garretta
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I wasn't a fan of this for two reasons. First, I thought this was badly booked. Maybe there's an element of genius that I'm not seeing here, but for me there are only two possible finishes: 1) Waltman beats Hall again and becomes a mainstream player or 2) Hall murders Waltman and we don't hear from Waltman again for quite a while. There's no story left if we go with option two, so it's obvious that Waltman should go over clean..........except he doesn't. He steals Hall's money and runs out of the Mid-Hudson Civic Center like his hair was on fire. Vince and Savage go crazy over how brilliant he supposedly is, but I don't see it. I see someone who knew he couldn't hang with big, bad Razor Ramon and took the coward's way out, which spoils the whole "1-2-3 Kid" saga for me. If you're going to have Waltman pull a runner, at least let Hall steal a tainted victory (foot on the ropes, tights pull, etc.) first. Then Waltman's been screwed out of what's rightfully his, and him stealing the money is comeuppance for Hall. Or, since Hall said that Waltman didn't have to beat him again, simply have Waltman take the bag and run before they ever lock up, thus making a bigger fool out of Hall than he has already. But to do it the way they did makes it seem like Waltman was running for his life, and that's not an admirable quality for a babyface at all. Second, Vince was sickening with the constant "ONE, TWO THREE, HE GOT HIM.......YES HE DID, AND IF YOU SAY HE DIDN'T I'LL HOLD MY BREATH TILL I TURN BLUE!" routine. Once in a while it was cute when he first started doing it, but he's doing it for every nearfall these days, and anyone who picks up on it either thinks he's an idiot or is laughing so hard they have trouble watching the rest of the match. Savage and Heenan stuck to their roles well and are starting to gel as a two-man back-and-forth, but Vince is already at the bottom of the barrel, with the hole he's digging only getting larger. The sad thing is, neither JR nor Gino work well enough with Heenan anymore to take Vince's place, even if he'd let them. The in-ring WWF product may be better than it's been in a while, but even with JR on board, the announcing's seldom been worse. I forgot to mention that Hall looks awesome here, probably better than he has in the WWF so far. Granted, that's not exactly Bret Hart he's throwing around like nothing, but he still looks like a world beater. No wonder the fans started wanting a face turn; who wouldn't want someone this powerful on their side of the fence?
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Even though I remember Lee with Tammy, I honestly thought based on what we saw earlier in the set that Horner was the one who was going to turn on Tracy. I wonder if that might have been Corny's original plan. That said, Lee has a much better potential heel look and seems more like the type of man someone like Tammy would want to manage. The hand-raising stuff followed by the chlothesline was taken straight from Orndorff's turn on Hogan. Come to think of it, even though we don't see it here, I seem to remember Lee's finisher as a heel being the piledriver. I liked the delayed reaction from Sully to Tracy's dropkicks, one of which was noticeably light. It's almost like Sully wasn't sure which dropkick should be the one that sent him out of the ring, then decided to just take the bump and get it over with. Was this a title match? I don't recall Les (at least I think it was him on the call) saying that the belt was on the line, though he does say that Sully won't collect the bounty on Tracy's head. I'm shocked that no one came to Tracy's defense, especially since Rock 'n' Roll seem to make saves for every distressed face in SMW lately. Any beatdown that lasts as long as this one did whould have faces at least trying to make the save for someone whom they supposedly call their friend, even if all they do is swing a chair or throw a couple of punches.
