PhilTLL

Power Hour, 01/05/1990: - Ross takes the interesting step of noting that frequent jobber Lee Scott is referee in the opener. I can't decide if that's anti-kayfabe or super-kayfabe; a wrestler might very well get a ref license. Older kids and rec-league adults ref kids matches in real sports all the time. - They replay Pillman/Cactus from Worldwide, which is a decent enough six minutes but I'm mostly interested for the broadcast team. I just watched everything I had of 1989, but my Worldwide set was missing November and December, so this is one of my first times hearing Cruise and Funk. They're damn good. Cruise queries Funk as a wrestling expert, asking for details on various armlocks, and they both sort of trade PBP without too much toe-stepping or dead air. WCW, 01/06: Cornette calls the MX "Noriega's favorite tag team." Ha. I'm only a few episodes in to the JR/Sullivan team, but Sullivan is a pleasant surprise. Maybe my expectations were too low. I could get pretty into Dragonmaster and Mad Dog, especially if they always finish with the tombstone and big splash. There's a commercial for the Eaton/Flair rematch, which I only knew by the taping date (no '89 Main Event set) and watched out of order. So I guess that makes it the first candidate for free TV MOTY in 1990 instead of coming too late to stand up to the terrific '89 slate. Pillman and Zenk beat on the State Patrol with a variety of moves that feature a weird-looking and counterintuitive "Irish whip your partner into a running jump" setup. The worst is Zenk whipping Pillman to a jump-stop that pretty much ruins his awesome dropkick to (Patrolman) on the top rope. Zenk is nakedly awful with either Patrolman, flubbing multiple spots. Much better is the debut of Mean Mark Callous, who gets the showcase of the Scrapers match and goes at it 100 mph with zero Taker deliberation at all. He ropewalks into a nice elbow drop, does the running kick (but only to the gut), and hits the flying clothesline. His introduction on the mic is one sentence of semi-drawled nothing while Long and Spivey shout over him. Awesome.

Call me crazy, but I doubt it's that hard to find wrestling fans in the frigging video production business unless you're just not trying.

Watts and the oil glut! That's how I read it. Business, demographic, story, character etc changes relative to economic changes, perhaps in particular geographies.

He beat Eaton in it by DQ in their first TV match in 11/89. It took purple to pin him in the rematch, though.

Not only is it laughably wrong, it also makes the story more boring when Vince is the angel under fire and all his mistakes are opportunities for change and growth. How can you tell Black Saturday without the controversy and the cutthroat elements? How can you admit WCW took the easy lead without talking about how WWF got so far down, turning Raw into a snooze in less than three years, filling it with crap characters and pushes like Mabel's? Etc. My favorite "come on man!" lie was that Raw moved from Manhattan Center "to bigger arenas all over the Northeast." Bigger than the Manhattan Center, yeah. But the civic centers of Poughkeepsie-White Plains-Bushkill-New Haven aren't exactly the MSG-Spectrum-Garden loop. They even show a clip from Bushkill while putting this idea over.

Whoops. Yeah, I brainfarted that one. I still think the total viewing audience bump is worth it.

They know they're not a legitimate ratings competitor with the NFL. They've been on Mondays since MNF actually meant something, and the seasonal dip is fairly predictable and accounted for (at least I seem to remember Meltzer saying it's similar year to year). It's possible they see more positives in moving from the least watched TV night in the US to one of the most watched than they see negatives in competing with the NFL on a second night (third, if you consider Sunday PPVs). Also, whatever the extent WWE even thinks about TNA these days, beating the hell out of their TV head-up is still something they'd like to do.

It does exactly what you said, but there is @AskWWENetwork on Twitter. Somebody there did read and form-respond to my classic content complaints.

Blackjack Mulligan, Battle of the Belts 2: "We had a team meeting, and the Animal was elected captain by a vote of 4 to 2!" So Hawk and Blackjack voted for themselves, but Animal and Ellering's votes counted twice? What? Is there some Ellering stable I'm not aware of in CWF '86? Wahoo/Brody was like a tease of a much longer, even more brutal brawl, but it was still a hoot. Great camera work on the first trip outside. Unfortunately the director can't keep up in the chaotic Warriors/Mulligan vs Sullivan/Haze/Roop match, as we see guys bleed without seeing them get whacked at all, and miss spots that Solie is actually raising his voice for in the ring. The inconsistently soft work doesn't help. Then they end it on a second consecutive brawl to the back finish. We do get to hear Mike Graham shout "Goddammit!" as they brawl past the table. Edit: Why in the world does Flair come out to "Easy Lover" by Phil Collins?! Utterly bizarre. I've seen this match before but if I think of anything brilliant to say...

