5 times ‘rasslin could have gone national sooner

By Rick Morris

Pro wrestling existed as a regional, highly segmented enterprise until it was pulled into the modern age in 1983 by Vincent Kennedy McMahon. He was in the process of buying out his father and his father’s partners and taking full control of the promotion. He was not content to merely control the Upper Northeast territory, lucrative though it was with such metropolises as New York, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh, Baltimore and D.C. He wanted to be the boss of the first territory without borders – and he succeeded.

Previously, the barons of each area maintained a gentleman’s agreement that kept them from expanding into other territories. Although some minor promotional skirmishes erupted from time to time, the “dons” of old-time wrestling respected promotional boundaries for the most part and did not “run opposition” against one another. The overwhelming majority of promoters prior to 1983 belonged to the National Wrestling Alliance, a governing body that had a “traveling” world champion (as opposed to a “company” champion, a traveling champion defended his title in multiple territories anywhere and everywhere). The two major exceptions to the rule of NWA governance were Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association (AWA – an Upper Midwest territory that broke away from the NWA) and Vince McMahon Senior’s World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF – the aforementioned Northeast territory that was later renamed the WWF and then the WWE). While Vince Senior and Gagne both left the NWA auspices in the early 1960s, they still refrained from active competition against any NWA promoters, and indeed, kept some measure of co-promotion from them with time to time.

When Vincent Kennedy McMahon (often referred to as Vince Junior) took over the WWF and launched his national expansion plan, it is impossible to overstate how much his actions violated the “gentleman’s club” atmosphere that ruled the industry for the previous several decades. The direction he charted was so shocking that there are some stories that circulate to this day that indicate that Vince Senior was strongly opposed to it out of loyalty to his friends and colleagues. At a bare minimum, it’s been confirmed by those close to him that he did at least call his fellow promoters to warn them that they were going to be under attack. The full story of Vince Senior’s attitude about the expansion may never be known, since he perished due to cancer in 1984.

Vince Junior’s actions unleashed complete fury among his peers – now competitors – because with few exceptions he was now steamrolling them in their own backyards. A short-lived competing “national promotion” called Pro Wrestling USA existed in 1984-85 and it was nothing more than an amalgam of the biggest regional promotions (mostly NWA but also the AWA). It collapsed because, predictably, many of these chieftains imagined themselves the biggest of the bunch and nobody wanted to take a back seat to their peers.

These potentates were angry both out of fear for their own survival (a fear that would be justified, as most would be out of business by the end of the decade once Vince buried some and the Charlotte-based Jim Crockett Promotions would swallow most remaining NWA-affiliated promotions), but also in some cases jealousy. When Vince brought the red-hot Hulk Hogan (fresh off of his Rocky III role) back to the WWF in 1983 and set in motion big plans with MTV, Cyndi Lauper and other national entities, he was taking advantage of circumstances that were rare, but not quite unprecedented. On at least five previous occasions, promoters had potential opportunities to throw off their regional shackles – only one of them attempted to do so and he did so, unsuccessfully, in the same maverick mode McMahon would emulate about a decade later. Had the others tried, the course of history would have been different because Vince Junior wouldn’t have been going against as much precedent in doing what he did. But it’s another matter altogether to imagine that any of these wrestling minds could have broken through as Vince Junior did and made the jump successfully. The fact that he jumped on the back of cable television as it transformed American society in the 1980s (through the troika of CNN, ESPN and MTV) was the most important indicator that only that man in that circumstance could have managed the transformation of the industry. But it’s always fun to look at what-ifs in whatever realm – so here are the five instances that could have preceded Vince Junior’s efforts in 1983-84.

^ 1965: NWA/WWF Title Unification bout falls apart. In Lou Thesz’s book “Hooker,” he recounts the negotiations that took place between NWA President Sam Muchnick and Vince Senior. Having just broken away from the NWA two years earlier, Vince and his partner Toots Mondt wanted additional validation for their already-successful champion Bruno Sammartino. Specifically, they wanted to set up a title unification match with Thesz, then the NWA World Champion. This match would take place on closed-circuit television across the country, then an unthinkable aspect of promotion for pro wrestling. Thesz was to drop the belt to Bruno, thus unifying the world title claims, then win back only the NWA belt at an unspecified date in the future. Thesz was unimpressed with the amount of money he was being offered, especially because the “New York swifties” (his colorful name for Vince Senior and Company) were looking at a potential payday in excess of seven figures. A legitimate amateur wrestler and tough guy (the term “hooker,” like the similar moniker of “shooter,” referred to a wrestler who could apply holds in such a manner to win legitimately, not just in a worked, professional-style “match”), Thesz was a throwback to a time when the traveling champion had to be able to handle any situation in the ring lest a local promoter try to pull a fast one by having his local star “win the world title” in an unscheduled manner. As such, if he didn’t cooperate with the limited-in-skill Sammartino in the ring, Bruno wouldn’t necessarily leave with the belt even if that was the sanctioned outcome. Muchnick was happy with the payoff he was to receive and tried to order Thesz to go along with the match, but was unsuccessful due to Thesz’s threat to double-cross him on the match finish if he did. Had the match actually come off, Vince Senior’s resolve not to cross territorial boundaries might have weakened in the face of what could have been monster profits at the gate and from closed-circuit. While not expressly identified as an influence for national expansion, Mondt was always an advocate for a very aggressive manner of operation and remained so until his retirement in 1969. The effects of receiving big money from a “one time only” crossing of promotional boundaries via closed circuit could have transformed the promotional mindset of the Vince crew – in addition to controlling the unified WWF/NWA champion in Sammartino. There was some doubt as to whether Bruno’s Italian character would be as over in the rest of the country as it was in the Northeast, but these fears were ridiculous – his hometown and base of operations was Pittsburgh, where he was insanely popular and Pittsburgh is very representative of Middle America. Ultimately, though, the failure to financially satisfy Thesz prevented the window of opportunity from opening for the formation of the first national promotion back in the 1960s.

^ 1975: A maverick from “outside the family” tries, and fails, to establish a national beachhead. Those who have compared pro wrestling to La Cosa Nostra over the years need look no further than the similarities in terms of how competition is tolerated – or more accurately, how it was not tolerated. “Running opposition” against an established operation in an area was the biggest no-no among the kingpins of the pro circuit back in the day. So one can only imagine the shock and anger coursing through booking offices across the country when an interloper not presently recognized as an NWA or NWA-friendly promoter tried to set up shop nationally. Eddie Einhorn, a longtime sports television executive who, among other things, helped pioneer big-time college basketball coverage (and is now an executive with the Chicago White Sox), picked up the pieces of the NWF promotion that ran in upstate New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio in the late 1960s and early 1970s when it folded. He signed several big-name stars of the day, including Mil Mascaras (who would serve as his first heavyweight champion), Ivan Koloff, Ernie Ladd, Ox Baker and announcer Jack Reynolds (the voice of NWF wrestling, later to be heard in the WWF and also the father of longtime Cleveland radio and television sports personality Tony Rizzo) for his brand-new IWA promotion. With national syndication, a slot on New York’s cable superstation WOR and cutting-edge 1970s tools such as instant replay being deployed, this TV bigshot was trying to make a huge splash. His early shows against Crockett Promotions in the Mid-Atlantic area and against WWWF in the Northeast got the attention of the powers that be and ultimately, they waged a successful counterattack by invoking exclusive clauses to keep the IWA out of any prime arenas. Court fights to end these practices were unsuccessful and as such, the life span of the promotion only lasted from January to October 1975 – enough time to cost Einhorn a cool half a million. His attempt to change the system from the outside was unsuccessful and demonstrated to Vince Junior that the way to build a nationwide territory was to start with an established one and build from there. Interestingly, Einhorn would return to the wrestling wars nine years later as part of the aforementioned Pro Wrestling USA super-promotion that the lead promoters of the day thought could collectively bury McMahon. But adding the chief outlaw of yesterday to a volatile mix of promoters who already didn’t trust each other fully was doomed to failure and both of Einhorn’s ventures ended up going down in pro wrestling history as “what might have been” footnotes.

