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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    The worst part of the gimmick was that Tito didn't change his in-ring style at all that I can remember, which rendered the whole expensive exercise, vignettes and all, kind of pointless. According to Tito, Vince spent a sizable sum of money to actually send him for bullfighting lessons. Tito didn't say how good he got at bullfighting or even if he actually fought a bull (I'd tend to doubt it), but he at least supposedly learned their footwork and their attitude, among other things. As I just said, though, very little of this knowledge actually showed up in the ring that I could see. He might have been better off declining the push and living out the next couple of years as the nineties' answer to S.D. Jones.
  2. garretta
    I'm torn on this one. I can see the points of those who hate this gimmick or feel it's unnecessary, but on the other hand, what was left for Tito as himself? His time as a tltleholder/main eventer in the WWF had been over for three years at least. He'd settled down in New Jersey, so he wasn't going to WCW, and ECW, even if he'd wanted to go there, was two years away. It was either this or schlep around the Northeastern indies, which were the very definition of the term "sorry lot". He probably thought that Vince would push him a hell of a lot harder as El Matador than what ended up happening, although he still had a few shining moments left in the not-too-distant future. He's not really a good emoter, though, so these vignettes are bound to suffer in comparison to those featuring guys with more charisma and ability to project. It could have been worse; he could have been repackaged as a taco salesman from Tijuana named Chico. (Boy, do I miss The Body!)
  3. garretta
    I had no idea what to make out of most of this; it took place in some kind of bizarre world where managers are better physical workers than wrestlers, heel commentators pick on their fellow heels, and the editor of one of the most respected non-Apter mags dons Halloween makeup and calls himself "The Creator". Compared to this, the use of insider terms like "mic work" seems trivial by comparison. Seriously, I wasn't expecting Cornette and Curtis to be the in-ring stars while Lane and Lawler looked like total chumps, although Lawler usually works like a chump outside of the Memphis loop, as I've said many times before. Corny looked decent in the SMW bouts I saw, but I assumed that that was because he was the boss. Here, he isn't (although I understand that Coraluzzo's a good friend of his) and he looked even better than that. Not better than the average wrestler on an average day, certainly, but way better than Lawler or Lane on this day. As for Curtis, I wouldn't have even climbed the buckle if I were his size, let alone allow myself to be crotched on it. No wonder he was universally loved by those who knew him well; his aptitude for the business is evident here, even if he doesn't quite have the size to pull most spots off believably. The announcing was stereotypically indy, and I thought that Cruise was better than that. Seriously, they both complain about the finish, then Cruise taunts "the Creator" to confront Corny and Stan over it? Why don't you do it yourself, Chris, since you whined about it as loudly as your partner just did? I think they were trying to set up some kind of feud between "the Creator" and Curtis over who was supposed to be Cactus Jack's manager, but once Mick left for WCW, that obviously went by the boards. Finally, what was "the Creator's" issue with Lawler? Heels don't usually pick on other heels and call them cowards like he did to Lawler here. I didn't mind the use of "insider terms" since the whole card was probably going out to about twenty people in the area. Besides, there wasn't a whole lot of mic work going on aside from Lawler and Curtis' pre-match promo (which was good, but not stellar), Corny and Stan's mutual introductions, and a few standard overcooked Lawler insults. How did the WWA get to use "The Chase", since it was potentially too expensive for WCW to use, thus requiring the knockoff we heard starting (I believe) sometime in '89? This wasn't bad for an indy show, but God help Lawler if the tape ever shows up in Memphis, even today in 2015.
