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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    This might be one of the last classic Horseman beatdowns. Bob and Paul sell it beautifully on commentary, Paul in particular. Even though he no doubt likes what he saw, he still has a hint of awe in his voice over the Horsemen actually being able to pull it off. This is tremendous, and a great payoff to the earlier Danger Zone interview. Paul gets off a great line about Dusty's hotel room being raided as well, which Bob rather cheerily goes along with. That's what I liked about him: he didn't have the short fuse that some announcers had when it came to heel color men. He'd allow them to get their one-liners in (unless they were in unquestionably bad taste) while he took care of the action in the ring. Viewers knew that he was too decent of a man to agree with what the color guy might have said, but he didn't let it bother him or distract him from the issue at hand. Incredibly, it took him until his days in Smoky Mountain before he truly came into his own as one of the best announcers in the business.
  2. garretta
    This was pretty much a redo of the Flair/Funk angle from WrestleWar 89 with a belt shot taking the place of a piledriver on the table. Just as with Funk, Nikita really doesn't have much of a claim to any title shots because of his layoff, so he decides to make one of his own. The promo after the attack may have been his best ever; he's really mastered speaking fluent English with a Russian accent. The only thing I could have done without was him calling Luger "Lexster". For some reason, WCW/JCP really wanted a "-ster" of their own to counteract the Hulkster, and they never could find him. Still, Luger's a better candidate for it than Tully "The Tullster" Blanchard, who ironically was given that nickname by fellow Horseman Luger back in '87. Grizzly Smith being bigger than the wrestlers was no big deal to me, probably because he also looks about a hundred and five years old. It's a one-minute segment, for heaven's sake. I don't think anybody watching said to themselves, "Gee whiz, the Griz can really kick that pretty boy Luger's butt". I'm not sure that anybody watching even knew who the hell he was. Oh, the time constraints of pay-per-view: Tony barely had any reaction to the whole thing afterward other than to send it back to the booth, and I highly doubt that JR and the Dream spent more than ten seconds talking about it either. This probably should have been done the following Saturday on WCWSN for maximum dramatic impact.
  3. garretta
    This is pretty short, but effective. It's amazing how they were able to make events that were taped weeks ago seem almost live, although I highly doubt that Missy and Sting were actually in Phoenix here. This might be Missy's best interview to date. Take that for what little it's worth.
  4. garretta
    Arn's last line simply means "Don't turn your back". For once in his life, The Enforcer got a little too flowery for his own good. Actually, I wonder if that was a planned bit designed to make Heyman look like a fool. But if it was, why use heels to do it? I guess even Dusty wasn't immune to putting war metaphors in promos. They're a little less tasteless here because the Horsemen aren't being portrayed as Iraqi sympathizers, and also because the name of the match is WarGames. I think war and weapons metaphors have been used in connection with that match since the beginning. Arn's line about making the Red Cross a Fortune 500 company is my early front runner for Line of the Year.
  5. garretta
    I'm not sure what was more disgusting: the fact that Missy was humiliated like she was (scripted or not) or the fact that Stan's back to using forty-eight pounds of chew in his mouth. I hope Stan gives up on the U.S. soon, because I literally cannot stand to look at him in WCW anymore. I can't believe that Turner would allow a skit like this when the whole Lisa Olson thing was such a hot-button issue. I don't care if there isn't one freakin' wrestling fan in the whole damn company from Ted and Jane on down, someone in upper management has to keep an eye on the product to determine what's suitable to go out on their airwaves and what isn't. This isn't GCW circa 1980 anymore; it's a national company owned by a corporate entity with a positive image to uphold, and crap like this doesn't do a very good job of it. All of that said, though, Missy got what laughs she could out of this, which is a point in her favor.
  6. garretta
    Missy's sour apple expression makes this whole thing. Either she's improved a bit as a performer or my standards have slipped. I like how Gigante deliberately picked the slowest song in the joint for him and Missy to dance to. Can you just imagine if these two ever sat down for an actual, serious interview? WCW being what it is, Missy would probably get more out of Gigante than JR would.
  7. garretta
    This is all they built Simmons' turn on? Reed wasn't even there, for heaven's sake. If Dusty wants to push Simmons as a single because Reed wants to join the rodeo, fine. But at least give us more reason to care beyond one interview where Simmons brings up his college football career. We don't even get any cross words between Simmons and Peanuthead. I hope the actual turn (which I'm checking out next) was better than the "buildup" to it.
