That was Living Dangerously 2000. Him and Vic Grimes scaled a scaffold, they were both supposed to take a bump off it onto the concrete below but Grimes changed his mind when they got up there. New Jack being New Jack said **** it and jumped off and pulled Grimes with him which made him somersault and land ass first on Jack's head on the concrete. Crazy crazy moment.

Looking forward to watching these matches I've never seen before.

In the meantime I'm planning to melt some faces later this round (I never say that either). I had it lined up as my sixth round pick - probably entirely safe that I'd get it there too - but **** it, I couldn't forgive myself if someone else had their eye on it and sniped me.

Really looking forward to my picks. One i expect to get sniped pretty soon and the other i expect to get sniped even sooner but i should be able to grab them both if they are still live when they get to me.

I dont really put that much faith in Meltzer's opinions but if i get them then ill have four 5 star matches in my opinion and under any other measure they are 4.75 stars at worst.

I'm going to get to the actual good wrestling with my next several picks, but there is one more "moment" that I've decided that I want for my supercard.

With the #8 pick in the 3rd round, trevorwc promotions selects...



vs.





trevorwc's super card

Ive seen the match probably just once but the speech at least double figures. Just completely awesome promo.

I've pretty much decided what I'm going to take. Just gonna watch the match one more time to finalize that I want it.

Getting the Austin 3:16 speech at the expense of only 4:28 of bell-to-bell time is very nice. At first I thought that Trevor was overdoing this "big moments" thing, but since Austin 3:16 was the breakout moment (in the WWF anyway) of a new star, I don't think it collides too much with an already-established megastar executing the big heel turn. You can nicely combine the big angles of those two elements since they're totally different kinds of moments.

To confirm, how are promos working now? Do we just assume related promos and hype videos that exist are included with the matches or do we need to draft them later and if so do they count against the 2:15 bell to bell clock we have?

LKJ can obviously correct me if I'm wrong - but my understanding is that if you draft a promo that's tied in with a match (like my Hogan turn or Austin 3:16), it's just part of the bell-to-bell time of the match. However, if you draft a standalone promo that's not tied in with a match, you have to count the time of that promo as part of your 2:15.

I really didn't have any kind of plan coming into this thing - but I do like the way that it's come together for me. Obviously, this isn't going to appeal to the ROH / Dragon Gate / NJPW guys who want 6 star matches, but this is a card that I would want to see, personally.

Austin 3:16 opening the card - some great actual wrestling that I'm going to draft in the next several rounds - a spot fest "holy ****" HIAC match - and the epic Hogan turn / nWo formation. I'd pay big money to watch that card live.

The following ruling is kind of going to go against what I've previously said; I don't think it's going to hurt anyone who has already drafted, and it only seems sensible to me to do this in order to streamline the whole thing and avoid confusion.

Any related promo or segment that is clearly attached to a match and took place during the same show is in as part of the package with the match that gets drafted. No time penalty is incurred for anything but bell-to-bell. Originally I had said you have to draft it separately if it happens at a separate point in the show, and that such a thing would count against your time, but I don't think that was the right way to be doing it. After all, we're purportedly filling in 135 minutes of action for a 240 minute card, which of course means there's up to 105 minutes of other **** that goes on during a show. There's no reason to be counting this other stuff against the bell-to-bell time, and it's not as though someone else will want to draft the kickass Austin/Rock video package for their card when you're the one with the actual match.

Attached video packages, promos, aftermath, segments, etc., within the same show, are automatically in when you pick the match they are there to enhance. If you want to pick something from another show that ties in with your math, you do still have to draft that separately, but there will be no time penalty for doing so. I say you have to draft that just because a promo or whatever from a separate show could be tied to a whole series of matches, multiple ones of which could be drafted by different posters.

I probably drop into the 6 star group though my indy knowledge isnt as wide as others but i really really like the concept of your card. Ill wait and see if i like the actual execution and if it truly comes together, but its certainly going to add a lot to the draft to have you forging your own path covering big moments in wrestling history.

I mean, I don't think an Austin v. Jake match (which is all you know you'd be getting in advance if you were paying to see it live) would sell much, given how completely worthless Jake was in the ring by that point. The match itself was garbage, but at least was mercifully short. Also we didn't know what we were getting in for with Taker-Mankind. The match culminating in the Hogan turn was hugely hyped and I'm guessing was a tremendous sell though.

