WWE Network Conversation

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

3 hours ago, colonial said:

It was mentioned a few years back that Backlund's 1994 push was inspired somewhat by George Foreman getting a heavyweight boxing title match in his mid-40s. Foreman won the title two weeks before Survivor Series, and Backlund got a quickie title run as a result of Big George's upset. If Foreman lost his fight to Moorer, I wonder if Bret would have gone over Backlund at Survivor Series, then move him to a heel Nash or Michaels for his next feud.

 

Bret was going to drop the title as he was filming Lonesome Dove. 

Think there were a couple of Quebecer ones - the Marty/Kid switches on the house show circuit, and also the MOM one on the UK tour where Mabel legit fell one of them and knocked them out.

[SirSmUgly]

Lex Luger pretty much figured out that it was all up for him as a top wrestler by the end of WM X and was basically marking time until he could get back to WCW. I don't blame him because that interminable angle with Tatanka about who sold out that very obviously ended with Tatanka finally being the one to turn made me black out as a kid, and I was just the one watching it. 

I still think Vince booking Luger into the ground is one of his biggest mistakes ever. 1996/1997 babyface Luger transported into 1994 WWF is a legitimate main eventer. That he wasn't was all on Vince. 

On another note, there may be no bigger gap between talking ability as a worker and as a manager than there is for Paul Ellering. His second-rate Billy Graham imitation is awful, but injuries put him out of wrestling, and he puts on a suit and starts cutting very good promos on behalf the Road Warriors.

[Robert S]

19 hours ago, colonial said:

It was mentioned a few years back that Backlund's 1994 push was inspired somewhat by George Foreman getting a heavyweight boxing title match in his mid-40s. Foreman won the title two weeks before Survivor Series, and Backlund got a quickie title run as a result of Big George's upset. If Foreman lost his fight to Moorer, I wonder if Bret would have gone over Backlund at Survivor Series, then move him to a heel Nash or Michaels for his next feud.

Vince mentioned Foreman a couple of times on the last two Raws but I think that was more of a coincidence as I would think that the double switch was set in stone probably around Summerslam time (otherwise they could have kept the IC belt on Nash a bit longer, it's not as if Hall was more than a transitional champ here either). Though maybe they rushed Nash's turn a bit.

Something that I forgot to mention in my first post: the steroid trial ended in early summer, WWF fell of a cliff in the second half of 94. Probably that's a coincidence, but still.

I would not agree that the roster in late 94 was that weak. W.r.t. star power maybe, but there was enough there that better booking could have provided a good product. They had Bret and Owen Hart, Owen Hart, HBK, Hall, Nash, Waltman, Luger (who as already mentioned probably mentally quit after Mania X), Bigelow, Davey Boy, Undertaker, Yokozuna and Jarrett and a lot of people who could fill out the cards with decent matches and/or angles like Backlund, Bob Holly, the Smoking Gunns, Mabel, Fatu, Barbarian, Savio Vega, Lawler, ... That's not a bad roster if you use it wisely. And to be fair, the PPVs were still decent, they just had questionable booking left and right (on TV as well as the PPV layout).

[Dolphman 3000]

20 hours ago, GuerrillaMonsoon said:

Admittedly I do wonder whether it was a thrown together idea after they realised that the planned Bret/Bundy feud wasn't going to work between Bundy refusing to put Bret over and the matches being awful. But at the same time, they probably could have eaked out a Bret vs Anvil match instead. 

Bret and Anvil did work a ton of singles matches on house shows leading up to Survivor Series 1994

The matches were decent, but unlike Shawn/Marty who both kept their profiles up after the Rockers broke up, Neidhart was an afterthought by 1994 and didn't have any heat

 

[GuerrillaMonsoon]

Yep - the tag with Owen and Davey was pretty good too. More a comment that they could have run Anvil vs Bret at Survivor Series if they really had to - even a Raw main event.

They certainly tried building him up as a challenger for a few weeks with his lame stump puller submission (they were even protecting him from losing clean to The Undertaker of all people). Then realized it wasn't going to happen and they changed course. 

[Cobra Commander]

watching the 11/20/95 Nitro and you know what ruled in late 1995? Brian Pillman (and a Pillman vs whitemeat babyface Eddie Guerrero match ruled too)

Also, from what I can tell, Darkside Hogan is Hulk Hogan  wearing a shirt with some of his Japanese moves mixed in?

