Haha, that's extraordinary.

Why was Lawler pulled?

Something about that pic isn't right. Examine closely the fingers on the mic.

They had built for quite a while to Bret Hart and his brothers against Jerry Lawler and his Knights of the Squared Circle for Survivor Series, and then that happened and they suddenly brought back Shawn Michaels to take his place. Not only did they still just keep "knights of the squared circle" even though that doesn't mesh with Michaels's gimmick, but I'm pretty sure that they even had Bret Hart go ahead and pretend that it was Michaels talking **** about his family for months and months. Obviously having to substitute in that spot makes total sense, but just gaslighting and pretending that it had been Michaels in the angle all along was such a weird way of doing it.

And again about that match: it is so far and away the worst possible match that they could have possibly had that involved Bret Hart, Owen Hart, and Shawn Michaels. Dreadfully boring, horribly long. It might as well have been the extended cut of Jake Roberts vs. Rick Rude from WrestleMania IV. The only slight salvation in it was that Heenan had a few hilarious lines on commentary.

There was a story about that character on a podcast recently (or within the last 6 months or so). Prichard hated it. Didn't want to do it. Forget who loved it backstage and was pushing for it on air. Maybe Jerry Jarrett?

I suppose that's one time I would just have to take Prichard at his word, since he seems to be dead set on defending his invention of the Red Rooster character until his dying breath.

I don't think its even real. Pic is shooped.

What the ****

WCW BattleBowl '93 is irredeemably boring. It's with good reason that it was never a stand-alone PPV again. If only they'd been as quick to pull the plug on duds like WW3.

Agree. One Man Gang is a cool name.

Wrestling Challenge and WCW Saturday Night are both awesome shows. I've watched what's on the network, but the fact they haven't uploaded more is annoying.

On this night 28 years ago, IRS pinned Randy Savage on PPV.

It always felt like they gave out the name "1-2-3 Kid" as a temporary stopgap during the initial Razor Ramon feud, and then they just sort of forgot to change to anything else, and by the time it occurred to them it was already too late. For years it just felt like, "We're still calling him that because of one feud years ago?"

Randy Savage brought enough intensity to make the feud with Crush in '93-'94 work, but man Crush's turn is one of the most nonsensical I can think of.

Crush gets beaten down and hospitalized by Yokozuna. Crush's reaction is to align with Yokozuna because Savage didn't visit him in the hospital enough. WTF?

I was very fond of adopting Jim Cornette's line and trolling my friends by adamantly insisting that Luger only hit a hip-toss on Yokozuna and never actually bodyslammed him.

fixed

this was amazing.

I remember that Ahmed Johnson later slammed Yokozuna, and Cornette frantically declared that it wasn't a bodyslam, it was "some sort of Jiu Jitsu throw." I appreciate the commitment to the bit that no bodyslam on Yoko ever counted.

Ha, Reo Rodgers's stay as commentator on Superstars did last exactly one week. Stan Lane replaced him the following week. I liked Lane as a wrestler, but he was garbage on commentary.

The British Bulldog's gonna win, whether he wants to or not!

Because he’s bizarre!

(Different moments, I realize.)

11/29/93 Raw. Vince McMahon comes into the ring to introduce the fan-voted Wrestler of the Year. He says he's going to break with tradition and first introduce the runner-up for the award...Lex Luger. And then Lex Luger comes to the ring and introduces the winner, Bret Hart. Luger kisses the ring and presents Bret with the award.

WTF, man. How is that in any way helpful to Luger? That's so much worse than just introducing Bret as the winner and being quiet about the fact that Luger didn't get it.

I'm periodically haunted by a commentary moment from WM III, during the classic Randy Savage-Ricky Steamboat match. Savage grabs Steamboat by the head, runs toward the ropes, leaps over the top rope, and he pulls Steamboat down throat-first along the top rope.

Gorilla: "That could have been a disqualification too Jess, that kind of a clothesline."
Jesse: "For what?!"
Gorilla: <awkward pause> "…Deliberate."
Jesse: "'Deliberate'? Of course it's deliberate! What, do you think he fell into it by accident?"
Gorilla: "No, but it's a deliberate attempt to put a guy out of commission, and that could be…construed as a disqualification."

Gorilla started down this strange road of basically advocating that Savage be disqualified for doing a legal wrestling move (deliberately), and he couldn't quite figure out how to escape from it.

Deliberately attacking the throat is illegal isnt it? Obv refs started to not give a **** after a while

Wow Willie Nelson sang America the Beautiful at Wrestlemania 7 in 1991. The dude looked 60 plus then so I had to look him up. I see he is now 88! What a national treasure he is, it will be sad day when he passes.

Long live Willie!

I guess I’m unaware of that kayfabe rule if it ever existed. DiBiase beat Muraco with a stun gun at WM IV and it never got any discussion from Gorilla as an underhanded move.

I thought we were just about to lose Willie when I saw this 2019 performance. Dude was struggling hard, and it made me emotional to watch it. Thankfully he's still kicking.

I've been watching heaps of old PPVs the last week. Its amazing how 2002 feels soooo much closer to today than it does to 1992.