PeteF3

Another special Tokyo Dome outfit for Liger--this time he's in blue. The armdrags-into-standoff opening seems pretty fresh in comparison to the '90-'92 Yearbooks but looks incredibly indieriffic now. I realize I'm falling into the trap of reviewing the match I wish had been booked rather than what was actually booked, and maybe I'm just too Americentric in my viewing of this...but I feel like an "outsider" from WAR coming in and taking the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight title could have been booked as being a bit more shocking, and the subsequent title matches worked accordingly. Tenryu is tearing shit up with everybody and really comes off as an agent of chaos, while this is worked like a run-of-the-mill juniors match. I guess Dragon didn't yet have the ring presence and smarts of a Honaga, Sano, or Kobayashi in order to work that way. So this interpromotional title war features lots of interpromotional surfboards and interpromotional drop toeholds. Dragon slips off the top at one point, but I can't say that it bothered me--he did still manage to hit Liger, after all. Dragon follows that up with a tremendous dive over the guardrail and both guys splatter against a ringside table and we finally have our first truly hot moment of the match. Dueling tombstone reversals and Dragon...oh, THAT'S the slip y'all were talking about. Yeah, that's bad. Dragon to his credit doesn't try to do it all over again and just moves on. Liger comes back and finally we get some intensity, with a power bomb on the floor and a stiff palm strike to the jaw. Ah, and we're back to sitting in holds. There really hasn't been any focus to any work at all, from either side. Moves are traded, kickouts are performed, Liger wins with a top-rope huracanrana. High-end mediocrity is a good way to put it. There were some cool high-impact dives, but this feels like someone simmed a FirePro match between these two and then they based the real match off of that. There was no attempt at a focused "gameplan" from either guy, no real build to the big moves, and I didn't bite on a single near-fall. Liger's top-rope DDT should have been a "that's it" moment with Dragon's kickout being a holy-shit spot...but once Liger stayed down after hitting the move I knew he was going to slowly crawl over that would give Dragon the opening to escape, so the drama was all gone. That type of sell could have worked if I'd thought the match could have ended at any of the other near-fall points, but the drama just wasn't there--that's pretty inexcusable considering the interpromotional nature of the match and Liger's past rep. This was an off night for him and a hugely disappointing performance from Dragon, who comes off as a charismatic black hole in comparison to Liger's other opponents the past few years.

Another realistic sitdown interview from Arn--and God bless them for continuing to attempt to pass this guy off as a born-and-bred Minnesotan. Frank discussion of knee injuries follow, and then Arn drops the bombshell that Bill Watts has not yet renewed his contract for 1993, because it was his kid who took Arn out. I could see this angle making the WWF INTENSELY uncomfortable were it to run on 24/7 or online today. Arn gets back into promo mode and scarily vows that if he doesn't have a wrestling contract, he'll have to take Erik Watts out through other means. This would lead to some dumb shit, as I recall, but this was a very effective way to transition Anderson into the planned Watts/Rude feud.

The title change was actually scheduled to take place the night before in Philly. Bill Watts was there, a camera crew was sent...and Simmons no-showed the card. That necessitated the change in Baltimore (symmetry!) instead, and if the dwindling gates under Simmons' reign as champ wasn't enough to knock him out of the top babyface spot for good, that little stunt surely did. So, yeah, we get Eric Bischoff breathlessly reciting play-by-play of the match over still photos of Simmons and Vader. Underwhelming, but WCW simply couldn't continue with Simmons as champion.

