Ric Flair: The End of An Era

Last night on RAW, it was the Ric Flair show. Just an incredible, classy night from an industry where the word "class" generally is never associated with it.

They teased the Ric Flair farewell address all show. Even had a pre-tape with Dusty Rhodes who talked about what it was like to be Flair's most famous rival and whatnot. Big Dust even dropped the jive accent he's been using on us for years. Well done.

The Nature Boy came out to a standing ovation and a chant of "Thank you, Ric" from the crowd. He strutted as he walked down the aisle. Once in the ring, he let out a "Woooo!" and said, "Last night, I wrestled my last match at Wrestlemania. I will never wrestle another match in this ring again. I'm not sad about not wrestling. You shouldn't be sad about the fact that you're not going to see me out here. You should rejoice in the fact that I have had the greatest career in the history of pro wrestling. And last night, even though I lost, I lost to a great, great, great wrestler and a better man."

He was surprisingly composed considering how he emotional this angle has been and let's face it, Ric is an emotional guy. He has emotional kids, too. They cried at the Hall of Fame ceremony and during Wrestlemania. So even though Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler speculated on what The Man was going to say, Flair pretty much came out and admitted that he had been crying all day and that he was out of tears. He thanked the crowd and was, of course, failingly polite in doing so.

Then, HHH's music hit. That brought the water works. Trust me, I am guessing that everything after this moment was not planned--or, at least, Flair didn't know about it--because he was breaking down the whole time. It was just a super-amazing thing.

So, Trips comes out and Flair begins to cry knowing that his buddy is going to pay homage to him. Hunter says, "From the bottom of my heart, I love you, man. Thank you. Thank you." Hunter teared up and got down on his knees bowing and Flair looked so embarrassed and asked him to get up. HHH is saying how Flair is busy thanking the fans and everyone else but that he is here to thank the man who did so much for the industry. Then he leans in toward Ric and says that he had talked to some other guys and ever since, his hand had been cramping up holds up four fingers to Flair's face. I FREAKING STOOD UP AND POPPED AT THIS POINT. KEEP IN MIND I AM WATCHING THIS AT 4 IN THE MORNING ON TIVO! The Horsemen music hits and the tears stream down The Nature Boy's face. HHH announces Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson, JJ Dillon, and Barry Windham to a huge ovation. I mean, this was just off-the-charts unbelievable. Flair, Windham, and Arn work for Vince now but you could see that Ric was really surprised to see Tully and JJ there. Outstanding.

The next guy announced is Batista. He gets a great pop from the crowd and give Flair the biggest bearhug I've ever seen since Ken Patera was around.

Then begins a parade of former opponents. Harley Race. Greg Valentine. Rick Steamboat. "Another Horseman, Dean Malenko". Finally, Ric's family came out and were introduced one by one by Hunter. Simply amazing class here. The camera pulled tight as Flair hugged and kissed all of his kids and his wife.

Cena came out too. He wasn't booed. He saluted Flair and joined the crowd. HBK's music played and he walked out with his head down and his cowboy hat pulled tight over his face. Once he made it to the ring, he smiled and they hugged, but the camera inexplicably missed it! They exchanged words and hugged again as Flair thanked Michaels. Hunter stepped in and made mention of the matching Rolex watches Flair and Shawn were wearing that HBK gave to Flair to mark the final match in The Nature Boy's illustrious career.

Finally, HHH asked anyone in the back to come out if they wanted to pay respects to Flair and the locker room emptied out. Eventually the whole roster is out there clapping and chanting "Thank you, Ric".

It was truly the end of an era. The whole spectacle has changed so much over the post-Nitro era and the sport has watched fans of our age group leave and move on to something else. Well, after last night's RAW, I can say that for me, the end has come. The one guy I followed as a little kid and through my adulthood is gone and in many ways, the last link to the old school has retired. It was time, for sure, but after seeing the Wrestlemania match, I can say for sure that The Man went out in style (would there be another way for Flair to go out?) and he proved that even at age 59, when he needed to, he still could put on one hellof a match and give his fans that last goosebump moment in a career filled with them.

The Nature Boy: An Appreciation

There are going to be lots and lots of bloggers and writers who feel the need to tell everyone they can about Ric Flair and what the Nature Boy has meant to them. So, yeah. I feel like I can write an appreciation for Ric Flair too.

Wrestling began for me during the WWF and MTV era. I first got a kick out of Hulkamania (there, I said it) but that quickly faded and I wanted more than anything for Roddy Piper to beat Hulk Hogan badly and put the end to ludicrous Rock-n-Wrestling Connection. (Like we were supposed to believe in that!)

But that faded quickly too. It all changed in late 1984 when I saw Ric Flair on the Superstation.

Growing up, there were two distinct camps of wrestling fans. You were either a Flair guy or a Hogan guy. It was like Yankees-Red Sox and Islanders-Rangers, 100%. I, obviously, was a Flair fan and a big mark for the Horsemen. Still am. The difference between Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair has never been about the WWF vs. the NWA or any of that crap. It's always been about believability--or, as Jim Ross says, the sizzle versus the steak. Hulk Hogan was all sizzle. The WWF had the market cornered on sizzle. Ric Flair had a fair amount of sizzle too, but he also had the ability to make you care and make you think what you were seeing was real. He gave the wrestling business an air of legitimacy because he projected an image that he really mattered. Nobody could dream of "24 inch pythons" and being big and thick like Hogan was...but you still could dream of being the coolest guy in the neighborhood who ran around with the tough dudes like Arn Anderson and kissed all the women and made them cry. It was just more realistic. You could almost see yourself custom made from head to toe in that suit from "Michaels of Kansas City". Hell, I wore a suit to school every day and hated it. This guy loved it. Changed my opinion about the dress code immediately. Probably walked a little taller that Monday when I went back to school, too. My tie was much tighter around my neck and my shoes were polished, for sure. That much I remember.

If Hulk Hogan allowed the fan to make the leap from comic books to wrestling, then Ric Flair facilitated the jump from real sports to wrestling. Again, he looked the part of what a champion should look like. A "real" champion wouldn't hesitate to tell you how good he was and a real champion simply wouldn't walk around town in a ripped up red t-shirt with his name on it and a stupid brown leather weight belt. He'd style and profile from city to city as a jet-flying, limousine-riding, kiss-stealing son of a gun.

Hulk Hogan just dusted off monster opponents left and right and the whole match was just getting in the way of the presentation and the pose-down. You knew that was how everything was going to end. With Ric Flair, the gimmick was often turned on it's side. You never really knew--even if you thought you knew--whether he was going to escape with that belt or not. He made a star out of the opponent and believers of the audience and raised the whole thing to a higher plane of performance. While Hogan sold t-shirts, Ric Flair sold legitimacy. We cared because he made us care about the gold around his waist. It was all out there on TV or in the ring or in the bar after the matches. Ric Flair lived his gimmick because he was his gimmick...and in the semi-serious performance art that is professional wrestling, the legitimacy holds sway over the audience who wants to suspend their disbelief.

Everyone has their stories about meeting people they admire and I am no different. I've never been one to get starstruck or too interested in saying I have seen or met famous people, but there's always an exception.

In 1989, Flair had wrestled Terry Funk all over the New Haven Coliseum and afterward, we went to a bar across the street where a lot of the wrestlers went after the matches. The whole scene was really strange with the wrestlers on one side and the majority of the fans on the other side acting like too-shy teenagers at their first school dance. I was sitting chatting with Jim Cornette and Rick Steiner (Steiner mostly grunted) when The Nature Boy walked into the bar. It sounds almost like a cliché to say that the bar went quiet, but it did, until Terry Funk yelled out to Flair that he didn't want to be in the same bar with "no banana-nose puke who made me bleed in this God-forsaken shit-hole". Flair laughed it off and stopped in front of us. He leaned over and said something to Cornette about "staying off the hard stuff" (Cornette was drinking Sprite) and I introduced myself by saying it was a pleasure to meet the greatest wrestler of all-time. Flair smiled and said that the pleasure was all his. He asked me how I enjoyed the show and we ended up making small talk about The Great Muta while he waited for his drink. He got his drink, shook my hand again, and excused himself because he had business to talk over with Gary Hart. Smooth as hell and total class. Guy even called me "Sir". I was barely out of my teens!

I guess the highest compliment you can give someone in the public eye is that when you've met them, the person you looked up to wasn't a total jerk and made the whole thing worthwhile. I don't think any fan who has interacted with Ric Flair has felt disappointed. He is, as Gordon Solie used to say, "the personification of class".

So, it feels kind of strange writing an appreciation for a pro wrestler; but Ric Flair wasn't (isn't) just a pro wrestler. He has, through all of the ups and downs of his career, been a constant in the lives of many of us who feel that we grew up with Ric Flair as a hero; someone to emulate. His matches with Ricky Steamboat and Terry Funk and Dusty Rhodes still hold up today as well as any emotional movies or stories or plays that have endured through time. Yes, I mean Shakespeare and I mean Hitchcock and I mean whomever you want to throw in there. They are timeless classics that were able to control and manipulate the emotions of the people who watched them even though we all were in on the big secret. Doing it without the modern nod-and-a-wink obliterization of kayfabe made it all the more better. It's what's missing today in the WWE, people.

