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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I actually thought that those supposed shots from The Dungeon were real for a minute, and I wondered how Vince had gotten access to them. I liked the collection of clips here; there's even one from the heel days of the original Hart Foundation, which I thought was supposed to be dead and buried. Also, points for using a real Tom Petty song as opposed to a Jim Johnston in-house special. Now if only the matches during this reign match the quality of this video...........
  2. garretta
    I wondered if I'd read about the wrong match, because to me it looked like Galdava was in control for the whole bout. At the end, I realized that I'd been confusing these two guys the whole way! At any rate, Gatdava certainly seemed outclassed here. This was as close to a squash as is possible in shootstyle. No, I don't know what to call the hold that got the submission either.
  3. garretta
    This was almost too short to have a decent story. Basically, Chabadze gets the early lead, then turns cocky when he was clearly in control and pays for it. Chabadze showed that he at least belonged in the ring with Fujiwara, which is tough to do when someone enters shootstyle from another discipline. And yes, he's a big sucker!
  4. garretta
    It's a pity that such good mic work as this was wasted on such a dud of a match. This really felt like Armageddon coming down, but of course it turned out to be so much less. Interesting that Spinner's Choice was supposedly Jake's idea. My guess if they'd actually booked it? Loser gets covered by a snake. If Turner was worried about blood but still wanted to book a stip match, they should have gone with Prince of Darkness (blindfold). As Jake can attest from having done one of these at Mania VII, it's an almost purely psychological match based mostly on audience participation. There's barely any physical contact, let alone blood.
  5. garretta
    I skipped ahead to watch this clip before I see either of Jake's matches from September which made the Yearbook, and boy, am I sorry. Not only was what we saw here awful, but Jake was awful in it. He had no balance (blown kneelift spot), no brains (used his injured arm to hit the DDT, thus leaving him unable to stop Sting from climbing the pole and getting the glove), and no control over his cobra (the obvious). In other words, he was made to look like an absolute fool by Watts. I've heard conflicting stories over why Jake left (some say he was really heavily into drugs again; others, including Jake, say that Watts basically refused to honor the contract Jake had signed, thus leaving him no choice but to quit), but even if none of these other issues had surfaced, how this match was booked would have been enough for me if I'd been Jake. I commented in an earlier thread that I thought the Sting-Jake feud had mileage left on it even after Havoc, but now that I've seen Havoc, I'll gladly admit that I was dead wrong. No amount of good promos from Jake can save that feud now; if I'd been the booker, I'd have turned him face and sent him after Cactus Jack because of the cobra biting him. He could have claimed that Cactus had somehow riled it up so that it would attack him once he took it out of the bag. As for the wheel, if they were that afraid of blood in a match, why did they have Jake bleed so badly when the cobra bit him? Doesn't the postmatch count? More importantly, why not just have a regular wrestling match? The glove meant nothing at all, even if Sting managed to get in one shot with it. Of course, Sting-Jake with no titles on the line isn't really pay-per-view worthy, but they could have solved that problem by finding a compelling, already well-known opponent for Simmons, like, say, Vader. I noticed that we really didn't get too good of a look at Jake bleeding, which again begs the question: If we're not supposed to see it clearly, then why book it in the first place? JR's reaction to the cobra attaching itself to Jake's face was the best thing about this segment. Say what you will about the man at times, but when he's on his game as he was here, few can touch him. The problem is, he isn't on his game often enough anymore. I loved Jesse complaining about rule enforcement in a non-sanctioned match; it proves conclusively that I'm not the only one. JR's rebuttals about the ref enforcing the rules on instinct were pretty weak by comparison, as are most of his retorts to Jesse's relevant points. I also think Jesse did a great job pointing out the various mistakes Jake was making; he's not usually that critical of a heel, so the fact that he was here meant that they booked Jake to look bad (even for a heel), which was a shame. I have limited experience with coal miner's glove matches, but if I recall correctly, the gloves have spikes on the end of the knuckles which can bust people wide open. That means that every match we knew about on the wheel had the potential for blood.