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Everyvody else stole my thunder, so I'll give out kudos instead, at least to one man: Robert Fuller. At least his lines sounded like English when he read them, which is more than I can say for Sid, Vader, or Harley. Good God, is Harley out of place here. Do this man a favor and put him in the front office somewhere before his reputation is ruined forever. He's done his job and given Vader credibility; now he has to save his own before it's too late, if it isn't already. While I'm on the subject, I don't want to hear another word about how Vince's crown and robe made him into a joke. He may have looked a bit sillier than normal coming to the ring, but he was allowed to be Harley Race otherwise. He had Heenan as his manager when the Brain was the most over manager in the WWF by a country mile, and he got a Mania payday and two televised runs (one each in New York and Boston) with Hogan out of the deal. What possible upside could there be for him to keep this up? He's too old to take a beating like he once did, and interfering in matches has to be hell on him. Let Fuller take whatever beatings come out of this cinematic masterpiece. Sting wasn't pitiful here, but Davey more than made up for it. He tried his best, but his accent's just too thick for him to handle much talking. As I said about the last movie, the tragedy of these wasn't that they were done, it's that they were done needlessly, accomplishing nothing that a simple studio confrontation, the kind that's been a staple of wrestling since it's been on TV and was probably done on radio before that, couldn't have. Just have Vader and Sid confront Sting and Davey on the interview set when they're with Tony and launch an attack, which Sting and Davey repel. Simple. cheap, and able to be done in four or five minutes, not eight. They could have even done Fuller's bit with the tickets to the retirement home. All that would have been missing were the kids, the volleyball game, and the midget blowing up the boat, We could have seen the first two during a Control Center, and who gives a damn about the third? For those who complain about the heels being in their wrestling gear (or in Fuller's case, his colonel's outfit), let me ask you a question: Are you ready for the sight of Vader or Sid (not to mention their respective managers) in beachwear? Seeing Fuller or Vader in cutoff shorts would have made me want to take a hammer to either my computer or my head, whichever was handier. At least Harley wore a golf shirt and pants.
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I'm not sure what it says about this segment that Tod Gordon outperformed Eddie although he was also annoying as all hell. How do you expect your heels to get heat when you talk over them and call them embarrassments to their faces, Tod? If you feel that way, suspend Eddie and proclaim Terry Funk the King of Philadelphia, like he probably should have been from the start. Now that he has his own kingdom, Eddie doesn't seem to know what to do with it. I don't think he got the reaction he wanted from the public, who seemed genuinely confused by this joker in a king costume suddenly showing up out of nowhere, and his standup with Sulli wasn't much good either. Jay outperformed him too, and I thought pigs would fly sideways the day Jay Sulli outperformed anybody, much less Eddie Gilbert. Heyman had it easy; all he had to do was introduce this crap. I saw the chain match on Will's ECW set, but I don't remember much about it, so I'm looking forward to seeing it again. All I can say is that it better be worth the trouble it caused.
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This was almost beyond words. Once again, I have to ask: Why in heaven's name didn't Vince take advantage of Lawler's abilities in the ring and on the mic more than he did? He's already missed on what would have been a nice little midcard feud with Savage (all while they're together in the booth on Superstars, no less), and now we've got Owen defending his brother's honor, which would have been another great feud that would have kept the Bret issue warm while allowing them not to meet in the ring until SummerSlam. But if this match ever happened outside of the Memphis loop, I have yet to hear about it. I don't even think the two of them crossed paths at all for quite a while, as Vince thought Owen as himself was almost strictly a tag team wrestler at this point. As for the promo, all you need to know is that Dave Brown, who's seen just about every Lawler promo of consequence ever done, was left not only speechless, but more than slightly discombobulated, which I don't recall ever happening before. The lines about Whoppers and flame-broiling were great, and I wish we'd seen more of them from WWF Lawler. But the intensity was what floored me here. I've seen at least a portion of almost all of Jerry's major feuds thanks to Will's sets, and I don't recall this kind of hatred for anyone: not Dundee, not Mantel, not Austin Idol, not Andy Kaufman, not Jimmy Hart, no one. Bret's hit him right where he lives, and he won't soon forget it. This feud has so many, many possibilities in both the USWA and the WWF, and it's a shame that we probably won't see more than five percent of them for various reasons. I'm still looking forward to what we'll get, though. This feud is a shot in the arm that the USWA needs desperately: Jeff's a solid hand, but he doesn't inspire anyone; Brian's a bit too young to really be a top player on his dad's level for a long period of time; Dundee's in WCW, Dutch and (for the moment) Lance are in SMW, and everyone else who can pop a crowd reliably is ancient, as we saw in the Fargo piece that started this segment. Was Jackie coming back for some reason, or did they just trot that segment out there to fill time or something?
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She has to be a relative of somebody or other to do stuff like this with a straight face. Thanks for the info, Pete!
