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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Actually, this may be the first instance of an actual in-ring feud between Bullet Bob and Corny being promoted. Unfortunately, this outfit looks way too minor league to know what to do with a feud like this. I could barely understand Mr. Tennessee, and to find out that he was some WCW jobber disappoints me. Actually, he sounded a bit like Tommy Rich, which would have been a hell of a lot more interesting. They actually cut this promo off midway through, as Corny was saying "And then, guys........" I have no idea why they did that, unless Corny was saying something about the Bodies actually coming to USA Wrestling and the powers that were didn't want to advertise something that they may not have been able to deliver (and as far as I know, didn't deliver). A search turns up the fact that this outfit was actually the last gasp of what had been Continental. After a few months, they said that Jerry Jarrett had purchased the promotion and folded it into the USWA, but Papa claimed on Wrestling Classics not to remember this and said that they had no interest in promoting in Alabama and the Gulf Coast.
  2. garretta
    I would have liked to see how this all started, as Cactus/Barby-Vader/Orndorff really sounds like something I'd pay to see. I think Cactus called Slazenger and Pierce scalawags because they reminded him of himself when he was younger. I thought Cactus was good here, especially the line about Orndorff's piledriver making his neck snap, crackle, and pop like a bowl of sadistic Rice Krispies. Few other wrestlers even attempt imagery like that. One problem: Cactus never mentions the World title. I know they've put all of their promotional power behind Sting as Vader's next big challenger. but if you're going to involve your World champion in multiple angles, you have to let all the people you've got him feuding with talk about possibly taking the belt from him. Otherwise, do what Vince did with Hogan and have him feud with only one guy at a time.
  3. garretta
    From what I've seen of Brian, he doesn't need this much interference to beat anyone. Four run-ins? I know that Prentice and Samples are their top heels of the moment, but who the hell are the other two jokers? I've never seen either of them before in my life, and based on what they did here I'll be quite happy never to see them again. I get that they needed to screw Jeff out of the belt, but this was beyond ridiculous. It's almost like Vince Russo was booking Memphis under another name. Come on, Papa, you can do better than this!
  4. garretta
    Not much to say here, except that I'm looking forward to seeing Regal's metamorphosis.
  5. garretta
    Jamie and Wolfie aren't just good rappers for wrestlers, they're good rappers period. It's amazing that the USWA, of all places, can feature two skinny white guys as a rapping tag team and not have the whole thing come off as a total embarrassment. I'll take these two over 2 Cold Scorpio as a rap gimmick any day. I liked hearing Curt's heel schtick one more time, and he has a point about Lawler eliminating him from the outside in the Rumble, which Lawler chooses not to address in the interview. What I'm wondering is why Vince didn't follow up on this in the WWF itself. Luger wasn't wrestling yet, and Heenan and Lawler had a loose association, so it would have made perfect (no pun intended) sense for Lawler to be a paid henchman for the Brain trying to put Curt out of wrestling. But for whatever reason, Vince chose not to see that, which is a shame. Lawler did a good job of quelling the "celebration" that popped up at the beginning of the segment. Yes, Curt's a bona fide WWF superstar, but he doesn't hold a belt, so Lawler's quest to merge the WWF and Unified titles is on hold. As it turned out, I don't think Lawler got a WWF/E championship match of any kind until a few years ago, just before his heart attack, and there was no way Vince was sticking the World title on an old man like Lawler by that point, even for a night. It's a shame Bret had to lose the title before the Lawler feud got started, as a title vs. title unification match would have at least popped the Memphis loop, even if the WWF never acknowledged it otherwise. Curt was in full WWF character mode in one other important way: while he alluded to "differences" that he'd had with Lawler over the years, he never brought up his AWA World title loss, although Lawler did in his rebuttal.
  6. garretta
    This was a bit more promo-like than the other Up Close segments that we've seen, but these two still come across as dedicated, serious athletes. Austin always has, but Pillman as a face always seemed a bit too happy-go-lucky for his own good. He's great here, talking about the Blonds' desire for a two-out-of-three falls match in order to take advantage of what he feels is his and Austin's superior endurance. Austin's not doing the exact Stone Cold character by a longshot, but the attitude is there in dribs and drabs, and I liked "The bottom line is...." stuff too. Pete talked about Watts liking to compare wrestling to football, so I wonder if he suggested "The fourth quarter belongs to us" line for Pillman. I know what he meant, but it took the comparison a bit too far. "The third fall will belong to us" might have been more appropriate. I didn't know that Windham had supposedly recruited Austin to be Pillman's partner, presumably so he could focus on his singles feud with Dustin. I wonder if the plan had originally been for Austin to be the U.S. title contender and Windham and Pillman to be the Blonds, then someone remembered Barry turning on Dustin and got the plan reversed.