Meanwhile, the 11/20/95 Raw has a pretty amazing one-two of the Diesel interview, and the end of Michaels/Owen

Edited November 15, 2022 by Cobra Commander

[Cobra Commander]

more 1996 WWF Superstars will be uploaded this month, if you wanted to see the B Show of the WWF in 1996 for some reason.

[Cobra Commander]

watching the 12/18/95 Nitro, and obviously the Madusa moment overshadowed "Mongo's friend Refridgerator Perry is here tonight" (Perry being from the South Carolina side of the Augusta area)

and goodness, Eddie vs Flair is a lot of fun too, which shouldn't be a surprise at all.

edit: early Giant was fucking ridiculous athletically. Unleashing a dropkick and looking unstoppable vs Savage. Then Hogan shows up and starts hitting people with shitty chairshots, except for Sullivan, who he punched, while holding a chair with his other hand.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Cobra Commander

[zendragon]

At what point did Superstars become a Raw Recap show?

[Cobra Commander]

Superstars became a recap show in March 1997.

Pretty sure that recap-era Superstars was the first WWF show I saw because I came across it one weekend. Like I remember watching the formation of the Hart Foundation through a recap show. For some reason, I remember there being a WWF show on WGN in 1997 but I can’t find details on that.

[SirSmUgly]

That DiBiase turn where he drills JYD with the loaded glove, and everything that led up to it, is beautiful. 

DiBiase needed the heel turn, too. He's so bland as a face. 

I don't even mind that all the run-up to the DiBiase/JYD match with the interviews and Roop's commentary was basically the equivalent of someone jumping up and down and waving a large sign with DIBIASE IS TURNING HEEL on it. It was so obvious that I almost thought they were going to swerve me somehow. 

Mid-South's 1982 weekly TV is up there for me right now with NWA's 1988 weekly TV (which stayed compelling through a bunch of guys leaving for Vince), WCW's 1992 weekly TV, and 1997 WWF weekly TV (which started off rocky and had a couple misfires like the botch-job they did on a good concept in Shotgun Saturday Night, but pretty much ruled otherwise). 

Unless the back half of '82 MSW falls off, this is on the Mt. Rushmore of weekly TV years for me. I need to see more complete Memphis, though. I'm sure there's at least a year or two in there that would compete. That and more sequential Florida. Too much watching around the calendar rather than sequentially for me in both those areas.

[SirSmUgly]

Oh, and 2015 NXT. That's definitely a contender for my Mt. Rushmore of Wrestling Years. Shoot, I need to think about this further. 

[Dolphman 3000]

1 hour ago, Cobra Commander said:

For some reason, I remember there being a WWF show on WGN in 1997 but I can’t find details on that.

 

[Cobra Commander]

I was looking at the TV listings that were in my local paper in April 1997 and the paper still lists "WWF Challenge" airing after WCW Worldwide at that time, which is about 18 months after Challenge wrapped up. By the end of 1997, that Saturday Afternoon wrestling block was WCW Worldwide and WWF Shotgun Saturday Night

But around April 97, baseball season was kicking off, so WGN would prioritize the Cubs over everything else which might limit the timeslots for WWF shows that aired after noon on a weekend.

[Cobra Commander]

watching the Triumph and Tragedy of World Class on the Peacock and..

1) how fitting is it that Hayes/Garvin/Buddy are being interviewed in front of a bar (or the set of a bar)

2) post-wrestling Jimmy Garvin really put in a lot of effort to not look anything like wrestling Jimmy Garvin. He went directly to looking like a mall security cop while working as a pilot.

[Pete]

7 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

watching the Triumph and Tragedy of World Class on the Peacock and..

1) how fitting is it that Hayes/Garvin/Buddy are being interviewed in front of a bar (or the set of a bar)

2) post-wrestling Jimmy Garvin really put in a lot of effort to not look anything like wrestling Jimmy Garvin. He went directly to looking like a mall security cop while working as a pilot.

Reminds me of when the Freebirds worked the AWF in 1995... Jim must've gotten the gig on short notice because he looked EXACTLY like if they tried to squeeze Brazo de Plata into a Freebird outfit.

[Gorman]

Thoughts on The Night the Line Was Crossed

I thought the title referred to the first three-way dance, but Tod Gordon said that the beginning that it was an incidence of line-crossing violence. Really, the most violent thing was The Sheik throwing a fireball, which was nothing new for him.  This led to Sheik and "Patrick" Tanaka beating Tazmaniac and Kevin Sullivan. Sheik won even though he never stepped into the ring!

