Carnival

I think it's a mistake to focus on whatever specific "creative control" clause Hogan had in his contract. At his level of fame and star power, he was going to rule the roost regardless of what the contract said. Especially in an environment where no one knew which way was up. I doubt Austin had any creative control clause - at least in the initial stages of his boom - but I also doubt he ever had to do anything he really didn't want to do. And when he finally did, we saw how he handled it. This is the danger of having a star who outshines the company, a situation WWE is clearly eager to avoid repeating. Of course, that has its own problems.

What are some of those times when you thought for sure the promotion was going in one direction - a direction you didn't want to see them go - and, miraculously, they made you proud by going the other way? For example, I remember watching the instantaneous rise of The Patriot in 1997, and I was so sure that they were going to let him win the belt at the Ground Zero PPV. I marked out hard when Bret beat him (of course not knowing what was coming around the bend). Had a similar experience with Luger/Flair in Feb '90, although I was a much bigger Luger fan than I was a Patriot fan. Anyway, got anything like that?

The money problems must be overstated, because they appear prepared to burn some more of it. Unless their new marketing strategy is to make television so remarkably bad that it becomes a cult hit.

JBL's subdued, philosophical, "We may be seeing the final hurrah of a once proud gunslinger, mounting his mighty steed one last time in the glimmer of a red horizon..." type of commentary. The way the fans act during the Hall of Fame ceremony. The way they act during the actual events, for that matter. All the other inane chants aside, how are we still hearing "WHAT" chants in 2015?

Guilty pleasure: God forgive me, Vince Russo's WCW run. I was so extraordinarily bored with WCW by the time he made the jump that I was ready for anything to make Nitro watchable again. The cut to 2 hours was a big help, but I enjoyed the return of that unpredictable energy. Yeah, a lot of the stuff was pretty stupid, but I was a helpless mark for the work/shoot stuff too. There's also, for some reason, almost no one I would rather listen to in a shoot interview than Russo. Maybe Cornette. Guilty displeasure: Tag team wrestling comes to mind. I liked it when I was a kid and first getting into it. Back when you had mighty teams like the Road Warriors, Midnight Express, Rockers, Demolition, Hart Foundation, and so on. When that kind of pre-packaged, color-coordinated era came to an end and most tag teams became this guy-and-this guy vs that-guy-and that-guy, blah. You can keep that shit.

My biggest pet peeve is probably when people use the lingo out of context. "Oh my wife cut a promo on me last night when I forgot to get eggs." "I'm a huge Star Wars mark", and so on. I've probably done it myself a time or two, but it grates.

How did Dibiase come into his fortune?

"Kevin Nash is a pimp. He never could have outfought Yoko. But I didn't know until this day that it was Michaels all along."

Ha, I remember going into a video store in 1997 or so and seeing the video for Wrestlemania 11. Shawn Michaels vs Diesel as the main event? Jeez, shit has really gone downhill...

I think certain aspects of signature selling can fall under the heading of bad wrestling. I love Bret Hart, but how does his chest-first turnbuckle bump make sense as a thing that happens every match?

I don't know about Alex Wright in the WWE. They don't like that body type at all. I'm trying to think of someone that skinny that got a real shot in the company. Edge is the closest I can think, but he just had such a great look. But yeah, in terms of being negatively affected, it's certainly a valid answer.

It's not a message board, exactly, but Reddit's /r/squaredcircle gets a lot of traffic/activity. There are also some huge wrestling communities in subsets of other message board types. For instance, bodybuilding.com's wrestling board is pretty active. There you can participate in stimulating discussions like "Do you prefer a clean shaven Orton or with hair?"

I think as we get older and more entrenched in behind-the-scenes news, the less we appreciate the art of a good swerve. This is probably compounded by the criticism of Russo's 10-swerves-a-show writing in the late 90s. But when I was a kid, there was nothing better than when something really shocking happened. One of my favorites will always be the 4 Horsemen turning on Sting at...Clash 10? Ole Anderson is just tremendous as the heavy in this scene. Ric nails Sting with a right hand out of nowhere and a good beatdown commences. It may not even be that special from an objective standpoint, but it hit me at the right age to make an indelible impact. So, what are your favorite surprises and twists from a lifetime of watching wrestling?

I don't know. HHH, Nash, Michaels, and Hall all developed a certain "it's better when we drop insider references into the show" mindset in their primes. Even back during a time when the number of fans who would have gotten it would be much smaller than today. I wouldn't be surprised if he's getting some of his cues from the smarks, or if you prefer, using the same issues that internet fans talk about but doing so independently of actually reading the internet. Of all the people in and out of the business that bash Russo, I don't really recall the Kliq doing it. I think they have a lot of the same mindset, actually.

Whoa. Last American match you have at five?