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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    The dives in this match were well-executed, and I liked the intricate submission work that Benoit busted out, though he didn't keep any of the holds on for too long. Liger brought just enough hatred to add a little heat to the proceedings with his rapid-fire slaps and occasional taunting when he had the advantage, and the pop when he regained the belt was huge. It's been good to see matches between guys like these that I've only heard about and never seen over any length of time.
  2. garretta
    Yes, this was rushed, but considering that everyone had already wrestled, it sort of fit the storyline. These type of matches aren't supposed to be hour-long classics anyway, and to have to wrestle two of them in one night really puts these guys over as superathletes no matter how short the match is. Hulkamania? Of course. Warrior Wildness? Okay. Arribaderci? Who the hell writes this slop? If it wasn't written, and if Warrior came up with it out of his own head, he should never be allowed to do an unscripted promo again, period. Interesting that Hogan comes out, not just before Warrior, but before Tito. I've heard that the two of them had been friends since their AWA days, so maybe this was Terry Bollea's way of paying tribute to his friend Merced Solis. At any rate, it was a great tribute to a class act. I never thought I'd see Hulk Hogan and Paul Roma in the same ring, except maybe for a battle royal. To see Hogan actually pin Roma reminds is a reminder of just how unique the Survivor Series is as an event, maybe even more so than the Royal Rumble. So Martel takes the walk back to the locker room this year. I wonder if they still do that spot in elimination matches today? Teddy gets pinned before Herc? Interesting. Maybe that's so Warrior isn't shown pinning Teddy clean before their title match the following night on NBC. Warrior holding the rope open for Hogan symbolizes everything that was wrong with his title reign. He could never get out of Hogan's shadow or truly take the top face position away from him, and it's obvious after watching this yearbook that if Vince had any thoughts of Warrior as anything but a placeholder until he could get the belt back to Hogan, he forgot them pretty quickly. Gino and Piper were decent here, but they screamed way too much for my taste. Vince probably wanted them to sound more "enthusiastic", but all it got these two were obvious cases of laryngitis by the end of the night. The '91 Rumble's even worse, from what I remember. Piper was good at putting over the match strategy, which didn't leave a whole lot for Gino to do. His best line was about DiBiase wanting his bonus money back from Martel after Rick took a walk. Rod tried to sell the heels as a more cohesive unit than the faces, which was a nice touch. But my favorite exchange was this (I'm paraphrasing slightly): Gino: "How many times have we seen the Hulkster get it done, Hot Rod?" Piper: "He's always gotten it done.......except against me." Too bad Piper refused to heel for the sake of his kids; Hogan/Piper would have been a decent second main event for Mania VIII whether it was for the IC belt or not, with Savage/Flair for the World title being the other one. (Remember, Piper was injured and couldn't work a match at Mania VII.) Finally, I have no doubt that Warrior/Sarge at Rumble and Hogan/Sarge at Mania were in the plans by now; if they weren't, there would have been some dissension between Hogan and Warrior to leave the door open for a Mania rematch. Piper actually mentions possibly lingering bad feelings between the two before the match starts, but of course nothing comes of it. (Conversely, the past history between Herc and DiBiase is utterly ignored.)
  3. garretta
    This was a good match, but it would have been better if Teddy had reversed course at some point and begun going for more pinfalls on Dustin. He never really tried to beat Dustin until the end with the Million Dollar Dream, and while I'll give credit for the dramatic finish, I was also wondering why Teddy wasn't going for the kill constantly during the second five minutes. I loved Dusty constantly talking it up at ringside. Contrary to what Piper was saying on commentary, he was clearly trying to avoid a verbal contest with Teddy so that Dustin could possibly beat him clean. I get that Dustin was inexperienced and a WWF newcomer, but there were times when Rod treated him like Mario Mancini. Vince was actually much more evenhanded while still getting across the long odds that Dustin was facing. I loved Finkel and his time calls. They really don't come into play much in a promotion where matches seldom go over ten minutes and time limits aren't even announced ahead of time anymore, but they were needed here, and The Fink rose to the occasion with a flourish as only he could. Boy, did Sapphire get short shrift or what? In spite of being the main reason that this feud started, and in spite of the fact that she was making her first (and only) appearance in Teddy's corner on television, she gets no acknowledgement of her presence by either Piper or Vince and only a brief mention of her backstory with Teddy. It's almost like they were trying to erase her from existence in plain sight, and that's a shame. I wonder if she did something to upset someone?