Wildman Sal Bellomo was passing out toys from a garbage bag, even though Christmas was six weeks earlier. Mr. Hughes won the match, but he must have been thinking, "Wasn't I just feuding with The Undertaker? What happened? Why am I here?"

Gary Wolfe was called "The Pitbull," but somehow when he was joined by Anthony Durante, he became Pitbull #2.

Tommy Dreamer showed up looking like a pretty boy and spent the rest of his career trying to prove how tough he was. Here, he kicked out of the Superfly Splash as a 22-year-old rookie! Heel Jimmy Snuka gave Dreamer three more, causing internal bleeding.

"Awesome" Mike Awesome had the word "Awesome" on his trunks. The fans chanted "Awesome" as he went for the Awesome Bomb. Small package by JT Smith for the win!

Shane Douglas is the MVP for lasting all 60 minutes of the main event. He faced Sabu for the first 15 minutes, with champion Terry Funk joining the match at the 15-minute mark. Sabu left for a long time after a knee injury, and Funk was taken to the back for a while by his "Few Good Men," Axl & Ian Rotten, before rejoining the match. The Franchise went all the way and rightfully demanded another shot at Funk in the post-show press scrum, which degenerated into a brawl.

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Gorman

[Cobra Commander]

5 hours ago, Pete said:

Reminds me of when the Freebirds worked the AWF in 1995... Jim must've gotten the gig on short notice because he looked EXACTLY like if they tried to squeeze Brazo de Plata into a Freebird outfit.

How much alcohol would need to be consumed to create a good Lucha knockoff of the Freebirds. I’m sure that the fans wouldn’t mind if Los Freebirds wore Confederate flag gear because hey it’s Mexico.

And what’s the Mexican equivalent of Atlanta?

[Dolphman 3000]

On 11/17/2022 at 11:47 AM, Gorman said:

"Awesome" Mike Awesome had the word "Awesome" on his trunks. The fans chanted "Awesome" as he went for the Awesome Bomb. Small package by JT Smith for the win!

For years I thought this was Awesome's only ECW appearance in that time period and was baffled why they stopped using him - then I found out the ropes snapped in the post-match beatdown (which I'm guessing was edited off TV) and Paul E. thought the ECW Arena fans wouldn't accept him after that

He got jobbed out to Sabu the next month and wasn't seen again for years

[Cobra Commander]

with the World Class Tales from the Territories coming up on Tuesday, out of the territories with a lot of TV on the WWE Network, I haven't liked World Class as much as Mid-South/JCP, which is a high bar... so what era of World Class has the best TV?

[odessasteps]

83-85. First VE vs Birds and Adams/Garvin then VE vs Chris/Gino. 

[DreamBroken]

On 11/18/2022 at 4:34 PM, Dolphman 3000 said:

For years I thought this was Awesome's only ECW appearance in that time period and was baffled why they stopped using him - then I found out the ropes snapped in the post-match beatdown (which I'm guessing was edited off TV) and Paul E. thought the ECW Arena fans wouldn't accept him after that

He got jobbed out to Sabu the next month and wasn't seen again for years

That's a shame, I thought he still came off even more badass in spite of it. He's gonna destroy dudes and he's gonna just keep on doing it, so much so that he broke the f'n ring. Definitely still had the aura of crazy/uncontrollable. He was always Awesome.

[Cobra Commander]

Watching a World Class episode from 1/14/1984, and Buddy Roberts (with his hair growing back) looks like someone whose mailing address is a bar. Which is probably the look he has all the time.

Gotta love Flair hitting David by grabbing a microphone on a ringside table.

This shouldn't be a surprise considering his main job but Bill Mercer is a very newscaster/sportscaster commentator when it comes to wrestling commentators

[SirSmUgly]

Mr. Olympia absolutely rules.

Though I see why they slapped a mask on him because he looks like a total dweeb facially.

What should I watch of his "Mr. Perfect" run that's on Peacock?

Also, should I even entertain watching this Teddy Hart doc?

[Goitre]

2 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

Mr. Olympia absolutely rules

I thought you were talking about the guy that wore the water-polo-headwear-cum-baby's-bonnet at MSG when the mask ban was in place, but that was El Olympico, who may or may not absolutely rule.