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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I think they could have run Luger/Windham as a top feud for longer than they're appearing to here. Simmons has had very little in terms if a singles career, so it's puzzling why he's being elevated. We can't even use Bill Watts as an excuse; he wouldn't be coming to WCW for at least six months. There's still no hard and fast evidence of Luger being a heel, incredibly enough. You could say that he's going after an obvious fan favorite like Simmons, but he could do that as a tweener, too. They need him to do something outrageous and dastardly to make the turn complete, or else leave him as is and send him after everyone, faces and heels alike. On another note, I can't quite understand their decision to push the piledriver as Luger's new finisher to the exclusion of the Torture Rack. If it had been Harley's killer finisher back in the day, this would have been understandable, but it wasn't. He used it, to be sure, but it wasn't a go-to move or anything like that. The only reason I can think of is that the Rack was so over as a hold that Dusty didn't want the fans popping for it and accidentally heeling whoever Luger was in the ring with. That's not the best reason in the world, but I can see Dusty being concerned that it could happen.
  2. garretta
    I decided to start with the Control Center. Luger's promo doesn't really cement his heel turn. He's a little more cocky than he was before the Bash, but he doesn't insult the fans or challenge people like Sting to signal that he's on the other side of the fence. Harley's pretty straightforward himself, although he looks kind of silly trying to be hip at the end when he says that Luger's "all TO-GETHAH". The only heelish thing about this triumvirate at the moment is Hughes, and that's mostly because of his past with the York Foundation. I get the point about two simultaneous tournaments being a little much, but what else could they have done? They'd just done a number one contenders' match for the World title, and having another one of those would be one too many as well. The tag team tournament was on TV, while the US tournament was at an Omni house show, so most fans didn't see both. A Clash built around the US title tournament wouldn't have been the worst idea, though, especially since Sting went over at the end. As for the Austin stuff, I know each booker likes to do things their own way, and to Dusty every woman in an on-camera role either had been a Jezebel, was currently a Jezebel, or was looking to be a Jezebel in the future. But if he'd watched one interview of Jeannie's from Dallas, he would have seen how effective she could be with Austin. This mousy little wallflower that we saw here couldn't wear Liz's high heels, and while Austin channeled 1985 Randy Savage pretty well, this segment was a total disappointment. Jeannie did as well as she could, but if this is all she's going to be in WCW, they need to get Austin to the Dangerous Alliance in a hurry.
  3. garretta
    It would be something if all this awkwardness between the three of these guys turns out to be a ruse and Cox has actually been on their side all along. Sweet Stan and Sexy Steve has a ring to it, don't you think? I've missed Corny too, but like Memphis, Global seems to be a bit too small for him. This would have been a great time for him and Stan to jump to the WWF and somehow pry Bobby Eaton loose from WCW to reform the MX, but they'd have gotten lost in the shuffle with the likes of the Nasties, the Disasters, and later Money Inc. Besides, Corny wanted to be his own boss eventually. In fact, I've heard that his and Stan's time in Global was more of a reconnaissance mission to see what it would take to start his own promotion than anything else, but I could be wrong. That's Boni Blackstone on the second interview, right? She seems a little miffed at having to deal with Corny and Stan, for whatever reason.
  4. garretta
    As good as this was, it would have been better if Heenan actually was Flair's ringside manager instead of just an advisor. As wonderful as it was to hear him putting Flair over in the booth, particularly at the '92 Rumble, it took more away from the package than he added to put Hennig at ringside. It wasn't even so much that Bobby's neck was bothering him too badly to bump (though he probably couldn't do it much anymore regardless), but that he didn't want to have to party with Flair on the road. In fairness, he'd just been arrested for drug possession at the beginning of the year (New Year's Day, in fact) so maybe he was trying to clean himself up. Still, if that was the state of affairs, they could have brought JJ Dillon out from the front office and put him at ringside while keeping Bobby as an advisor. At any rate, that's way in the future for now. Here, we're just starting out, and Heenan's holding the belt and taunting Hogan, which is golden. He didn't have to use the ice cream/horse manure twice in fifteen seconds, but that's a nitpick. You really get the feeling that this is the man that Heenan's always wanted to use to end Hulkamania, and he's finally available. As Mean Gene points out, Flair doesn't really need a manager or advisor, but Bobby's rub immediately establishes Flair as a main eventer before he ever sets foot in the WWF, thus allowing him to hit the ground running and go straight to Hogan with as little preamble as possible. Part of me wishes that they could have kept using the WCW belt, because once that was out of the equation the "REAL World Champion" stuff became about as relevant as DiBiase and the Million Dollar Championship. Still, this is a hell of a jumpstart to an angle every fan, regardless of favorite promotion, has wanted to see since 1984.