Lawler is optimistic about the state of wrestling in 1993...yeah, that ain't happening, and you'll be one of the reasons why, Jerry. Lawler uses the WCW hiring of Dundee and his WWF television work to put over the USWA (and himself). Lawler brings up a Moondog Battle Royal and how Mike Samples cost him $10,000 (I was hoping he would add, "...and one Cadillac, you fuckin' shit," but nope). Quick film clip follows--THE CHRISTMAS CREATURE! All right! Lawler comes off a little whiny here, complaining about foreign object use in a Moondog Battle Royal. Mike Miller comes out of nowhere flinging a chair at Lawler's head. Hot pull-apart follows, with an implication that he and Lawler had gotten into a "real" fight away from the ring (Lawler brought up the facial injuries but danced around the cause). Mike Miller and Mike Samples are quite the step down from when Gilbert, Embry, and the Moondogs were the USWA's top heels, but this was as effective of a use of them as one could come up with.

Sappy song but the action clips are tremendous. Dundee is going on one last tour to thank the USWA fans, and amazingly no angle results from this.

Not quite as good as Starrcade, but a hell of a TV match worked with stunning intensity. Loved Steamboat busting out the Anderson-style hammerlock slams, and there are a number of stiff shots and big moves throughout, climaxing with Windham leveling Douglas with a DDT on the concrete. The Douglas FIP segment in general was very well-done, with well-timed hope spots and teases, and this is the most complete pre-Franchise Douglas performance that I've seen. Then things get goofy--Steamboat is working a hot FIP segment of his own when Dustin Rhodes comes down to check on Douglas, then gets tagged in and Mike Atkins allows it. I believe we need to consult Mike Pereira over the legality of all this, but as dippy as this idea is it's all worth it to hear Ventura melt down over it. Rhodes hits an AWESOME cast shot to Windham's face and knocks him out for the pin. I still think Pillman is miscast as a heel at this point, but he and Windham are really starting to gel as a team, and I'm curious as to when and how the decision was made to move from a Pillman/Windham team to the Hollywood Blonds.

Good promo from Heenan, but there was absolutely no money in a guy wrestling as "Narcissus." Wise move to change that. I along with most of the WWF audience of 1992-93 needed that dictionary definition.

This is definitely '94, but still an appropriate way to kick off '93. New Generation indeed.

Thanks Loss. '93 WWF was a lot better, too--I can't adequately describe what a boost Monday Night Raw gave to the product. Aside from Heenan's antics and the Perfect face turn, Prime Time's panel format had turned into the most sterile wrestling program in the history of television. Plus Ross' arrival meant a number of long feature matches on Wrestling Challenge (which I refuse to believe is a coincidence). Raw was hot, fresh (live or no more than a week in the can), and unpredictable in a manner that the WWF sorely lacked. Plus '93 is right when I cut off my All-Japan TV viewing (this was right when the Benoit murders happened). So I've got the widely proclaimed greatest in-ring year in history to see. And more lucha! More Smoky Mountain! The WWF/USWA invasion, which got me into tape buying! And the birth of ECW! One thing I am dreading is the absolutely nauseating Luger push. My Least Favorite Wrestler and Most Overrated awards may as well be filled out right now. And unfortunately, WCW falls off once Bischoff takes over.

On the other hand, John Studd turned in a good in-ring performance on that set, too...

I thought Brunzell's promo before the cage match with the East-West was legitimately great. Maybe it was a one-off fluke, but he could bring the goods at times.

I've gotten great feedback for my after-the-fact Observer Award posts in the 1990 and '91 Yearbook sections. Those were posted when the sets were still new and when those sections were probably were being more closely watched. 1992 is now up in the General Thoughts post, and since it's coming a year-plus after the set was released I figured I'd give some people a heads-up in a more visible location.

I almost hate to bring it up, but I'm not trolling by saying that I'm an unabashed mark for Bruiser Brody's stomping, one-armed bodyslam.

