garretta
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I guess I'm that guy again, because they didn't do as bad a job of saving this as I thought they would. Editing the intro would have given it all away, so I can foirgive them for that. I thought blaming Barry for Tully's absence was a great move and would have made for a hell of an angle, and Roma.......well, they must have been stuck. How close to the show did they know that Tully wasn't coming? If it was less than a week, they might have run out of time to change the card and their plans for Sid. Didn't the Stud Stable (as I will call them, even though they weren't billed that way) debut here, with Sid as Fuller's first protégé? If you change the card to make Sid a Horseman, what do you do with Fuller, whom you've paid a ton of money to? Not that there weren't big problems with this, of course. First, even though they had a ready-made angle with Barry, they completely whiffed on it by turning around and insisting that Tully's absence was no big deal. If Tully's absence is no big deal, why even mention him, especially in connection with Barry? That's what you do if Tully's going to come out in Barry's corner later that night against Arn or something similar. Of course, he wasn't and they knew it, and he wasn't going to magically show up and stand alongside the Horsemen after a suitable interval either. The second problem was marketing Ole as a full member of the group. Managers/mentors aren't supposed to count as members of their own stable, guys. Ole was well past done in the ring, even as an attraction. That means you needed two wrestlers, not one. Ole didn't look half-bad for a legend, but to count him as a Horseman was just as big a mistake as lowballing Tully, and they didn't even try to explain it away. Problem number three was Roma's promo. Flair, Arn, and Ole can get away with being cheered for being assholes, Paul, because they've been doing so for years. You can't. If you want to be a member of a babyface group, even the Horsemen, you have to do the humble newcomer bit, not brag about your looks or how you were chosen out of the thousand guys they could have chosen to be Horsemen. In other words, you needed to be a young stallion (pun intended) and let everyone else do the kiss-stealin' and the wheelin'-dealin'. You would have been just as bad a fit, and people might have still laughed at you, but you might have looked like just a tad less of a buffoon. I'm actually looking forward to seeing how he pulls his weight going forward; maybe he won't turn out to be such a crime against wrestling after all. Remember, he didn't do too badly with Power and Glory. They probably could have stood to announce Flair's return to the ring another time, like the night before on WCWSN. The crowd was in no mood to hear it after being promised Tully and given Roma, and that's not the kind of thing you yell out as an afterthought as a segment is closing unless you don't really want it to be a big deal after all, which Bischoff may not have. I liked Flair using the girls to try and keep Arn away from the booze before his big match. It's an inconsequential thing, but it's one of the rare times AFFTG has gotten something right since it started. Who would I have chosen to replace Ole and Tully? As it stands now, Paul Orndorff for Tully and Bobby Eaton for Ole (who, of course, remains the manager).
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This wasn't bad at times; I'll even forgive Eric his obvious lie about wanting to see Lou Thesz wrestle again and Gordon trying to claim that the Thesz-Inoki match took place "recently". I can even understand Thesz being called wrestling's first major celebrity, since he's going to be at the Omni while Strangler Lewis and Gorgeous George aren't. But if you're going to bill this show as "A Legends' Reunion", don't the legends' matches deserve more hype than Maxx Payne playing his guitar? Most of the younger fans at the time would have still known who the guys in the six-man were; Muraco, Snuka, and Murdoch were still active, and Brunzell had just retired. The other two matches could have been explained by Gordon. But that would have been too simple for this lamebrained outfit. It's almost like Bischoff was being forced for some strange reason to carry out one of Watts' leftover ideas, and wanted to do it badly so he wouldn't have to do it again. They could have at least hyped the legends matches instead of telling us about which promoters were going to appear, of all things. Who cares if Stanley Blackburn ad Don Owen are coming? Who in the audience would even remember who they were unless they were Apter-mag maniacs? As usual when WCW got handed a good idea, they managed to turn it into utter rubbish. Doses anyone know why Brad Armstrong had to sub for his dad in the tag match? Was Bullet Bob selling his SMW injuries, or did Bischoff object to working with anyone from SMW after the original working agreement ended so badly?
