h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Everyone likes to chunter on about who's the best of all time in their eyes, and most of us can back it up with a little bit of actual evidence garnered from years of staring at the idiot-box. So I ask you as a curious observer and fan of the business, who's your number 1, what's your favourite annecdote about them and why are they (in your mind at least) the best?

My mind say HBK. Best moment HBK & Big Sexy as tag champions. Why? he difined a new breed of high-flying talent that could deliver in the ring, work the mic and hold a title with gusto; without him Y2J, Edge, The Hardy Boyz and many others would not be where they are today.

Sting was the first great draw for me to watch wrestling, the skill, the mystery, the mask, the black suit hugging that body...whoooh!
Now i watch mainly to see HHH, the indestructive, uncompromising quality as a fighter, what a body, the almost academic wit, what a body, the outrageous conceit, and of course, what a body...

chris kanyon in my mind is the best as he is known as the inovator of moves i.e he makes up new moves all the time.plus he`s never boring in the ring.he has been sidelined for the first time in his career due to torn acl then when he returned a freak accident landed him in hospital and he got fluid on his lungs and almost died he now has an open wound on his shoulder which has to heal before his return ,whatever happens he always fights back and gives 100% thats why he`s my favourite.

HHH vs HBK, unsanctioned at Summerslam, discuss.

Why, because they´re both a bit invalid at the time? I understand HBK is not coming back to do fights, other than HHH.

The current buzz in the industry press is that the match was an unexpected success. Despite the fact that HBK had a dodgy back and Cripple H was busted up the pair tore the house down. The trust and skill with which HHH treated HBK was amazing to watch. Many pundits are predicting that HBK will be called upon to put in more performances at supercards in the near future despite the fact he was wheeled out on a gurney for effect.

I'm so mad mad mad that they don't show rasslin on tv anymore in Germany. So i missed that match, along with many other matches, i'd really like to chokeslam the cheesy old men tv mafia . For about a year they did air RAW due to the demand, shoving it from one station to another like a hot potato, always came late at night, which meant with 'phone sex adds in the breaks, some of which were really . Then they decided wrestlin wasn't acceptable, so now there's only the yukky adds left ...

With cable in the UK we get WWE on Sky Sports, but it's not all a bed of roses. RAW Reaches us on a Friday after it airs on US tv on a Monday, and Smackdown pops up on Saturday. Both are shown in their entirity only late at night and even then the naughty words are bleeped out and the really violent moments are covered over with shots of rather well endowned ladies in the audience. But it could be worse.

The fourth terrestrial channel rather originally titled Channel 4 over here did buy the rights to show HEAT about a year ago and claimed that it would always air at 4:00pm on a Sunday. The very next week it was 5:00pm and from there it eventually ended up at 11:30pm. They also refused to show a drop of blood being spilled or anything more violent than a clothesline. In the end they dropped the whole show and ran for the hills.

So now you have to buy cable to see wrestling of any kind on tv in the UK...which rather sucks if you ask me.

If you can get your hands on a tape of the match you should...just don't bother watching big mean green Brock Lesnar...Rey Mysterio vs Kurt Angle was quite nice too.

I'd love to locate a tape of that match, i could just see it the way you described it. If you hear anything, tell me, will you?

violence my foot, i think some wimpy tv suits just got an inferiority complex, and well they should .

I have a tape, but sadly its on loan from a friend and not mine. I also have no means of copying the tape either (which is of course illegal anyway and soemthing that I'd never condone...honestly!).

I watched the England vs Slovakia qulaifying match for Euro 94 the other day and the crowd trouble was terrible, yet the cameras kept rolling and provided us with highlights of both sets of fans brawling and hurling missiles...Many were hurt and yet we can see this on a Saturday afternoon!

No one gets hurt in the WWE like that (unless they work with RVD!) and they still can't stomach the "violence" in sports-entertainment!

oh is it a commercial tape? if it is you could give me the data, and i'd try to buy it on-line somewheres. I'm getting slowly starved you know. Rasslin does me good for the same atavistic reasons that the tv-suits get scared s**tless by it i think.

actually i can't stomach the crowd violence on tv at all, that makes me really sick, and all that goulish harping on bombed bit of humans.
Gimme a good "fake" fight any time.

The tape is home made, I don't think that you'll see a commercial release for at least another six months judging by the time it took the last Wrestlemania to appear on the shelves. The best places to try for the legit version is at WWE.com I suppose.

I've tried to argue with people who put wrestling down as "fake" that it's just entertainment and no one should get hurt, but few people can look past that. The irony is that most of them are boxing fans and think that said sport is a gentleman's art. I've sat and watched a man be punched to death in the middle of a boxing ring and come away wondering what the point of the spectacle was. It seems that the realisation that someone will only get seriously hurt if something goes badly wrong does not appeal to these people. Do you really need the realisation that one of the two human beings that you are watching could meet with permanent injury or even death to enjoy your "real" sport?

six month?
oh well oh well oh shucks.
Boxing, yes i think i said that earlier somewhere here, i can hardly bear to watch, specially towards the end . i don't like anyone beat up for real, i don't care how it's sanctioned. Mind you, if some people think wrestling real, one can't blame them too much, it's all that well done by the top of the tree guys! I think you gotta really KNOW it's staged, or maybe you wouldn't notice. I had to make a mental effort at the beginning of my watching wrestling, i got quite drawn into the drama.

It can be quite an emotional experience as you find yourself getting attatched to the characters just like you would in any other dramatic production. Hulk vs Rock had me all emotional, as did HBK vs HHH and I've been a fan for many, many years. My other half was not all that enamoured of wrestling when we met, but after watching WWF for a few weeks she caught the bug and puts it down to your interest in the characters and their fortunes as the storylines progress, she refuses to watch another promotion and anything from the back-catalogue as a result.

For me wrestling was a novel discovery a few years ago, WCW, i couldn't believe Big Sexy when i saw him first, and then out came Sting! And Sid, what a loon. Then i noticed WWF and my cup ran over. Such fun, since then i was hooked. I like the big ones!

I've always enjoyed watching big guys like Nash, despite what some might say about the time he spent in the WWF as Diesel. The big impassive monster and the little cocky HBK played off each other perfectly.

I got more into Sting when he started doing his gimmick based on the Crow rather than the bleached blonde image that he used in the eighties. That's the same reason that I liked Vampiro, something a little dark and gothic to the character.

It's a shame that the WCW had to go, I was hoping that the promotion would be kept on as a property of WWE. By totally folding the promotion I think that Vince McMahon has made a regrettable mistake.

Well you see, i didn't know Sting as a bleach job, i got to know him as the crow type, and was absolutely bowled over. I loved to watch Raven for the same reason, such a raggedy dark child he seemed. And Vampiro was great too. Seems Vince doesn't really know how to handle dark stories, as the Undertaker - Brood showed, too soppy by half, the guys didn't deserve that.
Now Nash is great as a bleach job!

I suppose you never got to see Raven in the ECW? They really let him loose there, with brooding boiler-room interviews and storylines like stealing the Sandman's wife and child away from him (in which they both dressed like Raven and affected a sullen attitude to boot).

Sting in the 80's= awful, I wouldn't advise looking him up in that period if you want to stay a devoted fan.

Did you know that he recently wrestled for Ted Dibiase's promotion that uses wrestling to spread "the word of the lord"?