  5. garretta
    This match featured a lot of hard work, but not much action, if that makes any sense. This was a face/face match like you might have seen in the 80s WWF; quite a few nice moves, but no real heat or drama until the very end when Chono took out Sasaki from the apron. Muto and Hase had a nice little finishing sequence leading to Muto's moonsault for the win. I agree with Zenjo; this needed a bit of hatred, even temporary hatred, to spice it up. Nice win for Muto and Chono, though. This is the third big loss we've seen in a tow for Hase and Sasaki; it's almost like they're on their way out as a team. Speaking of which, did anybody ever clear up why Sasaki didn't make the trip to the U.S. for the June Clash, or why he was replaced by Chono, of all people, as Hase's partner?
  6. garretta
    I'm sorry, but I didn't see a classic; I saw (by my unofficial scorecard) a rather one-sided bout in favor of Sano that Suzuki was clearly outclassed in. I base that on numbers of rope breaks and knockdowns, which is my personal scoring system since PWFG refuses to put theirs on screen. I really don't see any other way to judge shoot-style, which otherwise is two guys trapping each other's arms and legs, lying on the mat and grunting a lot. By the way, my score at the bell was Sano 3 1/3, Suzuki 2. I noticed that the piledriver and dropkick by Suzuki were pretty much blown off by Sano, which I guess is PWFG's way of saying that moves such as these cut no ice in this type of match. The crowd was hot for the finish, but I really can't figure out why; Sano and Suzuki were just laying around with their legs tied up, like they had for most of the match, not even selling very well. Give me an anklelock or a half-crab if you want to give me a hot submission finish in a match like this. Better yet, tell me who's winning throughout the match so I can make some kind of sense out of what these guys are doing. Holds in and of themselves don't cut it with me, no matter how painful they may appear. (This only applies to PWFG; I'm able to follow UWFI and Rings very well.)
  7. garretta
    This was a war from start to finish, and surprisingly enough it was the big girls (Bull and Aja) who took the brunt of the punishment. Aja bled in the first few minutes, while Bull not only bled, but had to be carried out after taking a series of Aja's brutal backfist punches that led to her defeat. It's the spots I'll remember more than anything else: the inventive tree of woe where Aja and Bison maintain their attack on Kyoko's injured leg; no less than three brawls outside the ring, all of which came close to ending in countouts; Bull surprising Aja with a trash can to little effect, then Aja using the same can to bust Bull wide open; and of course the ending where Aja knocks Bull into the middle of next week, which hasn't happened in these Yearbooks so far. By the way, nice sales job by Aja in the postmatch, as she holds what's supposed to be a bruised or broken hand from hitting Bull in her hard head so often. Now that Bull's been shown to be human, it'll be interesting to see what they do for a followup. On the men's side, Misawa got his big win over Jumbo and hasn't gotten much more since, either in singles matches or multi-man matches. Let's hope the women's side doesn't make the same mistake after Bull was so thoroughly beaten here.
