ohtani's jacket

I'm going to finish this off looking at Ted vs. random opponents starting with One Man Gang. Ted Dibiase vs. One Man Gang, Houston 6/7/87 Technical Ted Dibiase was a face here, working the hammerlock against big One Man Gang. Never really got out of first gear, but it wasn't the sort of match you expect to get out of first. OMG was about as inspired as Big Daddy. I'm sure he would've shown more life if he'd been working Hogan on this card. Strange to imagine what Ted's WWF career would've been like if he'd remained a face. I can't picture it.

Morton was very over. Check out the crowd reaction to some of those early angles. Flair also drew 15,000 when Road Warrior Hawk challenged him on the Great American Bash tour in Philly. Vince didn't need to run Hogan/Michaels. Both were babyfaces. Bret vs Savage is really the closest a tag team wrestler got to interacting with the top singles stars in the era, and that only happened one time. The point was that the NWA treated their tag teams as stars on the same level as their singles performers, where in the WWF, they were an isolated division. I'm not saying it's not without its own set of flaws, but I am saying that the NWA would have suffered more from the loss of the Road Warriors or Rock & Roll Express than the WWF would have from the loss of the Hart Foundation or British Bulldogs. I agree that the NWA would have suffered more from the loss of their mainstay tag acts, but I think that had a lot to do with the size of the roster and the pull that New York had in terms of luring guys away. The WWF didn't have quite the same mainstay acts as the Midnight Express or Rock 'n' Roll Express as teams were either coming in and out, breaking up and dissolving or having guys receive a singles push, and in the latter case I think the WWF was much more successful at turning tag performers into singles stars. In the long run, working a program with Flair did very little for Ricky Morton in terms of singles success and nothing for Road Warrior Hawk. In terms of working programs with the top guys, I agree that the tag teams were kept in isolation for the most part (they there were clear affiliations, heel stables, etc.), but the WWF had a much wider net they could cast over their midcard and with big guys they could bring in to to feud with Hogan. I'd also argue that Flair/Morton was a bit more credible than Hogan/Morton equivalent. I tend to think of the WWF tag division being well booked and meaningful up until the end of the steriod era. I think the WWF tag teams were handicapped in many ways, and I don't think many of us like the style, but there was a distinct effort to manage the division and it was treated as important. And hey, the top NWA tag teams had matching outfits too.

The WWF tag teams were over as performers. Just about every person on the roster was over as a performer. The old adage that "everybody is somebody's favourite" has never been truer than when it comes to WWF tag teams. I don't know if there was a great WWF tag match during the 80s or not. I've heard good things about the Briscos/Murdoch & Adonis handheld and I quite like the match where The Dream Team win the titles from The US Express. I also don't know that it's fair to say that because Ricky Morton wrestled Flair for the title that the WWF tag teams weren't important. Did Morton wrestle Flair out of necessity (challengers) or because he was super over? Why would Vince have run Hogan/Michaels? The roster would have had to have been a lot smaller for that match-up to headline anything.

The 9/24/88 Philly cage match isn't essential viewing for the Savage/Dibiase feud -- it doesn't add anything to the feud and is basically the MSG cage match reworked -- but it has great heat and is a strong finish to their houseshow run. The 7/31/88 WrestleFest match from Milwaukee is just the second Boston match with a clean pin rather than Virgil interfering. Nothing special. I would recommend people watch either the MSG leg or the Philly leg of this feud and skip the rest.

The 12/14/89 Ontario Jake vs. Dibiase match is more of the same, but it has a cool promo beforehand where Jake says the Million Dollar Belt is in Damien's bag, only if Virgil sticks his hand in there it may not be Damien he finds but one of Jake's more dangerous snakes. A series of clips follows with Jake holding one nasty looking snake after another and being totally and utterly Jake. I also saw a Boston match of theirs from the year before (1/9/88), which was better than Jake's return matches in '89 but nothing special. As Jake would say, I've seen all of this feud I need to see my man.

