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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I think a push for David might have been the only way to get Bruno to be a part of the promotion. Bruno has said a few times that he would never have come back to the WWF in '84 if Vince hadn't promised to try to push David as far as he could. I get the feeling that, given his druthers, Bruno would have walked out of the business after his original retirement in '81 and never looked back. The only reason he stayed involved on any level was to try and get David a break. The worst part of the whole Zbyszko "I retired Bruno" routine was that it was never even kayfabed to be true. Everyone knows that Bruno beat him to a pulp at Shea Stadium in August of '80 and didn't retire for the first time until over a year later, plus came back for limited runs in the mid-eighties. There's heel braggadocio and acceptable fudging of the truth to get over, and then there's the preposterous. Sure, he sounded obnoxious when he said it, but he also sounded delusional, and not in the usual way heels often are. He might have been taken more seriously if he'd dropped that part of his act, especially in the AWA, where it meant next to nothing anyway. As for this feud, they're pushing it on the basis of Larry being jealous of David, the "chosen one". Can I ask you a question, Mr. Abrams? Which one of the two is still a current World champion (okay, so Verne's not promoting anymore, but we'll leave that aside for now), and which one would barely have gotten anywhere if Dad hadn't held a gun to the head of any promoter in the world who even thought about wanting to use him? This feud might have actually worked better if Larry was the face and David was the heel, if you can believe it. Of course, Larry's much more fun as a total prick, plus they wanted to tease a possible confrontation with Bruno, so that had no chance of happening. But I could just imagine David whining about how Larry got everything because he could brag about retiring Bruno, while he got nothing but laughed at and abused, even with Bruno's so-called "help". It would have been an interesting dynamic, and Larry really wouldn't have had to change much when you think about it.
  2. garretta
    This skirted the line between helping Spicolli get over and burying him. I really don't think Lou was comfortable here for whatever reason. This segment works best when he gets together with his old WWF friends and shoots the breeze for a few minutes. Serious interviews and segments involving people who actually need a push should be done by someone else. I loved Spicolli's answer when Capper asked why they called him "Cutie Pie": "You have rubber bands all over your face and you're asking me why they call me Cutie Pie?" I don't think Lou enjoyed being topped like that by someone who wasn't on his level of stardom, which might explain the tone he took for the rest of the segment.
  3. garretta
    I'm not sure what the point was of asking Albano if Bruno would be attacked. Shouldn't that be a question for Bruno (assuming that this was a real letter in the first place)? A more serious question: Wasn't there anything else Abrams could have done with the man who (I think) was still defending the AWA World title on various indy and spot shows? If Bruno had still been an active or semi-active wrestler, I could see giving this feud one more brief go-round to get the UWF some buzz. But Larry/David wasn't even a big deal when Bruno himself tried to promote it around the Pittsburgh area in 1982, back when David was wrestling as Bruno Jr. Couldn't we have seen some matches against Orndorff or Muraco instead, or even B. Brian Blair?
  4. garretta
    Boy, was that short. Doc really didn't have a chance to say much at all. I know he wasn't exactly Hogan on the stick, but he needed more time than that.
  5. garretta
    The problem for Paul is that his accent worked against him as far as sounding serious went. Plus, he tended to stumble over his words when he got really excited. We don't see any of that here, though. Of course, Vince didn't really need much of a reason to pair Paul with better talkers like Piper and Heenan, and they each added a lot to Paul's act. I can't imagine his '86 run with Hogan doing nearly as well without The Brain in his corner, for example.
  6. garretta
    One man's penance is another man's torture, I suppose. Seriously, I may go back and rewatch this match once I get a little more familiar with who's who. The action was excellent, but it would have been hard to tell what was going on even if I'd known everyone involved. They could have spaced the eliminations out a bit more.
  7. garretta
    Typical answer by Paul of a typical fan question. I wonder if David Steele took his advice and what happened to him afterward, if anything.
  8. garretta
    These two were so busy yelling at each other that they forgot to tell us who Blair's opponent is for the big show at the Penta. Way to handle business, gentlemen. I honestly thought that Vince had given Tolos the Coach gimmick. Now that I know it was at least partially Tolos' idea, I have to ask: Is this the best Vince could do to replace Bobby Heenan? Slick or Fuji I could see, it's trading like talent for like talent. But Heenan, especially when they had an ideal replacement in JJ Dillon working backstage? That was inexcusable.
