garretta
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Everything posted by garretta
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The most entertaining part of this was Corny and Paul almost getting into it and Teddy just wanting to get the deal done and get out of town. I would have loved to see the Cornette/Dangerously feud reignite, but with neither one exactly on Ole's Christmas list, it wasn't meant to be. Loved seeing Corny back up from Taker as well. I have to ask this: As well as Percy fit the Undertaker character as Paul Bearer, do you think Taker would have done just as well if Heyman had jumped with him instead? (I don't think Vince would have signed Long; he still had Slick, who wouldn't have fit with Taker at all.)
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Was the crowd barking for the Dog, or were they booing? It's hard to tell. JYD continues to come off as a badass here like he did in the USWA earlier. It's almost like he's on a repentance tour, trying to get back what he lost in terms of credibility by leaving Mid-South for the WWF. Corny willingly plays the fool for his old friend here, as the Horsemen had more pressing matters on their minds. It'll be interesting to see as we go on why this run is almost universally panned by Internet fans, as it certainly looks to be off to a flying start. Was the address JYD gave Mrs. Cornette's real Louisville address at the time? I've heard that she was legitimately a huge wrestling fan who dabbled backstage a bit in her time, although "Mama Cornette" was clearly a fictional character.
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And that's it. Weeks of hype for not even a minute of action, not even anything close to a real confrontation between Robocop and the Horsemen. If that's all they wanted to do, couldn't they have debuted Gigante here? If I was someone who bought the pay-per-view at least in part to see how Robocop fared against the Horsemen, I would have been seriously disappointed. If the guy in the costume wasn't mobile enough to mix it up or the wrestlers didn't want to bump for an actor, rent the suit and the rights to the character for one night and stick a wrestler into it. Surely Arn or Sid would have bumped for George South or Tommy Angel or Zan Panzer. I wouldn't say that this was the biggest ripoff in wrestling history, but it definitely makes the top ten.
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The Horsemen remain on fire here. Sid says nothing, but doesn't have to. Barry and Woman aren't even there, but it doesn't make any difference. This is a flashback to '86, when Flair and the Andersons simply told it like it was. The cage doesn't matter, Robocop doesn't matter (and isn't even mentioned), the rules don't matter. All that matters is that Flair leaves with the gold. Tony's presence only adds to the old-time feel. Just great stuff.
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I think they actually intended to make Luger look like a schlemiel here in order to make Sting the absolute last hope for goodness. Think about it: this is the fourth time in two years Lex didn't get the job done on pay-per-view, fans, and he failed to live up to his guarantee to you in the process Muscular as he is, and as good a guy as he is, he's proven that Flair has his number once and for all, and that he's best suited to be US champion. There's only one man left who can do what you want done, drive the Horsemen out of WCW and make wrestling safe for the kiddies: STING! If I remember correctly, he isn't even one of the Dudes with Attitudes, a group that features such physical marvels as El Gigante and the Junkyard Dog prominently. It's as simple as this: Luger had his chances to win the belt and turned them all down, so now he's destined to be second best for good. He seemed to be okay with that, at least for the moment, so if Ole and the suits were looking to humble him in some way, they failed. I was a bit surprised they let the JJ mention air, since he was working for Vince, but Tully was basically an indy wrestler, so I think they'd have allowed him to be talked about regardless. The Horsemen are back to their Crockett levels promowise, but if what I've read in other threads is true, they won't stay there for long. I love that they're still selling Robocop as a threat until the very last moment.
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Nit really much different from your standard interview brawl. Teddy's much better verbally putting himself over than he is on commentary, thank God. The Steiners are better off not talking at all, because they have no verbal charisma to speak of (not that you could tell from this short snippet, of course; I mean in general).
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This is as close as it's gotten so far to the good old Crockett days for this Horseman run. Arn's the star here for pointing out the numbers, and his logic is unassailable. Five full-strength men and one designing woman against a robot, a cripple, and a three-time loser? Who wouldn't like those odds? I agree that Sid in a tux looks a bit weird, but give him credit for trying to fit the Horseman image as closely as he possibly can.