1992 has come and gone, and this is by far the best wrestling-centric Yearbook of the three that I’ve watched so far, and I’m sure will be the best overall at least until we get to 1997. Just about every promotion saw an improvement from an in-ring standpoint even as American business started tanking--the only company that retrogressed quality-wise was the WWF. It didn’t get actively bad, but things did get very, very bland after so many hot 1991 angles, feuds, and arrivals. This is a company in desperate need of the shot in the arm that Monday Night Raw will give it. It and lots of promotions--even All-Japan coming off a strong year--are facing uncertainty headed into 1993 and for most of them things are going to get worse before they get better. Here are the 1992 Awards, Observer-style, with the real-life winner in parantheses. Once again, full calendar year, not the Observer’s November-to-November standard. CATEGORY A WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (Ric Flair) 1. Bull Nakano 2. Mitsuharu Misawa 3. Manami Toyota Nakano seems to be a fitting choice, as she passes the anchor position in AJW on to Aja Kong at the end of the year. Bull vs. Aja was a MOTY-level contest in many years, but wasn’t even Match of the Night. But their match at Wrestlemarinepad was almost as good, as was their partnership. I’ve been saying snarky things about Toyota for most of these sets and a few of them came in watching this one, but she and Yamada in the end were the other standouts for the company, especially during the JWP feud while many other promotions seemed to be disintegrating. Meanwhile Misawa was established, intentionally or not, as the new native ace. MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER (Jushin Liger) 1. Jushin Liger 2. Negro Casas 3. Bull Nakano Very top-heavy year this year. Casas could have taken this with more footage from later in the year, but Liger was more of a constant and he just barely topped Casas in the first part of the year with that Samurai match. BEST BABYFACE (Sting) 1. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi 2. Mitsuharu Misawa 3. Ricky Morton I had to think about this for awhile as I tend to think of this as a North American award, and this year Hogan was gone and business went into the tank for both companies. Misawa did the most for business, and had quite a few performances that wouldn’t be out of place as a sympathetic babyface--namely the big 5/22 six-man and the earlier stuff with Hansen. But Kikuchi was on another level, working awesome underneath stuff against the Can-Ams and Fuchi. Sting damn near got into this ballot with his Starrcade match against Vader, which was a terrific fired-up babyface performance in addition to a great overall athletic contest. But I still have to go with Morton, who bounced back in a big way with his brief Gilbert feud to the Rock ‘n Roll Express returning like they had never left. BEST HEEL (Rick Rude) 1. Jake Roberts 2. Rick Rude 3. Eddie Gilbert Roberts continued to amaze on the stick, and even threw in two genuinely good singles matches, vs. Dustin and vs. Savage. Rude is one of the best natural heels ever, but Jake was given better angles to work with. Gilbert was outstanding once again during the GWF/USWA feud. FEUD OF THE YEAR (Moondogs vs. Lawler/Jarrett) 1. The Moondogs vs. Jerry Lawler & Jeff Jarrett 2. Genichiro Tenryu vs. NJPW 3. Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada Why not? It did go on too long, but it kept afloat a dying promotion and was one of the most consistent programs in the world considering how long it went. I would put Tenryu/NJPW at #1, but it came off as sort of mid-card-ish as Tenryu hasn’t worked against the big guns yet. Toyota/Yamada told one of pro wrestling’s more unique stories, with tag partners fighting and reaching hair vs. hair levels, but not actually splitting up. TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR (Doc/Gordy) 1. Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat 2. Los Cowboys 3. Manami Toyota/Toshiyo Yamada Probably the peak for the Can-Ams, and Los Cowboys were terrific every time out. Obviously they couldn’t reach the highs of Dream Rush every time out, but Yamada & Toyota still weren’t always consistent--those annoying things that Toyota’s known for did rear their ugly heads some--so they have to settle in at #3. MOST IMPROVED (El Samurai) 1. Razor Ramon 2. El Samurai 3. Kensuke Sasaki It’s incredible how a guy who’d spent 5 years as a big dumb goof in the AWA and WCW suddenly turned into a legitimate main event player. And you can’t just attribute that to the WWF Machine--why didn’t Nailz or Papa Shango reach that level? Because Hall pulled his weight, both on the mic and even in the ring. Sasaki’s placement is sort of "Most Improved in My Own Mind" award, as I always envisioned him as a piece of shit worker, but he’s a fiery, explosive guy with good-looking offense and who moves around great for the way he’s built. MOST UNIMPROVED (Randy Savage) 1. Keiji Mutoh 2. Sgt. Slaughter 3. Ric Flair Mutoh looked good against the Steiners but rarely anyone else, after having such a great 1991. And after seeing what Liger and Sasaki were doing in the U.S., even at year’s end in front of a