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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    I admit I got a few sick chuckles out of this, but it's really not suitable for viewing by children, which were ostensibly still the WWF's target audience. Between the "body parts" and Heenan's magical barf in Part 1 and the borderline necrophilic thrill Vince seemed to get out of Part 2, this was pretty disgusting. Knowing that the second "cadaver" was really a very much alive Lord Alfred made things a little better, but not much. Now we know what at least one of the inspirations for the infamous Katie Vick segment was, I suppose. Describing the embalming process verbally would have been quite sufficient, especially since Percy was a real-life expert on the subject. Speaking of Percy, he was the MVP here, staying totally serious and in character despite all of the sophomoric bullshit going on around him. I like the almost-natural voice he uses here much more than the falsetto he permanently adopts later. He or whoever suggested it to him might have thought it made him sound scarier, but it actually sounded like someone had crawled inside his pants and stuck his privates in a vise. It was annoying when he used it occasionally in Dallas, and it's even worse in the WWF. Best line goes to Heenan, when Percy shows him the first "cadaver's" heart: "I know Bret Hart, and that's about as close as I wanna get to this!" This may have been a classic WWF skit, but in this case that's not a compliment.
  2. garretta
    This was excellently done. Strangely enough, this was more satisfying than Bossman himself beating Heenan up would have been, even though we all know that Bossman's mom really wasn't hurting him, even in a kayfabe sense. In fact, she looked arm-weary after the first few swings, but the point had been made. The inevitable question: Was this really Ray Traylor's mother? She looks like she could have been, but hearing her speak might have been more of a clue, and of course we didn't. They're starting to tease Bossman/Mountie already, and it's a natural feud, considering their gimmicks. This is right about the time I stopped watching weekly in real time, so I'm interested to see how this feud plays out. I wouldn't think that Jacques could give Bossman much trouble without cheating, considering their size difference. I'm warming up to this new format for Prime Time, particularly since you'd never see a segment like this with the old format. But I still miss the interaction between Gino and Bobby; try as he might, Vince just isn't as natural of a straight man for the Brain. Even for plants, that crowd was loud and enthusiastic. I wonder if they sold some tickets locally in the Stamford area for the studio segments; I know the WWF staff was growing around this time, but there couldn't have been that many available employees to watch a taping, could there?
  3. garretta
    When you have Fargo as the referee, naturally the match is going to be about him; there's no reason to bring him in otherwise. You knew he was going to be the reason Lawler got the belt back, and so he was. Yes, Terry got screwed. Yes, Embry and Prichard have a valid point. But it's Lawler, it's Fargo, and it's Memphis, so too bad so sad and a round of raspberries for one and all. Seriously, the action we got was tremendous, but it always is with these two, who bring out the craziness in each other like no one else ever, and that's really saying something in Funk's case. I'm actually more bothered by Fargo punching out Funk after the match than I am what he did during the match. The screwy pinfall can be spun as a heel getting what he deserved, but there's no way to spin an old man like Fargo getting the best of a man who walked into the MSC that night as World champion, and no-selling the beating he got to boot. I know what a legend Fargo is in Memphis, but you'd think he could have been convinced to at least take a bit of a beating from the two hottest heels in the territory. Maybe it was in the agreement for his use that he got to come out on top decisively; if it was, he should be wrestling whenever needed for the rest of the angle, since he can obviously still go toe-to-toe with guys like Embry and Prichard. I didn't catch as much Piper as usual in Dr. Tom, and I think he's a better talker than Embry, to be honest (although Embry sounds sleazier). The Hangmen make a good addition to this feud, and I'm wondering who the fourth Tenneseean will be to make the sides even. By all rights it should be Dundee, but he's been doing his own thing of late.
  4. garretta
    If it was anyone but Funk as champion, I'd say they were telegraphing the result here, but Terry's been such an absentee champion that they need to get the belt back on a regular. Lawler did mention a few other prior commitments and mandatory title defenses should he win, so we know this isn't really it for good, but I'm wondering if Jarrett wanted him to step back for a bit and see if Jeff, Austin, and a few others could at least help to carry the ball. I liked the low-key nature of this interview. It really helped to sell the match as something more than just an average Monday night card the likes of which has been seen a thousand times. There wasn't an insult or funny line from Lawler at any point, even to those who would normally deserve it, like Funk or Gilbert. Nice touch. What alternative venue did they hold Memphis house shows in during the MSC dispute? I find it hard to believe that all Memphis fans got was TV; there simply isn't time within any TV broadcast to have the type of matches that truly advance storylines, at least not very often.