  9. garretta
    Bruno puts over the same names he always does: Kowalski, Ivan Koloff, Dr. Bill Miller, Don Leo Jonathan. I know he couldn't name everyone he ever wrestled, but one name is conspicuous by its absence here, considering their many, many go-rounds: George Steele. I'm pretty sure that Bruno toured South America at some point. I'm not too sure about India or South Africa.
  10. garretta
    Yes, Kevin, Valentine was still in the WWF at this time. Maybe he was renegotiating with Vince and Abrams thought that he could land him on the cheap. Or maybe Muraco was just throwing around names just for the hell of it. This was a hoot to watch. Not much got accomplished, but it's nice to see Muraco loose and having fun with the Capper. I'd have paid big money to hear a story about Lou on a surfboard in Hawaii, even if it was completely untrue. As for the other wrestlers mentioned, Muraco/Orton was an old issue by now, but Muraco/DeBeers might have had some legs if done right. Albano/Tolos doesn't exactly get my blood pumping at first thought, but we'll see how they build it up.
  11. garretta
    Sorry, but this was another "sit through what I paid for" match for me. I didn't know half the workers, and had a hard time guessing who the ones I thought I knew were except for Aja and Medusa. It's hard to care about eight girls you barely know. I kept waiting for JR or Vince to come to ringside and explain to me what the hell I was watching, which still happens for me on a lot of non-American matches, unfortunately for my status as a so-called "smart" fan. To make it worse, they must have been getting "wrap it up come hell or high water" signals from somewhere, because the eliminations were far too quick for their own good, especially Aja's double pin at the end. Of course, she should have been DQ'd for using the trash can long before that. I'll be glad to get back to some good old American wrestling after watching this, even if it means putting up with the travesty that is the Black Scorpion.
  12. garretta
    I took a side trip into December because I had to see this match and the one with Lou Thesz. I'll get to Lou later, but Bock really impressed me here. I thought that this was one of the shorter two matches from this card at first, but Bock and Saito go close to fifteen minutes and probably could have gone at least five more with no problem. Whether part of the reason this was good is because these guys knew each other from the AWA is something I can't say for sure, but it seemed like Bock had only been gone for a few months instead of over three years. Interesting that Saito used the sleeper before Bock could, so instead of getting bogged down in a sleeper battle, Bock turned to the figure four and had Saito going with it. The finishing sequence was a little abrupt, but better to finish too soon with a guy like Bock and leave fans wanting more than to go too long and have him run out of gas. Was the neck injury that put Bock out of wrestling completely kayfabed, or did he hurt it legit and use Zbyszko's attack on him as an excuse to bring it into his retirement storyline? The reason I ask is because the suplex that Saito used to get the win looked stiff under normal circumstances, but had to have been brutal to take if Bock really had an old neck injury, even one that was either healed or under control. What a fitting swan song for a true legend, even if he lost. Here's to you, Bock!
  13. garretta
    The action was good enough, but they didn't really do as much with the Toyota/Inoue storyline as they could have. They had the pull-apart before the second fall and a couple of miscommunication spots, but if you're going to do mismatched partners at all, it kind of has to end with a full-blown brawl that completely scuttles the match and gives a gift win to the other team. Otherwise, why not just find someone on the same side to team one of the partners with and forget the whole thing? It's a bit of drama that most matches simply don't need. The other thing they never followed up with was the awful pin that gave Toyota and Inoue the first fall. If I'd been Hokuto and Manami, Yamada would have been laid out right in the middle of the ring for favoring her regular partner so blatantly. Again, this was drama that didn't really need to be there. Just use a regular run-of-the-mill ref and do a straight match, or else have Yamada beaten badly and reinjured. If that's not possible, have her lay out the champions in a physical confrontation, thus forcing them to wrestle from behind for the rest of the bout. To have such blatant favoritism just ignored as if it never happened is a terrible piece of booking. If you still want to use Yamada, put her in the challengers' corner as a second. Overall, I won't say that the overbooking completely ruined the match, but it certainly damaged it. Hopefully, we'll have a "straighter" match between some combination of these ladies in the future.
  14. garretta
    I think we have a new Japanese Match of the Year, folks. I'm not sure what else can be said about it that hasn't already been covered, but this was one of the most brutal matches I've ever seen, especially from two women. With all of the weapons and extracurricular fighting, this had the potential to become spectacle for spectacle's sake, like ECW sometimes did. But they kept it serious; you could tell that each weapon shot was meant to maim. Trash cans, ropes, chains, boards, you name it and they used it. But they did so to try to win a wrestling match, not just to look cool. The fighting outside of the ring and the wild scene after the match was the topper. You know these two and their respective factions aren't through with each other yet. I wonder how this match would have gone over in front of an American crowd, as used to the catfight style of women's wrestling as we were then and still are now. One thing's for sure: None of Moolah's girls would have lasted thirty seconds in Japan if they'd been required to work a style like this, even if you take away the cage and weapons. The joshi style of wrestling has been a real eye-opener for me on this set, and I look forward to seeing more, especially from Aja and Bull.
