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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Why are the people celebrating when Tito hasn't faced the bull in the ring yet? Isn't that the point of all this? For a last-ditch effort to repackage a guy who probably should have gone to Atlanta at least two years before, this isn't bad. But it turned out to be like Coach: an intriguing idea when first conceived that turned to dust when it was executed. True, Tito isn't the world's greatest wrestling actor, but I doubt anyone could have succeeded with this gimmick the way it was done unless the fans had never ever seen him before. I'm talking a Mexican version of Outback Jack or Hillbilly Jim. This wasn't nearly as insulting as repackaging the Iron Sheik as an Iraqi, which was worse in its own way than turncoat Slaughter given the fact that Iraq and Iran had just fought a war for nine years, but it still wasn't something Vince needed to be doing.
  2. garretta
    Come to think of it, I remember reading about those matches in PWI. Thanks for the correction, Jingus!
  3. garretta
    I think this was done the way it was to present Backlund as someone who was foolish to try shoot-style since he had no background in it. There isn't an American equivalent to this, because in America the untrained combatants end up going over more often than not, mostly as faces to boot. I'm surprised one kick was all it took, though; you'd think Takada would have at least wanted to show off a few of his moves and strikes before putting the invader away. I can't believe that anyone wanted to see Backlund try this again, but since they obviously did I'd like to see what he can do in this style when he's given a real chance.
  4. garretta
    I don't believe that this was an case of Pee Wee being dumb; since Rich was the originally signed combatant, his contract to wrestle Pillman was still valid in spite of Morton's challenge, so he could still be pinned. At least that would be my explanation; too bad JR or anyone else actually involved in booking the bout never thought of it, instead choosing to make Pee Wee look totally ridiculous. It's a shame, because this was an excellent preview of Halloween Havoc. Morton has learned all about working heel from the people he's taken beatings from over the years, and now he gets to apply that knowledge, which he does beautifully. I don't think he'll ever shed Rock 'n' Roll Ricky completely in WCW, but that shouldn't take away from how effective he is; his work on Pillman's arm is first-rate. Pillman may be the best babyface seller in North America at this time, and this match is a perfect showcase for it. The computer is used enough to be put over, but not enough to distract from the action, and JR and Heyman are back to where they were earlier in the year as far as working together goes. I wonder how long it'll last. One slip during an otherwise well-done beatdown: Morton had spent most of the match targeting Pillman's arm and rendering it useless, so why come off the top onto his leg instead? A flying knee to an already injured arm might have spelled the end of Pillman for quite a while, or at least limited his effectiveness at Havoc. Maybe the York Foundation computer was attacked by a virus during the match! I agree with Pete that it's nice to see the Yorks again. Think about this: Morton was a babyface his whole JCP/WCW career, and Rich had been beloved since his days as the hottest thing in Georgia back in the early eighties. Taylor had always been cheered when he was in the area as well. Yet now, with just the aid of a computer and a beautiful scheming woman, without changing much about the way they look and talk (in terms of accent), they're doing a superb job as heels. This has to be one of the most underrated successes of Dusty's entire booking career, and it's a shame that they won't be around all that much longer.
  5. garretta
    I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. The highlight is Windham and Simmons' interaction with Heyman. I love Paul's scared look when Barry accuses him of being on Luger's payroll. He wants no part of these two guys, and it shows. I also like his closing line: "My name is Paul E. Dangerously..........and I think I've entered the Danger Zone.", delivered as Windham slowly, menacingly puts an arm around him. Tremendous stuff. By the way, Heyman wouldn't have been out of place as Luger's ringside manager to complete the package (no pun intended). I think Tony's voiceover of the Omni footage was every bit as effective as JR's. One of them may have been done live at the event, but I'm not sure which. Footage like this is why they make such a big deal of Omni house shows, but they need to keep showing these clips in order for fans outside the Atlanta area to maintain their interest.
  6. garretta
    Good solid promo from Barry here. I disagree with Soup; even though Simmons is the challenger for Havoc, Barry still seems to be very much in the title picture. Is this upcoming Omni tag the one that Zenk was supposed to referee? If so, what happened? JR announces that Dusty's going to be the ref now, so I'm assuming that Zenk either left the company or returned to the active roster because Dusty decided that two feuds at one time was enough for Luger to deal with. After all this hype, I hope real-time viewers on TBS at least saw clips of this match. They've been pretty good at showing the big happenings from these Omni cards since they started promoting them so heavily late last year.
