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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    The promos are carrying this to the point where it doesn't yet seem like a total waste of Flair--more like a (temporary) elevation for Doom.
  2. PeteF3
    Good heated brawl as the Nasties sucker the Steiners with belt shots at the contract signing. The Nasties' weird charisma is undeniable here. The Steiners stumble their way through a response promo.
  3. PeteF3
    What an absurdly stacked tag division. The singles rankings actually less so.
  4. PeteF3
    Contract signing footage from Chicago. Sting's spectacular outfit is the product of what would happen if Bret Hart were a member of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. No attack at the contract signing, but there is one later on as Sid lays out Sting with a chair and then gives him a piledriver on it. Sid reminds us that he rules the world.
  5. PeteF3
    The most bizarre interview in Gordon Solie's 30 years in wrestling. That's no small potatoes considering the shit he had to call in Florida. I'm in literal disbelief watching this.
  6. PeteF3
    "Mr. Excitement"? Slater is an odd fit for Memphis, but cuts a good heated promo. Eddie Gilbert is the New King.
  7. PeteF3
    Well, the thing about these Memphis angles is that it's all about Guys Wanting Titles--period. Honestly the Adams/Austin feud is closer to Russo territory since Austin and Jeannie's goals are a little less clear, but at least there a.) the characters of all involved are consistent, and b.) it's building to grudge matches (or...MATCHES, period), if not titles. Without getting too far outside of 1990, here's hoping CM Punk--who seems to get it as much as the guys in Memphis do in these segments--can make reality cool again.
  8. PeteF3
    Jarrett recaps what happened in the round-robin tournament, where he and Gilbert each cost the other the #1 seed. He's also captured the Southern title from Dick Slater. Eddie Gilbert, ALSO wearing a suit, which I love, comes out and rebuts and at first he's doing it in a calm, rational manner. His anger slowly builds, and even though he actually gives Jeff some props about how he earned his spot, he points out that Jerry Jarrett is signing people's paychecks (including Dave Brown, who only mentioned Jeff's Rookie of the Year Award and not Eddie's). Jarrett hits a verbal low blow of his own, pointing out that Gilbert's walked out on Memphis before and couldn't cut it in the NWA, then brings up his divorce! Holy shit! The personal shot is too much for Eddie, who sucker-punches Jarrett and then unloads on him with his dress shoe with some real stiff shots that bust Jeff open. Jeff does a gigantic bladejob and an unbelievably intense brawl breaks out that gets broken up and re-started a few times. Wow, wow, wow. I had no idea that the Lawler/Snowman incident could be topped, but I think it has been. This really had everything that angle had except that Gilbert and Jarrett are both miles ahead of Snowman as a talker. It had elements of real life, realistic shoot-style brawling, and even the same "shades of gray." Sucker-punch aside, Gilbert isn't a typical cowardly Memphis heel at ALL here--he's a guy who has a real point of view that he BELIEVES, and a point of view that maybe some people can actually relate to. Jarrett isn't nearly as strong on the mic but in no way does he come off as a legitimate Erik Watts/George Gulas type product of nepotism. THAT'S "shades of gray" booking, not Vince Russo bullshit where nobody actually has any point of view. A lot of Memphis studio brawls can be rather contrived and obvious, but the low-keyness of the early part of this segment made the sucker punch and brawl a legitimate surprise and something that came off naturally--an argument that legitimately got out of hand, rather than an excuse for cheap fighting. I've gone on about this and probably could go on even longer. I could be reading more into this than I should but I'm actually legitimately glad the car angle was a failure if it led to more booking like this. The car was all about shock value and this is all about real people in conflict. Maybe the single best non-match portion of this Yearbook.