  4. garretta
    Wow, was this a war. Each man had the advantage at one time to the point that those watching absolutely knew the other guy was done, and yet the match continued. Kenta was the underdog throughout most of this, and rightly so, but the were quite a few tines where Stan looked to be finished too, like after the long sleeper sequence. But Stan showed the heart of a champion and came back to level Kenta with not one, but two more lariats to match the one he connected with before the bell, after which not even Supeman could have gotten up. So many of the big spots have been mentioned already, but the overall general pounding Kenta took, especially to his neck and back, was almost unspeakably brutal. Stan wrestled this match angry, and angry Hansen might be the most relentless wrestler there is. At some points he even looked like he wanted to give Joe Higuchi the lariat after Joe refused to count the pinfall Stan tried for before the bell. I loved how he threw the table at Kenta almost over Joe's head and still managed to connect. He also went out of his way to bump for Kenta's kicks and strikes, smacking his head off the post after one kick and clotheslining himself on the top rope after another. Kenta's fighting spirit was the top story here, and it deserved to be, but don't forget about Stan's superb performance on both offense and defense. This match was truly the product of Hall of Fame-level performances from both men. Like Dawho, if I still ranked matches I'd put this one at number two for the year in all of Japan (behind the 4/20 AJPW six-man) and in the top five for the year overall. It would also be in my top three overall singles matches (behind Warrior-Savage at Mania VII and Hogan-Slaughter Desert Storm).
  5. garretta
    This one had good work in fits and starts, but nothing consistent. As most of the other posters have mentioned. There was a lot of stopping and starting, almost as if the wrestlers were trying to figure out what to do next. Asai looked like the best worker out of everyone involved, and he was certainly the most realistic. For a match built on athleticism and miscommunication (the rudos must have accidentally hit or run into each other at least ten times), the low kick finish was surprisingly gritty. Asai sold it tremendously, and the brief brawl after the decision was announced had more heat than anything that had gone before it. Maybe if I'd been more familiar with some of the workers, I'd have been more into this one emotionally. As I said, what serious work there was was good, but there wasn't nearly enough of it for my taste.
  6. garretta
    Just a tremendous back-and-forth match, as Bull looks to be ripe for the picking right up until the moment she hits the moonsault for the win. Now that Zenjo's mentioned it, I'm surprised myself that Kyoko didn't try to work over the cut, though what she did was very effective in its own right. Bull looks to be on the verge of passing out many times in the first half of the bout, even off of relatively simple moves that didn't involve her head. Could the post shot that she took early in the bout have given her a legit concussion (which might also explain why Kyoko took care not to hit Bull in the head for the rest of the bout)? I'd forgotten about them being partners, but it seems like Bull was trying her hardest to let Kyoko shine, and shine she did. It was only Bull's sheer size behind the finishing moonsault that allowed her to get the three-count. Kyoko also absorbed a brutal beating from Bull and never took a backward step, which should serve her in good stead when it comes time for the inevitable rematch When I look at her overall performance, even in defeat it's close to being the best I've seen by a female wrestler. There are definitely better times ahead for her. As for Bull, whoever's next on her docket's going to get a champion who's ready to go down if they can just find a way to take advantage.
  7. garretta
    I don't know what match you guys were watching, but I thought Fujinami made an excellent underdog here. He withstood Hase's attempts to destroy his leg and came back with the resolve to return the favor to Hase, which he ultimately succeeded in doing with the help of the figure four. No, he wasn't the force of nature he'd been five to ten years earlier, but he kept up his end of things quite well. I liked the few strike exchanges we got just as much as the holds, particularly when they simply stood up and slapped the hell out of each other. Hase's execution was crisp, and he certainly knows how to apply submission holds believably. In fact, I thought Fujinami undersold the leg, considering the damage Hase did to it throughout the match. We've certainly seen better, more entertaining matches from both men, but this was solidly above average.
  8. garretta
    This one has a feel of chaos from the start that you don't get very often in lucha, and it stays that way from start to finish, which is nice to see. The camera can't keep up with it all, which only adds to the atmosphere. In the end, the rudos get the clean win, which ticks the technicos off and leads to a wild postmatch brawl that still hasn't been broken up completely as we fade to black. Pete brought up the bumps into the post, and everyone takes at least one good one here. At the end, you definitely get the feeling that there will be more confrontations between these gentlemen at a later date. I wish we had them here on the Yearbook, if they exist. Maybe this wasn't the best worked trios match in the world, but it's certainly one of the most memorable.
