Diamonddust

I thought it was pretty wicked when he appeared as The Flash at Wrestlemania one year.

I don't know if it was pointless. Sting was on the sidelines and they had to have a top babyface that could actually wrestle each week. For the vast majority of 97, that was Luger. They built him up pretty big before that title win. He won the Spring Stampede #1 contender match in April and followed that with at least 2 non-title submission wins over Hogan. I didn't catch it then, but you know... that is eerily similar to what happened in 1989/1990. And I agree with some earlier posts... Luger in 1989 and even into 1990 was a damned good worker. The thing that killed a lot of his momentum was the two matches with Flair in 1990. Pretty much everyone saw him as a placeholder until Sting came back to win the belt in July of that year. As a result, the drama/intrigue of the Wrestlewar and Capitol Combat main events were gone. They were good Flair/Luger matches, but they were empty in terms of meaning anything in the long run. I still say NWA/WCW should have quickly cut a deal with The Great Muta in 1990 to keep him until after Wrestlewar, do an angle with Sting where he gives his old nemeis his spot at that PPV because he knows what Muta is capable of doing (Muta could have so easily have been the face due to the reactions he got from the crowd at that point), have Muta come within inches of beating Flair, and then in the meantime... work on the Luger face turn so you can at least due the Capitol Combat main event.

The other thing I noticed is how hot, temperature wise, it looked in that arena. An old arena + a probable very warm North Carolina night and lack of true air conditioning + a packed crowd contributed to the overall atmosphere of the show.

Dusty beat Flair on July 26th, 1986. The next episode should be the one shown on July 19th, 1986... meaning we won't get coverage of the title switch (if any since Flair got it right back) until two episodes after that one.

Luckily, the next NWA show will also be a live arena show like this one.

This is just an assumption of things, but I'm guessing Watts thought he could be a viable alternative to the Vince since he provided a very athletic/competition based promotion instead of a cartoon based promotion. The other thing that absolutely killed Watts and forced him to scrap the national expansion is when the oil bubble burst during the mid 80's. Watts has repeatedly said that it absolutely killed all entertainment in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Mississippi (The core area of the UWF). No one had surplus money to spend because the economies of those states were tied so heavily to the oil industry (A similar situation that Watts mentioned is when The Sheik was losing money out the ass in Detroit when the automobile industry went under - everything else in that area had a connection to that core industry). As a result, Watts was losing a ridiculous amount of money every week. He was going to file an anti-trust suit against Vince in New Orleans (Where Watts had a definite home field advantage), although he did give Vince the option to buy him out. Vince, knowing it was a sucker's deal, basically told Watts to go ahead and sue him because he knew the lawsuit would be tied in court for a long time, and Watts would eventually run out of money anyways. Watts knew this as well, and that caused him and Jim Ross to approach Crockett. Watts had a good talent base and a very good television program (I still wish the WWE would cut a deal with Watts' ex-wife to get Mid-South on WWE 24/7). He could have made a nice attempt at a national promotion, but even if he did... Vince still probably would have crushed him in the end. It would have been even more interesting if he had gotten the TBS deal that Crockett did in the wake of the GCW/WWF situation.

It's only October 1997... it gets far worse.

The music videos for the shorties are a nice touch. The Starrcade matches and the Legends Roundtable should be interesting as well.

-Syndicated TV still meant a great deal to promoters because cable was still in its relative infancy. Crockett still had his syndicated World Wide program to consider along with the cable broadcast TBS show. It was very beneficial to go to a local television station, hand them a check and a tape, and have the program broadcast on over-the-air television that everyone got as opposed to a cable station that only some people got. -Watts splurged for TV deals in towns he wasn't running so he could possibly venture there one day. When TBS expanded into Ohio and Michigan, Georgia Championship Wrestling saw an influx of fan letters from that region. It allowed them to run a "northern" tour in those states, and they did great business for a while. With Vince having gone national, Watts knew he had to expand his television coverage as much as possible. -Watts was going to be the promotion on TBS after the GCW/WWF situation, but the story is that Crockett paid Turner off handsomely to make sure his program was broadcast on TBS.

