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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Great bout, especially the end, where Choshu still manages to chop down Vader with a series of lariats despite the arm injury, which he sold beautifully. I liked the huge standing ovation he got at the end when the belt was presented to him. I notice that after that one shot that busted Vader open above the eye, Choshu stayed away from it. Nice sign of respect for a legit injury that could have led to blindness if it had been exploited too much. Vader moves like a man a hundred pounds lighter, which is rare for a monster. The only other superheavyweight who could move like that, at least at the beginning of his career, was Bam Bam Bigelow. (I know it's been reported that Andre was a freakish athlete when he first broke in, but I'm limiting my comparison to guys I've actually seen footage of when they could move, and most of the Andre footage I've seen takes place long after he became an almost-immovable object.)
  2. garretta
    It's nice to finally see Benoit on this yearbook even under a mask. This was a nice little match, but not one of Liger's better performances compared to what we see elsewhere on the set. Call me whatever you like, but Benoit's finishing legdrop didn't look all that sloppy to me. How can you tell this on video? Maybe I don't have a discriminating enough eye compared to some of you, but a spot damn near has to be botched for me to be able to tell if it's sloppy or not, and this spot wasn't, at least to me. It certainly didn't detract from my enjoyment. I agree that the three-count wasn't very definitive. I'm looking forward to seeing more Benoit on the yearbooks, both with and without the mask.
  3. garretta
    So this is it for the AWA. Well, the old girl went out as close to on top as she could possibly get by now. Larry junked the stalling routine and brought his top game, and Harley, unbelievably, did the same. Whether he knew this was his last major match, or whether he actually believed that he could be a top contender in WCW and wanted to prove it to them, he sure didn't look like someone whose guts had just been rearranged not all that long ago. He looked as crisp as he did in the WWF; everything had a purpose, and everything hurt. Of course, we don't get a finish, and we all know that Larry's staying champ no matter what, because Verne trusts no one who isn't family by now. Still, this was a great TV main event and not a bad sendoff for one of the greatest promotions in history. I think the eight-time champ thing for Harley may have been an honest mistake, but we'll never know for sure, of course. Maybe Verne decided to recognize the New Zealand switch to make Harley look even more impressive than he already was. It wouldn't be the first time that's happened in wrestling. Interesting that Verne buries Zbyszko in one breath, flat-out saying that he doesn't know how to wrestle, then insinuates that Sting and Warrior are cowards for not accepting Larry's challenge. Why would guys like Sting and Warrior want to waste their time with someone who's no good? Of course, when Verne says that someone can't wrestle, he means an amateur-style match, and by that standard, no one can wrestle these days and precious few could wrestle in Verne's day with the exception of The Champ himself. He reminds me a bit of Bob Backlund: a pro wrestler who probably would have been happier (though not as wealthy) teaching gym and coaching high school wrestling. Lee Marshall has to correct him on the air and work doubly hard to put Zbyszko over as someone who has any business in the ring and holding on to Verne's title. I wonder how burials like that went over at the family dinner table. I love Harley clearing his half of the ring after the bout in order to try to get at Zbyszko one more time. As I said, he probably could have had a least a short series of his own with Sting for the NWA belt (he subbed at least once for Sid n a title match not too long after this). WCW made a wise choice putting Harley with Luger when Lex finally won their title. He needed some tough-guy cred desperately, and Harley's interviews and persona (which you see here both before and after the match) gave it to him. No one would dare take a guy that Harley Race chose to manage lightly, even if the guy is basically a musclehead.