  9. garretta
    This was decent, nothing more. I never really thought the Guerreros were in much danger of losing, regardless of the rudos tying things up in the second fall. I still don't understand why we can't have some sweeps in lucha bouts, because in matches like this one the fall won by the losing team seems tacked on, as if it's only there so the formula stays intact. All three Guerreros looked rally good here, especially Eddy, who continues to show signs of becoming the star he ultimately became. I was going to ask why Hector wasn't with his brothers until I remembered that he was probably still under contract to Vince as the Gobbledygooker. Not to derail this thread, but did we ever see the Gooker again after Survivor Series '90, and when did Vince officially bury the idea for good, if anyone knows? I seem to remember that there were plans to bring him back at least a couple of times that never came to fruition.
  10. garretta
    I wonder if Randy and Liz really renewed their vows sometime around SummerSlam in an effort to save their marriage. That would account for the lack of wrestlers, or anyone else we recognize for that matter. They could have done the renewal that weekend and had the family stick around for the in-ring stuff Monday night. That would also account for the lack of the usual wrestling wedding bullshit, although the reception angle was probably a bigger reason for it. I wasn't a fan of the commentary from the booth here. I know it's too much to ask Heenan to play something like this straight, and he wasn't the main problem anyway. The problem was Gino and Piper stepping all over him. Honestly, I kind of felt sorry for Bobby during this whole show, because those two guzzled him every chance they got, and a lot more aggressively than usual too. If I hadn't known that Gino and Bobby were such good friends in real life, I'd wonder if there had been a problem between them prior to the show. I've already said that I'm glad this is Piper's last pay-per-view, and I honestly think he's more obnoxious here than at any point in his entire WWF run, heel or face. At least '84 heel Piper had his charms; this version is ostensibly a babyface, but may be the biggest bully in the whole promotion. They must have been rushed for time, because Liz didn't say anything except "I will". She didn't recite any vows, which would have been nice to hear since Vince got almost everything else about this right down to the music video at the beginning. She also didn't give Randy a ring. I understand that the entrances were a major part of the production, but they could have been shaved to make the ceremony a bit more legit-looking. Conversely, under the circumstances I had no problem with the minister calling Savage by his wrestling name, or Savage saying "OOOH YEAH!" instead of "I do"; this was Madison Square Garden, not St. Paul's Cathedral. I liked hearing Savage talk in his normal voice at the reception, although as Pete said it really wasn't much different than his in-ring voice. Except for Okerlund being the MC at the reception, this really didn't seem like a wrestling wedding at all; the band seemed to be legit (were they really called "The Fast Fingers Orchestra"?), we had the bouquet toss and cake feeding, and then came the presents, when everything promptly and literally went to hell. I wonder: If Vince had it to do over again, would he have originally turned Jake heel for the first time at the reception instead of running the aborted angle with Warrior? This was chaos at its worst to begin with; with Liz screaming and Randy knocked senseless by the urn. Imagine if Jake had shown up as a babyface well-wisher and then Liz had unwrapped the cobra. Not only would we have had the scene we did, but the question of "Why, Jake?" to boot, which would have made it even more of a classic. Personally, I'd have had Hogan make the save instead of Sid to set up the Taker feud for later, but I can see why Vince didn't do that; Hogan was ticketed for Flair, which is as it should have been. I wonder how much acting Liz really had to do when Jake menaced her with the cobra; it wouldn't take much for me to freak out if a cobra was shoved in my face, and I'm not especially afraid of snakes in general. Where was Percy? We should have seen him somewhere around this mess. For whatever reason, they always kept the Jake-Taker alliance fairly loose, from what I remember. You'd think that either Percy would have become Jake's manager or Jake would have become Taker's manager/advisor, but neither happened. It's a shame they waited so long to pull the trigger on Savage's reinstatement, because a Savage/Taker series would have been something to see. Am absolutely brilliant angle, one of the best Vince has ever done. I can't wait to see if the matches live up to it!