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For the second time, this match was hyped in the wrong venue. What's wrong with Tony standing on a stage with a mic in his hand all of a sudden? I'm no cheering fan of AFFTG, but if they're going to have it, at least have some interaction between Flair and his guests. He and Fuller only acknowledged each other's existence when there was no other choice, and even Arn was missing for some strange reason. Fuller himself said nothing that he didn't say in that mini-movie from a while back, and I have to say that they picked the wrong manager for the team of Vader and Sid. Harley should be the manager since he was already managing Vader, who's World champion. Making this mostly Fuller's- and by extension, Sid's- deal doesn't elevate Sid to Vader's level; it brings Vader back to Sid's. I'm still wondering why we needed the Col. Parker character in the first place, to be honest. I'm guessing that it was Bischoff's way of bringing Gone with the Wind (which is in the Turner movie library) into WCW, the same way Oz the wrestler was their way of bringing The Wizard of Oz in. Fuller's a much better performer than Kevin Nash will ever be, but it was still a needless tie-in. Using Carol Burnett as Starlet from her famous "Went With the Wind" sketch would have made just as much sense. I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to seeing Dusty on AFFTG or not. If anyone can save this segment, it's the Dream, but can anyone save this segment?
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Mick as a sailor might have actually been a decent gimmick. Too bad it was wasted here. I've changed my mind about the bum; he's not a Jason Hervey lookalike, he's an Eric Bischoff lookalike. He may even be a famly member for all I know. You mean to tell me that they actually put a woman in blackface for this angle? In 1993? Talk about being hopelessly backwards. What, they couldn't find a real black actress for the part, or the one they hired actually wanted to be paid? I think Kathy was tireder of this stuff than Mick was. She was probably thinking, "Why was I born into a wrestling family instead of a doctor's or a ditchdigger's? And then I had to marry one yet!" What could this possibly lead to, I wonder? Do the bookers even know at this point, and if they do, do they care?
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The brawl between Flair and Windham was nice, but I would have loved to see one of those impromptu matches the way JCP used to do it, where Flair would get a pin on Windham in order to show that he could do it again at Beach Blast. Windham was mad that Flair was using his dressing room? Isn't the belt itself enough of an issue without dragging useless crap like this into it? Maybe not, considering that the NWA title and brand were so obviously secondary at this time. I guess I called it about Roma being Arn's main partner against the Blonds. Like I said, this really takes away from the bout unless Arn does the majority of the work for the Horsemen, since Roma seems to be the one who's set up to take the loss. The US title match looks good, and it'll be interesting to see if Rude can go half an hour given his recent inujry history. I'm not sure about the main event. I think I'd rather see Sting challenge Vader and Davey wrestle Sid in a singles match.
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If you'd told me that this guy and the one who spent a year and a half nearly inciting riots in SMW are one and the same, I would have laughed in your face. The sad thing is, PG-13- two skinny white guys, remember- come off as so much more "gamgsta" than this. If this had been the pinnacle of New Jack's career, he wouldn't have been remembered at all, Fortunately for him and for us, it wasn't. By the way, whatever happened to Mark Freer, whoever he is? He sure didn't turn into Mustafa, I know that much. As crazy as it may sound, Dave's fairly hip for an old white guy. He manages to talk about these two guys without sounding condescending or showing his ignorance, unlike Bob Caudle with Tammy Fytch in SMW.
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The bum looked for all the world like Jason Hervey with darker hair. Not only did Cleveland look bad (although I think most people with any sense knew that it wasn't really Cleveland at all), but Kathy Gagne looked like an idiot for carrying that big purse around and trusting a bum with fifty bucks and a credit card. I'll bet Larry had to make it up to her when she got home from the shoot, if you know what I mean. Then again, with Verne as her dad, Greg as her brother, and Larry as her husband, maybe she was used to stuff like this. By the way, the UFO was in Roswell, New Mexico. Cactus was supposedly buying a Slurpy in Bismarck.
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It's a shame that ECW and the WWF weren't working together yet, as I think Eddie and Paul could have done a good job feuding with Bret over who the real King was. I think he works better as a pretender than as the monarch. Paul cuts a better promo here than Eddie did leading up to the chain match. I'm interested in seeing how he morphed from Paul E. Dangerously, heel manager, into Paul Heyman, beloved figure of wrestling iconoclasm and defender of all things extreme. The montage was just okay.
