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They're attempting a token effort at re-establishing the Unified title as a "World" or at least national title, talking up Sid title defenses in Vegas and Chicago. Lawler wants another title shot at Sid--hey, you agreed to the "last title shot" stip Jerry, be a man of your word. Spellbinder is still clinging to the #1 contendership.

In-between Backlund's near-falsetto rants about being the new champion, he finds time to complain to Jack Tunney (remember him?) about swapping Diesel in for the injured Bret Hart. Diesel is a big voluminous man, but he can't defeat Mr. Backlund. Diesel rebuts. Nash makes a hip-with-the-times Barney Miller reference and proclaims himself the New Generation and goes into an odd non sequitur about American manufacturing. All-American Diesel is as bad or worse than Smily Happy Diesel. An early sign that Vince had learned absolutely fuck-all from the Lex Express push. Anti-heroes were in. Superhero babyfaces were out. Bad promo from Diesel but this is a very cool find, as I suspect this only aired in New York. It had the feel of the late-'80s/early-'90s Event Centers, which seemed weird and out of place in '94. Henry Godwinn stands by in Bitters, Arkansas. No clue how anyone expected an Evil Hillbilly Jim to get over.

Not at the level of their other bouts but a fine match nevertheless. I think I pegged this as a draw from the start, not because they were killing time but just because it's the only result that makes booking sense at this point. All four guys are established as equals (well, Misawa's still the top dog, but you know what I mean) to a degree probably greater than even their May match. Everyone gets a chance to shine and everyone seems in danger of losing at some point. Kawada and Taue bust out a new powerbomb/chokeslam combo that would have killed Kobashi dead, but Misawa makes the save. Kawada escaping from a Kobashi full nelson to save Taue, who's busy working an intricate reversal sequence with Misawa, leading to another counter-and-counter sequence between Kawada and Misawa, was just a gorgeous piece of wrestling. Kawada goes nuts with backdrops at the very end getting over how meaningful it'd be to pin Misawa, but the time runs out. Pretty amazing that these guys can put on a match this good and have it be the "least" of the series.

And so ends the career of Yokozuna having any legitimate, main event meaning. Overall I believe this was a feud that did relatively decent box office compared to WWF standards of the time.

So I actively went back and looked for this and couldn't find any crowd shots at all. The only match at Big Egg Universe with a case for being as good as this one is Toyota vs. Kong. This had some terrific counter-wrestling and is really one of the better technical matches in WWF/E history. I like how both guys went to alternate submission moves when their trademark holds kept getting countered. And, despite his problems getting a hero's reaction on past Raws, Bret is over enough here that he manages to keep this crowd emotionally invested all the way through a fairly dry, slow-paced technical bout with no near-falls and a ten-minute hold at the end. Owen's performance is spectacular and this is one of the better and more creative ways to get around any towel or flag-waving stipulation--it seems that most such matches end with the cornermen brawling and either a flag being waved or a towel accidentally flying into the ring, and they went with another route here that allowed the babyfaces to save face while not completely welching on the stipulation. Very good match and even better booking. Owen's post-match promo is fun but Backlund's is transcendent, easily the best interview of his career. (It's on the WWE Youtube channel, thank goodness). Backlund goes halfway into Bray Wyatt territory talking of pasteurize, homogenize, and synchronize society back into morality, and now I'm envisioning a whole stable of "followers" running roughshod over the company like a proto-RTC-meets-proto-NWO and shaking my head at the missed opportunity.

Pretty good action down the stretch, as Diesel steamrolls through 4/5 of the babyfaces and works a good long sequence with Ramon, but Shawn wants to eliminate Razor personally, and for the third time accidentally clobbers Diesel with a kick. Diesel goes through his teammates trying to get at Shawn and they all get counted out. Second-cheapest Survivor Series finish to this point, behind the "everyone gets counted out except for Flair" one from '91. But what we saw was good, and the turn executed well both as a climax and fitting of the build that had been taking place since SummerSlam. Too bad about the follow-up, though.

Another good match between these two, big shock. I do love how they constantly call back to Kong hitting the insta-KO on Kansai in ThunderQueen. That's pretty much Kansai's kryptonite, here and elsewhere. Also I wasn't paying attention to this in the early-round matches but I like using an LLPW referee here--felt like a World Cup or college bowl game with the ostensibly neutral officiating crew.

