BlueGuy

Ric Flair Terry Funk Arn Anderson Steve Austin

Thanks for the info and also for the thoroughness in your reviews. I also agree with your thoughts on the 50+ minute Reed/Flair match. That particular one is by far my least favorite 80s Flair match. Regarding dates, I'm pretty sure the 5/4 match is from Jackson, MS. No idea about this 4/28 match.

Great review! I'll need to watch this one again as I totally agree with you that the Hawaiian and 8/82 matches were the finest Flair/Kerry matches. To refresh my memory just a bit on this particular one, does it have any commentary?

At their peak, both guys did everything about as well as you could possibly hope. I think Terry Funk said it best one time when he was asked one time about Ric Flair's place in history. To paraphrase, he said something like Ric Flair is the very best Ric Flair there will ever be, just as he's the very best Terry Funk there will ever be. He added that there are guys who've come along who have sort of tried to emulate them (Michaels and Foley immediately come to mind), but they're the originals, and like a select few others, their place in history is at the very top.

As much as I love Terry Funk and am thrilled to see him get a top 5 ranking, he doesn't come close to matching Flair in my eyes. When I think of my favorite Funk matches, the first two that come to mind are Bash 1989 and Clash New York Knockout versus Flair. Both of them are all-time classics and neither of them are my favorite Flair match. Needless to say, on that fact alone (and more), I'd have to pick Flair.

With Flair it has GOT to be Wahoo hasn't it? Hasn't he said it is Wahoo a lot of times? He was around when Wahoo vs. Johnny Valentine was going on. And he tagged with Greg late 70s. Flair and Greg are actually really similar workers in some ways. Someone was talking about that recently on one of the show. Was an astute point. He's said that Wahoo was the inspiration. He's also said that the style of setting up the opponent with both arms hooked around the top ropes thereby fully exposing the chest was influenced by Terry Funk.

Brian Pillman is one that hasn't been mentioned yet.

The Benoit example reminded me that a heel Orndorff could also qualify.

Not counting classic airings, I think the most promotions I ever watched simultaneously was the following five in 1995: WCW WWF ECW USWA SMW It seems I've watched at least three at a time since the late 1980s (and I would have watched more had it been available in my area). The number only dropped to two promotions at a time in 2005.

Is there a quick reference list/thread to all the nominated wrestlers? Do our finalized lists have to be posted or are we supposed to p.m. them?

I'm with you guys who thought it was great. The Garvin title win was a 4.5 stars for me.

Beginning around the time Hogan showed up, it seemed to me that they took the focus off of Starrcade and put it on Halloween Havoc. Even in his first year, 1994, the Havoc match against Flair had the cage and retirement stipulation upping the prestige and importance on anything that came before it. From there on, Starrcade still received a lot of promotion as the big event, but that always seemed to be based more on history than current. The only year that seemed to stray from this philosophy of pushing Havoc as the real big event was 1997, and that was primarily because of the culmination of the Sting angle. If you swap out the main events, I'd say Halloween Havoc was the more loaded show of the two even in 1997.

Yes, exactly what sek69 said. When Coliseum Videos aired on 24/7 Classics on Demand they looked noticeably better than VHS quality. It was essentially broadcast quality. As a result, even the very few tapes that were released in EP would be in the WWE libraries in broadcast quality.

All of the main line, numbered WF001 to WF140 something, were in SP. The only ones that were in EP were the 20+ 60 minute compilation tapes marked WS900 to WS920something. In other words, probably 85% of Coliseum Video releases were in SP. Regardless of what speed these Coliseum Videos were released in, the company owns the actual studio masters that the VHS releases were made from. These studio masters are of much higher quality than any VHS. Grab any WWE Blu-Ray or DVD release with a Coliseum match (or even Turner/NWA/WCW) and you'll see it looks better than any VHS quality match. WWE has broadcast quality studio masters, not consumer quality VHS.

What's the starting and ending dates on these NWA episodes?

I had heard that the audio was mono.

The "sponsored by" bits (assuming that precedes these ads) are part of the original production that was broadcast by WCW over satellite back to TBS. As such, it is technically a part of the show and WWE is supposedly doing everything legally possible to keep programs as they originally aired so it stays.

I thought you were including the whole first Hogan reign and Dibiase's presence in your post reinforced it to me (I must have skipped over the bracketed portion). If so, while Dibiase was only briefly involved during that period, he undoubtedly made a huge impact. His impact, coupled with the fact that he brought the whole package (in-ring work, character, presence, promos) whenever he appeared, made him a lock for my list.

If we're talking the top guys from strictly the 1984-1987 era WWF, my list would be Hulk Hogan, Jake Roberts, Paul Orndorff, Ted Dibiase, Ricky Steamboat and Harley Race.

For whatever reason, I can't copy anything and put it in this window. But, I'd check out www.HypeGeeks.com . The Hogan story is on their main page featuring comments from WWE AND Hogan.

He seemed scrubbed from WWE.com last night.