Ricky Jackson

Pretty crazy main event. Did the right guy go over? I don't know. But I don't think Brock was hurt any by losing the way he did. Wonder if Cena legit hurt his arm. Brock almost pulled a Mania 19 level crazy botch with the dive spot.

Awesome match between Sheamus and Bryan. Oh Chicago and your "Goldberg" chants at Ryback. Pretty good so far.

What's all this about?

It seems like there was a different idea for Jericho's return, with the misleading vignettes and the whole not talking and pretending to be an over-the-top babyface (which I thought was great), but the call was made at some point to scrap all that and just do a typical WWE by-the-numbers overbooked soap opera feud with Punk, with Jericho turning into a boring Kane-like heel along the way. On the bright side, their Mania match was great and I'll be shocked if the street fight on Sunday doesn't deliver.

Shouldn't AJ be the one tied to the tracks?

It came off during a match in Vegas for the AWA in 88. I'm assuming pretty much everyone on the inside probably knew about it by 90.

The crowd was pretty much 100% pro-Cena the only time I saw him live at a house show in Victoria three years ago.

Not from NJ, but from the same time frame in Philly: Hogan vs Adonis

Interesting to see Adonis get a three match run with Hogan in NJ. Hogan tagged with just about everybody under the sun in those days, didn't he?

William Muldoon

I know. He was also in the 90 Rumble. What I meant was in between 91 and 97 he only participated in the 94 Rumble.

Yeah, a below average Rumble with a memorable ending. For a bit of useless trivia, after 1991 this was the only Rumble match Bret Hart participated in until 1997.

I was about the same age as you El-P when I saw this match, but I totally hated the post match supernatural stuff at the time. I was at the peak of my Bret Hart/Shawn Michaels/athletic-workrate phase and the Undertaker (and Yoko as well) was pretty much the antithesis of everything I wanted my wrestling to be. Yes, I spent most of my teenage years and twenties mired in cynicism, but I'm making up for it today by watching an inordinate amount of 80s Hulk Hogan matches! I'm not sure if I'll ever get into early-90s babyface Undertaker, though. And unless I'm forgetting something, I think this was pretty much the first time WWF went overboard with the Hollywood special effects and all that. Warrior-Shango had the black goo and vomiting (haven't watched that stuff in ages, I wonder if...nah) but this was something else all together.

I guess it means Cena doesn't seek out career advice from Shawn Michaels.

Now that you mention it, there almost seems to be a reoccuring theme of racism associated with Valentine's late-70s/early-80s character. Besides Strongbow and McDaniel, he also feuded and did injury angles with Pedro Morales and Tito Santana. He had a mini-feud with Tony Atlas in 1982. He also turns up randomly during a promo segment with Slaughter and Kernodle during their famous feud with Steamboat and Youngblood and delivers a "slant eyes" comment about Steamboat. Of course you could say there was a reoccuring theme of racism associated with ALL of wrestling back then, so maybe it really isn't that noteworthy.

Yep, it was IRS. And to answer my own question, the McDaniel leg-breaking preceded the Strongbow leg-breaking by two years.

So I was able to read part 1 of Dave's bio. He writes that the angle in WWF where Valentine broke Strongbow's leg in 79 came BEFORE and inspired the angle in Mid-Atlantic where Valentine broke McDaniel's leg (the famous "I Broke Wahoo's Leg" T-Shirt angle). I thought it was the other way around. Wasn't it? Dave also writes that Strongbow was involved in Tatanka's introduction to WWF "in 1994". Besides being off by two years, I think he was confused with an angle involving Strongbow and McDaniel where they awarded Tatanka a ceremonial headdress which led to some heel (can't remember, was it Bigelow?) attacking them. Was Strongbow involved in Tatanka's introduction in 1992?

I think the whole package of the match, the stipulation, Savage going from extremely hated to beloved over the course of 30 minutes, and the post-match reunion make it one of the greatest stories the WWE has ever told on a show. I also think it is Savage's greatest masterpiece as a performer, and that says a lot.