I'm really tempted to start a thread where we discuss whether Jimmy Golden is the GOAT.

If you can get into the rhythm of what the two are doing you may enjoy the matches more than me. I spoke too soon when I said that Savage and Dibiase never had a bad match on the houseshow circuit. The 8/6/88 Boston match is a real lame duck. The earlier 7/9/88 match is a working version of the 7/23 match from Philly. Savage wears a neck brace in the 7/9 match which gives Dibiase something to go after on offence. You could argue that he doesn't do it that well, but at least it becomes part of the storyline and leads to the Million Dollar Dream. My childhood memories of the Million Dollar Dream being a big deal are kind of getting shattered here, though, because for a big nearfall it sure gets treated like an ordinary sleeper. I guess that should come as no surprise since everything gets truncated in these matches instead of drawn out (and when shit did get drawn out in the Jake feud, I complained it.) Dibiase removes the neckbrace and throws it in Elizabeth's face and man was Elizabeth a shitty actress. I don't think she adds a single thing to these matches other than some cleavage. There was one match in this feud where Dibiase attacks her ankle after the bout and instead of screaming or crying she's worried about her dress being hitched up. It's kind of amusing how gently Dibiase twists the ankle too given how much of a control freak Savage was over Elizabeth. Anyway, the 7/9 match is building to something decent when they suddenly pull a DQ finish from a Savage small package. Why they couldn't have made that a nearfall and kept going for a few minutes to a better finish is beyond me. Have Savage sell some more, let Dibiase get more and more frustrated that he can't put Savage anyway. It's not that difficult to have a more complete match that still sets up the following month's cage match, but I suppose people came either way.

That's the one. Finding stuff on Dailymotion has become a pain in the arse but most of this stuff is gone from youtube.

Ted doesn't use a lot of the same signature spots in each match. I've only seen him do the piledriver once so far and there are plenty of matches where he doesn't so much as attempt the Million Dollar Dream. Half the time he's not on offence long enough to run through all of his signature spots and a lot of the time he's dropping elbows, driving knees into opponent, doing his fist drop or choking his man. He's constantly being put over as a technical wrestler on commentary, particularly by Monsoon, and I'm adamant that it was supposed to be part of his gimmick, but when you watch his matches he tends to be more of a Ric Flair bump and stooge kind of guy, which I guess you could more or less describe as a typical late 80s WWF heel.

