El-P

Yep, you're right. Last time in his career Flair was a great character.

WWE.

_Why did Ricky Steamboat vanished after his excellent match with Luger ? One day he's in this hot feud, the next day Luger is having a match with Tommy Rich at the Clash 8. Another good match BTW, although Rich is a far cry from Steamboat, but Luger was solid again. _Flair & Sting vs J-Tex is easily the best feud of the year. Every thing they do is red hot. Muta & Dick Slater vs Flair & Sting was much better than I remembered, just a big brawl with the infamous plastic bag angle at the end. Terry Funk is my MVP of the year thus far. _Two good, short, all action match from Clash 8 : Brian Pillman vs Norman the Lunatic, I wonder if these two worked together in Stampede, but they clicked here. I don't care about Norman's gimmick, but with the right guy he can have a good little match. Mike Rotunda vs Steve Williams was another good one, despite the shitty finish, I just hate when he referee kicks the heel's hand of of the ropes. Rotunda was definitely good in 89 and Williams more at ease here than I remembered him to be in Japan at the same time. _Z-Man is coming. Blah. Zenk's big debut was such an afterthough, in plain white trunks, looking like a 3rd rate Rick Martel and wrestling like one. Not that there was anything wrong with him, but he didn't look anything special at all. And not nearly as good as guys like Pillman or Brad Armstrong. _ The Steiner / Robin angle developping is really good, as they shot the "incident" of Scott tripping on the ropes in a way it's impossible to know who did it. And yeah, Missy was just an afterthought during that time, she really isn't fit to be a face manager, it's a waste.

Stone Cold beating on a woman in the WWF while at the same time he was really beating on Debra in real life IS offensive.

Yeah. Bill Watts is gangsta and shit.

Hum... the fact that he's a religious bigot more than likely is the best explanation.

I can't think of any great match Flair had past 1992. Tenryu in his 50's smokes most of these guys.

"Oh my boy !"

RVD was the exact opposite of Sabu, at the end of my ECW watch, I was just sick of watching him, I couldn't stand his matches. Whereas I could have watched Sabu on every show. I don't mind him on small dose, and he had some really fu matches. But he's way way below Sabu in my totem pole. Not even in the same category.

When I did my whole ECW project, Sabu is a guy whose stock went up, and by the end of his stint I still wasn't tired at all of watching him. This post almost makes me want to check out the beginnings of WWECW. Almost.

They did build Piper vs Hogan for Starrcade 96, and Hogan vs Sting at Starrcade 97 had been build basically for 14 months.

Your answer is : because they didn't produced the PPV's well enough. Plus the Battle Bowl gimmick over the years kinda hurt the perception of Starrcade being this major PPV to me. Didn't Bischoff disagree with the idea Starrcade should be the biggest PV of the year anyway ?

I won't go into politics, but Hogan was so much a product of Reagan's America it's not even funny.

Ah, good story ! My nephews were big WWE fans last years. I didn't had the heart to tell them it sucked.

Three excellent matches from AJ : 04/19/1990 : Gordy & Williams vs Hansen & Spivey (one of the very best tag matches of the year, the rematch during the Tag League at the end of the year doesn't even scratch that one) 07/12/1990 : Gordy & Williams & Ace vs Hansen & Spivey & Deaton (Ace sucks, but Deaton makes up for it, and is crazy over with the Korakuen crowd) 04/18/1991 : Gordy & Williams vs Hansen & Spivey (not as good as the 1990 one, but still top notch gaijin vs gaijin match; sadly most of the Hansen/Spivey title defense will end up quite disappointing)

I remember about that Sting match. Spivey totally carried him, as Sting in 89 was pretty much a few athletic spots and that's it. By 1992, Spivey had barely any knees left I believe. That's why his comeback as Waylon Mercy was cut short in 95.

That sounds like WCW indeed.

I know, I mentionned the fan went crazy for him. But he still was doing jackshit in the ring and killed whatever flow the match had in term of work.

The second half of the GAB 89 was an amazing card. Sting vs Muto was an impressive spotfu for the time; Luger vs Steamboat was just excellent, with Steamboat bringing the hate, no armdrag, only stiff chops, and Luger brought quite a bit to the table too, essentially working his ass off, intense match with a finish that made sense, Steamboat finally losing it and getting DQed in a match that was originally supposed to be no DQ. The Wargames match was good too, with Eaton, Gordy, Samu and the RW being the standouts. I was never a big fan of the finishing sequences of the Wargames matches, always thoughts they lacked drama and were a bit anticlimatic because of the rule, and this is no exception, but all in all it's still a really good huge brawl. And of course Funk vs Flair, just terrific, with Flair not working a Flair match at all, and being great in the fiery agressive babyface role. Too bad he reverted to standart heel Flair at the end of the year, this could have been a good evolution for him at a point people wanted to cheer for him more than anything else. Funk is just as great as ever. The production was quite good too actually, with more lightshows, pyros and cool music than in a WWF big show from the same time. Funk coming out to "Once upon a time in the West" is just a stroke of genius. On a side note, what a gigantic waste of Dan Spivey the Skyscrappers were. Sid really could do jackshit at this point, and really killed the life out of every match he's involved in with terrible restholds, and couldn't even do the powerbomb in an impressive way. Spivey was a workhorse, he's really an underrated worker. Hum... seems like Rotunda is gonna feud with Williams now, so I guess they are doing the Varsity Split angle after all.