  4. garretta
    This was certainly an unexpected treat, to say the least. Rogers sure made the most of his opportunity here and gave Pillman all he could handle. The opening part of this was fast and brutal, as you almost never see a TV squash worked this way. Eventually it slows down just a hair, as it was bound to, but Pillman doesn't gain final control until he gets the three count. The chops were Flair-level and above, and if Rogers' double axehandle from the top looks like Savage's, it should; those two worked together for a time in Poffo's ICW. In the end, Pillman's just a bit too much of an athlete for the Hustler. I know we have at least one more match featuring Rogers coming in December, and I'm looking forward to it. I don't know about Match of the Decade, but I'd cast a vote for this one as TV "Squash" (note the quotation marks) of the Year. As for the Omni show JR hyped, the Steiners beat the Nasties in the cage when Rick pinned Knobbs, while Doom successfully defended against Flair and Arn in an elimination bout (Arn pinned Reed, Simmons pinned Arn, Simmons pinned Flair when Reed interfered). Also, Sting pinned Sid to retain the World title.
  5. garretta
    As Scorpion hijinks go, this is actually pretty mild. He doesn't turn anyone into a wild animal or disappear into thin air; he merely costs Sting a match. If this kind of thing had been the extent of the Scorpion's presence, the angle might actually have been tolerable until it was blown off. But by now, too much weird stuff had gone on for this to be anything but garbage no matter what. I liked Luger's promo at the end declaring that Sting had help if he should need it. You'd think he would have said something weeks ago, but this isn't exactly the type of opponent where numbers do much good. The match itself was very good until the screwy ending. Bobby showed that he belonged in the ring with Sting, and his work on Sting's leg was vicious. Sting showed more fire than usual, as JR pointed out on commentary. This is at least partially because of the Scorpion, but he's also learning that the World champion has to have the ability to be the dirtiest player in the game at times. The over-the-top rope ending really makes Sting look wishy-washy; if he doesn't know the Scorpion's MO by now and is so easily distracted, how can he be taken seriously as a World champion? That's the danger in running a psychological angle like this; the affected party almost has to look weak and desperate at some point, and those are two things World champions really shouldn't be. I'm not sure that Bobby deserved a long singles match with the World champion yet, as some have said. He had to establish himself as a singles competitor first, which he would do soon enough. We know that he was probably a better worker than 90% of the WCW roster at the time, but the average mark would have said, "What's the tag team guy doing giving Sting a good match?" I would like to have seen Corny at ringside; he and Stan hadn't left WCW yet, because Lane was a blocker for Steve Armstrong's running of the gauntlet that weekend. Also, Bobby's still billed as being from "The Dark Side" and still uses the MX's entrance music. I don't think Corny and Stan have too much longer to go, but as of now, they're still around.
  6. garretta
    The promo to start this segment was vintage Eddie, with him introducing Black Magic as his bodyguard and inducting Joey Maggs into the Memphis Mafia. Ken Wayne is also a member, which explains his turn on Danny Davis a few weeks ago. It seems like they were looking to add Davis to the list of wrestlers who had a problem with Gilbert, but I don't recall seeing anything on either the '90 or '91 yearbooks involving the two of them. It's too bad, as that could have been a nice spot show feud. As for the match, it's a tad pathetic when Sam Lowe has to interfere in order for Eddie to beat a green rookie, Bill Dundee's son or not. I guess the Southern belt being on the line raised the stakes enough to justify it, but it still makes Eddie look weaker than he should if his feud with Lawler's going to keep going strong. Jamie looks decent for what he is, but he's not ready for this kind of match, either in the kayfabe sense or in real life. He needs a bit more seasoning to be taken seriously as a singles contender. How small did Jamie have to be here to give up what Dave referred to as a lot of weight to Eddie? Eddie never weighed more than 220 in his whole career that I know of.
