Have you ever put together a list of 'must-have' wrestling dvd's, classic shows that every fan should check out at least once?  It would help with my buying decisions. 
I am interested in actual shows, not so much documentaries or compilations.

 

Well the problem here, of course, is that not everything awesome has been released on DVD to this point, and in fact there are some glaring absences even from the period when WWE started releasing everything they could on DVD. 

Safest bet:  The Wrestlemania Anthology.  A wussy choice, but you get some great stuff and the truly great stuff is generally saved for here anyway 

Stuff that should be released but isn't:

- Showdown at Shea, with Cole & Foley on commentary.  They should seriously archive this in DVD format and release it, because with the comedy commentary it was one of the best shows I've ever seen on WWE 24/7 and I'd buy it in a heartbeat.  Without commentary, it's pretty worthless, though.

- Great American Bash '89.  You can still track down the tape from video stores, I think, but I'm hoping that someday 24/7 shows the full PPV version so I can get a proper copy of it.  This is the definitive NWA show from 1989 and quite probably the best PPV ever put out, featuring ***1/2 - ****1/2 matches up and down the card and some of the most emotional and brutal battles waged in wrestling.  Plus Ricky Steamboat actually carries Lex Luger to a better match than Ric Flair did, I shit you not.  A miracle show in every sense, headlined by Ric Flair v. Terry Funk in a match where the audience completely bought that Funk was so crazy he just might break Flair's neck for fun. 

- No Way Out 2001.  I bang the drum for this one a lot but I'm guessing that we've never getting the full show on DVD for Benoit-related reasons.  Anyway, you can piece together a lot of it on other releases (with Rock-Angle and HHH-Austin as the one-two punch of near-***** matches that headlined) but the shockingly great Stephanie v. Trish match is unlikely to hit DVD any time soon so it'll always be lacking. 

The other problem is that WCW died before they could embrace the DVD era, so most of their major shows are lost to history now.  So what we're left with is "Best WWE shows currently available", I guess.  Unfortunately my enthusiasm for going back and watching a good chunk of the WWE's product from 2000-2007 has been destroyed by Benoit, as I still can't go back and watch his stuff, and I fear that might be permanent since it's been more than a year and there's no signs imminent of me suddenly wanting to watch him again. 

Stuff that's already out on DVD: 

- Wrestlemania X-7.  A no-brainer, as Rock-Austin still feels fresh, TLC is violent fun, and Angle-Benoit rocks the mat.  Something for everyone, including those who love goofy gimmick matches. 

- Royal Rumble 2000, while not a transcendent show, is at least a good representative of the high quality product they were putting out in 2000 and features a ***** main event brawl between HHH and Cactus Jack and the debut of Tazz.  A very fun show.

- Vengeance 2003.  A tragically underrated and forgotten B-show, featuring the best Big Show match ever as goes against Brock and Angle in a triple threat match for the belt, plus Rey & Kidman steal the show against Haas & Benjamin in a tag match that almost needed air traffic controllers.   

- SMW Night of the Legends.  Probably hard to find, but if you're into the old school mentality of Jim Cornette and want to see Chris Jericho stain the ring red with his blood while wrestling with a broken arm, this is the show for you.  Not a great show in a traditional sense of the word, but Meltzer and Cornette on the alternate commentary track is fascinating stuff and it's hard work all around.

- ROH:  Joe v. Kobashi.  I find most of their shows pretty interchangeable to tell the truth, but this not only had a good undercard, but featured what might be one of the greatest matches I've ever seen in the main event.  When Kobashi is pounding on Joe's chest with an endless stream of chops for minutes on end, it goes beyond suspension of disbelief and into a visceral experience you rarely get in the fake world of wrestling these days.

- ECW Barely Legal.  Doubt you can even find the Pioneer release anywhere but Ebay (if even then), but even with the stripped-out music it's still the best PPV introduction to the company for those curious as to why there was such a fuss about them for so long.  I don't think the show holds up at all, to be honest, but thanks to my tape trading days I've seen it upwards of 100 times, so if you've never seen it before it's certainly worth a look. 

Hmm, a tough but fair question.

1.  Season three.  They escape the sophomore jinx and blast into pop culture history.  Ross and Rachel are happily together for most of the season until they have the biggest and ugliest breakup in recorded history but give the world the catchphrase for the 90s in the process.  You also get Going Commando, the Princess Leia Gold Bikini, psychotic Ben Stiller, the introduction of Frank Jr., and Tom Selleck actually clicking with the cast as Richard. 

2.  Season four.  Ross gets happy again with Emily (although it wouldn't last long), Chandler is in a box, the guys and girls switch apartments...there's just not a lot of weak points here.  Oh, and Chandler bangs Monica in London, baby. 