Changed tack here a bit and watched the MSG leg of Savage vs. Dibiase. Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 4/25/88 Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 5/27/88 Randy Savage vs. Ted Dibiase, cage match, MSG 6/25/88 Individually, these matches aren't that great but taken together as a three match swing the accumulative effect is that you pretty much get everything you want out of the Savage/Dibiase feud. It's not as good a feud as Tito vs. Savage or Savage/Steamboat, but it's not terribly far behind. I liked it more than Hogan/Savage to name another of Savage's major 80s feuds. What's frustrating about WWF houseshows from this era isn't that you don't get a proper finish (it's understandable that they want people to come back the following month to see their hero inch closer to his goal); what's frustrating is that they cut short the finishing stretches of most matches. I honestly think if the match times had been slightly longer and there had been more drawn out and dramatic finishing stretches it wouldn't have mattered what finish they used, the matches would have felt a lot more complete. As it is, you can't really rely on any one match to get a complete picture of Dibiase/Savage. You have to watch all three to get the satisfaction that you might ordinarily get from watching a great match from another promotion because of the aborted payoffs in each "chapter" leading up to the cage match. It's a bit like watching the TV build from other promotions as opposed to say the big arena matches of Lawler/Dundee and other workers. The 4/25 match is Savage's first title defence as champion and has quite a hot beginning. Ted's selling is good and he worked well with Savage, but my impression was that it was Randy's qualities as a performer that carried the feud. The 5/27 match sees Ted get a seemingly legit busted nose, which adds a bit of ruggedness to Ted's control work, and the cage match is well known so I don't really need to describe it. I wouldn't personally peg any of their matches at four stars because I don't think they had that one complete, self-contained classic that goes 20 minutes plus and has the kind of dramatic narrative you expect from this kind of wrestling. However, I haven't seen a bad match out of them yet (on the houseshow circuit) and Ted has looked good in all of the matches although below Savage. So I think this feud is a major plus on his WWF resume. The Jake/Dibiase MSG leg, however... Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 11/25/89 Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, no DQ, MSG 12/28/89 Jake Roberts vs. Ted Dibiase, MSG 1/20/90 These were exactly the type of boring matches I expected Ted Dibiase and Jake Roberts to have before I started this project. I don't know whether the earlier match I saw was an anomaly or some kind of novely factor, but these matches after Roberts came back from his surgery were so bad I almost fell asleep about a half a dozen times. Both guys control segments suck, the matches generally go 20 minutes without making you want to watch a 20 minute wrestling match and Jake doesn't sell as well as he did in the match I said was good. The idea is basically that Jake gets the DDT on Virgil in the first match (as well as draping Damian on him), the DDT on Dibiase in the second and a Million Dollar Belt title shot in the third. The progression makes sense, but the matches are pointless. The no DQ match is ridiculous. Why work the same boring match you worked the month before if there aren't any DQs and you can brawl. You hate each other's guts, it's a grudge match, the guy nearly put you out of wrestling, stop fucking around lying in holds. The Million Dollar Belt shot is a beat beyond what people wanted to see as well. Once he got the DDT on Dibiase that's it. I was really disappointed in these because like said with the earlier match from '89 it left me wanting to watch the rest of the feud. Should have known better.

I watched the Starrcade '88 match and I have to agree with Frankensteiner that the first twenty minutes are a complete waste. The second half of the bout didn't bore me but it wasn't organised very well. I don't agree with Jerry's take on how Flair worked the match. Both guys had runs on top, with Luger probably ahead on points, and then Flair used the chair to injure him. He didn't outwrestle Luger to win, Luger's leg buckled and Flair was savvy enough to use the ropes for leverage. I thought rubbing Luger's face in the DQ stip was a stupid finish for a match like this. You can do that kind of small time finish on TV, but on a major show like Starrcade it's weak. The trouble with Crockett was that they threw everything into the chase, had nowhere to go but put the belt on Luger and then chickened out time and time again. Fortunately, with the Steamboat series they hot shotted the belt onto Ricky, had Flair do the chasing and worked a slow burn on his face turn, but I personally thought Flair didn't put as much as he could have into the narrative here because he wasn't losing the title and didn't go the extra mile to put the match over. I liked it far more the last time I watched it, as I was just starting my viewing for the Smarkschoice poll and marked out over some vintage Flair. I also went into it this time looking for flaws which isn't a fun way to watch wrestling, but it was a disappointment this time round.