  7. garretta
    Nice little match here, as Landell finally gets his chance to take Flair out directly and is at least somewhat equal to the occasion. He really impressed me here, going toe-to-toe with Flair and looking as good as he ever had. Flair was a bit off, which makes sense from a kayfabe standpoint considering his match with Reed three days ago, as Heyman continually pointed out. It was a bit odd to see a back suplex finish the match, but again, Flair had just wrestled Reed and was due to wrestle Simmons "later that night", so it made sense that he'd dispatch Budro as quickly as possible with the first move he thought he could win with. JR practically laughed at Landell all through the match, really pointing up the fact that he was a Flair imitator, and not in a way designed to get him over either. I remember that Budro was in and out of Mid-South/UWF, and I'm guessing that he and Watts (and by extension, JR) didn't exactly see eye to eye. By the way, Flair lost to Simmons by DQ on WCWSN, ending his gauntlet run. Maybe it was for the best, because if he'd beaten Simmons, he would have wrestled the Nightstalker the next night on Main Event. This was also the final appearance of the gauntlet concept. Flair/Nightstalker was only one of two gauntlet matches that never took place, the other one being Steve Armstrong/Bobby Eaton on the 11/11 Main Event. Armstrong lost on WCWSN the previous evening to, of all people, Buddy Landell.
  8. garretta
    Yeah, that would be typical of Main Event. I know they repeated at least one Luger/Arn match on the Horseman set, just putting new commentary over existing footage. It was so obvious it was laughable.
  9. garretta
    This is a bit more of a struggle than it should be for Taylor, considering that he has his fourth shot at Arn coming up the next night on Main Event. Rogers beings his A game and has Taylor on the run with the airplane spin, but nothing else goes his way for the rest of the bout, and the fivearm eventually puts him away. I disagree completely with Loss here; I think Taylor's getting himself back together after spending so much time in Vince's doghouse (or chicken coop, as it were). He was never quite the guy most people thought he would be, but he was never horrible when he was allowed to be a human being in the ring. Rogers has some nice moves and bumps, but he's by no means the star of the match. How did this match make the set and the Main Event Arn/Taylor match didn't? It's understandable, I suppose, that you guys didn't want four matches between the same people almost back-to-back, but there have been plenty of Will's sets where the same guys face off more than four times. There's no record of the result according to Graham Cawthon's site, although we can assume that Arn retains somehow, since he's still the champion until late December.
  10. garretta
    I don't know which match some of you were watching, but this felt like it had plenty of energy and excitement to me. These two were obviously through messing around, and it showed right from the start when Taylor posted both Arn's arm and his leg. I liked Terry working on the leg throughout the bout; I'm not sure whether trying to use the figure-four was a jab at Flair or not, but it fit the story being told to believe that it was, if that makes any sense. The back-and-forth nature of the match fit here nicely too; each man had had the advantage in the previous bouts but couldn't put the other away, so now they were both desperately throwing bombs at each other and seeing what happened. The Doom interference was unfortunate, but did anyone expect anything else on a WCW syndicated show? Even the marks had to know by now that with rare exceptions, title changes were for TBS or pay-per-view only. It wasn't "Will the challenger get screwed?", it's "How will the challenger get screwed?" Merely having a title match on a show like this was a coup, and a Flair appearance at ringside was a rare treat. Trust me, we who were mainly WWF fans had already been putting up with finishes like this on Superstars and Challenge for years, and it was old-hat. For someone who claims to hate Vince as much as he still does, Ole was pulling things right out of Vince's booking playbook by now. It's too bad in a way, because Taylor showed in these matches that he could have been a credible TV champion. Tony wasn't bad here, but you'd think he would know the difference between Nick Patrick and Mike Atkins by now, especially since Atkins was (I believe) an old Crockett referee.
