Feb 1, 2022 13:50:03 GMT 🤯 said:

Baker-man not having ever seen Hogan/Flair I from WCW feels similar to learning Wife had (has) never seen Star Wars or The Godfather. Feel we should start a "Dirty Little Secrets" thread where we confess what famous matches we've never seen or saw way late in life after either avoiding the match entirely or otherwise pretending we've seen it to fit in. Until I'd done my WrestleMania WatchThru, some of my dirty little secrets included Hogan/Savage, Hogan/Warrior, and Warrior/Savage.

Quote from the Match Review thread for reference on inspiration here. I'll start with some of my confessions to get the ball rolling. Bet @ness and Emperor have a bunch of these! I'd be curious to see what surprises Big Pete and Strobe have kept hidden all these years. And, of course, always love having my mind blown by Baker-man!

Anyway... I confess to the following dirty little secrets, which I still to this day haven't seen:

Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels @ WrestleMania 21, vs. The Undertaker @ No Way Out 2006

Bret Hart vs. Bob Backlund on Superstars or at Survivor Series 1994, vs. Owen Hart at SummerSlam 1994, vs. Diesel at King of the Ring 1994 or Royal Rumble or Survivor Series 1995, vs. The Undertaker at Royal Rumble 1996 or One Night Only 1997

The Undertaker vs. Randy Orton at WrestleMania 21, vs. Batista at WrestleMania 23, vs. Steve Austin at SummerSlam 1998

The Two-Man Power Trip vs. Jericho & Benoit on RAW 2001

...

Probably so many more. Just thinking of the prime years from my era of peak fandom, I guess.

I would have to say the most glaring would be the Flair/Steamboat trilogy. I watched one of the matches on Vintage Collection which used to be on syndication here in the late 00/early 10s but I can't even remember which one it was. I'm going to presume that was around 2009 when Steamboat made his comeback.

I used to include Bockwinkle as one of my favourite wrestlers although I hadn't actually watched him wrestle. I've only seen a couple of Bock/Stevens matches which was recently for the tag team contest. Otherwise Hennig/Bock is a glaring omission.

But hey I didn't get into Pro Wrestling until mid-99 so those are kind of forgivable. I'd say a recent example was Survivor Series '18 which I've yet to go back and see despite referencing Bryan/Brock and Charlotte/Ronda as great matches. In fact I still haven't seen Bryan's last WWE match either.

One for Emperor, never actually watched Shibata/Okada nor Kenny/Tanahashi.

Feb 1, 2022 14:54:41 GMT Big Pete said:

I would have to say the most glaring would be the Flair/Steamboat trilogy. I watched one of the matches on Vintage Collection which used to be on syndication here in the late 00/early 10s but I can't even remember which one it was. I'm going to presume that was around 2009 when Steamboat made his comeback.

I used to include Bockwinkle as one of my favourite wrestlers although I hadn't actually watched him wrestle. I've only seen a couple of Bock/Stevens matches which was recently for the tag team contest. Otherwise Hennig/Bock is a glaring omission.

But hey I didn't get into Pro Wrestling until mid-99 so those are kind of forgivable. I'd say a recent example was Survivor Series '18 which I've yet to go back and see despite referencing Bryan/Brock and Charlotte/Ronda as great matches. In fact I still haven't seen Bryan's last WWE match either.

One for Emperor, never actually watched Shibata/Okada nor Kenny/Tanahashi.

I generally tend to agree that anything well before or after our formative years as fans tends to be much more forgivable... Unless we've (arbitrarily?) decided to pimp something or someone we haven't seen.

That said, I wouldn't hold anything post-2008(?) against anyone... Especially if it happened outside WWE.

So I'm not holding Okada/Shibata/Tanahashi/OMEGA against anybody unless they present themselves as a big fan of Japan. Same for Bock, just swap Japan for AWA or old school territorial wrestling.

But I share your Flair/Steamboat secret, and it frankly shames me. I'll add to that by confessing to any and all Flair/Funk matches despite all of Baker-man's pimping of the I Quit.