3.  Season two.  Definitely the one that has the highest highs and lowest lows, which is why it's only third.  As great as the second half of the season becomes (the Eddie storyline alone comprises my favorite story arc of the entire show), by the midway point they were clearly getting burned out by all the attention and junk like the Super Bowl show was the result.  Not to mention the maudlin death of Mr. Heckles.  However, it does have the Prom Video episode, which ranks with the funniest Friends episodes ever, and a lot of the classic moments that people remember the show for are contained here as well.

4.  Season five.  Weaker but still intriguing thanks to the hidden romance of Monica and Chandler carrying the show and keeping it interesting for newer viewers.  Emily becomes a crazed harpie and Ross changes personalities as a result, but The One Where Everybody Finds Out is such a piece of work that it brings up the rest of the season as a result. 

5.  Season one.  Where it all begins, obviously.  They take a little while to really find their way (and their hairstyles) but the slow build of Ross and Rachel and classic bits like Joey accidentally becoming a herpes model and Rachel's uber-hotness peak at the end of the season provide enough highlights to still watch these in syndication. 

6.  Season six.  Beaten to death in syndication, we've still got The One Where Ross Gets High ("It tastes like feet!") which sets the bar for Thanksgiving episodes pretty high, the alternate universe episode that people either love or hate, and Bruce Willis in a role that again people either love or hate.  But everyone hated his daughter.  And no cliffhanger, as Monica and Chandler live happily ever after.

7.  Season eight.  This was supposed to the final year for the show, and it ended up being the one that finally won the Emmy, but it got extended for another two years thanks to 9/11 and the ratings resurgence that came with people looking for entertainment to brighten up their lives again.  Rachel's pregnancy and strange almost-romance with Joey dominate here, and Brad Pitt has a really good moment as the leader of the I Hate Rachel Club. 

8.  Season seven.   This would be the jumping the shark season for the show, with super-sized episodes and stunt-casting as the producers panic in the face of Survivor killing them in the ratings.  Still some funny stuff, like the Holiday Armadillo Ross & Joey napping together, but the London flashback episode kills Chandler's manhood even further and the wedding episode feels like a 30 minute show stretched into a 60-minute one. 

9.  Season ten.  It can't be the worst one because the final episode is at least fabulous and Ross being decidedly NOT fine with Rachel & Joey as a couple is a highlight.  The rest is pretty middling stuff, however, and the wedding of Phoebe & Mike is too little, too late. 

10.  Season nine.  By far the worst, as Rachel's baby gets featured or forgotten as the storyline requires, Joey dates a Nobel prize winning scientist and we're supposed to believe it, and Chandler accidentally moves to Tulsa and watches shark porn.  This should have been the end for the show (actually, season 8 should have been, if we're being honest about it) and it actually hurt the legacy of what they had built up that it was allowed to be dragged down like it was. 

Now, I love John McClane as much as the next guy. The original Die Hard trilogy formed an indelible part of my movie-going experience in my teen years, like Back to the Future or the Star Trek movies. And heck, I even really enjoyed Live Free or Die Hard, which I picked up for $10 from Future Shop and felt I had underpaid after seeing it, because it's a tremendously entertaining movie (at least the unrated version is) that strives to go over the top in the quest to make stuff blow up bigger and better in each scene. I can respect that. However, as a human being with a functioning brain, there are some trends in movies (and specifically in the Die Hard movies) that bug the hell out of me and they all seemed to come together in that one two-hour package, inducing groans instead of wows. So although I don't long for a hyper-realistic experience in the cinema, here's eight examples of stuff that happened to John McLane (and other action heroes) that could not possibly occur in real life and that offend me as a former math major.

8. John McClane outraces a fireball. Twice.

Here's the thing about fire: It moves FAST. And yeah, it's hardly fair to pick on Die Hard for this because every action has a scene where the hero leaps into the air to escape an explosion, but god I'm getting sick of seeing it when really the hero would be fried to a crisp long before he had time to calmly whip out his shades and walk away with only some soot on his shoulder. John gets away with this twice -- once in the first movie when he dives away from an elevator shaft full of explosives, and then in the fourth movie when he slides down a concrete embankment to escape certain fiery death. The problem, of course, is that the human body can't move fast enough to escape the shock wave caused by an explosion of the magnitudes seen in the movies. Sure, you might THINK that getting away from the visible fire will save you, but in fact the concussive force of the blast would probably liquefy your skull long before you had a chance to pull out your sunglasses and pose. The science?

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/people/home/idris/Movie_Reviews/Reality_of_Running_Away.html

7. John McClane shoots himself in the shoulder and kills a bad guy standing behind him.

I'd have to count this one under a more general category of "Unrealistic depictions of gunshot wounds in movies" because again, it's not unique to the franchise here. That being said, this particular scene is so ludicrous that I couldn't even suspend disbelief long enough to count it as a good death scene. First of all, it defies the internal logic of Hollywood in the first place. How many action movies have we seen where the hero uses someone as a human shield, absorbing bullets so he won't get hit? But let's take it on faith that the bullet can now pass through and hit someone standing behind you. Assuming McClane was firing a good-sized weapon at close range to his shoulder, it wouldn't have produced a neat little hole in the front and passed a bullet to the back, it would have blown his whole damn arm off at the shoulder and probably set his shirt on fire, too. Never mind that the momentum of the bullet would have been absorbed by the impact of shattering his shoulderblade into powder and wouldn't have allowed it to pass straight through like it did. No, my biggest problem is that no one who gets shot in the movies ever reacts to it realistically. Hell, the obnoxious Mac kid gets KNEECAPPED, the most painful gunshot wound you can get, and he just stands right back up again. Guess what? You get shot in the leg, you're not walking again for a good long time.

