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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Sort of a divided promo here. There's nothing new we haven't heard them say about the Harts, and it's tough to really get into the LOD stuff, knowing that we'll never see a two-on-two tag match between the teams. Ax was quite an effective spokesman for Demolition; it's a shame that he'll be leaving and Fuji will be returning by the end of the year (Fuji and the Demos reunited at the 11/19 TV taping in Rochester, New York, with Fuji's return bout airing December 8). Crush is a little better on interviews than he has been, which is a good thing if Fuji's going to be returning. I don't know if I like Vince totally crapping on the "Freebird rules". He should at least grudgingly acknowledge that it's an ingenious piece of strategy that the Harts will have to overcome at SummerSlam instead of dismissing the Demos as cowards out of hand. Then again, Vince stopped being anything but an obnoxious babyface shill years before this.
  2. garretta
    Slaughter turned into a total cartoon sooner than I thought. I wasn't expecting rational political discourse, but I thought he was more subtle until he embraced Iraq. I was expecting something more along the lines of "I love America, but I don't like that she's in bed with a pinko like Volkoff". Silly, silly me. The ceremony was excellent, and Volkoff seemed genuinely touched. I don't know what to make of Jesse here. I have to believe that as a proud vet, he wouldn't have supported Sarge as a turncoat in the middle of an actual conflict, but he's also all about money and never took wrestling all that seriously, so he might have just gone with it, figuring that "The Body" would always support heels, even turncoat Marines. It's probably best for his life after wrestling that we never found out for sure.
  3. garretta
    I thought this match was perfect for what it was supposed to be, which was WCW's answer to 1/23/84. Sure, Flair got more offense against Sting than Sheik did against Hogan, but the idea was for Sting to dominate the match and go over clean, not get a lucky pin after a thirty-minute back-and-forth five star classic. This was supposed to be a foregone conclusion, and it was only because Flair was Flair that he wasn't squashed like a bug, never to return to World title contention. In fact, if you look at it that way, the match was too long, not too short. Kevin mentioned that Sting should have made Flair submit in the scorpion, and I'd agree.......if it wasn't Flair. He deserved to keep at least some of his dignity on what was supposed to be the way out (as a World champion) for him, and submitting to Sting would have made him impossible to book as a contender for any sort of title going forward. They probably still saw money in a U.S. title series between Luger and Flair, so they had to keep Flair as at least somewhat of a threat to beat Luger and possibly win his way back into World title contention. The lack of Luger in the postmatch baffled me too. I think Loss's theory may be correct; the Steiners were exclusively a tag team, and neither JYD nor Orndorff was popular enough in WCW to rival Sting, plus they were a lot older. Some people probably still wanted Sting/Luger, which wasn't in the cards in any way, shape, or form, so it was best to keep Lex away from Sting in public. I thought the postmatch speech was very gracious. Plus, what did Sting still have to fear from Flair? There were no doubt a few house show rematches in the works, but Sid was his next big threat. In the eyes of the pay-per-view audience, the feud was over, and Sting had won like he should have back in February at WrestleWar. He could afford to be as gracious as he was to a man he'd never face again in front of a worldwide audience, or so he thought. Was this a classic match? Probably not, but it did its job. Not every wrestling match is supposed to be a classic or aesthetically pleasing to the discriminating viewer. WCW had to get the belt to Sting quickly and decisively, and style points didn't count. They'd missed five months with him on top and couldn't afford to waste any more time or leave any doubt as to who The Man was going forward. Of course, they ended up cutting that "Man" off at the knees (no pun intended) but that's a rant or several for future days. Congratulations to the Stinger! OOOOWWWWWWWWW!
  4. garretta
    Great tag team bout that definitely furthers the Misawa/Jumbo rivalry. The youngsters had control for most of this, with Jumbo and Yatsu both playing veteran-in-peril very well. Eventually, however, experience told the tale as Yatsu drew Misawa's attention outside long enough to allow Jumbo to catch Kawada up top and back superplex him to get the win. I thought Yatsu looked better than most of you say he did. Yes, he was noticeably out of shape compared to the other three, but he was hardly a millstone around this match's neck. Besides, the attraction here was Misawa/Jumbo; while Yatsu's perfectly decent performance certainly helped the bout, only a truly awful performance from him would have seriously hurt it in the eyes of most of the fans in attendance. Can't wait to see the next chapter in this feud, whatever it may be.
