PhilTLL

I agree, time flies, but just to be accurate I looked at ol' Jimmy Jam's Wikipedia page, and rather than being fully retired/an airline pilot already by 1994, he was part-timing in Global with Hayes and Gordy. I can only imagine how, um, terrific that was.

And they literally say "his old gimmick." Hey viewers, we are using something called backstage lingo because you are watching the intersection of a performance and its production! In other words DAT'S A SHEWT

Not early. SuperBrawl IV, in 1994. Garvin looks like an airline pilot, because he is, just to put the topper on the "Why the hell is any of this happening on pay per view?" feeling.

Sorry if I'm retreading here, but: I've seen some people cite rock concerts and sporting events as having similar chants. With very little exception, the chants I've heard at sports and concerts are for the people and teams involved, not the action itself or the activity as a concept. It would turn me off immensely if the chants at Springsteen concerts went from "BRUUUUUUUUUUCE!" to "GREAT GUITAR RIFF! (five-clap)". Likewise at, say, baseball games, even the Yankee Bleacher Creatures mostly limit themselves to player names, and not "BASEBALL'S AWESOME (five-clap)" or "THANKS FOR HITTING (five-clap)". It's symptomatic of the audience thinking that the performers and fellow viewers want to hear their ongoing commentary instead of their adoration and encouragement. That sort of chanting is the only kind I really hate, the constant and verbose nonsense. And that's not an old fart thing, territory crowds chanted for guys all the time. They just didn't chant for much else. What makes "This is awesome" different from simply cheering for a great performance is that added element of "We are discriminating fans and extend our recognition to you." It's just...douchey. On a similar note, maybe I unfairly associate the constant and verbose chanting with how my high school used to act at basketball games, where the only people who didn't hate us were us, ha.

The Steiner Brothers vs Jerry Bubba Rose & G.Q. Stratus, WCW 4/7/90: An uncommonly satisfying Steiners squash, as they break out a bunch of high end stuff with panache. Most of it is eaten by Rose, who appears to owe them money or something. Rick uses a powerbomb pickup into gut-buckle slam, very neat inverted scoop slam, and the belly to belly superplex to finish, and Scott squeezes in a double underhook powerbomb, release German, and tilt a whirl, plus some solid improvised dick moves to add color. Yeah, a lot of their great matches are overrated bomb fests, but dammit, I'll find it hard not to rank the Steiners if I vote in GTTE.

You know what, I immediately thought "Alexis Smirnoff?!" And I had absolutely no idea he was more than Russian Schlub #7. You learn something every day.

I'm a subscriber, but I'm starting to get annoyed that they've taken away my classic service and not really replaced it yet. The current PPVs are more like a consolation prize to me. 247/COD wasn't perfect and sagged over time, but at least it had some effort behind it. I too have an ever growing collection that I might never watch all of, but I'm also a quality nerd, so those pristine Turner tapes and such always got me excited. Though there were always signs that they weren't interested in showing the really deep cuts, which as noted above we might represent a too-small niche of interest for. They started CWF, AWA, and Stampede episodes on 24/7 years ago but only showed a few. I presume lack of viewers had something to do with it. They know pretty exact hit numbers, and there's no point in uploads that almost no one is watching, even if they pay a subscriber fee.

The announcing is just unbearable.

Heh. I always get a chuckle out of Ion keeping their "Positively Entertaining" slogan when 90% of their programming is now grisly crime procedurals. But TNA is neither.

It's especially baffling with ECW and WCCW because it seems like they picked two promotions that they already had a big set of edited episodes for--yet they're not actually putting out what they have. They aren't digging out tapes and blowing dust off of them, they did that 5+ years ago for 24/7. What reason do I have to be optimistic about them converting Saturday Night or Mid South or whatever else if they won't even replay WCCW and ECW?

There's an even crazier interview the next night on WCW. Sullivan has to drag Sawyer off of a jobber with a chain, then gets his descriptions of Sawyer's birth and salvation by desert wolves extensively bleeped, making them seem much worse than they actually are, at least by my limited lip reading skills. Absolutely bizarre.

Flair/Garvin, Superstars on the Superstation, 2/86: A really brutal, well-worked match, a nice change of pace from the brilliant but more conventional Flair/Windham match at Battle of the Belts 1 a few days earlier. Garvin is such a fun mix of Flair opponent types, equal parts crafty wrestler and pissed-off bruiser, able to get to the hot nearfalls in so many believable ways. I really love his goofy, mullet-enhanced, caveman-like charisma here. His crushing blows and utter gall bring out the full Nasty Flair very quickly--they're literally at each other's throats within 5 minutes, Flair exchanging his usual bravado for pure spite. But the nastier Flair gets, the more it pisses off Garvin. Flair also puts the Flop and Flip at unusual times and limits their spectacle so they don't feel like a chore. The finish is a really indecisive pin that is pretty perfect for free TV and setting up a touring feud. I could see this easily finishing high on the appropriate '80s ballot for me. Cactus Jack vs Paul Drake, WCW 3/24/90: One of the better squashes that I've seen from this early run for Cactus. It helps that Drake is an excellent seller. They work the "asking Sullivan for advice" bit effectively, resulting in Cactus pulling Drake up from pins for several crisp high-impact moves. Combined with the decent if oddly straightforward match vs Eddie Gilbert, it's been a pretty good TBS weekend for young Mick.

