Candido was awesome. Did you ever see him in ecw?

No I didn't. I remember Smoky Mountain Candido and (admittedly terrible) WWE Candido. He was just too small for me, I had a hard time believing anything he did.

Watch his ecw work.

Yeah you couldn't risk leaving Kofi out.

Muraco Santana and even Pedro Morales should have gotten taken

Maybe Andy Kaufman too

Honkytonk man wasn't taken either right? Also no Nikita or Ivan koloff

Never had any use for Muraco, but Tito was high on my board for the last few rounds. I just couldn't find a fit for him on my card. Sure seems like he would have fit somewhere though.

Now let's play alternate matchmaker.

DWetzel's original card:
Sergeant Slaughter vs. The Great Muta (in a no-DQ match)
IC Title: Bret "The Hitman" Hart (c) vs. Ted "The Million Dollar Man" DiBiase (with Virgil)
Christian vs. Christopher Daniels
Tag Team Titles: The Dudley Boys (c) vs. The World's Greatest Tag Team
Booker T vs. Tully Blanchard (with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan)
World Title: Harley Race (c) vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin
Your announcing crew: Gorilla Monsoon and Bobby Heenan

Antidan's alternate card:
World Title: Bret Hart (c) vs. Steve Austin
* Basically, this is the only other realistic main event available.

Cruiserweight Title: The Great Muta (c) vs. Christopher Daniels
* I think this is the best possible secondary title match available. Should be fantastic.

Harley Race vs. Sargeant Slaughter
* Race as the heel, obviously. I'd put them in a cage or do a street fight.

Ted "The Million Dollar Man" DiBiase (with Virgil) vs. Booker T
* Yes, I'd use a racial angle here.

Tully Blanchard (with Bobby "The Brain" Heenan) vs. Christian
* I don't like using Christian as a face (at all) but I don't really have a better idea for where/how to use Christian with this lineup. So I'd expect this matchup to be my least liked.

Tag Team Titles: The Dudley Boys (c) vs. The World's Greatest Tag Team
* Listed it last because it's not changeable.

I tried making an alternate card with Yankeys' draft picks. It's not possible. I wouldn't change a thing with that crew (and the women's and tag matches I can't change anyway). It makes no sense not to have the cruisers face each other. And the other matchups are clearly the best possible for the guys selected. So, yeah.

Santana was the biggest surprise to me to go undrafted. Thought someone would take Yokozuna as well. Nikita Koloff would have been the better choice to face Slaughter than Muta.

From an accomplishment standpoint, Martel's peak may have been his AWA World Championship run, but from a character and ability standpoint it wasn't. He was given the title way, way before he was ready out of desperation with all of AWA's talent bolting for the WWF.

Bockwinkel vs. Orton and Lawler vs. Malenko would have been my choice for a line-up. Bockwinkel always worked well as a technical wrestler against power guys and did a much better job of putting younger guys over than Lawler. Lawler would have worked better as the heel making fun of Malenko's personality as well and could have toyed with the smaller Malenko in the ring as well, which would have been a better story.

Din muraco vs Pedro morales was one of the best ic title matches ever

Nikita/Slaughter would be A+. Good call.

littlekeed specifically emailed me about Slaughter/Nikita, I said meh, then he suggested Muta and I overenthusiastically jumped on it, then I needed an opponent for Muta, and well there you are.

Nobody took Big John Studd either right? The late seventy's, early eighties got screwed

Meh, Studd was the wrestling equivalent of a big white stiff center.

I think I like something like this for his card:

Steve Austin vs. Ted DiBiase

Austin was best as an anti-authoritarian face and I could see an Austin vs. A Million Dollar Corporation type angle working similar to the Mr. McMahon stuff with the added benefit of better in-ring matchups.

Bret Hart vs. The Great Muta

Muta with Gary Hart did an awesome job of putting Sting over in their TV title feud and I think it could work equally well with Bret in this secondary title match.

Christopher Daniels vs. Harley Race

Not in love with this match-up and I'm relying a lot on Race to make it watchable. This was kind of what was leftover.

Christian vs. Sgt. Slaughter

I considered drafting Slaughter, but I preferred him as his early 80's heel character and I'm putting Christian in a Pat Patterson role.

Somebody that wrestled a 5 star match in the U.S. during the last decade and is one of the most popular wrestlers in the world didn't get picked: Kenta Kobashi.

I thought about him but only wanted one special appearance guy and that guy was KENTA. I mistakenly thought people would know KENTA because he and Bryan put on two of the best US matches of the decade in ROH.

Ali, in a main event.
Kobashi, not picked.
Seems wrong, doesn't it?

Not too badly given that probably few of the drafters watched wrestling then. You can make a good case that David Von Erich, Mr. Wrestling II, Ivan Putski, Verne Gagne, and Tommy Rich should have been picked. However, it might be harder to find an angle and opponent for them.

I can very easily see a good Rude/Goldust feud, and like this idea.

i think this forum overrates the old timers. i don't think anyone with a career that ended prior to 1970 - and perhaps even later - could provide sufficient ringwork for the modern fan.

i appreciate what the georgeous georges, the lou theszs, the bruno sammartinos, etc. have done for the sport but whenever i watch one of their matches i really have a hard time thinking that present day fans would be entertained at all.

take this sammartino vs. koloff classic, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNngXluEkRk

admittedly, sammartino is not the gold standard for ringwork but in terms of in-ring potential, give me a random territorial jobber any day of the week. i obviously can't argue with the legends' drawing power, but that's another story.

anyone else feel this way?

I have the complete opposite opinion, in that I feel their drawing power is overrated. I think their in-ring work would translate because of how technically sound many of the early stars could be, but the size difference between them and modern athletes would be an issue.

It's hard to say exactly how good some of the other wrestlers could have been in 2013 wrestling style because they weren't trying to do that style. If I had to guess, I'd say Buddy Rogers, for example, would provide better 2013 style ringwork than Hogan and probably Cena. But of course, Sammartino, like Hogan and Cena, wasn't picked for ring work reasons, so I don't think the forum is overrating them, just recognizing that the correlation between in ring work and overall popularity isn't very good.