garretta

The only problem I had with this was that Atkins reversed his decision before Sting even had the chance to let Windham go, It was almost like the Sting pin wasn't planned, so they had to make up a reason to go with the booked finish, which was Barry by DQ. It may not have actually been that way, but if they wanted to have the finish they did, they should have ended the show with Sting as the sinner and announced the reversal at the top of the show the following week. I didn't think the bump Atkins took was any worse than the ones refs usually do, but I'm sitting at my computer twenty-three years after the fact, so how would I know? Should anyone care, Vader beat Sting by DQ at the Omni. Harley rang the bell to distract Sting and save Vader from the Scorpion, so Sting retaliated by nailing Vader with it.

It's about time that Doug begins to make his own way in the world, but since he's not up to the level of guys like Lawler and Jeff yet, working against Eddie's the best he can do. I liked the idea of Doug coming out as the King of Rock just to show that, like Eddie, he's the king of something. Of course, we all know that Eddie's not the King of Wrestling either, but as he says himself, he's done a lot more to try to earn his title than Doug has. It's a shame in a way that the WWF angle is taking over the USWA (with help from the Lawler family squabble), because this would have felt like a much bigger match three months ago than it does now. I'll be interested to see where the Gilberts go from here, because if Eddie in particular's going to be a player going forward, he's going to have to get involved with whoever Vince sends down in a given week; feuding with Doug isn't going to get him much.

I would have loved to see Luger doing The Narcissist in Memphis. Sorry we don't seem to have any footage of it. As for the promo.......look, Jerry, I know you're too vain to admit that you have a son as old as Brian is, but you know you're his father, and so does he. So dial it back a little, huh? Maybe you went this far overboard in order to kill the idea that you'd go soft on your kid, but hearing you talk about hurting him, embarrassing him, and giving him the whipping he should have gotten long ago is just creepy. So is the stuff about him being the last guy you'd want to pass the torch to, especially because that part turned out to be true. I'm not exactly sure how you should have gone about this other than admitting that Brian's your son, which I know you don't want to do, but I can't be the only one who feels the way I do about it. It might have been easier for everyone if he'd gone somewhere else to learn the business, even as good as he's been in Memphis so far.

This was great. Two skinny white guys trying to act street and succeeding more than seems humanly possible, but still not quite seeming authentic is tremendous entertainment. I loved Wolfie referring to Lawler as a mark! I know that PG-13 interacted with Bill Dundee at some point once the Superstar returned to Memphis, and I'm curious: Did Jamie rap about his dad, or did he leave that to Wolfie? If he did, what did he say about Bill?

Joey changes his tune twice within a minute, going from bluster to ass-kissing and back again so quickly it made my head swim. Maybe he learned a lot more from Eddie Gilbert than we thought! Scott looked decent in the short clip we saw.

Somehow, I'm not surprised. I meant to say in my original post that the Finkel we saw in that promo is by all accounts the opposite of the real Howard, who's a first-class gentleman. It's a shame he got hooked up with such a rotten employer. Thanks, AJ!

I'm not really that surprised by Howard's prowess on the mic or his ability to be a heel. He looks like he could be one of those pompous little windbags who's only important to himself, and that's exactly what he came across as here. And yet, he somehow maintained his dignity, which is amazing. Bruno couldn't compete with that, but with Lawler behind him, he didn't have to. I was amazed by how over he was, especially considering that he's such an odious little worm as Wippleman, with no sense of humor at all and one of wrestling's most annoying voices. Did Hogan know about Bruno's attempt to portray him? If he did, it's a wonder he didn't arrange for Jimmy Hart to come back to the MSC and challenge Bruno on his behalf. Am I the only one who finds it strange that for most of his career in Memphis, Bruno played the exact same kind of Yankee whom he now claims to hate and denied his own hometown? Pittsburgh isn't in Mississippi, you know. But now he's a conquering hero because someone from the WWF did the exact same thing he used to do. Only in professional wrestling! Lawler's depiction of the WWF's attitude toward Southerners is right on the money. from what I've heard and read. I wonder if Vince enjoyed being called out on it, or having Finkel exposed as someone from the front office for that matter. All the film clip was missing was Vince's horrified commentary. Maybe they should have picked a segment where Finkel gets the better of Bruno; I seem to recall a few during this feud. It would have been better if Finkel had been the one to attack Bruno, but there was no way they could have explained Howard cheapshotting someone or ordering a wrestler to do so without exposing the business.

