garretta
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Everything posted by garretta
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It seems like they were trying to tease a Fritz appearance that, to the best of my knowledge at least, never happened. Percy's promos are probably the best thing about this feud now that Kerry's time in Texas and the original issue between him and Borne are both waning. He's very believable blaming the fans for what they "forced" him to do to their heroes the Von Erichs. Bringing Doris in may have been a bit over the top, but I seem to remember both the Freebirds and Gary Hart doing the same thing a time or two, so it's not unprecedented. I'm actually looking forward to seeing what Chris can do in the ring, if you can believe it.
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Six bucks a call, seven days a week.......boy, Joe was an optimistic sucker, wasn't he? I wonder who actually cooperated with this (besides the USWA, of course). Something tells me you didn't hear too much about either the WWF or WCW, who of course had their own hotlines to worry about.
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Another good promo, but I didn't like that Austin claimed that he pinned Adams clean when everyone watching knows that he didn't. That may be part of the How to Be a Heel handbook, but it turns me off every time I hear it, no matter who does it. The only thing really wrong with Austin and Jeannie is that they don't put each other over. Most heels put their managers over at least occasionally on promos, no matter how egotistical they may be, but Austin and Jeannie's segments feel entirely separate, because they only mention each other in passing. I get that they're both rookies and need to work on a lot of things, but this is really noticeable to me. To be fair, Toni's guilty of the same thing. I promise not to beat this into the ground, but did anyone notice the smile on Craig's face as Austin and Jeannie came into camera range? That's the used-car salesman fake smile I talked about in an earlier thread. He has a long, long way to go as a wrestling announcer, and he's in over his head as the main voice of a major promotion.
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I've never seen anything like that before. It's certainly one way to shut a heckler up. I just hope no one (including Overbow) was seriously hurt. Again, though, Craig takes away from the angle. Where's the sense of outrage? Any announcer worth his salt would have called it the worst moment he's ever seen in wrestling bar none, whether it was true or not. Instead, Craig registers a bit of surprise, a moment or two of befuddlement, and then it's on with business as usual. If he doesn't visibly give a damn about the angle, how can he possibly get it across to the fans at home? If I'd been in Jarrett's shoes, I'd have either been throwing money at Bill Mercer or arranging for a plane to pick up Dave Brown at the Memphis airport right after his early Friday newscast at WMC. Craig's kind of announcing just doesn't cut it in wrestling. Announcing aside, the angle was still fascinating. What could possibly top it?
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This may be the most vicious valet feud I've ever seen. You expect the guys to go full bore, but Jeannie and Toni are every bit as into this. It almost feels like a Japanese women's feud, and given that Texas has brought us Sunshine vs. Precious and Missy Hyatt in previous years, where the combatants could barely make contact with each other believably, this is a hell of a change of pace. Jeannie's shots to Toni's stomach are particularly cringe-inducing. What is it with everybody stealing the announcer's chair down in Texas? Maybe it should have a great big sign on it: "DO NOT STEAL! RULEBREAKERS, THIS MEANS YOU!" Craig could have been a little more emotional under the circumstances. He almost sounds like one of those happy-happy used car salesmen who reacts to everything with a great big fake smile that you can actually hear as he talks. If he sold concern for Toni and Chris for more than a few seconds, I sure didn't hear it. Where can this feud possibly go next? I have a feeling we'll find out!
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Chris has the makings of a fine promo here. He gets a bit distracted when Percy approaches him, but that's to be expected. He's more coherent that Kerry, that's for sure. Percy's really pulling off his turn well. I wonder if this is the run that got him hired by the WWF. In the old days, Fritz would have come out at least once by now to put Pringle in his place. I realize that he was probably tired and disgusted by what had happened to his family, but an appearance by him at some point in this feud wouldn't have been unwelcome.
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A bit sad that Lawler and the Unified title are afterthoughts here. I'm not sure if it's the same match from the previous week or not, because during his June 2 promo Dundee mentions pinning Lawler the night before. He could have just been talking about what he hoped to do, but it didn't come off that way to me. I think Tessa's had enough of being forcibly kissed by men. I know I would if I was in her place!