  11. garretta
    This was a well-done four-way brawl, but it was moistly a showcase for Pogo and the future Savio, as they had the bulk of the offense and looked like a couple of real badasses. One of the heels (I forget which one) even got to kick out of Iceman's dive from the top of the cage, after which Savio gats the submission win on Saito. To top it all off, they front-spike piledrive Gypsy Joe on a table twice, which is a spot not even ECW at its most violent copied. Plenty of blood and violence, but as Loss said it felt organic and not just present to satisfy the crowd's bloodlust. For a while it seemed like two singles matches (Saito vs. Pogo and TNT vs. Iceman) cobbled together, but they straightened that out in the second half of the bout. This definitely belongs here on merit. Just as a random aside, I remember Savio from the days when I used to flip through the channels on Monday night and catch Raw from time to time, and I like him better as TNT the sadistic heel than I ever did as Savio Vega the plucky Puerto Rican babyface/little buddy for Razor Ramon. He'd have made a decent challenger for a singles title as heel TNT had Vince chosen to go that route.
  12. garretta
    They each got a short spurt of offense, but mostly this was just a way to kill twelve or so minutes. The giveaway that this would be a draw was when Teddy spent the first half stalling like Larry Zbyszko. Even the hot finish wasn't really hot, as Teddy clearly kicked out before the bell rang. Usually when Vince uses a finish like this, the bell rings before the person being pinned kicks out. I didn't hear the "Boring" chants, but I don't doubt that they happened, considering how little action we saw. Looking at the tournament in general, it was booked weirdly to say the least. Both Road Warriors were beaten, and Animal did a clean job (I'm assuming) for Taker. Virgil continued his momentum from SummerSlam by getting pinned by Skinner in just five minutes, and Rotundo wrestled and defeated fellow heels in the Berzerker (on a countout) and Jerry Sags, both of which I'd love to see. To top it all off, there would have been a first round dream match of sorts between Bret Hart and Kerry Von Erich, but Kerry got hurt, and Bret squashed Pete "Duke of Dorchester" Doherty instead. I'm guessing that tournaments like these were kind of a booker's playground, where they played with matchups and scenarios that would never have flown on TV. I wish Steamer had stuck around just a tad longer in '87-'88, because there was a time when this match could have been a classic, at least by WWF standards. Unfortunately, that time wasn't September of 1991.
  13. garretta
    The work on Arn's arms was nice, but other than that I didn't see a whole lot of point to this, especially the finish. If we ignore the fact that this was taped before the Clash, we have a situation where Murdoch and Slater are fighting for a possible tag team title shot. They've had both Arn and Larry on the run throughout the match. So Murdoch promptly blows it all higher than a kite by retrieving Arn's knucks after Slater gets nailed and clocking everyone he sees with them. Real smart, Dickie. In general, a finish like that exposes the business, because why would someone who's fighting for a title or title shot deliberately get themselves disqualified and blow their chance? The only type of finish worse than this one is its first cousin, where a heel challenger has someone interfere on his behalf to save a pin even though he knows that it ruins his title shot and (theoretically) means that he doesn't necessarily get another one. Zbyszko's new tougher persona continues to impress me. If you'd asked me at the start of the year if I thought Larry would make a good partner for Arn, I would have laughed. but the Enforcers could have been this decade's answer to the Brain Busters if given a little more time on top. Larry has almost everything Tully had, including the ability to make people dislike him intensely on sight. You can tell it's college football season, because JR brought the comparisons thick and fast, including one that also served as a plug for his new employers, the Atlanta Falcons. Comparisons between football and wrestling are one thing, but did we have to know that Murdoch's son Brandon was playing for Texas Tech? Who even knew that Murdoch had a son named Brandon? According to Wrestlingdata.com, Murdoch and Slater were already gone from WCW by the time this match aired. Their last appearance was on 9/1 in Norfolk, Virginia, where they lost to Rick Steiner and Bill Kazmaier.
