PeteF3
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I think there's a disconnect between the dates and which Flair promo is which, but okay, I'll go with the thread I haven't posted in yet. Flair is interviewed by Schiavone here, and he's trying to reign himself in after his tantrum last week. That lasts for about 30 seconds before he's worked up again, this time about Sting calling himself the "Franchise." Have to side with Ric on that one. "WHO'S...HULK...HOGAN?!" Flair offers to smack around Stallone and Mr. T before begging Hogan to appear at the Clash.
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Traylor's size is the first thing that jumped out at me, too. He absolutely dwarfs everyone else in sight. Apparently the directive came down for Traylor and the Guardian Angels to cut more wrestling-style promos.
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We see footage of the Dirty White Girl being immobilized and spineboarded while Jake gleefully narrates. Kimberly did the DWB a favor by taking the fall for him! DWB wonders if his dog and his wife and look at him the same way, and is out to avenge his family name. This is building to a great payoff, but sadly it's not going to come.
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Steve & Scott are back in the fold, and they'll be taking on the Funks. I'm not sure the Armstrongs have any claim for being a more famous family but I'm genuinely interested in seeing this match.
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These upcoming piledriver matches are "unsanctioned"...but the tag titles are still at sake. Zuhh?? Goddamn, Cornette, don't do shit like this just after I've made a post defending your booking as more logical than Memphis. Morton gets in some good lines on Lee & Candido before calling out Tammy Fytch. Robert Gibson sneaks up behind her and pours...dirt, but it's called manure over her. Tammy sells this great and Bob does an even better job, though this isn't really one of the great humiliation angles.
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Pretty decent action but Memphis seems to be out of surprises. After some of the most innovative booking in the world in 1990, a lot of their standard finishes and screwjobs and attacks just seem staid. Hell, even Antonio Pena tends to be doing Memphis better than Memphis. Smoky Mountain offers up cleaner, more logical booking and ECW has passed it in terms of in-ring craziness. It also seems way early for the freshly turned Scott Bowden to be eating fire.
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This is a very thinking-man's UWFI bout. The matwork isn't exactly dynamic, but I got the strategies of both guys. It makes sense for Albright to just lay across Takada as much as he could, as the very act of being ridden by Albright would be tiring. Takada had to stay upright, keep his distance, and strike. We had a traditional southern shootstyle tag earlier on the card--this is a shootstyle studio main event. There are also great teases throughout of Albright's big full nelson suplex, but in the end it's Takada's strategy that pays off, as just like with Steve Nelson, Albright simply can't counter Takada's kicks. I liked this a lot, even the slow beginning, because they told the story so well. The slow opening never felt meandering or pointless, in the way that a lot of shootstyle "feeling out" processes do to me.
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Awesome stuff, with Tamura really having you believing at points. But every time Vader touches him, he pays for it. Once again Vader bulldozes through Tamura's 15 points and scores a TKO win, but he really had to earn this one.
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A fucking face-in-peril, hot tag, house-afire sequence in UWFI! This is the best UWFI tag that I've seen, with good strategy being shown by the Americans in working over Saku's leg, and a recurring story of Nelson not having any answer or defense for the low kicks. Also some incredible "near-falls"--this is really about the most traditional pro wrasslin' layout you'll ever see in a UWFI ring. Lydick & Nelson going all gloating ugly-American in their celebration was cool, too. -
I wouldn't say this is the deepest match ever, and in that regard it pales in comparison to the top AJPW 6-mans. But this was fun, and the New vs. Old was a bit of a different dynamic than AJPW tended to offer. Match ends suddenly and while Hase pinning Choshu is quite the shocker, I'm starting to be over all these big NJPW upsets. Liger pinning Chono, Chono doing a singles job to Tatsutoshi Goto earlier in '94, and now this...none of these really seem to be accomplishing anything for the winner. I think there's a happy medium to be had between AJPW's conservative style and NJPW's anything-can-happen method.
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Decent promo, but take a drink every time 2 Cold says "that's right." You'll go blind. Still, it's absurd how badly WCW missed the boat on this guy.
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This match sort of sells itself.
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PE drive a golf cart into the Double Cross Ranch. I don't know what they're going to accomplish by stealing horses, but they end up taking a llama(!). The reference to the departed Jimmy Jack Funk was legitimately amusing, but yes, Rocco and Grunge's voices are like nails on a chalkboard.
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Wow. This was, quite simply, a war. Great work by both guys to get over the stakes--Ramirez is clobbered before the bell which typically signifies a quick rudo victory, but he comes back to get a win. Cruz weathers a storm in the second fall to make his own comeback, and gets a clean submission with a cool spinning hangman hold to take Ramirez's hair. Ramirez throws in some great athletic moves including a gorgeous huracanrana, and the dives are among the most high-impact you'll ever see. Done with bullet speed and huge bumps into the ringside seats. Other than Cruz's pre-match attack and doing a fake low blow, the rudo/technico divide is pretty nonexistent--this is just two guys beating the fuck out of each other going all-out to win. One of the best lucha matches of the year.
