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First fall: ​This is one of the bloodiest matches so far on the set, and that's saying something. Frank insists that this is supposed to be a regular match even though there's no disqualification, but somebody forgot to tell these two. Buddy opens Matt up with the mic, Matt steals a chair from one of the guards and plasters Buddy with it despite Sandy's best efforts to stop him, and before long Frank's comparing the carnage to a 3D monster movie. Eventually, Buddy tries to go up top despite barely being able to move, but Matt catches him and slams him into the ring, drops a knee, then just pounds Buddy until he's ready to score the pin, which he does to go up one fall to none with about twelve minutes of disc time remaining. Frank was great explaining just how disruptive this feud's gotten; it's apparently to the point where none of the other wrestlers care which one of these guys gets rid of the other as long as one of them does so things can get back to normal. I've never heard of any feud being described in quite those terms. The amazing thing is, even though the fans are clearly behind Matt, the rest of the promotion's treating this as a heel-heel feud, similar in some ways to Buddy's upcoming feud with Dave Schultz. I liked Don's explanation of why this bout was being televised despite Buddy's objections. Apparently, both Tom Peterson and the Tonkin family really did ​request that Don put as many main event-level bouts on TV as possible. Don must have seen the sense in listening to them, because not only did he put the bouts on, but the boys worked them like arena matches instead of just cheap throwaways designed to build toward another non-televised match later down the road. This was a different type of lumberjack match with only four guys out there, but they did their job in the same way. I'll bet anything that we'll get some sort of involvement by one or more of them before the match is over. My money's on Miller, the lone heel, to be the instigator. I liked the symbolism of Buddy bringing the funeral lilies, and as usual Frank was right on top of things in mentioning them. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, Buddy got sidetracked arguing with Don about whether the match would be on TV, so he didn't explain them himself, which would have been something to hear. It's not often you hear about wrestlers being involved in local charities when they don't wrestle in the area anymore, but kudos to Piper for still being involved in Portland's Easter Seals fundraising while he's doing most of his wrestling in JCP and Georgia. Will Buddy not going back to the locker room between falls come back to haunt him? He could have at least wiped some of the blood off of his face. ​Second fall: ​Matt continues his onslaught until Buddy hits a low blow, then it's his turn on offense for a while. Apparently someone forgot to tell Frank that this was a no-DQ match, which is an inexcusable way to treat your play-by-play guy. At any rate, Matt eventually regains the advantage, but loses the fall when Buddy flips him onto his back almost in self-defense and holds on for a clean three-count. We're tied at a fall apiece with about six minutes of disc time remaining. The way the pin was scored, it's almost like Buddy and Matt forgot that the match was supposed to go three falls, then suddenly remembered and rushed to cram in the second fall before they fell any further behind. Frank's long association with Portland wrestling comes in handy, as he's able to tell the story of how Buddy and Matt didn't like each other even before Matt started wrestling, back when he was just hanging out at arenas watching Tony wrestle. Who knows whether it's true or not, but Frank's believable in telling the story, which is the most important thing. There's at least one tease of trouble with the guards, as Miller's a bit slow helping Buddy back into the ring at one point. There's no real scuffle like I thought there would be, though. Don probably didn't want anyone's attention diverted from the match going on in the ring, which has been wild enough so far. Buddy took the hint and went back to the dressing room this time, and we have about four minutes of wrestling time remaining, according to Frank's guess. I don't think these guys can fight to a clean decision of some sort in just four minutes, but stranger things have happened. Third fall: ​There isn't much time for action, but we do​ get a finish, as Buddy pulls a chain out of his tights and waffles Matt with it to score the winning fall. Matt somehow ends up with the chain after the match, and uses it as the centerpiece for a postmatch promo in which he challenges Buddy to a street fight chain match for the upcoming Tuesday night card. Don reluctantly signs the match, but says that he's sick and tired of both Matt and Buddy, and that this will be the last match the two of them will ever have. Matt's promo was necessary to set up the match for the following Tuesday, so I'll forgive him for not selling Buddy's chain shot for as long as he otherwise might have. I loved the part of the promo where Matt says that he'll beat on Buddy until the people tell him to take the pin. As I said above, Matt's clearly the face in the people's eyes, regardless of the story that Don may be trying to tell. Of course, the chain match wasn't the end between these two; they'd end up as face partners a couple of years later, and when Buddy turned heel again in the summer of 1984, Matt was the man he turned on.

