garretta
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For some reason, this match was misdated June 30 on the discs, so I made a new thread for it in the June forum before I found this one. Copying and pasting is giving me trouble in this forum (I know how to do it in every other forum I participate in but this one, so it's the forum's issue, not mine), so I'll have to retype my comments by hand. Here we go: Neat little match, but not as end-to-end as you'd expect, possibly because Owen has a legitimate back or ribs injury. I'm kind of surprised that this one got as nasty as it did, but I remember someone saying that it took Muto a while to get out of Muta mode upon his return from the States, so that may be a partial explanation. I love the irony of Muto using the sharpshooter as an attempted submission, even though Owen wouldn't begin to use it for several years. Big win for Muto, but Owen looks like a comer here, and his career in Japan is well on its way.
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This was an experience, to say the least. I'd red this thread before I saw the match, so I knew what some of the spots would be, but this one still has to be seen to be believed. The only wrestling hold in the whole mess was the spinning toehold, and that was only done to set up Terry being kicked off into the water. Otherwise, this was the kind of match that Paul Heyman was fantasizing about having regularly when he took over ECW. Even more than the announcement of Hansen's DQ, what cracked me up was someone actually directing the people where to go if they wanted to see more of this match that was supposedly over. Usually we get promoters or announcers on the mic begging for help in breaking stuff like this up. The only drawback was the fan cam, which wasn't anyone's fault, I suppose. Still, it would have been nice to see more of the ring and the wrestlers and less of the grass and the milling crowd, which we actually saw the referee, of all people, in the middle of several times, striped shirt and all. This is the kind of match that everyone needs to see in their life........once.
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This was two bouts in one: Liger/Aoyagi was pretty tepid, while Yamada/Aoyagi was one of the most impressive squashes I've seen regardless of country. I realize there was a ton of money to be made with the Jushin "Thunder" Liger gimmick in Japan, but it would have been nice to see this guy become two wrestlers: Liger starts the match scientifically, then takes the mask off and becomes Yamada when the heels cheat too egregiously or when there seems to be no chance of victory for Liger otherwise. You couldn't run it too often, but it would definitely add intrigue to his matches to see how far Liger can be pushed before he takes the mask off. I didn't mind the round system, but it would have been nice to know how many rounds the match was scheduled for beforehand. Also, they didn't need to have more than one "saved by the bell" sequence to get the idea over that it could happen at the end of any round. Three in a row was overkill. I'm waiting to see if any other NJPW matches from this year are booked in this fashion. It's a nice change of pace from the ordinary.
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This match was all about Hokuto's injury, unfortunately. In the States, they would most likely have let the match go on, since she could stand and even walk a little, but it's a good thing they cut it off when they did. They must have been trying to avoid showing closeups of the injury, but I got a brief glimpse or two of it (at least I think I did) and what I saw looked almost sickening. I hope we see Hokuto on future Yearbooks just so we know if she resumed her career at an elite level.
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I'm not up on New Japan booking either, but this felt like a grudge match, so I'm glad to find out that it was one. Was the throwing in of the towel an accident, or did someone just forget the finish? Choshu just went right on destroying everyone in sight, whatever it was. There have been too many good matches from Japan already this year for this to make my top three, but I enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully, we'll see more from these two.
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This was a nifty little bout, but I can't believe that there wasn't more done with the crotch shots, especially since both of these guys are high flyers. Shouldn't a groin injury, particularly the one Santo got (nasty post job from Fuerza, by the way) restrict your ability to jump around? These two shrugged of their crotch postings like they were incidental bumps. Comparatlvely, a much lesser bump than this supposedly put Lawler out of action for six months in '87 (I think it was actually a cover for legitimate testicular surgery).
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We see another side of Hansen here, as he does a tremendous job selling exhaustion and desperation. He must have taken one hellacious beating from Bamm Bamm in the part of this match we didn't see. In the end, though, he perseveres through all of the attempts his former partner makes to put him away and hits a desperation lariat to win the Triple Crown. He gets doubleteamed by the future Miracle Violence Connection after the bout, which actually does a great job of setting up the next match I'm going to check out: Hansen/Doc from three days earlier. He does pretty well in fighting off Williams and Gordy's attack, which either makes him almost superhuman or makes Doc and Bamm Bamm look undeservedly weak, I haven't figured out which. Like a lot of others above me, I'm looking forward to a full match between these two at some point.