  9. PeteF3
    Eddie Marlin is out and once again have a belt (which may or may not be the belt). Terry Funk, Austin Idol, Dick Murdoch, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Jimmy Valiant, Eddie Gilbert, Mark Callous, Jeff Jarrett, Dan Davis, Doug Gilbert, John Tatum, Dirty White Boy, Brickhouse Brown, Steve Keirn, Gary Young, Jeff Gaylord, Abdul Hussein (from IRAQ!), The Samurai, King Cobra, and Dick Slater will be competing for the Unified title. Clips follow of Lawler winning the AWA World title from Curt Hennig. I'm actually a tad surprised they'd show clips of Lance Russell and a packed Mid-South Coliseum. Lawler's out in a suit and he's putting over the other talent in the tournament, thankfully. Another spiel about challenging all the other World Champions and finding out they're only company champions. Clips follow of Snowman's Leon Spinks-assisted title win as Lawler sort of semi-shoots on Snowman's lack of wrestling ability. Marlin calls Snowman out as a coward who wanted to handpick all of his opponents and cuts a promo on him. IF YOU HAVE TO HOCK THE UNIFIED WORLD TITLE TO A DRUG DEALER, THEN YOU ARE NOTHIN' IN MY BOOK. That gets a big pop. I guess they felt they needed to spell all this out in public with Snowman going back to radio and newspapers. In a way, accident or not, I'm not sure the Snowman angle could have ended in any other way. Big hard sell for this tournament. Drug deal tangents aside, this was a pretty classy segment that really got the championship over as a big deal--not always a staple of Memphis booking. (Hah--all typed up before seeing Loss' last sentence). This was about as good of a case of promotional damage control as you'll see.
  10. PeteF3
    Martel is still hawking Arrogance, and this time Brother Love asks him to stick around due to the presence of guest Jake Roberts and his stinking snake. "I have always been the hired gun for my own stable / I am what Cain was to Abel." Goddamn, Jake was the man. I love the fact that he could drop lines like that as a babyface. While that goes on, Jake takes offense at Martel spraying Damian's bag, and when he confronts him about it a second time he gets Arrogance full-force in the eyes. While I still question if cologne can fuck up an eye as badly as Jake's will get, Jake sells it great and would continue to do so in scarily effective fashion. At 8 years old I was about as cynical a wrestling fan as you could get--I was smartened up at an early age and the Zeus push followed by the Warrior push had really soured me on the company as a whole. But holy shit, did this whole angle creep the fuck out of me. Chintzy set-up or not, this really is a preview of the multitude of intense WWF angles that would come the following year.
  11. PeteF3
    I got interrupted during this and put into a real sour mood for work reasons, so I'll probably have to revisit later because I didn't see any way this was on the level of the Misawa/Jumbo matches or the 6-man that spawned this feud. It was really quite good, but...well, I called "time limit draw" about ten minutes into the match. There was a whole lot of sympathy placed on Taue here, with Kawada and Misawa focusing big on his pre-existing cut, and the presence of blood in a '90s All-Japan ring as well as chants for Taue gave this a unique atmosphere, in a bit more epic scope than the big singles brawl in January '91.
  12. PeteF3
    And from the gestures in this clip, I'm about 80% sure that it's Ole under the hood as well. Awkward segment all around.
  13. PeteF3
    Oh my God, The Black Scorpion is Riki Choshu!
  14. PeteF3
    thehistoryofwwe says Sid/Eaton was a 2-minute squash victory for guess-who. In all honesty, that's the correct booking move.
  15. PeteF3
    Ross mentions for the first time a 5-minute overtime period in Gauntlet matches. Foreshadowing! This is slower-paced than you might expect from Morton or Eaton but it's a quality little match, with some solid arm work from Eaton and a few nice spots down the stretch and into the inevitable overtime. Stan Lane and Jim Cornette interfere liberally at the very end and that sets up EATON VS. SID for Saturday Night. In some weird way I'm intensely happy that such a match-up actually happened at that point in WCW.
  16. PeteF3
    White Boy is trapped in a sleeper when he dropkicks Jerry Calhoun. After a miscommunication spot with the White Girl, Eddie Gilbert clobbers Bill Dundee with a chair. Brickhouse Brown is overpowered when he tries to make the save by Doug Gilbert, who knocks him out with a boot. They put Brown in a chair and the White Girl paints his face with makeup and puts a blond wig on him.
