JHawk

I say just let someone in the midcard get the Rumble win and see if they can carry a WrestleMania main event. If you can't get elevated with the WrestleMania main event push, then you're worthless and weak and we don't want you. Smart booking, and it could work.

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, although I might have just missed it, but didn't The Steiner Brothers and Harlem Heat do a double switch of the WCW World Tag Team Title in 1996?

Angle-Benoit, hands down. 1992 Bushwhacker Luke plays to the crowd, enters the ring, is immediately tossed over the top rope, then struts back to the locker room. Hogan-Warrior 1990. Schiavone sold it like a major deal. The Rockers vs. The Orient Express from 1991. (loosely paraphrased) "The Rock only fears two people: Headbanger Mosh and Crash Holly. And if The Rock can get past them, maybe he can win the Royal Rumble." Mae Young exposing herself at the 2000 Royal Rumble. Luckily, I won a bootleg copy on ebay where that portion of the Miss Rumble competition was edited out of the tape.

I'm under the impression that nik is basically covering Raw when the mood fits him and it's probably not a permanent thing. Raw is still officially me one month and PK the next with the other doing SmackDown. Personally, I'd like to see nik become the PPV guy since we're in more urgent need of one of those.

Which is why words like "supposedly" work great when trying to recite what happened. Either way, we've established there was some sort of altercation between Vader and Orndorff and, not coincidentally, the one that Hogan didn't like got fired not too long afterward.

I forget the specifics, but he got into a backstage altercation with Paul Orndorff over something and supposedly lost, then got fired almost immediately despite thinking things had been patched up. And to whoever mentioned Jack Boot: It was a character played by Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker almost exclusively on Saturday Night and Worldwide. Yes, they found a worse character than Buddy Lee Parker for him.

After Christopher Nowinski not so subtly said he was going to take Molly Holly's virginity by busting through her hymen: Lawler: "What's a hymen, JR?" JR: "Oh, you of all people don't know what a hymen is, King!" Lawler: "Isn't that the move they use to stop someone from choking?" A few minutes later, after Nowinski is crotched on the turnbuckle: Lawler: "Right on his hymen!" JR: "You're getting closer, King."

OK then. Um...the booking's good. Happy?

Combining everything into General Wrestling was not my decision. Hell, it actually gives me more stuff that I have to read. If I wanted more power, I'd add the indy folder into it too.

Like this? I lurk in here from time to time.

January 4, 1999. On Raw: Mick Foley wins his first World Title. On Nitro: The Finger Poke of Doom begins WCW's downward spiral.

I don't remember if anybody's mentioned this one or not: Jim Cornette: "Paul E., I understand that you spent $500 having your family tree researched and found out you were the sap."

Every tape I've ever seen of Starr had him in trunks, although he did wear ballet slippers or something.

Lenny Lane beats Rey Mysterio at Thunder in Lubbock, Texas, on the 19th, and then suddenly, the announcers explain that before the October 4th Nitro, Psychosis won the title from Lenny Lane. But that match never happened. The story is that Lane's gay gimmick with Lodi was catching WCW some heat, so they stripped him of the title, buried Lane and said that Psychosis beat him. Of course, the same booking team that came up with the gay gimmick for Lane and Lodi stripped Lenny of his title. I remember listening to WCW Live on wcw.com that night, and Mark Madden and Bob Ryder kayfabed it by saying "Two days ago in Rio de Janiero, Psicosis defeated Lenny Lane to win the WCW Cruiserweight Title." If only they'd done something similar on Nitro, if only to see how many people would have gotten the joke.

For the whole package, Benoit's DVD. Great main feature with some pretty solid matches. For the main feature, ECW. Three hours that went by like it was three minutes, and all completely compelling. For the matches, Flair's, bar none. Bloodbath gets disqualified for chopping the Bruno-Zbyszko match all to hell and then not including the complete match as an extra. The most famous cage match ever and it gets glossed over?

A very hard call, but since my ultimate goal would be to have the ultimate World Title tournament, I'd probably go with something like this (assuming everybody was in their prime). 1. Lou Thesz 2. Harley Race 3. Ric Flair 4. Jack Brisco 5. Bruno Sammartino 6. Pedro Morales 7. Stan Hansen 8. Hulk Hogan 9. Andre the Giant 10. Antonio Inoki 11. Tatsumi Fujinami 12. Bob Backlund 13. Ricky Steamboat 14. The Iron Sheik 15. Barry Windham 16. Randy Savage 17. Bret Hart 18. Dory Funk Jr. 19. Terry Funk 20. Nick Bockwinkel

I think that was kayfabed. At that point in his life, I don't think Andre could take a bump out of the ring and that was the reason why he was pulled. Andre had wrestled in Japan in December 1990, which I think was his last match ever. I have no idea if he was actually injured in that match or not though.

And Hart/Flair from late 1992, but I'm not sure that ever featured on TV. The only thing that ever made free TV was Hart's celebration as Howard Finkel announced the title change. I remember being super pissed about it too, as I was practically begging for it to get the Flair-Savage treatment on Prime Time.

What was the date of Ricky Steamboat's WWF debut? Because that first clipping is from less than six weeks shy of WrestleMania I.

Lou Thesz

The worst rating possible and it's overrated?

I always saw it like this: 1. Elizabeth is hurt, and Savage has also taken a bad tumble and is also hurt. 2. Elizabeth, not being a wrestler and therefore not used to heing hurt in this manner, needed immediate assistance to the back. 3. Hogan picks up Elizabeth and tries to carry her to the back when he hasn't seen help arrive. This is where Savage sees Hogan carrying Elizabeth to the back and, at this point, he may or may not realize how hurt Elizabeth is. 4. EMTs finally reach ringside, and Hogan helps put Elizabeth onto the gurney. If Hogan heads back to the ring here and Savage goes ballistic, no problem. BUT! 5. Hogan has to make absolutely sure that Elizabeth is taken back to the medical room and pushes the stretcher back there. If Hogan comes straight back to the ring here, we can maybe see him as the face in the entire situation. BUT! 6. Hogan insists on staying in the first aid room for over five minutes to make absolutely sure Elizabeth wakes up and doesn't leave her side. 7. Hogan finally returns to the ring after Liz asks where Randy is, and Hogan gets this "Oh shit" look on his face. Simply put, while Hogan did the right thing by making sure Elizabeth was given medical attention, he should have gotten back to the ring much sooner than he did. And all Savage has to go by before he gets to the first aid room is "That son of a bitch has the woman I love in his arms." Final verdict: Savage might have overreacted, but if Hogan would have remembered he had a job to do, maybe it doesn't happen in the first place. I've been looking for an excuse to analyze this situation like this for a long time.

It was a fantasy booking column.

Can't remember the show, but here's some vintage Jerry Lawler: "I'm an animal lover, JR. I like puppies. I like chicks. I love beavers."

If that's the case, Mean Gene simply announced that Mr. Fuji had sold The Warlord's contract to Slick and The Barbarian's contract to Bobby Heenan.