The most vexing part of Vince McMahon's "Stand Back" music video is the fact that the song has a lyric where he sings, "Stand back! ... That's a fact."

Has anyone played faster and looser with the word "fact" than WWE?

I could not stand it when The Rock used to say "the fact of the matter is this"...as he goes to state a completely subjective opinion

I definitely remember "the fact of the matter is this" making its way into that Rock sequence after John Cena came to the ring and completely broke his brain by pointing out that his promo notes were on his wrist. Mingled in with "you're back there listening," "John," "John," and "you're back there listening."

February 1982 Territory Thoughts

Mid-Atlantic
We get to see Ric Flair for the first time both in interviews and in a good match with Jay Youngblood. Flair was acting somewhat heelish despite being cheered by the fans.

Promoting the insanely large NWA World Tag Team Championship tournament dominates the shows all month. Though, I sensed a dip in the last episode. Perhaps problems with actually executing the idea were already starting. Roddy Piper has used the tournament well to draw attention to himself by refusing to name his partner.

The show also talks about the ~Most Impactful Wrestler of 1981~ fan voting. Apparently, Steamboat was in the lead but Piper has overtaken him. How anybody but Flair could win is beyond me.

Sgt. Slaughter had a big month, including an attack on Flair in a taped house show. Also, Don Kernodle became a new Private in the Cobra Corp. Slaughter's the top dog in a nice little faction.

Austin Idol is annoying the other wrestlers and me by coming to ringside and recording their matches. Nobody bothers to mention that there are TV cameras in the studio also recording the matches.

Boring Mike George shows up. If you're watching Mid-South, you saw him get injured and reported out indefinitely.

Blackjack Mulligan may be gone for good. He's in the WWF.


Mid-South
Skandor Akbar had a great month starting with the first episode. He instigates betrayal, a title change, two injuries, and introduces an '80s legend. This is how a heel manager should stir the pot.

Mr. Olympia is getting pushed hard and the fans seem to really like it.

I can't get too into the "Louisiana Championship" and "Mississippi Championship" singles titles. I don't remember them being mentioned in the Apter Magazines (PWI, etc.). And, three singles titles in this territory is too many.

Dusty Rhodes is somewhat prominent at the end of the month. He has a match with Ed Wiskowski and spends the final episode doing commentary. I knew he spent some of late 1981 and 1982 taking time off from Florida wrestling after he dropped the NWA title to Flair. But, I didn't know he was working here even if it's just a short stay.

Every Paul Ordorff match is lightning quick. He was more methodical in his WWF run that I saw back in the day.


World Class
WCCW has a long way to go but I liked February more than January.

King Kong Bundy made his heel turn (apparently against Kevin Von Erich but we don't see it).

With Bundy and the Great Kabuki, WCCW has two good heels with a great manager in Gary Hart. I'm also okay with Wild Bill Irwin.

Kerry Von Erich was called "The Uncrowned World Champion". This was a big part of his push in 1982. According to online results, Kerry lost to Ric Flair by DQ on January 25 (Dallas), February 4 (Austin), and February 25 (Dallas/TV taping).

Though we haven't seen it, I think what happened is that Kerry accidentally threw Ric Flair over the top rope and earned an automatic DQ. However, the match went on for some reason (ref was down and didn't see it?) and Kerry pinned Flair cleanly to apparently win the NWA title. Presumably, some referee discussion ensued and the decision was reversed and the title was returned to Flair. This was a standard approach.

Ric Flair will be on the March 13th episode. So, I'm hoping the long Kerry - Flair feud of 1982 starts to ramp up.

David Von Erich showed up for the first time but only did commentary.

Al Madril may have been genuinely injured during a match causing a botched finish. It was weird.

Ivan Putski showed up. I think he first became big in Texas.

Kevin and Kerry aren't very good on their interviews. But, I remember them being reasonably smooth in 1983.


January 1982 Territory Thoughts

This is a very entertaining thread.

Appreciate the updates, Dynasty. Good stuff.

Curious. How credible is all that?

Can you imagine?

LKJ, didn't TLF prove this as being true? Verne got Nick to knock the air out of Hogan to make him have a **** match but in the end Hogan did win (but not by pin for the title). It's not as colorful as the tweet but this sounds like what it's talking about.

Not sure. I only listened to that AWA journey once a long time ago.

Hogan has long been just an insane pathological liar, so I assume it’s credible that he said those things. I was alerted to it from a YT of Cornette’s podcast, and Cornette vouched for the person who tweeted it by saying that he knows his stuff and this is probably all well-researched. I knew before about that thing where Hogan claimed to work 400 days in a year.

Well, when you're flying back and forth to Japan, sometimes you can do two days at once. So of all the things listed that one is a non issue imo.

You can gain a day back flying from Japan to the US, but it’s going to be basically zero-sum when you fly back and forth over a period of time since you lose days flying over also. The flight time isn’t going to be the exact same each instance, but you’re not going to net 34-35 extra days in a year from that.

Lmao

Sigh. I hate it when my detector is broken.

Gotta use some Steiner math, LDO.

This isn't in the same category since IMO it's probably not a deliberate lie, but Hogan's recall of the Montreal Screwjob will always be hilarious to me.

I don't even have to listen to it. I know what happened.

Bret Hart screwed Bret Hart.

Listened. That's like ****ing Brian Williams and his war trials and tribs.

Don't think I've run across this promo since back when it aired. Really great segment, especially given the genuine heat between the two.

Could be the GOAT Randy Orton meme:

https://twitter.com/kobayashi_bslsk/...069751811?s=21

Is there a worse generic theme than the MITB/Donald Trump theme?

Yes.

Has WWE ever approached a last-minute card change as well as this?

I've always had mixed feelings about that Primetime Wresting face turn by Perfect. I was super excited that he was returning to the ring and was optimistic about his face turn, but the notion that Perfect would have actually joined Savage always just felt so far-fetched. Still, there was no better available choice to fill the spot than Perfect (if memory serves, Taker was too entrenched in the Kamala feud to really lift him out), and all involved did their very best to put the situation over and make it as believable as possible.