  6. garretta
    This was good, but if it's the best thing on the card, Havoc was pretty damned sorry. Besides, we've seen the exact same thing before with Missy right down to the crying, which I didn't pick up on due to Heyman's screaming but I don't doubt happened for a second. The next strong, confident woman WCW books will be its first. I loved Vader and Harley getting as far away from this mess as they could as fast as they could. They may have been Heyman's business partners for this one deal, but that doesn't mean that they have to get mixed up in his petty squabbles. Why was Vader still carrying the U.S. title belt? Shouldn't that have gone back to Heyman or Rude by the time of the interview? I loved Jesse getting all caught up in the action here, especially when you consider that he was supposedly thick as thieves with Heyman when he first came to WCW. I guess he's an even bigger fan of Rude's, which is hardly a surprise. Please tell me that Medusa and Heyman didn't actually wrestle. And if they did, let's hope Watts had the good sense not to book it in Baltimore. (In case you don't remember GAB '91, intergender athletic contests are banned by the state of Maryland, which is why the big blowoff tag that was supposed to settle the Missy-Heyman feud turned into a Rick Steiner handicap match against Arn Anderson and Heyman, which of course Rick won decisively.)
  7. garretta
    Seems to me like Shane's getting the kind of push everyone swears Erik Watts is getting. Granted, Shane's not a rookie here, but still, beating Herc (even if he's under a mask) and Greg Valentine in your first two televised WCW matches ain't exactly hay. Shane's tendency to use guys' real names is there even at this stage. How many WCW fans even knew Magnum by now, and how many of the ones who knew Magnum connected that nickname with the name Terry Allen? The belly-to-belly isn't a bad finisher, but guys were using finishers that were so much better-looking and more athletic by now that I can see where it would seem outdated. As someone who tired of the Franchise's excessive profanity and inability to resist making comments that were so "inside" at times that it actually took away from my enjoyment of ECW (what there was of it, anyway), I'm looking forward to seeing this version of Shane, particularly his team with Steamboat and their feud with Austin and Pillman that I've heard so much about.
  8. garretta
    Oh, come on, Eagle. This was his first major televised wrestling interview, for heaven's sake. He was trying to play the role of the earnest young white meat professional athlete. Anyone who would expect anything even slightly above average here is kidding themselves. I liked how he said that he wasn't trying to be his dad. Unfortunately, he was apparently judged by who his dad was in the ring and continued to be outside the ring, both good and bad. You can tell right away that he wasn't going to be the presence that Bill was, even as he got more competent in the ring. He simply doesn't jump out of the screen at you. But did Dustin? Did Barry Windham, for that matter? Not when they were rookies like Erik, at least. But they still did more than all right for themselves. Speaking of Dustin and Barry, this was the interview's one misstep. Talking about Erik training with them was one thing; talking abut the dissension between them was something else. Unless they were trying to push him into a program with Barry once he turned back heel, they should have left that aspect of their relationship completely alone. Nice safe non-answer from Erik on the question, by the way. That looked like a modified Samoan drop as Erik's finisher, didn't it? That's a much more ambitious finisher than most debuting wrestlers get, even if they are the boss's son.
  9. garretta
    No wonder he lost. Thanks, AJ!
  10. garretta
    Interesting story, Thanks, AJ!
  11. garretta
    I kind of thought so. Thanks, AJ!
  12. garretta
    I didn't even know that Horner was wrestling that early. Thanks for the info, AJ!
  13. garretta
    Jake's promo was so good that I didn't even notice the cobra. As he himself says, the snake in the bag (or in this case, in the hand) isn't the one you have to worry about. Nice tease for the Spinner's Choice option, but wouldn't Sting have the same option? How did they figure out who would actually spin the wheel? I would have liked to have seen a test match so we would know something of what to expect at Havoc, although how anyone could have pulled some of those matches on the wheel without bleeding I'll never know. Cactus Jack and Jake would have made a great team, but the one "face of Foley" that I wish Jake would have hooked up with is Mankind. Could you imagine how Jake's mind could have run with a character like that, even while delivering promos as his manager?
  14. garretta
    It looks like both of Rude's matches were way, way overbooked here. Vader as a sub for him in the US title match wasn't the worst idea in the world, but he (Vader) probably should have been wrestling Simmons in Barby's place if he was going to appear at all. Interesting that they teased such a close alliance between Race and Rude, although it would have been a terrible long-term fit. Medusa was fine for him if they were determined to get rid of Heyman. The Nikita promo wasn't much. The reason they didn't have him drop the accent is that he sounded too American to have been born within a thousand miles of Russia. He sounded like what he was: a Minnesota boy who'd trained with the Road Warriors. If he'd wanted to drop the accent, the time to do it was when he turned face originally in '86; Dusty could have crafted some kind of "good American gone wrong comes home to the red, white, and blue" story for him, and they could have said that Magnum's accident had inspired him to renounce Communism and reclaim his American citizenship, although how they would have reconciled him being presented as Ivan Koloff's nephew I have no idea.