First show I went to was WWF at the Saddledome in Calgary, January of 1989 (not listed on Cawthon's site). I went with my dad (never a wrestling fan) and don't remember much about the show other than the main was Savage vs. Bad News and sitting behind us was a group of 4-5 college age guys who made sarcastic, funny, and possibly smart (I was too young to know) remarks about the wrestlers all night long. I went to various WWF shows over the years, nothing too memorable, but I got to see guys like Savage, Roberts, Andre, DiBiase, Bret Hart, Santana, etc. In 1993, my friends and I went to several Rocky Mountian Wrestling shows held at a community centre in the shithole neighborhood of Victoria Park, near the Stampede grounds. Jericho wrestled on at least one show, but we all hated him because he was a pretty boy babyface and we were teenage heel fans (and the only teenagers who attended the shows, which were otherwise made up of older people and young kids). A friend of mine even jumped in the ring one night to answer a grandstand challenge by Jason the Terrible and was roughed up in the corner before security broke things up (several heels lectured us in the parking lot later about not doing stupid shit like that again). The highpoint, by far, of my live wrestling experiences was attending the Canadian Stampede PPV in July 1997. Just the craziest, loudest, most fun live experience of any entertainment spectacle I've ever been to, be it heated hockey and football games, rock concerts, whatever. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. My last WWE house show was the one in Victoria, BC in 2009 with the infamous post-show Jericho (funny, him again, 16 years later) confrontation with idiot fans in the parking lot that was a big story for a day or two. The show was actually pretty disappointing, less than two hours long, but at least I got to see Cena, Mysterio, and Punk live for the first time. The Victoria PD called me because I had an eye-witness account of how the jerk who provoked Jericho was behaving during the show (walking around with a merch table belt and pretty much acting like the whole show was a shoot) posted on Pro Wrestling.Net (or whatever the Torch spin off site is called) and told me I might be called to testify in court if it ever went that far (which of course it didn't). Pretty surreal experience at the time.

For those out there with a sub, how was part 1 of Dave's bio on Strongbow?

Thanks Bix. Here's the opening of the IWA TV show, circa 1975: and a decent little segment involving Ernie Ladd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z28BYFA_Qso...feature=related Also thanks cm.

I'm glad you brought this up, because I've been intrigued by 70s IWA since I first read about it five or so years ago and this reminded me to ask if anyone knows anything substantial about it. I know it was supposedly an attempt to promote nationally with guys like Mascaras and Ivan Koloff and NWA outlaws, and it was backed by Eddie Einhorn who owned the Chicago White Sox and had good TV connections IIRC (and was later involved in Pro Wrestling USA?). I've never seen much written about it and I'm not sure if much if any footage exists. Anyone know anything beyond my bare bones description?

http://www.f4wonline.com/more/more-top-sto...deal-with-spike Does this mean the death watch/Hogan and Bischoff coup d'etat is on hold?

At least now I can say I've seen one of the matches on Dylan's list.

It's not really the booking, although by going from Rock to Brock, Cena is basically facing the two top babyfaces (based on crowd reaction) in wrestling back to back. I think two things are happening that make this different: 1) The usual 50-50 (give or take) crowd split has been slowly moving towards a consistent boo-majority for a while now, and I don't think it's only because of Cena being programmed against the Rock. I think the momentum isn't going to be reversed, and I get the sense WWE knows it's futile to resit it any longer. I also don't expect a traditional "heel turn" moment in the short term, but I may be wrong. 2) More importantly for me was Cena's promo on Raw. The tone was different, with Cena coming off more like a whiner, or at least not very sympathetic, and the whole "Will I turn heel now? Nah, I don't want to give you the satisfaction" bit came off pretty heelish, but not in the traditional sense. And Brock coming out at the end totally felt like a heel getting what he deserved moment rather than a babyface being attacked by a monster moment. I think we are going to see Cena booked increasingly like a doucebag in his promos in the coming weeks. Who knows, I could be reading way to much into this. Maybe I just think it's cool that Cena finally turned heel by NOT turning heel. We'll see.