^ 1976: Ted Turner puts WTBS on national cable and Georgia Championship Wrestling goes along for the ride. Following the IWA show on WOR by just a year, the second wrestling program to be televised nationally since the Dumont Network broadcasts of the 1950s happened by accident – or at least, not by design of the promoters, who were irrelevant to the decision. In the 1970s, business mogul Ted Turner was in the process of expanding his business base beyond the Southeast. He decided to take his television station, Atlanta’s Channel 17, and put it up on the satellite so that it could be viewed coast-to-coast on cable television. His newly-purchased Atlanta Braves were envisioned to be a prime beneficiary, since they would be the first Major League Baseball team with games that could be seen nationally. But it would be the Georgia Championship Wrestling promotion that would eventually realize some unexpected gains. As the 1980s dawned, the territory expanded into uncontested “open” areas in Ohio, Michigan and West Virginia. Executives realized almost by accident that they were gaining in popularity in certain geographic areas not as a result of the syndicated program, but because of the nationally televised Saturday evening program on the rebranded “SuperStation.” However, the makeup of the Georgia territory kept the promotional braintrust from having any national designs. In addition to the aforementioned verboten nature of promoting shows in “other people’s territories,” the Georgia group was constrained by its NWA membership. They exchanged booking dates for the NWA World Champion with all of the other local affiliates, and for that matter, the promotion also depended on moving talent back and forth between the local territories. At that time, it was widely perceived that territories would go stale with too much of the same talent around for too long, so wrestlers moved fairly freely between many of the different areas. The Georgia promotion would have had to create its own “world champion” and lock down a core group of talent if they were to break off from the NWA and promote shows in many of the major cities across the country that viewed their shows on TBS. Additionally, in the early ‘80s, Ole Anderson held the position of “booker” (matchmaker) for both the Georgia and Mid-Atlantic territories and there’s no way the two territories could have maintained a sufficient affiliated basis with Georgia firmly outside the NWA fold. Ultimately, the TBS show did serve as the basis for Crockett’s Mid-Atlantic group to launch a national expansion in the mid-‘80s – once Vince Junior had already gone national and Crockett had worked within the NWA to buy up many territories, including Georgia. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that the Georgia promoters could have surmounted the obstacles they’d have faced by “following their television show” in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

^ 1978: Vince Senior takes the title off the Hogan precursor. When Bruno’s final title run came to an end in April of 1977, Vince Senior traveled an unconventional path by elevating Superstar Billy Graham, a charismatic, jive-talking, flashy-dressing heel muscleman from the Southwest. Wrestlers without much technical wrestling ability had traditionally been relegated to the upper midcard at best, but there was something special about Graham’s package of qualifications that made him an intriguing choice to lead a promotion as champion. The gamble paid off, as Graham provided the spark the New York office sought and sold out buildings in both the bigger and smaller markets all over the area. Notwithstanding the gutsy decision to put Graham on top, however, Vince Senior stayed true to his original plan of getting the territory red-hot with Graham in order for his young star “The All-American Boy” Bob Backlund to become established immediately as a superstar by toppling him for the title. With the area on fire, however, Graham believed that he should be turned babyface as significant portions of the fanbase were already cheering him despite the unsportsmanlike tendencies of his character. Vince Junior, who would light the world on fire with a very similar character to what Graham envisioned in Hulk Hogan six years later, was sympathetic to this wish, but wielded no real power in his father’s enterprise. Graham dropped the title to Backlund as anticipated in February of 1978, never to return to his peak level of stardom. In Graham’s subsequent WWE-produced career retrospective DVD “20 Years Too Soon,” he expresses frustration that he did not get the opportunity to deploy what would have been for all intents and purposes the same character that Hogan conquered the world with in 1984. With hated Russian wrestler Ivan Koloff as a former tag team partner, Graham had an ideal opponent to facilitate a babyface turn – and as the Sgt. Slaughter/Iron Sheik feud also from 1984, demonstrated, there was huge box office potential in a rivalry that could appeal to jingoism at a time when the United States was perceived as struggling to deal with some of its foreign adversaries. Granted, Vince Senior did not have Mondt around as an aggressive influence and had settled back into a friendly association with the NWA, so he wasn’t philosophically inclined to push full-steam ahead nationally even if Graham had actually gotten a chance to become Hogan-before-Hogan. Plus, without a national television outlet, the WWWF would have faced significant obstacles in taking their success in the huge Northeast media outlets nationwide. But he also would have had the industry’s first real larger-than-life figure as a world champion and having that kind of mold-breaker on top is a wild card that makes calculating the odds of success fairly difficult.

1982: World Class Championship Wrestling goes on Trinity and builds a substantial syndication network, with unprecedented production values. Much in the same way that Vince Junior imprinted his very different vision of wrestling on the WWF when he took it over, Fritz Von Erich transformed his country greatly at about the time he retired as an active wrestler to focus on promoting in 1982. With his young, athletic, photogenic and insanely over sons about to anchor the promotion for as far as the eye could see, he changed the entire feel of Texas wrestling to reflect the new age in every possible way. A new TV crew came in and brought a revolutionary, high-tech feel to the televising of pro wrestling. Older names who had anchored the area for so long were replaced with a new generation of exciting wrestlers. And eventually, a syndication network sprung up in far-flung areas and his show landed on the national evangelical cable channel Trinity Broadcasting Network (World Class was fairly overt in its pro-Christian messages, more so than most wrestling organizations before or since). Like the Georgia promoters a few years earlier, though, Fritz refused to “follow his program” with actual shows across territorial lines, as he did not want to become an outcast in his fraternity of promoters (even when he broke away from the NWA in 1986 and proclaimed his company champion Rick Rude as the “World Class World Heavyweight Champion,” he ignored his sons’ pleas and still refused to compete against his former NWA breathren!). And while he had a host of fresh, new, over wrestlers (exemplified by, but not limited to, his own sons), it’s debatable if he’d have had enough organizational depth to maintain a national promotion, and the drug problems of his sons and many other core wrestlers might have choked such an effort in the cradle. But it remains a very interesting what-if regardless of all that.

WrestleMania 24 review

By Rick Morris

This was a tremendous show, one of the most entertaining WrestleManias ever. Great moments were interspersed all throughout the four hours, continuing the trend of recent years ended. Ever since the first post-boom WrestleMania of this decade (18), the company has taken advantage of their depth of "names" by trying to present several super-attractive matches on each show. They succeeded more than at any other time this decade.

^ JBL defeated Finlay in a Belfast Brawl match. Excellent brawl to open the show with several STIFF shots from each man. Hornswaggle made his return by accompanying Finlay at the outset. Finlay did a dive to the outside at one point, only to have JBL swing a garbage can lid right into his head. The "Clothesline from Hades" gave JBL a surprising clean win, surprising in the sense that the match seemed to be built toward the "Finlay family" getting revenge after a month of JBL's cruelties. This was a super-stiff match and both guys are going to be sore tomorrow. (3 stars)

^ C.M. Punk wins the Money In the Bank Match. This was probably the best of the "Midcard Spotfest-Mania" matches in its four years of existence. There were several insane spots: John Morrison moonsaulting out of the ring onto several participants HOLDING A LADDER, Carlito giving Chris Jericho a backstabber off a ladder and the worst of them all, Sheldon Benjamin getting pitched off a ladder and landing flat on his back on a ladder stretched out from the ring to the apron. Benjamin never got up from that and could well be seriously injured. Matt Hardy made the obligatory run-in when MVP was about to win and Punk & Carlito did a nice spot jumping onto ladders that their competitors were climbing. In the end, Punk got Y2J tied up in the ladder once he fell backward and Punk claimed the prize. (3 3/4 stars)

The Hall of Fame inductees were then recognized, with Ric Flair's family standing in for him.

A backstage skit with Snoop Dog and Festus then aired, with Santino angrily approaching Snoop, who then reached around to ring a bell to get Festus to chase Santino. Mick Foley then popped up for a cameo with a sock with bling-bling on it.