  5. garretta
    Interesting little match here. My favorite part was the battle for the Boston crab on both men's parts. I also liked the fact that Kikuchi didn't seem to be intimidated by the veteran Fuchi, which is very important if their rivalry's going to continue. I see what some of you mean about the referee being overly aggressive. Did he usually kick guys' hands off the ropes at times when that would be possible? Every once in a while it's all right, particularly when the heel's been cheating like crazy during a match, but Fucihi wasn't really cheating here as much as he was just wrestling a good, tough bout.
  6. garretta
    Nintendo's complaint is exactly why Smothers and Armstrong were turned into the Young Pistols not too long after this; the Turner suits thought it was inappropriate that babyfaces should wear the Confederate flag, so they had Tracy and Steve turn their backs on their Southern roots, adopt a cowboy gimmick, and claim to be from Wyoming, if I recall correctly. Of course, this gimmick made them major heels to the Southern audience. As for this match, it was certainly different. The MX needed to have a different go-to opponent than Rock 'n' Roll, and after Ole's insistence on breaking up Pillman and Zenk (at least fuil-time), they were still looking for one. Well, they found it here. Smpthers and Armstrong match the MX move for move and strike for strike, even when the MX figure to have them down for the count. This is a refreshing "tweak" on the usual formula, as Childs called it. Not that I don't like seeing Ricky Morton getting the sludge pounded out of him with no letup five hundred times, but every once in a while it's nice to see a babyface that actually hits a move on the MX and stops their momentum enough so they have to fight to get control back. I especially liked the slingshot of Eaton off the apron and to the floor by Smothers, which is rather hardcore for a possible transition. Tracy took the same sort of beating Morton almost always does, but it didn't feel as one-sided because of moves like the one I described. I guess the Alabama Jam wasn't always a finisher back then, since the MX had so many great double-team finishers. That last inside cradle off of Lane's kick was a tad sloppy. Also, this match had the first "switcheroo" by a face tag team that I've ever seen fail, at least in the sense of helping the team to win the bout. We didn't get a whole lot of Corny's interference here, but we didn't need it. Instead, we got some excellent reaction shots of a man who knows that his meal ticket is fast circling the drain if he can't get them to hop to it. We also didn't get any references to Tracy Smothers' football background at Carson-Newman from JR. Whether that's a relief or a disappointment is up to each individual to decide. I think I'll put this slightly above the WrestleWar MX/Rock 'n' Roll match, since it was a similar quality match out of an unexpected opponent. That makes it number two for the year in WCW behind Flair/Luger at WrestleWar. It probably would make my top four for the year overall if I was ranking that far, but I'm not, and Hogan/Hansen (my number three) was an equally fine match in front of a much bigger and hotter crowd.
  7. garretta
    I was surprised at the dead crowd too. Then again, MX/Southern Boys was before this, Flair/Sting was after it, and Rock 'n' Roll was presented as a massive underdog, so there was no real reason to get excited. Plus, I think most of the crowd would rather have seen a Steiners/Doom rematch. Instead, Rick and Scott were in a nothing match against Hayes and Garvin, which perplexes me. This was mostly a Doom match, as both Ricky and Robert were beaten down much more thoroughly than a team that was expected to have a chance to win would be. JR was in his glory here; you can tell that he loves calling Doom matches because of their physicality, and he has a long history with Rock 'n' Roll (and Reed as well) going back to Mid-South. Bob mentions at one point that Robert goes 235, and if you take the ring announcement of Rock 'n' Roll's combined weight of 420 at face value, that means Morton goes at about 185. That may be accurate, but it's startling that WCW would allow such an inference to be made in that day and age, especially since it takes Rock 'n' Roll from sizable underdogs to squash fodder. Who in their right mind would believe that a challenging team in which one member gives up almost ninety pounds to both members of the championship team has a real shot to win the belts? JR is Ginoesque in his call for two referees in tag team matches here. He has a kayfabe point, of course, but I've seen matches where two refs are made to look just as idiotic as one when the situation calls for it. A rare bone to pick with Bob Caudle: He calls for Ricky to make the tag instead of going for a pin at least twice when he has a member of Doom hurt. Sorry, Bob, but almost any athlete would go for the win first if their opponent is compromised. By the time Ricky tags Robert, Simmons and/or Reed could be up and ready to knock Robert's head off. To be fair, Bob's not the only announcer to do this, and it's just as annoying coming from someone else. Not a bad match, really, but the Steiners should have been challenging instead.
