garretta
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The bit with the picture was oddly touching in a real-life way, as it drives home just how long Lawler's been big in the Memphis area. As for the brawl, it's one of the wildest I've ever seen in a territory where wild brawls have always been par for the course. Seldom do both dressing rooms empty like they do here, though. You could say that Lawler brought it on himself if you wanted to, but after all the weeks and months of crap he's had to put up with from the Texans, he's entitled to throw the first punch for once. This brawl also highlights how many facets there are to this whole feud: Lawler/Embry, Prichard/Anthony, Jarrett and Fuller/Barroom Brawlers, and I'm sure there's at least one I'm forgetting. It seems like they were thinking about a multi-man match to wrap this all up, and if ever there was a time for War Games in the USWA (even under another name), it's now. By the way, nice to see Dundee helping out the faces; I wonder where he's been lately?
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All we see live of this one is Sting crotching Nikita with the chain not once but twice. I guess the Russian chain match was supposed to be protected for Nikita (as in, he was never to lose one under any circumstances whatsoever), but if that was the case, then why not have a cage match or some other type of bout that Sting could win? If Dusty was keeping Luger a face and needed to build Nikita for a World title challenge, then I'd have no problem with this finish, especially since it was so close, but under these circumstances it's a real head scratcher. I wonder what plans there were for Nikita after this, if any. Maybe a heel/heel feud with Luger, but then why turn Luger in the first place?
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Bell aside, this was more of an angle than a match, especially since neither Kim nor Jackie could work for a bushel of sour apples. Still, it was nice to see Tennessee score another small bit of revenge on the Texas bunch here. Now let's see Tony against Dr. Tom.
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Not the most original promo from Lawler, but it gets the job done. I would have thought the crowd would be happy with the idea of what's basically a six-on-two match (since we all know that the lumberjacks will be involved somehow before all is said and done) with the odds in the Tennesseeans' favor, but maybe they feel that the odds a little too stacked for the King, which is odd. I notice that we get one more segment with these two on this show, and it seems like Embry will have to do something extra vile in order to restore normalcy in time for Monday night. Somehow, I think he'll be up to the task.
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This looked great from what we saw, as Jeff and the Stud took care of two of Embry's lesser henchmen in a heated brawl. The notable thing about the match (other than the brutal chair shots from the top rope Jeff delivered to Sabu) was that the announcer kept going back and forth between "Samu" and "Sabu" when referring to the future ECW star, as if he either couldn't make up his mind what the guy's name was or had been told specifically not to refer to him as Sabu for some reason. I don't know why Papa would do something like that, unless he was afraid of negative backlash for promoting a Middle Eastern-sounding gimmick when the Gulf War was still so fresh in everyone's minds. Who was Judge Dredd? Did he become someone famous?
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I could swear that we saw Linda McMahon in the audience at one point. I thought the song was pretty good, actually. Was it Willie Nelson or George Jones? No, but for a wrestler who just had a guitar and his voice, it was fine. It wasn't going to get anything over as far as inducing people to buy tickets or pay-per-views, but neither was Paul Bearer supposedly embalming Lord Alfred Hayes. It was just a throwaway segment done for a few laughs and a tug at the heartstrings featuring someone Vince liked to have around, nothing more. I'm wondering if Gino's replaced Vince in the same way Mean Gene did on TNT; in other words, the stink of death is on this format and Vince doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. No matter, because wrestling's best comedy duo is back and open for business on the show they made. I'd have loved to see Gino in a sweater just because, but that's a minor nitpick. No one knew just how to play off of Heenan better than Gino, and he has the advantage here because unlike the wrestlers, he can still show exasperation with Heenan's antics like he always has. The wrestlers can't really start anything with him because he won't be at ringside to get his comeuppance, so even longtime foes like Hogan just roll their eyes and ignore him. I loved him here, with his fingers in his ears and Gino (presumably) screaming at him the whole time, though you couldn't hear it over the music. I'd have liked Hillbilly to reprise this song at the reception. Who knows, it may have stopped Lucifer from coming out and scaring Liz!
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Luger did the best he could, but as he said himself, his opponent could have been anybody for all it mattered; as long as it wasn't Flair, his moment of triumph wasn't going to feel as big as it should have. The logical choice would have been Bobby Eaton as TV champion, and that would have made Luger's turn a little more understandable since both of them would have been coming in as faces, but Bobby's turn and push were just a little too new. Herd gets off a real lulu here, as he tells the fans that they should be proud to sanction (his exact word) the Luger/Windham bout. They sanctioned it, all right, in their own special way during the event.
