PeteF3
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Hey, Terra Ryzing. Flair is begging off literally from the start of the match. Great. Heenan's rants about what an injustice this is to the Heavyweight champ are pretty classic Brain. All that's missing is something something "fair to Flair." Sting throws Flair around the ring at will and has him beaten with the Scorpion, when a Vladimir Lenin-looking dude gouges Sting's eyes, the power of which are such as to knock him out of the match with Regal at Bash at the Beach. Of course the real reason that it's Sherri dressed as a man is to give Hulk an excuse to beat her up. Flair's about to snap Hogan's knee when Mr. fucking T makes the save. Jesus. I have to admit this was a hot segment, but the bad parts are really, really bad.
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Was this a live episode? Hogan, to his credit, actually does an effective job of putting WCW over and hyping the Bash at the Beach main event. And WCW Interactive! After Shaquille O'Neal and George Foreman, Hogan brings out his trump card...Mr. T. Oh, just when this was going relatively well.
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A cake angle--also a southern-fried wrasslin' staple, but Jericho & Storm look so out of place in this setting. Really fun follow-up angle, as two kids are being filmed by their mom about to get the Thrillseekers' autographs when they're accosted by Cornette and two masked men. I could bitch about the mystery man overload at this point but I'll let it slide. Lance Storm recites the most wooden promo of all-time, dropping the bombshell that it was the Heavenly Bodies under the masks. Jericho's more charismatic but his acting is pretty horrible on all levels, from his over-the-top moaning after getting laid out to his ANGRY INTENSE WRESTLING TALK here. WE'RE GONNA KICK YOU LIKE YOU'VE NEVER BEEN KICKED BEFORE. Jim "Hoffa" Cornette responds, lamenting the snoopiness of modern America. Oh, Jim, you haven't seen nothing yet. I guess today he'd be singing the praises of poor railroaded Donald Sterling. Cornette's interpretation of the events on the tape are pretty hilarious. The WWF has suspended the Heavenly Bodies for one week and threatened a fine if they don't return to SMW to face the Thrillseekers during that time. Another potentially confusing set-up, explained away masterfully by Cornette.
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Cornette has now reinvented himself as a union boss, head of the Federation of International Thugs & Eliminators, or FITE. This whole set-up with THREE mystery men (counting Armstrong's successor as commissioner, which I believe was planned to be Bill Watts) sounds convoluted as hell, but everyone involved is so good at getting all these stips over that it all works. And all the payoffs work, from the announcement of the match stipulations to the announcement of the babyface cornerman to the announcement of the mystery partner. Between Cornette, Wright, and Bullet Bob there are way too many classic lines to even recap. Suffice to say I'll never look at a baseball bat again without thinking of it as a "Smoky Mountain toothpick." Wrasslin' as southern as a country-fried steak. -
Randy Hales on commentary from the Mid-South Coliseum. I think Rich has a legitimate beef with that decision. That "throw off the headlock and into the referee" spot is a Memphis staple and it never ends in a DQ. Maybe he saw Dream Machine get involved. Rich has hijacked Diesel's ring gear and now looks and sounds like a redneck Greg Valentine. He rants about all he's done to Lawler and Dream Machine lays a rap on us. I like Graham's act but this idea that he "did Dusty better than Dusty" is absurd. He talks a good game but he's never hit you in the gut the way Dusty could.
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The triple-submission was a neat finish, but I can't help but think AJPW did the same thing except it was much cooler because it was the young folks putting the screws to Jumbo's team. Still, this was a really fun look at the old guys putting the young'uns in their place. Much, much more fulfilling than the Steiners match the night before, naturally.
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Slower-paced than the usual Steiners match, to its detriment. There's really nothing new under the sun here--all the Steiners moves, all the native moves, and even the Mutoh & Hase mocking spots have been seen before. I'm fine with a tag match sticking to the basics but Money Inc. actually did a much better job of getting that sort of match out of the Steiners than Muto & Hase. There are some nice spots here, but Rick in particular pretty much blows off everything that's done to him. The only time the Steiners ever seem in danger of losing is when Mutoh hits the moonsault, right before the inevitable save. A step behind the Dome match which was a step behind their match in '92.
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I aced an analogy question on a proficiency exam that involved the word "vignette."