A lot of the first chunk of this seemed to be worked in slow motion, to the match's detriment. And some of the spots are stuff you can call out by now, like the arm-pump, even if it's all well-worked. Shinzaki as the calm yet beleaguered team captain trying to hold his team together is pretty amusing, and the set-up of him trying to splash SATO and hitting his teammates was novel. A hot closing stretch elevates this to something pretty decent, but this isn't a high-end juniors 6-man by any means. Naniwa will never be looked at the same way after the rise of Daniel Bryan. Actually, his crab walk taunt looks less like Bryan's YES chant itself and more like when Stephanie or Triple H mock it.

Not as good as the previous match but solid and well-worked. Lots of stuff on the mat here, with both women trading some cool holds. I like seeing Kansai kick the fuck out of people as much as the next guy but it was refreshing to see a match of hers not based around ultra-stiff kicking. Incidentally this referee with his bizarre 3-count cadence is really starting to piss me off. I don't get why a huge Dome show with 47 different promotions feels the need to have the same guy ref like 10 matches in a row.

Terrific match! I absolutely hated the draw these two had in '91 (I think it was) but this had none of the problems that polluted that match. The pace was nice, with the bigger Aja controlling Toyota with holds and Toyota having to take big risks to keep her head above water. A few people have called this a spotfest and a touring-match...I do get the touring-match aspect of this but I thought the psychology was very strong, especially by Toyota's standards. Both seemed to have each other's trademark moves scouted and Toyota busted out some new offense not because she Had to Get Her Shit In but because it was probably the only chance she had. Also some terrific near-falls here that were inventive but not overdone. Kong seemingly knocks Toyota out with the uraken but just to make sure, busts out a Falcon Arrow to put her away. I suspect the reasonable length and the pace were due to Aja having to come back for more later on, but it made for a stronger match.

For two workers I don't overly care for this was pretty decent. They both hit some nice moves and while I can see people losing their shit over Hotta's reaction to the figure four, I was amused by its unintentional callback to Ronnie Garvin at the 1990 Royal Rumble. Too bad this didn't built to a battle over shinguards. Also, Combat in this match does a scoop powerslam off the ropes, a figure four, and a reverse elbow off the turnbuckle. Combat Toyoda or Ted DiBiase in disguise? You make the call. Combat is almost rendered unconscious by a flurry of Hotta strikes, but sneaks in a German suplex while Yumiko is badgering the referee to get a fluke upset win. That's interpromotional booking for you. Lorefice's rating is loony--his review goes gaga over how stiff and brutal these two were and I didn't see that at all. This was hardly Lauren Davenport vs. Miss Texas but there are probably 50 early-'90s Dynamite Kansai matches stiffer than this. But these two executed things well and had me guessing to the end who was going to win. It's hard to ask for more out of Combat than that.