  8. garretta
    I liked this one better than most of you. There was some sitting in holds, but I think that's part of the MVC's gimmick. They're trying to be deliberate like the Andersons were in their day, which doesn't really seem like something a monster team should be doing; they seem like they should be trying to level their opponents with strikes and power moves. At any rate, this was more about the pluck of the natives than the might of the challengers. Misawa and Kawada overcome the power of Williams and Gordy plus two separate two-on-one disadvantages to score their second straight upset win, this one for the titles. I liked the MVC's work on Misawa's knee, which is becoming more of an Achilles heel for him as time goes on. True to their style, they work the mat rather than go crazy pounding it with objects. Kawada eventually gets the hot tag, but Doc and Bamm Bamm cut him off rather quickly, which leads to Misawa pulling the victory roll seemingly out of nowhere for the win. While I admire the MVC's retro-Andersons routine, I wonder how exciting of a team they could have been with more traditional American power offense. That may have been the style they needed to adopt in order to get over better when they hit WCW. I'm kind of surprised Watts didn't clue them in to that, but if it was their Japanese style which led to that run, I'm not surprised that they wanted to stay with it.
  9. garretta
    If you've ever wondered what a three-fall lucha exhibition match looks like, wonder no more. This only got out of first gear for the dive train at the very end and Porky's final pin of (I think) Mando. Other than that, this was no more strenuous than a day at the gym for either side. I've seen both units have better matches, and if both teams had been used to their best advantage, which would seem to be a nice mix of athleticism and comedy, we might have had something special. This wasn't that match, though. Maybe it'll happen sometime in the future, and if it does, I hope we have it on one of the Yearbooks.
  10. garretta
    What is wrestling's obsession with making movies at this time? Not that the Leatherface vignette was bad, but it was another of those segments that no one would understand who wasn't already a diehard fan. There was no way to distinguish this from a regular horror film, and a clichéd one at that, It could have used narration of some sort to tie it into wrestling, whether from one of the announcers or possibly from Embry, since Eric's Leatherface's unofficial keeper. By the way, did anyone recognize the woman whose car stalled? She doesn't look like anyone we're supposed to know. I'm not sure what to make of Dundee/Davis. It seems like they didn't want to give the match away, but they also didn't want to do a pull-apart, since that would tease a heel turn, most likely by Dundee. So we get a few minutes of action followed by a convenient commercial break, during which the match just stops for no reason. I've never seen that done before. What we saw was good, but I'm not sure how to rate it, since there was a lot of back-and-forth and neither man held an advantage for long. I thought the verbal stuff before the "bout" was well-done. Davis comes off as slightly sanctimonious, but Dundee comes off as a bit of a jerk, so it's mostly even. Dundee makes a good point about champions having to do whatever it takes to hold on to their belts; even the most upright babyfaces will scratch and claw if they have to to keep their belts out of the hands of their enemies, as we've seen time and again over the years. The description by each man of the other's bad habits is hilarious. I'm not really sure I'd want to go into a Memphis-area restaurant with either of them, at least not while I'm sober! I really don't think there was a tag match signed; if there had been, we would have seen evidence of the other wrestlers somehow, even if they were just jobbers.
  11. garretta
    The fact that they didn't tie this angle in with the SummerSlam main event should tell you in hindsight that all wasn't what it appeared to be (read: Jake's turning heel). It would have been cool if Jake and Taker would have taken Adnan and Sheik's places in the handicap match just to get their hands on Warrior, and it would have made for a much better match. I wouldn't be surprised if Vince at least entertained that notion briefly, but once he started having contract problems with Warrior, I'm sure he just wanted to get the damn match over with and Warrior out of his sight for good (or so he thought at the time). In an alternate universe, I could see Jake playing Kevin Sullivan to a heel stable consisting of Warrior, Taker, and possibly Papa Shango. He certainly sounds a bit like Sully here, although his spiel's much easer to understand. This may sound like heresy, but I think Jake might have gotten Taker over even better than Percy did; there was just a bit too much overacting in the Paul Bearer character for him to be taken seriously as the evil genius they wanted to portray him as.
  12. garretta
    What I like best is that Hogan and Warrior will supposedly be mad at Sid even if he favors them. What kind of stupidity is that? I'd want every advantage I could get if I was in a three-on-two situation. These two sound nuttier by the day, and that's definitely not a compliment. There had to be a better way to give Sid his pay-per-view debut than this.
