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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I didn't like this at all; the ring action never made it past the bad booking for me. If I'd been in Hayes and Garvin's shoes, I'd have given notice right after the match. Look, no one's saying that the Birds as they were then constituted were World championship material, but they deserved better than to basically be squashed in a handicap match by Scotty Steiner. Sure, they got a few nice moves, but so did plenty of TBS jobber teams. DDP never even showed, and Humperdink hadn't been added yet. Plus, the outcome needlessly exposed the business to every fan in attendance, although I'm not sure how much Dusty really cared about that by now. I'm with Soup; the Steiners should have challenged Doom at some point before WrestleWar and beaten them for the belts, thus seemingly reigniting that program at least until WrestleWar, when Doom could have been upset by the Birds and the dissension angle would have started in earnest. I'm guessing that with Flair, Arn (at least until his injury), and the Steiners in WarGames and Luger needing to retain the US belt for the Nikita feud, Dusty felt like he absolutely had to have some kind of title change to pop the crowd at WrestleWar, and the only title match left was Birds/Doom, so he tried to have his cake (a title change) and eat it too (the Steiners as long-term champs) regardless of the consequences. Needless to say, it came off as amateurish, disrespectful to Hayes and Garvin, and just plain dumb. Larry continues to impress me greatly as a color man on Pro. It's a shame (at least in a broadcasting sense) that he's going to be wrestling more in the next few months, because if he'd stuck solely to commentary, he would probably have been on WCWSN before long, which might have meant no Jesse, and maybe no Heenan either down the road.
  2. garretta
    This was a beautifully done tribute, but I notice that they didn't show any clips of Lawler going against anyone who's currently on his side, which leaves out his epic feuds with Dundee and Gilbert. They also left out his feud against Mantel, which probably meant more to Memphis than his one-and-dones with guys like Kabuki and Patera. I had no problem with the part of the video about children; all of those kids, as well as the kids currently watching, probably looked up to him, and how were they supposed to know he was a perverted old lech even back in 1991? Nice to hear Lance's call of the Lawler/Hennig clip; Memphis wrestling still misses him even though he's been gone for close to three years, and even though Dave's done a great job in his absence. I didn't recognize any of the "celebrities" shown in the Jerry Lawler Show clips, though I'm fairly sure that one of them's supposed to be some kind of Rodney Dangerfield impersonator. Can anyone help to identify them? From the Yes, I Know It's a Nitpick Department: Buddy Rogers held the NWA and the WWWF World titles simultaneously for a few months back in 1963, long before Lawler held the AWA and World Class belts simultaneously. And since when is the World Class belt supposed to be a World title, anyway?
  3. garretta
    This was a good segment on one hand, but it's also a reminder that Heenan the evil mastermind is nearing the end of the road. Would a Heenan who knew he was still in the running to possibly manage a World champion get down and dance with a man who his men may have to cripple on the road to the title? That aside, Koko's attempts to teach Bobby how to do the Bird were funny, and Bobby's actually not bad for a beginner when his time finally comes. Vince looks like he's trying to do the Spastic Pelican, and Koko finally has to save him from himself before he collapses with a heart attack. I actually would have rather heard Koko start by trying to sing along with the Lou Rawls cover the band was doing to establish himself as a legit singer, but if the lead singer of the band couldn't sound anything like Rawls, what chance would Koko have? I hope Bobby finally got to finish a dance with a woman before the episode was over, but knowing him, he probably ended up with a female impersonator instead! Even though this wasn't nearly as funny as some of the other segments done for the new Prime Time format, it's actually a quality comic bit for a wrestling program. This might have been Koko's most high-profile moment since the Piledriver album, and it might also be his last until his brief teaming with Owen Hart as High Energy. That's a shame, because he was really over when he first came to the WWF in the fall of 1986. I guess he was just too small to be a major player in Vince's world of superheavyweights and outlandish personalities.