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Roma didn't embarrass himself here. He'll always be the third-best talker in this Horsemen unit, but he held his own in the few seconds they gave him. I've said for a long time that Arn eventually became a better talker than Flair, and we see it again here. Unfortunately, we're back to screaming idiot Flair, so it's not really a fair comparison to make. Apparently, cocky laid-back Flair is still in Vince's closet at Titan Towers, not to be seen again for an indefinite period. From what we heard, it seems like Roma's going to be Arn's post-Clash partner in the Blonds feud while Flair concentrates on Barry and the NWA title. While that seems logical enough, it also telegraphs that the Horsemen aren't winning the feud, as Roma's still such an obvious junior partner it isn't funny. I guess the Original Rock didn't even make it a month as the Horsemen's manager, huh? The only good thing about that is that WCW's not pretending that there's a fourth member of the group anywhere in sight, thus the references to just "The Horsemen". It was strange seeing a heel hype the Slam Jam CD. Don't get me wrong, Rude was a good choice, but usually faces are the ones who sell merchandise (the Horsemen excepted).
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This was a whole lot better than I ever thought it would be. To Lawler's credit, he didn't claim that we were seeing things or that he never meant to hurt Bret; he came right out and said what he said at the tournament, that he was the real King and would show Bret just how real he was. When you hear something like this, it really does make Bret sound ineffectual and weak, with his best response to Lawler's anger being the "Burger King" nickname. Has anyone ever tried to use that in Memphis? I don't think anyone was ignoring the fact that Lawler backjumped Bret; he covered that whn he talked about once again becoming the "old King", the one who would take any shortcut he could to gain the advantage over his rivals. I'm actually surprised that the USWA showed Lawler throwing the throne at Bret, since that's what apparently hurt Bret for real. I just wish that Vince had allowed Lawler to cut a similar promo for the WWF audience. The only thing Jerry would have had to do was put his own name in Jeff's place, since Jeff wasn't coming in. Of course, Vince's faces are never supposed to back down from a challenge, so maybe he didn't want it known that Bret in essence blew off another worthy wrestler. Besides, Lawler's WWF character was already such a cartoon that turning him serious all of a sudden without warning would probably have just confused everyone. I'm actually looking forward to seeing Lawler in a WWF ring to know how he adapted to the style. If it's anything like what he did in Dallas I'll probably regret that statement to my dying day, but hopefully he at least stashed his Memphis working boots somewhere safe for easy reach when it came to the big matches.
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I'm surpised that Terry didn;t flat out accuse Doug of being the Dark Patriot. He may not have known for sure, but since when has that ever stopped anyone in wrestling? Any of the matches Terry mentions here would have been tremendous, particualrly a Funks-Gilberts tag match. Unfortunately, I don't think Eddie stayed around ECW for very much longer; I'm not even sure that there was a rematch of any kind between Terry and Eddie. If I'm wrong, I hope we get to see whatever else these two did together later in the set.
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The Phils were actually up on the Cardinals by a whopping ten and a half games on the night this promo was first seen. Believe it or not, that fact hurts it in my eyes. For heaven's sake, Paul, either tell Eddie to read a sports page or get a flunky to do it before Eddie starts cutting cheap heat promos based on lies of this kind. This just reinforces the fact that Eddie neither knows nor cares much about the town he supposedly wants to be king of, and I mean that in a legitimate non-wrestling sense. More importantly, I think Eddie's been lapped by Terry in the promo department throughout this feud. I've heard Eddie do better than this in Memphis and for Watts practically in his sleep. He's at his best when he's logical, sarcastic, and humorous, not as a blustering blowhard. I'm surprised that he's forgotten that, especially since he knows that he's going against a master talker like Terry. He doesn't look like anything special at all here, and his mouth is what makes him who he is, not his ringwork (although he's not a bad physical worker by any stretch). This whole angle better really be going somewhere, especially since it looks from the match listing like Eddie's going to beat Terry and claim the crown. Personally, I'd hop the first thing moving back to Memphis and be content to be Lawler's main foil from now until the end of time, but now that the Kingfish has attacked Bret, that role seems to be more than capably filled both in Memphis and the WWF.
