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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I thought this was very good. I didn't know until reading the thread that this was a TV edit because it was so seamlessly done. At any rate, they must have cur out all the meandering, because what was left was what a joshi sprint should be: great action, but not so much that it gets confusing, with none of the noticeable "I've just been beaten to death for twenty minutes, but forget that because it's my turn on offense" routine that we tend to get in longer joshi matches. I don't remember seeing Bat before (though I may very well have), but she fit in well here. Hats off to her for taking that double facebuster superplex from Toyota and Yamada like a true professional. Wow, did that look brutal. This wasn't Aja's best night by a longshot, as both of her big weapons (the spinning backfist and the trash can from the second turnbuckle) backfired on her in the same bout. I'm surprised that they chose to book their ace that way, even in in an inconsequential TV main event. I've noticed that a lot of Japanese female wrestlers scream, but no more so than the guys, though the girls do tend to be louder. At least they have a reason to scream; if you want inconsequential screaming, check out a match involving Moolah's girls and any move that's not a hairpull (and even those are oversold).
  2. garretta
    The match itself wasn't much at all; there was more action in the brawl afterward, particularly between Eddie and Doug. That feud's definitely off to a hot start; let's see how it progresses. Eddie's promo was excellent; he even had the audience laughing along with him, which seldom happens even in a studio setting. Then he turns serious on a dime, vowing to kick Doug's butt in the way that only a big brother can. Eddie's done better mic work as a heel, but this may be his best face promo yet. He's certainly at his most relatable here. I loved the exchange between Brian and Eddie where Brian challenges him to take on the champion (himself) and Eddie's reply is along the lines of, "I'll be glad to. Where is he?" Stuff like that only works in the studio setting, but it's a hoot to hear regardless. Interesting that Dave wouldn't directly acknowledge that Lawler had burned Brian the previous Monday at the MSC. I'm guessing that someone (either Dave or, most likely. Lawler himself) decided to bury the injury as much as possible so that Lawler wouldn't look like a monster for burning his own son's face, even in a pro wrestling context.
  3. garretta
    This bout was actually taped on February 9, so even if it aired after SuperBrawl, SuperBrawl was the end of the SMW "invasion". You knew going in that nobody was losing, but the double DQ seemed kind of clichéd. I'm not sure what finish I would have preferred, but to see the whole thing thrown out seemed like a waste of eight great athletes. There wasn't a whole lot of WCW vs. SMW here; if, for example, Austin found himself in the ring against Gibson for longer than a few seconds, he would always tag Lane or Prichard as soon as he could. There was a little more "cross-pollination" toward the end of the match, but by then it was too late to matter much. If you keep in mind that this match was taped before the pay-per-view, you'll understand why Jesse was making the jokes he was. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd legitimately never heard of SMW before this match came to the ring. He surely knew the individual wrestlers, though, so it was strange to hear him making fun of Corny and leaving Tony, of all people, to defend him. I don't agree that it was Watts who kept Jesse in line; with everything else Jesse had going for him at this time outside of the business, he could have told the Cowboy to pound salt any time he wanted, and Watts wasn't going to physically intimidate him at this point. Jesse was always more neutral on pay-per-views, even in the WWF, and he and JR meshed surprisingly well after a rough start. He's a totally different announcer with Tony on Worldwide; Tony doesn't play with him at all and is audibly embarrassed by him more often than not, so he keeps trying to goad Tony into responding to his one-liners. JR learned early on to acknowledge Jesse's non-wrestling comments briefly and amiably, then turn the focus back to the ring, and Jesse was happy to go along since he'd been humored. To equate this to Jesse's WWF days, JR was his Gino, and Tony is his Vince. The problem is that while Vince's outrage over Jesse's remarks was part of his goofy babyface announcer persona, Tony's seems real even if it isn't; he's not a good enough actor for his outrage to seem part of the act, if that makes any sense (which it probably doesn't). I'm surprised that Corny didn't try to get a payday for Killer Kyle out of all this somehow; since WCW acknowledged everything else about the Bodies that SMW did, including that the Bodies were now supposedly a corporation, you'd think that they would have had room for Corny's bodyguard somewhere in the mix. The line about Corny's money being "herded" away was one of Jesse's best ever. Poor Tony didn't know what to do with it, since the Turner lawyers almost certainly didn't want Jim Herd's name taken in vain for fear of a lawsuit. A nitpick, but Atkins should have waited for someone to actually be hit by Corny's racquet before throwing the match out. Yes, I know someone can be disqualified for merely possessing a foreign object, but most of the time refs wait until said object is actually used.
