garretta
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If anyone can tell me what the point of that match was, I'm all ears. This was actually as well-done as you could reasonably expect, considering that only one of the participants (Eaton) had any real business up there. I mean, a 400-pound man in a scaffold match? Did News lose a bet or what? At least he didn't do much more than lay there, which makes him the smartest man in this whole trainwreck, as JR pointed out. Austin seemed to adjust pretty well, and Taylor stayed out of the way for the most part. Jeannie might have shown the most athleticism of anyone in the match, as she darted out of the ring like a cat after Austin threw her hairspray back to her. What I'll remember most from this is JR and Tony coming as close as they could to calling this the stinkbomb it was without crossing the line and possibly getting themselves fired. They knew going in that it was going to be a horrible match that no one would give two cents about, so they didn't try to trick us into believing that it was going to be some sort of titanic struggle. Tony even came up with some nice background stuff to put the match into some kind of perspective; I enjoyed his story on doing the opening for the Starrcade '86 videotape from high up on the scaffold at the Omni. Kudos to them for doing a thankless, impossible job well, and I hope they got paid extra for it. The brief exchange after the bout was much better than anything we saw during it, and it made me actually want to see a straight tag between these four guys. When a gimmick match between certain competitors makes you want to see a straight rematch between them, there's something wrong with the gimmick. (Not that they had much of a choice; there was absolutely no way they could even tease someone like News taking a bump off of a scaffold, so they pretty much had to do the capture-the-flag bit.) Idiot of the Yearbook nominee: Bobby Eaton, for capturing his opponents' flag, then using it as a weapon instead of planting it in his own corner to secure the victory. Maybe he picked up a "stretch" sign from someone at ringside, because there's no other explanation for this, reasonable or otherwise. Where was Terri? You'd think she'd have been at ringside, even with Jeannie seconding Austin. Did they not want two women in the same match at the same time, even as seconds?
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There are so many things wrong with this I can't even begin to count, but the worst of all is its presence on this particular card. Dusty, my friend, if St. Peter's a wrestling fan, I'll bet you had to have a ten-hour audience with him before you could get into heaven simply to explain why you booked this match for a Baltimore card knowing that 1) The Maryland State Athletic Commission absolutely forbade mixed athletic contests and 2) that Missy vs. Heyman was the issue here. No one living wanted any part of a pointless Rick Steiner handicap match, even if he got to nearly tear Paul's head off; I don't even think Rick himself wanted it. The solution's easy: You're practically out of satellite time anyway, so simply have JR state that the match has been postponed to a later date. Then tape it at the first non-Maryland TV taping you have after the Bash and show it as a special feature on WCWSN, even if it's done at a syndicated taping. That way, Missy can get the revenge on Paul she so desperately wants and needs, and this feud can be put in the books once and for all before it drives poor JR to the wacky ward. The only explanation I can think of for doing this anyway that doesn't involve a monumental brain fart is that Dusty wanted the feud to continue because it spiced up the TBS shows. This way, Missy and Paul can keep taking verbal shots at each other and making each other miserable, which gives them something to do, particularly Missy (who serves almost no other function with any kind of competence). It's a damn poor reason, considering that Missy isn't all that good on the stick even at her best, but it's a reason nonetheless. Murdoch taking a shot at that random fan and Missy sporting dark hair are the only two reasons to watch this unless you're a fan of JR's sarcasm. I liked how he said that Rick really worked hard here, to which Tony added that his performance was above and beyond the call of duty. Does anyone else think those two had an angry sitdown with Mr. Runnels once everyone got back to CNN Center, or maybe even that night at the hotel? And what was up with Missy and her hair anyway? This match was buried at the end of the Luger/Windham match on the discs, not even worthy of a chapter of its own, which should tell you all you need to know.
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This one started slow but picked up toward the end when both guys scored knockdowns. Yamazaki seemed flat for most of this, so him picking up the win really seemed like an upset although he was undoubtedly the favorite coming in. I wouldn't mind seeing more of Scott as he definitely showed he could hang with one of the top shoot-style grapplers around. This didn't seem like a classic to me, but it wasn't too bad either.
