El-P

And the positive side, after watching back to back Sting vs Bobby Eaton & Tracy Smothers vs Bobby Eaton, it becomes clear to me that a case can easily be made for Eaton being the best wrestler in WCW (and the US) in 1990. The Sting match was excellent for a TV match, and although I do think Sting finally improved (he was better here than against Flair at the Bash), Eaton was just a terrific ring general, providing the work, the storytelling, the big spots... His match against Smothers was just as good as it seems on paper (Smothers is also one of the best worker of the year to me despite not being around since the beginning). Add to that all the great work he did with the MX all year, including a legit MOTY candidate (and arguably a top 10 match in the history of the company), there's a very strong case for Beautiful Bobby. Flair was great against Luger, but did not deliver as much excellent TV matches as Eaton did, and it's obvious he was slowing down a bit compared to his peak. I'll try a top 10 worker when I'm done with 1990.

Oh WCW II : One week, Magnum Force is two new guys supposed to meet the Steiners at the following Clash. They look like a bunch of jobbers with bad physiques. The following week, Magnum Force are.... two other guys who have been on TV for weeks doing jobs as The Ringlords. And they are still supposed to meet the Steiners. Feel the epic build. How many people debuted between the Summer and the end of 1991 ?? Now we got Curtis Hughes as Big Cat (stupid name), Motor City Madman (whoever he is), Nightstalker (a super green Brian "Wrath" Clarke) managed by Ox Baker, Master Blasters. Tons of bland faceless babyfaces have showed up, now we get a wave of big monsters who can't work (except Hughes, who I like). Meanwhile, Vader is working NJ after debuting in a big way a few months ago. This company was a mess.

Basically yes, that's how he's been always called by everyone. So when he went to WCW and couldn't use the Sandman name (or they didn't want him to, I don't remember), they basically asked him how he would like to be called, and since everyone calls him Hak, there you go.

Crap, I didn't pay attention to the credits. That's quite funny though.

Only got to watch a video release of HH90, without much of the worthless undercard matches (thank god, no Master Blasters or JYD) and only the big matches. Midnight Express vs Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich Sad that it would be the last MX match, as they look as great as ever. Eaton is propably the best worker of the year so far. Edited heavily, but what was showed is excellent, basically MX kicking Morton's tail. Tons of great spots including a rocket launcher on the ramp. As much as they pushed Rich as doing a great comeback, he's just not very over and was not on the same level as the other three, but he did very few in what was showed, so. The finish involved the Southern Boys, to plant the seeds for a fued that would have been awesome. I'll miss the MX a lot. Fabulous Freebirds vs Renegade Warriors Not good for the work, as the Freebirds got back into lazy mode (Garvin had a knee injury supposedly, but he worked like he did at the beginning of the year), and the Youngblood aren't particulary good. The fun part is that the crowd shit on the Warriors and got the Freebirds face pop, chanting for the DDT. Feeling it was useless to try to get heat on the Youngbloods, the Freebirds played to the crowd and got them to chant for the DDT even more. Huge boos when the Warriors made a comeback, huge pop when Hayes plants a (bad, as usual) DDT. Steiner Brothers vs Nasty Boys This was much better than I remembered. Really chaotic with some stiff shots, the Nasties bumped like crazy for the Steiners, who were over like hell, but also looked very strong on offense (in their odd way). Good dynamic, made sense, really a super solid match, with a good build to the end. Both teams look like big deal here, no wonder the WWF grabbed the Nasties. Doom vs Ric Flair & Arn Anderson Again, I enjoyed this much more than I previously did last time I watched this. I thought Flair worked the tag team style really well here, and Arn is Arn in a tag match. Simmons delivering the huge power moves, Reed and Flair renewing their old feud, lot of cool stuff. Doom really made themselves faces to the fans here by kicking the Horsemen's ass. Disapointing finish, but you got to get the feud going. Stan Hansen vs Lex Luger Not as good as I remembered, but Maybe my mind mixed it with the Starrcade match. Luger didn't bring that much in a brawling match, while Hansen was as good as he can, great selling of Luger's punches, bumping well and actually going for a vertical suplex. Solid brawling style, stiffness from Hansen, nothing great but nothing bad either. The lariat looks like it got Luger on the side of the head, must have been though on the ear. Hansen wins the US title clean. Sting vs Sid Vicious Here we go, I found my first Sting performance that I like. In my memories, this match sucked, but watching it now, I thought it was much better than it had the right to, and that was thanks to Sting. He looked better than he ever did working with a green Sid, who just hasn't figure the way to work efficiently yet. He doesn't know how to get the most out of the moves he makes yet, so needless to say it can be brutal to watch. Plus it doens't look like he's got any idea of what to do at times. Sting was keeping the match moving, bumping for Sid, flying around, reacting quickly, never letting the match settle down for too long. I really enjoyed his way of dealing with his opponent here, and the match was actually enjoyable because of the way he approached it. I'm glad because I was so not sold on Sting at all thus far. The finish worked with the crowd, and it was fun to spot some guy who was shocked as all hell to see Sid win the title. It should be noted that it go a good amount of applauds too. Then Sting shows up and pins Sid by surprise, which was anticlimatic but got over good with the crowd. So basically, this was the first time I saw Sting rising up when he should and making a match out of a clueless worker. Of course, the Black Scorpion angle, with magic trick, was godawful, terrible in execution and badly shot.

