El-P

I thought it was the infamous "There's no hope with dope" video. Haven't seen that one.

I guess there's no video of this ? Too bad, I remember their match in London being pretty cool.

So, it's time for the old grumpy joshi fan to rear its ugly head and bitch about GAEA like it was 1999 again. GAEA was cool at first mostly thanks to the infamous Oz Academy and involvement of JWP wrestlers. The rookies had lot of potential, some of which delivered (Nagashima, Kato before the injury), some of which got the most overrated wrestlers in the scene (Satomura), some of which got fat and sucked (Sato). GAEA in the late 90's early 00's was fun for their big shows with some big name matches, and mostly thanks to the awesome Aja Kong working there, along with LCO (although they never delivered like they did elsewhere). But GAEA TV was the most frustrating product in joshi to me, matches were certainly action packed, but much shorter than in every other promotions, washed-up veterans would grasp on the top of the cards and the young girls would never get above the glass ceiling. Basically, GAEA was WCW, a bunch of Nitro matches and the occasional big shows with one or two excellent matches and washed up veterans on top. Meiko Satomura was the most pushed girls on them all, like a Chiggy Jr., but to me she was very overrated by all. Don't get me started on that Satumora vs Hokuto match. Chiggy in GAEA was Hogan in WCW. Once she retired, she closed down the promotion, having zero intention of helping the business (Onita salutes you Chiggy) despite GAEA being the only "successful" promotion back then thanks to the star power. Anyway, I was an ARSION loyalist back then, and a forgotten promotion like Jd' that went totally under the radar had much more interesting stuff to me, with The Bloody and the judo girls. I did enjoy GAEA to an extent, and I loved Chikayo Nagashima, who was just awesome on every level, but it was kinda frustrating to watch and see that other promotions were forgotten because GAEA had all the hype despite not having the best in-ring product. I feel like I'm 24 again.

I'll say it once more and never say it again, Woman during this Sandman era was the hottest woman ever in wrestling. Loved the presentation of the Sandman along with Nancy carrying the Belt.

I see what you did there. Yes indeed.

Tito had two of the best feuds of the WWF in the 80's in term of quality matches, against Valentine and against Savage. Lots of very good/excellent matches there. I really opened my eyes to Tito during the SC WWF poll. I always enjoyed his late 80's-90's work, but I didn't think he was that solid in the 80's. IC champ was the exact right spot for him when it meant something.

Good things during the build to Great American Bash : _Buddy Landell is on TV and gets a match with Pillman at the PPV. Landell's squashes are great. _Good little Steiner Brothers vs Barry Windham & Arn Anderson TV match, which ends in a DQ like it should, but it's very solid, Arn & Windham really show as tag team specialists whoever their partner may be. _Paul Orndorff looks really good all the time he's working, even in squashes, he's the saving grace of this ridiculous "Dudes with attitudes" faction. _Sting finally getting serious on interviews. Bad things : more Rocky King. This is ridiculous now, why is this jobber suddenly getting a role in pissing off the Horsemen and getting promo time ? _More squash matches and less competitive matches on TV. Like Loss said, less Cornette and Teddy Long on color, and more Tommy Rich or whoever boring face shows up. _Dutch Mantell is just teaming up with jobbers, which is a complete waste. _And the production really sucks, with tons of people having no music at all, and Vader's arrival pimped by showing the same clip of him with his helmet in NJ over and over again with generic music instead of a kick-ass edited video of him killing people. _Ole booking tons of stipulations to insure the Horsemen won't interfere, to the point of stacking up the odds really in favour of Sting. Well, not exactly the best way to build heat and anticipation to have your heel in a clear-cut defavorable situation. Kinda undermines Sting's victory to me...

Al Issacs' Scoops? I remember that site. And that weekly rumour. I feel old.

So basically, he was in limbo. All of a sudden the Tito Santana talk seems less absurd (also it still does).

Yeah, it was odd. All of a sudden Virgil was getting a title shot on Superstars. It could have hurt the perception that Bret was anything special as champion, but it actually helped his character as champion I think.

I haven't watched joshi in about 7 years, so I don't know if I would change my mind about it, but it never really bothered me. Like Loss said, part of the style. Also, Toyota is the apex of go-go-go style, which was not exactly based on long-term selling. But I never felt I watched a spot exhibition when watching Toyota or any great workrate match of the era. It's just that it was based on action, and the women could deliver it better than any man on the planet at this time. Toyota was a great seller in that she made the submission hold look painfull as hell thanks to her flexibility and her personnality, and she made the audience felt for her. If that's not selling, I don't know what it is. Long-term selling in putting over the damage over the course of a long match ? Nope, that was not her style, her character was all about going full speed no matter what, and it was believable because of the energy she would project. Although I must say that watching 1992 and 1993 years of joshi, Toyota's stock kinda dropped, and she's really not my favourite (unlike when I first discovered joshi in 98), but it would be hard to deny she was an amazing pure worker. My personnal taste go way more toward Aja, Yoshida, Oz, Hokuto, Kyoko, LCO, Yagi. One of these days I'll go back to this, hopefully, it was my favourite wrestling ever next to shootstyle.

