PeteF3

Vince wouldn't be Vince without some degree of blind optimism, but I wonder how he was able to reconcile that with the fact that Bob Backlund was his #1 heel, King Kong Bundy was getting heavily pushed, and he'd made Sgt. Slaughter into a main eventer shortly before. All three of those guys were older and appeared far, far more washed-up than the MegaPowers.

This is almost approaching urban-legend status for me. It was mentioned in a Scott Keith rant so it may have been fabricated entirely for all I know, but I've never yet found it on Youtube or DM or anywhere--and I have looked, trust me. But if he saw it then it must have been on a syndie show that aired in Canada. I'd say their Clash VII debut is a must, and maybe throw in their destruction and unmasking at the hands of the Skyscrapers as well--it's very quick and shouldn't really bump anything else.

Well, I'm 0-for-3 on those, but running down the WWF PPVs and TV that I remember, because this is in my wheelhouse. Still, '89 was a shit year as far as in-ring action goes and I know AJPW and WCW are going to dominate this set, so... Oh, and I'm going with this system: *** - must-include ** - should be included, but can be cut if space is short * - nonessential, something extra to include if you have room Also note some matches will get * or ** for the whole match but the finish is ***. Royal Rumble *** - Rude-Warrior posedown. The start of Warrior's definitive feud. The Rumble itself needs to be handled a little outside-the-box. The match itself is hardly worthy of being on in full. "Finish only" doesn't work--the finishing stretch is the worst and least consequential part of the match. The selling point was seeing Hogan, and that's in the middle. And you also have the opening. I know this board has gone to war over Demolition, but Ax vs. Smash is an iconic moment in history and something that really set the Rumble apart as a special and must-watch event. So I'd handle it like this: *** Intros and Ax vs. Smash. Cut when Andre comes out. This is 5 minutes of material, so no reason not to include this. *** Come back in at Hogan's entrance. This will include Hogan eliminating Savage and their confrontation, the Hogan/Boss Man showdown, Hogan's elimination, and Hogan yanking out the Boss Man. Cut after they both make it to the back. * DiBiase's entrance to Studd's win. Total shit show, include it if you feel the need to show who won. WrestleMania: * Rockers vs. the Twin Towers. Maybe a **-worthy inclusion considering the love for the Rockers on the AWA set and these Yearbooks, and it's a look at them against a different team. Features possibly the greatest clothesline in WWF history. ** Brain Busters vs. Strike Force (***finish). Decent-ish match with some Crockett tag touches, but if pressed we can cut to Santana nailing Martel. ** Piper's Pit. A LONG segment that I'm torn on considering the quality of stuff going on elsewhere in the world, but I think it needs to be here. Piper's return was that big of a deal. Probably Brother Love's high watermark and I found the payoff with the fire extinguisher legitimately funny, even if most of the rest of this was cringeworthy. * Rude vs. Warrior (***finish). Not as good as their future matches but the whole thing could be included for comparison purposes. The shock finish is a must. *** Hogan vs. Savage. Duh. SummerSlam: *** Brain Busters vs. Hart Foundation. Very divisive match, but one worth seeing regardless of how you feel about it. ** Martel/Rougeaus vs. Rockers/Santana. *** Warrior vs. Rude. Best match of the series, likely the WWF MOTY. *** Hogan/Beefcake vs. Savage/Zeus. A true Pat Patterson special, maybe even more impressive than the WM6 main event. Survivor Series: Holy Christ, what to do about this. This is hands-down the least consequential PPV in the pre-In Your House era. * Finish to Enforcers vs. Dream Team. Dusty sells a Crockett-worthy beatdown with the Boss Man's nightstick. * I'll take a different tack for Hulkamaniacs vs. The Million $ Team: beginning only. The match was all about Hulk vs. Zeus. They both start, Zeus dominates Hogan, Zeus quickly gets DQ'd. You can cut the rest. ** Backstage interview with Hogan & Beefcake. Sherri comes in, throws powder into Hulk's eyes, and Savage & Zeus attack. * Ultimate Warriors vs. The Heenan Family. A standout performance by the Brain, and the Rockers are there, but the match as a whole drags. The finish is nice but sort of plays heavily on Heenan constantly sneaking in and out during the match. This whole show could seriously be skipped and the Yearbook wouldn't suffer. The Hulk/Zeus stuff is the only part that's close to essential. The Heenan match has a bit of a rep, the rest is window-dressing. No Holds Barred; The Movie/The Match: Hulk/Beefcake vs. Savage/Zeus, Cage (***finish). Not essential, but the Zeus storyline gets blown off for good (or at least until Uncensored '96). I'll try to go over TV stuff later. Sadly Graham's Superstars results aren't as in-depth as they are in some ofher years, in terms of what segments were on what show. The 1/16 Prime Time has a rare on-set angle with the Brooklyn Brawler debuting and laying out both the Rooster and Gorilla Monsoon, which definitely needs to be there. And to close the year, try to fit in some studio stuff from the 12/25 episode. That has Bobby Heenan having to play Santa Claus as the result of losing a bet, and after being in the Christmas spirit most of the show he cuts a promo on Santa that's absolutely riotous. One of the funniest bits he's ever done, and it even has some significance as Piper beats him up and gets suspended from hosting duties. If there was one thing the '90 set was missing, it was some classic Gorilla/Bobby studio banter, so some nods to that would be welcomed.

