PeteF3
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These Coliseum Videos were filled with all sorts of weirdness like this--Ross calling a Ric Flair match or matches with Bret as IC Champion when Bret won and lost the WWF title right as Ross made his TV debut. Plus Heenan is talking about Savage as a broadcast partner rather than a blood enemy of Flair's. It's even more jarring in a Yearbook setting. Ross and Heenan sound like they'd rather be anywhere else than in the studio overdubbing commentary and the heat machine is in full force. Michaels is working hard here and the other three are working like they're at the end of a 20-date road trip which they may well have been. Pretty disappointing match results. I know the WWF doesn't normally care about this thing but Savage and Michaels jumping into the ring from the apron and immediately going to near-falls and the finish really bothered me. At least run a pier-six brawl for a bit so we can buy the idea of confusion over the legal men. -
Jim Ross! By-the-numbers finish, and DiBiase doesn't even get the dignity of jobbing to the Earthquake Splash, as 'quake simply drops an elbow for the pin.
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The phrase "real world champion" appears for the first time since January. Perfect rattles off all the injustices Jack Tunney has pulled against Ric Flair since his arrival--video distorting the belt, his Royal Rumble number, and the WrestleMania title match change (which Monsoon seems to think was Flair being "pulled out of the card" and goes off--as Heenan said, "Shut up Monsoon.") Flair is incensed that "some blowfish with paint on his face" has his spot at SummerSlam--oh my God, that's the greatest description of the Warrior ever. This was another VERY strong interview, the best since the WM8 post-match. Perfect really added a lot here, dropping the historical nuggets that you don't always see in a WWF interview where so often it seems that nothing existed prior to 3 months ago.
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Decent wrestling action and then the Smoky Mountain debut of Robert Fuller. He and Golden lay out Gibson with a boot and Fuller's belt, and where, oh where, can Gibson find a partner to take the Stud Stable on? Strong segment and beatdown.
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And in fact, he has the best line in this segment and it's a total throwaway. As Bobby is whispering to Armstrong, he incredulously asks, "What, do they get a chainsaw now or something?!" This is an almost to-the-letter redux of the Midnights/Fantastics contract signing in World Class with Cornette banned from ringside, bargaining that stipulation away, and ending up with a worse one. There it was Cornette having to be guarded by "Little John" and here it's Bob Armstrong appointing himself guest referee. Guess which version I like better. Cornette's tantrum is a classic, though one wonders just how effectual Cornette would be if the ring is going to be surrounded by barbed wire.
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Ricky Morton ducks an attempted chain shot and backslides Gilbert to win the Unified World title. Gilbert takes his frustrations out afterward--Lauren Davenport helps him handcuff Morton to the ropes and Gilbert brutalizes Paul Morton, and even drops him with a piledriver! Crazy to see a guy who looked as frail as Morton getting knocked around like that. Eddie Marlin tries to break things up and takes a great bump off a Gilbert punch. Marlin in the studio calls Gilbert out and once again we have a heel who would have been fired, but gosh darn it, the babyface just wants him in the ring THAT BADLY. So instead it's a $5,000 fine. Gilbert wants Marlin to do a Ross Perot and "get out." Morton interrupts a Gilbert match against Tony Falk (babyface now?) and runs him off. This Monday there won't be any referee at all--match goes until one man can't continue. Sounds good to me. It's nice to see the Unified title being contended for among other guys even if you know it'll always end up back with Lawler eventually.
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The least of these vignettes so far. Razor explicitly states that he's after the WWF Title, which seems to be an indication that they had major plans for him from the start.
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I thought the invoking of the kid was pretty cheesy, but BBM wrapped it up well--he even gets bleeped!
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"They're going absolutely WILD! ... Well, as wild as the British ever get, that is!" Mean Gene with the huge slam on our allies. Effective video piece follows--I'm surprised they showed the Warrior in street clothes.
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Being scrawny to the point of barely looking like an athlete works if you're a scuzzy punk like Norio Honaga, or in an ultimate underdog role like PG-13. For a guy pushed as a heartthrob...well, he's over, but I just don't get it. Is it just because the Mexican ladies found him exotic-looking? This is incredibly heated but not a lot of it makes a great deal of sense from a work or psychology standpoint. Both guys try but Vampiro isn't good and Morgan doesn't exactly cover himself with glory either. The squeals for Vamp's victory are in-fucking-sane, though.