  8. garretta
    Not only did they show a clip from Greensboro, they dated Starrcade '86 wrong (it was November 27, not November 26), and they didn't mention Tully by name, either. This wasn't bad, but it didn't say much. Dusty didn't really answer the question about the differences between the generations (not that I could blame him; he probably didn't want to be seen as criticizing guys whose matches he not only had to call, but book), and the only other wrestlers he mentioned were Murdoch and Dustin. Gordon compares him to Frank Gifford, Pat Summerall, and John Madden, but WCW never really used Dusty as their flagship color man in the same way that Vince used Jesse (and later Heenan). They didn't really have a main color man at this time, and when they got one, first it was Jesse, then Heenan. I know Dusty did his share of pay-per-views, but it seemed to me like he took a back seat to almost every other commentator in the company, including guys like Mike Tenay and Mark Madden later on. Dustin gets his share of hype too, of course, and most of it well deserved. I can't wait to see him debut in WCW. Did they ever do the formal retirement ceremony for Dusty? If so, it certainly wasn't at the Bash pay-per-view as Gordon promised.
  9. garretta
    I liked Heyman sucking up to Flair so unabashedly. You don't often see that from heels, even toward other heels; most of the time, they either ignore each other or make snide remarks about each other. Flair was his normal self here, and his "mispronunciation" of Gigante was a neat psychological trick. Too bad Gigante probably didn't legitimately know what he was getting at, with his English being so poor. With Pillman, Zenk, Tommy Rich (whom I know was a little past it, but was still a former World champion), Gigante and a few others, there were more than enough face challengers for Flair even at this late date. Why they kept going with Sting and Luger to the almost complete exclusion of everyone else in the company is something I don't understand. Didn't they realize that even the hottest matches and feuds cool down if they're overdone? Of course, Flair's unwillingness to drop the belt to Luger (which made Luger look like a choke artist every time they wrestled) and Sting's total failure as champion might have had something to do with those matchups not drawing, too.
  10. garretta
    I don't ever recall seeing or hearing of Tenryu and Kitao teaming before. so they're certainly not world famous, at least not as a team. Nice short promos from Jake and Martel here. This is a match and feud that's been overlooked so far in '91 on the Yearbook. Other than Martel complaining about the hood covering his face, there's no fat or filler in these promos at all. Warrior's as low-key and articulate as he's going to get. Savage brings out his positive intensity in the same way that Hogan brought out his negative, crazy intensity last year. I'm sorry, but I've had enough of the weapon analogies from Hogan. Can't he just say for once, "I'm gonna beat Slaughter to a pulp and take my belt back"? His delivery's good, especially considering the terrible material he has here, but comparing your arms to Patriot missiles is just more of the same horseshit that even Sarge was trying hard to get away from before the poster burning incident. There was a way to deliver the intended patriotic message without going too far off the deep end, but Hogan wasn't the man to do it. Quite frankly, I'm not sure such a man was on the roster at this time, or that Vince would have allowed him to be that subtle if he had been.
  11. garretta
    Not much else to add. I liked how both rudos and tecnicos paid tribute to Santo here, and the old footage we see is in better shape than some of the stuff WWE has unearthed since then. Like the others here, I wish we had access to it. I don't think any wrestler who died today, even Hogan, would have a funeral as well attended as Santo's was. This man wasn't only a wrestling legend, he was a Mexican national legend.
  12. garretta
    If two chair shots from an exhausted, sweating Sarge to Hogan's big, heavily muscled back are enough to put Hogan down for any length of time, then Hogan's got bigger problems than Sarge hitting him with a chair. Now, if he'd taken one right to the head like Duggan did and still no-sold it, the people criticizing him here would have a point. I'm surprised that Hacksaw wasn't busted open hardway. I didn't think Sarge took bumps like the one into the corner that we saw at that point in his career. Tastelessness of this gimmick aside, I'll never say that he didn't work his ass off verbally and physically to get it over. Vince and Piper really push the "Slaughter's Rules" stuff hard here. If this had been part of his persona from the beginning, we would have been so much better off. It's a shame for Hacksaw that this mini-feud with Sarge was his only time as a WWF main eventer, even temporarily. He deserved better, or at least his previous reputation did.
  13. garretta
    They should have seen it, Pete. If they watched the news for more than five minutes a day, they should have seen it. Vince probably thought that he could get away with this because he got away with Sheik as one of his top heels in the early days of expansion. He did, but we weren't actually shooting at Iranians then, and they weren't shooting at us. This angle would have worked fine with far fewer complaints if Saddam had withdrawn from Kuwait back in August of '90, which would have avoided an actual shooting war even if we still had peacekeeping troops over there. It might have even worked to some extent if Sheik himself had been brought back and put on top (though not as Mustafa). A reference or two by Hogan to vanquishing Sheik like the American troops vanquished Saddam prior to a Hogan/Sheik Mania VII main event wouldn't have led to many protests, if any at all. Of course, as out of shape as Sheik was, that main event probably wouldn't have sold out the LA Coliseum either. I'm not even sure anymore if the evil drill sergeant part of the gimmick would have worked, considering that the gist of it was how soft America had gotten while Sarge was away. They really needed him to be the "YO, JOE!" babyface that he was during his latter AWA days. I don't know how far that would have taken him, given that Duggan and Hogan had the patriotic market cornered and Sheik would have been the only foreign menace heel who actually wrestled. Maybe he simply should have retired when the AWA went under; he would have become a road agent somewhere, since he was such a talented worker in his day and obviously knew the business.