  13. garretta
    I actually got into the Jake stuff more than the interview. Jake's so good here you're actually rooting for him to make over Warrior so he can face Taker after SummerSlam. What makes this more amazing is that Warrior literally adds nothing to this except growls and screams; it's basically Jake cutting a long promo trying to convince Warrior to embrace the dark side. Then we get Hogan and Warrior's interview, and it's like we're in a different universe altogether. They try to outblabber each other, with Warrior at one point cutting his promo directly in Hogan's face. Mania VI is indeed mentioned, and according to Warrior this match pales in comparison. Then why should we buy it? Next, Sid comes out, and he goes from face to heel to face in about ten seconds. Not only is WWF booking regimented, but the promos are as well. You can't tell me Sid wouldn't be at least a little better on the mic if he didn't have to constantly think about setting up the line "Justice will be served". He's proven he can be at least passable in WCW, but he's much less than that here. And what's up with shaking Hogan and Warrior's hands? Despite what he said in the next breath, there's a definite vibe that he's on Hogan and Warrior's side here, since he didn't shake hands with Sarge and his crew, at least not that I can remember. As for why they're all in their gear, how else are you going to show off their physiques in all their glory? The highlight of the segment was Savage saying "I recognize that music" for both Hogan and Warrior's entrance themes. If anyone would have memories concerning both of these guys, it's Savage. I thought it was kind of cute for Vince to chime in that Piper should recognize Hogan's music as well, although when they feuded Hogan used "Eye of the Tiger", not "Real American". The Jake and Warrior stuff looks promising, the interview (which once again preempted The Funeral Parlor) was borderline embarrassing. Still, for 1991 WWF TV, one out of two ain't bad.
  14. garretta
    You can tell that the Yellow Dog angle is just about over because Pillman does the "peek-a-boo, I see you" routine with the mask before the bout. They're not even really trying to establish differences between the Yellow Dog and Pillman anymore, either. The match is decent for what it was; it's mostly notable for the final television teaming of the Horsemen, or what's left of them by now, and also for Windham's last appearance as a heel for quite a while. Hall's an awkward fit with Arn and Barry, but since he was the one who ripped off Pillman's mask, he gets a chance to do it again. Everybody gets some ring time, DDP gets an interference spot with Bobby, and we get the flash ending with Pillman pinning Arn and the heels just about getting his mask again before Pillman slithers out of their grasp. If this is the best Dusty can do, I agree with JR: the angle should be scrapped and Pillman reinstated. The only inspired spot in the bout is the triple figure-fours, but Bobby can barely get his on Hall, which takes away from it a bit. I don't necessarily agree with Pete that JR has fallen off as an announcer; he's never really cared all that much about doing voiceovers for old matches that the continuity may have passed by, and this was one of those. He's best either calling live pay-per-views or at least stuff that has relevance to the current scene. Give him a match like this thrown in out of nowhere with Windham turned face and Arn teamed with Zbyszko and this is what you get. I liked him trying to play up Barry's unpredictability in light of what happened at the Bash, though. Heyman saved things a bit with some nice analysis and his protests about JR using the phrase "danger zone". He also passed up the requisite shot at Missy when it was announced that that night's WCWSN broadcast was coming from Tallahassee, which is a hopeful sign. My guess here is that this match was deliberately saved for this spot to play up Pillman's possible reinstatement and signal the near-end of the Yellow Dog angle. It's wither that or someone's brain went into total vapor lock. Knowing WCW, I'd say it was about a 50-50 chance either way.