The career indignities of the nineties humanized The Nature Boy for us, somewhat painfully. And a lot of his WWE tenure was akin to giving a teenager the keys to a classic Oldsmobile, only to restrict the kid to only driving to the grocery store and other crappy trips around town. But it doesn't matter. No matter how many times they tried, it was true. Management couldn't kill Ric Flair. Again, that was because we cared.

With Ric Flair's expected retirement this Sunday after his match with Shawn Michaels, the last link to the wrestling I enjoyed growing up will be gone. And with it, my interest in the mat game itself. To that end, I thank Ric Flair for the many, many years of vicarious enjoyment and fun. Many people are going to say you hung on too long but you know what? You deserve to go out on your own terms when you're ready. You've earned it. Thank you, sir.

Retro Live Blog: Wrestlemania 2

Let's all get in the nyiforlife.com time machine and travel back to one of the most horrific, scary, and just downright terrible wrestling cards of all-time. So bad, in fact, that we were surprised that the WWE would even want to show this horsepile on their 24/7. Yes, let's go back in time to Wrestlemania 2, which took place on April 7, 1986.

To begin with, we have to mention a few things. First, WM2 took place from three different arenas at the same time: the Nassau Coliseum; the Rosemont Horizon in suburban Chicago; and the L.A. Sports Arena. There were matches in each city and separate announcing crews for each city as well. If it sounds like a recipe for disaster, well, it pretty much was.

WM2 was also the event that showed the WWF that too much to just too freaking much. There were alleged celebrities in each venue, special announcers (thanks, Elvira) and time keepers, etc. Yes, WM2 pretty much barfed the word "excess" and we all know that puke gets pretty stinky with age. I must enjoy torturing myself...but I do it all for you, faithful readers.

Being that the broadcast jumps around a lot from venue to venue, this event is tough to deal with in a live blogging situation. Stick with me, I will do the best I can. All the matches are, for the most part, quite short. The one you wish would be short goes on about eight minutes too long. That's the main event.

We'll start in Long Island. Vince McMahon is there with Susan Saint James of "Kate and Allie". She was and presently is the wife of SNME helmer Dick Ebersol. So, you know, that is how she got the job.

We open with Mr. Wonderful vs. Magnificent Muraco. Yes, Orndorff goes from main event of WM1 to jerking the curtain to a double countout in less than 5 minutes. They put over that Muraco was in on the angle (from SNME, natch) that set up our main event in the cage, King Kong Bundy vs. Hulk Hogan. Yep, Muraco wrestled Hogan on Saturday Night's Main Event (with Bobby Heenan subbing for an "ill" Mr. Fuji as Muraco's manager) and he even was in on it when Bundy splashed Hogan over and over to set up the whole deal. And now, the former Magnificent One was jerking a curtain. Makes even less sense now.

Randy Savage defended the Intercontinental Title against frequent challenger George The Animal Steele. This was a continuation of the angle where George had a crush on "The Lovely Elizabeth" and this angle would drag out for another year. Match was not much more than five minutes long. Savage gets the win with his feet on the ropes after he rolled The Animal up. Yawn. It was longer in Hartford at a house show I was at. More exciting, too.

It's starting to dawn on me as to why I never even saw this back in the day. It just wasn't worth it. Is that blood coming out of my eye?

Jake Roberts defeated George Wells really fast. I mean, really fast. I swear these guys just had to catch cabs with the meters still running. George Wells was also known as Master Gee in World Class and was one of the first dudes I recognized as "enhancement" talent in the WWF (or NWA) who was being pushed in other places. In WCCW, he could talk and he dressed sort of like a pimp. In the WWF, not so much pimping.

This was Jake's first Wrestlemania appearance. Seeing him then and then recalling how he was in "Beyond the Mat" is just sad. The man certainly had presence...but is he a Hall of Famer? I don't think so.

In the Nassau Main Event, Roddy Piper and Mr. T boxed (sorta) for four rounds until Piper was DQ'd for bodyslamming Mr. T in the fourth "round". To say this was bad would be an understatement. It was beyond horrible and was, in many ways, uglier than the ugliest, stinkiest, rank-est bowling shoe you could find. Piper, from what he says on his DVD, really hated and resented T and T really didn't like Piper. Of course, T is blamed for not being professional by Piper and all of that. I mean, I knew what the finish was but I still sighed a sigh of relief after it was over, because I didn't have to torture myself any longer with that crap.

By the way, Joan Rivers was the special guest ring announcer at the Coliseum. Seriously. She rocked these huge Sally Jesse Raphael glasses and looked old, but less creepy than she does now. You're welcome.

In Chicago, the big deal was the 20 Man Battle Royal that featured a lot of NFL stars in it. Of course, being in Chicago and all, William "The Refrigerator" Perry was the pet rock of the event. Fridge did OK for a football player but this battle royal was set up for two things: to be short, and for Andre the Giant to win. Andre tossed Bret Hart out onto Jim Neidhart on the floor at the end. The interviews with some of the NFL guys like Jimbo Covert and Bill Fralic are reasonably acceptable if viewed as comedy. And not good comedy. Urkel-Quality.

Weird moment of the Chicago broadcast for me was seeing Chet Coppock as the ring announcer. Coppock hosts one of those sleazy NFL bettor come-on shows that air really early on Sunday mornings during the football season when I am the only one in the world who is awake. I thought he was going to give me his Lock of the Week or something when I saw him but I couldn't place him right away. If he had, maybe I could have jumped into my Delorean and used the flux capacitor to go back in time and make the bet. Patriots by three, my good man! The lesson here: sleep more on Sunday mornings so you don't have to flip by the sleazy shows.

Clara Peller, the Wendy's "Where's the beef?" lady, was the guest time keeper. Trust me, if you weren't there, you have no idea how that line got over back in the day. I guess you can equate Clara's time in the zeitgeist to that dumb-ass Budweiser "Whaaaaassup" crap that we still suffer through today. Not good times.

All of the Chicago matches were frighteningly short. In the opener, the Fabulous Moolah defeated Velvet McIntyre's mullet in less than two minutes. Corporal Kirschner pinned Nikolai Volkoff in a plodding flag match after hitting him with Freddie Blassie's cane. And in what was probably the best match of the event, the British Bulldogs (with a coked-up Ozzy Osbourne and a elasticated Capt. Lou Albano) defeated The Dream Team (not mine) of Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake (managed by Johnny (no longer Valiant, just) V to win the WWF Tag Team Championship. The finish there came when Davey Roid Smith pinned The Hammer after Valentine and Dynamite collided head-to-head. Yes, the Bulldogs were freakishly juiced.

Lastly, we head to the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena for the final matches of the night. This is where the main event was held as well.

Rick Steamboat pinned Hercules after a cross-body block. Not great chemistry here. If Hercules was Wrestling's Rubik's Cube, then Steamboat was not his usual genius because he couldn't solve the Hercules riddle. Waste of his talent in this match. Plus, the seats at the hard camera side of the arena are conspicuously empty.

Next we had the immortal (immovable?) Uncle freaking Elmer losing to Adrian Adonis. Say what we will about the effeminate gimmick and 200 lbs of extra Adrian, but that Adonis could move pretty well for a dude who looked like he was wearing a suit filled with pudding.

In my personal favorite match of the event, Terry Funk and Hoss "don't call me Dory, Jr" Funk defeated the Junkyard Dog and Tito Santana when Terry pinned JYD after hitting him with manager Jimmy Hart's megaphone. Elvira on guest commentary with Jesse Ventura and Lord Alfred "Mistah Freeze-POP" Hayes is clueless and totally has not been prepped in any way, shape, or form during the match. But, I still like it because I am a mark for Terry Funk.

Like sands through the hour glass...we have to wait while the big blue cage is put up for the main event. Seriously. Pacing of shows and everything will get better with time as the bidness evolved. Here, it was just plain nuts. We have to wait listening to inane chatter and talk of how great the event was (is?) event though Vince looks like someone kicked him in the marble bag. Seriously, he did look ill during the event. Maybe he thought he may have been pissing millions away while trying to call the Piper and Mr. T boxing match. I just can't be sure.

So, we wait all this time and Hogan wins (surprise!) by climbing out of the (then) weird-looking blue cage and hitting the floor after leg-dropping Mr. Five Count Bundy and leaving Bobby Heenan for dead. I'll never understand why Hogan had to go out the top of the cage at the time and just didn't go through the door or just pin Bundy and get it over with. Just plain stupid.

The match really did wonders for Bundy, too, when you consider that at WM3, he'll be in a match with Hillbilly Jim and midgets. Bet he didn't see that coming when he jobbed to Fritz Von Erich at Fritz' retirement match. And he had a full head of hair back then too! And by the way, yes, I did say midgets. Forget "little people". They were midgets back then and by god, they'll be midgets now too!

So, there you go. Wrestlemania 2 is in the books. Thanks as always to myself for doing it and for WWE 24/7 for poisoning us by showing it again. They're also showing Wrestlemania IX later this month but you're not gonna get a live blog for that because of one thing: Jim Ross outdoors at Caesar's Palace in a toga. Yeesh. Make it two things: Giant Gonzalez in the painted-on muscle suit. I might make Sean Avery sit through that, but I sure as hell won't.

Live Blog Time Machine: Clash of the Champions 1988

Welcome to another trip into the nyiforlife time machine. Today's live blog is of the very first Clash of the Champions special on TBS by Jim Crockett Promotions from March 27, 1988.