Except the fact he worked a 45 minutes match with Davey Boy at Wembley and that his popularity in Europe was akin to Beatlemania, it was an interesting interview. One of the most striking thing to me is that he said he doesn't like to call it in the ring and that he plans his matches beforehand (said the only time he had to talk during a match was against Davey because he forgot everything so he had to lead him though everything on the spot). I'm sorry, what?! I can think of numerous times I've seen Bret calling spots behind that oil slick hair, and receiving calls too. That kind of makes me want to find examples. Maybe I'm just picturing SummerSlam '92 and the couple of years in a row DiBiase was blatantly calling to Bret at Survivor Series. Bret referring to calling as a last-generation thing confuses me too, speaking of DiBiase. They're the exact same generation, debuted within a year of each other, yet DiBiase was a relentless in-ring caller who Bret has high working praise for.

Are there only like 3 people running the network, so when they get new assignments they don't have time to make schedules? Just a couple of months ago they showed all the Slamborees in a week, and other similarly random things. Last week's WON did mention the archival stuff had really low traffic. Maybe we're losing the battle.

The Funk/Flair plastic bag segment is still one of the damnedest things I've ever seen in wrestling, especially for 1989. Really terrific atmosphere, full of chaos. I assume "The Debut" 9/4/95 is Luger's, not just Nitro's. Both of those definitely fit the bill. The Luger '97 title win got as big a pop as Goldberg's.

While I'm disappointed with the lack of archive material so far, I will say last night was my first try at sitting down and watching a whole PPV live, and it was flawless for me on a Roku 2 with middle-package Cox in Oklahoma City.

Man, I dunno. The more I think about it, six months is a pretty long time when it comes to bug fixes, or at least it would be for a company that was actually good at funding projects and listening to user/viewer feedback. And don't look at a chronological list of additions, it'll just make you sad. (Hint: There haven't been any new Old Schools or WCCW episodes in over 3 months.) I know they're holding back for the rollover dates, but my optimism is fading.

"Don't you have your own personal hotline, Jim Ross? I called it last night and I was thrilled. I was thrilled, I was more thrilled, I was even more thrilled, then I lost interest." - Kevin Sullivan during Flair/Muta on WCW 11/25/1989. The match is pretty good, based around dueling leg damage with very few big spots and a hot interference finish. I like '89 Flair's match style diversity and of course his ability to death-sell a beating.

This is PWO where you never have to ask forgiveness for MMA ignorance. "Swipe...swipe...swipe...swipe...swipe...swipe...swipe...swipe..." - My thumb talking to Adobe Reader on my phone every week for that 25-50% of the WON.

Correct. Started around 4/93, if I recall. I continue to hope and believe that they'll upload the 1985-88 WCW(SN) episodes that already cleared 24/7, and of course the whole run after that. Same with Worldwide, MACW, etc. I believe that this is true, it just baffles me that after 10+ years of developing the library and trying to monetize it, they don't have a bunch of this ready to go. I would have hired a whole staff in about 2002 that had no job other than digitizing every single thing in the joint. I know it's 100,000+ hours, but it seems like they'd have more done, at least of the more obviously marketable stuff. (I know Mid-South was a late acquisition, though.) And I too miss the house shows--it's especially galling that they're withholding quite a few that aired multiple times on 24/7, and some that never did, like the Boot Camp Match. For as often as they've repeat-released things, that match never aired on 24/7 that I recall, and is only on the otherwise-awful, repeat-filled Madison Square Garden DVD.

(Can I post here?) I've yet to see a single Terry Funk interview from 1989 that I didn't want to watch over again. They're killer. I've been rewatching WCW and WW like Magnum Milano, and if I think of any specifics I'll scribble them down. Quite right. Ross solo on both of these. On the 8/5 one they show a Fan Cam cut-in with two mega-hick kids saying "Which'un'um is Ding and which'um'um is Dong?!" that I kind of feel bad even watching, much less laughing at.

I kept trying to be surprised that there were so many "woe is us, you guys are so mean, leave TNA alone!!!!" types out there, but if they're dumb enough to love TNA, they're dumb enough to lament and defend it, I guess.

Plex probably handles more formats, but Roku Media Player can handle H.264 without transcoding load on your computer. I've gotten .mp4 and .mkv to serve from XBMC, and just .mp4 through Windows library sharing (WMP).

I just checked this out and it's really, really good. Action-packed with no stalling, great brawling, uncannily well-miked so it sounds brutal, full of neat little twists that I won't spoil. This may not be up to par for putting on a comp, but I found it while going over the CWF episodes I recorded and forgot back when they were showing them on 24/7, and it's pretty neat for five minutes.

I was rewatching Clash 23 and noticed some near-fall weirdness in the Windham/Scorpio match. Scorpio gets some incredible heat off of a couple of 2.9s from Windham's DDT, etc. But on at least a couple of what should be equally hot Scorpio near-falls (half-turn splash, slingshot 450), Windham kicks out at about 2.1 and the crowd just kind of blinks. I wonder if BW didn't want to give Scorpio the 2.9, didn't feel the time was right (which would be baffling), or if he just wasn't thinking very hard about it.

Luger/Steamboat, GAB 1989. Luger takes issue with the count speed and shows Tommy how he wants it. So of course Tommy counts the next surprise Steamboat roll up super fast, and Luger is piiiissed.