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They probably could have stood to do this more often over the years, particularly with the tag title. There's always a danger of overdoing it- and they came close here, with three switches in a week- but if it keeps more fans like Pete coming back, it's worth it as long as you don't do it with every champion. I wouldn't want someone like Hogan or Yoko dropping the World title at any old random house show, for example. By the way, the Rockford change to Money Inc. necessitated the St. Louis change back to the Steiners, as Rick and Scotty had to be champions on TV at least until the next set of tapings three weeks later (unless, of course, they wanted to switch the belts at a live Raw, but they'd just had the Shawn/Marty switch and probably didn't want to do another so soon). Gino doing these segments seems a bit off, especially since Okerlund's still doing the opening voiceover. It's tough to guess exactly what was happening; Gene said in his shoot that Vince fired him on a regular basis, but always hired him back. Besides, we'd just seen him at the King of the Ring doing interviews. (He wouldn't leave for the last time until early September). I'm guessing that the guy Gino was talking to was ostensibly Kevin Dunn, which is proof positive that even supposedly indispensable employees are subject to Vince's own unique brand of teasing.
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I couldn't get into this very much, not that there was a whole lot to get into in the first place. It was one long finishing stretch from the start, and those kind of matches, where nothing is ever allowed to breathe or develop, annoy me. They mostly seem to happen in joshi, too. A few of the spots were impressive, though, such as Yamada deadliting Kido into a giant swing, which I've never seen before. You wouldn't think she was that strong just to look at her. Manami's bridges were extra annoying because Megumi and Combat were working specifically on her lower back at the time she was doing most of them. I guess I shouldn't get on her, because almost all of her offense depends on a healthy lower back and strong legs, but then why have opponents work on those parts if she's more or less forced to no-sell work done on them to be effective in the ring? The Doomsday Device should have been the finish; we didn't need the powerbomb and suplex afterward. It's almost like they'd gotten to the finish, then remembered that there were a few moves that they (Megumi and Combat) hadn't used yet and wouldn't finish the match until they'd gotten those moves in. Aja's cameo was nice, but did anyone notice that Combat looked more like her than she did herself? Maybe part of my disappointment with this match was that it wasn't a hardcore match. I shouldn't say "disappointment", I guess, because I hate the thought of women pounding each other with foreign objects and such, but I expected a harder-hitting style since this was an FMW card.
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This was okay. It started slow, then picked up the pace in the middle and built to the end. I continue to be impressed by the team of Tenryu and Ishikawa, who have looked like a veteran team in every match in which they've teamed toether on the set. Their work on Fujinami's arm was top notch, and even though Fujinami got the win, he figures to be feeling the effects for quite a while. I'm not sure if I'd put Tenryu and Ishikawa over American teams like the Bodies and the Blondes, but they may be the best team in Japan right now. Fujinami way outworked Hash here. I get that they're teasing bigger matches between Hash and Tenryu later, but I thought we'd see more out of Hash than we did regardless. On the positive side, Fujinami's really seen his career take off again as a result of this feud. A lot of people thought he was pretty much done once he dropped the NWA belt to Flair two years ago, but his performances in this feud have proven them wrong quite nicely. Great veteran move by Fujinami locking in the dragon sleeper with his good arm once it became clear that the other one wouldn't work right. You seldom see wrestlers make allowances for injured body parts when applying their finishers, which makes them look stupid most of the time. This is a good feud, but it's not nearly the most fun feud of the year. My ability to understand the promos may give my choice an unfair advantage, but I have to go with a feud that hasn't even hit the ring yet as such: Cornette vs. Armstrong.