couple thousand people on a house show, he doesn’t get any kind of a pass for looking like complete shit across the pond either. This was the end of the line for Sarge, who nonetheless deserves a lot of credit for his 1991 comeback even in the face of failing business and distasteful material--but he had nothing left in the tank as a full-timer. I feel terrible for putting Flair here, but I feel like I have to. I’m almost the opposite of Loss on Flair in the WWF, as I’ve liked him in most of his non-wrestling settings in ‘92, especially since he was allowed to be more Flair-like, but his in-ring stuff once he dropped the title at WM8 has left me cold. The Tenryu match being a big exception. The '92 Rumble may have been his last hurrah as an elite worker. He was by no means bad, but I have to go by the previous standards, and Flair had a lot to live up to. MOST OBNOXIOUS (Bill Watts) 1. The Ultimate Maniacs 2. Jameson 3. Jason Hervey The borderline-homoerotic Maniacs push was only tolerable--and just barely, at that--because of how brief it was. Jameson was embarrassing even if the guy seemed to be a professional actor. Hervey only made a couple of appearances but still made me want to stick his head in a blender and flip the switch. BEST ON INTERVIEWS (Ric Flair) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Jake Roberts 3. Eric Embry Flair was very, very good--his usual self, pretty much. But Cornette had an outstanding comeback after being mostly lost for 1991, and Embry was more versatile, as we got the classic '89 Texas babyface Embry for a bit before his career reached an end. MOST CHARISMATIC (Sting) 1. Atsushi Onita 2. Genichiro Tenryu 3. Konnan Possible Wrestling with the Past 1991 influence here, as they talked about Onita's charisma carrying matches in 1991. I think it's fair to say it carried over into '92, though. Tenryu was great as either the cocky dick in New Japan or the hometown babyface working against Ric Flair. I don't like Konnan at all but it'd be ignorant to put blinders on how he could control a crowd. BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER (Jushin Liger) 1. Volk Han 2. Hiroshi Hase 3. Atlantis Again, the definition here has always been a little shaky, but these were your best guys on the mat and executing moves. BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD/BEST BRAWLER (Cactus Jack) 1. Cactus Jack 2. Moondog Spike 3. Stan Hansen Cactus was on fire before his injury. Yes, Spike was a bit better than Spot, because he was good for at least one crazy bump in every match I saw. BEST FLYING WRESTLER (Jushin Liger) 1. Jushin Liger 2. Manami Toyota 3. Super Astro Sort of more of the same from the first two, though 1992 Liger was probably at his best to this point, and Toyota definitely was. Astro's flying astounds you possibly more than the flying from the Brazos. MOST OVERRATED WRESTLER (Erik Watts) 1. The Ultimate Warrior 2. Erik Watts 3. Nailz I don't want to rant more on the Warrior without acknowledging that his WM8 return was a jawdropper. Still, as mentioned, he was the absolute antithesis of the direction the WWF needed to go in the post-Hogan era, and I'm thankful that he basically saved the WWF from themselves by walking out (unless the rumors of a planned Warrior/Nailz feud were true, which would be an indication that even Vince saw the company headed in another direction on top). Watts was too much, too soon, when he should have been groomed in whatever the 1992 equivalent of the Power Plant was for a little while longer. I get that even the isolationist WWF couldn’t give a "prisoner just released" gimmick to someone who was recognizable as having wrestled on TV recently. But even with that limitation there had to be somebody, somewhere more capable of pulling off the Nailz gimmick than Kevin Kelly. MOST UNDERRATED WRESTLER (Terry Taylor) 1. The Lightning Kid 2. Tracey Smothers 3. Buddy Landell Kid seems to have dropped off the earth after that UWF appearance--even wrestlingdata has no information on his 1992 whereabouts. As we approach the end of the year, Smothers is on his way to save SMW’s singles babyface situation, but he had something to offer to either of the Big Two. Landell showed tons of promise early on in SMW and was probably responsible for his own lack of advancement in the business. BEST PROMOTION (New Japan) 1. New Japan 2. All-Japan 3. WCW Still the winner for depth and variety. WCW’s business and morale were in the shitter and seemed to be getting worse news every week, but the on-camera product was generally outstanding. BEST TV SHOW (All-Japan) 1. All-Japan 2. Smoky Mountain Wrestling 3. USWA TV New Japan was probably as good as anything, but almost all of the Yearbook stuff seemed to be from commercial tapes and New Japan Classics, and I’ve watched the whole ‘92 season for All-Japan. SMW had better television matches than the USWA and a number of hot angles in its own right, even if the USWA had more stuff happening on its show. MATCH OF THE YEAR (Kroffat/Furnas vs. Kobashi/Kikuchi) 1. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai (AJW 11/26/92) 2. Jushin Liger vs. El Samurai (NJPW 4/30/92) 3. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Masa Fuchi (AJPW 5/22/92) 3. Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat (AJPW 5/25/92) 4. Aja Kong vs. Bull Nakano (AJW 11/26/92) 5. Rick Rude vs. Ricky Steamboat (WCW Beach Blast) 6. Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Doug Furnas/Dan Kroffat (AJPW 2/22/92) 7. WarGames (WCW WrestleWar) 8. Akira Hokuto vs. Kyoko Inoue (AJW 11/26/92) 9. Gran Hamada/Los Cowboys vs. Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner, Jr./Rambo (UWA 2/29/92) 10. Negro Casas vs. El Dandy (CMLL 7/3/92) The depth here is insane compared to ‘90 and ‘91--people were talking up Casas/Dandy as an all-time classic in its thread, and even without being able to wholly disagree with them I can’t put it any higher than it is here. Liger/Samurai became one of my favorite matches ever when I watched it, and is probably better than anything from the Liger/Sano feud, and it didn’t even last on top for 7 months. Just a shit ton of stuff elsewhere from CMLL and WCW and everyone from Japan that I just didn’t have room for, nor did I have the time to sort out a top 50-100. Maybe I should, but the lucha set and the ‘93 Yearbook beckon. MANAGER OF THE YEAR (Jim Cornette) 1. Jim Cornette 2. Richard Lee 3. Paul E. Dangerously After 1991 I pronounced the Era of the Manager basically dead, but there was a huge resurgence this year. Dangerously was the #1 guy as far as exposure, but…I don’t think his own performances were quite as strong as it was in ‘91 when the Alliance really started to kick into gear, and the Alliance came off as more of a vehicle for great matches than an out-of-control group taking over and creating chaos. Plus he became persona non grata, more or less, after WarGames. Cornette was more of a constant throughout the year and Paul E. wasn’t good enough to touch him as an interview. Lee ahead of Dangerously is probably an upset pick, but doing that much good work is easier when you’re managing Rude, Arn, Austin, Eaton, and Larry Z than it is when you’re managing Spot and Spike and literally have to do all the mic work for them. And he was no slouch when it came to getting physically involved, either. Lee did more with less than any manager in wrestling in ‘92, Cornette included. Ron Wright had a better year than anyone in 1991 and couldn’t even crack the ballot, which is both a shame and a testament to the overall depth here. ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Rey Misterio, Jr.) 1. Volk Han 2. Jun Akiyama 3. Yoshihiro Takayama I suppose Misterio and Psicosis (who finished 2nd) would have done more with more exposure, but neither guy showed much in their one Yearbook appearance. And it’s not like there’s a great deal of shame in not being able to beat out Volk. BEST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Jim Ross) 1. Jim Ross 2. Bob Caudle 3. Dave Brown After such an annoying 1991, Ross improved by leaps and bounds. It helped that he got a better product to call with so many more great matches. Plus I truly think Ventura’s presence forced him to step up, as Jesse was there to call him on some of his canned talking-point bullshit. Smoky Mountain Caudle may honestly be better than prime Mid-Atlantic Caudle, though there’s something to be said for replacing David Crockett as your color man with Dutch Mantell. WORST TELEVISION ANNOUNCER (Gorilla Monsoon) 1. Vince McMahon 2. Gorilla Monsoon 3. Cory Macklin Vince didn’t have as many hot angles to get over, which reduced him to being a match-caller, and as that he wasn’t good at all. Flair’s performance in the ‘92 Rumble basically forced Monsoon, kicking and screaming, into giving him some credit, but that all dissipated once the show was over and he was back to slagging on him non-stop, and I don’t think I have to explain why that pissed me off or how dumb it was from a business standpoint. Thank God for Heenan, whose reactions to Gorilla (especially during Martel/Tatanka at WM8, the match after the title loss) eased the pain. There wasn’t enough Global for me to pick out a truly Worst announcer. As a result, Macklin is basically a default pick--as unpolished as he was and inferior as he was to Lance & Dave, I can’t truthfully say that he ever had me running for the mute button either. CATEGORY B BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (AJW Wrestlemarinepad ‘92). AJW Dream Rush--three top-ten MOTYs and the greatest match I have ever seen of any style. How is anything else going to top that, ever? I guess I’ll find out when I get to the Dream Slam cards. WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Halloween Havoc). Havoc it is. BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER (2 Cold Scorpio’s 450 splash). I agree, though Manami Toyota’s moonsault to the floor is very close. Also, Super Astro’s somersault headbutt to the floor should be up there if it wasn’t so insanely, stupefyingly dangeorus. MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (Erik Watts push). The Ultimate Warrior selling a main event feud by puking. And this comes from a guy who got and continues to get a kick out of Papa Shango’s antics. BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Bobby Heenan). I don’t care if he hated working with Ross or taking orders from Bill Watts--Jesse Ventura fit into that style