  8. garretta
    First of all, where was Akbar? Was he legitimately sick, or was there a death in his family? You wouldn't think he would miss his stable's biggest match on this show, such as it was, for any other reasons. This match is what the mixed tag should have been: an extended squash for the faces where the heels get almost nothing. Of course, Austin is a much better worker than either Falcone or Torres. So is Jeannie, for that matter. I would have liked to have seen Torres get more of his comeuppance during the match instead of after, and him submitting to the figure four would have been a perfect ending. As it was, I think I heard Jarrett reference in a later promo that Torres had left the territory, so the job got done one way or the other. I agree with Pete about Travis's punches being among the best I've seen, particularly the one where he winds up practically from the mat. Of course, both he and Jeff were influenced by Lawler, who knows a thing or two about throwing good punches. Falcone took most of the beating in this match and did so very well. My earlier comments aside, It's tough to tell how good he really is from a match like this, where he's basically used as a punching bag. Same thing with Torres; this match was all about him being a chicken, and chickens don't often make solid workers. I saw the mixed tag match before this one, so I can't really say that Craig regressed, but he was back to his less-than-mediocre standard here after a very good performance during the mixed tag. When he's by himself, he overdoes his transitions and tries to make everything into soundbites so there's no dead air, and it gets old quickly. He needs a color man in order to be effective, and with Percy gone because of his angle with Kerry, they had no one to fill the role on this card:. Two words, Jerry: BILL MERCER! I think this is good enough to move into third on my USWA "ballot" for the year with August and a smudge of September to go, behind Kerry/Borne in the parking lot and the Adams/Austin barbed wire match.
  9. garretta
    The major problem with this bout was that the wrong man got the win. Rude should have beaten the count back in, with the Warrior abusing Heenan afterward as a consolation prize. That would have set up the cage match at SummerSlam (which was mentioned in passing by Vince at the end) much more logically. I have mixed feelings about the kickout on the Rude Awakening. Warrior had to kick out of it if Rude was going to use it at all, since they weren't putting Rude over on a clean pinfall, but did Rude have to use it in the first place? Hogan/Orndorff was just as effective a feud without Orndorff ever piledriving Hogan during one of their matches. If they had to show that Warrior could kick out of the Rude Awakening, it could have waited until SummerSlam. I don't know why they didn't show the training vingettes, or at least clips of them, instead of the green screen promos, which were about as inorganic and forced as they come, especially from Rude. As for Warrior, he makes everything that comes out of his mouth sound like mumbo-jumbo because of his delivery, which never changes even when his material does. I don't have a problem with the way Rude sold. Vignettes aside, it's not fair to ask a man to change the entire way he works just to fit one program. Besides, I've become less and less of a fan of "new" Rude as time has gone on. It's nice to see vestiges of good old sleazy, oily Rude still around. The leg-lifting spot from Marella was a direct result of the way Rude positioned himself during the sleeper, and I thought it was sort of inventive, though I did like Jesse's aghast "He's lifting his LEG?" All in all, this match should probably have happened at least a month ago, but better late than never. The reason to buy SummerSlam (and for the cage as well) is to see if Warrior can lay just as impressive a beating on Rude again, this time without Heenan being able to interfere. I'm not sure if that would be enough for me to order the pay-per-view on its own, but with Hogan/Earthquake as the other half of the main event and Harts/Demos underneath, I'd most likely still lay my money down.
