Matt D

Three more. Hillbilly Jim/King Duggan vs Andre the Giant/Haku: This is almost proof positive to what I said. Hillbilly Jim is pretty damn big and he plays along and Andre looks legendary. It's not like he's some great talent or anything, just a passable big man wrestler who had come off a debilitating injury, but he had that one important quality: he wasn't 1989 John Studd. I really dig the Colossal Connection (their match vs Demos later on is what i'm looking forward to the most on this whole set since I love their MSG match). Haku got to play a more stoogy/technical wrestler, the 'small guy' of the team. Here, he was great, hitting a mule kick as a transition and pulling pants down as a cut off. The spot where they slam Andre into Haku and he FALLS on him seemed new to me. I'm sure they did it before but I got a kick out of it. I don't know if Andre just felt better as the year went on or if he was happy to be teaming with Haku or what, but this worked so much better. Andre shouting repeatedly for Haku to kick Jim only to eat the boot himself was a perfectly fine finish.I liked Jim saluting both King Duggan and the flag to start and then handing Duggan his crown at the end after he forgot it on the way out. This was definitely fun. Brian Adams vs Barry Horowitz: This was actually a pretty good match. It was pretty obvious Horowitz was calling things but Adams looked good, mixed the power moves with playing to the crowd. Adams' look was terrible, absolutely terrible, and the fans want nothing to do with him until Barry starts the match by dodging two lock ups like a dick. The moment Adams blocks the third attempt and gets his hands on Horowitz, the fans are won over almost instantly. What I liked the most about this was how Horowitz was able to call a match where he didn't get steamrolled but where Adams got to get in a lot of his stuff, mainly through selling his own back every time he cut Adams off. Way better than the Owen match (and hey, there was even a gut wrench and Adams' tombstone). Earthquake Evans vs Paul Roma: The Adams tryout was a surprise. I didn't know it was on here. I knew the Quake one was and that he came out looking like Super Skinner and with Slick. It's pretty obvious Roma was calling part of this and how horrible a mistake that was. The first few minutes of this was TERRIBLE. Maybe, maybe Quake was trying to show that he could bump but there's no situation ever that he should be letting Roma reverse a whip on him and there's no reality in existence where Roma should be ARMDRAGGING him. Holy hell. Quake just wasn't there yet, almost botching the big catch off the cross body in a way that he wouldn't against a bigger guy like Bossman two years later. After that it settled down and got a lot better with some things, like Roma's dropkicks to finally get him down towards the end really quite good, but it's hard to look past the opening of the match (for one thing, why does it matter that Roma worked so hard to get him down when he was all but manhandling him at the start of the match). That Quake only won because Roma slipped on a banana peel was pretty goofy too.

Yeah, look, honestly? Even if he wins against Brock, they'll fuck it up later anyway.

