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WWE.com has been brilliant for the best part of a year. They've unearthed some absolute gold. Assuming Joey Styles is behind this - good work!

Teddy looking great! Dibiase should of had a full blown run with the belt. One of my favourite ever workers in arguably his peak. Mania 4 should have ended a little something like this:

Hardly. Bryan's been taken out for two months now on a regular basis.

I'd love to see where both would be if they didn't stray from their "reasons for notoriety." I.e. if Tyson hadn't become such a train wreck with the rape, the arrest and some of the batshit stuff he's done and said since, and being someone that TV show and movie producers would bring in as a cameo or whatnot (BTW, Mel Gibson was dropped from Hangover II because of his antisemitic and off the rails drunken tirades rubbed the actors the wrong way, which is fair, but they'd rather do scenes with a CONVICTED RAPIST?) Train wreck was part of the deal with Tyson from early on. The Robin Givens interview came when he was still clearly the No. 1 boxing star in the world. There was never a version of him that wasn't headed down that path. I was thinking last night about whether Tyson is clearly bigger than Hogan. He probably is, because he was such a huge figure both for straight sports fans and in tabloid culture. Particularly surreal is his third act as a beloved old crazy, touring the country with a one-man show. That I did not see coming, though perhaps I should've, because Mike was always super-engaging in doses. I think Hogan is a little bigger now. I've had to explain to more than one younger coworker about just how huge Tyson was at his peak. No way is Hogan bigger than Tyson in the public eye. In any way you wan to measure he success of a star.

This guy has some great WOL audio interviews up from about 13 years ago... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B0q4crDfeY

TNA should do a Kickstarter to promote it's PPV's... LOLZ

Everyone was saying he was banging Kelly Kelly a few years back, because they were pictured in a nightclub together... People actually ran with that. Not saying he wasn't banging her - he could be banging Roddy Piper for all I know. Just saying the notion that photo = affair was retarded (unless it was a photo of her being porked by him).

Far from true. Keeping in mind it was Wrestlemania, and you had BROCK and GOLDBERG going at it with Austin as the ref... people wanted action. They had their fun with the "You Sold Out" chants which later turned to boo's when jack shizzle was happening in the ring. When Goldberg did his press slam on Lesnar, the building popped. The fans wanted action and for a brief moment they got it. If the guys gave it their all from the start, the crowd would have been into the match all the way in my opinion.

Wasn't trying to relate the two, just looking at the whole package as a fan.

I was thinking about this one earlier. Does anybody think Undertaker is a bigger star than Hogan? I think when it comes to name recognition, Undertaker is as a known name as Hogan, amongst fans and non fans. When Paul Bearer died it was shocking that so many people knew who he was, so I have little doubt normal folk know who Taker is, if only for being that Wrasslin guy. Taker also gets bonus points because the general impression I get is that he is more respected than Hogan. No big star has ever bad mouthed Taker. As a man, he's made and saved his millions, has never been in any dodgy scandals and as far as in ring work goes: he can lay claim to having some of the greatest matches of all time. Longevity is also a factor here. So I'm saying Undertaker > Hogan. Agree or disagree?

I don't believe Goldberg should be in this list, at all. I can't remember a time he ever seemd out of his depth in what he was saying on the mic, nor can I ever recall him fluffing his lines. He always seemed very confident to me. In fact, looking back at his in ring promos with HHH, the guy wasn't phased at all.

Just Davey Boy Smith then...

It's a brilliant work on his part. Even if he is being an insecure bitch, it plays perfectly in his character. He is probably the best heel non-wrestling character since Vince in his heyday. He mentioned RVD, Edge and Jericho because the modern fans know who they are, are connected to them emotionally and such comments would get under their skin.

He was a WCW title holder no less. So much for the time honored traditions, eh.

Turning a Wrestlemania blow-off match into an angle would have been a rotten move in my view. To the original posters point, I've always agreed with the logic. Both Goldberg / Lesnar couldn't give two shits about the smart fans and the crowd got the best of them. It's a shame, because a Fall Brawl 2000 style match is what most were anticipating, and the two certainly could have delivered under different circumstances.

I think the absence of stars was the reason for the mainstream drop off in popularity. Major players were no longer featured: Warrior, Bulldog, LOD, Hogan... It would be like if Jet, Wolf etc left Gladiators. The Summer of 92 was such a special time for UK fans. I saw a bunch of newspaper scans the other day from that time period - pretty mind blowing stuff that I still remember the articles.

Just watched BFG, what an absoulte sack that card was. Over booked, uninspired, reductive... I could go on. It's like TNA has lost the will. It reminds me of ECW in 2000 where they lost a lot of their talent, and the booking seemed phoned in The talent that is thee try hard, but they are booked in sill fashion. In many ways, that's always been the case with TNA, but it just seems these days the spark of promise for something better is long dead.

He was wrestling the WWF champ a lot on house show loops in 1996. In late 95 he would have been an awkward fir for Kevin Nash. If you look at the attitudes of the time, there is no way the fans would have taken to a 7 foot badass biker selling to the sexually ambiguous Goldust. Bret however, had some nice matches with Goldust on Raw in 1996 / 1997. I think being put on top would have actually limited the amount of stuff he could do and therefore how memorable he was warranting his returns, present included. There is no way for instance he'd be giving the Undertaker mouth to mouth backstage for his heat... that was for the Ahmed Johnson's of the world. Although he did work with Taker a bit in 96... So I guess he did pretty much get o work with all of the top stars... and his performances were what they were. I think he was positioned just fine.

Correct. Angle would lose it to Storm in a minute on the post-BFG Impact, then Storm would drop it a week or two later to Roode. They built up Storm challenging Roode pretty huge for Lockdown in Storm's hometown but Roode retained, Storm took a leave and came back for the BFG Series. But they ended up putting the title on Aries so the Storm/Roode blowoff was a non title street fight at BFG. This was the booking which totally cut the legs out from under James Storm. Nobody cares about him any more, he's just another guy on the roster. The fact that he is looking bloated and uninterested these days is a shame.

The Dude Love debut was indeed great, it should come up more often in the conversation of great debuts. In context, you had Mankind for weeks lobbying to be Austin's tag parter and the fans wanted to see it. When the Dude came down and won the match with Austin, it was a true feel good moment.

Flair and Warrior had many matches in 1992, many of which can be found on fancam. Such an odd clash of styles / looks...

Nah there are a few good things kicking around. The Team 3D funeral was good, Bobby Roode trying to secure a manager - although a direct rip off of Savage trying to find one and ending up with Liz - was good for what it was. Kurt Angle's debut / Samoa Joe clash was good (if that counts, because it was in a ring I guess). But yeah, the negatives far outweigh he positives...

I don' know about that. He brought some of the best out of Bret Hart in WCW. Bret wasn't even having "great" matches with Curt back then...

It's a problem that has plagued them for years. Nothing means anything in TNA. If somebody got stabbed with a knife in the ring, they'd cut to some random backstage bit after 10 seconds of coverage.

Been watching some OTR's with Michael Landsberg. Googled the guy as I know nothing of him, turns out he has a mental disorder and is suffering from depression. Shame.