The Russian Daydream

I'm surprised how polarised people are on this. Personally I really enjoyed it, although I watched the commercial version of the show. Without the closeup detail, I suspect this match isn't nearly as good on handheld. I liked the slick but realistic mat work early on, I liked how it built to something more agressive and I loved the opposites of their characters. Hase is there smiling constantly while Fujiwara just looks brilliantly cynical. The look on his face after he floors Hase in the corner with an open-hand slap is tremendous. I really didn't mind the quick finish. It fit the match and was decisive, not really comparable with the Sting Norton match previous. It's not a perfect match but seemed to work for me a lot better than it did for others. ****

This really did seem weird. I enjoyed the match, cannot really complain about any of the work and agree that Norton's selling of both the blood and the early leg injury was top class. I just found the way Sting was the bully and Norton the underdog so strange. The finish was quite peculiar as well. Overall I enjoyed it, I just couldn't help but wonder why they had it play out like that.

I'm surprised by the negativity Parv had as a child towards The Heavenly Bodies. I think we are roughly the same age (34) and I first started getting into wrestling proper when NWA came on ITV in 1989. The Midnight Express and Jim Cornette were a big part of that scene throughout 89 and 90 before Cornette and Lane left. A couple of years later, I was still a WCW guy all the way but read every wrestling magazine I could get my hands on. The Apter mags and Superstars of Wrestling always had good coverage of Smokey Mountain and I just saw the Heavenly Bodies as a direct descendent of The Midnight Express. When my parents got Sky in 1993, the first WWF PPV I watched was The Survivor Series and here were The Bodies vs The R&R Express in the match of the night. From that point on I always looked forward to The Bodies and enjoyed them a fair bit. Looking back now as an adult, I still enjoy watching them and always get a kick out of Jimmy Del Ray's sleaziest man alive character. At the time I never saw them as an inferior talent but that might be because of the way I had hardly seen any WWF until just as they were coming in and they wrestled a style that was very comparable with what I was used to from WCW. Fun show once again by the way.

It's so well produced and such a gentle listen. Thanks a lot for this.

On the subject of WWF magazine's weird obsession with Virgil, I remember a feature, probably around the beginning of 1994, where Bob Backlund talked about healthy eating. One of the accompanying pictures featured Bob showing Virgil (for no apparent reason) how to put carrots into a blender. The resulting smoothie looked utterly disgusting by the way.

That's a match I really want to see but have never gotten hold of. A few that spring to mind for me would be all of the Davey Boy Smith vs Vader matches from 93. Really fun, hard-hitting matches that just aren't on that top level. The Steiners also had dozens of this level of match in the late 80s / early 90s with all sorts of people. That we're just never quite focused enough to have really great matches except for the odd occasion, but they were almost always really good. I'd put a lot of matches with Doom, Road Warriors, Andersons, Anderson and Eaton, Vader and Mr Hughes and so on into this category.

I particularly enjoyed the segment discussing the changing look of the WWF over the years. One thing you didn't mention was the standardisation of the ring itself. In the mid 80s they seemed to have older rings which popped up now and again, even on big televised events. If you watch Wrestling Classic from 85, it's a much bouncier ring than usual with rubber tubing ropes (rather than real ropes). The turnbuckles were also taped up rather than having proper pads. At WrestleMania 2, the following year, on one of the rings, the ropes were attached to the ringpost by chains rather than the normal turnbuckles. There were probably other examples of this too. By 88 as you said though, this never would happen. Everything was standardised with the official uniform WWF look. It's a very interesting topic.

I really like the Japanese bit. The behind the scenes stuff from Japan in the 80s and 90s is fascinating and is something I know far less about than the US. I always enjoy that section and think it would be good to have more detail in the Japan stuff, although I expect there's simply far less is torus available.

Really good stuff again. I definitely prefer their July 96 match featuring Kobashi's title win, however there was a lot to love about this. Soup23 is right that the no-sell sequences are just about forgivable, although I cringed a little when they did the 'I do a DDT, you do a DDT and neither of us sell' bit. The finish was awesome, just really well done and sold by both guys. My favourite moment of the whole match though was when Kobashi hits the spinning chop on Taue, who was on the apron and his legs just buckled like they were jelly. The second half was also helped along a good bit by some super-enthusiastic girls in the front row opposite the camera. Their reactions were massive.

