PeteF3
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This is easily one of the most WAR-esque six-man matches ever held in the Memphis territory. Doug Gilbert was piledriven a couple of weeks before and is now working a Rick Steiner goofball gimmick. Sort of a perfunctory tag match, though the action is good when Prichard is in. Dread has a nice look and I remember him getting play in the Apter mags but I don't think his career went anywhere. Prichard gets handcuffs from Miss Texas and cuffs DWB to the ropes. Tojo Yamamoto comes out with syrup and a bag of feathers, and after approaching DWB, Kimberly tries to stop them and gets tarred and feathered herself. -
Another really good match, with Spivey pulling his weight this time. The Americans rely on brawling while the natives try to take out Hansen's arm, with Kawada doing some great counters into armbars, but they don't take it out enough.
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The Observer says that it was not Dusty's kid, but it was in fact Ben Sullivan, son of Kevin.
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Wow, I liked this a hell of a lot. Yatsu has dropped some weight and puts on what is easily his best performance since '89, just a lurking force whether in or out of the ring. They hold off on a lot of big Tenryu/Yatsu one-on-one stuff but I thought the two junior halves were perfectly fine, even if Yatsu's shrunken gut has transferred itself to Fuyuki. I was not looking forward to seeing any more of SWS Yatsu but now I want to see a singles match of his against Tenryu if one exists.
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I'm almost ashamed to admit that Dutch deciding to get Deadeye Dick's attention by shooting him got a LOL out of me. You'd think they'd have determined long before this how handy Dick was with a pistol. All three guys actually have their moments but this is loooong and laps itself way, way too much. The fact that this led to absolutely nothing doesn't help. In the end, these are like 12:50 SNL sketches if the show was running short and they began at 12:35. The second half of this in jail was real weak-sauce.
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Holy shit, Flair vs. Luger in a cage! Unprecedented!
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Dave Brown has been spectacular for this whole episode, I should note. Embry is out to talk trash to the team of Jarrett & Fuller. Brown calls out Eddie Marlin to get Embry off the set, and that earns ANOTHER attack. It's not the first time we've seen Eddie Marlin get assaulted but this feels so much bigger and more intense than when the Gilberts did it. Then Embry takes exception to Michael St. John calling him crazy and is ready to deck him when once again Lawler comes out to chase him around. This time we get very brief fisticuffs before Embry takes off again. Marlin announces that Embry is FAHRED, which Brown approves of but Lawler doesn't. Lawler wants Embry in the ring first--he just wants one crack at him. This was the best-built match of 1991 before these last two angles. Embry is better as a constant agent of chaos than Lawler was the previous year, because there's a peer that can keep Embry from completely running the program, which adds to the tension and creates a money match to build to, as opposed to trying make challengers out of Nitron and King Cobra.
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Zakowski looks so much like Terry Taylor here that it's hilarious. Nishimura is pushed as a Vietnamese kickboxing champion. Really fun sprint that's kind of indieriffic, but in a Memphis environment that really stands out in a good way. Zakowski goes to the interview set after getting the winning fall and Embry comes out to make an offer to join the Texas bunch. Zakowski declares that he wouldn't spit on Embry if he were on fire, and that earns another sneak attack. Lawler breaks it up before it can go too far and we get another fantastic chase sequence.
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Embry tragically has sprained his ankle in the Pipkin Building last Monday night, an injury even more crippling than the one Devastation Inc. inflicted on his knee, I'm sure. He's unable to fulfill his obligation to face Lawler and tries to get Tom Prichard to take his place. Embry is spectacular here, and the predictability of Embry not really being hurt doesn't make this any less compelling. Lawler turns momentarily to brush off Prichard and that gets him a crutch to the back, allowing Embry to take Lawler apart once the match starts. Lawler makes his Hulk-Up, strap-pull comeback and a long, fantastic chase scene ensues--seriously one of the best chases in any wrestling match. Tomk's review talked about how the Freebirds' stalling was almost to the point of being athletic--this was the Freebird stall of chases, with its own control segments and false finishes. Embry eventually makes it to the back. Has any potential match on any continent gotten a better build than Jerry Lawler vs. Eric Embry in 1991? I'm going to have to say no.