  10. garretta
    This was a semi-squash; AJW obviously had plans of some sort for Toyota, so it makes no sense to have her destroyed, but Bull also has to be portrayed as a monster, so what we get is Toyota exhausting her arsenal, but just not having enough to put Bull away.. Credit to Toyota for taking some of the bumps she did, as they could have caused a serious concussion and/or major neck damage. I love Bull's blue hair; it's a nice way to tell the audience that this isn't your average wrestler for the schoolgirls to squeal over. I also found it telling that she wrestled in a T-shirt. Looks and sex appeal are definitely not what AJW is going for here. All in all, an interesting debut for Bull on the set. Like most of the fans back then, I'm wondering just who'll stop her. I guess we'll find out in the months ahead.
  11. garretta
    Thanks, Pete. I haven't seen a ton of Abby. Still, it's incredible to me that someone like Zeus, who never used a move in his life that didn't involve squeezing, managed to pull one off semi-respectably.
  12. garretta
    I might be almost alone, but this really didn't impress me a bunch. Yes, the men showed more energy, particularly Austin, but we still had Toni and Chris basically taken for chumps at the end, with Chris being tied in the ropes for most of the big finishing sequence. He's making Austin look like a world beater, but almost totally killing his own credibility in the process. At some point, he needs to dominate Austin for an entire match and leave him laying in order to restore the proper balance of things. Honestly, it may be too late for that even now. The same thing goes for Toni and Jeannie. Toni needs to get in more than a couple of free shots; she needs to slap Jeannie around for an extended amount of time, really make her sorry she and Austin ever messed with Toni and Chris. I won't go so far as to suggest blood, but two wild shots with Jeannie tied up in the ropes just aren't enough. I get that you don't want these two to have a singles match, which would be a total disaster, but at least let them work more than a few seconds apiece before we get endless chinlocks from the men. In all my years of watching wrestling, I've never known two such supposedly bitter rivals spend so much time fighting over a stupid goddamn reverse chinlock. You didn't teach Steve anything else at that broken-down school of yours, Chris? They can stop Tony Falk from reffing these bouts, too. Him grabbing the house mic to reassert his authority might have made sense in the first match, but this time it just felt like what it probably was: another spot to delay the Toni/Jeannie catfight as long as humanly possible. Let Bronko have a shot at it, or maybe bring in Jerry "Puppies!" Lawler as a guest referee. As for Percy and CVE, why not? Jarrett and Iceman, why not? Just make it an eight-person tag, tell Lawler to bring the belt and put it on the line for the winner of the fall to claim, and have Toni pin Jeannie for it. That way this trainwreck could be put out of its misery for good. Sorry, guys, but this entire promotion's lost me for the moment. So many decent ideas, such lousy execution of them. Bring on Global; it can't be much worse.
  13. garretta
    I actually think Zeus was the better of the two workers here on the basis of the monkey flip spot alone. I had no idea that he could even execute a monkey flip, no matter how bad it may have looked. This was never exactly going to be a classic no matter what, but you have to hand it to Tiny Lister. He accepts a wrestling gig in Puerto Rico, then either has to be told for the first time or reminded that his opponent not only doesn't bump, but can't leave his feet for any reason. The man knows only five moves to start with, and now has no way to look like anything but a total idiot. But does he turn around and go home? No! He goes out there and gives it his all, such as his "all" is, and even gets Abby to take a MONKEY FLIP! Brody couldn't do it, Colon (who owns the ever-lovin' promotion) couldn't do it, The Sheik couldn't do it, but a third-rate Hollywood actor/stuntman actually got Abdullah the Butcher to leave his feet. For that, he should be saluted as one of the top ten workers of the year, and I'm not entirely kidding. He also got Abby to sell his forearms a little. Granted, it was after he was hit by about five hundred of them, but when it comes to Abby, you take what you get and are damn glad to have it. Is it just me, or was the ref looking for an excuse to end this thing five or so minutes early? I mean, we all know nobody's getting pinned and they're going to fight back to the locker room anyway, so why prolong the inevitable? I have nothing much to say about Abby. He doesn't perform, just goes out and stands there until it's time to pull his fork out, stabs his opponent until he bleeds, throws a few chops, maybe drops an elbow if he's feeling spry, then takes it home. You know that's what you're going to get when he's on the card, so why knock him for it? You might as well knock the sun for rising in the morning. I'm glad I saw this one........once.