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I actually liked parts of this, mostly Sting explaining why he wears the paint. It may have been a bullshit explanation, but at least it was designed to inspire people positively. Did my ears deceive me, or did Sting say that the Horsemen were too good for him when he was a member? I think I get where they were supposedly going with this segment now. There were plenty of comments above me about how this didn't build to anything wrestling related. Well, it wasn't designed to. I made the same mistake most of you did; I assumed that we were supposed to know that Flair was returning to the ring soon, and thus was only doing this until he could wrestle again. But that's not the case. WCW's presenting Flair as someone who's retired, who came back to specifically host this segment and only host this segment. He doesn't have any beef with anyone, he doesn't want to hype any feuds, he doesn't even want to talk about wrestling. As he said to Sting, wrestling's behind him now. He just wants to kick back with his guests and brag about Fifi. If a segment like this feels out of place on a wrestling show, it's supposed to. The question is: How are we going to get from this Flair to the one who's challenging the Blonds for the tag titles in approximately two weeks at the next Clash? If I didn't know better, I'd swear that WCW really didn't have any plans at all for Flair as a wrestler, that this was all he was ever supposed to do on WCW programming, that they brought him back for........well, for what reason exactly? As of this moment in time, he has no business on WCW television, no reason to even be seen. If they wanted an interview segment, they should have brought back The Body Shop and waited to resign Flair until he could be used to promote matches, if not actually wrestle them, which would have been right about now. But they couldn't wait to show Vince that they'd gotten back what he'd thrown away, and so we have what we have now. AFFTG wouldn't have been a half-bad idea if it had debuted after Flair had reestablished himself in the ring and as the leader of the reformed Horsemen, but it's been so poorly executed that it's absolutely dead in the water. I still have the Rude and Slamboree segments to watch, and I sincerely hope that they're the last two I have to sit through. Just think about this when the subject of WCW's incompetence comes up: they managed to destroy through their stupidity interview segments hosted by two of the top five talkers in the history of the business according to most fans (Dusty and Flair).
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How much harder would you have liked to see the announcers sell this, Loss? I thought Jesse in particular was as good as he's ever been. If you're referring to the jobber portion, I thought their disgust was spot on. How is squashing five guys whom nobody knows and who don't even look like wrestlers supposed to establish Vader as a killer? Davey Boy looked tremendous here, even better than he did against Bret at SummerSlam. This was a great way to establish a newcomer as a viable World title contender, which was quite a feat considering that most of the fans probably wanted to see a Sting/Vader rematch. I might have had him suplex Vader instead of Harley and save the powerslam for the match, though. I hate to keep using Hogan-Andre at Mania III as a comparison, but Hogan's finishing slam of the Giant wouldn't have been nearly as earthshattering if he'd slammed him during the battle royal on SNME two weeks earlier. Tony really needs to focus on his move-calling. You mean to tell me that he didn't know what to call Davey Boy's finisher? I realize that he probably picked up a lot of things from Vince during his time in Stamford, but his reluctance to ever acknowledge actual wrestling moves shouldn't have been one of them. I wish we'd gotten to hear more of Harley on the mic before everything broke loose; hearing him call Vader's mauling of the jobbers might have made it a bit more watchable.
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Rude's bumps were definitely because of Dustin's shoulder. Dustin wasn't able to elevate Rude over his head at all. Of course, this saves Rude from bumping on his back too, which he probably needed to avoid due to his own injury. The booking definitely looks suspect, but if your US champion is still hurt and looked as sloppy as Dustin did here and the man you're pushing as his number one contender is also still hurt and can't take decent back bumps, there's not a whole lot else you can do if you don't want to run a second tournament in five months. WCW had enough going on that the US title could be put into cold storage for a bit without too much of a problem. They're still recycling matches among the different TV shows? Talk about cheap, sloppy, and uncaring. I guess we know why Mulligan never made it as a color man for WCW. Seriously, how did a mistake like that make it to air? I thought Eric supposedly was (and still is) a whiz at TV production. I hope we get to see Gary act as Rude's spokesman on the set at some point. It almost sounds like he lost a bet of some kind and was dared to do it by some of the boys.
