PeteF3
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I think the Clash's only competition for Worst Show Ever comes from the late Nash-booked and Russo-era WCW. Fall Brawl '99 is one that gets talked about a lot. GAB '91 may as well be WrestleMania X-7 compared to this.
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Also, Starblazer was definitely Tim Horner. The Mark Kyle that Parv mentions is the same guy as Killer Kyle. Wikipedia as I'm reading it says he wrestled against Starblazer on TV.
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Okay, the final word (assuming it's not touched on again when I get to the match): Col. Deklerk = Ted Petty, aka Rocco Rock Sgt. Krueger = Ray Apollo, aka the babyface Doink. Kahlua = Somebody named Larry Hamilton--obviously not Jody's brother who was also the Missouri Mauler. The Beast = Bill Tabb, former NWA jobber.
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This is the only thing worth a shit going on in the entire company.
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A fat hillbilly woman playing "Colette" tearfully asks where Jack is. Jack has a quick-healing body, but his memory is gone. All while "Catherine White" constantly nods or shakes her head and "Colette" yells at "Dewey." "Dewey CLEVELAND?" Oh, how subtle. This is my first time seeing these...holy shit, this is already as bad as its reputation. WCW is so utterly godawful at this point. I'd love to know who Catherine White is.
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What the fuck is with the New Orleans big band music?! Cheetum is here, and he SPEAKS. This is a press conference held in front of a bunch of chanting, pro-Vader and pro-Sid construction worker types. And shot on film, which makes this look even odder. Sid and Vader are officially the Masters of the Power Bomb, and right on cue the attendants start chanting "POWER BOMB." These aren't bad promos on the part of Race or the Colonel, but this could just as easily have been done on the Saturday Night set instead of whatever the hell this was supposed to be. Thank God this should be the worst of the Beach Blast build-up.
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A stereotypical-as-all-hell gimmick, but Regal fits into it. They're seriously trying to pretend Regal is a newcomer? Seeing Dundee in this setting after watching two and a half years' worth of the Superstar in Memphis is jarring, to say the least. Regal is upset that Schiavone is interviewing him and not his "friend" Lawrence Zbyszko, which is hilarious in hindsight. Regal wants Lady Di to stop pestering him with phone calls and then recites what an embarrassment the Royal Family are at the moment, and he has been tasked to show that the Brits are still the greatest people in the world. Regal is trying but this gimmick still needs a lot of work. Eventually he'd incorporate his own touches into making it slightly more authentic, but here he's just reciting crap from a British Stereotypes 101 textbook and doing it rather awkwardly--tea crumpets queen Di hovel--there were Tugboat promos more subtle than this.
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Clips from Pikeville, KY. Cornette cuts what sounds like a total scorched-earth promo on Ricky & Robert, but sadly we can't quite hear him. As Cornette rambles, the Bruise Brothers hit the ring and attack from behind. The Express bump for about 7 to get these guys over. Tim Horner makes the most ineffective save attempt in history. This went on, but it was a pretty selfless and masterful performance by the R'nRs, all told. Ricky promises they'll be ready next time. Great intense response, to continue this master class in babyface work.
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Magazine stills from Albany, NY where Shawn regains the Intercontinental title, via help from his "new bodyguard." On Raw he was simply referred to as "my insurance policy," so they obviously hadn't pinned down a name yet. Gorilla gloats over Shawn having to turn around and defend the belt against Crush at KOTR. Way to put the new champ over, Monsoon. Crush delivers an awful promo, even by his standards. Shawn's whiny, pouty response is much better.
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This Texas Chain Match has gotten even more hype than Kid/Razor II. Paul E. comes out and Tod does a terrible job of acting scared and awkward, trying to get Terry to calm down even though he's not doing anything. This was all really, really weird and nobody seems to be on the same page with anybody else. Why'd Paul E. come out alone if he's so petrified of Funk?