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I'll agree with all the praise of Satanico--he and Dandy have been the two standout talents of 1990-92. (Well, Santo and Casas, but they have a rep even among non-lucha guys, whereas these two don't.) Satanico has all kinds of whacked-out submissions, like his second fall finisher that I can barely describe (figure-four Indian deathlock front facelock double armbar wristlock...yeah). And the layout here is kind of fresh, with a longer first fall with lots of false finishes that usually only turn up in the climactic falls. Lizmark has some good offense of his own but tends to repeat himself as the match goes on and clearly isn't on Satanico's level as a worker. The fluke victory doesn't seem befitting of a lucha title match but the finish itself was very clever. It probably would have worked better in one of the first two falls, though.
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I guess AJPW's tag streak had to end sometime. This wasn't bad but the two tag bouts from the GAB left this in the dust. Ace simply isn't that interesting, at least at this point. Hansen gets yet another pinfall on Misawa in a nicely done finish.
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Han adds some nice theatrical touches to the mindblowing matwork. Little things like the way he sells frustration over Kopylov's rope breaks and the little fist pump after a knockdown mean a lot from such a stoic bastard. This went a little overlong as all the leglocks started looking samey after awhile, and Han doing a sort of standing omoplata made for a nice change of pace--it wasn't enough to elevate the rest of the match to the levels of greatness that the opening promised, though. Big upset finish and I wouldn't mind seeing more Kopylov if they shortened things up.
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I wish they'd found a way to separate two heel title wins from one PPV, because this is a pretty downer ending after one gut punch already. Not much to this and Ole sucks as a referee.
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Great match, as we all know. Sting got to toss Vader around but as the match wore on they did a terrific job of selling those moves as great feats of strength that also wore Sting down. Yeah, there was that turnbuckle spot, but the Samoan drop was done so well that it didn't matter. WCW MOTYC for sure, and this is a hell of a card. By the way, while Ross was excellent here and very good throughout the night, this was a standout match and a standout PPV for Jesse. I know he hated working with Ross and he probably didn't take too well to Watts' ideas for his job as a color man, but he's executing very well. I daresay he's better in this setting than he was in 1990. This was a really great "table-setting" match with Sting continually bouncing off and being cut off by Vader, getting over the idea that Sting couldn't possibly beat him without changing strategies. After that little episode with Terry Funk in '89, Sting developed into one of the least selfish main event babyfaces ever, at least until The Rock came along.
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Fantastic performance from Dustin, especially off the hot tag. He elbows the fuck out of everybody that moves and his reverse elbow off the turnbuckle was a terrific spot that I wish he used more often. No, it's not as good as SuperBrawl, and maybe not as good as the opener, but it's a really good match. Incidentally, I think I have to take back my criticism of Mike Atkins in the previous bout. Randy Anderson makes a big deal of forcing Austin back into the ring when the heels did a switch-off, and Atkins' "bad positioning" now comes off as following Bill Watts' orders that the referees enforce the rules (unless, of course, there's strong reason not to).
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Watts does a terrific job of getting over the idea of the different rules between the NWA and WCW, drawing comparisons to the Designated Hitter and various amateur wrestling rule differences. No one could draw comparisons to real sports for even the most absurd wrestling logic better than Watts. This has a long, drawn-out layout like an extended Japanese tag match, but it comes off as fresh in this setting. Sort of like the previous All-Asia tag where it keeps going after you think you're watching the finishing stretch. It's not that good, of course--Nikita tries but also brings this match down at times with his chinlockery. Plus Mike Atkins is too busy escorting people out of the ring to count, which I thought was setting up something but was just Atkins being out of position. Crowd is really into Liger vs. Steamboat, especially Liger unloading on him with big bombs, and that's definitely a match you wish you could have seen sometime. Really great, fun PPV opener.
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Well-done video, as would be expected from the WWF.
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Silver is the guy who came across the best here. Yamazaki got in some rather cheap shots a couple of times (once while the ref was checking him during the standing count, and once after knocking him down but before the count started) that looked like they'd do Silver in, and he kept coming back. He also kept on fighting when he had opportunities to tag in Albright, and the decision comes across as courageous rather than dumb. Of course, once he gets down to 2 points, he makes his big comeback and the big tag. Albright was built up to great as this lurking force on the apron, and the crowd loses it when he gets back in. Tamura just gets leveled with a German suplex and the match is stopped instantly. I agree that shootstyle tags are kind of wonky but this is one of the peaks of the style.
