That's okay ... We all have our choices, pal!





Tommy Dreamer’s New York Hardcore Title

Bonus Belt.

Here are my top 5 WWF matches/feuds that never happened (I'll do one for WCW shortly).

5.) Ultimate Warrior VS Jake Roberts

Jake Roberts, in some skits that were meant to prepare Warrior for his matches against Undertaker, turned on the Ultimate One. And became pure, unadulterated evil. At the time, a WWF publication hyped a Warrior/Jake feud - which never happened as Warrior was fired from WWF. This would have been interesting to see. Jake often adapted his style to an opponent's, and I don't believe Jake had ever faced anyone quite like Warrior; on the other side of the coin, Warrior had never faced anyone like Jake. This could have been a great Good VS Evil battle, hyping the Gorilla Press VS DDT.

4. Razor Ramon VS Rick Rude

Rick Rude left WCW in 1994. In late 1994, and I don't know how credible this was, I read a magazine report about how Rick Rude was likely on his way back to the WWF. Imagine that! Imagine the prospect of Razor Ramon defending his WWF Intercontinental Title against Rick Rude. Those would have been solid matches, I'm sure. And on that note...

3. Bret Hart VS Rick Rude

Although Bret Hart feud with Owen post-WM X, plans can always change. Imagine if Rude had waltzed into WWF, around September 1994, and immediately challenged Bret Hart for the WWF Championship. At the time, the WWF ignored a star's past achievements so they would not have mentioned Rude's WCW tenure, but Rude could have, without mentioning Ultimate Warrior, talked about "unfinished business" and a "time when he challenged for the WWF Title". I think he and Bret Hart could have had some exceptional matches.

2. Hulk Hogan VS Steve Austin

At Raw Homecoming in late 2005, Hogan cut a promo where he teased the possibility of a Hogan/Austin match. Which never happened. For me, the time for it to happen would have been in WCW (circa 1994/95) or 2002/2003, prior to Austin's retirement. The crowd would no doubt have been split, but it certainly would have had an atmosphere you could have cut with a knife.

1. Ultimate Warrior VS Shawn Michaels

Post WM-XII, WWF had plans for Shawn Michaels. And, of course, Warrior was gone again a few months after that PPV. However, I had a dream at the time: my dream was of a Warrior/Shawn face vs. face match at WM XIII. This truly could have been a "passing of the torch" moment with Shawn beating a representative of the Federation Era, something akin to Hogan/Warrior at WM VI. And it would have been interesting to see how each man would have adapted to the other man's style.

@taxidriver1980 ... those matches would be intriguing and I don't think of that; but one match (I need time to think about it) that I would love to see and I hope to post it in a day or two.

Hardy designed that monstrosity (apparently after too many Batman movies, judging by the shapes).  He was pretty sucky at that, though I believe he did design the OMEGA belt that they used in their little indie promotion, back in the 90s, before they went to the WWF (full time, anyway)...  I've tried to find a picture of it; but, everything I see is later crap, not the original 1997 OMEGA (Organization of Modern Extreme Grappling Arts), which the Hardys ran, in North Carolina, in 1997-99, with guys like Shane Helms and Joey Abs, with both Hardys working masked and unmasked gimmicks.

Here's a highlight video they had, back in the day......



I can't seem to find a picture of the belt.  It had a round front medallion, with a large Greek Omega symbol, in the center.  Looked nice and understated, with the Omega standing out.  Just good, basic branding, like the UWF belt that Watts had created for his world champion.

I like the Backlund-Iron Sheik-Hogan belt.  That photo is of a reproduction belt and the medallions don't look remotely as well made as the original.  The green leather was the only real problem, with the design, as it was just a bad color.  The WWF had a serious problem with their belt designs of that era....

    
(From left to right:  WWF title, tag-team belts, Intercontinental belt 80-83, Intercontinental belt 84-85

The previous belts were better...

 

Bruno's title belt looked pretty nice...



Here's the real one, on Hogan's waist, on the original WWF magazine debut...



The medallions looked great; it was just the leather.  That thing on black leather would have looked great.  The side medallions listed the previous champions:  Buddy Rogers, Bruno, Ivan Koloff, Pedro Morales, Stan Stasiak, Superstar Billy Graham, Bob Backlund, the Iron Sheik and Hogan.  Then, Hogan got the new one, designed to look like the fake belt he had in Rocky 3, which copied the NWA World TV Title belt (the red one, that Taxidriver posted),



then the  86-88 one....



then the late 80s-90s one, that Hogan passed on to Warrier et al



There was actually one in between the 85-86 belt and the 86-88 belt



Never quite understood why they went through so many changes with Hogan's belt.  The Intercontinental belt desperately needed a change and we got the classic look...



Never cared for the tag-team belts.  most people forget the NWA belt template copies they used, before the big serving tray belts....


(everyone was using this design, in the early mid-80s:  US Hwt title, National Hwt title, National tv title, Florida US tag-team titles, World Class American tag-team titles, the NWA Dome Globe World title, the Mexican NWA Lt Hwt, Welterweight, and Middleweight titles, etc, etc...  Then, they were all copying the later US Hwt belt that Luger and Windham held)

  

I always like the Mexican UWA World title belt....