If you don't know, here is some quick history: Vince created the Royal Rumble for the USA Network to compete up against the NWA's first foray into pay-per-view, the Bunkhouse Stampede, in January of 1988. Ted Turner and Jim Crockett then created this special, called Clash of the Champions, as a free-TV alternative to Wrestlemania IV. While universally hailed as a better show, the Clash caused some very real heat between the cable companies and Turner Broadcasting who thought that the free wrestling negatively impacted the PPV offering from the WWF. It probably did.

Now, thanks to the WWE 24/7, we have a special 20th anniversary package for the first Clash of the Champions. Interviews with WWE employees who were then part of Jim Crockett Promotions are interspersed throughout the show to offer perspective on the original event. I'm not going to comment much on that stuff because a lot of it is dumbed-down company-speak. Let's go to the videotape!

Our first match pits Jimmy Garvin against the NWA TV Champion, Mike Rotunda. Rotunda is managed by the Gamesmaster Kevin Sullivan and the match is under the one-count rule for victory because Rotunda is doing the Varsity Club gimmick. I just thought the Varsity Club was a great gimmick for colorless guys like Rotunda, Dr. Death, and Rick Steiner at the time. Why the evil devil-worshipping Kevin Sullivan had to act as their coach was beyond me at the time and comes off as a little ridiculous in the rear view mirror. Sullivan was sort of feuding with Jimmy Garvin over Garvin's wife, Precious, and this match was more of a backdrop for that feud. Rotunda wins and keeps the title after rolling up Garvin for a one-count while Garvin was jawing with Sullivan. This leads to the beat-down of Garvin afterward when Steiner comes in. Precious ends up making the save and choking Sullivan with a coat-hanger. Yes, a wire hanger. Not sure how that got in there. TBS complained about Funk using a plastic bag on Flair a year later but let this coat hanger thing go out over the air? Weird.

Next up we have a US Tag Title match with the Fantastics trying to dethrone the Midnight Express.

Everyone who knows me knows that I love the whole MX & Jim Cornette thing. And I wasn't alone. There's ten dudes in the front row dressed up like Cornette's bodyguard, Big Bubba Rogers. (Wear a suit to the show...put on sunglasses, you're Big Bubba. Take them off, hold up four fingers, and you're custom-made like Ric Flair. Genius!)

We need to acknowledge referee Randy Anderson's poofy mullet before we start. Pee Wee really had a ledge of hair. He may be my new Hair Hero!

Great match between two great teams who could go. The finish came on a typical Dusty-booked horsebleeping fake-out where Bobby Fulton originally had pinned Bobby Eaton to win the titles but the decision was reversed because Fulton had thrown referee Randy Anderson over the top rope before the pinfall was made. Got that? Afterward, The Midnights beat down the Fantastics and they whipped Bobby Fulton with Jim Cornette's belt. There was no way to watch this and not think of David Crockett excitedly screaming, "Whip 'im! Whip 'im like a dog!" as he did two years before when Ricky Morton was using a belt on Cornette and the Midnights.

Next we have an interview with Doctor Death Steve Williams. Doc is rocking one serious mullet. Actually, I am thinking the mullet is rocking Doc at this point. Interviews were not Doc's strong point and whoo, this one is super-bad. He wasn't in the Varsity Club yet and he totally needed someone to talk for him. He might have been a real-life ass-kicker, but unless he was paid by the "Lemme tell ya somethin's", Doc was not doing himself any favors. Really, really, really bad. Not bad in a good, "Shockmaster"-kind of way, either. Just horrid.

Goldberg Prototype Nikita Koloff is next. This was after his conversion to good guy, man with hair, and person who wanted to help kids. Hurt career, help kids. Not a fair trade in the pocketbook, I bet. Next.

In a very tame barbed wire match by ECW/Attitude standards, the LOD and Dusty beat The Powers of Pain and Ivan Koloff. This was a very heated return match off an angle where the Warlord and the Barbarian "broke" Animal's eye socket in a melee after a bench pressing contest. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that Animal is wearing a mask straight out of the Jerry Cheevers' School of Goaltending.

(Side note: man, those dudes were super-juiced. If Warlord were wrestling now, his gimmick would have to be called Red Flag. Hawk would have to be called Bullseye and the Barbarian might have had to go by People's Exhibit A. Seriously, these guys had more juice in them than a convoy of trucks pulling Florida oranges.)

Dusty bleeds (big surprise) and the whole match is less than four minutes long. Warlord was pinned after being accidentally hit with a diving headbutt from the Barbarian. I had to sit through Doctor Death choke through his interview with six cough drops in his mouth for these four freaking minutes? Add in the post-match beatdown where the heels try to get their heat back by ripping the Cheevers off of Animal, it's like seven minutes of work. Not really great work, either.

We have a segue with the latter-day Barry Windham. Wow, he looks to be in better shape than he did on the Horsemen DVD. Windham is teaming up with Lex Luger in the next match and in a shock of all shocks, he says nice things about Lex here. Rips him a new one on the DVD (he wasn't the only one) but here Barry gives him the glad-hand today. Must be because Lex is physically in a bad place right now or something.

So we have Arn and Tully facing Barry and Lex for the NWA World Tag Team Championship. The faces go over here in under ten minutes...but there was a bigger picture in this match. See, in a few weeks, Barry was going to tag with Lex and suddenly get all alligator-armed when Lex needed a tag. Then Luger would catch more beatdowns. Barry was on his way to becoming...a Horseman! They used to actually do angles to make money back in the day. Luger was thought to be the next big thing and as a face, he needed a dastardly turn from someone he had trusted to get him over even more. This was the beginning of the turn. I pray that WWE 24/7 plays that match where Barry turned his back and flashed the four fingers and devilish grin after deserting his partner. It was a great angle.

The capper of the night sees NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair fight Sting to a time-limit draw in 45 minutes. Yes, this is the famous match that "made" Sting a star and it still holds up to multiple viewing even today. (It's on the Ric Flair DVD set, too.)

Let's face it, if you're my age and you were formally a big wrestling fan, this is one of "those" matches that you never forget. For instance, I remember at the time thinking that Sting was looking much better than I had ever seen him, even though I liked the gimmick. Of course, Ric Flair was Ric Flair. Everyone looked good in the ring with Flair--even Luger!

For whatever reason, the extended bit with the judges ("There MUST be a winner!") made me upset more than the clipped part on the Flair DVD set. People have been wondering for years just how a judge could actually think the match was a draw and not choose a winner? Well, Sandy Scott, what the hell? I mean, we all know that Dusty booked Flair in as weak a manner as he could at times (all the time) but this one made me angry twenty years after the fact. The Pet picks Flair and Gary Juster picks Sting and Sandy freaking Scott picks draw.

Yes, I know it's all a work. Thanks for asking. I also know that Sandy Scott becomes the booker after Dusty gets fired and is going to be the guy who brings Ricky Steamboat in the next year for those great matches with the Nature Boy. Still, it pished me off in retrospect to see a masterpiece ruined by some dork in a ten dollar Wal-Mart sports coat sitting at ringside. I'm still talking to you, Sandy Scott!

Overall, I really enjoyed the show. Sure, there was some bad booking in spots and some of it was head-scratching (Nikita Koloff and Eddie Haskell) but overall, a pretty fun look back. You had the perfect storm of unintended hilarity (Pee Wee Anderson's mullet and Doctor Death's freaky rant); great action (Midnights vs. Fantastics); a star turn for Sting; and every match on the card had an issue at stake that lead to all of the matches being interesting. Plus, you had Ric Flair. Not too shabby. I really miss the NWA.

Lastly, let me end this with some more Flair news. Although it is just a rumor at the time I write this, it has been proposed that Ric Flair will face Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania in the Nature Boy's final match. To me, there is no one better to put him in there with. Michaels grew up idolizing Flair and he knows how important Flair is to the history of wrestling. HBK and Flair always want to put on a show to begin with and in such a big spot, both guys are going to want to ride it out for as much and for as long as they can. I hope it happens. Flair should be retired by a genuine star--someone who can make him look as good as he made countless others while NWA champ--not someone who may or may not be on the rise.

Retro Live Blog: 1988 Royal Rumble

We got us a new feature on the site for you all on this All-Star weekend. WWE 24/7 recently replayed the 1988 Royal Rumble. While I remember watching it on the USA Network back in the day, I decided to give it another shot and add some perspective from twenty years later. That's right: here on nyiforlife.com we do own a time machine. Don't tell anyone!

So, like I said, the first televised "Royal Rumble" was in 1988 and it was originally called the "Rumble Royale". Seems like every time Vince or Jesse would have said "Rumble Royale" that the WWE switcho-chango machine has dubbed in the more correct "Royal Rumble". Just another way Vince is re-making history one event at a time!

First off, we have a match featuring Ravishing Rick Rude (RIP) and Ricky Steamboat. Now remember, this is January of 1988 and Steamboat had lost his Intercontinental belt to the Honky Tonk Man in the summer so that he could take some time off for the birth of his kid. I mention that to say this: I'm fairly sure this is one of his last WWF matches before he left the company and the business until reappearing on TBS in January of 1989 as Eddie Gilbert's mystery partner to start the series of legendary matches with Ric Flair.

