soup23

How much actual footage is out there of Slater? He does to me on the surface seem like the type of guy you know a lot about but then try to analyze and don't have many matches and stuff to go off of. On the surface, I can say that I greatly enjoyed his match with Jumbo on the All Japan set.

If Dibiase did have the dream in his aresenal by April 88, then it is really inexcusible for him to not use it or tease it in the Hogan and Hercules matches. In the Hogan match, Dibiase never seemed like a threat because of the lack of stuff he did. In the Hercules match, Dibiase again gave hercules way too much and didn't look like the guy who was just in the main event at Wrestlemania.

Well the announcing has been a disaster on both of those Dibiase matches I didn't like at all. The first one had Billy Graham kissing Hogan's ass constantly about how he has never looked this good even with Dibiase was on top. The Second one vs. Herc in Boston seemed to have about 4 people in the booth including Tronguard, Lord Al, and vince and they step all over each other throughout the match.

Would have no problem with those moves being a set up to the million dollar dream, but in both the Herc and Hogan matches, he has not even teased going for the million dollar dream. Does anyone have a clear answer on when he started debuting that?

This is the post I have been waiting on. I currently have seen 0 GAEA matches.

Even beyond that Starrcade just seems to get lost in the shuffle a lot of times. For some reason they always threw out gimmicks for it whether it be Battlebowl or WCW vs. the World. Add to that some disappointing years where you had The Butcher and the Black Scorpion nonsense of 1990 and Starrcade as a show with an overall history gets greatly diluted.

I know my tastes are drastic from Meltzer and others but I can't for the life of me see how anyone could give the Makabe/Shibata match close to 4 stars. That was a poorly focused brawl with a shit finish to boot.

Dibiase vs. Hercules Boston Garden 11/5/88 Prematch, Dibiase calls Hercules his slave. This gets Herc to come out and he is a house of fire to begin. He is also thwarting off Virgil and 3 matches in, Virgil has been completely neutralized by all opponents. Dibiase is able to catch Herc coming into the ring with a fist drop and goes on the the offensive. He does more high-impact moves than in the Hogan match with a belly to back suplex and elbow from the middle rope to a standing Herc. Still though there is not a sustained strategy on Dibiase's part and his control segment consists on him doing a move and then doing a distraction spot whether its arguing with the referee, the fans, or slapping Hercules while he is down. Dibiase misses a move off the ropes and Herc makes his comeback. I actual enjoyed the payback spot of Herc slapping Dibiase when he was down. Ref bump occurs. Virgil is finally able to do something well for Dibiase coming off the top with a fist drop and Dibiase pins him for the win. Post match they beat down Herc but he runs them off with the chain. I was not expect a lot from a match with Hercules but again was amazed at the lack of strategy utilized with Dibiase on top. He never focused on any area here and it certainly never felt like Hercules was in danger during the segment because of how nonchalant Dibiase was acting taking his time between holds.

06/25/88 Savage vs DiBiase (MSG - Cage) Really good match. Dibiase mixed in all his signature spots logically throughout the match and cut offs done for the escapes was really well done. Hot start and satisfying finish also were well done. I particularly liked the desperate nature of both men when Savage got tied up in the ropes. Dibiase's bumping was good like usual. Only negative of this match could be that it was too much "your turn, my turn" as there were a lot of momentum shifts packed into a 12 minute match. Still the match did feel like a war and did an effective job of conveying a concise story within 12 minutes. Very good performance turned in by both men.

Dibiase vs. Michaels 4/24/90 Cross referencing this from yearbook thread as it is still fresh and I know my opinion hasn't changed in a month. Currently have it below my top 100 of the year and didn't think it was very good at all. Michaels looked far better in other matches on the set taking punishment. Really wished the time allotted for this and Tito/Perfect would have been switched. Lord Alfred says he has never seen Shawn wrestle in singles which means he doesn't watch wrestling challenge. We also get Gorilla ragging on Joey Morella for his shoddy officiating. Match was good but I thought some of Dibiases offense and work on top was boring. Match actually ends in double dq instead of the double countout that is originally announced by the ring announcer.

In Hogan match he did none of those things and I would say of the fifteen minutes he was in control or about 6-7 minutes between his two control segments.

Watched the Dibiase vs. Hogan match from Boston Garden as well. It was alright and sort of entertaining but a lot of things pissed me off. It was certainly a Hogan schtick match with him looking completely ridiculous with the war bonnet, cheating endlessly, and thwarting any attack from Virgil. His opening punches looked really good and Dibiase did take some Flair esque bumps and essentially did a Flair flop. I thought Dibiase's control segment was really poor and mainly consisted of a chinlock and armbar. Even though this was a Hogan match, it did go 15+ minutes and it would have been nice for Dibiase to at least convey a strategy of how he is going to defeat Hogan. Honestly, the best thing beside the bumps I could say for Dibiase in this match is at least he did so little on offense that it didn't look completely ridiculous for Hulk to blow through it and Hulk up for the win. Dibiase's performance reconfirmed the notion I have going in. Dibiase is a solid performer in the WWF and doesn't make too many matches atrocious, but he also wasn't willing to make chicken salad out of chicken shit and raise the overall quality of the match to the next level.