  5. garretta
    Memphis didn't recognize Wanz or Jumbo as World champions, or even Martel until sometime in '85. Whenever Bock came in, he was always billed as the AWA World champion whether he actually held the title in the rest of the AWA or not, mostly because his matches with Lawler were so good and he drew so much heat. Lawler got one shot at Martel in '85 (which is on the Memphis set), then they skipped over Hansen entirely, brought Bock back in for a few defenses in '87, then brought Hennig in for the change in '88. It's a shame that Lawler had burned his bridges by the time Zbyszko got the belt, as a Lawler/Larry Z series would have been tailor made for Memphis.
  6. garretta
    Okay, I understand now. It's not the chewing that's gotten me so much as the fact that he's always slobbering all over himself with so much of it in his mouth at one time. You can see it spilling over, and he's drooling on himself so that tobacco juice is on his chest and all over anything he touches. I don't think it's possible that he has that much trouble controlling his chew, so he's being told to do this by the bookers, and I'll be damned if I can figure out why. It makes his interviews impossible to watch or listen to, especially on a full stomach or while I'm eating, and it makes his character look like a total backwoods hick, not a badass. Even if it's actually licorice he's chewing and not tobacco, as I suspect, it's still gross and disgusting. Hogan may be exploiting the troops and the war, but at least he's spreading a positive message, even if it's for his own (and Vince's) financial gain. He's providing aid and comfort to the people in the USO camps who probably wouldn't care even if they knew he was making money, directly or indirectly, off of his visit, and he's also no doubt inspiring some of their children to keep believing in the American cause through him. There's nothing even remotely positive about whatever Hansen's doing in WCW, either socially or in a wrestling sense (since he isn't U.S. champion anymore).
  7. garretta
    The reason there was no heat for this is that very few in the crowd even saw it. It looked like they were up in the last few rows. Gentlemen, they have a ring and a ringside area for a reason; you don't need to fight up in the rafters where no one in the arena can see you. Who held the mic for Nikita? Either Missy had the worst hair day of her life or there was a new blonde interviewer whom we've never seen before.
  8. garretta
    Could you show me where I defended Vince for allowing the Gulf War angle, Soup? The only thing I remember defending was some of the Hogan stuff, and that's only because he really had no choice after how Vince had laid out the angle beforehand. I thought (and still think) that the rest of it is crap. I've been pretty clear on that. My disgust for this angle came after I read Pete's post where he quoted Meltzer as saying that this was a direct response to the whole Lisa Olson sexual harassment story that had happened a few months earlier. I thought that it was as distasteful to use this story as part of an angle, just as I did the Gulf War. The fact that it was Missy who they used made it worse; she's been portrayed as nothing but a brainless airhead ever since she got into the business, and to position her as a crusader for female journalists in wrestling is utterly ridiculous, even more so if it was done as deliberately insulting satire, which it undoubtedly was.
  9. garretta
    This may sound nuts, but when I first saw this gimmick back in the day, I thought the WWF was offering real tax advice. That's how out of place this was. I'm with Pete; they set this up wrong. When you're watching a wrestling show, you expect to see wrestlers, not IRS agents. Unless you knew this was Rotundo, this segment made no sense at all, and even if you did, you were probably wondering why Mike was acting as a tax expert. I don't know how the worlds of professional wrestling and tax law can possibly be reconciled within a character's backstory, especially that of a former World tag team champion, but Vince should have tried. Better yet, he could have scrapped this gimmick and given Mike one that allowed professional wrestling to be a bigger part of it. Maybe something similar to Mr. Backlund, or maybe a replacement for Virgil as DiBiase's bodyguard/personal assistant, which would have logically led to the formation of Money, Inc. later on.
