Darth Pipes

Just reading Scott Keith's review and he noticed too that Hawk was wasted out of his mind. It's amazing they let him go out like that. Keith also noted how stiffly IRS kicked Von Erich in the face.

Bischoff discusses it during the Pillman DVD as I recall. Pillman's career was red hot around this time but then he had the car accident.

I didn't know that. That's pretty cool that it got some media coverage. It was a great angle.

Just watched the Flair/Bret interview and it was great. I had forgotten that they acknowledged the fact that Bret had defeated Flair before. Flair has a great line where he says "I'm not saying I'm who I was ten years ago. Back then, I could wrestle with a broom but now I need heartbeat."

But if you make the rules clear ahead of time and establish them, you can minimize that. Serving alcohal at an event like that is not wise to say the least.

One other thing I noticed is that JJ Dillon is present at the Savage/Elizabeth wedding.

I don't think the chanting is too bad but it's the booing and outright disrespect that should not be tolerated and it has been for far too long.

I'm actually not to upset because most of the best and biggest Starrcade matches have been released on DVD. Though it is a disappointment. I'd like to see them do for Starrcade what they did for Wrestlemania but I don't think the demand's there. Easter eggs on the Mr. Perfect DVD... Disc 1 Easter Egg 1: Hit right a few times on the "Rap is Crap" music video under Special Features to see the live performance of Rap is Crap on Thunder. Easter Egg 2: Hit right a few times on "Curt Loved Karaoke" under Special Features to hear Chris Jericho tell a story about a Curt Hennig Rib. Easter Egg 3: Hit left a few times on "Mr. Perfect" under Chapters to see a AWA Promo. Easter Egg 4: Hit right a few times on "The Prankster" under Chapters to hear Wade Boggs tell a Hennig rib story. Disc 2 Easter Egg 5: Hit left a few times on "Mr. Perfect vs Hulk Hogan" under scene selection to see Mr. Perfect destroying the WWF Heavyweight Title.

Right. That much was better than I expected. That probably has to do with that fact that Shiek helped train Steamboat and they wrestled many times in many different territories and federations over the years. Some Prime Time notes... -I remember the studio setting quite well. It appears this was the first one. I liked the studio setting although it led to the end of the Monsoon/Heenan Prime Times. -The studio audience is clearly being coached throughout the show. Always booing the heels and cheering the faces. All unconvincing. At least the old TNT crowd would cheer a heel like Piper and be greatly entertained by Savage and Heenan. Heenan got a few laughs but it's a total coached crowd. -Von Erich/IRS wasn't a bad match and the claw spot with IRS hanging off the ropes was pretty cool. -Some of that match footage hasn't aged well. The dark portions looked very dark. -Flair's interview is different than what he usually cut but still pretty damn entertaining. -Paul Bearer was a riot in his early days as the gimmick will all the bizarre facial expressions he would make. -Speak of bizarre, that would be Hawk cutting another one of his strange promos. He may or may not have been high as a kite.

WWF Magazine did actually show the real photos with Savage and Elizabeth. They also noted that in one photo, they are watching Tuesday Night Titans, which obviously aired from 1984-1986.

I liked the low-key Hall of Fame induction ceremony of 2004 much better too. It's a more intimate setting and the people who deserve to be in the audience are. There are a lot of wrestling fans that don't know how to act. They treat a HOF ceremony like any other wrestling show. That's partially the WWE's fault with the way they promote their product but these embarrassments should know how to behave at a HOF ceremony, which is supposed to honor the performers of the past. You never see these kinds of antics at other HOF ceremonies.

Yeah, but isn't it clipped? I think he wants the whole match. Did anybody else really hate the Curt Hennig vs Terry Taylor because of the commentary? Foley and Cole totally distracted me from the match with their rambling. Right. The complete match between Flair and Hennig. Also, the Hennig rematch with Santana I referred to was the SNME match. It's another repeat but Hennig winning the title from Bockwinkel would have been nice. But I think the problem was how much they could fit on the DVD. The Hennig/Bockwinkel draw is sixty minutes and the title change is a thirty minutes long, forty if you count all the post-match stuff.

