Diamonddust

General Interest Questions 1. Who are you and what's your business here? -The name's David... found this board through word of mouth on other sites, if memory serves me correctly. 2. When did you discover an interest in wrestling? -The start of 1990. I was aware of wrestling before then, but I didn't start watching until about mid-January 1990. The first things I remember watching as a fan are WCW episodes where Cactus Jack was beating up his tag-team partner, and the Clash of Champions that built up WrestleWar '90. 3. The Company Line: A. Which companies have you actively followed in your tenure as a wrestling fan? -WWE, WCW/NWA, and ECW. B. What have some of your favourite companies been? Your least favourite? (In theory, your answer can be the same - if you were growing up a fan of the technical wrestling WCW brought to the table but thought the end of the line for them was some of the worst television this side of My Mother The Car, that's cool). -I didn't have a favorite as a kid, but when the Attitude/Monday Night War era hit and I got exposed to the IWC, the WWE and ECW were my favorites. I liked WCW because of Flair, the Horsemen, and people like Benoit, Malenko, Eddie, and Jericho. C. What is your favourite company right now? Any reason why? -The WWE. Not much else to pick from as I really can't get into TNA. Call me old fashioned, but I can't stand the six-sided ring. 4. (Not So) Favourites: A. Who were your favourite wrestlers (or gimmicks) growing up / when you first started watching wrestling? -As a child? Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake. I really can't give a good reason why. B. Who were some guys you couldn't stand? -General hatred for all heels, but Mr. Perfect got under my skin especially. C. Who are your current favourites (if applicable / different from A.) -Currently, Chris Jericho would be at the top of the list. Specific Questions about your Interest 5. How would you gauge your current interest level in the product? Do you still get butterflies of excitement that make you look forward to upcoming PPVs? Did you ever? Do you watch every televsied wrestling program live, or just a few - and FF'd via DVR at that? If you consider right now to be the most interested in wrestling you've ever been, the rest of the questions in this section can be skipped over. -I'm not a hardcore fan like I used to be. I credit this a lot to do with the fact there isn't the competition on Monday Nights anymore. During the Monday Night Wars, I was glued to the television, flipping between Nitro and Raw. Now, I'll watch Raw on a regular basis, but I usually skip Smackdown because I read the taping results. I'll watch ECW if nothing else is on. As for PPV's, the only one I buy each year is Wrestlemania. 6. At what point in wrestling history (if it's not now) would you consider your interest to have been at it's peak? When were you compelled to watch every second of televised wrestling AND shell out money on PPVs, get excited about the release of video games, have TV/PPV parties with friends, etc. -Easily the Monday Night Wars/Attitude Era. I was in high school at the time, so I was definitely their target audience. 7. At what point could you tell your interest was dipping and why do you think this happened, or what specific event(s) triggered the decrease? Was there anything even specific? Just a gradual interest loss of interest? Retirement (or death) of a favourite? A boring title reign on SmackDown in the Summer of 2004? -The death of WCW and stable competition for the WWE. ECW folding also hurt it as well. 8. Have you ALWAYS stuck with wrestling even during times of low interest, or are there any lengths of time you stopped watching for a period only to come back at a later date? -I've been a consistent fan in some form or fashion since 1990. 9. If applicable, at what point did you decide to pack in the wrestling fandom? Interesting Questions of a Somewhat Random Nature 10. What style of pro wrestling best resonates with your personal tastes? Has it always been this way, or have your tastes changed over time? -I've always liked the technical/cruiserweight style, but now I can appreciate the heavyweights or superheavyweights, if the match is done properly. 11. Where do you "draw the line" with the whole "suspended disbelief" deal? Do you tell critics to "relax because it's just wrestling and you should enjoy the matches" (aka TNA fans about everything that happens on Impact!), do you come up with solutions that the writing team didn't bother to think about but you figure "it's there if you read between the lines" (aka "WWE Apologists"), somewhere inbetween, or do you take your greatest joy in watching wrestling to deconstruct everything that makes no sense? -Because I majored in Film and Television Studies in college, I have a habit of pointing out gaping whole in logic when it comes to a production of any sorts. Still, if the angle is effective, I'll be entertained. 12. Do you attend live events? And more specifically, do you get a thrill out of big arena shows, do you prefer the smaller 'intimate' settings of the local indy show, or would you rather forget the whole thing and watch everything unfold on your HDTV without dealing with 'the marks'? -I'll attend the local indy promotion that runs a few miles down the house from my parents' place, but the last big live WWE event I attended was July 2001 (The night after ECW joined the Invasion). 13. If applicable, what are the best and worst experiences you've had going to a show live? -Best experiences were a Smackdown in October of 1999. I was a senior in high school, and I had third row seats right where the camera picked up. The first ECW show in Birmingham, Alabama was also fun as I was the only one cheering Bam Bam Bigelow during a match, and he told me "I don't need you!". The worst experience probably was ECW's Guilty as Charged 2000, also held in Birmingham. The seats were bad, and The Sandman (Who a lot of my friends wanted to see) no showed the event, and the live audience wasn't told. 14. What are your favourite matches, moments, or events? -I got to see a World Title change (The Rock vs. Mankind, Feb. 1999 on Raw - Day after St. Valentine's Day Massacre) and a Hell in the Cell (Armageddon 2000) 15. Freestyle Add any closing remarks you feel are absolutely necessary to letting TSM know your thoughts on wrestling. -Not really, although I understand the business aspect of wrestling far better than I did back during the '90s.