  10. garretta
    I don't think this was a reset button as much as it was a resumption after a pause. I could see them doing something like this the week after Mania VI last year to finally cement the Andre/Heenan breakup, but since Andre had health issues, they simply froze the breakup angle in place and thawed it out, as it were, here. Unfortunately, it never got to go much of anywhere. I actually understood more of what Andre was saying than I had for a while, which was good. Bobby, of course, was a riot talking about how rolling around in grapes was good for the back and skin, which is true if we're talking about not wanting those parts torn to pieces by an angry Giant. I loved how Gene and the broadcasters were all linking their chops at the thought of Andre tearing Heenan apart right then and there. I just wish he'd been physically able to. I had trouble recognizing the voice alongside Gino until it dawned on me that this was Jim Neidhart's first week in the booth on Challenge. I hope we hear some more of him, because I want to be able to form an opinion on how good he was. From what little I remember, he was awful.
  11. garretta
    This is so much better than the first cage match promo it's not even funny. Flair's always better when he's trying to mess with his opponent's head than he is when he's just bragging on himself, and here he attempts to do a psych job on Sting, not by saying that he doesn't believe Sting can be The Man, but that Sting himself doesn't believe it, even as he asks for cage matches with Gigante as the referee. Like a lot of others here, I'm now excited for a match that I know isn't on the set (though the parts of WarGames where they faced off provided a nice little preview). If Flair would just do promos like this all the time, he'd deserve his reputation as the best heel promo in wrestling history.
  12. garretta
    I don't see how you haven't, Soup. Comparing the burning of a Hulk Rules T-shirt to the burning of an actual American flag? Are you kidding? That alone is among the most tasteless and ridiculous things I've ever seen in wrestling, never mind Slaughter's attempt to involve Saddam Hussein in the angle earlier and all the rest of this crap. This particular promo was nothing we haven't heard before going back years; Hogan's always talked about the combat zone and used war metaphors on occasion. But they've never felt gratuitous and exploitative like they have here. Give me a couple of idiots speaking in tongues any day. At least I can laugh at their stupidity. One thing I've just thought of: Vince had the perfect opportunity to really make Hogan seem patriotic and was too dumb to take advantage of it. What do I mean? Remember the "American Made" T-shirts that Hogan wore from time to time over the first couple of years of his reign, mostly with white trunks? Why not bring those back as long as you've gone this far? You'll never have a better angle for it, after all. The problem was, Vince presumably thought so little of his audience that he didn't want to confuse them by presenting Hogan out of "uniform" (that is, red and yellow). That's always been the way with Vince; he's so busy trying to be edgy and hip, and making sure everyone knows just how edgy and hip he is, that he overlooks subtle and more tasteful touches that would get his point across just as well if not better.
  13. garretta
    Dusty overreached here a bit. Gang's evil enough on his own; he doesn't need Sully to brainwash him (which was apparently what they were going for). Just bring him out with Teddy as Teddy's new bodyguard/mercenary and you've got a ready-made feud. It isn't like Gang hasn't gotten over with an African-American manager before. Then again, Sully and Dusty are buddies from way back, so I guess they had to find something for him to do. By the way, I didn't mind the clothes so much, but the eye shadow Sully and Gang wore was absolutely horrible. Simmons standing up to Gang was another important step in making him someone who the fans could believe in. I'd love to have seen that match the next night (I'm guessing on Main Event).
  14. garretta
    If this came from syndicated Pro, why would they mention a venue or a specific city? That would be counterproductive, because the match would be coming to any number of cities around the country. There's enough incompetence that we can blame WCW for as it is; let's not start obsessing over other things just for the sake of trashing them. I'm guessing that the Stinger was Arsenio's guest at some point, and Arsenio referred to Sting as the champion. Knowing WCW, they picked on a rerun that had been taped while Sting was champion just for Flair to be able to make that point. (I know I just said not to trash WCW over every little thing, but I can actually see them being stupid enough to do something like this.) With Flair not choosing to use El Gigante to describe our friendly neighborhood Argentine giant, I wonder if some people got confused and thought that Andre was coming in to referee some WCW bouts. It certainly wouldn't surprise me, and I thought that was one of the reasons why they made sure to refer to him as "El Gigante" in the first place.
