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Surprised the WWF even allowed this to happen, but I'm not complaining. Slow start with the most notable happenings being Scott's spectacular hair and Rick actually doing a "pissing dog" taunt and then biting Mutoh in the rear end, which is absurd Bushwhacker-like shit but kind of amusing considering the setting. I'm closer to Childs and Chad on this--this was fun, like you'd expect a one-off Dome show match to be, but that's all. There were some great spots in this but I didn't feel anything from the matwork--and I really, really like Hase on the mat. The Screwdriver looked nasty, and yeah, Scott is exactly the kind of guy who'd leap to the turnbuckle and yell after doing it, rather than attempt a pin. I also liked the Frankensteiner as a transition move, thanks to the selling by both guys, and Hase is killed suitably dead at the finish. But as a Dome match it didn't hold a candle to the Steiners' bout with Hase & Sasaki

Sparky Plugg...Christ almighty. The Crush intros are still rock bottom as far as vignettes go, but the names of characters in '93, '94, and '95 are some of the worst ever.

Yokozuna has lodged another protest, this time to prevent Luger from entering the Royal Rumble due to his one-title-shot stipulation. Tunney will rule on that in the coming week. Another happy-go-lucky babyface promo with Vince slobbering, praying and hoping that Lex is allowed entry.

No-frills, down-and-dirty contest where Austin really carries himself as a singles star. It also reflects well on Sting that he was able to work a match like this The finish is cheap, but it seems to set up Sting & Pillman vs. Austin & Rude, which is something I can get behind. I'm going to try not to be too negative for the first half of 1994, and qualify every Austin match with a comment about why the fuck was he putting over Jim Duggan in 10 seconds and why the fucking Butcher main evented Starrcade and what a gigantic dump they took on Ric Flair and...OK, I got that out of my system.

Same video as the Starrcade intro, but instead of Vader destroying people we cut to Flair's celebration. Still a chilling piece of work.

Will is a clever little sod, having my '94 Yearbook arrive the same day I wrapped up my final thoughts on '93. Razor's gold turned up missing while he was getting laid out by Shawn Michaels on Raw, and an enterprising cameraman found it in IRS' briefcase. Razor makes threats towards the Tax Mang.

Deserving of its own thread when it's fully confirmed, but apparently Billy Robinson has died. That's some pretty shitty news for what's been an exciting week of wrestling.

I have the WWE Network and I at the minimum intend to make NXT a weekly thing, but for right now my tunnel vision is still on the Yearbooks. Just concluded my thoughts on 1993 as a whole.

