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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    This was a nice little comedy match, but the teasing of Porky's turn really didn't mean much, since they were back together by the end of the match like nothing happened. I liked the agility spots done by all three Brazos; for big fat guys, they can really move when they have to. Kung Lee also did some nice agility stuff, particularly when he walked the corner all over the ring in an effort to get away from the Brazos' offense. The only real drawback was that even after seeing their pictures in the intro, I simply couldn't tell the Brazos apart. The only reason I knew who Porky was is because he's the one who cried for almost the entire second fall. By the way, boo on the technicos for not taking advantage of the Brazos' dissension to pick up a quick fall.
  2. garretta
    I think those before me have said it all, really. I will admit that I was surprised Megumi got as much offense as she did. It might have behooved Combat for this one to be more of a squash which would really get her over as a monster. Apparently, there's more to come from these two based on the postmatch. Hopefully, the matches will get better the more they work together.
  3. garretta
    I was especially impressed by Spivey here. This was the biggest single match of his career, at least in America, and he wrestled like it. I loved him busting out all the offense on Luger's neck, which made it seem like he had a real game plan. Most big guys don't wrestle methodically as often as they should; they just try to pound people into submission. You can tell that Dusty liked what he saw, too. If Spivey had chosen to stay here full-time, he might have gotten a pretty big push. We're not used to seeing Luger on the defensive, but he took to that role pretty easily. He absorbed his beating well, then executed the finish flawlessly. That's not a finish that's done often with two real heavyweights, mostly because they're not coordinated enough to do it. Seldom has Luger had to pull victory from the jaws of defeat like he had to here. JR and Dusty were really good, but I think I caught one of the reasons Dusty didn't do much commentary. Early on, JR starts talking about Luger and Spivey's football backgrounds, as he often does, and Dusty cuts him off in a way that suggests Virgil Runnels the booker telling his announcer to shut up. I don't think JR cared for it much, although he didn't let it show on the air. Dusty did just one more pay-per-view (SuperBrawl) with JR before Tony Schiavone took over the color role. Knowing how much Dusty liked being out front, I wonder if that was his decision or if JR complained to the suits that Dusty was cramping his style. Remember, JR was also working for the Falcons at this time, so he may not have appreciated having his more legitimate sport being dismissed so rudely, even by his boss. I thought that the wrestlers could use either ring to fight in when the arena was set up for WarGames, but apparently not. You can hear Nick Patrick forcefully telling Spivey to bring Luger back into this ring (the one they began the match in) and starting a DQ count when Luger lands in the other ring as a result of some Spivey offense Strangely enough, I've seen other regular matches on other cards with multiple-ring setups go back and forth between the rings without a peep from the ref. Maybe Nick just didn't feel like going back and forth. I wish we'd had time for a rematch, as this feud looked like it had some staying power and the potential for more solid matches.
  4. garretta
    This was more like a match that would start a feud, not end up being the (temporary) blowoff. Despite the commentators' best efforts, I doubt the fans here cared much about the feud compared with the fans in Memphis. Gilbert in particular tried his best to incite the fans, particularly on the mic, but it was just no good. I especially had to snicker when Eddie referred to Lawler as "your (the fans') king". No, Eddie, their king had, depending on your point of view, either just turned on them (Embry) or left for the WWF last summer (Kerry). If you want to get really technical, their king of kings (Fritz) was retired and living in his big house on Lake Dallas. All of that said, this was a neat little match, particularly the hide-the-chain stuff and the idea of using Dr. Tom at the press table to distract the ref. I got a kick out of Dr. Tom pulling so hard for Eddie in light of what we've seen from Memphis recently; I wonder if any of it will be mentioned on Dallas TV in the coming weeks and if so, how it will be