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I notice that Vince sort of teased that Piper would be the guest ref at SummerSlam before Sid came out because of his absence from the booth. Personally, I'd have much rather seen Hogan and Warrior vs. Sarge and Sid than what we ended up with. Neither Adnan nor Sheik do much of anything except stand there while Sarge runs his yap, then Sid comes out to tell each of the heels that he's not a member of their corps. Gee, I didn't know Sheik and Adnan each had their own corps in addition to being part of Sarge's; if they did, why are they wrestling instead? Seriously, they could have done a retake on that portion of the interview, which makes Sid look like a total imbecile. Other than the announcement of Sid, there was no reason for this, just like there was no reason for the match. They should have just shown the Hogan/Sarge Desert Storm match from MSG on the syndicated shows and had done with it. I'm not sure what they would have done for a SummerSlam main event in that case, but anything else they came up with would have been better than what we got.
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This wasn't bad for what they were forced into. I'm not too concerned about them not bringing up the history between Luger and Windham, since it didn't really play into this particular bout at this particular time. A mention of Luger beating Windham for his first U.S. title would have been nice, but their being former partners didn't matter much, since this wasn't portrayed as a grudge match. The more I see of this, the more I think they should have just retroactively declared the Clash match a title bout and simply given Luger the title. The traditionalists would have howled their heads off, but what good does beating Windham do in terms of establishing Luger as world championship material? For that matter, you could ask the question in reverse as well. At least Muta was getting a push in New Japan. They still could have had the Windham match at the Bash as Luger's first pay-per-view title defense.
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Yes, but Keirn's pulling it off a lot better than I gave him credit for at first. Skinner actually reminds me of Jake the way he talks in stories and tries to get philosophical in his own deranged way. I'm about ready to see him in the ring, because I wonder how much Steve had to adapt his style to fit this gimmick. I'm also wondering where these things were filmed. I wouldn't think they'd have sent a crew to the Everglades, but Connecticut's not exactly a big state for swampland either.
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Keirn's better and scarier here than he was in his second promo the following week. He actually mentions, and looks like someone whom a wrestler might be scared of. I'll have to wait to pass overall judgment until he actually wrestles, but so far this has legs. Too bad Jake was turning heel soon, as this would have been a natural feud, with Keirn threatening to skin Lucifer a nice place to start.
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Somehow I missed the first one of these, so this was my first exposure to the Skinner gimmick. Vince is noticeably slipping when it comes to character development; just like with IRS, how would you know Skinner is supposed to be a wrestler if you didn't recognize Keirn beforehand? Even at that, his look and voice are so different that newer fans may have no idea who this guy is in any case. At least IRS could be justified because it was tax season; what's a reptile skinner doing on a wrestling program when we're not even sure he knows what wrestling is? And why should we give a damn regardless? Maybe Keirn's acting skills can save this stuff at least a little, but right now it's not looking good.
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And so the first, and best Flair era in WCW ends. I completely disagree with Loss; up until Herd's announcement, Flair was WCW, bigger than any wrestler in the company, and in the eyes of no less than Ted Turner, bigger than the company itself. You don't pull a Vince McMahon and treat his departure like it means nothing. Not everything has to be a hype job or sales pitch, even in wrestling. It's okay to acknowledge that the biggest name in the company is gone and there may be uncertain, maybe even hard, times ahead, which was certainly the vibe JR and Heyman were giving in the first part of the segment. I think it enhances their credibility that they were just as shocked as the fans were by the news; if I'd been watching and they'd dismissed Flair and gone on to hype Luger/Windham as if nothing was wrong, I'd have been screaming at the TV, "Are you guys NUTS? Your champion, the best champion you've ever had, walks out the door headed for New York and you don't even care? What the hell kind of fly-by-night outfit are you running, anyway?" The excitement picked up for the Windham announcement, of course. I'm not sure who else they could have picked except maybe Arn, but if they were doing a double turn, that wouldn't have worked out at all. Neither would bringing back Muta from Japan for a Clash rematch. One interesting thing they could have done if they'd had more time was retroactively declare the Clash match a World title bout, thus making Luger champion. He begins to wrestle like his old heel self in the days leading up to the pay-per-view, and JR and the other announcers are first concerned, then alarmed. Then they do the turn at the Bash, and it's revealed that Race has been advising Luger from a distance for the last month. That would likely have worked out better than what we got, which to me seems to have been done because Dusty didn't know how to book a babyface champion who wasn't himself. I'll be interested to see how the Luger/Race partnership actually plays out. Herd looks a lot more comfortable on camera than Jack Tunney ever has, which gives his pronouncements a little more gravitas. All the gravitas in the world can't dress this debacle up, though.
