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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    If I hadn't seen the countdown at the start, I'd have assumed that Octagon was a jobber who'd pissed Satanico off somehow. I suppose the story of the match (Satanico's anger costs him one fall, and he was so busy being pleased over what he'd done that Octagon was able to sneak the other) was decent for what it was, but is this any way to treat a guy who's supposedly your number one wrestler? I'd have much rather seen the second fall contested straight up, with Octagon getting the win through superior skill. Fortunately, Satanico was enough of an asshole here that I'd pay to see a rematch if I had to, but I know no more about Octagon now than when I sat down to watch this match, and that's just wrong. Hopefully, the next bout between these two (if we get to see it) is a little more competitive. I don't understand the little sketches we sometimes get before, during, and after the lucha matches, but they're a good way for us to know how wrestling was presented on Mexican TV. For that reason alone, I hope we see more of them.
  2. garretta
    One of the wildest women's matches I've ever seen, period. I've never seen two women take the beatings Esther and Manami did in the second and third falls. We focus on Esther because she bled so insanely, but Manami didn't exactly escape unhurt. The amazing thing was that this match was still competitive in spite of all that, as Jungle Jack always seemed to be on the run despite the punishment they dished out. The finishing powerbomb from the second rope looked sickening, but that kind of brutality should be what it takes to finish off such plucky challengers. The only downside to this whole thing is Aja's continued use of the trash can. It must be like Abby and his fork or Original Sheik and his pencil: it's technically illegal, but the fans expect to see it, so the ref treats it as if it was legal. At least here it had a purpose, which was opening up that gusher on Esther's head. Moolah would have been horrified to see blood like that in a women's match, and I couldn't have blamed her one bit. If Esther bladed that deeply on purpose, she's either braindead, warped, or both. If it was an accident, my hat's off to her for continuing to compete on such a high level. I'd call this the greatest women's match I've ever seen, but I'm sure there's better to come throughout these Yearbooks. How Vince didn't see workers like this with both talent and beauty (Aja excepted, at least as far as beauty goes) and sign them up for his women's division I'll never know. Then again, if he had Sunny and Sable would have been so thoroughly outclassed it wouldn't have been funny (and for the record, I love Tammy as a performer, particularly in Smoky Mountain).
  3. garretta
    It's rare that a performance by a sleazeball midcard heel is good enough to not only win him a championship, but put the crowd on his side. Congratulations to Honaga for accomplishing that here, as he displayed as much tenacity as Liger did in this bout, if not more. Liger kicked out of everything under the sun (often at the last instant), but Honaga refused to let it get him down, and eventually scored a clean three count. I loved Liger lying on the mat after it was all over, despondent that for once in his life, his best just wasn't quite good enough. Once again, Honaga kept it basic, not trying to outwrestle Liger, but rather to beat him up. Great transition with a piledriver on the floor followed by a powerbomb through the press table, and from there the story told itself. I sure hope we have at least a couple of Honaga title defenses upcoming, because I'd love to see how this seemingly unlikely champion handles that role, especially with some of the great juniors we've seen in this tournament breathing down his neck.
  4. garretta
    This was a neat little match full of focused work on Hokuro's bad knee; if Minami had been any more aggressive, she would have turned herself heel. Hokuto takes the beating, and just when you think she's done comes back with that spectacular "four corners" aerial finish, all while still selling the leg. Great stuff, as was the sick bump Minami took right on her head. I expected Minami to stick around and congratulate her partner, but they took her out (ostensibly) for medical attention. I love the emotional scene after the match, as Hokuto cries from a mixture of pain, happiness, and relief upon having the belt strapped around her waist once more. Flik was right; if Minami had gone after Hokuto's leg a little more aggressively, she might have gotten a submission title win. But perhaps the point of the story was that there was too much of a bond between her and Hokuto to allow her to destroy her friend and partner just for a championship. Of course, Hokuto's desperate enough to turn this kindness into a weakness, as comradeship doesn't stop her from dropping Minami right on her head to get the final three-count I'm not sure how this would rank overall if I was still trying to do rankings, but this is the joshi Match of the Year so far (from admittedly slim pickings).
