Sass

Oh yeah, you're right. Marty was a better worker than Shawn but, yeah, he wasn't exactly stellar in the interview and mic skills department. But neither were Shawn or Bret. Neither guy would have outdone the other on the mic and all 3 would have really had a level playing field in that regard. Marty and 1-2-3 Kid could have been a hell of a tag team though. That would have been the best situation for Marty where he can cover for someone and vice versa. If booked strong, there's no telling where Marty could have gone had he stayed sober.

I can't find a good web page that outlines the Elementals but the book was like a mix of FF/Avengers West Coast/Supreme Squadron/Authority. Byrne and Mark Millar are Bill Willingham biters, except being fair to Millar, Big Bill didn't have two gay heroes fathering an adopted baby girl with super powers. But, mayhem was the call of order for the Elementals in their stories. The book had a strong team "we are family" unity vibe to it along with loads of violence and great, great story twists that actually made sense. Anyone of the team members looked like they could get snuffed out. Bill Willingham was not afraid to let his team getting the shit kicked out of them, most notably by Captain Cadaver in one of the most ruthless fights I've checked out in comics. Next Men was really good in the beginning but the Elementals came before it and it could be argued that Byrne was just biting from Willingham's work. Big Bill gave up the rights to the book though when Comico went under and some new guy resurrected the company but never did anything with the rights (sorta like McFarlane and Miracleman). The last Elementals book was published in 1997 but it was the late 80's run that everyone here should seek out. You can probably find the books in the cheap bins today. I really can't do the book justice with an explanation. I recommend you seek out the books or else find some web site that gives you some insight into the stories before you're able to read them. Highly, highly recommended book to check out. I hope it makes TPB one day.

The thigh tat has been on Albert ever since he switched from pants to short tights in the WWE. He didn't have it when he made his debut in '98 though.

Hot start, lame finish. *3/4

I hope, for his own sake, that Marty stays clean this time around. Stick him and Michaels together and give them the RAW tag belts. Let the Rockers reunion roll on.

Albert is wearing the same kind of boots Edge is wearing post-neck surgery. I'm just surprised Muto and AJ didn't bring him in sooner. The guy is huge and looks like an oddity with all that hair, although it looks a little trimmed back this time. The gaijin list of challengers for Kojima is growing.

Endless: Feed him Akiyama, Misawa, Taue, Sano, Ogawa, Morishima, Yone, etc. along with Tenryu, Sasaki and any possible NJ & AJ co-promotional guys. Find some strong in-ring gaijin workers and do this for 2 years. Don't cut off his legs. It's time Misawa puts up or shuts up. He was 31 when he got his first run with the Triple Crown and held onto it for 2 years. That reign established Misawa as an ace and it paid off big time. Rikio is a year older than Misawa and should get built-up strong *now* and not later. Have a re-match with Kobashi later on down the road if NOAH wants to really establish Rikio as a force by beating the former ace again and prove his first win wasn't just a fluke. If not, give the belt to Sasaki or Tenryu and run a NOAH vs. Sasaki Office feud for the rest of the year. It could work.

When he wouldn't give Andre a title shot, en route to Wrestlemania 3. This forced Andre to turn on Hulk and join up with Bobby Heenan. I thought that was selfish of Hulk to do to the guy who helped him out for years but never asked for anything else in return except for one shot at glory. I thought Andre joining up with Heenan in order to force Hulk to give him a title shot said it all about Hogan's character. Orndorff was a double-faced prick so I didn't have a problem with Hogan beating up Mr. Wonderful the year before.

The Sheik, Abdullah the Butcher, Bruiser Brody, and Jerry Lawler.

Funny enough, Jannetty was considered the better worker than HBK. Marty could have probably been a better rival for Bret Hart in the 90's than HBK was. Michaels was only able to get himself over in *his* matches, not the other guy. Marty could work as enhancement talent or as the top dog in the ring. That is crucial in getting a program over with fans. You have to be able to work either side of the coin. HBK could never do that and still can't. There's really just no telling how far or how big Marty could have gotten if he had kept his head on straight and stayed clean and sober. The sky was the limit.