Everything not to like about ECW in one great big package: Sabu and Taz taking insane bumps for no earthly reason, Joey hyperventilating on the mic (though not nearly to the extent he would later on) and a match with no real story except "Let's beat the hell out of each other with everything that's not nailed down and try to commit suicide in the process". Never mind just Sabu, how do both he and ​Taz manage to walk these days? Just in case you're wondering: Yes, I actually liked some ECW matches and feuds. When a backstory is provided and I can understand what the wrestlers are doing and why, the violence, extreme as it is, has a point and is understandable. The Tommy Dreamer-Raven feud is one example, the Terry Funk-Eddie Gilbert feud from earlier in this set is another. But too many times, guys just started beating each other to death because that's the way things were in ECW, with no real issue at stake and thus no reason to be so out of control. ​Those ​are the matches I despised, and that's when the things like the fans chanting "E-C-Dub!" and Joey nearly having a stroke onscreen became intolerable. I know Sabu and Taz had issues later, but here they're just two crazy bastards trying to kill each other because they're booked to do so, and that doesn't sit well with me at all. The highlight of this was Heyman on commentary. Much like Bill Watts, he knows better than anyone what he wants to push, in this case Sabu's insanity, and does it like no one else possibly can. It's a shame that he wasn't in the booth more often; he might have made Joey a lot more listenable as the years went by.

I wasn't too impessed with this. It was too short, for one thing. Less than eight minutes of wrestling time for a cage match with the title on the line? That's barely even trying. If you can't book at least a twenty-minute sregment for a match like this (including pre- and postmatch) then you shouldn't bother. Have this match at the MSC, make some money with it, and you can run the exact same sequence and show it all just like it actually happened here. Most MSC clips shown these days are actually longer than this and don't have to cram a postnatch brouhaha into the mix to boot. Also, the cameraman was out to lunch, dinner, and Sunday brunch. We completely missed the climactic moment, the reason for the televised match in the first place: Neighbors interfering and stomping Jeff with his boot, then placing Tommy on top. That makes Eddie's reasoning for holding up the belt, the fact that he saw the inteference live on TV (emphasis mine) complete rubbish. He didn't see it, because nobody ​saw it. It may have been booked that he would see it, but it never actually happened that way. To be fair, Eddie may not have known that at the time since he was running to ringside, but it must end up looking to at least some fans that Grandpa saw little Jeffy getting beat on TV and couldn't handle it, so he reversed the decision and screwed the rightful champion (Tommy) out of the belt. If they were smart, they'd run with that for a few weeks in Tommy's interviews, although to belabor the point too much may actually turn Tommy face, which is the last thing they want. Still, they need to show the footage at least once to establish a gripe for Tommy and prove that they're not trying to cover for Jeff by having a mistake, no matter how innocent it may have been, swept under the rug. Dave was very good here, although I think he should have at least briefly recapped Tommy's issues with the Jarrett family. I get the feeling that Tommy may have been too close to legitimately stepping on the family's toes, and Dave was uncomfortable with that, so he simply ignored it. This has been a weird angle all the way around; it could be getting huge heat by rocking the very foundations of Memphis wrestling, and Tommy appears to be the only one going for that, even though without a hook like this a Rich-Jeff feud over the territory's secondary belt simply isn't very inspiring at this point, especially not compared to the Lawler-WWF feud. Dave's undersold it, and Jeff's almost completely ​no-​sold it. Someone either needs to tell Jeff to get more fired up and defend the family honor or tell Tommy to cut out the jealousy stuff and come at Jeff wrestler to wrestler only. Alternatively, they could send Tommy after Lawler in place of another visit by Savage, which doesn't figure to do much for anyone if the last two visits are any indication. Dave's idea about all title matches being in a cage sounds fun, especially for a small territory like Memphis. But without the potential for outside interference, what would be left for managers and valets to do? Eddie as the guest referee for the rematch, and with a tire iron? Does anyone else have the feeling that the better man will walk out of that match the champion as long as that man is Jeff?