6. John McClane jumps out of a moving car, rolls with it, and lives to tell about it.

Oh man, I hate this one so much. Everyone always forgets about the laws of physics when they're crafting an exciting escape, and a big law is that if you're sitting in a car moving at 50 MPH, then you also are moving at 50 MPH relative to the road. And if you then leap out of that car, you don't magically grow a parachute out of your ass and slow down, you're still moving at 50 MPH. You'd be lucky to survive without breaking every bone in your body, and if you're REALLY lucky you won't hit your head on the concrete 500 times and shatter your skull. Movie stuntmen can do it because the car is driving much slower, and they leap out wearing protective gear and land in a sandpit.

5. John McClane (before jumping out of that moving car) aims it at a concrete barrier and causes it to jump into the air and ram into a helicopter, destroying both vehicles.

OK, this one was pretty cool.

4. John McClane lights a trail of gasoline coming out of a plane, thus blowing it up in mid-air.

So much wrong with this one. It seems like a reasonable thing if you (like most of us) don't know anything about airplane fuel and have never tried it. However, again physics steps in and tells us that a plane is taking off much, MUCH faster than gasoline burns, so even if the plane was somehow magically leaving an unbroken trail of liquid hundreds of feet in the air, it would be able to outrace the burning gasoline with ease. However, it's entirely a moot point, because lighting that stream of fuel with a standard lighter is impossible. Jet fuel has to be ignited in aerosol form in order to actually produce a burn. Perhaps if John was packing a jet engine to light his cigarettes, he'd have a shot. Although even then, he was lighting it on snow, which would leave it too cold to be ignited anyway.

Still, an awesome bit of Hollywood science theory.

3. John McClane shoots a fire extinguisher to blow it up, propelling a terrorist out of the window due to the force of the explosion.

Again, Isaac Newton to the rescue. This one offends me on two levels. First up, the idea that shooting any sort of pressurized container will cause it to rupture with explosive results, something shown both in Live Free or Die Hard and in the last Bond movie as well. Yeah, it might shoot off some shrapnel and you'll go "Ow, that really hurts!" or lose an eye, but a FIRE EXTINGUISHER having enough force packed in it to propel a human being out the window? If that was the case, just using the thing would cause it to explode and kill everyone in the room. Not exactly the kind of dangerous weapon you'd want hanging on your wall in an emergency. And really, the Mythbusters have shot the shit out of enough pressurized airtanks to show that even something far more lethal than a fire extinguisher isn't going explosively rupture when fired on. But let's pretend for a second that it WOULD explode upon impact of a single bullet. The laws of physics again step in and note that in order to hurl a 200 pound bad guy out of a window, the object exploding has to also experience enough force to get hurled backwards from the blast. Clearly that didn't happen, so again the worst that would happen is fatal injury from shrapnel. Certainly dangerous, but not as dramatic a payoff.

2. John McClane jumps 100 feet off a bridge and lands on a moving boat, gets up unharmed.

You know why people jump off bridges to commit suicide? It's not because they drown, it's because from that kind of height as soon as your body hits any kind of impact you're instantly knocked out. Not to mention that the velocity achieved would shatter all the bones in your legs. In fact, falling from over 100 feet onto a hard surface is generally considered one of the most foolproof ways to kill yourself, although there's always people stupid enough to survive even that. So unless he had a bungee cord and landed in a big pile of mattresses or a crash pad, John's not walking away from that death-defying leap in real life.

1. John McClane jumps off the top of a building, tethered to a firehose, and survives a drop several stories down.

This one kind of ties into the last one, with the problems of terminal velocity and such, but adding the complication of running away from a fireball. Plus using a firehose as a bungee cord. If you want the REALLY dry science behind it, check this out:

http://www.open2.net/healtheducation/body_mind/diehard.html

The short version is that no, using a firehose as a bungee cord will not save your life, and in fact will probably result in you being sliced in half because it's not elastic enough to give way when stretched. So if he didn't get fried by the fireball, and he didn't get killed by the concussive blast, and he didn't break his neck from the freefall and sudden stop…well, he'd get cut in half by the hose anyway.

Die hard, indeed.