  15. garretta
    This was another "what was that?" match for me. Most of the comedy was verbal and in a foreign language, so I didn't appreciate it, and most of you know by now that the typical lucha trios spots do nothing for me. The only two things I liked (or even really understood) were the Brazos walking off over the "Kendo" chants and Super Porky falling off the apron. This was something I paid for, so I sat through it. It's really as simple as that.
  16. garretta
    The action and blood were tremendous, especially when you consider that Faraon was just repaying in the third fall what Morgan did to him in the first two. The last post shot, the one that nearly tapped an artery in Morgan's head, was particularly vicious, and it was only a matter of time before the match was stopped after that. I liked how they interviewed the ringside doctor after the match to lend some legitimacy to the finish as well. Overall, Dandy/Azteca from 6/1 is still my lucha Match of the Year, but this one's a close second with only December to go. I did have two issues, though: 1. This is more of a general question: Is there any specific reason why Mexican referees are so slow when they count pinfalls? Do they think it's more dramatic? Are they trying to give the wrestlers more of a chance to kick out and thus avoid losing their hair/mask? Or did this match just have a ref that was noticeably worse than the others I've seen? 2. I understand the stakes of the bout, but since Morgan was bleeding badly enough to have the match stopped by the ringside doctor, shouldn't they have put off the haircut until after he was stitched up? Surely the fans would have understood under the circumstances, and they could have brought Morgan back out and still done the haircut in public once the bleeding had been stopped. By waiting as long as they did, they unintentionally exposed the business. After all, who could stand there relatively calmly while the barber took five minutes to shave his head if he was really pumping blood from his head by the pintful, as it looked like Morgan was? Shouldn't he have been screaming, "Never mind the stupid haircut! I'm bleeding to death here! Get me stitched up RIGHT NOW!" Despite my criticisms above, this was one hell of a match. Let's hope that Dandy and Satanico can top it in December.
  17. garretta
    This really felt like a Memphis match taken on the road, complete with interfering managers being piledriven and lots of great stuff on the mic. Mark Curtis was brilliant as Funk's "doctor" and showed some real verbal aptitude, taking a mean piledriver while he was at it. The match itself took a while to get going, but once it did, it was pretty good, especially when Gilbert came out to second Terry, bandages and all. The comedy highpoint of the match was Terry dragging Curtis off by the back of the neck, then dragging Eddie to ringside in practically the same way. I liked seeing Cactus Jack save Lawler; my one small complaint is that fans who hadn't attended the show the night before wouldn't necessarily have known why he was coming to the King's rescue. I don't know for sure how many people attended both shows, but it's always risky to book a non-televised angle based on something that a part of your audience may not have seen. The referee was a bit distracting during the early parts of this, with his insistence in getting between Lawler and Funk instead of counting. I thought for sure that one of them was going to clobber him, either accidentally or on purpose. Neither man acknowledged their connection, but it was a treat seeing Terry introduced by his former WCW broadcast partner Chris "Crispy Cruiser" Cruise, who was doing the ring announcing. I wonder if there was ever a tag blowoff in the Philly area, with Lawler/Cactus fighting Funk/Gilbert. It would have done some good business, based on the two previous nights of action that we've seen.