Vince had more faith in face vs. heel than he had with face vs. face filling out a 60, 000 + arena at the time. Hogan vs. Perfect did get changed to Hogan vs. Warrior at the end of the Rumble when Hulk called for the Warrior to be the last guy. Remember, Hogan was the one who pushed for the Warrior to be his heir, whether for sincere or insincere reasons. Vince didn't think the Warrior had the charm that Hogan had to fill up arenas or carry month + long storylines like Hogan could. Oh, the irony. I think this is a question that I'll shoot Meltzer an e-mail about. It's been a while since I read how the build-up for Mania 6 was going down.

The Blue Blazer winning the IC title could have *maybe* happened. Russo was out of his mind enough then for it to be a possibility. It wasn't like the belt had any prestige left with it at that time. A quick run-down of the champs during that period: Jesse James Goldust Godfather Jeff Jarrett Not exactly "next in line" material for a World's title shot.

Myth. No one knew if the Warrior was going to be back for the next show after the last one ended. Vince was not foolish in booking out anything long-term for the Warrior after he was ready to ditch the company in late 1991.

Yes. Hogan called a clear audible signaling for the others remaining wrestlers to get lost and dumped over the ropes. The double ME was looking like Warrior/Rude and Hogan/Perfect for the title but that got changed at the end of the Rumble by Hogan. The power Hogan wielded when he was on top dwarfs the power HHH holds today. Everything has to be approved by Vince today but back then that wasn't always the case.

Dpending on who you ask, HBK got beat up by anywhere from 3 to a dozen army/navy/green beret guys after mouthing off in a bar to them. He was with Davey Boy Smith, Sean Waltman and someone else (Duke Droese is a name I've seen brought up) and the situation got bad, real bad. HBK was being used as the proverbial punching bag while the wrestlers were being distracted/held back by the military guys. Somehow, the wrestlers managed to escape the military guys and snatched HBK away from his attackers. They sped off in their car and never looked back. Wrestlers are not going to beat up a dozen or so military guys, especially if they're trained to be Green Beret's as the would-be attackers were supposedly.

Shango was late. Sid was not booked to lose the match by pinfall. Hogan was going to win by DQ after a Papa run-in. Borga was either going to face Earthquake or Diesel, depending on what you've read. Luger vs. Borga for the title was never booked, or Lex winning a title for that matter. The response Bret Hart got at the Royal Rumble cemented his title win at the PPV, since Vince had no faith in Luger carrying the company as champ. Mankind was not booked to win the title since Vince was set on HBK/Sid after Vader fell out of favor with the company. It was a match that was poorly executed with it's finish with a miscommunication on Vince or JR's part on signaling the run-in to end the match on a DQ. It was always going to be Diesel vs. Sid since Vince felt the marks would be more interested in a hoss vs. hoss match for the inagural IYH PPV kickoff. Austin was an unproven draw at this point. The winner was always going to be Bret Hart since the original plan for the ME at Wrestelmania 13 was a rematch between HBK/Hart where Bret would pick up his win after his loss at 12. That never happened though because of the unprofessionalism of HBK for losing his "smile" amongst other bs execuses. True. Ted was penciled in to win the title tournament and was probably going to work an angle with Donald Trump, the other rich guy in the arena that night. Instead, Vince had a Cuban Missle Crisis situation on his hands with Honky threatening to jump ship to the NWA/WCW company with the IC belt in his hands. Savage was too popular at the time to not be holding onto a title and Vince wanted to capatalize on that with something so Macho Man got the big win at the end. False. Macho Man would have been black balled from wrestling, or anywhere Hogan was working, if he had taken a swing at Hogan and popped him in the face. It was an outdoors accident of some sort but no one knows for sure except Hogan.

Fuck Frank Hamblen? Put down the bong VX. If anyone should get a fuck you it should be Rudy T who turned out to be a bust as a head coach. No one on the Lakers can play any defense and they lack the discipline to gut it out for 4 quarters. Hamblen has done a remarkable job with the tools he's been given. The Lakers should have dropped off the playoff radar when Kobe went down with an ankle injury but the team managed to stay competitive and kept the 8th seed spot. Rudy T turned out to be a giant disappoinment. Vlade Divac is too old. Chris Mihm is a pussy. Chucky Atkins is too inconsistent. Caron Butler is just lost out on the court for whatever the reason but also doesn't get many minutes. Lamar Odom needs to quit coming to games stoned and follow what is happening on the court. This team is all lost on the court. I really hope the Lakers can get some starter FA's in the next couple of years that aren't bench warmers (Celtics and Heat guys).