  4. garretta
    Savage drives this on the mic, telling Warrior that this is his last chance to admit that he's scared, and also that he can't handle the Macho King. Warrior responds with a crack about how Savage will never get a crack at the World title again even if he beats Warrior, which will be made a lie about a year from this very time. We don't hear anything from Sherri or the other officials, and very little from Jack Tunney, which is kind of odd since Tunney at least has a few words to say at almost all the signings and in fact has been the main speaker at a few (such as Hogan-Andre at Mania III). Warrior then makes the usual promises to end Savage's career on behalf of all the little Warriors, then here come Percy and Taker to crash the party. My only problem with the Taker stuff is the same thing as usual: it's giving away the result of this match. What interest would Taker really have in Warrior (leaving aside the "sprinkle ashes on his career" routine) if he thought Warrior wasn't going to be around after Mania? Why wouldn't he turn his energy toward someone like Duggan or Jake, or even start talking about Hogan? On the one hand, this was a good way to get Taker into the action right off the bat, but they could have found another way to do it without ruining what was in essence the co-main event. All that aside, I like that Warrior is at least feeling a bit of trepidation toward Taker. It could be fear of the unknown, respect for his superior size, or both, but he certainly isn't rushing ahead blindly like he normally does, which is refreshing to see.
  5. garretta
    Interesting! Thanks, AJ.
  6. garretta
    Only Savage and Sherri could deliver such obviously bad jokes with such gusto. The Brain wasn't the only one laughing, I can assure you. I liked Heenan wolf-whistling at Sherri; it says a lot about his character that he'd do something so low-class in front of royalty. Savage didn't seem to mind, though. Sherri freaking out at the idea of Savage losing was indeed prophetic. I've touched on this before, but in a way it's a shame that the Savage/Sherri act had to be broken up. Liz may have been many good things, but a performer wasn't one of them. She was all right in her role as the timid, untouchable princess during Randy's heel glory days in the mid-eighties, and she wasn't bad as the "inspiration" for him while he was champion, but she wasn't good enough to be of much help to him against Jake and Flair this time around. Yes, both feuds centered around her being in danger of one sort or another, but she needed to be able to get as angry as he did over what happened to her, albeit in a quieter fashion, and I don't really remember that happening. Maybe these next two Yearbooks will prove me wrong, but strictly from a performance standpoint, it might have been better for him to stay with Sherri even as a face, as incongruous as a face Sherri might seem. Randy wasn't the only one missing something either; Sherri was never quite the same with either Teddy or Shawn Michaels, although she had some good moments with both of them. The highlight of the segment was Vince's look of outrage when Sherri said that there was "no way in HELL" (emphasis mine) that Savage was losing to Warrior at Mania. Corny as he could be sometimes, I miss the Vince that could get outraged over someone saying words like "hell" on television. Better him than the later "kiss my ass" version.
  7. garretta
    The old photos of Fargo were neat to see, and his promo was convincing enough, but I'm with Loss: Lawler better explain why he agreed to team with a man who just last month was trying to cripple him, and in fact piledrove him on the floor at WMC. Loyalty to Fargo is all well and good, but it's not going to be enough to sell this bill of goods. I'd have bought both Fabs coming back to fight the Texans with Lawler doing something else altogether a lot more easily. By the way, where was Stan around this time? I know that he left Memphis with Corny, but had he caught on anywhere else yet?
  8. garretta
    I don't know what really happened to the tape, but it came across almost like a steel cage effect. I had to rewind to see Embry shove the Texas belt in Fargo's face, which I don't think the announcers mentioned. I don't know how good Fargo was in the match, but it told me something that Lawler had to assist him in getting the winning fall. It reminded me a bit of how the British Bulldogs gave the winning fall to Captain Louis Albano in his final match after wrestling the entire bout themselves because Capper had no business whatsoever in the ring. (He pinned Johnny Valiant, whose partners were Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake.) I got a kick out of Embry and Dave going back and forth almost like a parent and child over him (or was it Prichard?) having to wrestle Danny Davis. Eric was like a child whining "Do we have to?" and Dave told him that they did in no uncertain terms. Yet another moment that could only happen in Memphis. It's sort of ironic that when it comes to footage of Fargo's beating, it's the babyfaces (in the person of Dave) who try to get out of showing it because they claim that it's not up to broadcast standard. I've never seen a face use a patented heel excuse like that before. If it had been Embry asked to show footage of a match where he lost the Texas title and he refused because it wasn't up to standard, Dave would have raised all kinds of hell. A second "Only in Memphis" moment.