There has been a decided up-down-up-down pattern when viewing Yearbooks for the first 4 years of the ‘90s. The ’90 Yearbook was a new experience for me and featured a ton of rare stuff from the last gasp of the multiple-territory days. Then we dipped in ’91 as WCW went to shit and WWF business declined, and USWA-TX disappeared. ’92 was by far the strongest year so far form an in-ring standpoint and will be hard to top as the decade continues—and then we dip back down in quality in 1993. As I said in the Flair/Vader review, basically the only promotions on the planet in as good or better of a spot at the end of ’93 than at the end of ’92 were UWFI (having just drawn 46,000+ for Takada/Vader) and AAA (running successful shows again in LA), and even AAA had scandals of its own as El Hijo del Santo was going through a messy public divorce and you had the Konnan/Jake Roberts mess earlier in the year. The WWF closed out the year having lost two iconic announcers and with Vince under indictment, after having a mostly hot year creatively if not financially. The USWA had a dark cloud over its head with a temporary end to its WWF partnership, Jeff Jarrett leaving, and most importantly Lawler under indictment of his own. WCW closed on about the highest note possible but was still in shambles business-wise without the consistent in-ring action to make up for it. All-Japan’s business took a hit with the departure of Jumbo Tsuruta and despite a high finishing note of their own had to deal with a mess of a Tag League—with their TV due to get cut in half in ’94, things can’t have been going all that swimmingly. New Japan was the world’s biggest promotion and even they regressed, if only because they had to after such a great ’92. Choshu blew out his achilles and gave up both wrestling and booking while recovering, and they were simply past the days of being able to sell out Sumo Hall 7 straight days. Even RINGS was dealing with a long-term injury to Maeda and PWFG seemed moribund. I confess to not knowing enough to say how the women’s promotions were doing, but it seems the interpromotional stuff peaked with DreamSlam and at the minimum, they weren’t doing great enough to give anyone an optimistic view of the future of wrestling. And unfortunately, 1994 figures to break the pattern—I hope to be surprised but I remember the WWF sucking and WCW having a good first half and a shitty-ass second. The bright side is the Japan and lucha stuff will mostly be new to me, and I hope it carries the load. The ’93 Observer Award ballot follows. Real-life winners in parentheses. CATEGORY A WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (Vader) 1. Vader 2. Nobuhiko Takada 3. Aja Kong Not an easy category in a year where business declined almost universally. The constant here is that these people generally worked on top of promotions that didn’t. You could objectively say that Vader was just as bad of a domestic draw as Sting was, but the Vader mark in me says WCW’s problems were beyond the capabilities of any one man besides Hogan—and since he was mostly inactive and not drawing when he was active, then the bar needs to be lower than “Not Hogan.” Vader was the best worker in the U.S. and was still a draw in Japan and putting on very good matches in an unfamiliar style. Takada was the ace of a booming company that was selling out baseball stadiums with no television. Kong was the ace of the top women’s promotion and with all the interactivity going on basically the focus of the entire women’s wrestling scene. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER (Kenta Kobashi) 1. Kenta Kobashi 2. Vader 3. Dynamite Kansai I think there’s a lot more ’93 Kobashi that I need to see, but I saw enough down the stretch to agree with the consensus that he was the best in the world. Kansai may be a personal bias pick because all I saw from her were the “big” matches, but they’re my awards. BEST BABYFACE (Atsushi Onita) 1. Bret Hart 2. Kenta Kobashi 3. Bob Armstrong The Lawler feud did wonders for Bret as did the beginnings of the Owen turn, as he got to show off more sides of his personality—he got to work an aggressive brawling style, he got to work heel (always a strong consideration when determining Best Babyface!), and he even got to show off a bit of acting chops. Kobashi was finally in a bigger setting as Misawa’s new partner, but he was still a credible underdog against the other top guys, where his playing to the crowd and crying act still really worked. I’m not sure it says much for Cornette’s ability to book top babyfaces when his best one is a retired semi-active commissioner, but Bullet Bob was the best babyface interview in wrestling. BEST HEEL (Vader) 1. Vader 2. Jerry Lawler 3. Cien Caras As the first real “heel ace” since late ‘80s Flair, Vader did an excellent job artistically if not financially of being a foil for almost every other top WCW babyface. Lawler’s Memphis act seemed really fresh and new in the WWF setting. Caras was a guy who I really should have given a spot two earlier in the decade. He and Konnan had a huge moneymaking feud and I didn’t want to give Konnan a Best Babyface nod, so… FEUD OF THE YEAR (Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart) 1. Jerry Lawler vs. Bret Hart 2. Genichiro Tenryu vs. New Japan 3. Cactus Jack vs. Vader A recurring theme throughout these awards is me being a sucker for anything that spans multiple promotions. Bonus points if the roles get switched accordingly. It was one of the first WWF feuds in ages to show some real personal hatred that didn’t involve Randy Savage, and it started to incorporate other people throughout the year before dying a quick death. Not that it matters to ’93 specifically but I always loved how this feud, once Lawler came back, was always simmering under the surface and could be resurrected at a moment’s notice in years to come. It wasn’t until Bret turned heel 4 years later that it would be finally dead and buried—a Tommy Rich vs. Buzz Sawyer for the new generation. I liked the Cactus/Vader matches seemingly more than anyone else, and the initial injury angle was the best or second-best WCW “thing” of the year. Despite continuing to have great interpromotional matches that played off each other, I had trouble getting into Toyota/Yamada-Ozaki/Kansai as a “feud,” rather than rematches that simply got booked. They were great but they almost seemed like TWA/WWA fantasy-booking rather than a long-standing running issue. Hokuto/Kandori the same way, though that definitely seemed more personal. If I watched more AJW/JWP/LLPW I could be persuaded to change my mind. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR (The Hollywood Blonds) 1. The Hollywood Blonds 2. The Heavenly Bodies 3. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki Shame about the ending, but the Blonds were the best thing about WCW television for the first 6 months of the year. The Bodies had at least 3 different line-ups but Jim Cornette had valid paperwork stating they were a CORPORATION and thus are to be evaluated as one unit. Domestic tag team wrestling is about to take several steps backwards and the Bodies and Rock ‘n Rolls are still anchoring a promotion. I can’t say any more about Kansai/Oz. MOST IMPROVED (Tracey Smothers) 1. Yokozuna 2. Brian Lee 3. Marcus Alexander Bagwell Tracey’s great but the Observer readers must not have “gotten” the Southern Boys/Young Pistols—he was great before ’93. Yokozuna turned into a terrific monster heel and was able to stand out as something other than a Vader ripoff. Brian Lee was the shock of the set for me—I suspect he’ll never be as good again but the heel turn instantly turned his career and his work around. Bagwell/Scorp was a fun team that was more than just “Scorpio and his anonymous whitebread partner.” I doubt there are a lot of hidden gem Bagwell singles bouts but he carried his end in tags just fine. MOST UNIMPROVED (Rick Rude) 1. Rick Rude 2. Mr. Perfect 3. Terry Gordy Sorry for the Gordy pick, but he would have gotten consideration even before the coma. That fucking MVC title loss still grates on me for how awful it was, not that Doc, Kawada, or Taue were blameless. Perfect had good stuff throughout the first half of the year but by his departure it was time for him to go. Rude was still a good heel capable of great heel interviews, but he wasn’t the top threat that he was in ’91 or ’92 and his match quality plummeted. The best Rude matches of the year were made by his opponent. MOST OBNOXIOUS (Vince McMahon) 1. Eddie Gilbert 2. Joey Styles 3. The WCW Amateur Challenge guy Again, the King of Philadelphia sketches were airing at the same time Lost in Cleveland was, and I had to ponder a bit about which was worse. Consider the implications of that. Styles’ Noo Yawk street tough character, who thought reciting pop culture references equated to wrestling commentary, was just barely starting to get tolerable at the end of the year. I’ve never seen or heard a more condescending ass than that Amateur Challenge announcer. I know it’s hard not to be condescending about the videos we saw, but he was symptomatic of a larger issue within the company that thought running these on the air was a good idea. This is a bad, bad year for annoyances: Rob Bartlett could not crack the top 3. BEST ON INTERVIEWS (Jim Cornette) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Jerry Lawler 3. Cactus Jack Cornette wins this comfortably. Funny promos, serious promos, and promos that drew money (to some degree). It’s easy to get all the promo time you need when you own the company, but at least it’s Cornette’s promotion and not Mr. Fuji or Harvey Wippleman. This year was the true balancing act for Lawler, as he was better and more effective as a heel in a fresh new setting than he was in Texas or 1990 Memphis. Turning somebody like Cactus Jack babyface seemed a lot more daring and out-of-the-box at the time than it does in retrospect, and without Foley’s mic skills or in the hands of the WWF, it could have been a disaster. MOST CHARISMATIC (Ric Flair) 1. Ric Flair 2. Konnan 3. Atsushi Onita I have to give Konnan some props, somewhere. This isn’t really a category I’m too concerned with in a time when business is down. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER (Hiroshi Hase) 1. Hiroshi Hase 2. Shinobu Kandori 3. Negro Casas 3a. Doink the Clown “Technical wrestling” like tag wrestling is starting to retrogress, and not just in the U.S. as the big Japan heavies tend to be shying away from it and Mexico was much ligher on great technical title bouts. Hase is the exception—he was the most compelling heavyweight mat wrestler in the world. I couldn’t in good conscience put Doink in the top 3 but I felt he deserved acknowledgment. He was about the last guy left in the U.S., aside from Backlund, working a true mat-based style. Kandori was better but gets a vote for similar reasons to Doink—she stood out within the style, plus she had the legit judo credentials backing her up. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD/BEST BRAWLER (Cactus Jack) 1. Cactus Jack 2. Sabu 3. Terry Funk Not sure anyone has ever put more thought into garbage brawls than Cactus Jack. I think he could have been a valuable asset as a Pat Patterson-type, specializing in laying out hardcore matches. Sabu still comes off as fresh and exciting in this setting, and Funk tended to reign him in—like Cactus, he knew the importance of psychology regardless of how garbagey the setting. BEST FLYING WRESTLER (Jushin Liger) 1. Jushin Liger 2. Manami Toyota 3. 