Matt D

Oh god, I forgot Davey Richards won most outstanding last year.

Do we have any idea what sort of merch figures Sting has?

I feel like he wasn't even taking the HUGE LIVE ACTION BUMPS as a face in AWA.

I imagine Meltzer counts his WWF run. That's really one of those "sacrosanct wrestling opinions," no? I know people here feel otherwise, of course. It's actually funny to think that his IC title run, which really loomed as a key part of my youth was really only a few months after Mania 6 and then Jan-August of 91. People forget that Kerry had the thing for so long. I think he was a top WWF babyface from Survivor Series 92 to Mania IX, but I'm not sure how he drew in that spot. He sure as hell didn't draw against Hogan as a heel. His only WON award was most improved in 83. I think he was actually a very effective announcer and maybe Vince's best partner ever, but I'm not sure if that translated into buys at all. But yeah, TRAINED BROCK LESNAR. There you go.

Honestly, I might have pimped Hall vs DeBeers from the Sept 23, 1986 AWA TV. It's kind of a miracle match based around work on Hall's left hand and amazing Hall does a pretty good job with the selling. I doubt it would have broken the top 100, granted, but it's a great novelty and a pretty heated match.

Why the hell were so many of those 74-75 shows missing the AWA champ? Where the hell was Verne?

"Trained Brock Lesnar."

Amusingly, from a layman's perspective, late era Buddy Rose, Ken Patera, and Greg Gagne are all jokes. This is why Dylan's blood pressure is so high.

Short answer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wrestli..._(Indianapolis)

boring is fuck is more realistic than memphis? That seems like a believable statement to me.

I feel like DEAN has grown into a sort of eccentric but awesome wrestling hermit living out in the wilderness and sending dispatches in the form of ships in a bottle carried far and wide by oversized falcons.

So, just like Patera.

Did Pedro take bumps like this all the time in the early 70s? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW5Y2jHuLO0 geez, fuji too. I guess that's one way to build the early parts of a match around insane bumps. Actually, it's a pretty smartly laid out 3 minutes (of what we have at least) match. I can't say too much for the execution save for the big over the to bumps though. EDIT: watching Patera vs Pedro from 10.20.1980 now. He took another huge over the top bump. Also, he pulls his tights up more than any wrestler I've ever seen. Goes WAY out of his way to interact with the crowd though. It's a fun match, except for the bearhug goes on too long even if they do a few cool things with it, oh and pedro's late match eye-rakes in order to keep Patera from coming back are ridiculous. Them tossing the ref together is just awesome.

I think Brunzell is the real surprise out of the AWA set so far. I knew Martel was good (though not AS good). I believed people about Blackwell, Debeers, and Buddy. But Brunzell is a guy I never really gave a second thought to. The Killer Bees are not the most dynamic of the 80s WWF babyface teams. I'd watch the Rogs or Harts or yeah, Bulldogs if had a choice, generally, though I have a list of every Brunzell WWF match that probably made tape to check out after the AWA project is done.

I bet there are people who would piss off dylan more than those three

Perfect was super over in Nov-Dec-Jan, absolutely.

YES The very, very best thing about the AWA Crowds is when they get all excited for Saito's Sumo pre-match ritual, and guess what? They do it for Kendo Nagasaki too. In general, I hate these cheating, bullying face-loving jerks, but they almost redeem themselves solely with this. Also, I love Billy Robinson as Kamala's mouthpiece. Just saying. "Koo-Mala."

I will say it again. Crush was tremendously over in the summer/early fall of 1992. This is before he REALLY took on the accent and kids LOVED the Crush hand motion and the finisher. it's the sort of Superstars/Wrestling Challenge crowd reaction I don't think I saw in WWF that year other than Sid RIGHT before the Royal Rumble.

On the other hand, WWE seems fairly aware of this, so I wonder what nefarious thing they'll make him do next.

that could have been a hot angle in front of a different crowd.

Brackets and Rankings. why the hell not?

I love when Slaughter shows up and goes on about the Sheik and how he beat him all around Madison Square Garden. "No, I'm talking about Shiek Adnan Al-Kassie." "THERE'S ANOTHER SHIEK?!"

Also, I buy Miss Piggy more a a three dimensional character and a real living entity than Michael Cole.

It's just the way it's always been. On WM 8 you had the Nasty Boys, the Mountie, and Repo Man in an 8 man tag RIGHT before the fairly emotionally charged Macho vs Flair match and it worked. It all worked. Vince takes the circus approach. Here's the clown. If you don't like that, the lion tamer is next, and if you don't like that, here come the acrobats, and hey, let's finish with a bit of Shakespeare just to hammer it all home. I find Jimmy Valiant vs Paul Jones (ESPECIALLY When he started doing the military stuff) as outlandish as anything WWE generally does. But that works on the same show as Arn and Ole vs Buzz Sawyer and Dick Slater. It's wrestling. When Punk was clubbering Lawler's face over and over and over at the end, it worked, everything else before it be damned.

The problems with Angle's work are the easiest things in the world to explain and understand.