For once the WWF is ahead of ahead of the pop-culture zeitgeist, pre-dating the Chuck Norris Facts fad by a good 12 years. Nothing segment on the King's Court. I'd rather hear Backlund and Bret talk.

Okerlund actually tries to set this up as a somber, introspective set piece from his tone, but Hogan's having none of it. Hogan says the word "earthquake" so many times I'm surprised WCW wasn't slapped with another lawsuit. Hulk whines about all he's done for Beefcake in the most obnoxious manner possible. AWFUL promo that plays pretty much the exact opposite way that it needed to. Beefcake, as best I can tell, was never given any real motivation for turning on Hogan other than vague references to Hogan "not standing behind him," and because they had a plot to move along.

RIP Sir William, we hardly knew ye. Rich invokes the old-time Memphis tag team of Bill Dundee & George Barnes, and how Dundee's career hit the skids once Barnes left. Dave: "Your recollection is different from that of most of the fans here." Three good, quick promos in a row.

Good job of Cornette of rising above this material. They pretty much outright say that the loser of this match will be gone from the company.

The high watermark for ECW to this point, or maybe any point. Peaches informing Sandman that she's "changed" since he last saw her, and Sandman's response ("Peaches, I don't care how fat you've gotten..."), were LOL-worthy. I had totally forgotten about that. Woman clobbers Peaches with a Singapore cane, Sandman "blindly" takes out Tod Gordon and is about to feel Woman's wrath when Dreamer makes the save. Off come the bandages, off come the shades, and Sandman clobbers Dreamer in the back in an AWESOME-looking spot, even if it looked like a sure concussion. Styles for the first time in his life actually explains everything well--they got Dreamer to dedicate his career to them, so he could take out Tommy Cairo for them, and lured Peaches back to take her out as well. Woman and Sandman gloat in a tremendous promo, as Woman dedicates cigarettes to all their enemies--Dreamer, Cairo, Peaches, and the fans. "All your worries...up in smoke." A truly gruesome-looking Dreamer cuts a response. Kind of pandering, but the verisimilitude of the bruises and fat lip sort of masks anything Dreamer says.

Vince actually seems like he's having legitimate trouble getting through this. I can see both guys' views in this situation--Savage's second go-round as champ was a box office bomb, whether it was his fault or not. That said, shunting him off into the Bruno Sammartino commentator-who-occasionally-wrestles role was overkill on Vince's part. 1-2-3 Kid is only slightly better here than he was the first time around, but quickly Mr. Backlund is out before this goes too far. Bret comes out to ANOTHER tepid reaction.

Not nearly as spectacular as the Clique tag but I thought this was a pretty well-laid-out, well-worked southern-style tag match. But, the lack of crowd heat is un-ignorable--Bret doesn't get much reaction for the hot tag despite working a good house-afire sequence, and there's not much pop for the Sharpshooter or the submission either. From a pure work standpoint, though, swap out the Anvil for somebody better and you'd really have something. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if the WWF didn't do just that soon enough...

The first two falls of this were incredibly rushed, even by lucha standards. From the commentary it sounds like the whole PPV was running behind or just scheduled haphazardly. Los Gringos Locos attempt the same piggyback-Frankensteiner move the Japanese juniors did--they don't quite hit it either but they do come closer. It's when Santo eats the pin that this picks up--Octagon quickly recovers to save the technicos from a two-fall sweep and save the Santo mask, and Barr gets him back later by dropping him with a martinete, which takes Octagon out of the match figuratively and literally. That's followed by Blue Panther sneaking in and dropping Barr with a piledriver of his own, in one of the all-time great payback spots in the history of wrestling, and one of the best crowd pops. Santo does a great crawling, desperation pin of Barr to set up the one-on-one showdown with Eddy. Eddy probably does bust out a few too many finishers here, as though he were auditioning for a job with the Big Two, and Santo's winning pin is a little sudden, but it doesn't detract much from the story of the match. We've essentially seen a two-year build to this, going back to Love Machine's mask loss to Blue Panther in '92, and the payoff works. I've seen this match plenty, but I'm finally now coming around to the idea that Barr could have been something in the U.S. just on the basis of his personality and where wrestling was headed, with spots opening up for smaller and more athletic guys. The WCW production values really elevate this as well (now THERE'S one for the George Carlin "Phrases You Never Hear" file), particularly the EMTs' work over Octagon on the outside and the learned commentary from Cruise & Tenay. One of the two lucha matches of the year, along with Espectrito/Sagrada. This is essentially the lucha equivalent of Warrior vs. Savage, a match that's booked just about letter-perfect and plays every right note that you want in a blowoff, which is enough to elevate it over whatever individual faults are in the match itself.

Vader does a great job of putting over Dustin before bringing him back to reality. Vader calls out Hogan to boot, and it's hard to argue with him. "HAVE YOU LOST YOUR WILL? Stand up and be a man, or go back to Hollywood with the rest of those sissies, punk!"