2 Cold Scorpio Do I have to defend any of these? Rey Jr. should get a shout-out, but I was more impressed by him as a sympathetic babyface in the matches we saw than as a flyer. MOST OVERRATED (Sid Vicious) 1. Lex Luger 2. Sid Vicious 3. Ultimo Dragon That fucking Lex Express push…God, that just didn’t get any better. Sid was the real target of the Observer reader’s wrath and for good reason, as he got a fat contract and (right before the hotel stabbing) an agreement to an even fatter four-year extension despite not showing any tangible reason to have earned it. I’ll say it: Ultimo Dragon fucking sucks and I can’t believe he was pushed all the way to the IWGP Jr. title. I’d have preferred to see Honaga get another reign, at least he understands what a heel and a babyface are (that matters, even in Japan). MOST UNDERRATED (Bobby Eaton) 1. 2 Cold Scorpio 2. Arn Anderson 3. Felino I have no clue if Felino was really underpushed or not. But he was terrific and with his boundless enthusiasm should have been a top babyface and worked a long series against Negro Casas. 2 Cold should have been pushed to the moon, like to U.S. or at least TV title levels. I think he was that good, and he had that…er, “urban” appeal. Not many wrestlers have gotten saddled with more crap in one year than Arn Anderson, from Erik Watts as an opponent to Paul Roma as a partner to being an anonymous sidekick on A Flair for the Gold to getting stabbed ina hotel room, Arn deserved better in every aspect. BEST PROMOTION (All-Japan) 1. All-Japan 2. New Japan 3. AAA New Japan continued to be great but I think it took a decided step back in quality—not a big one, but a noticeable one—while AJPW moved forward. #3 is kind of a dogfight, as I had to think about AAA, UWFI, and even the WWF. I went with AAA because it really seemed like a revolutionary game-changer for the business. BEST TELEVISION SHOW (All-Japan) 1. All-Japan 2. Monday Night Raw This one is always hard to answer in a Yearbook format. AJPW had maybe the best in-ring year ever to this point and Raw had the feel of an unpredictable old-time studio show, a direction the company really needed after such a bland 1992. MATCH OF THE YEAR (Toyota/Yamada vs. Kansai/Ozaki, 4/11) 1. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (12/3) 2. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (12/6) 3. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki (DreamSlam II, 4/11) 4. Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (DreamSlam I, 4/2) 5. Sting vs. Big Van Vader (strap match, SuperBrawl III, 2/21) 6. Masahiro Chono vs. Hiroshi Hase (8/6) 7. Kenta Kobashi vs. Steve Williams (8/31) 8. Kenta Kobashi vs. Stan Hansen (7/29) 9.. Satanico vs. Pirata Morgan (11/26) 10. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (6/1) ’92 was hard to evaluate because of the sheer avalanche of great choices. ’93 had a lot of great stuff to consider but was a lot more top-heavy—every promotion had “big” matches that I didn’t like at all and no obvious blowaway match really stood out. The only thing I’m confident on here is what’s in the top 4 and what’s in the 6-10 slots. It’s all interchangeable after that. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Jun Akiyama) 1. Bobby Blaze 2. The Smoking Gunns 3. Juventud Guerrera I gave Jun the #2 spot last year, though I suppose by MLB’s standards he’d be eligible in ’93. No one on a Yearbook stood out so I went with memories and reputation. The Gunns were two of the least-experienced indy guys ever to land a WWF contract and were almost immediately put on television, which is impressive on its surface, and they had some good performances despite the cheesy gimmick. Blaze was pretty compelling as a Mikey Whipreck/southern-style-junior-heavyweight guy. MANAGER OF THE YEAR (Jim Cornette) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Tammy Fytch 3. Vince McMahon Not a good year for managers at all, after a strong ’92. Another thing starting to go the way of the dodo. Cornette and Fytch lapped the field to the point where I was lost as whom to vote for for #3. I decided to cheat like crazy. Vince cut promos for guys and he appeared at least once at ringside, so he did just enough to be considered. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Jim Ross) 1. Jim Ross 2. Bob Caudle 3. Tony Schiavone Not really a good year for announcers, either. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Gorilla Monsoon) 1. Joey Styles 2. Vince McMahon 3. Rob Bartlett Not really a good year for annonce—yeah. Vince will almost always be good at getting over angles and he had more to get over than in ’92, but as a play-by-play man his worst tendencies are starting to come out more and more. I don’t have anything more to say about the dumpster fire that was Rob Bartlett. I suppose ECW is testimony that maybe announcers aren’t as important as some would like to think, because they were able to generate a cult following despite the utter incompetence of the various people, from Styles to Sulli to Tod Gordon, that they had behind the mic. CATEGORY B Note that for a lot of these, the Observer readers got them right. BEST WRESTLING MOVE (Vader’s moonsault): Have to go with this—just a mind-blowing move the first time it was seen. BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (DreamSlam I): No argument with this either, though Dream Rush was still a better show. WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Fall Brawl): In addition to being the least successful, BattleBowl was possibly the least consequential pay-per-view ever, despite having one of the best battle royals ever. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (Cactus Jack amnesia angle): Oh dear God, so many choices. Cactus Jack sacrifices himself to get an angle over and gets rewarded with Lost in Cleveland. Sid Vicious is hyped as being at a live Clash after the stabbing incident. Tully Blanchard is advertised, by name, as appearing at Slamboree. Cheetum the Midget tries to blow up Sting and Davey Boy’s boat. The WWF tries to portray the entire country of Japan as a heel—there’s old-school booking that’s good and there’s old-school booking with an ugly side. We didn’t need a rehash of the Jim Ross “Are there any nice-looking Orientals?” days. The Observer jumped big-time on the WWF using bullshit 900 line votes, like advertising on the West Coast airing of Raw despite final results already being announced out East, and having fans vote for an opponent despite the match already being taped. In the end, I have to go with Lost in Cleveland. It was the only storyline of this bunch to begin with real promise—the rest were bad or uncompelling programs simply made worse. The rampant false advertising by WCW was a major, major issue, though. BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Bobby Heenan): I wish I could vote for Bobby in his last strong year, but Dutch Mantell was best in the land. FAVORITE WRESTLER (Ric Flair): Kansai was my favorite in-ring wrestler to watch, but Ric managed to win me over by the end of ’93. Crazy to think now with how fucked up his life has become but he came off as all that was right in a horrible business, rising phoenix-like above a WWF de-push and WCW’s morass of shit and Sid fetish. LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Sid Vicious): Lex Luger, hands down. No wrestler has been involuntarily shoved down the viewers’ throats more, before or since. A deteriorated wrestler in the 100% wrong role. John McAdam pointed out that 1993 was the height of grunge—outside of maybe the height of the counterculture era there was not a worse time to be pushing an All-American goody-two-shoes as your top babyface. WORST WRESTLER (The Equalizer): The Wrestlecrap on this Yearbook tended to be of the non-wrestling variety, so sure. I can’t vote for Catherine White or anyone from the Amateur Challenge, after all. WORST TAG TEAM (The Colossal Kongs): See above. I literally think WCW was basing its signings by reading Apter mags. A ton of guys who constantly showed up in indy results like the Kongs and Charlie Norris were appearing on national television whether they were ready or not. WORST TELEVISION SHOW (GWF on ESPN): Don’t think any of this made the set, which probably speaks volumes. I was surprised it was still on the air. What a goddamned waste. I wonder how wrestling would have changed if Jarrett had landed that ESPN spot back in 1986. WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji): You know, as bad of a year for managers as it was…not many people stood out as horrible. Managers in ’93 tended to be negligible guys who just didn’t stand out, like Wippleman and Bert Prentice. Fuji was bad but was almost instantly marginalized once he became the manager of the #1 guy. I hate babyface Paul Bearer with a passion, so I’m giving this one to him. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (4 Doinks at Survivor Series): See the Worst Wrestler/Tag Team votes. No Pearl-Cazanas or Sid-Nightstalkers on this set that I can recall. I’m on board with this, as the Doink babyface turn was one of many, many, MANY disappointing events to take place for the WWF in the last half of the year. WORST FEUD (Undertaker vs. Giant Gonzalez): Hard to argue with this one, though Lex Luger vs. Ludvig Borga deserves strong consideration as the WWF actually expected that to main event shows. WORST ON INTERVIEWS (Mr. Fuji): I suppose, but he basically stopped talking once Cornette showed up. Babyface Crush was godawful. WORST PROMOTION (WCW): Yes. Just some absolutely unfathomable bullshit, like Black Scorpion levels of what-the-fuckery, all throughout the year or at least all throughout the post-Watts tenure. I have to say that the USWA would have been a really, REALLY tough watch if not for the WWF talent appearing. The non-McMahon stuff centered around winners like the Dogcatchers, babyface Moondogs, the team of evil school principal CW Bergstrom and student Melvin Penrod Jr., and Jeff Gaylord rehashes. BEST BOOKER (Jim Cornette): Antonio Pena, assuming he was doing the booking for AAA. I admit to really digging some of the lucha-meets-Memphis bullshit technicality finishes, plus he was heading the only promotion to truly be expanding at the end of the year rather than shrinking and booked some tremendous long-term angles like the Los Gringos Locos formation and the Jake/Konnan feud. Cornette was much the same though on a much, much smaller scale and deserves credit as well. Riki Choshu gave up the book about halfway through the year when he blew out his achilles, and I also think he was starting to get overly cute with the surprise finishes. When Tenryu went down first in the 10-man elimination match, WAR may as well have thrown the towel in right there. And as much as I marked out for Liger pinning Hase, what did that really do for Liger? BEST PROMOTER (Giant Baba): Antonio Pena, for the reasons stated above. BEST GIMMICK (The Undertaker): Evil Doink, comfortably. I think way, way more could have been done with the character. WORST GIMMICK (The Shockmaster): Can I vote for A Flair for the Gold? That was the worst use of a legendary wrestler I could imagine. If I can’t…God, still a lot of choices here. The WWF is heading into its all-time worst period for character creativity and there were some epic duds in ’93. The Shockmaster was a bad but not otherworldly gimmick ruined by a disastrous technical error, so the biggest faceplant for me goes to Friar Ferguson. Ferguson vs. Chris Duffy is a strong Worst Match of the Year contender, come to think of it. MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (Bastion Booger): Mike Shaw in general. The gimmicks weren’t necessarily his fault, but they were what they were. Giant Gonzalez and that outfit are a strong contender as well.