vs. Legion of Doom Legion of Doom vs. Money Inc, SummerSlam '92 8/29/92 I don't know if these teams had another match that was taped, but I don't really care because this sucked. The only match I couldn't finish for the gauntlet. vs. The Natural Disasters The Natural Disasters vs. Money Inc, 10/13/92 This was the wrong match to watch as it was pretty much a set-up for the Nasty Boys to turn on Jimmy Hart and have Money Inc take the belts off the Natural Disasters. They even managed to have the Headshrinkers & Afa get involved even though the match was only seven minutes long. Amid all the bullshit there were some fun spots. If you're into fat boy wrestlers then the Natural Disasters are a dream come true. I was kind of surprised that the Earthquake jobbed to the Million Dollar Dream. Was this the beginning of a de-push? vs. The Nasty Boys The Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc, 12/15/92 This was pretty good for a straight up, non gimmick Nasties match. One thing that's impressed me about WWF Ted is that even though he started out at the top and slid down the card, outwardly and performance-wise it seems like he embraced every role he was given. Money Inc could have been pretty forgettable (IRS' one liners were fucking awful), but they were a hard working team and put out a string of decent TV matches. You're not going to get 25 minute epic, Southern style face-in-peril matches, but you will get a lot of fun bumping and fast paced rope work. In a way, I actually think that's Ted's signature WWF work. vs. The Steiners Steiners vs. Money Inc, 4/5/93 German fan favourite. This was probably Money Inc's best match-up from a workrate perspective. I'd rather watch a number of the Steiners' other match-ups in WCW, New Japan and even against the Beverly Brothers or some team like that, but still these teams worked well together. vs. 1-2-3 Kid Ted Dibiase vs. 1-2-3 Kid, Monday Night RAW 8/16/93 This was a RAW rematch after the Kid had humiliated Dibiase on the Wrestling Challenge. Had the potential to be a good Dibiase performance along the lines of his matches with Dustin and Virgil but never got going. vs. Razor Ramon Ted Dibiase vs. Razor Ramon, SummerSlam '93 8/30/93 Ted's final WWF match. Thanks for the memories. In many ways this was Ted's stock WWF match. He didn't get regular 25 minute main event opportunities. I think it's fair to say that he was a midcard act and had a midcard schtick. A 12-15 minute match structure that gutted out the middle control segment and worked best when he was bumping and selling for his opponents. For a guy who had such great execution and some really cool offence, I was surprised by how little he worked on top. This was fine for what it was, but basically Ted doing the job on his way out. The 90s stuff killed my enthusiasm for this. I think if I do a second go through I'll stick to the singles matches and maybe check out a few more Money Inc tags.

No, Dusty's pretty consistent about it being a weird Vince idea that he was committed to making work. I had a poke around and he seems rather inconsistent about the subject. He had some radio interview about 10 years ago where he claims he and Patterson came up with the gimmick, while at other times he regards it as a test or even a rib.

vs. Jake Roberts Ted Dibiase vs. Jake Roberts, MSG 4/24/89 This was much slower than the other Dibiase matches I've watched. The first third basically consisted of Ted trying to avoid both Damian and the DDT. Eventually, Virgil was able to distract Roberts long enough for Dibiase to take over and he had the longest heel control segment I've seen from him thus far. His work here was quite methodical, but Robert's selling was excellent and Ted had a good mix of killer looking elbows and showboating in front of the crowd. The Million Dollar Dream made its gauntlet debut here. Does anybody remember when Ted started using it as a finisher, because it wasn't so much as teased in the Savage/Hogan matches. There were a couple of teased comebacks from Jake, including a really cool armdrag/hiptoss reversal, and by the time he made it back onto offence I was so into the match that I was ready to see him hit the DDT. The finish was a nice piece of business as Jake got the win without hitting the DDT on Dibiase and got Virgil and Damian in the ring together without draping the snake over him. It was a satisfying result without paying out the two things the fans wanted to see and left plenty in the tank for the remainder of the feud. It definitely had me wanting to watch the rest of the feud so I'm calling this a good match. vs. Bret Hart Ted Dibiase vs. Bret Hart, 12/31/91 I got the time frame wrong for this as we skip ahead a bit to '91, but nevermind. This match was full of bullshit, but despite the bullshit I still liked it. Bret's side headlock where he did nothing at all for what seemed like an eternity was ridiculous and Sherri ringing the bell was unneccesary, but in between all that were the kind of quick sequences that marked their mini-match at Survivor Series '90. The finishing stretch, in particular, was exciting and when a finishing stretch is exciting you generally forget about how crappy the lead-up was (at least momentarily.) Sherri showed a lot of tit and ass and legs and everything worked within the WWF setting. Not a great match, but a more than decent spectacle. vs. Big Bossman Ted Dibiase vs. The Big Bossman, 8/8/90 The best thing about this was hearing Dibiase's theme music followed by Bossman's. Bossman tried to put over that he was out for justice, but this was boring. vs. Dusty Rhodes Ted Dibiase vs. Dusty Rhodes, 10/19/90 Dusty had ditched the black and yellow polkadots at this point and looked how Dusty usually looked. That was slightly disappointing as I wanted to see the American Dream version of WWF Dusty Rhodes. I have great memories of my parents staying up with me to watch wrestling until Dusty had been on just to see his act with Sapphire. I always thought it was impressive how Rhodes got that gimmick over, but apparently in the modern world of WWE "shoot" DVDs claims the idea was his own. Anyway, this was about as boring as any Dusty Rhodes match at the time. vs. Virgil Ted Dibiase vs. Virgil, 11/11/91 I could have easily chosen their SummerSlam match here as it's one of my all-time favourite WWF matches, but instead I went with the match where Ted wins back the Million Dollar Belt, which is a kick ass match in itself apart from the stupid Repo Man/El Matador crap at the end. The Ted/Virgil dynamic was outstanding and Ted's number one feud in the WWF, IMO. This was good.

