garretta
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This was tremendous, both as a match and as a class in heel tag team sychology. Buff and Scorp didn't get much respect at the start; even Jesse wondered how "the computer" had chosen them over Steamer and Douglas for the title shot. But by the end, they looked like a team that could give the Blonds fits for years to come. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we're going to get any rematches, at least on this set. The Blonds must have been watching some tape prior to this match, because they work like a team from twenty years before, and I mean that as a compliment. Pillman's "hide the foreign object" game is a classic bit we don't get too often anymore, and I loved the spot with the towel to the referee's blindside, though I hope we don't see it too often as it makes whoever the ref is look like a total schmuck, unless of course WCW does as Jesse suggested and starts hiring refs with eyes in the backs of their heads. Buff's already learning how to be a good showman; I loved his mocking of Austin's "filming" gesture, which isn't something most guys with his limited experience have picked up on yet. Scorp doesn't need such things; he's got his athleticism, which elevates every bout he's in. As I've said before, when you're a face and Jesse Ventura not only respects you, but gets into your act like he does with Scorp's, you've accomplished something. I didn't mind the draw; Buff and Scorp aren't known as a top team yet, and this was their equivalent of Sting's draw with Flair at the first Clash of the Champions. They should get another shot soon with a full time limit, whether we see it here or not. I'm with Pete; I wonder why they were teasing dissension between the Blonds quite this soon. I'm not sure exactly when they're dropping the belts, but it isn't in the next few weeks for sure. Pillman's just finding his stride as a heel, and to turn him back face, particularly the same type of face he was earlier in the decade, would be a total waste of potential. I know perfectly well that Austin's future is in singles matches, but let's at least make some hay with these two as a team before we rush into a breakup, especially because I'm not sure that an Austin-Pillman feud would be all that big a deal yet. Tony's back to being annoyed with Jesse, although Jesse bringing up stuff like guys puking in the ring doesn't help. It's not that Tony shows disgust with Jesse rooting for heel tactics such as the use of the towel; it's the way he does it. With Vince and Gino, it was "How can you possibly condone this, Jesse? What's the matter with you?" With Tony, it's "How can you interrupt me, even though I'm not saying much of anything? You're ruining my broadcast!" As good as Jesse's been with both JR and Tony at various times in WCW, I think he'd have been better off staying with Vince. Maybe Gino wouldn't have gone downhill as far nor as fast if he and Jesse had still been partners on pay-per-views, and we would have been spared Savage on both pay-per-views and Raw, where he's gotten increasingly worse over time. It would be kind of a shame for Heenan, since he probably would have been doing Challenge only and may have even gone to WCW early as a result, but overall I'd take a Jesse for Savage and Lawler trade in the booth any day. Maybe Lawler would have gotten a bigger push as a wrestler if Vince hadn't been so concerned with him doing his rent-a-joke bullshit in the booth. Line of the Night goes to Jesse, as Pillman plays "hide the object": "It melts in your mouth, not in your hand." Tony crapping all over that bit by claiming that it was a commercial for M&Ms is a perfect example of why he'd be better with Zbyszko, whose style is a lot more serious, on a full-time basis.
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This was the Bull and Aja Show, as both Akira and Kyoko took righteous beatings each in their turn. They got in some offense, but not enough to matter much, though I thought one of them (I can't remember which one at the moment) countering a possible Aja superplex with a sunset flip was beautiful. I could have done without the nunchuk spots in the middle of the match. I'm sorry, but foreign objects in the middle of a regulation bout will always be grounds for disqualification as far as I'm concerned, and any promotion that allows them is seriously deficient in my eyes. That's one of the reasons I grew tired of ECW so quickly. Aja and Bull are physically impressive enough not to need stuff like this, which only makes the situation worse. Can you imagine 1970s Andre using chairshots as part of his offense? This is the female equivalent.