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It was nice of Lawler to do a ttibute like that to someone whise main work was behind the scenes. Usually only on-air performers and owners of promotions get tributes when they die. I liked the standing ovation at the end, which was not only a nice final tribute to Ernie but a way of getting the fans back in the mood to have a good time, The difference between Flair's show and Lawler's show is the difference between a non-wrestler's half-baked idea of what a wrestling talk show should be and a legitimate local TV show that just happened to star a famous wrestler. By legitimate, I mean a show that didn't have to advance angles or be about wrestling (although it had wrestlers as guests and advanced angles on occasion). When I saw some clips on the 80s Memphis set, I was surprised at how comfortable Lawler was in a non-wrestling setting. He may not have been Carson or Letterman, but he was far from an embarrassment.
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For something like this to show up completely out of nowhere, Jennifer must be somehow related to either the Jarretts or the Lawlers. If she's a Jarrett as you say, AJ, what exactly is she in relation to Jeff and Papa? She seems to be the right age for Jeff's younger sister. (I'm not doubting AJ, just asking for clarification.) This looks like it could be something that isn't too painful. We'll see as things get rolling. She's definitely got an easy first guest with Lawler.
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I'm guessing that if Hall's initial offer made the set, it's in the segment from 5/24 with Bret. I'll get to that next. After seeing Waltman as the Lightning Kid trying to kill most of his opponents in the Twin Cities, it's a treat to see him play the young, inexperienced babyface so well. He comes off as the type who would watch Raw as part of a family night with his grandparents. But he also shows some smarts by not agreeing to a rematch with Hall, even for five thousand dollars. It shows a healthy respect for Hall's abilities as a wrestler and an understandable reluctance to face him when he's going to be looking to not just beat Waltman, but tear him to pieces. I know I'd be reluctant in his place, and most of the audience would be too. Five thousand dollars isn't enough to make up for a potential lifetime of pain and suffering. Ten thousand, on the other hand.........
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There's really not much else to say about this. I remembered it being longer as well. I want to add my congratulations to Vince and company for not telegraphing anything. That's been a bad habit of the WWF: making their angles so obvious that you just want them to get to the payoff and move on. I don't think Vince all of a sudden got an attack of trust as far as the audience went, though; he knew he needed to do something huge that would set Raw apart from his other shows, and just being live every two weeks with a B-level main event wasn't enough. It was this match that gave rise to the now-bewhiskered catch phrase "Anything can happen on Monday Night Raw!" If only he knew the political hornet's nest that would be stirred up as a result, as this was the first matchup between members of the infamous Kliq (which wasn't even fully formed yet, as Nash wouldn't debut as Michaels' bodyguard until later this year). Vince was sure in a laughing mood at the beginning of the segment. Unfortunately, nothing Heenan said was that funny. it's a good thing that the surprise factor of the match forced him to pay attention to the ring a little more, because this was a perfect example of how far he's slipped even since the start of the decade. I loved Hall complaining to the announcers as if they could do anything for him, especially Savage, whom he was actively trying to cripple just a few short months before. Cannonball Kid I could understand, but what promotion in their right mind books anyone, even a jobber, as "The Hard-Luck Kid"? You might as well put a sign around his neck for him to wear to the ring saying, "I'm gonna lose".
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A short but sweet update from Bullet Bob, who has the body of a man ten to fifteen years younger than his actual age. How on earth did he do it? Corny likes the line "sack of Scandinavian snake feces" so much that he's stolen it for his own. I've heard him use it at least twice on his podcast, and it sounds just as glorious coming from his mouth as it did Bullet Bob's. One question, though: Are there actually snakes in Scandinavia? I don't think the glasses and the hat take away from Bullet Bob's aura at all. There were plenty of guys who looked even older than him (whether they actually were or not) who proved that they could still go in the ring around this time. Terry Funk immediately comes to mind, as does his brother Dory.