  15. garretta
    This one was weird, to say the least. It may be just me, but it seemed like neither Luger nor Windham knew quite how to work this match, since neither of them would be leaving the ring in the roles they came in. Luger couldn't play to the fans because of Harley and Hughes, while Barry couldn't be too heelish because he needed to be painted as the aggrieved party for future reference. Of course, the fans promptly popped for the Luger win anyway after basically sitting on their hands and daring both Luger and Windham to entertain them for most of the bout, so go figure. Even JR and Tony couldn't quite figure out how to articulate what they'd just seen, since if Luger had just turned heel, he'd done so on a heel. It made for a very awkward situation, needlessly so if you ask me. It's almost as if Dusty didn't quite know which way he wanted to go coming out of the bout and decided to at least temporarily keep the option open to maintain the status quo (Luger as face, Windham as heel), only to realize that if you're Lex Luger, Harley Race is your spokesman and Curtis Hughes is your bodyguard, you aren't going to get cheered no matter what you do. Under the circumstances, these two worked as well as they could; this match was hardly innovative, but there were a few nice spots, including a tease of Luger stealing Windham's superplex. It seems like they decided to work a straight-up title match and worry about who cheered who later, which may have been a smart move considering that these fans weren't in the mood to cheer anybody It would have been a very good match under almost any other circumstances, but under these it just felt off. Maybe it's because I knew what was coming at the end. Kudos to JR and Tony for a wonderful job in the booth. They really got this over as a titanic confrontation between two worthy athletes, which all the hype beforehand failed miserably to do. The history with Luger and Windham as both friends and foes was not only touched on, but explored in depth. So was the history of each man as a World title challenger; it was awkward to hear them practically tie themselves into knots to avoid mentioning Flair's name, but they managed to pull it off without looking ridiculous. By the way, the Horsemen are finally confirmed to be a dead group by JR, not that that's a bulletin or anything. JR and Tony also do a wonderful job comparing and contrasting each man's athletic background, and in a rare treat, we actually get to hear Blackjack Mulligan's name on WCW TV. Their only not-so-bright spot came after Harley and Hughes appeared at ringside, but that was perfectly understandable, as no one was supposed to know just what was going on there yet. Was a double turn a wise thing to do under the circumstances? As I said in an earlier post, I think it was more about Dusty not knowing how to book a face champion (himself included) than anything else. Even so, there's no real evidence of a shift in philosophy on the part of either man; we'll see that in the weeks to come. Personally, I would have kept Luger face and aligned Barry with Harley and Hughes, but maybe Dusty still felt that Sting was the long-term future of the company and wanted him as top face. Regardless, it'll be interesting to see how what we've just seen plays out in the months ahead. I've heard good things about Harley as a mouthpiece, so maybe he can sell Luger's turn and get the fans against him as fully as they need to be in order to make a heel Luger title run work. Only time will tell. Kudos to JR for working through his health issue; you would never have known it to hear him. Whether calling this card or passing the kidney stone was more painful, I'll leave others to judge.
  16. garretta
    The natives try their best here, almost destroying Hansen's arm, but in the end the Americans are just a little too mean for them. What made this match stand out for me is the limb work, which is something you don't usually associate with maulers like Hansen and Spivey. They do an excellent job taking apart Misawa's knee as revenge for the natives trying to tear Stan's lariat arm off, and one of my favorite spots on this yearbook so far is Spivey setting up a table on the edge of the apron for Stan to ram Misawa's knee into. It's a variation on the "knee gets destroyed on a ringside object" spot that's a staple of All-Japan, and it's a clever way to keep that spot fresh. Nice work. On the downside, I think two DDTs on the concrete was one too many, especially when one of them (Spivey's to Kawada) was only meant to stop Kawada from interfering with Stan's winning pinfall. Couldn't Danny have just held Kawada's leg? Misawa and Kawada don't look bad in losing, but they really seem to be in a funk lately. They've been losing clean regularly to Jumbo and company, and now they drop one to Hansen and Spivey with a rematch against the MVC on the agenda in July. It's time for them to step up their game in a big hurry if they want to continue to be one of the elite teams in All-Japan going forward.