explained. (By the way, can we even call it Dallas TV if it's not aired locally?) The Piper imitation from Dr. Tom gets a bit much after a while, but at least he's good enough at it that you can occasionally forget that you're not listening to the genuine article, which is to his (Prichard's) credit. Of course, the real Piper isn't exactly setting the world on fire from the booth either, so it's as not as big an insult to Hot Rod as it would have been during his 1984-85 heyday. Now, if we were to ever see a "Prichard's Pit" segment, enough would be enough. I got Dr. Tom's "Dreamwear" reference, though it took a few moments. Michael loyally no-sold it. He's not bad, but I wonder where Craig Johnson is. Annoyingly, they cut to break right in the middle of Doug's spiel on the mic. I hate that they cut things off when they're still happening. This is a taped show, guys. You can resume the match or segment right from where you left it with no problem. It's even more annoying in actual matches, where the viewers miss a signifcant part of the action, especially during the shorter matches. (WCW's becoming increasingly guilty of this as well.) I appreciate AJ's explanation of how the Dallas matches were viewed by Jarrett talent. I guess that explains why Lawler in particular tended not to try in Dallas; he didn't view it as the promotion's second "hub", so to speak, but as just another tank town endless miles from home. This begs the question: once he lost the Unified title, why did he even let himself be booked there? If he knew he was going to go out of his way to be as lazy as possible (which was almost always the case in Dallas), why even bother to make the trip? It's not like they really needed him; the fans gave him a decent amount of support, but they had other faces they liked better (Jeff and Travis, to name just two). What was the story with Tony Falk taking off his shirt during a match? I assume that the other guy Dr. Tom was referencing was Jamie Dundee, since Dr. Tom said that this was a youngster trying to make a living. Can anyone tell us more? Jamie/Falk wouldn't have been a bad lower midcard program, since Falk had had previous in-ring experience in Memphis as Boy Tony.
  5. garretta
    As others have said, this was mainly interesting for Austin's interactions with Lawler and Jarrett. I noticed that they never referred to Rod Price by name, only as the California Stud. Yet another case of spreading McMahonitis. The digitization every time Jeannie interfered was weird, but not half as weird as an intended kill shot with a chain not being the finish. I never thought I'd see the day when the use of a chain didn't result in a pin, assuming that the user attempted one. Interesting that they're trying to push Austin as a power wrestler here when he spent most of his career as either a technician or a redneck brawler. He had the physique to pull it off at this time too. Michael referred to promotions as syndications here, which I've never heard before. I've never heard them referred to as syndicates, the form he was trying for, either. I don't even know for sure if you would call the NWA a syndicate. Price didn't look like a lot here, but I've heard that he improved as he went along. Let's hope we get a chance to see it. I can't wait to see a Lawler/Austin singles match. Surely they tangled at least once before Steve left for Atlanta.
  6. garretta
    Was this something else or what? You don't often get brawls like this on American pay-per-view. They didn't even need blood to make this one intense, although it would have been nice if some blood had been allowed. I think what annoyed JR wasn't the brawling outside so much as the fact that he was right in the middle of it. As he said on commentary, they don't pay him to be in the middle of matches like that. I can't blame him, really; one accidental shot from these guys and he's out of work for weeks if not months. Meanwhile, Dusty's only complaint is that they knocked over his cerveza.......er, water. (I'm fairly sure that "kielbasa" was a code word so that the Turner execs wouldn't know he was drinking on the air.) I think the screwy finish was meant to protect both guys in Japan. After all, that was where they made their money, not here in the States. They could have stood to use a slightly bigger referee, though; Dusty was right in saying that Pee Wee Anderson looked like a child next to these two. This wasn't nearly as good as their Tokyo Dome match, but it was a perfectly acceptable American substitute. I wonder if they tried to get Hansen back over here during Vader's World title run; those would have been some epic battles for sure.
