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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Some of this wasn't too bad. I liked the Anvil having a danceoff with Slick, and the stuff with a drunken Lord Alfred was cute. But the food fight was kind of lame; they've never been able to top Butcher Vachon's wedding on TNT when it comes to food fights. The Bushwhackers' segment would have been okay if they hadn't had to pound the phrase "cut the cheese" into the ground like a tent pole, and all the sausage stuffing contest did was make me wonder why the Orients weren't getting a tag team title match against the Harts. Poor Akeem. He didn't get a thing to do all night long. No wonder he left soon after this. It's amazing that they were able to find German-style outfits that fit all these huge guys. Sincere congratulations to whoever handled the wardrobe for this show; he/she certainly earned their pay. I can't figure out whether Vince might have actually forgotten to put on his outfit and had to go out in a tux or whether he showed up in formal wear so he could sit back and laugh at the rest of his employees looking like total dufuses. Maybe NBC dictated that he wear a tux on camera, but it's hard to imagine that they'd care that much about the show at a time when the wrestling business had cooled off to the extent that it had. My guess is that Vince wanted to have his jollies at everyone else's expense. Hey, whatever turns the boss on.
  2. garretta
    This was the babyface equivalent of Piper, Snuka, and the coconut: an out-of-nowhere act of violence that galvanized the crowd. I don't even think Jake actually DDTing Martel would have caused a pop like that. Brother Love has been so obnoxious this year, much more so than in the past, when he was treated as a rather harmless and obvious joke. He needed to get his in the worst way, but almost everyone watching thought it would be Hogan or Warrior beating the shit out of him, not a blinded and (for all they knew) retired Jake. The only problem is that that should have been all for the Brother Love character; Piper's Pit should have returned the very next week no questions asked, since the man himself was back in the fold. But Vince squeezed a few extra months out of the character for no good reason at all. What non-wrestler takes a DDT on an interview platform and comes back the very next week, even in a neckbrace? Talk about exposing the business (which I know Vince didn't then and doesn't now give a peck of hoots and a gross of hollers about). Before the DDT, everyone was awesome on the mic: Prichard and Martel were perfect assholes to Jake, constantly taunting him by making references to sight, while Vince and Piper lost their minds on commentary (Vince: "That man's a CREEP!"). Jake cut one of his most effective promos ever and played the crowd like an instrument in a way that couldn't be done today, even with the exact same angle. They loved him so much and wanted to help him out so badly. It's tough to keep in mind while watching this segment that by this time the following year he'd be an even viler son of a bitch than Martel and Brother Love put together. This is the best Brother Love segment ever done, hands down. As I said above, it's a shame that there had to be more.
  3. garretta
    Sherri's the star of this segment, as she seems to be the driving force behind Savage now instead of simply his loyal queen. In other words, she's more like a traditional manager, which Randy probably doesn't really need. But she's great in the role, second only to Heenan in the rapidly decaying WWF managerial colony. Is it just me, or did Piper really not care for the German theme of this show? Take a look at his face as he makes the obviously scripted "furor" pun to Sherri. I know he's a good actor (particularly for a wrestler), but there's something about the look on his face that makes it seem to me like his disgust is at least partially real. He's most definitely not throwing himself headlong into the spirit of the occasion the way Jesse almost certainly would have. I did like his "Fahrvergnugen" line after he goosed Sherri (from the Volkwagen ad campaign at the time; it means "driving enjoyment" in English). Warrior's back to the same old ranting and raving delivery and crazy talk about his "legion of warriors". I guess if you're doomed to fail no matter what you do, as Warrior was by now, you might as well go down being true to your character. The Eva Braun line describing Sherri was nice, but it didn't sound right coming from a creature who literally isn't supposed to occupy this universe. After all, if Parts Unknown was a part of this universe, wouldn't someone be able to figure out where it is?
  4. garretta
    This one looked good, particularly the clips of Murdoch against Terry Funk. Can't wait to see that one in full! This is a nice simple choice of song to get the message across, which doesn't always happen with these Memphis music videos.
  5. garretta
    Yes, this one looked familiar. Then again, don't all USWA music videos look familiar at some point?
