DMJ

I can see why the Dinsmore comparison might not be apt. You're right, Dinsmore was over. I guess I just think Emma would've had a better chance of getting over if she hadn't been paired with a character that is not only 1-dimensional goof character but, and here's a key word I forgot in my previous rambling, stale.

^ Court Bauer had the same thought on the LAW podcast this week. I'm not 100% ready to say Swagger's stock will rise based on one week, but I've gone hot & cold with him over the years, so, my take on him is not to be trusted. For example, I thought he was great in ECW, had some really good matches with Bourne and Christian and Cena (on an episode of RAW sometime), then thought he was lackluster on SD and RAW leading up to WM29, and, most recently, thought he simply paled in comparison to Cesaro (most would) which made him look like a very weak link in the Real Americans. As for Emma - I place the blame squarely on the writers/bookers who teamed her with Santino. I get it - Santino is over because the kids still cheer him and he uses Mr. Socko and its cute. But the older crowd views him as a piss break character and everything he's done is pure time filler. I compare it to if you had had Cesaro debut as "Evad" Sullivan. I don't care how good a worker you are, that gimmick is just absolutely not to be taken seriously (also see Nick Dinsmore). I know, I know - a great worker will overcome a bad gimmick - but at least Natalya got a few impressive victories as a real competitor before her gimmick was that she had irritable bowel syndrome. Emma debuted as the goofy, annoying ditz girlfriend of a goofy, annoying idiot "wrestler." She could wrestle like a reincarnated Chris Benoit and the adjectives used to describe her character would still be stupid, goofy, annoying. Hit the reset button on her and give her a chance on Superstars or SD without Santino's dead weight under a "no frills" plucky, spirited underdog and see if she has enough natural charisma to go from there. If it works, like it did in NXT, you have something special. If not, at least it won't be because they put her in a position to fail.

They can push Reigns all they want, have him beat the very best, hell, he can main event WrestleMania 31... But I predict he'll end up the "Batista" to Ambrose's "Cena." At WrestleMania 21, Batista wrestled in the main event. Batista beat the more established World Champion. Batista won the Rumble. I think its safe to say that while they viewed Cena as a huge star for the future, Batista got just a tad more spotlight in the years leading up to their first World title wins. But the fans, as much as they cheered the Animal, didn't want to BE the Animal. They didn't want to have a beer with the Animal. They didn't say "Hey, the Animal is just like me." They looked at the cocky rapper guy in the street clothes and Nikes and did want and say those things. That's the difference between Ambrose and everyone else right now. Ambrose is intensely cool. He's the guy that takes no shit and, though he may get his head stomped in every night, he's still cool - he's still not going to quit - he's still "unbeatable." Roman Reigns has a better physique, the granite jaw, probably gets along well with management and is an all-around good person who can charm any woman he wants with just a smile...but how many wrestling fans view themselves that way? How many wrestling fans view their friends that way? Compare that to the dangerous cool and "outsiderness" of Ambrose, the redneck-by-way-of-Cincinasty attitude and the WWE would have to be blind not to see who has breakout potential and who is just going to end up the next Batista/Orton/"guy who fights the guy who makes money."

I don't think I'm going to hit them all but someone can (and should) fill in the ones I'm missing. Also, I think most people here will agree that many of these are not "great" angles, but they're at least memorable and, subjectively, I think someone - somewhere - thought they had potential to be "great": Hulk Hogan - Andre grabbing the cross from his chest in build-up to WM3 - Twin Ref Angle w/ Andre and DiBiase - Zeus attacks Hogan on Saturday Night's Main Event - Hogan carrying Liz to the back during Mega Powers Explode build - Earthquake breaking Hogan's ribs - Hogan getting pulled out of the 91' Rumble by Sid (en route to Flair winning the title) - Undertaker grabbing the cross from his chest in build up to Survivor Series 91' - WrestleMania 9 Finish (many will say this was an awful angle, but its certainly memorable) - Heel turn at Bash at the Beach 96' - Roddy Piper returns at Halloween Havoc (?) to confront Hollywood Hogan - Ultimate Warrior returns on Nitro to confront Hollywood Hogan - Fingerpoke of Doom w/ Kevin Nash - Shawn Michaels turns heel by superkicking Hogan on RAW - Hulk Hogan returns to WWE as the masked Mr. America Again, not sure how many of these count as even "angles" let alone "great angles," but tried to at least help out. Great thread!

