El-P

One of the first puro match I've seen actually, it was one of of those 6 hour tapes I bought at the very beginning when I got into the scene. From what I remember, it's ridiculously good, especially with a young RVD (although one could argue it was easier to get a good match out of him before he got all those stupid idiosyncrasies and chair shot spots). Kroffat was an amazing worker.

Holy shit, you don't say. I herd (ah !) about it before, but never actually saw it in execution. What a terrible idea. Look at this guy coming out with an army of kids to the ring. And he's taking off that kid's shirt ! Yeah, he should have team up with the Candyman, who "loves to give children candies.". Anyway, that Beetlejuice gimmick was embarrassing. Barr appeared to be a good worker, totally ahead of his time in 1990 WCW, but that character was destined to fail. Another case of WCW trying to outcartoon WWF. On the worthless debut aspect, J.W. Storm appears. And Moondog Rex is on TV). Fresh talent. And meanwhile, Orndorff who looked so good is already gone. Wonder why his comeback was so short. Same thing for Bam Bam, who appeared for a short period of time, did nothing of note, then vanished. What a bizarre period.

Ok. I was wondering since both got TV time at the same moment. The gauntlet concept was interesting although a little bit random, but that goes with WCW. On 09.22, they gave Scott Steiner a clean pin on Ric Flair during a gauntlet match. Were they already testing the water for a future Scott single push ? Seems that way to me. Anyway, it really appeared there that Flair lost a lot of stocks, he was nearly squashed by Scott, although the constant interfering by Arn and Rick for the final spot made that match more angle driven than anything else. Still, Luger couldn't beat Flair at the Clash, as to protect Flair, but here Scott gets a 1-2-3 on TV. Kinda odd. On the brighter side, Dan Spivey has come back (wearing some god awful long pants he stole from Beefcake). And the seeds are planted for the Doom vs Horsemen feud.

Thanks FLIK. Can't wait until Madusa shows up. With the departure of Woman and Missy stuck in hosting the Main Event, there's no glamour on the show. Fuck, when the Freebirds were becoming fun again, there's Rocky King as Little Richard. Totally blocked that out of my mind. Seriously, what did this guy do to warrant any kind of TV time ? Discrimination lawsuit threats along with Thunderbolt Patterson (who shows up from time to time on commentary to blabbers nonsense, foreshadowing him managing the Steiners which thankfully never happened as far as I know) ? I heard that story previously, but have no idea what the truth is. Anyway, he sucks. And yep, Frankensteiner was right, Allen Iron Eagle, Wendell Cooley. Hum.. exciting newcomers. At least Terry Taylor will soon turn heel, so he'll be fun to watch.

And he can't cut a forehead worth a shit.

Man, I don't know if Clash 11 was the most watched, but it was sure a shitty show. Only two things made sense, the nice opener between the Freebirds and the Southern Boys, which was a good sprint, and the Flair vs Luger match and post match attack by Hansen. Flair vs Luger really tore down the house, and depsite one military press too many at the end, it was a better match than Capital Combat I thought. I love Flair putting small touches, like before delivering a hellish chop, he shouts right at the camera "Turner, Herd, that's for you !". Great stuff. Gotta love also how Hansen just bombed Luger right when you'd think Luger just was gonna win via count-out. The seeds were planted earlier when Hansen got enraged that Luger was ahead of him in the rankings, and it puts Luger on the rail for another excellent feud, so there you go. But the rest of the show was just a mess. Tommy Rich and Hansen feuded during the Summer : no Rich vs Hansen match, instead Rich got Bill Irwin, back as a JTTS from nowhere, and Hansen killed Zenk, which was good for what it was, but still. Rock'n Roll and Doom planted the seeds for a big tag team championship match : neither were on the card. The Steiner won the US belt on a house show and got to kill two jobbers here. WTF ? Why not put the match on TV at least ? No Arn TV title match. Hell, the Horsemen weren't even there to watch Sting or Flair. The Nasties vs Jackie Fulton & Red Rooster (oups) was decent and a good way to showcase the new team, but did we really need the Master Blasters ? Man, Nash looked jacked. Realize that this guy is still on your TV in WWE now... And a woman match between Bambi and Susan Sexton, whoever the hell they are ? Again WTF, although you gotta love how JR says "Woman's wrestling has evolved in the last few years. There aren't as many woman wrestler now, it's a little bit more isolated". Basically "This doesn't matter at all, I have no idea why this is on the card either people." Sometimes Ross is great for these kind of things. And of course, Sting vs Black Scorpion Perez sucked, and you can feel the heat die down as soon as the Scorpion undress and reveal Random Masked Wrestler #6592. The whole "The Real Black Scorpion is on the ramp" is neat in a hindsight kayfaybe way, because obviously, Sting learned from the Black Scorpion during the nWo years. Anyway, shitty show, one excellent match. Flair and Luger were obviously the two biggest star although Sting was over, but he wasn't helped at all with this horrible angle. Best thing to come to me is Luger vs Stan.