  6. garretta
    The hook for this feud and the reality are different; they want the fans to believe that Savage is the coward, but Sherri's right: Who had a contract presented to him and not only turned it down, but tore it up? Of course, we loyal little Warriors aren't supposed to remember that. Savage's promos are slipping a little; we had to wait all that time for "ultimate loser"? Sherri's on absolute fire to make up for it, though. She's so much better here than she was trying to bully Sapphire during the first part of the year. See what happens when you give your people real issues to talk about, Vince? Heenan gets off a good line about wanting the title even more once you've already had a taste of it, while Gino just grunts as if the idea of watching this interview puts him out. I hate to say this, but I have a feeling I may not think much of him anymore before too long if he keeps stuff like this up. Then again, if anyone would follow Vince's orders to the letter when it comes to hype, it's Gino, so as usual, it's Vince who deserves most of the blame. Why he'd want his announcers to crap all over the vast majority of challengers to his champions, I have no clue.
  7. garretta
    Well, it seems like some of the fans had an idea of what Vince might be up to. The one I feel sorry for is the one who said that wrestling souvenirs might be in the egg. How's a T-shirt or a calendar going to hatch an egg, lady? Come on, get with the program! As hype segments go, this one was definitely unique.
  8. garretta
    I think he dressed up at the start on the Austin show in April, Kevin, but I could be wrong. He probably wanted to keep his so-called "dignity" and let the color guys look like the nitwits. I don't think Piper liked wearing the hat at all, and it was no act. It did look kind of ridiculous, but the bodywear suited him. It looks like the green screen promos are in the body of the show now, which is too bad. I liked them at the beginning with the music in the background in order to get myself psyched up for the card to come.
  9. garretta
    Call me crazy, but I liked this finish. It was right out of the Horsemen playbook, or would have been if they'd ever had a member who'd looked like Dusty, Magnum, Luger, etc. It would have been ingenious if Nick Patrick hadn't caught on to it, but he did. I loved the look of chagrin on Sid's face once he'd been pinned. It was like he was thinking, "Damn! A foolproof plan down the toilet!" We saw Sting confront Barry in the aisle on replay, so I'll forgive the production crew for missing it live. I think that they might have even deliberately not shown that part on TV in order to build suspense; what some of you are calling a mistake might actually have been executed according to plan, whether you agree with the plan or not. Paul really was in his groove on commentary here. I liked how he kept saying that Sid needed to take the match back into the ring instead of fighting Sting on the ramp and on the floor. That sounds like something that an astute manager (which Paul always was, and presumably still is) would say. JR might have blown the finish by saying that Barry was the fake Sting a bit too early, but that's something we'll most likely never know for sure. I wish we had all of Sting's postmatch interview; it cut off just as he was saying something about the Scorpion. Was he supposed to have turned Barry into the fake Sting, according to the real one? It makes sense that the real Sting would think that, given the other things that had happened earlier on the card courtesy of the Scorpion. This was a whole lot better than it had any right to be, considering how it was booked. The sad thing is, Ole and company wouldn't thank their lucky stars and quit while they were only slightly behind.
  10. garretta
    For one of the few times in history, a heel that's set up to cheat a babyface out of a title beats him clean for it instead. I can't think of another time that a foreign object was thrown into the ring, but not used in what ultimately became a clean finish. My guess is that the clean pin was done to protect Hansen's reputation in Japan if the match was ever shown there. I have to give Luger credit for going along with it when it would have been better for him if Hansen had gotten the win illegally by knocking him out with the cowbell. Did JR know that there was going to be a clean finish? It almost sounded like he had his rant ready for the cowbell finish, then decided to use it anyway after the clean pin, which made him sound whiny and moronic. Even Heyman acknowledged "cheating" that didn't exist when prodded by JR. It's almost like they expected Stan to use the cowbell on Lex and were flabbergasted that he didn't and won anyway, so they just pretended that he had cheated. Bad, bad announcing. Why didn't they give Spivey a match on the undercard as long as he was there? He would have been a better opponent than Moondog Rex was for JYD, to name just one possibility. Just for the record, Hansen never defended the US title, according to Graham. He teamed at least twice with Sid against Sting and Luger, losing both times if I recall correctly, and wrestled one TV squash. Other than that, he was back in Japan. Why Ole would allow his second most prestigious belt to be put in cold storage I have no idea, especially when he probably knew before the title change that Stan was basically leaving it behind in favor of his commitments to Baba. Either Flair should have gotten it (which would have left Windham to team with Arn against Doom) or Luger should have retained.