^ Batista defeated You-Mang-A in the "brand supremacy" match. This was a fairly basic match, nothing horrible or special about it. (2 1/4 stars)

Highlights of the battle royal that only aired on WWE.com earlier tonight were shown, as Kane emerged the winner.

^ Kane defeated Chavo Guerrero for the ECW Title. This one was short and sweet. Kane snuck into the ring behind Chavo and chokeslammed him when he turned around. Just like that, Chavo's run on top of ECW is done. (not applicable for star rating)

^ Shawn Michaels defeated Ric Flair in a "Career Threatening Match." Purely in terms of raw emotion, this match would have to be in anyone's all-time top five. They pulled out all the stops. Relatively early, Michaels missed a moonsault outside the ring in a planned spot -- well, I'm guessing the ringside table not falling apart as it should and likely breaking several of Shawn's ribs was not planned, but the spot itself was. Minutes later, Michaels tried another one and Flair botched the catch, causing HBK's knee to bounce harshly off the ground. There was a tremendous back-and-forth in the ring, with several false finishes. Michaels hesitated the first time he went for the superkick, allowing Flair to hit the figure-four leglock. Flair kicked out of another superkick and almost won several times with the figure-four or some rollup nearfalls. Flair actually hit a flying bodypress tonight as well. These two pulled out all the stops and were only hampered by their limitations: age in the case of Flair and Michaels suffering as a result of the first moonsault. In the end, Michaels mouthed, "I love you. I'm sorry," right before he swiftly hit another superkick and covered Flair for "Little Naitch" Charles Robinson's final three-count. Just like that, Ric Flair's career as an active wrestler ended. Michaels embraced Flair quickly, then left the ring, allowing Flair an extended exit. Flair, his family at ringside and many fans in the stadium were crying. Quite coincidentally, I had a piece of dust fly in each of my eyes at the moment, giving the illusion to the naked eye of manly tears welling up in there. (4 1/2 stars)

^ Beth Phoenix and Melina won the BunnyMania match. Against all odds, Maria had The Glamazon beaten, but Santino Marella broke up the three-count and Phoenix got the duke. Afterwards, Snoop Dogg clotheslined a gloating Santino, who had also been punched earlier by Jerry Lawler. (1/2 star)

^ Randy Orton retained the WWE Title by pinning John Cena in the three-way match. This match was decent, but nothing terribly memorable. Each wrestler got in several of their trademark spots and pinfall attempts were routinely broken up by the third wrestler in there. The finish came when HHH reversed the FU into a Pedigree and Orton came back in out of nowhere with the punt to HHH's head to steal the three-count on Cena. (2 3/4 stars)

^ Floyd Mayweather defeated The Big Show. This match exceeded the justifiably low expectations. Mayweather successfully worked the "stick and move" early on, frustrating Show. In perhaps the funniest moment of the night, Mayweather took a drink from one of his cornermen not in the standard fighter's water bottle, but in an ornate chalice! Show charged the corner, started beating up on Floyd's posse, and the mayhem was on. Mayweather got in a version of a sleeperhold on Show, but eventually the big man took over to the point that the fighter and his entourage tried to bail. Show chased them up the aisle, beat up the crew and took Mayweather back to the ring. Once there, Mayweather was able to use a chair to soften up Show before resorting to brass knuckles for the legal three-count in this "anything goes" match. Decent action at times (2 1/2 stars)

^ The Undertaker defeated Edge for the World Heavyweight Title. This match began at a slower pace and built tremendously. At one point, Edge took a sick bump outside the ring when Taker pushed him off the top turnbuckle, then later Edge just dumped Undertaker right onto some shocked fans in the front row. The progression of the match featured the old All-Japan pattern of repeated false finishes. Edge kicked out of a chokeslam and a Last Ride, then the Undertaker kicked out after Edge waffled him with a TV camera during a ref bump, then Edge survived a Tombstone. When Edge's lackeys interfered, Taker chokeslammed one on top of the other one outside the ring, allowing Edge to set up a spear that did not result in a three-count. Edge hit another spear, but then Undertaker reached up and locked on a modified sleeperhold that got Edge to tap out. It was an outstanding ending to an amazing night of wrestling. (4 stars)

WrestleMania 24 preview

By Rick Morris

Earlier plans to live-blog this momentous event were shelved when the joint SportsTalkNetwork/FDH viewing party was scrapped by STN President Paul Belfi in favor of viewing the event at Harpo's Sports Cafe. Now, Harpo's is one of the greatest sports-themed restaurants in the world and it's within about two miles of my home, so my disappointment at not being able to live-blog is tempered by the anticipation of enjoying some great Harpo's wings and taking in the specter of the mark fans who invariably overrun Harpo's for every PPV.

On to the predictions ...

^ Battle Royal to determine #1 contender to ECW Title: This three-brand battle royal, which was moved from the broadcast to an online-only venue, demonstrates precisely what an afterthought the ECW (World???) Title has become. My guess, for the record, is that Kane emerges and gets the title shot on the PPV against Chavo Guerrero.

^ ECW Title Match: Chavo Guerrero vs. ???: Again, I think Kane will be facing Chavo and my guess is that Chavo walks out with the title by some nefarious means, setting up a spring feud between these two that will continue. Regardless of who Chavo faces, I don't believe WWE is giving away a title change with no buildup tonight.

^ BunnyMania Lumberjack Match: Ashley & Maria vs. WWE Women's Champion Glamazon Beth Phoenix and Melina: There's a certain percentage of the card that is going to have to contain heel wins just to even out the emotional high-spots, and the women's match has often been a place to do just that. In a match that means very little, and is almost certainly meant to do nothing but highlight celebrity participation, Melina and The Glam get their hands raised.

^ Brand vs. Brand, Umaga vs. Batista: Both of these guys are fringe main-eventers at this point, but You-Mang-a is probably fated (due to not getting to show any interview skills in his role as a "savage from the islands") to remain in the upper-upper midcard while Batista is on his way back to the main events at some point. Umaga is bulletproof in his role, having jobbed repeatedly to John Cena, HHH and Jeff Hardy, so a loss won't hurt him here. Batista wins.

^ Belfast Brawl, Finlay vs. JBL: This is a tough one to pick. JBL has gotten almost all of the heat on Finlay throughout this feud, from the abrupt (and botched) transition from a looming Finlay/Hornswaggle vs. McMahons clash to this battle. JBL seems to need a win more, since he's likely to get some WWE Title shots on PPV this summer due to the scarcity of top-level heels on RAW, but I think Finlay gets the win that the storyline has been pointing to, likely with Hornswaggle making a surprise return to help him in the end.

^ Money In the Bank Ladder Match to claim match at WWE Title, World Title or ECW Title, John Morrison vs. Kennedy vs. Chris Jericho vs. MVP vs. Sheldon Benjamin vs. C.M. Punk vs. Carlito: In the fourth annual MidcardMania match, one of these contestants will be crowned a future main event player -- which is sad for Jericho, who had alternated between the mid-card (mostly) and main event (occasionally) for more than a half-decade, before coming back last winter as a heavily-pushed main-eventer and then sliding quickly back into the midcard. Kennedy won last year and would have become a main-eventer already had he not gotten injured. His year was fairly star-crossed overall, in some ways because of his own stupidity, but I think he's a good candidate to win -- not as good as MVP, though, who is showing signs of living up to the hype of his character and becoming a legitimate player. I see MVP winning and ascending to either the World Title or ECW Title in the next year.

^ The Biggest vs. The Best, The Big Show vs. Floyd "Money" Mayweather: This heavily -hyped match will produce some memorable moments, largely because of a style clash that is actually being embraced by the promotion as some kind of surreal theater of the absurd. Mayweather will clearly have to take some big bumps here, and the guessing is that Show will be poised for victory when a member of his "posse" cheats him out of victory. Remember, the only stipulation is that there must be a winner. Mayweather will "dip into his $20 million" to get a WWE wrestler to turn on Show, setting up a subsequent feud for TBS. The only relevant point when trying to guess the outcome of this match is that Floyd Mayweather didn't sign this contract to end up losing.