Lawler tries his best, but he's been outtalked for one of the few times in his Memphis career. That probably won't be a weekly occurrence (assuming that the Lawler-Brian feud continues) but it was definitely the case today. As for Jeff, this is a bit of an odd time to demand a WWF World title shot. Even assuming that Vince (or Jack Tunney, if you prefer) decides to send Bret to the MSC, there's only one man who'd be getting a title shot, and it sure isn't Jeff. This was obviously before Lawler started working Raw. I've always been curious how they changed the MSC schedule so that Lawler could work Raw on Monday nights and still be available to headline (at least in most weeks) the USWA's biggest weekly show. I wonder if the WWF at least inquired about Dave possibly coming north. I honestly don't know where he would have fit; Vince wasn't giving up Superstars or Raw, and they had JR coming in to do Challenge and pay-per-views. Once you get past those shows, what he would have gotten probably wasn't worth leaving a steady job at WMC for. I actually think Cory might have had a better chance of fitting in; he might have been an upgrade over guys like Todd Pettengill, assuming that he could have improved his elocution, which is a fair-sized longshot.

It's amazing how a still relatively minor WWF character can come in basically out of nowhere and turn Memphis TV inside out. Papa probably wishes that he could book Doink on a regular basis, because he's the best heel that the USWA has had since Bill and Buddy were wrecking everything six years back. And that's just based on one TV show! (No, I haven't forgotten about the Moondogs, but they were a one-note act after the first month.) About Lawler and son: Jerry must have raised Brian as a real carny, because there's no way in the world I could even pretend to touch my dad in anger, not even for millions of dollars, But they work together like it's nothing out of the ordinary. It says something about Brian's abilities that the fans presumably know that he supposedly wants to beat the hell out of his own father (whether it's acknowledged or not), yet accept him like just another one of the King's many challengers. In other words, he gets good heat, but not the death threats he'd probably be getting if the USWA played up their family ties. I could have lived without Prentice. It's amazing, but this place still misses Jimmy Hart eight years later. If all we can get from the territory's top manager is transvestite jokes about the female talent and veiled references to Eddie Marlin sleeping with one of those supposed transvestites, the USWA needs to ban managers and let the wrestlers get their own heat, because they're a million times better at it. No wonder Dave got disgusted.

Borne was great here as usual, but to me Brian almost stole the whole interview. Even at this early stage of his career, he's a better heel than his dad, and I'm not kidding. I have yet to see a heel Lawler promo or interview where ninety percent of the material didn't come out of a middle school joke book, even when he's supposed to be serious. Brian was just so wonderfully, sickeningly obnoxious here, putting over his own smarts, dismissing his dad and Jeff as two guys straight out of The Beverly Hillbillies, and finally declaring that he's ashamed to be from the South. It's not that the material is new; it's more that someone so young can do such a great job delivering it. Add in serious/evil Doink and you have the freshest Memphis interview segment in quite some time. Was it just me, or did Dave seem on the verge of legitimately cracking up when he was looking at Doink? That doesn't seem like him at all; maybe what I saw as a smile was him setting his jaw in anger, which is just as possible given all the stuff he and Brian have pulled today. Interestingly enough, we've seen Lawler be one of Doink's biggest fans on Superstars, even though he mildly disapproved of Doink's attack on Crush. I guess his standard "They hate me up there, so I cheer for the guys they hate" was enough to satisfy the Memphis fans who might have wondered about that.