Anyhoo, not a great match by any stretch here. It's actually worse that you'd think it should be. Finish comes when Rude pulls the referee in front of him while Steamboat jumps off the top rope. Twenty minutes of stalling and they just don't (didn't?) click. Official match rating: Enh.

The rest of the night apart from the Rumble was just filler stuff. Jumping Bomb Angels bleech and Jimmy Hart bleech. Hogan shilling for the match with Andre "coming up" on NBC (the brilliant twin referee angle) and Hogan always makes me sick. They're doing the contract signing gimmick and Andre turns the table over on Hogan while Ted DiBiase cackles his rich boy ass off; that sort of thing. One thing that jumps out is that Ted was really, really good as the Million Dollar Man. He was better than I remembered here and I always thought he was pretty good to begin with. Angle rating: Lame.

High comedy comes when the freakishly-pushed hack known as Dino Bravo is going to try to break what was called the world bench press record of over 700 pounds. Seriously, I can't do this justice. It is on a high hill of high comedy in wrestling. Suffice to say there's a lot of stalling and Jimmy Hart hyperactive silliness and that Bravo--who at this point looked like a jacked-up oversized baby rhino with a bad dye job--"beats" the record with a little help from segment host Jesse Ventura. After the record-setting lift, the angle did wonders for Dino Bravo. I made me care even less for him as a performer 20 years later. Actually, it made me recall that back in the day I was wondering about the NWA Bunkhouse Stampede show that was taking place at the Coliseum that night because the segment was just boring me to tears at the time. Angle rating: Ach! Unintended comedy rating: 4 out of ten.

So there was also another tag match on the show. The first one was that JBA crap that no one cared about and the other 2-out-of-3-falls match was Bobby Heenan's Islanders (as opposed to Terry Simpson's Islanders) beating the Young Stallions in 2 straight falls. This match actually was interrupted for an interview by Andre and DiBiase to hype the NBC match. Again, Ted was maniacal and Andre talked like he had a head full of phlegm and about eleven Tootsie Rolls in his yap. Seriously. He sounds like he could hock up something about the size of Lord Littlebrook. Yikes. No one ever confused Andre with Arn Anderson in regards to promo ability but this was not good in any way. Andre's teeth are a particular shade of manila folder here as well. Probably hard to see a dentist when you can't fit in the waiting room chairs. I give myself a three-star rating for using Lord Littlebrook in that joke because I think he's funnier than Little Beaver.

That brings us to the Rumble itself, always one of my favorite gimmick matches. You know the rules so I'll just get to the recap:

We start out with Bret Hart and "Strike Force member" Tito Santana in the ring. They picked numbers one and two and go at it pretty good until The Natural Butch Reed comes in at number 3. I had pretty much forgotten about Reed. Funny thing here is that in the age of faces vs. heels, Reed doesn't know who to go after here at first. McMahon thinks that Bret is at a distinct advantage but Reed seems a little confused. Eventually they team up on the man Ventura called Chico until Reed is dumped by Jake Roberts (#4) after about three minutes of work. Nice seeing you, Butch.

Talk about distinct advantages--here comes human fire plug Jim Neidhart at four! Between he and The Snake, that's a lotta crack! King Harley Race is next. Race is rocking a mushroom cloud honky 'fro and I don't care how much they try to put him over, Harley never struck me as a "WWF wrestler" even though they tried to push him as one at the time. Yes, we all know Harley Race and the stories of what a bad ass he was/is but back then, he just looked like some old dude with a distended belly and one hell of a weird hairstyle who seemed to wrestle in slow motion. Other than that, he rocked!

Speaking of rocked, check out this Murderer's Row: Jim Brunzell; Sam Houston; Former referee Danny Davis; and Boris Zhukov, the man who had such a big head that I am surprised that there weren't ten or twenty people holding ropes underneath him on Thanksgiving mornings. Seriously, this guy could not buy hats off the rack. I know that sounds like a line from Gorilla Monsoon--and it may be--but his head is really, really huge. I'm surprised he could balance a VW Bug on his shoulders like that!

At eleven we have The Rock, Don Muraco. He looks like he has spent a fortnight saying his prayers and eating his vitamins. Muraco has those freaky veins on his shoulders that I simply do not have and never will even pretend to have had at one time in my life. Behind him is #12, Nikolai Volkoff. The Russian obviously jumped his cue by coming out with Muraco and the night's best comedy comes when the refs on the floor have to pretend to hold back this angry competitor who wants to get in the ring. At least they didn't send him back to the dressing room to come out again in a minute or two later. The refs are grinning and Volkoff is obviously laughing as he pantomimes joining the Rumble before his time. McMahon and Jesse are trying to get over that Volkoff is just such a game competitor even though everyone on the floor is obviously joking around.

Jim Duggan is next at thirteen. I like his chances tonight.

Ventura puts over Bret Hart about fifty times for lasting as long as he has to this point. I think The Body may have owed Bret some money that week because he is laying it on pretty thick. Yes, Bret does last quite a while until he gets dumped by Muraco, who also tosses Harley Race and the man at number 14, Outlaw Ron Bass. Not a bad showing for a man who was Magnificent no more.

Another streak of top competitors here: B. Brian Blair; Hillbilly Jim; and Dino Bravo. All three are going to meet their fates at the hands of #19, the One Man Gang. I like the Gang's chances tonight too. I think he may make it to the end!

Number 18 is The Ultimate Warrior. He's gonna last about 4 minutes before Bravo and the Gang team up to kick him out. A year or so from now, both guys will be bumping around for The Warrior like ping pong balls but in January of 1988, we haven't been bored and confused by Jim Hellwig too much yet. No snorts. No inane interviews. No day-glo tassels around the arms. Just a few minutes of tepid work and little juice ('juice' meaning excitement) for the former Dingo Warrior.

JYD is at twenty. No truth to the rumor that he snacked on arena hotdogs while training to run this gauntlet. He'd really let himself go at this point. The only shape The Dog was in was "round". Still, at the time, I thought hed be the winner of this Rumble because he didn't look like he was going to be able to bump over the top rope without having a heart attack. And yes, I know I skipped a lot of alleged action from the match. The Rumble is just too hard to give a real good running tally as you watch it so I just go for cheap jokes. You're welcome.

Anyhoo, we come down to the last two guys: Hacksaw Duggan and the One Man Gang. I always liked the OMG. The gimmick was a winner to me because once you get a skull and crossbones tattooed on the side of your head, you've made a commitment to not wear a tie to work for the rest of your life. The Gang is a full year apart from being UWF champion for Bill Watts and a full year or so from "going back to his roots" to become Akeem the African Dream with the Reverend Slick. Again, if you have no idea what I am talking about, you may be lucky on the Akeem stuff. I was never sure if that was supposed to be funny or serious, that gimmick. It just was so wrong to do and yet, strangely hilarious at the time.

But back to the Rumble, the Gang was a house of fire! He eliminated Jake Roberts; Muraco; Blair; Hillbilly Jim; Dino Bravo; and the Warrior. The man totally earned his paycheck for less that ten minutes of work. Duggan eventually wins the match after ducking a charging One Man Gang. Gang's momentum sends him over the top rope and to the floor. I still hate Jim Duggan.

I find myself yawning again. I bet I did the same thing back in the day too. Never a big fan of Duggan's when he was in the WWF or WCW or the UWF-slash-Mid-South when Bill Watts would call him "Doogan" all the time. Another one that always looked like he was fighting underwater. Still, overall, the match was pretty cool at the time and Pat Patterson should always be proud of this baby. Now, much older and much more jaded, the first televised Royal Rumble show does not hold up for repeat viewing. There were no performances like Ric Flair's when he won the title at the Rumble in 1992 (after 2 straight years of Hogan winning the event) or the 1997 Steve Austin show where he was sitting on the turnbuckles looking at his imaginary watch after clearing the ring. But if you take the 1988 Royal Rumble as a jumping off point, you could see that the event would be a winner. It was different enough to be novel and yet simple enough to understand.

And now, because of me, you don't have to sit through it again. Just another service we have for you here at nyiforlife.com!

Letters! We get letters! (Well, a few anyway.)

It's been a long time since I did the old mailbag, so why not now?
Here's a bushel basket of replies from the home office in West Hartford,
CT (via Middletown, CT) & thanks to everyone who has written in or left
comments. As always, I can be reached at nyiforlife (at) yahoo.com.

BLAKE55--Yes, it's true Jason is having a tough season in Toronto and
yes, I bet every morning he wakes up that he wishes he was back with the
Islanders and away from the Toronto media circus. Simply put, however,
the lack of scoring by our boys may not have been appreciably better if
Blake had remained an Islander. He year-to-date stats translate to a
projected 14 goal season. At what he is making, I'm sorry, but that is
a bust after potting 40 last season.

Viktor Kozlov is projecting to a seven goal season. He's really
lighting it up in Washington with 4 goals so far this year, eh? Did
that in one game vs. the Rangers last year. His Caps teammate, Tom
Poti, was a minus-1 player and had 44 points for the Islanders. This
season he's projected at minus-sixteen and 24 points. Maybe that is why
he was booed by Ranger fans when he played at MSG.

What does this all mean? Well, it means that Ted Nolan is a pretty damn
good coach who knows how to get what he can out of his players. But if
you take the numbers as they are and add them to the NYI roster, you can
see that the new teams these players are on are simply not getting what
they paid for. I mean, Kozlov is projecting Andy Hilbert numbers at
four times Hilbert's salary. Doesn't add up.