I think his message has been pretty clear - he's madman trying to "take over the world" through terror and violence via his cult of brainwashed hillbillies. Does this explain everything? No, but I'm not sure what else needs to be explained or if he needs to come out and say this directly as his actions have made this clear (to me at least). I don't expect we'll get more backstory or much "shading in" of his character in a PG WWE as, compared to the Kane origin story, for example, I agree with Dylan that the WWE is purposefully keeping things somewhat vague regarding the details of how Bray brainwashes people, how he came to be, etc.

This name came to mind first as well, but then, the more I thought about it, I think Ricky Morton was just that good of a FIP that he could've tagged in Kevin "The Prisoner" Wacholz and the roof would've blown off the arena. To me (and I'm not going as far as to say the latter is better than the former), but Gibson was as good as "hot tag" as Kane was for Daniel Bryan when he was the FIP (or X-Pac for that matter in the mid-90s). Kane and Gibson both got huge pops when they would come in and save the day, but, to me, that has more to do with the FIP than what they were doing (which is not the same as the way Ultimate Warrior or Daniel Bryan would come in, explode, and essentially steal the match with their spirited performance).

I watched this match not knowing about Z-Man taking Douglas' place or even being aware of the Dos Hombres storyline. With that in mind, I thought this was a fun match with Austin as the clear MVP. Him flying into the cage multiple times is great and I love the finish - whether or not it was a gaffe, the fact that the bell rang for a close nearfall added to the chaos in the closing minute. What his intention, whether Steamboat took off the mask because he wanted to make it clear he was not doing the job (as a poster said above) or he just wanted to make sure the spot would make sense on a highlight reel down the line, the effect is the same one and it is glorious: the crowd popped big for the reveal and his crossbody off the top is perfectly executed.

The line between "Mr. McMahon" and Vince McMahon has been crossed and re-crossed so many times, I'm going to confidently say we have not seen the last of Vince McMahon on Monday Night RAW, let alone all of WWE TV productions. Will he wrestle again? Probably not...but I could easily seem him making an appearance on whatever the next big milestone RAW is (I've lost count).

^ Great point about what Eaton could've imparted onto Benoit, but I think, even here, it is obvious that Benoit was a super serious worker and wanted nothing to do with that whole "entertainment" side of sports-entertainment. I also agree that, at this point, Bagwell was very serviceable and almost seems eager to bump for whoever he's in the ring with - whether its a relative no name (at the time) like Benoit or a true veteran like Eaton, Bagwell wanted to make the other guy look good. He's an example of a guy that I think gets a bad rep for being cocky/arrogant/prima donna when, really, that was his gimmick and, in the end, he might've played it too convincingly (if you've heard his most recent podcast interviews, he says as much about his time in WWE). Also, again, that finishing move looks absolutely nasty.

Recently, I'd say Daniel Bryan was about as good a "hot tag" guy as anyone from the glory days of southern tags. He was so good at it, I think it was one of the most important ingrediants into his ascension to the top of the card. Whether its at Dustin Rhodes in the early 90s or Goldust today, he definitely knows what makes a tag "hot." I'd also submit Shane Douglas into the conversation based on what I've seen of his tag work with Steamboat in WCW. Finally, I'd say Jim Neidhart too. I definitely haven't seen enough to say who the best is/was, but I'm curious who else people would think make a list of top 20.

That's a palm-to-the-face slip from Meltz. "Likely"? Did he follow-it up about the 20th anniversary of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman's deaths "likely" at the hands of OJ Simpson? Or that the sky is "likely" blue? That quote has me legit laughing.

I agree. A 3-4 month sabbatical for Orton would be awesome. He could ostensibly come back as heel or face and get a huge reaction. Hell, if this were to happen, it could reasonably lead to an Orton/HHH match that people would genuinely look forward to. But, as goc pointed out, the WWE doesn't know how to book a return properly. This is the company that had Brock Lesnar lose his first match back and then split wins and losses with Triple H. This is the company that spent months promoting Fandango, had him beat a former World Champion at WrestleMania, then ran out of storyline ideas for him by June. Their longterm booking is so laughably poor, CM Punk could come back next week and, by SummerSlam, they'd probably have him feuding with Kane or Del Rio.