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Toni alludes to a past friendship with Jeannie in this promo, and since Jeannie's really British, I guess Toni was trying to make out like she's British too, After all, when would a Texan and a Brit interact? Jeannie's really becoming a huge part of Austin's in-ring act here, as she beats up on West as much as he does. Another great promo from Toni. It seems weird to say she's better than Chris since she's so inexperienced, but they're not all that far apart. I liked Toni holding up the lock of Jeannie's hair as a visual aid. These two ladies definitely aren't playing around! (Insert obvious dirty joke here, if you like.)
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I think the women outdid the men here. You really get the feeling that they could slap each other around all day long, and both promos were gold. I don't know what the story with Chris's picture was; there was nothing remotely scandalous about it, even in a kayfabe sense. I'm glad Toni showed up, because Chris has been giving Austin and Jeannie far too much of this feud. Now it seems like we're in for a little fairer fight.
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I guess Memphis and Dallas are really supposed to be two distinct universes that never, ever intersect, because Lawler treats Dundee like they haven't been joined at the hip for fifteen years or better. I get that showing the whole history of the feud would take more time than they've got on six months of shows, but at least say that they've fought all over the South (which they have, in a manner of speaking), and also been tag team partners and even World tag team champions. Without that history being acknowledged, Dundee becomes just another nobody within Lawler's universe, and the whole segment falls flat on its face. In no universe where both Jerry Lawler and Bill Dundee exist should Dundee be more concerned with John Tatum than Lawler. Simple as that. Were Dundee and Tessa a real-life item at any time? He seems an odd choice to play knight in shining armor out of nowhere.
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You could tell the Jarrett influence in the booking here, as this feels like a typical Saturday morning at WMC, with Craig Johnson filling in for Dave Brown. Yeah, Devastation has fallen on hard times, with a heel champion in Lawler and two fresh heels (Austin and Borne) working above them. The fans really buy into Jeff's "turn", with loud chants of "traitor". I wonder if keeping him heel might have made Akbar a force again and spiked business a little; Jeff vs. Travis had just been done, but you could run a while with Jeff vs. Dundee, and maybe have a Devastation alliance with Tatum to boot. I agree that Ak got the short end of the deal here, to say the least: even if his team wins the tag match, he's out five thousand dollars. And this guy's supposed to be a wealthy oil magnate? I'm looking forward to more of this for sure. USWA Texas might just be the best promotion in North America right now, which is amazing considering its lack of bona fide star power.
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Who the hell would be desperate enough for a friend to want to listen to Kerry's opinions on anything, wrestling included? I wonder if he knew how he sounded when he stressed the word "anything". He does sound like he's soliciting phone sex, come to think of it, although I'm sure that wasn't his intent. Or maybe it was, who knows? It's hard to put anything past the Von Erichs. The time for this, had the technology been more widely available, would have been 1984-85. By now, it seems more like the pathetic money grab that it almost surely was.
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You wouldn't think that Jarrett would have been as shameless about milking the Von Erichs' family tragedies for a few extra bucks as Papa Fritz, but it looks like he was. Sure it's a heat-getter, but I have to wonder if constantly being reminded of the sickness and tragedy of the Von Erich family is one of the reasons Dallas went out of business. Some insiders I've read swear that this is the case; not only didn't they turn out to be the all-American family, but the constant tragedy of their lives made the product unbearable to watch after a while. All that said, Percy's quite the effective crazy man here, and it's kind of a shame that he suppressed that part of his personality while doing the Paul Bearer gimmick. Borne continues to deliver as well.
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Big win for Paul, but I don't remember much followup on it. He would have been an excellent TV champion at this point.
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Not a bad promo, but I would have let Orndorff talk instead of Rocky, since Paul's actually going to have something to do with the World title match. Was Luger officially a DWA? Sting mentions him here, but he hasn't been out with any of the Dudes' interviews since Capital Combat.