Ted is not actively bad in the match but not great either. Warrior is a complete disaster and essentially gets laughed at by the Japanese fans. Will be interested to see what you think when you get to it in the yearbook.

That Warrior/Ted match from Japan is awful and in my bottom ten matches of 1990.

Definitely have came on board the Tenryu as GOAT bandwagon and fail to see him dropping out of my top 6-7 if I ever did a list. Great post Ditch and he has all the attributes that you give him. Maybe my favorite thing about Tenryu though is the sheer kookiness of his career. This is a person from Japan that has been on a Clash and a Wrestlemania, has had extended periods in All Japan, New Japan, and NOAH in the past 20 years, and started his own company. He reminds me of some of these people in life you encounter that has a regular job but also makes moonshine in their basement, plays bass in an 80's hair band on the weekend, and has 5 patents. Tenryu is just an interesting character all around. Also just noted the quote that is in your sig Ditch. My wife still mentions that every once in a while when wrestling ever comes up.

I don't recall them using the bear hug spot in the Starrcade match. If it did happen, it didn't strike me as significant enough to make a note on it.

Love this idea Loss. Thanks

Ross again says Tommy Young is a 6 time referee of the year in our next show. Does anyone know who was giving him this award or was Ross just making shit up? Also, what was the reasoning for Matsuda being made the manager of Flair and the Yamazaki corporation as a whole?

I would say those are all 3 star matches from the best of my memory but he would need to have many more than that for me to consider him having a bunch throughout his run. Bobby Eaton so far in 1990 has been a part of 8 3 star matches by my count and 3 four+ star matches. I know unless the Midnights vs. Rich/Pillman match from Havoc drops considerably that will be bumped up to 9 which is as many as listed here for Dibiase.

From my experience the last three years attending shows in Georgia (which I admit has a more traditional babyface -yay heel - boo stance) is that TV really accentuates the booing that Cena gets. For all shows I have been to I would say at worst the dynamic has been a 90% pro 10% anti Cena and this was even at Wrestlemania with more hardcores in attendance.

Loss, that was a gaff on my part as I went back and listened to Clash 4 and when Parv talks about what meltzer was saying, he mentions Steamboat coming in. I forgot about that when we were discussing it in the Starrcade show.

Thanks for the thoughts Loss. One thing I have learned is that even among the "smark" fans community there is still a lot of differences of opinions and how they view wrestling. Here I think most of the general posters at least see can see eye to eye on a majority of the issues. But branching out, you have other prevailing opinions like at F4W where you had dozens of people there call the 1/4 dome show at worst a "great" show and Dylan, Joshi Rob, and myself taking a tougher stance as the only voices on the other side of the coin. Scott also has wide differences of opinions on some of the show in regards to Luger and this is opinions that has been common stance fo a while from people that have been predominately WWF guys there whole life. I certainly wanted to be diplomatic on the show even if I disagreed but at the root of Scott's hypothesis I believe is that Luger wasn't really ready for this moment and being able to take the title and lead a promotion. I kind of happen to agree with this also. Luger at the Clash 4 seemed more squeamish in front of the camera than Austin does at many times in 1990. In history looking at the elevation of break through characters (Hogan in 1983, Austin in 1996-97, Rock in 98-99) they have a supreme confidence in themselves that helps them overcome any shortcomings they may have in other facets of becoming a breakthrough wrestling star. So my final argument in regards to Luger is that he gave a shit but didn't know how to put himself completely out there without being subconscious about himself. In some ways he gave too much a shit about what other people would think at times. That is interesting that Flair denying Luger a rematch actually clamored people wanting a rematch more. 1988 is also really transitional in Crockett. I think changes were discovered to be inevitable which is why you saw the leaving of Arn/Tully and phasing of Dusty. With this you also see the seeds of Flair being touted as the best champion of all time start to rise. He is really becoming more a legacy competitor as the year progresses. I can't wait for 1989.

Blood, hate, screaming....definite MOTYC for me. I thought it was kind of ingenious from a protection standpoint in putting Kimura and Iwamoto in the match as the loyal henchman of their respective partners. THey really took an asskicking. Bull right here looks like Vader should have looked throughout 1992-1994 and here getting hit with the kendo sticks looking annoyed, then getting the sticks and wailing on Aja/Kimura/and the ref was a great iconic moment that actually made storyline sense.

Most frustrating match of 1990. 15-20 minutes of amazing work and story blown off so they could get their shit in. I know that tombstones and piledrivers in joshi are not the same as in Memphis but Hokuto literally sold a tombstone on the floor for less than 3 seconds. Ending run was nice but didn't fit the theme of the majority of the match and therefore I had a huge disconnect.

The Rooster references were some good tongue in cheek stuff. Taylor cut a really nice promo in retaliation.