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I was ready to really hate this until Kabuki made his comeback. Then it got iinteresting in a weird sort of way, seeing the ancient Kabuki beat the living hell out of the reigning IWGP champion. My favorite part was when Kabuki came back in after his promo during which he threatened to kill Muta and then proceeded to try just that with his nunchuks. I was a bit surprised that Kabuki spoke in English, and that NJPW was going along with the father/son stuff. I thought that was just a device Gary Hart used in WCW to make sure that Muta got over with American audiences. Come to think of it, could Kabuki have been looking to get one last brief stateside payday from WCW? That may have been why he spoke in English. Kabuki was part of WAR? I wonder why we haven't seen him on a Yearbook before this. He must have been working a very limited schedule. I'm with the people who enjoyed this once, but don't really need to see it again. It was fun to see how far these two would go in order to hurt each other and make each other bleed, though. .
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This was neither fish nor fowl to me. It seemed like they were trying to work a shoot-style exhibition on a normal pro-style card until the final few minuted when we saw a couple of Irish whips and a couple of nice reverse neckbreakers. Overall, this was really tough for me to get into; they should have either worked a total shoot-style match or a total pro-style match. It may be possible to mix the two, but not in the way they did it here.
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I was pleasantly surprised by this one. First, I never expected the end-to-end action we got here. The Wrestling Classic and the Mania IV tournament were the two tournaments I'd seen from the WWF before this, and most of the matches were so sparse that they ran together. It's not just that they went no longer than about three minutes on average, it's the participants did as little as possible within those three minutes. Here, we actually had a match, and a very good one too, Bret, of course, was great, but don't underesitmate Hall. Again, this match was booked and worked to the opposite of what would be reasonably expected. Yes, the crowd went nuts chanting "1-2-3", but Hall never appeared rattled by it, in spite of what Savage tried to tell the audience. Far from covering his ears and cowering in the manner of a Larry Zbyszko, Hall wrestled the match of his WWF career so far, nearly beating Bret on several occasions. Even the finish reinforced the notion that Bret had to dig deep to beat someone who, upset loss aside, was at the top of his game. I thought for a minute that they were going to have Bret kick out of the Razor's Edge to lead to the finish, and I'm glad they didn't. I'd have been okay with his counter leading directly to the winning fall, especially since it looked so good, but using the back suplex reversal was a wise move under the circumstances, particularly if a face turn was already in the works for Hall. JR was his usual self here. He didn't play straight man much with Heenan, which was a disappointment, but maybe he assumed that Savage would do it. If so, he was dead wrong. I'm fine with guys taking sides in matches, but that's all Savage did. He offered almost no insight at all into anything beyond cheering for Bret, and even no-sold Heenan's attempts to accuse him of starting the "1-2-3" chants. Heenan, of course, sided with Hall, but also provided little touches of insight that he'd never bothered with before. My favorite was when he praised Hall for stepping on both of Bret's hands, which would have made it difficult for Bret to both hit Hall with punches and pick him up for moves. As I've said before, I think JR was responsible for a lot of this, because Bobby felt the need to pick up his game. He still got off some great lines, though. My favorite was to JR: "You wouldn't know anything (about competing). You're from Oklahoma; you spend most of your time milking pigs!" I also liked him saying that Bret was so geared toward wrestling that if he got a wakeup call for Room 123 at a hotel, he'd kick out as soon as the operator said "two". It's a shame that Savage destroyed the joke by calling it irrelevant. I can't wait to see the other two Bret matches we have here; I've heard great things about the Curt match in particular.