Flair, strutting around the ring while barely being able to stand, with a bloody mouth, after finally taking Vader down, is one of the most chill-inducing wrestling images I've ever seen. This is essentially WCW's answer to Savage vs. Warrior at WM7--a match in which the "moment" and the story and the imagery so overwhelm the X's and O's that it's almost impossible to rate objectively. It's all added by viewing the full context of the Yearbook. At this point, basically every promotion in the world (except UWFI and AAA) was in a worse spot than they were 365 days earlier--most in the U.S. dramatically worse. The wrestling business as a whole seemed to be on life support. And Ric Flair--the Plan B!--for at least a night appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. In a strictly kayfabe context, Vader has run roughshod over every major WCW babyface--beaten down Simmons, turned back Sting, turned back Davey Boy and Cactus, and put Sid out of wrestling. And Flair was the light at the end of the tunnel. Getting back to those X's and O's for a second, what Loss said about making the fans wait for a psychological payoff--when talking about Arn and Regal and the leg at SuperBrawl IV, or about the build-up to the Cesaro Swing in the Cena match--really comes into play here. Flair's first tactic is try to play simple hit & run, but Vader's ready for that and won't play that game. *Then*, after weathering Vader's attack, Flair targets the leg, and the crowd goes nuts. Ric could have gotten a reaction by blowing his nose here, but he hasn't forgotten Wrestling Psych 101 either. And in the end, the leg work combines with the hit & run strategy to pay off in victory, as Flair has enough to dodge all of Vader's big bombs (and one from Race, too). At times this wasn't the easiest Yearbook to get through, and WCW can be blamed for a lot of that. And in '94 I'm sure a lot of the bloom is going to wear even further. But damned if this didn't end on a high note.