I'm not going to lie, I'm shocked by some of your selections 🤯. What was going on with Wrestlemania XXI? Were you just over Pro Wrestling or?

Actually you just reminded me of another nomination.

Cactus Jack vs. Randy Orton Backlash 2004. Not through a lot of motivation either because that was the one match I was dying to see but my video store wasn't stocking current WWE DVDs and I couldn't justify buying it on DVD either. I remember a couple of years later they even re-released the Foley DVD with an extra disc that included this match and I damn near bought the thing despite still owning the original DVD and having that DVD burned into my brain. I just never got around to it and as time went on and Randy became less relevant my motivation diminished despite Foley calling it the greatest match of his career. Then in 2013 when they released another Mick Foley set, I downloaded it watched all the matches and somehow they didn't include the match. I find myself thinking about that period often and even busting out the old Day of Reckoning and SmackDown vs. Raw for a session or two and yet haven't watched that match.

Maybe later today?

Feb 1, 2022 15:07:29 GMT Big Pete said:

I'm not going to lie, I'm shocked by some of your selections 🤯. What was going on with Wrestlemania XXI? Were you just over Pro Wrestling or?

Actually you just reminded me of another nomination.

Cactus Jack vs. Randy Orton Backlash 2004. Not through a lot of motivation either because that was the one match I was dying to see but my video store wasn't stocking current WWE DVDs and I couldn't justify buying it on DVD either. I remember a couple of years later they even re-released the Foley DVD with an extra disc that included this match and I damn near bought the thing despite still owning the original DVD and having that DVD burned into my brain. I just never got around to it and as time went on and Randy became less relevant my motivation diminished despite Foley calling it the greatest match of his career. Then in 2013 when they released another Mick Foley set, I downloaded it watched all the matches and somehow they didn't include the match. I find myself thinking about that period often and even busting out the old Day of Reckoning and SmackDown vs. Raw for a session or two and yet haven't watched that match.

Maybe later today?

I'll definitely vouch for Randy Orton vs. Cactus Jack at Backlash. It was the Ruthless Aggression version of HHH's MSG Street Fight. Which I guess means good but not as good. Still great regardless though. I think it did as much for establishing Orton as Brock's first HIAC did.

And to your question, yeah... I checked out completely maybe a month or so after WMXX and didn't check back in even part time until early 2008? And then it was just casually following, occasional RAWs in the background, Rumbles and WrestleManias until WM27 then checked out again until WMXXX.

When abouts did you get into Pro Wrestling again? Wasn't it around the time of Yokozuna 1993 or am I misremembering?

Also what caused you to check back into the WWE in 2008? Was it the Jeff Hardy push or the return of guys like Jericho, JBL, Show etc? I followed a similar trajectory as well, losing interest post-SummerSlam 04, keeping tabs but then getting the bug again in late 2007. Was it the 15th anniversary of RAW?

I'm pretty sure I still have not seen the entire Undertaker/Shawn Michaels Hell In A Cell from Bad Blood '97. I wasn't into Shawn or Taker comps back in the day since I'd seen (mostly) everything worthwhile that they did, I wasn't laying down $40 for 1 match. Later on it was scarcely featured on any WWE DVD's, just slipped through the cracks.

Most of the late 1994 to very early 1997 WWF stuff I didn't catch up on (the highlights anyway) until the early 2000's. There might still be some glaring gaps in my viewing of this period, I still remember asking Baker about the in's and out's of 123 Kid's heel turn in 1994 or 1995 (see still not sure) as recently as a year ago for a match review.

Pretty much every highly pimped Japanese match post 2001 (Kenny Omega, Okada, Tanahashi et'al)

Feb 1, 2022 16:20:26 GMT Big Pete said:

When abouts did you get into Pro Wrestling again? Wasn't it around the time of Yokozuna 1993 or am I misremembering?

Also what caused you to check back into the WWE in 2008? Was it the Jeff Hardy push or the return of guys like Jericho, JBL, Show etc? I followed a similar trajectory as well, losing interest post-SummerSlam 04, keeping tabs but then getting the bug again in late 2007. Was it the 15th anniversary of RAW?