Angelina Jolie was born for this role. Get her bulked and ripped up and you have yourself an Amazon. Just make sure she wears 6 inch heels to give her that appearance. Jessica Biel would need to color her hair jet black, which could be hawt actually.

Next Men? Oh man, go check out the Elementals, which smokes Next Men as being "ahead of its time" because that was a book that was ahead of it's time when the series first started up in 1985 and continued until 1994. It's probably one of my top 5 team books of all-time, if not universally. That book doesn't get pimped enough nowadays.

I'll glady pay you back on Tuesday.

Leena's been lurking around for years.

There's no way the Superman symbol net would have made the final cut in 2 if Donner had been directing. Hell, it probably wouldn't have been used at all. That thing always bugged me. But, oh man, nothing bugged me more about Supes 2 than the Super kiss at the end. Patrick Duffy had nothing on that ending.

Actually, I take it back. The Salkinds still were the producers when Supes 3 was being made. In fact, they were the ones who came up with the "hip' and "contemporary" flick that saw a declining Richard Pryor mugging for the camera with the threat of some lameass super computer taking over the world. It should have been about Brainiac. Reeve, after the movie bombed, said he'd never do another Superman movie but was persuaded into doing 4 when he got script approval rights, along with a fat, fat pay day for the film. Cannon Films had licensed the the movie rights from the Salkinds and it was downhill from there. The budget was ridiculously low and about half of the movie and it's filmed scenes never made the final cut, making for one lame abortion that was meant to be released in time for Supes' 50th Anniversary but instead showed up a year later in theatres. There were actually *two* Solar Men in the 4th film but the 1st one was completely cut out. It went from being about 3 hours long to 90 minutes of head scratching woe for the Man of Steel. Reeve said he'd never do another Superman flick after this but much of the blame should have been shouldered by him. He had co-written the script and agreed to star in the abomination after getting script approval power before asking if he could co-write the flick itself. Superman 4 will go down as one of the biggest fuck-ups in movie history. What began as Superman 4 and what ended up being the finished product were two very different things. Hideous, hideous stuff, with this X-Men 3 news almost mirroring the problems the post 2 movies faced after Richard Lester took over as director for 3. It was all downhill from there.

Overrated Writers: Brian Bendis Not everyone talks like a prick or an imbecile to one another and not every super villain needs to kill a dozen or so people in order to make an impact. Nor should stories that need be only 3 issues go on for 8 in order to appease the TPB market folks. He's better when not writing about super heroes, honestly. Overrated Artist: too subjective Alex Maleev's art has always made my head hurt though. I've never cared for any of his art on DD. The crappy shadow technique he uses to illustrate rooms and streets has always left me scratching my head. His fight scenes, or lack thereof, have also never done much for me either. I use to dislike Romita Jr. for the same reasons but he started using less shadow crap in his art and he won me over with that. It just looks like lazy artwork to me. I can at least ppreciate Hitch's work, even if he takes forever with it, only because he works his ass off at drawing every major and minute detail in a single panel, wheverer the characters might be located. Underrated doesn't flow with me. I could probably go back and check out every series or mini-series that got cancelled early and probably find something about it that I thought made it underrated in *some* sort of way. Almost, every series. Sovereign Seven blew hard though. So did Next-Men. Both of those books blew. I suppose a case *could* be made for Priest after his run on the 1st Black Panther series seemed to be in danger of cancellation like every other month towards the end of the books run. That was some damn good writing. I'll come back to this one later, maybe.

Damn, I forgot how Big Show went into '00 as the champ. Thanks MM. I still remember how Kane nearly got him up into the Tombstone position in a title match the two had on RAW during Show's first reign. I thought that was an insane, especially since it was being done on the floor outside of the ring.