I thought this was pretty awesome. It isn't quite a perfect 5-star match for me, but it is ultra memorable. I feel like there are moments and visuals in Thierry which I'll remember forever. I totally bought into the hatred in the match, the blood was absolutely fitting and I thought Sawyer as the psychotic animal type was brilliant (the aforementioned tugging on the roof was a perfect touch). As for the finish, I could totally buy that the beating inflicted could be enough to render a man unconscious, so it worked for me. That piledriver by Rich was a weird one. I had to wind back and check I'd not lost concentration and missed something, it just came from nowhere and didn't really go anywhere either, like they paused precedings for a quick piledrivers before resuming the match. As for the crowd, you could hear the crowd were into it, although it wasn't miked like at a modern professionally shot show. The problem was the fans opposite the camera in the front row, hardly moved. I don't think they were really a reflection of the whole crowd, but that half-dozen do bring the atmosphere down a touch.

Absolutely the post match has to be included in one's overall take a match. A blistering brawl or a heartfelt celebration after a title win can add a lot to an overall package. JVonK is right 100% on the Abby/Sheik vs Funk brawl. It transcends the match itself. Another example I would give is the locker room coming in to celebrate with Ron Simmons after his title win over Vader. It was a good match, but how the finish was put over by that celebration made it one of the more memorable matches I watched as a boy. By adding gravitas to what I'd just seen I think it made it a better match. As for the thread title, a weak finish does not necessarily hurt a match, however there are some matches where the finish takes me out of the match and hurts it in my eyes. One which springs to mind is the Michaels vs Undertaker cell match. Although it's a huge angle and it makes sense for him to interfere, the minute Kane's 'magic ringpost flames' erupt, I'm completely removed from the gritty realism of the brawl I've just bring watching. I think if Taker had pinned Michaels after the chair and then Kane was a post-match angle I'd have accepted it better but as is, it really damages the match for me.

I figured that was Joe Malenko especially with the comment about "he sure was in demand" later. Maybe.................................................................................................................................................. Ah, I hadn't gotten to the Joe Malenko bit until my home-bound commute!

Indeed, this happens from time-to-time. I was left racking my brain through most of my drive to work today trying to think which Jewish wrestler, who toured Japan in the 80s it was who Bix thought most likely to have been more adept than Dr Death at smuggling contraband substances. There needs to be a glossary of references that those of us not 'in the know' can refer to!

I thought it might have been something like that. Incidentally, when he went to WWF, was he just an announcer or did he have other responsibilities backstage?

Not sure if you were joking or not, but I've long thought that Stan Lane was a guy they should have spoken to about that Horseman spot in 1993. He was just finishing up with Smoky Mountain around Slamboree time, had the right look for a Horseman and would have made a really good partner for Arn. Perhaps he wouldn't have been up for it though because he was pretty much finished as a wrestler at this point. I'm not sure I ever knew why Lane quit at this time actually. I don't think he was injured. Had he just gotten bored of it?

Definitely! I really enjoyed this too. It has a different, slightly more American feel than your standard AllJapan house-style heavyweight matche, but not in a bad way. It told a fun story and was always exciting. I don't think we should underestimate the contribution of the woman in the front row either, who was so obviously into this match. Her enthusiasm was quite infectious.

I cannot really argue with a lot of what you guys said here. 1992 was an awesome year, and, like Parv, have nostalgic memories of doing what I could to catch WorldWide when ITV decided to show it, whenever they decided to show it! The timeline definitely did jump around a fair bit too. I remember Ric Flair being the campion one week and the next hopping well into Luger's reign the next with no explanation. It didn't help that I kept up with the news through WCW magazine and the Apter mags, where you would buy an issue with 'February 1993' on the cover, in November of 1992, which would cover news from about August or September of 1992. I do think it is a shame that you guys didn't review the Ron Simmons vs Vader title change though. I thought it was a really good match and the crowd made it into quite the moment. Ron's title run quickly turned to crap, but it certainly got off to a good start. Ron quite rightly got painted as a failure as champion and came off pretty badly in your PPV reviews during his reign, so it would have been really interesting to hear what you guys thought of the win originally and if you thought if anything could have been done to keep that initial momentum up. I also have to say I feel pretty bad for Jimmy Garvin. The poor guy has had Parv on his case for years now. I know he's not that good, but there was definitely worse than him during 1992 WCW! Super Invader? Eric Watts? Maybe I'm blinkered and it's a nostalgia thing - I still love the 'Yeah yeah yeah' bit. I totallly endorse Chad regarding Masa Chono though.