^ World Title Match, Edge vs. The Undertaker: "The Streak vs. The Title" is the centerpiece of the "Smackdown Main Event," as Edge (who is also undefeated at WrestleMania in singles matches) takes on the 15-0 Dead Man. I disagree strongly with my friend Belfi, who on his PRO WRESTLING INSIDER show on STN (Tuesday nights, 7-9 PM EDT) expressed the markish (yes, I said it!) sentiment that 'Taker should keep the streak going and that Edge "didn't need the win." The very point of building up equity like The Undertaker has been able to do is to transfer the cache of it to another star at some point. Edge is the best main-event heel the company has had in years, probably since "Fac-Gime Era HHH," and his character can benefit immensely from the rub here. As you can tell, this is the outcome I am the most likely to disagree with, as all signs are that 'Taker will go 16-0. I have no problem with them giving The Undertaker another decently-long title reign, I just disagree with starting it here as opposed to a month or two down the road.

^ WWE Title Match, Randy Orton vs. HHH vs. John Cena: Three years after it was initially envisioned, we're seeing Orton vs. HHH for the title at 'Mania. One year after it was initially envisioned, we're seeing HHH vs. Cena for the title in a WrestleMania 22 rematch. We're getting both of these scenarios in one match, plus the hottest part of the match in terms of feud qualities in Cena vs. Orton. This should be a fantastic match, with all participants motivated to live up to the atmosphere and deliver a 3 1/2 or 4-star match. In the end, I think HHH "gets his wins back," after having finished the main event of the last three 'Manias he participated in looking up at the lights. He may be taking a lighter schedule later in the year when his "second McMahon heir" is born, so this is a way to strike while the iron is hot with him before he has another hiatus or semi-hiatus. Cena will still be waiting in the wings as the heir apparent to the title and I expect him to be protected here with Orton doing the job. For the record, although I'm a huge critic of HHH's positioning of himself during large stretches earlier this decade, I think this is the right move to make as he is having the best solo face run of his career (thanks to no storylines this time involving "his dog").

^ Career Threatening Match, Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels: I'm listing this match last in the vain hope that the company will do the right thing and put it on last. Good luck following this emotional moment! I don't believe it's a 100% lock that this will be Flair's last match, as a fairly elaborate swerve could be underway, but I do think it's probable that they will go in the anticipated direction and that Michaels will lead one heck of a great match. My biggest problem with Flair having this match on this card was the notion that his retirement match should headline a card and I thought it was improbable at WrestleMania, but this storyline has been such a huge part of the overall event that some of my objections have faded. Michaels probably wins after "The Dirtiest Player In the Game" fights and claws for his life.

In the interest of helping people to remember the greatness of Ric Flair, who was probably the greatest wrestler of all time, here's the excellent tribute to him that the company aired this past week:



And here's some of his great mic work from back in the day:



If this is the end, thanks for the memories, Ric.

In praise of Ron Garvin

By Rick Morris

With the in-ring portion of Ric Flair’s career nearing an end, the wave of nostalgia that has surrounded him over these past few years is cresting. By all accounts, the Ric Flair character we have come to know and love over the years saw its greatest era in the 1980s, from the initial NWA World Title run beginning in 1981 to the end of his fifth title reign at the hands of Sting at the Great American Bash in 1990 (a moment that signified the beginning of the end of his time in NWA/WCW, especially as it related to his deteriorating relationship with Turner wrestling head honcho Jim Herd). And over that span, the chapter that seems to get the least respect was his loss of the title to Ron Garvin and subsequent rematch at Starrcade ’87.

Now, I admit that I’m not the most objective of people on the subject, since Ronnie Garvin was my favorite wrestler when I was growing up, but I find the manner in which he’s been dumped on because of the trajectory of the World Title storyline very unfair. I wasn’t alone in my regard for Garvin and the popularly-held notion that he was seen even at the time as completely undeserving is revisionism at its worst.

Where I grew up in Parma, Ohio (a blue-collar rasslin’ town), there were probably a lot of pockets of town where Garvin was even more over than Hulk Hogan. That was certainly the case at my school. For as much as everyone (including me) credits Vince McMahon with being the first to “take his company national,” in 1984, this only applied to physically appearing in towns coast-to-coast. For a few years prior to that, Georgia Championship Wrestling had been a mainstay on national cable station WTBS out of Atlanta and indeed, McMahon’s “All-American Wrestling” program itself replaced Joe Blanchard’s San Antonio promotion on USA cable network in 1983. Plus, World Class Championship Wrestling was being televised to places far outside of its actual territory, so purely in terms of TV and contrary to popular opinion, McMahon did not have a monopoly on nationally-known stars in the 1980s. Garvin had been on the scene on WTBS since 1984, when he engaged in an exciting feud for the Georgia TV Title with Jake “The Snake” Roberts. He was a tough, hardened grappler renowned for not backing up one inch. His “Man With the Hands of Stone” moniker and “Garvin Stomp” maneuver (stomping the entire periphery of an opponent’s body as he lay on the mat) really stood out from the crowd.

The feud he developed with Flair over the next few years was an absolute classic, even if history does not regard it as such. For as much as the conventional wisdom regards Dusty Rhodes’ “American Dream” character as the perfect blue-collar counterpoint to the effete playboy persona of “Nature Boy” Ric Flair, Garvin was actually superior in the role of no-hold-barred gut-fighter standing up to the imperious champ. He didn’t have nearly the charisma of Rhodes, but that’s a different matter entirely from being THE man who everyone wanted to see slaughter Ric Flair – and Garvin was that man. Essentially, he was a precursor to one-half of the “Stone Cold” character Steve Austin would develop many years later: “Stone Cold” was equal parts anti-establishment, foul-mouthed hooligan and insanely-determined wrestling/brawling machine. Garvin didn’t have the former half of the equation, but he certainly had the latter part in spades.

Rhodes’ style of booking always portrayed Flair as a cowardly and vulnerable heel. Toward that end, Flair and Garvin worked a series of matches on-and-off in the mid-80s that saw the bout end in a time-limit draw, Garvin demand and be granted five more minutes and Garvin pin the champ only to find out that the belt was not on the line in “overtime.” This kept whetting the appetite of the fanbase for Garvin to get his hands on Flair “next time.”

In the summer of 1987, the Flair-Garvin feud reignited in a way that built to the title change. His “brother” Jimmy (his real-life stepson) had come into the territory the previous year along with his valet (real-life wife) Precious and after doing a stint as a flashy pretty-boy heel, he turned face when he saved Ronnie from an attack by the Midnight Express. Subsequently, Precious caught the attention of Ric Flair, who began propositioning her repeatedly and a match was arranged with Flair putting up the NWA Title in return for a shot at “the dream date” with the femme fatale. When Flair cheated his way to victory, he and manager J.J. Dillon arranged an opulent and decadent scene in a hotel suite, only to have the approaching mysteriously-covered “woman” in the dim light be “Miss Atlanta Lively” – a “female” alter-ego that Garvin had previously trotted out from time to time and that he utilized on this occasion to knock out the champ with one punch. The battle between Flair and Ronnie Garvin was back on and hotter than ever.

The build progressed to a cage match from Joe Louis Arena in Detroit that was televised live during the World Championship Wrestling program on September 26, 1987. The show, traditionally taped at the old Techwood Drive studios on Peachtree Street, never used to contain live cut-ins to arena matches, so the setting in an of itself should have been a giveaway that the feud was building to a title change. When Garvin hit a sunset flip off the top rope and pinned Flair, the roar was deafening. The people got the moment they wanted, and I count myself as one of those people. It was one of the great mark-out moments of my youth.

Unfortunately, Rhodes and the Crockett Promotions front office intended Garvin to be a lame-duck champion who would give the title back to Flair on Thanksgiving night at Starrcade ’87 in Chicago and Garvin’s title reign took on an immediate taint. Rhodes had a hard time trying to convince heel wrestlers to get in the ring with Garvin since the outcome of every title defense would be such a foregone conclusion, so the promotion ended up “exempting” Garvin from the rule to defend the title at least once every 30 days! The new champion ended up looking like he was being protected by the company and it was all downhill from there. By the time Starrcade rolled around, the crowds were less inclined to cheer Garvin than Flair, who ended up predictably dispatching “Hands of Stone.”