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I disagree with Soup; this is the match that should have been the main event at SummerSlam. I understand why it probably wasn't, because Sarge hit a really deep gusher and pay-per-views weren't supposed to have matches that were that bloody, but maybe Vince could have made an exception for once. I agree that this was mainly a one-man show for Sarge. I remember saying that Mania VII was his last hurrah as the worker we all knew him to be, but I was wrong; it was here. This was a lot like the Patterson alley fight: Sarge just got the ever-loving shit beaten out of him with almost no letup, was hurt so badly he could barely pick up a simple chair or boot, and not only didn't he quit, he came back with spurts of offense. Not much of it was effective, but at least he attempted it. Hogan was himself and yet not himself at the same time; he's in character as far as being a patriot is concerned, but he goes a lot further to defend America's honor and get some personal payback besides. Maybe this would have been a slightly better match if Sarge had had a bit more offense, but I think we needed to see Hogan beat Sarge so badly that he left the WWF, and he definitely accomplished that, although Vince spoiled the party by trying to get one last main event out of this by putting together "The Match Made In Hell", or, as I like to call it, "The Match Hell Wouldn't Have". Seriously, how did Vince think he could top this (and the various other Desert Storm matches done around the loop at this time) by involving Warrior, Sheik, Adnan, and Sid? This should have been the SummerSlam main event, with Adnan's throwing in of the towel leading to Sarge's face turn. I'm not sure what to do with Warrior, although I may have the answer after watching the body bag match with Taker when July rolls around. Put Sid in a squash against a lower-card heel, dump Sheik altogether, and we may have a PPV-worthy main event on our hands. If I ever have to hear Jim Neidhart say "Stormin' Hulkster" one more time I'll scream my damn fool head off so loudly Will would hear me down in Texas. My God, who thought that man could announce? He says almost nothing of note in the match except "Stormin' Hulkster! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Gino's slow decline continues as well, but Heenan's stock as a serious analyst is going way up with me. It's not that he has a ton of different talking points, but he repeats the ones he has effectively enough that he sells the match through sheer force of character; if someone as usually clueless and self-absorbed as he can be is shocked by the blood and brutality of this bout, it must be a real war. He sells the violence of the match and the exhaustion of both men, Slaughter in particular, about as well as I've ever heard a WWF heel announcer sell anything, and that includes Jesse. It's a shame Gino was fading away and Vince was becoming more of a buffoon, because I'd like to hear what he could have done with a serious play-by-play man who could also remember to set up his jokes when they were called for. JR was as close as he got, apparently, and I'm looking forward to hearing them when '93 comes along. We're left to wonder if his WCW stint would have gone any differently if JR had stuck around into the Attitude Era there, or even if Heenan would have come back to the WWF sometime in the late nineties to take over for Lawler, who's never especially impressed me as a color man. If this match had actually made pay-per-view, it would have probably been the WWF Match of the Year, even over Warrior/Savage. As it is, it's an under-the-radar classic that I was thrilled to be able to see.
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If I hadn't known in advance that this match was rushed, I would never have guessed it. This was very well done considering the circumstances, and while we'd like most if not all World title bouts on the big stage to be substantial bouts with plenty of back-and-forth action, sometimes it just can't happen. The only issue I had was with the rest periods; I know they're standard in multi-fall matches, but if they were that pressed for time, they could have just eliminated them; that would have given the bout an extra minute, and a lot can happen in a match within a minute. It's a shame that this is Flair's last "classic" title defense on TV, but at least he got to go out on top with a semi-clean, decisive win instead of with the usual Horseman run-in or over-the-top-rope DQ. Bobby looks like a legit challenger here who could headline a pay-per-view against Flair with a bit more singles experience, as he never backs up for a minute, either on offense or defense. Not even getting caught going for a second Alabama Jam and taking a wicked bump to the outside directly on his knee stops him, though it opens the door for Flair to dissect his leg and eventually lock in the figure four. JR and Tony do an excellent job of reminding the fans that this is a brand-new Bobby, not merely one-half of the MX. Unfortunately, he's still got the "Chase" knockoff theme music and has only recently shed his "From The Dark Side" billing, so it's going to take a while longer to sink in completely, and by that time he'll be a part of the Dangerous Alliance and back mostly to tag team work. Still, any new blood on the singles scene is better than none at all, especially in light of Flair's upcoming departure. It's a shame that Bobby was promised so much more from this match and ended up being denied it; still, he adapted to his new circumstances well enough to have a more than solid showing against Flair back when that was something to really be proud of. That's a tribute to his professionalism, and I'm glad I watched him pull it off.
