Darth Pipes

Orton's definitely. He lost all the momentum he had after winning the title at Summerslam.

Yes. 5 years ago, I would have said no way. Flair has been long enough in the business to understand when to suck up to powerful and influential people. Not just sucking up but I really think he does have his head far up HHH's ass and maybe even has a mancrush on him.

It's weird. 1997 was Taker's prime year and he was in a lot of great matches and got a good run with the title. But he jobbed a ton of times. I think Charles Wright (Kama aka The Godfather) was a buddy of his so maybe that's why he got the clean pin.

I don't think those going into the Hall of Fame. really get to pick who inducts them. I believe last year Jerry Lawler wanted Memphis announcer Lance Russell to do it but got turned down because no one knew who he was. Flair will be inducted by whoever McMahon tells him he'll be inducted by. Arn Anderson would be the ideal choice but Flair has his own head so far up HHH's ass that it probably will be HHH. He'll probably also spend several minutes putting HHH over.

I'm not saying he should job clean to all those guys. But I have a problem when three guys hold onto his titles by bullshit means over the space of five months. It makes them all look bad. You should throw some kind of bone to them. Rhodes was also incapable of doing a clean job to Flair.

Watched the Bret/Flair title match for the first time. I know both of them didn't like it but I thought it was a good match. Flair was having the inner ear problem at the time and he was slow and methodical in the match. If he were healthy, I think it could have been five stars but it was still pretty damn good. Dusty really did have an ego back then...think about it. He won the World Title from Flair at Starrcade 85, only to have to return it on a technically. Before that, he only lost the TV title because of an injury and Arn Anderson never defeated him for it. Later in 86, he lost the National title in a screwjob to Tully Blanchard. It's one thing to lose one title questionably. But Dusty loses three different titles questionably over a five-month span. Ego run amok there.

Jim Cornette's commentary during the Midnight Express match was classic. Hearing his interviews week after week is always a highlight of that show. Also great is how the Midnight Express toy with the team they face.

As much as I liked the Rock/Hogan match, I haven't watched it since the original PPV. I heard that on the WWE DVD they altered the crowd noise to make it look like the Rock and Hogan got equal cheers. Anyone who saw that PPV live knows that the crowd was completely pro-Hogan until the very end.

Muta would have made a dynamic champion. Although you wonder how he would have connected with fans in the long run.

Wrestlewar 90 was the first NWA PPV I got to watch. Borrowed it from a friend. Was watching World Championship Wrestling the other day. I thought it was funny how the end of the Dusty/Tully match totally ripped off the end of the Savage/Santana IC title match. The Dusty/Tully match was only a few weeks after Tito and Savage so they have no excuse.

The Jake DVD is pretty damn good. Just watching the SNME that set up Wrestlemania II. Good show. Ventura's got a pretty politically incorrect line during the T/Orton match. When Piper is whipping T with his belt, Jesse says it looks like Roots 2.

The Taker/Orton WM match was quite good with both guys busting their asses off. Even more impressive considering Orton had to go in for shoulder surgery later that week and wrestled at less than 100%.

Flair wrote about the match and the ending in his book. Dusty Rhodes lifted him up in a suplex but his knee gave out (Flair had worked it over during the match) and Flair landed on top of him for the cover. Flair admitted it was a terrible match and a terrible finish. Dusty didn't want to give up the title but business was business. So the match took place in St. Louis, Missouri with Lou Thesz as the referee. Neither Dusty nor Flair were big in the territory so it was fine for Dusty to drop the title there. As for existing footage, I've read that the last few minutes of the match supposedly aired on one of the territory television shows and I think I remember someone writing a review of it from an old wrestling tape on one of the wrestling websites. I saw a picture of Flair with his parents (they were in attendence but he couldn't tell them about the title switch before hand) being given the belt in the locker room after the match. Now, I have seen the end of the Flair/Von Erich match. It was a 2/3 Falls Match and it ended when Von Erich rolled up Flair and Flair reversed it (without grabbing the tights) for the pin. This end was shown on the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Lords of the Ring video tape in the eighties. I've heard on the Kayfabe Memories board that JCP refused to recognize that Von Erich had won the title. When Dusty won the title at Starrcade 85 only to have the decision reversed, David Crockett pathetically tried to claim that it was the first time Flair had been beaten. Who the hell is going to buy that shit even then?

It's not the editing that's bothering me (although that's not helping) it's the censoring. Austin's middle fingers are blurred whenever he flips someone off. Terry Funk is now beeped during that Shotgun Saturday Night segment when he calls Pentigal's mother a whore and JR an Oakie ***hole. It's not so much the language but Funk saying it that's so funny. It's bad enough that the DVDs are now being censored when the original footage wasn't years ago but the fact they pull this shit with 24/7. 24/7 is an On-Demand service that only an adult is going to order and probably watch. This censoring on the WWF's part is inexcuseable. I can live with the music right being altered and I've had to get used to the blurred logos. Although Vince should have just given the World Wildlife Fund a lot of money years ago to avoid that.

I'm looking forward to seeing the Flair/Hart title change. Never saw the whole match. Even though Wrestlemania II was not a good card, I've enjoyed the build for it on Tuesday Night Titans. I'm glad we'll be getting the SNME that set-up the show and the first post-WM Tuesday Night Titans.