Good action to start the second fall...and then one inverted atomic drop and a tights grab and Austin wins the belt? The fucking fuck was THAT?

Seeing Reid hurts, as is seeing Flair in happier times in general. Is that Charlotte, or is that another daughter? Another fantastic segment, in any event.

WCW production staff...the Adam Dunn of videotape. A low average with lots of swings and misses, but goddamn do they knock it out of the park here.

Paul Bearer can start shutting the fuck up now.

Joey Styles AND Tony Rumble??! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Okay, so they're both kind of reigned in, and Styles seems to be morphing into the traditional announcer's role rather than awkwardly trying to play a character. Another fun match, though not quite as good as their indy handheld. The ECW we know is pretty much here, and Sabu's act still feels fresh. I don't know what the fuck was up with the ending, or who's supposed to be aligned with whom, but you can't accuse it of being boring. Missed cue or not I was surprised they were doing the "lights out" trick this early.

This has the look of a Bing Crosby Christmas special, supposedly from Gene Okerlund's Minnesota cabin. Flair is so good in low-key settings that it sometimes feels like a shame that he's so associated with a screaming act. Okerlund is really great here, too.

Murdoch informs us that Mama Cornette was the one who always got him out of jail. These continue to be fantastic.

Is this a repeat? I know there was a sports-themed Smothers video set to "All I Can Do Is Write About It" at some point.

Stan Lane is such a phony. I always thought this teased-heel-turn-then-abandonment-then-real-heel-turn move was a little puzzling, like they decided to reset things, but I think it works. A brother-vs.-brother match needed a lot more build than a typical Memphis heel turn.

These guys are like poor men's versions of Volk Han, which means they're still pretty good, and their styles blend perfectly into a really fun match. Even the ridiculously missed kick was fun just because it was so incongruous.

I have no recollection of any Sparky vignettes at all. I first saw/heard of him when he came out at the '94 Rumble--I absolutely refused to believe there was a wrestler named "Sparky Plugg," and tried to convince my mother who was in the room, when she asked, "Did he say 'Sparky Plugg?'" that Vince had said something else.

Jarrett is now in Double J mode, going by that name while coming out to his WWF theme that I've always hated. After all the talk about Heel Champion Lawler's style, I'm pretty over Jarrett's stalling and constantly going to work the mic at this point. After the initial time-wasting, the action here is pretty good, and in some ways Jarrett carries himself as a heel champ better than Lawler did--no chains, and when Jarrett declares that he's now ready to fight instead of wrestle, he actually acts on it and starts kicking Lawler's ass. All the punch exchanges were good, and so was Lawler's multiple-piledriver payback even if *two* ref bumps are pretty ridiculous. Lawler dropping a fist on Frank Morrell so he could give Jarrett another piledriver got a legit laugh from me, though. Worth watching to see Jarrett adapt to the heel style after six years as being nothing but a babyface.

I'm not opposed to non-clean finishes, when I think of bad finishes I think of shit like that Slater/Reed no-disqualification disaster.

I don't know, there are quite a lot of house show matches on those sets. Lots of Joel Watts footage from Mid-South, and the Houston matches are essentially house shows with cameras, a la MSG and the Boston Garden. Stuff from the Mid-South Coliseum. And then there's everything from AJPW and NJPW and the lucha promotions, who were seemingly never bound by the "don't give anything away on TV" model. Still lots and lots of bullshit to parse through. The finish is like the checkout line--the last thing you remember. A particularly good or bad one can sweeten or sour the entire experience.

The round system seems to be an "is what it is" thing with Europe. Boxing had rounds from at least the start of the Queensbury era, so contemporary Euro wrestling and its Lord Mountevans rules did also. Liger, having been in this environment lots both in Europe and Japan, knows how to pace these type matches much better than Funk and it pays off here. Just a really good blend of New Japan juniors bombs and British grappling. Too bad the Finlay footage is so spotty because I think he could be a legit BITW candidate, at least for males. The draw finish pissed me off, but it looked like Finlay was defending some sort of title so I guess a clean finish was out the window.