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I can't even begin to top Tom's review. I never knew so much could be found in a throwaway six-man, and that's a compliment. What I saw, unfortunately, was a ten-minute match stretched unnecessarily to double that length. Some of the stalling spots were cute, of course, but there were just too many of them for my taste. JR has so little to call that he runs through most of his shills twice, which is never a good sign. Brad was good, but I noticed that they kept him away from Steve; his only extended in-ring time was with Smothers, who took the one solid bump in the match when he went into the guardrail. Other than that, there wasn't a move in this match that would have crushed a grape. If the Birds are that limited, break them up; they're totally embarrassing themselves and their legacy. I remember the asskickers from Texas and Louisiana, and I've seen Hayes and Garvin have better matches as a team without the Freebird name. Hayes' partying is legendary, of course, but how could guys like Flair and Dusty, who partied as much if not more, remain good to great workers while Hayes fell completely off the cliff? And what's Jimmy's excuse? He was never a dynamo, and the Gorgeous character could stall and primp with the best of them, but when the time came to go, he went. It seems to me that Hayes got the brilliant idea to completely reinvent the Freebirds for the nineties, knowing that Gordy and Buddy Jack were busy elsewhere and/or retired, and he deliberately chose to present himself and Jimmy this way. The problem is, it just looks awful. I can't think of one move that they executed during the match with any crispness at all, and this kind of performance makes the Pistols and Dustin look bad too, since they should be dispensing with these losers in under five minutes instead of allowing themselves to be taken almost to the time limit. The Birds can get rid of Humpy, DDP and the Diamond Dolls at their earliest convenience, too. The Morton DQ was cheap, but they weren't going to actually do anything else constructive with this match, so why not? And while I'm at it, the psychology behind the six-man championship change was off. I know Morton was turning heel, but you'd think someone would have thought of Morton being ready to defend the belts, only to have either Rich or JYD refuse to team with him, thus leading to the three-on-two. Why wouldn't Morton want to giftwrap one-third of the six-man belts for the Yorks? They didn't even have three wrestling members, since Hughes was strictly security. A nitpick, I know, but one I felt was worth bringing up. No last names for Smothers or Steve Armstrong; they're apparently treating the Pistols like rookies, although JR slips and uses Tracy's last name once when he goes into the guardrail. JR refers to this as a "special edition" of WCWSN, but Graham's site has no record of it, so my best guess is that it was a sixty or ninety-minute show prior to a Braves game.
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Anyone who can watch this and not appreciate Vince's acting abilities has no soul. This may be the first time that Vince has been tacitly acknowledged on WWF television as having a bigger role than just lead announcer. You'd think that if he was interested in maintaining pure kayfabe, he would have had Jack Tunney read this statement.
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Nice cameo by Albano. Benedict seems like the stereotypical promoter here.
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Every once in a while, there's a situation in wrestling that's designed to make fans think that maybe, just maybe, the heels have a point. This is one of them, as Embry has to deal with four face lumberjacks in his upcoming match with Lawler, while Lawler only has to worry about Prichard. Of course, there's absolutely no sympathy for Embry whatsoever, and that drives him so crazy that some poor defenseless soul is about to pay dearly for it. I like the yellow rose for Fargo too, and three thousand dollars for a fine may not mean much in most places by 1991, but I'd imagine it's still a pretty big deal in an admittedly small territory like Memphis. I wouldn't be surprised if additional lumberjacks were scared up from somewhere to make the sides a bit more even; as much as the fans want to see Embry get his (and with good reason), this setup's just too good to be true. I liked Embry paying Fargo a little (very little) respect during the interview. He admits that he grew up hearing about how good Fargo was, but I thought he was from Florida in real life. Did Jackie's reputation really stretch down that far?