  17. garretta
    I have trouble thinking in terms of good or bad with matches like this, because that's almost beside the point, which is for the fans to see as many different wrestler combinations as possible in one match. It was a trip to see Yoko before he was Yoko, and I wonder if Kokina Maximus might not have gotten over just as well for Vince. Samu looked good, and it was neat to see Savio/Kwang with face paint. It was also nice to see Choshu again; he must have been primarily a booker by now, because he hasn't been on this Yearbook very much. Everyone else we've seen recently, and they were all very much themselves. The first two falls were very good, but they must have been in a hurry to wrap things up, because not only was there a dogpile pin, but they started to shill the next card during an ongoing bout, which you seldom see in either major Japanese federation. At least the natives won to send everyone home happy.
  18. garretta
    I gave up trying to follow the action in the ring fairly early on; WarGames needs to be professionally shot for it to make any visual sense. The commentary was fun with a few hidden gems, my favorite being that WCW has an agreement with the WWF that both promotions will ban Pillman if he's unmasked. Sully actually brings weapons, which we don't see in this kind of match as often as we should, quite frankly. He does well with the bell hammer, almost castrating Pillman with it, but falls victim to a combination of his own powder and Gigante's claw. No one really stood out as good in here, but it's a shame to see Gang not treated like the monster he still could have been. He was knocked around way too easily by the faces from what I could see, and I don't know why Dusty brought him in if he wasn't going to use him as an unstoppable five hundred pound asskicker. As I said back in the June forum, the whole gimmick with the facepaint and Gang's seeming lack of intelligence bring Kamala to mind, and I wonder if that wasn't who Dusty was originally intending to bring in. Finally, a booking question: If Sully, who ostensibly replaced Flair, was the guy who did the job in this setup, who was originally going to do the honors if Flair had stuck around? It sure wasn't going to be Flair himself, and Nikita needed to be kept hot for his win over Sting at the Bash. That leaves either Windham or Gang, and I'd think they'd have kept the Horsemen together somehow, which means Barry would have had to have cred as (arguably) Flair's second-in-command. Poor Gang. Maybe Vince and his Easter egg outfit didn't seem so bad by now.
  19. garretta
    I disagree that this was a Flair tribute match; Flair seldom got a chance to work over someone's leg quite as viciously as Morton did to Gibson's here. At the beginning of the bout, I wondered if Dusty hadn't turned the wrong man. Surely Morton wasn't naturally vicious enough to be a credible heel, and would have been better off doing his normal act against a vengeful Gibson who was mad that Ricky had abandoned him in the hospital or some such. Well, I was wrong. Morton's performance here would have made the Andersons proud, as he did everything but rip Robert's leg clean off, and he even came close to that a few times. He really learned his lessons well from the heels he'd fought for so long. Unfortunately, the finish didn't match the story told beforehand; I agree with Pete that if the computer had to be used, it should have been used to cave Gibson's leg in once and for all. Maybe they were afraid that Morton would accidentally do just that, so they decided to use a standard head shot instead, but that made the whole story of Morton trying to injure Gibson's leg permanently no more than a side note. If that finish was what they wanted to lead up to, they could have just done a bloody brawl with no legwork where it would have been expected. I don't recall the feud doing too much after this, so maybe Dusty just wanted to get one good match out of it before everyone moved on. If that's the case, though, why not use a cleaner finish? JR and Tony were wonderful at presenting the psychology behind Ricky's gameplan, constantly reiterating how badly he wanted to hurt Robert's leg and put him out of action. They were also great with historical perspective; Tony recalled Rock 'n' Roll's first match in JCP when they beat the Russians for the World tag titles, while JR recalled their tenure in Mid-South plus his own days as a referee when it looked like Fonzie could stop the match. We get on JR for his obscure references to football and older wrestling at times, but in this instance, his anecdotes and observations were right on the mark and added to the match. It's just too bad that the crowd really didn't care what was going on. They didn't disrupt the match with "WE WANT FLAIR!" chants like I'd assumed they did beforehand, but except for a few stray "Morton sucks!" chants, they just sat around on their hands and didn't do much of anything. In another place and time, Morton and Terri would have had to duck flying garbage both on their way to the ring and on their way back, but Baltimore wasn't that place and 7/14/91 wasn't that time. Is that Morton's fault? No. Is it the crowd's? Not in my book. They'd been gipped out of a main event they were promised and were determined to let the Turner suits know about it in no uncertain terms, plus most of the rest of the card both before and after this was a trainwreck. It's just a shame that Ricky and Robert's one and only major showdown had to take place on it. They both deserved so much better.
