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You could start with this one http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?showtopic=11633 Thanks man... It's a massive thread with massive data dumps in it. Carve out some time for it rather than heading over when you only have 10 minutes. John

I've read, quite a few times, that Gorilla's deal wasn't just $100k + employment, it was that plus the equivalent of an opener's appearance fee and a half for EVERY show WWF promoted. Considering we know they were doing up to 5 shows a day, that's quite a lot of appearance fees if true. Then again, probably peanuts compared to what Gorilla would have made with his 12.5% intact. It's Pro Wrestling. I don't believe at all that Gorilla was getting a cut from the company like that. I also suspect the "$100K" was more likely rolled into the employment, or handled in the most beneficial fashion for taxes. It's a non-tv taping, which has matches like this. Buck was in there to job. My comment was kayfabe. Look up booking across Japanese series. Guys have partners who are there to do the job regularly. Kayfabe is "that's how it's booked tonight", as it had been for decades in Japan. It really isn't one to over think. It's also one of the problems of Best Of sets: while doing a great job of getting the great and/or important stuff in front of people, it does give a false impression on the totality of the booking (and of course the consistent quality of the workers). John

I like the 05/23/83 match with Slaughter. I wrote up the 09/24/83 TDM between the two in Philly, thought it was solid for the most part though not up to the level of their 1981 Philly matches or the 05/23/83 match. I have the 08/13/83 and 10/22/83 Philly matches, the third match being the blow off Scicilian Stretcher Match. On the list of things to watch. I liked the 02/18/83 MSG match with Muraco a good deal, thinking it was on par with their 1981 matches and one of the rare ones where Don wanted to work. Looking at my write up of the 03/20/83 MSG TDM between the two, it looks as though I enjoyed it a good deal more on that rewatch than I had when watching it years (or a decade) prior. Did not a poor five minute stretch of headlock work, but thought the rest was decent/solid/good. I now have everything from 1983 in the US of his that's available. It's a bit of a dire run of opponents left to view: John Studd (2 matches) Bob Backlund & Andre & Jimmy Snuka vs. John Studd & Afa & Albano Mike Sharpe Sgt. Slaughter (2) Afa George Steele (2) Iron Sheik Slaughter is really the only "good" worker in there. Sheik in this era has struck me as an inconsistent mess, with his Slaughter matches bringing out the best in him, the shorter Hogan matches bringing focus, and the Backlund title change and Tito title defense being just horrid work on his part. I did watch the Sharpe match last night, since it was probably one of the five most intriguing of the 80s Backlund matches that I got recently. It's... solid. Very basic, very solid, decent working of holds in a "filler" way, and Bob bringing the offense down the stretch. Sharpe flashed about as much offense as he did in squash matches, which is none other than clubbering. Basically works like a prelim heel, which is one of the things that intrigued me about the potential of the match: prelim heels work holds to fill space, jaw the crowd, and sell for the faces. They don't it as well as quality top heels, but some of them can do it solid. That's pretty much Sharpe here. Of course Bob can work headlock and head scissors segments, so it's easy for him to go back and forth with Sharpe. Interesting match, one one level a throwaway since it was nothing big, but I found it watch able. More solid than some of his bigger profile opponents later in the year. Of course not at the level of the 02/18/83 Muraco and 05/23/83 Slaughter matches, which are Backlund set worthy if we'd watched them back then. John

I'm glad that I didn't have to point that out... John

It's a non-tv taping, which has matches like this. Buck was in there to job. Bruno's retirement tour with All Japan: 1981/10/07 Yokohama - Culture Gym Brody (DCOR) Sammartino 1981/10/08 Utsunomiya Baba & Sammartino def Race & Robley 1981/10/09 Tokyo - Kuramae Kokugikan (13,000) Baba & Sammartino (11:39 DCOR) Singh & Ueda The retirement match was the big one. If he's in for three matches, don't want to have a minor house show match look bigger. Got a big singles match in Yokohama. The final match was big: Singh & Ueda has just jumped from NJPW after a long run as pretty much the top heel tag team in the promotion. They'd challenge Baba & Jumbo for the tag titles later in the series (dq finish for the 3rd fall), and face than on the Tag League final night (a DCOR). It was a pretty choice pairing for Bruno's send off. John