Scott,

Thanks for posting my email on TDK - have another ranking question for the blog: Where does The Dark Knight matchup as far as great movie sequels?  This could be more of a list question so I might be wording this wrong.  If I were to make a list of Great Franchise Sequels, I'd list them as follows in no particular -

01.) Empire Strikes Back - Star Wars Franchise

02.) Aliens - Alien Franchise

03.) Lethal Weapon 2

04.) Terminator 2

05.) The Matrix Reloaded - Matrix Franchise

06.) Spiderman 2

07.) The Two Towers - Lord of the Rings Franchise

08.) X2: XMen United

09.) The Dark Knight - Batman Franchise

10.) The Godfather II

My Top 4 would be listed as follows -

1.) Empire Strikes Back - the epitome of what a sequel should be: bigger, badder, bolder.  You can tell just by how Darth Vader's helmet glistens in ESB that Lucas said "Ok, this is what I REALLY want to do..." We were given more story and this film was carried on the back of Harrison Ford.  Also, Darth Vader really underscored why he was one of Hollywood's greatest villains.  IMO, this is arguably the standard bearer that all sequels should be compared to...

2.) The Dark Knight - A fantastic crime drama.  Everybody in this film hit a home run w/ their performances and I really wonder if Nolan will EVER be able to make a film better than this. The best Batman movie and the best comic book adaptation brought to cinema. *My biggest question for this email is how do you think it matches up against ESB?*

3.) Spiderman 2 - this film is what really underscored why Spidey fans love Peter Parker's world so much: the everyday problems that we all go through and how having another responsibility can complicate life so much.

4.) The Matrix Reloaded - IMO, the best scifi action film EVER made.  This movie gave me everything I wanted.  W/ ESB as a template, they expanded more on the backstory of the war between humans and machines ; we saw ZION upclose and personified; and we saw some of the best fight and chase scenes that every other action/ scifi film has tried to copy in some variation; and we got a great cliffhanger ending.  A true trendsetter for the early 2000's and beyond...

That's my list, what's yours...

Oh man, you're so gonna get roasted by the blog for some of that.  Godfather Part II won the freakin' OSCAR and you'd put Matrix Rebloated over it?

Speaking of the Dark Knight, rather ironic that it's going to pass Star Wars on the all-time list the same weekend that Lucas beats at that dead house one more time with The Clone Wars. 

Anyway, Godfather Part II is one of the greatest movies, of any genre, ever made and is easily my #1 pick for sequels as well.  Dark Knight is all kinds of awesome, but Empire Strikes Back is still above it at #2 because there's a reason why people say "such and such is the Empire Strikes Back of the trilogy".  Then I'd put Dark Knight.  And why is there never any love for James Bond?  From Russia With Love completely defined the Bond franchise and added all the elements that came to be associated with the character from then on. 

Hey Scott--

I know you're probably sick of these kinds of emails, but one of the reasons we read your blog is to get your thoughts on crap like this.

What are some wrestling rivalries you always wanted to see, but never materialized? My mind always goes back to what could have been with Hulk Hogan and Rick Rude circa 1989. Are there any "mark out matches" you never got to see due to politics, real-life animosity, ect.?

Rude v. Hogan did happen a few times on the house show circuit and it wasn't anything special.  It's not a really good dynamic anyway -- Hogan's schtick works best against heels who are bigger than him so that he can make the big comeback.  Rude's deal was never the bullying heel, it was the smarmy jerk who you wanted to see get killed. 

I really, really, really should do the Book of Lists for y'all.  Maybe self-publish or something.

Anyway, here's a few off the top of my head...

- Sting v. Ultimate Warrior.  They just never crossed paths, which is a shame because it had all the backstory, star power, and facepaint you would have needed to headline a Wrestlemania. 

- Rick Rude v. Randy Savage.  They used to tear the house down in Memphis (or so I've heard second hand) and it would have been a perfect personality clash in the WWF, but Rude wasn't at the level where he could be taken seriously as a World title challenger in 1988, and by 1992 he was gone. 

- Steve Austin v. Hulk Hogan, 2002.  This one should have happened and was on the fast track but got completely derailed by Hogan's face turn and a truckload of politics.  But man, if you thought the heat for Rock v. Hogan was off the charts, just imagine Hogan hulking up after the stunner.  This one had backstory up the wazoo (they could have played the Steve-a-mania video from ECW!) and the promos would have been legendary.  Oh well.

-

First actual question!  At least I think there's a question in it.  And it feels purple to me for some reason. 

Do you really think this million dollar contest is really going to bring back old fans? I personally doubt it, and I dont really want WWE fans to come back just for greed. They will leave as soon as the contest is over, and then it will be back to low numbers.

