Randomness

Hey Scott,
Long time fan. Own all your books. Two questions for the blog on some 80s wrestlers I figured you would know the answers on:
1- Watching old episodes of prime time it seemed as if Hillbilly Jim was pretty over with the crowd in the late 80s but other than a survivor series match I don't remember him being on any on big PPV card or any big feuds. What gives?
2- Lanny Poffo was pretty boring in the ring but he wasn't awful, why did he stop wrestling entirely? Injuries or they just lost faith in him as a wrestler. In retrospect would it have been better to have played up his relation to Randy so they could have had a brother feud?

1.  Nothing gives, really.  Hillbilly was a midcard comedy guy who was very effective at his role and was gone by the time the PPV era really began.  He had a good run with Hogan on top of house shows as a tag team, made huge money from the Rock N Wrestling cartoon, and currently works as a goodwill ambassador type of role with the DVD division.  Really, what more were they gonna do with him? 

2.  He stopped wrestling because he signed a lucrative deal with WCW at the same time as his brother, and they just paid him and never used him for years, until the company died.  Good work if you can get it.  The character who became The Maestro was originally supposed to be him, but it never panned out for some reason.  Poffo as a pretentious conductor, ala Seinfeld, would have been fun, actually.  That being said, I don’t know why they never thought of reuniting him with Curt Hennig or anything like that, either.  Just WCW for ya.