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I don't think anyone could have anticipated that this song would ever be set to slomo footage of Chris Candido squashing a bag with a cat (ostensibly) in it. Cactus has paperwork demonstrating that Boo Bradley is certifiably sane and capable of living on his own.

Rich tries to hold one of PG-13 for Bowden to hit, but he slips away and Rich gets nailed instead. Every time this spot happens and it leads to tension or a split, the guy who nails his partner is always portrayed as the one being in the wrong, which I never understood. Isn't it the holder's responsibility not to lose his grip, with any negative consequences being his own fault?

Sabu is just not cut out for cage matches--he's a guy who needs to be flying all over the place in and out of the ring and the cage restricts that too much. He also gets visibly frustrated a few times when things don't go right--an attempted triple jump moonsault with a plastic trash can (yeah, right) and an attempted Arabian Facebuster with too big of a table. Actually, the "too restricting" thing applies to Cactus as well. Not really that bad but nowhere close to the earlier matches between these two. And I agree with everything said about the announcing, Doc! Doc Doc Doc Doc Doc!

"Steve" Richards in Scotty Flamingo gear and his fabulous '80s blow-dried mullet is out for the biggest day in the history of ECW. Tremendous heat for him already. He eventually introduces The Raven, in a look that's standard now but was pretty mindblowing at the time. I think it was a smart move to drop all the references to Polo, Flamingo, and Scotty the Body off the bat, letting the crowd work whatever clever comments they had out of their system before debuting the gimmick proper. Same logic Heyman would re-use at Occupy Raw with CM Punk.

Pamela looking very doable here.

I observed this in the previous match, but it is refreshing to see Raw coming from a big arena with a sizable-looking crowd for once. Lawler's a pro, and this is decent enough for what it is, but it sure isn't as entertaining as the braying laugh track portrayed by Vince McMahon thinks it is. And so the idea of Lawler as any kind of threat comes to a permanent end. Interesting that Bret gets the star rub here and not Diesel. Is that because of the mutual Canadian-ness? Was the original Star Trek a little too fresh and recent to be on Big Daddy Cool's radar?

A common criticism of 1992 rears its head again: Bret should not be in ring gear considering he's been inactive since Survivor Series and his comeback match isn't until next week. The action here was much better than at KOTR and the run-ins are handled logically. But this is sort of symptomatic of a 1995 trend of heels not being allowed to get any heat on the faces, a trend that would continue until Bill Watts' arrival.

The TV Title will never look out of place around the waist of Arn Anderson. Finish seemed somewhat blown, like Badd was supposed to go for a rolling cradle and froze.

Not what I'd call a great match, but something I think is worth seeing by anyone interested in a complete history of wrestling. As part of the deathmatch genre it's pretty seminal, even if there are Onita matches that are better than this--this match had some smart work but didn't really build to a satisfying finish the way Onita does best. This is still quite good, with some jawdropping spots involving fire and thrown chairs. And flaming thrown chairs. This is also helped tremendously by the bookended promos, which give it a touch of uniqueness that the FMW stuff can't offer.

Chip Kessler does blink a little this time, but those bug eyes are weird. Cornette's surprise that he promised: an injunction preventing the Gangstas' posse from being at ringside. Clever. New Jack clocks Gibson with a blackjack, but with the referee still tied up Morton gets his hands on the tennis racket and takes out New Jack with it to regain the tag titles. During the inevitable post-match beatdown, Cornette swerves everyone by asking the Gangstas to hold up Morton, then clobbering both Gangstas with the racket instead! That doesn't last though, and eventually Jimbo gets overwhelmed, and even breaks out the blade. They also take out Cornette's recurring bad knee. The Rock 'n Rolls make a standing offer for Cornette to be in their corner for all subsequent matches against the Gangstas. Cornette has to convalesce in his home with twelve stitches and a busted kneecap, and cuts the promo of the motherfucking YEAR (including '94), outlining his motivations and having everything make perfect sense. He was going to let the Rock 'n Rolls get beaten down, but the cheers and exhortations of the fans led to him attempting to save the day. Cornette paid for it, and is bringing in the Heavenly Bodies for a possible match with the Gangstas on January 28! That's great...but first he has to meet with Bob Armstrong to get their ban lifted. He makes a hell of an argument. Absolutely stone-cold brilliant stuff here, and if the CANE DEWEY/anti-hardcore stuff wasn't coming later then this would lock up the Best Interview of the Year immediately. Can't wait to see where this goes, which is all you can ask of an episode of wrestling television.