I recently did a blog on the WWE Fan Nation about the reason why the fans left after the 1990's. There are an awful lot of reasons, but I focused on one in particular, the change of the name of the company from The World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment. Changing the name was not their choice, but they sort of tried to save face by acting like it was with the Get the F out campaign. I think that was horrible mistake, I mean they pretty much were saying it's time to get rid of the history of the company. To the fans, to the people who have been watching since the 80s and before that, its not just the history of the company, its a history of our lives. We all remember where we were when Chris Benoit and Eddie Guerrero embraced in the ring, even though it's really painful now. Sure all of the deaths have ruined alot of the memories, but not always. What ruined our memories was the fact that the WWE.com website said something like "Watch this video of Wrestlemania VII where Hulk Hogan won the WWE title against Sgt. Slaughter." That really pissed me off, and its been a hard time for me to accept WWE. For years I would only refer to it as the WWF, in hopes that somehow the Wildlife fund would change their greedy minds.
I think WWE really need to mount a legal battle to get the name back, but I also have a question. Why does WWE programming from the past always have World Wrestling Federation unedited, but is almost always referred to as WW-, or sometimes disgustingly as WWE. This is a bigger problem to me then the lack of theme songs, I have all the ones that I need. If they can use the words World Wrestling Federation, why don't they use that now? They could refer to the company initials as WWE, but keep the powerful name World Wrestling Federation. I think the changing name was the number one reason that the WWF's bubble bust at around same time it did the same for the first generation of dot com businesses. Though I think it was poetic that Hulk Hogan was the last offical World Wrestling Federation Champion love him or hate him, I don't think anybody can deny that he deserved it.
I always wanted to know why the trial was in England, and what you think is the reason the fans left the company

In fact the ratings are in and they lost viewers for this week's show, if I'm not mistaken, so scratch another stupid desperation plan.  I'm kind of amused by Vince getting Rickrolled (a reader actually sent me that link and asked "Was this deliberate and is Brian Gewirtz that big of a dork in the first place?" and my answer was "No, but yes") but it would be just like the WWE to get zinged by an internet meme that's already considered passe by the online culture. 

Anyway, the main crux of the letter here is that one of the main reasons for the departure of much of their fanbase from the 90s is the change from WWF to WWE, and I have to vehemently disagree.  Considering how little most wrestling fans care about history and how quickly the transition from WWF to WWE occurred with a minimum of fan protest, I'd say the change was more of a hilarious capper to their downfall from the glory years, rather than the direct cause of anything in itself.  There's really a more simple explanation for the loss of fanbase:  They were marketing to fickle college students, who then grew up and found something else to watch instead.  Wrestling traditionally has a seven-year turnover rate and as long as you can weather the storm in the lean years, fans will probably get on a nostalgia kick and come back.  Or, you can do like they're trying now and market to children with guys like John Cena and the Hardy Boyz, thus hooking them young enough to form good memories of our so-called sport in their minds and making them bitter and cynical fans later on, like myself.  Given that they already whined about spending millions on rebranding from WWF to WWE as it is, spending more millions to buy the name back would be pretty idiotic and irresponsible to the shareholders to boot. 

But just to come back to the original point again, it's silly to say that fans left the company, because they're making more money now than they ever have, even at the peak of the company in 2000.   Ratings suck and domestic interest is down, sure, but they can spend the next two years as a purely international touring company and still make enough money to buy and sell the rest of the wrestling world 100 times over, even if they never aired another episode of RAW again.  So to clarify, the problem is not gaining old viewers back, it's figuring out how to squeeze a new international audience for the same amount of money that the old audience was giving up.  Vince is panicking about the ratings for reasons entirely separate from lost fanbases -- he's worried about lost ad revenues, which is a far bigger problem.  North American sponsors can't easily shill to, say German fans, which is why winning back the apathetic American audience seems so much important than it really is.

Finally, the WWF trial took place in England because that's where the original contract between the WWF and the Fund was breached.  By the WWF I might add.  A contract that Vince himself offered to the Fund, and without which there probably would have been no legal basis for the Fund to sue in the first place, ironically enough.  Basically Vince gave them a legal document saying that he could legally use the WWF initials in the US only so long as he never altered the logo or toured internationally as "The WWF" (because the Fund was considered more well known by that name abroad, but it was decided that US audiences knew the wrestling promotion better by that name, I suppose).  Starting in 1998, Vince proceeded to violate both portions of the agreement quite blatantly, and thus got sued over it.  And lost, badly.  I mean, really, even by Jerry McDevitt's low standards they really got boned by the Fund but good. 

And now, a list.  Yay.  Feels gold to me. 

Since you seem to love lists so much..
What incident(or incidents if you prefer) in wrestling do you think have
been blown out of all proportion? Where people make out is was a majorly
significant event, when it wasn't? Some of mine would be...
1)Pillman's Got a Gun: RAW never really got "Attitude" until a year later,
and this actually made USA come down on "risque" stuff.
2)DX "invades" WCW in a tank: Sure, it was a cool visual, but so what?
3)Chris Jericho "unifies" the WWF/E and WCW/World Titles: Nobody cared
about the Big Gold Belt at this point, and they were split/brand extended
again anyway
4)Daniel Puder "shoots" on Kurt Angle: People STILL talk about this crap.
Why? Some idiot tried to get himself over by "shooting" on Angle, and
where's Puder today?
5)The Fingerpoke of Doom: WCW's REAl stupidity came later that year, and
made the Fingerpoke look like Shakespeare by comparison...