  9. garretta
    Nice little puff piece here to celebrate and promote the 400th Jerry Lawler Show, which will air the following day on WMC. I've seen a few of these, and the Kingfish is surprisingly laid back, even when wrestlers he's feuding with are the guests, as they sometimes are. Plus, I've heard that he had quite a few non-wrestlers on the show and wasn't a bad serious interviewer, though I'm guessing that he wasn't exactly Mike Wallace or Phil Donahue either. I liked the fan who had "400" shaved into his head to commemorate the occasion. Wasn't he in the Snowman's posse when his feud with Lawler was going on? I seem to remember someone who looked vaguely like him.
  10. garretta
    I'm kind of surprised that Bill's tone toward Jamie isn't at least a little softer, but Bill's always been a fighting sort who doesn't particularly care who or eaht he fights as long as the scrap's good. They aren't putting father and son against each other just yet, though, because Bill wants to deal with Austin first. This should be quite the match, and yet another grand step in the education of the future Stone Cold. I agree with Kevin that they do the loaded fist finish a little too often, but from a kayfabe perspective, chains (the most often-used weapon used to load a fist) are small, can be hidden easily, and are oh-so-effective when wrapped around the hand of a good puncher. Plus, this finish was specifically used to set up a coal miner's glove match, so I don't have as much of a problem with it as I would if it was just used to win a random match which wasn't set up to lead to a stip rematch.
  11. garretta
    Once brilliance like this gets rolling, you don't stop it for anything. What I liked the most about this is that while Terry's words definitely sound like those of a lunatic, his delivery's very much in control. He's ranting, but he's still making perfect sense, and that's a skill few other people, let alone wrestlers, possess. Someone forgot to tell Terry that they weren't going to be at the MSC that week. Of course, as crazy as Terry is, you get the impression that he doesn't give half a hoot what building the match is in. It's Memphis, and that's awful enough. Other than forgetting Terry forgetting Tojo's name, the best moment here came when he exhorted the fans to oink like pigs in support of Lawler and company. Wouldn't it have been something else if they'd started to do just that? (By the way, are we positive that Terry forgot Tojo's name? Is it possible that he did what he did on purpose to get out of saying it, or just to be an ethnocentric, anti-Japanese clod?) Does anybody know what woman Lawler brought to ringside? Terry referenced a woman here who came to ringside with Lawler for the title match. Was it a contest winner? A ring girl? Could he have brought Paula with him, assuming they were still together?