  11. garretta
    Don't forget, there was a commercial in the middle of this one, and if the match supposedly continued during it, that would account for at least some of the missing time. Anyway, this was more aggressive than the last match, with the action spilling outside at times. Arn had the best of it, but Taylor kept fighting and getting out of pinning predicaments, which led to Arn's frustration, an attack after the bell, and yet another rematch next week. I agree with Soup that Arn could have faced Taylor at the Clash, but they needed to keep the suspense up over whether he would represent the Horsemen in the captain's match with Doom, so I can see why they held him out. I wish that the third match could have taken place on WCWSN, though; these two deserved a TBS showcase.
  12. garretta
    The show Tony referenced was on November 30. It was actually a singles match: Simmons with Reed in his corner vs. Flair. Arn was either a no-show or wasn't booked in the first place. Simmons won the match with what I'm assuming was a clean pinfall. This match was a neat little lost gem. Taylor showed that he could still work after all that time as the Red Rooster, and he got the crowd behind him pretty loudly too, with nary a cock-a-doodle-doo in evidence. Arn showed that he could still be nasty as a single too with his relentless arm work, which was countered by Taylor's aggression. This felt like a 1985 TBS match, and I mean that as a compliment. This good match definitely deserves a rematch (or two), and the slugfest that was still going at the bell ensures that we'll get one. Tony's still right on top of his history, acknowledging not only Terry's long ago reign as National champion (a title which most newer WCW fans probably never knew existed), but also his UWF tag team title reign with Chris Adams (although the UWF was never mentioned by name). We haven't gotten to hear a lot of Tony, since most of our WCW matches have come from either TBS or pay-per-view, but what's here has been terrific. He may have wanted to stay with Vince for financial reasons, but he's really best suited calling WCW product. Can't wait for the rematches!
  13. garretta
    It's impossible to rate this as a match, as first Wayne turns on Davis and then Brickhouse hits the ring to brawl with the champions, followed by Kim going at it with Brickhouse's "sister" Sweet Georgia. The best part of the whole thing is the prematch interview, where Wayne defends himself by saying that champions have to act crazy, then in the next breath blames his mood on an attempt to quit smoking. Anyone who would team with someone that weird deserves what he gets, and Davis sure got it. They could have just had the title match and valet brawl, plus an expiration of time match with the Nightmares where Wayne could have done his turn. Sometimes Memphis tried to cram too much into a short space of time, and stuff like this was the result. As Pete said, what was the rush to break up the Nightmares anyway? It's not like their feud was going to headline the house show circuit. I liked Dave berating Wayne as he left. "Some partner you turned out to be!" That's actually quite the expression of disappointment from our friendly neighborhood weatherman. You tell 'em. Dave!
  14. garretta
    I never thought Sid was capable of carrying anyone, but he showed that he was here. The Nightstalker needed a whole lot more of Ox Baker's training, that's for sure. Of course, this is what you get when you put two monsters who aren't supposed to sell anything in the ring against each other. I could tell that Clarke wasn't used to being hit or even taking Irish whips, as he looked unsure of what to do the one time Sid sent him for the ride. The blatant interference from Hughes and the use of whatever weapon Clarke was supposed to have in his hand should have been called DQs in a perfect world, but I think the refs, like everyone else, just wanted this over with and forgotten. Sid actually does some fine work here, at least by comparison. I remember that the Apter mags always said of him that he knew the at least the basics of wrestling, but chose to be a brawler instead because he wanted to prove how big and bad he was. I guess this was the type of match that they supposedly wanted to see from him; it's a shame that there was so much else going on to turn it into hash. I also liked Sid's promo at the start. He's surprised me with his verbal skills, and it looks to me that he was yet another guy whose ability to talk was wrecked by Vince, who turned him into a tooth-grinding, bug-eyed moron. I know they wanted to set up a Skyscrapers reunion at Starrcade, but would it have killed Arn to come down and even the sides? Sid is still supposed to be a Horseman, after all. Or was this step one of a possible Sid face turn that ended up being scrapped by Dusty once he came back? Could Sid have been in line to challenge Flair once Ric got the belt back from Sting if Ole had kept the book?
