, in the Sunny chapter, they mention her problems, but write it off as being "sad" and left it at that, as opposed to how they talked about guys like Guerrero, Pillman and Hawk.) The 80s Stars DVD was like that too. I doubt HHH's DVD is going that direction unless, of course, there's no documentary.

Some thoughts... I get the sense Austin will lose out on the Benoit matches issue. Since it's a month to go for this, we should be seeing a match listing soon. Doubt you'll see much in the way of Texas stuff. Didn't Austin work there after Jarrett purchased World Class, and when it was USWA? I don't think Vince owns any USWA footage. From my understanding, it'll be the same format as Mysterio's last set (3 disc main program, majority being matches). This will probably be your documentary with matches, with the documentary containing WWE-ized comments on Steph, position in the company, etc. Maybe it'll be like Austin's, but I imagine they'll do something like that. This is sort of the popular midcarder DVD release this year. Could be very fun, I agree, but I'm struggling to think of matches of theirs that haven't already been released on DVD. I like the Rock, so I think I'll enjoy this. I wonder if the plan will be much different than that match list that appeared some point last year. Unfortunately, I see this only being 2 discs, just like all their other old school releases (AWA, WCCW, Four Horsemen, etc.). I think it's this set that will tell how they approach the whole Benoit issue with footage, since God knows Hennig's had his share of angles with Benoit in WCW. Unless the title focuses only on Mr. Perfect. Agreed, although it's one of those PPVs that has a lot of hidden gems. I look forward to re-watching a lot of Hart Foundation tag matches, the Shawn-Vader match (for totally different reasons), among others. Yeah, I'm finding myself not getting too excited about this, except if it has rare stuff like the IC title win over Jarrett. I can't see this being much more than a Warrior-like DVD. Might be a bit better than that, just because of Savage's longevity in wrestling, but I think it'll be along those lines. It wouldn't shock me if a guy like Flair or Arn may have influence on this one. It might be one of those, "Ric got a DVD, Dusty got a DVD, the Horsemen got a DVD, why not Sting?" deals. On top of that, it's not like the guy isn't spoken positively of in past releases. Might be the surprise release of the year if it's a go.

So reading some updates from Meltz that I missed due to the holidays, when I saw this: "--Best of these wrestlers: Bret Hart 81.3% Jumbo Tsuruta 18.7% Kind of a shame here. Jumbo Tsuruta's best work stacks up to any wrestler in history." Did Dave change his viewpoint on Jumbo just recently, or has it been a while now?

I think the thing that Bret was disappointed with in regard to the top rope breaking was that, due to the Rockers going over that night, he felt they should be able to display more high-flying moves and, of course, that didn't get to happen too much. Understandable, for if you're going to move the titles to another team, ideally, you want that team to look as good in that match as possible. John, I'll try to rewatch that Rockers-Brainbusters match asap.