  14. garretta
    I'd comment on the match, but it wasn't really a match at all. The guys are supposed to hate each other as much as the women, right? Well, if that's true, the best way they have to show it is a reverse chinlock? I'm not a huge fan of mixed tags anyway, as they're really two totally separate matches in one, with one of the matches (usually the women's) guaranteed to stink because the participants have no idea how to work. Such was the case here, but the men didn't even try to save it a little bit, which was surprising and disappointing. Then came the postmatch. The idea of Austin leaping on Toni is awful enough, but as Pete said, in the end it was just another long beatdown of Chris and Toni in a feud that's had far too many of them, which (at least from a booking standpoint) is worse. So Jarrett not only serves up the same old dish, but puts it in a revolting package guaranteed to anger both his sponsors and most fans with a working brain and/or a functioning soul. The more I watch of USWA Texas, the more I'm convinced that at some point, Jarrett wrote the whole acquisition off as a bad job and proceeded to do his dead level best to kill the territory on purpose. Think about it: he does everything but bury the Von Erichs, pushes Memphis stars like his son Jeff and Bill Dundee that no one gives a hoot in hell about as his top babyfaces, features a World champion (Lawler) who barely breaks a sweat during most of his matches, and to top it all off, knowingly books not one, but two angles on the same show that not only involve violence against women, but violence against two women who are far from professional bumptakers and could thus get hurt much more seriously than the average female wrestler simply by accident. I'm not sure if it says more about the ladies' courage or their respective males' "show must go on" mentality that they not only took those bumps, but came back for more long before common sense (and kayfabe) dictated they should have. At any rate, if I'd been running KTVT, the USWA would have been off the air immediately after this aired, not two months later. It'll be interesting to see how the Adams/Austin angle is handled in the future now that Jarrett knows he's in big trouble from his Dallas flagship station. By the way, kudos to Craig, as he finally acted like a real announcer would in selling the shocking nature of the aftermath. Who knows, maybe he really was shocked that they would run another female violence angle after Tessa literally got her brains kicked in. Anyway, I hereby nominate "Austin has gone wild!" as the first official Craig Johnson patented call. Here's to many, many more!
  15. garretta
    The actual match was a spirited brawl. Each man threw some of the best punches I've seen in a while, particularly Dundee, who's got a well-deserved rep as one of the best punchers in wrestling history. We didn't need two big ref bumps followed by a screwjob finish, however. It didn't help that Tony Falk is the most annoyingly visible ref so far on the set, even more so than Earl Hebner. Maybe he thinks that if he's shown on camera enough, Jarrett will bring back the "Boy Tony" gimmick he had when he wrestled briefly in Memphis in the mid-eighties. Finally, we come to the Tessa stuff. The suggestions of her possible turn were understated and easy to miss if you weren't looking for them. I find it interesting that the original plan was for her to betray Dundee and go back to Tatum, mostly because that would have been preferable to what actually happened. Not only was Tatum kicking her in the head totally inappropriate, but they risked further injury for her by making her take such a brutal face-first bump. That would be a hard bump for a veteran wrestler to take, let alone an almost-untrained rookie valet. What's worse is, she didn't even come close to selling a concussion at any point afterward. If you're going to show a woman getting kicked in the head and falling face-first to the concrete, she better be in the hospital for at least a week and recovering for two more. Instead, she's rolling around on the ground with Kim a few days later in Memphis like nothing's wrong. If you're going to bring this feud to Memphis, bring the whole thing, including its injuries. The whole Tessa/Kim program should never have gotten off the ground. In fact, I'm not even sure Tessa should have come to Memphis under these circumstances, Dundee's girlfriend or not, especially when the girls' part of the feud is so physically weak. Finally, we again hear no sense of outrage from Craig. It's not like he's calling these matches from a studio in post production; he's right there at ringside, for God's sake. We not only don't get outrage, we don't even really get irritation. He barely even registers shock or concern for Tessa's well-being. He lowers his voice slightly for five or ten seconds, then it's on to the next item on the format sheet. He's clearly in far over his head as a wrestling announcer, and now more than ever after a performance like this, Jerry Jarrett should have pulled as many strings as possible to get Bill Mercer back, even for a month. I'll be interested to see the mixed tag from this card in the context of what's already happened concerning violence by men against women. After seeing this bout, I'm sure that an incident like this would have been enough by itself for KTVT to cancel wrestling, never mind what happened in that match.