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Some parts of this swegment don't hold up logically. First, why would Corny bring in a brand new team to take out Rock 'n' Roll if he just unveiled Del Ray as the newest Body? It seems like a bit of overkill, especailly since there isn't another major face team to pit either the Harrises or the Bodies against except for the Armstrongs. My guess is that the Bodies will probably be fighting the Armstrongs a lot in the near future, while Rock 'n' Roll keep busy with Ron 'n' Don. Second, how can Tammy promise to take Ricky and Robert to the top when they're already there? I know it's a standard promo line heel managers use when they're trying to recruit clients, but they should have modified the spiel a bit so Tammy didn't look like a dumb, clueless blond. (Or, worse yet, blind; the belts are right there in plain sight around Rock 'n' Roll's waists.) What's the matter with, "Now that you've won the belts (which Tammy notices, come to think of it), you need my guidance to keep them." Ricky and Robert as rappers? It would have been something to see........once. Just like Ricky and Robert channeling Wayne's World. Line of the segment: Dutch, after Tammy tells him to shut up: "I think my first wife told me that". Honorable mention also goes to Dutch for calling Bill Clinton a nobody whom Hlllary took to the White House. Nice to have you back, Dutchman!
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What a money promo from Bullet Bob. I remember seeing the beating on Will's SMW set, and it was nonstop for almost ten minutes, with no faces coming close to making the save. It ran so long that my dad got sick of watching it. At any rate, the game is definitely on now if it wasn't before. Scott and Steve had their shirts off deliberately to show off their physiques, which was a nice subtle psychological ploy on their father's part. I'd have liked to have heard a bit from Steve, but maybe we will in the weeks to come. This may get monotonous over the next little while, but Corny hit it out of the park again. Even with Lane gone, he's still on top of the world after seeing Bullet Bob busted up, and with Del Ray to take Stan's place, there's no reason why he can't stay there for a long, long time, or so he thinks. Dr. Tom did a great job introducing Jigolo Jimmy, who immediately began to live up to his name. He'll definitely be in third place behind Corny and Dr. Tom when it comes to talking, but so was Stan. The important thing is what happens in the ring, and they miss very little once Jimmy gets the hang of being a Body. Was it Stan or Jimmy who helped to beat up Bullet Bob? If it was Stan, they could have used the incident as an excuse to ban him from SMW and thus try to break up the Bodies, which would be thwarted when Corny brought in Del Ray. Then again, maybe they thought that having Rock 'n' Roll beat Stan and send him out of town was a way to keep that feud hot and give the Bodies two feuds to worry about.
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Someone should edit the thread title. It should read "Jim Cornette, Bob and Scott Armstrong".
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Nice promo by Ole for the legends. I liked the slight sneer in his voice when he said that he couldn't wait to see T-Bolt. Seeing Ole put over the Horsemen when almost everyone now knows how much he hated being part of the group always cracks me up. I'll say one thing: You can't tell by watching him, which is a credit to his professionalism. How on earth did they think guys like Verne and the Crusher would ger over in Atlanta, even as legends? They should have kept this reunion to guys from GCW and JCP, then done a second card later for the AWA guys in Minneapolis or Chicago. As for AFFTG, the only thing I found remotely entertaining was Arn's mini-promo. The whole thing with Windham supposedly calling in was a total joke, and the reaction of both Flair and Arn was a thousand degrees off. It's almost like Flair's existing in his own little world that's only superficially about wrestling, and now he's got Arn trapped in that world too. This would have been a great opportunity for a money promo from Barry; while Arn's yacking it up with a bunch of bimbos and popping champagne with a has-been like Flair, he's been training and wrestling the hardest matches of his life, and Arn's wasting his one and only opportunity to ever be truly great because he's wasting his time as Flair's bootlicker, just like he did when he was a Horseman. How difficult could that be, Eric? Surely someone on your staff can think of such a simple premise. Or maybe not. It's not the idea of a talk show that's so wrong for Flair, it's the execution of this particular show. As I said earlier, there had to be some way that Flair could retain his manhood until he was able to get back in the ring; hell, they could have even made an angle out of it, whether they actually mentioned the WWF or not. Simply say that for reasons beyond his control, Flair's unable to wrestle until such and such a date, and thus can't engage any of his guests in physical contact until he's cleared to wrestle. With that established, Flair can be himself in every way but physically, and feuds can be set up for his return. As it is, unless someone read the dirt sheets and knew that Flair was sitting out a non-compete, they'd be wondering why he's such a wimp all of a sudden, and that's not good for someone whom you at WCW want to be a major force upon his eventual return. By the way, in the following week's segment with the Blonds, Flair calls himself a nine-time World champion. That means he's including his WWF reigns in with his NWA/WCW ones, and I'm shocked that either Eric or Vince are allowing it. If either one of them had had any objections to this, I would think that part of the segment would be edited out the way Corny disrespecting Jim Herd was.
