El-P

I loved, LOVED those Goldust vignette. Every one of them. It was mysterious, creepy, different. Just loved every minute of them and couldn't wait to see the character debut.

Poor Shane Douglas. He had estalished a character which worked wonders the previous years, and there he was settled with a retarded gimmick with a terrible ring attire, music theme and overall presentation. No wonder he didn't get over.

Back then I was a mark for the "former tag team wrestler pushed as a single", and I always loved the Samoans, so I was digging this shit. Of course it was not exactly a money gimmick, but I wish Fatu didn't had to do a stupid sumo gimmick (which was kinda insulting to me as a sumo fan) to get a huge push and get over. Anyway, I liked of "Make a difference" Fatu, and it was a refreshing change for a Samoan to have a urban gimmick without the savagery.

Tenryu can be called a lot of things (lazy, spotty, goofy, sloppy, not that I agree with this), but uncharismatic I don't get it. I haven't seen that much of Tenryu in the 80's (apart from the JUmbo feud obviously, some matches against Choshu and the whole 1989 year), but he seemed as charismatic as he ever was then.

Add Tito Santana. The Fabulous Freebirds and Arn Anderson used the DDT as a finisher in 90. Which was a good way to compare. Arn = great. Garvin = good. Hayes = shitty.

That made me laugh.

Lately the Flair Formula has been : "Lose more money, get married, get divorced, lose more money, humiliate yourself on TV, humiliate yourself on Internet, lose more dignity."

Yep...

Don't give them any bad ideas.

Gedo. From nowhere. And YUJI YASURAOKA. And yes, I can spell the name of a mid-90's WAR Jr. heavyweight without even checking... I'm not sure this is a good thing.

I haven't seen this in a long time, but I don't remember it being as good as WM VIII. If my mind don't blow up until I get to 1995, I'm very curious to see this again.

And with the "Greed is good" motto and Ross calling Rotunda the "Gordon Gekko of wrestling", WCW was only 3 years behind as far as pop culture goes, and still deeply rooted in the glorious "money years" 80's. Nice try though.

I laughed so hard my jaw hurts.

Alfonso was the greatest heel in the US this year. He was so great at it.

Yipee !

You don't say. They totally didn't understand the sex appeal potential of Terry Boatright in a "working girl" outifit. Missed opportunity. Plus, classy sexy girl + ugly guys always works (see Woman + Sandman). Baffling how they gave Rotunda a brand new gimmick with actual thoughts behind it (as opposed with the dozens people thrown on TV since the summer), with promos and videos to introduce the gimmick, as they already decided they would probably not keep the guy around. WCW...

Vivid memories of this one. Spivey was one of the legitimely creepiest character ever in this one.

I can see why. The Michael Wallstreet video is glorious. Rotundo was perfect for the role, and it really set the blueprint for the I.R.S. character.

Agreed. The "every match tells a story" always struck me as bullshit to me. If you enjoy wrestling strictly for the stories it tells, you'd get bored after two matches. This goes along with the "good" = "playing your role well". Plenty of shitty workers "played their role well". Matches still sucked.

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.