Who knows. Who knows if the "$100,000" that the others received was really $100K. There's little doubt that Gorilla ended up getting way more than $100K since he continued to be employed in a major way for years. Skaaland in turn probably got more than $100K as well since he stuck around as a road agent and office guy. Though I've read in the past that there also was some type of employment deal tied into the buy out as well. Zacko was 75+ when the buyout came, older than Vince Sr, and like Sr probably ready to hang it up. Years of promoting Philly and Baltimore and Landover, one would expect that he had a nice chunk of change. Again: who knows. It's wrestling, and numbers are worked all the time. We don't even know if the "$100K" was really "$100K". In turn, if a large chunk of Gorilla's and Skaaland's "$100K" was a portion of their continuing jobs and paid out over a long time, then the payment at the time of the buyout wasn't even that much, though overtime it adds up paying Gorilla every year. It's also possible that Zacko was cut a $100K check, but paid over time. Again: it's a rabbit who not worth chasing for details. There will be no definitive answer unless you find the actual contracts of sale for the three (and employment contracts for the two). In turn, the payment to Sr... who knows. No: Vince takes the hard times all the way to his up bringing. His mom didn't get much in the divorce, and Dad didn't hand Vince an easy path in the company. Of course no one with a brain buys a lot of that, since Vince was a ring announcer by his early 20s shortly after getting out of college, and then the play-by-play man by the time he was 25. Sound like hard times? Expansion wasn't hard times. That's a work, even the Mania stuff. We've had discussions about that where, if Vince hit a tough patch with Mania, he could easily have eased back on Expansion to his prior core and the expansion cities that were doing well. A "failed' Expansion still would have created a national promotion that added California to the WWF, along with Ohio, Illinios, Michigan, and probably still focusing on the war with the AWA which while not over was a place they weren't doing badly. It's just a work that the WWF could have gone bk if Mania failed. John

http://sportsandwrestling.mywowbb.com/forum2/25346.html 1973 06/15 St. Louis, MO Bruno Sammartino draw Harley Race(60:00) Doubt there's any handheld 8MM of that. 1981 10/08 Utsunomiya, Japan Bruno Sammartino & Giant Baba beat Harley Race & Buck Robley That one exists on the Flair-Funk handheld disc. Dan's listing of it: 1762. Raijin Z-B-3 Brusier Brody vs. Bruno Sammartino (10/07/81) Dory Funk/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Harley Race/Jimmy Snuka (10/07/81) Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk (10/07/81) Mighty Inoue vs. Umanoseke Ueda (10/08/81) Funks vs. Snuka/Alexis Smirnoff (10/08/81) Baba/Sammartino vs. Race/Robley (10/08/81) Dates added by me. Which is funny: I've got a copy of that, but never watched it past the Flair match... don't even remember the Dory & Jumbo vs Race & Snuka match. Recall the Terry match as being "this looks like it might be okay, but I wish it were a tv taping to get a better feel for it". The Brody-Bruno match is probably what I would use as Exhibit A "In re: Bruiser Brody Was A Shitty Worker". It essentially turns into a non-match, and a shitty one at that, which makes one wonder why in the hell it was booked, and just how much of an asshole Brody was to not even work a brawl of a match with Bruno... But I digress. Baba & Bruno vs Race & Buck is out there.

On the WWF, Vince Sr and Vince Jr... Sr got control of the company into Jr's hands before he died. How? We'll never get the full truth on that because VKM & Family will never tell it. They prefer to use the "Vince stretched himself thin to make this work" myth. It's highly unlikely that Sr "held up" Jr in giving him the company: Sr had been making money hand over fist for decades, was 70, and had groomed his son to take over. Not only that, we almost certainly well aware of the expansion plans, which would need to have the coffers of Capitol / Titan in good shape to support... not sucked dry in buying our himself. Sr had a second wife. I doubt he left 100% of his estate to her. Again, he'd brought Jr into the promotion, groomed him for the top spot, and effectively given him the promotion. Sons that you think that highly of, you carve out a chunk for in the will... and it's highly unlikely a person like Sr dies without a will. So... My general thoughts on this have always been: * Jr got the promotion from Sr for little real $$$ relative to the promotion's worth * Jr's "buyout" of Skaaland, Gorilla and Zacko was cheap relative to the promotion's worth * the buyouts of Skaaland & Gorilla, at least, were shaped in a fashion that quickly favored Vince * Sr left Jr a good chunk of change / and or assets that were very valuable in funding the Expansion And all the "near bankrupt" stuff is a myth to make Jr. look like a self made entrepreneur rather than someone who took a strong family business + Dad's Money and turned it into a stronger family business. It's kind of common for folks like Jr to not be satisfied telling what already is a complimentary story of being a Visionary to grow the strong family business, but instead having to fluff it by talking about all the hard times and that he really wasn't as well staked as he obviously was. As far as the specific details... it's really a waste to go too deeply on it. We will never find out as Vince & Family will just want to myth-make, and no one in the "know" has or will ever say anything to contradict it. John

They have at least one in AJPW, in 1985. Might have had more... just not recalling them.