It’s true that Ron Garvin – partially because he was not immensely skilled on the mic – was always going to be better suited to be a hot challenger than the man who finally caught the brass ring. But the booking did him no favors and the stink of what was perceived to be a failed title reign dragged him down and led to him leaving the promotion the next summer after fizzling out greatly and a desperation heel turn right before he departed. Had Garvin been given a basic short title reign like Rhodes got back in the summer of ’86, I don’t think he’d be viewed in the same light today. Instead, he got put in the position of having to carry one-half of a main event on a pay-per-view that the WWF was able to crush by flexing their financial muscles. For whatever reason, history does not properly appreciate what Ron Garvin meant to the NWA in the 1980s. Along with Dusty Rhodes, he was a perfect down-to-earth counterpoint to the high-flying Four Horsemen. He had red-hot matches with Ric Flair all around the territory and was perceived as legitimate championship material all the way up until his actual title reign. The videos before will back up what I am telling you – Ron Garvin was just awesome back in the day.

Here's Garvin winning the title in the cage from Flair. What a moment.

A great match against one of the best heels of the day, Tully Blanchard.

A great brawl against Arn Anderson.

How money is Mayweather?

By Rick Morris

My good friend Russ Cohen, contributor to a couple of different programs in the FDH family (including The Lounge!), posited a take on his Wrestleology website about the incomprehensible decision of World Wrestling Entertainment to procure the services of Floyd “Money” Mayweather for WrestleMania for the cool sum of $20 million. I would suggest strongly that anyone looking for cogent analysis of their mind-boggling decision go over to that particular wing of Russ’s Sportsology media family to check out his breakdown of why this move is as financially stupid when you examine it deeply as it appears on the surface.

He’s completely right that Oscar de la Hoya would have been perfect for this role, if indeed a boxing crossover would be a winning proposition (a dubious concept for me to believe in the first place). De La Hoya coming to the rescue of Rey Misterio wouldn’t have been unbelievable in the manner of notorious Latino-baiter Mayweather attempting to play the hero. Mayweather is a natural heel and the fact that he is getting transitioned into that role slowly over time (at least he appears to be, but who knows with their style of “booking?”) makes more sense than continuing to shoehorn his unlikable, arrogant persona into that of a fan favorite. But this acceptance of reality opens up its own can of worms: how can the match possibly draw any heat if David is the heel and Goliath is (by default) the babyface? The Big Show is three times the size of Mayweather: the ONLY way this concept could ever work would be for the fish-out-of-water boxer to be somebody the public could embrace. Setting up The Big Show as the defender of all things WWE, which he will have to be if Mayweather continues with his “MME” schtick, would compromise his effectiveness and reduce the already small chance that people would pay to see this spectacle. What a catch-22. Plus, this match will be in the midcard, so if it’s not going to be promoted above the Edge/Undertaker World Title match or Cena/HHH/Orton WWE Title match, how the heck can any participant in it be worth 20 mil?

Russ also recaps some memorable boxing/wrestling crossovers. Here are a few more, none of which added anything to the bottom line of their respective promotions (ignoring the obvious Mike Tyson angle at WrestleMania XIV that did actually work):

Joe Frazier refereeing the Dusty Rhodes/Ric Flair NWA World Title match at Starrcade ’84. Frazier stopped the match due to excessive blood loss on the part of Rhodes, prompting some bellyaching from Dusty’s character but ultimately no feud or resolution to follow.

Buster Douglas refereeing the Hulk Hogan/Randy Savage WWF World Title match on Saturday Night’s Main Event in February 1990. Mike Tyson was supposed to fill this role, but his earthshaking knockout at the hands of Douglas earlier in the month caused Vince McMahon to look for a change in plans. Douglas counted a pin on Savage, then dropped him with one punch when the “Macho King” got in his face. Ultimately, this did not lead anywhere either. The course that a Tyson storyline could have taken is intriguing to consider, given how Tyson helped elevate DX and Steve Austin in another era eight years later and given how much of a wrestling fan Tyson had been all of his life. I agree with Russ: given that Tyson’s only erosion has come in his boxing skills, his “sports entertainment” talents would be completely at home if he chose to use them full-time in WWE.

Evander Holyfield boxing Matt Hardy last year on Saturday Night’s Main Event. In this angle, U.S. Champion MVP recruited Holyfield to box Hardy on his behalf. After taking it to an overmatched Hardy, Holyfield turned on an ungrateful MVP and knocked him out. The incident put Hardy over as a never-say-die battler and MVP as the epitome of the obnoxious heel, but it didn’t have any lasting impact on business going forward.

Please support a great cause this weekend

By Rick Morris

EDIT: As of 10:45 PM EST Saturday night, we are up to $250 in pledges, mostly from the Rick Springfield fans listening now to Uncle Paul Belfi's DJing. Thank you very much. I'm updating at the bottom to provide notes for our wrestling segment from 2-4 PM EST with a capsule look at what has transpired of note at every one of the first 23 WrestleManias and one man's opinion about the top 10 stars of the WrestleMania era never to appear on the card. Also, I'm attaching an approximate guide to which baseball brackets (read below!) will be discussed when.


I'm writing this mere hours before we go on the air at SportsTalkCleveland.com/SportsTalkNetwork.com for our 4th annual Up All Night/Up All Day Marathon to Benefit the Carol Morris Scholarship Fund at Bowling Green State University. THE FDH LOUNGE program will be just one part of an extended broadcast to benefit an excellent cause. Go to STC or STN at the above links to listen and/or watch the proceedings.

This scholarship program is a memorial fund in honor of my mother, Carol Morris, who worked in special education. I urge all of you to visit the home page for the fund and also for our benefit show at www.fantasydrafthelp.com/carol_morris.html , but I'm going to bring all of the relevant info over here also. I also want to profusely thank our event sponsor, TAHJ Capital. This is corporate philanthropy at its finest, and I cannot express my personal appreciation enough.

Here is everything straight off of the aforementioned fund/program home page:

NEW INFORMATION: FOURTH ANNUAL SPORTSTALK CLEVELAND.COM MARATHON FUNDRAISER TO BENEFIT THE CAROL MORRIS SCHOLARSHIP FUND IS THIS WEEKEND, MARCH 1-2! DETAILS BELOW ...

The Carol Morris Scholarship Fund at Bowling Green State University is the official charitable cause of FantasyDrafthelp.com. Named for Managing Partner Rick Morris’ mother, a longtime teacher and tutor, the memorial fund is directed towards students striving for a career in special education.

The fund has been the chosen cause of three annual “Up All Night Marathons.” These broadcasts, which have aired on SportsTalkNetwork.com, have helped bring the fund closer to its goal of vesting at $25,000. When fully vested, the fund will exist in perpetuity and help bring committed individuals into the vital field of special education.

To donate to the fund, make checks payable to: BGSU Foundation, Inc.

On the memo line of the check, please write: Carol Morris Scholarship Fund 30-000812

Mail checks to:
Office of Development
Attn: Erin Keller
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403

Donations can also be made online at the following web address: http://giving.bgsu.edu/development/fundingopps/onlinegiving.jsp

FOURTH ANNUAL FUNDRAISING MARATHON PROGRAM ANNOUNCED!

The 4th Annual SportsTalkNetwork.com Up All Day Marathon to benefit the Carol Morris Scholarship Fund at Bowling Green State University will run for 27 hours, from Saturday, March 1 at 9 PM to Sunday, March 2 at Midnight EST. This year's program will bring you special extra editions of your favorite STN programs for a very special cause. The following shows are involved.

^ THE FDH LOUNGE (the program where nothing is off-topic)

^ THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER (fantasy sports)

^ THE GOON SQUAD (hockey)

^ SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH (baseball)

^ PRO WRESTLING INSIDER (professional wrestling)

^ NAAFS RADIO (mixed martial arts)

^ THE RICK SPRINGFIELD MARATHON (Rick Springfield music and fan interaction)

Here is the tentative lineup as of Friday, February 28 (all times EST):

9 PM to 10 AM: 13 hours of THE RICK SPRINGFIELD MARATHON as the world's foremost Springfield DJ, Paul Belfi, spins tunes from the entire catalog.