  7. garretta
    This didn't do much for me. Actually, this whole integration of the two parts of the USWA isn't doing much for me, and I'm one of the ones who wanted them to come together in the first place. What changed my mind? Hearing the fans in this match, for one thing. The Dallas fans couldn't care less about the Southern title; it's a Memphis belt, and while they've grown to like Jeff just fine, they have no investment in Eddie, or more accurately speaking, they have a sleazier, more despicable version of Eddie in Embry. So the promoters are trying to have Eddie work more basic matches to get the people used to him, and while the work here was fine, I expected more out of a feud I've seen be a thousand times more heated than this. Quite frankly, I don't want to see Eddie wrestle the likes of Jarrett and Lawler, I want to see him tear down the building with them, But that's not happening in Dallas (although his earlier match with Jarrett came closer than this one did), so Eddie's a bit out of place here. The botched finish once Eddie hit Jeff with the chain was a huge mistake on Beard's part; he hasn't really impressed me as a ref so far. Any mistake that forces a wrestler to kick out of a chain shot is awful by definition. As for the beatdown, there's no one in that ring who should have been able to slam a 450-pound man from the top rope, especially not Jeff with his supposedly bad knee. I guess whoever booked the spot thought it would look awesome, and it would have if someone had been there who legitimately broke two hundred pounds and looked like they had muscles which were something more than decoration. That doesn't include either Bill Dundee or Billy Joe Travis, in case you were wondering. I like the visual of Awesome Kong with Jamie; Jamie's the type of guy who's going to need a protector, and who better than a monster like that? Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll get to see him in Memphis. "Magical, mystical fire"? Come on, Michael. I know you're trying to put Eddie's fireballs over as dangerous, but it's not like he's suddenly burping fire or something equally scary (although that would have been cool to see, no doubt).
  8. garretta
    This one didn't impress me as much as I thought it would. There was too much ground-and-pound from Eaton, for one thing. I know he's supposed to be adopting a more technical style as a singles wrestler, but he was more slow than technical, although his work on Arn's arm was good. The pinfall was cheap, but they were trying to build Bobby as a TV title contender, so they wanted to keep his hopes alive. Paul even mentioned at the end that he was still hot on Zenk's trail even after losing this match. I'm not sure, but I think Mexico didn't send troops to Iraq, which would explain Paul's crack about Mexicans right after JR issued WCW's statement supporting the troops in the Persian Gulf. They stressed the "honor among thieves" stuff, but I didn't hear one mention of Arn and Bobby's real-life friendship, which played such a big part in the Horsemen/MX tag team series back in '88. I'm pretty sure JR misspoke when he referred to the month as September, especially since they were still hyping WarGames. But I have to ask: Could this match have originally been taped in September of '90, which would explain JR's mistake? Remember, Corny didn't always accompany Bobby to the ring for singles bouts. I'm surprised that they kept the MX theme music and the "From the Dark Side" billing for Bobby when they knew that Corny and Stan weren't coming back. Could Dusty have perhaps thought about forming a new MX with Bobby and another partner, then dropped the idea and gone with a singles push instead?
  9. garretta
    The match itself takes second place to Embry's brand-new heel turn, which is kind of a shame as this was a nasty little scrap. I hope they continue this part of the program in Memphis at some point, because these two are a perfect matchup for each other. There was no pretense of wrestling; these two just wanted to beat the hell out of each other and anyone else who got in the way, which they did. I kind of wondered why Prichard wasn't in Embry's corner until I remembered that Tojo and Akbar had worked together to put Embry out during the dying days of World Class. Thus, seeing the two of them on the same side would be a huge deal to the Dallas fans. The same thing goes for Young, whom Embry seems to have fought on every single Dallas area card for the last three years. The fact that they're working together demonstrates better than anything else just how low Embry has sunk. I don't know if I like Falk getting on the mic to chastise Embry, but it sets up the spot where he eats a DDT from Embry after the match, so I'll live with it. Good point by Prichard about how Embry should have asked for another ref, though he wouldn't have gotten one. Prichard's Piper imitation wasn't really all that galling to me, although how sounding like a Canadian who's supposed to be Scottish and currently lives in Portland helps to get one over as a Texan I can't begin to guess. Maybe he should have borrowed his brother Bruce's Dusty Rhodes imitation for this angle instead. By the way, I know that the Memphis and Dallas offices are now integrated, but are Embry and Prichard supposed to be partners in Dallas, or is that solely for the Memphis loop?
  10. garretta
    Too bad that Power and Glory got squashed like they did at Mania after the buildup they got here against the LOD. That could have been a nice little feud. They also hinted at P&G/Nasties here, which would have been another goodie. I don't think they were teasing the Rockers' breakup quite yet. Michaels eliminating Jannetty seems to be more of a reminder that anything can happen in a battle royal. I think most people were probably expecting the LOD to win, but I kind of like the unpredictability of the Nasties' victory. It's likely that no one thought that they could beat the Harts at Mania either, even with Jimmy Hart's help. Speaking of whom, I guess managers weren't allowed at ringside for this. For those who care, Hogan beat Quake in the stretcher match at the Nassau Coliseum that afternoon.