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This wasn't the classic it probably should have been, but it wasn't too bad either. Eddie dominated the match, which I didn't expect; I thought that this would be more back-and-forth than it was. If you buy Eddie as the heel here, you can kind of understand why Waltman felt the need to break the rules in kind, although neither man made a really big deal out of it. I'm kind of used to seeing faces kick their opponents low for no real reason; it's a staple face comeback spot in 1980s Puerto Rico, with Carlos Colon and Jose Gonzalez doing it in almost every match whether they need to or not. Eddie's dive into the crowd was both thrilling and insane. I wonder if a spectator ever got hurt from either a dive like that or what happened immediately after (losing their balance trying to get away and falling to the floor, for example). This tour of Waltman's explains why the 1-2-3 Kid was so reluctant to accept Razor Ramon's challenge for a rematch. Good move by Vince actually turning Sean's absence into a positive and using it to add more intrigue to an already hot angle. Five years ago (1988), the 1-2-3 Kid would have either been erased completely or made to seem like a poor dumb cluck who got lucky, That's if Hall didn't just beat him to a pulp in standard squash fashion.
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This had its dead spots, but hearing the crowd go nuts when the natives won the title made up for it at least somewhat. It's a bit surprising that a relatively new team would go over for the belts so quickly, but considering what was about to happen to Bamm Bamm, it looks like a genius move on Baba's part in hindsight We seldom get one hot tag in an AJPW match, let alone two, so it was nice to hear the crowd go crazy both times that Kawada was tagged in. Gordy was a clothesline-throwing machine. It seemed at times as though that was the only move he had confidence in all night. It's kind of sad, because at one time Gordy may have been the best overall gaijin worker in Japan. Now that Kawada and Taue have the belts, I can't wait to see their June title defense against Misawa and Kobashi. Considering the feelings between all four men, it ought to be a classic confrontation. I can see where people might be bored with parts of this, or thought that Kawada in particular took too much of a beating, but the only thing I would have changed was to cut this down from two Kawada hot tags to one. Otherwise, this match did its job effectively, if unspectacularly.
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This is the best match in the short history of Raw so far. I don't know where these two got their chemistry from, but I'd have much rather seen Perfect-Doink than Perfect-Michaels as a long-term feud, and I'd sure rather have seen Perfect-Doink than Crush-Doink. The only thing I found wrong was that they used the double Doinks in a match where Doink was going to lose. They should have had them steal the win from Curt and go to the pay-per-view. I'm pretty sure that Bret-Curt is going to be a classic, but giving Doink a pay-per-view win in the first round and a close match with Bret before losing in the semis would have elevated the character even further. The limbwork was tremendous, and I loved Curt reaching back into his AWA days for the Indian deathlock (which Vince, predictably, refused to call by name). Borne did some great stuff with Curt's arm, and I loved Vince having a fit over the use of the hammerlock slam, which the Andersons have made commonplace in the NWA/WCW over the years. The commentary was a mixed bag. Vince was all right as long as he didn't have to call moves, and Heenan was a riot trying to defend and explain Doink at the same time, with so many great lines it's impossible to list them all. Savage was a disappointment; I could understand him cheering for Curt, but he really didn't do much to get the clownish aspects of Doink over. In fact, he seemed offended that Doink would clown at all in an important match. That's what he does, Randy; he's a clown, and he doesn't need to stop being one just because he's in a wrestling ring. In fact, it's the clownish mannerisms and sick laughter while the match is going on that really put the menace into the character. You'd think that someone with a reputation as a borderline psychopath who used any psychological advantage he could get would appreciate that, but you'd be wrong. Randy showed promise in the booth at first, but now he's starting to sound more and more like his promos, which is a terrible thing for a color guy. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone who's ready to take his place except Lawler, and having Lawler and Heenan on the program at the same time would be heel overkill. Lines of the Night go to Heenan for "He beat the wrong Doink!" and its cousin "It was wrong to beat Doink!" I don't know if Heenan and Doink would have been a good manager-wrestler fit or not, but you can tell that Bobby really likes the character by how he talks about him on the air. Watching this has inspired me to check out the other two KOTR qualifiers between these two in previous weeks. If they're half as good as this one, at least one of them should have made the set.