Pro-shot ending of the match we saw at the end of the '94 Yearbook, but here we get the post-match. Chris turns on Boo and Tammy stuffs Boots the Cat in a burlap sack and runs off to throw him off a bridge. Eventually Boo rescues the sack (after a convenient backstage switch) but once again Tammy's trusty hairspray comes out, and Candido drops a leg from the top turnbuckle onto the sack. This is done better than Earthquake squashing Damian but is still a pretty over-the-top and unnecessary way to turn Boo babyface considering how blatant the writing was on the wall almost from the moment he debuted. Mark Curtis and the Power Ranger (!!) are of no comfort to Boo, but Cactus Jack returns to offer his support. I'm a cat person myself, so this hits a little closer than a snake being squashed or even Al Snow's dog being cooked off-camera. Everyone plays their role well, but this is getting very close to the Terri Runnels miscarriage angle that Cornette hated so much, for similar reasons. This results in Tammy Fytch being suspended, presumably to go to the WWF and start doing the Live Event News segments. But Cactus Jack successfully petitions SMW to keep Candido so that Boo can strike a blow for those who have been used and abused.

Jerry Lawler comes across the "Dirty White Boy," some guy passed out underneath a pile of clothes. He lays verbal waste to the White Boy, Dirty White Girl, and to the city of Knoxville while extolling the virtues of Memphis. After spinning his wheels for months, White Boy suddenly has two hot issues going on.

It helps that longtime Memphis fans would know Beverly Dundee as an on-air character herself (or "a bald-headed old hag," as the heels put it). This is awesome on all levels. Bowden is nice and focused and Rich and Gilbert get some great lines about PG-13's families but go on and on--by design, because they needed to go over-the-top to draw them out. The heel interviews are awesome, the brawls are awesome, and PG-13's response is awesome. Wolfie declaring that he's the same person when the cameras are off, and Wolfie and JC both talking about stealing things if they have to, are examples of some great character work. It's amazing how authentic two skinny white Tennessee boys come off when playing two hoodies. Take note, Public Enemy.

Well, this might be the most divisive match on the 5 Yearbooks and change so far. I thought this was fantastic, but I wasn't as high on it as Loss. Getting to watch joshi grow from where it was from 1990 until "now" probably helps alleviate some of the criticisms. After watching 5 years' worth of this stuff, I know what to expect and what not to bother hoping for, and the match stands up as great in its own context. It's better than anything at Big Egg Universe, but it's not at the level of the Dream Rush/Dream Slam/Thunderqueen holy trinity of joshi tags. For example, I thought Inoue's final kickout in the first fall was unnecessary--she should have gone down after the flurry of suplexes from Hasegawa instead of kicking out only to go down right after to a tornado DDT. Toyota's table dives were bothersome, but this has been a trademark of hers for the past several months, and incidentally I don't think it's a coincidence that she started using tables in '94--Meltzer may have overstated his case at the time, but Sabu's influence was far-reaching indeed. What struck me watching this was just how good the execution on almost everything was. It didn't tell a transcendental story like the other tags mentioned, but almost every single move, every spot, and every kickout was pulled off beautifully from both a timing and execution standpoint. The only issues were the table dive re-do and a spot where Takako pulls Toyota off the turnbuckles to set up a Doomsday Device but doesn't quite successfully sit her on her shoulders, forcing Toyota to rather obviously grab onto Takako's head to set up Kyoko hitting her. But considering how much else they crammed into this, those are minor concerns. This should be in the running for MOTY, or at least a top 10 spot.