Your whole card so far would turn out to be awesome for someone who went to see it live, but in advance I think the only thing you've got right now that they'd be particularly excited for is the "who's the third man??" business. That might be enough of a sell by itself though.

I dont think a final of the King of the Ring which is being used as an undercard is a good example of something that wont sell. Partially because i think it would do a decent enough job selling but mostly because undercard matches are rarely about selling and more about filling time so people arent paying $50 for two or three matches.

But i do agree that he needs some star power draw in his card, something he can address pretty easily with one or two big headlining uber draw matches.

Austin hadn't spoken a word yet in the WWF, so he wasn't over yet. Jake got the Kevin Nash big pop™ at the Rumble that year for the same nostalgia reasons, but by this point of the year almost nobody cared about him. The King of the Ring had just gone to Mabel the year before, so it was lacking in prestige too. I really don't think that match would be even a partial reason for most people to buy the card. They'd just be getting a hell of a nice surprise when Austin suddenly opens his mouth to cut an instant classic promo.

Taker-Mankind would probably sell okay or they wouldn't have had those two fight on so many PPVs, but it wouldn't have the same draw as if people knew what ungodly spotfest they were actually going to get out of it.

With my next pick I'm looking for a main event that is absolutely epic. I want one with an electric crowd and a triumphant face. With that said, I select:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKPY4QYA7gk

World Wrestling Federation Championship: Triple H (c) vs The Rock (Special Referee Shane McMahon) from Backlash 2000

This match is not five star wrestling (not that it's bad by any means, but it's not getting Flair/Steamboat comparisons) but it sure as hell is five star entertainment. It features one of the loudest pops you will ever hear. If this match was at WrestleMania the month before it would be considered one of the greatest matches of all time. Coming from a secondary PPV, I think this match gets overlooked somewhat.

For my main event I have a match with good wrestling, a great crowd, an epic pop and an extremely memorable title change. I couldn't be happier about that.

Time is 19:24 according to wikipedia.

For those looking for times for matches, the only decent place I've found is www.prowrestlinghistory.com . It's far from complete, but I haven't found a more comprehensive listing yet.

Card right now:

WCW Cruiserweight Championship, Mask vs Title: Eddy Guerrero (c) vs Rey Misterio Jr. (Halloween Havoc 1997)

WWF Intercontinental Championship: "Macho Man" Randy Savage (c) vs Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat

World Wrestling Federation Championship: Triple H (c) w/ Stephanie McMahon and Vince McMahon vs The Rock (Special Referee Shane McMahon)

LKJ's thoughts about Trevor's card is exactly what I was thinking but much better written than I would have done. So far it wouldn't draw huge but in retrospect would be one of the most important cards of all time.

I guess part of my thinking is that we are looking back on it with revisionist history - so, yeah, I wouldn't have paid dick to go watch Austin / Roberts back in the day, but I have the benefit now of knowing what happened.

Maybe that's not the way others are looking at it, but that's what I meant when I said I'd pay big money to watch my event. I mean, even for those who are drafting actual awesome matches - yeah, the guys who are wrestling are great wrestlers and would put on a 4* match with a broomstick, but you didn't necessarily know that going in, THAT NIGHT, that you were going to get a historical 6* classic.

I'm rambling a bit - but even in the context of NOT knowing what's going to happen, I'm happy with my card. Obviously Austin / Roberts is a complete zero ahead of time, but Taker / Mankind HIAC was hugely hyped (it was only the 2nd ever HIAC - I even bought the PPV, which I never did back then) and the "Who's the 3rd Man?" was among the biggest hyped wrestling events of all time.

The 1996 Bash at the Beach had the lowest buy rate of any BatB except the 1999 version (99 was the last one).

Fuuuuuuuck - that was one on the short list that I had pegged in for my card.

In terms of drawing power, we still do have the ability to reasonably accurately gauge how much of a draw something was back then. We get to use hindsight in terms of how good the matches/segments on our cards actually are, and that's clearly fine, but I do think that being able to get people excited to watch your card live as it happens is an important component here...and obviously we have to assume that the people we're selling our show to don't know how it's going to turn out.

Wow - that's very interesting.

I stand by the fact that we DO know what's happened in these matches, and this was one of the absolute biggest moments in the history of the "the business" (/HHH)

That's really damn surprising to me. I was so excited to watch that show.

Trevor, I even more strongly now recommend getting some drawing power on your card so that you can sell tickets and PPV buys rather than just having to make back your investment on DVD sales later when word gets around that awesome **** went down.