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I wasn't a fan of this. Simply put, I never got the sense that Vader could lose the belt. Sure, Davey looked good throwing him around at the start of the bout, but that's as far as it went. The rest of the time, Vader dominated. Even when Davey got a move or two in, Vader either countered or kicked out with ease. Even the powerslam got nothing. As someone above me said, it took Sting coming out and knocking Vader from the ring with ease to mane this whole match worth caring about one way or the other. What this was was typical Bischoff: Sign a big WWF star and push him to the moon, regardless of common sense or other possible options Sometimes it worked in spite of the people's initial reaction (Hogan), but in this case it clearly didn't. This probably should have been a Sting rematch; surely there was someone else who could have worked with Norton. The lack of real danger to Vader made Harley's constant interference and the DQ finish itself look stupid. Why go to these lengths for just another challenger? For that matter, why book the DQ for something that happened outside the ring? At least let Vader bring the chair in and go to town on Davey right in front of Patrick. My guess is that they were running out of satellite time and wanted to do all the run-ins, plus Verne's closing interview, so they booked the DQ to happen as soon as they felt they could possibly get away with it. Tony and Larry tried their best to save this: Tony with his historical references and Larry with what continues to be the best nuts-and-bolts analysis in the business. I loved his talking about how wrestlers like to wait until their opponent inhales to drop knees and elbows to the midsection, and also his reminders that size and strength don't matter much, even if you're as big as Vader, if you aren't athletic enough to use it effectively. The only time the audience was reminded of what a scumbag he used to be was when he talked about how his opponents used to have the towel thrown in for them because it was the humane thing to do, and even that related to the pounding Davey was taking at the time. Larry fits the WCW commentary style better than any ex-wrestler I've heard yet, and that includes Jesse. If Jesse hadn't been a big Hollywood name (by wrestling's standards, at least) he might have been demoted to the B team already, as he was when Heenan came in. Tony's much more comfortable with Larry; the problem is, they don't have another experienced play-by-play guy to put with Jesse. In light of how the match turned out, the "doing it for Cactus" stuff was pointless, as were the references to Davey being "The Man" after his early success. The latter was understandable under the circumstances, but they should have saved the Cactus shoutouts for when Vader might actually have looked like he was going to lose. Line of the Night: Tony's exchange with the director over whether to put a mic on Harley or not. There was something about the way Tony dismissed the idea that made me chuckle. Verne going out of his way to put over WCW was expected, but to claim that he didn't know what kind of star power they had until this card? Have you watched any wrestling whatsoever in the last three years, Verne?
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I didn't care for this much as a match, which is all too common for me when it comes to the trios style. Some of the dives were great, though, particularly the one at the end of the first fall where Ramirez hurtles headlong into the third row to get at Felino. I guess that was the main program featured in this match, since those two were the team captains. I noticed that until almost the very end, Casas was involved in every spot which fatured Jericho. I'm wondering if Casa wasn't his designated mentor, for lack of a better term. That is, the veteran that teaches the up-and-coming star what wrestling's all about. If that's the case, CMLL couldn't have made a better choice. Jericho and his attitude seemed a bit out of place here. Not that they don't play to the crowd a lot in lucha, but he alsmost seemed too perky and earnest to be true, especially with his Hogan-like hand to the ear. Here's hopmg he matures a little during the rest of his Mexican stay.
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This was very good, but as others have said it was more of a tease of what's to come, whuch is why Kikuchi and Ogawa got so much time. Any combination of the other four in singles or tags is a money feud that doesn't need to be explored in depth at the moment. Kikuchi took his usual asskicking here, and despite the fact that he got the pin I don't see much of a future for him in this feud. Bring up Ricky Morton all you like, but he was a World or regional tag team champion who took his whippings from people desperate to win the championships that he held. Kikuchi is nothing more than a human chew toy for the likes of Jumbo, Taue, and company more often than not, with very little upside potential from what I've been able to grasp. He may have had some at one time, but not now. I liked the slam he took from Taue that broke the press table clean through, and I'm surprised he didn't legitimately hurt his back as a result. Kawada's not that much different now than he was before; only his opponents have changed. It seems like while the prestige will come from his feud with Misawa over the Triple Crown, it's going to be Kobashi-Kawada that's the real blood feud, with Kobashi the one expressing the moral outrage over Kawada's defection. It's a great way to build two money-making feuds at the same time, which most promotions have been surprisingly poor at in the course of wrestling history. Another thing that adds to the story of these multi-man tags is that most of them involve the Triple Crown champion (in this case, Misawa), which means that a pinfall victory over him by anyone from the other side automatically makes them a top contender to the title. What an opportunity that would be for someone like Ogawa, who doesn't figure to reach Misawa's class on his own merit, but could take advantage of a slipup in a match like this to score a three-count on him and earn a championship bout. A scenario like that hasn't happened yet in these Yearbooks, but it's always a possibility, which adds a lot of intrigue to these matches, at least for me. I've read some good things about the tag match from two days before this, and I can't wait to see it!