  4. garretta
    There's really not a lot to analyze here. Lawler and Dundee control the whole way and make Devastation Inc. look like total jobbers. Ak couildn't have been too happy to find his stable so marginalized after years of running the scariest heel group in Texas, but so far he's been making chicken salad out of chicken droppings. At any rate, the heels have the advantage for only a few seconds and don't get it again until Rod Price's run-in allows a nearly unconscious Tatum to get the pin on Dundee. I guess they wanted to make sure there was life left in the feud when Jarrett came back to action, but this is another match where the finish doesn't negate what came before it. Lawler and whoever his partner may be are shown as demonstrably superior to any combination that the General may choose to put together. Is it just me or was Percy at his most annoying here? Doing the whole match in his Paul Bearer falsetto doesn't help, and neither do his overly nitpicky criticisms of every move the faces make. If you're going to be that unobjective, you'd better be a first-rate comic talent like Bobby Heenan, and Percy isn't, not even close. His approach forces Craig into Vince McMahon-on-SNME levels of babyface cheerleading, which is just as annoying. I like the constant teasing of crotch shots, since Lawler crotching Ak is what led to Ak's absence from the match in the first place (though we don't actually get to see video of the incident). I notice that Percy mentioned Tessa, but the mention was no-sold by Craig. I guess she's gone for good, and maybe not on the best of terms. Since I've already seen the mixed tag, I'm officially finished with USWA Texas for this year in terms of matches. I count four segments in the first two weeks of September, then it's adios until January of '91.
  5. garretta
    Again, bad booking takes me out of a match. The first two falls were okay for what they were. I even liked Crush actually jumping on Earl Hebner instead of trying to break up the pin in the second fall, thinking that would get the Demos DQ'd and save the belts even if they got beat in the third fall. (By all rights, it should have, but that ship sailed when the Busters got the belts the year before despite the Demos being DQ'd in the second fall.) So on we go, and here comes the Ax, and there goes the match. I have no earthly idea why they didn't just book this three on two and have Smash and Crush do the majority of the work rather than make Earl seem too stupid to live. I mean, did whoever book this even realize what a mockery they made out of this match? Then, of course, Hawk and Animal come down and giftwrap the damn thing for the Harts, creating such a distraction that Crush ends up being pinned. There were two solutions to this mess: 1) Book the match three-on-two, as I said above or 2) Reverse the second and third falls by giving the Harts a clean second fall pin. That would tie the match and increase the desperation for the Demos. At sometime toward the end of the third fall, have Ax come down and hide underneath the ring, then pull the same distraction they did here........only for the LOD to alert Earl to it. Earl throws out the fall, and the Harts win. The Demos think they've escaped with their lives, only for Earl to give the belts to the Harts. Vince explains that a championship can change hands in a multi-fall match when a champion is DO'd in one fall as long as one of the other falls is gained by pinfall or submission, and everyone goes home happy. But that would make too much sense, so it's a terrible idea. What makes this all even worse is Vince covering for Earl by saying that he's "lost in the match". It makes Vince sound like he has no brains whatsoever or is totally blind, take your choice. Even Piper (who was excellent here) calls him out for perpetuating the myth of the Demos being "hard to tell apart" right before the LOD comes down. There was a different way to sell this whole thing to make it seem like a crafty plan of the evil champions that was thwarted at the last second instead of deliberate rulebreaking condoned by a referee whose IQ doesn't match his shoe size; that they failed to find that solution drags this match completely into the garbage pile. Loss mentioned the terrible pre-match interviews that both teams gave, and they're another symptom of a promotion that neither knows nor cares how juvenile and ridiculous it's becoming, With WCW about to drown in Black Scorpion nonsense and USWA Texas going away, USWA Memphis is the top promotion in America right now, and that's in spite of prominently featuring a teenage mutant ninja turtle (note the absence of caps). No wonder so many fans found solace in lucha and puroresu.
  6. garretta
    Where was this months ago? The perfect blowoff to a feud, but as I said in the last thread, too little too late. I didn't like that we seemed to miss a little more of the match than normal in the commercial break, but they really needed to show the postmatch in full, because that was where the action was. I'm pretty sure those were hair extensions on Jeannie, by the way. Either that or she's more dedicated to the business than I'd ever dreamed. I don't know if CVE slamming the cage door on Austin's head was meant to be a reference to Von Erichs/Freebirds or not, but it was a nice spot nonetheless. If memory serves, we have one more TV segment of this feud from the same weekend where they're beginning to set up a hair match for Toni and Jeannie, then that's it. If this match had taken place on July 4, maybe we'd have actually seen that hair match on TV.
