Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

garretta

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    3562

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Decent little match that sets up what I hope will be a much bigger angle. Expert destruction of Adams' leg by Devastation, and even Akbar doesn't look too lost, which is always surprising for a manager. I saw the beginning of the Embry-Adams stuff at the tail end of the 80s World Class set, and it's notable that Embry, who was booking here, allowed himself to come off looking worse than Adams. He clearly meant to shove Toni, even if he regretted it a second or two later, and Chris was right to pay him back for it. Of course, it's the Memphis invader Dundee who ends up paying the price, as Akbar and the boys have a field day with him. The fight should have been broken up just a tad sooner unless one of these two was going heel immediately, which didn't happen, at least from what we saw. But as wild as Texas always is, you know something big's brewing, and I can't wait to dig into February and find out what it is!
  2. garretta
    Easily the worst match so far. I have no patience for "hide-the-chain" Lawler when I see him because that's literally 95% of his offense. No straight punches and almost no wrestling (okay, in this match he tries one lousy arm wringer that lasts about two seconds). How the Dallas fans didn't see what a putrid in-ring worker he was in their part of the territory I have no idea. Even his so-called psychology's not worth two cents. I firmly believe that he was intentionally tanking Dallas so he could save all of his best stuff for his own home fans in Memphis. In summary, I would have rather seen Marc Lowrance wrestle Terrance Garvin. At least I knew JYD was fading fast and could adjust my expectations; the difference between Memphis Lawler and Dallas Lawler is like the difference between Ric Flair and Zeus. Agree on Garvin being a horrible commentator, but at least he had a purpose in this match. Good for Marc on finding a higher calling, but I'll miss him when he leaves the booth.
  3. garretta
    As I said in an earlier thread, Curt and Lanny could have been the Conquistadors for all that it mattered in this one. Curt bumped way too comically for the offense Hogan put on him, and I'm usually not one to criticize bumping or selling. For the record, it was explained during the match that Curt stopped the count on the Perfectplex so Lanny could get the fall on Hogan, which he'd been denied on the last SNME. Of course, that plan, like all their others on this night, went straight to hell. As for the postmatch stuff, an actual fight would have been nice, but whoever threw the first punch would have turned heel, and Vince wanted this to be a face vs. face matchup. That's why the "wrong" was spread equally: Hogan was at fault for tagging himself in to get the pin in the manner he did (slapping Warrior in the back of the head), but Warrior should have watched who he was clotheslining too. Each man's fans could justify their hero's actions without the other guy looking too evil, and the winner could unite the two strongest forces in the wrestling world once Mania was over and make Vince a ton of money. If only it had worked out that way. My WWF watching is now complete for January. This match isn't even close to Garvin/Valentine at the Rumble, so that bout takes Match of the Month honors, with Rockers/POP a respectable second. We'll see if Ronnie and Greg can hold on to their crown through February and the succeeding months in the race to be my WWF Match of the Year!
  4. garretta
    Jake explains why he took the Million Dollar Belt concisely and with conviction, and the build to his Mania showdown with DiBiase begins. As Parv said, not his best ever, but more than adequate for its purpose. Loved Mean Gene assuming that Jake was going to inflict some sort of testicular injury on Teddy as revenge for his own neck injury. Jake, unfortunately, cuts him off at the pass. The timing was perfect for a grin and an evil chuckle there before he whipped out the belt.
  5. garretta
    Typical short SNME promo. These were scripted moreso than the average syndicated show stuff was, according to some of the wrestlers, and you can tell it's true, especially with Okerlund, whose questions are more cleverly phrased than usual (in general, not necessarily in this particular promo). Dusty-Rude would have been in interesting program if they'd chosen to go with it, although Sapphire wouldn't seem to be Rude's type.