  15. garretta
    Flair would have attacked anyone who wasn't a Horseman in order to get that interview time. It had nothing to do with how high Ranger Ross was in the packing order, or anything to do with him at all, for that matter. I agree that screaming Flair fell kind of flat here; then again, he has (at least to my ears) since some time in the mid-eighties. For someone who's supposed to be one of the world's smoothest operators, he spends most of his time coming off like a just-escaped mental patient. He isn't a bad promo by any stretch, but he's not one of the best in history, and he's not even the best among the Horsemen. Arn and Tully both run rings around him when they're on their game. I said in an earlier thread that I couldn't really blame WCW for hyping Omni shows on TBS if they had no syndication in Atlanta. The question then becomes: Why didn't they get syndication in Atlanta, and on what else did they choose to spend the money that would have gotten them said syndication? I think JR's seen Flair's act too often to be truly outraged. He was probably selling chagrin at the interview being interrupted more than disgust at Flair's actions. Flair pinned Sting clean in the cage match, by the way.
  16. garretta
    The opening sequence was more Hogan-centric than any other opening except maybe the "Thriller" opening to Championship back in the mid-eighties. Is there anyone else on the roster? I sure hope they filmed a different opening for the international shows; even our allies may not have appreciated getting the red, white, and blue shoved down their throats at the beginning of a wrestling show. Maybe Savage won't be as bad as I remember; I liked his line about becoming "the WWF broadcasting champion", although Jesse's got that belt retired, at least for the color commentating division. I liked Piper's mini-promo on DiBiase and his use of the phrase "dig it" at the end, which of course Savage took (hopefully) comic exception to. I also liked Randy's small hand gesture of support for Piper when he talked about going after Sherri. These two might just be fun after all.
  17. garretta
    The best part of this is that Hogan never once even teased turning this into a promo or wrestling interview (through inflections, use of "brother", etc.). If you didn't know he was a wrestler, you'd never have been able to guess. Could this be his best acting job ever?
  18. garretta
    I liked Paul calling Peanuthead one-half of Doom. In fact, I'd have liked to see a tag match where Reed brought Teddy out as a partner and they did the Hogan/Okerlund pinfall (as in, Reed wrestles the match, then puts Teddy on top for the pin) just for kicks. Simmons and Missy? Sorry, I don't think Florida State football is enough of a common bond to put these two together. It's nice to finally know exactly where Missy hails from, though. When Simmons was doing his bit at the end, he clearly referred to a match with Reed sometime that weekend. My question is, who was he referring to as a chicken, Teddy or Paul? It almost sounds like he was supposed to go after Teddy verbally, but Teddy left the segment before he was supposed to. Either that or Simmons was looking in completely the wrong place, because he looked at Paul the whole time he was talking.
  19. garretta
    This was interesting. Jeff didn't seem too thrilled with the Kingfish, and I can't blame him one bit. Why should Jeff care if Lawler ever wins the World title again? He needs a partner if he's going to tangle with the Texans, and the last I checked, Lawler and Jeff were still the tag team champions, so it's not as if this was a stranger coming to Lawler with his hand out begging for a favor. If ever they decide to stir tensions between Jeff and Lawler, they could use this interview, because Lawler did everything but thumb his nose at Jeff here. That said, Lawler cut a tremendous recovery promo, playing the "I'm one of you" card to prevent the fans from hating him too much, not that they ever would. Lawler brings up that Funk's from Texas just like Embry and Prichard, and it'll be interesting to see if the Texans call on him for backup in the next few weeks. They need a partner to make the sides even, remember. Eddie may be on the "good" side of this fight, but he's by no means a babyface; he's still too consumed by his jealousy of and rivalry with Lawler to truly come together with him for the greater good of Memphis wrestling. He has a point about Lawler needing to reach out to Jeff pretty quickly to avoid losing him as an ally, though. From the "If They Did This, There Wouldn't Be an Angle" Department: Why didn't Jeff simply reach out to Dundee? Was he still supposed to be on the shelf after being attacked by the Fabs? Austin being in the round robin is a breath of fresh air. Now we know that he faced Lawler at least once in the MSC. I wish we had film of it!