  7. garretta
    I'm glad the upcoming mixed tag in a cage is it for this feud, because I'm out of patience. I'm thoroughly convinced now that Jarrett wanted to bail out of Dallas and deliberately killed the TV to make sure he could. How else do you explain Percy attacking Toni in the wake of all that's happened after the July 4 show? You're losing TV in two weeks because of this shit, you jackass! Why would you deliberately run more of it? Were you giving KTVT the middle finger for pulling you off the air? Not only did you have an extended beatdown on Toni, you had Adams getting busted open and CVE getting choked almost unconscious with a coat hanger. What responsible station manager wouldn't pull the plug? I can't believe that Jarrett was so brazen; if it was me, I'd be running ten-minute side headlocks with nothing more dangerous than a bodyslam as a finisher until I was sure the heat was off. Yes, the faces get a small bit of payback when they come out again, but it's too little and too late. Who's going to remember it compared to what had gone down before? There were a few good lines, most notably Austin calling Percy the best-looking person in the Sportatorium next to Jeannie (what's the matter, Steve, did you get an attack of modesty?), and Jeannie threatening to sue Chris for more alimony due to the broken arm was clever. But it's too late for any of that stuff, really. This thing just needs to end, stop dead in its tracks. If I'd been Jarrett's booker, I'd have sent one of them to Memphis (most likely Austin), had Craig come out and bury them the next week, and just moved the other one on without looking back. This feud's been too stupid for too long, and it's quite literally killed the territory dead.
  8. garretta
    I thought Percy and CVE acquitted themselves well. They didn't (and couldn't) do much, but their few basic sequences weren't too bad. At least they could work holds, unlike Jeannie and Toni. Adams and Austin were decent, but you can tell they want to put a ribbon on the CVE/Percy stuff, at least in the ring, so they get most of the time. Austin obviously dominates CVE, as he should, and Adams dominates Percy, as he should. Nice to see a USWA feud end with a clean pinfall for once, as CVE gets the winning fall over Percy with a sunset flip that's pretty athletic, considering who it's from. We still get a postmatch beatdown on CVE, but this time Adams makes the save before the viewers turn old and gray. Should CVE have been a wrestler? Almost certainly not. But if he was bound and determined to be one, they booked him and used him as well as they possibly could. It's too bad he was so hung up on being an actual wrestler, as he might have been a decent manager with a little more polish on the mic. He had the gift of gab; all he needed was the experience to go with it. Unfortunately, he wouldn't have gotten it in USWA Texas regardless, as they only had three weeks to run. Interesting to hear the details of Percy's suspension. He isn't really missed on commentary, as Craig is slowly but surely learning his craft.
  9. garretta
    This was a nice little comedy match, as we see that Champion does indeed know how to move well in the suit. Tickling Gilbert in the corner was a nice psychological touch, as was tapping him on the back to make him think that he'd scored a three-count. Despite the costume, the brain of a trained wrestler definitely exists underneath that turtle shell. Doug losing his hair was definitely the highlight of the segment. I'd like to think we saw so much of Lowe in order to get him over as a legit managerial threat. If that's the case, I'm willing to have Eddie look a little silly in order to accomplish the main objective for this particular bout. Sometimes there are more important things to do in a certain segment than making the wrestlers look like badasses. Besides, Eddie can get back his heat with a good promo or two; there may never be a better chance to introduce Lowe as a manager.
  10. garretta
    Dave mentioning the time limit made this feel even more rushed than it was; Eddie and Bill certainly weren't working like they had up to thirty minutes. Anyway, the beatdown's the point of the whole thing. What is it with Jarrett and extended beatdowns of faces? We have Adams in Texas getting the crap kicked out of him week after week with only Chris Von Erich to save him, and now this has to be the third or fourth long bloody beatdown of Lawler and Dundee (counting the ones from the MSC) with no one to save them except a bunch of jobbers. Where was Jeff? For that matter, where was Snowman? The baseball bats being used this liberally concerns me too, not just for the kids watching but for the wrestlers themselves; one swing a little too hard with an aluminum bat and you've got major damage to your biggest stars. I get why Gilbert, Tatum, and Anthony did this; they're heels doing what heels do. What I don't get is why it had to go on so long and be so bloody. I loved Dave's shock at the thought that the gorilla had turned on Lawler and Dundee. Hey, why not? Whoever thought that the photographer would turn on them? I agree that it was a nice nod to detail to have them show the guy who was supposed to be in the costume tied up and gagged; they needed to do that so the kids wouldn't think that Bundy would be mean to them. The match was decent for what it was, but the postmatch made it irrelevant in my eyes. By the way, this match was for the number two contender's slot because there's only one number one contender: the guy with the crown who just got his brains and guts bashed in, along with his friend from Down Under.