  5. garretta
    I thought this was very good, but I agree that it did no favors for the former champs. To be fair, though, Fujinami had a date with Flair at SuperBrawl, so it was in NJPW's best interest to portray him as unstoppable. I like the way they worked over Hase's knee with the scorpion to set up the winning figure four from Fujinami, and I don't think it was a coincidence that he used the figure four as his winning hold. New Japan was probably trying to promote Fujinami as superior to Flair in every way, so why not have him steal Flair's hold and get quick submissions with it? I don't know how much was made of the historic feud between Fujinami and Choshu here, but they certainly worked together well for former sworn enemies. Even at his age, Choshu is a tough old buzzard that can both give a hellacious bearing and take one. We'll get a better idea of how these teams match up if there's ever a match booked between them when Fujinami's not getting a (justifiable) monster push. For what this was, this was good. The only question now is, what's going to happen to Sasaki and Hase after back-to-back high-profile losses (the first one being to the Steiners at the Dome show)?
  6. garretta
    I'll give a zillion dollars in Monopoly money to the first person who can tell me just what this hot mess was supposed to accomplish. Now I know where the ECW faithful got the idea that they were entitled to not only be a part of the show, but get physically involved in it. Thank God no one was hurt, although the fan Funk choked out with a belt near the end came close. I won't go so far as to say that this match made a mockery out of a serious sport, but if one of the old-timers out there do, I'll be nodding along. I have to give credit to the lumberjacks for one thing: They took their duties seriously. Only once did they let the guy who got thrown out of the ring stay outside for longer than a few seconds. The main problem was that Lawler and Funk must have wanted a night off, so they played pitch-and-catch with the lumberjacks and forgot to wrestle each other. I'm looking forward to seeing a rematch between these two where they're in the mood to work the kind of match we all know they can, because this wasn't it by a thousand-to-one longshot. Good catch by Pete on Lawler's race-baiting. I noticed that whomever he was taunting had the good sense not to respond.
  7. garretta
    The major story in this match is, of course, Taue's finisher. Big props to Kawada for taking not one, but two brutal bumps right on the back of his head, first from the powerbomb, then from the move at the finish. I guarantee you that you wouldn't see any bumps like that today; no promotion would dare take the concussion risk. As it was, Kawada looked a little more glassy-eyed than he would have if he was just acting. Other than that, I liked the work on Taue's arm and Kawada's knee respectively. It was the bad knee that helped to cost Kawada his match against Jumbo, and here we see Taue attacking it ferociously as well. I'm sure that it will be a major focus of Jumbo and company as this feud progresses in all its many forms. I thought Kawada making Taue bleed was a nice touch as well; this match was hardly a brawl, but there's a rivalry between these two, so small expressions of hatred are always welcome. So what's next for Kawada? He came up short against Jumbo, and now Taue's made him leave on a stretcher. Is he still a reliable number two for the Misawa side, or will someone else have to step up? I can't wait to find out as this year progresses.
  8. garretta
    This is the kind of match I expected these four men to have. Not only does Stan play Ricky Morton better than anyone had a right to expect, but the whole bout from the missed tag on is one giant beefy four-way brawl. You had two matches in one for most of it, as former partners Hansen and Gordy battled on the outside while Doc tried to finish Spivey on the inside. He'd just about done it when the other ref came down and told Joe about the tag, and one flash lariat later, it was over. I'm not sure if this is the greatest tag match I've ever seen, but it's definitely the most creative finish to a tag match I've ever seen. I'd like to have seen JCP try it with Rock 'n' Roll and the Midnights just to see what smaller, more athletic teams could do with it, but I'll take what I can get. I'd love to see a rubber match between these two teams at some point, because they really work well together. I loved seeing the Japanese fans doing the Hook 'em Horns with Stan. It's easy to see how he became a national icon in Japan. I know I saw Doc swing twice during the intros. Did he hit two separate fans or did he hit one guy twice? Either way, I wonder if Baba ever got sued because of it.
