El-P

Oh, I have no doubt they took stuff. I mean, Hokuto couldn't have possibly stand on her two feet with some kind of medication. What I'm saying is I doubt they got fucked up on pills like the guys in the US, as we haven't seen any of them drop dead or fall off a cliff because of it. From what I knew some of them were pretty hard partier, LCO, Oz if I remember right. Manami Toyota's addiction was pachinko though. Mariko Yoshida was exactly what she looked like, smart and healthy. Well, you could say that about women in general. Hasn't Kyoko lost some weight after her sickness ? What happened to Ito ? TSW ? Shit, that brings me back 10 years ago.

Considering the abuse they have taken working a workrate heavy style, yes, most of them have aged pretty gracefully when compared to their male counterpart. A lot less drugs and booze I guess.

Perverse self-cosplaying.

Word. She looked stunning one year ago, she really doesn't need to put the weight back on.

Mostly a garbage worker whose best stuff was falling of high places. As a regular worker, he kinda sucked, with an awkward indyrific offense he seemed to have borrowed from Nova. Thought it was a good idea to imitate Goldberg's spear despite looking tall and gangly, hence the shittiest regular spear ever. Was funny with Christian as goofballs, but sucked on promos whenever it was supposed to be serious. Stupid facials... hum... don't care for him very much.

The Rock : couldn't stand his in-ring work despite the great promos. I revisited him during the GWE poll, and became a fan. Riki Choshu : when I got into puroresu, everything was about the AJ heavies, and how the NJ guys sucked, especially Choshu and his boring lariat/scorpion combo, no-selling the UWF-I guys and such. When I watched entire TV seasons of NJ, I became a fan very quickly of his style and the NJ heavy style as a whole. But Choshu in particular appealed to me. It was simple, basic, intense, couldn't get old.

Ah ah ! Didn't noticed that. I was listening to the announcers, and by the time Flair got to the figure four setup, they were talking about how there was 30 seconds left. Kayfabe, always kayfabe. Honestly, Luger looked like a much better wrestler than Sting in 89. Sting was a bunch of athletic spots and was pretty clueless about everything else. I can't stand his way of just stopping selling from nowhere. This is something that annoys me whoever does it, from Hogan to Lawler, but Sting's no-selling just comes from nowhere and never seems like he's blocking pain or getting so pissed he's not feeling it. As far as booking goes, the tournament really made the three major names in the company look strong, which is something that has been a lost art for a long time now.

Starrcade 89 A truly mixed bag. On one hand, the Iron Man Single tournament worked really well and was weel booked, although Muta being basically jobbed out was disapointing. They did a good job with the points so that Luger, Flair or Sting could still win depending on who and how would win the last match. And they did a good job working the last match up to 20 seconds before the time limit. Of the four, Sting was the worst, by a wide margin, which I expected by that point. But he ended up looking like a star finally pinning Flair in a non-title bout, and it was a perfect setup for the months to come, transitioning the fading Flair vs J-tex to Flair vs Sting. Simple, efficient booking. On the other hand, the Tag Team Round Robin really dragged and was anti climatic, with all Samoans match toward the end, which also happened to be the worst matches on the show. Doom vs Steiners vs Road Warriors matches were decent in a bomb throwing way, but there wasn't any real good match to speak of, and all seemed very repetitive (again, that was expected since all those teams are pretty limited in doing power spots). Doom ended up looking like complete jobbers, which is either totally dumb or just a bit racist (I just wonder). The Samoans having a poor and sloppy final match with the RW, and it really accomplished nothing to have the Warriors win at this point. It felt like the crowd was tired of those matches by the end. Also, despite the good lightings in the entrance ramp during the formal introduction of the participants, the overall production was pretty awful, with the theme music being played only half the time; the show ending with Gordon Solie interviewing the RW in a totally pointless promo and Sting and Flair not having the time to get their promos in. Just embarrassing and total amateur hour. The Iron Man tournament mixed in with regular matches would have worked so much better and kept the crowd hot. You could have thrown in Steiners vs Doom, MX vs Dynamic Dudes, and some random shit like Tommy Rich vs Mike Rotunda and Brian Pillman vs Buzz Sawyer.

There's a good Shawn Micheals vs Virgil match from MSG too. I don't know the date, but it happened before Mania 8 I remember.

Wasn't this added to the WrestleMania X video that was played before the Bret Hart vs Yokozuna bout? Nope. That was the Aretha Franklin "Respect" video.

KC Timeline of the WWF 1997 with Jim Cornette is unsurprisingly pretty great. Cornette doesn't go off as much as you'd think, although Kevin Dunn and Vince Russo do take some funny verbal abuse. Very interesting inside view on the insanity that was WWF in 1997, and it only reminds me how great and interesting this year was. Cornette also makes it obvious that the WWF basically lucked up onto getting back to success, things happened that weren't planned or predictable.

I actually never *saw* that video. Heard about it a million time, but never saw it before. What a fucking disgrace.

Disclaimer : I'm spending most of my time on this board talking about WCW 1989 and commenting on the yearbooks, I won't take any accusation of spending all my time bashing WWE. Still, this sounds so like Bischoff/Russo circa 2000.

Man, talk about a promo that goes off a cliff. Awesome bad stuff.