  11. garretta
    This was good in some ways, but disappointing in others. First of all, I get that Bossman and Bravo are in the corners so we can see them fight, but did we have to have doubleteaming in the ring? That spot made Hebner look like the most incompetent official alive for not throwing the whole match out right away; he was looking right at it, yet only stood there and counted like it was a tag match. If you wanted a tag match, Vince, why didn't you book one? Like Pete said, it would have accomplished the same purpose that the single match did. Second, the fact that Hogan's ribs and back were still hurting was part of the psychology of the match, and Quake did an excellent job working on both, with both strikes (including a blow from the top rope) and submission holds like the Boston crab and the bearhug. Okay, so we knew that Hogan was going to overcome all that at some point and slam Quake; that was an expected spot, and the fans would have gone home disappointed if he didn't do it. But if you know you're going to use that spot, don't have Quake splash Hogan twice, plus execute a powerslam that was in essence a third splash, then have Hogan slam him not once, but twice. How can a man whose sternum should be floating around somewhere near his armpits in a thousand pieces not only slam Quake twice, but do it effortlessly? One slam, preferably the one on the outside, would have made the point well enough. Did Hogan need to throw Andre around like a rag doll at Mania III? He most certainly did not. One slam for the ages was all it took to slay the Giant. Same with Bundy at Mania 2. On commentary, I think this was the match Vince used to tell Piper to change his style, and to be honest, I can't blame him, even if I don't like how Piper changed. Rod ought to have known better than to dismiss the top heel in the company as a warthog, and you can hear Vince nearly shouting him down in an effort to make the fans forget about what he said. Rod then went back to the warthog thing several times almost in defiance, which you'd expect from 1984 heel wrestler Piper, not 1990 babyface announcer Piper. He then calls Bossman "The Big Bosomed Man" for no reason whatsoever in the postmatch, and from there proceeds to piss all over Hogan's big win, saying that he was celebrating for nothing. Did he not know that this match wasn't meant to be the blowoff, that there would be more arena matches coming that would settle the issue? Was he trying to restart something with Hogan? Was he trying to push Vince's buttons, see how much he would stand for right off the bat? Not that he didn't provide some good talking points too, but unlike in the other matches, where his asides were only a small portion of what he brought to the table, he really went off on his own here, and not in a good way. The promos before the match were becoming par for the WWF course, so it's hard to find fault with them. The days of wrestlers talking like adults in WWF-land were over for good at least until Flair came along, with a rare exception here and there like Dusty's promo in the wake of Sapphire's turn. This was probably the best match you could expect out of these two on a pay-per-view, since the Survivor Series and the Royal Rumble really weren't set up to explore this feud further one-on-one, but it doesn't crack my top three for the year. My number three at this point is still Garvin/Valentine from the Royal Rumble, and that's something that shocks even me, considering what's come after it. A clean finish here would have definitely vaulted it over that match, which meant nothing in the grand scheme no matter how well it was worked. Alas, what we got wasn't.