The Puder one I actually do get, because it was pretty symbolic of the growing dominance of MMA and how clueless the WWE was (and still is) about what they were facing with it.  That Puder didn't amount to anything is beside the point.  

I actually don't think anyone was making that big of a deal out of the Jericho thing at the time, either.  The "WCW" belt was considered a lame duck title anyway long before he unified them. 

Definitely agree about DX's invasion of WCW.  Sean Waltman joining the group was a much bigger moment. 

I think for me the ones that bug the most are the cool bump visuals that are endlessly replayed for weeks and then forgotten the next month.  I mean, yeah, Jeff Hardy coming off a cage onto a guy is great for a bit, or Big Show chokeslamming Undertaker through a ring or taking a superplex and breaking the ring is neat in the short-term, but a few people still talk about those moments like they were somehow defining moments for the promotion, when really Foley's dive off the cell already set the bar higher than anyone could follow.  A minor gripe, sure, but it's my column.  Interesting idea for discussion, though.

And we're out...

On with the mail!

Question #1!

 

Hey Scott,
Love the blog. I have a couple of questions for you.
Firstly, do you know what happened to your old buddy Rick Scaia and his onlineonslaught website?
Secondly a couple of weeks ago you were asked what your though the best year to be a professional wrestling fan was. My question is what do you think the worst years have been? I'd say 2002 and 2007 but you have followed the buisness for longer then I have and I'd be interested in your opinion.

No clue what happened to Rick and OO.com.  The domain expired a couple of months ago and he kind of disappeared. 

As for worst years, I could have sworn we covered this topic in one of those endless list threads a while back, but without a doubt 1993 was the year that nearly drove me away from wrestling entirely.  The WWF was in the toilet and headlined by Yokozuna v. Tatanka as the big feud while Bret Hart feuded with Jerry Lawler, and of course we don't even need to go over all the things wrong with WCW.  Thank god that SMW and other major indies at least developed talent to replace all the stiffs in the Big Two.  It's hard to make blanket judgments about years past 2001 now because really it's just one promotion being judged against itself, although 2002 was pretty putrid with the Kane unmasking and Sheriff Austin and a general downswing for the WWE. 

Question #2!

Hey Scott,

Hope you're doing well. I have a question for you that I'm reminded of every time someone mentions that HHH and Taker bury people. Now, I'm a HUGE Rock fan, to the point that he's in my top three favourite wrestlers with Bret and Foley, but I tend to think that Rock had a way of burying people as well with his awesome promos. I look at how Rock had a tendency to make fun of wrestlers in his promos like Big Show (that awesome groaning promo about the chokeslam), Booker T, Billy Gunn, Kane, Shamrock and Rikishi, which completely took away their heat and made them laughingstocks (some of them deserved it, of course).

That being said, I agree that Rock has also given back as he was the first top guy to put up and comers like Angle and Jericho over but I still think that sometimes his promos were just so good, they buried whoever they were targeting.

What do you think? And keep up the good work

I think that if someone's promos are so good that they're making others look bad, then it's on the shoulders of the targets to improve their promos and keep up, not for Rock to dumb it down so that the other sports entertainment superstars don't look like chumps.  And lemme tell ya, sure Rock made some guys look dumb, but those that COULD hang with Rock were given the rub big-time.  Look at Mick Foley, who verbally slugged it out with Rock night after night, and Rock was always happy to make himself look stupid in return to put Mick over.  And even after he verbally buried guys like Kane and Big Show, Rock would go out and get chokeslammed through the ring (figuratively speaking) in order to make them seem like monsters.  But really, if someone's so awesome that it's becoming a problem, you do whatever you need to build around THEM, not the guys getting buried.  You can always find another 100 Billy Gunns on the indie circuit who work cheaper, but there's only one Rock or Steve Austin.

Question #3!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Wrestling_Entertainment_alumni

I think this has great potential, but have already noticed a few inaccuracies (typical Wikipedia). I’m sure you have some longtime fans on your blog who can post more accurate info, and in turn spread the word about this page to others who can make it more accurate and…..well, I like accurate wrestling info.

So if you plug this and this page makes the rounds, it would make a handy resource with the proper updates from the IRC crowd.

And if it sweetens the pot, I own your last three books. Really.

How DARE you disparage Wikipedia.  Of course, I'm still a bit bitter about having my entry deleted, but I'll get it over it.

Obsessedwithwrestling.com is another good site for info like that.  I particularly like it for looking up masked wrestlers' identities.

Question #4!

Hey Scott,
Love the blog; book cover looks top notch as well. As you know, the
subject of your book this time around is much more specific than those
before. Was just wondering if and to what extent you've had contact with
members of the extended Hart family for this work? Or is that not the
direction you're trying to go with it? I figure any insights could add a
lot of great context and perspective, for the "Family Curse" side if not
the "Benoit" side. For what it's worth.