Board is good.

Discs #155 - #186.

Okay... Was anyone make that assumption? And in what context? * If you're running a promotion in 1986, a Hulk Hogan Card is a good thing because it's going to draw. * If you're a Hogan Fan in 1986, a Hulk Hogan Card is a good thing because you got to see Hulk. * If you're a pro wrestling fan and want to see a good show with good matches and a good number of storylines you're invested in, that might *not* be a good thing. A "strong card" and a "good thing" card are relative. "Strong Card" really doesn't apply to the first two, unless we define "Strong Card" to mean any that has Hulk on it. Despite this being a hardcore hangout with lots of discussions on work and matches, we've also had enough discussions over the years on the business side in general and Hogan in specific that one would be surprised how people here look at "Hogan On The Card" being a major and important thing for the WWF in this era. "Strong Card" *might* apply to the last one, but that's subjective to on what "good show", "good matches" and "storylines" mean to him. A "strong JCP card" might not mean dick to a WWF fan who doesn't care about those guys, or their type of wrestling. In turn, the WWF might put on their "strongest card" (let's call it Mania III) and a JCP fan might be bored out of his mind by 90% of it, and the other 10% not being enough to make up for it. I don't think you'll find that Assumption being made in as clear cut of fashion in the prior thread as you might think it was. You're pointing to a post of mine without citing anything in it that that backs up your claim. It would appear that the comment about about JTTS you are hanging your "that a lot of JTTS on a roster isn't adding any depth" assumption on is this at the end: That's an Observation. There's no conclusion drawn in it that that the WWF doesn't have depth. Simply that in September 1986, that the WWF's larger roster also had a large number of JTTS. Others can run with it, as obviously you have run with it. Look at where you ran with it, and breaking it into parts: * That jobbers [...] are just fodder. Yes, 1986 straight jobbers are fodder... literally. They are there to get squashed on TV. No one is going to claim the Mulkeys or Al Navarro were anything other than pure fodder. They really weren't part of the real roster. Look at those roster lists for the two promotions that you posted, and your treatment of them: You weren't arguing that the Mulkeys or Al Navarro should be included on the list. I suspect that if you gave it a minute's thought you'd agree that to straight jobbers who (almost) only work TV tapings getting squashed were fodder and quite different from JTTS. * That [...] JTTS are just fodder. Go back to the very early part of the thread from last year. I was the one breaking down how JTTS fit into the promotion. I was the one that looked at a month of SD Jones' house show matches. I was the one that walked through the entire year of SD's Primetime matches. I was the one took the time to try to put him into context with his fellow JTTS, lowly straight TV jobbers, and those higher on the roster. * that a lot of JTTS on a roster isn't adding any depth After someone came in with an odd list of JTTS for the WWF, who took the time to walk through each to discuss: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?show...15284&st=20 That would be your list, and that would be me responding to. It also responded to your thoughts on JCP, with things like seeing Sam Houston as a mid-carder. There is some irony that I was the one showing respect for JTTS and Mid-carders in the prior thread before it got restarted and ventured off into your later tangent. This is a point that people were making in the prior thread, and others: there is a disconnect between what people are saying and how you process it. I don't think anyone views you as an asshole (in contrast to how people view me), and no one thinks your a bad guy trolling the boards. I love your enthusiasm for wrestling, which certainly outstrips mine and any number of burned out fans online. You'd like to make me a gods and kings heel in the prior thread. But you do need to slow down and realize that the disconnects that lead you getting into these types of frustrating discussions is largely you. Note: I said slow down, not stop. I'm not trying to drive you off, nor is anyone whose reached this point with you in other discussions. Just slow down when it gets to a certain point, and think about whether you're misreading others and their points. They weren't. Really. No, because "strong card" has a variety of meanings. After all, various people spent time putting over Hogan Cards as drawing. It's a business: drawing is a good thing too. Re-read the post. I wasn't doing a depth comp. I was correcting a totally screwed up Roster List that you posted. It blew my mind that you posted such a total shit list that you *had* to know was wrong since you'd mentioned numerous wrestlers throughout the thread who we not on the list. Perhaps I'm not being clear enough on what the point of the post you're point to was. Let me explicit: I was fucking gobsmacked you posted such total shit. I felt the need to correct it, and took the time to do so. In detail, just so that you couldn't pull about one of your kooky attempts to dispute it. I also had a long introduction to explain why certain people weren't included so that I wouldn't have to answer your questions on why the Mulkeys or Al Navarro weren't on the list. A detailed, explained list to clean up the shit you dumped in the thread as "fact". Clear? What was the title of the entire thread, Jerry? It's right there: "The JTTS". I made an observation about the large number of JTTS on the WWF "Roster" in September 1986 because it's the topic of the fucking thread. It's also noteworthy the two "Rosters" that you dumped on the thread didn't include JTTS. So it also felt like an observation that needed to be made. Jerry: you posted a totally fucked up list that (i) included people for FLORIDA in the JCP, (ii) included Women in the WWF list but not the JCP list, (iii) included Superstar Graham despite his working one TV taping match and instantly going out hurt without working any house shows, (iv) missed a staggering number of wrestlers from both promotions including wrestlers who had been mentioned in your very own posts earlier in the thread, and (v) didn't include any of the guys who were the subject of the thread, i.e. the JTTS for both promotions who regularly / semi-regularly worked house shows that month. That's my fault? No. You screwed that pooch because you're too lazy to do your own research and instead used a list that even you had to know was crap. Then you misread the point of the post. Interrogate? That's funny. I'm not even sure that was a conclusion. They used them differently when composing a card. It was also gone into that part of that was due to the WWF working more "crews" than JCP. So yeah, that's likely a misread too. You tend to have a habit of misreading every comment as a slight of the WWF and praise for JCP. But if your assumptions are wrong, are you asking questions that are relevant? John