  12. garretta
    This was excellent. Lawler pulls out the jokebook to run down Texas women, specifically Embry's mother, and Eddie promises to be doing the Fargo Strut with no less than the man himself. I like how Eddie's not quite ready to fully integrate himself with the faces, especially since he wants both of their belts. In fact, he blames Embry and Prichard for having to suspend his pursuit of those belts, and he's telling the truth; if Eddie wasn't booked to be on Lawler and Jeff's side in this feud, you can bet your house that he'd still be in the middle of a blood feud with one or both. Jeff's a nice, relatively calm change of pace, which brings me to Fargo. I know I really can't fault Fargo for the way he's being booked, even if he wanted to be portrayed as being able to stand toe-to-toe with guys like Embry, Prichard, and Funk, the decision's not ultimately his, hence Jarrett's the one to blame. But he's taking advantage of this privilege, if it exists. He's all but challenging the former Unified World champion even as he admits that he's an old man who would supposedly would rather be playing golf, and even as Lawler is telling the fans that the only reason he's putting the tights on is to get a piece of Tojo, a fellow non-wrestler. This is a classic mixed message that can only lead to trouble if Fargo can't match everyone else in the ring during the match, which would be damn near impossible for him to do, not just because of age, but also because of the beatings he's taken over the years. If I was booking, I'd find a fourth Texas wrestler (probably Austin) and a fourth Tennessee wrestler (Dundee) and fill out the match that way, with Fargo and Tojo as the cornermen. Let them beat each other's brains out on the floor or put them in the ring for a sequence after the regular match is over. Fargo slaps Tojo around for a few minutes, the heels carry Tojo out, and the faces do the Fargo strut to their (and the fans') heart's content. Count me in as someone who would have liked to see an angle shot at one of Lawler's personal appearances. I know why they didn't do it, though; they didn't want innocent fans accidentally getting hurt, either during the angle itself or in a misguided attempt to save Lawler from whoever the heels were (and don't think some fans wouldn't have tried it).
  13. garretta
    Well, if you're going to be tasteless and ridiculous, why not go all the way? Seriously, as horrible as this was, I can't single out Hogan, because he had nothing to do with the course Vince set for this crock of garbage months and months ago. At least Hogan waited until WrestleMania weekend to really stretch good taste and common sense to the limit; Sarge has been doing it for months. And, unaccountably, people went nuts for it all. Why be tasteful and talk about a wrestling match when you can invoke God Almighty and all the little dead children and blow the roof off of any arena you choose? It's nonsensical to do otherwise if your idea is to make money, especially if you have to make up the revenue you were counting on from 85,000 lost seats at Mania itself. I realize that it sounds like I'm giving Hogan a pass, and I guess I am to a certain point. The only stuff that really was off to me was what he said about bringing the WWF title to heaven so all the dead children can wrestle him for it; that's right up there with the worst stuff from last year. All the rest, including the references to God and the Hulkamania Wall, are on point for what Vince wants this match to be, which is nothing less than an actual battle in the Gulf War live on pay-per-view. How could Hogan, or Sarge for that matter, be expected to do anything less than hype said war for all it's worth, as disgusting as most fans find the notion? Sure, Sarge could have walked out, as I suggested way back when. So could Hogan, for that matter. But it wouldn't have changed a thing except the names on the marquee. The blame lies with the people (or, most likely, person) who decided that it was okay to go down this road in the first place, not the people chosen to actually walk said road. On a totally different subject, one of the few things Heenan does as a broadcaster that annoys me is when Gino mentions a standing ovation for one of the babyfaces and Heenan automatically says "What? I can't hear you!" or something similar. You've been in the WWF for seven years, Brain. If you don't know by now how nuts the crowds go for Hogan and Warrior, you're as hopeless as you look and sound. The first few times he did it were cute; now, it's a pain in the ass.
  14. garretta
    Not a bad promo by Warrior's standards, but they're giving away the finish of the match plain as day. Would anyone honestly expect Warrior not to react negatively to Taker and Percy taunting him if he lost? Would anyone expect him not to seek revenge in the ring? My guess is that if Savage had wanted to stay active, they'd have put him over somehow through Taker's outside interference, then had Jack Tunney void Warrior's retirement so he could get his hands on Taker. In other words, Warrior wasn't going anywhere, any way, anyhow, win or lose. Savage's legit desire to retire simply made things easier. I hope Warrior checked into the hospital at some point after the match and got that piece of Savage's scepter removed from his head. Then again, maybe it actually helped him think more clearly, so he decided to keep it!
