Hogan did wrestle Andre during his first WWF run back in 1980 with Hogan as heel. But that was before he was dictating his own terms. Also, the Earthquake bit happened after No Holds Barred and the Zeus/Tiny Lister Jr. feud (my god, was that bad - certainly up there with the worst headline feuds of all time).
I remember there was a Hogan (as heel) vs Andre feud in AWA prior to Hulk joining WWF.
Andre was in a lot of pain the last part of his career. His loss to Hogan in WM3 was a “Passing of the Torch” and he was ready to step down. Usually, the stars on the verge of retiring will put over newer talent before they hang up the tights for good, as he later jobbed to Ultimate Warrior. Andre was a consummate professional at the core. Hulk’s ego trip may have climbed sharply after WM 3, but he had little to do with deciding the outcome.
Yes, Mid South became the UWF in 1986. I haven’t watched any of the episodes yet as I’m still on 1986 JCP. I don’t recall Mid South being available in my area so I’ve never seen them before. I’m looking forward to watching as I’ve heard great things about them.
In other Network news, they’ve added AWA! And more WCCW! Screw monthly PPVs, this is why I signed up!
From what I’ve read, it took Vince quite a bit of convincing to get Andre to even come back for the match with Hogan - he was off filming The Princess Bride at the time and wasn’t sure he wanted to return to wrestling.
Keep in mind that kayfabe-wise, Andre had never lost a match in WWF up to that point, although he’d jobbed a few times elsewhere (notably, in the '70s, he was pinned by General Adnan in a show in Baghdad with Saddam Hussein in the audience.
That may be (I didn’t get AWA back then), but Hogan’s 1980 WWF feud with Andre pre-dates his going to AWA.
Ever hear the story of what Andre did to a local news cameraman? I think it was in the months following WrestleMania 6 - what WWF would do is, every house show would have the same matches, with the same results (while there were computer bulletin boards back then, they weren’t popular enough to worry about the word spreading out), and to protect this, when local TV stations were present, the camera crews were told not to tape matches. During this house show run, Ultimate Warrior was beating Andre in under a minute. Somewhere in the plains - Iowa or Kansas, I think - a cameraman did as instructed and didn’t record the match, but did start recording Warrior when he left; Andre thought he had recorded the match, and roughed him up.
If I recall correctly, Andre was wearing a back brace underneath his singlet at WM3. True?
WWE has just released a 3-disc “Best of” collection for Owen Hart.
Smackdown “Bit the bullet” 12/3/2015
It started with Roman, the Usos and Dean in the ring. Roman says, “Hey Oos, you’re my cousins, but we’re as close as brothers, right? So you got my back, right?” The Usos say “What? We’re trying to ride your coattails now even though we’ve been here longer than you?” Roman then says “Hey Dean, even though we’ve only known each other 5 years, we’re as close as brothers, right? So you got my back?” Dean grunts, tosses hair out of his eyes and says “I can’t say anything because I might steal your heat.”
Then Sheamus comes out with his fellow furriners, having inherited Seth’s task of eating up air time with heel gloating. He says his four will take on Roman’s four. However, New-hoo Day-hee comes out and says they’ll take on Dean and the Usos, and if they win, Roman will have to take on the League of Nations 1 on 4. Then they cackle like the Joker and the Riddler from 1960’s Batman TV. Big E dances provocatively, fondling his chest muscles like stripper breasts. OK stop.
Tyler Breeze (w/Summer Rae) takes on Neville while Dolph Ziggler commentates. Zig is now sporting 80s metal hair like a member of Poison. Neville clocks Breeze on side the head and lays him out, but Summer grabs his legs as he’s about to go to the top rope. The distraction allows Prince Pretty to win with the Unprettier. Oddly enough, Dolph doesn’t find this objectionable. Are they teasing an alliance of the pretty boys?
Afterwards, NO. nononononononononononononononono. WWE, please do NOT let this angle develop. Miz approaches Neville and says he loses because he doesn’t win over the audience with his personality. HE DOESN’T NEED TO, VINCE! He offers to take Neville under his wing like he did Daniel Bryan, who became a world champion. NONONOONOONONONONONONONONONO!!! Do NOT do this WWE! It will kill Neville’s career like it did Sandow. He’ll be lucky to mop the floors after the matches. Miz iz POISON!
Becky Lynch takes on Brie (with eternal hanger-on Alicia Fox) with Charlotte in her corner. Brie accidentally bumps Charlotte during the match, so Charlotte runs in for revenge and causes Becky to lose via DQ, teasing more dissension. Will there be any babyface Divas when this is over?
New-hoo Day-hee takes on Dean and the Usos. The faces are dominating until Oos hurts his knee. ND capitalizes and Xavier pins Oos. Roman has to go solo tonight, but that was the point of this all along, to show he can overcome the odds in spectacular fashion.