vs. Hercules Ted Dibiase vs. Hercules, MSG 1/23/89 This was slightly clipped, but basically Virgil was barred from ringside for the duration of the contest and the match started off with Dibiase getting his ass kicked. Sense a pattern emerging here? Ted's selling was pretty good considering how poor Hercule's offence was in comparison to Hogan and Savage, but again the portion where Ted was on top was too short and not particularly interesting. (Not that Hercules could have made it interesting, but they the middle portion of Ted's WWF matches seem to be cut right out.) Once Hercules was back on top, Ted did some nice overselling but it didn't really make for a hot contest like short, fast paced matches sometimes are. The finish was screwy with Ted winning with his feet on the ropes and then the ref overruling the decision when Virgil attacked Hercules before the original decision was announced. Not much of a match, but I wasn't expecting much from Hercules.

Someone probably has an Observer with the exact details, but it seems like they were going to market it as Hulk merchandise. I think the kayfabe reason had something to do with Bad News Brown, as though Hogan needed protecting from a heel.

vs. Randy Savage Ted Dibiase vs. Randy Savage, Spectrum 7/23/88 This starts off with the same basic structure as the Hogan match w/ Savage kicking Dibiase's ass for the better part of three or four minutes. Savage concludes the opening stanza of the match by getting on the house mic and giving an "Oh yeah" in inimitable fashion. Dibiase's transition onto offence was much smarter here and allowed Ted the opportunity to sell the effects of Savage's hot start while still taking control of the match. There were a number of good cut off spots here preventing Savage from making a comeback. I'm not sure that Ted was the most compelling wrestler at working from the top, but everything he did was well paced and there was enough breathing room for both guys to sell the toll the match was taking. Then, just as the match was starting to build into something better than usual, they went for a cheap countout finish. I kind of liked that Savage evaded Virgil's initial interefence (being an experienced heel himself) and that he couldn't control himself when Virgil went after Elizabeth, but the post-match shenanigans went on for so long that it really felt like they'd robbed us of the final five minutes of the match. If it were a lucha match it would be as though the final fall was missing. So while it may have been a three star match, it should have been higher. Whether that should be pinned on the workers or the road agent I'm not sure. It was highly annoying either way.