  18. garretta
    Finally, after a reign of over seven months, the Warrior hit his stride as champion in this match. From the prematch promo that actually sounded like it was delivered by a human to a match that may have been better for an NBC bout than a lot of the ones I saw Hogan wrestle through the eighties, he finally looked how he was supposed to look while still retaining enough of the Warrior character to be unique. It's a pity that this was his last major defense before the Rumble. Yes, Teddy helped out, and I have no doubt that the road agent did yeoman's work to lay the match out so it would look as good as it did, but it was still up to Warrior to go out there and do it, and do it he did. We saw the normal power moves, but also some sprinkles of technical wrestling and high flying that would have served him well in an extended reign. It's also a pity that this is Teddy's last major title shot against a sitting WWF champion (which means that the '92 Rumble doesn't count). He was probably too far down the totem pole to go after Bret by the time Bret got the title in late '92, and Bret was the only major face champion left while Teddy was still on Vince's payroll. A part of his character was gone as a result; his biggest frustration was the inability to turn his wealth into a World singles championship. Maybe he could have feuded with the Warrior instead of Rude; it would have been interesting to see him go up against someone he couldn't buy not because of morals, but because money from "normals" meant nothing to him (Warrior). The Savage attack and promo afterward made me want to go back twenty-four years, take the book from Patterson, and make Saavage/Warrior the title match at the Rumble. As I've said before (and probably will again), they should have just paid Slaughter off once the shooting war in Iraq started and sent him home without even taking a second to bury him. I don't know how you get the belt to Hogan if you don't have time to build to Hogan/Warrior II, but that's a problem for down the road. That night, you have Savage steal the title somehow and build to a final showdown for the belt (not career vs. career) at Mania VII. That's what it felt like they were leading up to here, and the hard left turn it seemed like they took to get the belt on Sarge damn near derailed business before the steroid scandal ever hit. I fully agree about Vince and Piper shouting way too much on commentary, but there's no real sense in harping on it, since Vince is only going to get more obnoxious and less competent as the decade wears on. I'd basically stopped following wrestling by the time I got to college, but when I turned it on occasionally, it almost seemed like Vince doing a deliberate parody of every bad wrestling announcer ever, to what end I have no idea. By the time late 1997 hit, he was so bad that the birth of Mr. McMahon was a relief. If I felt this way after only watching a few minutes here and there, I can only imagine what regular viewers who'd put up with him all along must have felt like.
  19. garretta
    I clearly remember Teddy calling him "Kane the Undertaker". I don't know if anyone else did that night, but I know he did for sure. Maybe he hadn't gotten the memo about the name change, or maybe it was a slip, but he did it.
  20. garretta
    This was nowhere near the AJPW tag, but it was a good match. I was especially interested in seeing Sasaki and Hase in light of their later rivalry with the Steiners, and that looks like a good matchup going forward, as Sasaki seems like a real bull. Like some others have said, we don't have a lot of context surrounding this match like we do with the Jumbo/Misawa stuff, but this holds up well on its own. The start has plenty of good mat wrestling and counterwrestling, and it builds quite nicely until we hit the chaotic finish. I must have missed the ref bump, but there was more than enough good action otherwise to make this exciting, and the four-way celebration and show of sportsmanship at the end was a nice treat. The crowd certainly ate it up. As I said, this was nowhere near the AJPW tag, but it was far above average. Looking forward to more from these guys.
  21. garretta
    This match settled around two pairings: Dandy/Satanico (which was phenomenal) and Mendoza/Timbs (which held its own quite well). I loved Timbs' southern-style stooging and bumping, and Dandy and Satanico brought the blood and violence. I can't say much for the rest; we barely saw Chicana and MS-1, and the simultaneous pins such as the ones in the first two falls are a fatal flaw for me in this style; if I have to have my eyes in two places at once to catch all the important action, there's something wrong with the way the match is booked, and I don't give a damn how long it's been done or what lucha tradition dictates. That said, I'm looking forward to the Dandy/Satanico hair match too.
  22. garretta
    I don't think this one was as heated as it would have been in Memphis, but the action was better. At home, you know the Memphis Mafia would have gotten involved, which would have either meant another endless beatdown on Lawler or a Jarrett/Dundee save and a mini-battle royal. Here, we actually got a decent match, although it was still quite heated. Not only does Eddie do Lawler's schtick better than Jerry does, but his punches are at least equal, at least in this bout. Watching Eddie here truly feels like watching a younger version of Lawler, and you can tell that he's right where he wants to be at last. Several people on various sites (including this one) have suggested that Eddie would have made a good Black Scorpion, and that Turner could have given him enough money to do it, but I disagree. The alternate universe Lawler is the role the man was born to fill, and he's never been better, though his Watts stuff was close. It would have been interesting to see what Vince would have done with him if he'd been in Memphis when the WWF started working with them; he might have been a better "heel Lawler" than Lawler was in the WWF as well, assuming that he'd lived. My favorite spot was the piledriver on the bell hammer; it takes someone who really knows what they're doing to hit a spot like that precisely, and Eddie managed it. Tremendous selling by Lawler as well. I wish we could have heard Eddie on the mic here; among other things, it would have told us who his second was. I'd have recognized Doug, so it wasn't him. Could it have been Sam Lowe? He wouldn't have needed to dress like Sam Bass in Philly because nobody knew who the hell Sam Bass had been. If I had to guess with my life on the line, I'd say it was a random indy manager. Nice postmatch appearances from Funk and Cactus Jack. Mick would have been quite an addition to the Memphis Mafia if he'd chosen to go back to the USWA; he'd have also been a good ally for Lawler, although it's hard to see him in that role when the Kingfish already had Dundee and Jeff to back him up. I don't mean to overlook Lawler's performance; this is one of the few indy matches from this year where he actually cared, and it showed here. I'm sure that with Funk as his opponent the following night, he'll bring his A game again. Then again, babyface Lawler's always cared more than heel Lawler, even in Memphis. That was the one lesson Eddie didn't learn from his mentor, and we as fans can be thankful for that.