I was trying to pinpoint this recently.

The earliest memory I have of a moment in quasi real time was Yokozuna's body slam challenge. If I was aware of and watching pro wrestling prior to that, it would've been in Blockbuster rental format and featured who knows what years/events/wrestlers.

I think it was a syndicated highlight reel show just called "WWF Wrestling" from what I can find researching old newspaper TV guide sections. It aired after the Fox Kids cartoons on Saturday mornings from 11 (or maybe 11:30) to noon. Then it looks like it stopped in 1993? Which could track as I don't have any real time memories after Lex slammed Yoko. All my fandom from 1993 through 1999 was flamed by renting tapes from Blockbuster or getting them from garage sales. Years of those tapes spanned 1984 to 1998, but everything was strictly WWF.

Then UPN and SmackDown! enabled me to start following in real time.

Up until Brock peaced out. I think checking out was a three strike deal at the time. First, I was PISSED about being deprived of a Lesnar/Benoit program for WMXX. Then Lesnar decided to leave. Then the immediate wake of WMXX with the awkward clusterfuck of the draft lottery and JBL rebrand broke me. You've pointed out it was a public rebuilding time for WWE. Frankly, I loved JBL. And I've since grown to really appreciate his world title reign. But it was just all so jarring in real time that I finally checked out. Checking out coincided with a heavy drinking problem and starting college too, so it made checking out even easier.

When I met Wife, I somehow convinced her to play No Mercy with me in my dorm room. She dug the game, and I think it piqued a morbid curiosity interest for her. So I braved putting on RAW for us one night to gauge her reaction (and also see if WWE had found its way again). It was the Cena vs. HBK rematch from London. Not a great introduction or reintroduction. WAAAY waaay too looong and boooring. So we both didn't bother again for a long stretch. Not sure when it happened, but last real time memory I have from this stretch was Santino winning the IC belt in his debut.

Fast forward... I'd never left PW despite not following WWE. So I was aware of the Save.Us thing in late 2007. Admittedly I was bummed it only turned out to be Jericho, but it was enough to get me paying more attention to the WWE section of PW. I think at the time people were really digging Randy Orton, Kofi Kingston, and Jeff Hardy in a fresh-feeling main event scene on RAW? So I convince Wife to check out a RAW with me again. And it was the one where Jeff jumped off something high and landed on Orton. Wife was like, wait... THIS is how exciting wrestling can be!? And she was hooked enough we were able to order and watch the 2008 Royal Rumble and WrestleMania XXIV.

We'd order the Rumble, casually follow the Road, and watch WrestleMania (and then tune way out for the next 8 months) for the next four years. WrestleMania XXVII was really lackluster and also fell on our wedding night, which made it even more lackluster by comparison. So we then tuned WAY out again. Granted, I was still on PW. But we had no real reason or interest to follow at all. We attended a RAW or two in Pittsburgh during this stretch, which is the only reason Wife might be familiar with certain acts from a period where we otherwise were blissfully oblivious.

Even Brock's return only had me casually following. It wasn't until WMXXX that we ordered a PPV again (we might've watched a Rumble or two at Buffalo Wild Wings by random coincidence). But then WMXXX was such an epic comeback show. DB's deal was great storytelling coupled with great matches. Brock became a legend by ending the streak. And overall the show had a great vibe. Then Brock murdered Cena at SummerSlam, and I was all in on following Brock. But just Brock. Thanks to the Network and YouTube, I've been able to stay vaguely abreast of the very few things I care to in WWE.

My dirty little secret is an enormous 10 foot scroll secret. Give me a list of the best matches from WCW or WWF prior to 2000 and I won't have seen 95% of them. Off the top of my head:

- All the Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania main events
- Bret Hart vs Steve Austin - Survivor Series (I HAVE seen WM13)
- Steamboat vs Flair trilogy
- Any Royal Rumble match prior to 2007 or something like that
- Hulk Hogan vs The Rock
- The Undertaker vs Ric Flair

Keep in mind I didn't start watching wrestling until 2001.

I’ve never actually watched the entire Macho Man vs Steamboat Wrestlemania match everyone raves about. I’ve seen clips but that’s it.