  12. garretta
    This was going so well until the end. Austin was finally getting his the way he should have long ago, with Chris using his own football gear against him as well as the kendo stick he (Chris) had brought. Even Percy's interference couldn't stop him. And then, Austin got in a low blow and it was Schmucks on Parade Part 37, as Chris was once again beaten into oblivion, the only difference being that Percy was Austin's helper instead of Jeannie. The video cut out before we saw whether someone came down to help Chris or not. Odds are that if someone did, it was CVE. You know, I'm glad some of you can get past the booking and appreciate this match solely for the quality of the performances, but I can't. Austin can look as good as he wants to slamming into steel posts helmet-first and missing splashes right on his pads; he's still making his so-called teacher into a joke. Adams has one win in this whole feud, and that was kind of a fluke in the barbed wire match all the way back in May. Since then, not only has he dropped decisions, he's been beaten within an inch of his life by a rookie, a fat slob of a manager, and his ex-wife, with his only help coming from his current wife and the young pup of the Von Erich litter, who has no business in the ring. If this was Vince, we'd be hooting and hollering about how stupid this whole feud was, even if the in-ring work wasn't bad. In fact, we don't even have to imagine anything; two of the greatest workers in history, Dusty Rhodes and Randy Savage, just finished a similar feud for Vince, and most of the comments about it say that it went on too long and damaged both men's careers. Well, what do you think this feud's doing to Adams' career? Jeannie and Toni can work about as well as Sapphire and Liz, which is saying nothing at all, and at least Vince had the good sense to give Dusty, Sapphire, and Liz revenge around the horn through clean wins. (Yes, Savage won at SummerSlam, but that served as a transition to a whole other feud for Dusty and was kind of a throwaway match.) Let's not even talk about Sherri, who might have outworked everyone else in the feud, both male and female. In this case, Adams may have won the match (through a DQ in a no-DQ match, which only makes this whole mess even worse) but he still gets laid out in the end, and Austin and Jeannie get to crow endlessly for another week, this tine with Percy in tow. Blecch. I'll be glad when this feud's over. Craig brought the football analogies and then some, but this time they fit, even if they were a tad overdone. Pedicino was serviceable on color. I liked the mention of the "real" Steve Williams from Oklahoma when Craig briefly discussed Austin's football career at North Texas, as well as mentioning the judo careers of both Chris and his brother. JR would have been in his glory calling this one for sure.
  13. garretta
    Of course. I'm kind of ashamed of myself, as I just referenced the taping Gino sat out not too long ago. He actually returned at the next Challenge taping two days after SummerSlam in Wheeling, but those shows didn't air until mid-September. Thanks, Pete!
  14. garretta
    This match certainly wasn't aesthetically pleasing, but it did its job, which was to bury Rude as a top contender for the World title once and for all. He was made to look like a fool when he had the chance to cover after the Rude Awakening, plus at least two chances to get out over the top without opposition, and capitalized on exactly none of them. He was the one who looked like he'd never been in the cage before, not Warrior. The only time he seriously tried for the win was after Heenan slammed the cage door on Warrior's head. Clearly, Vince had no further plans for Rude to do anything meaningful. Speaking of Bobby, how on earth did the outside ref not try to stop him from slamming the door on Warrior? I know there weren't supposed to be any rules, but I thought that only applied to the competitors in the match itself. Of course, it all led to the standard Heenan cage match bumps, which he was taking for what turned out to be the last time on pay-per-view, so all was well that ended well. Warrior was about what you'd expect: nothing earth-shattering, but nothing offensive either. I loved the hip swivel just before he dropped to the floor; it was one final gesture of contempt toward the man he'd finally vanqiuished. Piper did an excellent job putting over the brutality of the cage and the need for each competitor to focus on escapes instead of delivering unnecessary punishment. He also had the brilliant idea for Rude to tie the Warrior's armbands to the cage, which Vince had no idea how to take. Maybe it wasn't that Piper cheered too much for the heels which led Vince to tell him to change his approach; maybe he was too busy actually talking about the matches for Vince's taste. The only small criticism I have is that he didn't at least acknowledge his own feud with Rude in passing. Vince himself wasn't as bad as he'd later become, but he was clearly more interested in gushing over the atmosphere he'd created than in discussing the match. He gave a bare minimum of actual match description and that was it. I wonder where Gino was, especially since the Spectrum was his home arena. Maybe he was running the show backstage. All in all, this match would have fit just as well on the October SNME as it did here. It was far from the epic main events we'd come to expect from the WWF, and while it wasn't a squash, no one ever really doubted the outcome. The sad thing for Warrior was, this would be his only successful pay-per-view title defense; the next time he put the belt up at a pay-per-view, he'd lose to Sarge at the '91 Royal Rumble.