Sasaki's ridiculous Brian Bosworth mullet haircut is a crime against humanity, but everything else here was great. Kind of a Hash carry job but that's only fitting for the guy who's been New Japan's MVP for the past year-plus. Sasaki sure isn't afraid to beat the shit out of a guy though, and Hash obliges him. I liked this more than the other Sasaki singles match I have feelings about, which is the Kawada bout (good but underwhelming).

Rick and Scott are apparently representing the nation of Uganda, judging by their ring attire (black, red, and yellow striped singlets--sorry, not leopard-skin loincloths and moons and stars painted on their chests). The '91 Dome match is still the Steiners' high watermark in Japan but this was a lot of fun, helped immeasurably by the feel-good ending. This has some fresh new spots, like that bizarre yet entertaining interlude with the ladies at ringside, including who is presumably Mrs. Hase. Lots of twists on previous standard spots, like Rick catching Mutoh with the German suplex off the handspring attempt and Mutoh having an answer for that, and Scott countering Mutoh's ramp-running clothesline. Mutoh's final counter, backflipping through a German suplex attempt by Rick and creaming him with a dropkick, was an awesome spot and a great way to set up the finish. Hase gets the big moment, and we get a long overdue win for a native team over the Steiners. Match of the Year so far!

This was good, but that's all. Ohtani is a magnificent athlete whose springboards always look fantastic, but at least at this point he's not a guy who can lay out a great match start to finish. Too often he goes back to the chinlock or head scissors as a resthold (an applicable term here), while Samurai holds the match together more. Good closing stretch and finish, which is sold as an upset even though Ohtani's defending some sort of belt.

Absolutely brilliant piece of work. Mikey evolves from a total punching bag to a punching bag who's willing to stand up for himself, right before our eyes.

The UFC influence is seeping in already, though Wright is far from a good choice for such a gimmick. Meanwhile at virtually the same time in WCW, Craig Pittman was pretty much the same way, but better.

I think the Nasties were pre-announced, despite being a tag team (then again the Rockers were still together when they were announced, too). The replacements for Knobbs and Jannetty were Haku and Nikolai Volkoff, neither of whom had been seen in a long while, though Haku was always under contract and mostly working in WAR.

Another Yearbook come and gone. I wrap up 1994 with another Observer Awards ballot--a pick for not just Match of the Year but Match of the Century that I never would have anticipated before diving in, laments over the second half of the year, Smoky Mountain love, and Evad Sullivan hate.