10 AM to 2 PM: SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH presents bracket-style voting with a roundtable panel to determine the best players in baseball at each position. This segment features Round One of the brackets at every position (there are 8 players in the bracket at each position except right-handed pitcher, which has 16 players). We will be joined at about Noon by SportsNetwork.com baseball analyst Eric Gold. Position battles are listed below the show information.

2 PM to 4 PM: PRO WRESTLING INSIDER features the WrestleMania roundtable: a past, present and future look at the biggest rasslin' event of the year. For the first part of our discussion, we will be joined by Wrestleology analyst Russ Cohen.

4 PM to 4:30 PM: SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH presents the baseball brackets, with part of Round Two.

4:30 PM to 5 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE welcomes Zach Landres-Schnur, proprietor of THE BIG PICTURE sports blog.

5 PM to 5:30 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE interviews William Gheen, President and Spokesman for Americans for Legal Immigration, the group trying to draft CNN news anchor Lou Dobbs to run for President of the United States.

5:30 PM to 6:30 PM: SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH presents the rest of Round Two of the baseball brackets.

6:30 PM to 7:00 PM: SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH interviews Joe Aiello, founder of THE VIEW FROM THE BLEACHERS Chicago Cubs blog.

7:00 PM to 8:00 PM: SEVENTH INNING SLOUCH presents the final round of the baseball brackets.

8:00 PM to 8:30 PM: THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER presents a 2008 NFL Draft Preview with FantasyDrafthelp.com Senior Editor and Chief NFL Draft Analyst Jason Jones.

8:30 PM to 9:00 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE takes its first look ahead to an Obama/McCain presidential race with a roundtable preview.

9:00 PM to 9:30 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE speaks to Lounge Dignitary Nathan Noy about the most entertaining congressional race in the country in 2008.

9:30 PM to 10:00 PM: NAAFS RADIO presents a look inside the MMA world's greatest combined amateur/professional circuit with North American Allied Fight Series executive producer Jake Digman.

10:00 PM to 10:30 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE interviews the IRL correpondant for Most Valuable Network, Christopher Estrada about the big open-wheel racing merger just announced this week.

10:30 PM to 11:00 PM: THE FDH LOUNGE prepares you to fill out your NCAA hoops brackets in a few weeks with a look ahead to Championship Week and the field of 65.

11:00 PM to 11:30 PM: THE GOON SQUAD interviews hockey journalist John Kreiser of NHL.com.

11:30 PM to Midnight: THE FANTASYDRAFTHELP.COM INSIDER interviews Fanball.com Managing Editor Ray Flowers for an early look at fantasy baseball Draft Day.

Baseball brackets

Catcher

Martinez vs. Molina

Mauer vs. Posada

McCann vs. Pudge

Martin vs. Johjima

First Base

Pujols vs. Konerko

Morneau vs. Pena

Howard vs. Berkman

Fielder vs. Lee

Second Base

Utley vs. Polanco

Uggla vs. Kent

Cano vs. Roberts

Phillips vs. Ellis

Shortstop

Rollins vs. Hardy

Jeter vs. Tulowitzki

Ramirez vs. Tejada

Reyes vs. Greene

Third Base

Rodriguez vs. Lowell

Ramirez vs. Atkins

Cabrera vs. C. Jones

Wright vs. Glaus

Left Field

Ramirez vs. Byrnes

Crawford vs. Lee

Soriano vs. Braun

Holliday vs. Matsui

Center Field

B.J. Upton vs. Wells

Hunter vs. A. Jones

Beltran vs. Ichiro

Sizemore vs. Granderson

Right Field

Guerrero vs. Hawpe

Francouer vs. Markakis

Rios vs. Dye

Ordonez vs. C. Hart

Designated Hitters

Ortiz vs. Thomas

Thome vs. Bonds

Hafner vs. Cust

Sheffield vs. Sosa

Left-Handed Pitchers

Santana vs. Buehrle

Kazmir vs. Ol. Perez

Liriano vs. Hamels

Sabathia vs. Francis

Right-Handed Pitchers

Beckett vs. Hudson

Oswalt vs. Halladay

C. Young vs. Penny

Lackey vs. Smoltz

Peavy vs. F. Hernandez

Haren vs. Bedard

Verlander vs. Carmona

Webb vs. Zambrano

Closers

Papelbon vs. Rivera

Putz vs. F. Cordero

Nathan vs. Hoffman

F. Rodriguez vs. Wagner

Here are the half-hour segments when we will discuss the position battles (all times EST and approximate, keeping in mind that the first round is in two parts for the RHP position since there are twice as many players involved):

FIRST ROUND

10:00 AM: 7 RHP

10:30 AM: 1 RHP, 4C, 2 1B

11:00 AM: 2 1B, 4 2B, 1 SS

11:30 AM: 3 SS, 4 3B

12:00 Noon: 4 LF, 3 CF

12:30 PM: 1 CF, 4 RF, 2 DH

1:00 PM: 2 DH, 4 LHP, 1 CL

1:30 PM: 3 CL, 4 RHP

SECOND ROUND

4:00 PM: 2 C, 2 1B, 2 2B, 2 SS

5:30 PM: 2 3B, 2 LF, 2 CF, 2 RF

6:00 PM: 2 DH, 2 LHP, 2 CL, 2 RHP

FINAL ROUND

7:00 PM: 1 C, 1 1B, 1 2B, 1 SS, 1 3B, 1 LF

7:30 PM: 1 CF, 1 RF, 1 DH, 1 LHP, 1 CL, 1 RHP

Notes on past WrestleManias

I: Important because it started it all, Andre beat Studd in bodyslam challenge, Hogan/T vs. Piper/Orndorf set the template for WrestleMania, Sheik/Volkoff tag title win kept them hot as foreign heels.

II: Hugely important because it solidified Mania as a big-time event, only one to take place in 3 cities, Refrigerator Perry in Chicago main event (battle royal), Piper/T boxing match was Roddy’s swan song as a heel, Hogan/Bundy in a cage may have been Hulk’s least memorable Mania match, but set the template for every title defense vs. a big man he had in that era.

III: 93,000 at the Silverdome set a new standard for crowds, Hogan/Andre was some of the greatest buildup ever and the match was great for not having any workrate, Steamboat/Savage was the first undercard show-stealer at a Mania, Roddy Piper’s “retirement match,” Duggan’s run-in vs. Sheik/Volkoff pioneered the concept of having a wrestler debut at Mania.

IV: 4-hour tournament rates as one of the most boring Manias, Hogan/Andre double-DQ rated as the most shocking Mania moment to that point, Hogan saving Savage in the main event was the first pass-the-torch moment at Mania, Bret’s face turn at end of battle royal.

V: Hogan/Savage main event was as emotion-filled as Hogan/Piper tag match at I and Hogan/Andre at III, Piper/Brother Love/Morton Downey Jr. segment foreshadowed the dawn of “sports entertainment segments” at Mania.

VI: Hogan/Warrior main event was completely unique for its time with face vs. face dynamic, first & only Mania for Dusty Rhodes, Andre’s swan song.

VII: Originally supposed to be 1^st outdoor Mania at L.A. Coliseum, later moved to L.A. Sports Arena, Hogan/Slaughter set a new standard for exploiting tragic world events, Kerry Von Erich & Undertaker Mania debuts, Warrior/Savage “retirement match” was the closest thing to a double main-event that had been seen yet.

VIII: Actual double main-event at HosierDome with Savage/Flair for the title and Hogan/Sid in Hogan’s “retirement match” and Warrior returning for the run-in at the end, Roberts & Piper also left after this show, Piper/Hart was show-stealing undercard match that helped establish Hart, Paul Ellering & Lex Luger showed up on camera for the first time.

IX: First outdoor show, double main-event with Hart/Yoko and Hogan/Beefcake/Money Inc. tag title match and Hogan making the “impromptu” challenge to take the belt from Yoko in the end, Steiner Brothers’ only Mania match, Jim Ross debuts infamously in a toga.