A trader named CMPunk made a massive comp covering JCP/WCW going back into the 80s and all the way to the end. The WCW one from Jan 7, 1991 to the end was 186 discs. He included lots of angles and non-wrestling. I suspect that someone could redo it and having it even larger. I think people have organized the season sets better since then, some obscure stuff has popped up, and there's likely a different appreciation now for WCWSN stuff than back when he put it together. On the other hand, he also included all the Big Stuff that "work fans" might not include... so who knows.

Yeah... no hurry. Just in a week or so when the feeling is right, just have a Brody-a-thon. I've just gotten a big batch of stuff in to motivate me back into my WWF thread, but among the things I'd grabbed in the mean time was a bunch of Hogan. So I'd planned on doing a massive block of non-stop Hogan like starting at Match A-200. It's like 120+ (and I probably have a few more on WWE commercial dvd's). I want to really put my "Hulk was an effective worker" meme to the test and see I keep that... or lose my mind watching 100+ straight Hogan Matches. Good lord... that No Holds Barred cage match is actually the last one on the list: 12/12/89. I plan on watching to of my WWF favs (Backlund and Savage) for most of the 100 prior to that. John

Your two Assumptions were misreads of the prior thread, so it was kind of a "why bother when he's wrong out of the box". Kind of the opposite of a "trap". More along the lines of a sobriety check point where the officer himself is three sheets to the wind. :/ John

We need more Brody in this thread. Perhaps save up the rest that you haven't touched on yet for a major Brody-a-thon at some point. John

I use the term "gringo" for myself relative to native lucha fans, and "gaijin" relative to native puroresu fans. I don't really have a problem with it. The wrestlers call themselves gaijin as well. John

I don't think Bruno fell for it. He was lying his way through the various pieces as well, talking about how he's watching the show a lot and how cleaned up the WWE is now. The WWE wanted Bruno in. Trip took the lead on it, and played nice. Bruno set a price. Vince agreed to the price. Bruno and Trip are playing nice. "It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business." -Michael Corleone John

When you're getting a top star level WrestleMania payoff, you're going on last. Fun article, Keith. John

This is a commercial tape that I've never tracked down. How was the Kawada & Taue & Baba vs Misawa & Kobashi & Kikuchi that main evented the second card on the tape? John

Was wondering which version made the set: TV (i.e. JIP for last 21 minutes Dave 5* version): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X25xDXonmWc Full 39 minute version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9uBZ-F_aog Confess that I don't recall thinking the TV version was 5*, and I haven't watched the full version yet.