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This would have been a lot better if Flair would have dialed the volume down about three or four notches, but by now that was a lost cause. Ole didn't really seem scared to me. Rattled, yes, but like Sting, Gigante actually has to try and stop him from interfering, handcuffs or no handcuffs, and remember, as big as he is, Gigante's never tangled with an actual wrestler before. It was only right that Ole maintain some level of menace here, which I believe he did.
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Rule number one: When your authority figure is announcing stipulations, don't have the wrestlers you're announcing the stipulations for appear with him. Ole looks like an idiot here, bowing down to Herd in a way not even Jim Crockett Jr. could get the original group to do. Rule number two: Don't have your authority figure make up jobs for your talent that almost every fan knows they don't do, like Ole and commentating. (Actually, I later found out that Ole did do color on Worldwide for a few weeks, but still, it wasn't a regular gig.) Rule number three: While selling shock at the size of a guy like El Gigante is more than acceptable, don't have your top managerial heel act like he's going to urinate in his pants if said top managerial heel was one of the toughest guys in the ring and challenging for the World tag team title two pay-per-views ago. Otherwise, this was peachy keen.
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I could see the racial angle working if JYD was Flair's ultimate challenger during this time. But he wasn't; Sting was and had been since February. The best JYD got was a Clash main event that almost everyone agrees was terrible. There was no chance in the world that JYD would even sniff the World title. Surely there could have been something else that could have drawn the ratings Herd was looking for, like a Flair/Luger "I Quit" match.
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Oh, okay. I wasn't aware how far they were backed into a corner. One TV appearance and one Omni appearance (at least) was a small price to pay to avoid a lawsuit.
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Ole's tried to be JJ Dillon throughout this year, but JJ knew when and how to say his piece. Ole still talks like he's actually getting in the ring regularly, which takes away from the rest of the group's promos, especially Flair's. Despite the mixed message that Ole tried to send, this was really good, a classic Flair "talking is over, now it's showtime" promo. No one did them better.
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Well, Paul talked up Taker as the future of wrestling here, and he was right. Taker just went a little further north on the map to do it. Nice touch by Paul of reciting the names of the some of the former U.S. champions. We didn't get historical perspective for feuds or matches very often, even twenty-five years ago. I had to laugh when I heard Paul talk about "donating" his time to Taker, just like the ECW boys would "donate" their time to Paul a few years down the road.
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This almost reeks of Ole not thinking that the Horsemen can draw heat anymore. Maybe he thought that the addition of Sid would accidentally turn them babyface because of his physique, and this was the only way to stop it. What I still don't get, especially since there were already pickets and lawsuits being threatened (okay, by Thunderbolt Patterson, but still) is why Jim Herd didn't tell Ole in no uncertain terms to quit the race baiting or lose his job. Was he intimidated by Ole? Did he think no one else could book a match? Did he try to get other people and was turned down? There has to be some reason why this stuff still went on in a modern corporatized promotion like the WCW of 1990.
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I read the backstory, but if you leave the legal threats out of it, I don't see what benefit bringing Bolt in had for the product. I don't even think he seconded King in his bout with Arn, which would only seem logical (I'll be watching that match soon to find out for myself). There had to be a way to appease him without putting him on camera if putting him on camera made no sense.
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Just for my own edification, I looked up the Freebirds in 1990 on Wrestlingdata.com. They had no matches with either the MX or Doom that were recorded during the summer; they mostly were working with either Rock 'n' Roll or the Southern Boys. Anyway, this is a fun promo, even if it doesn't end up going anywhere. Jimmy sort of changed the subject on a dime when it came time to talk about the Midnights and Doom, but it was still effective, especially Corny's pissy reaction. I noticed that this segment wasn't done in the ring. Was this a one-time thing? I hope so, because segments like this are always done best in front of a live crowd.
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Did Thunderbolt ever appear on TV after this? If not, what was the point (creatively speaking) of bringing him in? I'm sure that they could have stuck him in an office somewhere if all they wanted was to avoid a lawsuit. I've seen in threads for later Yearbooks that some people have a problem with WCW using TV shows to promote the big cards at the Omni. I personally don't, but if you're going to do that, shouldn't you tape the card so that people who don't live in the Atlanta area can see what went on? I know they did it occasionally, but not on any kind of consistent basis.