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This was a nice showcase for Ronnie, who showed that he still was a very good worker who could have had a job anywhere in the world. Excellent psychology involving him working over Gonzales' hand in order to weaken the heart punch; he even stomps the other hand a few times just to be safe. In the end, of course, the heart punch gets him anyway, and he sells it like he was killed, capping off a first-rate performance in an unexpected setting. He would have been a nice addition to the Dangerous Alliance as a kind of mentor/grizzled veteran type had he chosen to return to WCW a little later in the year, though I have no idea who he would have replaced. What belt did Gonzales wear into the ring? Was it the Universal belt or the WWC heavyweight belt?
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This was mostly a showcase for newcomer (at least to this feud) Ogawa, and he acquitted himself well, never appearing lost and even scoring several near falls. In the end though, he's powerbombed and pinned by Kawada despite Jumbo's best efforts to break it up, thus getting a win back for the Misawa side in the ongoing megafeud. Of just as much interest as the result to me is that Misawa was able to stop Jumbo from interfering with the final pin, which hasn't happened often before this. It was important to give Misawa a moment where he got the upper hand on Jumbo even in an incidental way, since Baba seemed reluctant to give him a definitive, game-changing victory over Jumbo at this point.
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The Brawlers had each pounded Morrell at some point in the match, so since there were no rules he decided to get his own payback, which also included a noticeably fast count after the spike piledriver by Jarrett and Fuller at the end. This seemed oddly limited to me, which is a strange thing to say about a match with so many weapons. How many times can one man hit another with a chair or ram them into a bar, though? This also seemed more like two ingles matches than a tag match, as I didn't notice Jeff and Robert switching off much, if at all. Once they selected a Brawler to fight at the beginning, that was the guy they fought throughout. Not knowing who the Brawlers were didn't help either; the camera was too far away for me to even try to guess their identities by sight. This was chaotic and fun, but not particularly memorable. Still, we don't get much Memphis house show footage, so for that reason alone this was nice to see.
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This wasn't as well-done as it could have been. Liz was fine given her limitations, but I could have done without the grade-school teasing from Vince and Piper. Again, they obviously wanted this to be a serious moment, but just couldn't pull it off all the way. The "I'm returning to the ring" stuff sounded like it was leading to "for a wedding at SummerSlam", which it should have, but once Okerlund turned Jack Tunney Jr., wagging finger and all, Randy sounded like he lost his train of thought and then decided just to get the thing over with. The job still got done, and Liz's "OOOOOOHHHH YEAHHHHHHH!" acceptance was right on the mark, but there was still something that didn't quite click, as far as I'm concerned. The crowd shots were a nice bonus, though, especially the one of the kissing couple. I'm wondering how Percy felt about The Funeral Parlor being preempted as often as it was at this time. It seems like every time Vince wanted to get something serious across, the Parlor was ditched for a standard Okerlund interview. In this case, they made the right choice, but if Percy can't be trusted to handle stuff like Sid's introduction (with Sarge, Sheik. and Adnan), why even give him the segment? If you want to look at it this way, the only stuff we actually needed the Parlor for as Warrior getting locked in the casket. Mean Gene could have handled everything else that segment's done so far. Allow me to beat my favorite dead horse once more: they had the man who could have handled it all right in the booth next to Vince and didn't even consider using him. The only reason I can think of that they didn't was because it would have required Savage and Vince to travel with him and do live commentary, which Vince didn't want to do. Too bad, as wrestling commentary is almost always done best live.
