Darth Pipes

I would definitely agree with that. Only when Bret or HBK were involved was Diesel's reign ever interesting.

My bad. Very cool getting to watch the old-school WWWF show. It was great seeing the Valients win the titles from Zybisko and Garea but could they have worked that match any ligther? They were barely touching each other with those punches and kicks. Not to mention throwing the weakest forearms imaginable. Took a lot away from the match.

That's what I thought. They could have killed him there. Great angle, though. From what I understand, Flair wanted to lose the belt in 1987 so he could regain it at Starrcade. No one wanted to be a lame duck champion except Ron Garvin. Garvin won the belt but any chance he had to get any credibility went out the door when it was announced that he was taking off until Starrcade so he could train. I think he wrestled some house shows but he was for the most part invisible during his reign as champion. I think Windham would have been a much better choice to be champion.

I would have to assume that if on 24/7 they inserted Real American anachronistically into a Hogan entrance, then he was coming out to SOMETHING they don't own and not silence. I don't know when he started coming out to Eye of the Tiger but let's just assume it's that. I thought the crowd noise was good enough. The Garden audience was absolutely rocking during that entire match.

I too was disappointed with the format of the Rock DVD. The lack of interviews drained the life out of the feature and I hate that they are now inserting matches into the DVD's "documentary." It's lazy as hell and robs viewers of some of the excellent documentaries that the WWE has done, such as the ones for ECW and the AWA. The match selection looks like they left out a lot of Rock's best matches. The interviews are pretty good though. The one thing that's driving me crazy is the blurring. Not the logo blurring...I'm used to that. I'm talking about the fact that they are now blurring whenever Austin flips someone off or raises his middle fingers to the crowd. Now all of a sudden the WWE is catering to the kids. Hey, WWE...if you want to cater to the kids then you shouldn't have released a DVD that profiled a man (Austin) who has a history of violence against women. Censoring the language and obscene gestures is annoying the hell out of me but it's even worse when they do it on 24/7. 24/7 is a On-Demand service marketed to older fans and that can only be purchased with a credit card, something children don't have.

I was watching a little of the MSG show where Hogan became champion. I've seen that footage a hundred times but 24/7 also shows you the before and after stuff. Namely, Shiek cutting another wonderfully incoherent interview. Next is Shiek and Hogan going to ringside. Real American is inserted into the ring introduction, which is stupid since Hogan wasn't using that theme yet and I don't think was using any theme at the moment. The dumbest though was when the Hogan DVD inserted Real American into his match with Bockwinkele from 1983. Anyway, also got to see the post-match stuff. After being beat, doctors come to the ring and attempt to put Shiek on a stretcher. Shiek gets up and goes after Hogan. Hogan proceeds to beat him up and throw him to the outside and into a bunch of chairs. Shielk throws a few of them in the ring. The post-match celebration and Hogan with his parents is on the original Hogan DVD. Funny bit is when Hogan is cutting his promo, some spit flies out of his mouth and onto his shirt. Okerlund wipes it off and throws an annoyed look at the camera.

Good points you bring up. I think the NWA during this time was awesome but I sometimes wonder if they could have lasted longer had they given the popular faces more of a run with the World title. I think I've seen Dusty wrestle once on the show. Flair at least has wrestled about 6 times.

Yeah, he does. As a manager, he was second-rate. Just rambled like a buffoon. I mean, he assembles a stable that consists of a hasbeen (Von Rascke), a gloriffied job (Whatley), a guy who was never any good (The Barbarian) and some guy I never heard of all to destroy a glorified mid-card wrestler.

Yeah, that's right. From the Legion of Doom's tag team title victory at Summer Slam '91 until the Quebecers def. the Steiners on RAW (stupid Canadian rules match) just over two years later, there was a grand total of one tag team title change (out of six) that was televised (Money Inc. over Natural Disasters, Oct. 92). The rest of those were just announced on Wrestling Challenge or Superstars. Exactly. It goes even further than that... -After Jannetty and Kid win the belts at Raw. they lose it a week later at MSG. Highlights from the end of the match are shown. The Quebeccers then lose the belts to Men on a Mission during a European tour only to regain them two days later. The Headshrinkers win the titles from them on Raw and lose them to HBK and Diesel on a house show the night before Summerslam 94.

Or as Heenan would yell at Summerslam... "HipLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOCK!"