Thanks for the backstory, Magnum. It didn't make either the SMW set or this one, for whatever reason. I'm sure Tammy was dynamite in the vignettes that had to be part of it. Corny always tried to keep abreast of popular culture when he could, Pete. I haven't seen much of Anna Nicole Smith (though of course I've heard of her), but from what I ​have​ seen, Tammy was much better on camera; Anna Nicole always seemed kind of ditzy, and ditzy wasn't going to draw money, at least in the angle they were doing. It's not often that wrestling does real life better than real life does, but this may be one of those times.

I liked this. Hash finally showed the consistent ability to do more than kick, as he got the best of Muta during the matwork exchanges early, then withstood his attack before getting the winning pinfall with an exquisite leaping DDT. He had the best of this when Muta wasn't using weapons such as his mist or innocent ringboys, and he got a much-deservbed pop for his win. Muta's not what he used to be; he can still hit his main spots, or at least try for them, but he can't put together a full match like he once did. That's why he's relying on weapons (including his mist) nore than he used to when we in America knew him. Some may attribute this to simply being a heel, but Muta was just as much of a heel in WCW, and he didn't use weapons or attack innocent ring attendants. He's still a magnificent pure athlete, but that doesn't translate to the ring nearly as easily as it used to. I have a feeling that we're headed to another Hash-Tenryu showdown, this time for the IWGP title. Given how Hash looked in this match and how Tenryu looked in the last couple that we have pn this set, it looks like a real humdinger is brewing. If it happened, I hope it made the set!

I didn't like this as much as most of you did. I never really felt like Hase had a chance; this could have had ten minutes cut off and still achieved the same purpose, which was Tenryu going through another New Japan star with relative ease. He didn't even have to do much on offense, as he got the job done almost exclusively with chops, enzugiris, and powerbombs before locking on his new submission finisher, which looked great. Hase's crowning moment came early, when he got Tenryu up for a giant swing and was able to hold him up for at least thirteen revolutions by my count. Considering what a moose Tenryu is, that took some real doing. Unfortunately for him, it never really got that good again, despite the odd flash of offense here and there. I agree with most of you that his selling was phenomenal, but I would have liked it better if it had led to some kind of comeback, even if the ultimate result had still been the same. Right now, there doesn't seem to be anyone on the NJPW roster who can stop Tenryu; he's scored two big victories in a row. I can't wait to see if that situation changes in the last three months of 1993.

This might have been Vince's best promo yet. It's all about guarantees, which is where the mufflers and razors come in. I'll explain in a second, but first a question: Why do we get on guys for being repetitive during promos, then also get after them when they try and expand their promos outside the so-called wrestling bubble? Vince was referring to two fairly popular advertising campaigns that were active in 1993: Midas mufflers (which guaranteed their products for as long as you owned your own car) and Remington Micro Screen Razors (shave as close as a blade or your money back). Anyone who watched TV outside of the ninety minutes every Saturday that the USWA was on Channel 5 had most likely seen both of them and knew what Vince was trying to say, so let's stop making out like this was Hulk Hogan threatening to make The Ultimate Warrior drink sweat out of the devil's armpit. Not every Memphis promo has to begin with "Let me tell you something, Dave Brown" and end with "I'm gonna kick your butt at the Mid-South Coliseum this Monday night". I admire Vince's creativity here, and every Memphian who couldn't figure out what he was talking about legitimately deserved to be called stupid. I actually thought Vince's expression at the end was a bit too maniacal for its own good. He looked like Mr. McMahon there, and he's been so good in this feud because he hasn't​ looked or acted like Mr. McMahon, but rather a cold, calculating, Machiavellian evil genius, which has been such a wonderful complement to Lawler's down-to-earth hometown hero. It was nice to see Lawler bring things back to the match. I loved his line about Randy using a razor to shave his hair off so he won't have it burned off by Lawler's fire, and I had to laugh when he said that listening to Randy's promo was like sitting through Gone with the Wind​. The fireball montage was a nice way to wrap things up. I wish Vince would have let Lawler throw fire just once in the WWF- SummerSlam would have been a nice time for it, actually- but I guess he didn't want the little kids to be too scared. (I'm sure the King had plenty of young fans in Memphis, but they were more used to him throwing fire than the WWF fans would have been. I don't think anyone ​had ever thrown fire in the WWF, certainly not since Vince took over from his father.) Line of the Segment goes to Dave following Vince's promo. It's nothing especially clever, just a reminder that Vince's guarantees have to be redeemed by Savage in the ring. After all these years, he still excels at being the voice of reason who makes the craziness of Memphis wrestling believable.

