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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 26, 2024 20:27:39 GMT -5
I remember the randomness. There were three Airwolf releases here: a “movie” (which was in fact the pilot, a 2-parter). They then spliced together 2 random episodes of Season 1. And then a 2-parter from Season 4, although the image on the back cover was from an episode different from the one on the tape. I was an A-Team fan, but we only got 2 releases as far as I can recall: a Season 4 2-parter and the “Court Martial trilogy” from Season 5. I was pleased when full seasons came along. While I completely understand and agree with what you have posted about wrestling content, I guess I was frustrated. I remember when they did yet another tape with Hogan/Andre, thinking to myself, ‘Come on, show us the Shea Stadium match instead.’ Or a Hogan match that didn’t involve Andre. The really weird release was “Wrestling Grudge Matches” which featured ‘grudge matches’ such as Tatanka vs. Blake Beverly, Virgil & Big Boss Man vs. Beverly Brothers, Typhoon vs. Kamala, and Marty Jannetty vs. Papa Shango. Those were hardly grudge matches! The Airwolf pilot was a single telemovie, not a two-parter. It might have been repeated in that format, later. There were a lot of tv VHS releases where two independent episodes were edited together, like The Flash, or The Master (which got two "movie" releases, with edited episodes). That wasn't unique to home video, though. The Man From UNCLE was popular enough that they released movie versions, to theaters, with episodes edited together, plus additional footage. The first one was the pilot and next episode, with some cut footage, from the first pilot shoot (they redid it, after execs viewed it) and some additional material. In the film, the enemy group is called WASP, instead of THRUSH, which was in the original script, before they changed it to THRUSH. Other theatrical versions were two and three-part episodes, edited together, like The Seven Wonders of The World Affair. The Battlestar Galactica pilot film got a theatrical release with a different edit. In that case, the series was originally conceived to be a series of telefilms; but, ABC asked for a series, after seeing the numbers for the pilot (even with the interruption for the signing of the Camp David Accords, ending the war between Egypt and Israel). That is part of why you have so many 2-part episodes, in the inital batch, as they were ready for filming the telemovies. They rushed out other scripts, ripping off plots from movies, to provide other episodes, like the Shane one and the Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven one. Of course, the telemovie scripts were swiping, too, as Gun on Ice Planet Zero is Guns of Navarone-meets-The Dirty Dozen and The Living Legend is Patton. Lost Planet of the Gods is a mix of Mormon lore and Eric von Daniken. As far as wrestling, you didn't have much footage from house shows, as you would usually only have cameras around for either PPV or title switches. Since the tv format was more squash matches, you would have a more limited number of matches between stars, compared to star vs enhancement. That left you mainly tv main events and stuff like SNME, aside from PPV matches. |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 27, 2024 7:27:09 GMT -5
Anyone know if this was the final Best of Raw tape, as I don’t recall any being released after this one:  |
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 27, 2024 7:45:22 GMT -5
Taped on this day 30 years ago, the Head Shrinkers defeated The Quebecers to win the WWF World Tag Team Championship (the victory would air in early May):  I really enjoyed this title change as The Quebecers were heels you loved to hate, and had been so dastardly at times. Seeing The Head Shrinkers humble them was great. I just watched this a few days ago! It was on Raw. I read that Jacques was leaving the company (he wanted to be able to spend more time at home and I guess the money WWF was offering him wasn't enough to offset that) so I assume that's why they dropped the title at this time. Another tag team champ for Captain Lou Albano! |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 27, 2024 7:56:37 GMT -5
Did you ever see Jacques and Pierre in WCW as The Amazing French Canadians (1996-98)? Didn’t really get a high profile during the nWo era, but it was good to see them again.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 28, 2024 5:10:27 GMT -5
I’m looking forward to this match next week:  |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2024 14:08:15 GMT -5
Got to love KO....this is the match I'm looking forward to the most at Backlash. But I'm expecting interference and a new Bloodline member....we'll see
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 29, 2024 4:04:13 GMT -5
This is the other Backlash France bout I’m looking forward to:  Tiffany Stratton is probably one of the best women wrestlers to have come on to the main roster in quite some time. One magazine writer said she has good ring psychology and timing, and I’d agree with that. I’m glad the event will be airing at a decent time for me! Incidentally, one website stated that the Uso brothers bout at WM XL had its time cut due to time constraints. This gets back to what I posted about these events spending too much time on elaborate ring entrances (for everyone), sponsorship, overlong video packages, etc. There has to be a balance - surely? - between those ‘vitally important’ Snickers ads and allowing everyone time to shine. I’m sure some things could be cut. (As I posted earlier this month, nearly 20 minutes had elapsed before the bell rang for the opening match at WM XL; there has to be a way to cut some of this superfluous nonsense while still allowing Snickers and the like to air their spots) |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 29, 2024 4:32:45 GMT -5
Twenty five years ago today, SmackDown debuted on UPN (it had been taped two days earlier). I’m certain all of you know the various channels it has been on since.
I grew up watching the WWF’s syndicated shows (which were mainly squash matches), but when SmackDown debuted, it did feel like we were getting too much of a good thing; of course, WCW started the whole bloody thing with increasing PPVs, which probably led to the WWF making PPVs monthly, and then we had Thunder, which no doubt led to the WWF coming up with their own Thursday show, and before too long, there was more wrestling content than even the most hardcore fan could keep up with.