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Interesting bits of trivia about what was supposed to happen at Capital Combat, There was just one problem with Luger's logic: he still didn't come through with the title win, and the fans, at least some of them, probably wrote him off forever as a result. When you get four chances in less than two years to beat Flair cleanly on pay-per-view and can't get it done, you tend to lose your relevance as a challenger. Even a clean non-title win wouldn't have helped; all Flair would have had to do is explain that he let down a slight bit without the belt on the line. His hair will grow back, he's still a Horseman, he's still got Woman, he's still the man, and Luger's still a pretender. WHOOOOOOOO! No, he had to actually win the title here, and since Flair refused to drop it to anyone but Sting, he was screwed before he ever got in the ring unless WCW was willing to let Flair walk altogether. We saw what a disaster that was at Bash '91. By the way, decent promo from Luger, though he's still not quite as smooth as he should be, even for a fired-up babyface.
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Pete: Oh, okay. Yeah, that would have been a bit hard to swallow. but I don't think Vince would have done it. Beefcake was too over and too valuable with the gimmick he had at that point. Besides, without the accident, he was due to beat Hennig for the IC title.
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Sorry, Pete, but I don't get the reference to "putting a certain idea in Hogan's head". Which idea are you talking about?
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Retyping what I said from the earlier thread I mistakenly created, since copy and paste isn't cooperating: This has to be Barry's first promo since his return; he's Woman's newest find for the Horsemen, according to her. Nothing we haven't heard before, but from the Horsemen, that's good. Props to Arn and Flair for actually putting Robocop over as a serious threat. Flair doesn't look all that bad in a ponytail. Loss, this promo is misdated, it's from 5/5/90's Saturday Night. I created another thread for it before I knew that; could you close it, please?
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If there was any implication of sexual favors in the Woman/Sid deal, I either missed it or Gordon no-sold it, which is what you'd expect from the Walter Cronkite of professional wrestling. Anyway, I agree with everything that's been said about Woman fitting in with the Horsemen so well. She's improved tremendously in the last month, and you can tell that she's found her place within the group. If it's true that they dumped her because there could only be one over female in the company, and the female they chose was Missy Hyatt, they made the mistake of their lives. Maybe Eddie Gilbert was making noises about wanting to leave and they were trying to keep him happy, but it didn't work; he went back to Memphis anyway, which was a better fit for him and would have been a better fit for Missy too. God bless Flair for continuing to sell Robocop as a threat to him without laughing his ass off.
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I'll say this; the reveal was a much bigger deal than the end result. Sid really does look like the future of the business here, especially with the Horsemen behind him. He also sounds better than he would in the WWF, when he was too busy playing crazy to worry about actually being understood when he talked. As for a better fit, the only possible one at that time was Tully, and that ship had sailed long ago. Out of who else was available, they couldn't have done much better.
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Nice promo by the Birds, but Corny's the star here, saying whatever he has to in order to avoid a whipping from Ricky and Robert. It's a reminder that the issue between Rock and Roll and the MX, while it may lie dormant on occasion, will never really die. Hayes looks awful in the eye makeup, and Garvin's just grabbing a paycheck. Oh, for the days of Bamm Bamm and Buddy Jack.
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I started a topic for this because I couldn't find one. If it's already been created, feel free to close this. This has to be Barry's first promo since his return; he's Woman's newest find for the Horsemen, according to her. Nothing we haven't heard before, but from the Horsemen, that's good. Props to Flair and Arn for actually putting Robocop over as a serious threat. Flair doesn't look all that bad in a ponytail.
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Talk about it here.
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I like the paint thinner idea; it would have taken Warrior's face paint off, and he could have wrestled without it, saying that he wouldn't paint his face again until he beat Rude decisively, thus "earning" the right to once again wear paint. Tarring and feathering was too southern for Vince, as you said, and haircuts were Beefcake's exclusive domain. Maybe they should have just gone with Hennig or Savage; the world really didn't need another four months of Dusty/Sapphire vs. Randy/Sherri. I don't know what you do with Savage in that case leading to Mania VII, though, and Curt needed to focus on being IC champ, especially since champion vs. champion had just been done.