It’s the most glaring one for me because I was a huge Macho Man fan as a kid and he’s what got me into wrestling.

Also I stopped watching wrestling altogether from around 2007 until about 2014/15ish so pick any match in that time period and I probably haven’t seen it. Went back and watched very few from that time.

Feb 1, 2022 20:37:28 GMT Emperor said:

My dirty little secret is an enormous 10 foot scroll secret. Give me a list of the best matches from WCW or WWF prior to 2000 and I won't have seen 95% of them. Off the top of my head:

- All the Hulk Hogan Wrestlemania main events
- Bret Hart vs Steve Austin - Survivor Series (I HAVE seen WM13)
- Steamboat vs Flair trilogy
- Any Royal Rumble match prior to 2007 or something like that
- Hulk Hogan vs The Rock
- The Undertaker vs Ric Flair

Keep in mind I didn't start watching wrestling until 2001.

Feb 1, 2022 21:53:45 GMT RT said:

I’ve never actually watched the entire Macho Man vs Steamboat Wrestlemania match everyone raves about. I’ve seen clips but that’s it.

It’s the most glaring one for me because I was a huge Macho Man fan as a kid and he’s what got me into wrestling.

Also I stopped watching wrestling altogether from around 2007 until about 2014/15ish so pick any match in that time period and I probably haven’t seen it. Went back and watched very few from that time.

Love these confessions!

I hadn't seen Savage/Steamboat until doing my WrestleMania WatchThru.

Speaking of which, since I haven't resumed it and thus haven't made it to my hitherto-still-unseen WrestleMania 21, I've never seen the OG MITB.

I want to rack my brain for some real supposedly beloved classics that I haven't seen. I'll be back. It feels good coming clean that I'm not really a REAL wrestling fan.

Cool topic idea and welcome back 🤯 . Fwiw I put the Flair/Funk Great American Bash bout over more than I do their I Quit match.

-I've seen very little post 2009 wrestling. Would be easier to list the famous matches I have seen from 09 on.
-The Brock/Angle Smackdown Ironman match is a biggie. Power was out here due to a hurricane and I never bothered tracking it down because one hour.
-Joining Pete in not having seen any of the Bockwinkle/Hennig matches and I also haven't seen much Bock in general.
-Sticking with AWA, I've only seen one Midnight Rockers vs. Rose & Somers match. They had several famous bouts.
-Steamboat/Savage Maple Leaf Gardens and the Hogan/Slaughter Desert Storm Match.
-Have not seen a single title defense from Bob Backlund's first WWF Championship run which saw him have several famous matches and feuds.
-Haven't seen any of the Danielson/Nigel matches, any KENTA in ROH, any Cage of Death, and very little ROH at all from 06-13 and 16-Present.
EDIT: You can even extend that to 05 since I haven't seen Punk/Aries, most of Jamie Noble's ROH run, etc.
-I have never seen a single PWG match.
-Japan in general remains a big blind spot. Can probably count all the famous matches I've seen on one hand for each major promotion.
-Mexico is an even bigger blind spot which starts and ends with Eddie & Art vs. Octagon & Santo
-The extent of my World of Sport viewing is basically the Best (lol) of Big Daddy + a handful of other random bouts
-Also haven't seen any of the highly regarded French wrestling to surface over the past few years
-Can count on one hand the number of matches I've seen from Portland & Stampede combined
-Haven't seen any of the Lawler/Dutch Mantell matches and there are more Lawler/Dundee matches I haven't seen than ones I have.
-The famous Rich/Sawyer and Slaughter & Kerndole vs. Steamboat & Youngblood Cage Matches.
-Late 90s WCW is a "haven't seen" gold mine which includes Hogan's famous bouts with Goldberg, Sting, Luger, and Warrior II, most of the DDP/Savage matches, the highly regarded Sting/DDP Nitro match, the once-popular Kidman/Juvy series, Goldberg/Raven, and a bunch of other stuff.
-Never saw the final RVD/Sabu ECW match or the Christmas Eve & New Year's Eve Awesome/Tanaka title changes.
-Most of TNA's highly regarded matches.