seamlessly, which is a credit to him after having to call canned squashes with Vince McMahon for 5 years and working with Monsoon. Dutch Mantell really deserved a spot here on his own merit, but on principle I have to go with Jesse. FAVORITE WRESTLER (Ric Flair). Two things I’m most looking forward to in ‘93: the WWF invasion of the USWA, and more Genichiro Tenryu vs. New Japan. This was his best year since 1989. LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Erik Watts). The Warrior was intolerable. Maybe not as actively annoying as he was in 1990, but he was so past his sell-by date in ‘92 and was absolutely the wrong direction to go with--something I think Vince ultimately recognized. WORST (NON-ROOKIE) WRESTLER (Andre the Giant). I suppose I can’t ignore Andre anymore. I get that he didn’t want to leave the only life he ever really knew, but it’s stupefying that he was in the ring barely a month before his death. Mr. Pogo or Fishman was the worst guy I actually saw a match of when watching the Yearbook. WORST TAG TEAM (The Bushwhackers). I will go with the USWA’s Star Riders, yet another LOD ripoff team who had one of the worst television squashes ever. Then, during a tag team battle royal that Monday night, they got eliminated, ransacked the other participants’ wallets and bags, and hightailed it out of the arena and presumably out of the wrestling business. WORST WEEKLY TV SHOW (Global on ESPN). Or this. A lot of these "Worst" awards are hard because this was such a loaded Yearbook with a lot of the crap filtered out. So I have to go by my own memories and the actual Observer standings themselves. WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji). Fuji was pretty out of the way, as the big Yokozuna push hadn’t begun yet. So I will go with Ronnie Lotz. You’re sinking pretty low when you’re ripping off Tony Rumble, and he gets extra demerits for being about 1/10 as cool and clever as he obviously thought he was. WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (Rude vs. Chono, Havoc). From a results vs. expectations standpoint that’s a hard one to top. Bushwhackers/Beverly Brothers at the Royal Rumble, with Jameson involved, was worse technically, though carried by an utterly brilliant performance from Heenan--he really was on fire that entire show. Among Yearbook stuff, Pogo vs. Matsunaga was the complete shits. WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR (Warrior vs. Shango). Agreed with this. Kamala vs. Undertaker, which is a feud that would have JerryVonKramer throwing things at his screen, gets an honorable mention. In the real-life awards, the Steiners/MVC feud finished at #5--what the fuck were Observer readers smoking in 1992??! WORST ON INTERVIEWS (Ultimate Warrior). Nailz had that horrid cartoonish voice, and his delivery sunk an angle that they were actually trying to sell fairly realistically. Not on the Yearbook but the ill-fated Nailz/Undertaker feud suffered from that as well--they could have done the Luther Reigns "you can’t scare me with anything I haven’t seen in prison" thing, but Nailz just offered lame unfocused comments still harping on being in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, which had jack-all to do with the current feud. WORST PROMOTION OF THE YEAR (Global). Hard to argue with this. USWA-Texas was rarely any less low-rent but managed to be about 50 times more fun. BEST BOOKER (Riki Choshu/New Japan). Choshu’s been in the running for this every year of the decade so far. This year he added some cool undercard stuff between Koshinaka’s group and the karate guys before they eventually joined forces, then brought in his old foe Tenryu. BEST PROMOTER (Giant Baba). Still think New Japan has to rank ahead, for their Dome shows, their use of other promotions, and the variety in the cards, even if I think the main AJPW guys and its main event style were better. BEST GIMMICK (The Undertaker). Babyface Undertaker and Bearer lost a bit from their big 1991. Therefore I will go with Ron Wright. Hopefully the prestige and money from this post will go towards that hip and knee replacement. WORST GIMMICK (Papa Shango). Global could probably retire this category. I genuinely and unironically liked Shango, and Nailz was decent in theory and even in execution at first. I think I have to acknowledge Sebastian/Phantom X somewhere, so here it is. MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (Papa Shango). Bears repeating how little there is to choose from just from the Yearbook itself, when 1990 and ‘91 offered no shortage of candidates. Shango was reviled at the time, but I refuse to give it to him. Nailz was horrible, and yet I’d rather watch 500 Nailz promos than anything involving the Black Scorpion again. Van Hammer had that falls-count-anywhere match with Cactus. Erik Watts was bad but I find insultingly stupid gimmicks more embarrassing than a legitimate athlete who just happened to be overpushed because of his dad. So my pick goes to the Rude Dog of Global, which was like Al Green’s Dog gimmick from the dying days of WCW only not as dignified. Rude Dog stood out to me as an embarrassment just from reading about him in Apter mags, and Youtubing some footage of him does not improve his standing.