  11. garretta
    Whichever story is true about how Rude left, Vince ought to have been ashamed of himself. To lowball the guy who completely changed his character in order to appear to be more of a threat to Warrior, then was dominated twice on national TV/pay-per-view to the point where he could never have been a realistic World title contender again was totally shameful. So was sticking that same guy in a dead-end feud with Bossman that, even if it had been settled like it should have been, would have ultimately meant nothing, then refusing to pay him despite advertising his presence at shows that Vince knew perfectly well he had a legitimate reason for missing. As for making Heenan wrestle Bossman, it may have been satisfying to the fans, but making Bobby a full-time competitor again (at least until Rude's contracts ran out) was a risky decision given his injury history. At least they kept the matches short if I remember correctly, and I'm sure Traylor took care of him to the best of his ability, but why not let the other Heenan Family members take Bossman on? I'm sure Bossman/Barby (which took place at the Royal Rumble) or Bossman/Haku would have made for better matches, and winning a feud with either one of them would have elevated Bossman into contention once Curt got the IC title back. As it was, their Mania VII match felt almost like an afterthought. This whole feud has been botched from the beginning and done no favors for anyone. What I'd like to know is who thought of it in the first place.
  12. garretta
    I'll say this for Rude; he's doing the schoolyard bully routine very well after being oily and sleazy for so long. I like that he doesn't apologize for his comments; in fact, he restates them and dares Bossman to do something about it. Heenan's golden here as the protector of prisoners' rights everywhere. Interviews like this are what I'll miss when he goes to the booth full time. As for Jake, he continues to make you feel his pain whether you want to or not. The visual of the pupil in one of his eyes being burned away not only puts over the damage done to him, but gets Arrogance over as something more than just perfume. Vince and Rod do a good job of this as well, implying that Arrogance has an industrial-strength odor of some sort, almost like it's drain cleaner or something similar, which we all know can mess up an eye horribly. That's a tremendous amount of detail for a WWF angle. I'm looking forward to the next segment if it is what I think it is.
  13. garretta
    Bossman's performance here was better than this angle deserved. It was almost like Ray Traylor was talking about his mother, if you know what I mean. It's a shame that we never got a match between Bossman and Rude; in fact, Rude might well have been gone by the time this interview aired. If he wasn't, his last day's coming up soon. Interesting touch that Heenan stayed back in the locker room with Hennig instead of coming out to see this interview in person. Of course, we remember what happened the last time he saw Bossman in person on Challenge, don't we?
  14. garretta
    The visual of Brother Love in a dress aside, what is this supposed to prove, particularly to Savage? If Warrior were to put Sherri in a pair of bib overalls and cut her hair short to make her look like a man, I could see it as a warning to Savage to quit hiding and come out to face Warrior. But does someone as bat-dung crazy as Savage even care if you dress up some fat slob in a wig and dress? I think not, even if the guy wearing a dress is a friend. In other words, this was cheap and pointless except as an excuse to make Brother Love into a punching bag, which isn't a bad idea but is far too easy to do. I thought for a second that Savage was going to come out, the way Brother Love was calling Warrior "fraidy-cat" and such. They really need to stop Prichard from insulting the guests like this when there's no actual beatdown planned, although I guess you could say that wearing a dress is comeuppance of a sort if you're into that kind of thing. I think an ugly brunette is more Brother Love's color, don't you?
  15. garretta
    I agree that the stuff about the doctor being able to tell the extent of the damage to Jake's eyes "next week" sounds a bit too much like a setup for a wrestling program to be realistic. They could have had him discussing the issue with Jake, then cut off the footage just before the reveal if they wanted to drag it out. Of course, being realistic is at the very bottom of Vince's priority list, then as now. Line of the segment: Jake's "I WANT TO SEE!". From anyone else, that would sound corny and rehearsed, but he not only pulls it off, he makes you feel his desperation. Unbelievable. Martel follows up with the first of many "apologies". As I said in an earlier thread, he's finally getting the hang of not only being arrogant and insufferable, but smarmy and insincere to boot. Even if he's right and this was just an accident, his delivery still makes you want to skin him alive and string up his insides from the nearest tall tree. It had to have been hard for a career babyface like Rick to adjust to this type of character at first, but he seems to have done it well, and I expect his character to blossom (to the extent that it can) over the course of this feud.