Who was supposed to be the face here? Sully talked like he has a lot in common with the Philly fans, but they were clearly chanting for Abby in the brief clip we saw. It's best not to try to make too much sense out of Sully's ramblings; even when he's relatively calm like he is here, he's still nutty as a jar of Planters. My favorite line was him threatening to send Abby home to his (Sully's) parents so they could lock him in the basement of their home. Nancy looked really good here, but I'm not sure that the established Woman character really fits with Sully. He doesn't need a seductress; he needs a keeper! For those who don't know: Dr. J is Julius Erving, a longtime basketball superstar who played for the Philadelphia 76ers. Mike Schmidt is a Hall of Fame third baseman for baseball's Philadelphia Phillies. The fans of Philadelphia booed him often early in his career when he couldn't hit the ball consistently. Mario Lemieux is a Hall of Fame center for hockey's Pittsburgh Penguins. At the time of this promo, he had just come off of a season which he had to miss part of due to Hodgkin's lymphoma. Some idiot Philadelphia Flyer fans accused him of faking his illness, especially after he scored a goal in his first game back against the Flyers just hours after receiving his final chemotherapy treatment.

Look, we all know that Shockmaster was reduced to a joke by now, but did Tony have to make it worse by his attitude? It's almost like they were trying to bury poor Fred for good, and I'd have thought that Dusty wouldn't do that to his family. Something tells me that Ottman's had enough of being called a clumsy ox, the way he responded to Tony's question about being uncoordinated. He almost sounded like a heel when he talked about how in charge he was once he got in the ring, but if the fans had seen WarGames, they knew he was right. It's not his fault that the heels practically no-sold the fact that they'd lost. God bless Ottman, he no-sells the kids calling him Uncle Fred on camera. Did the kids know that they weren't supposed to call him that while the cameras were rolling? Then again, "Uncle Shockmaster" would have sounded completely ridiculous. Maybe they could have compromised on "Uncle Shocky". This was a hell of a lot more embarrassing than the first installment of the Amateur Challenge. If this is all Dusty could think to do with his own brother-in-law, maybe he (Ottman) should have stayed with Vince.

First of all, how did Tammy and Brian end up with "custody" of Ron? Was it an arrangement made with Tony? Did they kidnap him? Was it ever explained on TV? Tammy outtalks Sherri here by a comfortable margin. She's not the slightly nervous little girl she was even a few weeks ago; she's comfortable on the stick and knows how to project anger instead of just trying to sound detached or coquettish. She's almost unintentionally comical when she talks about how she wishes Tracy would be decapitated and his head smashed flat by a truck, but that's a necessary step in finding her own promo voice. She handled Ron with just the right amount of fake concern; I loved the eyeroll when he asked how Tony was. Speaking of whom, I'm sure he'll have something to say on this situation before too long. As for Sherri, she's in there pitching, but her fastball's losing steam. She really hasn't been the same since Savage gave up the crown after Mania VII. I wish she could have stayed Sensational Queen and gone looking for a King to share her palace with instead of just showing up with Teddy. Dutch barely being able to function for fear of being impeached like Corny was a hoot. This is the perfect type of wrestling comedy: good for a laugh, but not insulting to the audience's intelligence. It's hard to believe that the Dutchman will be out of SMW in about six months.

The Browns wouldn't be moving for three years yet, Soup. As for Pete's question of whether Lawler would have considered the Titans a Memphis team or not, I seem to remember reading that Lawler wanted to skip the WWE Hall of Fame ceremony a couple of years ago so he could go to Cleveland and watch the Indians' home opener, so I'm guessing his allegiance is still with the Cleveland teams, although I've never heard anything specific about him and the new (post-1999) Browns. No one ever has or ever will do those small-town spot show promos like Lawler. He has a way of making every last one of them seem like the big show at the MSC. I wonder how the Memphis State football fans felt about an alumnus going to such lengths to put Ole Miss fans over, though. The Tatanka pin was a bit weak, but they probably didn't want to beat him too decisively in case they needed to bring him back at some point, like they've already had to do with Curt and Savage. The important thing was that the King got his belt back. I loved his giving an "assist" to Tommy, who should probably have been his next challenger instead of a recycled Savage.