Philly--I still think Forsberg ends up with the Flyers or Colorado if he
comes back. Last thing I read was that he dropped out of a tournament
in December when his feet weren't yet comfortable in his skates. He has
since had another procedure and is going to be going to camp with Team
Sweden very soon. If he thinks he is fit and can withstand the rigors
of the Stanley Cup playoffs, he will find many suitors in the NHL.
Sixteen of them, perhaps.


Shazbot--Thanks for the kind words about the wrestling reviews. I will
try to get more of the WWE 24/7 programming reviews up on the site when
I can. I like to use the site more for my hockey writing than anything
else because that's how I roll.

I feel that it is hard to compare the Bret Hart book to the Chris
Jericho book because of the different tone each takes. Jericho's is
more like Mick Foley's writing in that both guys are funny and are using
the humor to help them describe what it was like to realize their
dreams. Bret's book is serious as heck throughout. Sure, there are
passages where you can almost see that sideways smirk of his but most of
it is laid out in a no-nonsense kind of way. (Search this site for my
review, keyword Bret Hart.)

Saying that, both are worth reading. If I were to read them again, I'd
reach for the Hart book first.

And no, I haven't seen the Best of RAW DVD yet. All I know is that
Stone Cold whacking Vince with the bed pan simply has to be on there.


Ron--Glad you asked about the NHL Network. I would suggest calling your
cable operator as soon as you can. I know that it is available to
Comcast digital subscribers but I am not sure if it is on some kind of
programming tier or not. You didn't hear it from me but I would also
recommend making many DVDs for summer viewing. That's my advice.


Lastly, I want to recommend John Buccigross' interview with the dean of
NHL TV, John Shannon. You can find it at the link above.

Also, a big ol' uppercase THANK YOU to John for asking about the audio
of the NHL game presentations. They really, really need to work on
that. The FSN crew is guilty of not miking the crowds in a way that is
not indicative of the genuine crowd reaction at the games. Watch
anything on the NHL Network from the 1980s and you can hear the passion
and excitement in the building. We need to get that juice back on TV.

All Over The Place

First, a Quick Giants Rant--It just dawned on me that the Giants are
playing the Bears this week. If Tom Coughlin kicks it to Devin Hester
even once he should be fired on the spot. I think I am close to
advocating blowing up the Giants Miami-style and starting over from
scratch. Just get a do-over. If there's one anything worse than being
a fan of a consistently-average team, I don't know what it is. I
suffered (and so did my friends, who showed patience listening to me,
sorry 'bout that) with some truly heinous Islanders team that were an
affront to professional sports but at the very least I could blame inept
management and coaching for the crappy teams. With the Giants, they are
always middle ground. They aren't exciting when they win and they
aren't exciting losing either. Since that Niners playoff debacle, the
Giants are a hard team to summon any emotion for. I never get too
excited or too bummed out watching them. The organization has to do
something to change the collective feeling of antipathy coming from the
fanbase.

Giants Rant, the Second--How ugly are those freaking sideline caps the
Giants wear? With that round white stripe in the middle, it looks like
a Kleenex dispenser.

WWE 24/7 Review--November was a good month. We all know I am not a huge
huge fan of the Monday Night Wars-era but the channel did give us one of
the best shows from the past, the April 21, 1997 edition of RAW. You
may know it as the one where Stone Cold went Stone Mental and attacked
Bret Hart in the ambulance after he had injured him earlier that night.
The show ended with Brian Pillman attacking his former WCW partner and
trying to break his ankle until HBK made the save.

Overall, a great show with the Bill Watts-esque storytelling playing out
through the whole show. WWE did something similar with Ric Flair's
retirement angle this past week on RAW and when they decide to get
behind something, they can really deliver. Let's see if they keep it up
until Wrestlemania, where it is speculated that the Nature Boy will
retire.

December's Hall of Famer is Jesse Ventura. Yawn.

Now, to the Islanders--Can I say it again? We need to get some goals.
Shawn Bates is expected to get some spot minutes tonight against the
Senators, but does that mean more goals? I am thinking that Bates will
instill a bit of life into the team because he is a popular player with
his teammates and with the fans who really busts his backside. Whether
this translates to the score sheet, we will have to see.

I know that the Islanders have DiPietro and Guerin on the All-Star
ballot, but don't we all have to make the case for Brendan Witt to be in
the game? Witt has been just great all season long blocking shots,
marking every team's top players, and playing big minutes. The entire
Islander defense corps has been off-the-charts so far. Radek Martinek
is playing some outstanding hockey with Witt as his partner. Andy
Sutton has found his niche on the team and knows his role well. He's
been blocking shots and clearing the crease all season long. Mad props
to the Islanders pro scouts who again came up with the right men for the
jobs this summer.

Saying that, Ricky absolutely has to make it to the All-Star game this
year. Witt deserves to go as well. And if Mike Comrie can rediscover
the game he had at the beginning of the season, he could be a candidate
too. My guess is that once he picks it back up, guys like Tank and The
Captain will be scoring more as well.

How come it is so hard to beat Ottawa? I could see the pressure for a
guy like Alexei Yashin playing against his old team with the vitriol
between player and fans and all but that should not affect the rest of
the team. Besides, Yashin is gone counting his rubles.

Hopefully tonight is the night that the PP gets fixed because we all
know what is happening tomorrow night: more Rangers.

You Say You Want a Revolution

I know this is predominantly an Islanders blog...and, I guess, a place for me to talk about old school pro wrestling...but last night, the New England Revolution made it to their third consecutive MLS Cup game and that bears mentioning. I'm sure it has been on ESPN but if you missed it, go out of your way to see the bicycle kick game-winner by Taylor Twellman that sent the Revs past the Chicago Fire and through to DC for the Cup Final game on November 18.

I am a big Revs fan and trust me, over the years, Steve Nichols' boys
have delivered all sorts of stomach punches to the fans in big games.
For instance, last season, striker Taylor Twellman scored a goal in
extra time that looked like it was going to punk the monkey that had
been on the teams' back, only to see Brian Ching of the Houston Dynamo
tie it immediately afterward to send the game to a shootout. Despite
epic saves by Revs goalkeeper Matt Reis, the Revs were sent packing
without hardware and pretty much cemented their reputation as the
Buffalo Bills of Major League Soccer. And yes, I nearly threw up in my
mouth as I typed out that fun little reminder to myself.

This season, the Revs took home the first trophy in team history, the
Lamar Hunt US Open Cup, by beating FC Dallas of MLS in the final. The
victory allowed the team to hush some of the talk about their lack of
closing ability but also narrowed the vision of the players and fans,
who desperately want the Revs to finally bring the MLS Cup trophy back
to Gillette Stadium.

Manager Steve Nichol has done an outstanding job of keeping his core
players together so that the Revolution are always competitive in a
league where players are often ushered in and out of various
organizations like people standing in lines at the bakery. He's built
his team just like they do in baseball--with strength right up the
middle of the park. Captain Steve Ralston has moved into a playmaking
role and has flourished playing in front of epic holding MF Shalrie
Joseph. On the backline, the Revs sport the reigning MLS Defender of
the Year Michael Parkhurst and behind him is one of the most consistent
goalies in league history, Matt Reis.

While the Revs celebrated with the crystal Eastern Conference
championship trophy, the hockey guy in me was surprised that the Revs
players would even pick up the trophy because there was more work to do
in ten days against the winner of Saturday's Houston-Kansas City game.
What we can't begrudge is the fact that the Revolution have made it to
the Cup finals for the third straight year and for the fourth time in
team history. That is quite a compliment to the organization, the
Kraft family, and to Steve Nichol. But there is still unfinished
business for the team from Boston, city of champions.

OK, after writing that, I have to come clean. I have no idea how to
segue to talking about wrestling, so this sentence will have to suffice.
Here we go.

WWE 24/7 is showing the 1990 Survivor Series from Hartford this month.
I had never seen the TV broadcast before because I was at the event
live.

The 1990 SS is known for two debuts: First, The Undertaker. The second
was the ill-conceived Survivor Series mascot, the fabled Gobbeldygooker.

A lot has been written about both. First, let me give a little
back-story.

For months--and for all you people who are newer to wrestling, this is
how they used to build anticipation: making you wait--Mean Gene would do
interviews from a stage and there'd be this giant egg next to him.
Vince and Roddy Piper would speculate what or who was going to emerge
from the egg. Seriously. The freaking egg took on a life of it's own.
When it was announced that the egg would "hatch" at the Survivor Series,
the payoff had to be huge because so much had been made of it.

Smart fans speculated about the egg and most thought a new wrestler
would be debuting. At the same time, the WWF had signed away Mean Mark
Callous from WCW. Callous, who has wrestled with Sid Vicious in a tag
team called The Skyscrapers (managed by Teddy Long), was known to be
debuting on the show as well. His debut was built up for weeks as a
mystery partner of Ted DiBiase's in his Survivor Series match against
Dusty Rhodes' team. So, before the match, Ted got on the stick and
announced that his mystery partner was being lead to the ring by his
manager, Brother Love. Callous was announced as (Cliff Clavin Little
Known Fact coming up) "Kane the Undertaker" and proceeded to knock the
Thanksgiving tryptophan out of Dusty Rhodes from the ring to the
dressing room and back to WCW as the new booker.