  14. garretta
    Good points, Loss. I should have realized that light heavyweights were probably the last thing on Dusty's mind at this time. I agree with you about establishing credibility for these guys as wrestlers too, although in Pillman's case he already had his reputation. I'm not sure who was in the other semi, but I'm willing to bet that at least one of the guys' reputations was already made. In other words, anyone that would have had to be talked up in order to convince viewers that they belonged in the tournament (to wit, the jobbers) was probably long gone.
  15. garretta
    The main thing this makes me want to see is a Prichard/Davis series in Memphis. Danny and Dr. Tom brought their A game, which is remarkable considering the setting. The Headhunters barely got in the ring, and didn't do much when they did. I wondered why the crowd cheered for almost everything like they did. Maybe it was the novelty of having the Memphis guys in their studio, especially since they might not have been told who was the heel back home and who was the face. Or maybe they loved Davis' face paint and/or Dr. Tom's tights, which look to have Japanese writing on them. Who knows? If anyone else has a credible theory, feel free to share!
  16. garretta
    I agree with Pete; there really wasn't much to this except the finish. which was well done, and the strike exchanges. There wasn't even much scoring after the first couple of minutes, so it was hard for me to sustain my interest. I probably won't remember this one for as long as I remember the other shoot-style bouts I've seen, which isn't very long at all.
  17. garretta
    I really liked this for most of the reasons stated above. Brad's performance in particular was surprising, as he matched Pillman spot for spot. Maybe wrestling under a mask helped him feel free to really show what he could do. Pillman bumped a little more than he should have, but he's always been known as someone who does his best to win matches with little to no regard for his own safety, so he was consistent in that regard. Getting rid of Hayes and Garvin at the start changed the type of match this was; I doubt we'd have seen the aerial circus that we did if they'd been at ringside and able to interfere, although I'd have loved to see one of those "one dropkick takes out two guys" spots out of Pillman whan Hayes and Garvin inevitably attempted to interfere. I liked JR's reference to baseball umpires John McSherry and Harry Wendelstedt, though I'll bet he'd have rather mentioned some Big 8 (as it was still known then) football referees. I don't see what Tony said that was so wrong about the light heavyweight limit. Considering that some of the guys in the tournament were perennial losers and everyone watching knew it, it made sense to promote the light heavyweight division as a place where they could finally show off their skills. I also don't see what was wrong with JR talking about the weight limit; it's there as part of the rules, so why shouldn't it be talked about? Remember, Loss: Dusty must have wanted the bout announced in this way. JR and Tony in particular got along with him from way back, so they wouldn't go into business for themselves, particularly at the next best thing to a pay-per-view. If you have a problem with the announcing, particularly in a situation like this (as opposed to JR putting over college football because he's an OU fan), it's with the booker's talking points, not with the men hired to articulate them.
  18. garretta
    I got the information on Wikipedia, which means that I should know better than to believe it. Thanks for the correction, Zenjo!
  19. garretta
    I liked this one better than Scorpion/Suzuki. The limb work from both women was wonderful, and having only seen Itsuki during her days in the WWF as one of the Jumping Bomb Angels, I was surprised at how tough and at home on the ground she was. Both women sold like champs, especially Devil, whose knee was so bad that she had to be helped back to the dressing room afterward. This would have been a classic if it had involved two men; for women, it just might be one of the best matches I've seen yet. It had great wrestling and drama without the needless weapons spots of Bull and Aja, and lots of action without the overly fast pace of the younger AJW wrestlers. We did have a hot start with Itsuki's dropkick off the top, but after that it settled down nicely. Of the four wrestlers we've seen in JPW bouts on this disc, did any of them go into the shoot-style spinoff of this promotion? It seemed at times that Itsuki and Devil were trying to show that they could look good in a mat-based environment. Could this bout have been an audition of sorts?
  20. garretta
    I'm not really sure what to make out of this one. There was some great limbwork by both ladies, particularly Suzuki, who looked at times like she wanted to take the Scorpion's arm home with her. The finishing sequence with all the attempted falls and reversals was warm, if not hot, and I liked the way Suzuki sold all the blows to the back of her head even after the match was over. Still, I didn't catch much of a buzz from the crowd, and this felt a lot like an exhibition in places until the last few minutes. It was nice to see more than high flying from joshi, though, and there was more of an adult feel to this match than there has been on others I've seen with squealing schoolgirls and the like. I just Googled JWP and found out that they're not going to survive in this form much longer, and that's too bad. I noticed that one of its offshoots is a shoot fight promotion for women, and I'd like to see footage of it to see what a shoot-style bout between two women would be like.