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It's amazing how much they're getting out of this with only one of the two performers doing any of the work. If I'm not mistaken, after she accepts Randy's proposal on the 7/6 Superstars, we don't see Liz again until SummerSlam. It's a good thing Randy's as good as he is on the stick; if this had been the Uncle Elmer wedding, it could have been potentially the worst angle in WWF history, since Frazier was barely articulate. I didn't like them using The Barber Shop for something that they obviously wanted to portray seriously. Don't get me wrong, The Funeral Parlor would have been a thousand times worse, and I doubt they could have done a live arena segment anyway, with all the special effects involved. Maybe they could have flown Okerlund in to do this, or used Finkel as a substitute. Even Piper's Pit wouldn't really have worked here, since most fans are conditioned to expect some sort of altercation in live segments like these. This really needed to be done by a non-performer in a more serious setting. If nothing else, use Gino, since he was sitting right there. Bobby wasn't particularly offensive here, so Gino landing all over him felt a bit forced. These two don't really do their best interacting outside of the old Prime Time format, which of course is no more. Lord Alfred was only heard briefly, which may have been just as well. For the record, the Berzerker's big win referenced at the top of the segment was a clean pin over Jimmy Snuka. That still meant something at the time, although Jimmy was used almost exclusively as a jobber to the stars by now.
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Most of my thunder has been taken, and quite eloquently too. There's no way these two could have possibly replicated the intensity of their brawls in the bars of the Twin Cities for the ESPN audience, and to their credit, they don't try. We get a lot more mat wrestling and some high flying spots they couldn't do in the bars (notably Waltman's dive to the stage), plus a good old-fashioned brass knucks finish as a special treat for the Sportatorium.....er, excuse me, Global Dome faithful. As a bonus, we get a postmatch interview from Waltman that isn't bad for an eighteen year-old kid in his first time on the national stage. Lynn's prematch interview is pretty standard stuff, but it's nice to hear from him, too. Speaking of people that it's nice to hear from, welcome back to the Yearbooks, Craig Johnson! Jarrett could have used you over the last few months, but it's good to see that there's no ring rust in your play-by-play. It's also nice to get a look at pre-WCW Scott Hudson. Interestingly enough, ESPN keeps the SuperCard name for its television show in spite of the fact that the featured promotion has changed. The blood and violence restrictions apparently haven't, and it'll be interesting to see how Global handles that aspect of things differently from Jarrett, especially since it's being built from the ground up (and presumably with ESPN in mind). I'm looking forward to more Global (and more Waltman and Lynn) in the discs ahead.
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This was a good match, and I can confirm that this should have been the other half of a SummerSlam double main event with Hogan/Sarge Desert Storm. That said, I can see why Vince didn't do that; even though Taker sat up in the bodybag at the end and walked out under his own power, this was still too visible of a job for him to do on pay-per-view so early in his run. They would have had a hard time selling him as a Hogan challenger after this kind of a defeat, and heaven knows where his career might have ended up. Warrior delivered another unordinary match for him to go with the Mania match against Savage, and the multiple piledriver spot was cool, although Gino insisting that they were tombstones when he clearly knew better was a turnoff. Normally, I'd have had trouble with all the no-selling, but no-selling was Taker's entire gimmick at the time, so what else could you expect? There should have been more than one bodybag tease; even with guys like Warrior and Taker, the opponents should have been rolling each other toward the bag every chance they got, even when it was pretty certain that they weren't going to get the win. Percy was a bit too demonstrative at ringside for my tastes; the mugging was bad enough, but practically making love to the urn after Warrior clobbered Taker with it was just too much for me. I'm this close to sounding my "universal Heenan" call (Heenan as manager for almost all heels regardless of fit) for Taker in spite of Bobby's retirement. (Bobby and Taker would have been a damn poor fit anyway.) I bet Gino called the steps steel purely out of habit, because I think the Garden had steel steps for many years, though of course I can't be sure. I highly doubt he cared what material the steps were made out of while calling the match, though you could certainly say that he should have known beforehand. It was nice to hear Lord Alfred on a house show again, especially after Neidhart tried his damndest to damage the Desert Storm match back in June. Blooper of the Night: Gino calling Warrior "The Ultimate Warlord". Maybe that would have been a good name for him as a heel, who knows?