  20. garretta
    The match itself was par for the course for these two, which is to say brutally athletic, with both men taking incredible chances. I liked Benoit's clothesline off the apron, and Liger's dive from the top rope to the outside after Benoit got up from the tombstone was simply insane. I agree that Benoit was legit hurt by the top rope DDT; you can see Liger asking the officials how they're going to get the mask off of Benoit and making motions to do it while he's unconscious, but they insist on reviving him and making him do at least part of the deed himself. He still looked plenty glassy-eyed once the thing came off, and this had to have been one of the blows that led to his later problems. As for the mask stip, it was pointless for two reasons: 1) No one seemed to know who Benoit was without it, so unmasking him doesn't mean a whole lot and 2) Everyone knows that Jushin Liger is really Keichi Yamada, and they also know what Yamada looks like without the mask. There's no suspense or shock factor at all, which makes the whole thing pointless. This is definitely one time when a good match by itself should have been enough. I'd definitely like to see these two hook it up again, in the States if possible.
  21. garretta
    I thought these two were just going to slug it out, but Shinya took advantage of Vader missing a clothesline on the ringpost early and decided to work the arm instead, which he did very well. When that didn't work, he tried to put Vader out with a cobra, but the big bull was just a little too strong for him in the end. I liked the use of the over-the-shoulder arm wringer by Shinya; it's not often used here in the States, but with the right buildup it could be used as a killer submission finisher for someone like Arn, whose armwork is already a stock in trade. Vader's really on a roll right now, and you can tell that NJPW has some big plans for him. I don't really see the heavyweight superworker that he ostensibly turned into just yet, but he's definitely had some flashes and will only continue to get better as time goes on. I can see why WCW had an eye on him for future use.
  22. garretta
    Vader and Bam Bam are the stars here. They have it all: size, strength. speed, clean moves, and a heavy dose of mean. The One Man Gang-style front suplex doubleteam should have been copied by more monster teams. Muto and Chono aren't squashed, but they're definitely outclassed. The monsters are such badasses that Bam Bam throws a chair into the ring at one point for Vader to use, only for Vader to throw it back because, quite simply, he doesn't need it. Maybe Muto should have found a way to use his Muta mist, but I'm not sure even that would have done the natives any good. It's a shame that the Steiners were out of action, because Vader and Bam Bam would have been better challengers for them at this point than Murdoch and Slater. For that matter, I'm kind of surprised WCW didn't use them for the World tag team title tournament, since they had a working agreement with New Japan at the time.
  23. garretta
    At least it took three (or was it four?) backdrop drivers to beat Misawa this time. But Soup and Loss are right; the booking's stuck in a rut. This makes five six-man victories in seven tries for Jumbo's Army, and after a while you wonder why his side bothers to accept any more matches with Misawa's. Ogawa and Kikuchi provide a lot of energy, but that's not enough when the result's practically a foregone conclusion as it is here. Misawa's big moment seems long ago and far away at this point. No one's suggesting that he should be dominating Jumbo, who at least at this time had quite a bit left in the tank. But more parity in the six-mans and regular tags would create some drama for the singles bouts when they come around, not just for Misawa/Jumbo but all the other combinations as well. As it is, I'm honestly not sure how they're keeping this feud even warm, as Jumbo's dominating Misawa like Flair dominated Luger in WCW.