This is a very good point. What you said about Hennig can apply to a lot of the top heels during this era, like Ted Dibease and Rick Rude. They were great wrestlers but because they were heels, they had very few high profile wins. Rude's only major WWF win was his title victory against Warrior. Not to mention that great wrestling matches wasn't exaclty a WWF priority during that era. Entertainment ruled. Hennig's big singles matches were his Summerslam 91 and KOTR 93 against Bret (both losses) and his Raw match against Ric Flair. So picking his top matches for a DVD is difficult. If you look at his IC and US title victories they came against Tito Santana (still a good worker but one step above a jobber at this point), a past-his-prime Kerry Von Erich, and Steve McMichael. Curt deserved better. Still though, matches the WWF could have put on this DVD... -The complete version of his Raw match with Ric Flair. -I appreciate them wanting to avoid repeats but Hennig vs Hart at KOTR should have been there instead of their terrible WCW match. -Hennig and Savage vs Flair and Ramon at Survivor Series 92. Hennig's big return as a face and the only time he was in a PPV main event (not couting Royal Rumble). -Hennig's very entertaining title defense against Roddy Piper at MSG, a match that came about after Piper refereed that match between Hennig and Von Erich the previous month -Hennig's IC title rematch against Tito Santana was supposed to be very good. -Hennig and Barry Windham winning the WCW World Tag Team Championship from Chris Benoit and Dean Malenko. Obviously, because of Benoit, this wasn't going to be on the DVD.

They've had that problem with the audience for four straight years and they apparently refuse to do anything. Those are the types of fans that make me embarrassed to be a fan of wrestling. Someone had a great suggestion on how to shut them up. Make the HOF induction ceremony part of the Wrestlemania package they do every year. Inform them that if they misbehave at the HOF ceremony they will get one warning and if they continue to act disrespectfully they will be kicked out, not allowed to go to WM, and not have their money refunded.

I remember after Elizabeth turned on Savage, Flair would do this angle where he would come to ring side, set up a table, and spend Savage's ailimony/settlement money on dinner with Elizabeth and Woman. This led to Savage being suspended from appearing on television because he became so crazy. The funny part was when Savage came after them this one time and was restrained by security. Elizabeth came up to him and threw the money in his face and then Woman slapped him. WCW enjoyed humuliating Savage.

The only saving grace of this week's TNT show is once again Bobby Heenan, as he trades a lot of sexual innuendo with Mean Gene.

I forgot how great that bit with Flair's "pictures" of Elizabeth was. Awesome segment. I remember getting the WWF Magazine before that interview aired so I knew what Flair was going to reveal ahead of time. Very fun segment. Seeing the May 1981 promo by Flair was cool too because outside of youtube, I haven't seen a lot of pre-World Champion Flair stuff from the WWE. The tapes from Jim Crockett Promotions (which encompasses Mid-Atlantic) only go back to the 1980s. So all that great stuff from Flair from the seventies seems to be lost, save for tape collectors and youtube.

Yeah, that was hilarious. Though I'm sure the guy on the ladder didn't appreciate Heenan shoving it.

That would be my guess. I've seen Tommy Rich winning the title from Race on youtube.

Yeah, that was a big one. And that goes even further back...Flair did it to Steamboat in 77 or 78. I guess when you have a successful storyline, you keep using it every couple of years. Read about it in Flair's book...what they did to make Steamboat's face look bad. It involved rubbing sand paper over his cut. Ugh!

Heheh. Yeah, that was classic. Interesting thing I realized...Savage's Survivor Series team was made up of guys he either feuded with (Steamboat) or guys who would later feud with (Roberts, Duggan, and Beefcake).

Watched Mid-Atlantic today. I wish they had more of it on, because it was probably the best wrestling territory wrestling-wise of its era. You had a prime Flair, Steamboat, Valentine, Piper, etc. It features non-stop wrestling and even the squashes are competative. The highlight of today's show was Flair and Valentine teaming up and Flair's mic work. We also get to see Roddy Piper cut another coked up promo where he shows the rather grusome damage Flair and Valentine did to his face. That incident was shown on the original Flair DVD.

Kiniski did his damndest to ruin that match. I don't know what the **** his problem was (apparently Harley didn't either) and I really wish both Flair and Race would have shot on him and broken his leg. It's a testament to the greatness of both Flair and Race that they still put on a great match with that moron Kiniski interferring and breaking the flow of the match constantly.

Right. There's also his prior match with Ric Flair from Mid-Atlantic Wrestling. That was on the most recent Flair DVD. Also, as we can see he may a number of high-profile matches in WCCW against the Von Erichs.

That Race/Martel match was damn good. Speaking of which, during the Dec 77 MSG show, Vince cut away to Harley Race defending the title against a much younger Rick Martel in New Zealand. It was interesting to see that on WWWF TV. I've seen a squash match of Harley Race on WWWF TV leading up to one of his matches with Bob Backlund. There's also of course his MSG match with Dusty.