  21. garretta
    Wouldn't it be something if Stan actually decided to stop over in Memphis on a break from All-Japan and help Dutch or another of the faces? I could just see the heels backing up when Stan swings that bullrope! Seriously, they're treating the whole Hansen thing like a comedy bit, which is smart because I seriously doubt they could afford Stan even if he wanted to come in. Dutch's side of his conversation with Eddie Marlin is equally hilarious, and a novel way to set up Monday night's hair vs. mask bout with the Dragon Master. I just hope someone didn't really call WMC looking for the book Dutch was supposedly giving away. The clips from the tag match looked good, but I'm not nearly the fan of Travis's that Loss is. His act got tired quickly in early '90, and I actually prefer him as a face because he has HTM Syndrome: like Honky, his most effective (and at times only) offensive move as a heel is to hit people with his guitar. I liked him much better fighting alongside Jeff later in '90, and I'd like to know if Jeff's partnership with Fuller is one of the reasons he's back as a heel. Hickerson does indeed look fat and disgusting, and he hasn't gotten any more Vietnamese during his time off, either. The brawl was one of the wildest I've ever seen, and Hickerson actually has a point about being able to wrestle as P.Y. Chu-Hi should he choose to. Of course, good luck to him in trying to prove that point before the King's adoring public. He's even got the supposedly professional and unbiased Michael St. John thinking his way after a while. The only two things I didn't like about the brawl were Dundee trying to whip Samantha with the belt (hasn't Papa learned his lesson about televising man-on-woman violence yet?) and Lawler no-selling Travis's guitar shot. Of course, he needs to be able to come back for his interview time later in the program, and he makes his money with his mouth, so logic and common sense can just go away. The final promo setting up the tag match was excellent, and Anthony's really finding his way as a babyface after a very slow start. Lumberjacks with guitars? After they bust the guitar over one of the wrestlers' backs, how do they stay involved? Whipping them with the strings? Digging the picks into their foreheads or eyes? Inquiring minds demand to know!
  22. garretta
    Lawler does a tremendous job explaining P.Y. Chu-Hi's presence despite the fact that he and his "employer" Embry hate each other's guts. I'm interested in seeing how this ended up a tag match with Lawler and Anithony taking on Embry and Chu-Hi, which is what comes up in the match listings fir this disc. I also liked Lawler talking about the psychological differences between a title bout and a non-title bout in most cases, and how he can't afford to let it happen to him now. I think they're building toward "revealing" Chu-Hi as Phil Hickerson, which is why Lawler references the murmurs in the crowd when the Chu-Hi bout is announced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but hadn't Hickerson already come back to Memphis as Chu-Hi once before, and wasn't it Lawler who outed him as Hickerson? It's strange that they'd try to keep the secret now, even in a wink-and-a-nod kind of way. Why not just announce that it's Lawler vs. Hickerson and leave it to Embry to say "It's P.Y. Chu-Hi!" Speaking of Eric, this wasn't one of his classic promos. I really didn't sense much menace or cunning here, just they typical ravings of a heel caught in a bad spot or several. Not that we don't need that kind of promo occasionally even from an evil genius, but he's been more compelling in the past, and hopefully he will be again in the future. I notice that they've put a potential breakup of the Texas Boys on hold, probably because they need to finish Lawler/Embry now if they're ever going to. I'm guessing that Anthony didn't answer Embry's challenge, since a studio match between the two would have undoubtedly made the set. Let me add my praise to Soup's for Jackie agreeing to be shaved bald. That takes real guts for a woman (and for a man as well).
