Diamonddust

Seeing the match listing for Starrcade '89 just reaffirms how they completely screwed up some major league money matches (Another Sting/Muta match, Flair/Muta, Road Warriors/Steiners) with the Iron Man tournament.

I was wondering if someone was going to get him.

With the next selection in the draft, I'm picking a very talented heel to work against Steve Keirn. The individual in question has led a colorful career that some would describe as more "misses than hits". Regardless of that, he did make a name for himself during the early and mid 1980's, yet, he seemed to be his own worst enemy. Some of the stories about his screw ups are pretty funny, but he can still generate enough heel heat to be quite useful. Oh yeah, he does have the benefit of sharing his nickname with two of the all time greats. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present my next pick... "NATURE BOY" BUDDY LANDEL

An interesting WWE/F tidbit from the 6/10/91 Observer posted today: The edition came out right after Sid made his WWF debut, and since he was a face, the consensus was that a Sid/Hogan match at Wrestlemania VIII wasn't going to happen. Also, it only took Hogan 7 more years or so to get the return win over Warrior...

A clean loss on television back in the 80's could spell death for someone's career.

It should be getting much better with the Nikita/Magnum angle progressing to where it ends up and when Big Bubba has a confrontation with Dusty Rhodes. Jim Cornette talks about it in his shoot interview, and I can't wait to see it.

Him not wrestling on TV in the 1980's was a direct result of the WWF wanting a very strong house show market (If you want to see the World Champion, you have to pay) and wanting any time Hogan was on television to be a "special" event - namely Saturday Night's Main Event or something along those lines. Him not being on TV for WCW for months on end was just him flaunting the amount of control and power he had.

Agreed 100%

I'm just glad I'm picking in front of King Kamala when it comes to venues... I have a distinct feeling we're targeting a couple of the same ones.

Something I just realized because I know the episode is coming up... Goldberg's debut was the same night Raw was live from MSG and featured the WWE debut of Cactus Jack AND Vince taking his first Stunner.

The sooner we get to the MSG Raw in September the better... the WWE debut of Cactus Jack, and Vince takes his first Stunner. Oddly enough, it took place on 9/22/97... the same night Goldberg debuted on Nitro (Thanks KingKamalaClassic)

Yeah... against Hugh Morrus. I knew it was around that time but couldn't remember the exact date.

You could definitely say the 80's as the WWE drew boatloads. You're right that the WWE tried to appeal to everyone (McMahon saying he wanted to take the product out of the smoky arenas and bring it to a place where mom, dad, brother, sister, grandma, and grandpa could attend), but the key to that was hooking the child demographics. If you hook the children, they are going to get their parents to bring them to the events... thus creating more people that will follow your product.

Maybe so, but Waltman and Jannetty didn't have the "star" potential to really put it over like Michaels did. They were good workers and very well known, but they both lacked that "it" factor Shawn had.

7... we are a couple issues away from Flair being fired from WCW. As of right now, Superbrawl just got over, WCW is setting up for the June Clash of Champions, Luger/Flair is all but set, Sid has just left WCW, and Undertaker/Ultimate Warrior is causing big waves at house shows.

Couple of interesting lines about Steve Austin from the 6/3/1991 edition of the Observer posted today: -If memory serves me correctly, Austin pretty much beat Eaton out of the gate and held the TV Title for a very long period of time. This one I found quite interesting: The more things change... the more they stay the same. As mentioned before, though, Austin's first year in WCW was pretty successful.

The biggest impact it has in my opinion, or at least the first that comes to mind, is the fact there would be no Ladder Match at Wrestlemania X. The match was one of the most influential matches of all time, and without it happening, the high spot driven matches of the late 90's probably wouldn't have happened. Sure, there might have been an equivalent match that came along, but nothing on the level of this particular ladder match.

If memory serves me right, Goldberg should be making his Nitro debut in one of the next couple of episodes.

With the next selection in the draft, I'm going to go ahead and take a solid worker that definitely made his mark as a tag-team wrestler, although I'm going to use him as a singles star. The tag-team he was in is considered one of the more groundbreaking teams in modern wrestling history. As a singles, I'll use him as a solid mid-card face with a similar gimmick used during that particular tag-team run. Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm proud to select... STEVE KEIRN

Wicked... I assume that's where he debuts by no-selling the chair shot from Dusty and then beating him down right then and there. Edit - Nevermind... that apparently comes later...

Ok, this round has been a bit confusing since the guy before me hasn't made his last couple of picks so I wasn't even aware I was up until just now. That being said, however, let me make my next selection... With George Steele going, I had to reshuffle things with my intended 8 man match. As a result, I've now got Snuka on the heel side with the Samoans and Kabuki against Johnson, the High Chief, Tony Atlas, and Iceman Parsons. Doing this leaves the Honkytonk Man with nothing to do... until now... This individual was a major star in the Memphis area, and he frequently was on top of the card along with Jerry Lawler. He also doubled as a booker with Lawler as they would split the duties every 6 months. He has history with the Honkytonk Man so this is a natural selection. Ladies and Gentlemen, the next selection in the draft... "SUPERSTAR" BILL DUNDEE

I think the biggest complaint was that no one bothered to tell Anderson they were about to mock the retirement speech from a week ago. He saw it when everyone else saw it, and lost it.

My favorite image of the batch:

No worries at all. I didn't know if it should go there or not, so that's why I went ahead and made the link. Mods, please absorb it into the thread if need be.

Hey everyone, Last night was my first opportunity to shoot a MMA Event - the Strike Hard event based out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Here is the link to the full gallery: http://www.flickr.com/photos/diamondduste/...57606276801467/