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I think everybody was expecting Jumbo to retain in order to set up the big match with Misawa three days later, so this really felt like an upset, especially since the finish was unspectacular, to say the least. Like Pete said, there was nothing wrong with it, but it didn't really have the main event feel that we're used to from Jumbo matches. The celebration with Doc was fun to watch, though, and a Confederate flag in Japan is always a sight to behold, regardless of circumstances. I've seen AJPW interview wrestlers before matches and invite guys to sit in on commentary, but this is the first time I've ever seen a guy interviewed during another guy's match. Title change or no title change, it's obvious that the Misawa/Jumbo match three days later was seen as a much bigger deal than this match was.
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For a different match, this one was pretty similar to the others, at least to me. Of course, how many spots can these two teams really do that they haven't done variations of before? We even saw two more ref spots: Nick Patrick's near fistfight with Eaton and him crawling out of the way on all fours so Rock 'n Roll could hit the double dropkick on Eaton (I think). I noticed that there was less stalling from the MX than usual, so maybe that was one of the wrinkles Corny was talking about. I agree that the finish was a bit ticky-tacky, considering what the heels get away with most of the time, but maybe they were running short on time already. I liked JR bringing up the prior history of this feud in Mid-South, as well as his refereeing career. I'm a huge football fan, both college and pro, and I understand that JR's trying to get these guys over as legit all-around athletes, but we could stand a little more wrestling history and a few less football references. One complaint: I can understand not wanting to publicize Dennis Condrey, especially considering how he left both times, but they really shouldn't make it sound like Lane and Eaton have been together since 1984. Stan seems to have inherited Dennis's history in its entirety, and it's that kind of dishonesty that Vince rightly gets mocked for and WCW's supposed to be above. Finally, I enjoyed the Vanna White name-dropping, as well as JR's comment that he hopes she's changed since the days when she supposedly hung out with Sweet Stan. That's the kind of humor wrestling broadcasts need more of.
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I think Lou said that they gave Steamboat a ten-minute intermission. Also, the Fuller match was definitely two minutes long, because the ring action wasn't clipped. The tape picked up right as the ring announcements started. I think they were trying to build collusion between Borne and Fuller so they could reform the Stud Stable in this promotion with Borne as a member; if he would have done the same character he did in the USWA, he would have been a perfect fit. I liked how Fuller didn't mess around; he knew Steamer's leg was hurt and he went right for it. Pity they showed a replay of Steamboat pinning Borne instead of Borne's postmatch attack; we needed to actually see more of the damage he did. I didn't really like Lou taking shots at Steamboat's conditioning; if Ricky had a spare tire, it was barely noticeable. It seems like most of the promotions he worked for after 1987 took some kind of shots at his dedication or conditioning from time to time. I guess taking time out to see your children being born is frowned upon in a business where immature frat-boy type behavior is the standard. I liked both interviews after the title match. Steamer's interview wasn't as big a surprise to me as it was to some of you; he can bring the goods when he's really fired up. Fuller was superb as usual, even throwing a sideswipe at Borne when the announcer suggests collusion between the two of them. Speaking of the announcer, does anyone know who he was? WGGT-TV (the station this tape was taken from) was a Greensboro independent, so the NAWA had some good wrestling markets right off the bat. It's a shame we don't seem to have anything else from them on this set.
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This gimmick would have been money for Tatum anywhere, with a few minor adjustments, I could just see it in the WWF; in fact, Hollywood John might just have made a better Brother Love than Bruce Prichard if Vince hadn't been so hung up on making the character look like Jimmy Swaggart. Of course, the constant hugging would have branded this character as gay right out of the box, so maybe it's best that he didn't take it elsewhere after all. A few people have mentioned Crockett/Turner, but I'm not sure he was good enough in the ring to overcome the "gayness" of the gimmick there either, and without Tessa as a reason for it, what reason would the character have to exist? Huge props to Dundee for selling this so well. He understood that this whole business had to play out in order to get the gimmick over, so he restrains his usual up-and-at-'em style and settles for slightly amused befuddlement. Tessa's skeptical facial expressions are priceless, and the capper, when Tatum waffles Dundee with the chain, wins the Southern belt, and takes off, is a tremendous ending, and really the only one that fits with what we've seen. A tip of the cap to Craig, too; he's had trouble selling angles in the past, but he tries his best this time by detailing his interactions with Tatum as they entered the Sportatorium before the taping. He still has a lot to learn, but he's at least on the road to respectability as an announcer. I can't wait to see where this one goes as we head into July. Great stuff!