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The top-rope powerbomb finish ensures that I'll remember this match, and kudos to Samurai for taking and selling that move as well as he did. You can tell that the juniors are really evolving when a top-rope Frankensteiner and a back superplex each barely get a two-and-a-half count. I'm not sure if I like the way they're evolving, but they are. Benoit still looks like a Dynamite Kid clone here, especially with the snap suplexes and the diving headbutts. In a world where the juniors in particular seem to be getting flashier by the month, he's a refreshing throwback to simpler times. I liked the sequence where Benoit had his mouth open while Samurai was applying the chinlock. It's almost like he was thinikng about biting Samurai's wrist to escape, then decided against it. Nice to see Liger come into the ring at the end to congratulate Benoit. I get the feeling that we haven't seen the last of that matchup.
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Let's start with the finish and work backward. I'll be interested to see how they spin what Lawler did in Memphis, because if I as a Memphian ordered this pay-per-view and saw Lawler act like such a crybaby after Bret got the hell kicked out of him three separate times to win the tournament, I don't think I'd be cheering him come Saturday morning. He'll probably have a logical point of some sort or other, but the nature of the attack would (or at least should) cancel that out for anyone with two eyes. Honestly, I'm surprised Lawler was willing to go as far as he was, knowing that USWA fans were most likely watching. If I'd been in his shoes, I might have settled for some trash-talking that I could spin positively for my home folks to start, then possibly build up to an attack in a few weeks once I was sure that they were on my side no matter what. I'm guessing that Vince must have promised him some pretty good money to come to the WWF full-time if business in Memphis would have tanked as a result of this, maybe even a title program if Bret should regain the belt at some point. It had to be something fairly substantial for Lawler to take that much of a risk. The restart was absolutely useless unless they'd planned to have Bammer attack Bret instead of Lawler, which wouldn't have been a bad way to go. As it was, it seemed like it was there more to give Bret a timeout than anything else. I'm not sure if Finkel really made a mistake by saying that Marella had reversed the decision or not, but regardless it was awful form for Savage to throw him under the bus like that. It's doubly bad if the announcement was planned that way (Howard stumbles, then corrects himself) because you're then going after someone who's just doing his job as instructed, which you (Savage) haven't been for quite a while. It was nice to see Luna out of nowhere, and I guess this appearance was what led to her being put with Bammer full time. The match wasn't much to talk about; it was an epic squash for the most part, and Bammer looked better here than he ever has on offense. I actually liked him picking out a new body part of Bret's to work on (the lower back); he's always been a loner at his best, and it's like he was saying "I don't care what anyone else did, I'm winning this match my way." The only move of Bret's that really stood out to me was the over-the-top dive. I agree with Heenan here; that was crazy. especially in the context of the story being told. Than again, you could say that about Bret's entire performance in this match. Not much was needed from the commentators here; the story of the match told itself quite nicely. In fact, it got a little annoying to hear JR, Savage. and Heenan try to top themselves constantly with new and better ways of saying how gutsy Bret was. It especially felt out of place for Bobby; unlike Jesse Ventura, he doesn't function as well when he has to be an impartial journalist. He tried his best to pull for Bigelow, but with JR in no mood to play straight for him and Savage a hundred percent for Bret to the point of being suffocating he never really found his voice. Savage trying to intimidate him into cheering for Bret and shaking his hand if he won was the low point. What was he going to do if Heenan refused, go up to the top rope and drop a double axhandle on him? Savage needs to be somewhere where he's the one and only commentator, preferably with Vince, where he can actually be a voice of reason on occasion. Interesting to hear JR pull out some of the phrases and quirks he used in WCW here: the thin layer of carpet on the floor "for aesthetic purposes", talking about how much satellite time is left, etc. I read somewhere once that during his first go-round, Vince encouraged JR to call the matches as he always had, and boy, did JR take that to heart. Unfortunately, as I said above, that also extended to guzzling his colleagues, which is far from a good thing. Believe it or not, he sounded like he was having more fun during the Attitude Era with Lawler than he does here; of course, it helped that he and Jerry, much like Gino and Booby, were (and probably still are) extremely close friends outside the ring as well.