  4. garretta
    This was a hell of an action-packed match for the time it was given. It helps that these two know each other almost better than they know themselves, as they knew exactly which of their "greatest hits" to play in the time allotted. Eaton's work on Morton's knee was worthy of a much longer match, and the spot where Corny's racquet was used for extra leverage on Bobby's figure-four was truly inspired. I didn't mind the Studs' run-in under the circumstances, since this bout was never meant to settle anything. This was one of the wilder battle royal-style finishes you'll ever see, as jobbers are beaten to death with Corny's racquet while all three tag teams (and Killer Kyle) go after each other indiscriminately. You forgot to secure the Studs, Bullet Bob! Speaking of whom, I thought he was back in the ring by this point. I guess Corny wanted to wait until the three-way tag feud was blown off before diverting his and the Bodies' attention. Corny's promo beforehand was nothing special for him, but it served to set up the match, so it was fine in that aspect. By the way, does anyone know who Rock 'n' Roll's partner was in those six-mans? I seriously doubt that it was Arn (their eventual partner in the blowoff). I love it when announcers like Caudle are surprised that heels are breaking the rules even after the heels flat-out state that they'll be breaking them. Check out the "But you can't do that!" tone in Bob's voice when he sees that there are three Bodies with Corny. Hello, Bob, they've been a threesome for almost a month!
  5. garretta
    The first three-quarters of this was very, very good. The girls focused on body parts, noticeably the backs of Inoue and Ozaki, and it really felt like a traditional tag match. Then, of course, they had to drop all of it for one of those hundred-moves-an-hour finishing runs that I've really grown to dislike over the course of the Yearbooks. Nobody bothered to sell, or even stay down for more than a few seconds, lest they miss their turn. I can see why a finish like this would be exciting for fans who haven't seen a lot of them, but after a while I just wished they'd have cut the sequence down to thirty seconds or a minute and let the match end already. I didn't even care who went over or how; just get the damn thing over with. As bad as that was, it was the endless saves during that run that was the worst part. There were just too many, and they only served to kill just about every finishing move they could have possibly come up with. I got the feeling that if one of the girls pulled a knife and stabbed their nearest opponent in the chest, the other member of her team would have made the save at two out of habit. It's almost like they feel they have to go thirty minutes or more, even when logic dictates that they should stop at fifteen or twenty. American matches can sometimes be far too short for their own good, but Japanese matches can sometimes be too long for their own good, with no other reason in mind than going long. Who was the guy in the picture Dynamite brought in during the postmatch? Whoever it was, Mayumi seemed overjoyed to see him.
  6. garretta
    This would have been a great angle without the jingoistic bullshit at the end. Did you really need to play the yellow menace card, Vince? Our countries are. if not friends, at least political allies, and have been since 1945. The evil Jap stuff that's all over wrestling is bad enough, but it was seldom explicitly about "my flag is better than your flag" until now. Remember what a mess you made out of Sarge's heel run? He could still go enough to be a threat to Hogan and draw some decent houses, but the Iraqi turncoat stuff poisoned the waters so much against him that even a last-ditch face turn couldn't save him. You had to retire him to take the heat off, make him a Commissioner who's almost never seen. Surely you remember, and just as surely you don't give a good shit. It's pathetic, disgusting, and par for your course, unfortunately. (I know Sarge may have been ready to retire anyway, but he could have stayed on as a midcard face for at least another year or so if Vince hadn't messed with him so badly. He was putting on pay-per-view quality matches as late as '97, when he looked good in a boot camp match I saw once against HHH.) Frankly, I was surprised that they gave this spot to Duggan. He may have been the WWF's resident patriot in Hogan's absence, but he hadn't been in a serious program since early '91, when he was Sarge's only other noteworthy challenger for the title besides Hogan. Vince was at what passes for his best these days. Give him an angle to sell or a story to tell and you get a quasi-professional; make him call moves in a match and you get BLECCH! Savage was mostly just there. Lawler was appropriately heelish, but not as obnoxious as he would be later. Actually, I didn't find his Pearl Harbor references all that bad; it was Fuji covering Duggan with the flag and Yoko splashing Duggan while he was covered that bothered me. Cut this off after the third splash and it's no better or worse than any evil Jap angle wrestling's run since World War II.