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This was another tremendous brawl between these four, but it seems at times as though Austin, Jeannie, and Toni are on one level and Chris is a notch below them. It's always Chris who's left laying or struggling to catch up while Toni races up the aisle after Austin and Jeannie, always Chris who's getting beaten up by Jeannie (and that's no exaggeration; she lays her shots in but good), always Chris who's a step slow on the mic. He probably booked it himself or asked that it be booked this way in order to get Austin and Jeannie over, and if that's true, more credit to him. But if it isn't, you have to wonder just what Jarrett really thought of him. He's not as charismatic as the Memphis guys, but he's an above-average in-ring worker who's been one of the top guys in Dallas since he got there, someone who those fans see as one of their own as much as any of the Von Erichs. Add to that his value as a trainer, as seen by Austin's tremendous strides throughout his rookie year, and you wonder why Jarrett could possibly want to make him look this bad, at least so far. I'm aware that this feud has a couple of more months to run, so hopefully for Chris's sake things turn around soon, at least a little. This was a good way to set up the wives' future involvement, as you know something as meager as a ban from the Sportatorium won't stop these ladies from getting it on. For whatever reason, John Brazelle seems more authoritative in his role as matchmaker/lawgiver than Eddie Marlin does, even though he doesn't get physically involved. His pronouncements still aren't worth a hill of beans, of course, but he looks and sounds a lot better while he delivers them. I wonder if Jeannie and Toni got along well outside the ring. You would think they'd have to in order to trust each other in the ring the way they obviously do.
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Austin and Jeannie are getting better on the mic, but they still have trouble veering away from their talking points. I can't really explain it, since most guys have in their minds what they're going to say before they say it (or have it scripted for them), but it's not quite as off-the-cuff as it should sound for them yet. There's still a ton of potential for both of them, though, and of course we know what Austin turned into. I didn't watch '92 WCW, so when I get to that yearbook it'll be interesting to see how much they let Jeannie talk as Lady Blossom, if they do at all. My guess is that Heyman does all the talking, and considering how good Jeannie is here, that's a shame. The brawl was heated, and it was interesting that the girls got to fight in the ring while the guys duked it out on the floor. I understand that the girls are the draw, but since they really can't work much, maybe it would have been best to start with all four in the ring. I noticed that Toni has enough ring savvy to move out of the way of Jeannie's slap so she hits Austin instead, which is nice to see. Toni's still a better interview than Chris, all things considered. I liked how Braselle threatened to throw Austin and Jeannie out of the Sportatorium if they didn't sign the contract. He's a Jack Tunney in training, only not as stiff on camera.
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More of a character piece than an actual match. I'll say this for Tatum: he's thrown himself heart and soul into this gimmick. If he'd done otherwise it would have been laughably bad beyond belief. The closest thing to this is Brother Love, but the difference is you know right off the bat that Brother Love's a no-good liar. Tatum wrestles just cleanly enough at the beginning of this match that you start to believe him in spite of yourself. Then, of course, he lowers the boom on poor helpless Bubba. I persist in my belief that Percy's the best commentator that USWA Texas has. He may have a voice that drives certain people up the wall (though not me personally), but he can sell a storyline like this, even while acknowledging subtly just how weird it is. I loved him asking for a second hug from Tatum, and also running down all the beautiful women that Texas has seen over the last few years, even mentioning Toni Adams without making a disparaging joke about her. Yes, he puts himself over by bragging a little about beating up Chris Von Erich, but that segment's brief and doesn't take away from the match in the ring. I also liked him being the only other person besides Tatum to know about Tessa's necklace. Honorable mention to Bronko Lubich. I swear I saw a slight smile on his face when Tatum came over to hug him. If an angle can make even an old buzzard like him grin, it must be pretty special.
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To add to what Pete said, not only is it sad to see Lawler/Dundee take a back seat to the Tessa angle, it's also sad to see it in front of an audience that's not going nuclear for it. That's not the wrestlers' faults, but Dallas neither knows nor cares about the history between these two, and while they like Dundee and hate the King, this isn't exactly a Mid-South Coliseum crowd. The bout would have been much more heated if it had been for sure. It was pretty good as it was, because these two know how to work with each other if any two wrestlers alive do. Now that Dundee's headed back to Memphis (as of the end of June), it'll be fun to see them interact with each other again, and also fun to see if Tessa's presence adds anything to this legendary mix.
