Migs

This had some weak points to it, but the violence level combined with the energy of the combatants was captivating.

Part of me wishes this feud was over, but it's kind of obvious that they just don't have the roster to produce a compelling foil to Lawler. And so I'm sure we're in for at least another few months of Hales bringing in guys to be his avatar against Lawler.

Why exactly didn't they run Taz v. Douglas at Wrestlepalooza? Why not blow it off and push Taz? I know Heyman loved the chase, but it became glaring really fast that they had nowhere to go with Taz with Shane on the shelf.

Randy Savage and BOBBY EATON from this period would be so cool. Both of these guys would generally be high on my list - if someone dug up a new Midnights-Fantastics match, or more 86 Savage, I'd be completely into that.

KC has also announced they'll be releasing the WCW 1989 Timeline with Cornette, and a 1994 one with Eric Bischoff.

I really hope they have an idea to pay this off beyond Lawler v. Giant Silva.

Yeah, there's definitely a vibe where no one wants to see these two fight, especially with Hall in the shape he's in.

If they did this late at night, I imagine it was not hard to sneak a camera on - there are entrances that are completely unsupervised.

Rikishi at least flirted with the main event picture on a few occasions, which I think puts him above your average midcarder. Plus, his career as a midcarder - even in previous gimmicks like The Headshrinkers and The Sultan - is filled with fairly high-profile matches for that spot. Perhaps more importantly, two songs prominently featured on WWE programming right now. And a relative to Roman Reigns in everyone's favorite family tree.

My guess is that they want to put Bryan and Reigns out there next to each other for several weeks in order to test whether fans REALLY want Bryan instead of Reigns. Which is honestly not the worst idea. Take a longer sample of fan reactions and see what you get.

This is also the great period where Punk turns and plays a tweener for a bit moving into his heel run. Him v. Hardy was a HOT feud and has a lot of fun promos. Jericho is also terrific in this time period.

This crowd seemed way more into the basketball players than the wrestlers.

I think HHH-Sting won't be particularly watchable either. I think you go one of two directions - go with the match people have discussed for years (Undertaker), or put him against someone who's a top-flight worker to get a decent match out of it. HHH-Sting is going to be an overblown epic.

Or at the least cashing in on the obvious money match and doing Undertaker-Sting.

Reading this thread while listening to Triple H on the Austin podcast is fantastic.

The GWE project is still a work in progress... a marathon, not a sprint. The interest in the DVDVR project is directly related to the original board going down and the lack of involvement in the latter sets with guys like Phil Schneider and Dean Rasmussen dropping out or not being as involved. Having said that, Lucha was a hot seller, it just isn't getting the discussion that earlier sets received. I am going to release Portland, the WWF redo and the NWA sets this year (hopefully) and I think all of them will generate plenty of interest. I am very excited for all three of those, although a little sad that Puerto Rico is on the backburner, as that one seemed intriguing.

I would say 1998 is when it became truly standard as the opening to the show. The 1997 shows don't automatically have them (or use the long promo in different slots on the show, like the Shawn-Bret one that famously ended a show).

1998.

That's pretty much the same story for most of Hulk Hogan's 1980's matches. Everybody who was everybody inevitably wound up staring at the ceiling for Hogan. They may slander how he was booked and how he didn't want to put them over, but none of them flat out refused to do the job, they all agreed to it, simply because of how much money they'd make doing it. It would be foolish for anybody to turn down a big arena job to Hogan in his peak, given the potential earnings. Diversion of topic, but still technically on topic, can anybody recall examples of wrestlers who have flat out refused to sign big money deals or do jobs that would net them money that they were idiots to pass up on, simply out of principle or ego? We all know Hogan refused going to a rubber match with Michaels in 2005, a program that would have netted him considerable money (possibly even more than the Summerslam match, had the rubber taken place at the following Mania?). Hogan's claimed in recent interviews that he wanted to do a series with Piper back in WWF that would involve them switching the title for a while, but Piper was unwilling to job for him. If I understood him correctly, the idea was Hogan would win, then Piper would win the title, then Hogan would win the title back. But Piper didn't want to do the initial job to show good faith or whatever. No idea if there's any truth to this as Hogan has been prone to some real flights of fancy in his memory. Certainly Piper could have main evented Wrestlemania 2 if he'd been willing to job to Hogan, and I'd imagine that would have been a bigger pay day than boxing Mr. T (although I have no idea at the size of the disparity).

This was nicely put together, but it feels like they are writing checks they can't cash, because Hales can't get in the ring and they don't seem to have a heel that's really worthy of being Hales' avatar. I guess the logic might be that it's a decent way to get at least some heat on crappy heels.

Gertner is brilliant here, not letting anyone get in on the D-Von intro. "First they break Beulah McGillicutty's neck, and now they won't stop talking about it. It's an old Franchise trick, rub salt in the wound!" This was fun - at the very least, the structure, with the brawl in the studio intercut with the match, felt different and was interesting to watch.

As a kid, I remember this being longer and funnier. Now... its okay.