We roll forward: Powers of Pain (with Tito) vs Demolition (with Fuji): So this was the PoP's first weekend in. They'd had a few house shows subbing for Strike Force before this. That's why Tito's there. He's a non-factor in the match. Look, you guys know me. I know you. You know I'm earnest and consistent to a fault. You went on the Owen journey with me in the last post. Come with me now. What Eadie did here was spot on. Look, I've seen every single Demolition match on tape. I know how much he gave in 87 and 88. He'd play sort of a mini-Hansen in a more cerebral way. He'd eat smaller guys up unless they worked their ass off to stop him. He was the panacea to the WWF's heel in peril formula. When it was earned. It made the matches better. It always served the match and it made the babyfaces be constantly on when it was their turn to be on. The ONE time he breaks this is AFTER this match. It's Summerslam when he wrestles the Hart Foundation and Bret takes the hot tag and he BEGS off. By doing so, all of that built up goodwill and credibility is bestowed upon newly babyface Bret and the Hart Foundation as a unit. Here though, he's outright stalling to begin. They get cleared out of the ring and then he stalls. When he finally does something it's a shoulder tackle and he spends the next minute walking around selling his shoulder. He didn't do this against any other opponent in the last year. You might not care but the fans in that crowd absolutely did. Babyfaces outfinessed them, double-teamed them, outquicked them, but they never met them halfway because it was never warranted (though OTHER things were, things that served the match more, no matter what roided up Dynamite Kid might have wanted). Look at how the fans reacted. They didn't go nuts for the Powers of Pain because they thought they were the Road Warriors. They went nuts for them because Eadie (and yes, later, Darsow taking that big boot) was stalling, stooging, selling, bumping, and begging off. Then they run, which they haven't done at any other point. The Powers are instantly over. Demos live to fight another day, which makes a lot of senses as the two teams wouldn't really be married again for months. They give the rub, then they delay the gratification (and yes, you can say that in Jake's voice if you want). This is the stuff that matters. It's everything. Andre vs Studd: This match was put on the set to give me credibility, I think. I like late era Andre a lot. I secretly think pre-86 Studd MAY be a secret great stooging heel. This was terrible. This was really really bad. Andre looked miserable. Studd could barely do anything. Andre hated working with Studd (maybe?). The key to late era Andre is his presence, is how much he could get out of every little movement, but in order to do so, he needed a smaller guy who would work with him and make it matter (even a larger than life guy could). 89 Studd was the worst possible guy for that. I don't even think it left the crowd happy. All we got was the possibility that Studd MIGHT have slammed Andre and a Heenan that ran away. Andre still gets points for being gleeful in his choking even despite it all. Savage vs Warrior: It's amazing how far Warrior came in a couple of years. This is the same card as Andre vs Studd and it's okay that in the midst of the taping including Megaman (w/ Jimmy Hart) vs. ? - What the heck is Megaman? Oh! It's Magee. Ok. they got that because this match was pretty good and satisfying, actually. They also got Bossman vs Hogan in a cage, so there you go. Sherri was awesome on the outside trying to cut the crowd off from cheering from Warrior. Warrior was super over. This was paint by numbers but it was Savage after he got Sherri but before he became a cartoony King and Warrior during the period he didn't have the IC belt. Rude comes out to distract with the belt and Warrior is pure Warrior for that. First he ignores him in the most hilarious way. Just as if he can't see him at all. He's got this weird sense of justice in how he wrestles. Hogan'll eye rake you because he's a dick. Warrior will eyerake you to because you eyeraked him first. He's like a Steve Ditko character. This ended about as well as it could have. Savage gets some of his Mania heat back. Sherri's established as a presence. Rude gets more heat. Warrior looks like a monster and gets to pose with his belt after the fact. The fans are happy. Dusty vs Dibiase: This is the most historic thing on the set so far, the match where Dusty jobs to prove to the boys in the back that he'd do business, even after the last few years. Dusty's just electric here. He seemed so happy to be in front of this crowd. Dibiase feeds for him and he stands out once, right before the comeback when he shouts to the crowd to really drive home and set it up, but in general this was the Dusty show. From giving the money to the crowd to coming back and getting revenge at the end, he just had them. He got them chanting Dusty and whoofing along with him early. He seemed almost touched by how willing they were to chant, but then it's Dusty so who the hell knows. He was the king of illusion and his court was wherever there was a ring. Even WWF territory.

I think the fact that he's been so well protected hurts the argument to a degree. That's not crazy talk. It's history. Everyone post-Lesnar gets depushed at some point to remind them that the WWE is bigger than them, to remind the WWE UNIVERSE that the WWE is bigger than them, to see how they handle it, to see if they're resilient enough to get back over, etc. This is a pattern that's happened repeatedly over the last ten years with almost everyone who's been brought up. Any sort of interpersonal issue only exacerbates it (again, see Rusev and the social media stuff WWE hated out of Lana). At some point, history tells us that Braun will get depushed at least for a while. People who ignore the patterns on this stuff are willfully ignorant. There's always a chance that they'll buck the trend here, but it's a much smaller chance than them doing what they do every single time.

In this case, I don't think you can compare 1993 WWF to 2017 WWE. Look, isn't the comparison point Rusev? I mean that's what everyone's thinking, right? The counterpoint would be Owens. Bray would be in the middle.