  15. garretta
    This one was kind of distracting to me. Craig mentions issues between the two teams, but doesn't specify, while Percy blathers on and on about Dane actually being someone named Steve Casey while Craig vigorously denies it. What's the story here? The match itself is mostly Dundee making nitwits out of the RPM's, who only get a little token offense here and there. Bill even makes a chump out of their friend Rod Price, who does a run-in to cause a DQ, but ends up squashing one of the RPMs (I think it was Davis) once Bill moves out of the way. Dane/Casey didn't do anything offensive, but this was a one-man Dundee show. The exchange between Craig and Percy about Joe Pedicino being Ronnie P. Gossett's brother was interesting. I know it's not true, but I'm wondering why Jarrett had Percy taking shots at a fellow heel. Had Ronnie P. done something wrong, or were they just trying to build heat for a Pringle/Gossett feud somewhere down the line? The other interesting thing is the talk about the mixed tag cage match, with Percy being in the penalty box. I liked how Ak hired Percy's lawyers, and it's a wonder that Ak didn't inject himself into the Adams/Austin feud somehow, especially since Austin was ever so briefly a member of Devastation Inc. earlier in the year. Craig's learning how to work with Percy really well, and he's developing his own style to the point where I don't miss Marc Lowrance as much as I did before. Too bad we only have another week of USWA Texas before the plug gets pulled by KTVT.
  16. garretta
    This is almost a direct replay of the Hart Foundation/British Bulldogs title change in January of '87, with the major difference being that there's no Danny Davis-type angle with the referee. Jannetty is just as gallant as Davey Boy Smith was, but ultimately just as unsuccessful. The title switch was the first time the Harts looked like a championship-caliber team, and so it is here with Power and Glory. I disagree with Loss that Jannetty makes this watchable; he's the one who's the passenger in the match, as Herc and Romeo run through their repertoire to devastating effect. I would definitely like to have seen a major series between the Harts and P 'n' G sometime later in the fall. We also have objective Piper on commentary again, and you can tell that he's a huge P 'n' G fan and that the Rockers are too pretty for him to take seriously, though he does give Jannetty credit for guts. If he'd stayed this way, he'd have been a huge breath of fresh air, as Jesse's schtick was wearing thin by now, even as well as he still delivered it. He could have toned down the crankiness just a haif a hair and he would have been fine. But as I said earlier, either Vince gave him a talking-to after this card or he decided himself that he was too negative to fit in; maybe he felt that he was copying Jesse too much. At any rate, we soon started hearing gung-ho babyface Piper, who was twice as obnoxious but not half as good. There's a debate out there over whether it was supposed to be Rhythm and Blues or Power and Glory who were supposed to beat the Harts for the belts before the Nasties came in. After seeing this match, I know which team I would have wanted it to be, and it isn't the jokers with the guitars. (I know that Honky's the main one who says that R 'n' B were supposed to take the titles, but I could swear that I saw at least one other source that said the same thing, though I can't think of that source at the moment. Maybe someone else can.)
  17. garretta
    Outside of some good stuff from Gorgeous Gary, this was all Lawler and Jarrett. It's the best match I've seen Lawler have in Dallas, and only the second or third time I've seen him there where he appears to give two shakes about what he's doing. This match could have come from the MSC on any given Monday night, and that's a compliment in this case. I would have loved to have actually seen a Unified World title program between Lawler and Young like the one that Craig teased; it would have been something else no matter which side of the territory it took place on. (I know he mentioned some matches between them, but I'm not sure when they could have happened, since Lawler's never been a face in Dallas before and has only recently turned in Memphis.) I liked how Craig and Joe tied Gorgeous Gary, an Arkansas native, in with the people who voted to move the University of Arkansas from the Southwestern Conference to the Southeastern Conference. You have to be a native of Texas and/or a fan of American college football to totally understand this, but Texas and Arkansas have never and will never get along, so Gorgeous Gary's despicable not only for aligning with Akbar, but also simply because he's a slimy razorback hog (the state mascot of Arkansas, and the official nickname of the University's athletic teams). The double chain's just the final touch we need to complete the beating of Devastation. The DQ against the faces is irrelevant, as we know who the winners really are: the ones who can stand upright. I didn't like that they went to break in the middle of the Akbar rant that most likely led to Lawler's suspension; it's an important part of the angle, almost as important as the piledriver which Lawler gave Tony Falk to inspire it. I hope they at least showed it in full when they came back from break. Craig and Joe both popped for Lawler pulling down the strap off of the hot tag. Two questions: 1) Had Lawler ever done it before in Dallas and 2) If he had, had the significance of the move been explained? The crowd was hot for the King tonight no matter what, so it really didn't matter in this match, but it might going forward. Finally, an insert detailing previous action in a feud while ring introductions are being shown is something I've never seen before and don't want to see again. Show all relevant previous footage that you choose to show in a full-screen format with audio if possible so the fans can fully understand what they need to in order to bring themselves up to speed.