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They need to dump Eaton's "Chase" knockoff music immediately. Whenever I hear it, I expect to see Corny and Stan coming down with him. How about giving him no ring music whatsoever, just for something different? Benoit and Eaton make a fine one-off team, but you'd think Buff and Scorp would merit better competition after taking the World champions to a draw. Who that would be I'm not sure, but this feels like a "get everyone on the card" match more than anything else. Wow, what an athlete Scorp is. I've never seen a finisher like that in my life before, and I'm not sure Tony and Larry had either. I liked Patrick counting through Bobby's attempt to stop him. Maybe he did that because it was the planned finish, but I wish promotions would tell referees to do it more often in any case, especially when the wrestler trying for the pin is still on top of his opponent even after outside interference supposedly breaks it up. There was an extra energy when Scorp was in there with Benoit, and Tony added to it by referencing their classic at SuperBrawl. It's a shame that there don't appear to be any more singles bouts between the two on the horizon. Normally I'd land all over Larry for appearing to be heartless with "Better him than me" after Tony mentioned Jesse's being in the hospital, but considering what Jesse was dealing with (blood clots), I'd have said the same thing in his place. Tony and Larry continue to be a wonderful team, and Larry still brings the nuts and bolts better than any commentator in the business today. You'd think he'd be a tough listen considering how arrogant he was in the ring, but he's shed that persona almost completely now, although I liked Tony's reference to lingering bad blood between Arn, Larry, and Eaton going back to the last days of the Dangerous Alliance. Line of the Night goes to Larry after Scorp landed on Benoit for the winning fall: "He landed right on his Schiavone!" Was that intentional, or did Larry's brain get ahead of his mouth in the excitement of what he'd just seen? Either way, it was hilarious.
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This was tremendous. The crowd was really ready for Kenta to do something special, and he did. You knew it was going to be his night when he didn't back up from Bamm Bamm's intimidation tactics as he might have in the past. Bamm Bamm may have been working in pain here, but he still looked great. I loved him constantly trying to stun Kenta by taking shots at the back of his neck, knowing that the only way he wouldn't fight was if he was unconscious, My favorite spot of the match was when he pushed Kenta off the top of the railing, sending him splattering to the concrete. Again, in earlier times that would have been all for the plucky youngster, but not here. They're obviously still protecting Bamm Bamm here, as it takes two moonsaults from Kenta to pin him. Selling sore ribs from the second moonsault as he made his way back up the aisle was a nice little veteran touch on Bamm Bamm's part. So was turning his head so he wouldn't take the full impact of Kenta's DDT on the floor earlier. Kenta definitely looks ready to be Misawa's new second-in-command, but he has a lot to live up to in order to fill Kawada's shoes. We'll see how he does in the months ahead.
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Mero's promo explaining his attachment to his..........whatever a Badd Blaster is may have been the best part of any AFFTG segment so far. If Flair could have kept it at that level, this might have been a good overall segment. But of course, we can't have wrestling getting in the way of our party, now can we? The dancing itself wasn't too bad considering who was doing it, but there's just been too much useless fluff in this show for me to be charitable. Fifi looked legit shocked that Mero kissed her. Knowing Flair, he probably told her about the fake lips and never bothered to mention that Mero might want to kiss her for real. Arn didn't look bad in a leather jacket, but Flair in a T-shirt? Unh-uh. A golf shirt should be as casual as he gets. Whoever actually mentioned Little Richard in Mero's theme song ought to be fired. It's bad enough that Mero's doing an awful imitation of him; the last thing he needs is for the audience to be reminded of it and told that it's actually a good thing. To watch this segment, you'd never know that Flair and Arn were going for the World tag team championship in just eleven days. I know they did a promo earlier, but they should be selling that match every time they get near a microphone between now and the sixteenth.