  16. garretta
    I've said this in an earlier thread, but there was no real compelling reason for this feud, and although the so-called "shoot" aspects of this bout were well-performed, I didn't care any more about these two when it was over than I did when it started. Jerry Jarrett forgot one thing: When there's supposed to be a significant issue between two wrestlers, the fans want to know how it started and why. I still have no idea why Iceman "invaded" the USWA, and even more importantly, why he picked Jeff to go after. Jeff has no title, he's not a top contender for one, he's not even the most over babyface on either side of the promotion right now (that would be Lawler in Memphis and Chris Adams in Dallas). Ice hasn't been given enough mic time to explain himself, and Jeff hasn't been given enough time to defend himself, should he need to. If Jerry wanted to run Lawler/Snowman in Dallas, then bring down the videotape of the originals from Memphis to set it up and let them go at it. Don't draft two guys with no previous issue to copy it, then deprive them of the time they need to make sure that the fans give a care about it. Also, Tony Falk was way too involved here. Every time Jeff and Ice tied up, he was there to push his way in between and forcefully keep them back, to the point where the fans were paying as much attention to him as they were to the match. I was actively rooting for one of the two combatants to let him have it, and Ice did eventually, more than once. I get that Jerry probably didn't want Bronko Lubich to get hit and hurt, but surely there were more than two referees on the Dallas side. If not, fly Jerry Calhoun down from Memphis for the night. As I stated earlier, the brawling looked chaotic enough, but I wasn't invested enough in the issue for it to really get me where I lived. This might have been fresh to the Sportatorium audience, but not to those who just got through seeing the angle that inspired it. I wonder how- or if- Snowman ever got over in Dallas?
  17. garretta
    This was Tito's last really big match in the WWF, and he brought it all. He looked closer to his mid-eighties prime than he did at any other time after that, and he really had the crowd believing that he could beat Perfect right up until Curt's final small package reversal for the pin. A tremendous effort. I can see what people mean when they say Curt bumped too theatrically in the WWF. Tito hits hard, but not hard enough for Curt to go flying through the air every time he was touched. For Hogan or Warrior that kind of bump works, but not for Tito. SNME loved to put a camera on Heenan during his guys' big matches, and he always delivered big performances. I don't know whether he actually "managed" from outside the ring in bouts when the camera wasn't on him, but he sure did in this one. The hand signals, the reminders that Tito was the one who had to beat Curt, the anguished walking away when he sees that the IC title is about to go down the drain, and the relieved celebration afterward were all parts of the best performance of the match. It's a shame his neck got messed up so horribly, because we missed what would have undoubtedly been some stellar performances in the corners of Hennig, Flair and heel Luger during Bobby's final WWF days. If Earl's injury wasn't a shoot, it was way oversold. If they'd been promoting Tito/Perfect at SummerSlam and wanted to give Tito an excuse for one last rematch, fine. But to have him be screwed out of two visual pins and a visual submission while Earl flopped and rolled around like his leg had been chopped off? I don't blame Earl himself for this; he was obviously booked to be that distracting, and to what good end? I don't even think Tito had another title match of any sort in the WWF, let alone another crack at Curt. If they were going to run an injured ref angle that prominently, it should have been Kerry in the ring with Curt to set up SummerSlam. This falls just outside my top three WWF matches of the year. Hogan/Warrior's too iconic to bump, Hogan/Hansen was a tremendous brawl, and Garvin/Valentine was the bell-to-bell best match on a WWF pay-per-view to this point. Consider this one a sold fourth.