  9. garretta
    The story that I took away from this is that Kawada had Jumbo on the run, but the work that Jumbo had done earlier in the match on Kawada's knee had left him unable to follow up after he'd hit Jumbo with some of his big kicks and had him ready to go. Kawada's plan seemed to be to knock Jumbo silly, then try for the win, which is a good plan when you're in there with a veteran like Jumbo. Unfortunately, he can't take advantage of his opportunities, and eventually Jumbo overwhelms him. I like how each man tried his best to block his opponents' big maneuvers, and even succeeded at times. It was the two Kawada couldn't block that did him in: the lariat and the Jumbo Driver. Even though Kawada lost, he acquitted himself beautifully, which should give him confidence the next time he locks horns with Jumbo, either in singles or tag competition. Whenever it is, I'm looking forward to it!
  10. garretta
    There was a lot to like here. The arm work by both guys was tremendous and not something that was expected in junior matches at the time. I thought Own showed just the right amount of aggression without heeling himself, and Liger responded in kind. Of course, Liger's top-rope DDT was absolutely brutal, and probably the best version not used by Jake Roberts. Liger definitely looked like he could go hold for hold with Owen on the mat, and the aerial moves we got to see reminded us that both of these guys could work that style as well as anyone.. I wouldn't exactly call this a Match of the Year candidate, but it was certainly above average. I'd pay to see these two go at it again,
  11. garretta
    I was impressed with Kobashi in particular here; he didn't take a backward step from Misawa, and even controlled him for long sections of the bout. His work on Misawa's head was very good; even the side headlock wasn't a dead spot, as the sheer length of time it was applied made it a dangerous hold. I'm not sure I like the idea of Misawa getting up from a DDT on the floor, but DDTs aren't deadly finishers in Japan, which is something I'm still getting used to. Misawa being so wary of the side headlock that he goes to kneebreakers and suplexes to try to either get out of it or avoid being caught in it again was the sign of an intelligent wrestler, and I liked that it took two powerbombs to put down Kobashi; he'll be a force to be reckoned with even while he's still relatively young and green. This may not have been a classic, but it's a better babyface/babyface match than you were liable to get in the States around this same time.
  12. garretta
    I'm doing this without reading the other comments, so apologies if I repeat things others may have said. I'm getting really, really tired of bullshit finishes. They ultimately render even the best matches totally meaningless and wastes of my time as a fan. The latest example is here; would it have killed Flair to get pinned, or even Pillman to get pinned in the figure four? It's not like Flair hasn't been pinned in non-title situations before; hell, he's been pinned many times without there even being a match. Pillman losing with Flair needing help from Arn would have not only put him over as being so tough that it took two men to beat him, but it would have built up the Pillman/Arn match the next night on Main Event. Instead, we get a Gigante run-in, which might sell a few more tickets to the Omni but does nothing for fans like me (at sixteen) sitting in my living room in Imperial, PA. To make it all worse, Gigante's main action was with Arn, who won't even be in the tag match the next night. Either do the Horsemen run-in with Windham or have Gigante come down after Pillman loses and make sure he chokes out Flair, not Arn. I guess Dusty figured he'd try to kill two birds with one stone, but the stone badly misfired as far as I'm concerned. I was going to talk about how they portrayed Pillman as one of the toughest men ever to put on a pair of tights, how Flair seemed scared of him from the get-go, and even how completely obnoxious Heyman was on commentary, but this match doesn't deserve it after that finish. It deserves nothing but......well, nothing. As I've said, I want my matches to go somewhere definitive; clean finishes aren't always necessary, but don't make the match totally irrelevant after making me spend fifteen minutes watching it. If you want Gigante to be what the fans remember, then put him in the ring against Flair and leave Pillman out of it. I'm not the biggest puroresu fan going, but I'm glad to be done with American wrestling for April after these last few bouts. At least I know the Japanese care enough about their matches not to ruin them with needless crap at the end.