  18. garretta
    Nice little match here. These two headlined Main Event quite often during Luger's first face run in the summer of '88, and their matches were about like this one: good enough to make the audience feel like they were seeing something out of the ordinary, but not good enough to take away from their house show programs. There was no finish here, as everyone knew there wouldn't be. What would have happened if TBS hadn't met the Black Scorpion's price to air that videotape, I wonder? Look, I know we get on JR's case all the time for bringing up other sports a little too often, but brief mentions of the Falcons' kickoff dinner and the start of Hawks' training camp while Arn had Luger in a chinlock certainly doesn't qualify as being distracted, especially when the Hawks are a Turner property and JR works (or is about to start working) for the Falcons. We talk about promotions being trapped inside the wrestling bubble; at times, that applies to some of us (the fans) as well. Can you imagine the phone bill someone could have run up if they'd called 1-900-909-9900 at 7:30 that night (the start of the Omni card) and stayed on until it was over? By my rough calculations based on a three-hour card, that's close to two hundred bucks. In most areas of the country, it would cost just as much to fly to Atlanta and buy tickets to see the card live. Talk about a racket! For the general information, here's that Omni card according to Graham Cawthon. Would this have been worth two hundred bucks to hear over your phone? Mike Rotundo pinned the Iron Sheik Brian Pillman pinned Buddy Landell Doom beat the Rock 'n' Roll Express to retain the World tag titles (Butch Reed pinned Ricky Morton) Stan Hansen pinned Norman JYD, Lex Luger and El Gigante beat the Horseman combination of Windham, Anderson, and Vicious (Luger pinned Arn) Sting pinned Ric Flair to retain the World title despite interference from Arn and Windham
  19. garretta
    Yeah, this one was pretty much by the numbers. I agree about the lack of heat, and you could tell that JR was calling this in the studio, as he had almost no energy. He didn't even try to put over the fact that a win by Rock 'n' Roll would make them the number one contenders for the U.S. belts, which he usually at least mentions briefly in a situation like this. (Actually, the MX had lost the U.S. titles to the Steiners at the Meadowlands two days before the match aired. A Rock 'n' Roll/Steiners match would have been nice for a novelty, but by this time, it would almost have to be a Steiners squash in order to accomplish much.) Interesting that the MX's mini-feud with Sid is still going on, even with Sid being positioned as Sting's next challenger. It's more like Eaton/Sid than anything else, and if that's how it was going to end up, I'm glad they dropped it, as Bobby would have been just another victim of Sid's quest for the big belt. I notice that JR was going to talk to Bobby specifically the following week, which means that Corny and Stan were likely being kept clear of the whole thing for whatever reason. I think this is the last Rock 'n' Roll/MX match on the set. If so, it was kind of a blah end to a historic feud in spite of the cool-looking finish. These two teams deserved a better ending.