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For $7500, Razor could have everyone in the Manhattan Center standing on their heads naked. Vince points out that only 7% of hotline voters believe Razor will beat Bret at KOTR. Razor responds with a lot of Nutter Center puns. This was a strong promo and the slow build to the rematch continues to be awesome.
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This isn't quite DX-as-the-Nation levels of funny, but it was still pretty biting for the time--without being overlong and legitimately meanspirited like the NWO Horsemen parody. Flair's age wasn't exactly a huge secret but it had never been openly dealt with on television until now. Super-hot brawl to end the show. Wrestling fans do suck--as bad as WCW has gotten, this was a set-up worthy of a better rating than the Clash got.
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How in the name of FUCK did this air on the same program as that last spine-tingling promo?? Arn goes from dead-serious all business to playing dress-up. Flair FINALLY gets around to asking a question relevant to the fucking ongoing angles, as Badd gets around to talking up the feud with Maxx Payne. Maxx has stolen a Badd Blaster--the original Badd Blaster, given to him by Mommy B. Badd. This is a terrible segment setting up a pretty terrible premise for a feud, though Mero sells this as best as he can. We get a '50s-style sock hop that the crowd is INTENSELY unimpressed with. I could go the rest of my life without seeing Arn Anderson do the twist again. I continue to mark for the Clash angle with Payne blasting Badd in the face, though.
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Flair is SEETHING. He was content to be on the outside looking in, but two punks in jean jackets and stars stapled onto them have forced his hand. Flair is officially on his way back. Best Flair promo since coming back, of course--one of his best of the past 12 months.
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Intriguing angle at the end of the match. White Boy and Smothers are in the respective corners, and after both get involved Smothers gets powder in the eyes from Cornette, and when Horner goes to check on him Smothers decks him and starts working him over. Horner fights back until the Rock 'n Rolls break them up. Things get smoothed over in the locker room. I was starting to follow SMW pretty closely through PWI Weekly and I have no recollection of this at all. Curious if this is going somewhere or not.
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Cornette and Dutch officially make nice, and Cornette asks to see the latest from Methuselah Armstrong. Bob cuts one of the promos of the year--absolutely spellbinding, laying out how he felt getting strung up in the cage and beaten, dropping the official tease of Brian Armstrong's arrival after his discharge, and his training regimen (ARMSTRONG AVE.) for coming back. It's so good that even Cornette's response pales in comparison, at least until they read a letter from Scott Armstrong's girlfriend (at least, the parts they can say on television.) That brings the Armstrongs out and the Bodies and Cornette bail. -
This felt like an opening-matwork segment dragged out to 10+ minutes--none of it ever went anywhere, it was just to fill space. It did get good once the dives started. Kid's somersault was cool and Eddy's springboard to the crowd was spectacular. Reasonably hot finish follows, though I agree that Kid's low blow was weird and totally unnecessary. There was sort of a quasi-payback spot when Eddy did a Fuerza Guerrera-style atomic drop, but it wasn't really sold as such. Good-looking tornado DDT ends it. They were able to save this and make it into something worthwhile but this wasn't really up to either guy's reputation.
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I would just add that Angle was far more giving and selfless than Steiner. They were both suplex/spot-heavy guys insistent on "getting their shit in," but Angle tended to want to make his opponent look good, too. Sometimes to the detriment of the match (Shane McMahon). I'm not the guy to be pontificating on wrestling of the past decade but I don't know of Angle outright abusing guys the way Scott did.
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A fall-out-of-bed excellent match. Taue looked terrific here, and it's Taue vs. Misawa that's the singles match I'm looking forward to most coming out of this. But Kikuchi got the big spotlight here, working a long-ish FIP that's as good as you'd expect before working a sprint to the finish with Ogawa and scoring the pinfall. If anything this felt like it could have gone longer--Kobashi basically disappeared after the opening portion, though he did play an important role in Kikuchi making the hot tag. Someday I'll go through 1993 AJPW TV, where I can see the full depth of each guy, which matters a lot in such discussions. But until then, Kawada and Misawa both strike me as having better years than Kobashi.