  15. garretta
    This really wasn't much. Maybe I was just waiting for the Demos to come down, but nothing else that happened in the ring registered much with me. Vince and Piper got off some good lines on commentary (Vince, of all people, on Hawk: "He's been gargling with razor blades again!") and I liked Piper's shoutout to his niece in the Persian Gulf while he was putting over Vince for allowing the troops to see Survivor Series for free. Then came the Demos and everything ground to a halt. I'm guessing that Vince knew he'd messed up by not letting the LOD and Demolition have a proper feud, so he was trying to put a bit of life back into their issue. But it was too late; the Demos had lost the six-man on SNME, and Ax was gone after this. Nobody considered Smash and Crush to be the "true" Demolition, so they didn't really care to see Animal and Hawk beat them, and they certainly didn't care about the LOD/Orients feud that came after this. If there was a time to do a beatdown similar to this one, it was right after SummerSlam, when the Demos could have attacked three-on-two and the Warrior could have saved the day, thus setting up the six-mans. Now, the only real purpose this served was to get rid of Bill Eadie and force Fuji back into the ring again, where no one truly wanted to see him. This was a nice idea in theory, but it was executed far, far too late.
  16. garretta
    This is a case where a poorly thought out finish ruins a great match. Like most of you, I was very impressed by Jeff's work on Eddie's leg; it's a kind of aggressiveness we've never seen out of him before. Doug refusing to wave the flag for Eddie calls back to Eddie's interviews saying that Doug would never wave it even if Eddie was crippled. I loved Joe telling us how much wrestling boots support the legs, which really made Jeff removing Eddie's boot into a major offensive move. I also loved Joe screaming "GOAL!" after one of Jeff's kicks, considering Craig's background as a soccer announcer. Then it all went to hell. Not only was the finish asinine in and of itself (you're telling me that Morrell was too dumb to look outside and see which of the seconds was waving the flag? I don't buy that even if he was knocked silly), but it took so long to execute that Eddie visibly stopped selling the figure four and looked outside as if to say "What's going on here?" Craig and Joe tried to cover for this by reminding us that Morrell wasn't fully conscious, but looking at this on TV, you can tell that he's too slow, period. I know that they wanted to keep Eddie hot and not have him known as a "coward" (note the quotes), but they could have had another ref run down and reverse the decision in order to create controversy and keep the feud going. Eddie could claim that Sam wasn't a legal second in the match anyway so he never quit, while Jeff could counter that Sam works for Eddie, so if he was waving the flag, it must have been for Eddie. It's not really like Memphis to have two stinkers in a row so close together (counting the Lawler/Eddie barbed wire match at the MSC), but every promotion's entitled to a bad stretch once in a while. Let's see how they recover from this one.
  17. garretta
    It says something about how bad Doc is on the mic when a bloody, concussed Orndorff makes more sense than Doc does when he's perfectly healthy. Why didn't Albano help him out a little, like most announcers would in that situation, instead of just standing there like a lump on a log? For that matter, why use Albano in a serious situation like that at all? Captain Lou's Corner isn't anything close to a serious segment and isn't meant to be, so what made Abrams think that Capper could handle an Okerlund-style interview? Abrams should have either done it himself or had Bruno do it. The physical stuff we saw was tremendous, worthy of the original (Watts) UWF. Doc seemed to save his best work for that ref who either forgot or refused to sell his original chairshot. It's hard to actually condone kicking the butt of a non-worker who doesn't sell, but in the context of that time and place, it's certainly understandable. I hope Abrams wasn't dumb enough to use the guy again, but since this is Abrams, he was probably promoted to senior official. I wish there were more matches from this feud on the set. In fact, I wish there were more matches from this promotion on the set. What does it say about the UWF when its best week-in, week-out performer is a washed-up, unfunny Captain Lou Albano? Nothing good, that's for sure.