  18. garretta
    These two held nothing back. Kudos to JR and Bob for educating the fans on the past history between these two; that was becoming a lost art even in WCW by now. Harley looked really good for someone who'd just had his insides repaired not all that long ago. He was wearing a singlet to spare the world his scar, I'm sure. Tommy knew who he was in there with and gave a little extra as a result. I've never seen a piledriver sold in quite the way he did it here, bouncing all the way up to a standing position and then collapsing. To come up with something like that in what was basically a nothing match shows how dedicated he still was to his craft. I think the JR line was part save and part subtle dig at Vince and the WWF. I'm sure the "Sacramento Kings" part was deliberate; as Pete noted, the more apt choice had JR not wanted to get a dig in was Harley's hometown Royals, who I'm sure he's a fan of if he follows baseball. Correct me if I'm wrong; the next time we see Harley on WCW TV is at the Bash the following year when he shows up in Luger's corner out of nowhere and leads him to the World title.
  19. garretta
    I really don't get the Crush hate. He wasn't silky smooth, granted, but he was no worse than either Smash or Ax was in this style. We've seen both Barry Darsow and Bill Eadie work a hell of a lot better matches than this in other personas, but clubbering and power moves are all you need out of the Demos. Give Adams time to master the style and he'll be fine. The Rockers were at their best here. I don't exactly know why Vince went back to the Harts as champions and killed Bret's singles push to do it, but it wouldn't have been a bad idea to put the Rockers in their place at SummerSlam. Of course, it would have all gone for naught with Shawn getting hurt, and they'd have probably had to sub in the Harts anyway unless they wanted the LOD to get the belts early. Vince and Jesse's act was a bit tiresome by now, but here it served the purpose of getting over the advantages of the three-man Demolition team. Vince went a little far, sometimes even criticizing legal moves and tags from the Demos, but that was par for the course with him, as his slide downhill as an announcer had already started. I liked Jesse tacitly admitting that the Demos' win was illegal, but saying in so many words, "Live with it!" More heel announcers needed to do that, at least occasionally. From the Poor Stupid Babyfaces Dept: If you know your opponents are using "Freebird rules" to get a third man on their team, why don't you add your own third man to make things even instead of crying to the referees about how unfair your opponents are?
  20. garretta
    Good opener to the TV show here, and a fine showcase for Malenko, who used at least five hundred of his thousand holds. Rice tried to keep up, but like most mere mortals, he couldn't. Karch doesn't guzzle DDP at every turn here like he did in the other match, which makes the commentary more tolerable. I liked DDP throwing in references to his past history with Rice from the AWA. The bell ringing during the final pin count must have been a botch, as the ref declared Malenko the winner anyway. I've heard of time-shaving in bouts, but this one went barely six minutes. Since almost all TV bouts have a ten-minute time limit, that means the bell rang over four minutes early, which is inexcusable unless they were actually trying for five-minute time limit matches, which would be utterly pointless. For the record, the IWA promoted here isn't recognized by Wrestlingdata.com despite having a cable slot on SportsChannel America. Also, according to Wikipedia, the promotion was actually based in Girard, Ohio, a suburb of Youngstown. This makes me wonder why they decided to tape their TV in Orlando, of all places.
  21. garretta
    Interesting that Tommy Rogers is being pushed as a single here. Not that he didn't look good, but I would think that the Fantastics as a team would have gotten more buzz. Did they even try to bring Bobby Fulton in? Jigolo Jimmy also looks fine, and that top rope legdrop was insanely high. Now I know what Corny saw in him when he brought him to SMW as half of the Heavenly Bodies. The commentary was a bit annoying. DDP was okay, but Mick Karch violates the one cardinal rule of dealing with a heel commentator: show exasperation all you want, no-sell at the right times, but never dismiss your partner as an idiot. If he has no credibility and adds nothing to the broadcast, why should we listen to the commentary at all? It's not like he (Karch) is Gordon Solie and we're supposed to hang on his every word. You're basically asking the viewers to mute the sound and just watch the action, which isn't what you want at all. I liked DDP admitting that he wasn't interested in calling every second of a resthold just because it was the current in-ring action. The heel commentator needs his space to be himself, and about the only one he has is during dead time such as lockups and restholds. Interestingly, it was DDP who took care of the throw to commercial and other housekeeping business, which you don't hear often unless it's at the end of a talk show segment with guys like Corny or Dutch Mantell. Otherwise, it's always the lead announcer. Off to watch the other IWA match now.