Really ? Well, I would guess it's thanks to Flair vs Luger again, which did big business earlier in the year. They didn't do much about the whole Black Scorpion except a few creepy promos. That would be enough to introduce a new character, but as far as selling a main event... I can't wait. It is pretty bad, and after the heighs of 1989, early 90, it can get pretty hard to watch. I mostly look forward to 92 and 94. Seems a long way to come though. I'm watching this very soon. I'm not sold on Sting at all thus far, Luger strikes me as a better worker even at this point and a bigger star too. I have whatever I can get for free basically. I'm not sure I could handle a third show per week though. I'll probably get Main Event for 91 as well, but not afterward. Too bad.

How dull was the Summer of 1990 ? No fun heel color man along Ross or Caudle, so we get Ross by himself, which is not nearly as good as with Cornette. Or Ross with Caudle, which is boring. I understand they didn't run as many angles back then, but still, seemingly nothing happens. Doom and the Rock'n Roll wait for a match together. The Steiners and the Samoan work some half-ass angle waiting for a match which I don't think will happen anyway as the Samoans were going to leave soon. They did run a bizarre angle with Luger showing up late with teared up clothes, and Tommy Rich saying the Horsemen beat him up. In the following weeks, Luger would say nothing but would show up to watch the Horsemen in the ring. His silence and the way it was put together would make you think about a swerve and an eventual Luger heel turn, but maybe my mind has been polluted by modern wrestling booking. Anyway, in the end, nothing special comes from it, Luger is going to fight Flair for the US title at the early september Clash. Mmkay... Well, it meant that Flair was a step back from the World Title at this point, as they prepared Sid to feud with Sting. Did they think Flair had passed the torch successively to Sting and that he could be brought down the card a bit ? And then you've got the beginning of the Black Scorpion angle. Really seems like they were already trying to outcartoon WWF all of a sudden. Did they have any idea of who should be put into the role, or did they just booked it Russo style with no idea of where to go ? I don't believe Flair was supposed to get the part at first. Anyway, I didn't know this shit started so soon in the year. I fear a burn out before the end of the year... The summer was carried by undercards feud or mini-feud like Tommy Rich vs Buddy Landell (in which Landell was basically a JTTS), who had two fun matches, Arn Anderson having good matches with Pillman, Zenk and Luger, by Dutch Mantell having solid JTTS matches with Scott Steiner and Sting, and by the Midnights opposing Pillman & Z Man and the RnR. The best feud of the Summer actually involved the Freebirds, which was a shocker to me, against the Southern Boys. A cool three match series for the bogus "Southern Title" that the Freebirds supposedly won against the Southern Boys. It all ends with the surprise intervention of Buddy Roberts, and the involvment of Bullet Bob Armstrong showing up to back up his boy. Final 6 man match at the Clash. Solid matches, cool little feud, well built. On the "WCW brainfart" series, Tim Horner worker as Starblazer (what was the idea ?), The Pearl (there the idea was very clear, create a nise-Great Muta actually played by Ranger Ross under a costume, needless to say, it failed) and most of all, Brad Armstrong new gimmick : the Candyman, as he's giving away candy to kids and his dressed with sugar cane candy motives on his trunks and boots. No logical explanation on why Brad Armstong is giving out candies. I guess the idea was that he was a pedophile of something. More teams coming up, it's scary how many teams they were at the times. Nasty Boys debuting. The New Fantastics (with Jackie Fulton in place of Tommy Rogers, not exactly the same beast). The Master Blaster coming up... Ugh... And Bob Holly in a competitive jobber squash, which gave us a cool Ric Flair vs Bob Holly match (cool in a curiosity kinda way, not in a good kinda way). Going into Clash 12. WCW burn out looming.

Well, I just got to the point in my WCW watch where I witnessed the first Black Scorpion promo on Saturday Night. So, I echo your sentiment, litteraly. And yeah, Randy Orton embodies everything I hate about wrestling today, both in work and presentation.

Hey, at least you're not watching WCW under Ole.

Don't you know he did bomb on top and was paranoid about Superstar Graham ?

I always loved that segment, because Mero was such an awesome heel in this doing a great job of making Sable (who I couldn't stand) part of a really fun angle. The post-"match" celebration is just hilarious.

