MartelFan38

Imagine the added greatness of replacing koloff with pillman in some of those later six man tags

Pullman was definitely impacted by not having a good tv run- makes you wonder why wcw didn't pull the trigger on guys like Benoit, Owen, lightning kid... They could have had a good group of opponents for Pullman versus the weak division they had

Great show as always Parv and Chad, but I do have 1 major issue... where is the love for Brian Pillman? Lets look at his year really quick: Jan- COTC: Teams up with Bagwell and carries him against a really hot match against Smothers and Taylor, extra points for his rant/promo against the evil japanese and punching Badd in the face later in the show Feb- SuperBrawl: Amazing match against Liger, one of the greatest PPV Openers of all time, right up there with Bret-Owen at WM10. Also think this was Top 5 for the year as well May- WrestleWar: Has a great match with Zenk proving that he can carry the LW Division against great wrestlers like Liger, but also people like the Zed Man. Arguably Zenk's greatest match ever, which is due largely in part to Pillman. June thru August: Just a bit of a drop off here, but had a good match with Flamingo at Beach Blast, with a hot performance at COTC teaming with Liger against the Canadian Team, with another good match at GAB against Steamboat and Koloff Sep thru Nov: Probably the biggest knock against Pillman here was this period, he had the deal with Armstrong and relatively sub-par outing against Steamboat at HH, which for most would be a good match, but for those 2 was a disappointing performance (ex: HBK-Perfect SS 93) Dec- Starrcade: A criminally underrated Tag Team match teaming with Windham in a 4.5 stars match that got some love for the top 5 on this board, with a fairly uneventful tag match in Battle Bowl weighing it down just a bit. So you have 3 amazing matches (Liger,Zenk,Starrcade Tag) with a bunch of other really good matches sprinkled in. How do you not have this guy in the top 5 versus Arn and Bobby (who I love) that basically faded into obscurity after the June Clash. The matches they did have that were great were against performers having Highlight Years (Windham, Steamboat, Sting, Rhodes) while Pillman had strong outings against the likes of Zenk, Beef Wellington, Shane Douglas, and a green Scotty Flamingo. It's hard to argue against the love you showed for Arn and Bobby, but discounting Pillman here is a major mistake and one that criminally underrates one of the best years a wrestler had in the 90's, not to mention he did this all outside of the umbrella of the WCW-DA feud which ate up a lot of the promotion, rightfully so. Pillman carried the undercard and is a definite Top 5 vote for me. With that said, love the pod, keep it up.

I would also consider Nikita Koloff at Starrcade 86. It would have been huge to have had Nikita avenge his "comrade" Magnum and beat Flair giving the NWA fans a rare, unspoiled face victory.

RIP Rick Rude... He needs to be in the HOF

Just keep him away from Arn Anderson if Nick Hogan is planning to drive home

Yeah she is looking good. My ratings for the Red Carpet are: 1. Eden 2. DDP's GF 3. Brie Bella 4. Lawler's GF 5. Nick Hogan's GF

Wrestlemania 2 Heavyweight Title- Cage Match Piper © vs. Hogan Piper wins the title at Wrestling Classic to lead up to this event to give the match some more magnitude. Hogan wins by exiting the cage which allows for Piper not to be pinned. This is a better draw than Bundy and a good close to the hot feud. Andre vs. King Kong Bundy Rather than feeding Bundy to Hogan, Bundy keeps being built here with a huge match against Andre. Andre about to win here, but Heenan Family interferes after a ref bump. Orndorff helps IC Title Savage © vs. Steamboat Easy to go with this match here in retrospect. But either way, Steamboat is a stud and they had matches already to this point that were great. I see nothing changing here. Savage gets the win after a great match, but cheats his way to victory. Tag Team Titles Dream Team © vs. Dream Team (Sammartino & Morales) Love the idea of Sammartino & Morales teaming up here and being called the Dream Team against the current champs. Continuinity from the Beefcake-Sammartino feud the year prior. Dream Team retains and built strong to face the Bulldogs and drop the belts. Bulldogs-Funks Great match gives the Bulldogs another big win leading to winning the belts from Valentine/Beefcake. Funks don't need the win and make the Bulldogs look like stars in the process. Thought about going with the Harts here but the will be feuding with Bulldogs for the belts after they win. Orndorff-Orton Orndorff with the win over Orton who does his job making Orndorff look like a star leading to his feud against Hogan. Harts-Killer Bees Big win for Harts in a hot opener leading to a feud with Bulldogs through 1986. Muraco-JYD JYD gets the win over an aging Muraco- gets them a pay day Santana-Adonis Win for Adonis who will go on to bigger and better things the rest of the year. Santana starts his decent into jobberdom.

Ricky- that's certainly a common theory out there- that Sid signed a contract that he would get the Title Shot at WM8. I would have to imagine that when they signed Flair that plan changed to Hogan-Flair at WM8. With that said, does anyone else think Vince could have made a lot more money going with a Flair-Hogan match instead of "This Tuesday in Texas?" They could hype the event as just "Hogan vs. Flair" like a big boxing match- possibly with a sub title. You could throw in the same bunch of garbage they had on the undercard and it would have been a big money maker.

Phil- thanks for the link... At the end of the day I think the debate to focus on is what would have sold better- Hogan-Warrior or Hogan-Slaughter at WM7. Not sure there is a valid argument that says that Slaughter would have made more money in that spot than Warrior. With that said, you could have even done Hogan-Warrior at Summerslam 91 and that would have made big bucks more than the handicap tag. I think the biggest response to the Hogan-Flair House Show argument is that no one would think that Flair or Hogan would do the job at a house show in Oakland, that they would wait for WM8 for that moment. I think the WWF was a victim of it's own circumstances and got too nervous about the gates and then combined with the Steroid situation, Vince got flustered and went with what he knew best which was Hogan against a big monster (Sid).

First two that come to mind are Hogan-Warrior Part 2 from WM7 and Hogan-Flair from WM8.

I think Bret in WCW 92 would have been awesome. He could have replaced Nikita in the war against the Dangerous Alliance (particularly feuding with Austin over the TV Title) Depending on how he got over, I could see him going against Vader or Rude for the Heavyweight Title or US Title as a face or as a heel going against Sting, Dustin, or Steamboat. The possibilities are endless, I actually think he would have been a better fit in WCW at this time. Same thing with Martel.

I don't think that Vader should have gone over. Shawn needed a long run or at least a shot at one, since they invested so much in him. I think if they had HBK-Vader, HBK should have looked stronger. The issue was that Shawn won, but looked extremely weak in the process. Not sure who, but maybe Shawn should have had a different challenger, perhaps SCSA fresh off his KOTR win. Then you have Vader pick up another big win at Summer Slam over Sid and set up a huge match at Survivor Series for HBK-Vader. Don't think Austin would be hurt either, since that the match against Shawn would have been great and made Austin a star, in similar fashion to his match against Bret.

In terms of WM6 - I think it would have made perfect sense to have Rude go over Piper (although it would have been nearly impossible to get Roddy to agree) that way Rude is super hot going into his feud against Warrior at Summer Slam. Love the idea of the Harts going over in Canada then getting attacked by the new heel Demos. Makes for a better story to have the Demos win at Summerslam and then get challenged by LOD in the subsequent months and drop the belts to them, rather than getting deflated against the Harts.

Agree with the sentiments above. The Heavenly Bodies were a good team and should have had more success. Does anyone else think Jimmy Del Ray was underutilized in his ECW run in late 95/early 96? I think he could have been a better long term fit against the likes of Sabu. RVD or in tag work against the Eliminators.