  7. garretta
    What was the point of this anyway? If it was to get Zenk over as a possible World title contender, it was a total flop. One piledriver puts him out of wrestling, and a sloppy-looking one at that? Gee, what a tough guy that Z-Man is, huh? All we needed was a stretcher job, and we didn't see the rest of the clip, so I'm assuming he did one if he's supposedly badly injured. As for the idea of stealing the Ronnie Garvin angle, they missed the boat there too. The whole point of the Garvin angle was that he was trying to get under Valentine's skin any way he could, not just as a referee but as a ring announcer (remember SummerSlam '89?) and in a few other ways I can't think of right now. He was doing what he was doing not because he wanted to be a referee, but solely to drive the Hammer nuts. If Dusty's intent was to steal that angle, Zenk should have been promising a long night for Luger and Hughes one way or the other. But Zenk's too earnest to pull it off, plus Luger's World champion and really shouldn't be made a fool of like that The best way to handle this would have simply been to add Zenk to the list of Luger's challengers along with Simmons and Windham. Of course, who would have really seen him as a serious contender compared to Simmons and Windham, anyway? Nice touch on Luger's part calling Zenk "Tom" instead of "Z-Man". For whatever reason, WCW wanted us to forget that Zenk had a name at all, so it was nice of Luger to remind us. It looks like Dusty may have been cribbing from Hogan-Orndorff too with the bit about the unreturned phone calls, which somehow sounds more believable in this case than when Orndorff used it. .
  8. garretta
    They didn't need Percy for this; Sid could have said his piece in an insert promo during one of Jake's matches, as short as it was. I agree with Loss about this being too heavily scripted. Did anybody notice that Sid never once interacted with Percy? He stared out into the middle of nowhere in an effort to remember his lines. We have the obligatory "Justice is served", which sounds even more ridiculous now that SummerSlam's over, and a line about Jake going home to hell, which gets a big pop because this is 1991 and hell (both the word and the place) doesn't exist in the WWF's concept of the universe for another few years. Savage cheering Sid on was fun to hear, but it can't be any more obvious that he wants to get his own revenge. Don't worry, Randy, it's only a little under two months to Tuesday in Texas!
  9. garretta
    Still way too much yelling and screaming to be a promo from a truly sorry man, in my opinion. Sarge did fine for the first half, but by the end it was like he was demanding his country back, and at Arlington National Cemetery to boot. (I'm almost 100% sure that was a mock-up or green screen; I can't imagine President Bush, wrestling fan though he may have been, allowing Vince to actually tape at the real thing.) I didn't see the Morales tombstone, and I really looked for it. Interesting tidbit about Kerry supposedly being set up to feud with Sarge, but it really wouldn't have meant much, since Kerry was hurtling down the totem pole by now. Here's a thought for you, Sarge: Instead of writing off your family and friends, why don't you ask them for forgiveness first, take a few months to earn it, then reconcile with your country? A few months on the bench might have made this whole business easier to handle for the fans, as Pete said up above. As it is, there's still a "Hogan kicked my butt, now what do I do?" feel to the whole thing.
  10. garretta
    I just realized one of the many things wrong with these vignettes: Why would Tito, who had long been known as one of the WWF's most courageous and agile babyfaces, need bullfighter training to improve himself as a wrestler? I guess we should give Vince credit for not trying to create El Matador out of whole cloth and thus deny that Tito Santana ever existed, but a gimmick like this might have made more sense for someone like Jose Luis Rivera (yes, I'm being serious), or some up-and-coming Latino midcarder who needed a boost to the next level. Tito was who he was by now, regardless of what kind of costume Vince put him in or what character name he gave to him.
  11. garretta
    Flair was short and sweet here. Nothing terribly new, just a reminder of last week's angle and a call for Piper to do something about it if he can. I might be one of the few, but I can always separate Heenan the comic buffoon, Heenan the hapless broadcast journalist, and Heenan the mastermind. In other words, I still buy him as a threat with Flair behind him. Gino's treatment of him in the booth was definitely getting worse, but I don't think it made Flair any less of a credible challenger to Hogan. Things like implying that the NWA belt was a heap of worthless junk and having Piper spit on it did more damage to Flair's credibility than Gino ever did, directly or indirectly. Corny looked and sounded too much like a Southern used-car salesman to be a good fit with Flair. There was nothing in his act that they didn't already have under contract with Jimmy Hart, or so Vince would have thought, which is why I don't see Corny lasting long even if he'd been brought in at first. He might have lasted the first taping or two, then Flair would have been handed off to Heenan or Hart and the angle would have proceeded as it did. (By the way, the yowling, screeching mess that Jimmy was by now would have eliminated Flair's credibility entirely, in my opinion. The only other person on the payroll who would have done a good job with Flair was JJ, which is what Vince was supposedly afraid of.)