*OK. Now it's time for the biggest bombshell of all. While I technically have seen them, most of the high profile mid 2000s WWE matches I half-watched in a two or three day binge around 2009 for a project I was doing/just to say I had seen them. 1.25 speed was used liberally. Chances are I skipped forward entirely through any lengthy chinlocks. Perhaps I did some texting and I almost certainly opened other windows during the slow spots. Includes a bunch of heavy hitters such as...

HHH/Michaels from Raw at the end of 2003
Eddie/Brock
Both 2004 Benoit/Michaels Raw matches
Most of the big Evolution tags on Raw
The famous HBK/Shelton Raw match
JBL!/Eddie and JBL!/Cena from Judgment Days 04 & 05
Benoit/Orton from Summerslam 2004 and Raw the following night
Angle/Michaels from Summerslam 2005
HHH/Batista Hell In A Cell
Multiple Edge/Cena matches and multi-mans involving the two
Angle/Taker from No Way Out 2006
Edge/Foley from WM 22
Batista/Taker from Backlash 07
The Cena/Michaels one hour Raw match and I probably skipped through half of it

Basically every famous match of that era which wasn't on Smackdown or the handful of pay per views I watched live

Thanks for jogging the memory Bake on some other weak areas of my viewing:

ROH outside of 2007-2009 is mostly lost on me as well. Seen a few Punk, Joe and Steen matches, that's about it.
Lucha and World Of Sport matches I can count on one hand, some early Dynamite Kid, Liger/Benoit in Mexico plus the When Worlds Collide PPV is about it between the two.
Rich/Sawyer in the Last Battle Of Atlanta I think was a recent find by WWE after years of rumored footage, still have not seen it.
Bockwinkel's 70's stuff against Verne Gagne and teaming with Ray Stevens. I have seen his high profile 80's stuff with Hogan, Hennig and Zbyszko though.
I've seen more Rock N'Roll/Midnight Express matches in Mid South than in JCP.
All of 1988-1990 AWA except for Lawler/Kerry Von Erich
Puerto Rico: I've seen two WWC matches Road Warriors/Funks and Brody/Abby
Portland, just some Roddy Piper promos
Being Canadian, Frank Tunney's NWA Toronto stuff and Montreal's Grand Prix wrestling is still a blank
and finally, besides Wrestlemania's 30, 31 and 32 which I saw in the theater, the vast majority of WWE PPV matches from 2005-present
and I just remembered Wrestlemania 25 was my last PPV purchase

There’s probably loads of little ones but the headline would be this one:

Bret Hart v Shawn Michaels Iron man match - not through any lack of trying but everytime Ive tried to watch that match I’ve either fell asleep in bed or turned off due to boredom or become pre occupied with something else. It’s boring, it’s slow, if you remove all the stalling and delaying you get a nice 30 minute match I’m sure, I remember specifically getting to around the 10 minute mark and thinking they’ve done what usually happens in 3-4 minutes and stretched it to 10…

This is the match for people who like watching movies in slow motion, I’m sorry, I love you.

Canadian Stampede - I've seen documentaries, hunted out "big" matches, saw them on DVD comps. And yet this one never pulled me in enough to seek it out on my own. NEVER SEEN. In addition to having an allegedly monster pop for Bret it's supposedly a good match.

For that matter... add Final Four to that one too.

There's stuff I've always neglected (Shawn's 96-97 PPV matches) but I can't think of many "major" events not being witnessed. Although now that you mention it, I can't say I've seen Survivor Series 96 start to finish unlike WM13. People praise it, but sometimes it feels like it's one of those matches "we're supposed to like". I've seen it as the wrestling match vs. the more sports entertainy vibe of the submission. Bret branched both eras. What a guy.

What other Bret matches did I miss...? Man they should've entertained the idea of 2 rumble winners more often.

Angle vs Samoa Joe at Lockdown 2008. I've always heard it was a really good match, but at the time, TNA didn't appeal to me, and after the fact, I just never had the interest to go watch it.