  11. garretta
    A stirring recap of the Superstar's story, and one that he couldn't have done himself as effectively, as good a talker as he is. He had to have a spokesman, and Jeff handled the job beautifully, mixing the story in with appeals to Jamie's conscience and reminders that others (such as Jeff himself) are second-generation wrestlers who owe everything they have past and present to the business. Unfortunately, we really don't get to see Jamie's response, as the segment cuts off with Dave telling Jamie that he hopes Jeff's speech will sink in. The only other person who might have been able to do this segment is Lawler, but he's got other things on his mind and doesn't exactly strike me as the type to reason with someone who's gone astray. He'd have probably just belted Jamie in the mouth after a few minutes and walked away. Besides, his feud with Bill is just as legendary as their partnership, so who knows how close the two of them and their families are really supposed to be outside the ring in a kayfabe sense?
  12. garretta
    Great short promos here. It's not often that you see two people who are still presumably feuding take a break from that feud to be partners, common enemies or not. Usually at least a little time passes between the end of the feud and the start of the partnership. Then again, Memphis made its reputation playing by its own unique rules, as they are here. I'm sure almost everyone watching in Evansville truly believed that Eddie was in cahoots with Embry and Prichard to get rid of Lawler, and that might not have been a bad direction to go in had they chosen to do so. I wish we had some clips from this match to see how it actually went down.
  13. garretta
    I can't believe someone else didn't come down to save the day here. Where was Dundee? Where was Jeff? It was open season on Lawler and Gilbert for way, way too long. I liked that they fought back a bit at the very end, and a bloody Eddie daring Embry to take his best shot was one of the best visuals in wrestling so far this year, but the Tennesseeans need to get themselves together before they fall too much further behind. Did they end Lawler/Gilbert too soon? For this round, most definitely. But you know all it's going to take is a sideways glance before they're at it again even more heatedly than ever. Like Lawler/Dundee, Lawler/Idol, and even Lawler/Mantel, this is a war that will never truly be over, even if circumstance puts them on the same side at a given time.
  14. garretta
    I agree that the beating ran a bit too long here, but I guess they really wanted to establish Embry and Prichard as badasses. Nice choice of weapon to break everything up with, Jeff. I've seen trashcans, stop signs, steel chairs and staple guns used as wrestling weapons, but never an iced tea maker. I don't think Dallas ever knew about this feud, at least not the anti-Texas part. Of course, Embry's supposed to be turning heel in Texas soon, so if Lawler and Jeff are ever asked about it at the Sportatorium, they can just say that they were frustrated with Embry and Prichard's actions and let their emotions run away with them, or even that they want to beat Embry and Prichard up as a kind of peace offering to the fans. If anyone can get away with a speech like that, it's the King.
  15. garretta
    This was a well-done segment, but they really risked turning Bill heel here accidentally. If a son isn't living in his father's house, he isn't under the father's thumb. The Marlin stuff was a little more understandable, since it's well-established the Eddie makes the rules in Memphis, but the father-son confrontation should have gone another way. If you really want to heel Jamie, either have him haul off and slap Bill or bring a heel wrestler out to blindside him and have Jamie cheer the heel on. The Dirty White Boys, who took the rechristened JC Ice under their wing as we saw later, would have been perfect for that. They ended up making the heel turn stick effectively by bringing out Jamie with the DWBs the following week, but I'll bet some of the younger fans went home (or turned off their TVs at the end of the show) siding with him that day.