  12. garretta
    This wasn't a draw. Yamazaki got the submission on Scott with the crossface chicken wing at 28:09. That said, count me with those who don't see the point of shoot-style tags, mostly because they occur so rarely and the wrestlers are so not used to them that there's no real continuity. Two of the wrestlers go until their time is done, then tag out. There's no teamwork or doubleteaming (although how you could doubleteam in a match like this escapes me). This is more like four separate interlocking singles bouts more than a "regular" professional tag team match. I could only discern one rule difference between these and singles shoot-style bouts: If a wrestler tags out while in a hold, it counts as a rope break and their team loses a point. This was interesting to see as a curiosity, and the fact that the score was posted after every point was "unscored" made it easier to follow. It was a very even bout until the final submission, which kept me on the edge of my seat. At the same time, I don't think I'd like to sit through a whole card of this kind of match; it's just too much of a departure from what I consider tag team wrestling.
  13. garretta
    This one must have hit me oddly, then. It was a good, solid match on the mat, but not much else. It was probably too clean; I wasn't exactly falling asleep, but I was definitely wondering when these guys were going to let loose, and for the most part, they didn't. By "let loose", I don't mean blood and violence, but I expected more flying and striking than I ended up getting. If I was going back through to rewatch these (which I'm not, at least not now), I'd probably appreciate this match more now that I know what I'd be in for. Thanks for identifying Black Magic as Norman Smiley. I knew that I should know him from somewhere, but I couldn't place him for the life of me.
  14. garretta
    This was unbelievable, so good and different from the WWF norm that I wonder if Flair suggested it himself. If so, kudos to Vince for listening to him. The small touches in this are legion: Piper repeating his vow not to go after Flair while he's commentating, thus ensuring that Flair has to throw the first punch; Savage being clearly sympathetic, but still so consumed by his own issue with Jake that he respects his probation and stays out of it, knowing that if he touches Flair he's fired and thus loses his possible chance to avenge Liz; Vince being so outraged at Flair attacking a basically defenseless Piper that he jumps down from the booth to confront Flair himself, which he's done less than a handful of times over twenty years as an announcer; Piper being so consumed with rage that he grabs the chair and hits the first person he sees, who happens to be Vince; and Flair winning the day by attacking Piper again and laying him out with the same chair, objections of the various officials be damned, then leaving on his own triumphant terms. The above is so different from the usual WWF pull-apart that it almost belongs in a different universe. As I said, kudos to Vince for permitting the angle to take place in the way it did. This is exactly what Flair needed to establish himself as the dirtiest player in the game once more. The only thing the segment might have been able to use was a Hogan appearance, but if Hogan runs Flair off, this isn't nearly as memorable as the chaotic scene we saw. This is one of the last angles I saw as it unfolded in real time, and I couldn't believe it then. I'm honestly not sure that I believe it now. I think we're missing something, because I clearly remember Vince doing a stretcher job to end the show. Maybe my mind's playing tricks on me after so many years, but that was the most shocking thing about the whole segment; I'd never seen an announcer do a stretcher job before.
  15. garretta
    You're probably right, Loss, but Vince wasn't capable of doing that. He always thought of JCP as what he once called a "very small, regional promotion" which had no real place in the wrestling world, and we all know what he thought of Ted Turner. Why would someone who came from a second-rate company be worthy of that kind of introduction? As good as Flair was, he was, in Vince's eyes, just another minor leaguer looking to step up to where the real big boys played. In one interview with Larry King that the Apter mags reprinted, he said of Flair, "I just don't think he measures up to Hogan". So he doesn't think Flair's as good a wrestler as Hogan, plus Flair comes from a promotion he considers minor league? Even if you account for slight exaggeration, it seems like we're lucky he didn't just debut Flair as another anonymous wrestler with no past. Come to think of it, the reason for the Piper feud may have been to find out if Flair could cut it in the WWF being the character that Vince wanted him to be as opposed to the JCP Flair. Of course, the fans knew who Flair was right off the bat, so he got over better than Vince thought, which meant that the Piper thing was pretty much dropped and Flair moved on to Hogan.
  16. garretta
    Cactus Jack is WCW's answer to Jake Roberts, but I prefer the Snake in a sick-off. Still, this is scary stuff in its own right, especially for a promotion that promotes itself as pure sport. Mick's really rolling as a promo, and he and Abby make quite the disturbing pair. JR does a masterful job of looking scared and overwhelmed at the same time, ending the segment with a vow never to interview Cactus again after being threatened by him. It'll be interesting to see if he kept that vow for the rest of Mick's WCW run. I notice that they still haven't come up with a benefactor for Cactus and Abby, but it doesn't matter by now; no one they could have used would have been better than what we've seen so far. Please tell me that they at least referred to the Omni cage match at some point after hyping it so effectively. My guess is that they didn't, which renders this whole segment, as good as it was, completely useless. I loved Paul's line about having Tony as his new co-host if the interview goes badly He can still bring it in the right situations, which are fewer and farther between than ever before at this point.