  20. garretta
    I thought Pillman was great here with his dropkick variations, as well as Eaton with his backbreakers. This was the match we should have gotten after Capital Combat, minus the Sid run-in. Not that it was a better match than the ones we saw between these teams in February, but at least the feud wouldn't have been left hanging like it was. Corny doesn't even acknowledge the past history between the two teams in his pre-match promo, though Pillman and Zenk do. In an oddity, Ole's retconned the finish of the Capital Combat match to make it seem like Corny directly interfered and cost Pillman and Zenk the U.S. tag titles, which, as we know from earlier in the set, wasn't true at all. What does it say about Ole as a booker that Vince cares more about continuity than he does? Vince builds the entire Warrior/Rude rehash around Rude's tainted victory over Warrior at Mania V, which took place sixteen months ago, while Ole throws out what happened earlier this year completely. I'm beginning to wonder how he got his reputation as a good booker. I suspect that he may have given it to himself for the most part. I had no problem with Corny backing down from Pee Wee. First of all, they were trying to put Pee Wee over as being tougher on rule enforcement after Hansen nearly killed him, and second of all, name me a referee in the NWA/WCW that Corny hasn't backed down from. That's a signature MX spot by now, and it doesn't really harm anyone. I didn't hear Sid get a pop for brawling with Eaton. I would think that the MX would have been faces against Sid if Ole had chosen to continue with the angle, and I kind of wish he would have. As I said in an earlier thread, Arn or Barry would have made a great partner for Sid against either the MX or Pillman/Zenk. Arn would have been more likely, as Barry was due for a pay-per-view match with Sting at Halloween Havoc.
  21. garretta
    I don't think the audience quite knew what to make of this or why they should care. The Pearl wasn't exactly the most dominant wrestler in the world, as Cazana got far too much offense for The Pearl to be considered particularly dangerous. Ranger Ross has Muta's mannerisms down pat for sure, but if Ole really wanted people to believe that this was Muta, he should have booked the match a hell of a lot stronger than this. A shot of mist would have been nice too, although how Ross would have pulled that off while wearing a mask I'm not sure. The Rich/Landell match hyped for the following night on Main Event intrigues me more than this match did. I wonder how Landell looked about this time. He didn't do much of note from now until his SMW run in 1994-95.
  22. garretta
    It was interesting to see the Tastics not only work heel here, but mix in some doubleteams that their longtime rivals the Midnight Express made famous. We got to see the rocket launcher and flapjack, each executed about as well by Rogers and Fulton as they ever were by Condrey, Lane and Eaton. Corny would have been so proud! Boy, did Johnny Ace look different here from what I remembered earlier in the set when he was a Dynamic Dude. I still can't quite see the resemblance between him and Animal, though. Is it true that Johnny was a so-called "special favorite" of Baba's wife, if you know what I mean, which all but guaranteed him a job with All-Japan for life? This looked like a decent match that would have been at home in All-Japan's biggest buildings.
  23. garretta
    I believe so, Fly. I remember Vince at least acknowledging Fritz. I wouldn't doubt that it was cut out of the home video release, though. By then, the change to "Texas Tornado" exclusively was well underway.
  24. garretta
    Kerry used the discus punch as his main finisher in the WWF because he whirled like a tornado just before he threw it. Like a tornado, get it? Huh? Huh? What we saw here was nice, and Curt and Bobby were golden in their promo afterward. Even as much as he had to be hurting by now, Bobby still brought the goods just like always. Mean Gene does a perfect job selling shock over the extent of Curt and Bobby's anger, and Curt vows vengeance, which he would get before the year was out. Somehow, I doubt anyone missed Sapphire. I thought that Vince and Rod acknowledged Fritz and Doris watching back home in Dallas after the match, but it must have been prior to it instead. Still, it was a nice gesture that wouldn't be repeated, as from that point on every effort is made to completely erase from the fans' minds that there ever was a Kerry Von Erich. (It's already started, as Howard Finkel announces the new IC champion simply as "The Texas Tornado".)
  25. garretta
    Nice quip by Dundee about the rise of gas prices. If wrestling promotions had been smart, that's about all the farther into the Gulf War the business would have delved. Lawler explains a hospital elimination match in his part of the promo, and also rubs it in Eddie's face that Idol didn't turn on him and Dundee. Yet, Jerry. With you and the Universal Heartthrob, the operative word is always "yet". I liked Lawler challenging Eddie to a singing contest during intermission. Actually, that would be a nice cherry on top of the sundae for this feud, just one more area for the King to establish his dominance in. (To be fair, I've heard Lawler sing, and he won't make anyone forget the "other" King. I wonder if Eddie could even carry a tune.) You'd think that Jarrett could spring for a new music video to hype Idol. That same one was probably used for Idol's last big run in the territory with Paul Heyman and Tommy Rich three years before, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was in use before that too.
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