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This really wasn't much. Austin seems to have regressed from his early days feuding with Adams, and one of his best heat-getting weapons (Jeannie) doesn't come into play until the end. I have no idea why she had to come into the ring to interfere, and Bobby looks like the dumbest schmo in the world shoving Patrick aside and allowing her to do so without being seen. His performance is basic to say the least, and the whole thing reeks of "let's get this over with". Why Bobby's push ended so quickly is a mystery to me, but this loss pretty much locks him into the tag team and stable boxes for good. I really can't blame JR for treating this match as an afterthought; he's loaded with GAB tour date announcements, plus a plug for his radio show. Remember, these plugs and announcements don't come out of his mouth of his own free will; his bosses instruct him to ignore the matches and concentrate on shilling and plugging. Therefore, to blame him for doing so is ridiculous. Heyman, on the other hand, is most likely responsible for what comes out of his own mouth to a large degree, and the Missy feud has spelled the end for him as a useful commentator. If anyone had told me before this yearbook that I'd think of Heenan as a better match analyst than Heyman, I'd have laughed, but that's the way it's turned out. Now it looks like we're in for weeks and weeks of Jason Hervey jokes, God help us all. How ironic that in mere months, Heyman would be managing Eaton, whom he makes relentless fun of here, as well as Austin. I wonder how they got around Austin's obvious Texas drawl while continuing to bill him from Hollywood. Maybe that's why he got Heyman as a manager, so he wouldn't have to open his mouth and risk making a lie out of his "Hollywood Blond" gimmick.
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I'm not sure if Kim was expecting Tony to propose or not; she acted like she was stunned that he would do something like that on TV, although she did say yes. It may be a pale imitation of Savage and Liz, but Tony's even less used to being a good guy than Savage is, so I'll cut him some slack in the manners department. The rest of this was just weird. Shouldn't Tojo be suspended for a good long time after he tried to injure Neighbors with the claw? For that matter, if the claw's supposed to be a devastating hold, even for an old man like Tojo, shouldn't Neighbors still be in the hospital instead of on TV brawling with Tojo? As for Marlin, I don't particularly mind him getting up a burst of adrenaline and trading punches with Embry briefly, but both he and Neighbors should have completely shaved heads, not just crewcuts, since Embry obviously won their match. For whatever reason, Memphis has a history of only following through on hair matches if the heel loses; the faces get away with crewcuts or just short haircuts the likes of which you'd get at any barber shop. Even though some of it happened at the top of the next segment, I might as well cover all the Cousin Harold stuff in one place. First of all, was Stan Frazier still alive? If he was, this sounds like him under yet another gimmick, which may be why the TV audience doesn't see him. Marlin being the special referee for the tag match would have been good if they would have followed through with it; I don't know why they didn't, and it sounds like there might be another surprise in store for the Texas bunch. I enjoyed Embry and Prichard making fun of Cousin Harold as only they can; Prichard's ability to do imitations served this segment well, as he was hilarious with his imbecile voice talking Cousin Harold down. Line of the segment: Kim's indignant "I'll have you know (Cousin Harold's) from West Memphis, Arkansas!" For someone who's subpar at best most of the time on the stick, she can get off a real goody or two from time to time. I only hope that we find out what happened as a result of all this, because it sounds like classic Memphis for better or worse.
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I haven't seen the Cousin Harold stuff yet, so I'll withhold comment on it. As for the match, it felt like a match you'd get on Superstars, which means short and with no finish to protect the house show gate. Seriously, did anyone expect one of these guys to do anything even approaching a job on TV when this match hasn't hit the arenas yet? Embry and Prichard work over Dundee quite nicely, and Lawler's so eager to get in and stop it that he's caught in the air by Paul Neighbors once and then just charges in before Dundee can tag him, which leads to a brawl on the outside and a double countout. I wish we'd have gotten the first fall; was it shown or did whoever put the disc together simply forget to include it? Nice job by Dave and Michael putting over Embry and Prichard as a team. According to them, the Texans could be a good tag team if only they followed the rules. There's something so seventies about that attitude, particularly since they'd probably have no reason to team if they weren't breaking the rules and making common enemies along the way. Still, it's refreshing to see a plea for old-fashioned virtue in a sport where virtue of any sort is rapidly becoming extinct.