  18. garretta
    This was a good one until the finish, reminiscent of Flair and Reed's battles from Mid-South several years earlier. But then we had to have it thrown in our faces that both teams were heels, so neither could take a clean loss. Not that the cheating segments weren't well done (although the mass wipeout of everyone at ringside was a little much), but I was hoping to see Flair beat Reed cleanly, especially after they pulled the whole thing with Teddy distracting Nick Patrick and costing his own team a clean win, which was a ridiculous spot and further shining proof of Ole's racism. You just can't get away with making an African-American, even a heel African-American, look that stupid, especially in 1990. This was the main event of the show and felt like it. It was also announced like it, as JR and Heyman were both on the top of their game. The mentions of the other athletes watching wasn't really needed at the time, though; JR could have taken care of all that stuff earlier in the card. By the way, Brad Daugherty of the Cavs wasn't watching, because his team was at the Richfield Coliseum beating the Heat 123-109, according to Basketball Reference. He scored fifteen points in twenty-four minutes of action. You'd think that somebody at Turner Sports could have slipped somebody at WCW an NBA schedule so they could tell JR not to make ridiculous shoutouts like that. As for Heyman, I continue to be impressed with his skills in the booth. Only occasionally are we reminded that he's a heel at heart; he delivers his analysis straight, and it's always relevant to the strategy of the match. He probably figured out that that was the only way not to be completely stonewalled by JR, who could be childish in his refusal to acknowledge partners whose analysis displeased him during matches. Patrick earned himself a punch in the mouth for pulling Reed's hair to get him to break the figure four, and whoever worked out that spot should have been told never to do it again. Short shoving matches with Flair and kicking hands off ropes during sunset flips are one thing, but referees should never, ever get physical to that extent unless they're working a Danny Davis-type angle (or unless they've been inexplicably possessed by the Black Scorpion).
  19. garretta
    This match is the answer to the long-debated philosophical question: "What if they killed Jerry Lawler in Memphis and nobody cared?" Seriously, this segment (I can't in good conscience call it a match) could have been done in the WMC studios and gotten more heat. The crowd didn't know what to make of it, and the announcers sounded as though Ken Raper and Freezer Thompson were slapping around Ben Jordan instead of Eddie Gilbert and his friends beating the ever-loving hell out of Lawler. What, could Jarrett not fly in Craig Johnson to do the matches at the MSC every week? The two jokers here (one of whom is Michael St. John) sound like they're describing a child's birthday party on a camcorder. There's no emotion, although Joker #2 finally allows that Eddie's gone just a little too far. I've heard a bit of Corey Maclin, and although he sounds like he's doing a half-baked Lance Russell imitation, I'll take that any day over what we've been hearing lately from everyone in this promotion but Dave Brown. Why was this match so short? I really don't know, unless they were up against a curfew. The barbed wire ended up being useless, because the DWBs just climbed right over the top of it and into the ring, according to St. John. It would have been better to have a regular bout and let either Doug or Tony pull the wire out of their pants during the beatdown. We also have either another miscommunication concerning a fireball or Eddie not having any idea how to sell one, take your pick. Michael says on commentary that the fire may actually have not caught enough of Eddie to cause pain, which would be the topper on this whole fiasco. The beatdown was actually more dramatic than the match, and I bought the idea that the other wrestlers had all gone home, which left Lawler alone to get his brains beaten out. I'm willing to chalk this up to an off night all the way around. Hopefully these two have a better match in them, and soon.
  20. garretta
    This was Terry's show on the Funks' side, as it almost always is, but I have to admit that I was impressed with Spivey. He was more than a clubberer, and much more than the Windham clone Vince tried to shove down our throats in '86. Stan's exchanges with both Funks were classics, and I'm another one who enjoyed Terry screaming at Stan after some particularly stiff shots. Dory threw his usual forearms and made them look good, and he got in a small bit of payback on Stan for abusing Terry. In the end, though, the lariat was too much for him, and Hansen and Spivey got the duke. Were current U.S. accomplishments mentioned in Japan? In other words, was Stan acknowledged as WCW's U.S. champion and Terry and Memphis' Unified champion? I know that Japanese belts weren't acknowledged here unless they were part of an angle; the only exception that I remember was Crockett recognizing the Road Warriors' title reign in AJPW (I think it was the International titles, but I'm not sure).