  15. garretta
    Sarge didn't actually twirl his mustache, but he was the stereotypical foreign menace heel in every other way here. Was that better than what he's been up until now? I can't answer that. because I didn't much care for either one. I guess portraying him this way was less offensive to the much larger pay-per-view audience, and I guess that's a good thing, although showing the shirt-burning brings back to mind all the offensive garbage that's gone on since this whole mess started at the Royal Rumble. I liked Sarge mentioning that he could get himself DQd or counted out just to save the title. I've never heard a heel bring that up before; it's usually left to the announcers to do it. As for why it wasn't brought up during the match, if there was ever a time that Vince wanted to openly telegraph a Hogan pinfall win, it was here. It would have been counterproductive to even mention any other possible type of finish, kayfabe be damned. I honestly believe that if Vince thought he could have gotten away with Gino saying as Hogan walked down the aisle, "We've already decided that the Hulkster's gonna beat this no-good turncoat right in the center of the ring!", he would have told him to say just that. If Sarge had kept the belt in any make, shape. or form, the WWF probably would have either gone out of business entirely or at least lost most of its TV. As usual, Adnan adds absolutely nothing. I keep waiting for Vince to wise up and at least let him mix English and Iraqi (or whatever the language is called) but no such luck.
  16. garretta
    This was a tad too short. Teddy was still good here, but I expected him to gloat a little more about injuring Piper instead of crying about Virgil beating him. I'm surprised they didn't mention Sherri, as she was a big part of the postmatch that people would naturally want to know more about. At first I thought that they'd pretaped the segment and didn't want to give away the finish of the match, but that's one of the first things Vince did, so that wasn't it. My guess is that Virgil was sent to get some more training and polish, both in and out of the ring, so Teddy feuded with Piper in the meantime until the time was right for Virgil's big win at SummerSlam. I liked Heenan being led off by the two pretty girls, as well as Vince's reaction to him leaving his poker chips in his car. This new format for Prime Time is working out much better than I thought it would at first.
  17. garretta
    This looked to be a hot finish to a very good match. Nice tease of a double decision, although I doubt Machine could have put Hase all the way out in so short a time. Hase superplexing Sasaki on to of Saito (I think) for a pin attempt was one of the best spots of that type I've ever seen; it would have gotten a huge pop as a regular finisher. There was plenty of talk about the upcoming Steiner Brothers match, and now that I've seen Hase and Sasake look so impressive here, I can't wait to watch it!
  18. garretta
    I get that Lawler had just had a brutal match against Funk, but he was the one who should have come down to make the save for the faces, not Fargo. I can understand Tojo taking bumps for Fargo, but not Embry and Prichard. As I said in an earlier thread, that was probably part of the deal to get Fargo to come back, but I wouldn't have done it. Let a regular ref deal with Lawler/Funk if need be. Other than that, this was just your basic wild Monday night at the MSC. Now I guess Doug's in with the Tennessee side after getting piledriven twice by Embry and Prichard. I'd still rather see Dundee as the fourth Tennesseean, but I guess Doug's a nice departure from the obvious, especially since his regular partner Tony Anthony's apparently nowhere to be found. I liked Embry's declaration that he'll retire Lawler in the name of the United States of Texas. I still think Prichard's the better talker of the two, though. Hey, Dr. Tom, Lawler never said he was retiring; he just said he was taking some time off. Get the Texas oil out of your ears so you can hear better! Dr. Tom also gets the best line here, much to Dave Brown's embarrassment: "The best-looking ladies in Texas wear blue jeans........or nothing at all."