Jerry: I'm trying to do comparative analysis. We have to do that because we don't have full results of both promotions, and have to look at cards with full information. Look at the first 10 days of 1988 for JCP: http://www.thehistoryofwwe.com/jcp88.htm * we don't have full results of the 1/2 cards * we don't have full results of the 1/3 cards * we have no results for the one "known" 1/4 card, and don't even know where the b-show was * no results for the 1/5 cards, just a listing of what was billed as the card at some point * studio results for 1/6, but no card results * no results for 1/7 cards * the one known card on 1/8 was cancelled due to snow, nothing on whether there's a second card * no results for 1/9 * three known cards for 1/10, what looks like an incomplete set of results for one, and what are clearly incomplete results for the other two So how should we compare the promotions in the first 9-10 days, Jerry? This is one of the reasons I went with the Los Angeles cards: they tend to be complete in the one or other sources Graham used to compile his reports. For both promotions. Folks who have spent a lot of time sifting through those results for different research areas tend to know this, as do those who read the 80s WON in detail week after week after week in detail: there are gaps in the data available, and in terms of what's complete. So one needs to look for things that can be compared. And hell... the first two weeks of 1988 were a mess for JCP trying to figure out where to go coming off Starcade. Lex had turned, but they didn't want him to run with Flair yet in singles. Flair didn't really have a dance partner after winning the title back, so was killing time with Hayes... until Sting clearly was the choice to dance. Dusty had the US title back, but the Larry Z & Baby Doll thing was spinning its wheels. The MX were without a dance partner, which is something that Corny talks about quite well in his MX book, along with his solution to it, and Dusty letting him run with it. That would just take a little while to happen. The RW were inching towards their feud with PoP, Arn & Tully were just a bit away from their feud with Barry & Lex... if one looks just at the first week or two of 1988, you see a promotion in transition, not flipping the page just yet. That said, as I pointed out when looking at the Los Angeles cards in early 1988, you will find across them the feuds starting to line up, with a mix of the ones killing time (Flair-Hayes), being dropped (Dusty-Larry), and hitting their stride (Flair-Sting, Barry & Lex vs Arn & Tully). In the same period, JCP was largely running two shows a day with a split crew, and double shots on some of the weekends. It's similar to the WWF, except that the WWF had a C-crew... which much like JCP's B-crew, we don't really have close to full results for. Both promotions would look much more impressive if we had the level of results that Meltzer has gotten for the last decade. Of course... the WWF only runs (at most) 2 cards a night now, and only certain days of the week. It's easy to track now. As a % of matches, it really isn't that impressive of a number of storylines. Frankly, you were point more towards an "impressive number of Pushed and Over wrestlers" than actual storylines. You put over Ted-Jake not for a storyline that hadn't started yet, but that this was Ted at his peak and Jake when he was over... so this was Really Huge, even if it didn't have a storyline. Those are two wildly different things. Jerry: please recall my first post in the thread. I took an entire months worth of JCP cards in 1986 and pointed out to you how many different feuds / storylines they had going on the cards. I wasn't even bothering with individual cards when talking about the 1986 Bash: just the storylines and match ups in general. I did give examples of cards out here in Los Angeles to counter your strange claim that JCP didn't have depth in the midcard. I tended to think that things like two Horsemen matches (one a title change) in the #3 and #4 slots, and RW vs Russians and Magnum-Nikita in the #5 & # 6 slots of an 8 match card as being kind of a deep card. 1 2 --- 3 4 5 6 --- 7 --- 8 Yep... 3-6 would be the middle of the card. So what I was trying to do was correct a slew of your own misunderstandings in that initial response, starting with the goofy notion that Boogie Woogie was the #3 face in JCP and then working through the rest. WWF cards in 1986 were similar to 1988. The talent and storyline were spread across cards in almost an identical fashion. Here's one right close to JCP's expansion debut in Los Angeles: WWF @ Los Angeles, CA - Sports Arena - August 20, 1986 (7,000) Jim Brunzell fought Brutus Beefcake to a draw Hercules pinned Tiger Chung Lee Greg Valentine fought B. Brian Blair to a draw Mike Rotundo & Danny Spivey defeated the Iron Sheik & Nikolai Volkoff when Sheik was pinned after Slick accidentally hit him with his cane; Cpl. Kirchner was the guest referee for the match Paul Orndorff pinned Tito Santana after hitting him with a foreign object handed to him by Bobby Heenan King Kong Bundy & Big John Studd defeated Big & Super Machine via disqualification when Giant Machine interfered The main event was a pushed feud. The New US Express vs Sheik & Volkoff was one of a slew of tag storylines pushed, as was the Dream Team vs Bees split into to matches. If you saw this card, you'd get the pieces fitting together and then the random ones like Mr. Wonderful and Tito. John