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Sorry, guys, but I had no use for Yatsu's chair swinging. How that isn't a DQ, especially after he nearly fractures Fuyuki's skull with one shot, I have no idea. Take that away and this is just a rather pedestrian little tag match, with Nakano and Fuyuki doing the bulk of the work and Tenryu and Yatsu supplying personality when needed. Nakano takes some impressive chops to show how tough he is, and it's obvious that he's bring groomed for bigger and better things, but he eats the fall for the veteran Tenryu here. I notice that they're using a WWF ring, or at least WWF turnbuckle pads, but this card wasn't a WWF co-promotion. You'd have to think that Vince gave them permission to use some of his stuff, even if he didn't send wrestlers to a given SWS card. Does anyone know who Tenryu shook hands with before he helped Fuyuki up? Is it someone we should be familiar with? He's definitely Japanese, or at least Oriental.
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This was a good technical bout for the first two falls, then Casas hit the low blow on Santo between falls two and three and all heck broke loose. I use the word "heck" specifically because there were very few moments in this match that didn't feel like an exhibition in the NFL sense of the word. I didn't buy that these two were mortal enemies or anything of the sort, and that's not just because of lucha's style limitations, because I've seen plenty of heated, bloody lucha brawls. These two simply didn't seem interested in striking each other, and that took away from this quite a bit. Pretty moves that look like they hurt are nice, but I want fists and kicks from guys who hate each other, be they Mexicans, Japanese, Americans, or Martians. All of that said, having back-to-back submission finishes in the first two falls was certainly inventive, and it's rare that you actually see the heel in a match DQed for refusing to break a choke by the five count, especially in a decisive fall. Not only that, but I liked Casas pleading his case to the ref without success, as the ref turns to him, shoves him down, and declares del Santo the winner. Some of you may think that that's too much ref involvement, and in most cases it probably would be, but here it tickled me for some reason. Despite what I said above, I can definitely see that this match is above average for those who dig the lucha style. It just doesn't fit my parameters for a grudge match. If they were building to a hair vs. mask bout, as Shoe suggests above, I'm sure it would be more to my liking, since those kind of matches are much more violent. I hope we get to see a bout like that at some point in the year.
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Yes, it was time for Liger to finally get a win over Honaga before his reputation was damaged for good, and he did it in spectacular fashion here. Honaga wrestles a match similar to the one in March, trying to keep Liger grounded with basic offense, but eventually gets too full of himself and decides to go to the air, which leads to his doom courtesy of the top-rope DDT. As others have said, this isn't the match you're looking for if you want to find a bloody brawl where Liger tears Honaga apart; that was the May match in which Liger wrestled the second half as Yamada after Honaga ripped off his mask. This bout was about Liger regaining the belt. and he did so with authority. I hope we haven't seen the last of Honaga; he has too much potential as a foil to the more scientific and high-flying NJPW juniors to simply fade away. I'd even like to see one more Liger/Honaga match where Liger seeks to end Honaga's challenge to his title once and for all.
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Thanks a lot, Pete!
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I'm not sure which match some of you were watching, but I liked this just fine. The story was the same as in the Misawa/Gordy match, with the plucky native trying to overcome the monster gaijin; the only difference was that this time he absorbed too much punishment in the process and fell short. Doc was brutal here, administering the Oklahoma Stampede both inside and outside the ring, which in itself would be enough to put down almost any other human being right away. But Kawada not only recovers, he gives Doc a taste of his own medicine right on the floor in a tremendous payback spot. In the end, though, he's simply taken too much, and is beaten by a relatively harmless fallaway slam after getting caught coming off the top rope. Thus, the two-match singles series between Misawa/Kawada and the MVC ends in a 1-1 standoff. I noticed Kawada used the same sleeper-type hold Misawa did against Gordy, although this version looked more like a straight-up Million Dollar Dream. Have Teddy teach you the counter to it the next time you're in the States, Doc! Where was this match clipped? I'm not doubting Zenjo's word, but it must have been done more smoothly than usual, because I never noticed.
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Misawa overcomes one of Gordy's best performances in AJPW to get a big win. It's impossible to tell the quality of a clipped match unless you've seen it in full, so I won't get into how good it is, but Gordy looks like more of a buttkicker here than he has since he left Watts; even a nasty cut over his eye doesn't slow him down for long. Maybe trying to trade matwork with the natives simply wasn't his strong suit in Japan, although I know it's expected. But his big bombs aren't enough to beat Misawa, who knocks him out for the count with what looks like a forearm-style lariat. What's the name of the hold I've seen Misawa use in his last few bouts? It's similar to a cobra clutch, but it's applied when the other guy's already in a down position. It's an effective way to set up another finisher, but I think it would be a killer finisher of its own as well. Nastiest move of the match goes to Gordy's drop of Misawa directly on his forehead. I don't know exactly what it was, but it looked for a moment or two that Misawa was legitimately knocked loopy by it.