And I wish Raw had never been extended to 3 hours. I can’t watch all of the content now, life is about other things. I stick to the PLEs, and can pick and choose the TV matches I want thanks to WWE’s YouTube page and the like.
Would WWE ever extend SmackDown to 3 hours? I hope not.
WWF World Champion Steve Austin & the Rock fought the Undertaker & Triple H in the debut episode.
Like any wrestling show, it’s had its good and bad moments, subjective though that’ll always be.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 29, 2024 7:14:27 GMT -5
Did you ever see Jacques and Pierre in WCW as The Amazing French Canadians (1996-98)? Didn’t really get a high profile during the nWo era, but it was good to see them again. Not that I recall. I may have seen them back in the day and don't remember it. I'm sure I'll get to that eventually as I make my way through the WWE/WCW content. |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 29, 2024 7:36:06 GMT -5
I did watch the Jacques Rougeau/Hollywood Hogan match (1997) years ago, but it was really bad footage on somewhere like Dailymotion or something, as I don’t think it was ever released on any official release.
As far as I know, that’s the only time Hogan and Rougeau shared a ring (I suppose it’s possible Hogan might have battled him as part of a six-man tag on WWF soil or something). I’m surprised they didn’t have at least one singles match on WWF soil, in 1991 or 1992.
I often think about how some wrestlers never got the chance to wrestle each other despite there being potential to do so, e.g. I don’t think Ultimate Warrior ever fought either Barbarian or Warlord (there was a brief skirmish between Warrior and Barbarian in the 1990 Royal Rumble). Did Roddy Piper ever have a singles bout against The Undertaker? I think they were on opposing teams once, but I don’t recall a singles match. And I’m surprised WCW didn’t try and book Hollywood Hogan vs. Davey Boy Smith at least once, in 1998.
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Apr 29, 2024 9:24:33 GMT -5
The cool thing about that Jacques Rougeau vs Hogan match is that it was exclusive to Montreal and drew a good crowd, based on the Rougeau family name being so big in the city going back decades, and of course Hogan being involved. Montreal was often given exclusive main events for years after essentially becoming part of WWF, with Jacques vs Pierre (the Quebecers) selling out the Montreal Forum in 1994 and Pierre (now Jean-Pierre Laffite) vs world champ Diesel in 1995 doing a large crowd, both during a time when house show attendance was at a nadir in North America. Looking it up, Rougeau vs Hogan drew a healthy 9,000 and Hogan even put him over clean (it was untelevised and wouldn't be known outside of Montreal or sheet readers, so Hulk's rep would be protected)
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 29, 2024 10:17:30 GMT -5
Happy 65th birthday to Paul Roma:  My favourite moment of his career was when he teamed with Hercules as Power and Glory from 1990 to 1991. I wish they’d been given a tag team title run. Ironic how the WWF didn’t think about implementing a second world tag team title back when there was more depth to the division yet over the last couple of decades, we’ve had two sets of tag titles when the ‘division’ didn’t warrant it. While I did appreciate Roma’s singles career, I enjoyed all of his tag teams, from The Young Stallions with Jim Powers to Pretty Wonderful with Paul Orndorff. I didn’t mind him as a Four Horseman, but that stable had ran out of steam by the time he joined it. I don’t think I saw any of his matches after he left WCW, and I’m gonna presume he retired not long after. I didn’t see any of his boxing bouts. Returning to Power and Glory, I wish they’d had a longer run. One interesting heel vs heel bout saw them battle the Orient Express, which led to Slick and Mr. Fuji arguing at ringside. Let’s remind ourselves of how the team formed: I did enjoy their finishing move: |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 29, 2024 12:24:56 GMT -5
What a desperate attention-seeker this man is:
Wouldn’t a journalist contact AEW directly? In about 30 seconds, I found an AEW e-mail address for press enquires, could he have not done that?
And king of podcasting? Sure, if you want to hear him be 100% negative and go on about the ‘casual fans’ constantly. Hasn’t this guy claimed he wishes he could walk away from wrestling?
His desperation now is embarrassing.
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Apr 29, 2024 18:38:04 GMT -5
Even worse are the people who give this idiot enough money to keep this crap going
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 29, 2024 20:27:34 GMT -5
The cool thing about that Jacques Rougeau vs Hogan match is that it was exclusive to Montreal and drew a good crowd, based on the Rougeau family name being so big in the city going back decades, and of course Hogan being involved. Montreal was often given exclusive main events for years after essentially becoming part of WWF, with Jacques vs Pierre (the Quebecers) selling out the Montreal Forum in 1994 and Pierre (now Jean-Pierre Laffite) vs world champ Diesel in 1995 doing a large crowd, both during a time when house show attendance was at a nadir in North America. Looking it up, Rougeau vs Hogan drew a healthy 9,000 and Hogan even put him over clean (it was untelevised and wouldn't be known outside of Montreal or sheet readers, so Hulk's rep would be protected) Rougeau was the promoter of the card. He did a few one-off cards in Montreal, all of which drew well because they hadn't had regular wrestling in a while and Jacques was able to use big name talent. |
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