  13. garretta
    There were a lot of reasons that this match unfolded the way it did, but even though I knew those reasons, it still fell flat. I knew there wouldn't be blood since they were taping for ESPN, but Lawler and Embry still did enough cage spots that I was reminded of it, which was a mistake. The talking spots may be a staple, but nothing of what Embry in particular said meant much to the match; it was just killing time, as if they had fifteen minutes of airtime to fill with a ten-minute bout. Even if they were protecting a legit neck injury of Lawler's (which I doubt), there were better ways to do it than that. I wasn't a fan of both belts being on the line; even though taking the Texas title was part of Lawler's plan for humiliating Embry, the question remains: What could he possibly want with it beyond that? He barely even works in Dallas. (Indeed, he vacated the title the next week, which led to the Embry/Dundee matches.) It might have been better to let Embry win the Unified title to send Lawler off on vacation beltless; everyone knows he's going to win it back eventually, and we could have had guys like Dundee, Jeff, and even Gilbert challenging for it. Finally, I could see Tojo's attempted interference coming a mile away, mostly because the nimrod who put the cage up left enough room between the cage and the ring for Tojo to slide a chain to Embry. Was it a mistake, or was it done that way deliberately since Tojo wasn't well and they wanted to make sure he could do it? Either way, it was a terrible thing to do if kayfabe was still important in Dallas. If Tojo was unable to perform properly, use Prichard as Embry's second, or go with another manager from the start, as I've suggested before. The one good thing was Embry's work on Lawler's neck, which was vicious and well-executed. Lawler sold it well too, which helped. Of course, we eventually got the patented Lawler comeback, but that was expected. This was one of the few sequences since Embry's turn where he looked like a badass without any outside interference or numbers advantage, and it was nice to see. Overall, I'm glad to be stepping away from the USWA for a while. Hopefully things will return to normal a bit more once Lawler returns. There's nothing wrong with this promotion that a new booker and some decent announcing won't fix; it already has the workers in place to be a real treat for the rest of this year.
  14. garretta
    This is the second useless match in a row that I've seen from this feud. Yes, the moves looked pretty, but to what end? We almost get a fistfight between the referees, and in the end Paul Neighbors simply takes the belt and runs away with it. I didn't know that referees were allowed to hold up titles purely on their own initiative, but there's been so much wackiness in this whole feud that it's disgusting. To make matters worse, Jeff was recognized as Southern champion the following week as if Tony Falk's three-count was deemed valid after all. (This is the chain match from 4/19.) Will somebody please make sense out of all this bullshit, if that's even possible? Oh well, at least Neighbors had the good sense to stay down when he was bumped, unlike Bill Alfonso in the Flair/Fujinami match. To make matters worse, Michael was awful here, with the example Pete cited earlier being just the tip of the iceberg. He miscalled some moves, just caught himself before miscalling others, and butchered the non-wrestling part of the language too. No, Michael, it is not an "auspicious" turn of events when a referee decides to kidnap the belt after playing "Mine! Mine!" with everybody else in the ring for five minutes. What the hell is this, Romper Room? I'm honestly surprised that that sequence was allowed to air, because it made everyone involved look amateurish. I think my tolerance for Memphis/Dallas chicanery is starting to run low, and that's sad for me, because I've always gotten a kick out of it before now. But the constant unstopped heel beatdowns, the lack of blood in stip matches where the sole purpose is to allow the combatants to bleed, the piss-poor announcing from everyone but Dave Brown, all of this and more is starting to catch up to me. I'll be glad when my last USWA segment (Lawler/Embry in the cage) is finished for this month. Maybe some time away will put things in a new light.
  15. garretta
    Sounds good to me, too. Thanks, Pete!