1994 wasn’t always the easiest of years to get through, especially the second half. WCW turned into the Hogan Show and the WWF kept finding new ways to bottom out. Plus there was fewer AJPW to pick from and New Japan seemed to get very quiet after the WAR feud was blown off, and their situation wasn’t helped by Jushin Liger breaking his leg. By the end, Smoky Mountain and to a lesser extent the USWA were what was carrying the load. Wrestling seemed to be a dying industry just like it seems now. The business surprised us once before, but that was a time when Japan was still very healthy. Time will tell if it can surprise us again, but I think it would require some Bischoff or Paul E.-styled maverick with a Kevin Sullivan-esque creative mind to do so, and I’m not sure if wrestling can attract those people anymore. And the Awards for 1994. As usual real winners in parentheses, with these awards being for the calendar year and not December-to-November like the real votes. CATEGORY A AWARDS WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (Toshiaki Kawada) 1. Steve Williams 2. Toshiaki Kawada 3. Vader It was close but I still think Doc had more impact on All-Japan as a whole. He was by a nose the better overall performer in the Carnival and he ended Misawa’s epic TC reign in another terrific match. His performances did tail off toward the end of the year but his first ¾ were strong enough to make up for it. Vader didn’t do much for North American business but he was churning out awesome matches and selling out baseball stadiums in Japan for a promotion that didn’t have TV. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER (Kenta Kobashi) 1. Toshiaki Kawada 2. Vader 3. Steve Williams Both of these awards were actually fairly tough. In addition to being a down year overall, it seemed that few people broke out of the pack to separate themselves from the rest of the world, even as they were turning in good or even great performances. Doc really only broke out in comparison to his previous self. I could have easily given a spot to Aja Kong, Akira Hokuto, or Great Sasuke here. Or even Sabu (the #2 Observer WOTY!) who DID break the mold. Selection bias or not, it also seemed like there were more guys who showed up for a great match or two but with fewer consistent performances throughout the year. BEST BABYFACE (Atsushi Onita) 1. Dustin Rhodes 2. Atsushi Onita 3. Bret Hart Onita had a fine year but Rhodes had performances that should have launched him into World title contention. Instead he doesn’t even work Starrcade. Bret was a refreshingly real person in a cartoon world that made the “cartoon wrestling” of 1985 expansion WWF look like RINGS. BEST HEEL (Art Barr) 1. Art Barr 2. New Jack 3. Bob Backlund Vader probably should have been in here but Backlund and New Jack ultimately get nods for subverting prior expectations. I wasn’t always crazy about Love Machine’s work but he redeemed himself by the time of When Worlds Collide, as Los Gringos Locos had turned into a quasi-NWO-type faction that technicos and rudos alike aligned against. I know the Gangstas didn’t draw, but neither did Jake Roberts in ’91 and I wasn’t going to not vote for him then. FEUD OF THE YEAR (Los Gringos Locos vs. AAA) 1. Dustin Rhodes vs. the Stud Stable 2. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart 3. Lord Steven Regal vs. Larry Zbyszko Kind of weird that we’d get 3 positive domestic awards in a year where international wrestling really started pulling away from the U.S. But the work in these feuds was just that good. Exposer was right—Rhodes vs. Parker’s gang was really the last of the great southern-style feuds. Bret and Owen were two of the best workers in the company and with the help of some thoughtful booking made what could have been a very hard-to-believe storyline work. Regal feuding with an announcer should have had no business being as good as it was. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR (Los Gringos Locos) 1. Los Gringos Locos 2. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi 3. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue Tag wrestling took a major step back in general—the Headshrinkers were one of the last WWF tag title reigns that didn’t feel like a complete afterthought, and the WCW belts bounced from the Nasty Boys to various solid but underwhelming fare like Stars & Stripes and Pretty Wonderful. The Heavenly Bodies and Quebecers were non-factors the second half of the year, and the Rock ‘n Rolls couldn’t get much out of the Gangstas, despite how great the promos were. Barr & Eddy were actually drawing big houses in addition to putting on good matches. MOST IMPROVED (Diesel) 1. Diesel 2. Johnny B. Badd 3. Chris Candido Diesel’s babyface act is lame as hell but his improvement in the ring can’t be denied. Badd is now starting to