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Good solid match that never really got into a higher gear--nor did it overstay its welcome. Kyoko was probably the best and most enthusiastic worker in it and Hokuto the least. Not bad, but...not anywhere close to something to serve up for a Best in the World candidacy.
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Good takedowns by Malenko, but PWFG is really coming off as a dying promotion while UWFI and RINGS look much hotter.
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I thought 2000 was the high water mark for business. Where specifically are these claims that there were "no good matches" in the '99 WWF? That the year wasn't a 100% complete waste of time doesn't mean that it wasn't a bad year work-wise.
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Flynn threw some nice kneelifts. The camera was in focus, and in color. And that's all I have to say. Don't ever ask me to watch this again.
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Lizmark vs. La Parka, TripleMania I could only find a severely clipped (5 minutes or less of ring time) version that appears to have been recorded with a potato. There was enough to make me interested in seeking out more but really hard to get any kind of grasp on how the match went. A skilled clip job can make any match look like a classic but this wasn't quite it. Perro Aguayo vs. Mascara Ano 2000, TripleMania Mascara is pretty limited--he can't do much more than punch, kick, and roll people up. But damned if this isn't a Pat Patterson-level booking masterpiece. The first two falls are over quickly in that perfunctory "let's get them out of the way" manner, but the finishes are delightfully screwy. First, Aguayo is going to town on 2000 in the corner, raining punches on him, when suddenly Chocolate calls for the bell for a low blow. Very cool and out-of-nowhere finish and good use of the standard long lucha replay, as we break down whether or not Aguayo really punched him low or not. You can almost see Chocolate under the hood trying to find "indisputable evidence" whether or not to overturn the call. The ruling on the field stands, and Aguayo is down 1-0 before he has a chance to take a breath. Universo 2000 makes his presence known in the second fall than then Mascara gets greedy, clobbering Aguayo with brass knucks so blatantly than even the heel ref Chocolate has to DQ him for it. That's two falls out of the way in about 5 minutes, leaving about 20 for the rest of the match. Aguayo does a monster blade job off the knucks shot and levels Mascara with every bit of offense that he has, while Ano is just trying to keep his head above water with small packages and cheap shots from Universo. Eventually Mascara's mask is all red, and I can't tell if it's because he bladed himself or it's Aguayo's blood. Universo nails Aguayo as he bounces off the ropes, and as Chocolate goes over to reprimand him, Aguayo recovers to BLATANTLY uppercut Mascara in the nuts as the crowd loses their shit. Universo throws a fit, but Chocolate doesn't see anything and Aguayo covers for the win and the mask. The crowd loves it, and I rejoice never having to tell Universo and Mascara apart again going forward. One of the most markout-worthy finishes on any Yearbook, a perfect poetic-justice ending built across three falls. I tend to dislike the heel ref shtick in lucha because they never seem to get any comeuppance, so when they inadvertently aid the babyfaces through their own incompetence that sort of feels like a satisfying payoff. AAA would copy this sort of layout with Tirantes, Los Gringos Locos, and Blue Panther in the famous double apuestas match the next year, to similarly great results. As a match, this wasn't as good as Cien Caras' mask loss, but from a booking standpoint it's a highlight of any year. This also has Universo, who does one of the greatest jobs of a ringside second I've ever seen.
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Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Hiroshi Hase, 2/14/93 This is definitely up there with any other NJPW/WAR bout you'd care to name--from work, pace, heat, and drama standpoints. Tenryu and Hase absolutely beat the shit out of each other and Fujinami is pretty feisty himself. Meanwhile Ishikawa works most of this like a '70s style babyface until the end, when he's put in the unusual position of savior, as the NJPW team isolates Tenryu and absolutely brutalizes the shit out of him. Tenryu gets leveled with double-teams and most of Hase's big moves and I really thought he was going down. It takes two Ishikawa saves and every effort to neutralize Fujinami for Tenryu to land a power bomb to escape with a win. One of the most breathless finishing stretches of any match this year, right now sitting as a top 10 bout.