So some psycho on Youtube uploaded the entire Big Egg Universe card in two 5-hour parts. Bless that man. Thus begins the non-Yearbook Big Egg Universe Matches That Look Interesting reviews. Thanks to Flik and others for their insights earlier in the thread... Reggie Bennett vs. Chigusa Nagayo I wasn't planning to start with this but the downside of a 5-hour Youtube video with no timestamps is that picking the match you want to see is an inexact science. I haven't seen Reggie before so when this started up I stuck with it. Reggie doesn't seem like a bad fatso worker and she would have been a better monster heel option for the WWF than Bertha Faye, but the tank top+jorts look is awful. She doesn't look like a monster, she just looks like a slob. Her splashes off the turnbuckles look nice, however. Reggie works typical American-style holds and Nagayo throws a few decent strikes from underneath, then gets in one roll-up for a sudden (and ambiguous) pin. Chigusa does make sure to point to her head after the match, which is nice, I guess. Pretty half-assed match from a bored-looking Nagayo, and Reggie actually seemed to work harder. Toshiyo Yamada & Tomoko Watanabe vs. Shinobu Kandori & Mikiko Futagami Basically a tale of two matches. When Yamada and Kandori are in the ring, it's gold--tremendous heat, and the action lives up to one's expectations of these two badasses going at it. The partners add very little other than making saves and taking up space, and things die off when they're legal. It's more like a singles match with two assist characters than a straight tag. Yamada throws kicks and Kandori twists her limbs in various directions, before Shinobu catches Yamada coming off the top in a Fujiwara armbar for a tapout. Somehow in the middle of a 10-hour show this match still felt rushed, but the action was good while it lasted and has you wanting to see these two women go at it again. Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Yasha Kurenai & Michiko Nagashima I have no idea who LCO's opponents are. More slob-like ring gear for them, with oversized purple trousers and wifebeaters. I don't know why I'm so fixated on joshi fashion all of a sudden, but it's striking me as odd. They look like Japanese trailer trash, if such a thing exists. LCO themselves come out with the most ridiculously elaborate entrance of the year, with a choreographed dance troupe and being carried out King Haku-style, except somebody forgot to bring the thrones. Amusing contrast to the LLPW team. There are parts here that would fit right into a traditional southern tag--the LLPW team does lots of cheap double-teaming, and even some referee distraction spots and eye pokes to maintain or gain an advantage. There's also a payback spot involving their kendo stick, and Mita catching one of them in a fireman's carry and flinging them into their own partner in the corner, which is a basic spot that somebody should steal today. There are also some sloppy parts here, and while the LLPW team takes a hefty chunk of the match, it never really feels like LCO is in danger of losing. Also absolutely no heat for anything--I know the Dome could suppress crowd noise but this was pretty damn stark. I liked seeing what the mid- and under-card joshi types were doing, but this could have been pruned and the earlier tag given more time as a result. Alundra Blayze vs. Bull Nakano Had to watch this to make a comparison to SummerSlam. It is really cool how many promotions got involved with this show--I don't know if getting the WWF to contribute to this was really a major deal in Japan or not, but to me it is. Alundra gets a full-fledged motorcycle brigade as an entourage, so maybe it was. This was pretty well-worked but it suffers in front of the cavernous Dome crowd instead of the super-hot fans at the United Center, plus in Chicago they were really going balls-out to try to get over in front of a more skeptical audience while this is a little closer to going through the motions. It's also a very one-sided match in Bull's favor with Alundra getting in a few hope spots, including a badly blown attempted reverse dive off the turnbuckle. Decent match but I liked SummerSlam better and I suspect their Raw match next spring is better as well. This is a weird instance of a Japan show seemingly booking a match in a "death slot," WWF-style. Aja Kong vs. Akira Hokuto Can't watch all this stuff without getting to the finals. This may or may not be Hokuto's "retirement," which I know is bullshit but I'm not really clear on what the story with that is. Anyway, Aja really seems to have almost nothing left in the tank at this point, and they compensate by having her work a leg injury. Smart move, as it leads to a rare body-part-focused joshi match and Aja does a great job in selling it. However, the match still stands as a disappointing anticlimax. The finish probably could have been on the Yearbook just because it ended a show of such magnitude, but I can see why the match itself was left off. Hokuto, for whatever reason, seems to lack aggression when the opening is there to take Aja out, and a burned-out crowd (that was quiet to begin with) certainly doesn't help the atmosphere any. They throw a curveball at us by having Hokuto go "out" on top, which I certainly wasn't expecting. It's a nice moment for her, and she tearfully refuses Aja's WWWA title in another melodramatic post-match scene, but it certainly didn't come as the result of an inspiring performance. Lorefice's review has him incredulous that the card didn't end with Aja going over Manami, and I'm inclined to agree with him on that point. Jobbing your champion to a woman going into retirement (...right?) just smacks of being too clever by half.

All this talk about Tom Miller, and no mention of his immortal call, "And now, GIT READY TO BOOGIE!" before introducing the Rock 'n Roll Express at Starrcade '86. No other announcer could pull that off.

Good match with both guys hitting their spots and sequences perfectly, but even accounting for the small-time setting this really didn't feel epic enough in scope to qualify as the finals of a "major" title tournament. The rather cheap Randy Savage "foreign object while getting suplexed" finish didn't help either.

