PeteF3
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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. -
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.
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Apparently having matching facepaint is enough to win a Sting Lookalike Contest. How lame. There's a part of me that thinks a wrestling card held on a cruise ship would make for a really, really cool and unique atmosphere. Then the pragmatic part of me takes over and coldly informs me of the myriad reasons why it wouldn't really work.
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Not a lot of depth here but this was still fun. The Hardliners' post-match attack is effective and kind of a serendipitously convenient way to get the tag titles off the Steiners, as they take apart Rick Steiner's arm. The crowd is way into the Steiners' act but...there's no real conceivable heel team that anyone bought as being able to beat them, which is a problem (not to mention yet another reason why the Doom split was rushed).
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They seem to be resurrecting the concept of the Bash tour. World Champion contractual issues aside, with the PPV a month away shouldn't they be getting around to announcing matches at some point? This isn't the Monday Night Wars where you could book and hype a PPV card the week before the event.
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Good action for a TV match but Jesus Christ, it's absurd how little focus was given to the loser-leaves stip, to the point where it had no meaning at all. And that can't all be blamed on being short of time--the idea of a guy's career being on the line was given about one line of lip service during the match. The only rational explanation I can think of is they wanted to do this banned-guy-shows-up-under-a-mask angle but consciously chose not to hype the stip to too great of a degree or else people would expect to see Pillman turn up in the WWF. Regardless, the entire presentation is enough to sour me on the match itself no matter how good the work was. That it came 3 months after Warrior vs. Savage, which was hyped properly and also had longer-term consequences, just exacerbates everything. "Brian Pillman must leave WCW, and now here's Paul E. Dangerously with a Clash of the Champions report!" Unreal. Going by his fawning over Pillman for the past several months on end, Jim Ross should be either slitting his wrists or condemning Barry Windham's soul to hell, or both. This promotion now really is coming off as a bigger wreck than it did during the Black Scorpion saga.
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Maybe one or more of the group was a wrestling fan? They'd show up at WM11, too. That I could see, but otherwise I'm lost as to how a pretty major act was booked to appear with PN News on a southern wrasslin' card, national TV or not. Badd and Long show how progressive they are not only in terms of Pride but also having their entrance music magically play when they're making an unplanned appearance. Long informs Pepa and Spinderella that, "Both y'all can't be next, but one of ya'll sho' can be first." And I'm not sure if that was a legitimate line flub or not, which makes it even funnier. Johnny B. Badd is the ORIGINAL Rapmaster. PN News is a big old ugly bear, and he does not take being DISSED kindly. Badd scampers. This was moronic, yet entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Both of the Big Two were attemping to be cutting-edge in some ways--the WWF with current events and WCW with pop culture here--and yet both times they came off as edgy as a wet bowling ball.
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"Tombstone piledriver" as a name goes back to at least the mid-'70s when Billy Robinson was using it, though I'm kind of surprised they were using the term here. Nikita doesn't bring anything worthwhile to the table but Sting is still working hard here and drags this closing stretch into something pretty decent.
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Paul E. asks Hervey various questions about The Wonder Years and cuts him off before he can respond. What a fucking shrimp--Paul E. towers over this guy and I'm pretty sure Gary Coleman could have kicked his ass, too. My only real familiarity with The Wonder Years as a kid was it came on in local syndication right after The Disney Afternoon after school, as a rather blunt signal that cartoon time was over for the day. So my only regret about this segment was that Fred Savage didn't get a phone upside the head as well.