The Following Contest

Sorry guys. Typing on Blackberry. For some reason the spaces/paragraph breaks between paragraphs don't show up when I post.

Watch the end of Halloween Havoc 1996 again. Hogan leaves Savage laying. Bagpipes. "He doesn't even work here!" version 8.0. But then, when the promo starts, Hogan clearly feeds Piper a line; "we were neck and neck." Roddy says "not yet," and proceeds to do his "did they come to cheer you or boo me" routine. Hogan cuts him off and again feeds him the line, "we were neck and neck," and Roddy again goes off on his own. At this point it's clear Hogan is trying to get something in before the PPV goes off the air, whereas Piper is clearly going into business for himself, putting himself over rather than getting to the "me vs. you" part. Was there any discussion of this in the sheets or on rspw at the time?

Did somebody just call Virgil a hot babyface? As in over? As in not a laughing stock? I'll respectfully pull an agitated Gorilla Monsoon on that call. Will you stop.

"If Jim Crockett has stayed east of the mississippi, he'd still be in business today." Really? His financial troubles were more travel related than they were spending more than he was bringing in related?

Where was this? Maple Leaf Gardens? How are you watching this?

During the fall of 1995/winter of 1996, when Bischoff was making a big deal out of Raw being "in the can" (if you were playing Uncle Eric's insider terminology drinking game, you'd take a shot), Vince and Jerry would overdub the Raw broadcast (or maybe do it live) from Stamford so that they could pepper in "current" references torn from the headlines. I guess the intent was to make it seem live-ish, even those those taped Raw's always sounded taped on account of the canned crowd heat. I just watched one were Vince brings up the shenanigans of a US Senator and Jerry talks about the weather. It seemed as though they would just sit in the booth with a USA Today and awkwardly insert bad jokes and timely references into the broadcast. Just another example of why, contrary to the WWE DVD History of the World, the 1995 WWF was stale and crumbling by its own design and deserved (needed?) a solid ass kicking at the hands of WCW.

"Gene in AWA predates Tony, and even him in WWF is contemperenous with Tony in JCP." Yep, I'm well aware. Read my post a little more carefully. Stand by it.

Tony was the king of looking to camera and doing the "can you believe this guy" take during heel promos light years before Mene Gene made it famous. Tony was also a really good partner to whomever he was working with. Jesse, Ross and especially Crockett. I always thought Tony deserved a whole lot of the praise Jim Ross got from the smark community in the 90's.

I always think of this whenever I hear Watts give his defence of the ban. The logic is sound if it were executed as Watts states (heel distracts/knocks out ref, hits high flying whatever) but for babyfaces and the light-heavies, the ban is just a limit on their ability to get over.

This is Knoxville, correct? I often wondered about their loop. What towns were they hitting? I know Tennessee borders Alabama, but these guys weren't going as far as Dothan were they? Was the promotion big enough, geographically, to run the same matches around the horn, or did each spot show get a different card?

Oh, and Jake Roberts! I thought that angle was excellent, so much heat for his debut. Too bad the "demons" derailed things.

I always thought a Diesel heel turn against Bret Hart at the Royal Rumble could have set up a nice Bret vs. the scheming Shawn and Diesel angle culminating with face Bret beating heel Diesel at Wrestlemania and then setting up Bret/Shawn for Summerslam. It would have screwed with what eventually happened in 1996, but I think Bret-Diesel and then Bret-Shawn > Shawn-Diesel, Mabel-Diesel.

Hey folks, I'm new. I was born in the suburbs of Toronto in 1980 and grew up a Hulkamaniac. My exposure to WCW was limited and it wasn't until my late teens. during the attitude era, that I went hunting for NWA/WCW footage. Loved everything 80's from Crockett, and saw bits and pieces of early 1990's WCW, but was never intent on seeing more because of the Wrestlecrap.com, WWE DVD "histories" and Ric Flair's of the world making me believe that everything during the Frey/Watts/Bischoff era was the drizzlin' spits. But, over the past year, I went through it all, everything on WWE network for WCW between Sting winning the title in '90 to Hogan showing up in '94.... and ya know what, 1992 and 1993 WCW was kind of awesome. For every Oz and White Castle of Fear, there was a classic from Steamboat or Rude or Vader or Austin and Pillman. The New Japan involvement and the credibility given to solid workers, both tag and singles, really makes it stand out against the (IMO) very weak WWF product during the same era. And the booking in 1993? It's really great at the upper levels of the card. Windham-Flair-Rude NWA title scene was great and the Vader title reign was so badass and well executed. Mix in the fateful and unexpected gift of Flair getting the title shot at Starrcade '93, and it is one helluva solid year, with Mene Gene and Jesse Ventura giving the television product a polish it had lacked previously. So, I'm sold on WCW 92 and 93. What are your memories/impressions of WCW during 1992 and 1993?