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I don't think Piper would have done that for any money; he just wanted to go home to Portland. Besides, Piper never beat Rude on pay-per-view. The only time Rude ever took a clean pin on a pay-per-view from his WWF debut until after Mania VI was from Jake at the '88 Survivor Series. A revived angle between these two might work, but you'd be calling back memories of the sleazy, woman-kissing Rude, considering that the whole mess between the two of them started over Rude forcing himself on Cheryl. Besides, I think the whole point of the vignettes was him taking time off from the ring, at least on TV, to train. His first appearance on TV after Mania was on the 6/2 Superstars as a guest of Brother Love, when he formally dumped the Rude Awakening kisses from his gimmick. He didn't wrestle again until 6/16. By then, they were heavily into Jake/Bad News for SummerSlam, and Piper was officially retired (at least until he replaced Jesse on the 8/25 Superstars). Clearly, Vince thought that the vignettes and the memory of Mania V would be enough to keep the feud hot, and they may have been if Warrior hadn't already gotten his win back at SummerSlam '89.
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If you read my post about the latest Rude vignette, you'll note that I put forth the theory (which I firmly believe to be true now that I've seen how this feud's being built) that, despite what Vince and others may say, Warrior was a placeholder for the title while Hogan was busy with Suburban Commando. Promos like this one and the ones in the Hogan feud are why. As much as he depended on the children's market, Vince had to figure out at some point before Mania VI that a champion who couldn't talk like a normal human being if he was being held at gunpoint wasn't the smartest idea in the world. But with the match already sold, and Warrior having to take the belt no matter what so Hogan could leave, Vince resolved to make the best of the situation, making sure that Hogan/Quake was positioned as the top feud in the company and that Warrior was programmed with people who could get good matches out of him, like Rude and Savage. Then, just before Mania VII, with Hogan/Warrior II ready to go in front of 100,000 people at the LA Coliseum, Hogan would win the belt back from a turned Warrior, and Hulkamania would rule undisputedly once more. The Gulf War put the kibosh on that in more ways than one, but we ended up with Vince's intended result, which was Hogan back on top where he belonged. In short, Mania VI, while it may have been conceived as a passing of the torch, wasn't one by the time the match was in the ring, and while Vince may not have wanted Warrior to bomb as thoroughly as he did, he never intended for him to have long-term success either. They can say whatever they like now, but the video evidence doesn't lie, at least not to me.
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These are starting to remind me of Curt Hennig's "Perfection" vignettes, where he plays basketball, shoots pool, throws darts, etc. They look great and are well done by everyone, but like Pete says, at some point you want the guy to get in the ring and fight someone. Unfortunately, that time for Rude and Warrior is still almost two months away, with no way for an actual in-ring confrontation to even be teased. It's clearer than ever that Hogan, champion or not, was always intended to be the man, even while he was off filming Suburban Commando. I no longer buy the idea that Warrior was ever meant to be anything but a placeholder while Hogan took care of other business, regardless of what else may have been said in other places. If it hadn't been for the Gulf War, Warrior would have turned on Hogan before Mania VII and been beaten for the title in an almost exact replay of the Megapowers angle. No promotion with a lick of sense treats its number one attraction's first big feud with the title like an afterthought, unless he's not really their number one attraction at all and was never supposed to be.