The Harts are pretty tough to get in touch with.  I've heard Bruce doesn't like me or something, too.  It wasn't really the direction I was going with it anyway -- it's more along the lines of Dave Meltzer's Tributes books as far as the tone goes, plus I talk about Bruce's booking style and how it was both crazy for the times and yet years ahead of its time. 

For reference, this is the table of contents:

Introduction. 5

The Life of Chris Benoit 8

The Death of Chris Benoit 24

Stu Hart and Stampede Wrestling. 37

The British Bulldogs. 45

Brian Pillman. 68

Bret Hart 83

Owen Hart 107

The Von Erichs. 122

Death and Wrestling. 133

Chris Adams. 133

Brian Adams. 134

Mike Awesome. 135

Yokozuna. 136

Bam Bam Bigelow.. 139

Biff Wellington. 140

Chris Candido. 141

Bobby Duncum Jr. 142

Anthony "Pitbull #2" Durante. 143

The Public Enemy (Johnny Grunge & Rocco Rock) 143

Hercules Hernandez. 146

Terry "Bamm Bamm" Gordy. 146

Eddie Guerrero. 152

Russ Haas. 157

Road Warrior Hawk. 157

Curt Hennig. 167

Miss Elizabeth. 176

Crash Holly. 184

Louie Spicolli 185

Junkyard Dog. 187

Big Dick Dudley. 190

"Ravishing" Rick Rude. 190

Big Bossman. 195

Drugs and Wrestling. 207

Conclusion. 226

So really the Benoit and Hart Family stuff is more of a launching pad for me to talk about all the other deaths and tragedies in wrestling than the be-all and end-all of the book. 

Question #5!

What's the deal on Mick Foley's Autobiography, reading it, Foley seems like a generally likeable, albeit insecure guy, who really didn't have heat with anyone except Ric Flair and Ole Anderson. Anyway, are there any stories which sort of contradict his wholesome nice guy thing, or is he truly the greatest feel good story in Pro-Wrestling.

I've never heard anyone say anything but nice things about the guy, and really his work and dedication speaks for itself.  And having heat with Ole Anderson is called being normal so that's no big deal.  I would agree that he's incredibly insecure at times, though, and I think it hurts his legacy in a lot of ways.  No one ever accused Rock or Austin of having self-confidence issues, for example, and you'd never seem them putting themselves in the kind of bad positions that Foley has put himself into in the name of getting someone over. 

Question #6!

On the subject of Wrestler biographies, are there any out there that were written by the wrestler, no ghost writer, like Foley's? Obviously The Rock's, Austin's and Kurt Angle's was, but what's the verdict on HBK's Jericho's and Bret Hart's?

Jericho's was definitely ghost-written because I was desperately trying to win the race to get the job and ended up finishing second.  Bret's was done entirely by himself, taken from years of notes he took on the road, and you can definitely tell that by reading the book.  Shawn's I have no idea, but I've heard that it has pacing issues and gets overly personal at times, so I'd guess it was mainly him. 

Question #7!

This has always been a curiosity question of mine, but something I've always been curious of. People say to be a WWE writer you need to write sitcoms and such, is this true? Because when I read about "Whose in Charge" I hear Vince, Steph, HHH, and to a lesser (But welcome) extent, Shane. Just curious. Are there a good deal of non wrestlers writing wrestling story-lines?
In the same regard, recently the WWE stated they would be looking for life-long wrestling fans for wrestlers, instead of athletes first, wrestling fans second, as to avoid the Lashley, Lesnar effect. Would being a wrestling fan in touch with the internet crowd (who also has expierence writing sit-coms and a drama or two) be adventagous, or would it be something to keep under one's hat.

Pretty much the entire writing staff are non-wrestlers, in fact.  Michael Hayes was in charge of Smackdown until the whole n-word fiasco, at which point my buddy Ed Koskey was given the reins last I heard.  And RAW is of course run by Brian Gewirtz for the most part.  No matter what the final word and ideas always come from Vince and to a lesser extent HHH these days, but other than that wrestlers on the booking meetings are the exception rather than the rule. And in some ways that's a huge part of the problem. 

And being a wrestling fan is always something to keep under your hat if you want to get involved in any serious way.  The disdain that many wrestlers have for fans, especially ones who "know too much", is kind of a sad holdover from the carny mentality, but it's a fact of the business.

Question #8!

Recently, you reviewed the "Legends of Wrestling: Worst Characters." But you never gave us your opinion on the subject.
So, barring the Gobbledy Gooker and Red Rooster (because I think everyone is in agreement no one is gonna top those two for worst characters) who is the worst character in wrestling history?
Also, what is the worst match ever? Plus, what is the worst angle/storyline ever?

Worst character in history:  Depends on what you mean by "worst" I guess.  I think overall Muhammad Hassan has to rank up there as a seriously pushed character because he was offensive on so many levels, and a terrible worker to boot.  I mean you can name stupid Steve Lombardi gimmicks all day and night, because no one ever took him seriously anyway, but Hassan was a guy who was supposed to be a major player and World title contender.  They even programmed him against friggin' HULK HOGAN, for god's sake. 