World Class Championship Wrestling from the 80s is my favorite 24/7 program. I think this marks only the second time I've seen Dusty actually wrestle on the studio show.

Flair won a few of his world titles with the figure four but never by submission. Basically, Dusty Rhodes (4th reign) and Randy Savage (9th reign) passed out due to the pain. Flair rarely won any matches via submission in the 80s. You might get a heel to submit from time to time but a face never submitted. Flair never had a secondary finisher so he would win his matches by a roll-up, small package, outside interference, or with his feet on the ropes. Even heels usually didn't submit. I remember when Sting won the title from Flair in 1990 being surprised he didn't win by submission. He dominated the match and his finally winning the title after two years should have ended with him forcing Flair to submit. But he won with a small package instead, which was silly considering he dominated that match with Flair. Flair actually has gotten more wins by submission since entering the WWE then he did for years at a time in the NWA. Flair title changes...I read that the last minutes of his first title victory against Rhodes aired on at least one of the territory television shows. His third title victory against Von Erich I remember seeing the last seconds of that on the old Pro Wrestling Illustrated video tape and it's definitely around. I don't know if his 4th title victory against Rhodes was ever recorded. Flair regained the title from Sting on a house show in January 1991 and I remember them airing clips of it on WCW TV and seeing pictures of a bloody Flair with the belt. I think I saw footage of the phantom title "loss" against Jack Veneno on youtube.

I was just about to get to this. I just watched TNT a few minutes ago and I noticed that they kept cutting out the audio a few times as well. The first twi times were with Captain Lou and I thought they muted him saying Macho Man. However, the first thing they muted was followed by Vince giving an "oooohhh" reaction, suggesting Albano might have said something he shouldn't have. Then I notice it with Vince. Strange they would cut it out anyway. Though they let Fred Blassie get away with calling Mr. T a house ape twice.

I remember that Nitro very well. The brawl at the end was awesome. Very long and with both the NWO and WCW really going at each other. Remember Sting raising himself and a knocked out Page to the roof with Sean Waltman in the ring looking like someone had kicked the living crap out of him. I definitely call bullshit on the "recording problems" episode. I say it equals Benoit. It would be a shame if that episode is lost though. Hogan lost clean to Luger that night and everyone thought (including me) that Luger won the title. It was revealed after the fact that it was a non-title match, just like it was revealed after the fact that Piper didn't win the title from Hogan at Starrcade 96. I will say one thing about Hogan, he pulled off a lot of crap with his backstage politicing but he put over Lex Luger as strong as possible. He did a clean job to him by submission on the "lost episode" of Nitro. He did a clean job to him by submission in a tag team match shortly thereafter. Luger then beat him cleanly by submission (overcoming NWO interference in the process) to win the title on a great three-hour Nitro. Hogan only won back the title on outside interference too. Say what you will about Hogan but you can't deny that he put over Luger strong that year and Luger probably had his last great year in the business in 1997.

Read that Jersey Joe Walcott took on Lou Thesz in some wrestler vs boxer matches. Remember reading about Leon Spinks wrestling in Japan. Didn't he form some kind of partnership there with the original Sheik.

Maybe that's one of the Wrestlemania Free-For-Alls? Though they didn't come until a year or two later I think.

Primetime and TNT are expendable shows when 24/7 has theme specific programming. Last year they showed the WrestleMania III PTW and nothing else (despite the fact they had just shown that episode in January). There are obviously no PTW shows that build to Mania IX or X8, so we get a Challenge and Raw in their place. I like a change up like that every now and then. We're getting Wrestling Challenge? That would be sweet. It doesn't have the trademark problems of Superstars of Wrestling.

Oh yeah, Benoit was an active member of the Horsemen. This probably means a lot of stuff is going to be cut out over the next few months. Because you have Arn's retirement, the NWO skit mocking him, Hennig joining and then betraying the Horsemen. I wonder how they're going to handle that. Hope they are keeping Prime Time. I have to get my Gorilla/Brain fix.

Wonder if that Nitro features a lot of Benoit. I recall one Main Event on Nitro featuring Benoit and Flair wrestling Hall and Nash for the tag team titles. Interesting omission on Prime Time...Monsoon mentions they'll be a segment on the "Piledriver" wrestling album but we never see it. Must be a music right issue. Definitely looking forward to seeing the Bret/Flair match. I never have seen it. I've heard both good and bad reviews for it. Flair said he could barely wrestle due to the inner ear problem and that the match was terrible. Hart wasn't too fond of it either and didn't put it on his DVD.

The WWE 24/7 preview for March mentioned the Santana/Savage match. I've heard a lot of stories that Savage did not treat Elizabeth right. I think Dynamite Kid once wrote or talked about the fact that Savage used to lock Elizabeth in her hotel room because he was so paranoid. By all accounts, he treated her like absolute shit. Ric Flair wrote in his book he never understood why the two were ever together in the first place. Flair wrote something else in his book too that I agree with. He liked Savage and thought he was a very good wrestler but he didn't consider him great because he drew his greatest heat with Elizabeth. Basically, the fans were most emotionally involved with Savage when he was working off of Elizabeth. Without Elizabeth, Savage didn't draw as much heat. I have to agree with Flair on that one. Savage's best moments in the WWF were when Elizabeth was at his side.