Damned if I didn't like this more than the Starrcade match. Seeing Liger heel it up for the first time chronologically--maybe ever in his career at this point--was fun. He and Sasaki worked great together, and Douglas was much better here than he was the previous night. The ending was a little out of left field but the work before this was superb. This is also a great testament to the difference in WCW house shows and WWF shows at this time, because this absolutely smoked the two Worcester matches. I agree that top 10 WCW match isn't out of the question. This makes for two Yearbooks in a row closed out by a hot house show handheld match involving Jushin Liger.

Even 23 months later, American fans still really, really want to get behind a babyface Muta. Had they been able to keep him around in 1990, a lot of the mess with Lex Luger could have been avoided.

I liked this better than the Bash. Sting's selling of Vader's strikes is tremendous, from his covering up to his staggering to his knowing when to sell and when to Hulk Up to standing in the corner and daring Vader to hit him some more. And Ross and Jesse were on top of everything--Ross picked up on the cool running theme of Vader not being able to finish when hitting his splashes, and Jesse brought up the Ali/Foreman rope-a-dope. And I loved how Sting continually used wrestling moves against Vader instead of just strikes and high-flying. As Loss said, moves like backslides looked like epic feats of strength. Vader basically shrugs off everything Sting does and only through one last mistake does Sting pull out a win. Fantastic match, probably the #3 WCW Match of the Year.