  17. garretta
    After seeing this interview, it's hard to believe that Jake was getting cheered just a couple of months before. He comes off as legitimately unhinged, so much so that even Percy's scared to death (no pun intended) of him. The words are scary enough, particularly to the younger kids in the audience, but the constant teasing of the cobra is what sets this apart. 1986 Jake was scary enough, but he didn't go nearly this far. That Jake was all about using Damien to psych out his opponents and then using his skills to defeat them. This Jake is just out to destroy anything and everything in his way; no subtlety, no mind games. He tells you flat out what he's going to do, and it's up to you to stop him if you're willing to stoop to his level. There were only certain faces that could have feuded with this version, and we know two of them: Savage and Taker. The only other person sick enough to take on this Jake may have been sitting to Vince's left, and even he's a stretch by now, though a Piper/Jake verbal war with Piper allowed to go full tilt would have been a classic. You can tell Jake's really having a good time doing this character, and he'd have never had the chance to be this dark in the mid-eighties. He'd have been eventually fed to Hogan and spat out, after which he'd have probably had the run that his attack on Warrior ended. I can't honestly say that it's good to see Jake doing stuff like this, but it's probably the most compelling angle in the WWF right now, even moreso than Flair/Hogan/Piper.
  18. garretta
    Where has this version of Zbyszko been? He's a totally different sort of obnoxious than he's been since 1980, but he's still a tremendous interview. If anybody had told me prior to this Yearbook that he'd be one of the top tough-guy heels in the sport by the end of '91, I would never have believed it. Contrast him with the same old plain-spoken Arn and you have gold. Even Heyman seems more menacing behind these two, and as of now he's still just an interviewer. Not really having any decent challengers for their belts, they need to get over on the strength of their own personalities alone, and so far they're up to the task and then some. It also helps that they're right, by and large; both wrestling and society in general are softer in '91 than in years past. I can't help but think of how Sarge debuted in the WWF a year and change before with a similar spiel to the one Larry's doing now. Could a character similar to this have been Larry's ticket to a run against Hogan, assuming he would have been able and willing to bury the hatchet with Vince (and also that Vince wouldn't have tried to make him into a traitor to his country)?
  19. garretta
    I thought Hogan was better here than usual. He's in character without being the yelling, screaming Neanderthal we've seen too often over these past two years, actually bantering a bit with Heenan instead of just threatening to splatter him. I got a kick out of the outfit, which he looks good in, and the clip they showed from the movie showed yet another glimpse of what Hogan could have accomplished in Hollywood if he'd been more careful about picking his scripts. As for Heenan, he doesn't say much that he hasn't before. I just wish they'd allowed Hogan to counter Heenan's bit about defending the belt every night with something like, "Yeah. and he has friends to get him disqualified and help him keep it!" We can dream, can't we? Anyway, Bobby comes off as a braggart and a blowhard who, as usual, is letting his mouth write checks that his protege du jour may not be able to cash, Real World Champion or not. Mooney does decently hosting this, but I wish Vince or Gino would have thought enough of stuff like this to come back. I also wish we had the earlier segment from the same night with Hogan talking more extensively about Flair.
  20. garretta
    No one thinks less of Beefcake's "interview skills" than I do, but he did just what he was supposed to do as Hogan's best friend here. Did you honestly think he was going to give Flair any respect at all when Flair's trying to take away his friend's championship and his status as an all-time great? He may not be wrestling, he may hold a microphone for a few minutes a week, but he's not supposed to be held to the standards of an impartial announcer any more than Percy is. Besides, as Pete said, this way Heenan gets to talk a little, which is always good. In fact, I got kind of a kick out of Beefcake not saying a word, just sitting there pretending to sleep and hoping these two imposters go away and leave his buddy the Hulkster alone. I get what Loss means about hoping Vince or Mean Gene would do a Crockett-style interview where Flair can wear his suits and brag about the big cities and the pretty ladies and the big house on the big side of town, but if Flair wants to succeed in the WWF, he's going to have to do it on Vince's terms, which means as a walking cartoon. He seems to be adapting well, which isn't surprising considering that so-called "serious" WCW Flair had been getting more outlandish and cartoonish by the minute. There's still enough of the old Flair to keep him as a marked contrast to Hogan, though. Line of the segment goes to Heenan for telling Beefcake, "Sit down and take a load off your face".