(Quick note: The Whole "Kane the Undertaker" thing has been erased from
the WWE's memory banks. The tape has DiBiase saying introducing him
only as "The Undertaker" but trust me, he was originally called Kane but
they dropped it until they needed a character to be his brother and
Glenn Jacobs became The Big Red Machine. That is Cliff Clavin Little
Known Fact #2.)

A little later that night, we had the unveiling. Mean Gene was a real
trouper and man did he try, but the let down when a guy (Eddie
Guerrero's brother Hector, actually) in a big turkey suit came out to
dance was freaking palpable. I was surprised at the booing on the
broadcast because I thought that Vince and his manipulation machine
might have edited it out but it was not nearly as loud on TV as it was
in the arena. I don't want to say that the crowd hated it but we, you
know, really, really hated it. Violently hated it. After all of the
build up, Vince would have needed Sting or Ric Flair to come out of the
thing but instead, he gave us the living embodiment of a fart in church.
Yes, The Gobbeldygooker was the proverbial turd in the proverbial punch
bowl and the fans were incredibly upset. In fact, The Gobbeldygooker's
Circling Vortex of Suck totally killed the crowd that night by the time
they got around to the final match when Hulk Hogan (ugh) and The
Ultimate Warrior (bah) were crowned The Ultimate Survivors (blech). The
only fun was yelling, "The Rangers suck!" as "The Chicken Dance" was
echoing throughout the rink. Yep, "The Chicken Dance" for a guy in a
turkey suit. I don't know why. Also, "Dixie". That makes no sense
either.

For historical purposes only, I recommend checking out this event. You
get the debut of an iconic wrestling character and what can probably be
pegged as the worst idea of Vince McMahon's life, the Gobbeldygooker.
In hindsight, it only looks more and more ridiculous. Also startling
are the physiques of most of the wrestlers on the card. There was more
juice in the Hartford Civic Center than there ever has been at a Minute
Maid orange grove in Florida. It's crazy and jarring. If you think the
steroid problem is bad now in wrestling, trust me, you have no idea.

WWE 24/7 Recap for October

Well, as we all read in a previous post, this past month was nothing to shout about with the WWE 24/7 channel. I watched zero in the Hall of Fame section because I have no desire to see old matches of The Wild Samoans. They were before my time.

The Shorties were hosted by Snitsky and right there you have two strikes against it. That man is simply disgusting. The WWE Powers That Be were trying to highlight some of the more interesting characters in wrestling history. Right here is where I kind of have an issue.

First off, Buzz Sawyer was listed and they played a match featuring him and Muta vs. Ric Flair and Arn Anderson from the Clash of the Champions. It was the same night that Sting was kicked out of the Horsemen and later he tore his knee up trying to scale the cage to get at Flair and Arn.

The match wasn't much and did very little to showcase the Buzz Sawyer character. The finish was botched and was clearly the backdrop to the angle where Sting was trying to retaliate against the Horsemen. Did I like seeing the Horsemen? Of course I did. But why claim that Buzz Sawyer is the main reason to check it out when everything he did was secondary to the angle? Why not get one of the old WCW Saturday Night matches where Buzz came out with his manager Gary Hart and started beating the hell out of jobbers to get over that he was a bit of a looney tune?

Actually, I am going to change tact halfway here. Instead of complaining about the choices, I'm going to offer some ideas to improve the product.

There's a lot I really, really like about the channel. I love the old NWA TBS shows. Watching those and seeing The Horsemen and the Midnight Express simply remind me of how much fun I had when I discovered the JCP product. I also like the simplicity of the Florida shows that are hosted by Mike Graham. I never got to see much FCW back in the day and to experience Gordon Solie as he hosts the shows are fun. The man simply was smooth and he had more credibility in his pinkie toe than some goof like Todd Grisham would have if he broke the latest scandal news out of the White House. If you're looking for flash you are simply not going to find it watching either of the shows. The stories made sense, you had a basic good versus evil in every match, and old ass-kickers like Wahoo McDaniel and Ole Anderson always will look like they can slap the taste out of the mouth of The Warlord or The Berzerker.

The Pick Your big One feature allows for some fan interaction as well. On the WWE website, the give you a list of three events (former PPVs) and majority rules as to which one will be shown during the final week of the month. Whether or not the WWE is actually truthful in this, I don't know, but it seems above board because a lot of the big shows that win are NWA or Jim Crockett-promoted WCW events.

The Big Ones folder often has WWF house shows from the late 1980s and those are hit-and-miss. They seem heavy on the Hulk Hogan Era and nothing bores me to tears faster than seeing Hogan's legdrop time after time; but I am sure there are great fans of the house shows as fans can relive arena events they attended, etc. It's just that the whole thing seems bogged down in one era right now.

The WWE also replays older PPVs and other NWA events but to be honest,there aren't a lot of them to show. That's probably your reason right there as to why the JCP tapes are so popular as PYOB options. Some of the PPVs from the mid-nineties (i.e., before the Monday Night Wars) are tough to take because the creativity of the industry was at a devastating low. There simply aren't a lot of keepers.

Dump the Tuesday Night Titans stuff. Just get rid of it. I have never understood the cult surrounding those who loved the camp nature of the show. It was crap then and it is even bigger crap now. Seriously. You're wasting our time with that stuff.

One thing I would love to see are the old Bill Watts UWF TV shows that were probably part of the sale when Vince bought the WCW tape library. (Quick note: Watts sold the UWF to Crockett and then a company called The Wrestling Network was born.) There is an untapped opportunity in those tapes to relive what was some of the most exciting episodic TV done in the industry at the time. The Freebirds were on top and many of the future stars of the business started out in the Watts territory. Who wouldn't want to see the evolution of Sting? What about the genius heat magnet that was Eddie Gilbert? The battles between Doctor Death and Terry Gordy? Heck, some of the audience who are self-hating lunatics might want to see Blade Runner Rock, the man who became The Ultimate Warrior? Why not get the UWF into the rotation?

I'm sure the old ECW tapes are popular on WWE 24/7 but as I said before, I have no desire to see that stuff again. That's just me. But to forget that Jim Cornette was promoting "wrestling as it used to be" under the auspices of Smoky Mountain Wrestling during much of the same timeframe is a bummer. WWE owns the tapes, why not show them? The culture clash between the proudly old school booking of SMW and the decidedly hardcore ECW is worth shining a light on. And again, lots of the wrestling stars of the day made their way through the Smoky Mountains. Seeing names like HBK, Mick Foley, Arn Anderson, Terry Funk, and the Undertaker all made their ways through SMW. Unless the tapes ruined, why not add an episode or two to the menu each month?

The Legends Roundtable segments are too few and far between. I'd love to see more of them. Just seeing old timers sitting around a table (duh, that's why it is called the roundtable) and telling stories about the territorial days of the business is exciting as heck. The stories are all tall tales and as long as you know what to sift out of the BS, you'll be okay. But these guys (Dusty, Jim Ross, Michael PS Hayes, Bischoff, Lawler, Pat Patterson, etc.) have all come through the business and have all been exponentially influential on wrestling as an industry. If you listen to them talk, they all invented everything. And it is totally riveting fun stuff.

This month seems to be better for the channel. It's November so there is promise of some Survivor Series stuff. Roddy Piper is highlighted in the HOF section and he is one entertaining kilt-wearing dude. The Shorties will be former football players who have transitioned into professional wrestling so right there you have Pillman, Vader, Doc, etc. There will be more TBS and MNW shows. Not too shabby.

Jon Sim is out for the year

According to Newsday, Jon Sim is having his knee operated sometime in
the near future. It seems that Sim, while pinballing through the home
opener versus the Sabres, blew out both his ACL and MCL his left knee.
Greg Logan also reports that the recovery period is considered for the
injury is six to nine months and that Sim's likely return is the 2008
Islanders training camp.

Sim really seemed to gel playing with Mike Sillinger and Trent Hunter
and as we've seen in the games since the injury, Andy Hilbert has slid
back in with his linemates from last season. It has to be depressing as
hell for him since he came to the Islanders after bouncing around for a
bit and must have been hoping to establish himself as a regular
contributor on the team and in the league.

This is a real bummer for all concerned--player, team, and fans. Sim was a high-energy guy who was fun to watch and he brought a lot of grit and determination to the team. Now that Hilbert is stepping back into his old shoes, that means that guys like Sean Bergenheim (who I thought played a heck of a game Saturday night in the 3-1 loss to the Flyers) need to bring that pinball energy to the rink every night.

Other thoughts while I was away:

--Marc Andre Bergeron was benched for the game against the Flyers after two egregious defensive lapses against the Leafs last Thursday. Ted Nolan inserted Bryan Berard into the lineup and he played with Bergeron's normal defense partner, Andy Sutton.

--By the way, who doesn't love Andy Sutton? Between he and Brendan Witt, Ricky's crease stays squeaky clean. Those dudes are like human Swiffers. Man, we gotta keep the big man healthy all season. I want someone to cut a video of Sutton's big hits and highlights and set it to "Cochise" by Audioslave. Can we get some YouTube amateur videographers working on this? How about somebody from Islanders TV? Just another great pickup for Garth Snow.