  6. garretta
    Maybe the best "midcard" bout in WWF history to that time. It looked and felt like a main event. The only thing that took away from it slightly was that they dldn't use weapons other than the shinguards. Then again, when you can hit like these two, who needs weapons? Excellent job by Tony and Jesse putting across the psychology of the match, particularly the blow to the ego that was in store for the loser. Someone should have reminded Tony that Jimmy Hart removing Ronnie's shinguard was actually legal in this bout, though. I thought Jesse would have, but he didn't. I had no problem at all with the repeated pinfall attempts. Remember, each of them were being hit hard enough to suffer concussions; it's only natural that they'd instinctively go for pins when they barely knew who they were, let alone where they were. The ending with Ronnie hitting Greg with one of the shinguards before putting the scorpion/sharpshooter on him was slightly cheap, but Greg's so tough it's conceivable that he wouldn't have submitted if he wasn't already semiconscious. I wish Tony and Jesse would have put over what they'd just seen a little more instead of the face/heel squabbling over whether Greg gave up or not, and they bailed a bit too quick to go to Royal Rumble interviews, but those are minor quibbles. I thought that Ronnie left right after this, but he stuck around for a while to put over Earthquake on house shows. Nevertheless, it was his last pay-per-view bout, so in that sense, he left a winner as he should have. This is definitely my WWF Match of the Month for January with one bout left (the Hogan-Warrior SNME tag) and is my new number one for Match of the Month overall with around a disc left to watch.
  7. garretta
    A decent home video match. I liked the airplane spin battle as much as anyone else, but I missed the shot of Sherri's rear in the postmatch brawl. I didn't miss Piper pulling up her skirt after she did the same to his kilt, though. Interesting that Sherri's attempts to keep Piper out of the ring actually got Savage disqualified; you didn't see that finish in the Hulkamania-era WWF too often. The heel usually got away with stuff like that, like in the November '87 SNME match when Heenan got Bundy a win over Hogan that way. One thing I was always disappointed with when it came to Sherri: the announcers never put over the fact that she'd been ladies' champion and was very dangerous physically as a result. Even when she connects with a nice kick to Piper's head during this match, they treat it the same way as a Fuji cane jab or Heenan cheap shot. Vince really missed the boat here, to say the least.
  8. garretta
    This was on the yearbook mainly for the Hogan-Warrior confrontation, which still delivers today. Nice of Jesse to come to the Ultimate Maniac's defense. Even at the time, I was wondering if they were going to turn Warrior heel. They probably should have, using Hogan's elimination of him as the main issue between them. Of course, there were no faces outside of Hogan who could realistically measure up to him, so it might have been just as bad for business as what happened in real life. Still, a Heenan-led Warrior as champion would have been something different between Manias VI and VII. Tony was good, and The Bod was at his serious best. This is the Jesse that Bill Watts wanted to see more of in WCW. His one big mistake was saying that Curt could have pinned Hogan after the Perfectplex, but that's forgivable in the heat of the moment. Nice to see Curt use the Ax to set Hogan up. As for those who say that Curt should have gone over: Maybe that's true if Hogan-Hennig was your Mania main event and you wanted to keep him perfect, but all Curt was going to do at Mania was lose to Beefcake. What would have been the point of building him up just to cleanly lose to an upper midcarder? If anyone besides Hogan should have gone over, it was Warrior, to establish that Hogan can indeed be vanquished. Other than that, Vince made the right call here.
  9. garretta
    They didn't need the double-DQ here. Let Beefcake win, since Lanny means nothing as a wrestler by now and the real issue is between Beefcake and Hennig, and then you can do the exact same stuff, run-in and all. The Perfect Plex in a beatdown? I know Curt's not supposed to be a Hennig anymore, but the Ax would have made a ton more sense. Then again, that finisher doesn't have the word "perfect" in it, so a wrestler doing a perfection gimmick can't use it, at least in Vince's world. (Ever heard of calling it "The Perfect Forearm", guys?) Great job by Tony and Jesse of justifying their respective favorites' cheating at the right time. This is obviously before Tony got the huge chip on his shoulder that he would during his later WCW days, and he sounds like he's having a good time with Jesse here. I wish he'd remembered this style when it came time to work with The Brain later on. Love The Bod's line about Okerlund's hair and Tony's slightly amused comeback, "Now Jesse......" They'd have been the new Monsoon and Heenan if things had broken just a bit differently. Looking forward to their WCW pairing in later yearbooks.