Papa hasn't learned his lesson, I see. Look, I get that Doink's supposed to be an evil sucker, so if you want him to pie Jackie and humiliate her, I'll deal with it. But having Prentice beat her up on top of that is not only unnecessary from a violence standpoint, but it kills the boxing match, because now the fans want to see Lawler and Jeff string him up instead. Not that the world was exactly dying to see Jackie vs. (presumably) Bert Prentice in drag anyhow. Dave's been peeved before, but he practically exploded (at least by his standards). I think the line that set him off was the one about Jackie sleeping with half the wrestling promoters. From then on, he just got madder and madder. As for Corey, if he couldn't mispronounce "ridiculous", I doubt he'd have a job, because his Lance Russell impression got old by the third week he was on the air. If they hadn't gone with a midget, Brian would have made a wonderful Dink. I could just imagine him as Doink's partner in crime, paint, wig and all. Does anyone know if Lawler tried to get him into the WWF this early?

I decided to watch this segment first since I only have a few minutes, and what a great choice. Vince really hit an unexpected home run with the original heel Doink, and it goes further out of the park the more I see. What a seemingly harmless yet diabolical stunt we saw, and Borne's punches looked really good in the beatdown before Lawler came out to save Jeff. Between Razor Ramon, HBK, and Doink, Vince and Pat Patterson were really on fire from the second half of '92 on into '93 in terms of creating memorable heel characters. (Shawn took a while to really find his stride, which is why I include him in this group even though he turned just after the start of '92.) Seems we might be headed for a little father vs. son tag match. I'll be interested to see how Jerry and Brian work against one another; most fathers prefer to team with their sons. I loved Dave's line about the Exxon Valdez. He's still so underrated as a play-by-play guy it's pitiful. Now if only he could find a color guy who's worthy of his talents, or at least worthy of being anywhere near a wrestling ring.

Given Hogan's apparent demand that Jimmy (who had become his real-life business manager by that point) also accompany him to ringside, I don't know what else Vince could have done. He had no time for an elaborate turn on Money Inc., with Beefcake's interview taking place one week and the match the next, plus he probably didn't want to build too much, not only to keep the surprise but to cover himself in case Hogan backed out at the last second. Given those parameters, this was good. Teddy had been a midcarder for too long to draw the heat he probably should have, and Rotundo just doesn't do it for me in that godawful shirt and tie. But Jimmy did the best he could to make it believable that he cared about Beefcake, and Vince and Randy were great on commentary, selling shock that even a hardened heel like Teddy could be so heartless and unfeeling as to laugh at the re-destruction of another man's face. I'm not sure where the blood came from either; I don't think that Beefcake's doctors would have let him blade even if he'd wanted to. Regardless, it was a needed touch, even if they used blood capsules or ketchup. I noticed that there was no Heenan for this segment, and that was just as well. The Bobby Heenan character simply isn't capable of sympathy for another human being, and to hear him try to express some would have just exposed the whole thing as completely phony For those of you who might have seen the whole match, did Beefcake come out in the smock with the shears? I find it difficult to believe that the Beefcake character could have actually been thinking about cutting anyone's hair on a night like this.

Hogan hit all the right notes here, yet still managed to take shots at those who don't believe in him as a person and icon. What, you expected him to say, "I'm a no-good piece of dogshit, and I shouldn't be stinking up professional wrestling anymore, so I'll bow out gracefully in favor of Mitsuharu Misawa"? The "tabloid terrorism" stuff relates just as much to Vince as it does to Hogan, and might have even been written by Vince for all we know. Otherwise, this is just a more mellow version of what we've heard for nine years. One question about the new "demandment": If you're already a Hulkamaniac, isn't believing in Hulk Hogan sort of a prerequisite? If you're not, why the hell would you become one after all you've heard about the man recently?