Just watched Bockwinkele and Ray Stevens vs Billy Robinson and Red Bastien from December 1972. I highly recommend watching this match because the ringwork was fantastic. Billy Robinson was a master technician who does things you don't even see now. His part, Bastien, is a really good high flyer. Bockwinkele is Bockwinkele and him and Stevens made a great heel tag team. This is the second AWA tag team match from this era I enjoyed, the first being the Outlaws vs Robinson and Don Muraco from the Dusty DVD. Caught Vader's title victory over Sting and it was good. Pretty overpowering performance by Vader against a top heel. But it also shows my problem with the way they booked Vader. They booked him as an unstoppable monster but just about every victory he had over a top face was the direct result of Harley Race's interference. That's how he won his big Halloween Havoc match against Cactus Jack. For God's sake, he even needed Race to help him beat Hacksaw Jim Duggan. Despite dominating the match against Sting, he finally puts Sting away after Sting basically knocks himself on the ringpost.

I think Money Inc. was a good team but they were thrown together and given the title with very little build. One week, I seem them teaming for the first time on Superstars and the next, they've defeated LOD at an untelevised house show to win the titles. This all began a string a untelevised world tag team title changes at house shows. Two of Money Inc's tag team title victores were at untelevised house shows and the first loss and second title reign was shown in highlights from a TV taping. Maybe this is why some didn't think they worked as a team.

Pretty much.

Schivonne's WWF work wasn't exactly a highlight of his career. At Summerslam, all he did was scream like a lunatic and sounded like he was going to have an orgasim every two seconds.

Just watching a little of this, mainly the Hogan/Yokozuna match. It's definitely a different one as Hogan is just dominated from start to finish. Seeing him get squashed at the end was great. HBK ripping Hogan afterwards was great. Bret/Hening is a classic and while not as historically important as the Summerslam 91 encounter, I like this one better because Henng is healthy here. Although even here, they both had already wrestled a match so you can argue they weren't 100% going into it and still put on an absolute classic. Though Hennig should have been booked stronger in the first round with a pinfall victory, not a lame DQ.

The promos and angles are fantastic on the NWA show but like I said, the logic is lacking. No matter how how the feud is, there are very few run-ins.

What I find funny is that Garvin's interview is immediately after Wahoo's match. Wahoo could have confronted him but didn't. It's kind of like Dusty and Magnum saying they want the Midnight Express but apparently don't stick around for the Express match later in the card. I love the NWA shows but this is one area where the logic is faulty. This was a great episode for angles. The Flair beatdown of Morton was awesome and the Baby Doll angle was shocking, even for today. Cornette was awesome on the mic with his heel interviews and constantly referring to Baby Doll as a "heffer." David Crockett was an annoying announcer but he's one of the few who actually reacted to situations realistically. When Tully Blanchard slapped Baby Doll, he actually got right up in Tully's face and grabbed him by the collar.

I can't remember when Yoko debuted although his PPV debut would be at Survivor Series that year, beating Virgil. Interesting fact about the Michaels title victory...that was only the second title change in the history of Saturday Night's Main Event. During the six-year NBC run, the only title change was Arn and Tully beating Demolition for the tag team titles. Watched SNME last night. It's an interesting time capsule show. With Michaels IC title victory and Bret's World title victory a month earlier, it was really the start of the Hart/Michaels era. Savage would be phased out after Survivor Series and Flair would be gone the day after the Royal Rumble. Ramon was starting to get his push. This era of the WWF might not of had the ratings of the 80s era but the wrestling was far superior. Interesting trend for the Warrior. This being his last televised match, it ends in a beatdown by the heels. His last apperance in the WWF came on Raw in 1996. He beat Owen Hart by DQ only to be beat down by the heels once more.

That was the end of year, end of decade show in December 1979. Huge card. All the War Games on Shorties? Sweet!

Outside of house shows, Flair never put over Luger.

I remember this Nitro very well. It was like the first big victory for WCW against the NWO. Say what you will about Hogan but he put over Luger here as strong as possible. First, he did a job to him in a non-title (though everyone thought it was a title) match by submission. He follows that up by submitting to him again in a tag team match. Finally, Hogan dominates most of the title match (I seem to recall Luger having only a few spots of offense) but proceeds to do another submission job to Luger, this time for the title. That's three clean jobs in a row and it put Luger over strong. Even though Luger lost the belt five days later, it was still only because of outside interference. That Nitro was really the high point in Luger's career. It was a slow decline downhill from there.

I'm looking forward to all things Bockwinkel this month.

SNME on Fox at nine o'clock just wasn't the same as the old late-night SNME.

I enjoyed the Tito Santana matches. WWE 24/7 has shown me just how good a worker Tito was back in the day, especially against Greg Valentine and Randy Savage. In the Shorties section, they showed Kennedy's match Eddie Guerrero, which was the last match of Guerrero's career. I'm not surprised they didn't show what happened after the match. Kennedy absolutely blasted Guerrero with a chair shot to the head. The last time Eddie was seen alive on WWE TV, he was flat on his back.

Funny bit from PrimeTime was Heenan completely running down Hogan's team, saying Bam Bam looked like a broken bic lighter and Superstar looked as they he swallowed a skunk.