This isn't the worst part, as the message he's responding to implies that Keith actually believes Kurt Angle carried Rey Mysterio to a good match. Yikes.

The very idea that Batista or Jeff Hardy are eligible for the Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame makes it a laughable affair. Well, it's been a laughable affair since years now anyway. I don't know why people care in any way shape or form at this point.

I think Mike Rotunda was getting heat from Syracuse University for being so identified with the school as a heel so they wanted that nixed. Between that, Rick Steiner turning babyface, and Steve Williams spending more time in Japan, the gimmick pretty well killed itself. Don't think so, Rotunda was still wrestling with the Syracuse colors after the gimmick was killed and he was still a heel. They put Spivey into the mix, they were really hot feuding with both the RW and Steiner, and from nowhere the team just disbands, Williams turning face as he comes back from Japan. In Rotundo's shoot interview he basically said it was nixed from nowhere. The oddest thing is that the Steiners vs Sullivan/Rotunda feud is basically the continuation of Rick vs Varsity, yet they aren't called the Varsity anymore. I do agree Spivey didn't really fit, and was much better as a Skyscrapper.

There's the way I defended Flair and then there is that way to defend Flair. Wow. Yeesh. That was just sad. At points in the article, he's literally reduced to saying "he's RIC FLAIR, he can do whatever he wants!" I hardly needed another reason to hate Mark Madden, but there ya go. Yep. Madden was just unbearable on WCW TV, glad to see he kept himself at that level. "Doesn’t matter. At the end of the day, he’s still RIC FLAIR. If you don’t understand the magnitude of that, you’re not qualified to judge, anyway." When I see or hear about Flair in 2011, the word MAGNITUDE isn't the first one which comes to my mind.

From the GAB 89, 07/23/89 Brian Pillman vs Wild Bill Irwin Always hated the "first name only" wrestling names like "Flying Brian". Irwin makes for a super solid base for the flying of Brian, and although he's basically a JTTS, it's a pretty competitive match with irwin looking quite stiff and brutal. Love the loud badmouthing, it's a lost art, and Irwin had a loud ass mouth. Cool finish with Irwin throwing Brian in the second ring (this is a Wargame card) and Pillman getting a flying cross body from the turnbuckly of the second ring into the first. Really solid match. Dynamic Dudes vs SkyScrappers Jason Hervey introducing the Dynamic Dudes, who play frisbee with a fat kid. You can't get more geeky than this. God Johnny Ace was an awkward guy, not fit to play the role of bouncy babyface. Shane is much better, but still tries to do some acrobatic stuff that he just isn't too confortable with. Really, this match is all about Dan Spivey. He's basically in the ring the entire time. The crowd loves the hell out of Sid, it shows that this guy had star written all over him, but at this point, he really sucks as a worker, so Dan stays 90% of the time, and man did he tried to get a good match by himself. Jim Cornette vs Paul E. Dangerously Ok, this is great. Gotta love Cornette's attention to detail and keeping his character "logical", as he doesn't go full fledge babyface in his promos but talks about the people who supported him "after all he did all those years". This is way better than it should be, tuxedo match with a purpose, as Heyman attacks on Cornette's bad knee from Starrcade 86. On occasion Heyman gets the wrong knee, and you see Corny is doing everything he can to feed him the right knee or get into his ears to tell him. Steiner Brothers vs Kevin Sullivan & Mike Rotunda Odd to see Sullivan & Rotunda come together to the Varsity Club music but being introduced separately, with zero mention to the Varsity by the announcers. Why did they nixed the gimmick completely cold turkey, I wonder. The very first Steiner PPV match, Scott is still wearing simple yellow trunks. Missy still looked hot then, with total 80's hair, and they carried a dog to the ring. Texas tornado match, which fit Sullivan. The more I see of him, the more I enjoy the guy. He was a poor worker technically speaking, but he could project an aura of brutality. He actually takes a few big bumps here from Rick (I guess you don't have a choice when you work with Rick). Short and sweet, fast chaotic action, I enjoyed it.

What was fascinating about Nitro back then was the mix of style and generation. This is a very good example. Of course the result in the ring is not quite that, but having a veteran like Arn with a guy coming back from Japan and working mostly a spectacular spot style always made things seems fresh. I loved this mix in WCW at the time. And yeah, Nancy was ridiculously hot during this period.