I also liked Mil Mascaras' IWA World title belt, from the short-lived 70s promotion.....



The World Class World title belt was pretty nice....



That's the one that Kerry Von Erich dropped to Jerry Lawler, in their unification bout, with the AWA and WCWA titles on the line (when Jarrett and the Von Erichs were cooperating with Verne, before he reneged on things).  Lawler then debuted his Unified World title belt....



which I really liked (believe it was a Reggie Parks belt), which is a similar design to the one later used for the UFC Superfight championship, that was held by Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn.  When the cooperative effort failed, they continued to use it in Memphis as the USWA World title, until it was stolen by Sandman (and African-American wrestler) who allegedly pawned or sold it to persons unknown.  After that, they used Lawler's copy of the AWA belt.

There used to be a poster on the Wrestling Classics message Board, who made custom belts, named Neal Snow.  he had some pretty sweet and unique designs...




That was one he created, as a generic world title belt.  he designed a couple fo Ring of Honor and a Caribbean title belt, for the WWC, in Puerto Rico  He had a site, but I can't find it anymore, where he advertised his belts.  He had a really cool one he did, as a lark, of a tribute to the Warner Bros Looney Tune cartoon, "Bunny Hugged," with Bugs vs The Crusher.  It had a central plate with bugs and crusher, then WB logo side plates (total trademark violation; but, ammit it was cool!).  One of my lottery fantasies was to have him do a custom title belt for me:

The Martian Heavyweight Championship, with an image of Marvin the Martian on the front (round front medallion), with side medallions of K-9 (the Martian dog) and the Martian Weirdos (from Hairway to the Stars), Duck Dodgers & Eager Young Space Cadet.  The text ribbons would say "Martian Heavyweight Wrestling Champion" and the Marvin image, in the center, would have a word balloon, saying, "Isn't that lovely?"

Ah, well, that's what lottery fantasies are for...........

Regarding a question asked about the Royal Rumble a few posts back, there was one 30-Man Rumble I didn't enjoy: 1988.

This was never released on videotape in the UK. I didn't get to view it until Silver Vision released the "Royal Rumble Anthology".

It seemed an uneventful Rumble. It started off well. Several minutes in, Butch Reed and the Hart Foundation were really doing a number on Tito Santana. Thank goodness Jake Roberts made the save. From that point, though, well it seemed to be low-key. And I noticed that the faces didn't fight faces, nor did heels fight other heels. The faces just battled the heels and vice versa (were these instructions from Vince?). Future Rumbles truly did feature every man for himself, whether it be Haku going toe-to-toe with Earthquake or Paul Roma and Rick Martel, then both managed by Slick, having a skirmish. And faces like Hogan took on faces like Warrior.

But at the 1988 event, there was none of that "every man for himself" (was it marketed as such?). It just felt like a big Rumble where faces only took on heels. I think the only grey moment was when Harley Race went after another heel.

Well, the problem with Gonzalez wasn't the height; it was the total lack of ability to do even the simplest things in the ring.

Jorge Gonzalez was brought into the US for a tryout, with the Atlanta Hawks basketball team.  Unfortunately, he wasn't even top high school level play for the US, despite playing on the Argentine team.  The Hawks were broadcast by Turner and someone at Turner Sports got the bright idea that he might make a wrestler; and, lo, El Gigante was born.  And he could barely step into the ring, let alone execute a simple headlock.  He had absolutely no coordination and moved rather clubfooted around the ring.  Now, WCW wasn't exactly smart about teaching him to work as a giant; but, they also didn't have much to start with.

Vince signed him up, put him in a bodysuit with airbrushed muscles and sewn on fake hair; and, lo, Giant Gonzalez debuts.  To chirps............  Vince at least made him look menacing............until he took a step and you could see how uncoordinated he was.  Even kids weren't scared of this guy.  It was a total failure and Vince got rid of him quickly.

Andre was unique.  Most fans of that era hadn't seen his earlier work, when he was more mobile and would move around the ring, come off the ropes and things like that.  By the exapnsion-era WWF, his back was in bad shape and his knees weren't much better.  The acromegally made him huge.

This is Andre, in the 70s (with Wahoo McDaniel)....



Andre at Wrestlemania 1....




Andre at Wrestlemania 3



Andre just kept getting bigger and bigger and his mobility decreased.  I saw him in 1982, on a Madison Square Garden card (USA Network used to broadcast them, once a month or so), against Blackjack Mulligan and he moved around fairly well.  Then, I saw him in 1984 and 85, in the Vince Jr expansion WWF and he was noticeably heavier and slower.  In that Wrestlermania 1 match, with Studd, as I recall, he doesn't do a whole lot (though it was booked around a bodyslam challenge).  2 years later, and he can barely move in the ring and the singlet is hiding a back brace, which you can see in the photo above, when you look at his lower abdomen.

Andre could work, though, and knew how to handle his limitations, until the Warrior era, where he was spent.  Gonzalez never did.  He was legit over 7 ft (Andre's height was exaggerated, like everyone's, and is estimated to have been closer to 6' 10, though maybe about 7'.  Definitely not 7'4".  They always kept him away from anything that gave a sense of scale in photos and camera shots.