Interesting show as always. Thanks so much for your efforts. You were mentioning Sam Houston in WCW, well there is a TV match with Ric Flair from right before Flair left which I remember thinking was odd at the time because I'd never seen Houston before and never saw him again. I also remember finding the match really exciting, but I'd have only been nine when I saw it and I've not seen it since so I'm not sure how it would seem today. Funny that it's stuck in my mind for 25 years though. Incidentally, if you want to track it down, Cagematch have it as the Main Event taping on 5-1-91.

It was fun hearing you guys discuss this. I've not watched any of the Brawl for All stuff since it first aired but I might go back and watch some now. When Kris read out the section about the failure of Brawl for All at the end, it's hard to argue. From the list of injuries to the absolute lack of over-ness of anyone involved leading to about half of the competitors being released within a year, it turned out a total mess. One thing I do wonder though is, would Steve Williams WWF run have turned out much differently if Brawl for All hadn't happened? I doubt it. Beyond the fact he wasn't a good promo which would have hurt him from the start, the wrestling style he developed over his career was just incomparable with the WWF main event roster. Williams had spent the last half-decade gaining notoriety for hitting people really hard and suplexing them on their heads. There is no way, as fragile as he was by autumn 98, that Steve Austin would have been willing to take that offence, and without the offence, Williams is just the boring leg-lock guy that showed up in WCW in 92. I just cannot see how Jim Ross was able to convince anyone that Williams was the right guy to push as the main heel at that time.

Our tastes are pretty much identical. I would extend WWF beyond 1993 though, probably up until SummerSlam of 1997. I would also add NOAH from 2000 until The second dome show in 2005.

This was really silly but it was harmless good fun which made the show stand out as something different and special. I actually really liked how this show was set up to feel unique. Being outdoors with the Roman theme, and the black-gold-black ropes were a nice feature too as I don't think they'd used anything other than red-White-blue for the best part of a decade. This wasn't a great show but it was the booking mainly and to some extent the wrestling which let it down. The theme stuff was good fun.

I completely agree with this, and relating to this and the Shane Douglas love from several pages back, I really really like the Douglas vs Pitbull 2 match from ECW's 'Dr Is In'. I still have fun watching a bit of ECW now and again but find RVD's act far less enjoyable than I did in the late 90s. The Sandman on the other hand is still a riot. As for the conversation earlier about Bobby Eaton being overrated, he just isn't. I feel that he's regarded as a fantastic wrestler but a crap promo. I regard that a pretty accurate rating.

Sid would only need to stand and do nothing to still have 'it' though.

I really enjoyed this. Watching it on its own, not thinking about the bigger picture, I really had several heart stopping moments where I thought Akiyama might just win it. After the excitement of the near falls though, the finish did feel a bit flat. I don't think not winning here really hurt Akiyama at all. He came across here as on Misawa's level and only a big move away from victory.

I was just having a think about the TV matches from 1992 and would like to add the Ron Simmons title win over Vader (I believe the full match was on Main Event on August 16th) to Pete F3's list. Simmons' reign became a disaster but it got off to a great start. Also, I've been watching a fair bit of 93 WCW lately and Parv really shouldn't worry. WCW's 1993 feels to me like a year that has an unfairly bad reputation. Yes there's a fair bit of wrestlecrap (Cactus Jack's memory loss, midgets on exploding boats, The Shockmaster and so on) but I've found a lot of the actual wrestling is very good. He's also got a Dory Funk Jr vs Nick Bockwinkel match at Slamboree to look forward to!