All right, let's get started. Depending on how long this holds my attention I'll get to some of the other matches Jerry mentioned. vs. Hulk Hogan Ted Dibiase vs. Hulk Hogan, Boston Garden 9/10/88 Ted drew good heat from the Boston crowd with people throwing paper into the ring ala the NWO Nitro days. Hogan came to the ring wearing his "war bonnet," which made him look like a penis (literally), and his Hulkster license plate. I've heard stories that he also carried around a gas tank at the time, but I've never seen any visual confirmation. I do remember that Apter magazine cover with the "Ban the Helmet or Ban Hogan" headline. Classic. On to the match -- the beginning of the bout was the most exciting part with Hogan dishing it out to Dibiase and Ted bumping in a Ric Flair fashion. It always seemed to me that Ted went to the Ric Flair school of theatrical bumping at least in this WWF run. They kept this up for a few minutes while Superstar Billy Graham gave Hogan the usual fellatio on commentary. Ted then took over with a really poor control segment where he blew off the effects of all that bumping and went into a resthold armbar sequence. The commentators put over how he did so well to weather the storm, but I thought it gave the match a soft belly considering it was supposed to be the mid-point. After taking a breather, Hogan went back onto offence. His second run was cut short by Virgil interfering, which in a better match would have been Dibiase's first transition onto offence and allowed Ted to sell more. After that, the match was mostly Ted beating Hogan up before Hogan went through his Hulk up routine, put on the war bonnet and quickly wrapped things up. I thought the match was notable in not having a long enough heel control segment. Three stars would be awfully generous with this, but I ought to point out that by this stage Hogan was firmly entrenched in doing sweet eff all. I like his brawling sprints from '85-87, but apart from the hot start this didn't compare. I don't think that's a reflection on Ted, who was decent in this match aside from the weak resthold sequence and just got fed to the lions like every other Hogan opponent. Still, no pass on the OJ scale.

Pretty simple concept: I'm going to watch one match from every notable feud Dibiase had in the WWF to see how good Ted could be on any given night. It should be noted that I'm more favourable towards positive three star matches as opposed to disappointing three star matches, i.e. matches I felt earned three stars rather than only being three stars. Here are a list of the feuds. Please chime in if I've overlooked anything. vs. Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage vs. Hercules vs. Jake Roberts vs. Bret Hart vs. Big Bossman vs. Dusty Rhodes vs. Virgil vs. Legion of Doom vs. The Natural Disasters vs. The Nasty Boys vs. The Steiners vs. 1-2-3 Kid vs. Razor Ramon

I'm so used to people thinking Luger's '89 heel run was good that I kind of assumed it was accepted wisdom by now. Luger was definitely a guy you were taught sucked when I first discovered message boards a hundred years ago. I don't know that it was revision with Luger, more like a flat out mistake. I'm kind of on the fence about whether Luger was ready at say Starrcade. It may have been good but it would have denied us Flair's '89, which was a tremendously great year.

I haven't seen the Starrcade match since the Smarkschoice WCW poll, but I'll try giving it a watch at some point.

I'm sure they are. The only one I've watched recently is the '89 Bret/Dibiase match and that was pretty solid. But you mentioned Arn, who's a guy who had a metric shitload of three star matches. It actually occurred to me this morning that Ted's best WWF performance may have been the 45 minutes he spent in the ring during the 1990 Royal Rumble.

I've never seen a Regal/Sting match I didn't like. It always impresses me when Sting busts shit out on the mat in those matches. (That doesn't sound good, does it?)

This has been one of the more interesting yearbook discussions thus far. I watched this match for the first time in years with scant recollection of it and basically wound up enjoying it because of Liger's offence. I don't like El Samurai's mask or his gimmick, and I don't think much of him as a performer so I wasn't buying the whole hatred thing. To me it looked strategic rather than hated filled. I didn't mind the way Liger took over the match, in fact I thought it was pretty cool. He was much better at acting pissed than Samurai was and his run of offence was spectacular. It didn't strike me as casual at all. I also didn't have a problem with Samurai's transition back onto offence and I thought that short spurt was his best part. I hated the submissions, though. What a momentum killer they were. Then they went to the turnbuckle and made a hash of that spot. The match never really built to anything after that and there's far more drama in other Liger matches with better opponents. I tend to agree that it had a squash feel to it, but Liger's offence was aces. I liked the pinfall, but to win the yusho like that was kind of telling.

The reason I chose to watch it was because I was kind of surprised by the Sting/Meng matches that come out of this tournament. They're actually pretty decent. There was also another strong Regal/Sting match that year.