  20. garretta
    I liked how Marlin denied Lawler's request to wrestle twice. There's no way that even Lawler could wrestle two matches if one of them was a tag match in this out-of-control feud and the other was against Terry Funk for the Unified title; it would be like begging to be seriously hurt. Gilbert's always great when he's fired up, and this is no exception. When he gives up a possible shot at the Southern title, which he's said in the past was even bigger to him than the Unified belt because he's dreamed about owning it since he was a little boy, you know that Embry and Prichard have him mad. I'm not sure if I like Lawler's attitude here or not. On the one hand, Eddie's tried to kill and/or cripple him time and again over the years. On the other hand, so has Dundee, and they're as close to being bosom buddies as they know how to be, so why can't he be a bit more forgiving? It would be the royal thing to do! Seriously, as fruitless as turning Lawler heel again in Memphis would have been, having to protect and be on the same side as Gilbert would have been a good catalyst for a turn, especially if he's "accidentally" hit by Gilbert while he's in Jarrett's corner (note the emphasis) for the match on Monday night. For those of you who might be wondering, Lawler's attitude here is proof positive that the Lawler/Gilbert issue is far, far from dead.
  21. garretta
    This was definitely a "softer" toy commercial than we're used to from the WWF. There was a regular toy commercial-type voiceover, a goofy skit with parents and kids, and a general air of cuddliness about the whole thing. I kind of liked the more action-packed commercials with a WWF announcer doing the voiceover and more of a wrestling atmosphere. Then again, these were stuffed toys instead of action figures, so maybe Vince thought a change in style was warranted. Interesting to learn about which buddies bumped and which didn't. Talk about micromanagement from Vince! How in the world did a well-respected toy company like Tonka put up with stuff like that?
  22. garretta
    So this whole "Queen of England" bit was actually a Heenan plot. Great, except that the Warlord, Davey Boy's opponent at Mania and the guy this so-called "queen" has been tearing down for the past few weeks, is managed by Slick. I don't know if Vince didn't think the Slickster could pull something like this off or if Ken Johnson objected to doing it, but either way, the payoff makes no sense (though Heenan being knighted was good for a laugh). Maybe they should have had Davey vs. Haku or Barby at Mania instead. The hidden camera was effective here, but stuff like this working is what led to its overuse today.
  23. garretta
    I understand not showing Ricky's face, but I don't know why these are so short. It's almost like Vince didn't really want to hype him much, even with this gimmick. I can think of a hundred different people who came in with better stuff than this, including total nonentities like Outback Jack. No wonder Ricky went back to WCW after only a few months.
  24. garretta
    I thought this was over the top by a fair bit. Yes, the whole character was designed to be that way, but it actually works better when it's toned down slightly. The original vignettes put over the same point (Teddy's a entitled rich man who uses his wealth and flaunts it in front of others just to be a prick) without obvious embellishments such as the vanity license plate and the "We Accept Ted" sign on the jeweler's door. Plus, the laugh's effective in small doses, but when he does it as often as he does here, it's just off-putting. In an earlier thread, I mentioned that they needed to give Savage a possible post-Mania feud should he have beaten Warrior. Crazy as it sounds, I think Teddy could have been it. Have him try to buy Sherri with the jewelry we saw in the skit, which Sherri accepts. Randy demands to know who's trying to tempt his queen, and we have a confrontation that leads to a Sherri turn. Liz comes back to counteract Sherri in Teddy's corner, and we're off and running. I think they might have been leaning that way before they turned Jake, because Randy wasn't happy at all when Sherri hooked up with Teddy after Mania, although she'd already turned on him by then. I'm not sure if this feud would have been the classic that the Jake feud was, but it wouldn't have been a bad substitute if they'd wanted Jake to stay a face, or if Warrior had stuck around to keep him busy after the turn.
  25. garretta
    This would have been better if the Bushwhackers had been a bit quieter, but if they had been they wouldn't have been the Bushwhackers. I wondered why Gene was holding the side of his neck until he pulled Luke off of the shelf. Those squirt heads must have been awfully small, because I never saw what Luke was doing; I just kind of guessed that he was squirting Gene with them (why else would they be promoting squirt heads otherwise?) Mean Gene doing at least a partial Bushwhacker Bounce is a sight every wrestling fan should see once before he or she dies.
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