It's nice to see these two go after each other in a completely serious manner. How could Vince see promos like this and promote Lawler as the jioke he became? I'm no fan of heel Lawler when you come down to it, but he's really brought the goods in this feud when he's been allowed to, I agree about Bret being one of the best interviews in wrestling at this point. He had​ to be in order to keep pace with Lawler. Fowler may or may not be bad on his own, but he's a piss-poor replacement for Okerlund, who knows how to do segments such as this better than anyone else in the business. The card being hyped here had just six matches on it, which is a ripoff given that it was promoted as a Supercard. One of the matches was Bob Backlund needing eight minutes to beat Duane Gill, who if I'm not mistaken was still a jobber like he had been five and six years before when I was following the WWF in real time. As far as this match went, Bret won by DQ when one of the masked Knights piledrove Owen on the floor, then attacked and double-teamed Bret along with Lawler.

The first part of the title should read "Steiner Brothers Promo". Scott makes no sense at all, which isn't unusual for him, unfortunately. And what the hell's a "goozle"? I think we've sold Rick short as a promo all these years. Moron gimmick aside, he's more articulate and fiery than Scott just about every time. I loved this exchange between Corny and Les: Les: Jim, there's so much going on in your life right now that your secretary needs to be an octopus. Corny: Yeah, but your girlfriend was too stupid to take the job I wanted to give her! Les had to turn away from the camera so we wouldn't see him crack up. Great stuff! Alternate Line of the Segment goes to Dr. Tom: "We are the picture of the perfect crime in Smoky Mountain Wrestling!" Maybe he didn't make the most sense of anybody who's ever lived, but at least he didn't mention goozles. It would have been interesting if Vince had decided to sign a Bodies-Quebecers match just so we could see a promo battle between Corny and Levy. (If I recall hearing Corny right, Vince had the Bodies tapped as the team to beat the Steiners. but he wanted Corny to all but close down SMW and become WWF-exclusive, which was understandable under the circumstances. Corny (who wanted as little to do with the WWF and the Northeast as he could get away with even then) refused, and Vince turned to the Quebecers instead and never really pushed the Bodies after that. I'm guessing that Les made a mistake and tried to wrap up the interview too soon, which is why Corny had to yell at him like he did. The Harrises don't look nearly as menacing without their full beards. I hope the Steiners treated Arnold a hell of a lot better than the Bulldogs, Dynamite in particular, treated Matilda. I wasn't a big fan of Jimmy threatening to kill him, even if he was talking through his hat.

Talk about it here.

When a man hasn't had a chance to cut a meaningful promo in months, it makes sense that he'll try to make up for it all in one fell swoop. Reading between the lines, it doesn't look like Randy's getting the belt here; while he makes it clear that while he'd love to beat Lawler and take the belt for the sake of doing it, he really doesn't care about it enough to even give it its proper name. I'm surprised that someone didn't make him redo the promo altogether after he referred to it as the UWF title. This may not have sounded like aimless rambling quite so much if Randy had gone into the history between him and Lawler a bit more. Even if he'd just talked about having to sit next to Lawler on Superstars ​every week and listen to him put down the stars of the WWF, not to mention the fans, this would have sounded a lot better than it did. I didn't mind Randy saying that he's better than Tatanka, mostly because it's true by any standard you'd care to name. Besides, this isn't going to be aired in the WWF proper, so no one outside of Memphis will ever know about it. We tend to forget that at times in this feud.