  7. garretta
    From the minute the Bodies sat down, you knew the match was going to have some screwball finish. I didn't think we were going to get a pinfall here, clean or otherwise; even given what happened to cause it, that puts the Studs squarely in third place where the feud's concerned, which they have been ever since it started. Nice to see Shoo Baby back with Dutch; I only wish we could have seen him use it. Caudle and Corny were a hoot on commentary, and hearing Corny rip both teams to pieces was classic. The only problem I had was putting SMW's condolences to Andre in the middle of it all; Corny was too wound up to even ackowledge what Bob had said; there was a pause, a "That's exactly right", and bang, into the next joke. I thought we'd get more interference from the Bodies, but that would have taken away from the finish. It seems like Bobby's in the middle of everything they do lately; there's no way that's not a message from Corny about how Bobby was misused in WCW.
  8. garretta
    I wasn't exactly sure why Tunney was let go, Pete. You're right, Watts wouldn't have come cheap, and as I outlined in my post, he definitely wanted the power to run things his way. Gino could be relied upon not to rock the boat, plus he was a familiar face to the fans.
  9. garretta
    The Studs have a point, and it extends to real life as well. Corny should have absolutely used them on TBS, since they were the third team in this feud and had just as much to do with its success as Rock 'n' Roll and the Bodies did. It's possible that Corny deliberately left them out so their absence could be used to further the SMW feud, but that could have been done just as easily by having Fuller and Golden come through the crowd at Center Stage and interfere in the Rock 'n' Roll/Bodies match. Maybe we could have even had a shorter version of the seven-on-two beatdown of Rock 'n' Roll that we got the week before on SMW TV. Apparently the lines that got cut from TBS were a reference to Corny hating both Watts and Jim Herd and a line where he dared to use the phrase "I'll be damned". How pathetic can you possibly get, Easy E? Even the threat to sue everyone in the company including Ted Turner isn't something that's new to wrestling; the Horsemen used to threaten a lawsuit at least once a month over this, that, or the other. My own theory is that Bischoff couldn't take the fact that two outside teams were so over with his fans and decided to scrap the angle so TBS and WCW wouldn't look like a bunch of idiots, to borrow Corny's phrase. (To be fair, Corny's no fan of Eric's, so there's no guarantee that it would have lasted much longer than it did under any circumstances.) Boy, Corny's racquet shots were loud. Either the ring was more heavily mic'd than usual or Corny knew exactly where in the ring to position guys so the hits he gave them would really come across.