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Austin and Pillman were absolutely on fire with the age cracks; it was one direct hit after another, and I'm sure there was more good stuff lost with the awful audio. In respone, Flair did.......absolutely nothing, at least until the Blonds were gone. I don't have a problem with him not being able to wrestle yet, especially since it's not directly his fault, but I don't get the idea of making him a gladhanding good-time Charlie type. That may be part of who the real Richard Fliehr is, but it doesn't fit at all with the world champion persona Ric Flair has developed over the years. Yes, he likes his good times and his pretty ladies, but he doesn't allow himself to be punked out repeatedly by a couple of mere tag team wrestlers, or anyone else, for that matter. There had to be a way to keep Flair's persona strong without putting him into the ring until the time was right, but for whatever reason Bischoff chose not to find it. If all he was going to do until his contract with Vince ran out was stuff like this, he should have just sat at home and collected his money. I thought Arn actually fit his role better than Ric did. He's supposed to be the Ace Orton of the segment, backing Flair's play the way Orton did Piper's. It's just a shame that he had no play to back. In fact, he was the one who took offense at the Blonds' remarks while Flair tried to laugh them off, especially those of his former Dangerous Alliance partner Austin. In fact, I would have liked to have seem a fight break out, with Austin and Pillman double-teaming Arn and Flair helpless to do anything about it. They could always say that he was protecting Fifi from injury by not getting involved himself. That may have been lame, but so was most of what we got. What the hell was Missy's problem? Were they just having her pop up anywhere Flair went for no good reason whatsoever? I couldn't hear most of what she was going on about, and what I heard made no sense, especially making fun of Arn's sexual stamina. The more I've seen of her, the more of an absolute waste she's become. She lost all of her usefulness to this business the day she and Eddie Gilbert divorced. Horsemen fan though I am, I liked hearing Austin and Pillman run them down, especially since the additions we'll see to the group at Slamboree (Ole and Roma) aren't likely to change their opinion or scare them much. Line of the segment: Pillman asking for Flair's autograph for his "great-grandmother". I'm just two segments into A Flair for the Gold (I haven't seen the one from 5/8 yet), and I'm almost wishing for the cinematic masterpiece that was The Bull Drop Inn. Almost.