come into his own as a semi-serious worker, with the Regal matches and TV title win as a collective coming out party, as we head into what will probably be his best year. The staying power that Mero was able to have with that gimmick was nothing short of amazing. Imagine Oz or PN News lasting all the way until Nitro started—Badd realistically shouldn’t have avoided the same fate as them. I think Candido was good before but he really got a chance to cut loose with some long matches against fairly major opponents in ’94. He’s not to the point of carrying others yet but he put in meaningful contributions to his good matches this year. Meanwhile, Sid Vicious and Shane Douglas would have won Most Improved Interviews Awards if they existed. MOST UNIMPROVED (Hulk Hogan) 1. Lex Luger 2. Masahiro Chono 3. Eddie Gilbert Hulk for all of his faults had two strong performances on PPV and was a boon to the big shows he appeared on even if his exorbitant contract resulted in a net loss. Luger, a guy who won Florida’s Southern title 18 days after his debut, was probably at his lowest point of his entire career, push-wise. He choked on the big stage again, then had PPV losses to Tatanka and King Kong Bundy (!), firmly entrenching him as mid-card 4 life in the WWF. And he sure wasn’t churning out good performances in the process, not that he could necessarily be blamed. Chono’s heel turn and debut of the all-black look didn’t make the set, but if it hadn’t been for that he may as well have been dead for as much of a non-factor as he was. Gilbert was way past his sell-by date—every USWA comeback saw diminishing returns and he looked awful, lazy, and out-of-it in the NWA tournament. Honorable mention to Jesse Ventura, who really needed to go when he did. His contract actually ran into early ’95 but WCW made the wise decision to eat the contract and make him sit at home for the last chunk of it. MOST OBNOXIOUS (Hulk Hogan) 1. Hulk Hogan 2. Dave Sullivan 3. Vince McMahon Hogan could still bring it in the ring when he wanted to but his personality bordered on skin-crawling, and his influence over the rest of the promotion by the fall couldn’t be ignored either. Evad made me want to eject the disc and throw my screen out the window every time he interrupted an interview segment, which seemed to happen hourly. Vince was still good at getting angles over but the NEW GENERATION UNBEE-LEEE-VIABLE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE WWF fake laugh mode had completely overtaken him. BEST ON INTERVIEWS (Ric Flair) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Cactus Jack 3. New Jack Jack was the frontrunner for most of this, but I’ll concede that his interviews ultimately did more to turn away fans than pack them in, plus Cornette and Cactus made strong pushes toward the end of the year. Cornette rejuvenated himself with a fresh angle managing the Rock ‘n Roll Express and Cactus was doing great work in multiple promotions. MOST CHARISMATIC (Atsushi Onita) 1. Atsushi Onita 2. Nobuhiko Takada 3. Genichiro Tenryu No one in the U.S. is getting this and the easiest pick from Mexico (Konnan) turned heel, which without a ton of knowledge struck me as a bad, premature move. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER (Chris Benoit) 1. Volk Han 2. Hiroshi Hase 3. Lord Steven Regal As usual, who qualifies as a “technician” is sometimes spurious, especially if you look at the actual rankings (Kobashi and Toyota? I…guess, but I don’t really view them that way). I’ve tended to look at these as being ¾ about pure matwork and ¼ execution of advanced moves. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD (Cactus Jack) 1. Cactus Jack 2. Sabu 3. Terry Funk These guys all had good chemistry with each other amd were all good in different ways, in promotions that generally booked them to their strengths. BEST FLYING WRESTLER (Great Sasuke) 1. The Great Sasuke 2. Sabu 3. The 1-2-3 Kid I’m still seeing Rey, the real-life #2 vote-getter, as more of a precocious talent who’s a spectacular sympathetic babyface more than he is a spectacular flyer. I’m sure he’ll be taking this award home more in the years to come. Sabu’s highspots weren’t looking overly contrived just yet, and Kid kept bringing the goods in what was not always a pleasant environment. MOST OVERRATED (Hulk Hogan) 1. The Butcher 2. Dave Sullivan 3. Irwin R. Schyster Brutus Beefcake in a Starrcade main event—that’s all that needs to be said. Dave Sullivan, #2 or #2a babyface, also all that needs to be said. Career joke mid-carder IRS gets the honor of being Undertaker’s follow-up feud after Yokozuna, a booking decision that’s had me utterly baffled for a full 20 years. This came after a summer where he pretty much vanquished Tatanka, destroying his sacred headdress and then beating him up and down the board on house shows, even