Devon Dudley takes on Bray Wyatt. Bubba and Tommy Dreamer accompany their fellow ECW vet. Wonder if Spike Dudley will make a return as well? He was one of the original tiny guys who put on 5 star matches with guys twice his size, like Kallisto and Rey Mysterio, but he’s probably not into taking sick bumps any more. The other Wyatts loom at ringside. Bray takes out Devon with Sister Abigail. The rest of the Wyatts bring in a table. Dreamer and Bubba take out Kendo sticks and whack away, but Bron grabs one and breaks it in half. The Wyatts then pile up the bodies and Follow the Buzzards.
Sure enough, the League of Nations trap Roman in the corner and do ND’s take-turns-stomping-the-hapless-face-for-15-minutes. Roman retaliates and throws Rusev into the ropes, then Barrett grabs his feet and pulls him down. This results in the referee sending Barrett back to the dressing room. At least he won’t be the one taking the fall this time.
Later, each heel sets up Roman with their respective finishers, but Roman repels them and knocks them out of the ring, so hard that they can’t recover from a ten-count before he gets back in, so ROMANWINSLOL.
DEPP!
I believe Spike is retired now, which is why they’ve got Tommy Dreamer filling in for him. Sorta like when they couldn’t get D-Von for the Royal Rumble so they had R-Truth play the part. I imagine RVD (or Rhino) is probably available if they want to bring in another ECW veteran to do a four-on-four match at TLC.
To be accurate, the entire Miz-Sandow angle ended with Sandow massively over.
Which Vince then promptly squandered by having Massively Over Face be a complete jerk and then disappear from TV.
Miz did his job. Sandow did his job. Miz got incredible heat, Sandow got massively over.
Then Vince happened and fucked the whole thing up.
I agree with CM Punk: Vince is a millionaire who should be a billonaire, but he surrounds himself with people who tell him what he wants to hear.
NXT house show report! They really wanted to showcase people because we had not one, not two, but THREE 6 man tags. Two men and one women.
New people report, and we had a handful of em:
First was Ray Swann aka wannabe Michael Jackson. He came out to the Jackson 5 sounding disco tunes and danced Thriller and everything. He faced Alexandar Wolfe who we haven’t seen in a while actually
Alliah (noomph or whatever her name is) made her debut as the middle eastern dancer girl that she was talking about on Breaking Ground. She looked like a cosplay Jasmine and did a mini belly dance thing. She was one of the 6 manners with Asuka and Adrienne Reese.
We had a promo from the Yeti dude from Tough Enough who gave literally the same speech he was rehearsing on Breaking Ground. He talked a lot about 2016 so I’m assuming he’s making his debut then under the name Bronson Matthews
Tino Sabetelli (former NFLer Sabby Pisticelli) made his debut in the comedy match with Bull. he didn’t wrestle a lot but holy hell he’s huge for being a safety in the NFL. He was pretty funny though
The second promo of the night was given by Daria someoneorother(couldn’t get her last name). She was on Tough Enough too and she was a former MMA fighter. She was interrupted by Nia Jaxx and they had an “improv” match where Daria lost
Main event was a 6 man team of Finn, Tye Dillinger, and Apollo vs. Baron Corbin, Riddick Moss, and a guy we have seen before briefly at a show down here, some giant scary russian looking mofo whose name is King Constantine. Sexy Finn and co. win.
No house show next month as we have the UCF taping, so the next one in our area is going to be sometime in February.
Ooooooh! Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley just appeared together on RoH!
They’re being set up as opponents most likely, but they really really need to make the Motor City Machine Guns a reality again. TNA really dropped the ball on them, but the cosmic imbalance can now shift back into place with their reunification.
Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite Please Reunite
They’ve just announced today that the February 8th episode of Raw is returning to Key Arena. Last time Raw was at the Key was the night we hijacked the main event by refusing to stop chanting for Daniel Bryan, and they’ve deliberately avoided doing Raw there in their Pacific Northwest tours since then up until now.
No mention of Bryan being on the card, but they are promoting BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK LEZZZZZZZZZNUR for the show, so I am totes there.
Break the show by chanting for Brian Lawler. 
Is he even still with the company? Last time I recall him being on TV was the first live NXT show, where he and Scotty 2 Hotty got fed to the Ascension.
I think Chi meant his name sounds enough like Brock Lesnar to confuse people.
The fact that he isn’t an active wrestler, hasn’t been on the roster in years and is Jerry’s son should confuse the fuck out of them.
And bets he’d somehow make an appearance within a month. 
Or Cole mumbles something about how “The WWE Universe is speaking their minds!” and it never gets mentioned again.
The best thing about going to a TV taping is that you can see Maggle and JBL, but you don’t have to listen to them. I was close enough to get a good look at them at Smackdown a few years ago, and during the post-show dark match they both took their headsets off and just started chatting casually. It was kinda weird seeing them out of character like that.