They're bound and determined to bury Luger six feet deep, to coin a phrase. When even the wishes of Jack Tunney can be ignored, you know Luger's a midcarder for life. He probably should have headed back to Atlanta once the WBF folded. When was the last time we saw Taker on the Yearbooks? It has to be at least six months, and what a way to make a return. Unfortunately, he really doesn't feel like a credible challenger for Yoko yet, and though the fans certainly popped for him, do they really ​want him as champ instead of Luger or Bret? The more I hear Taker talk, the less convinced I am that he ever needed Percy. He doesn't cut promos or give long speeches, but he says what he needs to say as effectively as any wrestler out there. Percy's falsetto was tough enough to deal with on an occasional basis in Texas, but here in the WWF when that's the only voice he ever uses, it's intolerable. I'd rather have seen Brother Love stay with Taker, even if it meant doing the damn near impossible and turning him (Brother Love) babyface. I love Corny to death, but he doesn't fit with Yoko nearly as well as I thought. I know Fuji was winding down, but there had to be another solution somewhere. Corny's just too identified with Smoky Mountain right now for me to think of him as someone who'd be a manager for Yoko. I can't really explain it any better, but I'd like him more in this role if he wasn't wearing a goofy commissioner's cap and getting his butt kicked by ninety-eight and a half year old Bob Armstrong on the other channel. He got off a nice line about Boni Blackstone being in love with Fuji, though. What the hell was Lawler going on about Boni and haunted houses for? He sounds like just as much of an imbecile doing that as he did shouting "Puppies!" every time a woman under the age of seventy came on screen five years later. Line of the Segment goes to Savage, after the lights go out but before Taker appears: "Where's my wallet?" This was back when the lights-out entrance was new and hadn't really acquired its aura yet, I guess.

Wouldn't it have been something if Corny had actually run with Brian being the Black Ninja? Imagine Corny getting the last word in by convincing Brian to not only turn on Bullet Bob, but wrestle him in a match (albeit under a hood) and drive him out of SMW. Imagine the shock of the fans as Brian was revealed as the man who'd just ended his dad's career. Then imagine the follow-up matches between Brian on one side and Scott or Steve on the other. Instead, we get just two guys in generic costumes and a finish with so much bullshit that the even the village idiot knows it's not going to stand up for long. The worst part was, most of the people probably assumed that it was going to be Yoko, since Corny was already associated with him and wouldn't have to do anything special to bring him in. They could have even put the WWF title on the line to make it more interesting. Anything would have been better than what we got, including Corny getting in the ring himself. Corny trying to save the whole thing the way he did shows that he knew he screwed up. It was actually a pretty clever way to couch the disaster, and I'm fairly sure that his intended audience bought it back then, even if we don't today.

I'm glad to see that there actually was a match between Rock 'n' Roll and the Armstrongs, even if it didn't make the set. The back and forth between Ricky and Dutch makes this segment. It never gets heated enough that they go into confrontation mode, but Ricky gets to tell Dutch how full of it he is, while Dutch not-so-subtly warns Ricky and Robert to watch out for Steve and Scott, who after all are looking to take the belts from them. I agree with Pete about Robert being smart enough to actually watch the tape of the previous week's ending. More faces ​should ​do that, of course, but if they did how would a decent angle ever get started?

Rude's very calm and respectful here while still showing his confidence that he can beat Flair again. This isn't the type of promo that I expected from Rude, or one that he does often, but he was very good. Rude also puts the NWA World title over as the only true World title. I'm pretty sure that they were already starting to subtly build the issue with Vader for whoever won at Havoc, because I've never heard of a promotion depicting its own World title as second class for very long unless they think money's to be made by doing so,

This is the best Flair promo I've seen in ages. Very little bullshit, acceptable volume, and a focus on getting back what he believes is rightfully his and always will be. He probably hasn't been this good on the stick since back before he went to Vince. I get the feeling that they truly wanted to make Flair and Vader champions of equal standing going into Starrcade, but that's tough to do when you're no longer a part of the organization which sanctions one of the championships. Besides, Flair's always been mostly known as the NWA ​World champion, not the WCW/Crockett and Turner company champion. It makes sense that he sees that belt as more prestigious, even if he hasn't truly been the NWA's standard bearer in close to seven years.