  15. garretta
    After a promo like this, you wonder how Jake ever got over as a face. He's the most evil bastard in the business, and it's not even close. The only complaint I have is that he referred to himself in the third person more than I would have liked, and when that's the only problem with a promo, it's pretty damn good. It sure seems like they wanted to continue the in-ring Sting-Jake feud even after Havoc. Jake transitioning into a manager/mastermind role isn't a bad idea necessarily, but this feud still had some meat on its bones from what I can tell. I wonder if Watts would have let Sting take a DDT on the floor after what happened to Steamboat? (Speaking of which, a reprise of that feud minus the "creature feature" nonsense Vince insisted on interjecting into it would have been something I'd have paid to see.)
  16. garretta
    Is there an odder trio in wrestling than Michael Hayes, Paul Heyman, and Bobby Eaton? If so, I'd like to know where I can find them. Or maybe I don't, come to think of it. So Hayes is the master strategist now, is he? If that's his job, then what's Heyman supposed to do? I could understand if Hayes was there as Paul's bodyguard or personal assistant, but being a strategist is supposedly 90% of being a manager. If we didn't know that Paul was being phased out behind the scenes, I'd have no idea what to make of this pair at all. Maybe they could have said that Paul had always wanted to be a Freebird! Boy, they were pushing Erik hot and heavy here. Nice touch to bring up the old Cowboy/Freebirds feud from the UWF, but how many WCW fans even knew what that was all about six years later? Who was the punk who wrestled Erik from the week before that Heyman was referring to?
  17. garretta
    The lack of mustache does absolutely nothing for Rude. He's aged at least five years overnight. Jake's been many things over the years, but overconfident's not one of them. Why do I think he's going to do a rather decisive job for Dustin here? Did Atlas even show up to wrestle Vader? I had no idea that Watts brought him in at this time. Sting's promos are what they are. If you want logic and flawless elocution, go watch old Nick Bockwinkel stuff. If this was a tournament to determine the best wrestler on TBS, why were the finals held at Starrcade, which was most assuredly not on TBS? Probably for the same reason that the TV title was always defended on untelevised house shows. In other words, logic need not apply.
  18. garretta
    Wow, is this feud getting serious. Breaking Gibson's hand with the express purpose of preventing him from talking to his deaf, mute mother? Few heels anywhere go that far, but few heel managers have had their men or teams consistently beaten by one man or team the way Rock 'n' Roll has gotten the best of Corny over the years. He knows time's against him, as no one can manage or wrestle forever. Therefore, it's time to get down and dirty, if you'll pardon the expression. I'll have more to say once I've seen the match. Eagle brought up the fact that they seem to be talking about the MX a lot. The only reason this feud's as hot as it is and is drawing worth a lick is because of the MX. If it hadn't been for Dennis and Bobby (and Stan), the Heavenly Bodies would have been a rookie tag team that didn't even belong in the ring with a team like Rock 'n' Roll. The history is all this feud has going for it, if you want the truth; the Bodies really aren't in Rock 'n' Roll's class as a polished team, and the only reason they looked comparatively good against the Fultons is because Jackie is a mediocre replacement for Tommy Rogers. They're a good team for a regional promotion which runs two or three cards a week; the MX were one of the best teams ever and headlined for the second-biggest promotion in the world, and the fans watching the Bodies right now know it. The Bodies need all the rub from the MX that they can get, whether that team actually exists anymore or not. Corny figured that out too, which is why Bobby Eaton came in not too long after this.
  19. garretta
    They needed to do this because everyone in the SMW area had seen Tracy and Steve (who wasn't mentioned, by the way) turn into the Young Pistols. If Corny wanted to use him as a top face, a thorough explanation and mea culpa was in order, and Tracy delivered. The only place he'd be a heel after this interview was Cheyenne, Wyoming, which was just out of SMW's footprint. I liked him bringing Bullet Bob into this as well; the commissioner was SMW's top face almost by default, and getting the rub from him was important. He was most likely singing Corny's tune a bit when he talked about the corporate suits in WCW, but the Young Pistols never impressed me much; I could tell just how legitimately uncomfortable Tracy and Steve were in that gimmick. In one interview, Tracy has supplanted Horner as SMW's number one wrestling babyface. I know he gets into the ring with Anothiny soon, and I recall enjoying their matches very much on Will's SMW set. I sure hope they hold up on a second viewing!