--Josef Vasicek scored the Islanders' goal and led a late rally against the Flyers. He and linemates Bergenheim and Miro Satan buzzed Flyers goalie Martin Biron and the Isles 15 shots on goal in the third period. While the line was able to create many good opportunities, the Isles fell short. If there is one thing we've learned so far this season it is that the first line of The Tank, Comrie, and Guerin need to be productive every night for the team to be successful.

--Strange schedule makers, those NHL peeps. The Isles don't play again until Thursday (Caps) and Saturday at home against the Devils. Then they have another week off and don't play until the 27th, when they entertain Peter Laviolette and the Carolina Hurricanes. After that--get this--the boys are off until Thursday, November 1 when the Lightning come to town. They scrunch 6 games into 9 days to start the season and then give the Islanders all sorts of time off. Weird.

--Jim Balsillie is back in the picture to buy the Nashville Predators. Last time, the BlackBerry boss came into town with his guns blaring. A local ownership group is crumbling and Balsillie may be able to buy the franchise after all. Hopefully this time he fights nice and plays by the rules if he truly wants to become a member of the NHL brotherhood. He made lots of mistakes the first time around by announcing his intention to move the team to Canada (which we support) without truly understanding that Gary Bettman and the league need to exhaust all efforts to keep the team where it is before a move can even be discussed. Taking season ticket deposits without allowing the league due diligence was foolhardy and arrogant. I'm sure it's hard for mega-millionaires to show humility and humanity at times but if he wants to own the Nashville Predators, Jim Balsillie is going to need to practice patience.

--And because it's such a popular feature, here's a last WWE 24/7 comment: October is shaping up to be the least interesting month of WWE 24/7 programming history. There's been one really good NWA TBS show and the WCCW tape does not hold up to last month's Freebird-Von Erich Christmas night 1982 angle. You'd think that the promotion would have been hot for replays and more Freebird heel stuff but they really don't do much with it. There's the usual ECW stuff but for me, I have no interest in reliving that promotion. It was cutting edge and new ten or so years ago and I was a big fan but now it just doesn't work. I guess I have become re-sensitized to the violence in my old age. The Monday Night Wars shows are semi-interesting but outside of a very few angles, not much sticks. That's a by-produc of the short attention span booking that was prevalent in the late 1990s. Also, having Snitsky host the Shorties was just a creepy, terrible idea. The guy is a walking advertisement for people who want to goof on the wellness policy. All the redness and acne is disgusting. Plus, I want to know who picked the matches for the Shorties segment. None of the matches were great choices. The Legends and HOF stuff is all Undertaker and Wild Samoans and I have no attachment to either. I guess what I am saying is that I can't wait for November.

WWE 24/7 Revisited

In the spirit of giving the people what they want, I'll revisit WWE 24/7 since a lot of the feedback that we get are questions about old school wrestling and the channel.

So, with that in mind, I will answer one favorite question right off the bat: yes, it is worth it if you are an old school fan that doesn't bother with the product today, you'll remember why you were a wrestling fan in a hurry when you see the channel.

Also, I must admit that at times it does get a bit sad when you're watching a match and you figure out that only the referee is still alive today and that sort of thing. Once in a while that reality hits me and I'll turn it off. But if you can get past that, it is definitely worth the nine bucks a month.

Here are a couple of "for instances" that illustrate my point about the channel itself.

WWE 24/7 has a (almost) monthly feature called Legends Roundtable. Jim Ross is the host and he is flanked by such wrestling luminaries as Jerry Lawler; Dusty Rhodes; Michael PS Hayes; Mike Graham; Eric Bischoff; and Mick Foley. It's an engaging and fun show that generally runs over an hour and trust me, passes by very quickly. It's really just a bunch of guys who can tell stories dishing on and about their own careers and their peers. The show is a peek behind the curtain of the kayfabe era and is a can't-miss.

The best of these shows aired in August, which was a Legends Roundtable about the famed Monday Night Wars. Eric Bischoff was on the panel with guys who were on the opposite end of the wars during the time: JR; Lawler; Foley; and Hayes. Just amazing stuff.

The WWE guys essentially turned the roundtable into a grilling session where they ask all sorts of questions about the WCW end of the war. Hayes, for one, seems willing to give Bischoff his proper credit for what WCW achieved during the era. Jim Ross still has an ax to grind with how he was let go from the Turner company by his old boss Eric but he counters that with unique insight from his position as head of talent for the WWE during the time.

There are two off-the-charts segments in the show. The first is when the boys are discussing the Montreal situation with Bret Hart and Vince McMahon where Lawler wonders out loud whether or not the whole thing was orchestrated by Bret and Vince as a way to get publicity for both and a huge contract from WCW for Bret. To me, this part of the show is a quick-yet-fascinating glimpse into the world of wrestling--a world where no one can fully trust anyone else nor the company for which you are employed. The surprising thing is that the rest of the panel seems to agree with him that it is a possibility; save Bischoff. Those prone to conspiracy theories may believe that Eric Bischoff says a lot by saying nothing at all.

The other segment of actual tension is when the panel discusses the famous time where Bischoff allegedly had his TV announcer Tony Schiavone degrade the fact that Mick Foley was winning the WWF title on an episode of RAW that was taped a week prior while Nitro was live.

Foley obviously feels done wrong by and he and the guys essentially confront Bischoff about the condescending tone Schiavone may or may not been asked to employ in an effort to devalue the fact that a non-traditional talent like Foley was going to be wearing WWF gold. To his end, Bischoff tries to deflect any accusations that it was a personal attack and while I think at times he is credible in his assertion, it's pretty clear that the WWE guys aren't buying it. The segment is, however full of real emotion in a business that traffics in manipulation to elicit crowd response.

Speaking of real emotion, another feature of the channel is that they replay entire TV shows from other promotions from back in the day. And for real emotion, you're hard-pressed to beat the original angle between the Fabulous Freebirds and the Von Erich family from World Class Championship Wrestling in the early 1980s. Back then, the good guys and bad guys were clear cut and when someone turned on someone else, it meant something because the audience had made an emotional investment in the characters and trust me, when Terry Gordy slammed the cage door on Kerry Von Erich's head, the crowd was ready to explode and the angle carried WCCW to a new level that the promotion had never been able to reach previously.

Let me back up and explain the angle for those who don't know.

For months in 1982, NWA World Champion Ric Flair had a long series of matches defending his title against Kerry Von Erich. After several of the matches ended in controversy with the champion retaining the belt by all sorts of illegal shenanigans, WCCW booked a rematch between the two in a steel cage for their big show of the year, Star Wars on Christmas night, 1982. The promotion also announced a write-in poll in which fans could vote for the wrestler they wanted to serve as special referee for the match and the fans legitimately chose Michael Hayes of the Freebirds to be the ref since Hayes had been aligned as a good buddy of David Von Erich's for months beforehand. In fact, just before that, David had helped the Freebirds win the new Six-Man tag team championship by filling in (and gaining the deciding pinfall) for Freebird Buddy Roberts, who missed the match due to (ahem) transportation problems.

The fans who voted in Hayes as the special referee were alarmed by Hayes' over-zealous refereeing as the Freebirds' spiritual leader was getting physical while trying to break up Kerry and Flair whenever either one of the wrestlers were not listening to him for rope breaks and stuff like that. Finally, after too much protesting by Flair, Hayes turned and punked him, knocking the champion out. Hayes tried to get Kerry to pin Flair to take the title but Kerry, as the consummate babyface of the time, refused to do so. Finally, an angry Hayes manhandled Von Erich and both men were shouting at each other. Flair, ever the opportunist, kneed Von Erich is the back and his momentum knocked Hayes out the cage door to the floor. This enraged Hayes' Freebird brother, Terry Gordy, who then slammed the cage door on Kerry's head. Von Erich was knocked silly and eventually was pinned by the champion as second referee David Manning made the count.

This brought out the other Von Erich brothers. David, after checking on Kerry, grabbed a house mike and said something to the effect that it was on and that now he knew what the Freebirds had given his family for Christmas. Announcer Bill Mercer, while speculating that Kerry must have suffered a concussion from the door slam, could have really said nothing and allowed the crowd to vent and set the mood for what would happen for the next two or three years in Dallas.

The best wrestling angles are reliant upon manipulation of the audience and the participants--who have to buy into the creativity for optimum effect. This entire angle deserves to be one of the most legendary in wrestling history because the whole thing was so well-orchestrated and built to a crescendo when Gordy smacked Kerry in the head. It was kicked up higher with David Von Erich's angry rebuttal over the PA. World Class, Dallas wrestling, and the rivalry of the Von Erichs and Freebirds would never be better because the whole scenario was built upon and built upon for months as they established a friendship and a brotherhood amongst the Freebirds and Von Erichs before delivering the payoff that literally changed the fortunes of everyone involved. There isn't much gold like this in today's WWE product because the company (and their TV partners) do not believe that the audience is "willing" to sit and let angles play out to natural conclusions at a reasonable pace. For that reason alone--to re-live some of the industry's best history--it's worth ordering the channel.

Review: Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen DVD

Greed. The 1980s. Corporations running over the little guy. Good times.

Today, as a public service, I am going to give all of you a review of the most important DVD release in the history of WWE: Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen.

