Thanks for your thoughts man, I enjoyed reading.

and why not? he main evented the first RAW after all.

I think I would be too frightened to venture into the outer reaches of my own mind.

I used the Demento name also because of nostalgia or an inside joke with my dad (who is not on this forum).

When I was a kid and wanted to wrestle with my dad he always chose to be Damien Demento's prior gimmick, Mondo Kleen. Don't ask me why, just his kind of humor. I, being a skinny white kid, went with then WCW champion Ron Simmons. We had some epic battles involving the exposed couch cushion and the steel pillows.

Great stuff, LKJ.

I always liked Perfect, but gained an even greater appreciation for him when I heard Scott Hall talk about what a mentor he was for him in his first run in the WWE. He said that Curt told him to be very humble in the locker room, and that piece of advice is what made helped him succeed.

Thank you so much for the thread. Perfect Tribute!

LKJ, excellent mate!

Great thread LKJ. Would def read again.

Have not had time to watch or read all of this.

Mr Perfect was one of my favourites growing up (along with Texas Tornado and Jake the Snake), If I watch these matches will I have fond memories of a hero or will I realise that as a young boy I knew nothing.

I still think that Mr. Perfect's matches hold up. Certainly the pair of PPV matches against Bret Hart are damn near perfect and you could still hold them up against almost anything the WWE has ever put out. I give ratings on each individual match so obviously my opinions are pretty plain to see in each case, and my "Viewer's Guide" post above gives a rough order of preference.

Also thanks for the kind words KK, I've been incubating a few more thread ideas but I haven't actually found the WIM to follow through on any yet.

Who do you have in mind?

I'm hoping for the Big Show tribute thread.

1. Very tall man goes to WCW and is mis-packaged and mis-promoted as the son of Andre the Giant.
2. Very tall man is "pushed" off the roof.
3. Very tall man leaves WCW for WWF/E

It's unlikely I'd do another dedicated wrestler tribute thread. The three I did are the big three that I grew up on. As childhood wrestling heroes went I don't really know who would be #4 even though I obviously liked many more.

My thread ideas are other stuff. Whether I'll follow through on them, who knows.

What side of the building did he fall off of, do we even know?

^ I fear that nobody will possibly get what I'm referencing in that post.

That wasn't supposed to happen that way.

edit to add: this is actually a pretty amusing recap of events: http://pwtorch.com/artman2/publish/T...l#.VGlNdsmRK-U

I do!

This made me laugh pretty hard:

By the way, I was happy to even get one person (Halpert) to watch the Hennig-Bockwinkel 60-minute match since it's a tough sell to get anyone to watch something that long, but I just want to reiterate how ****ing awesome it is in case saying it again will convince at least one more person to watch it.

I can't emphasize enough how good that was.

Not many matches with a participant over 50 will top that match. Bockwinkel came to the WWF as a road agent and occasional announcer less than a year later, so we may have just missed some quality matches against Steamboat or Savage.

Bockwinkel did wrestle a quality match against Flair in 85 or 86 that had a young Scott Hall on commentary. Flair cut an absolutely amazing promo for that match that was used heavily in that "Custom Made" music video that was made out of Flair promos ("The Winnipeg Arena is gonna be on fire!").

Hell, if I had time and was as good as LKJ at these, I might make a tribute thread for Bockwinkel. Tons of great promos, and some good matches against Lawler, Martel and in Japan out there. And of course Hogan first became a top face during his feud with Bockwinkel.

Mr. Perfect was such a great gimmick. The WWF at that point somehow pulled off the comic superheroes and supervillains thing so well. Most of the time that has been tried in wrestling it has failed.

Like it's certainly the type of old school match you have to be in the right mindset for, because it's not big on high spots or anything, but the chain wrestling is great to watch and the psychology is just beyond elite to a point that few matches could ever touch it in that regard. Just so many small touches that make you shake your head in appreciation. Both men sold like gods.

My exposure to Bockwinkel is pretty limited, but it's obvious to me from that match alone that he really, really "got it" as a storyteller. As did Hennig obviously.

And where some matches probably get a (conscious or subconscious) nostalgia bump from me, this was a brand new viewing for me that happened during the making of this thread. I had probably never watched a single AWA match before.

I'm still hoping for an Angle one. It doesn't even have to include his TNAids days, though he did have some great matches there.