Here are some interesting tidbits from the 9/30/91 Observer that was recently posted:

I agree... that would definitely be an interesting twist. However, you almost would have to do a double turn as it would be hard to justify why a strong face champion would need a bodyguard.

The best payoff for the bodyguard angle is when after the bodyguard takes out all of the champion's competition, he turns on the champ and goes after the belt himself. This turns the bodyguard heel and the champion face? Or the other way around? Personally I find it more satisfying when the bodyguard has had enough of the champion's abuse that he turns on him and becomes his own man, but retaining the badassery that got him over as a bodyguard. Other way around. The bodyguard gets sick of having to do the dirty work for the heel champion, and when all the competition has been put away, the bodyguard does a face turn and instantly becomes a gigantic threat to the champ.

The best payoff for the bodyguard angle is when after the bodyguard takes out all of the champion's competition, he turns on the champ and goes after the belt himself.

Since it happened right before I became "christened" into the IWC, I was shocked beyond belief.

Luger would have ended up beating Lawler, which some say is why the whole mess happened to begin with. The initial thought was that Jarrett wanted to nix the deal because word had leaked out and Jarrett , being big on keeping his angles secret, was upset over that. However, most quickly dismissed that and considered it more likely that when Jarrett and Lawler realized the angle was going to end with Lawler putting over Luger, they wanted out of it and used the excuse of news of the angle leaking, placing the blame for that leak on Heyman, as reason to back out. The next week's Observer recaps an Eddie Gilbert radio interview in which he denies mentioning Heyman's name to Lawler. Lawler had claimed Eddie told him he heard news of the angle from Heyman, which is why Heyman was suspended by WCW. The suspension was dropped because WCW realized they had no real basis to suspend Heyman in the first place. And I might just be reaching here, but something tells me Heyman, as a son of a lawyer, probably threatened some legal action as well?

I had never heard about the whole Luger/Lawler thing before so that was an interesting read. Still, Paul E.'s suspension didn't last long as he was back by Halloween Havoc to manage Rick Rude (as it was alluded to in the Observer)

This should be a fun one... Let's say you're in a promotion that uses commercial music for entrance themes. What would your entrance theme be and why? How would it fit your character? How would it connect to the fans? Back in my E-Wrestling days, I had a couple of characters and made sure the entrance music fit them like a glove: "It's Good to be King" by Tom Petty - Went with my "Messiah of Pro-Wrestling" character. Even though it was slow, it fit the character like a glove. "Got the Life" by Korn - Went with the same character when I did a Million-Dollar man style approach. "Meet the Creeper" by Rob Zombie - Went with a Kane like monster character "Ain't That a Kick in the Head" by Dean Martin - Went with a wiseguy/mob character (Was also the name of his finisher) Another real good one I saw that worked a great deal was "Running with the Devil" by Van Halen for a Road Warriors style team. One song I think would be great if you wanted to do a Magnum T.A. style character is "Right Now" by Van Halen. You have a long opening part to build crowd anticipation, and then the entrance is made when the main part of the song hits. The same goes for "Superbeast" for a monster or even Batista style character.