Shah, shit, shah, shit, shah. Sometimes wrestling can be simple.

The build to Hallowen Havoc was so weak. They shot two angles for Sid/Sting and Steiners/Nasties at some house show, and they replayed them every week on *every* show. For a month. Got a kick out of another Freebirds angle though. They're feuding with teh Renegade Warrior (yikes) and Iron Eagle (yikes), and they promise a big star as their third partner for a 6 man tag. The "big star" ends up being Barry Horowitz. Of course the Freebirds gang up on Iron Eagle, double DTT's him, and let Horowitz gets the win. Horowitz wins ! Horowitz wins ! Horowitz wins ! Fun stuff. Just realized Allen Iron Eagle was a young Joe Gomez, from Nitro fame. Amazing. J.W. Storm really sucks. When you can't have a decent match with Zenk, you're no good.

Didn't mind it at the time, i'd only been a fan for 5 years at this stage so it didn't matter much either way that he wasn't a WWF guy. The basic story - guy going for the world title gets really serious and goes back to train with his mentor for the fight of his life is a pretty cool one. In theory yes it is but in execution, it didn't fit Michaels at all. And really, Lothario brought nothing to the table on any level. Really, the only highlight of the whole deal was Sid busting him with a camera at Survivor Series.

Actually it happened. Just saw a Steiner match on Main Event with Patterson at ringside. The Steiners have now the dubious honor of having no less than three worthless "advisors" at ringside : Missy Hyatt, Thunderbolt Patterson and Ted DiBiase. Now that's a trivia moment.

The is the infamous interview during which Heyman introduces the new Taz ? If so, it's a pretty great promo. Heyman was gold at promoting his guys and make them feel like important.

The highlight of the 95 set for sure. Dan Spivey was just awesome in this role. And the creepy theme music was one of the best ever produced by WWF. Too bad Spivey's knees were shot, we were deprived of the greatness of Waylon Mercy.

You're really a fan of Raven's promos, aren't you ?

I dunno, I kinda buy it too. It's not like he's defending his work in the interview, he flat out said it didn't make any sense at times but since the fans enjoyed it, what the hell.

That's what I enjoyed about ECW, is that not everyone was living in their own little universe with their exclusive feuds. That was a strong point in WCW in early nWo era too.

Yep. They didn't look scripted, they looked messy and chaotic, which was the purpose. The best stuff on top in WCW during the nWo years.

That's pretty much what he said in his shoot interview. He realized that some of his spots didn't make any sense in the match, but the audience loved them, so he felt he had to work that way to please the fans. In a way, it's tough to argue against that.

I agree with that. I remember the story of Sting asking Flair not long into their run why they did the same match every night, and Flair told him people want to see the familiar spots and feel disappointed when they don't get them. That doesn't surprise me. But still, Luger's matches with Flair in 1990 were terrific. So...

Which one ? The knee injury surely didn't. From distant memories (dating from the GWOAT poll), Sting was having tons of very good to great matches post 92, so at some point the guy got it. Either that or Vader beat the good work into him.

Really, after watching 1989 and most of 1990, Sting strikes me as a very mediocre worker at best thus far. I haven't seen one match in those two years were I can say that Sting was *good*. He had the worst major Flair match of those two years, had the worst matches at Starrcade 89 of any combination between him, Muta, Flair & Luger. I wasn't very high on Sting to begin with, but the acrobatic spots and the miraculous Flair match in 88 kinda hide the fact that he wasn't very good at all at this point. Luger on the other hand delivered whenever he was put in position to (expect against Mark Callous, who was not good either), and he brought stuff to the table, mostly positive. Sting didn't. I wonder at which point Sting became a good and game worker (he was by the time he feuded with Vader I think), but in 89/90, he sure wasn't.

You bring a strong sense of melancholia to all of this.

This never gets old. How Gene didn't crack I don't know.

How do you know all that Loss? Thanks. When you got State Patrol "squash matches" on TV, you know the TV is bad... Also, the top 10 was incredibly random, but in hindsigh it was total insider stuff in a "see who's getting pushed and depushed" way. Oh, god... Trucker Norm...

Yes, but it was nowhere as good as it could have been elsewhere. Too much "Eliminator" vibe to the match, although not as bad obviously. This and Sabu/RVD vs Hayabusa/Shinzaki are the two missed opportunities for the ECW alumnis to work a really strong match.

I know Orndorff went to SMW before coming back, but I just wonder why they didn't keep him around as he looked really solid and had a name.

What about Tito? Steamer and Savage have the 'Mania III match, but were any of their other matches nearly as well received? (Honest question, BTW) The Tito/Savage IC Title feud in '86 produced quite a few well-received matches. Yep. Actually, for Savage I'd put : 1 - Steamboat 2 - Santana 3 - Flair 4 - DDP 5 - Warrior DDP rejuvenated Savage like no one else could have in 1997.