Precious Roy

Re: Did the legdrop die with Hogan? Rosey does a twisting legdrop. The hammerlock suplex and slam are a good call. Those were Anderson signature moves that are really simple to execute, really effective way to work the arm, yet nobody uses them anymore..... One move I really miss is the delayed vertical suplex like Davey Boy used to do.

Oh, and look at the roster for pretty much every "WWIII" battle royale and you'll see some guys who got their lone PPV shot

The Great Sasuke @ IYH: Canadian Stampede (WWF was going to bring him in to star in the cruiser division and ended up more impressed with his opponent, TAKA Michinoku) Mil Mascaras was in the 97 Royal Rumble. I THINK he was in an NWA Crocket Cup that was on PPV in the late 80's, but I'm not sure about that.....

I'm of the opinion that KOTR was one of the WWF's better PPVS and did a lot to advance the careers of most of the winners (excluding the obvious mis-steps of Gunn and Mabel). Bret, Owen, Austin, HHH, and Angle all immediately benefited. Lesnar's win would have been better if they hadn't had the stupid "winner gets a title shot at SS" stip. That was the deathblow of the tourny as far as I was concerned as it completely telegraphed the winner, plus they fucked up by trying to make the RVD-Lesnar feud a big deal when nobody was really buying into it. They REALLY blew that PPV. Shamrock had been in the midst of a fairly long feud with Rocky at the time of his win, and as much as you can say he didn't advance past IC Title level and that Rock should have got the win, he was MAJORLY over at that point in time and the final match against Rock got HUGE heat, PLUS Rock was put over huge due to the nature of the finish. That match was really the start of Rock's face turn and it came soon after, I don't think Rock winning was the right booking at the time. Shamrock always got heat, I think the WWE dropped the ball with him more than anything, turning him heel and putting him in the corporation (in a tag team with Bossman no less) shortly after winning. Anyone remember his three way team/feud with Mankind and The Rock that summer during Rock's brief face period before turning heel again at Survivor Series? Shamrock was mad over. Edge didn't get his huge push until 2002 with Angle, but at the time of KOTR he was still a tag wrestler and the win was the impetus for his breakup with Christian (remember Christian being jealous of Edge and wanting to carry the trophy around with him all the time?). So in that regard it was an important step in breaking them up and moving Edge into serious singles competition, even if the benefits were staggered a bit....... I wish they'd bring KOTR back, they have a TON of young talent who could really benefit from being put over in that format and getting to brag about being "The King" for a whole year (see: Owen Hart, the guy's "King of Harts" gimmick was classic, classic heel work).

I thought all of 96 was great, even before the nWo. You had the Horsemen feuding with the Dungeon of Doom (which was great before it got totally convoluted near the end) which of course spawned Pillman's Loose Cannon gimmick and the excellent Benoit-Sullivan feud. GREAT cruiser division featuring Mysterio, Ultimo, Psychosis, Malenko, Eddie, all the great Luchadores etc. The Giant getting his first World Title push, Sting in his "dark" phase between the platinum blonde babyface and The Crow, Savage on top of his game and an AWESOME Savage-Flair feud, DDP making his way to being a serious competitor and getting his first real push, Hall and Nash showing up to kick start the nWo, Luger's world title win on Nitro, Raven and Richards sitting in the audience. Lot's of cool stuff in 96 that gets looked over due to the overwhelming presence of the nWo in the second half of the year. 97 was great as well, after that they kind of lost direction in the upper card other than Goldberg's push despite the undercard continuing to be excellent (Jericho in the cruiser division especially), and by 99 the whole company was falling apart.