I have never been a big fan of strap matches so, to be honest, I've kind of avoided watching/re-watching many of them, especially the ones in the WWE that I'm most familiar with (Austin/Vega and HHH/Rock spring to mind), but I watched this today and thought it was quite good. After watching 3 Sting/Vader matches from WCW PPV 92'-93', I'd rank them this way: 1) Starrcade 92' - This has found its way into my Top 10 matches ever. 2) Great American Bash 92' - Loved the finish and felt like it was indecisive enough to make it clear these two were only getting started. 3) SuperBrawl III - It might just be that the 9 year old kid in me came out while I was watching and just wanted to see Sting win, but I can see myself putting this at number two after I finish crying. As others pointed out, SBIII had several good-to-great matches (for example, Orndorff vs. Jack is really fun, but boy did I hate the finish), but it also had some real letdowns (underutilized Flair, Windham/Muta). The ending of this match obviously sends the fans home a little unhappy, but its still a good show to watch on the Network with the aid of hindsight and fast forward.

Never saw the Brisco match...now I know I don't want to. Watched JBL/Geurrero blood bath recently and it was heinous as advertised. Never want to see that again.

I'm a Snake Plissken mark, so that new attire looks sweet to me.

Ziggler was/is a hometown guy so he always gets big responses in Cleveland. I'd say bigger than The Miz ever gets too.

To get hot again, the WWE needs a mega-star on the level of Hogan in the 80s or Austin and The Rock. A character that people simply can't get enough of. Another Cena or Lesnar won't help - I'm talking about somebody that is so beloved, charismatic, and "must see" that ratings spike by a million viewers every time he is in a segment. Somebody with mainstream appeal AND at least a modicum of wrestling/athletic ability that casual fans and hardcore fans can agree about his greatness or, at the very least, begrudgingly respect his abilities as a performer in and out of the ring (you don't sell out arenas for years with 1-star matches, no matter what workrate nerds think of The Rock or Hogan's wrestling ability or how much Steve Austin "fell off" after SummerSlam 97'). Someone so entertaining that not even the WWE's terrible booking and creative writers could hurt him. Sorry D-Bry fans, they also need to be marketable in the sense that when they appear on Fallon, they are larger-than-life, if not in size than at least in some sort of character way (think Savage on Arsenio or how Austin's look said "bad ass" even in a black tee and blue jeans). I'm not sure this person exists, but I'd kind of love it to be Dean Ambrose, who has been compared to Roddy Piper before. To me, though, that goes back to my first point - I'm not sure the next Roddy Piper is enough to make things hot again. I think you need Hogan and I'm not sure anyone, even a personal favorite of mine like Ambrose, is him.

Just saw this match for the first time and I enjoyed the hell out of it. I must admit to thinking that Steamboat and Douglas was an odd pairing at first, just because Steamboat was so experienced and so beloved and, when they started teaming, Douglas was kind of the opposite - not a bad worker, not unpopular, but obviously not a star like Steamboat. As I've seen more of their work, I've been super impressed by Douglas and now know why Austin (on his podcast) called Douglas one of his favorite babyfaces to work with. I'd cite the finish of this match as the perfect example of the "good kind of disappointment." Sure, a match this good would benefit from a clean ending (which would make it a MOTYC in my admittedly limited view), but instead, you get a DQ that leaves the audience clamoring for more. You just know that everyone leaving that arena, Thundercage or not, was talking about this match and what was going to happen to the tag belts. When's the last time that happened in today's WWE? Sometime in the 90s *maybe*?

I don't think 06' holds up match-for-match, but I will say this about it - I think the stretch from WM21 through SummerSlam 06' (roughly 16 months) was one of the funnest times to ever be a fan and that what hurts 06' most is that things really petered out after that PPV. Prior to SummerSlam, though, I absolutely loved ONS II and was really excited by the potential of the return of ECW (for example, the debut of CM Punk). In that same time frame you had the debut of Umaga, Extreme Big Show, Edge's rise to the main event, the return of Jeff Hardy, the Foley/Flair feud, and Michaels/McMahon feud. I personally disliked the DX reunion, but will admit to liking the DX vs. McMahons & Big Show cage match from this time. Again, match-for-match, I don't think 2006 should rate very highly and I do think part of my enjoyment of 06' was based on my interest picking up considerably due to Hogan/Michaels at SS05' and Eddie's death that fall, but when the WWE ran a campaign about how the "Power" was back "On," I think they were right. There was so much crazy stuff going on in that 05'-06' stretch that it made being a fan almost as cool as it was during the Attitude Era, even if the in-ring stuff was comparatively lame.