It's hard to fault Beefcake for any of this; he's never been much of a promo, and the idea of a cartoon character like The Barber suddenly having to deal with the real-life issues that Ed Leslie did simply doesn't work well in the WWF universe. Vince tries his best, putting his own geeky character aside and doing a tremendous sell job, but Beefcake talking about God and Hogan together sours the whole thing. It's a wrestling interview, Brutus; God will forgive you if you put him aside and talk about your friend the wrestler. I'm trying to think of another heel who could have been the facilitator for this story, but I can't find one. Teddy's already known as evil, he's had major issues with Hogan in the past, and he has backup in Rotundo and The Colonel. It's a perfect setup. (Don't forget, Jimmy's had a past history with both Hogan and Beefcake as well.) I don't think Rotundo could have fit into the slot quite as well, unless you care to think back to 1985 when he and Barry Windham feuded with Beefcake and Greg Valentine over the tag titles, and eight years is a long time to remember, even for some diehard fans.

That bodysuit completely eliminates whatever menace Gigante may have had, which wasn't much to start with. It's not even human looking; it looks like something Charles Schulz may have drawn to get over his depression before starting Peanuts on a given day. They also needed a more experienced manager to help get Gigante over. I'm no fan of Bruno as Harvey Wippleman; his accent grates, and Jimmy Hart plays the annoying pipsqueak so much better even at this late date. Maybe you sign Corny a few months early and tell him to get what he can out of this mess before you put him with Yoko. I kind of like the idea that Gigante keeps attacking even though Taker's knocked out; it establishes him as a bloodthirsty animal. Taker sells the damage beautifully for someone who's not used to selling, especially in this gimmick.

A classy tribute for a true legend. I was kind of glad there was no elaborate production I've seen a few of WWE's video packages and they tend to be as much about "Gee, look at the footage we can show!" as the guy they're honoring. Thank heaven Hogan was returning; most of the images shown here had something to do with Mania III, and who knows if they would have used those images if he had remained someone whom they preferred not to bring up.

This one was more than a little weird. First, why would you have such a violent match in what looked like a hotel ballroom? The whole point of an I Quit match is blood and violence, and yet for at least the first fifteen minutes this was a lot tamer than most regular matches, with the referee confiscating weapons and counting guys out of the ring. After that, things picked up a bit, but there still wasn't the blood feud vibe that a match like this needs to have. There were a few halfhearted table spots, but the only really violent things about this match were Eddie's fireball (which Terry sold beautifully) and the finish, where Terry crushed Eddie's knee with the ring steps. I can honestly say that that finish is right behind Magnum and Tully for the most violent I Quit finish I've ever seen. Still, it was out of place in a relatively tame match like this. Second, the handheld here was particularly bad. We got plenty of random shots of the crowd, the ceiling, the floor, people's asses, and just about everything else except a clear view of the ring. Luckily, the camera operator perked up in time to get the finish in all its glory, which included the postmatch. I like the idea of handhelds bringing us matches that we'd never see otherwise, but it stinks to be at the mercy of some person who for all we know has never filmed a wrestling match before in his or her life. Third, was Terry legitimately ill afterward? I know he's someone who'll do literally anything for the art of wrestling, but he looked like he was really sick with the flu, with all the sweat all over his face and the fact that the backstage people went to such great lengths to clear the locker room. It's a shame that the camera operator was distracted by that, because I have a feeling we were about to see one of the great no-sells in history, as it looked like Eddie was about to get to his feet and walk out of the ring despite having his knee pounded to smithereens by heavy wooden steps just minutes before. These two are capable of better matches in more conducive atmospheres. Hopefully at least one made this set.

Thanks, Childs!