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This was tremendous on all sides. Just to show how good it was, Corny's the weak link by far, and that's saying something. Bullet Bob delivers another classic promo from his gym, looking like the scariest over-fifty man ever put on earth. Then Del Ray gets his turn, and he's so slimy and sleazy you can feel hm ooze through the screen. He does Rick Rude better than Rude ever did himself, at least on the stick. Then the Armstrong brothers clear the ring, and while they're not exactly glib, they show the world just how angry they are and even make veiled threats to Dutch, which I wish they would have been allowed to act on in matches. This may be the single best talking segment SMW has done since its inception, and that covers a ton of classic promo work from some of the best guys to ever pick up a mic. Was Corny actually thinking of using Brian in this feud somehow once he got home? I don't remember him wrestling, but I could swear that he acted as a cornerman for his family at least once in a big match of some sort. Hype is hype, but I hope Corny realizes how high he's set the bar for Jigolo Jimmy by comparing him favorably to Bobby Eaton. The letter was a masterstroke. Corny knew that his same old stuff would fall flat on the heels of Bullet Bob's brilliance, so he devised the letter as a new way of getting heat on himself and the Bodies by slandering Scott's girlfriend. It certainly snapped the crowd back to attention, as some of them sounded for all the world like they were ready to rush the ring until Scott and Steve beat them to it. Dutch does his typical two-faced gladhanding once he realizes he's all alone with the extremely angry Armstrongs, and it's a treat to see that side of him again. He does it better than any heel I've seen try it, including Bobby Heenan. He's mastered the art of sounding sincere even when everyone in the arena knows damn well that he doesn't mean a thing he says. No wonder Corny loved working with him so much.
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Don;t you get it, guys? How can Eric Bischoff show Hollywood producers that he's worthy of joining their ranks if he doesn't actually produce some cinematic content? Never mind that this stupid thing has no plot, is full of senseless screaming, and is about four minutes too long for its intended purpose. Also, the Dixieland band serves no purpose, all the "extras" look like they're identical twins of each other, and what the hell's this powerbomb nonsense anyway? Is Eric trying to scare the poor innocent moviegoing public with senseless warmongering? Now that I've panned this thing as a movie, let me move on to the actual wrestling aspects. First, I thought I was going to dislike the Col. Parker character, and I was right. Robert Fuller, for all his bluster, is a legitimately scary dude. This joker is laughable. I thought we were going to get a takeoff on the real Col. Parker (Elvis' manager), which would have been a different hook for a wrestling character, especially since he wouldn't have an Elvis equivalent with him at this time. Instead, Fuller does a piss-poor Charles Durning. Do any of you remember the '90s Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade? If you do, this is Dr. Harlan Eldridge's twin brother dressed up in a stereotypical Southern plantation owners' outfit stolen right off the MGM back lot. We're supposed to fear this man why, exactly? He doesn't look one bit like an evil mastermind or talk like one either. Harley comes off like the brains of the outfit here, so why didn't he just bring Sid in himself be the Hughes to Vader's Luger? What do we need Fuller for? I could have even bought Harley selling Vader's contract to Fuller, which would have given Fuller instant credibility since he would now control the belt, plus have Sid to act as a roadblock for guys like Sting and Davey Boy. But that's me thinking like a booker, not a Hollywood producer. (Notice I said Fuller specifically; in my world, the Stud comes to WCW as himself. He doesn't have to wrestle if they don't want him to, but he talks the way and acts he always has.) "Masters of the Powerbomb" sounds like an action figure line, not a tag team. Couldn't they have given them a more descriptive name, such as "Two Ugly, Tough Suckers?" I'll give them credit for this: Willie B. is a much better name for an evil midget than Cheatum. To sum up, instead of a legitimately scary promo featuring two of wrestling's toughest legends announcing a team for the ages that's looking to take WCW by storm and by force, we get something I'd dream up if I went to bed after eating three full pizzas with extra anchovies and hot peppers. Which is the "sports entertainment" company again?