  10. garretta
    I really can't judge the confrontation between Corny and Watts because so much of it was bleeped/faded. It doesn't really matter if it was Bischoff's fault for wanting to bury a feud he didn't book or if it was the Turner lawyers' fault for being afraid of lawsuits: If so much of Corny's rant wasn't going to make the air, they shouldn't have bothered airing the segment. It's not like they needed Rock 'n' Roll and the Bodies to heat up the tag division; this was simply Watts trying to get a little more exposure for his protégé Corny and a few of his wrestlers with whom the TBS audience would already be familiar. That's probably why the Studs weren't involved; even though Fuller and Golden would come to Atlanta soon (under different gimmicks), they hadn't been TBS regulars at any point in their careers yet. The match was just all right by the standards of what we've seen from SMW, but the Atlanta crowd went absolutely nuts for it. Could that have been part of the reason Bischoff didn't continue with it? Rock 'n' Roll were still way more over than Steamer and Douglas despite being gone for over two years, and as great as the Blonds were becoming, they didn't have Corny to guarantee their heat and stir up trouble like the Bodies did. It simply wouldn't have done to have the two "outsider" teams be more over than the hometown boys, and there was no way that the Bodies were close to being WCW World tag title material over Steamer and Douglas, especially since Lane would retire in just a few months. Rock 'n' Roll challenging the Blonds once they got the belts was a different story, but I highly doubt that Corny and Bischoff would have been able to work together in peace for that long. I loved Larry putting both teams over so enthusiastically. He's not too far behind Jesse on the commentating totem pole, and if it wasn't for Jesse's bigger name and contract, he'd probably be doing pay-per-views by now. I also think this series is going to miss something without JR calling it, regardless of Tony's past association with Rock 'n' Roll and Corny. Seeing Watts in what was probably his final on-camera appearance reminds me that he tried to work for Vince for a while in '95, but quit once he realized that he'd have almost no power. What I'm wondering is: Why didn't Vince at least contact him about the WWF's on-screen presidency once they got rid of Jack Tunney? He'd have been a hell of a lot better at it than his former tag partner Gino, whose health was going downhill rapidly by that point.
  11. garretta
    Air this on WWF TV and you'd instantly have the number one heel in the company, particularly after the line about Southern kids joining churches instead of street gangs. We should all remember that these promos weren't supposed to be seen any farther north than the part of West Virginia that borders Virginia and Kentucky. In other words, there were still most likely plenty of people for whom this was a true babyface promo. The mistake Tracy almost made is that he got so hyped up about defending the Southern lifestyle that he forgot about his issue with Tony. Fortunately, he recovers in time to deliver a very strong warning to the newest of the blue-blooded Yankees. By the way, whether it's coincidence or not, both Tracy and Steve Armstrong use "The South's Gonna Do It Again" as their theme music these days. I heard it in the match where Steve teamed with Wendell Cooley from USA Wrestling.
  12. garretta
    I didn't know that. It was probably on the bump he took into the post. Thanks, AJ!
  13. garretta
    Thanks, AJ!
  14. garretta
    You said it, brother. Wow, talk about making angles believable, even so late. Thanks, AJ!
  15. garretta
    I'd like to hear some of the examples, Pete. I've never heard of Marc having any problems with the content of the shows, although given his obvious deep faith I'm not surprised to learn that he had some.
  16. garretta
    I think this might have been more effective as a singles bout between Tatanka and Shawn. The Nasties were past their WWF prime, and the Destruction Crew/Beverlys never had a prime to start with. Just to be clear: Bloom is Blake and Enos is Beau. Or is it the other way? Who cares regardless? Vince was pretty good right up until the end, when he still insisted that Tatanka got a pin on Shawn with the top-rope chop more than ten seconds after Shawn kicked out. Savage had to save him by pointing out the obvious. Between that and refusing to call the sunset flip finish ("WHATTA MANEUVER! WHATTA MANEUVER!") all the good work he'd done up until then (a nice dissertation on the resilience of the WWF athlete, for example) was ruined. Why couldn't they have just put JR on Raw right out of the box? Bartlett wounded bored out of his skull: "I guess there are too many men in the ring." He's out of his league in a place where he doesn't want to be, and he knows it. I did like his response to Vince when Vince suggested that Knobbs might tag him: "I'd give him a stern talking-to." He probably would, too! Were the Nasties and the DC/Bevs scheduled for a long-term program and/or a match at Mania IX? I know they didn't actually get in the ring at Mania, but the match could have been scheduled to take place and scrapped before the final card was set.