Ric Flair vs Great Muta - WCW 11/25/1989 Interesting to see Muta working to Ric's strenghts, that is not going for a spotfest like he did with Sting. Muta would actually not do one of his signature highspots, as they work basically a scientific match on the mat mixed with some stiff chops from Flair. I really dig Flair's fiery babyface work from the Terry Funk angle and on : no begging, no Flair flop, no being thrown out of the top rope, much more agressive, showing the fiery babyface attitude with tons of fire on comebacks and basically kicking ass, which was really new after a decade of being a bitch. That should have looked pretty refreshing at the time, and that was the perfect way to work for him at this point of his career, being the legendary 6 time champ people finally got to cheer for. Too bad it didn't last as people were going apeshit for face Flair. Really good match which rightfully ends on a dq, as Dragon Master (Kendo Nagasaki) jumps in the ring as soon as Flair puts on the figure four on Muta, which was a nice way of keeping the hold over strong, after Flair had defeated Funk with it at the previous Clash. Great post match beatdown with Muta, Nagasaki and Sawyer. The match you won't see at Starrcade 89, and much better (although less spectacular) than the Sting match earlier in the year. On a side note, Buzz Sawyer looked absolutely amazing killing jobbers. Poor guys, Sawyer really put the hurt on them. It's a shame he was fucked up in the head, this guy was just awesome in every way in the ring and on promos.

Yes, it was so promising, with Steamboat bringing the hate more than he ever did against Savage. Doesn't seem like it was planned in advance to me. Luger getting the US title back at a house show seems like them just scratching the entire Hayes feud and going to a different direction, with Luger being critized for his arrogance before the heel turn on Steamboat. And Hayes getting the tag titles with Garvin seems like a way to replace his US title reign. Luger got the US title back at a house show on May 22th, do you remember if that promo happened after or before ? Anyway, I thought the way they handled him getting back his title was kinda odd, since the whole Luger vs Hayes feud was pretty hot, introducing the comeback of the Freebirds. It was bizarre to have Hayes get the upset win on PPV, and Luger getting the title back two weeks later on a non-televised show, at a time title didn't bounce around like John said.

From the few matches I've seen from the NJ vs WAR feud, it was just a heat pit. Just a classic interpromotional feud. If you go into it not expecting AJ classics, and if you like NJ heavy style match, this is pure gold. Koki Kitahara is one of the lost wrestler of the 90's, he was so much fun. Brings me back to the very early DVDVR reviews by Dean.

Good question. Watching in context, it feels a bit rushed, like they wanted to end the feud and go onto things. They could have done Flair vs Muta and Sting vs Funk at Clash, leading to the final Flair vs Funk I Quit match and Sting finally beating Muta clean at Starrcade for the TV title. Promoting Starrcade during the Clash made it obvious Funk wasn't gonna be around much. They went into Flair vs Luget vs Sting, with Muta being jobbed out on his way out. Was there a change of booking commitee at this time ? Was Ole replacing Flair ?

Steiner Brothers vs Fabulous Freebirds- WCW 11.18.1989 Notable match because it's the first time the Steiner Brothers win the tag team title. A few things : _the post match celebration with the Dudes, Tom Zenk and Brian Pilman in street clothes circa 1989 looks geeky as hell. _the match itself is pretty bad, and although the Feebirds have been involved in pretty good matches with the Dudes and the MX, this was a borefest with long control segment form Hayes and Garvin consisting of poor punches and kicks and restholds. You don't buy for a second the Steiners can be hurt by these two guys. It's like the Birds just didn't want to work hard because they were doing the job, really, and it makes for a very underwhelming event. _what an awful production WCW already was : there was NO BELTS around. What the fuck ? The team you build for 6 months finally wins the title, it's supposed to be a big deal, the Steiners will obviously be big stars of the company in the years to come, and there are no belts to be given to them. Just retarded.

Hum.. that jobber Lou Tafaloni looks an awful like Louie Spicolli. He must have been 17 years old back then, he looks like a kid. The build to Starrcade was a bit counterproductive because it made it obvious before Clash 9 that Flair would beat Funk and Luger would beat Pillman. The iron man tournament was just not a very good idea for the major PPV of the year, and I guess it's the debut of Starrcade being ampered by being a gimmick show.

Wasn't a fan of them chanting "AR RI GA TO" either or them anouncing him as "Kobashi Kenta". Little too over the top "look at us trying to be hip and act all Japanese when we're not" for me, though i'll fully admit the latter of those 2 things is more just me being nit picky. I felt the same way about the ring announcer weeabooing it up. It seemed less a gesture of respect than him cosplaying announcing a GHC match at the Budokan. Like I said before, the entire match felt like total cosplay to me.

In retrospect, this looks like some 1998 Nitro main event.

Never seen it, but what you mention about Savage is interesting. In a matter of few weeks, Savage would go on as becoming a RAW color guy with the occasionnal feature match on TV and guet spot on PPV. Pretty stupid, as he was obviously the biggest star on the roster at this point, and could still have contributed a lot. Savage being "too old" is the only reason I ever heard. Savage's career in WCW proved Vince wrong.

You can't script shit like this. "Cause I feel like GOOOOOOOOOOOOD !" Psycho Backlund was great. He was legit scary.

The Backlund heel turn was one of the best angle of the decade, and Backlund was amazing. The post-match promo at Survivor Series is jaw dropping. Just a terrific angle from start to bottom. Too bad it fizzled out after Backlund jobbed to Diesel, and the poor match with Bret Hart at WM11. But from the heel turn to Survivor Series, it was amazing.