  20. garretta
    Sixty-plus seconds of my life wasted. If this man had ever done a thing inside the ring I could justify this, but he didn't, so I can't.
  21. garretta
    Short and not too sweet: the typical local promo from Corny. By the way, how many other SMW markets were like Beckley and lost SMW TV entirely during football season? That had to be hard, not being able to count on each station along your network to have seen the same angles from September until early December. That may be one reason why most SMW feuds lasted so long: so viewers in those areas wouldn't miss much.
  22. garretta
    I didn't like this much for one reason: a monumentally stupid performance from Gibson. Look, I know as well as everyone else that almost the entire secret to Rock 'n' Roll's success is that Morton gets the hell kicked out of him in every match. That's all well and good, and maybe in matches taped for TV how they get to that point isn't quite as obvious as it was here. But in this match Gibson did distraction spot after distraction spot, and most of them ran much longer than they needed to; the Bodies would be two or three moves past a missed tag, and Gibson would still be arguing. I've seen plenty of tag matches with a spot like that, and most of the time, the man who should have been legal does a "What?", an "Aw, man!", and then goes back to his corner. But Gibson just kept going and going to the point where I was screaming at my computer, "Get back to the corner, you idiot!" Let's not even start on the spots where Lane would aim a kick at Gibson just to get him into the ring; they did too many of those too. I can see the first one working to establish the pattern, but after that the face should have enough sense to ignore the provocation. Maybe it was because they did two of those spots in less than a minute; Lane kicked at Gibson, Gibson charged in and did his bit, and Lane almost immediately kicked at Gibson again, who charged again, That's just too much of a not-very-good thing, in my view. I didn't mind the stalling since the crowd ate it up, and Corny didn't overly interject himself, though the spot where Lane ran him over could have been done at the start of the match instead of in the middle. I loved the blind arm wringer, and it played up the fact that the Bodies aren't the well-oiled machine Corny likes to tell us they are. I wonder if Corny thought at one point about turning one of them after a while, although which one would have been the face I don't know. I don't recall a lot of this stuff going on once Del Rey replaced Lane. Line of the segment goes to Morton: "We're here to rock your ass off!" You can tell this match wasn't really meant to be seen, but in spite of my complaints above, I'm glad I saw it. It's always a thrill to see a great local crowd who's into a solid wrestling match.
  23. garretta
    To talk about intimidation and leadership when your career has barely started and you've got the pretty boy looks Erik does here is insane. If he was three hundred pounds like his dad was in his prime, then maybe he could have pulled it off. As it was, this kind of stuff was laughable coming from him. I'm willing to give the kid a chance on his own merits, whatever they may be, but please, Pops, stop trying to make him another version of you. He's about seventy pounds too light and twenty years too young.
  24. garretta
    I didn't think this was too bad, though I would have preferred to see the wrestling clips first, then the football clips. Interesting that Erik chose to go to Louisville; with his dad's connections in Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, you'd think he could have gone anywhere in the Big 8, SWC, or SEC, even though those conferences are (or were, in the Big 8 and SWC's cases) traditionally loaded with quarterbacks.
  25. garretta
    Everyone else has covered the stuff I wanted to bring up. I think Medusa's a better fit for Rude too, but Paul still had a function for guys like Austin and Eaton, who were either young rising stars or needed some help on the mic. He didn't need to be marginalized like this. If Watts had a problem with some of his actions, he should have just fired him straight up instead of trying to het him to quit. Too bad about the money, but bring from Oklahoma Watts no doubt knows that when someone leaves you a great big bag of buffalo chips that you didn't ask for, the only thing you can do to get rid of them is chow down. On a more serious note, they're rewarming the Nikita issue for Rude's second match? I thought that was over and done with months ago. At any rate, talk about facing two completely different styles (Nikita and Chono) in the same night! One thing I haven't seen talked about here, come to think of it: Paul referencing a trip to New York to scout talent. Could he have been thinking about jumping to Vince once WCW let him go? He would have been perfect in what turned out to be Corny's role as Yoko's American spokesman.
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