I'm a Bourne fan too, but I think there is something to his story that we don't know and somehow hasn't leaked. As so many posters here have said, he got great crowd responses on ECW and was pretty marketable. At the very least, he was a great bumper who could make others look absolutely great. This tells me that there's a reason he hasn't been put in the position to at least job out to guys like Rusev, Tensai, and other monsters or new talents that have been introduced in the past few years. It's not like Kofi Kingston is THAT much better in that role or that they don't have enough TV time to have two or three guys in that position. I'm hoping that Bourne's release is followed by questions being answered regarding the severity of his injuries and why they never bothered to bring him back when he could've been so easily used as a bump machine for The Wyatts or Roman Reigns or Cesaro or any other heel they've wanted to look dominant in the past 2 years.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in regards to camera angles and all that, I thought that Dunn was no longer really as "hands on" in the truck and was more of an executive that was in charge of general production and not necessarily the live editiing or whatever one calls it. Is that accurate or is he still calling the shots for every episode of RAW?

As the poster above said, this match starts off red hot and I even liked the finisher-throwing early on, though, to be sure, in modern times this has become overused. However, there are a few things that go wrong that I think would've made this a much more highly-regarded bout, even if Luger does look tired after a few minutes. First, the finish comes TOO "out of nowhere" for me. As others have said, Sting should've won with either his finishing move or the Torture Rack as that would've helped the match come "full circle." Second, if Harley Race getting knocked out at the end of the match was supposed to be meaningful, why not throw in a segment somewhere in there where Race helps Luger get leverage (I'm thinking the classic figure four spot) or distracts the ref when Luger connects with a below-the-belt cheap shot. Then, when Race gets back body dropped, the audience could really get the feeling that Sting has overcome Luger's biggest advantage. Third, Luger should've turned face after the match or alluded to such a turn by shaking hands with Sting after the match and raising his arm. My understanding was, at this point, Luger was done with WCW so protecting him for rematches wasn't necessary - besides, shaking hands with Sting wouldn't have hurt those rematches even if he WAS going to stick around. That's the kind of "moment" that would've made Sting's victory that much bigger. In a nutshell, I wanted this match to be great - and, for the first few minutes, it is heading that way - but what you end up with is lost opportunities that stick out more than what these two actually do accomplish. Not a terrible match at all, just not the masterpiece that you know could've happened had they made a few changes and worked smarter, not necessarily harder.

Here's another one that came to mind while I was watching SuperBrawl II today... Terry Taylor We all know about the Red Rooster gimmick and how that was destined to fail, but in WCW, in 91' and 92', Taylor was a cocky, arrogant heel and he was darn good at it. I looked at wikipedia and saw that, after that, he went back to WWE, but was basically enhancement talent there as well. So, why? If JBL is to be believed, it has something to do with him not being well-liked by his peers, but, he seemed to be well-liked enough by management that he's worked backstage for every major US promotion in a variety of roles. Why didn't Terry Taylor get a push then? Why, in WWE, was he saddled with a bad gimmick in his first go round and then just written off as not worth investing in for his second run? Could they have done more with him in WCW? What are other people's thoughts on his work?

Somewhat ridiculous but I'm curious what people will say about... Van Hammer Good size. Good look in terms of physique. Terrible gimmick and very green. BUT after wrestling in WCW in 92', he disappeared for several years before coming back to WCW in 97'. My question is - does anyone know where he went? Based on his work when he came back, I'm guessing it wasn't anywhere that taught him anything about working. Also, trained by Boris Malenko supposedly? Had Van Hammer been trained properly or gotten some seasoning, I really think he's the type of guy McMahon would've tried to push to the moon. I mean, if he saw potential in Vinnie Vegas, how did he not see potential in Van Hammer?

I think the comparisons with Orton and HHH are always interesting. JBL always says stuff like "If you could build the perfect wrestler in a lab, it would be Randy Orton" and, in the late 90s, I think you could say the same for Triple H (size, look, voice were all "classic" wrestler). But that's almost why I can't say either rank in my personal top 20 or 30 or even 50 list of guys I love. It's not like I inherently like guys with "flaws," but there's something about Ric Flair and Eddie Guerrero not having a size advantage, but still outsmarting their opponents and there's something about Steve Austin's NSFW persona in the Attitude Era that made his promos just that much better than anything Orton has ever done. The Undertaker's gimmick. Savage's insanity. Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels' emotional storytelling. Daniel Bryan's heart. Even John Cena's passion and the way, even when the whole place is booing him, he still wrestles HIS match in HIS babyface persona. These are the intangibles that Orton (and Triple H, in my mind) just don't have. With nothing to hang their hat on, they may be the "perfect" wrestlers, but they're also two of the hardest characters to care about that have ever been in the main event.