Some more down. Mega-Powers vs Hart Foundation/HonkyTonk Man: Some of these are kind of weird, in that, you know why they exist, but if they just went a couple more minutes they could be pretty good actually. That was the case here. For the size of the match, the bits were spaced out well. We could have used just a little more in the comeback. After seeing Piper and Hogan together, it was fun to see Hogan and Savage. Savage was doing much more playing along, with the double big boot and the endless posing at the end. I hated Hogan's posing as a kid. Hated it. I hated that every PPV ended with it. Now though, it was just neat to see it with Savage (who we've lost, like Piper) one more time. It felt like a missed opportunity that they didn't let Liz in. Even though the match could have gone another couple of minutes, it's telling that Hogan wanted to make sure that crowd got every second possible of the posing. I wish we had gotten just a few more seconds of Bret interacting with Hogan. Him pulling Neidhart around by the beard was great, as was Sherri on the outside playing a character that was very much NOT the traditional Sherri. Caruso saying she remembered this stuff was a joke. I think she was 1 when this happened? Owen Hart vs Barry Horowitz: Yeah, look, if I had to decide between hiring Warrior based off his match or hiring Owen based off his, I'd say screw 'em both and hire Horowitz. I'm not kidding. I think Owen was the shits here. The absolute shits. The crowd was more into him at the start of the match than they were at the end, and that's after he hit every spot in the book, including three moves off the top, a leap off the apron, and a freaking tope splash thing. None of it mattered at all because he was wrestling in a vacuum. He was wrestling as if there wasn't a single person in the crowd. There were no breaks between moves, no time for things to settle, no resonance at all. It was just spot, spot, spot. Horowitz on the other hand would wind up big with his foot before a punch, or lift his leg up high before a leg drop. One guy was ready to wrestle in front of crowds like this. One guy obviously wasn't. It's a testament to how good Owen would one day get and it's also a testament to how blind people who touted him so heavily at this point really were in their appreciation of wrestling. Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Randy Savage vs Andre the Giant: What a weird layout. Savage and Andre are really great at what they're doing but I'm lost at why they're doing it. Andre looked like he was in so much pain but he was still an amazing presence. Everything he did was massive and looked like the most credible thing in the world, even when he was just sitting on Savage. Savage did more than his part in his selling and recoiling. The problem was that there's no payoff. Past Savage being brave enough to come straight at him (and noble enough to make sure to defend Elizabeth from Heenan), he gets eaten alive and when he comes back it's with a chair and a cheapshot and a DQ loss (with Andre not even looking all that phased). Ultimately, probably not how you want your champion to look. There were ways to do the same thing but make Savage seem like more of a threat or at least a brave fighter. Still plenty of presence all around though and the crowd was still into him post-match. I stopped at the start of Demos vs PoP. It's so cool to see Tito lead the Powers out. That's one of those things I only read about. I saw about one minute of it before stopping and it's amazing how Eadie switched up what he was doing based on his opponent. Looking forward to it for next time.

What is the purpose then?

I haven't seen it in years but for something which is not really a WWF match at all, how does Adonis/Murdoch vs the Briscos hold up?

I'm 4 matches in (it'll be a while for me to get through everything) and I'm really enjoying this. I didn't start watching WWF until 1990 but I've gone back and watched a ton of footage around this time, some on video when I was a kid and almost all there was to see back when I was getting back into wrestling post-Benoit in 09. I'm not a Titan or anything but I've dived pretty deep. As such, it's such a treat to be able to see additional matches from wrestlers, in this setting, that I might never have thought I'd see another match with. Machines (Hulk/Big/Super) vs Studd/Bundy/Heenan: I'm not giving full reviews on any of these but I thought this was a quite good match with Eadie the star of the show. He knew he was the only logical FIP and with Bundy/Studd, he was a doubly logical one and he was fully engaged all the way through, from his "japanese" chop offense to the really solid transition with him fighting off an interfering Bundy only to eat a cheapshot from Studd to how active he was fighting out of the bearhug. He's just a wrestler that gets it so well and is willing to play whatever role the match needs and able to execute it perfectly. Hulk was tons of fun here, from the bowing to cleaning house post-hot tag to the mugging for the crowd with his mask off afterwards. Studd is hugely (criminally) underrated as a stooge (especially against big guys) and Heenan was awesome between his swagger and his huge bumps. The finish and the post-match was a blast. Savage vs Morales: see, this is what I mean. You know you're watching a Savage match you've never seen and you just watch all the more closely. How many more of these will you get? I haven't seen every match of his or even every match from this era, but it was just a joy to watch him here. He briefly played "hide the object." He grabbed flowers from the crowd to attack (and be attacked with). He forced Elizabeth to the other side of the post for no reason but to get heat and then posed on the top rope. He stalled, he swarmed, he stooged. So great. Morales didn't bring much to the table but what he did bring was ok. He knew what he had to work with in there. You're not expecting great matches here so you can look deep at particular performances without losing too much of the big picture. Hogan/Piper vs Race/Orndorff: I'm not looking at a match listing as I go, so I was surprised by both pairings. Race/Orndorff is such a cool team on paper and I was expecting JYD (and would have been ok with that) so i was glad to see Piper. This may not have been everything you'd want it to be but it WAS everything the fans would want it to be. Piper and Hogan are ambushed from the get go and the big moment of the match, a handshake between the two, is what's deferred to the very, very end. That's wrestling. I swear, the two of them milking every tag with an aggressive high five meant for the very last row is worth five high spots every time. Piper's shine armwork is great and Hogan goes out of his way to try to keep up. Hogan's perfect as Gibson once the FIP starts and Orndorff and Race are full of character and mean looking stuff (like Race's belly to belly). I've not seen Piper and Race interact often so that was very welcome. Piper's hot tag leap is both unnecessary and awesome and like i said, the fans get everything they could want, a visual pin, the leg drop, Heenan breaking up the real pin, Hogan getting his hands on Heenan (and a gnarly over the top rope bump AGAIN, no wonder his neck was a mess), and finally, after all the build, the handshake. Warrior vs Estrada: oof, this was bad. Historic, sure, but bad. Warrior had some things down, elements of the crowd interaction, enough gumption to turn his physical awkwardness into brutish charisma, strength, a look, but this was bad. I've rarely seem someone stumble for an arm after an armdrag quite like this, and he kept going for it. The structure was brutal. They work in and out of Warrior's armdrag/armbar, but it's more out than in, which means it never leads to real heat or a comeback, and the shine gets muddled with hope spots which makes a press slam into a hope spot and Estrada (whose strikes look pretty good actually) never really sells much and Warrior sure as hell can't work out of nerve holds at this point. I feel bad for Patterson or whoever watching in the back and realizing that Warrior brought so much marketable to the table that he'd have to work with him moving forward.