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Ta-Gar and now Leatherface...yep, Lawler's booking again. I do love that there is a Texas connection between the guy and Embry, however. Leatherface (apparently some guy named Larry Battle here) is a big guy who plays his gimmick to the hilt and no-sells a bunch of stuff, before Lawler brains him with a chair and rolls him up to win and earn 3 minutes with Eric Embry. Unfortunately he gets double-teamed and piledriven before the clock starts, and Embry dominates most of it. Big, big heat for this. Lawler makes his comeback, featuring a spectacular field goal kick to Embry's nuts. Embry slips out of the piledriver and runs to the back. Eddie Marlin announces that he'll have to wrestle Lawler again on television. Interesting and I really want to see what they have in store for that. This was a nice effective way to give us a taste of Lawler and Embry without giving away too much.
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Bearer's guest is the Big, Boss, Maaaan? Boss Man compares his funeral parlor to a rather chilling description of a jail cell and warns the "Canadian Mountie" that he'll be in one. Boss Man cuts a good, heated promo despite perhaps overdosing on police terminology.
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This makes for three programs for Earthquake at one time: Jake, Andre, and now the Bushwhackers. How DiBiase-esque. JIMMY HART GOT TO THE TUGBOAT, as Vince sounds like he's about to break down. No one was ever going to confuse the Disasters with the Midnight Express but this was a nice shot in the arm for a career that had gone adrift. They're still pushing a Tugboat/Hulk friendship, which is a little surprising since they hadn't interacted once since the Royal Rumble. You'd think Tugboat would have been there for Hogan when he got torched by Slaughter or Hogan would have had support for Tugboat while he was descending into JTTS-dom.
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I really wasn't into the first two falls at all--a lot of striking and out-of-the-ring brawling with a lot of poor striking and cromulent but fairly sub-Memphian brawling. Plus excessive focus on Inoue and Bison. I'm fine with holding off on the big Aja/Bull showdown until the decisive fall, but I just didn't think Bison was much good here. The third fall did pick up, as Inoue got a prolonged run of offense that didn't quite completely justify all the time the two ladies got but was definitely a well-worked segment on both ends. Then Nakano misses the diving legdrop and shit gets real. Aja just levels her with a series of urakens and throws in a fantastic dive to the floor as well, until Nakano is eventually downed for what is, if I have this right, her first clean pinfall job on these two sets. This was the epic, chop-down-the-tree giant-killing of Nakano that 1990 was building up to before fizzling out. I didn't think this was really a high-end match for the year but it can't be accused of not coming to a satisfying conclusion.
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There's definite gravity to Andre's words, as unintelligible as he can be. Even in this artificial setting, the fact that Andre was breaking down in real life brings some genuine solemnity to the proceedings.
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Ugh. Studio tag match against each other and everything. That's Memphis for you. Evidently there was some falling out between DWB and Prichard.
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WCW has finally commissioned 6-Man Tag belts, as the Freebirds get another absurd intro consisting of 3 'birds, DDP, Big Daddy Dink, and a Diamond Doll. Lots of build up to Badstreet here, and they do a good job of showing the different stuff he brings to the table than Hayes and Garvin, like actual athleticism.
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Luger shows off how he had the Great Muta scouted and blocked the mist. Strong promo from Luger that somehow effectively hits the reset button on all the 379 other title shots Luger has had. Flair's promo is Flair by numbers. I'm sort of torn on acknowledging the history fully. They probably should have, but on the other hand, the history mainly consists of Luger's Buffalo Bills act and "THIS time it'll be different!" sort of rings hollow since Capital Combat was supposed to be different, too.
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I like the concept and the workers but I'm not sure if these are the guys to push as the Steiners' big challenge.
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I don't have any words for this.
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This is kind of amusing coming off the heels of Bobby Heenan comparing himself to Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite.
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I thought White Boy came back as a babyface, still on Eddie Gilbert's side.
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The WWF promotional machine has many positive qualities but I'm completely lost as to who thought replacing Bobby Heenan with a gimmick like Coach was a good idea.
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Andre vows revenge on Earthquake, but is due for reconstructive knee surgery.
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Based on the work here, a 2/3-fall match with full time allotted had MOTY potential and would have been as fitting of a Flair swan song as you could ask for. As it was, this just was really good considering the restrictions placed on it. The shortened 2nd and 3rd falls felt about as organic as you could get with Eaton's big bump to the floor being the turning point that ended it for him.
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A paunchy, out-of-shape, masked Billy Jack Haynes does some stuff. Blood was billed from (and I quote) "a little town in France," which is possibly the worst hometown ever given to a wrestler anywhere. Also, all French executioners come out to generic hard rock guitar riffs. Richard Morton really needed to cut his mullet to add to the corporate takeover effect. Morton channels Jimmy Hart by declaring this the greatest day of his life. Morton's pretty good here but holy living shit was this rushed. I mean, I know that's the story of this Clash but actually watching all this instead of reading about it brings a whole new perspective.