in Indian strap matches. MOST UNDERRATED (Brian Pillman) 1. Brian Pillman 2. Steve Austin 3. Felino Pillman did absolutely nothing after the first month of the year, and in the latter stages was actually putting over the Honky Tonk Man in an ultimate indignity. Austin’s second US title loss speaks for itself, and the planned gimmick of putting him with Sherri and making him into a Flair clone smells like a failure as well, but at least it would have been something. Felino gets the #3 vote for the second year in a row. He got some real-life votes as well, so it’s not just a footage/exposure problem. BEST PROMOTION (AAA) 1. All-Japan 2. Smoky Mountain 3. UWFI New Japan wasn’t bad, but it got very quiiet after the Tenryu feud was blown off, and seems to be in a holding pattern, apparently needing a Chono heel push or UWFI invasion to shake things up again. Hash otherwise seems to be out of legitimate IWGP challengers. AAA had a big year and returned to drawing big crowds in LA, but despite the magnificent domestic build-up to the When Worlds Collide show I think Pena’s booking generally suffered, with the overreliance on cutesy but non-decisive bullshit finishes reeking of 1987-88 Crockett. BEST TELEVISION SHOW (ECW) 1. Smoky Mountain Wrestling 2. ECW As always, hard to rate. As usual, all the New Japan footage comes from home video or its extensive Classics shows. Meanwhile AJPW got cut to 30 minutes, which was crippling. Smoky Mountain had some of its best TV matches this year and as always could be counted on for multiple great promos and usually a good angle in every show. ECW was rarely great, but its TV show was daring, different, and very out-of-the-box compared to what everyone else was doing. MATCH OF THE YEAR (Shawn/Razor ladder match) 1. Akira Hokuto/Shinobu Kandori vs. Aja Kong/Bull Nakano (3/27) 2. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (6/3) 3. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (5/21) 4. Bull Nakano vs. Shinobu Kandori (7/14) 5. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Steve Williams (4/16) 6. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Steve Williams (7/28) 7. Mascarita Sagrada vs. Espectrito (3/12) 8. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (3/20) 9. El Hijo del Santo/Octagon vs. Los Gringos Locos (11/6) 10. The Great Sasuke vs. Jushin Liger (4/16) 11. Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels (3/20) 12. Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck (4/17) 13. Nobuhiko Takada vs. Vader (8/18) 14. Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Candido (4/1) 15. Pantera vs. Felino (12/27) I seriously didn’t expect the Dream Rush tag not to make it to the end of the decade as the Best Match Ever, but it didn’t. The Queendom tag was a master class in storytelling, moves, excitement…everything. And such a unique story it was, one that I don’t think has been repeated and certainly not repeated as successfully. I don’t keep track of these as strenuously as Loss and Chad or myself when reviewing ‘80s projects, so some things may be missed. But I’m very comfortable with my top 10 at least. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Mikey Whipwreck) 1. Mikey Whipwreck 2. Alex Wright 3. New Jack Mikey was a genius idea all-around, very well-executed. Wright was raw and given a silly Eurotrash gimmick but was a wrestling lifer with great potential and posisble international appeal. Not only had New Jack wrestled in ’93 but we even saw him on that Yearbook, but I think if this were baseball he’d be eligible in ’94. It’s hard for true rookies in wrestling to be evaluated at the time, and this should probably serve as more of a Breakthrough Wrestler award, which in my mind isn’t quite the same as Most Improved. Anyway, New Jack was a pretty lousy worker (though not as bad as Mustafa, who actually had several more years experience) but a guy who screamed potential as a star. MANAGER OF THE YEAR (Jim Cornette) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Woman 3. Col. Robert Parker Not that good of a year for managers. Cornette is pretty much a runaway, self-explanatory pick. Woman was terrific, one of the best female interviews ever. Parker could be goofy but he was so professional and so committed to his role that it was hard not to like him, and he was involved in the year’s best feud. BEST TV ANNOUNCER (Joey Styles) 1. Jim Ross 2. Lance Russell 3. Dr. Alfonso Morales Also a bad year for announcing. I know I should put Lance at #1 but Ross had some tremendous performances for both the WWF and SMW despite being beaten around by Vince. Lance really didn’t miss a beat, he just didn’t have the opportunity to call as much until the USWA started picking up toward the end of the year, plus the MSC clips were generally called by Macklin. Morales, along with Pierroth, have