  14. garretta
    Whatever work they did in distancing this feud from the Persian Gulf war just went up in flames, literally. Not only that, the stupid stuff they're asking us to believe should boggle the mind of anyone with over an IQ of ten. A stupid Hulk Hogan poster the equivalent of an American flag? Hogan a foreign invader? This isn't effective hype for a wrestling match; this is an exhibition of the delusions of a piddly-ass two-bit carny (Vince) who thought he and his so-called business was bigger than an actual American shooting war. I still can't believe that Sarge didn't have an attack of common sense and bolt on the first thing moving for Atlanta, Memphis, or even another profession. He needed to stop this shit a long, long time ago, personal financial security be damned. He never drew a dime as an attraction once this angle was over, and he and Vince both deserved it. So did any fan who laughed it off with "it's pro wrestling". Let's get something straight, people: Ric Flair bragging about his big house on the big side of town is pro wrestling. Jerry Lawler wearing a crown is pro wrestling. Even the Ultimate Warrior rambling like a maniac about "normals" is pro wrestling. This is exploitation of the actual death and destruction of American soldiers for a few lousy bucks, a lot fewer than they would have had if they would have just brought Sarge back as a GI Joe-shilling midcard babyface and run Hogan/Warrior II at the LA Coliseum like they were (or at least should have been) planning all along. That's the worst part of all this: They looked to cash in on an actual war and whip up a hundred thousand people into a frenzy at one of the largest and most prestigious stadiums in the country, and they couldn't even sell out the rinky-dink arena next door. How pathetic is that? All the time, all the backlash, all the stuff Sarge in particular went through to make this angle work, and they drew 15,500, which was 84,500 less than they planned on. When they talk about the most boneheaded decisions this business has ever seen, how this angle and everything connected with it isn't on the list is beyond me.
  15. garretta
    Considering how little of this that they were able to show, WCW used the Tokyo Dome footage very well, and JR really sold the brutality of the match, which as we all saw was very much legit. I like the idea of WCW actually outbidding all the promotions all over the world, presumably including New Japan and the WWF, for the rights to the rematch; it puts them over as a real worldwide player in the wrestling business. Those of us who watched the match know that they oversold the hospitalization stuff (although Vader most likely really went to have his eye treated), but it was still an effective sales tool. Not only did they soft-peddle the war references in these segments as much as they possibly could, they tried to avoid references to blood, too. I'm sure plenty of children in the audience were rushing to their dictionaries to find out what "claret" was after they heard JR use that word. Maybe they should have just spelled it out, the way parents sometimes do when they don't want their children to know what they're saying. I can just hear JR now: "There was plenty of B-L-O-O-D in this match, ladies and gentlemen." Does anybody know if ringside seats that night in the Tokyo Dome really cost four hundred American dollars? My instinct says that WCW's inflating the price, but I really don't know for sure.
  16. garretta
    I seriously hope that Gigante knew more than five words in English. There's not much you can do with "I", "want", "your". "the", and "belt". Flair's interview is the usual stuff; the problem is, by the time he answered Gigante, Gigante was gone. Someone should have gotten across to him that if you come out to confront someone, particularly someone who's as big a star as Flair is, you wait until they're finished talking before you walk away. Flair does get off one great line. When he hears the "We want Sting" chant, he replies, "I want Sting too. Where is he?"
  17. garretta
    The interview part of this was good, the beatdown not so much. If you want the fans to take Gigante seriously as a threat to Flair, he needs to be booked as literally unstoppable, just like Andre was. You can screw him out of the belt however you need to when the time comes, but he should have been beating the hell out of all four Horsemen by himself here. Even Sid should have been absolutely no match whatsoever. If you need to postpone this segment until after WarGames so as not to affect how that match is perceived, then fine, but when you do it, all four Horsemen should be disposed of like yesterday's trash, and Flair should have to be carried out unconscious, since you can't have blood on TBS. Anything else and Gigante is an absolute joke (which, of course, he turned out to be). Just how bad was Gigante, really? Most big guys aren't much special because they can't move well, but I've never heard of another superheavyweight getting crapped all over the way Gigante was, except possibly Zeus (who was an actor who wrestled, not really a wrestler).