  17. garretta
    If I was made to look as dumb as Muta did here, with my finisher missing not once but twice, I'd tell WCW to go screw itself too. Muta didn't need the U.S. by now; he was big enough in New Japan to stay there for good. I liked Jesse covering for Muta's apparent laziness by talking about his long trip from Japan. Barry looked decent, but the NWA belt simply wasn't a big deal in WCW anymore. I get that they probably wanted to make it worth something again, so that's why they sent Flair after it, but they probably should have just had a unification match between Muta and the Vader-Sting winner, then let Flair go after the WCW title instead (which, of course, they eventually did). Flair did all right on commentary from what little I heard, but they didn't need him and Jesse in the same booth. Use Flair and either give Jesse the match off or send him over to the Hotline to call it with Gordon and Lance. Tony doesn't call Barry's DDT the Implant (which is a cool name, by the way). Did Barry himself call it that or did JR invent the name? If it's the latter, that would explain why Tony didn't use it.
  18. garretta
    I vaguely remember watching Tony and Ron do the proud Yankee from New York City bit on the SMW set, and I agree that it's a great heel gimmick to use in the Smoky Mountain area, particularly on a Southern patriot like Tracy. Would it fly today? Of course not, and even if it could, there's no one that could pull it off the way Tony and Ron did. The beating on Tracy's shoulder seemed plenty snug, and Clarke didn't look too awful in what little we saw. Dutch called a flying elbow from Tracy a dropkick, but that's understandable considering how far Tracy's feet went into the air when he hit it. How did Corny get permission to burn the Confederate flag in a crowded building deep in the heart of the Confederacy? Did he even bother? This kind of angle seems pretty touchy considering the time and place.
  19. garretta
    I wondered why Barry would no-sell Flair's return to the degree that he did, but if Flair was still technically with the WWF when the interview was taped, there was nothing else he could do. Of course, it also adds to the idea that he's supremely focused on Muta and the NWA title and won't let Gordon or anyone else distract him from his goal. I was surprised that Barry brushed Chono aside in much the same way. He was someone the WCW fans knew from his battles with Rude, so it couldn't have hurt to give him his due as a former champion. It was great to see Gordon again. Just once, I would have liked to hear Gordon and Lance call a pay-per-view match together. Let Tony and Jesse do the hotline for one stinkin' match; it wouldn't have killed them. For that matter, I'd have liked to hear either Gordon or Lance with Jesse, even if it was only occasionally. I liked the quote from the NASCAR guy about taking things to the ragged edge. It was most likely an actual quote; Gordon was an announcer for auto racing tracks in Florida while he was working for Eddie Graham, at least in the beginning. This was JR's last Saturday night show; I fast-forwarded into the Steamboat-Pillman match to find out for sure. I seem to recall reading that he was still around for occasional syndicated matches into early March, but I could certainly be wrong about that.
  20. garretta
    Flair's back where he's always at his best. I didn't realize how much I'd missed JCP/WCW Flair until I saw him on the podium with Tony. Nice to see that he acknowledged his WWF run, which most of the people in the audience had probably followed anyway. I didn't need Missy Hyatt anywhere near this, especially as a groupie. When are they going to admit that they've used her horribly (not that she could ever be used well by anyone except Eddie Gilbert) and cut their losses? It made sense for Flair to call out Windham and Vader, but Dustin and the US belt seem a step below him. Then again, a Flair/Dustin feud may have been interesting due to the past history between Flair and Dusty, who would almost certainly have been involved somehow. Either 2/13 or 2/20 was JR's last Saturday night show, because JR was the one stuck between Corny and Watts on 2/6, as we saw earlier.