Worst match ever:  Easy one.  Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff v. The Bushwackers from Heroes of Wrestling.  Close second is the main event with Jake Roberts and his phallic snake, but at least that had comedy value. 

Worst storyline ever:  Katie Vick by a landslide as far as an angle that didn't help anyone get over and insulted the intelligence of everyone watching.  For sheer stupidity, David Arquette winning the World title, but at least it produced one decent match at Slamboree 2000 and he donated his proceeds to charity. 

And finally, Question #9!

I was browsing YouTube and found an awesome clip of Sting & Lex Luger attacking Ric Flair the night after Sting's heel turn and victory over Hogan for the World title at Fall Brawl.  Here's the address:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71OtpbhMIJk
If you ask me, Sting & Luger played their roles perfectly, and I remember at the time being very interested to see where they were going with Sting as a heel, but it was aborted soon thereafter.  What did you think, and can you think of any other memorable instances where a wrestler switched sides, but quickly reverted back to being a face or heel?  Thanks.

- Shawn Michaels at the end of 1996, acting heelish and then getting cheered at Royal Rumble so strongly that they switched him back again.

- The Road Warriors are the best example, because they were turned heel in a memorable series of angles in 1988, nearly killing Sting and Dusty Rhodes to turn them into mega-heels, then slaughtering the Midnight Express to win the tag titles, doing everything short of killing puppies on live TV to draw heel heat, and STILL getting cheered by fans until they finally had to switch them back to faces.

- Chyna practically spent all of 1999 turning between face and heel, sometimes during the same show, but that hardly counts, I'd say.

I'm sure others have more examples, because it's happened quite a lot.

Hey, Scott, don't know if you remember me.  Michaelangelo, the semi-retired editor of Popcorn Junkies.  Got a question for you. Being from Dallas, I grew up on WCCW, and of course we all remember the XMas match between Kerry Von Erich and Ric Flair.  Terry Gordy slamming the cage door on Kerry's head launched the Von Erich/Freebird feud, one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history.  It got me to thinking about pivotal moments in wrestling, moments that changed the course of the industry, like Hall and Nash showing up in WCW or the Bret/SCSA double turn.  What would be your list of the 10 most pivotal moments in wrestling?  Say, from 1980 on.  Would the cage door make your list?

Well, let's wing it and see.  We'll make it simpler and limit this to storyline "moments" rather than actual industry moments like the first Wrestlemania or Nitro launching. 

1. Hulk Hogan wins WWF title from Iron Sheik, makes millions for company for years afterwards.
2. Bret Hart loses fake title to Shawn Michaels in french-speaking city, setting off improbable chain of events that destroys WCW and makes Vince into a billionaire.
3. Scott Hall shows up on Nitro making vague references to a takeover, creates multimillion dollar merchandise operation as a result.
4. Terry Gordy slams cage door on Kerry Von Erich, indirectly kills everyone in the family as a result.  And himself.  Years later, Michael Hayes calls someone a bad name and loses his job, having only been winged by the curse.
5. Sting wins WCW World title from Hulk Hogan, looks like a chump in the process, shattering his mystique and killing their one shot at a superhero character to compete with the WWF. 

What's the one match that you think gets too much praise from wrestling fans. Conversely, what's the match that doesn't get enough praise?

Most Overrated:

Well I've long felt that UT v. Mankind from KOTR 98 is grossly overrated, but that's beating a dead horse.  I think Flair v. Vader from Starrcade 93 isn't as great as people make it out to be, either.  I mean, it's a pretty great match, but people who buy into it because of the Flair retirement stip and stuff are kind of nuts.  I just could never get emotionally invested in it, but then I fucking hated WCW in 1993 so it's perhaps not a surprise.  Hogan v. Bossman cage match is also vastly overrated, especially by people who are like "OMG, HOGAN'S BEST MATCH EVER!" or shit like that.  I've never been all THAT impressed by it. 

I think, however, the winner by far is Sting v. Flair from the first Clash.  I just don't get why everyone dropped a load in their pants over it.  Sting is completely exposed as green and it's the usual good Flair broomstick match, with a shitty finish. 

First runner up is the original triple threat match from ECW with Douglas v. Funk v. Sabu.  Watching it today, it's painfully obvious how they're stretching out the time and booking little mini-matches within it and such.  Just never liked it, no sir.

Most Underrated:

At this point, I'm gonna go out on the limb and say both Austin v. Michaels matches from the 90s -- King of the Ring 97 and Wrestlemania 14.  Just fascinating stuff, and the WM main event has 10 times the drama when you know what Shawn was going through during the match.  It gives it a whole other level of meaning.  The KOTR was one of those that should have been a classic with better booking behind it and a finish, but just never got a chance. 

Let the sniping begin!