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I liked the pre-match promo. They drew on hstory better than they have in a long, long time, with Curt vringing up his SummerSlam '91 loss to Bret repeatedly. Bret downplays that a bit, but you'd expect him to since he won the match in the first place. Gene was a bit of a disturber at the beginning, but who wouldn't rather wrestle a relative greenhorn like Hughes than a former World champion like Curt Hennig, especially since Bret had already wrestled a grueling match against Hall and would have to turn right around and go out for the finals with little rest if he won because of Bigelow's bye? Mean Gene actually mentioned Larry Hennig; will wonders never cease? I'm not sure if Stu ever beat the Ax, or even wrestled him for that matter, but I was so happy that Curt's past was acknowledged that I don't even care. Now for the match. This was better than SummerSlam, mostly because Curt was firing on all cyllinders. He must have known long before the card that he was going to get this match, because this was his best WWF performance, period. Everything looked crisp and devastating, and even his cheating spots had an energy to them that I haven't seen from him since his series with Bockwinkel over the AWA belt in '86 and '87. The only hole in his strategy was that he never worked on Bret's hurt knee. That means that either 1) It was a shoot injury or 2) It was forbidden for anyone to work on Bret's legs during his matches to protect the Sharpshooter. I certainly hope it was the former, because the latter goes against all logic and ring psychology. Speaking of which, I loved how Curt countered the Sharpshooter by pulling on Bret's taped fingers. That move would be too subtle for most WWF heels at this time, but Curt pulled it off brilliantly. I'm a bit short on time, so I'm going to skip over Bret for a second and head right to the commentary. This was Savage's best WWF performance ever, probably because he wasn't consumed with pulling for the face since both men were faces. He and Heenan showed some good chemistry for once, and both guys put over the epic nature of this struggle well, along with the idea that whoever survived would be easy pickings for Bigelow in the finals. I liked how he showed up on camera at the end without his hat and glasses, and said that the reason why was that he was so into the match. I only wish that he'd get into more matches like that. Heenan came up a bit short, but it wasn't really his fault. He works best when he can put over the heels and make jokes, and this match wasn't set up for either. He's a decent match analyst, but that's not what he's paid for. Fortunately, as I've said, he and Savage had some good back-and-forth and kept things listenable. The one thing he could add that no one else could was insight into Curt through his past association with him, and he managed to do so despite JR and Randy's best efforts to stonewall that. JR in particular didn't seem to want anything to do with that particular piece of history, and as always, it was mean-spirited enough to my ears to go from good banter with a heel to "Shut your damn mouth and let me call this match or else". The bit at the end where JR referred to him as "Weasel" and rolled his eyes before correcting himself didn't sit well with me either. Gino could get away with things like that because they were long-standing colleagues in the booth and best friends behind the scenes. JR's neither one; he's not even really WWF yet. Other than the above, JR's biggest contribution to the proceedings was a reference to the ongoing NBA Finals, of all things. The match started before much could be made of it, but I wonder if Heenan and Savage would have bothered to acknowledge it much regardless. What is it with promotions refusing to give weights anymore? The WWF had an excuse here since both Bret and Curt had already wrestled, but WCW did the same thing in the Buff/Scorp-Blonds match. I don't think they gave a hometown on anybody, either. I guess we're supposed to believe that the wrestlers just fly around to match after match, living on the planes in between so they can be ready to go at a moment's notice. Bret matched Curt move for move here, and count me as one of those who loved that big uppercut about halfway through the match. He did an excellent selling job with his knee, as did Curt with his, and I could tell that even without Curt pulling on his fingers, he was having a tough time locking on the Sharpshooter because he was trying to watch out for his leg at the same time. He bumped for Curt like he didn't have the chance to do at SummerSlam, which only added to his greatness here. His bump to the guardrail was a real thing of beauty, if something that brutal can be called beautiful. Same with the counter to the Perfectplex. Whoever called the finish shit was dead wrong; it was an excellent finish given both the desperation and exhaustion of both guys. Maybe some wanted Bret to make Curt quit in the Sharpshooter, but they'd already done that finish once, and they needed to establish Bret as the clear underdog heading into the finals. I loved the handshake at the end, although I could understand wanting to tease a Curt heel turn briefly, given that both men's "salty pasts", to use Randy's phrase, were such an important part of the match by making their willingness to do anything to win stand out. Can't wait to see the finals!