I'm not going to be another old guy who tries to school the young people about how cool wrestling was back in the day...but trust me, it was way cooler back in the day. Inside the ring, every movement meant something. Promotions spent months and years building up their feuds and they let them play out in a much more natural way. Guys didn't do silly flippy moves for the sake of getting in a silly flippy move. Nothing was so tightly scripted as the average RAW of Smackdown show is today. Guys fed off each other in and outside of the ring and worked in a kind of shorthand manner that allowed them to feed off of the crowd and what was going on that particular night and that particular group in the arena. It was more theatre and less absurdist tumbling.

Which brings this old man back to 1985 and 1986 and Jim Crockett Promotions. I first discovered the NWA on Superstation TBS in my teens. Being in the northeast, we'd been fed our weekly plodding WWF program for years. I was never anything more than a casual fan until the MTV War To Settle The Score and the whole Hogan-Piper leadup to Wrestlemania I. Then, one Saturday morning, I flipped on my TV and saw the wrestler who changed the rules as far as I was concerned: Ric Flair.

Ric Flair not only talked the talk, he literally walked the effing walk. He came out on TV wearing an expensive-looking suit and sunglasses and seemed to have no problem telling the interviewer (might have been Schiavone) how great he was. It seemed to me that "in real life" a champion would look more like Ric Flair did and a lot less than the ripped shirt-wearing "say your prayers and take your vitamins" moron that ruled the WWF.

Yes, when I was a kid, there were two camps: you were either a fan of Flair's or a fan of Hogan's. There was no middle ground whatsoever because the two of them were so dissimilar.

Speaking of dissimilar, the one man Ric Flair is always going to be associated with is The American Dream, Dusty Rhodes. Rhodes was, of course, the man of the people. Flair and the Horsemen represented the new and emerging yuppie class that was all too happy to squash the little man on their way to the top. That perfect confluence of two guys who were competitive as hell with each other who represented different things to different people and who both were able to articulate their differences in ways that grabbed the viewer by the neck propelled Jim Crockett Promotions and the NWA to amazing TV and angles that hold up today in a way that two guys bumping into each other backstage and then staring at each other never will.

The Four Horsemen were born not out of a booking decision, but out of necessity. The story is told that the Andersons; Flair; and Blanchard were put together to do a quick interview about upcoming matches they were having and Arn said something to the effect of "not since the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse have you seen devastation like you see here before you." With that one ad-libbed (NOT SCRIPTED!) line, the Four Horsemen were born. And the fact that this famous (infamous?) interview was not on the set and lost to the sands of time is the major quibble of the DVD set. Whether it was recorded over (as legend goes, Crockett reused tapes in a cost-cutting move) or it was just misplaced, the failure to have this on the set is egregious.

One of the complaints I have heard from old school/kayfabe fans is that sometimes there is a lack of candor in some of the releases; like people don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers or something. Well, one thing is for sure. One Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen, that is not the case. Ric Flair seems to use this opportunity as the Teflon Legend of Wrestling to take the piss out of old foes such as Eric Bischoff and Jim Herd. When asked what he thinks of former wrestlers like Sid Vicious, Flair simply does not hold back. The man is a storyteller and truly comes off as relishing the chance to get some stuff off of his chest.

The Horseman who left the biggest impression on me after watching the DVD was Tully Blanchard. While not featured as much as Flair, Blanchard makes a point with every word he says. And although he is out of the business and a preacher these days, you can see the mischievous glint in his eye when he talks about the old days. The guys obviously had the time of their lives back then--even if you only believe half of the stories they tell. Blanchard obviously enjoyed his time as one of the elite and he should have. While Flair was the champ and was cool and Arn was the guy who you believed could really kick some ass, Tully always came off as the snot-nosed rich kid who knew he was better than you and never minded rubbing it in your face. What a great role to play.

Tully is also the guy who kind of brought manager James J. Dillon to the group. It's easy to see that in a group of great talkers that a manager could get lost in the mix. In fact, back in the day, I had no idea as to why he was there. But to a man, all of the Horsemen who were involved with the Dillon incarnation set the record straight and tell you just how important JJ was to the group. Really changed my opinion of him in a lot of ways to hear the other guys talk about him in such glowing terms.

Overall, I would rank Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen as the best of the WWE documentaries since very little of it is sugar-coated. I mean, hell, they even dug up a Botoxed Paul Roma and asked him about his time with the group. Roma, by the way, is clearly delusional when discussing himself and Ric Flair. Triple H hits it on the head when he says that everyone was expecting Tully to be returning to the group and then they brought out "the job guy from WWE". I'll never forget what a Fart in Church moment that was back in the day. The group wilted after that and every incarnation got a little bit worse. Not good times.

Glaring omission: Ole Anderson is not interviewed. The fact that he left the group and how that was handled was touched on but it would have been nice to hear from the man himself. Ole must still be harboring a grudge against Vince for the whole Black Saturday hijacking of Georgia Championship Wrestling from back in the day.

If given my druthers--and I am so not sure what 'druthers' are, anyway--the match selection would have been different. Then again, most of the great Flair matches are already on his solo DVD release. All of the key moments that I wanted to see were on there as part of the documentary, so I am not complaining.

Overall, I give it an A for the documentary and a C for match selection. It's a DVD that every old-school fan should own because we will never see anything like the Four Horsemen again. They were of a time and were unique. They were the first "faction" or gang of wrestlers who hung together like family. Those bonds extend even to this day between the wrestlers and the fans who remember what a ground-breaking act that they were.

WWE 24/7

Since we all are still getting over the stomach punch from Saturday night, I thought I'd turn some attention to the new WWE 24/7 digital service. I've been waiting on such an occasion as this to do my review, so here it is. And yes, this is going to be another one of those articles written by some old guy who is going to complain about how much cooler things were back in the day.

Everything looks better in the rearview mirror and finally, Vince McMahon and the WWE have decided to exploit the old school fans who deserted professional wrestling in the late 1990s. By purchasing many of the available tape libraries from the different promotions he ran out of business, the WWE created a digital cable service to separate the disenfranchised from their money once again. And this should be no surprise: WWE 24/7 is a heck of an enjoyable deal.

Over the past few years, the library purchases have livened up some of the WWE's best-selling DVD sets like the ones for Paul Heyman's ECW; The Ultimate Ric Flair Collection; The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA; the Roddy Piper and Dusty Rhodes collections, etc. Instead of only featuring the wrestlers in their WWE (nee WWF) heyday, all of these DVD sets were able to round out--with varying degrees of critical success--the entire careers of some of the best-revered wrestlers from the 1980s and more.

So, what better way to get in on the digital cable in demand phenomenon than to have an entire channel dedicated to the history of wrestling--before it was labeled as "sports entertainment"?

Each month the programming on WWE 24/7 follows some sort of highlighted theme. For instance, February was "Dynamic Duos" and featured a lot of tag team action; March is all about Wrestlemania; and April promises to focus on the lost art of the wrestling managers.

March's featured Hall of Famer is Jimmy Snuka, so there are new matches featuring the man known as Superfly that rotate throughout the month. Entire episodes of WWF RAW and old Saturday Night's Main Event from NBC are also available (with drastic music changes) from time to time. The highlight for me is that old NWA TBS Saturday Night 6:05 shows are replayed as well. It's great to go back to the kayfabe days of seeing Ric Flair, Arn Anderson, and the Four Horsemen, Jim Cornette and the Midnight Express, and all of the favorites from the great studio wrestling days on the Superstation. Who doesn't miss the immediacy of studio wrestling?

Being an old NWA fan, it's great to relive some of the great angles from yesteryear. Almost as fun is seeing the guys rock some serious mullets. I swear it was Christmas morning to me the time I turned on to see Cornette and the Express make their TBS debut. And even though Dusty's famous "hard times" promo is available on both the Dusty and the Flair DVD sets, to see it in context of what was going on in Jim Crockett Promotions was a serious treat. Round that out with some of the old Florida Championship Wrestling and World Class shows (which are sad to see in retrospect and I think we all know why), WWE 24/7 is totally worth spending $7.95 a month.

But wait--there's more! There are PPVs and big shows from the past as well. WWE Old School has old WWF house shows from the Boston Garden (hello, Pete Doherty!) and Madison Square Garden. So far, there has been way too much Hulk Hogan on these shows for my taste but man, someone must've liked him if he was able to make all that money. There also is a roundtable show when Jim Ross; Dusty Rhodes; Freebird Michael PS Hayes; Pat Patterson; and Mike Graham discuss wrestling's main eventers from the 1980s. Trust me, listening to these guys sit around swapping war stories and tall tales is worth the price of the service by itself. The viewer gets to feel almost like a fly on the wall of the wrestlers' locker room as the guys goof on each other, talk about how much money they made, complain about their peers, etc. And if you've ever seen Michael Hayes do his impression of Terry Funk talking to Dusty Rhodes, trust me, you'll never forget it. Absolutely hilarious stuff.

Growing up, I was never the biggest fan of the WWF. To this day, I am no fan of Vince McMahon or really anyone in his family; especially Triple H. But I have to give it to ol' Vinnie Mac--no one else could have pulled this kind of a deal off as well as he has. Sure, the wrestling landscape has been reduced to scorched Earth and the direction his company has taken over the past ten years--booking on ego instead of for profit--is tough to swallow but the WWE 24/7 service is a fun ride back to the days of good guys, bad guys, and kayfabe. Any and all of the so-labeled disenfranchised and displaced wrestling fans can find something to remind them of how things used to be and how much we enjoyed suspending our disbelief for a few hours at a time.