  10. garretta
    Hard to tell a lot from what little there is here, although I agree that Inoue's shoulderblock on Tenryu and Tenryu's reaction to being counted out make it worth including on their own. Can't wait for more.
  11. garretta
    Nothing really bad about this video......but then again, nothing really good. Really, it's just plain nothing.
  12. garretta
    Could we combine this thread with the "Jerry Lawler and Junkyard Dog promos" thread, please?
  13. garretta
    I wonder what JYD meant by "going through the shadows of darkness" or whatever it was that he was trying to say. It almost seems like he had to wrestle another match before he could face Lawler, but if that's true, we don't know who his opponent is. Someone should have caught "Elvis P. Presley", especially in Memphis. As for Lawler, it's a simple case of trying too hard to be a heel in a place that he knows doesn't want to boo him anymore. I understand wanting fresh opponents, and there really isn't a way to turn JYD heel in a place like Memphis, but I'd have rather seen Lawler fight lesser heel opponents than resort to obvious racism to try to turn the people who still loved him against him (and failing miserably, I might add).
  14. garretta
    I liked the photos, and since Lawler's a legit Memphis celebrity, it makes sense that he'd get photo ops with guys like Rodney Dangerfield. As for Art Modell, it almost looks like he might have been a guest on The Jerry Lawler Show at some point, since Jerry's holding a mic in the picture we see, and I'm sure his Browns fandom was well known in Memphis. Of course, now that he's a heel, we're supposed to ignore things like that, and Dave does a fine job at it. A nice little slice of Memphis cheese.
  15. garretta
    Shame there's no real payoff to this, as this could have been one of the seemingly silly angles that Memphis actually pulls off quite believably. Fuller can sing and play better than most wrestlers, including Billy Joe Travis, and Lawler and Dundee each play their parts well. The highlight, though, is Dave's rather understated double take at the mention of Travis's name alongside Elvis. Out of curiosity, where was Jimmy Golden at this time?
  16. garretta
    A bit odd that Arn was defending against fellow face Gilbert. Nice job of subtly teasing the gulf between Sting and Flair; Sting tells JR that as much as he enjoys being a Horseman, he still has his responsibilities to the little Stingers, which Flair and Arn (ostensibly) don't. So the Horsemen turn wasn't quite as much out of nowhere as I'd previously believed, which is always good to see. It's also good to see Flair invite JR to their next party. He'd better take advantage of that invitation while he can; the Clash is just ten days away! I notice that Woman's invitation to Flair very noticeably does not include Sting or Arn, and that Ole never even shows up for the interview. It would have been interesting to see Woman take over as manager of the newly-heeled Horsemen after the Clash; from what I remember of Ole as a manager, let's just say he was no JJ Dillon.
  17. garretta
    Terry seems to be almost a tweener here, taking subtle digs at Teddy but not wanting to get too far on his bad side. Teddy's already miles better than Slick on the mic, and he's only been a manager less than a year. Of course, Slick was nothing but a walking stereotype anyway, so I'm not sure that's a fair comparison. As for Mean Mark/Taker, he doesn't seem too thrilled with Teddy and Terry's dance exhibition to say the least; by the end of the segment, you can tell that he's already praying for Vince to rescue him from this insanity. His wish would be granted by the end of the year. Interestingly enough, Teddy was not-too-subtly burying Sid here, but when Sid makes his return in a few months, he not only comes back as a heel, but a Horseman. It'll be interesting to see if we get mention of that during the upcoming Horsemen/Doom feud (which I've never seen, by the way).