Bravo was a big star in Montreal with the Rougeaus. Of course the french connection (no pun intended) is there, but it's not like either of them was pushed very hard (the Rougeaus as tag champs would have been huge coming back in their territory). I don't know how much of Patterson's influence played with the french speaking roster. Martel had been all over the world when he came back to WWF and had been a star everywhere, and he got the biggest push.

The Freebirds were two delusionnal disgusting assholes pretending to be rock stars. No one who suppose to cheer for them. Ricky Morton was not an ugly guy in a 80's übermullet southern way. The fact that they had girls screaming is a testament to how good they were. Zenk was good looking but dull and a mediocre worker who never drew a dime. So... I fucking hated the Freebirds during the first six months of 1990. They were just awful, particulary Garvin. Then all of a sudden, they become decent again, working harder (especially Hayes), being thrown around by the Steiners and having a fun undercard feud with the Southern Boys. It really depends on will they show up or not. Garvin didn't had much to bring to the table at this point, but as long as he doesn't kill the match with overlong restholds and shitty looking stuff, he can be watchable in spots. Hayes still had tons of charisma. Plus I admit I'm a mark for outrageous looks, and the Freebirds delivered in spades. Let's see for how long they can stay out of my shithouse.

The MX never registered with me as faces. I was so glad to see them turn back heels. I'm about to the point when Cornette and Lane left, and they are still clearly the best tag team in the US, head and shoulders abover everyone else. It's a shame WCW fucked around with them, there was still ton of mileage to get from them, at least until the mid 90's.

Hurt in what ways ? To get a job in the WWF, yes. Otherwise, I don't see it as a problem, especially for heels. I like my old school wrestlers with bellies.

I'm watching this period right now, and yes, the RnR's offense does look dated compared to the new blowjob tag teams of Dynamic Dudes, Zenk & Pillman and Southern Boys. But they are still an excellent working team despite the lack of new exciting offense. And the double dropkick was still over when they did it, so it shows that everything is perception. That said, I would have loved to get the Rockers thrown in this mix, opposing Doom and the MX.

I think he was gone soon after the whole Earthquake/Bravo vs Hogan/Tugboat feud. I don't remember him being around much in 1991. He came back shortly in 1992 (during European tours I think) having one really good match with Bret Hart in Germany, and was not hired back. Odd he never tried his hand at WCW, but he probably didn't had any connection, as the Rougeaus and Martel worked in WWF at the time.

What do you mean by Bravo being a special case ? I'm intrigued. They seemed to protect him, possible for Canada. I'd have to run through his results, but he seemed to do fewer jobs than you'd expect for a WWF heel of his level. Similar guys did lots of jobs as the WWF usually was about making the fans happy and not much into protecting heels. John I watched the Montreal French WWF broadcasts in the late 80s and I recall they gave him a full on main event angle that ran across several house shows that was not referenced on the other TV shows so that kind of backs up what jdw is saying. I wish those Montreal WWF TV would pop up, if only to hear Carpentier & Hauray again. Then I would become all nostalgic. Interesting what's being said about Bravo being more protected because of the Montreal market. Carpentier would always put him over huge in commentary despite Bravo being a heel, talk about him like he was a contender for Hogan all the time. They really never did any big things with him on a national level though. Montreal has such a strong identity, and Hogan doing a job for Jacques Rougeau there as late as 1997 when Rougeau was not a blip on the radar of WCW is telling.

What do you mean by Bravo being a special case ? I'm intrigued.

What you describe is exactly what happened, and I don't remember the specifics of the sory Alfonso told, it may have been a young Luger wanting to call the match to which Brody responded by just stopping selling, but anyway Alfonso basically said it was no big deal and that the two talked and settled it in the locker room later. The story just got blown out of proportion and became ridiculously twisted afterward, probably because Luger is not well liked at all and Brody was seen as this great legend.

You want the more level headed version of the Luger vs Bridy story, you get Bill Alphonso's. He was inside the cage with both of them. He said it was a misunderstanding issue, nothing more. I love the fact you still hear incredible stories about how Brody beat up Luger, Luger running off scared for his life and other bullshit from old timers, when the footage is available and none of this actually happens.

Mike Graham is notoriously full of shit.

I don't care for Fantasy Booking interviews, but I pretty much always enjoy the discussion prior to the actual fantasy booking. That Dusty story is great. And for the record, I do enjoy Terry Taylor as a face (although he was a natural heel and much better at it).

I think those were killed by the influence of indieriffic moveset wrestlers like Edge. Which is a shame.