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The ending was a mess, to put it mildly. Not only did JR and Corny's explanation make no sense, it wasn't even true; Sid very clearly made contact during the first run-in. I always thought that in a case like this, the refs were supposed to ring the bell, assess the DQ, and figure out who screwed up later. Hawk and Animal didn't look too bad for a team already out of WCW when this aired. I guess if Arn and Barry had tried to sandbag them too obviously, they would have paid for the privilege. Why not? What was WCW going to do, release them? Arn and Barry looked very good here as well. They weren't on Busters level yet, but there was potential. It'll be interesting to see them against Doom later in the year. I know this was impossible, but the whole Dudes With Attitudes thing might have worked better if the Road Warriors had been the ones saving Paul Orndorff and not the other way around. Sorry, but the LOD had tons more star power than either JYD or Orndorff at this time, and they deserved to be pushed harder than they were. Fortunately, they were headed for a place that genuinely appreciated them, at least for a while. I only saw one leg-pull false finish from Arn, by the way.
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Like Volkoff/Zhukov, this would have been better being an angle instead of a match. Do this on the Louisville Slugger and it gets heat. Make this into a match and Arn looks weak and lazy, unable even to beat one of the worst wrestlers in the company cleanly. At least let him get the pin before the other Horsemen hit the ring, for heaven's sake. Flair not appearing only makes the whole mess look more blatantly racist, like he doesn't want to soil his hands on any more black men. His continued participation in this angle, Horseman or not, is disgusting. If Ole had had any sense, this would have led to a TV title match the following week and an upset victory for Rocky, even if he only held the title for a week before Arn destroyed him once and for all. Unfortunately, unless I completely missed something, said attack of sense never happened.
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This was nice to see again, but it could have been done almost unchanged on Brother Love's show. There was very little actual match content. Nice to see Vince and Jesse staying in character. It figures that Vince would like Nikolai's singing now, even if it hadn't been "The Star-Spangled Banner", and that Jesse would back the Commie even though he was in the Navy himself. Jesse has a point about the boots not being a classic foreign object, but I think most promotions disqualified guys who took them off and used them to beat down their opponents. I think it's a sad commentary on the state of the number one promotion in North America, even with the downtime between major events, that they only have one match worthy of inclusion on this set between the air dates of April 28 and July 28 and this was it. When I can think of at least two small independent promotions that have more matches on the set between those two dates than the WWF, you know what horrible in-ring shape the WWF was in. If it wasn't for an occasional angle during the Brother Love segments, literally nothing would be happening on TV. How pathetic is that?
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You'd think that it was Sid who was too hurt to work here, the way this was booked. If they knew Luger was still hurt and couldn't work a regular match, have Ole sign to wrestle him. Then the squash makes sense, and you could have Luger take a powder to avoid Sid and keep him strong for a proper title match at the Bash. Instead, he's done as a challenger for good and looks like an idiot to boot. Maybe there's something to the idea of Ole burying the Horsemen; he was well-known not to like being part of the group, and he couldn't stand Flair personally. From the way he talks sometimes, I wonder if he thought the Anderson family connection that was the foundation of the group was Crockett's (and later Turner's) way of marginalizing his team with Gene, which was the favorite part of his in-ring career. In other words, Arn and Flair were poor excuses for an Anderson and never should have been made "family". By the way, this was never announced as a title match, which would explain Luger leaving the belt in the locker room and makes the loss even worse for Sid; if he loses this convincingly when the belt's not on the line, how do you possibly build him up as a contender later? (I don't believe they even tried.)
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You can't blame JYD for no-selling here; his entire gimmick by now was his hard head and the thickness of his torso. So what does Flair do? He chops him in the chest and hits him in the head with a chair. From a kayfabe standpoint, he wrestled a mind-bogglingly stupid match and would have deserved to lose the belt if Ole hadn't caused the DQ. From a performance and style standpoint, this was a terrible matchup, because Flair's matches depend on action and aggression, and JYD could provide neither, but Flair either wouldn't or couldn't adapt. Lawler can work a match consisting of nothing but chain shots and verbal static if the situation calls for it, and that's the kind of match JYD needs to be in to look his best: a match with as little physicality as possible. Maybe Ole should have given Flair an object to pound JYD with for about five minutes, then let JYD make a comeback to set up the DQ. If necessary, have Ole cut a promo where he says Flair's so much better than JYD that he can beat him without using a single wrestling move, which would prepare the fans for the type of match they were about to see. Of course, they could have just had a Luger/Flair blowoff here and had JYD join the other Dudes at ringside, but the only gimmick they hadn't used in that feud yet was "I Quit", and there's no way Luger could have lost a match like that and stayed strong, even if the Horsemen had brought AK-47s to ringside. Flair couldn't have lost either; if Luger beats him non-title, then it's Luger the fans want to see wrestle him at the Bash, and what happens to Sting? On another note, JR clearly wasn't happy about this being a Clash main event. He constantly refers to how out-of-shape JYD is (which is obvious and doesn't need to be belabored) and at one time uses the old line about not knowing a wristlock from a wristwatch, which is a typical insult usually heard on a heel promo, not from a babyface-leaning "objective" commentator. Did he believe we should have seen one last Luger/Flair bout, or maybe a swap of matches between Arn and Flair (JYD vs. Arn, Orndorff vs. Flair)? Was he trying to send a message to JYD about his conditioning, as he would later in his WWF days? Or was he just kicking himself for not throwing in enough football references? Sadly, the latter can't be entirely dismissed. (By the way, JYD supposedly either played or tried out for the Green Bay Packers, and had a decent career in the CFL.) Boy, heels sure love to steal chairs from announcers this year. Poor Bob Caudle; at least he got his chair back. I liked the brawl at the end; Sting and Flair needed to get their hands on each other, officially or unofficially, and I'm glad Sting's knee is finally in good enough shape to make that happen.