  16. garretta
    I'll be honest: I watched both instances of this match mostly to see what differences stood out on commentary. The match itself was a standard little TV tag, not a bad match certainly, but nothing worth remembering for long, especially considering the finish. In general, I preferred the Pro version. Zbyszko was fabulous on commentary; you could tell he leaned toward the heels, but he wasn't afraid to call them out when they made a mistake, particularly Barry for not hooking the leg on pin attempts. He also puts over Ricky's fire and guts, which is rare for any WCW heel commentator to do. Of course, there's some self-promotion, because he's scheduled to wrestle on the next Chicago card, but not too much. He really sounded like he was into the match and knew exactly what to get over and how, which isn't always the case with guys as new to a promotion as Larry was to WCW at that time. By contrast, Heyman was really goofy for most of the match on Power Hour. He and JR spend most of it going back and forth on JR's "upcoming" flight to Phoenix for WrestleWar, and Paul tells him to be sure to order the special meals because of how fat he is, which JR surprisingly doesn't yell at him for. In turn, JR publically pities Bob Caudle for having to put up with Paul on WCWSN that night. Paul doesn't buckle down to match analysis until almost the end of the bout, although what he does is very good, as usual. JR's in sort of a strange mood as well; I expected WrestleWar hype and plenty of it, but it almost seems like he's trying not to call the match at times, especially since the finish is totally irrelevant to anything going on at the time. He makes sure to hype the next Omni card, and even tells us that he's going to the Bulls/Hawks game that same afternoon, which will also be at the Omni. He's a little more willing to play straight man for Heyman than usual, and gets off some good lines at his expense, including one about how the guy who lobbied for him as a color commentator has since been committed. His one real contribution on the wrestling side is a call for two referees in tag matches, which is hardly anything new. Tony disappointed me. How he can't tell the difference between a wristlock and a hammerlock after all his experience is a disgrace, and it alerted me to what a bad play-by-play man he could be. He's great as a host for pay-per-views and can hype a card with the best of them, but his move-calling is spotty, and unlike Vince, I doubt that he's doing it for strategic reasons; he just has trouble caring at times about what the wrestlers are doing in the ring, and that's terrible. Heaven help us when he gets the number one chair after JR leaves for Vince. Just as an example of how different commentaries can spin different stories with the same match, Pro shows an interview with Simmons and Long in the early seconds of the match which establishes their presence; Power Hour doesn't. This means that while Pro can explain Simmons' interference as part of their ongoing feud with the Horsemen, JR has to scramble for an explanation on Power Hour. He manages to reference a recent Omni match between Windham and Simmons (which Windham won by pinfall after Reed's interference on Simmons' behalf backfired), and somehow ties it all together by intimating that Long's got something he's folding over Simmons' head which is contributing to Doom's dissension. Of course, showing a match like this when you know perfectly well that there won't be any payoff of any kind isn't the smartest decision Dusty (or whoever else) ever made. Why did they wait three weeks and let the Horseman feud cool off? By the way, Larry ended up teaming with Windham and Stan Hansen on the UIC Pavilion card that was hyped on Pro; they lost to Tom Zenk and the Steiners, and Larry (who was subbing for Sid Vicious) was pinned by Zenk. Arn was also a no-show that night; he was replaced by Terry Taylor, who pinned Bobby Eaton. In the other match that Tony mentioned, Sting and Luger beat Doom by DQ.
  17. garretta
    I haven't seen the setup for this yet, but the idea of a backwoods hillbilly like Tony Anthony introducing what will become a white teen rapper gimmick is so absurd that it can only happen in Memphis. This promo could only happen in Memphis too; imagine a motivational speech which tells Jamie that he can be whatever he wants to be, just like any well-meaning adult would give to any young man they care about, that gets booed out of a TV studio while a televised whipping of a son by his father gets cheered. And yet, because we know everyone involved so well, it all works perfectly. We know Tony and his crew are no damn good, and we all know that Bill was (in his own way) looking out for Jamie's best interests, so Tony's speech becomes the babblings of a liar and a scum while Bill's whipping is an act of love. Brilliant stuff. I can't wait to actually see the angle and whipping that led to this.
  18. garretta
    Whatever babyface there might have been left in Embry's gone now, as his every word and action here oozes sleaze. Or, to put it another way, when you have Eddie Gilbert, of all people, taking exception to your comments, you're one dirty bastard. Dr. Tom's along as wingman, and Eddie's left to wonder just what he's gotten himself into. This has the potential to be another classic angle from the place where a majority of them have come from in the Yearbook series so far. The Lawler/Eddie brawl we saw was good, but the senior citizens stole the show here. How they could keep up a pace like that for even a few minutes is a testament to both their toughness and conditioning. I don't see any Marlin/Tommy matches on the horizon, and oddly enough, that's a shame. I love how everyone assumed that Embry and Prichard were Eddie's friends when they attacked Lawler; I have a feeling that we'll find out differently very soon.