  19. garretta
    What we saw here was less about Virgil and Teddy settling their score and more about starting a full-blown Piper/DiBiase feud. I have to hand it to Rod; his hip had to still be bothering him so soon after his surgery, and yet he was willing to be tossed around by Teddy out on the hard floor, where one slip or bad landing could have legitimately ended his career. I noticed that Teddy and Sherri worked the knee and ankle with those crutch shots, but stayed as far away from the bad hip as they possibly could. I'll bet he was still hurting pretty badly regardless after they were finished. Virgil screaming at Piper to get up was a truly inspiring moment in a card full of them. This Mania definitely seems to be underrated when the great Manias of all time are discussed, no doubt due in part to the Hogan/Slaughter buildup, and that's a shame. Moments such as Hogan's title win, Warrior vanquishing Savage (who in turn gets saved from Sherri by Liz), Virgil helping Piper to symbolically regain his manhood after Piper had done the same for him, and any others I may have missed may not necessarily be great wrestling moments, but they're without doubt great sports entertainment moments. Today, we have very few of either kind in WWE. I didn't remember Sherri helping Teddy here; I thought she just appeared in his corner out of nowhere during the first tapings after Mania. I didn't catch her wig falling off as she attacked Piper. One more thing you'd never see today: fans trying to help fallen wrestlers up, as they did here with Piper. Even if they were allowed to, they wouldn't because it's spelled out so plainly that wrestling is 100% fake. Who would be stupid enough to help a freakin' actor in the middle of a performance?
  20. garretta
    Even though it's not brought up here by the announcers, part of the Colonel's elation probably had to do with the fact that he'd cost his former team the World titles. Actually, I don't remember the feud history between Bret, Jim, and Jimmy being brought up in relation to this match at any point, and that was a real missed opportunity in my book. The Nasties shaped up to be a much bigger threat to the Harts than the Rougeaus or Rhythm and Blues ever were. The action we saw looked really heated, and the Anvil getting the hot tag made sense, since he could stand toe to toe with both Knobbs and Sags. I don't ever recall another time when a weapon that had already been used unsuccessfully during a match was then used successfully to get a pin, as the Colonel's megaphone was here. The crowd really did sound shocked, just as Gino said. I'm guessing that some of them were hoping for a Harts/LOD showdown at some point, which I agree would have been something else. By the way, this wasn't quite it for the Harts; they were getting rematches with the Nasties on the house show circuit as late as July 1 at MSG. and that match definitely made tape, although I don't believe it made this set.
  21. garretta
    I think this would have been more effective with Taker backing Percy up. It certainly would have made more sense for prospective guests to be afraid of facing Taker than afraid of a bunch of mist and some cardboard tombstones. There wasn't much to this, really. The broadcasters got off the best lines; I liked Savage's "Just what I need, something upbeat!" and Piper not recognizing it as sarcasm, as well as Savage wondering if Hogan was in one of the tombstones. Not yet, Randy, but wait a few months! I've said this in a few other threads, but I agree with Pete about Percy's falsetto. His voice was naturally high to begin with, but to use that extra-high tone all the time really emphasized the hokeyness of the Paul Bearer character, even as Taker was doing his level best to come off as 100% legit. I still don't see what this segment could possibly have over the return of Piper's Pit, but I'm willing to give it a chance to get rolling.
  22. garretta
    They had to continue this feud; there was no one else set up to challenge Hogan. Warrior's time was gone, and who else was left on the heel side? Warlord? Sure, that would have been a real headliner for SummerSlam. Quake? Already disposed of. Teddy? Already disposed of, plus his feud with Virgil still had plenty of meat on it, especially after Virgil just beat him. Hennig? Long finished, and it wouldn't have been the same with Tolos in Curt's corner anyway. Hogan needed someone to bridge to an eventual showdown with Taker (remember, Flair wasn't on the radar yet), and Sarge was as good as anyone. Even if some didn't agree with how he got it, he still drew more real heat than any Hogan challenger since Andre, and he could still work a good brawl. Where Vince messed up was in doing the handicap match at SummerSlam and the Desert Storm matches on the house show circuit instead of the other way around. These two didn't need Sheik, Adnan, or Warrior to have a good match. Then again, as some have said, I think Vince considered Randy and Liz's wedding the real main event of that card to the point that whatever else was there didn't matter much. As for this segment, I didn't consider either man's acting much good, but that wasn't the point; the fireball was, and it was such a shock that the fans didn't need to remember much else. I'm kind of surprised that they didn't do at least a small injury angle with this, but they probably felt it would be overkill after doing something similar with Quake the year before. What is Vince's obsession with rape? We had Studd and Patera raping Andre's dignity by cutting his hair back in the day, now we have Sarge raping Hogan's victory by burning him. I guess if you have Vince's background (he was reportedly a victim of sexual abuse as a child, courtesy of his stepfather), rape is a fate worse than death, the worst possible thing that can happen to a person (assuming, of course, that one doesn't turn into a rapist themselves, which Vince didn't).