  21. garretta
    I didn't like this one bit, and I didn't think it was well done. Sure, maybe the beatdown needed to happen to make sure that the Studs didn't end up babyfaces, but not this way. You don't make your top faces out to be so stupid that they willingly jump into a seven-on-two (counting Corny and Dutch) massacre. Morton and Gibson weren't being valiant, they were just being idiotic, and they certainly paid for it. To make things worse, no one whatsoever came to their aid, even after it was clear that the Bodies had left and weren't coming back. What kind of message does that send to the fans? What it tells me is, "Why should the rest of the babyfaces get involved with two guys so dumb that they get suckered by a bunch of playground insults into a fight they know they can't possibly win?" Here's how you do this angle right: Rock 'n' Roll is out, with Morton talking about the Bodies like he does here. Suddenly, the Studs and Dutch attack from behind. While the fans' attention is on the scene at the desk, the Bodies make their way to the ring, and once the Studs have their fill, they throw Ricky and Robert in, and the Bodies take their shots. Smothers, Lee, and the cavalry show up to rescue their friends, and the Studs and Bodies rule the ring. But instead of celebrating, they turn on each other and fight back to the locker room. All you lose is a few seconds of token offense from Rock 'n' Roll, and you have the added advantage of the Studs not being able to definitively run off the Bodies, which keeps both of those teams equally hot. As it is now, the champions are idiots and their number one contenders live in fear of the team you're basically using as a third wheel. This is fine if you want the Studs to get the belts, but you (Corny) want the team you manage (the Bodies) to get them. I guess this will make the Bodies' next championship win more of a surprise when it inevitably comes, but it comes at the cost of making your champions and top faces too damn stupid to live, and that's never good.
  22. garretta
    I actually thought Hogan got a pretty good reaction under the circumstances, and his promo was very good, at least for what he's been so far in the nineties. I didn't mind Beefcake much either; it's not his fault that he couldn't wrestle for almost three years, and while the Barber gimmick was out of place by now, that was all he knew how to be as a face, so I can't blame him for that either. They laid on the "big man upstairs" stuff about ten layers too thick, though. It's not like He (or She) chose Beefcake especially to be behind when things got rough; that's pretty much His (or Her) entire job description when it comes to dealing with the human race. What really ruined this segment was Jimmy. "I've always idolized Hulk Hogan"? No one who's followed wrestling for longer than a week or two could possibly believe that, even if they're marks. What's the matter with saying, "You know, I've done some terrible things to these guys over the last eight years, but last week, enough was enough"? He's useless to them and to the upcoming program with Money Inc., because he's trying not to be the person we know he's been since 1985, denying his identity........for what? Why should we believe that this is the greatest day of his life? If he's been a Hulkamaniac for so long, why only admit it now, when almost everyone over the age of twelve knows that Hogan's glory days in the WWF are dwindling to a precious few, that he's been surpassed by Bret, among others? It's almost like he knows Money Inc.'s after him for selling them out and are looking to hurt him, so he runs to the big, bad Hulkster for protection. That's not praiseworthy, that's just saving your own hide. Can we have a team name without Maniacs in it for once, especially since the last team with that kind of name never even officially teamed on pay-per-view? I wonder how Heenan, who had always wanted to manage Hogan by his own admission, would have handled an interview like this. If Jimmy hadn't been on Hogan's real-life payroll, this just might have been his spot, assuming the same type of angle was run.
  23. garretta
    Thanks, AJ!
  24. garretta
    Nice squash win for Steve and Cooley. I wasn't even aware that Wendell was still wrestling by now. I liked Scott's enthusiasm on color. It's a pity that SMW had Dutch, or he could have been in the booth with Bob Caudle when he wasn't wrestling as Dixie Dyn-O-Mite. Who were Simply Devine? I guess they were a tag team of some sort, but I've never heard of them. Johnny Starr wrestling in a golf shirt and dress pants? Who does he think he is, Mike Rotundo?
  25. garretta
    JR made it sound like Harley was the one who was disqualified, which was a real head-scratcher. I'm glad to see that he meant what I thought he meant. Flair used to wrestle squashes when he was champ too; they were just an excuse to get him in the ring on TV. There was no pretense ever made of one of the jobbers having "earned" the right to face him, whether it was for the belt or not. I'm guessing JR was already gone by now, even if they were airing the matches from his last taping, because Tony called SuperBrawl with Jesse. As an aside, that paint job on Thames' face was sloppy, even given the circumstances. Harley made it look like he was putting rouge on the guy's cheeks, not facepaint.
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