  23. garretta
    It's too bad that we get the home video version of the match, as Teddy clearly introduced Taker as "Kane the Undertaker", but the Kane part was edited out here, I guess to avoid confusion on the part of modern fans with Glen Jacobs' character. Was Brother Love supposed to be Taker's permanent manager, or was he only there until they could sign Percy and introduce Paul Bearer? Prichard takes well to being outside the ring, especially with his attack on Dusty after Dusty's been eliminated. Percy fit so well with the Taker concept that it's hard to imagine Prichard being any better, but at least it would have kept him around on camera. As it was, he only had a little more than three months to go. I noticed that Valentine was back to his "Hammer" ring gear here, and if I remember correctly, the dyed-black hair was soon gone too, as he turned face before the end of the year. Speaking of changed ring gear, Dusty was back to his old tights, with no hint of polka dots. I guess we can call this his "I'm countin' the days till I'm back in Atlanta" look. Did Koko wrestle in his sunglasses? It sure looked like it to me. I just hope they were tombstone-proof. I don't think Taker was legal when he was counted out; I could have sworn he'd tagged Valentine. Still, he hadn't been around long enough to go over and he sure wasn't getting beaten, so being counted out while pounding Dusty was as good a way to lose as any. Dusty/Taker would have been a nice series if Dusty had stuck around. The Bret/Teddy finale stole the show, and it was probably the best single segment of the night. Teddy actually getting a totally clean win was a bit of a surprise, but he was wrestling Warrior the next night on NBC, so it made sense for him to look like a possible World champion. I agree with Fly that it was a credit to Bret to not only show up, but to be the best overall worker in his match. No wonder Vince finally decided to push him as a single. Gino and Piper were good on commentary, with Gino immediately identifying Taker's finisher as the tombstone piledriver and even throwing in an epitaph reference (which clearly showed that he knew exactly who this guy was supposed to be before the evening started; he was never that clever on the fly). Piper made a few jokes about Taker's appearance, but also put him over as a force to be reckoned with and talked about the advantage that he gave DiBiase's team. He really got emotional when Bret was in the ring (which was fitting under the circumstances, especially since he's distant family), but I have to wonder if the "Put some heart into it" stuff was his own or was fed to him by someone. Again, as clever as Piper could be on the mic, I doubt that he would have thought to use that phrase repeatedly when Bret was in the ring totally of his own accord. I'd much rather have no Bad News and Mark Calloway as Taker than Bad News in Taker's spot and Mark Calloway as the Gobbledygooker, even if it means that we were deprived of seeing Frankie snack on Bad News' sewer rats, or vice versa.
  24. garretta
    Shinya gets the vast majority of this match, outwrestling Choshu to a shocking degree. But as long as Riki has the lariat, he's never out of any match, and he proves that again here, using four of them to pull off the win from almost out of nowhere. I like Choshu, so I would have liked to see a little more offense from him, but Shinya was effective enough that I didn't mind too much. He was strong enough on this night that four lariats was just the right number to take him down. Not exactly a classic, but a perfectly solid bout.
  25. garretta
    Watching these matches is frightening now, knowing what repeated headbutts (among other things) turned Chris Benoit's brain into. Onita hit so many of those headbutts that he had to give himself about a Grade 6 concussion in the process, and Pogo couldn't have been in much better shape, particularly after taking a DDT on a chair on the floor. This is one of those matches that was fascinating to watch as a spectacle, but I'm not a big enough fan of this style to call it a great match. There's no doubting how over Onita was with the crowd, though; they attacked him as violently as Pogo did during the postmatch celebration. Somewhere Paul Heyman saw this and said, "Gee, if I could find myself a few Onitas and a few Pogos, and a fanbase bloodthirsty enough to go nuts over them like this one did, maybe I could build an American promotion around matches like this!" One question: What was the object Pogo attacked Onita with at the start of the match? It looked like a knife or letter opener at first, but then I saw the hook on it. Could it have been a heavy cane?
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