Professional wrestling thread

This might only be semi-related, but I write a weekly mixed martial arts column and about half my reader email seems to say something like "I used to love wrestling but now I watch UFC instead." That tells me WWE needs to adapt its product to changing times. Matt Hughes and BJ Penn had a UFC welterweight title match last month that blew away anything McMahon could possibly script, intensity-wise. Hughes is 5-9, Penn is 166 pounds without cutting weight, and they're probably going to do twice the buy rate of a WWE pay-per-view. Yet McMahon keeps pushing all these 280-pound clones that all look and sound alike on the public even as interest in his product continues to decline.

 

Well put. When I started watching TNA, I was bored as hell by Jarrett and the old WCW guys. They were the same old thing. Then they started to push Styles, Daniels, Samoa Joe and the X-division a little and it was fun to watch. Those guys put on some great matches and kind of set TNA apart. Lately, it seems like it's been focusing too much on Jarrett and Sting (a guy I couldn't care less about and a familiar face who's way past his prime). But with Jarrett maybe stepping aside, they could be heading in the right direction.

 

On the subject of old-school wrestling, do any northeasterners remember the shows at Madison Square Garden and the Spectrum back in the 80s? They'd show them on the MSG network and a Philly-area cable channel called Prism. It was so cool to come home some summer night around 9 p.m. and see the televised MSG house show in full swing. And then a little disillusioning to watch Prism a week later and see the same matches, same endings, etc.

And as an aside, Ted Dibiase lives in a town about 30 minutes up the road from me. Haven't met him, but his kids played soccer for a high school team that plays our local teams quite a bit. From the looks of it, they learned a few moves from the old man. They're good players, but pretty rough out there.

 

MSG Network this summer had two-hour blocks each week on Wed. or Thu. of old cards from the Garden. It was called MSG Classics or something, and it was AWESOME. One hour would be older cards, from the late 70s or early 80s, and then the next would be late 80s or early 90s. They showed Superfly leaping off the top of the cage onto Magnificent Muraco, The Iron Sheik beating Bob Backlund for the title, Hogan then beating Sheik for the title, and so on.

Great two hours of television.

 

Does Virgil go to the games? Has DiBiase offered to buy his kids' team the league title yet?

 

Virgil is the team mother.


On another note, I was wondering what everyone's favorite match is. I'd like to seperate them into two categories: 1) Match you saw live ... 2) Match you saw on TV. These don't necessarily have to be five-star classics. Just matches that for whatever reason will always be stuck in your memory. Here's mine:

1) Match I saw live -- I'd have to go with Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 21. This match basically capped off an awesome weekend of wrestling for me. I had attended an independent show two days earlier and saw an epic battle between Samoa Joe and A.J. Styles that was off the charts. But watching Angle and Michaels, two legends, put on a clinic at the biggest show of the year. There was a lot of hype and a lot of anticipation for that match and it didn't fall short at all.

2) Match I watched on TV -- I've watched thousands and thousands of matches (I've been a fan of the business since 1984) and have seen so many great matches. It's hard to pick any match over Snuka vs. Muraco in a steel cage at Madison Square Garden (the Superfly leap off the top of the steel cage) or the Mick Foley vs. Undertaker Hell In The Cell match where I saw just how much Foley loved the business and how far he was willing to go to please the fans. But one lesser-known match always stands out. Sgt. Slaughter vs. The Iron Sheik in a Boot Camp Match at Madison Square Garden. Their feud drew so much heat from the fans, I swear, MSG was rockin. The match was a brutal end to their feud. No feud in WWE or TNA comes within a thousand miles of this feud. I recently found a copy of this match online and bought it. Though the quality of the tape isn't very good, the intensity of the match still shines through and the match still holds up well to this day. If anyone out there has a chance to see this match, I highly recommend it.

 

Hmmm, best match I ever saw live was probably Hogan vs. the Warrior at WM6 in Toronto. Two guys who were generally awful in the ring produced a pretty entertaining match.

Seen loads on TV but Savage - Steamboat from WM3 stands out as does the Foley - Undertaker Boiler Room match from a SummerSlam some years back. Oh yeah, and pretty much anything on the old ECdub.

 

1) A six man tag with guys from a Japanese promotion called Dragon Gate at an ROH show in Chicago March 31 of this year

2) Flair-Steamboat from Wrestle War 89

 

Two amazing matches. I haven't had a chance to see the full 6-man Dragon Gate match that you're talking about but I've seen some highlights and it was stunning to watch. I'm currently a few months behind that show in my ROH DVD collection but I can't wait to get there.
Flair-Steamboat? Yeah ... their series in 1989 was a clinic. Their 55-minute, 2 out of 3 Falls classic on Clash of the Champions and the match you mentioned are probably two Top 10 matches of all time.

 

Live match -- I've only seen RAW shows, one PWG (indy in Los Angeles) and some AWA cards in Denver so I can't think of my absolute favorite. I guess it would have to be AJ Styles vs. Christopher Daniels in a 60-minute draw in PWG (Pro Wrestling Guerrilla).

TV match -- RAW shows these days never deliver a bonafide great match and TNA has tried, but there's usually too much interference. I'd likely have to go with a PPV match and that would be either Austin vs. Bret Hart in their classic Wrestlemania match or Savage-Steamboat from WM3.

 

Flair vs. Steamboat ... the greatest pro wrestling rivalry ever. Anyone who disagrees is just Dead. To. Me. From Ricky's article in Wikipedia ...

 

I was a Mid-Atlantic Man:

The Briscos turning heel, breaking Private Nelson's leg and double-bodyslamming Jim Valiant on the floor; stealing Jay Youngblood's headdress, only to have Valiant steal it back; breaking Youngblood's ribs when he held Jerry in the Indian deathlock, only to have Jack jump on him from the top rope; Roddy Piper turning face by attacking Sargeant Slaughter after the latter broke into Steamboat/Youngblood's dressing room, stole a kid's portrait and made fun of it on-air; Piper "losing his ear" to Greg Valentine; Piper saying he wanted to meet Valentine's girlfriend, but couldn't "find anyone around with horns and antlers;" Kabuki's green fog; the Assassins cutting off Jimmy Valiant's beard; the headbutt contest between Assassin #1 and Rufus R. Jones; "Charlie Brown from Outta Town;" Dick Slater and Cowboy Bob Orton collecting Harley Race's bounty on Ric Flair; etc. etc. etc.

Then Dusty Rhodes showed up. I hated him so much even the Four Horsemen couldn't make me watch.