You can't copyright news, or facts, or rumors. The daily updates aren't lifted wholesale, they're paraphrased. You can't sue somebody for posting an email either--once you send it, the expectation of privacy is effectively waived and the receiver is free to do with it as he wishes. Scherer is full of shit. It takes a special brand of dumb to make Keith look like a sympathetic figure of virtue.

There's another match with Kabuki that's easily the most one-sided match I've ever seen Brody involved in where he isn't working on top. Kabuki kicks his ass non-stop from the opening bell, then when Brody gets one hope spot in, Kabuki immediately mists him for the DQ and Brody is back to selling like he's dying. World Class must have had the same effect on Brody that the red sun did on Superman.

Splitting hairs a bit (or a lot), but where does Aja Kong fit into this conversation?

I've heard Meltzer (I think) say rather bluntly, "The Rock 'n Rolls worked one tour and weren't invited back."

Looking back two years later, Borne's promo was Bo Dallas before Bo Dallas was a thing.

For the sake of posterity I'm assuming this is the infamous interview where Cactus declares that, "Boo isn't the first man whose love of pussy has led him astray."

The Gangstas are downright giddy at getting the Rock 'n Rolls in a Ghetto Street Fight. Seems every non-Big Two promotion is going out of their way to be "hardcore" and do stuff the WWF and WCW aren't willing to. Part of that is ECW influence, possibly, but I think it's mostly these promotions realizing that that's the easiest way to create a point of difference. Ultraviolence probably isn't the specific way to go anymore, but it'd be nice for some more modern promotions to take note. Boo is no actor, but Tammy gets the storyline over effectively enough. Boo won't get his kitty back if he doesn't obey Tammy. CONFRONTATION! Wait, where's the fine and suspension for Boo for trashing Cactus Jack the previous week? Cornette wants assurance that there won't be any more Bullets or other masked men coming in after Bob Armstrong is sent packing. Great build to Abdullah--pity it didn't go anywhere. Now it's training time! JC extolls the virtues of calisthenics and proper nutrition as Bruiser Bedlam brings him his health food--a triple-mayo burger from Wendy's. He also has some gifts for Ron Wright--milk of magnesia, Preparation H, Ex-Lax, and Geritol . Four quality promos in a row, or at least four promos that got the point across. That's SMW for you.

Crazy stuff from the previous week, though the use of scissors is over-the-top for my tastes. Fans throw weapons to the wrestlers and you start to wonder which city this actually is. The action is tremendous and the post-match scuffle in the locker room even better. I love Doug Gilbert clarifying to Frank Morrell that they were suspended first, *then* decking him. Bowden gets in a few licks on Randy Hales before the babyfaces make the save and the camera goes to the great photo shoot in the sky. Tremendous action to wash out the bad taste of last week's letdown (yes, I know this was two week old footage).

For some reason, somebody chose an instrumental version of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" as the background music for this. Dink actually makes contact--eat your heart out, Eddie Gaedel.

One instance where you actually buy a half-crab as a shoot finish. Good brisk little undercard match, though the near-empty arena is pretty depressing.

Quite a coup getting Gene Wilder to guest ring announce, in his Willy Wonka outfit. I've always wanted one of these "falls count anywhere in [x]" stips to be enforced literally--e.g., Cactus gets 2 on Sabu at the arena entrance, but Sabu *just* gets his leg outside the door to break the pin. Crazy-ass match, easily the best of the series so far. The setting is rather different from ECW Arena, lots of kids and blue-hairs there, like an old Showboat Pavilion AWA show. The reaction of the seniors is possibly the funniest part, especially Cactus unsuccesfully attemping to wrest a cane from an old man in the front row. And I can only imagine the reaction of the gamblers when they spilled into the casino, with Cactus piledriving Sabu onto a blackjack table in a spot that we sadly miss. All the spots hit here, and the finishing legdrop with the chair looked like it killed Cactus dead. One of the best indy matches of the year, easily.

Very good match, but maybe not the MOTY I was hoping for, knowing that Solar was in this. There was great build to the highspots and some near-falls, but the third fall finish was kind of flat, as Panther weathers a bunch of roll-ups and then casually wraps Mariachi up in the nudo lagunero for the submission.

Awesome match, probably the best tag for the WWF so far this year after a bevy of fantastic tag bouts in the first couple of months. Everything is so crisp here--that's what stands out, more than any super-innovative offense (save Razor doing his fallaway/blockbuster slam on his own partner, sending him flying into HBK). The execution is pitch-perfect the whole way through. Both Kid and Razor work FIP segments and Shawn does a long and awesome HIP towards the end, but overall this avoids the usual three-act WWF tag structure and throws some wrinkles into the story. This is also pretty much the birth of the "Sweet Chin Music," as Diesel's unconscious sell is a little over-the-top (though not nearly as bad as Davey Boy a month from now) but it's effective in getting over the move. Nash does about everything he can, and he's really perfected the punch-drunk staggering sell--it helps that Razor throws some great punches here.