God, who the hell thought replacing Steamboat's orchestral theme with "Family Man" would be a good idea? At least Windham's Slam Jam theme kept the spirit of his original. Anyway, the weird thing about the beginning of this is that if you were there live and didn't know the full backstory, you'd swear Steamboat & Douglas were the heels. Pillman is doing babyface takedowns which Douglas is countering with punches, then Windham works a heel-in-peril segment and sort of sells sympathetically, and for his comeback Douglas does a comical tapdancing sell of Windham's jawbreaker. That oddity aside, this gets really, really good. Steamboat bashing Windham in the back with the chair was a terrific payback spot and there are some great heel cut-offs. Really heated ending with Windham taking it to the floor and leaving himself unable to save when Douglas hits the belly-to-belly. Douglas looked bad at first but got a lot better along with the match as a whole. I wouldn't call this a top 5 WCW match for the year because '92 was so loaded, but it would probably be in the top 5 of many other years.

This was total bullshit, but man, what a great, heated promo from Rude.

Phil LaFon/Dan Kroffat. If he could have been as big of a dick on the mic as he could be in the ring, he could have gone places in North America, too.

I really think these two had a killer PPV match in them, but this definitely wasn't it. It was definitely very heated with the crowd, and Flair at house show speed is still pretty good. But there was an overreliance on ropes-for-leverage spots and jacking with the crowd on his part that I didn't overly care for. And this was very much a House Show Bret performance, though the closing stretch is worked fairly well. I was looking forward to the Ironman Match going into '93 but I'm starting to grow pessimistic and wary about watching a one-hour WWF house show match.

Savage challenging for the IC title?? At this point? Wow. That's really the only notable thing about this, as this is a total phone-it-in job on the part of both guys, with more of Shawn's shitty boring control segments. His superkick is still a good cut-off move, though. Shitty finish though you knew that was coming. Savage had fallen down in the card but he wasn't going to be putting over Michaels.

Been awhile since we've seen action from Mexico. Estrada's ring gear is spectacular, as he literally wrestles in his big glittery ring jacket the whole way through. I wouldn't call this one of the high-end lucha matches of the year but it's a lot of fun, especially the third fall. But I thought the technicos brought just as much as the rudos here. I especially liked them going all puroresu-style on Fuerza: Eddy takes him out with an exploder suplex and then they pummel him with a bunch of sick double-teams. Then they follow up with a tremendous dive sequence, both for the dives themselves and the rudos' insane bumping out to the floor, eventually leaving Fuerza alone to get taken out by Lizmark for the win. For all the hype and financial success AAA has gotten in '92 the promotion has been a disappointment from an in-ring standpoint, at least once they were out of L.A. But this was a good way to close the year for them.

Badd is hilarious in contrast to everyone else. So is Barbarian, who does nothing but grunt and offer one-word responses. Rude is still being hyped as Simmons' Starrcade challenger, even though they had to know by this point that he wasn't able to go. Still a good focused promo from Rude, though his post-PPV feud with Erik Watts is also talked up, which doesn't speak much for his chances of winning the belt even if healthy.

Armstrong has gone all-out in the search for the SMW title belt. By "going all-out" I mean he's looked in the locker rooms and asked Tim Horner where it is. God, this is cringeworthy as hell. Even as heavy as the subject matter is, your top babyface generally should not be crying on television. Or lying through his teeth to sick kids about winning the belt.