At my school, it was always interesting to see how many wrestling shirts would be worn the night after a Nitro or Raw would come to Birmingham. It was very easy to tell the casual fan from the hardcore fan.

This week's episode is a good one - it's got matches from the GAB tour (It's the Dorton Arena in Raleigh, North Carolina) plus Cornette is on commentary again! Matches include Midnight Express vs. The Road Warriors and The Horsemen vs. Rhodes/Rock and Roll Express in a 6-man (Although the program ends minutes after the match starts).

Here here. My two big periods of wrestling fandom were from '90-'94 and then from '97-'02, and this period of WWF stuff in '97 and '98 is by far my favorite to look back on. There was just so much happening: the advent of the Attitude Era, the rise of Steve Austin, the fall of Bret Hart, the initial stages of McMahon's heel character, DX, The Rock, the Montreal stuff, Tyson at WM, the whole Taker-Foley Hell in the Cell spectacle, etc. Even dumb stuff like Kane seemed pretty riveting at the time. And with the WWF trailing and then pulling ahead of WCW (which I always hated) in the ratings, I had this feeling of having been on the right team the whole time. Though I continued to watch for another few years, I never cared as much about wrestling and was never as genuinely excited by it as I was by the WWF in '97 and '98. Agreed 100%. I was in high school from 1996-2000, basically the entire span of the full Monday Night War. It was an awesome time to be a wrestling fan.

LOL!!!! The great CHARLIE!!!

For some reason, that chant sounded like "We want pussy."

Yes, though not in the way you'd think. Iron Mike DiBiase was Ted DiBiase Sr.'s stepfather, not his biological father. However, The Million Dollar Man's mother was Helen Hild, herself a wrestler in the first half of the 20th century. I didn't know that about DiBiase Sr.'s mother, but did know that Mike was his adopted father. Does kind of put a hazy look on the third generation superstar in a way.

You know... Isn't DiBiase a third generation superstar?

Ok... That was a pretty bad-ass Cobra Commander meets Skeletor hood from Rey.

I always felt the same way about Ventura in WCW. It was never the same listening to him and Jim Ross compared to Ventura and Monsoon or McMahon I gotta beg to differ on that; Ventura/Ross is my second-favorite announce team ever, behind only Ventura/Monsoon. Yeah... Ventura/Ross was very good. My favorite part of Ventura's commentary in the WWE was when he would just absolutely let his hatred for Hogan spill over into commentary by pointing out all the obvious heelish things Hogan would do.

If I remember correctly, Vince was more ticked off that Funk gave such a bullshit excuse.

Magnum was one of Dusty's closest friends. Dusty was grooming him to be champion and then launch a Nikita/Magnum feud over the World Title.

Flair would have lost the belt to Magnum in '86 if the crash didn't happen.

As a lifelong Alabama fan, an alumnus of the University, and someone who absolutely hates Georgia... I AM LOVING THIS!!!

The Florida loss makes the Alabama/Georgia game that much bigger.

He would have been treated probably like Flair was: Hogan would have probably considered him a threat since the old school WCW fanbase would have been behind him.

Just curious - Who all wanted to use wrestling celebrities in their promotion? I had three in mind: 1. Andy Kaufman: I desperately wanted to throw him in some angle just because of the pure heat he could generate in my area. I had him targeted before I had Lawler fall into my lap, and I look at things now... and man... he'd just add that much more heat to the Ventura/Lawler feud I have. Ventura would be Kaufman's hired gun from Southern California... a real celebrity like Kaufman... designed to take down and humiliate Lawler. Since I'm doing a hair vs. hair match... Kaufman could be the one that got shaved in the end. 2. Mr. T - I'd use him as a special back-up/enforcer for the Soul Patrol to keep Percy Pringle in check. 3. Muhammed Ali - A stretch, I know, but he would have been a special friend/guest of the Soul Patrol and/or JYD.