A big win for the MVC. They've really been looking good as a team lately, much better than they did in WCW. It's amazing that Watts knew what both of these guys were capable of from their days in Mid-South and still managed to make them such a bore stateside. Did All-Japan follow the tradition of making someone who pins a singles champion in a tag match the number one contender for the title of the guy they pinned? I know they didn't have nearly as many championship matches as most American promotions, but I would think that Doc got something other than the tag belts for pinning Misawa clean as a sheet. It's rare that a double submission finish is teased but not delivered. The saves on pins and submissions were brilliantly timed here, but none more so than that one by Bamm Bamm. It's a shame that his OD is coming so soon; he still had plenty left in the tank here. Compared to some of the other finishers in ALPW at this time, the Oklahoma Stampede does seem rather tame. I'm sure the fans will accept it as Doc continues to get big wins using it. Does anyone know if there was an angle connected with Kawada's turn, or did he just start going against Misawa one day for no discernible reason? He looks angry before this match, but that's hardly anything new for him.

This wasn't a whole lot until Taue chokeslammed Kobashi on the floor, then business picked up with the heels targeting Kobashi's neck. By the finish, all six guys were back in the groove. Taue hasn't hit his stride yet as the new leader of Misawa's opposition, but given how mean he can be I'm sure he'll figure things out in no time at all. Akiyama continues to impress me with how he's keeping up in one of the toughest promotions in history. If he's not some kind of superworker within three years, it'll be his fault and no one else's. He even got a nice nearfall on Misawa, of all people. Kikuchi's not quite the universal punching bag he used to be, even though he took the loss here. I was a bit harsh on him in one of the later '92 threads, and he seems to have elevated his game a bit. He has a long way to go to get to Misawa and Taue's level, but he's on the right track. Once again in an AJPW bout, we had the wrong finishing move. Taue and Akiyama's back suplex/clothesline combo was enough to spell the end for Kikuchi (or anyone else, for that matter) but it was the two German suplexes that got the pin. As I said in another thread, maybe a German seemed like more of a "wrestling" finish to Baba. From what I gather, Kawada will be on the other side of the fence when the armies meet again down the line. It's going to be interesting to see how the dynamic changes in light of the first major switch of sides in this epic battle.

Was there a Memphis masked gimmick in the seventies, eighties, and nineties that Don Bass didn't do? Thanks, AJ!

That site's a mess. Thanks for the scoop, AJ!

This had some good matwork between Del Santo and Espanto in the first fall, and the third fall was heated with the mask ripping on Del Santo, which always gets the crowd going. Eddy covered nicely for Del Santo's whiff on the top rope bulldog with the facebuster. I'm surprised that they showed a replay of such an obvious botch. Eddy looked like a fool complaining about the mask ripping on Del Santo, which of course made sure that the heels kept doing it. Once is enough for that spot, Eddy; you don't need to do it two or three times and make yourself look bad. The superplex is becoming a lot more common than it probably should be, especially internationally. I remember the days when it was an unquestioned finisher for Cowboy Bob Orton; now people kick out at two all the time after taking it. There wasn't enough tag team work for my tastes here. the four individual combinations all worked well with each other, but when I pay for a tag team bout I expect to see teamwork.