So, the build toward Clash 11 sucked (apart from a nice little Rock'n Roll vs Doom match), but the show itself was pretty good. Good opener of Southern Boys vs Fabulous Freebirds, too short for the Freebirds to stall and waste time, and Hayes got most of the in-ring time. The Southern Boys clearly were the new blowjob tag team, as Pillman & Zenk got slip up just after losing the US titles to the MX, and they were awesome in that role. In term of offense, they really make the Rock'n Roll look like a thing of the past. So, nice little match, and the Southerner get the upset, I'm glad to see the Freebirds used to put younger teams over. Some meaningless filler like Bam Bam vs Tommy Rich and Rotunda & Zenk vs SST (why did they went back to the SST name after being called the Wild Samoans once Samu left, I have no idea), but nothing offensive. Mean Mark vs Flyin' Brian. Yeah, how goofy do those name look without any last name ? Pretty decent short match, but it's kinda sad to see Pillman go from feuding with Lex for the US title last year to be reduced to a glorified JTTS after the split with Zenk. El Gigante is clearly promoted as a special attraction freak, which is what he should be. The interview in espagnol was rather cool though. Barry Windham vs Doug Furnas was a good short match. Barry is a bit fatter than when he left for WWF, but he's still awesome in the ring, smooth as hell. They do a good job puting over Furnas uncany strenghs, with some brutal tackles to which Barry takes great bumps. Furnas probably could have good single stints in WCW if he never went back touring with Kroffat in Japan. Here he took one of the greatest bump ever off a clothesline I've seen, just amazing. Rock'n Roll Express vs Midnight Express never gets old, and it's an excellent match, but like I said, the Rock'n Roll appear dated with their offense at this point, while the MX are as relevant as ever. The usual good shit from these two teams, you feel they could have the same match in blindfolds. Not much heat put on Ricky, not much comedy, lot of action. MX are protected, obviously to feud with the Southern Boys. The rip-off of the night was Luger vs Sid, a whopping 30 seconds, Luger upsets Sid. Yawn. I guess it protects Sid in more than one way since he was just surprised by a quick counter attack from Luger, and it kept him from having to work a consistent single match (which he has never done in WCW at this point), but still. Rip-off. Doom vs Steiner Brothers : these two teams throwing bombs at each other just never gets old with me. This project really opened my eyes to Doom. Scott Steiner is a monster, here he does a backflip while holding Simmons (then Reed) in his arms. Usual match from these two teams, stiff, suplexes, questionnable babyface selling. Much better than the Doom vs RW matches. Arn Anderson vs Paul Orndorff was another good match, with Orndorff looking crisp. The thin arm always distract me from time to time, but Orndorff's work was really solid, which was surprising after 3 years of layoff. Arn was Arn Of course, Ric Flair vs JYD sucked, despite Flair's bumping, but at this point JYD was way beyond hope (although to me he always pretty much sucked, including in Mid-south). He no-sold a lot, Flair bumped around him but it was not a match, just a pinball around an immobile fat guy. Horsemen jump, the "Dude with attitudes" (worst name ever) show up, Sting challenges Flair for the Bash. Yaddi yaddi yadda. (and I hope Rocky King will disappear from my TV. Seriously, why a complete jobber got TV time to put emphasis on JYD ?? Because he was.... black... I guess... Oh, Ole...) Some changes : Kevin Sullivan, Eddie Gilbert are nowhere to be seen, Norman is off TV too, Cactus is a jobber. The Road Warrior have left. I was never a big fan, but the more I watch Sting, the more he comes off cheesy as hell and annoying. I know he was aimed at kids, but I get the feeling I would have hated him as a kid. Ricky Steamboat was cheesy in a "gentleman family man champion" way, but Sting just comes off like an overexcited clown who tries way too much to be fun. And really, "Dude with attitudes" ? Who's the brain surgeon who came off with that name ? After one year and a half of great feuds on top, yep, it has taken a nosedive.

I'm so glad for the Youtube era of wrestling fandom. These days, that would count as a sexual agression. French people in NY hotels, this sorta things...