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This had kind of a slow start (or slow JIP point), but then just kept going and going and going ten minutes after you expected the actual, real finishing stretch to begin. The amazing part of this, aside from all the hot near-falls, was how great Kobashi and Kikuchi were at playing underdogs. Okay, that's nothing new for them, but...Kobashi is pretty clearly well ahead of Fuchi at this point even though both guys are each team's #3. Kobashi pinned Fuchi several times during the year (thanks, Purolove!) and I think Fuchi pinning Kobashi would come off as a major upset. And while I love Fuchi, Kobashi is so much bigger and more dynamic that it'd be easy for fans to wonder how Fuchi, much less Ogawa, could possibly beat him. Ogawa got a pinfall on Kikuchi in a 6-man at some point around here, and that came off as an upset though not nearly to as great of a degree. Yet a few fluky injuries like Kobashi buggering his knee on the moonsault and some miscommunication spots have the champs fighting for their lives against seemingly overmatched opponents. Anyway, I KNEW Fuchi & Ogawa never held the All-Asia belts and I was still totally biting on the near-falls, especially Kikuchi kicking out of every finisher Fuchi had. Then Ogawa gets a chance to shine, withstanding just about every big bomb the champs have. And the icing on the cake, Kikuchi pins Fuchi and gets one of the biggest wins of his career to that point. Fantastic match and maybe just as big of a feelgood moment. Eventually on the same level as the previous All-Asia tag and Kawada/Kikuchi match. In its own way it also served as a strong illustration that it was maybe time to move on from Misawa's Army/Jumbo's Army. Jumbo was still the #1 man in the company, but the rest of his team was clearly behind everyone else on Misawa's side. It's unfortunate that AJPW's hand was once again forced the way that it was, but it's time for some shuffling to take place.
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Was I one of many who was naive/stupid enough to think Garvin was bad on the mic? He's awesome here. For fuck's sake, somebody get this complete run of Knoxville footage out in circulation. Please. Poor Ron Wright has to take his pills to calm down after seeing footage of Garvin kicking Andre the Giant and Jos Leduc's asses. White Boy isn't as impressed while Orndorff accuses Garvin of doctoring footage.
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I'm not sure what the set-up here is. Prichard is still "gone" from the USWA, he's challenging for Christopher's Southern title, and yet he's got a belt with him. And it's not an SMW tag title. Still, the promo is good and the set-up acknowledging Christopher's adventures with the homeless guy even better.
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Morrell is a pretty sorry referee--I get that was sometimes pushed as his gimmick but it can be frustrating and not in a "boy, those Moondogs got away with another one" way. Still, the action is great and Lee is a terror on the outside and inside. He sprays purple ink or something in Jarrett's eyes and throws him into a roll-up, and the Moondogs regain the tag titles and save his hair. So this Monday, it's Jarrett, Lawler, and the returning Jackie Fargo and the Moondogs and Richard Lee. Fargo follows up with his own comments for the "14 karat son of a sapsucker" Moondogs.
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Clever finish to the MSC match that Lauren Davenport didn't execute that well. She continually saves Gilbert from pins by putting his foot on the rope, and then ostensibly shoves Morton's foot off when Gilbert gets a cover. Gilbert's foreign object plus Davenport's interference leads to a title rematch on television. Long studio match follows, and this is Exhibit A of how wrestling in a studio differs from wrestling in an arena. The little details stand out more, you get more direct interaction with the crowd, and the wrestlers can express things verbally right to the camera. It's also a fantastic showcase of Dave Brown as a hold-by-hold announcer. On the '80s set he was (until the very end) overshadowed by Lance Russell, and on these Yearbooks his main job that we've seen has been holding the microphone, introducing film clips, or trying to make sense of crazy studio brawls. Here's a nice demonstration that Dave was more than that--that he could get storylines over while also getting over the holds and the work. We get the '80s WWF time limit draw finish with the heel champ in control, but here we have an actual reason for it: Gilbert demands 5 more minutes, and gets pinned to apparently lose the Unified title. The other babyfaces run out to congratulate Morton and hey, there's Eric Embry! Pity he's not actually being used for anything now. Gilbert has gotten one over on all of us, though--the title match was only valid for the originally agreed-upon time limit, not the extra five minutes. I love how quietly confident Gilbert is here--instead of doing the usual rant and rave act after a loss, he knows he's got the technicalities on his side so he just calmly explains his case. Eddie Marlin takes the title back but makes it up to Morton by allowing him to name his stipulation for an immediate rematch. Morton wants to name his own referee and assures Gilbert that it will be an actual official and not someone like Lawler. Gilbert all to eagerly signs the contract, and only then does Morton reveal that it will be longtime ref and father, Paul Morton. "WAIT A MINUTE, PAUL MORTON?! I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD!" I don't think the match itself is great, but it was really solidly worked and is the best "straight" studio match seen so far. But the presentation as a whole was Memphis at its best. A semi-convoluted set-up that seems to make perfect sense when you watch it instead of seeing it described, that makes you want to see another match.
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These vignettes are getting better. And we haven't even gotten to my favorite one yet.