First fall: Nice to see Heenan at ringside for what has to be the last time other than his one-shot in WCW. He should have been there for all of Flair's televised appearances after Curt's turn. How did Vince get him to go to Boston for a non-televised card, anyway? I don't care whether it "went anywhere" or not, I liked seeing Flair take Bret's arm apart. Ditto the use of the figure-four by Bret, which Flair sold brilliantly for the rest of the fall. It makes sense to me that if a body part that's been worked on is left alone, it gets feeling and motion back into it, so Bret not going around with his arm hanging limp for the rest of the match also makes sense to me. The handheld was not only jiggly at times, but there were other times when the guy was late moving the camera from where he thought the action should be to where it actually was, and we missed some stuff because of it. I know not to expect professional camerawork at all times with handhelds, but would it kill people to actually follow the wrestlers when they're wrestling? Earl Hebner's stupidity has to be seen to be believed here. I think it was Loss who said that Flair using the ropes as often as he did got real old by the fifty-minute mark. Try ten, Loss. The worst part was, the ropes were visibly shaking, and most referees will eventually break a hold on suspicion after the second or third time they see that, which Earl did. But he did absolutely nothing about it. Most people applaud the heel for getting heat after doing stuff like this, but I'm not one of them. Once or twice, maybe. After the third time, the ref's an idiot. It seemed like Earl wasn't sure why Heenan would be at ringside, since he hadn't been there for a while and was never known explicitly as Flair's manager. Their back-and-forth went way too long to be just a normal conversation between a manager and a ref. Could Earl have been checking to see if Bobby's neck was all right, or what kind of spots he'd be able to do? You'd think they'd have taken care of that back in the locker room beforehand. Second fall: Most of this one was Flair working over Bret's leg as only he can. I noticed that like Windham against Steamboat, he used a closed fist to work on his opponent's leg even further, only in this case he was the one applying the hold, not trying to break it, The handheld didn't catch Heenan passing Flair the chair he used to attack Bret's knee, but did you notice how Bobby didn't stop to argue like he usually did when he was tossed. He knew that any argument on his part would most likely cost Flair a fall that he couldn't afford to lose under the circumstances. No shame at all for Bret to quit under these circumstances. A lot of guys have withstood Flair's figure-four once, but twice is another matter. He needs the rest period to get ready for the third fall and get some life back into his leg. Third fall: Not much to comment on. Flair continues his attack on Bret's knee and gains a second submission in a row with his third figure-four. I wonder how many people in the Boston Garden that day thought that Flair would take the title right about now, since Bret looks like he can't even move, let alone stand up. Great heel move by Flair taking extra stomps at Bret's knee during the rest period. It's hard to remember in a day and age where Ric is one of wrestling's most beloved legends that he at one time had a mean streak that even most other heels envied. Fourth fall: The main thing I noticed here was one of the inherent flaws in a match like this: Bret has his set of moves that he uses to set up the Sharpshooter, and almost all of them require a fully functioning leg. So all the damage Flair has done so far to his left knee has to be ignored so Bret can hit the Russian legsweep, the second rope elbow, etc., and do it in the manner the fans want to see it done. Never mind the Sharpshooter, which should be impossible to apply with a leg as injured as Bret's supposedly is. About the only move I can't forgive them doing under the circumstances is Bret press-slamming Flair off the top. Can't Flair forget about that spot for once in his life? Everyone probably has it on tape a hundred times by now (1993). I give Bret credit for selling after he hits each move. Watching in the moment, you can buy that Bret's ignoring the pain in his knee in order to execute his offense, as all champions should. But each move is still taking its toll on him. We get another non-argument spot early in the fall after Earl runs out to intercept Flair's intended chair shot on Bret's leg. Stuff like this really put over just how important and precious each individual fall is, even in a match that's designed to have many of them. Fifth fall: How did Heenan get away from the security to come back to ringside and hand Flair the knucks? Damn those Boston rent-a-cops! Great use of the ironman psychology again, as Flair would have surely won the title had he been able to cover Bret right away after the knucks shot. But he had to get down off the buckle, then crawl over to where Bret had fallen, which gave Bret the chance to get his shoulder up just in time. They milked the drama right down to the end, as Flair put the figure-four on Bret again with just about a minute to go. When Bret got to the ropes, I was sure we were headed for overtime even though I already knew that we weren't. What I wouldn't have given for an official countdown clock, as it seemed that there were still a few seconds left when Bret got the last pin. In fact, it looked like Flair was asking what the hell Earl was doing when he raised Bret's hand and declared him the winner. This may be the best Bret singles match I've seen chronologically to this point in January of '93. As for Flair, this is his best singles match in the WWF by a pretty wide margin, but he was never better than in the '92 Rumble, even in his NWA World champion prime, (I reserve the right to change that opinion after seeing more footage from the 80s Project.) Just as with the Rumble last year, it's going to be hard to knock this match off of its perch as WWF Match of the Year, although we have 356 days left.