  23. garretta
    I think this might have been the first step in preparing the fans for Flair's eventual departure from the company. I'm not sure how they would have reversed course if he'd decided to stay at the last minute, though. I say all of this because it's strange for Dusty to want to break up the Horsemen as part of the normal course of business after they scored as clean a win as they ever had at WrestleWar. Dusty and Barry seemed to be having a good time with each other here. I think the segment was meant to tease lingering tensions between Dusty and the group, with a physical showdown at least possible. But they made no attempt to pull it off; it seemed almost an older brother teasing his younger brother about the big, bad company only he thinks he's keeping. Still, it was nice to hear JJ and Tully mentioned again, even in passing. I got a kick out of the ending, where Barry paid Dusty a backhanded compliment about how good of an interviewer he is. Dusty, of course, took it as the truth, smiling at Barry as he walked away. Whether intentional or not, it was good comedy.
  24. garretta
    I'd always wondered what Teddy guesting on Piper's Pit would have been like, and now I have my answer. This was first-rate stuff, and would have been even without Virgil coming in at the end. I loved how Teddy got into the flow of the back-and-forth with Piper while still staying in character, and the closeups we got of his face let us know that he would have liked nothing better than to just pound the hell out of an injured and defenseless Piper, but couldn't. Rod got plenty bold as a result; I especially liked the part where he informed the world that Teddy's tuxedo shirt had no back and proceeded to give Teddy his own shirt, which had a back. I wonder if he got heat for it, since the WWF designed Teddy's costume that way on purpose; in a way, it's like he was breaking kayfabe. Virgil's not a good talker yet, but he gets his point across. Notice, though, that unlike most heels, Teddy doesn't run scared. It's a neat way of reminding the audience that, as far as he's come under Piper's tutelage, Virgil hasn't earned the respect that almost all other WWF wrestlers have. To get that respect, he'll have to beat Teddy at Mania, and with Piper injured and unable to help, he'll have to do it on his own. Was Teddy wearing the Million Dollar Belt? I figured he would have shown it off at some point just to rub it in Piper and Virgil's faces. With Piper still capable of doing verbal confrontations like these, it still amazes me why Vince turned to Beefcake as one of Brother Love's replacements. For that matter, I don't really understand why Percy and Taker got a segment so early on in their run, either. If I'd been Vince, I'd have run Piper's Pit as my main interview segment whenever Piper was on the active roster right up until he left for Atlanta.
  25. garretta
    This was tremendous, and it didn't really come off as silly, either. I liked Jake explaining what the injury did to him and his family, and while the snake lessons were out of place a bit, they had to explain them since they went to the trouble of bringing them out in the first place. The pin the tail segments were funny, but they also put over how the blindfold match was going to be worked. Anyone who saw the segment would know how to help Jake at Mania, which increases crowd participation and involvement in what's bound to be a very awkward match where physicality is going to be limited. Both Jake and Bobby were at their comic best, and it amazes me that Jake's going to be the most hated man in wrestling in just a few months, because the crowd's eating him up here, especially when he's chasing Heenan out of the studio. It's kind of sad that we don't see more Martel promos for this match, but Jake's so good at selling it that we don't have to hear from his opponent. I didn't know until just a few days ago that Jake was as scared of snakes as most of the other wrestlers were. It amazes me that he was able to keep his cool in segments like this, where he's surrounded by them, and that he was able to carry Damien, Lucifer, and especially the cobra to the ring so calmly. As Savage found out, even a defanged cobra can be mighty dangerous.
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