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And so it finally begins after over a year of slow but sure build: the legandary feud between Corny and Bullet Bob. There's so much greatness here that's already been touched on. But as great as Bullet Bob was, and as great as it was to see him finally slug Corny, it's the Louisville Slugger who's the star here. He's so worked up that he forgets to ne afraid, and the fact that he actually does get in Bullet Bob's face and put the badmouth on him is what makes this a classic. Too many people in Corny's position would have backed off, either out of cowardice or because they knew how much trouble they were about to be in. But Corny, not for the first time nor the last, lets Bullet Bob and the rest of the waiting world know exactly what he thinks Bullet Bob is, and even though he eventually crosses the line by talking about Brian and gets himself slugged, he's by no means bowed or defeated. In fact, he'll most likely use this as fuel to turn up this whole situation even higher. This is the best Corny has been on the mic in SMW, and it's one of his top three promos ever, which covers a lot of ground. Bullet Bob doesn't really have to do or say much, but the moment when he actually has enough and slugs Corny is esquisitley done. You can tell that he's wanted to do it for a long time and is thrilled to finally have an excuse, much like Watts was when he and Corny finally got physical in Mid-South. This feud should be better, though; in Mid-South, Watts' victory over sissy Corny was inevitable; it was just a question of how long it would take. This version of Corny has been around a while, knows a lot more tricks, and isn't quite so easy to intimidate and back down. Plus, if this feud gets in the ring (which we know it will), Bullet Bob isn't exactly a spring chicken and could be facing as many as four rivals (the Bodies, Kyle, and Corny) at any one time. Scott was here to set up the confrontation between his dad and Corny, and he did his job about as well as possible. It'll be interesting to see what role he has in the feud going forward, and also whether he'll still wrestle as Dixie Dyn-O-Mite now that he's been exposed. Bob Caudle's facial expressions during the first part of Corny's rant were tremendous. He always came off as a bit dry in JCP and WCW, but he's really picked up his game here. In this situation, he knows that Corny's ranting may lead to trouble, but maybe if he lets Corny go, maybe he'll wind down and stop before all hell breaks loose. Of course, nothing of the sort happens, but his handling of Corny is so much more effective than treating him like a pain in the ass, like Memphis would have. I also liked Corny threatening to punch Bob in the face; it's at that moment where we as the audience realize that we're not just in for a typical hot-air fest. Where was Dutch? I know he's not in every single segment, and we have more than enough people to deal with, but it would have been interesting to see his reaction to all this, considering his attitude toward both men.
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I'm not sure about Flamingo, but I could buy Shango as a good fit with Raven in ECW. At any rate, who knew Shango could go like that? I'm not saying that he was a superworker or anything of that sort, but he could have been a perfectly good heel big man for Vince if the gimmick and its stupidity hadn't made him into a complete joke. I even bought the fire finish, mostly because Lawler had just used it first, and what's better to fight fire with than fire? Say what you will about Lawler, but he always busts his hump to get these weirdo types over as something credible. A lot of guys would be concerned with looking like an idiot by fighting a supposed voodoo priest who shoots fire out of an old skull, but Lawler takes it all seriously (well, as seriously as possible under the circumstances), and gets the fans to do so as well. I guess the inevitable rematch where Lawler gets the belt back wasn't deemed worthy of this set, even in clip form. That's a shame, as I would have liked to see if Lawler could have gotten another match from Shango that was as good as this one,
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This is the type of stuff we've seen too little of from Vince over the years: real emotion, real chaos (as opposed to fake pro wrestling chaos that's just plain cheesy more often than not) and two competitors who just want to kick each other's asses. I wish it had lasted more than a minute. A tip of the cap to Howard for taking one for the team with his new car windshield. I wonder how he explained all of this to whomever had to replace it. I know it never happens, but I always root for one of the guys in these pull-aparts to go nuts and punch out one of the security people who are trying to hold them back just to see what would happen next. Other than Curt's hiptoss onto Howard's car, we don't see any wrestling moves, which makes this more realistic. If they did this today, Shawn would have broken away from the people holding him back and caught Curt with Sweet Chin Music (after stomping his foot eight or ten times to let the world know it was coming), and Curt would have tried to hit the Perfectplex on Howard's hood. This really makes me want to see their match from Providence, which I haven't gotten to yet. I hope it's not as bad as everyone's making it out to be!
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I guess I'm the dissenting voice here. Sully's much better when he's talking like a normal person and his madness is just below the surface waiting to boil over or creeps out in ways you'd never expect. He doesn't scare me here; I'm just wondering what he's talking about and when he's going to shut the hell up and stop making my ears bleed. I'd like to know the backstory of how the Stud Stable turned face. Was it just a case of them hating the Bodies more than Rock 'n' Roll, or did they actually do something to earn the fans' cheers? Fuller's a tremendous face when he wants to be, but I have a hard time imagining anyone cheering for Golden. Was the Tazmaniac who Sully mentioned actually Taz of later ECW fame, or was it someone else with a similar gimmick? I think I saw Taz on an earlier yearbook being led around by a chain around his neck, so it's probably him, but you can never tell with Sully (or Corny, for that matter).