  17. PeteF3
    I like how Dundee doesn't dance around his past history with Lawler, bringing up the Bill & Buddy run as it relates to both Lawler and Jarrett. Lawler recites his Unified title/company-champions spiel and recites the list of participants, which is quite the who's-who of quality non-Big Two talent. Despite all the trash talk things are kept pretty civil, even with Gilbert. I wonder if the more low-key and downright lighthearted last two weeks was a conscious reaction to the failure of the car angle to draw (in fact attendance went down).
  18. PeteF3
    Lots of classic Fabulous Ones brawls here.
  19. PeteF3
    Rude murders somebody and is informed by Bobby after the match that Heenan's staff was unable to find anyone in the arena who wasn't an ugly, tattooed, IQ-of-3 redneck so no Rude Awakening. But no one in the arena is as ugly as the Boss Man's mother. 1991 WWF is going to be a breath of fresh air. Give me some damned feuds built around attempted murder and not rubber snakes and yo' mama jokes.
  20. PeteF3
    Heenan has continued his insulting and degrading comments--IN PUHLIK, EEF YOU WEEL--about the Big Boss Man's mother. We get a recap of the Heenan handcuffing and comments from the Boss Man promising to come after Rude next. Did these two ever even have a match, even on a non-taped house show?
  21. PeteF3
    Actually the finish seemed to be messed up by all four guys, which is probably a record in its own way especially for guys and a promotion of this caliber. Everything up to that was pretty much gold. Lots of new offense here from the Misawa/Kawada team, including the sick suplex to the floor and the legdrop/senton combo that I don't think I've seen since. This is the first true appearance of '90s Kawada, right down to the yellow & black tights to go along with the surly attitude.
  22. PeteF3
    Smothers doesn't quite hit all of the big athletic stuff he attempted which is enough to keep this below the Eaton/Steiner match.
  23. PeteF3
    Two interruptions of Flair interviews are shown, the locker room incident earlier and a segment of the Danger Zone which results in a pull-apart. Long compares this situation to calling a timeout so you can slap your mother--I had the same reaction that line that Cornette does. Long admits without saying so that Doom might have bitten off more than they can chew, but plan to end Arn & Flair at Halloween Havoc anyway. Solid to-the-point promo. I didn't like the contrived set-up for this match but the idea of the feud is definitely an intriguing one.
  24. PeteF3
    The thing was backwards from the second match on. De-push or not, getting the "random draw" part over or not, shouldn't Flair be the climax of the Gauntlet and not in the middle? You could even keep the same booking if you felt you had to--a DQ victory over Arn would just make Scott look like a bigger underdog going into the final match. Okay, okay, let's evaluate this as a match. Arn doesn't have the elite physical skills of Bobby Eaton to be matching Steiner big move for big move, so he tones it down with more matwork and shtick, building up to "safer" moves like a backbreaker on the floor that still get the point across. Plus a cute spot where Arn tries to "bring Steiner in the hard way" which Scott counters by simply letting go of the ropes. Arn counters a sunset flip by grabbing the ropes and gets a pinfall, but this is far more important than any title match apparently so Randy Anderson gets the match re-started. About three seconds later Flair yanks Nick Patrick out of the ring and it's a DQ. Flair and Arn attempt a beatdown but before even any heat can be drawn, Rick is out and the Horsemen are off. Well, try as I might, the booking can't be separated from the work. Scott gets to pin Ric Flair and then idiotically eats a pinfall himself the next night, regardless of whether it was overturned. The restart was rendered even more pointless by having the match end right afterward anyway. I would also posit that this match as booked was not part of the Gauntlet--the ring announcer doesn't mention it before or after the match, unlike in the first 2 matches. It simply became a Gauntlet match after the fact, which might explain the DQ finish but not excuse it.
  25. PeteF3
    Heenan is presumably still there, to this day. Rude accuses Vince of being behind all this, getting bleeped a few times. "Heel manager makes comments about babyface's mother" is a lame enough impetus for a feud, but "heel reveals he told manager to say said comments" is an extra layer of lame.
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