  16. garretta
    We already knew that these two could put on a show together from the '90 Survivor Series, and this match was on the level of that segment.......until the stuff with Piper and Sherri started. I know that they had to advance that angle, and seeing Piper and Sherri interact is always a treat, but it really felt like they scuttled a good match just to get that stuff in. Bret was really showing that he could go with Teddy for a long period of time, maybe even beat him, and instead we end up with the match thrown out and forgotten. What a shame. Piper and Savage are really developing a chemistry in the booth, although they were a bit more antagonistic than they had been previously. I liked Savage gloating about Teddy's offense and how he'd use it on Piper like he was on Bret. I also liked Savage and his "two and seven-eighths" routine, which I'll get back to in just a second. Also, notice that not a word was said by Vince to Piper about remembering his contract when he went down to confront Sherri. That's one advantage of doing commentary in a studio setting; the announcers already know the matches they're calling, so they know what not to say in order to avoid making themselves look foolish. As for Vince, he was at his worst here. It's bad enough that he barely called the moves, but his "ONE......TWO......THREE! HE GOT HIM!........no, he didn't" routine was totally obnoxious here, especially when he insisted that Bret had still gotten the three-count three different times after everyone watching saw Teddy kick out. His "THREE! THREE! THREE!" led to Randy's remark about "Two and seven-eighths" that I just mentioned, and Vince most likely didn't care for it, because after the next near fall, he sarcastically said that it was "two and fifteen-sixteenths". Savage played along to save the segment, but that's not the point. I don't know where Vince got this from, but it really makes him look moronic. He's supposed to be the lead announcer of the WWF and he can't tell what a three-count is? Somehow, I don't think he'd allow his announcers to do stuff like that today, and he shouldn't. He either never listened to his own commentary or truly didn't care how stupid he sounded as long as he made money, and that's sad. If you're going to put yourself in a position of public visibility such as commentary, shouldn't you at least act like you give a damn about the job? People get on Gino's case for his various shortcomings, but at least he knows when the hell the ref counts to three and when he doesn't. I guess I shouldn't be surprised about this considering Vince's track record of deliberately insulting his audience to see just how much they'll take, but I am.
  17. garretta
    Put the beginning and ending together, leave out the middle, and you've got one of the great junior heavyweight sprints of all time. High flying, great near falls, and an unexpected submission hold that I've never seen before. Unfortunately, we can't leave out the middle, and that's where this one drags, or more correctly it's where Liger and Casas conserve their energy so they can rest from the beginning and get ready to go all-out at the end. That's not to say that the work is bad, just dull and time-consuming. Plus, it's part of the house style. so I guess it was expected. What exactly was Liger's submission hold called? It looked like an inverted hanging shoulderbreaker, but Casas was selling the back of his neck more than his shoulder after the bout. It looked nasty, whatever it was.
  18. garretta
    This was a nice basic little brawl until Percy came down with the casket. After that, it was just a matter of when Taker would appear. That's kind of a shame, as there was definitely still an issue to be settled between Warrior and Sarge, who really went all out with his bumps here. He got little on offense except for the long bearhug, but he still managed to make the match look competitive, which goes to show how smart a worker he still was at this time. Savage was great on commentary; even though everyone knew that he hated Warrior for ending his career, he still managed to put Warrior over as a tough guy whom he might have taught a lesson or two about how to survive in the WWF. I liked his glee when he realized that both Warrior and Hogan could get stuffed in Taker's casket at the same time, and that was his only true heel moment. Vince reminded the world how Savage impacted the Warrior/Sarge match at the Rumble in a nice nod to history. Even though it got the job done, the postmatch still felt a bit rushed. I don't know how it could have been made longer, but it really wasn't sold as a major earthshaking event, at least not to me. There was a sense of "oh well, on to the next match" in the immediate aftermath, whereas previous major SNME angles (Savage/Honky, Megapowers Explosion) dominated the whole rest of the show, whether the remaining matches had anything to do with them or not. This one was sold in the moment, but I doubt we'll hear much talk about it in the Bret/Teddy match, which comes up later. I agree with Soup that Taker should have teamed with Sarge at SummerSlam; it would have been a much better bout. I was thinking that they added Sheik to the match specifically to take the pin, but it turned out that Hogan pinned Sarge, which he could have done just as easily with Taker as Sarge's partner. I think Vince wanted to set up Sarge's face turn, and he could only do that if Sarge took a loss with Adnan and Sheik as his partners, which would lead to their breakup. They didn't need Taker to feud with Sarge in any way shape or form; The Dead Man was headed straight for Hogan.
  19. garretta
    I agree with the prevailing sentiment here; this is the kind of filler match that would air on Prime Time in the States. which is to say an interesting, spirited bout that ultimately means nothing to the forward momentum of each man's career. It was a nice showcase for the abilities of both men, and I agree with Superstar that Kenta's double-arm DDT looked lethal (which it was here for Kroffat). I've never seen top rope moves so often and effectively countered as they were here. High fliers or not, you'd think these guys would have been more leery of going to the top after each man had countered one of their opponents' aerial maneuvers earlier.