X: Bret & Luger both get title shots as Bret wins but loses earlier to Owen, Michaels/Razor ladder match sets a new standard for midcard showstealing matches.

XI: Double main-event with Diesel/Shawn for the title but LT/Bigelow actually goes on last.

XII: Michaels/Hart Ironman match, Austin’s Mania debut, Warrior’s return with a squash of HHH, Piper/Goldust “Backlot Brawl”

XIII: Double main-event with Undertaker’s first title match at Mania vs. Sid and Hart/Austin “I Quit” with famous double-turn, Vader/Mankind tag match vs. Owen/Bulldog, The Rock’s Mania debut in infamous debacle match vs. Sultan.

XIV: Austin’s first title win ever in Michaels’ last match for 4 ½ years, The Rock gets first serious “cool heel” heat in interview with Gennifer Flowers, Terry Funk’s return to Mania after 12 years in match with Cactus Jack/New Age Outlaws, Sunny debuts with “LOD 2000,” Kane’s first Mania match vs. Undertaker with Pete Rose altercation with Kane beforehand, Gorilla Monsoon’s last on-screen appearance.

XV: 1^st Austin/Rock Mania match, Butterbean/Gunn boxing massacre, 2^nd Kane/Pete Rose altercation, HHH/Kane double-turn.

2000: 1^st multi-person main event with Rock/HHH/Mankind/Big Show and a McMahon in each corner, HHH notches 1^st heel win ever in a Mania title match, Edge/Christian/Hardys/Dudleys ladder match, 3^rd Kane/Pete Rose altercation, 1^st Mania for Benoit/Jericho/Angle as they all faced each other for the I-C & European titles.

XVII: 1^st dome Mania in 9 years, 2^nd Austin/Rock title match at Mania with ill-fated Austin turn at end, first Vinny Mac Mania match vs. Shane, WCW wrestlers in skybox watching right after “Shane’s” acquisition, Paul Heyman’s only Mania on commentary, Edge/Christian/Dudleys/Hardys TLC 2 match, Benoit/Angle match featuring much amateur wrestling early on, HHH loses to Undertaker.

XVIII: HHH/Jericho only Mania match for “Undisputed” Title, Rock/Hogan match with strange crowd reaction, Austin/Hall disappointing match, Undertaker/Flair match with Arn Anderson run-in.

XIX: Another dome show at Safeco Field in Seattle, 1^st Mania of split-brand era with 2 brand title matches, HHH gets 2^nd heel win ever in Mania title match by pinning Booker T, Lesnar/Angle title match is the last one before Angle’s 1^st injury hiatus in WWE, Hogan/McMahon match gets surprise run-in from Piper, 3^rd Austin/Rock Mania match is Austin’s last as full-time competitor and is Rock’s last singles match at Mania.

XX: Benoit/Eddy celebrate unlikely title wins together at end of show, Rock’s last Mania match comes in tag match with Foley/Orton/Batista/Flair in Foley’s big return match, infamous Goldberg/Lesnar “farewell match,” Paul Bearer’s surprise return for second Undertaker/Kane match at Mania.

XXI: Cena’s first title win comes in the midcard as Batista’s title win against HHH ends the show, Angle/Michaels “dream match,” Edge wins first “Money In the Bank” match, Austin/Piper/Carlito segment, Hogan run-in vs. Hassan.

XXII: Cena/HHH title match with “bizarro crowd,” Rey wins title in 3-way with Angle/Orton, Edge/Foley “hardcore match,” RVD wins “Money In the Bank,” Michaels/McMahon no-holds-barred match.

XXIV: Return to domed stadium in Detroit area 20 years later, Cena/Michaels helps cement Cena on top tier, Undertaker beats Batista for title, Lashley/Umaga match forces McMahon’s head to be shaved by Trump, Sabu & Sandman make only Mania appearances.

Ten greatest North American stars of the WrestleMania era never to wrestle at WrestleMania:

1. Sting

2. Bruiser Brody

3. Nick Bockwinkel

4. Superstar Billy Graham

5. Steve Williams

6. The Freebirds

7. Kevin Von Erich

8. Abdullah the Butcher

9. Samoa Joe

10. Kevin Sullivan

Great old-school wrestling angles

By Rick Morris

It's a truism of the pro wrestling business that the most basic and (in many instances) inane storylines keep getting recycled over the years. The excuse frequently given is that there's nothing new under the sun and that repetition of ideas is a necessary evil. But if it were as simple as that, we'd have seen some of the greatest ones ever recreated in some new incarnation instead of gathering dust in our fond-memory banks.

To celebrate the greatest angles never brought back to life, we are listing our five favorites here. We're embedding video for each one; where possible it is footage that directly relates to the angle.

5. When I said I forgave you, I lied. In early 1988, Lex Luger was coming off a stint with the Four Horsemen that saw him at odds with former friend Barry Windham. Soon, they tagged up to win the NWA World Tag Team Titles from the Horsemen combo of Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. But nothing was as it seemed, as Windham never bought into the pairing completely and was susceptible to a Horseman recruitment campaign. The subtle tensions crested in a tag title rematch in which Windham ended up betraying Luger, handing the championships back to Anderson and Blanchard and claiming Luger's vacated spot as the fourth Horseman. The video below contains footage from the fateful match.



4. The "Dream Date" ... with Miss Atlanta Lively??? Ric Flair's lust for Jimmy Garvin's valet (and real-life wife) Precious led him to a fateful offer in the summer of 1987: he would put his NWA World Title up against Garvin in return for a shot at the "Dream Date" with Precious if he held off Garvin's challenge. Due to typical Horseman outside interference, Flair was able to win and he preened endlessly in anticipation of the big night. Holed up in a luxury hotel suite with manager JJ Dillon, Flair approached a blond figure as she approached in a dimly-lit room. As "she" whirled around to knock Flair out with one punch, it emerged that Precious was nowhere in sight; rather, Jimmy Garvin had dispatched his brother, fellow wrestler Ronnie Garvin under the guise of his occasional female alter ego Miss Atlanta Lively. Footage of this incident does not appear to be available online (as it is utilized on the WWE's Four Horsemen DVD), but we do have footage below of the cage match that materialized from Ronnie Garvin's shenanigans. In this match, he shocks the world by winning the NWA Title from Flair, only to lose it back two months later in another cage match at Starrcade '87.



3. The Launch of the Superpowers. In the summer of 1986, the Magnum TA/Nikita Koloff feud burned brighter than any other in wrestling, including the Hulk Hogan vs. Paul Orndorff battles or the latest version of Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair. With the US Heavyweight Title having been vacated due to a temper outburst of Magnum's that the Russians triggered, TA and Nikita engaged in a coast-to-coast best-of-seven series to crown a new champion. If you guessed that the series went the full seven, then chances are you understand how the business works! Koloff won, but before Magnum could get any further shots at the belt, he suffered a horrific car crash that ended his career. Indeed, in the early autumn days of 1986, it was thought that he might never walk again (thankfully, he regained his ability to walk and lives a normal life today). With the shock of the promotion's #1 babyface out for good in heartbreaking fashion, his in-ring replacement surfaced in the most unlikely of ways. Dusty Rhodes walked to the ring for a tag team match against two of the four Horsemen in a contest in which he was supposed to tag with Magnum -- and with him strode his new tag team partner, Nikita Koloff! The "Russian" superstar explained shortly thereafter that his battles with Magnum instilled a deep respect in him and that he was dedicating the rest of his career to his fallen rival. He would form a team with Dusty called The Superpowers and many subsequent events would branch off of this single move (Dusty's longtime partner and friend Dick Murdoch turned on Dusty for teaming up with a "dirty Russkie," Nikita ended up in a strongman vs. strongman battle for the US title against new Horseman member Lex Luger and The Superpowers teamed up to win the 1987 Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup when Magnum TA made his first public appearance since the accident by walking them to ringside to the batsh#% reaction of the crowd). The first interview with Dusty and Nikita explaining their new team is the subject of the video below.