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I don't know that they were patronizing Van Dam as much as they were using him to explain how the process of getting matches signed is supposed to work. With all the angry challenges being thrown out and accepted on these programs, it's easy for fans to forget sometimes that matches are supposed (note the italics) to be legally agreed to and then signed by matchmakers like Marlin. Only big stars like Lawler and Embry can demand matches during their interview time. At least that's one explanation. The match itself wasn't much, as others have said, but it's nice to see where Sabu and RVD came from, which was a lot saner place than they ended up. One problem: Either I went blind toward the end of the match or we completely missed Judge Dredd's interference, because I don't think the camera caught it. After all these years, you wouldn't think missing key spots like that would be an issue for any company, let alone one as experienced as Jarrett Promotions.
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I think sometimes we're a little too concerned about what draws money or helps further an in-ring storyline. This whole wedding business really isn't designed to do either one, regardless of what SummerSlam's tagline may be. It's supposed to be the culmination of the last storyline of the Randy Savage character, his last act as the Macho Man. As such, I couldn't care less if any of it exposes the business or not. There is no more business as far as Savage is concerned; he's a retired commentator, plain and simple as that. He's fair game for any situation, period, and that's why this is so good. They can make him look as ridiculous as they choose without restraint, because he doesn't have to draw them one red cent anymore, or so it appears at this time anyway. Gino and Bobby are golden here as usual, and while the imagination sequences were kind of dopey, they provided insight into Lord Alfred and Jamison as characters, which you don't often see. Heenan's was the best, of course, and part of me wishes that they'd actually had Liz herself as part of the scene yelling at Randy rather than the "Charlie Brown's schoolteacher" voice. Gino brings up Hogan and Warrior as two people who could object to the wedding, which isn't too far-fetched given each man's past history with Savage. Bobby, of course, brings up Donald Trump as another possible objector, which would have been something to see as well given that Trump wasn't opposed to appearing in angles. Savage handles all of this exactly as you'd expect he would: with his own blustery style of aplomb. I especially liked his response to Gino's query about whether he covered all the bases with Liz: "I learned to do that when I was a little Macho baby!" This is a departure from the way the rest of the leadup to the wedding was handled, but humor, sophomoric as some may find parts of it, was integral to the WWF formula, and it wasn't too offensive here. I'll see for sure when I get there, but I believe that this was one of the few wrestling weddings where no wrestlers were part of the ceremony at any point. Then again, considering what was about to go down at the reception, that was probably a wise choice.
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This brawl has to set the record for type and number of chairs thrown in one segment or match in wrestling history. Where did they get them all, anyway? Don't forget the odd garbage can, plus the desk being overturned on top of everything else. All we needed to make it complete was Leatherface and his chainsaw! What really made this was the reaction of Dave and Michael at the desk. They're right smack in the middle of one of the wildest brawls in Memphis TV history through no fault of their own, and while they definitely want things back under control, they don't freak out and practically demand the National Guard like JR would in a situation like this. The truth is, they're getting a kick out of it in their own way, just like the other fans are. That's one of the secrets to Dave's success; for all of his responsibilities as an on-air personality, in the end he's just a fan having fun. That's something announcers tend not to have starting about this time: a sense of fun and excitement. We have Vince's relentless, rather sleazy shilling and JR's hyper-serious "This is a real sport just like football, dammit!" approaches, but seldom do we get a sense of people calling the matches and having fun doing so. This sense of fun may be one of the reasons that Memphis was the last of the kayfabe-era territories to bite the dust.