  19. garretta
    Yet another wild scene, as we get Austin and Jeannie in Memphis like we probably should have months ago. Austin's challenging Jeff Jarrett for the Southern title, and Jarrett wants a clean match with no interference from Jeannie. Here's a tip, Jeff: telling a woman that her ex-husband should have slapped her upside the head is no way to make friends with her. At least Papa didn't tell Sonny to hit Jeannie back when she slapped him. At any rate, once Jeff blocks a second slap, here comes Austin, and we get a teaser for Monday night. I don't know if Austin and Jeannie stick around long enough to work with Lawler, but it's a shame if they don't, because they're booed lustily right off the bat here, like they were in Dallas, and Jeannie's just as good on the mic. It makes me wonder why Steve needed Heyman as a mouthpiece in WCW. As for the U.S. Males, if ever two wrestlers were all but openly auditioning for Vince, these were the two. Unfortunately for Walker, there were too many muscleheads to go around, and a wrestling mailman was too hokey even for Vince, especially with that "we've got a surprise package" tagline. (I'm reminded of a prediction in one of the old PWI year-end issues that the WWF would debut a mailman gimmick in 1987. The predictor's choice to be said mailman? None other than Jerry Lawler.)
  20. garretta
    Eddie was tremendous in his short time on the mic. He finally gets to the heart of the matter: he wants Lawler's spotlight, pure and simple, with no more messing around. This brings the Kingfish out for Round 2, which is as wild as Round 1 was earlier. From what I've heard, Lawler refusing to really put him over for good was one of the reasons Eddie finally left Memphis. It's easy to see why he was frustrated, because Lawler eventually made it so he was the territory's one and only draw, which made working there pointless once he was done with you, especially for the money Jarrett reportedly paid. How they get from this to even reluctant partners in just a few weeks is going to be something to see. Those Texas invaders must really be evil!
  21. garretta
    This kind of stuff would have packed the MSC just five years before. Now, they're not even making enough money to keep the Fabs around long enough to give their part of the angle a proper wrapup. How sad is that? The backstage promos are the best part of this, especially Gilbert's. He completely loses his cool at the very idea of Lawler and the fans knowing about where he's been and what he's been doing, although Lawler's explanation definitely makes the most sense. Somehow Marlin escapes getting laid out for poking his finger in a wrestler's chest once too often; I always thought that authority figures, at least in this era, had to keep their hands off the wrestlers because touching them in an aggressive manner makes them acceptable targets. If that's the case, one or more Memphis heels should have put the old man in his grave a long time ago. Did Max Andrews ever appear on WMC? I know he made at least a few cameos in Dallas. Not that it matters, because everyone knew who really ran Memphis anyway. I almost forgot to add that Fargo's three-count had to be one of the fastest in wrestling history, even from a biased referee. No wonder Corny waffled him with the racquet. I wonder how it would have gone if the Fabs had stayed in Memphis. My guess is that it would have ended up Keirn (with Fargo as his advisor) against Lane (with Corny). Stan may not have wanted to beat Fargo up prior to this match, but he sure didn't seem like he wanted to turn his back on Corny either. The pull-apart was really wild. Lawler wearing a suit made it even crazier, because he looked like he wasn't ready for it. Lawler's comparison of Eddie to a Chihuahua is right on target, as Eddie makes sure never to take him on face-to-face. They may need another redesign of the set after the announce podium got knocked over.