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I know he used to be a wrestler, Loss. I guess it's not the fact that he gets physical to maintain order so much as that he's doing so against a man who invaded the USWA and is portrayed as someone willing to tear the place and everyone in it apart to get what he wants. Guys like that should plow right through retired former wrestlers like Eddie, no matter how tough he was during his wrestling days or what position of authority he holds now. Snowman should have laid him out during his very first interview segment, and a little blood from Eddie wouldn't have been out of place either. He did it for Tommy Gilbert (if I recall correctly), so why not for someone supposedly a hell of a lot more dangerous to his position of authority?
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This was more about Percy/Chris than Kerry/Borne. It's almost like Jarrett knew that both of these guys were leaving and decided to transfer the issue to the two guys who would be sticking around. Where did Tony Borne come from? Matt doesn't mention his father being decked in any subsequent promos, and you'd figure that he'd be raging with anger and threatening to do the same to Fritz, whether Fritz actually shows up or not. Why would Kerry use the phrase "stink on shit" when he knew full well that he'd be bleeped on television? Yes, other babyfaces have done similar things, but these are still the clean-cut, God-fearing Von Erichs in Bible Belt Texas; you'd think they'd try just a bit harder to control their mouths. As several people said above me, the actual match in the ring really wasn't the story here; if it had been, the cameras would have followed Kerry and Borne outside instead of watching Chris and Percy flap their gums at each other. With Kerry/Borne almost over and Dundee/Tatum shifting to Memphis, it looks like it'll be up to Adams, Austin, and their ladies to carry USWA Texas for the next little while. We'll see if they're up to the task as we move forward.
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The pull-apart needed to happen before this, although it still looks great. I didn't see Eddie Marlin lose his glasses, but it's about time he gets put in the middle somehow, given how needlessly physical he's been so far in this feud. Would Jack Tunney try to get between Hogan and Earthquake? How about Jim Herd trying to restrain Sting from attacking Flair? Notice how the ad promoting this week's guest referee spells the man's name "Spinx"? This is both an example of how far the once-mighty can fall and of the ignorance of some of the production people working at major television stations. What was Rex King doing standing around while Lawler jawed with Snowman? Talk about business-exposing. He should have been all over Lawler, even getting some close near-falls to demonstrate further just how distracting Snowman's presence was to Lawler. Whoever laid this match out did a piss-poor job.
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I like the fact that one side of the USWA is finally acknowledging the other side's angles. It's about time. Anthony's not quite as polished on the mic as he would be four years later, but he can still get the job done, which kind of makes Gossett redundant, doesn't it? It seems almost like Jarrett wants to create a Memphis version of the Austin-Jeannie/Adams-Toni feud. They've definitely got comparable (if not slightly superior) male workers, but the female side of the equation seems to be sorely lacking, at least at this point in time. This has nothing to do with wrestling, but I like the steamboat logo for WMC that puttered across the screen during Dundee's promo.
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I haven't seen the backstory to this yet, so I'll check it out shortly, but it looks like the feud teased in Texas between Dundee and Anthony has erupted in Memphis. I liked what I saw of Anthony as a promo in his SMW days, and we know Dundee's a winner on the mic, so the promo battle should be fun. As Pete said, Kim's a step below Toni and Jeannie on the mic, but so is every other woman in wrestling not named Sherri Martel, including Nancy Sullivan. She still gets her point across well enough. Maybe we'll see at least a little mic work from Tessa at some point in this feud, at least I hope so.