  7. garretta
    Another realistic interview segment. This is the anti-Piper's Pit, where the whole point is to further angles or start fights (although this particular segment showed Sting accepting Vader's challenge for SuperBrawl); here we get strategy talk and at least a small look into what makes the wrestlers tick outside of the ring. I liked Sting breaking down the two matches he's has so far with Vader, and how he was critical of his performance at the Bash, which you seldom hear from wrestlers in any type of interview situation. He also put Vader over as not only a monster, but a worthy champion, which is another thing you don't hear much from a prospective challenger in this day and age. The mini-promo at the end was pretty good, although after what I've read about the White Castle of Fear I'm not exactly looking forward to it. The only one of these segments left for this month is Austin and Pillman. I'll be waiting to see if they follow the low-key approach that the other guests took or if we'll get something closer to a regular promo, given that they're supposed to be cocky heels.
  8. garretta
    Miller throwing the chair at Lawler was a nice touch, and I was glad he was on target; if he'd missed it would have been one of the most embarrassing moments in Memphis wrestling history. I guess a Moondog battle royal means that anything goes, in which case Lawler doesn't really have a beef, except that he's the King and how dare anyone cost him anything. Miller and Samples are quite a step below what comes later in the year for Lawler in terms of feud partners, but they'll do on a temporary basis until the WWF exchange really gets going. Was the USWA looking to possibly get some interpromotional stuff going with WCW through Dundee the way they did through the WWF with Lawler? I ask this because according to wrestlingdata.com, Bill made at least one more MSC appearance in March, and since that site is notoriously incomplete, there could certainly have been others, not to mention stops at other places around the Memphis loop. Unfortunately, even if there were such plans on the Memphis end, WCW didn't bite the way the WWF did.
  9. garretta
    I wasn't a fan of the whole Dustin-Harley segment lasting as long as it did, because it took my attention away from what Sting and Barry were doing in the ring. I know I've said in the past that I don't mind Harley getting physically involved, but not quite as heavily as this. If there was one time whem the old pro needed to act like a helpless manager, this was it. Eagle said that they could have saved money on the White Castle of Fear movie if they'd shown Sting being busted open by the strap. Well, that's precisely why they made the movie; they wanted to promote the match in a Little Stinger-friendly way, and showing their hero being beaten bloody wasn't it. Plus, there were probably still restrictions on how much blood TBS would let them get away with on their air; I seem to remember occasional juice by now, but nothing too sickening. (Just as I wrote that, my mind flashed to someone who bled like a faucet sometime late in '92 on one of the TBS shows. I can't for the life of me think of who it was, though.)
  10. garretta
    Barry's interference was a nice idea, but it would have made more sense for him to cost Dustin the title, since Dustin was the one he had the issue with going in. A Dustin-Steamer feud makes no sense unless one of them is turning, which we know they're not, and while a Steamer-Barry feud should be a good one in terms of action, it clouds the US title picture unnecessarily in my view. Just let Dustin and Barry go at it around the horn for the title and have done with it. Kudos to Steamer for agreeing to take another DDT on the floor after the bad experience he had with Jake back in '86. I noticed that he was still moving afterward (no matter what Larry Z tried to say on commentary), so at least he wasn't seriously hurt. What program was TBS rerunning that night at 10PM? Was it an old Clash? Did it have anything to do with wrestling at all?
  11. garretta
    This worked totally the wrong way. Arn should have laid Erik out Horseman-style, really roughed him up. Then there would have been some juice behind the feud when it inevitably went into the ring. As it is, what's the point? Much like Shawn Michaels against Marty Jannetty, Erik has effectively settled the issue, at least to my satisfaction. If we see Arn again at any time before summer (which I know we will), this angle was a waste. The STF is a devastating enough hold in the ring; applying it in a gravel and concrete parking lot after slamming a car door on the already injured victim's leg should mean non-arthroscopic knee surgery, a recovery time of at least six months, and doubt as to whether the victim will ever walk properly again let alone wrestle, even if the victim is Arn Anderson. What's the matter with just a shoving match or a brief fistfight if you don't want to do the beatdown I described above? The place where they filmed actually seemed like a real gas station, so give them credit for that much at least. If it was, I wonder what the owner got in exchange for allowing them to use his or her place?