  22. garretta
    I guess it didn't, AJ, because Eddie came back two days later and the Lawler/Gilbert feud continued as if the Fabs had never even come back. Do we even see them anymore in Memphis after this? I know Corny and Stan turned up in Dallas working for Global later in the year. This was excellent work from Corny, but it feels like a waste under the circumstances. Actually, they could have done this angle without Stan, because he contributed next to nothing. It's basically Keirn vs. Corny, with Stan trying to look like he belongs somewhere close by. If nothing else, though, this angle proved that Keirn could have made a great ruggedly handsome heel for Vince without doing the Skinner gimmick, which I remember as terrible. I forgot to add in the earlier thread that it says something about what a genuinely funny man Corny is that his line in the previous promo about Fargo being the only living man older than Eddie Marlin got a laugh from a crowd that loves Fargo and respects Marlin. That's the kind of stuff he really didn't get to do during his final days in WCW, and it's great to see here.
  23. garretta
    This was first class from top to bottom. Fargo's return seems like the biggest thing to happen in Memphis since Lawler first won the World title, and I loved the tribute they paid to him, including the interview clip from '82 where he threatened to turn his back on Stan and Steve if he felt they were soiling his good name. Speaking of which, does anyone else feel that Stan and Steve's potential turn on Corny is happening way too fast? I know they have a Tennessee/Texas feud brewing that's going to pretty much take over the promotion if I'm reading the match listings right, but even so, there's more meat left on this feud. You know that in the following match, Corny's going to get in Fargo's face, and then the Fabs will have to choose between them, which is either going to end Fargo's usefulness in the feud or send Corny out of the territory. The payoff's still going to be interesting to see, but it would have been a lot more interesting with a few more weeks of buildup, much like Doom's breakup in WCW. Another interesting development is Jamie's upcoming heel turn. No matter which side of the fence he's on, he's still a skinny green kid who needs to be carried at this point. Maybe they figure that guys like Jeff and Lawler can potentially do that better than any of the heels they have at the moment, especially since their top heels are a tag team. Jamie vs. Corny might have been a nice novelty match just for kicks, though. Lawler dealing with the heckler was a hoot, even though I recall him using that line about blowup dolls as a heel too, and Dave had a great time watching Corny freak over the Fabs potentially not listening to him. I wonder how that meeting in the back that Dave suggested turned out? We'll see in the next segment!
  24. garretta
    DDP as a mixture of Little Richard and Superstar Billy Graham introduces Sir Oliver Humperdink as the Birds' new manager, only JR and Dusty never tell us that it's actually Sir Oliver. Not even an "Oh, my gosh! That's Sir Oliver Humperdink!" If he's a big enough star to have his own entrance, he's a big enough star to have his past acknowledged at least once. The problems between Doom are mentioned, but as far as I know, we've only had the one brief interview on The Danger Zone where there was even a hint of a problem in the first place. If there was more build, why didn't it make the set? After seeing the finish, I guess I know why the Birds were booked to win the titles. That was such a fluky, out-of-nowhere win by a team that no one thought even deserved a shot that it was bound to lead to major problems with Simmons, Reed, and Long. But I would have preferred them to somehow escape by the skin of their teeth and then drop the belts to the Steiners a couple of weeks later, as we saw the Birds do. It just seems like a total waste for a team as low on the food chain as Hayes and Garvin now are to all of a sudden be elevated like this just to continue an angle than never went much of anywhere anyway. JR handled that contest winner about as well as he could under the circumstances, although he clearly asked the kid who his favorite team was in the WarGames. I guess the kid was nervous and didn't hear the last part. To JR's credit, he not only didn't lapse into embarrassed silence, he further put over what we'd just seen. That's the mark of a true broadcast professional.
  25. garretta
    Big Josh is obviously a "rent-a-gimmick"; that is, someone was going to be Big Josh no matter what. Borne happened to be the first guy on the list who looked like a Northwestern logger, so he got the gig. If Billy Jack Haynes or Jim Duggan had shown up instead, they'd have been two other prime candidates. As lower-midcard gimmicks who weren't going to advance went, this wasn't too bad. Sure, I'd have liked to see the Maniac version of Borne that we got in Dallas or Doink the Clown with the skill and without the makeup, but those gimmicks would have eventually demanded a push, and Borne wasn't superstar or even upper midcard material for a national promotion in 1991, not as himself at any rate. JR doesn't crap all over the gimmick here, at least not that I can tell. He may have later on, but in this interview he plays it straight. On the other hand, the whole "Missy Invades the Locker Room" stuff has only been done twice and is already getting old. Just let them come to you, Missy.
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