  16. garretta
    You can always tell when an angle's going to go down on Brother Love's show because he gets verbally aggressive with the guest. Here, he constantly makes reference to Damian being slimy and stinky, which he knows he can get away with because Martel's right there ready to do his thing. I love how he and Martel sold this as an accident (in storyline terms) and even pretended to argue a bit over what Martel did. Of course, that's total bologna, as would become clear over the next few weeks with Martel's sneeringly insincere (but well-delivered) apologies. I think he finally hit his groove as a heel with this feud, and not a moment too soon. Not that it really matters, but was that water that Bossman was using to flush Jake's eyes? It looked like coffee or soda. Maybe it's just the lighting and how it reflected off the liquid, because no one would be stupid enough to use coffee or soda to wash out a blinded wrestler's eyes, even as part of an angle. Piper was tremendous here. I couldn't tell much of what Vince was saying after the first few seconds because he insisted on talking over the officials, who sounded like they were wired, much like in the Hogan/Quake angle. If they were and Vince still insisted on talking over them, thus rendering the whole point of wiring them moot, that's.........par for Vince's course, unfortunately. I did catch him saying that he thought the whole thing might have been an accident, which Piper openly scoffed at. These two are starting to develop some chemistry; we'll see how well that continues over the rest of the year. Can't wait to relive this feud!
  17. garretta
    This was a lot more of a back-and-forth third fall than I thought it would be after reading this thread. Still, Atlantis had the better of the action and was never in any real danger of losing. I loved the postmatch celebration with Atlantis jumping into the referee's arms. I've seen refs give postmatch handshakes to faces before, but I've never seen a face actually jump into a ref's arms. Then again, most of the refs I've seen look like a stiff wind would put them flat on their back. I like how the luchadors who win a mask match are allowed to keep the mask of the person they beat as a souvenir, a sort of "scalp", if you will. It's a nice touch that underscores the match's importance.
  18. garretta
    This almost seemed like a coming out party for Ace and Kobashi as a team; they took the fight to Jumbo and Taue, particularly Taue, and did everything but secure the win. It's a shame that Ace, being a gaijin, didn't fit in the Misawa/Jumbo saga, as he could have been an important supporting member of Misawa's group based on this performance. One question: Some posters refer to the Ace Crusher. Would that be Johnny's name for the Doomsday Device, or is it another move altogether?
  19. garretta
    I didn't mind the good citizenship part of the award as much as I minded the match they used to justify it. Corny (who was exquisite here) is absolutely right; an actual six-month old videotape which mentions Corny being in the cage at Capital Combat proves what exactly? Surely Tracy and Steve have done something else in the ring that's worthy of an award since. At any rate, even if the MX had stayed in WCW, the time for this feud was back in July off of the U.S. tag title match at the Bash; Tracy and Steve should have taken the belts from Bobby and Stan instead of the Steiners. Now, this feud would have been every bit as meaningless as the feud that they'd just wrapped up with the Freebirds. The matches may have been better, but they wouldn't have meant anything more to the title picture. I'm beginning to see why Stan and Corny left; if there was a team who deserved a heel/heel feud with Doom, it was the MX. The match clip looked really good, and Ole was a breath of fresh air on commentary with Tony. If only he'd stayed in the booth full-time instead of taking the book..............
