LAW Dec. 25 Update - 30th Anniversary of Major Angle

John Pollock / December 25, 2012 - 2:25pm

**Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our readers and listeners.

**This past Sunday’s edition of The LAW featuring our Best of 2012 picks with Dan Lovranski, Jason Agnew, Wai Ting and myself is up on the site at http://fightnetwork.com/news/35498:dec.-24-edition-of-the-law-the-best-of-2012/ - we appreciate all the feedback we have received for this show as it’s always one of the most fun shows of the year to do.

**The WWE crew is back on the road tomorrow with the Raw crew in Detroit tomorrow and then in New York at Madison Square Garden on Thursday. The Smackdown crew starts up tomorrow in Chicago and then heads to Green Bay on Thursday. They are holding a double set of tapings Saturday night in Washington, D.C. to tape next week’s Raw, Main Event and Smackdown shows.

**The TNA crew doesn’t have a show until Saturday when they are in Poughkeepsie, New York and are in Albany on Sunday.

**One of the most famous angles in pro wrestling history took place on this date in 1982 for the World Class Championship Wrestling Christmas night show in Dallas, Texas at Reunion Arena. The promotion was being booked by Gary Hart at the time and saw a rising tide in business built on the main event babyface trio of Kevin, Kerry and David Von Erich, the sons of family patriarch Fritz Von Erich. The Christmas night show featured the long awaited rematch between then NWA Champion Ric Flair and Kerry Von Erich with special enforcer referee Michael Hayes put inside the cage. Hayes had come over from Georgia Championship Wrestling alongside Terry Gordy as the babyface pals of the Von Erichs and were received as such by the Texas audience. The culmination of this title chase resulted in over 12,000 fans coming to Reunion Arena and cracking the $100,000 mark at the gate (incredible business at the time and a testament to both the booking and star power at the time that World Class had developed). The match climaxed with Hayes frustrated that Von Erich would not cheat to win the match and led to Von Erich’s head being smashed by the cage door by Gordy at ringside and eventually succumbing to Flair and igniting the hottest feud in World Class history with the babyface Von Erichs against The Fabulous Freebirds. Business skyrocketed in 1983 despite the architect of this angle in Gary Hart giving his notice to Fritz right after the Christmas Day show because of his payoff for the show (Hart gave out the figure of $3,500 and was outraged given what the house drew that night). Ken Mantell was installed as booker as kept the momentum going for the program but the Freebirds were ready to quit after Hart gave notice but were talked into staying by Hart.

**Today is the final day to enter our Review-A-Wai commercial contest where you make a 0:30 spot and post the link at http://lawradio.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=shows&action=display&thread=2223 with the winner receiving a PS3 copy of WWE ’13 as well as some other consolation prizes.

**We will be back with Review-A-Wai tomorrow chatting WWF In Your House 5 “Season’s Beatings” headlined by Bret Hart Vs British Bulldog for the WWF Title, the Hog Pen Match between Henry Godwinn and Hunter Hearst Helmsley and debut of Xanta Klaus.

**Due to all of the college football games airing this weekend WWE programming will be airing in different timeslots this week on The Score in Canada. This Wednesday’s edition of NXT will air at Midnight EST (late Wednesday, early Thursday) and replay 4pm EST on Thursday. Vintage Collection will air this Thursday at 5pm EST and Smackdown will air a day later on Saturday at 8pm EST and later that night at Midnight EST.

**Our Best of 2012 picks are all posted up at http://fightnetwork.com/news/35503:the-laws-best-of-2012-picks/.

**Following our “Best of 2012” show this past Sunday The LAW’s presents its “Worst of 2012” show this coming Sunday at Midnight EST with Wai Ting returning to join Dan Lovranski, Jason Agnew and myself with picks in the following categories:

WORST WRESTLER (Male)
WORST WRESTLER (Female)
WORST TAG TEAM
WORST ON THE MIC
WORST ANNOUNCER
WORST NON-WRESTLING PERFORMER
WORST GIMMICK
WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR
WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR
THEY REALLY DROPPED THE BALL ON...
WORST ANGLE
WORST PAY-PER-VIEW (Wrestling)
WORST PAY-PER-VIEW (MMA)
WORST PROMOTION
WORST TV SHOW
WORST BOOK
WORST DVD
WORST MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST
WORST MMA FIGHT
WTF MOMENT OF THE YEAR

**Today is CM Punk’s 401th day as WWE Champion.

**The 20^th anniversary of Raw on January 14^th will take place in Houston, Texas. There has been zero mention yet on television if they are going to make a big deal out of this or not since it comes in such close proximity to this past July’s Raw 1000 but the company needs as many hooks as they can for these three-hour shows.

**The UFC closes off the year with UFC 155 this Saturday night from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Jason Agnew and myself will be doing a post show immediately after the fights on TSN 1050 Toronto Saturday night. Here is the full card for this Saturday:

MAIN CARD (10pm EST, PPV)
*Junior Dos Santos Vs Cain Velasquez for the Heavyweight Title
*Jim Miller Vs Joe Lauzon
*Costa Philippou Vs Tim Boetsch
*Alan Belcher Vs Yushin Okami
*Chris Leben Vs Derek Brunson

PRELIMINARY CARD (8pm EST, FX)
*Brad Pickett Vs Eddie Wineland
*Erik Perez Vs Byron Bloodworth
*Melvin Guillard Vs Jamie Varner
*Michael Johnson Vs Myles Jury

PRELIMINARY CARD (6:30pm EST, Facebook)
*Todd Duffee Vs Phil De Fries
*Max Holloway Vs Leonard Garcia
*Chris Cariaso Vs John Moraga

**This week on The MMA Report I will be previewing the full UFC 155 card and will be joined by UFC Heavyweight Champion Junior Dos Santos as well as MMA Junkie Lead Reporter John Morgan live from Las Vegas. Catch the show Thursday on iTunes and here on the site and will air Friday night at 11pm EST on TSN 1050 Toronto.

****
THE LAW – December 24^th 2012
(Lovranski, Agnew, Pollock and Wai make their “Best of 2012” picks plus Dave Meltzer, your phone calls and a special Christmas present give to Mouth on the air)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35498.mp3
*****
REVIEW-AN-IMPACT – December 21^st 2012
(John Pollock and Wai Ting chat with Nate Milton about being alive and #ImpactLIVE)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35461.mp3
*****
THE MMA REPORT – December 20^th 2012
(John Pollock chats with Mark Hominick, Joe Antonacci, Dan Lovranski and Jason Agnew)
http://iphone.tsn.ca/tsnpodcasts/THEMMAREPORT-DEC20-2012.mp3
*****
REVIEW-A-WAI – ROH Joe Vs Kobashi
(John Pollock and Wai Ting review Samoa Joe Vs Kenta Kobashi from 2005 w/ former ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky joining the show)
http://datav3.fightnetwork.com/blog/35426.mp3
*****