I too had a wrestling-related thought when Chad said "intergender," but it was of Andy Kaufman showing up and challenging the shower-ers to wrestling matches, with his belt of the same name on the line. I distinctly remember that Funk episode of Quantum Leap. Sam leaps into an Arkansas farm boy who wrestles with his brother as a Russian tag team and his task is to keep him out of the ring because he'll die of a heart defect. Funk plays a rival wrestler who thinks Sam is banging his wife. Actually a fairly accurate and intelligent look at the '50s wrestling business for the time. Meltzer's talk (possibly in an earlier WON than the ones you're going over) about the run-ins at SuperBrawl is just kind of sad in retrospect. He points out that as soon as the ref went down in the tag title match, EVERYBODY got up and looked to the entrance way. And you can see it on the video now. Meltzer laments what WCW has done to the fanbase that they've reached this point, and all I can think of when reading it is how much worse things would get in that regard. One thing Modern WWE *isn't* doing that Dave stressed in that newsletter is wins & losses meaning something. All the constant rematches and non-title matches making most of the matches not matter. WCW Magazine was definitely published under London Publishing, the same company that did PWI et al, and used many of the same writers. I actually can't recall if Apter had any involvement, at least in the writing. But he was still with London at the time. Bruce Prichard was actually gone entirely from the WWF by this point, and was soon to be working as a manager in Global. He'd be back in the WWF by the end of '93. You won't say Jason Hervey "gets it" after watching him on TV, Parv. Appearing on the Bull Drop Inn and not being able to decide if he's a heel or a babyface made him intolerable. I am AGHAST, appalled, shocked, and horribly disappointed that we've lost the York Foundation theme on the Network. I love, love, LOVE that theme. Sort of a rip-off of Dallas but also sounds exactly like something that would appear in the background of a corporate training or motivation video, which it very likely was. This is as bad as if we had lost the Hollywood Blonds theme, which thankfully we haven't. I haven't watched the match yet, but Chad, do you see any parallels between Sting/Nikita and Brock/Cena? Just going by the description, the layouts, booking, and circumstances all seem remarkably similar. (Scott Keith liked it and gave it ***, for the record). At least one of Salt and/or Pepa must have been wrestling fans, that's the only explanation I can think of for them being here. (They were also at WrestleMania 12, where they actually got to do stuff). His appearance on the Bull Drop Inn was even more ridiculous, as he completely loses his place like he's Jermaine from Flight of the Conchords doing the Hiphopapotamus. But I still think this gimmick was better than Oz, only because at least we know what PN News is SUPPOSED to be, even if the execution is a fail in every single regard. Oz is as big of a fail but with a gimmick that's completely and utterly nonsensical. To this day I'm torn on whether Teddy Long's line was intentional or not, considering the nature of Badd's gimmick. "Brian Pillman must leave WCW, and now here's Paul E. with the Great American Bash control center!" One of the most unintentionally telling bits of commentary of all-time. Argentine Backbreaker is actually a torture rack (it was Antonino Rocca's finisher). Meltzer is thinking of a Canadian backbreaker (why it's called that, I don't know). Can't wait for Will on the Bash '91. If any show deserves a special guest, that is one.

Gary Capetski has a few quirks that irrationally annoy me. "The following contest, it is set for one fall" being the biggest. A guy whose former day job revolved around grammar and language shouldn't be making announcements with dangling modifiers, dammit. i give him credit for getting through, "From A LITTLE TOWN IN FRANCE" without corpsing.

As someone who got into the Apter mags in the early '90s, Memphis in particular seemed like wrestling on another planet to me. The crazy gimmicks, the crazy hectic angles, the weekly title changes, the idea that Kamala could be a Heavyweight champion...and that was before the WWF guys and Vince himself started showing up. I use the "early '90s" qualifier because I think Memphis got far more coverage than it did in the Apter mags' heyday, thanks to the other territories drying up. I could be wrong, as I don't have many early-'80s options to compare it to. The '90s mags certainly started paying attention to Portland for the first time.

There may have been a decent match buried in here somewhere, but most of the focus was on the backs of various audience member's heads. Actually to be honest I thought a lot of what we saw was pretty damn crappy, with Gilbert working sub-Tiger-Jeet-Singh-level bullshit in plain view of the referee, a pointless ref bump (oh, I see, it's so GIlbert can play hide-the-object...AFTER USING PLASTIC BAGS, STAIRS, AND TABLES THE WHOLE MATCH??), and a shitty double-pin finish. Not to get all PURE SANCTITY OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP or anything or to discount the three-ring-circus approach to booking but an NWA title tournament should be above a lot of the crap we saw here involving plastic bags and stairs used in the middle of a match with no explanation. Gilbert throws about the most tepid, perfunctory heel tantrum ever after the decision. Not to gloat or relish over a man's obviously failing health but Hot Stuff is so completely beyond cooked at this point it's sad to watch. I wanted to avoid bringing this up, but one weakness of the Snow/Candido match was neither guy was really willing to engage the crowd in any way. Until Candido begged off toward the end, good luck identifying who the heel and babyface were. I've come to expect that out of indy Snow but from Candido, that was disappointing. But I didn't talk about it because I thought maybe they were working a Pure Sportz Build-type tournament. Well, with this match that all went out the window, so this had the bonus effect of being actively detrimental to completely unrelated matches, which is difficult to pull off. The more I think about this match the less I like it.