2. Oh brother, where art thou? Brett Wayne was making a difficult climb during 1983, from young and inexperienced wrestler in Georgia Championship Wrestling to skilled young champion. That fall, in a tremendous upset, he upended Larry Zbyszko for the National Heavyweight Title, only to meet the wrath of the National Tag Team Champions, the Road Warriors. These dominant and egotistical bullies felt that seeing the vulnerable young Wayne ascend to his perch as the top singles wrestler in the territory "tarnished" their accomplishment. As they were beating him severely, who came to his aid? The fiercest "bad guy" in the territory, Buzz Sawyer. To the shock of everyone, Sawyer cleared house and saved the innocent young "good guy." The subsequent interview was a shocker: Brett's full name was Brett Wayne Sawyer and the two polar opposites were in fact brothers! Buzz explained that he had kept the relationship a secret to keep the pressure of the association off of Brett, but that he had to break the secret and save Brett when the Warriors attacked. Shortly thereafter, the Sawyer Brothers won the National tag titles and traded them back and ended up trading them back and forth a few times. This was the greatest reveal of a secret association in wrestling history; the only one that is even close or remotely similar was when Jimmy Garvin rescued Ronnie Garvin from the Midnight Express in 1987, but the two had been known to be storyline brothers in other territories (Ronnie was actually Jimmy's stepfather in real life). While there is apparently no video available online about the Sawyer Brothers' reunion, we do have video of Buzz Sawyer in classic heel mode so that you can appreciate what a bad guy his character was prior to saving his brother.



1. They call him Mr. R. Any old-school Georgia Championship Wrestling fan will tell you this was the greatest angle in wrestling history. Former friends Ted Dibiase and Tommy Rich were engaged in a feud in the winter of 1984, which was supposed to end with a "Loser Leaves Town" match. Rich lost, but a masked newcomer named Mr. R immediately surfaced. Sporting Rich's flowing blond hair in back and his mannerisms and speech patterns, it was immediately obvious who the Mr. R really was. An enraged Dibiase put up his National Heavyweight Title for a chance to put Rich out of the game permanently. An entertaining, high-energy match ensued, which culminated in Dibiase unmasking Mr. R to reveal ... Brad Armstrong??? As Tommy Rich strolled to ringside to tauntingly wave at Dibiase, Armstrong rolled up Dibiase for the three-count to claim the National championship! Subsequently, Dibiase gained revenge on Armstrong by severely injuring his father, fellow wrestler "Bullet" Bob Armstrong with his legendary "loaded" glove and the feud rolled on from there. Fortunately, we were able to find the video online and below you can see for yourself what may well have been the greatest angle in wrestling history:

Wrestling heels who should have turned

By Rick Morris

My post from the last week addressing Vince McMahon spitting in the face of his fans by not elevating Jeff Hardy to become a legitimate main-event player at the Royal Rumble, combined with my stint as a guest co-host on Pro Wrestling Insider on SportsTalkNetwork.com this past Tuesday night where we elaborated on the Superstar Billy Graham precedent and others in company history, led me to wonder about other times promoters dropped the ball.

This column does not delve much into situations like that of Jeff Hardy, because Hardy was a red-hot babyface who could have taken the final step into superstardom. Rather, I will examine situations involving Graham and other insanely over heels who could have parlayed their status into main-event face runs. I rank them in order of the impact I feel that they could have had on the business had they been given a chance to convert the cache of their bad guy personas into dramatic face turns.

1. Superstar Billy Graham (circa 1978). I covered his situation a bit in the aforementioned previous column, but the mind still reels at the alternate universe possibilities if the WWWF had decided to make him "Hulk Hogan before there was Hulk Hogan" back in '78. As the man who basically invented the colorful, arrogant musclehead persona in the business, he was attracting unbelievable crowd heat before dropping the strap in very anticlimactic fashion to the charisma-challenged Bob Backlund in February of 1978. Had Graham instead been attacked by former tag team partner Ivan Koloff, how wild would the New York territory have been for his before-his-time character as a sanctioned crowd favorite instead of cult antihero face? We'll never know.

2. Ric Flair (circa 1987 or 1988). We saw in late 1989 and early 1990 how popular Flair could be even with the Four Horsemen by his side. He was only turned heel again in February 1990 to make way for Sting as the #1 face in the NWA at the time. Now, Dusty Rhodes as the me-first booker would have never shared the fan favorite spotlight with Flair and the Horsemen in the '80s, so this is another pipe dream. But "what if's" are very fun to imagine, and few more so than this one. Imagine a conglomerate formed by mid-level heel managers like Jim Cornette and Paul Jones tiring of the Horsemen dominating the title picture and launching a vicious attack on Flair and his cohorts (the Blanchard/Anderson vs. Midnight Express feud of 1988 was a miniature version of what might have been, but it was cut short by Tully and Arn splitting for the WWF in September). Imagine the ultimate "strange bedfellows" situation, Dusty having to tag up with the Horsemen for War Games matches back in the mid-'80s. The Four Horsemen retrospective DVD put out in the last few years by WWE makes clear just how much the fans seemed to be dying to have a reason to outright root for Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen. What if they were turned face during the phase when they were drawing their strongest collective crowd reactions? Ric Flair could have had great main event matches against strong heels (they could have accomplished this merely by never turning Luger face in '87, keeping Sting heel after the UFW merger, etc.).

3. Nick Bockwinkel (circa 1980-84). I admit it, I'm going through a huge Nick Bockwinkel markout phase, hence the videos you will now see for the time being on the right-hand column of this page. He gave perhaps the most articulate interviews of all time and could generate outstanding crowd heat -- plus he had a good moveset and could execute excellent matches all the time. Imagine him breaking away from Bobby Heenan and feuding with the Heenan Family. Imagine if such a feud started in 1980 after Bock lost the AWA World Title back to Verne Gagne for the last time and if Gagne/Bock had joined forces for tag matches prior to Gagne dropping the title to his "new friend" in his retirement match, "a respect match" (as with Dusty's ego being the impediment to Scenario #2, Gagne's selfish desire to "retire as World Champion" drained credibility from the belt and would have easily precluded this smart business decision). The fans would have really gotten behind the cocky, tanned, smooth-talking Hollywood champ battling the bad guys. If the AWA could turn such hated bad guys as Crusher, Bruiser and Mad Dog Vachon face to great success, there's no question this would have worked. Why wasn't it tried? In all likelihood, it's because Bockwinkel's vast credibility, as a great-drawing titleholder from 1975 to 1980, would have been the foundation for a face run that could have even eclipsed the popularity of Verne Gagne himself. And nobody is ever allowed to surpass the booker -- that's the first lesson of pro wrestling. Even if Bock's turn had been saved for the end of the AWA Heenan era in 1984, he still would have been way more over than Rick Martel, the white-bread babyface who inexplicably got a face title run with the belt for a year and a half when Gagne was doubling down on pure scientific wrestling in the face of Vince's looming "sports entertainment" empire.

4. Arn Anderson (circa 1991-1992). Another admission -- I am a tremendous Double A mark. But I think that if you look back at Gene and Ole Anderson in the 1970s or Ole and Arn in the 1980s, they almost fell into that cult face classification in that there were a lot of fans who cheered because of their toughness and greatness. Picture Arn as a "lone wolf" tweener-type face battling the Dangerous Alliance and holding them off for the World Title. Picture Arn doing battle with Big Van Vader during the behemoth's heyday. WCW probably could not have gained on WWF at that time no matter what they tried, but Arn Anderson riding the cheers of the crowd all the way to the top certainly would have been outside the box -- and there was no more public acclaim for a Ron Simmons title run then than there was for an Arn championship opportunity.

5. Finlay (circa 2007). The crowds are reacting well to Finlay in his role as a newly-turned face as part of the "Littlest McMahon" storyline. But I have long maintained that his tough-guy style, which has faint elements of a 1996-97 Steve Austin flair to it, would be massively over if he were going against the bad guys. When Smackdown was suffering the period of countless main event injuries last year, could they really have done worse than to try Finlay on top as a babyface? The question answers itself -- this is a company that wasted several months on The Great Khali as a monster heel champion when they didn't even trust him to wrestle an important pay-per-view match the previous year.