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I think I liked the J-Cup match a bit better, just because it's hard to top that finish--*that* as opposed to some of NJPW's upsets-for-upset's-sake was magnificently done in a way that really elevated Sasuke and led to great other matches. This time Sasuke goes balls-out from the start in an effort to prove that J-Cup wasn't a fluke, and the action never lets up from there. Sasuke does a little fighting from underneath at times but controls most of this, before Liger convincingly drops him with a super fisherman buster.
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I didn't much care for this at all. I knew not to expect a redux of their famed Texas Death Match but this was pretty phoned-in by Bam Bam. The Memphis style that seemed so cutting-edge at the start of the decade in comparison to the Big Two has in fact changed by standing still. ECW has surpassed it as the under-the-radar promotion doing shit the national promotions weren't. Standard Memphis stalling and a standard, tired Memphis finish. I'm sure there will be enjoyable stuff to come, as the promotion is filled with enough good talkers that almost any issue can seem compelling, but the USWA seems content to just be going through the motions. Let me know when SMW invades.
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Bad promo from the Kid, and the humble-nice-guy act is way overdone--someone similarly booked like Pillman, who wasn't afraid to show a bit of an edge, could have built this into something really special. This is very much an argument in favor of scripted promos. Lawler is in a tough and unusual role for him: "respectful babyface vs. babyface match" simply isn't a Memphis forte unless there's an angle attached, and he's in the weird position of sort of having to put over Bret. But he pulls it off nicely, and him steadfastly rooting for the Kid is a nice touch. The ongoing and neverending Bret-Lawler feud is probably the best thing about the WWF's mid-'90s booking.
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Flair and Sherri cut a promo in front of an obvious green-screen of the WCWSN set rather than the set itself. Flair is good, Sherri's just a bit over-the-top for my tastes.
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George was still a fairly big deal in boxing at this point and was a few months away from his improbable Heavyweight title win. This was short, at least.
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Good scorched-earth promo from Tammy with sort of an underwhelming payoff. This presumably sets up the Morton's-hair-vs.-Tammy's-hair disaster.
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End of a Paul E. promo that I'm pretty sure went longer, as he brings up his old desire to bring WCW down. Cactus responds with his infamous belt spitting that set off an internal shitstorm in WCW, thanks I believe in these pre-Youtube, pre-DVR days to Okerlund stooging him off. Really great promo from Cactus, with one of the first references to "Mrs. Foley's little boy." He channels Ole Anderson a bit with his plans for Sabu, brings up some history about being left out of the Dangerous Alliance, and talks of how he's "tired of being a family entertainer." Music to ECW fans' ears. And my general coldness to ECW notwithstanding, even mine.
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The scepter is cool, the crown is ridiculous and so lame that it can't even cross back over the line into cool again. Monsoon's "LIAR--YOU GOT LUCKY!" in regards to Owen's victory over Bret is absolutely fucking infuriating. There's the usual Monsoon quirks and then there's the unforgivable shit that belies the idea that he had any goddamn clue how to get over anything at all besides the Brain's quips and his own ego. I'm thinking back to all 4.5 Yearbooks I've watched, trying to remember one other time besides the '92 Rumble where Gorilla actually said something to put a heel over. Bitching aside, this is a very strong promo from Owen, full of rage and fire, actually much better than the KOTR coronation.
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I'm STUNNED, legitimately, that Okerlund doesn't introduce Ted Turner as his "close, longtime personal friend." WCW does go all-out to make this look like a big deal, but it still carries an air of phoniness (especially Gene's fawning intro of Hogan and the tepid applause following) and lacks the WWF's early-'90s slick production values. Cool of Turner to take part in this, though--the dude was always loyal to wrestling and we were all better off for it. Flair is always great in these settings, but I kind of wish we'd gotten cocky and laid-back Slick Ric. He had reason to be that way after vanquishing Sting, but he has to look paranoid and insecure instead.
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Who knows how many Armstrongs are running around out there, both legitimately and illegitimately.
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Another sterling Jake promo. Sadly this feud comes to an anticlimactic end as Jake flaked out (shock of the century) and DWB had to take the belt in a phantom switch rather than in a big cage blowoff.