Most of WCW during the attitude era, I’ve watched the documentaries and stuff and seen a handful of matches like

Eddie VS Rey at Halloween Havoc
Hogan VS Sting at Starrcade
Goldberg VS Hogan on nitro


I started watching the PPVs from the Hogan turn at Bash at the Beach but the general consensus I get is that I’m better off just watching Nitro episodes?

Feb 4, 2022 1:12:56 GMT System said:

Most of WCW during the attitude era, I’ve watched the documentaries and stuff and seen a handful of matches like

Eddie VS Rey at Halloween Havoc
Hogan VS Sting at Starrcade
Goldberg VS Hogan on nitro


I started watching the PPVs from the Hogan turn at Bash at the Beach but the general consensus I get is that I’m better off just watching Nitro episodes?

Wife calls it "rapey" because Eddy is a bully. Rey is the little spoon. Remember being convinced it was the greatest match ever at one point.

97 produced some good stuff.

Feb 2, 2022 23:03:58 GMT @ness said:

Canadian Stampede

This one makes me sad since it's my all time favorite match.

More WCW matches I haven't seen. A mix of star-studded main events and hyped matches in certain corners of the internet...

-Every Flair/Hogan PPV match other than BATB 94 which inspired this thread in the first place
-All the 95-96 Flair/Savage PPV matches
-2 of the 3 Hogan/Vader PPV mains
-All the Hogan/Piper matches including Age In A Cage which I have bashed for a quarter century without ever watching
-War Games 1994
-Vader/Dustin from Clash of the Champions
-All the Austin/Steamboat matches
-95%+ of Chris Jericho's WCW run
-Nash/Goldberg from Starrcade and the Nash/Hogan Fingerpoke of Doom
-The Bret/Sting playground dream match from some 1998 pay per view
-Most of the Steiners vs. Williams & Gordy matches
-The Regal/Zbyszko series
-Benoit/Scorpio from SuperBrawl
-The entire Benoit/Booker and Magnum/Nikita Best of the Seven series
-The match where Simmons beats Vader for the WCW Championship
-The Midnight Express vs. Arn & Tully fancam title change

Feb 4, 2022 1:12:56 GMT System said:

Most of WCW during the attitude era, I’ve watched the documentaries and stuff and seen a handful of matches like

Eddie VS Rey at Halloween Havoc
Hogan VS Sting at Starrcade
Goldberg VS Hogan on nitro


I started watching the PPVs from the Hogan turn at Bash at the Beach but the general consensus I get is that I’m better off just watching Nitro episodes?

The general concensus with WCW is that you'd watch the under-card and skip the main event, especially if it was a nostalgia match since those would usually be pretty rotten. On the other hand the undercards tended to be really diverse and entertaining with some of the best up and coming workers.

I'd recommend starting with Great American Bash 1996 as well, since that's one of the first appearances of The Outsiders and it's a really strong card.

Not a match, but I've never seen No Holds Barred.

Now I'm curious is there anyone else who has seen Ready To Rumble? This is a WWF board, so I've got this expectation that only a small handful have actually watched it.

Feb 23, 2022 11:51:07 GMT Big Pete said:

Not a match, but I've never seen No Holds Barred.

Now I'm curious is there anyone else who has seen Ready To Rumble? This is a WWF board, so I've got this expectation that only a small handful have actually watched it.

Seen it, loved it, hesitant to re-watch for fear I wouldn't love it as much.

Favorite scene is the finger in the ass slurpee smell check.

Made me more of a WCW fan than anything else ever had, before or after.

I hear you, that film is such a time capsule of 1999 and just felt like one of those guilty pleasure video store rentals. You know the type? You know it's not going to be any good, but you're a fan of the actor or the cover is really creepy so you just had to.

I still crack up about the Martin Landau performance as the eccentric wrestling trainer and of course prime Rose McGowan (FOREIGN OBJECTS!!!).

Genuinely shocked you've seen it - I would have you down as a Mummy Returns/Scorpion King/The Rundown but nothing else.

Is there much footage from Owen & Pillman's respective runs from Stampede? From what I've heard, their matches range from fun to amazing.