  12. garretta
    I've watched Super Bowl XIV numerous times, and if Leon White played in it, he was never mentioned by Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier. If he got in, it was on special teams. Also, the ring he showed off was most likely the Rams' 1979 NFC Championship ring. I don't know why they felt the need to lie about something that was so easily researchable even in the days before the Internet, and why both WCW and Vader himself weren't ridiculed all over the place for spreading the lie. (Incidentally, he was a third-round pick of the Rams in '78, not a first-round pick.) I'm sorry, but I can't just let stuff like that go; it's too big of an insult to my intelligence as a football fan. (For the record, my love of football runs a hell of a lot deeper than my love of wrestling ever will.) The interview itself was very, very good. I expected Race to do the talking as he normally did, but Vader didn't even need him, which surprised me. I compared him to Bundy over on the '92 board, and this was another way they were alike: they didn't really need their managers as mouthpieces. Race and Heenan respectively added credibility to them as title challengers (or, in Vader's case, successful champions), but the time-honored notion that having a manager means that a guy needs help on the mic is ridiculous, and these are just two cases in point. I liked what little we saw of the title change, and I wish we had more of it on film. I'm pretty sure Tony dressed how he did deliberately in order to look more like a geek next to the monster Vader. Whether it was his idea or whether he was told to do it I don't know, but it certainly did the trick.
  13. garretta
    Bobby's promo on Luger really sticks out sandwiched in between his stuff with Mooney. It's amazing that he can still be taken seriously as a manager/advisor in one setting and look so pathetic in his rabbi outfit later on in the same show. It would have been more believable if someone who at least looked like a security guard could have kept him out instead of Mooney, though. Doesn't Heenan know any other comparisons besides horse manure and ice cream? That line's getting a tad tedious. Interesting that Flair is brought up in connection with Luger, given their past. This brings up a question: If Flair had stuck around, given that they'd acknowledged his time in JCP at least offhandedly, would they then have alluded to the past association between Flair and Luger in some way, even as Heenan was pushing Luger as something literally not of this world? The commercial really didn't do much for me. Seeing men depicted as brainless brutes motivated by food, sex. beer, and sports on TV is just as bad as seeing women depicted as brainless airheads who live to be ogled by brainless brutes motivated by food, sex, beer, and sports on TV.
  14. garretta
    I didn't like this at all. Since when does a former women's World champion cry in the corner after having the guts to turn on the man who was responsible for her going to the hospital? It would have been much more in character for Sherri to really put the badmouth on Shawn, then have him menace her for a few seconds, which would have led to a Jannetty comeback and another brief sequence before Shawn blatantly cheats to steal the win. As it is, Sherri's reduced to a wimpier version of Liz, Marty's beaten clean as a sheet after Sherri marks her face turn by nailing him with her shoe, and Gino calls the whole thing a miscarriage of justice. Not quite, Gino. A dirty shame? Perhaps, because this feud had so much potential even with Marty's drug problems, let alone if he'd ever gotten clean. But now, what would have been the point, even if Marty hadn't been fired? So Marty gets mad because Shawn wants to beat up the same idiot who just hit him with her shoe. Big deal. How they ever revived this feud later in the year I'll never know; they must have been really hard up for believable IC challengers. I didn't consider Bobby's rant on Sherri funny, but it doesn't carry as much weight as Heyman's rants did because he's so well established as a harmless comedy figure in the booth by now, association with Flair and Hall aside. Was this the first high-profile match Shawn ever won with Sweet Chin Music? It has to be one of the first for sure. Interesting that Marty actually got to hit it first here.
  15. garretta
    This is WCW, for heaven's sake. Name the last black face that's kept their dignity (or ever had any to keep in the first place) throughout their run. Simmons has come closest so far, but his title reign stank and he's unlikely to recover. If you're black, you shuck, jive, and bust moves. Dignity is for the unemployed and the critics. Period, end of report. At least they had him deliver the standard "stay in school" speech while he was at it. Take small positives where you find them, guys.