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Another stiff fight, that takes the intensity of the Clash and ramps it up a notch. You'd like to see a pinfall to finish things off, but Larry going nuts with the umbrella was pretty cool in its own right. Great little footnote to a classic feud. Nice to see Solie get to call one of these matches.
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Hey, let's book a crazy ECW brawl main event and have all the focus on DORY FUNK. I like Dory more than most in the IWC, but goddamn, he fits into this as well as Bob Backlund does. That said, this match makes me unsure if Johnny Grunge ever actually attended a wrestling school. Another shitty-ass finish, even worse than Sabu vs. Cactus, and Styles' cluelessness as to why Paul E. and 911 were there was infuriating. Styles has gotten better, but jeez, they're there because they were paying for PE to take the Funks out. I picked up on this story, you could have done the same thing, Joey. Another shitty, overlong post-match that at least has a cool payoff with Rocco bungee-jumping off the eagle's nest.
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Cactus was clearly working hurt here, to the point where he probably shouldn't have been working at all going by his first book, and it really showed. Call me nuts but as a standalone match I actually thought this was pretty good. Yep, I even liked the waistlock counters and stuff that built to the big insane spots rather than the guys going balls-to-the-wall to start. Kind of reigned Sabu's worst tendencies in, the same way Funk did, even if it was by pure accident due to Jack's injury. That said, it didn't live up to all the pre-match hype and the fans who viewed this as a disappointment probably were right to feel that way. And the ending is pretty cheap. Even the post-match starts out pretty hot, as Jack actually carries 911 to something resembling a watchable sequence, but then it just goes on and on and on with Jack blowing a ton of shit and the involvement of Hughes, Douglas, the Bruise Brothers, 911, and other guys I don't give two fucks about. And that chairshot to 911's head was sickening and not in a good, fun way.
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It's hard to fault WCW too much for this--if the opportunity to sign Hogan is there, I can't fault them for taking it even if leads to a product I don't like. If you've signed Hogan, it only makes sense to go forward with the match that the WWF couldn't pull off. If you go forward with Hogan vs. Flair off the bat, Sting is going to be left out in the cold. All that being said, this set-up does Sting no favors whatsoever. All the pre-match build is on Flair and Hogan, all throughout the match the talk is about how Hogan's affecting Flair, Sting gets his ass kicked by a woman who double-crosses him, etc. I can't really offer a better alternative right now (the idea of having Hogan and Flair as a dream team before building to the match sounds nice in theory--in practice, I think the longer you put the money match off the higher the odds that something goes awry, just as it did in the WWF) but Sting really comes off as ineffective even as he dominates the match. There's really nothing new under the sun here, as these two roll through all their standard spots with Ric getting pretty badly bitched out, until demonstrating his superiority in the most important departments: brainpower and trust. The WCW International title is finally mercy killed and Flair and Sherri put on a pretty awesome post-match attack, before Hogan comes in and bitches Flair out again. Yes, Jerome is 100% right on the Hogan/Sherri altercation and Jimmy Hart's involvement specifically. It's one of numerous issues to come that demonstrate how many ridiculous advantages Hogan always gets. Plus Hart comes off as the little Chester the pup from Looney Toons, to Hogan's Spike the Bulldog. This historic, legendary unification match between WCW's two top all-time legends ends with Hogan's music playing. If that doesn't sum up late-'94 WCW...
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Man, how did I not realize what a blatant ripoff of "Real American" this entrance music was. Noticeable boos for Hulk's promo, which puts over WCW but really says very little. Flair cuts in from the video wall and screams at him. This is very 1998 Crazy Old Man Flair, and he's one breath away from taking off his robe and elbowdropping it. The talk in the Unification Match thread about Flair trying too hard also rings true here. Backstage (or somewhere else pre-taped, most likely) Hulk and Shaq both have words for us. Not that this moves the needle or anything by itself, but Shaq is as good of a celebrity "get" as WCW has had since LT in 1990.
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Dustin has evidently just stepped off the plane after performing in Branson, Missouri. Or he saw Regal's revolutionary get-up and powdered wig and thought, "I can top that." Arn will only team with Dustin if it's going to be the OLD Arn Anderson, which sits just fine with the Natural. Oh, Dustin.