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Is there any fan in the world at this point who didn't want to see face Jake vs. heel Taker after watching that? It seemed like the most natural, inevitable feud in the world........and then came Jake's turn. Jake was tremendous as usual, but Percy's starting to grate. That falsetto's scary in short bursts during promos, but to hear it over and over again in a five-minute segment is just too much. Plus, they're not really getting full mileage out of this by not having Taker there as a bodyguard for him. Without Taker, the Paul Bearer character is just another cornball invention of Vince's, and Taker isn't often mentioned during these segments at all. This one was a rarity, and it felt like one of the few Parlor segments that was truly vital instead of just another WWF interview segment on a goofy set. All the elements of '91 heel Jake are here: Lucifer references, talk about the dark side, and of course "Trust me", which has to be one of the best catchphrases a WWF wrestler has ever had. I can't wait to see how all of this progresses. Will someone please tell the announcers to stop talking while the guests are making their entrances, or at least talk so everyone can hear them? Their muffled asides and mumbling do nothing but drive me crazy.
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Incredible. Imagine 1985 Roddy Piper challenging Jack Tunney and Dick Woerhle to a hair match and you'll see how mind-blowing this is. The best part is, even though Marlin throws in the stip about Embry being fired if he loses, he knows damn well he just walked into the biggest trap of his career, that Embry's gotten the best of him in the biggest way possible. Embry's so cocky at the end of the segment that he says Dave Brown will be next, and I'd love to have seen WMC give Dave permission to get in the ring with him if there had been some way to do it so he didn't have to bump, maybe in a tag with Lawler or something. At any rate, this match is wow-worthy enough as it is. There's only one problem: the outcome is as foregone as it gets, and that's without reading the match lists for the rest of the yearbook. Embry's simply too hot right now to be driven out by anyone short of Lawler, and even if he wasn't, a matchmaker and a referee sure as hell aren't going to do it, even if the matchmaker is a former wrestler. Had I been a fan in Memphis at this time, I'd have gone to bed praying for a bait-and-switch to somehow get Lawler in there instead, because what we have now is destined to end horribly, and everyone (including the participants) knows it. This is the kind of stuff that made a lot of people look down on Memphis, and it's hard to blame them, really. But Jarrett has a knack for presenting even the lamest angles believably and entertainingly, so I actually have high hopes for this. Too bad it didn't make the yearbook.
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I could have understood having Race around as a mentor for Luger if they'd bothered to bring it up before the Bash. He has a history with Flair, doesn't like him, and wants to see him beaten, so he's going to give Luger the secret of how to do it. Even after the switch to Windham, he's become an integral part of Luger's camp, so he stays and puts Luger over the hump once and for all, then sticks around afterward. Fine and dandy, except that Dusty never bothered with that. I haven't watched the Bash match yet, but everything I've read about it says that Race just came ringside out of nowhere. That's just plain ridiculous, especially since the story I just described would have been so easy to tell. As for Hughes, I don't get it at all. It's more a matter of who he's working for, I guess. This is picking nits to the nth degree, but Hughes as Harley's bodyguard I can get behind; Hughes as Luger's bodyguard is a total joke. I guess the absurdity of it and subsequent heel heat is why Dusty did it that way, but there's already so much that's absurd about the whole setup that this piece of it gets lost in the shuffle. I'll say more about this in the Luger/Windham match thread once I get there, but I'm not sure they wouldn't have been better off with Harley and Hughes in Barry's corner and Luger as the plucky face overcoming long odds to finally get what should have been his long ago. Heyman as the one interviewer who gets access to the new champion and his entourage is fitting, but not much of substance is said, at least for now. I'm sure that will change in the coming weeks.
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A different sort of promo from Zbyszko: no "Larryland", no "seventeen glorious years", no references, obscure or otherwise, to retiring Bruno. But it works. Arn is his usual self, which is to say brilliant. If they mesh in the ring as well as they do on the interview podium, this team could be more than something. I already like that they're challenging heels and faces alike, which is something not often seen in 1991. Freebirds/Enforcers is another match that would have taken the country by storm in '86 or '87; as it is in '91, I can see why they didn't feature it heavily even if they booked it. A motivated Arn and Zbyszko should waste a fading Hayes and Garvin.