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I really didn't see much different here than in any other temporary Hogan loss. If I didn't know better, I would think that this was just a temporary setback to set up the final blowoff at SummerSlam. Let's not forget one other thing: Hogan may have been done here in the States with the WWF, but he was still going to be a part of one more major European tour, so he had to kept strong as a viable threat to Yoko for those matches. I think some people are seeing this as more complete of a burial than it was intended to be, quite honestly. Savage registered shock that Hogan couldn't slam Yoko, but wouldn't you expect him to do that now that they're friends again? Heenan crowed that Hulkamania was dead, but if we didn't know that it actually was (at least in the WWF), wouldn't that just be more wishful thinking on the part of the longest-standing enemy the man has ever had? As far as not kicking out of the Banzai Drop and Yoko kicking out of the legdrop, they protected the piledriver for Orndorff by not letting Hogan take one in a match (just to name one example), and the legdrop hasn't been a guaranteed finisher since Sid kicked out of it (accidentally or not) at Mania VIII. There's no sign whatsoever that Hogan won't be back in time for SummerSlam to take out Yoko once and for all based on what we saw here. In fact, I'll go further and say that they did a better job in convincing the public that Hogan was finished at least three or four other times during his run, starting with the stretcher job he did for Bundy prior to Mania 2 and Quake squashing him like a bug on The Brother Love Show nearly three years before. Here, he leaves upright (albeit holding his eye to sell the exploding flash, which was a great finish), and not even limping much or holding his ribs. Again, unless you knew from reading the dirtsheets that Hogan was done after he finished his European commitments, you wouldn't catch even a subtle hint of it here. If Vince had wanted to bury Hogan for good, he'd have done a better job than this. Is it true that the cameraman with the exploding flash was really Marty Jannetty? Not a bad consolation prize for losing the IC belt with no fanfare at a non-televised house show. (I just found out that it was Downtown Bruno/Harvey Wippleman, which makes more sense given the photographer's size.) Have we ever seen any other champion's postmatch photo session even if it was staged? It's obvious that Vince wanted Yoko to be the man for quite a while, even if he'd lose on occasion to one challenger or another. What was the upside for Hogan to lose the belt here? Even if he was leaving, why not demand that he not have to drop the belt until his last match for the company (August 6 in Sheffield, England). Granted, that would have made the SummerSlam main event almost impossible to promote with any certainty, but why should Hogan have given a damn about that?
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Corny needed to get the Harrises over as a force, so I don't really have an issue with how long this was or how many faces they laid out. Now, if they do something like this again, it'll definitely be overkill. It's at times like this where Gibson needs to be heard from, even if he's a bit marblemouthed. There's no way in common sense that someone who's been beaten up like Morton has here should be able to be as articulate as he was. I'd rather have had either Gibson taking the brunt of the beating so Morton could talk or saying what he can and leaving it at that. Morton could have done the exact same promo from the studio with a couple of days to recuperate. It's stuff like this that exposes the business just as much as a worked shoot from Vince Russo. I'm impressed that Corny apparently brought Bob and Dutch to a house show just so they could do live commentary for this. If it wasn't live, they must have better studio facilities than a promotion that small ought to. The Harrises may not be the 80s Road Warriors reincarnated, but I don't think Hawk and Animal ever participated in this long and involved of a beatdown so early in one of their runs. Let's hope that they look this good during their upcoming matches.
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This went on too long to just be an accident, and I like the idea that Horner was still hot afterward. I think Tim as the wornged friend out for revenge could definitely have some legs. At least he's showing a bit of personality here. Of course, that may be negated If he keeps being dominated by Corny in the ring. Look, I get that Corny wants ninety percent of the heat in the promotion on himself, since he knows that he's coming back while others may not. But if he wants Horner to be worth a damn going forward in any role whatsoever, he can't let the fans believe that Horner's such a wimp that Jim Cornette can beat the crap out of him with his own two hands. Here's a tip, Corny: Go back in the archives that I know you have somewhere and take a look at Captain Lou Albano's matches once he became a manager. Copy those matches exactly, right down to the walkout at the end, unless you're in there with someone like Mark Curtis or Cowabunga the Ninja Turtle. The only way you should ever get any physical advantage at all is if the Bodies give it to you or you use a foreign object. Period, no exceptions.