such commanding voices and deliveries that they transcend language, and he’s far easier to take seriously than Akira Fukuzawa. WORST TV ANNOUNCER (Gorilla Monsoon) 1. Gorilla Monsoon 2. Randy Savage 3. Art Donovan Lots to choose from here. Stan Lane and Ted DiBiase were underwhelming at best, Eric Bischoff was a twit, Vince was obnoxious and full of shtick, Lawler had mostly descended into a clown act, and Jesse Ventura had completely checked out and was actively hurting the product when he was on the air. The team of Monsoon & Savage turned in an all-time horrible performance at King of the Ring, and Monsoon on Raw was so bad and counterproductive that he basically forced Vince to go crawling back to Jim Ross until the steroid trial ended. I get that he was badly itching to wrestle again and I can’t blame him for that, but Savage combined Jesse’s indifference with an incessant pushing of himself, and it got worse as the year went on. I truly, really didn’t want to vote for Art Donovan, who was truly a legendary personality thrown into an impossible situation, and who even in that setting was still more likable than Joey Styles. But objectively he has to be there. CATEGORY B AWARDS BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Super J-Cup). Tough call as the first half of the year was loaded with great cards. I’m going to go with Wrestling Queendom for having the highest-end singles match, though Slamboree, the J-Cup, Spring Stampede, WrestleMania, and Bluegrass Brawl are all worthy candidates, in roughly that order. WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Blackjack Brawl). Hard to argue with Herb Abrams’ last gasp as a wannabe-major promoter, but the Royal Rumble was a bigger stage and more insulting when compared to expectations. It’s a little better in retrospect than it was live, where aside from the Owen turn I thought it was about the worst thing I’d ever seen, but not that much better. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER (Sasuke Special). I can go along with that, when he hits it. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (Ric Flair retirement). The Observer readers’ choice is really a smaller function of what was voted second: WCW turning into the Hulk Hogan Show. It may have been an ultimately necessary evil but it doesn’t make it any better to watch. Many people would have given this to the Gangstas push, but a.) I think it was worth the try, even if it was financially unsuccessful, and b.) cheap as it was, in some ways it was actually more progressive than your standard push for black wrestlers in the Big Two that you could argue continues to this day. Not quite on the level of the Lawler/Snowman feud, but closer to that end than Four Horsemen/Rocky King or your typical dancing black guy today. BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Bobby Heenan). Answer has to be Dave Brown, back in that role with the re-emergence of Lance Russell. It was a bad year for announcing, with Tony and the Brain both having their moments but both taking steps back. The WWF had exactly announcer worth a damn, and Ross was barely active for the company. I don’t dislike Les Thatcher but I’m not as high on him as some others, and regardless he’s no Dave. It was a weak enough year that if I was ever going to give a reputation vote to Arturo Rivera, this was the time. READERS’ FAVORITE WRESTLER (Sabu). Going to go with Dustin Rhodes here. I did like Sabu in this era and revisiting ’94 he aged much better than expected. But Dustin was possibly at his peak. READERS’ LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Hulk Hogan). SO many to pick from: Duke the Dumpster, Doink, the Butcher, Mr. Pogo, Jungle Jim Steele, Hogan…but the guy who inspired the most visceral negative reaction over and over again was Evad Sullivan. MAYBE he could have been tolerable as a personality had the odd-couple team with Kevin been kept around, but his knee injury derailed that. Johnny Grunge is a VERY close second, with babyface Doink not far behind that. WORST WRESTLER (Evad Sullivan). SO many to pick from: Duke the Dumpster, the Butcher, Mr. Po—oh. I think Evad has to take this as well. WORST TAG TEAM (The Bushwhackers). The worst tag team with a respectable reputation was Public Enemy. I don’t always think that highly of Paul E. but getting those guys over as a legitimate champion tandem was one of the great smoke-and-mirrors jobs in the history of wrestling. WORST TELEVISION SHOW (WCW Saturday Night). Well, the cybernetic Center Stage get-up is one of my absolute least-favorite sets of any wrestling show ever, and the canned heat and sterile overall atmosphere made it worse. WWF Challenge was probably worse, as it was reduced to seemingly 7 or 8 markets with a rotating list of announcers like Stan Lane, Ted DiBiase, and Monsoon. But, it wasn’t the flagship TV program either. I’ll go with WCWSN, but it’s close. WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji). This was not a good year for managers, but there weren’t really any Coach/Sapphire-type disasters either, and Fuji no longer had to cut promos, so it’s not like he could really bother anybody. So, I sadly have to pick Jimmy Hart, an all-time great in an utterly intolerable role as the little puppy to Hulk Hogan’s Spike the Bulldog. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (Doink/midgets vs. Lawler/midgets). MANY disasters to choose from. This was certainly a strong candidate. Undertaker vs. Undertaker was a strong candidate, as well as Undertaker/Yokozuna from the Rumble. But I will go with a match that some people have given ***** too, and that’s the triangle match from The Night the Line Was Crossed, an utter disaster of a match that should never have been such an unwatchable clusterfuck considering the talent involved. A shitty match with bad wrestlers is one thing, a shitty match with good wrestlers is another. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR (Lawler vs. Doink). This has to be Undertaker vs. Undertaker, which made absolutely no sense, injected comedy where it didn’t belong with a gimmick that was always and would always be very well-protected from such, and led to a WMOTY candidate that main-evented a damned PPV. WORST INTERVIEW (Evad Sullivan). As awful as he was, Evad did at least accomplish what was asked of him. As with NTLWC, bad promos from a good interview are worse. So the answer is Hulk Hogan, who after cutting some tremendous promos in the WWF showed no appreciable skill for selling anything other than himself, which I guess was okay for Hogan but seemed like cutting off his nose to spite his face. WORST PROMOTION (WCW). If you could split WCW in half, the first half of the year would be a winner for Best Promotion and the second half would be a winner for the Worst. So looking at the year as a whole, the answer is the utterly depressing WWF, which had no clue what to do with itself and continued to lose longtime valuable stars. BEST BOOKER (Paul E. Dangerously). I don’t know when he took over the juniors division entirely but I’m giving this to Jushin Liger for putting together the Super J-Cup. PROMOTER OF THE YEAR (Giant Baba). I think we have to go with Antonio Pena here. BEST GIMMICK (The Undertaker). In a year of awful gimmicks, this goes to Bob Backlund. Backlund was one of those guys where the thought of him heeling was utterly inconceivable, and he went from being a washed-up guy in the late-‘80s Pedro Morales role to the company’s #1 heel. WORST GIMMICK (Dave Sullivan). My goodness, it’s barely fair having to pick just one. I’ll break with some people on this board and say a “special” gimmick is not INHERENTLY awful, as I think Rick Steiner, Boo Bradley, and later Eugene showed. Sullivan was just an awful performer and way, way overpushed as a near-#2 babyface. Face Doink was a complete insult to a fine performer and great heel gimmick, but I think my final answer would be Duke Droese, an unbelievably misguided attempt at creating another Jim Duggan when the real Duggan was through some miracle going through a mini-renaissance. MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (Doink). Evad is in the running for all of these awards but there was enough shit in ’94 that he doesn’t deserve a clean sweep, which is why I keep looking for excuses to give them to somebody else. Doink is a good pick. One of the embodiments of what a lame, pandering promotion the WWF had turned into, a harder-pushed Bushwhacker whose pathetic comedy served to bring out the worst in his opponents, announcers, and everyone else involved.

Knobbs was stabbed by some nutcase fan during a traffic incident, which caused him to miss the Rumble. Weird that the '91 Rumble had Knobbs but no Saggs (Knobbs was replacing the departed Honky Tonk Man), and '92 had Saggs but no Knobbs.

This was generally easier to follow than 12/26, and seeing Cactus and Candido go outside and then come back in with the fans parting like the Red Sea, or like it was the Sheik in 1960's Detroit, was cool. We miss both guys apparently tumbling over the bleachers leading to a Cactus victory. Same post-match as before with Boo making the save.

More of a TV studio match than a house show title match. Landell's over-the-top selling of a phantom eye poke was a highlight. Buddy uses some sleight of hand to frame DWB for hitting him with a chain--I didn't even notice him planting the chain on him--and gets a reverse-decision victory. Of course, all the attempts at getting DWB disqualified wouldn't net him the title, which is why this would work better as a TV bout, preferably a non-title one, to establish Buddy as a contender first.