  22. garretta
    Interesting. Maybe the lack of a "neutral" (in terms of geography and speech patterns) referee on the roster is why Vince never had a supervisor of officials. Or maybe Jack Tunney secretly loved being on camera!
  23. garretta
    For what was basically a throwaway match to set up Hansen's suspension and return to Japan, this was very good. I liked how Tommy wasn't intimidated by his former partner (nice catch, Bob!) and tried to fight him straight up before he realized that that strategy was liable to get him killed. JR no-sells the former partnership of Rich and Hansen, which is a bit disappointing, but really plays up Stan's out-of-control nature, which sets up the angle we're about to see perfectly. Caudle's a great partner for him; JR paints the big picture, while Bob provides the detail work. As good as Corny can be at the right moments, I don't think he would have done very well here. I know that Tommy's supposed to be back in shape compared to where he was, but he's no 214 here, not by a longshot. 230 is more like it. Still, he's not looking fat like he has at times since the end of his big run in Georgia, so that's something. I'd rather see Nick Patrick hand down a suspension than Jim Herd, especially since it involved referee abuse. The WWF could have used one of its referees on camera occasionally, but the Hebners had thick southern accents, Danny Davis was Boston from head to toe, and Joey Marella probably talked like Philly/South Jersey. Who else was there? Maybe Tim White?
  24. garretta
    This isn't really a copy of Lawler/Snowman at all to me. Rather, it's a new way to introduce a traditional type of feud that's similar to the way Lawler/Snowman was introduced. They copied the setup, but not the issue. The major problem with that is that while Snowman was a legitimately scary-looking guy who most of Lawler's fans had only heard of through the Memphis area papers and black radio stations, Iceman's a longtime Dallas wrestling favorite (even when he's a heel) going back to the days before David Von Erich's death. We heard at least one fan yelling, "Welcome back, Ice!" and there was an audible "Bullshit!" chant as he was handcuffed and led away. This is no hostile invasion, no matter how anyone wants to dress it up. This makes Jarrett's profane anger out of place and kills the intended effect dead. Can it still be a good feud? Of course. But it's no potential game-changer the way Lawler/Snowman was, not even close. Put a belt on one of these two somehow and we'll talk in those terms. Until then, this is just a slightly different way to introduce an upper midcard feud, nothing more. Everyone played their parts well, but it's hard to give this too much praise when nothing earthshaking's supposed to come of it. I missed Iceman getting his neck caught in the security rope, what with all the other chaos. If it really happened, OUCH!
  25. garretta
    They definitely need to quit teasing a stripping if they're nor going to follow through with it. They can also stop with the "winner's girl gets a chance to beat up the loser's girl" routine. It's always Tessa getting slapped around and her clothes ripped off, so what's the point? Maybe if they stopped teasing Kim getting stripped, it would be a big deal if and when it happened. The match was good from what I saw. We saw enough to appreciate the general chaos of the situation, and that's all they really wanted. I don't quite see how some people are getting a Match of the Year candidate out of what little we saw, though. That doesn't mean it's impossible; I'm just saying that it's tough to tell. Eddie finds another non-worker victim, this time one of the photographers. That's why he was one of the most hated heels in Memphis; he could beat the hell out of anyone at any time, whether they were part of the action or just on the periphery of it. I liked Anthony's line: "How does he like his coffee?" Tessa's improving slightly on the mic, but she has to be getting sick of constantly playing the victim. Lawler and Dundee should be sick of it too, but they're more used to it than Tessa is. I loved Burton's reluctance to be handcuffed to the girls. Believe me, Tom, I know where you're coming from. Anthony's suggestion that he headbutt Tessa was definitely not needed. Let's hope we break the pattern of the last few weeks with this upcoming match one way or the other before this feud turns from superb to monotonous.
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