  21. garretta
    I kind of liked this. Elvira was used well, and Luger and Simmons both looked like guys you'd want to plunk down twenty-five bucks to see wrestle. I'm not sure what else they could have done in just thirty seconds.
  22. garretta
    This was a funny scene, especially at the end where one of the kids says "You must have played this game before" and Hogan replies "Game? What game?" The man had potential as an actor to an limited extent, but he was just too invested in being Hulk Hogan the wrestler to maximize it. He might not have been an Oscar winner, but he could have been a decent action-adventure star.
  23. garretta
    Hogan may be the star, but everyone else gets most of the funny lines, which is how it should be, I suppose. Lloyd in particular seems to be at the top of his game here. My favorite line was "Take a seat!", which Hogan promptly (and literally) does, much to the receptionist's dismay.
  24. garretta
    Goofy context aside, this was Flair at his all-time best. I wasn't sure that a Rocky III mention would be allowed on WWF television since according to Vince's version of history Hogan just materialized out of nowhere on 1/23/84, immediately won the title, and saved wrestling for children of all ages everywhere, but Flair not only brings it up as a taunt, but uses it to score points in his own favor. Now that I think of it, I doubt that Hogan ever acknowledged that he'd been in Rocky III in the context of a wrestling interview while kayfabe was in force. If he did, it was while he was with Verne right after the movie came out. We hear all the stock Flair lines, but here they seem fresh because Flair's role as challenger is fresh. Even when Flair didn't have the belt in JCP/WCW, everybody knew that it was just a matter of time before he got it back, and he was always treated as the man. Here, what is he? Most people know of his history, but does he truly have what it takes to bring down Hulkamania, even with Heenan's help? Will Piper be able to stop him before he even gets to Hogan? The fans surely hope so; this is the most Flair's been booed since he broke Dusty's leg at the Omni six years before, except for a brief period after he and the Andersons hurt Sting at Clash X. I have a hard time believing that a Crockett-style presentation of Flair would have made this angle anything different or better. As Pete said, how could Flair in a suit have drawn any more heat than Flair in a robe? What does the average ten year-old Hulkamaniac care how many cootie-filled girls he has or how many planes he flies? What is a Learjet anyway? Their parents don't own one, so why would they care if he does? It's the belt and the idea that he calls himself a champion just like Hulk that they care about. Heenan, Hulk's bitterest enemy, bringing him in only makes it worse. Maybe this is the guy that weasel's been looking for all these years to finally put Hulk out of wrestling. Remember, we can't think like smart fans on a message board in order to get why Vince presents things like he does; we have to put our Hulkamania T-shits on and get out our thumb wrestlers. The only thing I agree on is that Percy could have been benched for another week. Vince barely uses him anyway, or so it seems, so let Okerlund handle things from the ramp. We also get one of those annoying things where Piper, who's most likely doing voiceovers from a Connecticut studio, has to play like he's just itching to go down on the set and get at Flair so Vince can scold him about "being a professional", which only works because Piper's in a Connecticut studio. You'll notice that Piper doesn't reply when Vince thanks him for keeping his cool; that's likely because Vince taped that part of the commentary after Piper had left. It's a technical nitpick, I know, but it's still annoying. They should just run the segments without commentary from the booth, like they used to for Piper's Pit 95% of the time, even for major angles like Snuka and the coconut. (The most famous Pit where Vince was heard was when Rod annihilated Frankie Williams, and his commentary actually enhanced that segment, strangely enough.)
  25. garretta
    Thumbs way down here. The intent was evident, but the only things that's really changed is that instead of ranting and raving about Saddam Hussein and the superiority of Iraq, Sarge is ranting and raving about what a schmuck he was to turn his back on his country. The common denominator, of course, is ranting and raving. If he was supposed to be truly sorry, he should have been shown to be a lot more humble and soft-spoken than he was here. This interview brings to mind the phrase "He's only sorry because he got caught". Or, in Sarge's case, he's only sorry because Hogan beat his brains out. I realize that his heel run was over, but any resemblance between this Sarge and the one who captured the hearts of fans everywhere is totally nonexistent. If this was the best they could do to put the fans back on his side, he should have either retired or continued the heel run minus the pro-Iraq rhetoric. In other words, "I was wrong to turn my back on my country, but Hogan's still a puke, and if I meet him again, I'll tear his soft, worthless butt limb from limb, fellow American or not!" (I just used that as an example; I know there was no way he was ever getting near Hogan or the belt again.)
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