  20. garretta
    For some strange reason I thought the Scorpion turned that girl into a live leopard, and in looking for that leopard I missed part of the segment the first time I saw it. Where was my head, you ask? Probably in a better place than the head of whoever approved this. Upon second viewing, this just felt cheap. Is that all the Scorpion has, a bunch of parlor tricks? Nothing about physical prowess, wrestling ability, mental toughness? His entire game plan is to make Sting's head as soft as a grape, and then.......what? Take the title? How are we supposed to know that the "real" Scorpion can wrestle? This is even too damned stupid to be something that the Horsemen cooked up. A joke's a joke, Ole, but this bullshit's gone way, way too far. We're talking about devaluing the title territory here, and I don't throw that phrase around as lightly as some. The scary part is, I know there's more to come! The poor girl who was made to "disappear" was probably the best actor in the segment. As noted earlier, the Stinger was all over the place; if you listen closely, he actually thought for a second that the Scorpion's voice was coming from Tony Schiavone, of all people. As for JR, he's awfully calm for someone who just witnessed the most dazzling magic trick in the history of wrestling. I get the feeling that he thought enough was enough by now, too. God bless Heyman for saving this whole mess to the extent that it could be saved; he was most likely the only one in the entire UIC Pavilion who acted like he took it seriously (except for the girl, of course). Finally, a rhetorical question: If you were a WCW referee and you'd just seen the Scorpion make an audience member vanish into thin air, wouldn't you restrain your World champion so the same thing wouldn't happen to him?
  21. garretta
    I would think so, Kevin. If he was heard talking too much, even the marks, at least some of them, would have figured out that he was doing the Scorpion's voice, and they would have either had to scrap the angle and reveal it as a Horseman mind game or give Ole the match Flair ended up getting at Starrcade, which most likely wouldn't have gone well at all given Ole's ring rust (he hadn't wrestled at all since the spring). I didn't notice any lack of cohesion on the Horsemen's part, but watching this got me thinking: How would the Horsemen have looked as a Sid-centric unit as opposed to a Flair-centric one? Flair and Arn as a tag team would have left Barry as the "enforcer", Arn's nickname notwithstanding. Could a unit structured that way have sustained, at least until the inevitable friction that would have undoubtedly led to a Flair/Sid showdown sometime in '91? Would a Flair/Sid series have done better than what we got?
  22. garretta
    Nice to see Elvira again; she was better here than she was flirting with Jesse and swooning over Hogan at Mania 2. Nice to see Sid in a cameo as well. What was the deal with announcing Windham as Arn's tag team partner against Doom? Did they have other plans for Flair at first? He's prominently mentioned in the ad, but if he hadn't been in the tag title match, what else was there for him to do?
  23. garretta
    I liked both Sid promo segments, the one during the signing as well as the one after it; he's grown up on the mic without Ole to hold his hand. An attack at some point was expected after the signing went so smoothly, and we got that too. The only ominous thing about this segment was the reference to the Scorpion feud at the end. That's a clue that this match is going to end up being a mess; the only question is how big the mess is going to be. What a shame, as I don't think we ever got Sting/Sid again on any sort of big stage. Arn coming out to back up Sid was a nice touch, but I think Flair would have had a bigger impact on Sting. Should anyone deeply care, it was Al Perez under the Scorpion's mask in the clip we saw, according to Graham.
  24. garretta
    The trash talking and brawl were tremendous, as you didn't often see the Steiners thrown around and beaten up the way the Nasties did it here. The promos were a mixed bag; the Nasties were solid, but the Steiners, particularly Rick, were awful here. How did they ever let the part where Rick couldn't say "Halloween Havoc" make it to air? The only answer I can think of is that there were other takes that were even worse, if that's possible. Scott just sounded like a stereotypical lunkheaded jock. How did this match get a contract signing segment, but the match for the more important belts (Horsemen/Doom) didn't? If you're going to have a segment like this, why waste it on a lesser title, even if that title is held by the Steiners? I'm sure that Doom and the Horsemen could have cooked up just as good a brawl as the one we saw here.
  25. garretta
    I almost couldn't watch this due to that lousy chew hanging out of Stan's mouth. Please, God, tell me he didn't wrestle with that shit in his mouth. If he did, he deserved to have it rammed right down his throat for being so goddamned stupid. Honestly, was this Ole's way of being edgy? Even Vince didn't get quite this disgusting. To make matters worse, Ted Turner frowned on tobacco use by his employees from what I've read. If that's the case, how did such a sickening display get past the corporate suits? Surely one of them had to be paying at least a little attention to WCW. What I heard in between "Yuck!"s sounded decent, but honestly, I was just waiting for this to be off my computer screen.
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