  18. garretta
    Yes, Terry has to carry Mick here, but there's enough so we can see the seeds of future greatness. All he needs is experience, and he'll be getting that soon enough both in the ring and on the stick. He already sounds like a dangerous hombre that no sane man would want to mess with, particularly a tag team partner. The best is definitely to come.
  19. garretta
    Actually, there were two Royal Rumble Reports on this show according to Gene; the first one (which didn't make the set) covered the undercard matches. Hercules gets a promo, but Hogan doesn't? I guess they figured he'd be with Brother Love later. Sapphire screamed so loud that it was hard to hear Dusty. She might have been enthusiastic, but her sense of timing stank. I was wondering if it meant anything that the Rockers (the "tag team specialists") were the only team introduced one right after the other until they did the same thing with the Powers of Pain. On a personal note, this is the first time I missed a pay-per-view since I started following the WWF in real time back in the fall of '86; my parents objected to paying $24.95 for a minor show like the Rumble. By the following year, every show was at least $24.95, and Mania was $29.95. I stopped following wrestling in real time soon after.
  20. garretta
    Nothing too surprising here. Hogan's rant about stacking the other wrestlers up in the center of the ring is pointless to say the least for a battle royal and just sounds like filler. I like the image of guys fainting when he poses in their faces, though. I wonder if he actually thought of that as a finisher at some point? It wouldn't shock me. Too bad that Hogan and Curt being the final two in the Rumble was as close as we got to a pay-per-view bout between them. You wonder how different history might have been if they'd run Hogan/Hennig at Mania VI, Hogan/Warrior at Mania VII, and deep-sixed the Slaughter crap in between.
  21. garretta
    If only they'd had the guts to do a Haku-Rude or Haku-Andre confrontation. Poor timing by whoever was directing; you should never go to an interview with only a few seconds left in a segment, especially with a ponderous talker like Andre. Heenan covers by waving his guys off hurriedly so Sean can throw it back to Tony and Jesse. Segments like this make me wish that there had been more cohesion between wrestlers on both sides of the fence during the Hulkamania era. Then again, if Hogan needs help from mere mortal men, or if groups of mere mortals can set out to do him harm and succeed, is Hulkamania really the strongest force in the universe?
  22. garretta
    Warrior is at least somewhat coherent this week. I would have died laughing if Mean Gene had set up Warrior to talk about Hogan and he'd cut the rest of his promo on someone like Koko B. Ware (who was in the Rumble that year; he drew number two). One noticeable botch, and it came from Okerlund: he talks up the tag match from SNME as Hogan and Warrior taking on a common enemy, meaning Perfect and the Genius. But without clarifying that, he immediately leads Warrior into some final comments about Bravo and Earthquake. It wasn't a great big deal, really; they could have been teaming against the Conquistadors for all it mattered. But I'm surprised that Vince let it pass, especially since TV Guide had (correctly) listed Perfect and the Genius as their opponents. Why tease, even inadvertently, a match against Bravo and Quake that you weren't going to deliver?
  23. garretta
    Short but effective challenge promo toward Jake from Teddy. Maybe he and Virgil were going to undress and lift weights after cutting it. That would make sense, especially if it was supposedly done at Teddy's "private gym".
  24. garretta
    These are the openings I remember, although I like the ones with the little mini-promos best. WWE still misses Jesse twenty-four years later; no one has effectively taken his place. It misses Vince the announcer too, come to think of it; he's not nearly as effective feeding the lines to his lackeys as he was (and probably still would be) at delivering them himself.
  25. garretta
    These were charming, especially because of Jesse, but overall I liked the commercials Vince voiced in the eighties a little better, particularly the one where the Iron Sheik shows up on the school steps and says, "Okay kids, back to class". Like they'd actually listen to a no-good lousy stinkin' Iranian, right?
×
×
  • Create New...