  20. garretta
    This seemed like it was going to be a semi-competitive Benoit squash until the end, when he and Honaga started trading near-falls. Even then, I didn't expect the finish to be quite that quick, considering the moves they'd hit each other with up until that point. It's hard to believe that Honaga was the same guy who beat Liger as I watched him here. Whatever crispness and viciousness he had in that match never really showed up here; the closest we came to seeing it was the mask-tearing spot, and that doesn't really count. Still, beating Liger and Benoit in the space of a few weeks should be the start of a nice push for Honaga. Let's see what he does with it.
  21. garretta
    I'm wondering if Teddy might not have been mad at Piper for not letting him get a clean submission win here. The only thing I really noticed that was off was posting the wrong knee (which Heenan covered for brilliantly), but if he looked lethargic to some people, that might have been why. Think about it: Rod was mostly an announcer these days, and he was only tangential to the main issue of this feud, which was Teddy/Virgil. He was acting like a manager in a sense, and managers are basically expected to be squashed when they wrestle. So what was he doing getting in more than a few token punches? He should have been doing nothing but let Teddy grind his bad knee to a pulp and yelling "I QUIT, I QUIT!" as loudly as he could the minute Teddy put the figure-four on him. I don't agree with that line of thinking, but I wouldn't be shocked if that's what Teddy thought. When he got full-on babyface Piper instead, he might have said "The hell with this" and decided to futz around as much as he could, letting Sherri do the bulk of the work. That would explain why she was absolutely everywhere, long past the point of reasonable disqualification, or at least being thrown out of ringside. As a result, this match became more about Piper's guts than about Teddy's ruthlessness, which the fans bought wholesale. The biggest pop of the match came when it was announced that Piper had not submitted, and he came out on top in the end anyway, stripping Sherri of her skirt and sending her and Teddy fleeing back to the locker room. They could have worked that finish after almost any decision short of a clean DiBiase win, but it was still effective here it its own way. Once again, Heenan was the announcing star here; it was he who kept after the injury, constantly reminding the viewers of how hurt Piper was and how one effective move from DiBiase could cripple him for life. He's proving to me that he could be a serious analyst when he wanted to be, which I didn't think was possible. Gino was okay, and you could tell that Neidhart had plenty to learn. If "The Anvil" character wasn't appropriate for a situation (and it mostly wasn't unless Piper was in control), he had very little to say. I sort of get why Vince tried him on commentary; he was outlandish, could be funny at times, and still had name value. But that didn't mean he knew how to announce a wrestling match. Savage would have been a much better choice for a third man here, although he most likely had it in his deal with Vince that he worked Superstars and SNME only. Surprisingly, they didn't do a return match the next time the WWF came back to MSG; in fact, the next time Piper actually wrestled there in October, he lost to Flair by pinfall, his first ever pinfall loss at the Garden.
  22. garretta
    An absolutely useless match, for reasons already laid out earlier. The lack of blood wouldn't have stood out so much if both guys wouldn't have done things like punch with loaded fists and rake their opponents' foreheads with the chain, which anyone with half a brain knows would make the average human bleed like a faucet. Jeff in particular should have been tapping arteries left and right, but this is ESPN, so he's unscathed from start to finish. But as long as you can't have blood, why not have the usual USWA Senseless Babyface Beatdown, now with referees added? Seriously, this is beyond ridiculous now, and even the Sportatorium crowd knows it. The heels have no incentive to hide their cheating, or even to win their matches at all, because all they have to do is create a two-on-one or three-on-one afterward and it's open season on the faces, with no one caring enough to save whichever of their allies is in trouble. It figures that Embry's booking this, because it's he and his buddies Prichard and Austin who get to look unstoppable. They've gone through the entire face roster without an ounce of comeuppance, and who really thinks Jarrett can vanquish (not just beat for a three-count, but do so decisively) Prichard? Who thinks anyone can lay a glove on Embry? Not even Lawler's looked good against these guys, and that's really saying something, considering that he's supposed to be top dog even if he barely gives a damn about Dallas. This whole Tennessee/Texas thing, whether it's framed in those terms like it is in Memphis or not, is rapidly souring for me on both sides of the USWA. Well-executed holds and moves don't mean a thing to me if the ending to the story they're a part of is lousy, and so far this story has been beyond lousy. The entire face roster looks completely ineffectual right now, unable to do a thing right against Embry, Prichard, and company. Quite frankly, I'm surprised there hasn't been a backstage revolt. All I can say is that there better be a hell of a payoff coming very, very soon.