  16. garretta
    Heenan's last protégé, for all intents and purposes, and it should have gone way farther than it did. Luger was great here, and much like Kerry Von Erich, the scripting of promos did wonders for his verbal abilities. I noticed that they didn't have him trying the word "accolades", though. Luger sure seemed ticketed for Bret at this time, with Curt just the first stepping stone. I'm sure we'll get further into this as we go along, but why did they need a patriotic superface after Hogan's return basically tanked? You'd think they'd have gone back to Bret, or if he was bad for business at the time, maybe give Duggan a run, although it would have to be short. Hell, I've have made do with GI Joe Sarge getting the belt back before I'd have messed with a gimmick like this. And to make it worse, Vince never pulled the trigger on him anyway. What a waste. There seems to be a bit of a disparity here. Heenan keeps calling Luger "Narcissus", although Luger calls himself "The Narcissist" already, as does his Titantron. I don't usually question why things did or didn't make the set, but since we saw almost the whole buildup, why didn't we at least get the ending of Bret-Hall, which came right before this?
  17. garretta
    This may have been the sickest segment the WWF had aired since Jake's attack with the cobra on Savage. Too many people lump Borne's Doink in with the other crappy stuff of this era, and that's simply not true from what I've seen so far. This guy is bloodthirsty, vicious, and out to end careers. Even heel Lawler's subdued after seeing this, and who can blame him? Yes, Vince claiming that Doink ripped his own arm off wouldn't fool a three year-old, but I actually think he meant to say the arm of the suit and got just a tad excited, as he's prone to do in chaotic situations like this. They're already starting to build the Savage-Crush friendship that would lead to Crush's turn, as not only does Randy claim to know Crush well, but he constantly accuses Lawler of thinking that the attack was funny, even after Lawler says repeatedly that Doink had gone too far. I'm surprised that Lawler didn't try to make something out of it, quite frankly. Maybe if they'd been live in the arena instead of at Titan Towers, it could have kicked off an angle between them. Sarge in a regular suit and tie will take some getting used to. I think they could have stood to get rid of Tunney and make him the one and only on-air authority figure, even if he had a little less gravitas than Tunney did. Davey Boy-Doink? I'm not sure about that one. It would depend on how it started.
  18. garretta
    I should have guessed that something was up when I saw Jesse sitting in for Tony. This is a novel way to promote the Arn-Erik feud. The problem is, Pops is on his way out, and once he leaves the issue over the contract's dead and buried. I loved hearing Arn call the Cowboy out, but maybe he should have stuck to the simple, time-honored "You hurt my knee, I'll kick your ass". Jesse was gold as well with his outrage, and I'd like to hear a rebuttal from Bill, though if we got one it didn't make the set. I loved the talk from Arn about how he's competed with every other injury under the sun, including a broken neck, but this knee injury is keeping him on the shelf and could cost him his livelihood. Nice to hear some love for JCP, which most longtime fans would still remember, and I also liked Arn talking about how he's earned the right to be a part of WCW forever, which is true even if you take his relatively brief jump to the WWF with Tully into account. Is an Erik Watts feud a bad use of Arn? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how it plays out. But there had to be a veteran somewhere out there to put Erik over, and Arn's as good a choice as any.
  19. garretta
    I don't know. I think I'd have rather seen Hall attack Bret directly; Owen's not even aligned with Bret in any way but blood right now, so the attack didn't really accomplish much. Bret talks only a little more heatedly than usual, so it wouldn't seem to be bothering him enough that he can't wrestle his normal style of match at the Rumble. Of course, if I'd been booking Hall wouldn't even have been in the match. This would have been Flair's swan song, as he would have lost to Bret in a title vs. career match (with Curt, who would have stayed a heel, in his corner). Since Lawler's issue with the WWF in Memphis at this time centered around Koko, it would have been nice to have Owen join him there and see what High Energy would have been like as heels, especially with the gaudy checkered outfits they wore.
  20. garretta
    So this was all a plot by Jesse to distract the World champion, huh? Damn that Ventura! Seriously, they used a contest like this to give Van Hammer a rub? You'd think it would have been a cakewalk for the World champion, who still needed to prove himself as the cornerstone of the company and number one babyface. Od course, this is WCW we're talking about, so I guess we're lucky that they didn't put over Lee Scott or Zan Panzer.