They can now do a 4 way at Armageddon.

Flair's bitterness towards WCW really comes across in this episode. And it's HIGHLY ironic that Flair and Foley get into a discussion about how there is only one promotion to make money at now (When discussing the purchase of WCW). The funny thing after that is that Flair and Foley don't mention TNA... but Flair does later on when he's ranting about Russo. The episode does end with Flair doing his "Black Scorpion" voice, so you can't be disappointed with that.

Along a similar vein...and keep in mind that I don't know the song...would the theme from Dallas worked for JBL? JBL's theme is HEAVILY inspired by the theme from Dallas and there is a little Dynasty influence in there as well.

In terms of TV theme's, I've always thought the theme from "Dynasty" would be great for a high society type heel.

"Instruments of Destruction" would have been an awesome theme for a Road Warrior's like team in the 80's.

Reminds me of one I missed - "You're the Best Around" from "The Karate Kid" would be a great heel theme.

Oh hell ya. Suburban Commando was the shit. Embarrasingly enough, I bought that DVD. Bought somewhat shortly after it came out and overpaid for it (It was like $12). Amusing anecdote about that one, an acquaintance of mine was in St. Louis on tour with his band and they met The Hulkster at a TGI Fridays. For some reason, they ask him about Suburban Commando and Hulk says that he doesn't remember much about it except Christopher Lloyd would show up to the set stoned all the time. I guess you might have to working on that one. To this day, my brother and I like to shout "I WAS FROZEN TODAY!" occasionally thanks to that moviel. The one thing I remember about watching Suburban Commando as a child was wondering why The Undertaker was in it.

Yeah, I was wondering the same thing about that ring.

Continuing the trend of retro-style John Cena shirts: http://www.wweshop.com/Product_detail.asp?...ductId=01-09649 Makes you wonder what Verne and Greg think about this one. Honestly, though, I'm not a real big fan of Cena... but this one and the "8-Bit Pro-Wrestling" one look pretty good.

Really? I thought Ax still had major heat with them, and I figured the Road Warriors would go in before them (And really, if there is a tag-team that needs to go in this year ... it's the Road Warriors or maybe the Freebirds, just because it's in Texas)

Jim Cornette is the guest host of the latest show... yippie!!! I know it's been said before, but I'll say it again... Cornette ranting on Baby Doll is something else.

Wow... I forgot how cheesy bad the 2 Cold Scorpio video was.

My "lock" list would be: Steve Austin The Von Erich Family or Fritz Von Erich by himself (Much like they did with Eddie Graham) The Funk Brothers (Dory and Terry most likely go into together like the Brisco Brothers) After that, who knows... some possibilities are: (The Freebirds, DiBiase, and Windham are good choices because there will definitely be a Texas/Mid-South flair to this class) -Ricky Steamboat (Kind of makes me wonder if and when they'll pull the trigger on this one) -Bill Watts -Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard (Due to Blanchard's ties to the San Antonio promotion) -Dick Murdoch -Paul Bearer -Bruiser Brody

And point out that creative made a mistake? That's crazy talk!

Nitro's quality really started to take a downhill turn in 1998 with the advent of Thunder and the juggernaut of Austin and Attitude dominating Raw. WCW really blew it big time when they botched Sting vs. Hogan and didn't know where to go from there. Early 1998 WWE isn't anything to write home about (At least until after Wrestlemania XIV), although we will be getting Austin vs. Tyson here soon.

Well, I'll give him the fact that WCW Heenan was basically Bobby just cashing a paycheck for the most part. (Although I did like it when he would throw an insult or two at Bockwinkle when he got a chance) However, he was still one of the most talented managers (Especially in terms of heat generation and allowing for a payoff - Bobby could bump with the best of them) and color commentators. The fact he was named the manager of the All-Madden Team one year goes to show how popular he really was.