  21. garretta
    I guess Jarrett figured that Lawler/Gilbert was so hot that the title didn't need to be involved to guarantee a big house. On the other hand, what good putting the belt on a guy who's leaving for Japan in a little over a week does is totally beyond me, especially since he's going over there strictly to be in a tag team tournament, with the title not even an afterthought. On the third hand, Memphis makes its real money with Lawler chasing the title and regaining it from the heel of the month, so things ended up just the way Jarrett liked them. What we saw of the action was good as always from these two, but the booking got in the way more than a little bit. Gilbert probably should have won the title as a result of Funk's interference, not the other way around. I hope he gets the belt eventually after all this buildup. If not, Jarrett will have missed a golden opportunity.
  22. garretta
    Lawler is tremendous on the stick as usual, selling both disappointment at Maggs' actions and outrage at Eddie's. My favorite line was "You're not going to win any matches against me with your mouth." Maybe not, but he's almost Lawler's equal on the mic, as I've said before. For his part, Lawler almost guarantees that he'll throw fire against Eddie at some point, and I wouldn't doubt that for a minute. I wouldn't be surprised if the Maggs match was designed to give the TV audience a chance to see the King pull the strap down, which I've never seen him do in a studio match before that I can remember. I think it also led to Maggs turning on Danny Davis and joining the Memphis Mafia at least briefly, and it'll be interesting to see that part of the story unfold over the next few weeks. The Jarrett/Gilbert clips looked fabulous, but I wonder if Jeff catching the fireball in the midsection was a screwup. If it was, he still sold it brilliantly. I liked how Dave has resigned himself to Eddie's endless bragging about being the new king, which has indeed taken place, as we've seen throughout the rest of the month.
  23. garretta
    I'd take this segment over the Scorpion garbage seven days a week and twice on Thanksgiving. The Gooker was never meant to be more than a mascot for the WWF, probably to be used the most around Survivor Series time. The Scorpion was actually supposed to be the top contender for Sting's World title and actively crippled his reign, if not outright killed it. I think what "saves" the Scorpion stuff from being pilloried more is that Flair put the body suit on at Starrcade, then took the title back soon after to restore what most fans saw as the natural order of things in WCW. The Gooker, if anything, was shelved too soon; it might have caught on if given more than one chance under the right circumstances. I enjoyed Mean Gene trying to copy the Gooker's agility. He failed miserably, of course, but as Loss said above, he was a total pro through the whole thing. So were Gino and Piper, although Piper still took a few gentle shots here and there. I liked how he said that he could take it home and add it to his family without anyone knowing the difference. I also liked the line "This is one turkey who SURVIVED!", which was apropos for the occasion. I think most of the fans expected a wrestler, perhaps even DiBiase's mystery partner, to hatch out of the egg, which might be one reason they booed at the start. Thank heaven Vince picked an athletic guy like Hector Guerrero to play the Gooker, as I think it was his tumbling and rope-running which saved the segment. By the way, did Taker's match happen before or after this? I want to say after, but I'm not sure. Was this segment weird? Definitely. Wrestlecrap? Possibly. Wrestlecrappiest (to coin a word) segment of all time? Not by a longshot. That award should be renamed the Magic Leopard Award Immediately.
  24. garretta
    That's what I thought. Thanks, AJ!
  25. garretta
    The computer part of the gimmick is a nice touch, but so far Michael Wallstreet is a half-assed Million Dollar Man imitation with a pretty white female assistant instead of a big African-American male bodyguard. And Rotundo just doesn't exude evil in this role the way Teddy does. Granted, this was just a one-minute interview, but I'm not impressed yer. Cheesy as the gimmick was, I think I prefer what I remember of IRS, who was more of a sleazy, slimy bureaucrat than a cold, ruthless tycoon. So this is how Terri Runnels broke in. Was she married to Dustin yet?
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