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We needed a serious promo for this match somewhere along the line, and boy, did we ever get it. Terry explains the rules and puts over the danger brilliantly. I'm not sure if Harley actually lost fifteen percent of the vision in his eye after he wrestled Terry in one of these matches, but after seeing this I believe that he did, which is exactly the point. One minor nitpick: They didn't have to run their hype crawl over this promo. It was saying the exact same stuff that Terry was (except for Heyman being in Eddie's corner) and it divided my attention. If you have to run something like this, run it during a squash, where it really doesn't matter if other stuff's on the screen or not. I'm wondering how many in the ECW fanbase knew who Boris Malenko was. I appreciate Terry's thought, but I wouldn't have blamed him if he'd said that someone like Nikolai Volkoff had invented the match instead; at least the vast majority of the Philly fans knew that name.
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The match is over a month away, so Pete won't get his wish yet. In fact, the hype's most likely just getting started. To show you how creative this is, I actually thought that was Doug walking up to Terry and challenging him at first. The reveal that "Real Hot Stuff" was a doll was a bit of a shock. The highlight of this, though, is Terry's verbal castration of Eddie. He may not be the best promo of the year so far, but he's probably the funniest. His insults are better than anyone else's in the business right now, and that includes guys like Lawler and Corny. Give him an open mic or rolling camera and a target, and he'll have you rolling on the floor (figuratively, at least) within ten seconds. One thing I'd like to see, though, is a rebuttal from Eddie. They're running the risk of letting this feud become too one-sided, as everything we've seen so far has been from Terry. Maybe Eddie's replies weren't deemed Yearbook worthy for whatever reason, but surely he cut one worthy promo in this feud over two months.
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For what has to be one of the last, if not the last, Hogan title defenses to make tape in the original Hulkamania era, this underwhelmed me. The first few minutes were all right, and it's always nice to know that Hogan can wrestle a little on the mat when he chooses to. But Muta didn't do a thing for me here. It's almost like someone told him to wrestle like he was a stateside Hogan challenger working for Vince, and if that's what happened, they should have imported a WWF challenger who fit the style better, because Muta stank at it. Granted, he wasn't in there against a five-star athlete, but he's looked a ton better than this even when he's a brawling nutcase. The only Muta-like move we saw was the moonsault, which he used too early in the formula. It should have been closer to the Hulkup, which we didn't see as such, come to think of it. I would have loved to see more of the spot where Muta apparently used a piece of scaffolding as a vine to swing down and attack Hogan on the floor. Unfortunately, the crowd got in the way and made it impossible to see much of anything at all. The Colonel really didn't serve a purpose; he didn't even have his megaphone to yell into, unless I missed it. He also made a bit of a fashion error by wearing a Megamaniacs jacket, unless of course Beefcake somehow made this card. I know he wore Hulkamania jackets at some point or other; if he had them by now, why not wear one of them instead? Not that this means much, but Hogan looks awful with heavy dark eyebrows. It's hard to explain, but if they were meant to make him look younger they did the opposite. No one looks worse than someone who tries to hide their age and fails. I didn't like Hogan shoving the referee down twice with no repercussions. He looked like a real bully, and the ref looked weak and ineffectual for letting him get away with it, especially the second time. The scene with Hogan and the Buddha trophy provided some unintentional (I think) comedy when it looked for a second like Hogan was praying to it for more hair. Sorry, pal, but you only have yourself and your needles to blame for that unfortunate predicament. The fans didn't like Hogan's posedown too much; the more he tried to get them to cheer, the more they seemed to boo, and it visibly upset him. He finally got his desired reaction just before he left. Which title or titles were actually on the line here? I operated under the assumption that Hogan was defending the WWF title, which was the only title at stake. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I wouldn't worry too much about Hogan saying that he valued the IWGP belt more than the WWF title in a Japanese press conference as he apparently did. What did you expect him to do, say that the IWGP title meant nothing just hours after he fought the guy who held it? This is one time that Hogan's political skills really served him well.