  18. garretta
    The faces' promo would have fit nicely into the Mania hype, with its general goofiness and war analogies. I liked Rick popping up out of nowhere and that was about it. The Horsemen seemed much more serious and focused on the actual match. Arn shines here with his telling of how the Red Cross followed the Horsemen and Dusty's team all across America, although I think it was '88 where WarGames was held almost every night during the Bash, not '87. Still, the point is made, and the question remains: Are the faces ready to bleed and hurt in this match as much as the Horsemen obviously are? Ric's fashion choice is a little odd for the occasion. Maybe his suits were at the cleaners on the day this was taped.
  19. garretta
    This was great. My favorite line was when Sherri referred to Warrior as "The Ultimate Bimbo Warrior". Did she know something we didn't? Savage and Brother Love were both tremendous here. Bruce Prichard has really come into his own as Brother Love in 1990-91; he's acting more like a traditional heel and less like one of Vince's one-note joke characters. I can't honestly say that I'll be sad to see Brother Love go; almost all characters in wrestling have a shelf life, and he's no different. But I don't see him as the channel-changing waste of space that I used to. He had a purpose, and he served it well. (I still would have preferred Piper's Pit on Superstars, though. Let the good Brother do his thing on Challenge.) In an alternate universe where Warrior's career was the one ended, I think a loose alliance between Savage/Sherri and Taker/Percy would have been something to behold. I wonder who really wrote the poem that Brother Love/Prichard read; it was very good, and Brother Love read it so gleefully.
  20. garretta
    I think Vince was going for the Hugh Hefner look here, actually. Another wonderful standup questions-and-answers segment from the Brain, who's not only wrestling's answer to Mike Wallace. but Carol Burnett as well. The best part is that Vince plays Harvey Korman, if you will, as he's unable to hold back his laughter. If you think about it, you can see that Heenan doesn't have much time left at ringside. Even though his quips are obnoxious, they're not obnoxious in a heat-getting way. I don't think he could have gone on doing stuff like this for any length of time and still been taken seriously as a managerial threat.
  21. garretta
    This is another segment I can't quite see Gino doing. Actually, I would rather not have seen it at all. As good as Heenan was, there was something creepy about it from the start. Vince's obsession with "humor" like this is something I'll never understand. On the plus side, nice acknowledgement of the recent history between Andre and Heenan. If I recall correctly, that history kind of got lost in the shuffle during the next few months.
  22. garretta
    Another tremendous commercial for Toys-R-Us, complete with Bossman handcuffing Mean Gene. When it comes to merchandizing their product, no one was better than the WWF. I just hope Bossman remembered to set him free when the shoot was over! On another note, watching this made me wish that we'd seen face Bossman vs. heel Savage at least once.
  23. garretta
    The pace in this one's almost too fast to keep up with at times, and there were many more instances when more than one man was in the ring, which shows how far this rivalry has progressed. The two main feuds (Jumbo/Misawa and Kawada/Taue) were furthered, particularly by Taue scoring the winning fall on Kawada, but a new issue sprang up between Junbo and Kawada that will undoubtedly lead to some good singles bouts in the months ahead. Each side got at least a brief three-on-two advantage when first Jumbo, then Misawa were briefly incapacitated by being knocked off the apron. I liked the idea that Misawa's side was allowed to be just as vicious as Jumbo's when the time called for it. Kikuchi was well-used here, particularly on a couple of nice doubleteams, and Fuchi provided some veteran grit when needed and also protected Jumbo while he was laying injured outside. This wasn't a classic like some of the other big six-mans were, but it gave the fans a thrilling ride and provided the spark for the Jumbo/Kawada series. I guess the best word to describe this match would be productive.
  24. garretta
    I prefer Gino and Bobby in the studio, but if they're going to do this type of format, Vince is about the best you can get for a host. He sets them up and the Brain hits them out. Lord Alfred has a cameo at the very end. This reminds me of TNT's "Advice to the Lovelorn" segment. Bobby did one of those in what had to be one of his first national WWF appearances back in 1984. I wonder why they changed formats. Was it sagging ratings? A desire to showcase Heenan (among others) in more of an "entertainment"-type setting? Or did Gino ask off for health reasons, and Vince decided that as long as they needed a new host, they might as well try a different format too?
  25. garretta
    Human rights as only the Hot Rod can teach them. If we couldn't have Piper's Pit, this was the next best thing. Virgil does the best he can with his limited lines, although I seem to remember him as slightly better than this. Maybe that comes later on.
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