Thought this was pretty fun and well-worked. Most of the derogatory chants sounded like they came from one obnoxious douchebag in particular. There are a few awkward points but they're covered nicely, and a lot of the other moves are executed very crisply, and are also built up to well.

"I ain't nevuh theen nuthin' lahk dis, and I been ta two goat-ropin's and an all-night fair, Daddy. Dis is SupaBrawl, dis is St. Petuhsbuhg, we TAKIN' A LOOK AT OZ!" That opening voiceover narration is possibly the most nonsensical exposition in the history of fiction. "A LONG TIME AGO, THERE WAS A WIZARD...BUT NOT THE WIZARD OF OZ. HIS NAME WAS THE GREAT WIZARD, AND HE RULED THE LAND OF OZ!" A great wizard who rules Oz, but NOT the Wizard of Oz. That clears that up, then.

Current Favorite Wrestler To Watch: Between the Yearbook and the modern day it may well be Dustin Rhodes. Last Fun Match You Saw: Vader vs. Dustin at Clash XXIX. Wrestling doesn't get much more fun than that. Wrestler You Want To See More Of: I need a 10-disc Solar comp, like, yesterday. Probably the best pure matworker in all of lucha. Last Live Show Attended: Ring of Honor in Dayton in May (I think) 2007. Morishima defending the title in the main event, Samoa Joe's last or next-to-last ROH bout, and I think the future Dean Ambrose worked a dark match. Before that, Badd Blood '04 and the HHH/Shawn Shitshow in a Cell. Work has failed to cooperate with any recent WWE events in town, but I regret passing up the recent Smackdown taping here, probably the first local card I'd really be raring to go to in some time. Match You Are Looking Forward To Watching Soon The Most: I've already soured on modern WWE--some of it their fault, some of it not--but I definitely want to check out Usos vs. Wyatts from MITB. '94 AJPW has been on the quiet side since Doc won the Triple Crown, with two good but underwhelming title matches, so I'm anxious to see what's in store during the Tag League. Last Fun Interview/Promo You Saw: The Sandman's "retirement," beatdown of Dreamer and Peaches, and subsequent gloating promo with Woman. Last Interesting Thing You Read About Wrestling: I just picked up the history of Memphis wrestling book for 1982, with tons of cool shit in there. Last Worthwhile Wrestling Podcast You Heard: Where the Big Boys Play on SuperBrawl I. They're right--you need to drop what you're doing and watch the full debut of Oz, right now. Most Fun You've Had Watching Wrestling Lately: That Cactus-Sabu brawl in the casino is possibly the high watermark of ECW-influenced '90s indy wrestling.

SummerSlam was also the grand opening of a brand-new downtown arena, which probably drove local interest and helped the live gate somewhat.

The Good - I think a *lot* of people became tape traders in '94. The Big Two were probably at their lowest points (WCW had lower points commercially, but there were many, *many* smark fans who found the product utterly depressing once Hogan took over). ECW, for all its faults, was like a hot underground rock band or "Video Nasty" just waiting for some kind of commercial breakthrough, and it epitomized almost everything that was missing in the WWF and WCW. You also had Smoky Mountain having a fine year with a "you've gotta see this" aspect with the debut of the Gangstas and New Jack's crazy interviews, while also appealing to the more old-school fan with more relatable characters. The Super J-Cup was in '94 and was probably the first Japanese tape for many people (myself included, years later). Coupled with the burgeoning online community and you had a "coming-together" of disillusioned fans fed up with shitty mainstream wrestling and looking for something better. The Bad - Big Two wrestling characters were the absolute shits. Vince was picking gimmicks out of a Vocational Guidance Encyclopedia and WCW was just pushing the absolute wrong people, epitomized by Evad Sullivan. I think the only "new" character in either company worth a damn was Mr. Backlund, because despite his over-the-top screaming act he stlll felt like a real human being and not a cartoon character. The Ugly - Some of those venues the WWF was using for television. The "Road to Wrestlemania" special from the legendary Sullivan Community Center in Loch Sheldrake, NY stands out--it looks like an industrial basement. ROH would look at it and say, "show me something better." A true sign of how far the company had fallen.

Who would win a marathon between Buddy Rose, Chris Hero, and Roy Nelson? Could any of them beat that Kobayashi guy in a competitive eating contest? Could Kobayashi beat Nelson in a fight?