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Hogan and Warrior are back to Mania VI levels of blathering, which is a shame. This feud should have been over with the Desert Storm match, as I've said before. I don't think either Virgil or Teddy mentioned SummerSlam; these promos could have been for any house show match. Sherri throws in a cute line about her filling Virgil's position. I'd have loved to see her massage Teddy's toes or kiss his feet just once to drive the point home. Gene was in his glory here, with stuff like "from nuptials to napalm", and, for the Valentine/Rotundo match, "W-4 meets figure four". He's the only one who could get away with saying stuff like that without it sounding forced. That's why he was one of the best in the business, though some of the announcing snobs around the IWC think otherwise because he didn't carry himself like Solie. I liked the name drops and other NYC-area touches. You don't get that anymore, as Vince seems to determined to make his product as market-neutral as possible. The fans talking about Randy/Liz sounded like they were reading from cue cards, which they probably were. I liked the kiss between the couple at the end, though. No mention of Tolos in Curt's corner or the Slickster in the heel corner for the six-man, which I find odd. Usually, the managers are as prominently featured as the wrestlers, even at this late date. "Mechanic"? Talk about damning Bret with faint praise. You wonder if Vince would have even put the IC belt on Bret if Curt hadn't been on the brink of retirement.
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Heyman has a point here, obviously, but just like when he was the Midnight Rider, Dusty books this mask angle as almost a deliberate rib on the heels. I know that we the fans are supposed to know who the guy in the mask is in a situation like this; it's part of the fun of the angle. But there's something almost mocking in the way Dusty books this type of angle. I guess the best comparison I can make is to the Machines angle in the WWF. Everybody knew Andre was the Giant Machine, but it wasn't rubbed in Heenan's face constantly by others to make him look like an idiot. He certainly looked like an idiot on his own, but that's because the announcers and officials denied with a straight face that Andre was the Giant Machine despite Heenan's protests. Here, it's all wink-and-a-nod stuff, almost like they're telling the heels, "We know it's Pillman, you know it's Pillman, we know that you know it's Pillman, and you know that we know it's Pillman. But try and prove it, you incompetent suckers! Nah-na-na-nah-nah!" Heyman was pretty decent here, and a bit more low-key than usual. It's interesting that something as easy to screw up as covering Pillman's face with a towel was used to conceal his identity; one slip the wrong way from Zenk and the jig was up for good. I didn't notice much about Hall's performance at all. I'd like to see a full match of his as the Diamond Studd at one point to compare how he worked that gimmick with how he worked Razor Ramon.
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A few years ago, a properly set up match between the Freebirds and a Murdoch/Slater team would have sold out any arena in the southern half of this country. As it stands now, it looks to be a fairly easy win for the Hardliners. In the promos, Slater barely talks (and tried to talk over Murdoch when he does) and Jimmy Garvin isn't even there. Wonderful way to promote the first match of your big tournament, guys. They did it better when they were throwing stuff at the wall during the Attitude Era. The one nice touch is Murdoch wondering why he and Slater weren't simply given the belts for putting Scotty on the shelf. Nice job by Gordon, JR and Paul getting over the reason for this tournament, especially JR noting that WCW's hands were tied by the rulebook. I wonder if some fans really did write WCW to tell them that Gordon and the Hardliners were wrong about the possible stripping of the belts from the Steiners.
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I had trouble buying Fuller as someone who would need to be shown around Memphis by Jeff or anyone else, but this was all right. I'm not sure where they were supposed to be flying to now that the Dallas part of the promotion was closed, though.
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They're having the same problem they had with Rotundo: all Keirn's been doing are these short vignettes, and in only one of them has he mentioned anything connected with wrestling. I'll say it again: No one who doesn't already recognize Keirn would take Skinner for a wrestler, and a lot of those fans are probably wondering when an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom took over their TVs. They need to do two things ASAP: 1) Get Keirn in the ring and 2) Get that awful-looking tobacco out of his mouth. Brown spittle's disgusting enough, but when he starts spitting stuff that's as green as Muta's mist like he did here, that's a whole new level of sickening.