That you guys keep repeating the Nord talking point after the work Eric has done lately is disappointing. Otherwise, another fun show. I enjoy it when you go this far back.

As a kid, I always bought Flair winning the belt as the payoff to him messing with the babyfaces' heads at Summerslam, like how he beat Sting right after the Black Scorpion stuff.

I'd be ok with him if he didn't try to do an epic style match. He could probably do an awesome 1991 style attraction match with the right opponent feeding and stooging for him and it'd bring presence and star power.

Hopefully this leads to him working LA Park on some Mexican Indy.

Especially because he makes it very obvious that he really doesn't know that much outside of a very specific bubble.

Generally, even if it's not a work, if there's money to be made, they'll find a way to eventually make an angle out of it and everything will end up all the more blurred. That's pro wrestling for you.

Whatever they do, the key is to make it matter and have some weight. I think the idea that losing to Rocky started some sort of downward style for Cena wasn't actually born out in the text or the "selling" of it, but I like the general concept of it. Let's say Cena catches a superman punch attempt and turns it into an AA for a pin and it turns into some sort of actual character development for Reigns paid off whenever Cena gets back, great. I just have zero faith for them to manage that, or even to attempt it.

Because we loathe Sexy Star and like Taya, obviously. Let us riot in peace.

In some ways, this could almost extend his main event run. I feel like he was a PPV away from getting cycled down as it was. Now he'll come back fresh in 6 weeks able to make an immediate impact and get into a program for the fall.

I've been on the hunt for this. Haven't found anything concrete yet, but: So there could at least be footage of their 8/7/81 match in STL since Dusty's jacket says '81 on it. Johnny P or someone should do a documentary on the hunt for footage.

Maybe a can of worms they don't want to open when the Young Bucks do Too Sweet and Suck It gestures Can you really trademark that? http://www.mtv.com/news/1517546/diamond-dallas-sues-jay-z-over-diamond-cutter-hand-sign/

CMLL is free live streaming arena footage three times a week.

I have never seen a match with any of the ROH goons, but it sounds like they're booking them very well.

If India ends up being an important facet of WWE business and he's the guy who opened up that market then you have to examine his case as an important drawing card whether you like him or not.

El Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas (WWA 05/17/1991) https://youtu.be/94XaNoEJKNk Upped it on YT for anyone who wants it. Piling on the thanks for that upload. If I had ever seen it, it was before I had any sense of what I was watching. I really love how defined the rudo/tecnico roles were in that brilliant opening matwork. (And obviously it picks up to be an almost iconic version of the rest of the form as it goes).

Reading in between the lines, Tony has to follow more of the current product due to his radio show he has now. I'm not sure if that's streaming online anywhere. I wouldn't mind hearing the Flair interview he mentioned if so.