  23. garretta
    I came into this missing Memphis, and after seeing this I still miss Memphis. Jeff and Fuller are over enough so that their opponents don't matter, which is good because they don't do much to stand out except look like crosses between Dusty Rhodes and Playboy Buddy Rose. Love looks like he raided both Paul Bearer's closet and his makeup kit, and Gossett simply shows up as a face out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure the use of the name "Pretty Young Things" was supposed to be an inside joke for longtime fans, by the way. At any rate, the stupid heels blow their chance at the belts when Love decides to beat on Jeff for no reason, and we're left to talk about the main event, with several minutes gone out of our lives that we won't get back. And so it goes.
  24. garretta
    I kind of liked Flair coming out in his gear. It got a little much to constantly hear about his out-of-the-ring conquests when it came to women, cars, and fancy suits. Here, he has only one objective: to get Hulk Hogan in the ring and humble him. It's like he's saying, "I'm ready right now, Hogan. Are you?" That said, I agree about debuting him on Prime Time, which is the least of the three shows at the time with new content. I won't quibble about the audience, but know this: the last big angle to begin on Prime Time was Terry Taylor (as The Red Rooster) vs. Steve Lombardi (as the Brooklyn Brawler). We all know what land-office business that one did, right? I realize that Flair was under WCW contract until September 1, so a SummerSlam debut was out, but there had to be a bigger platform for a debut like this, like a special SNME (although that show had lost most of its prestige by now). At least Vince could have come back for one more show. Then again, I believe that they wanted to show Flair as nothing special, just another pretender for Hogan to shut up, so why not let the third stringer handle it? I'm not even sure that Vince saw Flair/Hogan as the big money where Flair was concerned; I'm beginning to think that Flair's biggest feud was going to be with Piper all along. Sure, he had to give the world Flair/Hogan eventually, but I'm thinking that Taker was always Vince's big plan for a Hogan challenger at this time. If that wasn't the case, why not do Hogan/Flair at Survivor Series and have Flair steal the win there, which gives him a five-month reign before Hogan (or Savage, if Hogan still plans on retiring) wins it back at Mania VIII? Sure, Flair has a win over Hogan, but you can massage it so everyone knows without a doubt that it was a cheapie. If Hogan insists on getting his win back before he goes, have him beat Flair non-title on the way out, or do the same angle that happened in real life (with Curt as Downtown Bruno and Savage as Warrior) to set up a Savage/Flair title program I liked Heenan insisting on the red carpet treatment for Flair over Sean's objections, and also how he stayed out of the spotlight once Flair started talking. He knew this was Flair's time to do what he did best. It's just unfortunate that he couldn't hang with Flair on the road, because outside of JJ Dillon (who, don't forget, was already in the WWF front office and thus available), no other manager in wrestling was as good of a fit for him. Jimmy Hart didn't even come close when he filled in at house shows from what I've read, and Curt just needed a paycheck. The angle lost a lot when Heenan decided to stay in the booth, as good as he was there at times during Flair bouts and angles. Based on this debut, it seems like there are hot times ahead now that the Nature Boy is on the scene. Where did it all go wrong? We'll find out soon enough.
  25. garretta
    I should start by saying that I haven't gotten to the wedding yet, but after reading some good things about this interview I had to check it out. I agree that this is the best Savage interview I've ever seen, and kudos to all involved for choosing to handle it in this way when there had to have been some thought to having Savage come off as a bigger loonball than ever. It's the closest we'll ever get to hearing Randy Poffo in the WWF, and that's what makes it so powerful. Liz's unseen cameo is the icing on the cake. Mean Gene was more effective than he's been in quite some time as well, briefly setting the scene then getting out of the way and letting Savage take center stage. So the seeds are planted for Randy's eventual reinstatement, and quite cleverly too. It's a good thing they had so few pay-per-views back then, because today (if what I've read on the boards is right) he would have been reinstated by the top of the next Raw, then he and Jake would have traded televised wins for a month before their pay-per-view bout, which would have rendered the entire feud old before its time and killed it. As it is, we have two months of twists, turns, and build to bring everything to a fever pitch. I can't wait to hear what Jake has to say for himself!
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