Am I the only person on the planet who was actually not put off by these? I thought the first one was the best of the bunch, because I hate ​the phrase "Let me tell you something". What do you think you're out there to do, dumbass? Give a weather report? Read stock market quotes? It's a tic that guys use when they're trying not to go up on their lines, same as the overuse of "punk", "brother", "daddy", and every other nonsense nickname that wrestlers give each other. The other two at least showed some energy, which the "professional" workers don't always manage in this day and age. I don't think either one of them had any desire to wrestle or do anything more than what we saw, but at least they look like they had fun. Are we bound to see some bad clips while this contest is running? Of course. But let's not condemn them all just because WCW dared to commit the unpardonable sin of giving their loyal fans a chance to show off and get on TV.

I thought that this was repetitive on both guys' parts. Tenryu was all chops and powerbombs, and Chono kept trying to apply the STF long after it was clear that Tenryu had the move well-scouted. Not only that, but Chono wrestled a dumb match from a kayfabe perspective. He caught Tenryu in the ribs with a chair towards the end, which means he should have worked the ribs until Tenryu could neither move nor breathe. Instead, he kept trying and failing to lock on the STF as if that was the only hold he knew. It was certainly one of the few he demonstrated on this night; ninety percent of his offense was boots to the head, one of which appeared to bust Tenryu's eyebrow area open hardway. I've seen much better performances from each of these two, and hope to do so again in the future. Maybe this interpromotional feud has run its course, much like the WWF-USWA feud is starting to in Memphis.

The clips are actually from the Headhunters-Crash/Perez match at UltraClash. I liked the promo a lot, especially the line about Rocco and Johnny being among the first generation of American children that are more afraid of living than dying. No, this isn't a "good" promo, and why should it be? These guys aren't supposed to be used to talking; they're street fighters. Street fighters talk like street people, or at least they should. We tend to compare every promo to the best from guys like Flair, Dusty, Lawler, and others, and complain when they don't measure up, and that's not fair. I'll bet there were plenty of ECW fans in the Arena that night to watch Johnny and Rocco beat the crap out of the Headhunters, and that's the bottom line, as a wise beer-swilling redneck once put it. After all the hype, the Headhunters never showed up for the match, which took place on night two if Graham's site is correct. I don't know about the rest, but I'd definitely pay big money to see Jimmy Snuka and Terry Funk in a cage, even at this stage of their respective careers.

Call me cynical, but I doubt there was ever supposed to be a promo from Vince in the first place, at least not this week. Lawler does a fine job talking up his recapturing of the Unified title, but I'm with Soup. We all know that this angle was aborted when Lawler got into his legal trouble a month or so down the road, but what was the endgame supposed to be on the Memphis side anyway? I'm assuming that Bret was going to face Lawler at Mania X to close it out in the WWF, but was Vince just going to keep sending random wrestlers to Memphis until the angle didn't draw anymore? I highly doubt that we'd have seen Vince wrestle, or even do active managing, so what else was left? My personal blowoff would have been Lawler-Yoko, with Lawler winning the WWF World title in front of a sellout MSC crowd sometime early in '94. They could acknowledge the change or not in the WWF as they chose, but Lawler would have held the title for a couple of weeks and defended it around the Memphis loop, then lost it back to Yoko so Vince could hype whatever the title match would have been for Mania X. The problem with fantasy booking this is that so many different things happened with Lawler nowhere near the mix. Bret-Owen was the best match on the Mania card, so what happens to that if Bret wrestles Lawler? Do we get the two title matches? Do they have Luger win the Rumble outright and take his once-and-for-all, this-is-it-and-we're-not-kidding-this-time, shot at Yoko? It would have been such a different card, and that's not even taking into account a quickie Lawler title reign, even if it was only recognized in the USWA.

It seems to me that from a logic standpoint, it might have been better to turn Rock 'n' Roll based on what we saw here, but I'm honestly not sure if the fans would have stood for that. Turning Scott and Steve would have also turned up the whole Bullet Bob-Corny situation a few notches, since the boys would have almost surely gotten physical with their dad at some point. As good as that could have been, though, I think what we actually got (the Gangstas coming to SMW, which forces Corny to align with Rock 'n' Roll to drive them out, since the Bodies are gone) was better. Dutch calling Ricky an egg-sucking dog was a bit of a surprise, since he's been much more neutral since the spring. Then again, he was probably sucking up to Corny, who was still commissioner when the match was taped. This may be the first time we've heard Les Thatcher doing play-by-play on a match which aired as part of the regular SMW TV show. Hopefully it's not the last!