PeteF3
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So is the claim that Iizuka got all the brunt of the Steiners' aggression? Because while he certainly got the shit kicked out of him, in no way were they gentle with Fujinami. Rick almost spikes his head into the mat on a German suplex and he and Scott exchange some brutal strikes. I have to say I enjoyed this, as I've generally been enjoying the Steiners so far. They're not deep, structured matches but most of their big spots do hit and this one in particular has the feel of a back-and-forth, shoot-type atmosphere, especially when it comes to the ultra-stiff matwork. Knowing this match only by rep, it was also far less one-sided than I'd anticipated. The Steiners never really look to be in serious trouble but they at least give the Japanese some openings to show their stuff. Iizuka gets to show off some flashy moves before dying and Fujinami looks as good as he has since his comeback. I was just fine with this. -
Zenk is such a dork, with his mock surprise at the fireworks and the cheesy promo he cuts on Pillman to the camera. This had a slow beginning and I thought this was going to be another match I'd be the downer on, but they (or in another, more accurate way, Pillman) put something together that was pretty damned great. Good little reversals sequence leads to Pillman trying to slingshot himself into the ring and he gets caught in a Z-Man powerslam that's the first of several hot near-falls and the start of a LOOONG finishing stretch. But it never feels like 2.9s for the sake of 2.9s--just a bunch of hot and often creative false finishes. Love Z-Man losing a 3-count by failing to hook the leg, and then getting another near-fall when he does hook the leg but this time doing it too close to the ropes. Zenk still isn't really any good but this is neck-and-neck with Flair for his best match. Thanks of course to his opponents. I can see how Jesse and JR's arguments over football could be infuriating to some, but I found most of it very amusing. I'm a fan of Jesse calling Ross out on some of his standard football talking points: "NOSE TACKLE?!" and taking shots at Miami of Ohio.
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Awesome line but it would have had more impact either before WM8 or (not to keep harping on this) with Savage still chasing the title.
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Didn't like this much at all. Surprisingly heatless for a title match main event involving Choshu, and Muto did lots of sitting around whether in holds or when he was allegedly selling and 1991's Best Wrestler is rapidly showing signs of the Muto that tends to piss me off. Finish was well put together but this isn't in either guy's top 10 performances of the decade so far.
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Boy, I'm pumped for this big Rude/Steamboat title match at WrestleWar! The roles are reversed but this angle is way, way too similar to the Liz/Savage/Flair triangle.
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Effective make-up job on Steamboat. I wish the concrete attack had gotten more play than the stalker angle. Steamboat cuts a pretty fiery (hah) promo. No mention of WarGames--completely bizarre.
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That poor kid. How evil was I to wonder if this was going to be an angle set-up?
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Eric Embry immediately crashes a Moondog Spot squash and the other babyfaces team up to run off the Moondogs. Lawler brings out Marlin and Guy Coffee and asks for a 4-on-4 match. "Are you people sick of seeing the Moondogs??" NO, not yet! Embry cuts one of the most passionate promos of his career, and that's saying a lot. Embry even brings up that he got more cards and letters in the hospital in Memphis than his call-to-action campaign in Texas did! They're really trying to hype this as a Final Showdown, but that can't possibly be the case--the 'dogs still have the tag titles, for one thing. Good to see the babyfaces standing tall, though. What's noticeable is how the USWA roster has thinned mightily in the past year--Lawler shouldn't have to be doing double-duty like this with two rather heavily hyped matches.
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Lawler recites his standard company-champions historical piece in relation to this big GWF vs. USWA title match with Eddie Gilbert. Lawler has a tendency to repeat his promos, because he's also cut plenty of them regarding Eddie Gilbert wanting to be him, but they're always compelling. Lawler draws the distinction between guys like Harley Race and Randy Savage wanting to imitate him and Gilbert wanting to be him. Gilbert is given the chance to respond and calmly stands up, then fucking SNAPS, choking out Lawler and screaming about how he's going to kill him, before Dave Brown hastily tells them to go to commercial. Incredible segment that has that Memphis chaos while also putting over the title vs. title match as a Big Deal. I don't think it eclipses the all-time great Memphis segments (Snowman debut, the Jarrett/Gilbert brawl, and maybe Eric Embry attacking Paul Neighbors and Michael St. John) but it was an incredible piece of business, and also remarkably efficient. Gilbert doesn't ramble on the mic or get into a back-and-forth with Lawler, he just loses it.
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Two hot matches, two run-in DQ finishes, two great performances (from what we see) by Richard Lee. I so want to see Marlin vs. Lee in an actual match.
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Papa Shango returns to ringside after a Warrior victory over Brian Knobbs, in possession of one of the Warrior's wristbands, and goes into a trance. Then Warrior suddenly clutches his stomach and falls off the apron. Vince speculates appendicitis but Perfect is adamant that it's a Shango curse. It's not hard to see why this was such a complete disaster. Luckily we're spared the later segment that shows Warrior puking in the locker room.
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Is Crush supposed to be living in this place? Because all junkyard mechanics walk around in neon purple and yellow spandex.
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Onita and Goto TOGETHER?? This IS weird. With all the FMW guys I guess I should have expected as much, but I was not expecting this to start with an ECW Arena-style brawl. Meanwhile Casas and Santo are doing their own thing in the ring, a lot of the same spots as the night before but executed smoother in front of a psychotic crowd and with chaotic shit happening all around them. The crowd is obviously nuts for Santo but Goto and Onita get big pops for about every move they do as well. I think this actually could have improved by sticking one of the Americans on the technico side and letting Onita and Goto go at each other, but that's a minor quibble for an amazing spectacle that feels ahead of its time, and does a better job blending wrestling and brawling than just about anything ECW ever did. Not a complaint but an observation: I found it curious that Santo, the super mega star of the match, ate a pinfall but didn't score a victory of his own, letting both partners get the spotlight at the finishes.