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"THAT'S NOT ROWDY RODDY PIPER!" Yeah, Lawler's intro was right out of the Howard Finkle-at-WrestleMania-5 playbook. This would have been funnier with either one of the Prichards, or Lawler doing a full-on Brother Love and interviewing himself. This kid isn't bad, though, even if he sounds more New England than Canada. Lawler and the guy make some SO not 1994-PG-WWF jokes about what's under Piper's skirt and where he got his earring from. There's some good stuff to come from the WWF, but after the company was pumping so much good stuff in '93, we're firmly into the UN-BE-LIEVABLE New Generation Era, and a lot of this I suspect is going to be a tough watch. A skit like this isn't a bad way to add to a feud, but this stuff is going to make up ENTIRE feuds now. Compare and contrast with Terry Funk interviewing "Rick Flaire," which made up like 1/100th of the Funk/Flair feud as opposed to being the primary focus (not to mention this segment lacked a babyface coming out to take up Piper's side and leading to an awesome brawl--can't have too much excitement on one show).
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This is pretty admirable and the video is well put together, but I don't think any company was quite ready at this point to translate this into something that works in a wrestling context.
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Good angry promo from Ric. He's upset with Gene for calling Hogan's official arrival the "greatest day since I've joined WCW," which the Starrcade build really adds to in a cool way. Flair tells Hogan he's nothing until he's wrestled Austin, Arn, Sting, etc. Oh, if only. I'm amused by the idea of Hogan arriving as a young newcomer having to work his way up from beating Buddy Lee Parker to beating Steven Regal to getting a shot at Flair.
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DWB goes the opposite route of Randy Savage, playing it low-key and simmering. Just when you think Jake is about to be the most screwed wrestler alive, DWB sort of trails off, as if he's doubting himself. Outstanding character work. Meanwhile Jake continues to be an unabashed asshole before going into a sort of stock promo that he's used before. Not that that matters, because a stock Jake promo is still awesome.
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There are some damn cool moves and double-teams here--even from Lance. My favorite was the top-rope version of the old Hart Foundation "powerslam my partner into a cover" move. And I like Hagar more than Roth even if Roth knows more about the history of puroresu.
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Tammy is spectacular, in every sense of the word.
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I actually liked what we saw, even if it was just because the sight of the two Samoans working as a Memphis babyface tag team was so novel. It occurs to me that the 'shrinkers are natural babyfaces--their stuff like no-selling the head shots mesh more with stooging heels than with dumb good guys, and they have a nice array of crowd-pleasing moves to boot.
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Sting was scheduled to be in a "bounty match" against Scott Norton. Norton balked for whatever reason--money, doing a clean job, whatever--so I guess Walcholz was the biggest "monster" name they could get on short notice. The LA riot thing is freaky, but it was probably coincidence. DiBiase accused the Boss Man of beating prisoners right after his babyface turn (1990--the Rodney King attack took place in March of '91) and it wouldn't surprise me if they were sitting on the Nailz gimmick for a couple of years just like they did with the Ringmaster.
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Chigusa Nagayo vs. Mayumi Ozaki, JWP Super Major Queens Nagayo's SNK-sponsored video game entrance gear is rather amusing. I'm not sure to what extent the "generation battle" aspect of this meant anything, but this was definitely more epic in scope than the Kong/Kansai match. Ozaki brutalizes Nagayo on the floor to start with, but Chigusa begins a reocurring theme of the match by cutting Oz off with her "Super Freak" (tilt-a-whirl power bomb). Nagayo keeps it in the ring a bit and then pays Ozaki back on the floor with everything Oz did to her--including talking trash on the mic. There's sort of a story of Oz using weapons and chairs and whatnot while Nagayo keeps it basically to wrestling, but by the end of it Ozaki is the one who's bleeding a gusher. Ozaki throws all her big moves at Nagayo but Chigusa keeps kicking out, and then a finish that's similar to Hasegawa/Toyota, as Nagayo slips down Ozaki's back and levels her with one big surprise move for the pin. Very good match. I honestly hesitate to say if it was Match of the Night--I was clearly the way-high vote on Kong/Kansai and it was probably a little bit tighter and not really any less intense. This is definitely one for a supplemental set, though. It *feels* somewhat historic even if I'm not sure if it really is.
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Man oh man, I thought this was awesome. It's not the most dynamic matwork in history but for two big female hosses tying each other in knots, it worked fine. And the closing stretch was pretty holy-shit great. Kansai's comebacks from taking all the urakens are absolutely awesome--first she gets some blocks in and turns into a lucha-style abdominal stretch, then later on when she looks dead and buried she comes back to MURDER Aja with a forearm that almost turns the tide. Very young-Misawa-vs.-Hansen-ish layout with the challenger trying to wear down the nigh-unbeatable champ with holds and having the strategy *almost* pay off. No, this isn't as good as 8/93, but I thought this was easily the best of the 3 joshi matches in this little stretch.
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Someone's going have to explain why Estrada is covered with Stars of David all over his attire here. La Parka is so darn likable--how much longer can he believably be a rudo? Even the coverage touches on that fact. Of course, he's also such a great stooge that using him as a babyface seems like a waste, too. After the classic amateur wrestling showdown with Sagrada, Parka kicks the ropes in frustration...right as Estrada is bouncing off of them, sending him to the floor. Some great comedy stuff going here. AAA matches tend to have a lot of bullshit in them, but this was entertaining bullshit, at least for the most part. They add a few twists, like Estrada breaking up the usual lucha rowboat spot. Eventually things break apart into a chaotic brawl in the third fall, with some cool dives that take out everyone except Metal and Estrada, leading to a clean rudo submission win. Mostly good stuff but I thought Metal had a fucking horrible performance--his timing was off on lots of things and it wouldn't surprise me if he was drugged out of his gourd for this, because he was out of it.