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Pillman wasn't really doing Flair here; he was just acting old and decrepit. I'd have actually liked it better if he'd done a straight Flair imitation, only a bit slower than Ric would act himself. This was about as ham-handed as it gets, and while seeing Pillman as an old coot was somewhat amusing, I actually thought Austin was much better, especially when he threw the bottle of "pills" in the general direction of Brian's mouth. Arn came out just in the nick of time before the segment would have run too long, and I thought the brawl was very good. I don't know. Making age jokes is one thing, but a parody like this is probably taking things too far. I've heard about the NWO version of the Horsemen and how Flair ended up suing the company over it, but this wasn't a hell of a lot better. Maybe Pillman was better off doing a generic old man after all. The amazing thing about all this is that Flair's gotten more respect from the WWF (as in still being featured in archival footage on TV and in video games) since he left than he has from WCW. It's to the point where I'm wondering if it might not have been better for him to stay with Vince, even if he'd never so much as sniffed a championship of any kind again.
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Hall really got off some good lines here. Loss already mentioned the one about Vince's personality transplenat, but another sharpie is "Kid, with this kind of money, you could afford to buy a life." It doesn't read like a whole lot, but Scott's delivery makes it a classic. Was it the plan to name Waltman the 1-2-3 Kid from the beginning, or did Vince just pick up on the crowd's chants after he beat Hall? It's a wonderful name regardless, and it fits much better than Syxx did in WCW or X-Pac did when he came back to the WWF. Amazingly enough, I'm starting to hear some cheers for Hall, even as most of the crowd still mocks him. It's rare that a loss actually increases a wrestler's popularity, especially in the years before the Attitude Era, but that's definitely the case here. The rematch should be happening before too much longer; I think ten thousand was the magic number that got Waltman to sign a contract,
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This may be stereotypical and cheesy as all get out, but these two make it work. I can tell that Dundee in particular is having the time of his life here. He most likely knew he was going back to Memphis eventually, but was taking this opportunity to freshen himself up and explore a new side of his wrestling personality. One can only be a Superstar in the kingdom of Lawler for so long, you know. Regal lays it on a tad too thick, but he gets off some good lines, especially when he tells Dundee to tell Lady Di to stop pestering him. Tony plays straight man for these two and does it well; I can't wait to see what Mean Gene does with this setup once he gets to WCW. It's a bit much to assume that we don't know that Steve Regal wasn't just on our TVs as a face two months ago, but compared to some of the other reckless assumptions WCW has made in the past and will continue to make in the future, this one's rather harmless. I can't wait to see more of these two.
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I thought I saw something about Dick being the original announcer for ECW. I wonder why they stopped using him. What I'd have loved to see is PRISM somehow gaining the rights to JCP's Philly cards and hear him teamed up with David Crockett. I don't know how long my ears could have taken it, but it would have been something to hear regardless. The "King" stuff isn't even new to Philly, since Lawler has wrestled many indy dates there and always worn the crown. Maybe the endgame for all this at one time was for Lawler to come in and challenge the winner of this feud, since whoever it would be hates his guts anyhow. There's just something about Eddie pushing this gimmick that makes me tired. What's the matter with just being Hot Stuff?