  23. garretta
    What disc of the '90 Yearbook is this on? I skipped over it when I did the '90 Yearbook because I wanted to watch it in its proper context.
  24. garretta
    The structure of this match was a lot more traditional than the first, and Windham gets a lot more sustained offense. The shoulder also isn't quite as big a deal, although JR and Paul mention it from time to time. The last match was about trying to exploit Pillman's injury; this match is about Windham trying to eliminate him in any and every way possible. But the gutsy Pillman rises to the occasion once more, fighting back despite his busted-open forehead and forcing Arn to run in and save Windham's hide. Not too bad for a Satuirday Night main event, especially only three weeks before a bigger Pillman/Windham confrontation at SuperBrawl. Even if they're not using the Horsemen name much by now, the concept is still intact, as we saw in the World Wide (by the way, is that supposed to be one word or two by now?) tag match. But Bobby Eaton saves the day for the first time in a situation not involving a babyface incarnation of the MX. That didn't totally sit well with me; the "feud partners are always matched no matter what" concept bugged me when Vince used to do it to the point of absurdity, and it's sad to see Dusty resorting to it. I guess if Eaton hadn't been in the building, Arn and Barry could have beaten Pillman to death without a peep from anyone else. I suppose Dusty needed to make sure that Bobby was cheered at SuperBrawl, so this wasn't totally nonsensical, but why not use Gigante, whose second career in recent weeks has seemed to be bailing Pillman out of every tight spot he gets into? I know Paul's supposed to be putting over the WCW wrestlers as the toughest guys in the world, but taking a shot at Bo Jackson for not being able to play football anymore because of a hip injury that eventually led to a replacement seemed cheap. I don't think it was necessarily a heel thing, either; JR may not have used that particular example, but I seem to remember many occasions where he called the toughness of boxers and football players into question compared with that of WCW wrestlers. I'll give Vince credit for this: he never put down another group of athletes to make the WWF wrestlers seem tough. The sad thing is, this is bound to get worse under guys like Bill Watts. This was a good setup for the eventual showdowns at SuperBrawl, but the first match was a little better as a standalone. Looking forward to more from these two.
  25. garretta
    I liked this better than most of you did. The switch from Rich to Gigante was about as well-executed as possible under the circumstances; the problem was, it never developed into anything because Sid ran in almost right away. Maybe World Wide, where a match like this only got ten minutes, wasn't the right place to run this type of angle. Besides, if JYD is a third of the six-man champions with Morton and Rich, wouldn't he have been the logical choice to replace Rich? Was he even still with the company by now? If I remember correctly, Borne got his third of the six-man belts around this time. Both Morton and Rich had tremendous sequences with Flair, and if I didn't know what was going to go down over the next couple of months, I would have sworn that they were building to at least a TV singles match between Flair and one or both of these guys. It's almost unfair to call Barry a passenger here, but he clearly had the least to do, though he did it well. One major thing I noticed: Tony and Gordon totally ignored the "We Want Sting" chants from the crowd. That tells me that this match was taped back when Sting and Flair still had an issue, most likely before WarGames. Now that Flair's moved on to Gigante and Fujinami, that's been disposed of and is to be ignored even when it's in plain sight, so to speak. I got a howl out of Tony trying to somehow make a Morton chant out of it. Were Tony and Gordon the main World Wide announcers at this point here in the States, or was their commentary especially for the fans in the UK? If they didn't do the show for American syndication, who did? If it had been allowed to develop and stand completely on its own, this could have been a first-rate TV match. As it is, it's still very good, but not quite great.
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