It felt the same way to me. Back then we only got Superstars and the PPV in France. So, one week Flair the world champ is feuding with Savage, and next week the show opens with an interview on the platform, Bret Hart, new WWF champ. Wait, wasn't he the guy who lost the IC belt to the British Bulldog a few months ago ? He was never a contender, and he's the champ out of the blue. Then Michaels wins the IC title over the Bulldog from pretty much nowhere too after he got confronted with Jannetty, and gets a WWF title match at Survivor Series ? Hum, what ? It's like the booking erased the whole SummerSlam deal to go to another phase completely. Flair was gonna leave, Warrior already left, Bulldog was leaving too (steroid trial ?), Savage got dropped to the announcers desk because he was "too old". Really brutal way to cut from another era to the next. The only transitionnal link was Razor Ramon, who was introduced as a foil for former WWF champ Savage, and who got the title shot against Bret at Rumble.

They all blur with each other to me, so for the record, which one is this one ?

I smell the bullshit...

If it's not, it's not far behind indeed. The only good angle I can recall was the first Tatanka vs Lex Luger deal. The rest is just a boring litany of bad matches and heatless angles culminating with the feud against Henry Godwinn and a bucket of shit, 1-2-3 Kid vs Razor Ramon diaper match and the failed Ringmaster gimmick. Probably the most disapointing manager stint ever coming from a guy who was such a great character.

Well, it may have been so, but in execution, Bischoff was actually a hundred time better than DiBiase in the role. Bischoff was getting monstruous heat, was cutting excellent promos and showed ass. His personnality was really showing, and nWo Bischoff really was a precusor to Mr. McMahon. DiBiase was kinda working his WWF gimmick, but without much emphasis put on him anyway, and he never brought much to the table in the role. He was useless after he turned face he got put with the Steiner, who didn't need anyone anyway. And it's not like DiBiase had a great track record of acting as a manager, as his WWF stint with the Million Dollar Corporation wasn't exactly anything to brag about. I like DiBiase as much as anyone, but Bischoff was a much better fit anyway.

Super match. Jannetty was great in those unlikely matches and locations in which he was allowed to work (like the Doink match on Raw), and really, looking at him there I don't see how you can say Michaels was better (except on the charisma level). This would have been so right in WCW on PPV. Douglas is near his peak here too.

Odd. When I went trough my entire ECW watch last year, I ended up realy bored by every Eddie vs Dean matches. So, either it doesn't hiold up at all, either it's just not very good and is one of those Malenko wankjob long matches (see also Malenko vs Benoit at Hogg Wild 96) with shitload of matwork that doesn't go anywhere and zero personnality. I need to gave them a last chance though, but in the context of the ECW watch, I was just bored by them and couldn't wait for the next Sandman, Raven, Douglas or Scorpio match.

Agreed. It made things look more real. Terry Funk stint in 1995 is the last time Funk looked "middle aged and crazy". From 1996 and on (in FMW first, then ECW), he looked "old and crazy".

Hm. Didn't she leave shortly after she realized they would not use her as a wrestler much and would probably be forced to get a boob job ?

Saturday Night & Main Event, plus Clashes & PPVs.

Oh, Lord help me. The most WTF and uncomfortable moment so far is hearing Cornette explaining that Flair would be humiliated by losing to the first black world champion, when no other black man could do it for the last 86 years. Hum... what ??? Flair did cut a decent promo talking about how he would have Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul (oh, the cultural references of the early 90's) at his arms and they would not talk about JYD. Well that was stupid since they were doing nothing with Missy except having her looking super hot next to JR on the Main Event and be a cunt. No room to get two women over at the same time ? Bringing back JYD to do the "first black world champion" deal (which was kinda odd since Doom just got the world tag team belts anyway) ? Hum... feel the progressive booking here... I have the feeling I won't enjoy the next months of TV as much as I did the first 5 of 1990...

So, basically, after Flair feuded with Ricky Steamboat, Terry Funk, Sting and Lex Luger he's now engaged against.... JYD, with the whole deal being that JYD wants to be the first black world champion. Not exactly turning the world on fire, although I guess it was supposed to be just a transitionnal feud before Flair would face Sting at the next PPV anyway. Also, Woman just vanishes after Capital Combat, without any mention of her. So, basically, she didn't do anything between this time and 94 when she showed up in ECW ? I never realized before she went a good 3 years without being seen on TV. The post Capital Combat scene really doesn't seem very interesting. Steiners vs Doom again, why not. But the idea of Sting ganging up with Tommy Rich, JYD and the returning Paul Orndorff (who I still can't buy as a face at all) against the Horsemen isn't very appealing to me.