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I think Heyman was trying for fawning respect, not cowardice. There's not really much difference, but as some have said before me, it makes no snese for Paul to be afraid here. Tod Gordon is awful as a color man. I'm nor sure who else ECW could afford at this time, but anybody would have been better. Hell, bring Dick "Man, don't ya love it!" Graham out of retirement. Of course, we all know that the Dark Patriot is really Doug Gilbert. I'd like to have seen the match to find out what happened once Terry realized this. Speaking as a Bruno fan, hearing Terry called "The Living Legend" bugs me. Call him anything else, including "Asshole" and "Late For Dinner". I'm more convinced than ever now that they wanted Bruno at first for an ambassador's role, couldn't get him, and are using the nickname he made famous for Terry in order to rub his nose in it (or so they think). If this promotion hadn't been based in Philadelphia, the heart of Bruno country, I might have felt differently. "Hardcore Legend" I don't mind at all. Same with "Middle Aged and Crazy". They can dump the "King of Philly" routine for the same reason as far as I'm concerned. Face it, Eddie, there's only one city in America that has a wrestling king, and you couldn't dethrone him, either in the ring or behind the scenes. Deal with it.
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I would have liked for Flair and Arn to get through the peomo before they were attacked, but it's so good to see Flair back in physical action in WCW. How can the same television program, let alone the same promotion, go from "Lost in Cleveland" to stuff like this?
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Was that really Colette Foley? The woman sounded like someone who would play either a whore or a wronged wife on The Jerry Springer Show. At least I know now why they called these segments "Lost in Cleveland". I'd always wondered about that. It sounds like this was an early attempt to give Mick the multiple personalities that he'd become known for in the WWF. I'd like to have seen what Bischoff and company would have done with Dude Love and Mankind. Does anyone know if Dewey's middle name is really Cleveland, or did they just make this up for the angle? I'll wait to see more of these before I determine how bad they are. I get what you guys are saying about this angle being out there, but how could you have done a realistic follow-up to Cactus being injured like he was by Vader? The standard rehab promos and vignettes would have been just that: standard and not really good either. I guess they could have just forgotten about him until the time came for his return, but the way WCW went through storylines at this time, there's no guarantee that they would have remembered to do anything with it by then.
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Had Marty gone off the wagon or something? It seems to me like a Michaels-Jannetty rematch would have been a much bigger deal than a match with Crush. It would have been a great place to debut Nash out of nowhere foo. I'm guessing that Okerlund was either on the outs with Vince or in the hospital for his liver problems. He doesn't leave for good until after SummerSlam, so I assume that he'll be back at least a few more times between now and then. Normally I don't have a problem with Gino cheering for the faces, but Update's supposed to be a straight news segment, especially when it announces title changes and such, so his mocking of Shawn grated a little here. The only trouble is, Lord Alfred had turned into a heel-favoring curmudgeon by now, so there really isn't anyone on the roster capable of playing it straight until Mean Gene comes back. Shawn's short promo was fine, but Adams' Hawaiian accent absolutely reeks, and it makes him sound like a stupid airheaded jock. Even if it's an accent that a native Hawaiian would use in real life (which I suspect it's not), he needs to tone it down several notches. By the way, Don Muraco (a native Hawaiian, no less) mysteriously developed a similar accent during his face days, and it ruined his promos too. Interesting to see Flair featured in the commercial for the Royal Rumble game. I would have thought that Vince would have been shoveling dirt on him like it was going out of style by now.
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Hall's gradually losing his accent. It's srill noticeable, but it's nowhere near as thick as it was when he debuted. I guess it got in the way of his ability to do good promos, so he decided to dial it back. I liked the line about how everyone in the Manhattan Center would be standing on their heads naked for $7500. That's the kind of line you wouldn't hear in the WWF five years ago, or even three. Unfortunately, they'd soon be way over the top with stuff like this. The Nutter puns I could have done without, although they were more clever than they could have been. As for the match, if I'd remembered Bret getting a clean submission victory over Hall at the Rumble, I'd have voted against him too. It's sort of cute to hear Vince using phrases like "Mr. Ramon" and generally acting deferential toward the wrestlers when we all know what he'd become later on. It's almost like they wanted to bury Hogan-Yoko totally, as if Hogan had never even returned. Part of me wonders if the match would have even made pay-per-view if Bret hadn't been slated to win the tournament.