  24. garretta
    This wasn't Embry vs. Lawler, this was Embry vs. the referee (could it have been Frank Morrell? I couldn't tell for sure). I know Memphis is all about the bullshit, and I didn't expect anything close to a clean finish, but this was absurd. They barely touched each other for the first ten minutes, and then we got five seconds of Embry on offense before Lawler's big comeback, during which he completely no-sold a DDT. I'm not a stickler for accurate selling at all times, but that was beyond ridiculous. Meanwhile, the referee looks like he has an IQ of minus three, going down to count several Embry pin attempts and then suspecting that Embry used the chain to knock Lawler down. Either frisk him completely or leave him alone; God knows Memphis refs have gone selectively blind, deaf, and dumb for Lawler a thousand times over the years. To be fair, Lawler takes advantage of this moron to piledrive Embry, so at least he's consistently stupid for both guys. Then we get Embry socking him, which leads to a pinball punching sequence with him (the ref) and Lawler against Embry that would have been at least amusing if the idiot had toned his act down just a tinge over the last ten minutes. As it was, I can't blame Embry for taking off. I'm thinking that Lawler and Embry made this match deliberately unsatisfying (as in poorly worked) so that the fans in attendance would go to the Pipkin Building to see a good match between them at a future date. This looked like it was filmed at a high school or middle school gym, so that strategy may or may not have worked. It definitely wouldn't have with me, though. If they don't care enough to at least try when they come to my neck of the woods, why should I spend my money to see them again? And what if I can't afford to go to the Pipkin Building, either in money or time? If this was my one chance to see Lawler/Embry live, I would have been so disappointed that I would have had to even think twice about tuning in on TV for a while, let alone going to another live show. This really was that bad.
  25. garretta
    This was good, not much more than that. Pillman effectively hid his style and did well with a ground-based game that gave Austin fits throughout, while Austin wrestled your basic heel TV champ match: ground-and-pound (except for the Savage-style double axhandle off the top, which was well done), rely on interference, and wait out the time limit. Jeannie was at her most effective here, especially when she dug her nails into Pillman's throat while she was choking him. I could be wrong about this, but it seems at the moment that Austin's actually going to lose a bit in the managerial department when Heyman takes over soon. The only thing Jeannie needs to be over like she was in Dallas is mic time; she's got the physical part nailed solid. I wasn't a big fan of the saved-by-the-bell stuff, and Hall's interference was a bit random. Was the mask supposed to come off, or did Hall just pull a little too hard? If Dusty dumped the Yellow Dog angle as quickly as some of you say, the unmasking might have been a botch that he had no desire to see repeated. You usually see that kind of thing with slippery heels, not clean-cut babyfaces. Zbyszko once again shone on commentary; hearing him is like taking a Master's level course in heel psychology and ring strategy. He does this without being too blatantly against the faces, which is something not even Jesse Ventura pulled off. The only way you knew he was batting for the heel side is when he referred at the beginning to "The Yellow Pillman" and "Flyin' Dog", which were both hilarious. Tony continues to disappoint me. His reputation of being a good announcer up until the Nitro era isn't holding up well at all; he called a clear elbow to the side of Pillman's head a shoulder block in the first few minutes, and from there it was hard for me to take him seriously. He was audibly annoyed at Larry for calling Pillman anything but Yellow Dog, and like JR he's so earnest that it's difficult to tell at times whether he's working or shooting when it comes to annoyance with heel commentators. There's a definite vibe of "Will you shut your stupid mouth and let me call this match please?" that's too obvious for its own good at times. He also loses points for acting disgusted with Larry's line about how Refrigerator Perry could use someone like Jeannie to motivate him to stay thin. Come on, Schiavone, this is the local Chicago show, for heaven's sake. They do still follow the Bears during the other hundred and sixty-seven hours a week that Pro isn't on the air. If he wasn't such a good shill, I wonder if he'd have still had a job by the time Bischoff came along. The one thing he got right was appreciating Jeannie's dress, which was indeed fabulous I noticed that when Tony ran down the Bash card for Chicago, he mentioned Hughes as being in Luger's corner against Windham, but not Harley. Was Harley only doing TV tapings and pay-per-views at this time?
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