Diamonddust

No Vader vs. Cactus Jack? Sting/Flair vs. Muta/Funk in the Thunderdome match is one of my favorites. I loved the fact they had a freaking rope in the cage that could be used... and then Muta putting out the props that caught on fire with the mist... freaking awesome.

That and the two main Texas superstars battling each other makes sense as well, especially with Taker living in Houston. Shawn would be the pseudo-heel coming out of San Antonio. They could even play it up like this: Shawn retired Ric Flair at WM24... He's going to retire the Streak at WM25.

They made one quick note of Christian, and that as it. The Brood was used as an example of showing how an alliance can be started to feature one guy (In this instance, Gangrel), but it turns out one of the secondary players (Edge) becomes the mega-star. For a while, I didn't even think they'd cover The Freebirds, but I'm glad they did at the end. They were one of the ultimate factions and one of the more influential ones as well. I also can't believe the Dangerous Alliance wasn't brought up, especially since that was Steve Austin's first shot at being in a major faction.

During several shoot interviews I've heard, talent who left the AWA were told by McMahon to finish their dates and not burn their bridges by no-showing. Vince was busting into Verne's territory more so than anyone (The AWA had a massive amount of area under their control) so he couldn't burn out a town by promoting guys who had skipped out on that city in the past.

One of the best matches WCW did. The people went ape-shit when Steamboat was revealed, the Enforcers sold it like death, and then they lost their minds when Steamboat/Rhodes won. Just a great, great, great tag-team match. It was also one of the few times a "mystery partner" really delivered.

They taped this one a few months ago. I remember a thread or comments being made about a report in regards to the taping. Apparently, there was a heated argument from Flair when the NWO was discussed. I don't know how much was edited and how much was blown out of proportion.

Awesome... I as well got a kick out of that promo. Good to see it'll be up soon. Also good to see the Cornette rants will be starting. Those were pretty entertaining.

I think my second favorite Rumble is '90. Lot of great stuff in that one. DiBiase coming in at #1 the year after he bought the #30 slot. The segment with him, Jake Roberts, Randy Savage, and Roddy Piper, Warrior and Hogan's epic showdown. You know Bushwhackers matches did suck goat testicles but it seems like no matter if it was Heenan or Ventura- the commentary for their matches were always top notch. Even as a mark- I could see the announcers were kind of admitting those matches sucked. Yet I still liked The Bushwhackers. Heenan said on one of the shoot interviews with Cornette how he and Monsoon would desperately want to just say, "Yeah... this match plain sucks" but couldn't directly do that.

Hayes is a great storyteller, but he's also a great bullshitter. Can you imagine him and Flair trying to talk over each other while bringing up war stories about the Birds and Horsemen?

I think most people saw this as Sid's to win since he was the next big thing and was being pushed to the moon. Like a lot of people, the ending produced the first real backlash I had against Hogan for what he did. And I think the eye poke by Piper is my favorite part of that exchange... even more so than when Piper comes out and is a ball of energy as he runs to the ring while Flair is already begging off. I agree with Darth about how cool it was to see all of Flair's old rivals (Von Erich and Valentine) really go after him. Since the WWE didn't acknowledge things like that back in the day, it's nice to go back and see how all the guys he had a history with interact with him during the match.

Andre was definitely a novelty/sideshow act in a sense so you are right about that. The way he was booked, however, got people wanting to see him more and more because they knew it was a special event if Andre wrestled. He never had to be the champion or focal point of a promotion, but he still could be the biggest star of the show. Yeah, he was on the decline in the 80's, but as I said, his emergence as a cross-over star in the 70's definitely paved a big chunk of the road McMahon used when the WWE went national.

Bruno Sammartino? He basically was the WWF from its inception up until the Hogan era. Also, is it just me or is Andre much more revered by the current generation than he was during his own era? Not that I want to downplay the historical significance of Andre, but he wasn't that crucial of a figure in the WWF gaining and sustaining its popularity in the '80s. I blame Wrestlemania III and the WWE rhetoric that surrounds the event for increasing Andre's place in history. Good point about Bruno, but if we're talking about the modern-1984 and beyond WWF, he'd be left off... and I doubt he'd be disappointed considering the bad blood between him and McMahon. As for Andre, he was still the first big mega-star wrestling had, specifically people who weren't wrestling fans knew who he was. He kind of provided the final template for the "wrestling celebrity" that Hogan would become, although people like Blassie and Gorgeous George provided earlier models. I also put him on there for not only headlining the WMIII main event with Hogan, but people also forget him and Hogan wrestled in the most watched match in television history as well. You ask anyone, fan or not, to name two wrestlers in the 1980s, and chances are they'd be Hogan and Andre.

Agreed. As much as I don't like Hogan, I'll be the first to admit he was the public face of the WWF/E when it was trying to create a public face. They might have had people carrying the torch after him, but he was the first. If you built a Mt. Rushmore for the WWE, you put his face on it, Vince's face, Andre the Giant's face, The Rock's face, and Austin's face.

I will say JBL's induction of the Brisco Brothers is pretty damn funny. I remember reading about it when it happened, but seeing the broadcast is very entertaining. And Jim Ross does a great job inducting Gordon Solie.

Tazz had been sadly out of place on these roundtables. Having him on the territory one and not having Lawler or even Mike Graham was absolutely ridiculous, and I like Tazz a lot.