  21. garretta
    Arm wrestling contest? I just finished the '92 Yearbook, and no one ever mentioned Simmons participating in an arm wrestling contest. Could someone please explain? The finish was a nice tie-in to the whole thing Rude brought up about Simmons' bad shoulder. One question: If the cameras were in Philly the night before, why didn't Watts simply take them to Baltimore? I understand that Turner probably didn't want them trailing Simmons until he finally decided to show up, but one more short trip wouldn't have hurt much. If he still doesn't show and you have to bring the cameras home, simply make up an injury, declare the title vacant, and have a match between Sting and Vader on the spot for it. You can go whichever way you want on the booking, since they'll be meeting at SuperBrawl anyway. It's going to be interesting to see where Simmons' career can possibly go after such a public act of unreliiability. I don't think you'll see him hold even a minor belt ever again, so what could there be left for him except a permanent upper midcard "gateway to the title" role similar to the one that guys like Jake and Beefcake filled at various times for Hogan?
  22. garretta
    This is one seriously disturbed character. Not quite as disturbed as '91 Jake, but the closest we've come to him since. Borne sounds like he's about ten fries short, and they really pushed him hard, giving him issues with at least three or four different guys, any one of which he could have had a nice run with had they chosen to go that way. Ray sounded almost Piper-like with his confrontational attitude here. Was he too hurt to work? I seem to recall he retired due to injury. If he was just plain retired, I wonder if they thought of a match between him and Doink in Montreal. Anyway, I'd have loved to see Jacques come to his brother's aid, shock stick and all. It not only would have redeemed the Mountie character, but it might have alleviated the trouble they were probably still in with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Leave it to dipstick Lawler to defend the guy. Also, nice to hear former sworn enemies Savage and Lawler in the booth together. I wonder if Randy pushed for a resumption of the Lawler feud in the WWF and was turned down. I know that they wrestled a few times, but there really wasn't much of a feud.
  23. garretta
    I'm glad that they at least gave Luger his name instead of simply calling him Narcissus. That would have been wrestlecrap from the very start. Heenan can still talk them into the building, metaphorically speaking, and Vince is still putting his hottest heel talent with Heenan even though he can't go down to ringside anymore. How many other retired managers could you ever say that about? Using the dictionary and reading the definition of narcissus is exactly what you'd expect from Mean Gene. Boy, will they miss him when he leaves!
  24. garretta
    I agree with Shoe about the Joe Greene Coke commercial being the greatest of all time, particularly since I'm a Steeler fan. This one wasn't quite as emotional as that, but I'm glad to see that they're giving Bret his due. Unfortunately, it wouldn't last long. I just started '93, but I'll be interested to check out '94 and see if "The New Generation" of the WWF is as big a joke as most people claim it is,
  25. garretta
    I didn't think that a bull like Kawada could possibly be an effective Ricky Morton, but this match proved me wrong. He wrestled all but a few short minutes, was pounded to death by Doc and Grody the whole time, and still managed to have enough left to hit the winning enzuigiri just after hurting his knee. Doc was still selling the effects of that kick after the match, even though it wasn't particularly hard as far as kicks go. This is the best I've ever seen the MVC look as a team. They tagged frequently, doubleteamed nicely, and always seemed to be there for each other when things got a bit rough, which is a skill in itself. If Watts had booked them this way in WCW, they'd be remembered a lot more fondly than they are, but if you'll permit a slightly tortured analogy, while in Japan the MVC was a well-made and tasty peanut butter cup, in America they were more like a chocolate bar dipped in peanut butter by mistake. By the way, Gordy didn't look that bad to me. He's slowed down a little, but he still knows what to do in there, at least at this point. Misawa didn't have much to do here, but if they're going to push Kawada as a star in his own right and worthy Triple Crown contender, they need to convince the fans that Kawada can take a beating as well as dish one out, and this match proved that point perfectly. The MVC's star certainly isn't on the rise; they've lost three high-profile matches in their last three Yearbook outings, plus their Unified tag title rematch at Halloween Havoc when Austin subbed for Bamm Bamm. I get the feeling we won't be seeing this team together for too much longer if things keep going the way they have been lately.
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