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Some fun stuff here. Onita and Goto came to work, and while they're not outstanding fits for the style they basically work against each other and that's always gold. Santo and Casas are incredible, with Santo doing some of the most gorgeous armdrags in wrestling history. Mascaras provides a few nice holds and no-sells a lot. Giant Warrior is tall. The ending was kind of WTF, to the point where I seriously wonder if everyone knew it was supposed to be 2/3 falls, because they worked this like a 1-fall match, and there are some spots where the non-Mexicans don't seem to know the usual lucha rules.
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I think I developed a staph infection just watching this. Good God that ring was disgusting. Well, I thought this was good. But just "good." Maybe even really good. Nowhere near the high-end lucha matches of the early '90s, overall or just involving Santo. The first fall had some excellent matwork but the second was just by the numbers, and I simply wasn't compelled by Espanto on offense. The third fall ramps the intensity up and if there's one thing Espanto did do that was really great, it was time his kickouts. Santo gets about 47 false finishes on him before Espanto pulls out a small package counter for the upset victory. I think the match was better than I'm giving it credit for, but the rest of the thread is talking this up as a MOTYC and I'm just not seeing it.
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I'm not sure these constant 2/3 fall matches were really the way for a company in 1992 to be going towards, but this was quite good and maybe Austin's best all-around performance so far.
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The Crush Gals phenomenon got a write-up in the Wall Street Journal at or near their peak, which is what led to the WWF's interest in them.
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The initials "WWF" are mentioned on WCW television. I missed this when it happened but it would have had me passed out on the floor if I'd seen it. Rude answers the question pretty well. We get into Ricky Steamboat's stalking of Madusa and then we get some sub-Jerry Springer sleaze from the audience, as lady after lady announce their affairs with Ricky Steamboat. Ross sort of shits all over this and Doug Dillinger carries one of the chicks out of the studio. Rude is really good here, especially his disingenuous shock and apology to Mrs. Steamboat. The angle itself is more "sounded good in theory."
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Nothing special about this that I saw. Hughes daring Koloff to keep up with the shoulder tackles only for Nikita to catch him with a dropkick was a cute spot, and Hughes took some solid bumps. This was better than it looked on paper but nothing really worth preserving.
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Jesse takes credit for Fred Couples' victory in the Masters, before Paul E. rants about K. Allan Frey's conspiracy against the Dangerous Alliance. The matches and action have been terrific, as well as a lot of the little side angles, but the "hostile company takeover" portion has almost been forgotten until now. And yes, I can't believe that WarGames is only about two weeks away. So far we've seen one off-hand mention of it by Ross, and he didn't name any actual members of Sting's Squadron.
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On what grounds does DWB deserve reinstatement? Kimberly is no Percy Pringle.
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Right at this point Global stopped flying in outside talent and went to using almost exclusively Dallas-area guys. Gilbert is terrific here, as a laid-back, suited, quietly confident smarmy heel instead of the screamer he was before. Gilbert calls out the USWA for not really having an "open door policy" and then, in perhaps the ultimate insult in the face of prior King promos, refers to Jerry Lawler as a "company champion"! That's cutting it to the bone, right there. Eddie Marlin interrupts a confrontation between Gilbert and Guy Coffee to declare that without him, Jerry Lawler would have come out and pounded Gilbert's brains in. Marlin wants Gilbert to have a chance to work his way up and Coffee wants him thrown out of the studio. Eventually Dr. Tom Prichard comes out to settle this, and eventually they talk Gilbert into putting up the GWF North American title for this Monday! This is a very rushed (relatively speaking) rehash of the Snowman angle in many aspects. There are plenty of worse angles to rip off and Gilbert has quite a strong argument, having been seen on national TV with this championship.
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Great promo from Embry, who's due to be released in the morning. As good as Embry is as a heel, I still like him even more as a babyface. Richard Lee rebuts with his strongest promo to date, with words for Eric Embry, the team of Jarrett & Lawler, and Charlie Trapper, who's so fat he has to turn sideways to knock on a door. It's Lee vs. Trapper in a boxing match this Monday--Worst Match of the Year candidate? Possibly!
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Don't order ME to have a Happy Mother's Day, Sarge. It must be May sweeps, because this is quite the high-level match for Superstars. Mountie is quickly out at ringside and puts together his new shock stick--the (I can't believe I remember this) "Great American Scream Machine." Sarge takes his requisite loony bump over the turnbuckle but otherwise looks physically shot. Flair does a decent job of covering that slingshot attempt. Eventually Mountie gets the opportunity to zap Slaughter and Flair gets the pin--screwjob or not it's refreshing to see a star match on Superstars end decisively. Mountie sings while Sarge does a stretcher job. I think they tried to pass of the new stick as being "20,000 volts"--I guess this plus the new theme song were a semi-desperate attempt to re-push the Mountie. Fun character but this was definitely a guy with a limited shelf life. After going to jail there wasn't a ton to do.
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Presumably damage control over Sid's walkout. I know for a fact that the Shango gimmick in general and the puke angle specifically were the final straw(s) for a LOT of longtime fans, who gave up on the WWF. I was always fascinated by Voodoo as a child so I got a kick out of the gimmick, but this is SUCH a step down even from Sid as a main event heel.