My favorite part, other than "Barbarian doesn't like Flair", is when Heenan goes nuts after Flair tosses Bossman, thinking Flair has won the match since he cleared the ring. I also loved how nearly EVERYONE in this match instantly goes after Flair, and he still made it out on top.

Here goes: Continental Wrestling Federation (Inspired by the old Alabama based Continental group) Arenas: The Louisiana Superdome: New Orleans, Louisiana - Home to my supercard: TRI-SLAMMA-JAMMA Reunion Arena: Dallas, Texas - TV Taping/Big Set-up arena The Mid-South Coliseum: Memphis, Tennessee - TV Taping/Big Set-up arena The Nashville Municipal Auditorium: Nashville, Tennessee: House show arena The Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum: Biloxi, Mississippi: House show arena The Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center: Birmingham, Alabama: House show arena The Atlanta Municipal Auditorium: Atlanta, Georgia: House show arena Champions: Continental Wrestling Federation Heavyweight Champion: Harley Race Continental Wrestling Federation Southern Champion: Tommy "Wildfire" Rich Continental Wrestling Federation Tag-Team Champions: The Crusher and The Bruiser Figurehead/Authority: "Cowboy" Bill Watts Announce Team: Marc Lowrance and "Cowboy" Bill Watts The concept of stables/alliances will be big in my promotion so I'm going to break the roster down by that: Stables/Alliances: The Sensation (Managed by "Sensational" Sherri Martel"): Harley Race, Larry "The Axe" Hennig, The Crusher, and The Bruiser The Dog Pound: The Junkyard Dog, The Rock and Roll Express, and "The Raging Bull" Manny Fernandez The Pringle Dynasty (Managed by Percival Pringle, III): King Kong Bundy, The Great Kabkuki, The Missing Link, and The Wild Samoans The United Nations of Humperdink (Managed by Sir Oliver Humperdink): Ivan Koloff, Killer Kowalski, The Sheik, and The Assassins The Midnight Express (Managed by Precious): "Nature Boy" Buddy Landel, Randy Rose, Dennis Condrey, and "Mad Dog" Buzz Sawyer The Soul Patrol: "Soul Man" Rocky Johnson, "Mr. USA" Tony Atlas, "High Chief" Peter Maivia, Thunderbolt Patterson, Bobo Brazil, and Iceman Parsons The Body Shop: Jesse "The Body" Ventura, "The Universal Heartthrob" Austin Idol, "The Honky Tonk Man" Wayne Ferris, Jimmy Valiant, and Johnny Valiant The Memphis Mafia: Jerry "The King" Lawler, "Superstar" Bill Dundee, Eric Embry, Jackie Fargo, and "Roughhouse" Sonny Fargo Loose Alliance of Remaining Faces: "Cowboy" Bill Watts, Danny Hodge, "Bullet" Bob Armstrong, "Wildfire" Tommy Rich, Steve Keirn, Mike Graham, "The Freebird" Buddy Roberts exists. Andre the Giant - Aligned with all the faces as the ultimate insurance policy, but he does tend to have JYD's back quite a bit. Ernie Ladd - An opportunistic loner with loose ties to The Sensation and The Pringle Dynasty. He goes where the money is. Ox Baker - Used mostly as a hired gun by The Midnight Express and The United Nations of Humperdink More information to come, but this is how my roster has been broken down and how the matches for my supercard have been decided.

I'm going to add a few more arenas to plug in some holes I have in my territory: The Atlanta Municipal Arena, which will give me a stronghold in Georgia. The Birmingham-Jefferson Civic Center Arena, which will give me a stronghold in my home state of Alabama (Gotta keep it local) The Mississippi Gulf Coast Coliseum in Biloxi, Mississippi, which will give me an arena in Mississippi. So now I've got me a nice territory with a western home in Dallas, a northern double shot in Memphis and Nashville, an eastern home in Atlanta, two stops in Alabama and Mississippi, and a mega venue in New Orleans.

Still one of my all time favorite matches. As a kid, I was 100% CERTAIN Sid was winning the Rumble, and boy was I pissed at Hogan when he screwed Sid out of the championship. It was mentioned earlier, but the way the match was structured is also great. When Flair tosses Bossman to clear the ring, it really does pick up with Piper then coming in to just unload on Flair. Then when Roberts comes in next and just lays in the corner to allow Piper to beat on Flair some more, only to sneak attack Piper after a while was great as well. Heenan and Monsoon's commentary also made this event stand out even better. Heenan was so beside himself after Flair came out third, and it's hilarious listening to Gorilla antagonize him the entire match... and then Heenan just exploding into joy when Flair wins. Watching this match is like watching an example of great booking and execution.

The crazy thing is that someone talked Dusty down off his high that produced the plexiglass maze match, but apparently they did nothing when he came up with "Chamber of Horrors". This issue has a lot of interesting tidbits in it.

Most definitely. It got really compounded during the whole Tyson situation.

Damn, I love Regal.

LOL!!!!!!! J.H. JIM HAAS

I'm really liking Beth right now... And I'm actually shocked they let Batista give her a spinebuster during this whole "Kid Friendly" push.

Cowboy Bob's cast, herpes, 'pologize, a psycho unibrow, and Mr. & Mrs. Phoenix... Very entertaining.