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[1993-04-24-AJW] Manami Toyota & Yumiko Hotta vs Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue
garretta replied to Loss's topic in April 1993
What you guys seemed to like, I didn't. Hometown hero or not, Toyota was obnoxious here. Aja and Kyoko spent the entire first part of the bout targeting her lower back, and when they went for covers what do you think Toyota did? That's right, she bridged out with ease. Bridged with her supposedly damaged lower back, no less. Not only that, she did her dropkick train with no apparent ill effects either, getting all the spring she needed in her legs even though she could barely walk just a minute or two before due to the pain in her back. She also bridged out of a hooked leg later in the bout, which was astounding to me (and not in a positive way, either). Why this stood out to me now when she's pulled the exact same kind of stuff out of the hat regardless of the story the other wrestlers are trying to tell in a given match, I don't know. Maybe all of the criticism I've read of her for doing stuff like this has finally metabolized, or maybe I was just in the wrong mood to watch her tonight. Regardless of the reason, she left a bad, bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, I loved Aja and Kyoko. They're superb as individuals, and if Aja wasn't already the top singles star in AJW, they would have made an awesome full-time tag team. They looked invincible against Toyota in particular, doing a number on her the likes of which I've seldom seen anyone else do. Hotta pulled her weight well, doing nothing either particularly offensive or resoundingly spectacular. The tree of woe spot where Aja hits the avalanche on both Toyota and Hotta was tremendous, and I also liked Aja flattening them both at the same time with a flying bodypress. Give ALW credit for making Aja look like both a monster and a real athlete at the same time, which most promotions either fail miserably at or don't even attempt. I understand wanting to put Toyota over in her hometown, but this match felt organically like it should have gone to Aja and Kyoko, which means that they probably got too much offense for the desired outcome. A more even bout would have made the result a bit less of a shock, at least to me, -
This was another excellent joshi match. It felt like a real struggle between two badasses, and no opponent other than Aja has taken Bull to the limit in the Yearbooks the way Devil did here. The only complaint I have is that it dragged a bit and felt repetitive down the stretch, but how many moves can these two realistically do before they start repeating themselves? Besides, they were exhausted. I've seen some of the criticisms above about this match not being worked more like a 90s-style match, and I thoroughly disagree. The go--go-go trap is what makes a lot of joshi matches feel the same no matter who's in the ring; as long as the moves are hit at a hundred miles an hour, no one cares what they are or how effective they are, including the wrestlers themselves. As I said above, this could have used about a five-minute trim, but otherwise it was an excellent showcase for both women. I loved how both of them sold their exhaustion after the match. The prolonged breaks (one each by Bull and Devil) looked a bit weird at first, but when you consider that they were going thirty-seven minutes for one fall, they made sense, even to the point that neither one would come out after the other. It's like they each wanted the other as close to their best as possible at all times. Devil looked like a bit of a fool actually tossing Bull her nunchuks after the referee had taken them away, and predictably, Bull wore her out with them. It's the one logic gap in an otherwise superbly booked match. This was Bull's first JWP match which made the set. Does anyone know if this was a guest shot or if she jumped from AJW permanently? If she's in JWP to stay, I'd love to see a rematch between these two.
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I didn't really care for this. It was too slow, too disjointed, and they seemed like they didn't know if they wanted Hase to try and take on Fujiwara shoot-style or Fujiwara to try to wrestle Hase pro-style. They ended up doing too much of both and not enough of either, if that makes any sense. As almost everyone else has said, Fujiwara's headbutts looked great, and the suddenness of the finish elevated this a few degrees in my eyes, from unsatisfactory to just barely decent. Fujiwara seemed ganuinely pleased to be back in a pro-style promotion and touched by the reaction he got from the New Japan crowd. Now that he's beaten Hase, I wouldn't mind seeing him against the likes of Tenryu and/or Choshu.