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I'm wondering if something went seriously wrong here, or more accurately several things. First of all, the announcing was done in Stamford by then, so the "bird's eye view" stuff was a cover story for seeing Vince on camera when he'd have no real reason to be otherwise. You notice that we don't see Jesse at all, and you'd think he'd have been lurking somewhere to laugh at Hogan being injured. Second, Quake's entrance felt like it came too soon. Hogan and Hart barely said anything, and Brother Love said nothing, before he came out and laid Hogan out with the chair. (Since when does one rather weak chair shot to the back, even from behind, lay Hogan out? He's taken harder shots than that dozens of times.) Third, the splashes were absolutely awful. The first one was almost a total miss, and you can tell it's a miss on camera. The second was okay, but if you watch the third one closely, Hogan has to grab the back of Quake's singlet and hold on, like Quake was going to get up before the camera could really show the impact of the splash. Last, I know that the officials were wired so that the fans could hear their conversation as Hogan was being stretchered out, but the lifting sequence took far too long and looked amateurish, to say the least. That could be one reason why "announcer" Vince forgets himself and screams "GET HIM OUTTA HERE!"; Hogan, to his credit, sells away, making sure to gasp and cough loudly enough so that the camera can pick it up. Why didn't they redo it at the Challenge taping the next day? They couldn't, because guess which match was the dark main event? You got it, Hogan vs. Quake (which Hogan won by DQ). This was their one and only chance, and it was a disaster, natural and otherwise. To add another wrinkle, according to a poster at Kayfabe Memories, they'd actually shot the angle at the previous taping, with Hogan accepting a challenge for Quake to do pushups on his back, then Quake laying him out. So that makes one version of the angle already scrapped, plus another one with all kinds of mistakes. No wonder Vince was pissed off.
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The very thought of Koko and Frankie sharing that ice cream bar is enough to make me want to shampoo from the inside out in order to clear my head of the thought. It can't possibly get much worse for Koko, can it?
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Pete commented above that it's past time to go somewhere with this. I agree, but where could they have gone with just four pay-per views a year? They aren't doing this match on Superstars, SNME is still two months away, and Hogan's getting the big injury angle the following week, so you can't have Rude put Warrior on the shelf. The only thing they could have done is start these vignettes in June instead of right after Mania. Warrior was programmed with Hennig first, so maybe they could have done something with that, such as Curt using the IC title as his stepping stone to the big belt. This makes for six (at least) winning vignettes in a row from Ravishing and the Brain, who had to know well in advance that they'd basically lead to nothing. That didn't stop them from working their asses off to do them right, and they deserve a hearty tip of the cap for that.
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The highlight of this piece to me was Ottman's impression of Ernie Anderson, the old ABC promo announcer who would always draw out "LOOOOOOOVE BOOOOOOOAT" while doing promos for the show. Other than that, this was typical Vince baloney; how is even the densest mark supposed to believe that one man, even someone as big as Ottman, can really pull ships like the Queen Mary? "Tugboat" as a nickname or even a wrestling name is fine, but come up with a reasonable explanation of how he got it, like he's always loved boats and the sea, so his friends saw how big he was and nicknamed him Tugboat. Rocket science this ain't. At the end, Hogan comes out to establish the bond between himself and Ottman and accept Brother Love's challenge to confront Quake the following week. I can't wait to see that one again!
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This is about as serious a promo as the Million Dollar Man character ever delivered, but the gimmick still hamstrings Teddy here a little. Even if he beats Bossman, that doesn't guarantee him the privilege of stuffing his money down Bossman's throat; look at what just happened with Jake. But as usual with Vince's gimmicks, having money is literally the only thing the Million Dollar Man is about, so Teddy just can't kick Bossman's butt and be happy with that. Of course, this would also allow either Teddy or Bossman to win without winning had Vince wanted it; as I just said, even if Teddy gets the three count on Bossman, as long as Bossman doesn't choke on Teddy's money, he can still claim victory. Also, I know that we're all dumb little Warriors who need constant reminders about what's going on in the WWF, but hasn't Bossman said loudly and repeatedly for weeks that he can't be bought? Did we really need Gene to have a "private conversation" with him to make the point again? Lastly, to answer Cox's question, I have no idea. Both Teddy and Bossman were busy with lots of other stuff at SummerSlam, but they could certainly have blown this off on the 7/28 SNME. As a matter of fact, they had a match at that taping which never aired, with Bossman pinning Teddy cleanly. Why Vince chose to air Kerry Von Erich squashing Buddy Rose instead is a mystery for screwier minds than ours to ponder.