I think the WWF had more than that, especially when working split crews. You needed 2-3 "hot" feuds to headline cards in different parts of the country. So you've got Savage vs Tito on five straight MSG cards in 1986: Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul. Hogan main events one of those cards, two of the others are supported by the Bulldogs vs Dream Team feud, and a fourth has a Battle Royal + Bulldogs defense against the Moondogs (something of a throwaway, but the Dogs were over). In turn, the Hogan-Savage feud was hitting other cities around the country while the Tito-Savage was going on... because Hogan-Savage had played out in MSG from Dec-Jan-Feb. We had another thread where we talked about the WWF's booking in this era, and I think I was pretty clear in trying to get across how amazing of a job they did in juggling so much shit: different crews, loads of cities, matches cycling through cities at different times, keeping track that Savage is feuding with Tito in New York while he's feuding with Hogan in Detroit. I half joked about them having a Big Board back in the Titan Towers to try to keep track of all this stuff, but I have no clue how they juggled it. Anyway, Hogan at times had two feuds going on at ones: the one that's wrapping up in some cities while the other one is starting it's run. Hogan-Orndorff and Hogan-Kamala had overlap in December, probably some in November as well. Then behind that, they had their other feuds going on: juggling Savage-Tito with Savage-Animal, then Savage-Steamer with Savage-Animal. Tag feuds... lots of stuff. They had some of the same things going on in 1986. Flair-Dusty was their big match, so they often used it to "open" towns like Los Angeles. You'll see Flair-Dusty matches going on in some cities long after they've moved onto Flair-Morton in the core cities. Same with MX-R'n'R and MX-RW and RW-Russians: it depended on the city. They had the same thing post Bash: MX-R'n'R in some cities, and R'n'R vs Andersons starting to heat up. Similar to the WWF, I have no idea how they kept easy track of what had played where. That would be something interesting to ask Cornette. John

8 out of 14? 57%? That's going to be tough to top... what was WCW's next PPV? Capital Combat: Return of Robocop May 19, 1990 in Washington, DC DC Armory drawing 7,500 ($98,000) Shown live on PPV (1.4) 1. The Road Warriors & Norman beat Kevin Sullivan, Cactus Jack, & Bam Bam Bigelow (9:38) when Hawk pinned Sullivan. Norman was feuding with Sullivan all year's crew, including Norman-Sully at the first Clash of the year, Cactus-Norman match on the prior PPV. The Warriors were pulled in via two different angles earlier in the month to set this up. Storyline. 2. Mark Callous pinned Johnny Ace (10:41). This was thrown together. The Skyscrapers 2.0 (Spivey & Callous) broke up back in Feb when Spivey wandered off. This was part of the start of pushing Callous, eventually towards Luger. Ace was in the doghouse with the bookers, so he was chosen to put over Mark. No real storyline to this that I recall, though they had worked about a month of house shows. 3. Fatu & Samoan Savage beat Mike Rotunda & Tommy Rich (17:54) when Savage pinned Rich. Rich along with Eddie Gilbert had a lot of matches with the Samoans going back to March including on TV, so there's storyline. Gilbert's last matches with WCW were just prior to this, so my guess is that it was suppose to be Rich & Gilbert, but Gilbert left the promotion. 4. Paul Ellering pinned Teddy Long (1:57) in a "hair vs hair" match. Hair match. Of course there's storyline. 5. The Midnight Express (Eaton & Lane) beat Tom Zenk & Brian Pillman (20:20) to win the NWA U.S. Tag Title when Eaton pinned Zenk. This had probably WCW's best angle of the year. Storyline, even if WCW Management tried to kill the storyline. 6. The Rock-n-Roll Express beat The Freebirds (Garvin & Hayes) (18:33) in a "corporal punishment" match when Morton pinned Hayes. These teams were feuding their asses off, hence the country whipping match. 7. Doom beat Rick & Scott Steiner (19:14) to win the NWA Tag Title when Reed pinned Rick. These teams had been feuding since the prior year, including a major angle. Storyline. 8. Lex Luger beat NWA World Champ Ric Flair (17:21) via DQ in a "steel cage" match. Rematch off the prior PPV, let along years of storyline between the two. 7 out of 8 matches had storylines going in. 88%. Note that this was at a time when WCW's booking was going to shit after Flair gave up the book, and The Black Scorpion was right around the corner. That said, they still gave reasons for almost all of the matches on the PPV to be there. So... Yep. John