I'm starting to think we'll never get that because the classic archive-motivated subscriber is such a small percentage of the total, and they're too lazy/uncreative/cheap/whatever to market the classic archives so more people will want them. I suppose I could acknowledge that maybe there will never be a large number of people demanding the archives. I wonder if a burn-on-demand system is even possible--their list of offerings would probably never match the deepest of tastes, and a real "anything in the archives" system would require so much manpower it would be absurdly expensive. Still, there must be some way to reconcile WWE's ownership of most wrestling history with the incredible thirst of the few mega-interested people. Maybe they could do Network Gold or something.

Straight up laughing out loud moment in the opening of the MX/Pillman & Zenk match from Worldwide 2/17/90. Funk gives kudos to "these great youngsters, Pillman and Zeman," rhymes with semen. Cruise pointedly corrects him, and Funk pointedly does it again. Versus the Freebirds the next week at the same taping: "It's Z-Man, not Zeman!" "Well, Crispy, I am ze man and you are not!" Love it. Jim Cornette, Main Event 3/11/90: "Hello, you black lung filled coal miners, take a look at the greatest tag team in the world..." A moment later Bob Caudle says broadcast partner Teddy Long reminds him of Cornette, which Teddy denies: "That can't possibly be true, because I'm neat in the waist and sweet in the face, and Jim Cornette is neither."

On today's Jeopardy, the middle contestant was a history Ph.D. candidate named Bill Cossen(?), who said if he ever gets tenure somewhere, he wants to write a serious history of pro wrestling. Alex chuckled a bit at the notion and name-dropped Gorgeous George. So which one of you was this? Congrats on your huge win. Not a Jeopardy MOTY contender or anything, but a decent squash.

If it has no mark in the upper right, it wasn't 247/COD. This looks like a streaming-COD release. (It's also mislabeled as 11/08/86, which was actually Harts-Islanders in Philly, and they presumably meant the correct 1/18/86 or 11/01/86, which was Harts-Bulldogs in Boston...etc. Of course I had to look that up. It also seems to have the first 5 minutes cut for some reason. Alas.)

Shawn also had to worry about being the top draw and cutting halfway decent promos and such. All roles have demands.

My favorite thing about this is the idea that Corpus Christi resembles the "Wild West" version of Texas in any way.

She has ten times the charisma of her dad already.

I honestly can't decide whether or not they knew that "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc existed. Not because they would use it--lord no. But because if they did, they would have gone another direction with this.

I quite enjoyed this. I felt like it was the only time the Nick Patrick fingers ever had a purpose, and it was a great save from the ab stretch cradle where Flair basically looked pinned. I also thought Zenk was slightly above plain broomstick status, particularly in the mat work, and showed more fire than I was expecting. Not a lost classic worker, and hardly a top 20 match for the year or anything, but a surprisingly satisfying little TV main.

"That's after NBA basketball on Sunday here on TBS on the Main Event, so if they're still shooting baskets, just stick around. The Hawks will get beat, whoever it is, and then you'll see Beautiful Bobby take the World TV Title from Arn Anderson." - Jim Cornette, Power Hour 2/2/90 "And I'm sure as Z-Man grew up in Minneapolis, watching the career of the Nature Boy skyrocket, he probably never thought he would have a chance to wrestle on national TV for all the gold." "I never thought he would either, Jim!" - Ross and Cornette, same episode. Cornette also uncorked a classic on Ross on I believe the 1990 premiere of PH (1/5). Ross let slip that Dr. Death had told him, "in confidence," that he intended to win a title in 1990. Cornette responded: "So let me get this straight, Jim Ross. You and Dr. Death are close personal friends, and he told you something in confidence, and you're choosing to discuss it on the biggest superstation in the world, live on television in front of 50 million people? Boy, I hope I'm never your close personal friend, Jim! There's no telling when you might stooge me out to the IRS!"

Dr Death vs Cactus Jack, WCW 1/27/90: Jack takes at least five totally crazy bumps and Doc works one of them into a strength spot that's as good as any he's ever done, making this worth a watch. But they have too much time to fill, so the middle is mostly heatless restholds, preventing it from being a very good match.

I have nothing substantial to add that hasn't been said here--I can't really endorse the gimmick, even if it's amusing in that "accept the inherent awfulness of the form" way, and I think he was a frightfully limited and boring worker. But damned if I haven't done that belly pat just about every time I have my shirt off since I was 9, when my wrestling start coincided with his (terrible) late 1992 face turn.

Nitros are currently being added. And yeah, Roku is excellent at handling WWE Network.